Four Candles: c. 1780s

Marie Antoinette walking with two of her children in the park of the Trianon, Adolf Ulrik Wertmüller, 1785 Nationalmuseum Stockholm

Walking one day in the park of the Trianon, gay and exquisite, the queen came unexpectedly upon a rough-looking man, totally unknown to her. A woman of high and unbreakable courage, Queen of France and full of confidence in her charmed destiny, she was seized, nevertheless, with a sensation of inexplicable terror. The man was the brewer, Santerre. Later, at the time of her execution, he was in charge of the National Guard of the City of Paris. . . .

Madame Campan [the Queen’s friend and lady-in-waiting] related the following anecdote: “Four candles were placed upon the queen’s dressing- table; the first one went out of itself; I soon relighted it; the second, then the third also, went out. At this the queen, pressing my hand with a movement of alarm, said to me, ‘Misfortune makes one superstitious; if that fourth candle goes out, nothing can keep me from regarding it as an evil omen’; the fourth candle went out.

“Someone remarked to the queen that the four candles had probably been made in the same mould, and that a defect in the wick was naturally to be found at the same place, since they had gone out in the order in which they had been lighted. The queen would listen to nothing; and with that indefinable emotion which the bravest heart cannot always overcome in momentous hours, gave herself up to gloomy apprehensions.

La reine se couchait très-tard, ou plutôt cette infortunée princesse commençait à ne plus goûter de repos. Vers la fin de mai, un soir qu’elle était assise au milieu de la chambre, elle racontait plusieurs choses remarquables qui avaient eu lieu pendant le cours de la journée; quatre bougies étaient placées sur sa toilette; la première s’éteignit d’elle-même, je la rallumai : bientôt la seconde, puis la troisième, s’éteignirent aussi ; alors la reine, me serrant la main avec un mouvement d’effroi, me dit: “Le malheur peut rendre superstitieuse; si cette quatrième bougie s’éteint comme les autres, rien ne pourra m’empêcher de regarder cela comme un sinistre présage….” La quatrième bougie s’éteignit.

On fit observer à la reine que les quatre bougies avaient probablement été coulées dans le même moule, et qu’un défaut à la mèche s’était naturellement trouvé au même endroit, puisque les bougies s’étaient éteintes dans l’ordre où on les avait allumées.

Memoires sur la vie de Marie-Antoinette, Reine de France et de Navarre, Mme. Campan, 1886

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire:  On Bastille Day one’s thoughts often turn to the doomed Queen of France. Hindsight is, of course, keenly precise and there were many stories told in retrospect, of the omens presaging the fall of the Ancien Regime. We have previously read of the Queen’s terror at the mysterious prophecy of a cartomancer. One wonders a little wistfully what would have happened had the Royal family successfully made their way to safety at the fortress of Montmédy. Would the Revolution have failed or was their  rendezvous with Madame Guillotine written in the stars?

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

Encore: Marie Antoinette and the Fortune-Teller: 1782

Marie Antoinette, by Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun, 1783

It was on this day in 1793 that Queen Marie Antoinette went to the guillotine. Mrs Daffodil thought that an encore of this post would interest.

An Anecdote of Marie Antoinette

Mrs. [Sarah] Austin, Lady Duff Gordon’s mother, met forty years ago, in Dresden, the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, who told her this story on the authority of his mother-in-law, the Empress of Russia:

“When Paul and his wife went to Paris, they were called, as is well known, de Comte and la Comtesse du Nord. The Comtesse du Nord accompanied Marie Antoinette to the theater at Versailles. Marie Antoinette pointed out, behind her fan, all the distinguished persons in the house. In doing this, she had her head bent forward; all of a sudden she drew back with such an expression of terror and horror that the Comtesse said, ‘Pardon, madame, mais je sui sur que vous avez vu quelque chose qui vous agite.’

The Queen, after she had recovered herself, told her that there was about the Court, but not of right belonging to it, a woman who professed to read fortunes on cards. One evening she had been displaying her skill to several ladies, and at length the Queen desired to have her own destiny told. The cards were arranged in the usual manner, but when the woman had to read the result she looked horror struck, and stammered out some generalities. The Queen insisted on her saying what she saw, but she declared she could not. ‘From that time,” said Marie Antoinette, ‘the sight of that woman produces in me a feeling I can not describe of aversion and horror and she seems studiously to throw herself in my way.”

Cincinnati [OH] Daily Gazette 14 September 1877: p. 2

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: Lady Duff-Gordon, was, of course, the famous couturière Lucile. “Paul” was Paul I, the Russian emperor, son of Catherine the Great. His wife was Sophie-Dorothée Augusta Luisa von Württemberg, later Empress Marie Feodorovna.  The trip, which lasted 14 months through 1781-82, took them to Poland, Austria, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Germany and France, where the couple was presented at Versailles.

Mrs Daffodil has wondered about the identity of the fortune-teller and thought perhaps it might have been the legendary card-reader Marie-Anne Lenormand [1772-1843], but she was too young to have been reading cards for the French court in the early 1780s. Lenormand later correctly predicted Josephine Beauharnais’s future when she was imprisoned during the Terror.

Other persons have claimed to have divined the fate of the Queen in the verses of Nostradamus and by finding words in the letters of her name and titles. Given Marie Antoinette’s extravagance and unpopularity, one imagines that dark prophesies of death for the Queen were to be found among all classes, and not just with the Initiated.

That Royalist person over at Haunted Ohio has posted about a man who claimed to have seen the ghost of King Louis XVI, a year to the day after he was guillotined. Mrs Daffodil previously posted about the Trianon fish in gold collars who prophesied doom for France, about the search for the Queen’s emeralds, and about Marie Antoinette’s death warrant.

