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Recollections of Léonard, Hairdresser to Queen Marie-Antoinette

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Recollections of Léonard, Hairdresser to Queen Marie-Antoinette MARIE-ANTOINETTE From an engraving by Janinet RECOLLECTIONS' OF LEONARD ^ Hairdresser to Queen Marie-Antoinette Translated from the French by E. Jules . Meras LONDON GREENING AND CO., LTD. 91 ST MARTIN'S LANE, W.C. 1912 Copyright United States of America by STURGIS & WALTON ILLUSTRATIONS Marie-Antoinette, from an engraving by Janinet Frontispiece FACING PAGE Comtesse du Barry 66 Charles Philippe, Comte d'Artois 124 Petit Trianon—The Queen's Boudoir 166 Louis XVI 198 Monsieur de Calonne 220 The Palace of Versailles 254 Mirabeau 296 263149 CODRT SERIES OF FRENCH MEMOIRS I. RECOLLECTIONS OF LEONARD.— Hairdresser to Queen Marie Antoinette. This covers practically the entire reign of Louis XVI. II. SECRET MEMOIRS OF THE REGENCY.—The minority of Louis XV. By Charles Pinot Duclos. III. MADAM E DE POMPADOUR. —Memoirs of the Court of France. From the Note- book of the Marechale D .... by Jean Louis SOULAVIE. This series commends itself for its sub- stantial historical and social value, and as a lively, picturesque and intimate account of great dramatic events and distinguished personages of the Court of France. The series consists of memoirs, historical and anecdotal, giving a vivid and interest- ing picture of society in and about the Court of France. They cover the period from the death of Louis XIV. through the regency of the Due d'Orleans, the reigns of Louis XV. and Louis XVI., the Revolution, and the reign of Napoleon I. The books consist of material drawn from the most intimate and authoritative as sources, and throw bright a light upon the period covered as any similar period of history in any country can show. Notes are given where necessary, and the trans- lation has been made by a scholar who is thoroughly conversant with both langu- ages. Each volume will be illustrated with reproductions of contemporary por- traits and prints. INTRODUCTION Although the exact year of the birth of Leonard Autie is unknown, it is probable that it was 1746. Nothing is known of his early days, but it is likely that he spent them in the South of France, where he was born. It is also likely that he served his apprenticeship as hairdresser in a city in the same section of that country. He came to Paris, he tells us, in 1769 and quickly acquired a clientele in the society of that capital. As a hairdresser he became "king." It is he who created all the new head-dresses. He varied them weekly, almost daily, and the fashion papers of the period were filled with his innovations. He understood his epoch; novelties and eccentricities were in demand and he responded more than generously. His appointment as hairdresser to the Archduchess Marie-Antoinette crowned his reputation. He continued in that capacity after the Archduchess had become Queen of France, even until the flight of the royal family which terminated by the arrest of Louis XVI, at Var- ennes, June 22, 1791. viii INTRODUCTION After this flight, in which he took part, Leonard went to Luxemburg, but nothing is known of his stay there. Later he is heard of as living abroad, in Russia and Germany. He remained away dur- ing the Directory, the Consulate, and the Empire, and only returned to France with the Bourbons in 1 8 14. There he died, in Paris, on the 24th of March, 1820. Histories usually give us the bare facts and dates. They seldom show us how the people lived of whose laws and battles they are the records. Memoirs like those of Leonard give us just what the histories lack. We see in Leonard's book a "moving picture" of the events of the last twenty years of the Ancient Regime. We see Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette, their near relatives and their favorites at close range. We have lifelike portraits of a dull, well- intentioned Louis; of a proud, frivolous Marie- Antoinette. We have striking sketches of the Comte de Provence (later Louis XVIII), of the Comte d'Artois (later Charles X), and of Mira- beau, the "Demosthenes of the Tiers-Etat." We see the last of Louis XV's favorites, du Barry, and we have a glimpse of that gay monarch him- self as he was towards the end of his reign. INTRODUCTION ix Leonard tells us in a light and gossipy style, of those twenty years with their amusements, frivoli- ties, struggles, and sorrows to the very eve of the flight of the royal family. We see the gradual dissatisfaction of the people, their protests, their rebellion, their attack on the palace of Versailles. All the scenes of which Leonard