Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette (P.S.) (25 page)

Most of the family
of the King and his brothers, and the Comtesse d’Artois are rather ill. Following the King’s lead, they have all decided to be inoculated against the smallpox. And so I walk beautiful Marly almost alone, with only my attendants trailing along. Rousseau thought it good to be alone at times and that perhaps our natures bloomed most purely at such times.

It is hard to say even to myself what my nature is. I know that I am overjoyed in my soul that my dear mama is pleased with me. I can only be happy when she is pleased with me, and for the first time, I think this is a fault in my character. I should have the ability to be happy in myself, to be pleased with who I am. Not the Queen but who
I
am.

I am glad that I had nothing to do with the King’s decision to be inoculated in this hot season. While everything at Marly is verdant, we humans wilt in the heat, and I think it makes the body less resistant to serious illness. For three days, I have been truly worried about the King because of his high fever, but when the eruptions on his skin began, then the fever went down.

He will not be disfigured in any way, but he did have large pustules on his nose. It would have been comical had he felt less weak and sick, but he himself laughed at himself when looking in the glass. I am fortunate in his sense of humor. Also his wrists and chest showed eruptions, but the doctors lanced them at the base, and, thank God, I can write my mother that he is doing much better.

I am sorry to have to tell her that the late King’s strongbox was a disappointment. It held only fifty thousand francs—not enough to be any boost to the treasury worthy of note. They say that the extreme heat will hurt the grain harvests throughout the country, for those plants lack the deep roots of the trees, which are capable of reaching far down in the earth for water. Now that we are the monarchs, I almost feel responsible for the weather. I worry that the people hold us accountable for all features of their well-being.

From the hillside at Marly, I look down at the beautiful Seine winding its way toward Paris. The vista is incomparable. If I were to construct my own landscape, an artificial one, it would certainly include water. Not like the Grand Canal or the Swiss Lake at Versailles with their straight and regimented sides, but something with soft shores that bend in here and there, something sinuous like the shape of the Seine.

Here at Marly, my thoughts turn often to the Petit Trianon. After the death of Louis XV, we have wandered some six months—to be sure that Versailles is well aired from the pestilence—but soon I will return and claim that beautiful, natural place for myself and the friends I love most. Part of my promise to myself as Queen is to reward those who have been good to me, who have been pleasant company, and sympathized with my trials. I can do as I please now, and I shall have my friend the Princesse de Lamballe as the superintendent of my household, instead of the Comtesse de Noailles.

W
HEN
I
RETURN
to his bedroom, I present my convalescing husband with diverse flowers of the field, like those he gave me at Choisy. He smells them, and we ask for a vase, but while we wait, he falls asleep again.

I sit beside him and prepare to write a letter to my mama. I suppose had he died of the inoculation, I would be able to return to Vienna, but I am very glad he did not die. With the old King gone and Comtesse du Barry sent to a convent—it was the King who decided she should go there, not I—I feel larger, more free. This beautiful place, Fontainebleau, Compiègne, and all the others, are ours. It is not the châteaux but the beautiful trees and meadows and the sky above them that I love most. When I was a child in Austria, I did not properly appreciate nature, except for the mountains. Now it all seems beautiful to me, and I wish that I could embrace it.

“To whom do you write?” he suddenly asks me.

“To my mother, to tell her you are better.”

“She has been very affectionate to me, and I am grateful.”

I ask if he would like to append some such words to my letter, in his own hand.

Willingly, he sits up, propped with pillows, and takes the lap desk in hand. There is still a very large white pimple on the end of his nose, and I can see he has been scratching his wrists. He writes:

As my wife says, I am completely over the inoculation, my dear Mama, and I actually suffered very little. I would ask for your permission to kiss you if my face were cleaner.

T
O FURTHER ENTERTAIN
the King, I send for my Inoculation Pouf. Rather like a hat, this incredible concoction is to be worn high above my head, some thirty-six inches or so above my forehead. “Headpieces have grown so tall,” I tell the King, “that ladies must now kneel in their carriages to accommodate their new heights.”

His eyes glint with merriment. “And how does this pouf represent inoculation?”

“Here is an olive tree, and this is a snake wrapped around the trunk.”

“A garden of Eden?” he asks.

“But here the snake does not triumph. This is a club made of blossoms, and it will vanquish the snake. Science in the shape of the club conquers evil pestilence.”

“And will you really wear such an outrage on your majestic head?”

“With pride and dignity.”

The King looks skeptical. I kiss the end of my finger and plant the kiss on his nose, next to the white wart. “It is the style,” I say in a tone that cannot be challenged.

There have been
bread riots throughout the kingdom, including Paris—against which the King has sent troops to restore order. If Monsieur Turgot, the minister of finance, had his way, the coronation would not occur at the ancient site of Rheims, but in Paris. He says it will be less expensive there and also that the economy of Paris will flourish if people pour into the city for the event. The King thinks Rheims will add dignity and history to his ascension, and Rheims is farther away than Paris from troubled areas. It shocks me that the people riot just as we come to power, even in Paris which has shown such love for us.