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

 

The Bracelet Thief: 1770s

 

A  Georgian emerald-and-diamond bracelet of later date. https://www.1stdibs.com/jewelry/bracelets/retro-bracelets/georgian-early-19th-century-emerald-diamond-bracelet/id-j_61764/

An Adroit Thief

One evening, as Marie Antoinette sat quietly at her loge at the Theater, the wife of a wealthy tradesman of Paris, sitting nearly vis-à-vis to the Queen, made great parade of her toilet, and seemed peculiarly desirous of attracting attention to a pair of splendid bracelets, gleaming with the chaste contrast of emeralds and diamonds. She was not without success. A gentleman of elegant mien and graceful manner presented himself at the door of her loge; he delivered a message from the Queen. Her Majesty had remarked the singular beauty of the bracelets, and wished to inspect one of them more closely. What could be more gratifying? In the seventh heaven of delighted vanity, the tradesman’s wife unclasped the bracelet and gave it to the gentleman, who bowed himself out and left her—as you have doubtless divined he would—abundant leisure to learn of her loss.

Early the next morning, however, an officer form the department of police called at this lady’s house. The night before, a thief had been arrested leaving the theatre, and on his person were found many valuables, among others, a splendid bracelet. Being penitent he had told, to the best of his recollection, to whom the article belonged, and the lady called upon was indicated as the owner of the bracelet. If Madame possessed the mate to this singular bracelet, it was only necessary to intrust it to the officer, and if it was found to compare properly with the other, both would be immediately sent home, and Madame would have only a trifling fee to pay. The bracelet was given willingly, and, with the stiff courtesy inseparable from official dignity, the other took his leave, and at the next café joined his fellow, the gentleman of elegant mien and graceful manner. The bracelets were not found to compare properly and were not returned.

The Atlantic Vol. 5 1860

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: Mrs Daffodil is well aware of the pretensions of the nouveau riche in Trade as she was once in the unfortunate position of serving as a lady’s maid to a so-called “Dollar Princess.” That young person possessed ample resources , but her taste, which was far less excellent than her father’s letters of credit, required extensive moulding.  She lacked the calm insouciance one finds in a family who came over with the Conqueror, knows its pearls are genuine, and does not feel called upon to demonstrate the fact by carelessly leaving the jeweller’s bill where anyone may notice it. Still, one can say this about the meat-packing classes: they (or rather, their money) have been rather useful in saving and restoring many fine stately homes. Consuelo Vanderbilt’s dowry, for example, was used to restore Blenheim Palace to its former splendour.

As to the unfortunate lady whose bracelets were so cleverly purloined, one regrets the loss, but Mrs Daffodil suspects that the following week the tradesman’s wife reappeared at the theatre with a still more lavish set of bracelets.

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,”where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes

 

Marie Antoinette and the Fortune-Teller: 1782

Marie Antoinette, by Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun, 1783

An Anecdote of Marie Antoinette

Mrs. [Sarah] Austin, Lady Duff Gordon’s mother, met forty years ago, in Dresden, the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, who told her this story on the authority of his mother-in-law, the Empress of Russia:

“When Paul and his wife went to Paris, they were called, as is well known, de Comte and la Comtesse du Nord. The Comtesse du Nord accompanied Marie Antoinette to the theater at Versailles. Marie Antoinette pointed out, behind her fan, all the distinguished persons in the house. In doing this, she had her head bent forward; all of a sudden she drew back with such an expression of terror and horror that the Comtesse said, ‘Pardon, madame, mais je sui sur que vous avez vu quelque chose qui vous agite.’

The Queen, after she had recovered herself, told her that there was about the Court, but not of right belonging to it, a woman who professed to read fortunes on cards. One evening she had been displaying her skill to several ladies, and at length the Queen desired to have her own destiny told. The cards were arranged in the usual manner, but when the woman had to read the result she looked horror struck, and stammered out some generalities. The Queen insisted on her saying what she saw, but she declared she could not. ‘From that time,” said Marie Antoinette, ‘the sight of that woman produces in me a feeling I can not describe of aversion and horror and she seems studiously to throw herself in my way.”

Cincinnati [OH] Daily Gazette 14 September 1877: p. 2

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: Lady Duff-Gordon, was, of course, the famous couturière Lucile. “Paul” was Paul I, the Russian emperor, son of Catherine the Great. His wife was Sophie-Dorothée Augusta Luisa von Württemberg, later Empress Marie Feodorovna.  The trip, which lasted 14 months through 1781-82, took them to Poland, Austria, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Germany and France, where the couple was presented at Versailles.

Mrs Daffodil has wondered about the identity of the fortune-teller and thought perhaps it might have been the legendary card-reader Marie-Anne Lenormand [1772-1843], but she was too young to have been reading cards for the French court in the early 1780s. Lenormand later correctly predicted Josephine Beauharnais’s future when she was imprisoned during the Terror.

Other persons have claimed to have divined the fate of the Queen in the verses of Nostradamus and by finding words in the letters of her name and titles. Given Marie Antoinette’s extravagance and unpopularity, one imagines that dark prophesies of death for the Queen were to be found among all classes, and not just with the Initiated.

That Royalist person over at Haunted Ohio has posted about a man who claimed to have seen the ghost of King Louis XVI, a year to the day after he was guillotined. Mrs Daffodil previously posted about the Trianon fish in gold collars who prophesied doom for France and about Marie Antoinette’s death warrant.

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

 

 

 

Fish With Gold Collars at Versailles: 1907

by Ohara Koson, http://www.japanprintart.com/art.cfm?rec_id=721

FISH WITH GOLD COLLARS PROCLAIM TROUBLE FOR FRANCE

Ghosts of Marie Antoinette and Her Two Children Said To Again Walk in the Gardens of Versailles as Before the Franco Prussian War.

