Abundance, A Novel of Marie Antionette

by Sena Jeter Naslund

  For myself, having seen their participation in the spirit of the coronation, in spite of their own hardships and distress, I know that we are more obliged than ever to repay their love by working as hard as we can for their welfare and happiness. This truth fills the mind and heart of the King as much as it does my own. I know that throughout my whole life—even if I should live to be very old, my dear Mama—I will never forget my obligations to the people or the wondrous love expressed the day of the coronation.

  AN HEIR TO THE THRONE OF FRANCE, AUGUST 1775

  The English queen, Elizabeth, we know with awe as the Virgin Queen, but she was never married.

  When Madame Campan wakes me by shaking me gently by the shoulder, I feel that I am passing from nightmare into nightmare.

  “The baby is coming.” Like a small, warm flame Henriette’s voice licks my ear.

  Opening my eyes to the darkness, I know that the Comtesse d’Artois has begun her accouchement. It is she, and not I, who will present the first child of the next generation to the court, the public, the world.

  “Here are your clothes,” Henriette whispers.

  At least I do not have to be dressed in ritual manner, one petticoat ceremoniously waiting on another. Henriette skillfully helps me to put on my things. She straightens my hair. She holds a lighted candle close to the glass, and my own image appears there. Quickly, I smile at myself. It is a wonderful thing for a child to be born into the family. And just as quickly first my eyes and then my whole face become sad. I will rejoice, as best I can.

  Here is a cup of chocolate to give me strength.

  Half asleep, I take Henriette’s hand for the few steps that bring us to the door of my room. Warm and steady, her hand in mine gives me strength. Soon I have joined the dozens of others whose rank entitles them to witness the birth as we hurry through room after room together in the same direction. Like a magnet, the event pulls us toward the room of the accouchement. Our faces are all mingled with excitement and anxiety that things may not go well for either the mother or the new child. When the Princesse de Chartres joins us, I note that her face is starkly white, but she has tried to disguise this fact by hastily applying two circles of rouge to her white cheeks. I see the beads of her rosary trailing from her fingertips. Her own baby was stillborn, and she nearly died.

  WHEN WE ENTER the room, the comtesse is lying propped up on her pillows, her forehead weeping the sweat of her labor. For a moment, I think of the death of the old King, and of his agony. But here the pain is mingled with a wild determination, and the comtesse moans and calls out that she is progressing, progressing. Her cap is askew, and no one would consider it less than sacrilege to straighten or correct anything about her bearing.

  The Comte d’Artois stands proudly beside her head. He does not look at her or bend to tend her in any way but stares straight ahead, like a proud, well-dressed statue. The lace cascading from his throat is starched and pristine, as though he were participating in a ceremony of satins and gold instead of one of flesh and fluids.

  I take a position near the foot of the bed. No one shields me from the moment when the linens will be removed from her draped knees and that private door of her body will open to issue forth the child, who if he is male, will be third in line for the throne.

  The comtesse’s excitement is communicated to all the ladies present, who stand about in a rainbow of colors, like so many good fairies. While those who have already had children show faces of patience and confidence, those of us who have not had children struggle to retain a calm mien. We are afraid for her; we cringe at her pain; we would like to shriek when she does, but the most we can allow ourselves is to wring our hands or to hold and clinch the hands of one another.

  The men are remarkably calm. They do not look directly at the bed, and certainly not at that curtain of sheeting rising over and down from the high bent knees of the Comtesse d’Artois. It is soothing to hear the men’s deep voices occasionally making some brief, appropriate remark to one another. Sometimes they catch the eye of one of their wives and smile in a friendly way. This is the fate of women, their glances acknowledge. For this we honor you and are dependent on you.

  The comtesse has now begun to pant, and the interval between her moans or shrieks grows shorter. The sheeting has been removed, and a doctor stands nearby with each half of a forcep, like large, open-bowled spoons, in each hand. The sun has come up, and the curtains are drawn back to illumine the portal for the child’s arrival. Fluids issue forth from time to time, and occasionally clean towels, white and absorbent, are positioned under the naked buttocks of the comtesse.

