Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette (P.S.) (44 page)

From the parish
church named Notre Dame, here in the town of Versailles, at the head of the Procession of the Deputies of the Estates General, the King and I follow the canopy hovering over the Blessed Sacrament. The members of the three estates—nobility, clergy, and commoners—each walk with their own groups. Slowly, we cross the Place d’Armes. The King and I turn our heads toward the window in one of the royal stables for the Dauphin to see us pass. Yes! There he is, his tiny, frail body propped up on a great pile of cushions. How bravely he smiles at us, his parents, as we pass by below! He is a noble child. Tears try to flood my eyes, but I must be as brave as he is, only age eight. It is his spirit that is noble, a fact of much greater importance than any social position can convey.

If these people aspire to nobility, let them practice courage and compassion. A little child could lead them.

Having passed his station, I fasten my eyes again on the sacrament as it leads the way from the local church of Notre Dame to the Church of Saint-Louis. Every window is filled with spectators and lining the streets are vast crowds, who sometimes cheer. Often, when they see me, a dark silence falls. I lift my head higher. It is a dazzlingly sunny day. No one here has ever witnessed such an historic event: the Estates General will convene tomorrow, here in the town of Versailles. We are right to entreat God’s guidance—all of us, today. Some of these deputies have disavowed God or renamed him simply as the Supreme Being, who cares little for the fate of humans. I do not believe that.

E
ARLIER WE SAT
for a moment with the Dauphin, who sometimes struggles to breathe. His spine has become quite crooked, and he can hardly stand erect. Some of the vertebrae jut out. He has become embarrassed by his hunchback appearance and does not like to be seen unless he can trust in the love of his visitor.

“Your dress is very beautiful,” the Dauphin said to me quietly, and I was glad that he took pleasure in the splendor of my wide court dress, made of silver cloth all ashimmer wherever the light touches it. The King is dressed in cloth of gold studded with brilliants; he sparkles all over, as though touched by a magic wand, with diamond buttons and shoe buckles, carrying a diamond sword, and decorated by the order of the Golden Fleece and the Order of Saint-Ésprit. He wears the enormous diamond known as the Regent, and my hair is ornamented with the flawless and starlike diamond named the Sancy.

“My papa must be the King of Enchantment as well as of France,” the Dauphin said.

Then he began to cough, and I could see a flush of feverish red cross his face. Gallantly, he calmed his heaving and managed to ask, “Is light more silvery or gold?”

I gasped and said, “My darling, I asked the same question when I rode many days across Europe inside the regal coaches to meet your father.”

A
S I WALK
forward in the procession, someone steps before me and shouts in my face, “
Vive le Duc d’Orléans!
” The insult causes me to stumble, such an insult, almost an assault on my dignity. I regain my balance.

Yes, to ingratiate himself with the people, the King’s cousin opposes the compromises the King would institute between the old regime and the new demands of the citizens. I am sorry that the whole branch of the family has not been consigned to and kept in exile. D’Orléans does not march in his proper place as a Prince of the Blood but establishes his preference for those who lack nobility by walking with them. Should there be a revolt, d’Orléans wants the people to count him as a friend. The cries of the people make me feel as though I may faint, but I lift my chin.

A
T THE
C
HURCH
of Saint-Louis, the bishop sermonizes about the riches of the nobility in contrast to the poverty of the people. I watch the eyelids of the King half-hood his eyes. Then they completely close. So it is with him. He escapes into sleep, when he cannot hunt in the countryside. I can only hope that he does not snore.

At the end of the sermon, the King is awakened by the applause. In the old days, we were taught it was disrespectful to applaud when the Blessed Sacrament was uncovered. These are a people lacking in manners, cruel and wild.

Here in the Church of Saint-Louis I vow, always, to treat the people of France with civility, in the hope that it will be returned to me and my family. Perhaps such a hope is to be pitied.

A
T THE OPENING
of the assembly of the Estates, 4 May, the King stands in his majestic robes, sparkling with jewels. He invites me to be seated, but I curtsy and continue to stand. From his high throne, just as he begins to speak, a shaft of sunlight enters through a gap in the curtains and shines on his face like the approval of God. I wish the Dauphin were well enough to see his father so blessed by heaven.

When the noblemen are seated, they don their hats, as is their habit to do in the presence of the king, as a sign of their own privileges; it has been so from ancient times. All of the plumes sweeping up together make me wonder if they are not like the cresting foam of an ocean wave, as the King has described to me. I wish my children could visit the ocean, where they say the salt breezes are restorative to the lungs.

