The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1904-05-22
Does Not Like to See the Martyred
Marie Antoinette's Morals
Impugned.
CASE OF MERE SENTIMENT
Among People Who Do Not All
Object to Breaking One of
the Commandments.
STORIES OF NJ. LEONARD
An Unprincipled Hairdresser at
the French Court-ColOnel
Fersen's Love Affair.

Special Correspondence Of the Journal.
Z PARIS May 1O.-"Varennes, the play
recently staged at the Sarah Bernhardt
Theater, and having for it's authors Lave
dan and Lenotre, famous rummager into
records, displeases society. The authors, on
a very strong presumption, or, rather,
many strong Prescriptions, extending over
: a period OF twenty-five years in the life of
Count Fersen, make him out the too deep
ly involved lover of Marie Antoinette.
Rather curiously. but not strangely, in
Partisan society, the people who make this
objection are all the time breaking the
seventh commandment. But they have
agreed among themselves to hold up that
Queen to the reverence of well-bred classes
everywhere as a saint and martyr, rank
TO which the Empress Eugene succeeded in
raising her. This gives a sentimental inter-
est to the spurious Marie Antoinette furni-
ture with which women of fashion-Jewish,
American, British and French-love to
crowd their salons in this cosmopolis.
1t may also make the imitation desks,
work tables, fauteuils and what not worth
their weight in gold. If Marie Antoinette
had not been invested with the palm of
martyrdom and her head surrounded with
the nimbus of a saint Mrs. Bradley Mar
tin would have never bought that Queen
supposed belongings so freely.
1t is historically certain that one of the
women or ladies of Marie Antoinette in
1892 had prying eyes, some grudge against
her and gave information about her doings
and the Kings TO some of those revolution
lists who did not believe a constitutional
monarchy workable and who suspected the
Queen to be the soul of intrigueS against
| the form to which the King had sworn
! fidelity at the fete of the federation to
| which every town and village in France
sent delegates. This lady, or woman. for
/ her rank has never been we'll determined
by historians, is. for stage purposes, repre-
scented to be engaged in an amorouS in
! trigue against Fersen.
In pretending TO be in love with her he
affords himself a plausible excuse for visit
| ing the TuilerieS, where the members OF
the royal family were staying as hostages
| of Paris. For a short time this suited. but
no sooner did the woman find she had been
| used to screen an intrigue with the Queen
| than she resolved to be avenged on her and
| Fersen. Her prying eyes grew sharper, and
she scented the design of Fersen TO take
the royal family to the camp of De Bodily
near the frontier, and place 1t under his
! protection. She opened her mind to Lafay-
| cite. who ever refused to give the name of
the person who kept him secretly informed
! about the royal family, and she limited her
suspicious to different members of the
heads fell not very long after under the
blade of the guillotine
NO PLOT TO SPEAK OF.
Lavedan and Lenotre have invented a
name for her and brought her on the stage
as lady of the Queens bedchamber who
| gave early intelligence of the flight which
is the subject of the play. ''Varennes'' has
no plot to speak of, and is limited to six
striking tableaux showing the departure
from Bondy, where the King, Queen, his
sister, Nine. Elizabeth, the dauphin, or
heir apparent. and the princess royal, with
the unfit and laxative Nine. De Tourzel,
subgoverness of the two royal children,
alighted from a hackney coach to enter the
numbering, self-contained travelling car
riage prepared for them by an old nabob
Quentin Crawford, and Nine. Sullivan, a
lady who kept house for him.
The travelling carriage brought on the
stage by six horses is not the identical one
in which the ROYAL flight so far as Va
rennes took place. A coach builder set it w
according to the bill furnished to Quentin
Crawford and found in his papers, and to
engravings. The building of the original
''berline'' took four months and the builder
spared no pains to make it highly finished
job worthy, he thought. to take a great
nabob to the German waters.
The order came to him through Nine
Sullivan from Crawford That lady took
the name, m giving it, of Nine korf, d
Russian lady of fortune and a relative OF
Nine De Staers husband Her true name
stances of the flight to Varennes and The
conspiracy to bring it about.
| care was also taken to provide 1t with q
larder under the drivers seat to contain
twelve bottles of wine. The food selected
for the journey by Nine. Sullivan was ter
pounds of round of beef cooked la mode
twelve pounds of roast veal but she for.
got fowl and she did not probably see how
vegetables could be cooked in the small
spirits of a wine kitchen belonging to The
carriages. At any rate these articles were
| left out, and the appetite of Louis XIV
imperatively demanding them at dinner
time the party had to stop for that meal a
an inn, thus losing more than an hour anC
a half of precious time and upsetting al
! the arrangements De Bouilly had made L
send military escort to a certain bridge
outside of Varennes. which had orders L
take the royal family to the camp at Mont
medy: Once under this escort they coulC
travel i'm safety.
Royalist society. or the society that hopes
to take in the Bradley Martin and Pierpon
Morgan ladies. with their spurious eight
eenth century furniture are angry with tn
authors at representing the Queen as in
capable of supposing she could, when in tn
camp of De Douilly. dispense with the serv
ices of her hairdresser. Leonard Nothing il
now more certainly established than tina
the hegira toward MOntmedy ended unfor
tunately because that notion governed tn
Queens conduct. She greatly depended 70
her grand air on the voluminous dressin,
OF neT ldlr ndlf. her long and remarka bl,
, narrow face, her high and too aquiln
nose. and the poverty of her cerebral or
gans. once the delicate bloom of youth ha,
passed away. would have, without Leon
ards art. made her plain woman.
NARROW FACE ABNORMAL
: The narrowness of the face was reall
abnormal. / saw its parallel in the lat
! Empress OF Brazil. grandniece of Mari
Antorette. and in the late Duke of Seville
.. her great-gran6nephew. AS representa-
; in the pencil sketch of David taken on tn
day of her execution. Marie Antoinett
had "A wretched cranial development. an
she would have often noted its poverty /
the mirrors filing still the angles of he
bedroom in the private apartments at Yer
: sailles. The fiatness OF the skull at tn
a deformity and il accords with the eS
: treme levity OF her character. in whic
, strong. honest, deep-seated instincts had n
: ! room lodge.
i fiirt in the Viennese way. and throw
r back on her power lovely woman
4 | the stormy days OF the revolution, sh
: | would have been anxious about her appeal
dncc before the camp where she had al
q ! ranged TO take refuge. Leonard, there
; | fore. must precede her there. to be abb
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