Versailles Near Paris July 22, 1907

The gentle ghosts of Marie Antoinette and her two children again walk in the forest of Versailles, foreboding change and trouble to France. Five ancient carp, with their gold collars round their necks, have again emerged from the mud of the hamlet pond, to show themselves beneath the little old stone bridge—as they did before the Franco-Prussian War.

In 1869 most Frenchmen laughed at the same signs and portents. Those who listened and believed went to the war with Prussia discouraged in advance.

“If Monsieur would see Louis XVI’s carp, let Monsieur stand silent on this bridge with me,” mumbled old Jehan Collot, who is 95, to the writer the other day. “I, Jehan, first saw them as a boy of 17 in 1829. Charles X was king. He lived chiefly at St. Cloud, but when they told him the carp had come out of the mud, he hurried here in his old black traveling coach, with six horses, troubled. He stood where Monsieur stands and he saw four of the carp swim past and disappear in the black shadows under the bridge. One year later, France lost her last legitimate king by revolution.

“When did they next show?” was asked.

“Louis Philippe, King of the French, lived much at the Grand Trianon,” replied the ancient servant. “I helped put in the heaters, the first hot-air registers in France.”

The Fish Appears.

“When I saw the carp come up again in 1847, I told my wife only. Whom did she tell? Everybody! She is dead. God rest her. The King came, very grave, and asked me. We stood on this small bridge. Five carp swam by, with gold collars shining red, and disappeared in the black shadows under the bridge. Next year came revolution and more troubles! “Three years later, in the autumn of 1850, I saw them again. They swam back and forth in commotion. I said nothing. Louis Napoleon made his coup d’etat and promoted me to be third gardener.

“Then the carp did not come up until 1869?”

“In 1862, monsieur,” said Collet. “Napoleon heard of them. He laughed: ‘They bring me luck!’ he said, as he stood with me. ‘Where monsieur stands watching for the carp as monsieur watches.’ Next year came the disastrous Mexican adventure—and the beginnings of the end. I knew it. So did Napoleon. In 1869 he did not laugh. The five old carp swam past, one by one, in a line, and disappeared in the black shadows under the bridge. Sh__!”

A horny old hand was incontinently clapped over the writer’s mouth. We stood silent, immobile. A great leathery-hided, shapeless, half-blind old fish lolled past. Round his neck, behind the gills, seemed a dull copper band. Two such fish were seen. The second was like the first. He slouched past and disappeared in the black shadows under the bridge.

It is the same little bridge, by the way, from which the Queen of Norway’s horses fell on her late visit.

Carp Were Collared.

“Changes, troubles, revolutions,” croaked old Jehan Collot. “Jehan don’t care. He is an old man.”

The historical truth of the carp appears to be certain. Louis XIV, a youth of ingenious turn of mind, learned the trade of clockmaker, then turned to locksmithing. Given to natural history, he meditated much on the long lives attributed to elephants, turtles, eagles, whales, sharks and carp. In the forest gardens of Versailles, there were no wild beasts. So he began with turtles.

He cut his name and the date on their backs with a jackknife, such as everybody has in his pocket. Finally the young Prince turned to the carp pond. He caused Jehan Collot’s grandfather to catch 10 solid young carp in a hand net. The gold collars had been prepared. There were 10 names engraved on the heavy gold bands, the date, the Prince’s name and arms, with the sonorous Latin line:

“Mari pisces currant jam! (Let the fishes run in the sea!)

Once collared, the carp were replaced in the carp pond. They have lived there ever since. Of late, they have been seen by thousands, one or two at a time, never all five together.

This pond to-day is the original carp pond, beside which Marie Antoinette’s playhouse village was later constructed. It gets none of the water of the Titanic fountains of Versailles, that had their origin in Louis XIV’s folly, but which, nevertheless, made Versailles the healthiest town in France….

The Gardens’ Ghost

To dream of it one must walk through the forest park of dark and drizzling afternoons in autumn, when there are no sight-seers. When the mist rises over the carp pond, when the leaves fall sodden, when the hamlet of the beautiful Queen fades in the great silence, as old Jehan said.

“Would Monsieur behold her, the beautiful Antoinette?”

The writer and Jehan were alone at dusk. We stood across the carp pond, opposite the house of the Queen, with its communicating bridge veranda. Beside us was the dairy where poor Marie played milkmaid, sleeves up, singing as she patted the butter.

“Monsieur, the Queen walks again, with the two children!” whispered the ancient gardener. “Let Monsieur come the night of the 25^th, full moon. Monsieur shall sit with Jehan Collot, where he knows, the right spot, sit at midnight, in the full moon!”

“Have you seen her?” was asked.

“Fear not, “he answered, “no harm will come to him who sits with a Collot, father and son, son and father, back two hundred years.

“Jehan, have you seen her?”

“The Queen walked in 1829. I was a boy of seventeen. She walked in 1847. She walked in 1850, in 1862, in 1869. And now she walks again! Trouble and change! New things for France,” the old man mumbled. Cincinnati [OH] Enquirer 4 August 1907: p. B3.

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: The ghost of Marie Antoinette has long been said to haunt the Trianon. In fact two English lady educators, Charlotte Anne Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain, wrote a book about what they considered to have been a time-travelling adventure in the gardens in 1901, called, aptly enough, An Adventure. (1911) The ladies have been criticised for their lack of scholarly rigour, but it is still a fascinating story. More recent visitors have also claimed to see the Queen’s ghost.