Standing on the royal dais, splendid in my clothes, violet and white, I know that I cannot help but look sad: I fear the Dauphin is dying. I am glad that we have moved him to Meudon, overlooking the Seine river from the highlands not far from Sèvres, where the air is noted for its purity. As a boy, the King was once taken to Meudon to recover, but the health of the Dauphin does not improve.

The King’s speech goes well, after having been rehearsed last night over and over. He speaks of the financial crises as mainly a result of our expenditure in the American war of independence from England. He calls it “an exorbitant but honorable war.” And now it has been won. His voice is firm.

I but half listen to the interminable speech of Necker, even though it is through my own advice that he has been restored as minister of finance. My alarm grows as it becomes clear that he has nothing of substance to say, not even on the issue of how the Estates will be allowed to vote.

My thoughts drift to the Dauphin. I think of my young son’s great tenderness to me, and how when he asked me to eat my favorite dinner with him in his room, I swallowed more tears than bread. For all his frail condition, I rejoice to have given birth to such a child.

I recall how when he wanted to be carried out into the garden—so like his mother—he asked not to be carried by a certain valet, “for he always hurts me.” When someone told him that the valet does all he can to ease him and that his feelings would be hurt if his services were declined, the Dauphin replied, “Ring at once, then; I would rather suffer a little than cause any pain to this worthy man.”

Mature beyond his years, the child is a saint of patience, and as I sit in this public place listening to political speeches, I swallow and swallow the tears that run down the inside of my throat, for I will not let them see me weep, lest they think they have some power over me.

It is after
midnight, and my child has just died. I look at his tortured body and am glad his spirit is with God. 4 June 1789.

At the same time, my heart is broken.

I run to the window, throw it open to the darkness, look down into the neglected garden. The redolent aroma of honeysuckle, roses, jasmine, all in decay, floods into the room.

17 June

I am told
that the Third Estate, representing, they claim, 96 percent of the nation, has broken off from the Estates General to form a new group, the National Assembly, the voice of the commoners. Each time an advisory body is formed and dissolved—the Assembly of Notables, the Estates General, the National Assembly—we lose power.

Who has the power? It is a man once named Comte Mirabeau, now known usually as Mirabeau. Though he is said to be anything but beautiful, his presence represents a kind of miracle. Gigantic in size, he became an outcast from his own noble family. He was a seducer of countless women, despite his hideous pockmarked face, and his own father had him imprisoned for three years for having run off with a woman. When the famines and hardships came to Provence, he made himself a spokesman for the common folk of the Third Estate and was elected their representative. “Woe to the privileged orders,” he is quoted as saying, “for privileges will cease, but the People are eternal.” He both inflames the people and pacifies them. He claims to respect the monarchy while moving France toward the republicanism of England. His hair towers above his steep forehead like a thundercloud, and on his back the great snarl of hair is caught up in a black bag, they say.

Mirabeau himself is said to be the author of his own promotional pamphlet, which the King gave me to read:

 

The good citizen
[meaning himself]
is the greatest orator of his time; his mighty voice dominates any public meeting as thunder subjugates the roaring sound of the sea; his courage astonishes all who hear him, and his strength affirms that no human power could cause him to abandon his ideals or principles.

 

We tremble at the name of Mirabeau. With their tears, the women and children of France bathe his hands, his clothing, even the footprints he leaves in the dirt.

He is not only feared, but loved. But so are we—still loved—to some extent.

20 June

Locked out of their meeting room, the commoners meet on the tennis courts of Versailles and swear an oath to their cause. I wish I’d ordered the courts plowed up and planted in roses.

We have choices: to stand against them or to capitulate.

After I consider how to rouse the King, I take my two children—two, only two are left us—by their hands to speak to their father. I find the King in his chamber.

“Hold him in your arms,” I say, pushing the new Dauphin in all his robust health into his father’s arms.

“Embrace your father,” I say to Marie Thérèse.

“Protect her,” I tell him. “Do not allow the monarchy to become the ghost of itself. Your brothers and the nobles will stand by you.”

The King kisses his children, and he opens his arms to me.

“Never doubt my love for my family,” he says. “But I must decide the best course, and that course is not clear. Necker advises us to compromise with the Third Estate. Take the children away now, my dear. Necker thinks that at bottom, the Third Estate loves us. They will support us in reforms that will control the irresponsibility of the nobility and the clergy. We must not be hasty. I will consider the future.”

I do as I am bid, but I have witnessed the vascillation of the King too many times. I have little hope.

