Abundance, A Novel of Marie Antionette

by Sena Jeter Naslund

  HEAVENS! The tsarevitch has confided the most inappropriate information about his mother to me. My face must have blushed scarlet. Certainly the Hapsburgs never stoop to revealing such private secrets. And then the tsarina has had the effrontery to mention the name of Madame du Barry. I simply reply that she has been provided for with a lavish home at Louveciennes.

  “And when did she move there?” the Duchesse de Nord inquires.

  “I believe it was about two years after the death of Louis XV,” I reply. “I do not keep track of her life.”

  “But your brother visited her, did he not? Joseph II reported she was happy.”

  To that stunning piece of information I make no reply. Can they not detect that silence signals detour! New conversation, please.

  Instead, the tsarevitch adds, “I understand the Duc de Brissac has made her happy and that his sickly wife takes no notice.”

  “De Brissac is said to be of a sweet disposition, as well as handsome and tall,” the tsarina gushes.

  I wish that I could pinch her lips closed. “For the final night of your visit,” I announce, “we will have a grand masked ball in the Hall of Mirrors.”

  I COULD NOT be more pleased with my costume for the ball. In a dress of shiny silver gauze, my head topped with enormous white ostrich plumes, fastened by diamond pins, I represent Gabrielle d’Estrées, the mistress of Henri IV. My pregnant state is not overly noticeable, as the outline of my figure is diffused in the misty gauze.

  With our reflections in the mirror and the reflections of the thousands of blazing candles, the Hall is enchanting with its glow and sparkle. In a way it seems a simple thing—that the Russians should come to call from St. Petersburg, that so much distance could be traversed, and all of us, for all our glittering finery, are after all mere people. How could I have forgotten such a fact a few days ago when I watched their coach arrive and wondered if I could adequately play my part? Still, I will be glad for their departure.

  Just as the customary fireworks begin to ignite the sky, another color catches my eye: red. The red of stockings! And who would wear red stockings to this occasion? And who would dare to come without an invitation? The Cardinal Louis de Rohan! Would that he lived in Strasbourg or even Vienna!

  Immediately, I demand to know who admitted him. How contemptuously pitiful that when he found himself not welcome at the ball for the Nords, he should so much desire to be present that he would stoop to bribery!

  The answer is that he bribed a porter. His deceased uncle, the old cardinal I met in Strasbourg, would turn crimson with shame.

  ONCE THE PORTER was identified, I had him dismissed from service, but dear Madame Campan has had him reinstated. She did it so simply. One evening after the departure of the Russians, Madame Campan was reading me to sleep with a fairy tale about a serving boy who offended a queen. Her dismissal of him caused his family to suffer terribly from hunger. I shed a tear or two, and my dear Reader asked if we could not allow our porter to resume his duties after all.

  I am glad that I said yes. A slight, wise smile hovers at the corners of Madame Campan’s mouth. Everything about her balances: the two corners of her mouth, her smoothly curved cheeks, her mild eyes, the poufs of powdered hair on each side of her face, the simple sheer white scarf that encircles her shoulders and is tied in a knot between her bosoms, her inclination to balance justice and mercy. She offers no excuses for the intrusive cardinal and his telltale red stockings but just for the porter who accepted the cardinal’s bribe.

  THE HOPE OF FRANCE, 22 OCTOBER 1781

  I awake to gentle rumblings in my belly. These subterranean grippings are certainly recognizable to me: a child wishes to be born. But I do not attend to the process immediately; instead I drift back to sleep. (Perhaps I am remembering how long the process of giving birth took with my first child; just now, I do not wish to rush headlong into this protracted event.)

  I dream of the latest visit of my brother, the Emperor Joseph II, a short visit. At that time, I was seven months pregnant. My brother was as kind to me as ever, indeed in my dream he is so proud that he struts as though he himself were the father.

  Then the dream turns dark, and he is replaced by my friend Yolande de Polignac. “Never mind,” she says, “I am the true father.” I gnash my teeth with anguish, for I imagine these words emerging from her mouth in a little balloon, as in the crude drawings of the obscene pamphleteers.

  Then a birth pain rocks me, and I wake up. I puzzle for a moment as to what has yoked my brother and my friend in this distasteful way. And I remember. The dream is my revenge: she has been critical of him. No wonder, perhaps. Even at his first visit, in the midst of my joy at our reunion, my brother had scant good to say of my new friend’s character or of her circle. He only wished to guide me because he loves me; however, I find that I do not tolerate her criticism of him very well. I feel the cooling of my love for her because of it.

