Signed DS Ordering Payment for Swiss Guard’s Elite “Cent-Suisses”

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MARIE ANTOINETTE. (1755-1793). French queen whose legendary spending and frivolous behavior enraged the nation’s populace and helped foment the French Revolution. DS. (“Payez, Marie Antoinette”). 1p. Small folio. Versailles, April 1, 1787. To MARC ANTOINE FRANCOIS MARIE RADON DE LA TOUR (1736-1794), an advisor to the king and treasurer of the royal household. Countersigned at the foot by French courtier and memoirist. JACQUES MATHIEU AUGEARD (1732-1805), who has added his version of the Queen’s signature. In French with translation.

“To Six of the King’s One Hundred Swiss Guards

Salary for the quarter of J[anua]ry 1787, 270 livres

Treasurer General of our household and treasury, M[onsieur]. Marc Antoine Francois Marie Radon de la Tour; we wish and command you that funds allocated by the State for the maintenance and sustenance of several of our officers during the present year be paid in cash.

Pay in cash these six Swiss Guards of the King, our most honorable Lord and Husband, who have served with us during the first quarter of January, February, and March, the amount of Two Hundred Seventy livres, that we have granted them for their sustenance in consideration of the services that they rendered unto us during that time. By bringing this letter with you, along with a receipt, the said sum of Two Hundred Seventy livres will be granted and allocated in the spending of our monies by our dear and well-beloved officials of the King’s accounts, our Lord and Husband in Paris, whom we request and command to do this without delay.

Done at Versailles the first day of April One thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven”

Signed DS Ordering Payment for Swiss Guard’s Elite “Cent-Suisses”

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In 1770, Maria Antonia, the daughter of Habsburg ruler Maria Theresa and Holy Roman Emperor Francis I, married Louis-Auguste, the French dauphin, to strengthen the recent alliance between the two dynasties. Known at court as Marie Antoinette, she faced numerous challenges including the scandalous controversy surrounding the couple’s failure to consummate their marriage on their wedding night, the public opposition to the Habsburg alliance and her falling out of favor with King Louis XV’s powerful mistress Madame du Barry, whom Marie Antoinette, following the death of Louis XV, exiled from Versailles after becoming queen. In addition to failing to produce a male heir during the first seven years of her marriage, the young queen resisted court custom by wearing more comfortable clothing and installing her own favorites on whom she lavished gifts and generous paid positions despite the urging of her royal ministers to economize. “Marie Antoinette was hopelessly unprepared for the kind of criticism to which she opened herself by redesigning the royal identity,” (Citizen, Schama). In addition to the circulation of pornographic images of her and rumors of adulterous affairs, her reputation was further damaged by the scandalous Affair of the Diamond Necklace when a jeweler was defrauded of an extravagant diamond necklace purportedly purchased on the queen’s behalf. Although Marie Antoinette was a victim, the incident did much to turn public opinion against her, contributing to her reputation of indulging in luxuries at a time of hardship in France. To rehabilitate her public image the queen, in 1787, the year of our document, had a portrait painted by Madame Le Brun, Marie Antoinette and Her Children, depicting her as a mother of young children, wearing little jewelry and seated next to an empty cradle representing her recently deceased infant daughter. However, the queen continued to be a symbol of the monarchy’s excesses, epitomized by a phrase she likely never uttered “Let them eat cake,” first ascribed to her by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in 1782. Marie Antoinette was guillotined at the height of the French Revolution on October 16, 1793, less than a month after the beheading of her husband.

The Cent-Suisses was an elite infantry unit of the mercenary Swiss Guard that served the kings of France as part of the military household, beginning with Louis XI in 1471. In 1792, during the French Revolution, the Legislative Assembly dissolved the Cent-Suisses, inadvertently saving them from the fate of the larger Swiss Guard, which lost 500 men defending the royal family during the attack on the Tuileries Palace on August 10, 1792, which led to the monarchy’s abolition six weeks later. The Cent-Suisse was reestablished beginning with the Bourbon Restoration in 1814 and, once again, disbanded in 1830, during the July Revolution.

Above her signature, the queen has added the word “Payez [Pay].” Folded with some creasing and wear. Framed and unexamined out of the frame. Rare, especially with any reference to the Swiss Guard.

Signed DS Ordering Payment for Swiss Guard’s Elite “Cent-Suisses”