24 June

A majority of the clergy have gone over to the position of the Third Estate, calling for a new constitution to be drawn up. Mirabeau has spread the word that the wealthy clergy, unless they leave their station to join the people, do not represent the humble pastors who do serve the people; instead, like the nobility, the privileged clergy are parasites. Such clergymen must become civil servants, agents of literacy for the poor. They must nurse the sick and shelter the dying.

25 June

Many of the nobility have agreed to support the Third Estate; among them is the King’s cousin the Duc d’Orléans. They betray their own social class but even more the monarchy by giving these rowdies their support.

I would like for us to leave Versailles, to go to Compiègne, but we would not be safe on the roads. And if we left, we might be leaving all our power behind. Count Mercy says that we have all lost our heads, while the danger of famine, bankruptcy, and civil war is imminent.

27 June

There are still good hearts in France. To be loyal to the King and to the royal family is to be loyal to the country they love. When they see that we are a family, even as they too are members of a family, then their hearts are touched. Though I can no longer command their love as an enchanting princess, they can love me as the mother of France, just as my mother, with her fifteen births, became the mother of Austria. Are these ideas true?

Yes, the King is truly the embodiment of the people. When I showed him his children, he became a man again, firm in his manhood. When the deputies came to call upon me, I greeted them as I held the hand of the new Dauphin. They were charmed, and their hearts filled with loyalty. Louis Charles represents their children and the future of their children.

Surely it was because they loved him that the representatives of the Third Estate insisted they be allowed to sprinkle holy water on the little silver coffin of Louis Joseph. When they stood around the coffin, some of them remarked on the presence of a great, bright light; others felt that they had glimpsed in their little leader the radiance of God.

“We will stand with you on the balcony,” I tell my husband, “so that the people will see you with your family. At the same time you might wish to affirm that concessions
à la
Necker will be made. Because this is a new era, perhaps you should say you will allow all three of the Estates to meet together. We do not hold any longer to the traditions of 1614.”

I tell myself before we step out on the balcony, our stage, that we must make the entrance as though we will all live forever. Though he is not so tall as Mirabeau, they say, the size of the King will help to establish his grandeur. The innocence of the children and their utter vulnerability will make the people feel that they are our lawful protectors, not our adversaries. I will show my joy that they have come to visit us.

“These are our people, whom we love,” I say and smile at my family.

Yes, the King goes first, and the crowd roars with approval: their King is yet among them: they have not lost their souls by questioning our authority. Quickly, holding the hands of the children, we step beside him, and I radiate love as they cheer us. These are the commoners, the people whom Louis XV identified as united with the person of the monarch. But sometimes they hate us. Spontaneously, I bend and lift my son into my arms. I hold him up so that they may see him better, above the railing of the balcony. Here is the future!
We have no fear in showing our only remaining son to the people. We trust in your love. We show you what love is like: we share ourselves, even our most precious and innocent member, with you because we are one with you.

Their demonstrations of affection—applause, shouting, cheering—continue and continue. They are at a visual feast, and we cannot deny them the pleasure of looking at us, on the balcony of Versailles, our official home, and the seat of their government, the locus of the glory of the nation, from the time of Louis XIV to this day. Our authority is that of a loving father.

If there is a scale whose swinging arm represents the favor of the people, Mirabeau, that gigantic count who left his origins to lead the commoners, stands in one pan of the scale. He is weighty; people say his clothing must strain to cover his great bulk; he has an enormous head, and hair that stands all around like the mane of a lion. People never tire of painting his portrait in words. Some say his face resembles the snarl of a tiger. Mirabeau, the defector from the nobility, speaks endlessly, without notes, in a stentorian voice. Germaine de Staël, the daughter of our Necker, has said that it is impossible not to be entranced by Mirabeau’s eloquence; she pays him this tribute even while he vilifies her father, Necker, our minister of finance.

But the eye is mightier than the ear.

The memory of what is viewed outlasts the memory of what is heard. And here in this courtyard and on beyond to the larger one, and even beyond to the widest courtyard stand far more people, enraptured, than those who listen to debates of the Third Estate and the speeches of Mirabeau.

In the other pan of the scales that weigh the loyalty of the people stand we, the royal family, the emblem of the people, a family that is the archetype of all families: a powerful husband, a charming wife, a son, a daughter. Together, as a family and the emblem of the very identity of France, we stand on the balcony of Versailles for a length of time greater than when Mirabeau enthralled their representatives by advocating actions that presage revolution.

Sometimes I put down the Dauphin, and then when I lift him aloft again, again the people roar with pleasure. Like music, I create a rhythm to their enthusiasm by setting him down and lifting him up again. Mirabeau only spoke to their representatives; we are viewed and approved by the people themselves.