I
HAVE A NEW DRESSMAKER
—Rose Bertin! She unpacks her trunks of dresses and hats as though she were unloading the costumes for the most sumptuous of plays. She will fashion my dress for the coronation, and I shall be simply encrusted in jewels.

When she comes to my apartment today, I ask Rose Bertin if she has in her employ the little seamstress named Marie Jeanne.

“Marie Jeanne de France?” she asks, her voice a river of energy.

“Yes.”

“She stole from me.”

At that moment, Rose Bertin throws open the lid of her trunk, and I behold such an array of baubles and feathers as I have scarcely seen before. Whose fingers would not itch to take up a pin shaped like an emerald bird or a unicorn all aglitter in diamonds, or a peacock feather with its velvety blue-green eye?

“What did she steal?” Surely the seamstress had no need to steal.

“A crust of bread.”

I am taken aback. “Real bread?” I ask.

“Such as only the rats would relish.”

“I am amazed. I know her family to be well fed.” I wonder if my contribution for their care has gone astray. I stammer, “They want for nothing.”

“She said it was for her neighbor.”

From the tray of her trunk, Rose lifts a pouf. To be worn atop a tower of hair, the pouf is a miniature stage, featuring the tomb of Eurydice, and beside it stands a miniature figure of Orpheus holding in one hand a flute with a shaft punctuated by tiny diamond keys and a lyre outlined in pearls in his other hand. I offer to swap my Inoculation Pouf, now out of style, for it, but she says firmly that we must start afresh.

“None of Monsieur Turgot’s ideas of thrift for us,” she says stoutly.

I have had only the tiniest impulse to economize, but my objection is a mere pebble easily tossed aside by the rushing torrent of her words. Rose is a genius of inventive design, and who am I to stand in her way? I adore her.

“It is such a shame,” Rose suddenly says, “that your dress for the coronation shall arrive crumpled.”

“Crumpled?” I am horrified. “I arranged that it be carried on its own stretcher all the way to Rheims.”

“But at what cost?” Rose asks.

“Twelve louis,” I reply.

“The Dame d’Atours, the Duchesse de Cosse, has refused to sanction the cost.”

“It is unthinkable that my dress be packed in the ordinary way,” I reply. I am aghast that an underling would refuse an expenditure, but I can see by the expression in her eyes that Rose has a solution to the problem.

“Exactly,” she replies. “I myself will arrange for its transport.”

“Folded into a trunk?” I feel anxious.

Rose snorts, “On a stretcher, made especially to accommodate its dimensions.”

“May I ask the expenditure?”

“Of course it is much more for a private citizen than for a representative of the royal family.” Her eye is positively twinkling.

“How much?”

“Ah, forty or fifty louis will be my charge,” Rose replies.

“Let it be done, and say nothing more to me about it. Not folded,” I remind her. “On the special stretcher. Well guarded.”

Like Catherine de Médicis,
in 1547, for the crowning of Henri II, I am to be a mere spectator of my husband’s coronation. The French scarcely know what role a queen should play; the last three kings, Louis XV, Louis XIV, and even Louis XIII, were too young to have been married at the time of their coronations. Well, I have been compared to Catherine de Médicis before in my ability to sit a horse at a gallop.

If Count Mercy had his way, I would be crowned Queen as Louis Auguste is crowned King, but I do not think he will have his way in this, and I don’t care, one way or the other. Crowned or not, I am myself, and it is the love of the people that buoys me up and lends radiance to my presence.

On 5 June 1775, the King and I leave Versailles for Compiègne, where we rest for two days. Our progress to this, the King’s favorite retreat, has been along roads lined with spectators; in every village and hamlet, the bells sing out in celebration. We are grateful that there is no trace of discontent or rioting. Only at one spot, when our coach swings around a bend in the road, we see a lone man standing there. Sunburnt and gaunt, he faces us—his mouth wide open. With a single finger he points into the little cave of his empty mouth.

“Hunger,” the King interprets quietly, just to me.

Then the King comfortingly squeezes my hand, which suddenly feels very white and plump.

A
T
C
OMPIÈGNE
, the King comes to my bed to talk. He speaks of the importance of the ceremony, for it is the meeting of church and state. He speaks of the divine right to rule, and how with the anointing of his body with the holy oil, before the noble assemblage, he prays that strength and wisdom will come to him.

I remind him of the strength he has already displayed in standing up to the people, even when they marched to Versailles, protesting the price and the quality of the bread they were offered.

“When some of the bread was examined, it appeared to be green and black with mold,” he says, “but it was found to be a fraud. The bread was painted.”

I am shocked by this piece of information, and I tell him that my mother wrote to me praising his conduct and suspecting that conspiracy was at the base of the uprisings.