The fish (as noted by M. Collot) seem to have been relatively accurate prophets. Whenever they appeared, something of dire import occurred within a year.

1829: 1830 the July Revolution in which King Charles X was overthrown in favour of Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orleans

1847: In 1848 Louis-Philippe abdicated

1850: 1851 the coup d’etat which made Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, President of the Second Republic, Emperor Napoleon III,

1862: 1863 Maximillian accepted the Mexican crown after French intervention in Mexico.

1869: 1870 Franco-Prussian War and Napoleon III dethroned by the Third Republic.

1907: 1908 It is here that the fish prophets seem to falter. Were there sabre-rattlings by the Kaiser in 1908, presaging the ruinous Great War of 1914?  That literally earth-shattering incident, The Tunguska Event, occurred in June of 1908, but one could scarcely claim that it had any significant impact on France. One wishes that one knew what the fish were trying to say.

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,”where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes.

A Ghostly Murder Victim Appeals to Count Axel von Fersen: c. 1800

Count Axel von Fersen, who tried to help the French royal family escape in 1791.

Our narrator is once again Mr Augustus Hare. 

Lord Ravensworth welcomed me with such cordial kindness, and has been so genial and good to me ever since, that I quite feel as if in him I had found the ideal uncle I have always longed for, but never before enjoyed. He is certainly the essence of an agreeable and accomplished scholar, with a faultless memory and apt classical quotations for every possible variety of subject. He told me, and made me write down, the following curious story:

It is going back a long time ago – to the time of Marie Antoinette. It will be remembered that the most faithful, the most entirely devoted of all the gallant adherents of Marie Antoinette was the Comte de Fersen. The Comte de Fersen was ready to lay down his life for the Queen, to go through fire and water for her sake; and, on her side, if Marie Antoinette had a corner in her heart for anyone except the King, it was for the Comte de Fersen. When the royal family escaped to Varennes, it was the Comte de Fersen who dressed up as a coachman and drove the carriage; and when the flight to Varennes failed, and when, one after another, he had seen all his dearest friends perish upon the scaffold, the Comte de Fersen felt as if the whole world was cut away from under his feet, as if life had nothing whatever left to offer, and he sunk into a state of apathy, mental and physical, from which nothing whatever seemed to rouse him; there was nothing whatever left which could be of any interest to him.

The physicians who were called in said that the Comte de Fersen must have absolute change; that he must travel for an unlimited time; that he must leave France; at any rate, that he must never see again that Paris which was so terrible to him, which is stained for ever with the blood of the Queen and Madame Elizabeth. And he was quite willing; all places were the same to him now that his life was left desolate: he did not care where he went.

He went to Italy, and one afternoon in November he drove up to what was then, as it is still, the most desolate, weird, ghastly inn in Italy the wind-stricken, storm-beaten, lava-seated inn of Radicofani. And he came there not to stay; he only wanted post-horses to go on as fast as he could, for he was always restless to be moving – to go farther on. But the landlord said, ‘No, it was too late at night; there was going to be a storm; he could not let his horses cross the pass of Radicofani till the next morning.’ – ‘But you are not aware,’ said the traveller, ‘That I am the Comte de Fersen.’ – ‘I do not care in the least who you are,’ said the landlord; ‘I make my rules, and my rules hold good for one as well as for another.’ – ‘But you do not understand probably that money is no object to me, and that time is a very great object indeed. I am quite willing to pay whatever you demand, but I must have the horses at once, for I must arrive at Rome on a particular day.’ – ‘Well, you will not have the horses,’ said the landlord; ‘at least to-morrow you may have them, but to-night you will not; and if you are too fine a gentlemen to come into my poor hotel, you may sleep in the carriage, but to-night you will certainly not have the horses.’

Then the Comte de Fersen made the best of what he saw was the inevitable. He had the carriage put into the coach-house, and he himself came into the hotel, and he found it, as many hundreds of travellers have done since, not half so bad as he expected. It is a bare, dismal, whitewashed barracky place, but the rooms are large and tolerably clean. So he got some eggs or something that there was for supper, and he had a fire made up in the best of the rooms, and he went to bed. But he took two precautions; he drew a little round table that was there to the head of the bed and he put two loaded pistols upon it; and, according to the custom of that time, he made the courier sleep across the door on the outside.

He went to bed, and he fell asleep, and in the middle of the night he awoke with the indescribable sensation that people have, that he was not alone in the room, and he raised himself against the pillow and looked out. From a small lattice window high in the opposite whitewashed wall the moonlight was pouring into the room, and making a white silvery pool in the middle of the rough boarded oak floor. In the middle of this pool of light, dressed in a white cap and jacket and trousers, such as masons wear, stood the figure of a man looking at him. The Comte de Fersen stretched out his hand over the side of the bed to take one of his pistols, and the man said, ‘Don’t fire: you could do no harm to me, you could do a great deal of harm to yourself: I am come to tell you something.’ And Comte de Fersen looked at him: he did not come any nearer; he remained just where he was, standing in the pool of white moonlight, halfway between the bed and the wall; and he said, ‘Say on: tell me what you have come for.’ And the figure said, ‘I am dead, and my body is underneath your bed. I was a mason of Radicofani, and, as a mason, I wore the white dress in which you now see me. My wife wished to marry somebody else: she wished to marry the landlord of this hotel, and they beguiled me into the inn, and they made me drunk, and they murdered me, and my body is buried beneath where your bed now stands. Now I died with the word vendetta upon my lips, and the longing, the thirst that I have for revenge will not let me rest, and I never shall rest, I never can have any rest, till I have had my revenge. Now I know that you are going to Rome; when you get to Rome, go to the Cardinal Commissary of Police, and tell him what you have seen, and he will send men down here to examine the place, and my body will be found, and I shall have my revenge.’ And Comte de Fersen said, ‘I will.’ But the spirit laughed and said, ‘You don’t suppose that I’m going to believe that? You don’t imagine the you are the only person I’ve come to like this? I have come to dozens, and they have all said, “I will,” and afterwards what they have seen has seemed like a hallucination, a dream, a chimæra, and before they have reached Rome the impression has vanished altogether, and nothing has been done. Give me your hand.’ The Comte de Fersen was a little staggered at this; however, he was a brave man, and he stretched out his hand over the foot of the bed, and he felt something or other happen to one of his fingers; and he looked, and there was no figure, only the moonlight streaming in through the little lattice window, and the old cracked looking-glass on the wall and the old rickety furniture just distinguishable in the half-light; there was no mason there, but the loud regular sound of the snoring of the courier was heard outside the bedroom door. And the Comte de Fersen could not sleep; he watched the white moonlight fade into dawn, and the pale dawn brighten into day, and is seemed to him as if the objects in that room would be branded into his brain, so familiar did they become – the old cracked looking-glass, and the shabby washing-stand, and the rush-bottomed chairs, and he also began to think that what had passed in the earlier part of the night was a hallucination – a mere dream. Then he got up, and he began to wash his hands; and on one of his fingers he found a very curious old iron ring, which was certainly not there before – and then he knew.

