Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette (P.S.) (17 page)

Neither the Dauphin nor the count acknowledges my addendum. My sentence sinks like a stone in deep water. My husband is unperturbed because he knows that no resolution has real efficacy at this court. My advisor is unconcerned because he believes he can always bring me round again to reason.

At this moment the King himself appears. He has come to thank me. All bow to him, but he comes straight to me. He kisses me simply, on each cheek, but with a tenderness I have never felt before. “All day,” he says, “I have watched you or heard loving reports of you, for you are the angel of this house. When you smile and greet us, every heart is lifted, and you give us the courage to look to the future.”

No one could behave with more kindness and courtesy than the King now bestows on me. The Empress and Count Mercy have been correct in interpreting the King’s wish that I acknowledge his Favorite, and I have been in error. I am gratified by his increased attentions to me. It was my mother’s parting wish that the French, from King to peasant, should regard my presence in just those terms so cordially employed by Papa-Roi.

I glance once again at Count Mercy, stylishly and perfectly dressed in blue and silver, his wig powdered to perfection, to acknowledge the wisdom of his counsel. There is no sign of gloating in his countenance. He is impeccable.

 

I am not asking too much of you when I demand that you speak in a natural way four or five times a year to the Favorite. If you do so, you will feel more comfortable with the King, and you will want to talk with him and keep him company beyond a mere graceful greeting. You will feel more at ease because, having followed his wish and my own in speaking periodically to the Favorite, you will have no feeling of guilt (which always inhibits us in natural expressions) or fear of implicit reproach for neglectful or rude behavior.

My dear daughter, I advise you to recall all my love for you and keep this point in mind: don’t ever say to others or to yourself that I am scolding you or that I am preaching to you. Instead, you must say, “Mama loves me. Mama is forever concerned for my welfare. Therefore I must take to heart what she tells me because I know it will console her for our separation if I follow her good advice.”

 

My dear mama! How many times she has launched her ships, freighted with criticism, under the flag of love. Will I ever sail under my own insignia?

 

I am more faithful than ever to my dear harp, and many people say I am making good progress. I sing every week at a small concert given in the apartment of the Comtesse de Provence. I spend less time with the aunts and very much enjoy romping with my own young set. You would have laughed to see us trying to pack our trunks for a trip. Josephine of Savoy was behind a wall of baggage, trying to write a letter and consulting us about its contents, while I ran about like a dervish knocking things over as soon as they were packed, and while my brother Provence was singing, Artois was telling the same story ten times over, and the Dauphin was loudly reading a tragedy with mock solemnity.

On a more sober note, while the King is tranquil, the nobles have banded together to write an impertinent letter to him. On the bad advice of the du Barry, the King suspended the Parlement whose main function here is to make judicial decisions, and the King has proceeded to set up other courts, saying the old parlements were too slow and corrupt to serve the people. Of course the nobles care only for protecting their own interests and nothing for the welfare of the people who can scarcely buy the flour to bake their bread, but our faction believes that the King must not alienate the powerful Princes of the Blood. In some provinces rebellions have even arisen, and people begin to speak of Flour Wars.

Last Thursday, as part of Carnival, the young people, including the Dauphin—though people had thought he would be opposed to such an outing—went to the Opera Ball in Paris! All the women, but few of the men, wore masks, long dominoes that covered our faces, and everyone was cloaked in black. The well-illuminated room was immense. All classes of society mingled together and were equalized by the uniformity of our costumes and the masks. Everyone danced in unison to the rhythm of the music—a black sea of people. You cannot imagine how exciting it was.

For a while no one knew who we were, and I talked with many people as though I were just anyone and said, unguardedly, whatever I pleased, and danced with everyone, till in about half an hour, we were recognized. It was
très amusant.
Then the Duc de Chartres and his friends, who were dancing just next door at the Palais-Royal, happened to come in and begged us to go to the Palais-Royal and greet the Duchesse de Chartres, but I felt I must beg off for my sake and that of M. le Dauphin, for we had obtained permission from the King to visit only the Opera Ball.

We returned at seven in the morning, promptly attended Mass, and then went to bed for the day.

But now that I see the vast gaiety of Paris, I am determined to return as soon as possible. It is a city of some 600,000 people, much larger than Vienna, and really the capital of Europe, if you will pardon me for saying so. I am forever grateful to my dear mama for placing me in this position, when I who am the last of your daughters have been positioned as though I were the first. Again, we hear that the Comte d’Artois will marry either Mlle de Conde or the Princess of Savoy, the sister of the Comtesse de Provence. Mercy thinks that’s rather too much of Savoy.