  Her sister, Josephine, takes her hand on one side, and suddenly the Comte d’Artois gracefully kneels beside her on the other side.

  Looking into his wife’s tearstained and distorted face, he says elegantly, “The moment approaches. Take courage.”

  All the ladies begin a chorus of brief encouragements, and suddenly, with a gush, the wet head of the child issues forth from between her legs. My whole body gasps with the agony of it, and my being convulses with her pleasure. Aided by the hands of the doctor, the sleek little body comes sliding out, and we see, and all exclaim, “A boy, a boy!”

  “My God, I am happy!” the comtesse screams.

  ONCE THE CHILD is cleaned and wrapped—the room atwitter as everyone congratulates everyone else to the degree appropriate by their kinship—and handed to his mother, it is my duty and pleasure to congratulate the mother. Her face is beautiful in her motherhood. The Comtesse de Noailles keeps a strict eye on the etiquette of it all.

  I kiss my sister-in-law tenderly and tell her how this birth blesses all of us present and how I shall be the most devoted of aunts and how the whole kingdom is made happy. Even as I say so, one can hear the cheering outside, for hundreds of people hurried from Paris at the news that the labor had begun.

  Now it is my place to withdraw, but first I kiss my sister’s cheek again with all the tenderness in my heart. I only wish that she might have been my true sister, or that I might have been present when Charlotte gave birth to her firstborn.

  SCARCELY HAVE I BEGUN to progress toward my own room, when I note the way is lined with the fishwives of Paris. Yes, I remind myself, it is the custom for these women to be allowed in the proximity of royal births. But their faces are not friendly. They are angry that their Queen has not produced the heir. They speak roughly and loudly to me: “Where is your babe?” “Why have you not given us an heir?” “You spend your nights dancing.” “You have neglected your business as a wife.” “We are mothers! Why not you?” “Hurry, run to your husband.” “Do it tonight!” “Can’t you spread your legs?” they say. “Behold the virgin,” another remarks scornfully. One of them adds a word of urgent courtesy: “Please,” she says, “get busy.”

  All the time, I keep my legs from moving faster. All the time my countenance must remain serene. I simply pretend that they are not present, or if one manages to catch my eye, I nod in acknowledgment. I allow myself not the slightest sign of discomfort or impatience.

  Occasionally, I say to no one, “Let us rejoice,” or I smile prettily and remark, “It is a day to be truly happy.”

  Only when I spy the door of my own chamber do I allow myself to hurry my steps.

  As I slip through the doorway, a tall harridan with a lumpy nose makes the last demand, “When will you give us a Dauphin?”

  Inside, I lean against the closed door, panting, terrified. Suppose any tender child were actually to fall into the hands of such coarse creatures as those women?

  Madame Campan takes me in her arms. I am sure she heard their mean voices and saw how they formed a gauntlet through which I had to pass.

  “Darling,” Henriette says to me, and with that word of sympathy, my tears begin to flow.

  It is all right. I am safe in the arms of a friend.

  “They did not mean to frighten you,” she soothes. “They are only the market women, come from Paris. It is their custom.”
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  I do not describe to her their rude gestures. How they formed circles with the fingers of one hand, and entered that space with the lewd finger of another, how they cocked their arms and pumped them up and down, how they patted their own bellies, or pointed to the place between their legs and said, “Let him in, let him in!”

  I say to Henriette, “They are disgusting. They frightened me.” My chest is heaving as I try to repress my sobs. “What barbarous customs they have at Versailles,” I gasp.

  “They meant no harm. They are only eager for a dauphin to love, for an emblem of the future.”

  “The King and I represent the future, in our persons.”