And the Comte de Fersen went to Rome, and when he arrived at Rome he went to the Swedish minister that then was, a certain Count Löwenjelm, and the Count Löwenjelm was very much impressed with the story, but a person who was much more impressed was the Minister’s younger brother, the Count Carl Löwenjelm, for he had a very curious and valuable collection of peasants’ jewelry, and when he saw the ring he said, ‘That is a very remarkable ring, for it is a kind of ring which is only made and worn in one place, and that place is in the mountains near Radicofani.’

And the two Counts Löwenjelm went with the Comte de Fersen to the Cardinal Commissary of Police, and the Cardinal also was very much struck, and he said, ‘It is a very extraordinary story, a very extraordinary story indeed, and I am quite inclined to believe that it means something. But, as you know, I am in a great position of trust under Government, and I could not send a body of military down to Radicofani upon the faith of what may prove to have been a dream. At any rate (he said) I could not do it unless the Comte de Fersen proved his sense of the importance of such an action by being willing to return to Radicofani himself.’ And not only was the Comte de Fersen willing to return, but the Count Carl Löwenjelm went with him. The landlord and landlady were excessively agitated when they saw them return with the soldiers who came from Rome. They moved the bed, and found that the flags beneath had been recently upturned. They took up the flags, and there not sufficiently corrupted to be irrecognisable was the body of the mason, dressed in the white cap and jacket and trousers, as he had appeared to the Comte de Fersen. Then the landlord and landlady, in true Italian fashion, felt that Providence was against them, and they confessed everything. They were taken to Rome, where they were tried and condemned to death, and they were beheaded at the Bocca della Verità.

The Count Carl Löwenjelm was present at the execution of that man and woman, and he was the person who told the Marquis de Lavalette, who told Lord Ravensworth, who told me. The by-play of the story is also curious. Those two Counts Löwenjelm were the natural sons of the Duke of Sudomania, who was one of the aspirants for the crown of Sweden in the political crisis which preceded the election of Bernadotte. He was, in fact, elected, but he had many enemies, and on the night on which he arrived to take possession of the throne he was poisoned. The Comte de Fersen himself came to a tragical end in those days. He was very unpopular in Stockholm, and during the public procession in which he took part at the funeral of Charles Augustus (1810) he was murdered, being (though it is terrible to say so of the gallant adherent of Marie Antoinette) beaten to death with umbrellas. And that it was with no view to robbery and from purely political feeling is proved by the fact that though he was en grande tenue, nothing was taken away.

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire:  Henry Lidell, 1^st Earl of Ravensworth was Augustus Hare’s mother’s first cousin. Hare lived and travelled extensively in Italy and wrote several guide books about the country’s attractions.  As one can deduce from his relation of this ghost story’s pedigree, he was an inveterate name-dropper.

Count Axel von Fersen, who was devoted to Marie Antoinette and tried to help the French royal family escape in the ill-fated flight to Varennes in 1791, was very popular with the ladies. While some—particularly sentimental females with three names—believed that he was a “parfait gentil knight,” it seems plausible that his devotion to the doomed Queen was expressed in the usual way. But Mrs Daffodil regrets the umbrellas. It was a sordid, shabby way to die.

For other stories related by that master raconteur Augustus Hare see “Saved by the Bell (wire)” and “The Ensign Sees a Horror.”  You will find a story of Marie Antoinette’s death warrant here.

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

 

The Death Warrant of Marie Antoinette: 1912

In honour of the 220^th anniversary of the execution of Queen Marie Antoinette, a story of the discovery of the

DEATH WARRANT OF MARIE ANTOINETTE

Washington, D.C.

After having been buried for over forty years in the accumulated dust and dirt of an out of the way attic the long lost death warrant of Marie Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI, has just come to light in this city.

The finding of this document, together with a number of perfectly preserved autographs of great persons of the court of Louis Quinze, adds another chapter to the history of the one of the most remarkable documents connected with the French Revolution—the last authentic record in the life of the unfortunate Marie and her son, the Dauphin.

After the execution of the beautiful Queen on that fatal Wednesday, October 16, 1793, the document which had ordered the death dealing embrace of “Madame Guillotine” was returned to the public archives of the infant republic in the Temple, supposedly to remain there with the other dread reminders of the time when France passed through the greatest crisis which has ever beset a nation.

