Favourites - best friends of the queen, dressed "en gaulle," portraits by Vigée Le Brun, 1782

 

Until just weeks ago, even with an obsession begun in childhood with all things Marie Antoinette and the last days of the ancien régime, it had never registered with me that the queen's two closest friends - the famous "favourites" - had been born on the very same day: 8 September 1749. 

Marie-Thérèse Louise, princesse de Lamballe.

Marie-Thérèse Louise, princesse de Lamballe (8 September 1749 - 3 September 1792) had already been widowed at the age of nineteen when, two years later, she met the fourteen year-old dauphine upon the latter's arrival in France in 1770. The two became immediate and very close friends. 

Yolande Martine Gabrielle de Polastron, duchesse de Polignac.

Yolande Martine Gabrielle de Polastron, duchesse de Polignac (8 September 1749 - 9 December 1793) was formally presented to Marie Antoinette five years later. The new queen was said to be "dazzled" by Gabrielle and agreed to pay the Polignac family's debts so that the new "favourite" could afford to reside at Versailles. Beautiful and charming, she quickly became the undisputed leader of the queen's intimate circle. 

Marie-Thérèse was very wealthy in her own right. But she was more reserved than the queen's new friend, kind but not at all brilliant. And her own ill-health and that of her father-in-law often kept her away from Versailles, leaving the way for the more vivacious Gabrielle to dominate the queen's affections. The two women never really got along, though both would suffer in the ever increasing scurrilous assaults on the queen's character; among other slanders, both were falsely accused in the libels of being her lesbian lover. 

Over time, the entire Polignac family benefited enormously from the queen's considerable generosity, causing much resentment at court. Marie Antoinette, herself, eventually tired of their constant demands for money and privileges, their frequent attempts to influence political matters and, after the queen's second son was born in 1785, her relationship with Gabrielle distinctly cooled. Not long after, she and Marie-Thérèse began to grow closer again.

At the fall of the Bastille, well aware of the public's hatred, Gabrielle and all the members of the Polignac family went into exile, first to Switzerland, then Turin, Rome, Venice and, finally, Vienna. After the king and queen were removed to Paris in October 1789, Marie-Thérèse immediately joined the royal family in the Tuileries Palace, reassuming her court duties; she was constantly at their sides during the next two years. Following the disastrous Flight to Varennes of the royal family in June 1791, she travelled to Brussels, then England. Though the queen repeatedly asked her not to return to France, she rejoined the royal family some four months later. 

After the attack on the Tuileries the following August, and after the royal family was moved to the Temple, she was separated from them and transferred to the La Force prison. A month later, during what became known as the September Massacres, the prisons were seized by mobs, and the prisoners were placed before hastily assembled people's tribunals, which judged and executed them summarily. Brought before the tribunal, she agreed to take the oath to liberty but refused to denounce the king and queen, and she was handed over to the mob. 

There are many horrific and varying stories about the exact manner of her murder, most of which are certainly apocryphal. What is known for certain is that her head was placed on a pike, paraded through the streets of Paris to the windows of the Temple, where the mob unsuccessfully tried to force the queen to look at the mutilated remains of her friend. The princesse de Lamballe was five days away from her forty-third birthday.

Since her flight from Paris, Gabrielle had kept in contact with the queen through their correspondence. She had been in poor health for several years, but had become increasingly ill while living in Switzerland. The duchesse de Polignac died in Vienna, probably of cancer, at the age of forty-four, shortly after learning of Marie Antoinette's execution, two months before.

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A self-portrait of the artist, circa 1781-82.

By the early 1780's the star portraitist of the day, Vigée-Le Brun, had developed a new and very particular pictorial formula that she employed several times in the portrayal of the young, royal and aristocratic ladies who were her most important clients; this eventually even included the queen. 

A second portrait of the duchesse de Polignac, 1783.

Rather than posing them in sumptuous gowns and lavish jewels, she portrayed them very simply dressed, often wearing a straw hat, with wild flowers in their hands or in their hair; they appeared as one might see them walking in the summery gardens of the queen's own Petit Trianon.

Marie Antoinette's early nemesis, Jeanne Bécu, comtesse du Barry, 1781.

Of particular note was the style of gown they wore, dubbed variously as à la Creole, en chemise or, most frequently and lastingly, en gaulle. Consisting of multiple layers of very fine muslin, with softly gathered, puffed sleeves, a ruffled neckline, and an unfitted bodice, it featured a simple satin sash at the waist. It became a very popular style, a fashion that spread well beyond France and the artist's lofty clientele. 

The queen's sister-in-law, the comtesse de Provence, 1782-83. Like the portrait of Marie Antoinette en gaulle, this was also met with disapproval at the 1783 Salon.

But when Vigée-Le Brun's portrait of the queen dressed en gaulle was displayed at the Paris Salon in 1783, the public was outraged. The inspiration behind the alternate moniker, en chemise - a term denoting a lady's shift; in other words, her underwear - was definitely taken to heart. 

Marie Antoinette en gaulle, 1783.

The alarm was so great, the cry being that the queen was being shown in her underthings, that the portrait was removed from the wall and the artist hastily painted another to be exhibited before the close of the Salon. In the second, the queen assumes the same pose, tenderly holding a pink rose, but now less offensively - in other words, more regally - dressed in gray silk and lace.

The queen as the public demanded she be seen, 1783.