Abundance, A Novel of Marie Antionette

by Sena Jeter Naslund

  My breath catches to see my own cipher, an M imposed on an A—how beautifully those letters fit together—on the clasp of a diamond bracelet. This M and A stand as well for Maria Antonia as for my new self, Marie Antoinette. My diamond monogram is set in a clasp of deep blue enamel. This bracelet itself is a band of diamonds wide enough to warm my wrist. When I wear this bracelet, if I like, I can turn my hand over, and there at the wrist where the pulse beats closest to the surface, I have as my shield, the cipher of myself: MA, intertwined in one beautiful design that comprises, almost, a single new letter of the alphabet, uniquely mine.

  Here is Elisabeth, a new little sister for me, nudging close to my body again, to look with me at the contents of the myriad drawers. I let her pull several of them open for me, and Clothilde does so as well. Clothilde says Ooooo, in a very practiced way, a parody of courtly exclaiming she’s heard from older ladies. But Elisabeth merely sighs in her own childish voice when she sees some startlingly beautiful brooch or necklace.

  The fairy Elisabeth leaves the room and returns with something, I think, held behind her tiny back.

  “Toinette,” she says, for so I have instructed her to call me, despite the glances of bored disapproval of my governess, Comtesse de Noailles. “Toinette.” (The word fairly twirls off her tongue; she is the first at this court to use it.) “My brother the Dauphin has asked that I give you this.”

  From behind her back, she charmingly presents a pink rose, so perfect I think at first that it must be fashioned of silk or porcelain.

  “Smell,” Elisabeth says.

  I bury my nose in the aroma, such as no jewel of any price can produce.

  “My brother, the Dauphin, says there will be many more. To tell you so.”

  Quickly I glance at the door, where, yes, a large and lumbering figure passes, ignored by all, even on his wedding day.

  Again I bend to the little princess.

  “Please pass this gift to your brother, the Dauphin,” I say, softly kissing her petal cheek. “Just like that.”

  I instruct her more minutely: “Ask him to bend over, so you can speak in his private ear. First the kiss, then whisper, ‘She, too, says there will be many more.’”

  Before she carries out her charge, Elisabeth steps back, then pauses, to look at me, and Clothilde joins her. Elisabeth is a bit puzzled by my promise of future kisses. I myself am a bit surprised; yesterday, I would not have thought of such an amusant message.

  As though dancing, I turn from side to side to show them how the dress becomes me, though my hair is still loose. I would like to spin around and take their hands and truly dance, but I know I would become entangled in finery, so I merely look left and right, raising my arms accordingly in port de bras, as though I were about to leap, to throw, to toss myself across a lighted stage—un grand jeté.

  “Your dress is very big,” Clothilde says. “And beautiful,” she tactfully adds.

  “You look almost as small as myself,” Elisabeth mentions, wonderingly.

  “Are you really only twelve years old?” Clothilde asks. “I heard someone say so. ‘Not above twelve,’ he said.”

  Clothilde does not wait for an answer but goes on to inform me further of the gossip. “All of them, every single one of them says of you, ‘Her bearing is superb!’”

  THROUGHOUT THE ROYAL CHAPEL, the May sunshine, transformed by the stained glass edging the clear windows, illumines the two levels of the structure. People of astounding splendor fill the building. I am entering a Kingdom of Light and Joy, prepared for me by the Heavenly Father. Marble arches on the ground level, where I stand, lead toward the altar, where Christ lies dead, in golden bas-relief, taken from the cross.

  I cross myself in reverence.

  Borne atop the heavy pilasters of the white marble arches, on the second level, the fluted columns are of a simple white, crowned with Corinthian capitals. Those airy, fluted columns prepare the eye for the multitude of organ pipes hanging in glorious array above the altar. Like fingers stroking my racing heart, this splendor quiets me and fills me with joyful humility.

  The floor on which I stand is a glory of colored marbles, rosy, gray, and cream, double circles in diamonds, a starburst in a circle. Soon my feet will pass over the length of them to the gleaming altar, where Christ lies slain.

