The Queen`s Confession (23 page)

I was sorry but for Monsieur de Choiseui, not for myself. I was ready to give up my dreams of power; nothing as serious as politics could hold my attention for long, and Mercy would have to tell my mother that the King was a man who would go his own way and that they must not expect me to meddle.

Mercy told me that my mother was not sorry Monsieur de Choiseui had not been taken back. I had asked the King to receive an ex-minister and the King had shown his respect for me doing so. That pleased her.

As for Monsieur de Choiseui, she did not think his character was such as would allow him to be of much help to the French nation at this stage of its history. At the same time, I had done well to bring about the dismissal of the Due d’Aiguillon.

It was always pleasant to have praise from my mother; but I could not enjoy her approval for long.

“If the price of bread does not go down and the Ministry is not changed, we will set fire to the four corners of the Chateau of Versailles’

“If the price does not go down we will exterminate the King and the entire race of Bourbons’

PLACARDS ATTACHED TO THE WALLS OF THE CHATEAU OF VERSAILLES DURING

“LA

GUERRE DES PARINES,” 1775

The Grim Rehearsal

Soon after we became King and Queen, Louis gave me the gift which brought more pleasure to me than anything else I ever possessed.

He came into our bedchamber one day and said rather sheepishly that it was the custom of each King of France to present his Queen on her accession to the throne with a residence which should be all her own to do with as she would. He had decided to present me with Le Petit Trianon.

Le Petit Trianon! That enchanting little house! Oh, it was delightful.

I loved it. Nothing, I declared, could have made me happier.

He stood smiling at me while I threw my aims about his neck and hugged him.

“It is very small.”

It’s a doll’s house!

“I cried.

“Hardly grand enough for the Queen of France, perhaps.”

“It’s beautiful!” I cried.

“I wouldn’t exchange it for any chateau in the world.”

He began to chuckle quietly as he often did at my wild enthusiasm.

“So it’s all mine!” I cried.

“I may do as I like there? There I can live like a simple peasant.

I’ll tell you one 169 thing, Louis, there is one guest who will not be invited there. It is Etiquette. That may remain behind in Versailles.”

I summoned the Princesse de Lamballe and with some of my youngest ladies went to look at Le Petit Trianon without delay. It looked different from when I had glanced casually at it en passant. I suppose because it was entirely mine. I loved it because it was small a refuge, situated just far enough from the palace to be a retreat and not far enough for one to have to make a journey to reach it.

It was delightful a villa. This was how humbler people lived; and how often during the life of a Queen, with so many tiresome ceremonies to be performed, did one long to be humble. Little ClaremontTonnerre cried that it had been the mais on de plaisir of Louis XV the little love-nest where he and Madame du Barry had taken refuge from Versailles.

“That is all over,” I said firmly.

“Now it will be known as the refuge of Marie Antoinette. We will change it. We will make it entirely my house so that nothing remains of that woman.”

“Poor creature. Doubtless she would like to change Font aux Dames for the Trianon now.”

I frowned. I did not want to gloat over my enemies’ mis fortunes. I never did. I merely wanted to forget them.

There were eight rooms only, and we were all very amused by the odd contraption which was a kind of table and which could be made to rise from the basement to the dining-room. This had been constructed for the use of Louis XV, so that when he brought a mistress to the Petit Trianon who did not wish to be seen by servants, a meal could be prepared in the basement and sent up to the dining room without any servants appearing. We shrieked with laughter as the old thing creaked up and down.

The house was tastefully furnished. My grandfather would doubtless have seen to that. I did not think the furniture with its delicately-embroidered upholstery was the choice of du Barry.

“Oh, it is perfect perfect!” I cried running from room to room.

“What fun I shall have here!”

I ran to the windows and looked out on beautiful lawns and gardens. I could do so much here. I could refurnish it if I wished, although I liked the present furniture. There must be nothing overpoweringly splendid to remind me of Versailles. Here I would entertain my dearest friends and we should cease to be Queen and subjects.