“Some of those arrested, who claimed they were starving and penniless, were found to have sacks of gold on their persons,” he continues. His eyes look wounded and troubled. An honest man himself, he does not know how to understand deceit.

I tell the King that I hope the flour riots have not been widespread.

Sitting beside me, without his wig, he runs his fingers through his natural hair, as though he would like to pull it out. I have never seen him so worried and distraught, and I remind him that Turgot, as well as my mother, has had nothing but words of praise for his conduct during La Guerre des Farines.

Swiftly, he summarizes the disturbances of the Flour Wars. “Of course the winter beginning 1775 was the coldest on record—”

I think of my sleigh rides with my brothers-in-law, how we were bedecked in furs, how the golden bells jingled on the harnesses of the horses, my enormous fur headdresses, and the giddy laughter, while all the time, the King worried about the people.

“By spring, there was almost no grain left for the making of bread. The harvest of 1774 had been a total disaster, and then the extreme cold…. In the early spring, in March, disturbances occurred at Meaux, Lagny, Montlhéry, and Pont-sur-Seine. By the next month, even more desperate demonstrations occurred at Dijon.”

I am shocked by the number of places involved—one, two, three, four, five—I count their names on my fingers.

The King continues, “In the last days of April, the unrest reached Beaumont-sur-Oise, and then Méru and Beauvais. Pontoise is a major supplier of grain to Paris, and the eruptions were there on the twenty-ninth of April, and by May Day, in Saint-Germain and Saint-Denis.”

It is a list of sobering length. Eleven locations of discontent.

I shudder at the thought of rioters at Saint-Denis where the smallpox-ravaged body of Louis XV and of so many royal ancestors lie entombed.

“It was only 2 May—remember, I was about to go hunting—when they arrived at the gates of Versailles.”

“And you organized the Swiss Guard, and the crowd was dispersed.” I smile at him encouragingly, sit more upright, and press my back into a stack of feather pillows.
Twelve.

“What worries me most is that the police in Paris did nothing to quell the riots.”

Twelve, did I count twelve? “But the coronation will not be in Paris,” I remind him. “We go to Rheims, as is prudent not only in terms of safety but also according to tradition, and what everyone expects.”

“Perhaps having the coronation, as Turgot suggested, in Paris would have led to a prosperity there that would have settled the nerves of the people.”

I lean forward and touch his elbow. “The winter is past. Already gardens are beginning to promise a good yield.” I know little of agriculture, but it does no good for the King to show the people a tense or worried face. Of this I am sure. I add, “And the lieutenant de police has been dismissed and replaced in Paris.”

“It is orchestration of unrest that I fear.” He stares into the room, focusing on nothing. He continues, “After Versailles, Paris was pillaged two days later.” He slowly shakes his head in disbelief at the enormity of the outrage. “Four or five hundred people, armed with sticks, broke into the bakers’ shops all over Paris from three in the morning till three in the afternoon.”

“But you acted exactly as a king should act. You stood firm.”

“I am twenty years old.” He pivots his body to look me squarely in the eye. “I rely on my ministers while I try to grasp the root of the problem. Let me recite to you what Veri wrote to Turgot: ‘Keep your master firm, for the happiness of his life. A King who yields to a mob will find no rest except in his tomb. Even if it has been a mistake to set up free trade for corn, the sedition perpetrated in the name of famine must be resisted. Only after a show of force can the King do the right thing toward helping the people—from his own position of power.’”

“I think that is well said,” I reply. “We have come to Compiègne to rest.” Certainly, the King is in no mood for even a bit of cuddling. It would be wise for him to return to his own bed and let me refresh myself in sleep as well.

“Yes, but if we insist on limiting the privileges of the nobles, from what base do we draw our strength?”

“The nobles are happy. You have reinstituted the old Parlements, as they wished. You have restored their power. You have undone the work of your grandfather and of the du Barry.”

“The du Barry,” he says, rising. “How small a problem she was, after all.”

“My mother has criticized me for sending her away.”

“But my grandfather sent her from his deathbed and from the château, and it was my decision that she should live in a convent for a while—my decision, not yours. The trick is how to keep the nobles happy while responding to the needs of the people. The du Barry’s stay in the convent is short; she will return to luxury—to her lovely château at Louveciennes—if not power. Neither you nor I intend to abuse our powers.”

“I have thought already of what I wish to say to those who have crossed us in the past.”

“What is that, my dove?”

“I shall say, ‘The Queen does not remember the quarrels of the Dauphine.’”

Hearing my remark, the King strides to my bed, bends down, and kisses me on the forehead. He squares his shoulders, replaces his wig, and walks out confidently, as though he is, indeed, ready to rule. He intends to be a monarch governed by a sense of goodness and justice.

In the morning, the King will leave early, but I will linger and rest until eight in the evening to be escorted by my brothers-in-law.