  On the high and vaulted ceiling is a vast painting containing all the colors imaginable in a tangle of human and angelic limbs, curved and bent like a great pinwheel, with Our Heavenly Father at its center. As the Almighty Father, Maker of Heaven and Earth, hovers in a patch of clear blue sky, I can see the sole of His naked foot.

  The Heavenly Father’s arms are open in blessing for all of us below; the dead body of golden Christ on the altar will rise again, so promises our Heavenly Father, and I see the risen Christ is depicted, too, on the ceiling. Now organ music begins, and sight is drenched by sound like a whirlwind, most rich, most elegant, most powerful.

  Dizzied by the music of Couperin, I am floating forward while everyone watches me; I am gliding swanlike within my alabaster silk. I am here, with my feet barely touching the marble floor, and I am also up there, high above, among the confusion of colors of the vaulted ceiling, watching myself as though I were another stepping lightly forward to encounter her fate.

  The Dauphin kneels with me before the slain Christ. Our knees sink into the velvet cushion. Here the music is so loud and grand that I feel, rather than hear, my heart beating in my ears. Whether he can experience it or not, I see that the Dauphin, too, my husband, my love, is enveloped in the grace of God, though to others he may appear at this moment to be a sulky boy. Grace succors his very bones, just as it does myself.

  To him, I believe I resemble a solitary rose, pink and fragrant, standing in a crystal vase awaiting his touch. His clammy hands tremble as he himself, not my proxy brother but my true husband, slides the binding ring upon my finger. But I dare not look into his heavy, hooded eyes or behold his bold black eyebrows, though I can imagine them black as raven wings. I look higher than our foolish heads at a canopy of heavy silver brought forward on ornate poles and positioned above us like a cloud ushered cumbersomely indoors.

  We kneel and kneel. After many words of blessing, we rise to our feet and turn.

  Cradled by the Royal Chapel, bathed in holy light, swaddled in the polyphonic voice of God, we have been joined in marriage and go forth.

  DURING THE SIGNING of the contract, I too tremble, and I let my husband see my nervousness, with the hope that he will pity me. As he signs the agreement, as the first of us, the King, my grandfather, looks at me, and his dark eyes glow with encouragement and pride. His signature is simple: he needs no further attributes or identifying words:

  Secondly, my husband signs his name, with perfect control of his pen:

  And it is my turn to write. If only I could dance my signature, then it would be all grace. But I have hardly ever signed this new name, and I must try hard to get the spelling right. I press down too hard, and the tip of the quill catches and stumbles. I blot the page, and then the last half of Antoinette, the new part, slopes suddenly downhill. But there it is, for posterity:

  As though in a dream, I next awake to the royal banquet, for six thousand, filling the Opera House from one splendid wall to the other. I cannot eat, yet again. I am numbed by the thought that all of this array of wealth and power exists to celebrate my wedding. I have never felt so small, not even among the snowy mountains of home. How different it would all be if I were a simple peasant girl marrying a boy of my village whom I’d known all my life.

  No, this celebration dinner in the just-completed Opera House of Versailles is not for me, I remind myself, but for the union of Austria and France, and these thousands represent uncounted hundreds of thousands, and the blessing of their lives to be lived without the shadow of war clouds.

  For all their nobility and allegiance to protocol, the guests press to see me, the stranger who has come to make their Dauphin happy and to assure the f
uture of the kingdom: Marie Antoinette Josephe Jeanne.

  Like last night at La Muette, the lightning visits Versailles and begins to shake the sky behind the curtains, though I cannot hear the thunder, for an orchestra of sixty musicians is playing Lully’s “Perseus.” I can hear neither the rather dull music nor the more interesting thunder except in patches because of the roar of conversation. Part of the chatter comes from my own lips, for Louis Auguste says scarcely a word, and I must make up for his silence and bubble with delight. I play the role so well that I believe in it myself.

  There will be no mistakes, or hesitations, no blots on the dinner, just laughter and smiling lips and fond eyes: grace for everyone.