I could not see Versailles from the windows, which was an added charm.

Here I could come when I wanted to forget the chateau and Court life.

I was delighted that my husband had given me this little house. How much more charming than Le Grand Trianon which Louis XIV had built for Madame de Maintenon. I could never have felt so pleased with that.

I could scarcely wait to get back to Versailles to tell my husband how enchanted I was with his gift

In February my brother Maximilian visited me. My mother had sent him on a tour of Europe in order to complete his education, so naturally be came to see me. He was eighteen, and as soon as I saw him I realised how my years in France had changed me. This was young Max who had sat with Caroline and me in the gardens of Schonbrunn and watched our elder brothers and sisters perform. He had always been chubby, but now he had grown fat; and he seemed awkward and decidedly inelegant.

I was rather ashamed of him, particularly now that, knowing the French so well, I could imagine what they were saying about him, although they received him so graciously. But graciousness was lost on Max; he didn’t recognise it;

he didn’t see what mistakes he made, because he thought everyone who didn’t agree with him must be wrong. He was just like Joseph but without my eldest brother’s good sense.

Louis asked him to sup with us privately and behaved as though he were a brother, and I was pleased to ask questions about home and my mother. Yet the more I listened, the more I realised how far from the old life I had grown. It was five years since I had shivered naked in the Salon de

Remise on that sandbank in die Rhine. I felt I had become French, and when I looked at Max heavy, awkward, humourless I was not sorry.

It was inevitable that there should be gossip about my brother; all his little gaucheries were recorded and exaggerated. Through the Court they spoke of him as the Arch-Fool instead of the Archduke, and stories about him were circulated through the streets of Paris by my enemies.

Max was not only ignorant of French etiquette but deter mined not to bow to it; and because of this, a contretemps arose. As a visiting royalty it was his duty to call on the Princes of the Blood Royal and they awaited a call from him; but Max stubbornly said that as he was a visitor to Paris it was their duty to call on him first. Both were adamant, and a difficult situation was created, for none of them would give way, and consequently Max did not meet the Princes. Orleans, Conde and Conti declared this was a deliberate insult to the Royal House of France.

When my brother-in-law Provence gave a banquet and a ball in honour of my brother, the three Princes of the Blood Royal made their excuses and left the city. It was a clear insult to my brother.

That in itself was bad enough, but when the Princes returned, very ostentatiously, to Paris, the people crowded into the streets to cheer them and murmur against Austrians.

When Orleans came to Court I reproached him.

“The King invited my brother to supper,” I said, ‘which you never did.

”

“Madame,” replied Orleans haughtily, ‘until the Archduke called on me I could not invite him. “

“This eternal etiquette! It wearies me.”

How impulsively I spoke! That would be interpreted as: “She pokes fun at French customs; she would substitute those of Austria.” I must guard my tongue. I must think before I spoke.

“My brother is only in Paris for a short time,” I explained. There is so much for him to do. “

Orleans coldly inclined his head; and my husband, seeing him, expressed his annoyance by banishing Orleans, with Conde and Conti, from the Court for a week.

That was small consolation, for the Princes were constantly appearing in public and being cheered by the people as though they had done something very brave and commendable in refusing to be kind to my brother.

I was not sorry to see Max go. My sister Maria Amalia was causing a certain amount of scandal through her behaviour in Parma. This was discussed in Paris, and it was considered that I had somewhat disreputable relations.

But what can you expect of Austrians? ” people were asking each other.

After Max’s visit I don’t think the people of France were ever quite so fond of me as they had been before.

While I was occupied with the Trianon—and in fact I gave little serious thought to anything else at this time—a very grave situation had arisen in France.

I did not clearly understand it, but I knew that the King was very worried. He did not wish to speak to me of these anxieties, for my attempts to get him to reinstate Choiseui had strengthened him in his desire to keep me out of politics. He liked to see me happy with the Trianon, and that kept me busy.

