Antoinette frowned. The Princesse had never been a great friend of hers; it was true that she had attended the woman’s card parties, but that was largely because the Princesse was a friend of Gabrielle’s. Now she herself no longer cared for Gabrielle as she once had. There was another reason why she was not very eager to see the Princesse. She was related to the Cardinal de Rohan; and ever since the baptism of the Dauphin, Antoinette had thought now and then of the man. Those piercing eyes of his disturbed her. He was a fool if he thought she was going to show friendship to one who had made light fun of her dear mother.
‘Your Majesty,’ went on the woman, ‘Madame la Princesse is in great distress.’
Antoinette’s sympathy was immediately aroused.
‘Tell her she may come to me,’ she said.
The Princesse came and threw herself on her knees before the Queen.
‘A terrible thing has happened,’ she cried. ‘And I implore Your Majesty to help me.’
‘What terrible thing is this?’ asked Antoinette.
‘My husband the Prince is so deeply in debt that he has had to declare himself bankrupt.’
‘The Prince? But you two have not been together for so long.’
‘This affects me even as it does him. His debts are so vast. He owes 33,000,000 livres all over the country, and now his creditors have declared they can wait no longer for the money.’
Antoinette shook her head sadly. ‘It is all talk of money nowadays. I do not know what I can do to help. I dare not ask for some post for the Prince which will bring him an income. You know what trouble there has been over the Polignacs.’
‘Your Majesty,’ said the Princesse, ‘my husband owes so much that no post at Court could save him now. I have come to ask you to intercede for him. If you could speak to the Comptroller-General there might be some way of preventing the Prince’s creditors making their demands for a little while at least.’
Antoinette immediately forgot her faint dislike of the Princesse. She could not bear to see anyone in trouble.
‘I can try,’ she said. ‘I will speak to Fleury and see what he can do about it.’
‘You are indeed gracious,’ murmured the Princesse. ‘I feel happier now that I know you are on my side.’
‘Sit down beside me,’ soothed Antoinette. ‘Tell me how this terrible situation has come about. What a sad thing it is that there are all these money troubles. I hear constant complaints on all sides – and it is always … money.’
The Queen summoned Joly de Fleury to her apartment and told him that she had given her word to help the Guémenées in their trouble.
Fleury looked grave.
‘Your Majesty,’ he said, ‘it is most unwise for you to have your name mentioned in connection with the Guémenées. The Prince is in debt to the tune of 33,000,000 livres. Your Majesty does not realise the import of this. All over the country tradesmen have given these people credit. Now these tradesmen are demanding the money owed to them. They need that money to save themselves from bankruptcy. It is not forthcoming. This is going to be a very bad thing, and not only for the Guémenées, Madame.’
‘I know. I know. But cannot something be done? If the tradesmen can be persuaded to wait awhile, mayhap the Prince will retrieve his fortunes. If he is made bankrupt, everybody suffers.’
‘Your Majesty, may I presume to offer you a piece of advice?’
She bowed her head a little wearily. There had been so much advice.
‘Keep clear of the Guémenées. Do not let their trouble touch Your Majesty.’
He did not understand that she would not dream of standing clear of them – even though they had never been great friends – merely because they were in trouble. It was at such times that she was prepared to be friendly even with those whom she did not like.
‘I trust,’ went on Fleury, ‘that Your Majesty will forgive me, but I can have nothing to do with this case. If you insist that I should, there would be nothing for me to do but to hand in my resignation. The people of France are in an ugly mood and have been for some time. This affair could have very unpleasant results. I beg of Your Majesty, consider well before you allow any to link your name with it.’
But she would not leave it at that. She went to the King. They could not allow the Prince to be declared bankrupt, she insisted. What good would it do? Would the people to whom they owed money receive it? No. Nobody would be any better off.
The King, always eager to indulge her, foolishly agreed that a moratorium upon debts should be imposed.
Triumphantly Antoinette called the Princesse de Guémenée to her, and the Princesse fell on her knees, kissing the hand of the Queen as she poured forth her gratitude.
First the carriage-maker went bankrupt. He could not pay his debts. He was an honest man. Where he had gone wrong was to trust the Prince de Guémenée. The glove-makers, the bakers, the butchers – all over Paris, and in the country too, they were going out of business.
They had, every one, allowed the Prince de Guémenée to run up vast debts. They had not thought it possible to do otherwise. Nor had it occurred to them that a connexion of the royal family could default, and while they had the Guémenées’ promise to pay they had felt it safe to go on supplying goods.
This was what came of taking the word of a nobleman.
People gathered in the streets – all those who had suffered, and all those whose sympathies were with the sufferers.
‘These Guémenées are Princes, are they not?’ they cried. ‘How much longer shall we allow Princes to ruin us?’
‘I hear the Guémenées have retired to their country house; that is very nice. Meanwhile the King takes care that they shall not be bothered. What of poor Lafarge? Oh, it does not matter. He is but a humble tradesman. What of the butcher, the baker? They have been supplying the Guémenées with food these last months. But what matters that? They are only tradesmen.’
‘You know why we have all this trouble, do you not?’
‘The Austrian woman!’
‘She is the one who sets the example for all this extravagance.’
‘Remember that song we used to sing:‘ “My little Queen not twenty-one …” ’
‘Ah, ’tis a great pity we did not send her across the border all those years ago. Much trouble would have been saved our country if we had.’
So the people in the streets grumbled; and they were a little more angry, a little more fierce than they had been before the Guémenée disaster.
Fleury was in a panic; he had to raise money somehow. He floated more loans.
It was clear that Necker’s Compte Rendu had been a very optimistic document; and it seemed to the King that only fresh loans could tide the country over disaster.
But it was not so easy to raise money as it had been previously. More taxes had to be levied.
This sent up a groan from the people; and the Parlement declared itself against the levying of more taxes.
So much money, declared members, had been wasted in the past, and the country was in no mood to pay more taxes merely to support the extravagance of certain people. Little jobs with big salaries had been created for some. A great deal of money had been spent on certain houses. This was a direct shaft for the Queen.
The Parlement then declared that if these taxes were imposed there must be an Estates-General, a gathering together of a representative assembly of the entire country – which had only been done in the history of France in cases of dire emergency. Fleury decided to try to raise money by other means. He wondered whether it would be possible to create new offices at Court, for which ambitious men would be willing to pay vast sums.