  The Duc de Croÿ returns to us to say that he has climbed up on the roof of the Opera. “It is from there that the view is most glorious. Ah, Madame la Dauphine, to see Versailles from the roof!” I ask him to describe the spectacle, and he does, saying torches and hidden lights glow throughout the gardens, and the fountains play with complete exuberance. The Grand Canal, which I have not yet seen, is filled with illuminated boats bobbing on the water. Because we approached the château from the east, the town side, I have seen nothing of the vast gardens and basins that lie to the west, beyond the palace. The garden walkways and bosquets are thickly packed with people. On the town side, as far as the eye can see beyond the gilded gates, the Duc de Croÿ reports, people fill the streets, rejoicing and waiting for the dark to fall and the fireworks to follow that will explode against the night. Many have walked here from Paris.

  But, the duc adds, the wind is rising, and storm clouds are gathering in the west.

  The King compliments me again and again (while the Dauphin is silent) and tells me and all the table that I look every inch a daughter of the Caesars. I think the King loves my high birth as much as he loves me, which, my mother the Empress would say, is as it should be. King Louis XV is pleased that to his grandson I bring the name of the rulers of the Holy Roman Empire, six hundred years old. With all my heart, I embrace and reflect the love of Papa-Roi, whatever its origin and basis may be.

  An enormous clap of thunder, and then a torrential downpour.

  There can be no fireworks. The King frowns.

  To our table, the King remarks pleasantly, “I would think the heavens would be more cordial to the goddess of love.” He tips his wineglass at me and says gallantly, “To Venus,” and then to his grandson, jokingly, “To Vulcan too.” But it is not a pretty comparison, for Vulcan was ugly and impaired—lame-footed.

  “I fear the populace is disappointed,” I say.

  I know the people are soaking wet already and miserable, and it is three hours back to Paris. Here in the town of Versailles, the Parisians will know no one who might give them dry clothing.

  “I’m afraid they’re cold,” I add.

  “I’ll send flagons of hot ale,” the king says, “in your fair name.”

  Even we inside the château can feel the cooling breeze invading these rooms.

  “To bed,” says the King. He reaches out his arm to touch his grandson. “To bed, Monsieur le Dauphin.”

  My heart flitters into my throat and beats like vibrato.

  I WALK BESIDE the Dauphin, who duly takes my hand. The passage leading through room after linked room to our chambers is long and damp. Far ahead, so far ahead they seem tiny, two members of the Royal Guard patrol. Each holds a leash against which two small spaniels lean. I think of Mops and say that I would like to pet those doggies. The Dauphin looks down at me fondly and explains that the dogs are at work.

  “At work? Tonight? What is their work?” I ask.

  The Dauphin very quietly explains that the palace is so vast, it is searched each night for any who might enter during the day and hide in its nooks and crannies. Though the spaniels are not fierce, they have excellent noses and are trained for this duty. Far ahead, the two men and the four dogs suddenly step out of our line of vision, which follows the aligned doors of stately rooms opening into stately rooms, their doorways framing a seemingly infinite regress of other doorways. By entering the rooms more deeply, the Guards and the spaniels are lost from our sight.

  I hold the Dauphin’s hand more firmly.

  When I glance at his cheek and noble nose, my hand becomes warm and wet. In the backs of these public rooms, away from the windows beside which we walk, there are almost invisible small doors cut cunningly into the walls. These secret doors lead to other private rooms and secret staircases and hallways that form a labyrinth deep in the interior of the palace. The Empress has described that kingdom of hidden connections deep within the château and called it the Land of Intrigue, which I am to eschew, but I am curious and vow to go there someday.

  Led by the King, we walk and walk. Our shadows, thrown by candlelight, move with us as we pass along the edges of the public rooms, named for the gods of antiquity. At our left, sometimes my elbow brushes the closed curtains of the high windows. The curtains hang like the drooping wings of doleful archangels. Sometimes a puff of storm air causes them to stir. Once, I fancy I see the toe of a boot—a worn and muddy shoe such as a peasant might be grateful to wear—protruding from the hem of a curtain. Ahead, I can see that doors have been closed; this walking will end.