As I saw it, what happened was this.

In August Louis had appointed Anne Robert Jacques Turgot as Comptroller-General of Finances. He was a very handsome man, about forty-seven, with abundant brown hair which hung to his shoulders; he had well-cut features and dear brown eyes. My husband was fond of him because there was a-similarity between them. They were both awkward in company. I once heard that when he was a child Turgot used to hide himself behind a screen when there were visitors at his home and only emerge after they had gone. He was always awkward and blushed easily;

and this gaucherie rather naturally endeared him to my husband.

Louis was very pleased on the appointment and talked to me a little about Turgot, but I was too much immersed in i73

my own affairs to listen for long; but I did gather that the finances of the country were, in my husband’s opinion, such as to cause grave concern, and that Turgot had what he called a three-point programme, which was:

No bankruptcy.

No increase in taxation.

No loans.

You see,” said my husband, ‘there is only one way to make possible Turgot’s programme. Complete economy to reduce expenses. We must save twenty millions a year and we must pay off our old debts ” Yes, of course,” I agreed, and I was thinking: Pale blue and pale cherry for the bedroom. My bedroom! A single bed where there will not be room for my husband…. Louis was looking apologetic.

“Turgot has told me that I must look to my own expenses and that my first duty is to the people. He said:

“Your Majesty must not enrich those he loves at the expense of the people.” And I agreed with him wholeheartedly. I am fortunate to have found such an able minister. “

“So fortunate,” I agreed. No stiff satin, I thought. No heavy brocade.

This is suitable for Versailles. But for my darling Trianon . soft silks in delicate shades.

“Are you listening?” he asked.

“Oh yes, Louis. I agree with you that. Monsieur Turgot is a very good man and we must econo mise We must think of the poor people.”

He smiled and said that he knew I would be beside him in all the reforms he intended to make because he knew that I cared about the people as much as he did.

I nodded. It was true. I did want them all to be happy and pleased with us.

I wrote to my mother that day:

“Monsieur Turgot is a very honest man, which is most essential for the finances.”

I realise now that it was one thing to have good intentions and another to carry them out. Monsieur Turgot was an honest man, but idealists

are not always practical, and luck was against him, because the harvest that year was a bad one. He established internal free trade, but that could not keep the price of corn down, because of the shortage. Moreover, roads were bad and the grain could not be brought to Paris. Turgot met this situation by throwing on the market grain from the Royal Granaries, which had the effect of bringing down the price, but as soon as it was used up the price rose again and the people were more discontented than ever.

Then there was a distressing rumour that in various pans of the country people were starving, and there was murmuring against Turgot.

The news got worse. Riots broke out at Beauvais, Meaux, Saint-Denis, Poissy, Saint Gennain; and at Villers Cotterets a crowd collected and started to raid the markets. Boats on the Oise which were carrying grain to Paris were boarded and sacks of corn were split open. When the King heard, that the raiders had not stolen the precious grain but thrown it into the river he was very disturbed.

He said gravely: “It does not sound like hungry people, but those determined to make trouble.”

Turgot, who was suffering acutely from the gout and had to be carried to my husband’s apartments, was constantly there.

I had been at Le Trianon revelling in the paintings of Watteau which adorned the walls and deciding that I should not attempt to alter the carved and gilded panelling, and I returned to find my husband preparing to leave for the hunt. He had spent many hours in close consultation with Turgot and he told me that he wanted to get away for a while to think about the depressing situation. Then Turgot and Maurepas had left for Paris, for word had come to them that organised agitators were planning to lead raids on the markets there. My husband decided to take a short respite; in any case he could always think more easily in the saddle.

I was in my apartments when the King came bursting in on me.

“I had just left the Palace when I saw a mob,” he said.

“They are coming from Saint Gennain and are on their way to the Versailles market.”

I felt the blood rushing to my face. The mob . marching on Versailles. Old Maurepas and Turgot away in Paris and no one to send them away. No one, that was, but the King.