has left us a description may not always be exact with the exact- ness of one who has been a witness or a party to them. He is a Gascon, as he himself tells us, and accordingly given to bragging. He wants to be an actor in almost everything he relates. The events did take place: this fact history has long since confirmed; but we suspect that they did not always occur in his presence, as he would have us believe. Nevertheless it may be stated that few books, if any, give us a more striking picture of the Paris of the years preceding the Revolution. RECOLLECTIONS OF LEONARD CHAPTER I When I had put up my hair and when a light cloud of flour, in lieu of powder, had whitened it; when my coat of fine gray cloth had been brushed to an extraordinary degree; when the puff of my cravat exhibited to an amateur's eye its artistic folds, and when my tightly drawn stocking showed the eloquent calf of my leg, then, faith, could I be taken, elsewhere besides in the castles in the air of my vanity, for a gentleman, if not accomplished, at least in a fair way to become so. I went out on tiptoe, carrying under my left arm a hat tanned by the scorching sun of the highways; for the first time in my life I felt that I lacked a sword. I skirted the rue des Noyers and the rue Saint-Jacques with the assurance and ease of bear- ing which a man of twenty-three, whose future offers a security of forty-eight hours, seldom lacks. Now, I possessed a receipt for two weeks' room rent, five large ecus of six francs, a beautiful shell comb, and an ample supply of confidence in myself. ... At that time I used to dine at the rue de la 3 4 RECOLLECTIONS OF LEONARD Huchette, for twenty-five centimes, less wine, of course, but in the company of several knights of Saint-Louis; which compensated in satisfied vanity what the stomach lacked in these economical meals. ... I had hardly left my somber and miserable alley ten minutes, when my ear was caressed by these words: "What a handsome youth !"—"What beautiful blue eyes!"—"Really a marvelous head of hair!"—"That youth will make his way in the world!" "I hope so," said I to myself; and I leave it to my panegyrists. This is as good as to have told you that my flatterers of the public ways were women, and from this you will naturally conclude that Jean Leonard was what was then called a miroir a fillettes. A short time before my arrival in Paris I had corresponded with a journeyman barber whom I had known at Bordeaux and who, having gone into hairdressing for the past six or seven months, had secured a position with Legros, a manipulator of hair, whom the capital allowed to usurp a cer- tain reputation. I betook myself to this alleged hairdresser, whom I found bloated with pride like a cellar rat who has become a farmer-general. Legros, wrapped in a magnificent dressing-gown, RECOLLECTIONS OF LEONARD 5 and almost lying on a large armchair, was super- vising at that moment the dressing of the hair of a councilor to the Parliament, who, having been unable to obtain a sitting at his residence from this self-styled virtuoso, had come to him so that he might study the style of head-dress most suitable to his features. My friend having become first assistant to Legros, held the head of the limb of the law in his hands and made it turn so as to show its differ- ent sides to the artist the in ; while latter, wrapped profound meditation, seemed unconscious of all that was going on around him. He had not even seen me enter. At last, after a good quarter of an hour of com- templation, the hairdresser cried in a resounding voice: "Curl this man's hair!" and the councilor's hair was curled. While this operation was going on, Legros, to whom my friend had just introduced me without leaving his parliamentary head, called me to his armchair with a familiar gesture. u Is it true, my boy," said he to me, while toying with his frill, "that you intend to take up hair- dressing? . ." 6 RECOLLECTIONS OF LEONARD "Yes, sir, and it is to perfect myself in this art that I have come to Paris." "Perfect yourself! upon my honor, the word is exceedingly funny in the mouth of a youth coming from the country. ." "Sir," replied I in an offended tone, "I have dressed hair at Bordeaux, Toulouse and Mar- seilles." "You have frizzled and powdered in those cities, that is what you mean; but I want you to know that hairdressing only exists in Paris . • since I appeared. ." "I thought that the celebrated Dage . ." "Dage!" interrupted Legros with a disdainful pout, "a chance hairdresser, a reputation born of a bon mot slipped between two curl-papers of Pompadour : 'I dressed the other one's hair' .
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