  We stop at an immense closed door, the one to our nuptial chamber.

  Now will come the ritual of the royal bedding.

  Here are no proxies. Here we play the roles of our own real selves. I myself must meet his expectations.

  There is the broad bed and the high embroidered canopy that roofs it. Inside this room, it is the King himself who hands the Dauphin his nightshirt; the Duchesse de Chartres, the most newly married of all the noble ladies, places my folded nightdress in my hands. The Dauphin and I, with our attendants, step behind two screens and are helped into our nightclothes. Perhaps my life is but a series of moments of disrobing and robing again for the task at hand. Perhaps all lives could be measured in such terms. For me, it is a long process, for I have many layers to be removed. I am grateful for the helping hands that move like small animals around my body, unhooking, untying, tugging, and sliding my garments away from me. I could not emerge from this brocade chrysalis by myself.

  When I stand naked, I feel as though I should ask them to shine and burnish my flesh so that I will gleam for him.

  The nightgown tickles my skin like butterflies.

  As has been orchestrated by our attendants, the Dauphin and I step shyly forward at the same instant from behind the screens.

  How fragile, almost naked we seem, draped like ghosts in loose gauze. In the midst of all the court finery of the others, we alone seem simple and natural.

  The bedcovers are pulled back, and the Archbishop of Rheims blesses the bed with holy water. I see water droplets spot and wet the bed linen here and there. Outside it is raining hard, and I think of the fireworks that lie dormant and are sadly wasted. The archbishop rapidly intones the Latin as the rain drones mournfully.

  Now the King offers his hand to the Dauphin to lead him forward, to mount the bed.

  And I wait my turn, standing in my simple nightgown, the lace knitted by nuns. In face and form, Sister Thérèse said, you are a perfect princess. I am helped into bed by the Duchesse de Chartres. Her hand is icy cold, and what has been the experience of her wedding night to leave such a chill? My mother spoke of rapture in one’s joyful pain. But this hand is one of fear.

  Have courage, my mother has instructed me, gently touching her own heart and then mine, as though to give some of what has been in her to me.

  I refuse the portion of fear that nature would hand me.

  No matter what happened in the nuptial bed of the Duchesse de Chartres, I will fill my heart with hope, but the duchesse is about my size—also slight and graceful—and for her, I feel pity.

  “I thank you for your kind service,” I say to her and smile with grave modesty.

  Her eyes flicker recognition, but she does not smile.

  All is done w
ith utmost seriousness with all the attention of the State, for it is in our bed that France and Austria unite. No, even a peasant girl would greet her marriage bed with seriousness.

  The court, the King, the most royal core of the vast court, turns in all its finery and makes its exit.

  Vanished!

  We are left alone, for the first time.

  Our heads find the pillows.

  Most soft and divinely comfortable, my pillow cradles my neck and head.

  On his side of the bed, the Dauphin’s head sinks like lead into the softness. Automatically, I half sit up again, to fluff the downy feathers a bit more, as I did as a girl. When I glance toward him, my eyes find his, gazing curiously, with strange calm, at me. His body in the horizontal posture, the Dauphin’s jet eyebrows seem strongly handsome. Across the room, twelve candles long enough to burn all night are glowing. Settled again on my pillow, I turn my face toward him and wait. He stares now at the ceiling.

  My mother said that he might first reach out his hand and take my hand in his. Perhaps my father did it so, on her wedding night. I wait.

  His eyelids slide down. I listen to the rain drum and moan. As I wait, the rain falls steadily and beats against the glass of the windowpanes. I listen and wait. And wait.

  Suddenly, the wind snorts. No, it is not the wind.

  The Dauphin snores. The raucous rattle of air in his nostrils wakes him, for a moment. “Pray, excuse me,” he says.

  And he is asleep. Have I failed to please him?

  I seem to hear the snuffing of a dog at the door.

  I too drift toward sleep.

  Whatever happens or doesn’t happen, the Empress told me, you are not to worry.