  “So you do,” she said. “But they long for a straight line of descent. For the sake of their children’s children. A dauphin signifies peaceful transitions in the future.”

  I quiet myself. “Yes,” I reply. I make myself look calmly into Henriette’s kind eyes. “Your words comfort me. What they wish is nothing less than what I myself have longed for these many years. They are honest women.”

  “Now,” Henriette says, “let me have some warm milk brought to you, with a sprinkling of cinnamon. We’ll sit here by the window and look out. The crowd is all on the other side of the building. Come here and look out at the fountain of Latona.”

  Obediently, I follow the suggestions of my friend.

  “What is the story of Latona?” I ask. I watch the clear waters of the fountain, which is mounded up in a series of ever smaller circular levels, with water tumbling down from the highest level to the next. The August sun plays on the cascading water.

  “You’ve noticed that the people in the fountain are turning into frogs and lizards?” Henriette says, so that my gaze will remain on this living work of art. Some of the heads of the people are those of lizards, hands have transformed into the webbed hands of frogs.

  “Yes. And there are many turtles.”

  “When the people ridiculed Latona and her children—Diana and Apollo—she asked that the gods punish the rude peasants. So Venus transformed them into those grotesque creatures.”

  I think that Latona’s story would make an interesting opera—an opportunity for costumes—frog masks with bulging eyes, foot coverings that resemble flippers. I have always loved the idea of metamorphosis. Several of the paintings at the Trianon shall represent the ancients of mythology as they transform into trees or myrtle bushes. “And why were the peasants ridiculing Latona?” I ask Henriette.

  “Because she was one of the mistresses of Zeus; Hera, out of jealousy, arranged that Latona and her children be hounded from one village to another.”

  Suppose, with a wish, I could have transformed the market women who hounded me into nothing more than a chorus of crickets! Suddenly I smile. I recall that great theatrical moment when the base of a woman’s body opened, and a new human being came forth. I promise myself that someday—yes—I will be such a portal. To be fair to Latona in her illicit amour I say that a woman could hardly resist the caresses of the king of the gods, but then I remember the du Barry, whom I hated for her immoral, seductive ways. For the first time, I wonder if my condemnation was not more political than moral, or perhaps it was personal—a sort of envy that Papa-Roi loved her more than he loved me and that her position allowed them to do together exactly as they pleased.

  I am no longer a child who lost her father at age ten. As someone whose ears listen to the passing comments at court and add them up to an unexpected sum, I now know that my own beloved father, like Louis XV, often responded to a new and pretty face. Yet my remembrance that we were a loving and loyal family in Vienna remains strangely intact.

  “Here’s your milk,” Henriette says as she hands me a goblet with a glass stem composed of two strands of glass twisted about each other. “Now sit in this most beautiful and comfortable chair.” It is a sunny, yellow fabric with medallions of pink roses centered on the seat and the back. “Here’s a bench for your feet. Tell me how you’re feeling. A little better?”

  I think how good milk is, especially with a dusting of cinnamon or nutmeg, and wonder why anyone would ever prefer wine.

  Should I ever have a babe, I would nurse the child myself, as I am told Rousseau advocates. Surely there is a bond between mother and child. Yes, there must be a natural bond that a woman feels for a child, and one that is mutual, especially when the child is young—a bond like no other. At least, it would be so for me.

  FONTAINEBLEAU: A NEW FRIEND, COMTESSE DE POLIGNAC

  Perhaps late summer is simply the time to be bored. Everything stays the same, even though we travel to Fontainebleau, and the draperies and colors are different. The days are endless. And now it is time for another ball. Another endless night.

  The Princesse de Lamballe does not know how to dwell in the realms of fun; she is too serene. She offers no challenges but quietly fits in as well with the worldly circle of Madame de Guéméné as with the loyal servitude of Madame Campan. She has no variety of affect: she is the same whether she is riding at breakneck speed or sitting with a fire screen between her and the hearth fire as she embroiders. I love to ride, I love my needlework—but I am not the same person when I perform one or the other. We Hapsburgs have something of the chameleon in us. I am tired of her steadfast angelic sensitivity, her blond innocence. She wants nothing.