But fate ordained otherwise.

Henri Samson, executioner of the Queen, passed one day through the Temple gazing at the documents marking the pathway of blood the Revolution had left through France, the sanguine road traced by the sharp knifed instrument of which he had been the pilot. By change his eye fell on the warrant of the “Widow Capet.” Scarcely realizing what he was doing, the executioner lifted the glass covering the document case, folded the official record of the death of a Queen in three places and put it in his pocket as a memento of the last hour of the Austrian wife of the King, to whom he had previously sworn fealty.

With the warrant Samson took three small pieces of paper lying near by, thinking that they contained the Queen’s autograph. In this he was mistaken, for the slips were later found to be covered with the scrawled signatures of lords and ladies of the  court, together with the names of the Dauphin, his sister Therese, and his aunt Elizabeth, sister to the King.

The executioner’s action in taking from the archives of the republic documents of public interest has never been satisfactorily explained and the official records of the Temple indicate only that the death warrant of the Queen was discovered to be missing from its accustomed pace and “was not to be found, even after long search.” No mention is made of the autographed slips of paper, which probably were considered of little appreciable value at this time.

The story of the valuable documents from the time they were abstracted from their glass covered resting place to the present moment is vague and indefinite. History mentions the disappearance of the warrant and chronicles now and again its reported discovery—now here, now there. But up to the present time nothing authentic has been heard of the papers.

Some weeks ago, however, William H. Freeny, foreman of a tailoring establishment in this city, while rummaging through the trunks in his attic discovered some old papers carefully pressed and placed between the pages in an old atlas. The fact that they were in the upper tray of a trunk which had belonged to his father-in-law, Armand Laag, a native of Ville, France, convinced Freeny that they were probably connected with the history of the Laag family and he asked his wife if she knew anything about them.

Mrs. Freeny replied in the negative and suggested that they might find out something about them by looking further among her fathers’ belongings. An old diary begun by the elder Laag several years before he left France, in 1873, came to light. In it was detailed the fact that the papers—listed as “the death warrant of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, and various autographs of the Dauphin, his sister, aunt and ladies and gentlemen of the court of Louis XVI” had been presented to Armand Laag in 1860 by the son of Henri Samson, the executioner, who had found them among his father’s effects.

The papers, the diary continued, had been given Laag as an appreciation of a service which he had rendered Samson, fils, and had been placed in the old atlas for safe keeping. The excitement of the events of 1870 and the succeeding years and the emigration of Laag to his country are supposed to have driven all recollection of the warrant and autographs out of his mind, because Mrs. Freeny never remembers having seen the documents before they were rediscovered by her husband.

Strange to say, after all the years which have passed since the writing and signing of the death warrant and the affixing of the signatures to the small slips of paper, all four documents, if such they can be called, are in excellent condition.

The warrant itself is about 6 by 10 inches in size and appears to be written and printed on paper of exceptionally strong fibre. The printing and handwriting are almost as clear and legible as when first placed upon the paper and even a small blot near the top of the sheet is distinctly visible. The first line of writing above the printed word “Requisition” is blurred, but close examination discloses the words: “Archives de la *** l’Etat.” The word between “la” and “l’Etat” is indecipherable.

Below this line is the file number (“Carton No. 120”) and beneath that appears printed: “Requisition to the commanding general of the Parisian armed force.”

The remainder of the document, translated, reads:

“IN THE NAME OF THE REPUBLIC.

The prosecuting public attorney of the Revolutionary Criminal Court, established at Paris by the act of March 10, 179e, in execution of the judgment of the court of this day, requires the commanding General of the Parisian armed force to give assistance and to put on foot the public force necessary for the execution of said judgment rendered against Marie Antoinette Lorraine Autriche (Austrian), widow of Louis Capet, and which condemns her to the penalty of death, which execution shall take place to-day at 10 A.M. in the Place de la Revolution in this city. The commanding General is required to send the said public force from the court house yard on the said day at 8 A.M. precisely.

Given at Paris on the twenty-fifth day of the second years of the French Republic, one and indivisible. (Old style, Wednesday, October 15, 5 o’clock in the morning.)

Public Prosecuting Attorney

(Signed) A. J. Fouquier.

The document is stamped with the seal of the “National Legislation Section of the Archives.”

Although 119 years old the document is remarkable well preserved, due no doubt to the fact that it has been kept in a dark place during the greater part of the time. Three well formed creases and one slight crease mar its surface, but otherwise the sheet of paper, a trifle yellow from age, is as perfect as on the day it was signed by Fouquier. The ink is still black and the printing has not faded in the least.

The three slips of paper which were found in the same book as the warrant were apparently taken from the archives of the Temple at the same time as the larger document. Two of them are about three by four inches, while the other is only a small slip containing the single signature of the “Comtesse Valois de la Motte,” surrounding whose varied career the elder Dumas wove the tale of “The Queen’s Necklace.”

The signature of the “Countess” is, as one would expect from such a clever criminal, firm and determined. The letters are well formed and the very writing appears to breathe character and determination. The “Motte” ends with a lengthy flourish, as do both “d’s” another contribution to the theory of Lombroso and other criminologists that the more ornate a signature the less oral the writer.

The autographs on the two other slips of paper are fully as interesting as is that of the condemned Countess. Only three of the writers, however, have gone down in history. These are Louis Charles Capet, the Dauphin; [Marie] Therese Capet, his sister, and Elizabeth Capet, his aunt and sister of the King.