Finally, finally, we wave good-bye.

Now they understand better who we are.

Now they have demonstrated their own goodwill.

Yet, tomorrow I know they may wish to imprison us, or worse. Their addiction is to intensity, be it love or hate.

W
E COME INSIDE.
I kiss my children and thank them for playing their parts so well.

“Your beauty, your charm, your smiles and pleasantness,” I tell them, “have contributed to the peace and future happiness of France. Always, always, you must show the people that your hearts are full of love. Even though you are small, in their own minds, they are your children. If you forever show them the trust and the abundance of your affection, then, like a mirror, they will reflect it back to you.”

Now for the King, I must show no fatigue, no weakness, no vacillation in my deepest principles. “Now we have said what we had to say”—I smile—“without uttering a word.” I reassure him. He gazes at me with loving gratitude. He is reliving the cheers of the people as we stood on the balcony together over the Marble Courtyard. “They were packed so close together,” I observe, “that I could not see the light and dark squares of the marble below their feet.”

No sooner have I spoken than I am shocked at my statement. Of what use is the fleeting visual picture of feet obscuring a pattern of marble? I have let down my guard. Quickly, I add, “Now having presented the vision they wished and needed to see, we must act in the way that we need to act.”

The King nods.

“And the Maréchal de Broglie?” I ask him. Our new minister of war is very old.

“Even in his advanced age, he shows a spirit of resolve, and of great resourcefulness.”

“Yes.” I pause and smile at my husband. “And how many troops does he promise?”

“Thirty thousand.”

“And where will they be located?” I smile again.

“On the outskirts of Paris.”

I reach out my hand to the King. I want him to feel the warmth of my small hand in his large one, and the trust that I have in him. “And by what date will the troops be in place?” I ask.

“His promise is for July thirteenth.”

A
LTHOUGH THE
K
ING
and I are convinced that a show of force is necessary, I continue to exhibit a relaxed and cheerful mien. I believe in our strength, and that we will show the people that the age of aristocracy is not over. We are not the British, nor the Americans, though Lafayette would offer them a constitution on the American model. As God is the King of the Universe, so it is that Kings assure the order of their countries. As the angels are arranged in ranks around the throne of God, so must the sectors of society be arranged by their rank. It is a divine plan, and it is our sacred duty to uphold it, lest the chaos of hell spread over the land.

One evening as we sip chocolate with our friends—they are all here—Fersen, Saint-Priest, the Princesse de Lamballe, the Polignacs, Artois, and the Comte de Provence, and their wives (I have heard that the Comtesse de Provence is, in fact, having a passionate love affair with another woman), I suddenly say, “The very beauty of the palace and gardens of Versailles testify to the rightness of the rule of kings, just as the beauty of the earth reflects the glory of God.” In response, they all applaud.

Later I confide to everyone how much I have always admired the painting of the Princesse de Lamballe in the bosom of her husband’s family, all of them enjoying a cup of chocolate with the little pet dogs about. “I thought it the essence of our century,” I say.

Everyone looks at me curiously. “All elegance and refinement,” I add.

“Anyone who hoped to capture the essence of our time would have to paint Her Gracious Majesty into the picture,” Fersen says gallantly.

The King attempts to raise his cup to toast Fersen’s compliment, but his fingers are too pudgy to fit the delicate handle. He lifts the cup, nonetheless, by embracing the circumference of its lip. “From the moment of your arrival, France has been blessed and graced by your presence,” my husband says, and they all raise their cups in a sweet salute.

I cannot help but blush with pleasure, yet almost as though there were voices outside, I seem to hear the disdainful appellation
L’Austrichienne!
I actually cannot resist rising and going to the window to look out. Only a few groundskeepers are moving about the pedestals of the classical statues.

The King quickly says, “It may be dangerous to stand in front of the window.”

Obediently, I turn away from the glass. Now, if anyone saw a woman standing in the lighted palace window, they would think her just a woman, not the hated Queen. Or do they love me? They loved me when I stood with the King on the balcony with our children. I have always loved the French people; it was I who would not allow the royal hunting parties to gallop across their fields. It was I who supported the tax reforms offered by the King. It was I who gave alms and last winter had the King build fires at the crossroads to warm any who had to be about in the fierce winds. Turning now to look at my friends in the mellow candlelight surrounded by the sparkling chandeliers, I say, “If our friend Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun were with us, I would ask her to paint this scene, so that we could have it always. She could do a new series of paintings by candlelight, and the corners would be dens of darkness.”