The King arranged for Monsieur le Dauphin and me to speak frankly about our physical beings to Lassone, the physician. The Dauphin spoke without embarrassment, and he was also examined by the physician and found to be well formed and of good parts. Lassone has reported to the King that the only problem is that we are awkward and ignorant, and for a few nights the Dauphin acted more forthrightly toward me. While eating no meat during Lent does not make me sick, it does disgust me, and the Dauphin has become ill with a fever and a sore throat. His illness made him less forward again, and progress is again delayed. There is a rumor that Monsieur le Dauphin is now truly my husband, but it is not true. The valets, who always gossip and report everything to everyone—even the king of Spain, through his spies here, knows what happens in our bed—have seen stains from certain emissions on the bed linens, but Monsieur le Dauphin has told me that at the crucial moment, entry is painful for him, and the fluids are deposited only at the threshold and not within. So there is no chance that I am pregnant, I believe.

Were I so lucky as to have a son, you may be sure that I would solicit the advice of my dear mama on every feature of his education.

Once the Dauphin and I are able to arrange for our official entry to Paris, you may be sure that our lives, especially mine, will become much happier. This time I saw nothing but the interior of the ballroom. It could have been anywhere—the place, I mean, but not the excitement, certainly not that! Paris herself awaits me! I will have my will in this. Versailles is a nunnery—for me—and I will be uncloistered. Fear not, it shall all be handled with utmost tact.

 

The year 1773
has been marked by many small moments of private sadness; I am seventeen in November and still a virgin. I have lived in France for three years, and still the King has not given permission to the Dauphin for our official entry to Paris. Because the King is more unpopular with the people as every day passes, the Dauphin has confided, the King does not want to send us to Paris till we are older. Were it not impertinent, I would remind them both that to me the people have shown nothing but love. In Strasbourg, flowers were strewn in my path, and the fountains flowed with wine.

On this rainy spring day, I walk from window to window in the great long Hall of Mirrors and look out mournfully at the gardens. Their stiff elegance seems like a mockery of life. The trees, small and large, have been so closely clipped that their branches and leaves never stir in the breezes. Life? I am seventeen! Where is life to be found?

I feel locked in at Versailles. Visits to the other châteaux are but duplications of life here, though with different palaces and grounds. All of them are grand, in varying degrees, and all of them are isolated by a surrounding countryside of forest, fields, meadows. At Marly, I looked down at the lovely Seine river and thought of how, at no very great distance, it was flowing through Paris. I pictured graceful bridges, with people crossing freely back and forth in the most fashionable spring clothes.

The Danube, which I have not seen for three years—it too will be thawed now and flowing gracefully through Vienna. Here at Versailles, I watch the gray raindrops dimple the surfaces of the water parterres. The recumbent figure of Neptune, holding his trident, rules over the tiniest of ripples that move over the surface of the water in the slight breeze.

“Neptune has always been one of my favorite statues,” a voice says behind me. It is the King.

I curtsy. “On a rainy day, the Hall of Mirrors is a lovely place for a stroll, Your Majesty.”

“I like it best when you call me Papa-Roi,” he replies. “Because of the rain, the hall is almost empty of the usual supplicants from Paris. And the court is enjoying afternoon gambling.” With his hands clasped behind him, the King stands majestically beside me and regards the gray day.

“When it rained, the Empress always liked a small fire,” I say, “even in summer. She said rain made her want to write letters to those she loved who were far away.” His golden brocade sleeve stirs beside me, and he brings his hands together, over his stomach. With his fingertips, he twists a ruby ring on his other hand.

“Tell me, Toinette, if you were a mermaid and you were to ask Father Neptune for a wish, what would it be?”

When I turn to look at him, I see the King’s eyes are luminous with knowing. He is fond of me. No matter how tardy the Dauphin is in responding to my charms, the King will never send me back to Austria.

“I would say, if I had permission, I would swim down the river Seine, I would come to a fair city, the fairest in your watery kingdom. May I and my husband visit Paris?”

“Granted,” the King replies. “Now you must smile at me and dispel the gloom that should never visit the fairest brow I know.”

E
LEVEN-THIRTY
in the morning of a brilliantly sunny day, the trumpets blast a fanfare, three cannon fire salutations—from the Invalides, the Hôtel de Ville, and the Bastille—and the Dauphin and I arrive at the gates of Paris. For the hour and a half that it has taken to drive by carriage from Versailles to Paris, we have seen nothing but the road and then the city streets lined with happy people, waving their hats and flags and tossing flowers at our windows as we pass. We have waved in return, and I am reminded of my entry into France, at the town of Strasbourg, but this arrival is twice as glorious, for I am with my husband.

Here is the governor of the city presenting its symbolic silver keys on a silk pillow, and the lieutenant of police, and the chief of the merchants of the city, and the market women, dressed in their best, presenting trays of fruits and flowers. After I take a bouquet of daisies and hand it to my lady-in-waiting, I cradle two pears in the palms of my hands, and the Dauphin holds aloft a long cucumber to be placed in the carriage, the rest to be distributed among our retinue.

The fishwives are full of glee at the Dauphin’s cucumber. “Make us a child!” they shout. They cock their arms at the elbow, thrust their fists and sinewy arms up into the air and call “Give it to her; she’s a pretty woman.” Both the Dauphin and I laugh heartily, for they mean no harm.