There are two signature of the little Dauphin, one on each slip. Both of them are scrawled the in the childish hand of the little Prince, and in one of them the “p” in Capet was missing and inserted over a caret. The childish letters were evidently formed with great difficulty one at a time and in some cases they do not even join one another. The “l” at the commencement of one signature is more like a “k” than its proper self, while the “r’s” resemble the “t’s”. The young King-to-be was also a little careless about the placing of the dots over his “I’s,” for in both autographs the dot is over the first loop of the “u” in Louis, instead of over the letter to which it belongs.

The signature of Therese, his sister, however, is well formed and indicates the character of all women of the Capetian line. Although but a child when the autograph was put to paper, the daughter of Louis XVI, was as able a penwoman as her Aunt Elizabeth, only the “t” in Capet being malformed. The Princess Elizabeth’s hand is bold and easily read, the final “t’ being complete with a heavy swing and downward stroke of the pen which is carried onto the crossbar.

Among the other signatures on the slips are those of “David” (who believed that the importance of his position, whatever it was, warranted his surrounding his name with a flamboyant flourish), Daujon, Saurens, Stady, Channette and others which are undecipherable. Practically the same signatures appear on both the larger slips—Therese and Elizabeth Capet being the only ones who inscribed their names but once. The Sun [New York, NY] 21 July 1912: p. 1

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: Mrs Daffodil cautions her readers that she has no idea if the story of the document’s theft by the executioner and its “rediscovery” in Washington, D.C. is true or not. Marie Antoinette was a romantic and sympathetic figure, rather like Mary, Queen of Scots. Stories of her relics were often the subject of imaginative reporting in the early 20^th century press, while mementoes of the doomed Queen–perhaps of the correct age, but creative provenance–were avidly sought.

Some of the characters mentioned:

Princess Elizabeth, “Madame Elisabeth” [1764-1794] was the sister of King Louis XVI, excuted during the Terror. 

Jeanne de Valois-Saint-Rémy, “Comtesse de la Motte” [1756-1791], was the central figure in the Affair of the Diamond Necklace.  

Commissioner Daujon of the Commune shielded the Royal family by not allowing revolutionaries carrying the Princesse de Lambelle’s head on a pike into the Temple, where the Royal family was staying. 

Antoine Quentin Fouquier de Tinville [1746-1795], who signed the warrant, was the prosecutor in the trials of Charlotte Corday and Queen Marie Antoinette. 

Charles-Henri Sanson, France’s state executioner

One wonders if “David” was Jacques-Louis David, the artist, known for his Revolutionary sympathies.

“Airy But Costly Trifles:” Society Ladies’ Historic Fans: 1890

SOME VERY FAMOUS FANS

Airy but Costly Trifles Belonging to Well Known Ladies

Curious Histories Connected With Many of the noted Fans Owned by New York Ladies—Painted and Decorated.

New York, Sept. 10. [Special Correspondence of the World-Herald] Likely enough, there is some truth in the tradition regarding a bit of lace and ivory called a fan, which belongs to a certain New York family, and which says that it was “bartered for a kiss.” This heirloom came originally from the Imperial family of Russia, but at what time in its career or by whom it was “bartered” tradition has kept no record. Of beautiful and costly fans owned by New York ladies, one is a Chinese affair belonging to Mrs. Frederick Vanderbilt. It is a very dream, so delicate in its ivory carving. Mrs. Hicks-Lord is the lucky possessor of a really magnificent fan. It is composed of the finest and daintiest point d’Alencon, with an artistic combination of leaves and flowers. The frame is of white figures, with any quantity of ornamentation in gold. It was worn suspended from a chain of diamonds and pearls. Mrs. Whitelaw Reid has a most exquisite affair in the shape of a fan. It is of white silk, embroidered in colors and ornamented with small pearls. Mrs. Coleman Drayton has a vellum fan, painted with a scene from Spanish history and mounted on carved sticks of sandal wood. Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer has one painted by Seloir and valued at $2,000. Mrs. Whitney has a very valuable point d’Alencon fan, mounted on a frame work of gold. Of fans with historical associations, one belonging to Miss Furniss was painted in Spain in commemoration of the signing of the Utrecht, with the inscription upon it: “Por el amor de la Pay.”

A FINE COLLECTION

The late Mrs. John Jacob Astor had probably the finest collection of fans in the country. There were among the number many charming specimens of the famous Vernis Martin, which time has not robbed of its soft lustre. The mounts are of paper, silk and vellum, exquisitely painted, one representing the “Toilet of Venus.” The sticks in ivory are overspread with the Vernis Martin, showing a surface of great brilliancy. Another dainty one in Mrs. Astor’s collection represents a Champetre group of youths and maidens upon a crag overhanging a bit of summer sea. Perhaps one of the choicest fans is one belonging to Mrs. Newhold Morris. It is of crepe lisse, delicately painted, edged with point d’Alencon and mounted on sticks of mother of pearl. Of other fans belonging to New York ladies, one is a regency fan with a scriptural subject painted upon the mount, the sticks being decorated with Chinese enamel faces in cartouches. Mrs. Jesse Seligman has many costly fans. One of the Louis Quinze period has depicted upon it a scene from harem life, and is decorated with gilt and silver medallions upon kid. A regal fan made over a hundred years ago for some almond-eyed empress of the flowery kingdom is now at the Metropolitan Museum of art, where this “thing of beauty and joy forever” has a large case devoted exclusively to its own royal use. This fan is an airy, fairy combination of gauze, ivory, jade and many other precious metals of exquisite workmanship.

FROM NAPOLEON TO JOSEPHINE.