  And with a wish—there! In the midst of the ball—I see someone new. Her face is as perfect in its beauty as that of the Princesse de Lamballe, but this unknown lady is dark brunette. She is not buxom but possessed of a delicate figure. There is a modesty and grace in the way she stands. Quickly, I approach her, smile so as not to frighten her, and ask why I have not already made her acquaintance.

  “I lack the means,” she replied in a simple sincere but musical voice, “to appear often on grand occasions.”

  Oh, I need not have feared intimidating this frank soul!

  “Let us promenade together,” I reply and slip my arm around her narrow waist. As we walk, I ignore all others to whisper to her. “Never has anyone answered any question of mine with such unpretentious honesty.” And then I giggle, a cascade as tinkling as any uninhibited falling of water.

  She laughs in reply. “I could think of nothing else to say, once having said the truth.”

  She has entered my mood exactly. Strolling beside her as I am, I cannot see her face, but I can feel the smile in her body, the release of tension till her emotion matches mine. She is the Comtesse de Polignac.

  “It is my immediate and spontaneous wish,” I tell her, “that you attend court regularly, and you must come and stay in an apartment I shall appoint at Versailles.”

  Then I guide her through doors till we step outside the crowded ballroom into the summer heat. Immediately my mood shifts to languid. The very air is sensual. Our bodies wilt and relax, as I still hold her about the waist. I kiss her cheek in friendship, and she takes this kiss as the frank offering that it is.

  My own frankness causes her to speak of her situation. She wishes me to call her by her given name, Yolande; and I reciprocate immediately: Toinette. Without apology or embarrassment, she acknowledges that her husband, the Comte de Polignac, is the most obliging of husbands in allowing her to have her own amusements, and that she enjoys a liaison with the Comte de Vaudreuil, known for the amusing circle of artists and musicians he often entertains. “One is never bored with that graceful man,” she says.

  Ah, like the du Barry, my new friend lacks the virtue of…the virtue of what?

  The virtue of virtue.

  I laugh out loud, having amused myself.

  I have changed: I have no impulse to chastise her, let alone send her into exile. Instead, I ask about the artists they befriend, and I confide that I am never content with my portraits, not since the one made when I was still a little girl, just arrived at Versailles, and wore the costume of an equestrienne. “My mother, the Empress, still treasures that portrait,” I add, “but of course now, I am much changed.”

  Arm in a
rm with this slender creature, I suddenly swell with pride in my own voluptuous figure.

  Suddenly I say exactly what has come into my head. “I am chaste and ever will be—for that is the only wise and politic course for me—”

  “At least till you have produced an heir,” Yolande de Polignac interjects mildly.

  “But I wish to be filled with evanescence, with fizz.”

  We both cover our mouths with our hands and giggle. She looks almost as though she is merrily vomiting.

  “Flirtation,” she says, supplying the very word that could certainly enliven my dreary existence.

  “I can easily draw the line of propriety between myself and any gallant, for I am the Queen, the power is all mine.”

  TONIGHT I GO to sleep quite happy, after talking with my new friend till well after midnight. I go to sleep thinking of her and picturing her as though I were a painter. Her nose is particularly charming, small and shapely, but her eyes are large, and her dark hair softly frames her face. Her chin is particularly beautiful, just the right length and shape, softly rounded. I would paint her with parted lips so that her perfect pearly teeth would show. Above all, her expression is one of relaxed sweetness; her mien is calm, utterly natural, and lacking in egotism—Yolande de Polignac.

  AMUSEMENTS

  His amusements are not mine. He has the smithy; he has his hunting. No, I will not play the role of Vulcan. Were I to play the role of Venus and stand beside him in diaphanous gowns, he would be displeased.