“When yours is like this, Monseigneur,” they shout, pumping their forearms, “you will give us a tribe of heirs.”

Our carriage winds its way through the streets of the city, sometimes beside the Seine river, where hundreds, no thousands of people have gathered to see us pass and to smile and wave at us. The size of the city, the enthusiasm of the populace make our hearts swell with joy. Triumphal arches have been erected at intervals, but my heart leaps highest to see the twin towers of the Cathédrale de Notre-Dame rising from the midst of the Seine on the Île de la Cité. I saw an engraving of them when I was only a girl, in Vienna, and someone explained that they were left square, the intended spires never having been erected. Now, not tiny ink lines but the monumental edifice itself rises above the trees.

We pass over the Pont Neuf, that ancient bridge with the stone statue of good Henri IV, and into the throng of people massed in front of the high arched doors. I raise my eyes to the long outward-extended bodies of the high gargoyles mounted near the top of the
cathédrale
. When I speak lightly of demons, I think of nothing so sinister as these medieval realities, but now we are walking rapidly past the throngs of cheering people, and my ears are ringing with their glad greetings. A carpet has been spread for our feet, lest the paving stones bruise our heels.

Inside the enormous Notre-Dame de Paris, a solemn Mass begins. The aroma of the incense, the sight of the slow smoke rising and coiling ever higher, fills me with reverence. As the Mass is celebrated and we hear the solemn Latin words, I thank God in French and in German that he has made me acceptable to the people of my new country and for the joy all of us share in meeting on this day. Surely the little boy sopranos are not mortal children, but angels selected for the purity of their voices.

When we emerge past the carved saints that flank the door, the people are still there, and they call out their blessings. The Dauphin squeezes my elbow affectionately, extravagantly pleased with the acclaim and joyful goodwill expressed on every side. At one point, he whispers in my ear, “The future, the future! All this bodes well for our future.”

Never has the sun shone with more cheerful radiance than on this June day! Both the Dauphin and I are dressed in gleaming white satin. We move like mirrors reflecting the light from our clothing onto the faces of the people. This is what it means to be loved and to love in return.

Slowly we progress by carriage to the palace of the Tuileries—where sometimes kings have dwelt—and therein to a lavish dinner. While the Dauphin eats with his usual good appetite, I can only savor a tidbit of meat here, and a few nuts there, some spoonfuls of soup. “How your eyes are glowing,” the Dauphin whispers to me, and we agree to appear before the people yet again, on the terrace.

To my amazement, the greatest throng of people of all has had time to assemble in this one place while we dined. A mighty roar of love is lifted as soon as we appear—“
Mon Dieu
, how many of them there are!” I exclaim—and I cannot help but smile and wave, and then the second roar is even greater in their joy at our acknowledgment. Our civic hosts crowd about us, and the governor of Paris says that he hopes my husband will not take it amiss that two hundred thousand people are ecstatically in love with me.

“How could I blame them?” he replies with graceful aplomb. “They would be remiss if they did not fall in love with my wife.”

To be yet closer to the people, we decide to go down from the terrace into the gardens of the Tuileries, and when we step forward, the people swarm past the barriers of the police toward us. “Let no one be harmed—no one,” both the Dauphin and I say simultaneously to the chief of police who passes the order to his lieutenants.

For almost an hour we stand smiling and nodding, moving neither forward nor backward, but when we are both weary and take a single step back toward the stairs, and the police loudly but pleasantly shout that it is our will to depart, the crowd opens its ranks with utmost courtesy and alacrity. As we retreat inside the Tuileries, still we wave and smile, though my face is tired with smiling. My heart is brimful of a medley of feelings: love, happiness, triumph, and not at all the least of my emotions—gratitude to the innumerable citizens of Paris.

R
IDING BACK
to Versailles, neither the Dauphin nor I can speak. We are exhausted, but our spirits and memories are suffused with gratitude—we both speak of it, over and over—for the love the people have shown us. Their roars of love become the universe. Our attendants are amazed at the magnitude of our triumph and full of awe.

Along the route, many people have waited throughout the day and into the night, hoping to see our return, and occasionally we open the curtain at the window and smile and wave again, but we are too tired to continue our acknowledgments for more than a few minutes at a time. The Dauphin and I hold hands and nestle against each other.

A
T THE CHÂTEAU
, as soon as I alight from the carriage, Count Mercy tenderly congratulates me and tells me that every soul who saw me is under an enchantment. Messengers have brought the news ahead of our arrival.

Quite privately he whispers that the popularity shown us is in inverse proportion to the esteem held for the aging King, whose life of debauchery has appalled everyone.

“Your youth, beauty, and innocence promise a new age,” he explains. Count Mercy has barely time to instruct me. “Here at the château, express your delight at your Parisian welcome with your usual gracious tact.”

When we are brought to the King, I say with humility, “Sire, Your Majesty must be very greatly loved by the Parisians, for they have feted us well.”