A fan belonging to a New York lady was originally given by Napoleon to Josephine and then by the empress to Mme. Campau, from whom it passed to its present owner. Of other beautiful fans owned by fortunate New York ladies, one painted by Detaille is a spirited picture of horses taking the fence at Jerome Park; another, by the painter Borra, minutely depicts a christening scene before a Spanish alcalde, while a third shows a charming skating scene in the Bois de Boulogne, painted by Lafite. The fan which Mrs. Levi P. Morton carried on the night of the centennial ball is an heirloom—exquisitely carved ivory sticks and charming water color painting on white silk.

“The Swedish Nightingale,” Christine Nilsson, is an enthusiast in the matter of fans. She has a collection of rare and beautiful specimens. Among the number is one which was presented to her by the ex-Empress Eugenie. It formerly belonged to Mme. DuBarry—possibly it is the famous one valued at so many thousand francs. Another of the fair singer’s fans is one which was given to her by the crown prince of Russian and is an exact copy of the one that belonged to the queen of Oude.

There are many private collection of fans, those of Baroness A. Rothschild and Mme. A. Jubinal of Paris being the more valuable. In the former collection is a very ancient fan of woven bulrushes and painted in various colors. It is ornamented with pearls and has a handle of jade. Another very rich fan, which now belongs to M. Eugene de Thiac of Paris, is the one presented to Marie Antoinette on the birth of her son, the dauphin, May, 1785. This fan is of ivory, open worked and richly carved. It was painted by Vien and was designated as the “handsomest and most celebrated fan in the world.” A fan, now in the possession of the countess of Chambord, formerly belonged to Ninon de l’Eclos. It is of tortoise-shell, incrusted with mother of pearl and the leaf painted with an episode from “Jerusalem Delivered.” As early as the tenth century the fan was common France among the titled dames, and at a later period it was affected by the gallants of the day. In China every drawing room is so abundantly supplied with fans, that each caller on a reception day is presented with one as soon as she enters. For a lady to carry a fan is entirely out of the question.

Mme. Pompadour had a wonderful fan. “Lovers in a riot of light, Poses and vapourous dew,” is the poetry of the subject. The prose of the matter is that it had a lace mount which cost $30,000. It took nine years to make the sections, each of the five containing a medallion. The miniatures were almost invisible to the naked eye, but revealed a wonderful delicacy of execution under the microscope.

Watteau, Lebrun, Gerome, Bonheur, Boucher, Laufe, Rosalba, Carriera and Garnarvi are some of the famous artists who helped to paint beautiful fans for the Grande dames of their times. Shakespeare in several of his plays alludes to the fans of the period. These were usually suspended from the girdle by a golden chain, a fashion which has been revived in our own day. The first Greek fans were made of acacia, plantain and lotus leaves. In the time of Euripides peacock feather fans were used. These fans were much used by the Romans also. The great circular fans, which are used on state occasions still in Rome, are called flabella.

A Chinese fan was found among the effects of the queen of Ah-Hotip, who lived a thousand years or more before the Christian era and has sticks and crown still covered with gold and around the tops are holes still visible where the ostrich feathers were affixed. In the museum of the Louvre there is a Chinese fan made of bamboo leaf and ornamented with bulrushes. It is not less than fourteen centuries old.

Queen Bess of “peppery temper” was called the patron of fans of which she had a large collection. It was the only gift, so she declared, that a sovereign could accept from a subject. In the hand of a Spanish woman the fan – “el abanco” plays an important and most attractive part. During the delightful summer nights, when the moon sheds her light around, the Prado presents a romantic pictures, there is much magic in that little zephyr, folded and unfolded with a careless ease which none but Spanish women can display, moved quickly in recognition of a passing friend or elevated and opened over her head as if to frame it. There can be no doubt but that it helps on affairs of the heart. Camping by the blue vault of heaven many a love tale is then told and listened to with favor.

Regarding the flirtation qualities of the fan, a writer of society verse has written the following lines: 

HE SPEAKS. Painted and perfumed, feathered and pink,

Here is your ladyship’s fan.

You gave me to hold, I think,

While you danced with another man.

Downy and soft like your fluffy hair,

Pink like your delicate face;

The perfume you carry everywhere

Wafted from feathers and lace.

Painted and perfumed, dainty and pink,

A toy to be handled with care;

It is like your ladyship’s self, I think,

A trifle as light as the air.

 For you are a wonderful triumph of art,

Like a Dresden statuette;

But you cannot make trouble for my poor heart,

You innocent-faced coquette.

For I understand those enticing ways

You practice on every man.

You are only a bit of paint and lace,

Like that delicate toy—your fan.

R.E.

Omaha [NE] World Herald 14 September 1890: p. 10

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: Mrs Daffodil always equips herself with a fan and considers that far too little attention has been devoted to the fan’s potential as a weapon. She does not speak of that roguish little tap on the manly chest, which is so necessary an aid to flirtation, but rather of fracturing the wrist of some malefactor or overzealous suitor, as Mrs Daffodil has had occasion to do.

A lady needs only a little ingenuity in the choice of her fan guards to ensure her perfect safety. Iron fan guards, while an obvious choice, are too tiring to the wrist. Mother-of-pearl, satin- and rosewood are decorative, but useless in an emergency. Lignum vitae or boxwood, with their dense character, would be excellent choices. Chemists, we read, are experimenting with productions of gutta percha and rubber. If substantial enough, or if weighted, rubber fan guards would produce the same effect as what is vulgarly termed a “cosh” and might be useful when traveling alone.

In a situation such as a ball, you may find yourself equipped only with the standard issue ivory or mother-of-pearl fan. If a so-called gentleman offers you an insult, it becomes a nice question of which you value more highly—your virtue or a costly fashion accessory? Think carefully about wasting a hand-painted silk Duvelleroy on a cad. Speaking practically, virtue is easily simulated, while it is difficult, if not impossible, to repair a crack in an ivory fan satisfactorily.

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.