  The thought terrifies me, and I vow to make some appropriate gesture that will bring her back close to me again. I banish the impulse to plan: I have work ahead of me, and I wish to be of clear and pure mind while I do it.

  Another cramp seizes my abdomen. Still it is not severe. How strange to be in no hurry—none at all. I ask for my bath.

  As I luxuriate in the warm water, I think that I resemble a great turtle, with its humped shell on backward. I think lazily of how I float in the tub, and the babe floats in me.

  “Shall I cancel the hunt?” I hear the King say at the door.

  I rake my spread fingers through the bathwater. I envision the King riding through the forest in pursuit of a wild-eyed stag, its antlers lifted high.

  “Yes,” I say, and realize I have meant to say no, but that none of it makes any difference. Yes, I am in the soft grip of my body now, and what the rest of the world does or doesn’t do is of little concern. Soon, nature will squeeze me hard. I hold out my hand to be helped over the edge of my tub, for it would not do to take a fall now.

  I allow myself to be dried, my big belly buffed a bit with towels. It is a rich moment. I feel like a pomegranate and wish that my skin could take on its hue, a blend of orange and red and rose, a streak of gold, some drops of black, the little crown on its top fit in shape if not in size to sit atop the head of a royal babe, a boy who would be king. I am a pomegranate mother.

  Yes, I think, it has come about, it is coming about—all these events—as my mother promised before I left my country. I see her now, a dark wedge at her desk; she rises: You will copulate, you become pregnant, nine months later you give birth, you will give France an heir. They will say I have sent them an angel.

  Suddenly I shake my head to clear it of these dreamy thoughts.

  “This time,” my husband says, “only a few will be present. The Princesse de Lamballe, the Comte d’Artois, Mesdames Tantes…” He goes on to name only a few more, and I think of his goodness to break with the traditions of over a hundred years, to give me a modicum of privacy.

  “No.” I smile at him. “Not like before, this time.”

  Again, I approach the little white birthing bed and lie down, unafraid, curious as to how this birth will resemble and not resemble the earlier one.

  “There will be plenty of fresh air,” my husband says, “and no fainting for lack of breath.”

  He himself pushes the window out, and I note the smells of dusty autumn leaves, nothing of the frigid winter breath of December almost three years ago.

  The pains are strangely close together, and much less terrifying because they are familiar. I hear the long bonging of a clock, and though I do not count the strokes, I am familiar enough now with this sequence, in a musical way, to know that the noon hour must have been struck. “Twelve?” I say, and my husband looks at his watch and nods.

  THE BIRTH COMES. And it is greeted with silence. Ah, I know what this silence means. The child is a girl, but I hold my counsel, smiling to myself.

  She will be the friend of Marie Thérèse. I picture them h
olding hands, running through the rooms of Versailles, as Charlotte and I did, when I was the happy little sister, at Schönbrunn. I see again the lovely painted lattice walls of our playroom, with ivy twining through the interstices and painted birds here and there: blue, red, yellow. I think there is a little gap in consciousness, though I do not faint. A painted hibiscus flower trumpets orangey red; all in a cluster, the golden pollen points in its center thrust beyond the petals, awaiting the legs of bees. I am aware that the King and the babe have left the room. I wish for my mother. I see the mild, kind eyes of the Princesse de Lamballe, wide spaced and wet with emotion, but I cannot interpret what they say. Let my new daughter live, I pray.

  The King enters, and I look at him with the new baby, small and well swaddled, a beautiful child. A sweet and tiny face.

  “You see I am behaving very well,” I murmur to the King. “I have asked no questions.”

  “Madame, you have fulfilled our hopes and those of France; you are the mother of a Dauphin.”

  My heart brims full and overflows. Leaning forward, I kiss the cheek of my mother. Promises and hopes fulfilled! I cannot speak, for joy. I feel her cheek against my lips.

  The King fills the silence. “At precisely a quarter past one—for I looked at my watch—you were delivered successfully of a boy.”

  JOYFUL NOISE

  The labor done—oh, the fun and triumph of it all! Two weeks have passed since my little Louis Joseph came into this world, and the world is inflamed with joy—the King has told me all about it.

  Some of the celebration I witnessed myself. Because she is the royal governess, the Princess de Guéméné received the baby, held him close against her, and sat in a chair, which was paraded through the château en route to her apartments. I could hear the shouts of joy and exclamations of admiration as they marched, even while I lay in my bed. The King witnessed it and told me that the crowd adoring our son was enormous, and many wept in their happiness for France. In one household, that of the Marquis de Bombelles, we heard that the giddy man literally ran through his house, shouting to everyone, “A Dauphin? A Dauphin! Can it be true? Is it possible? Oh what are they saying and doing at Versailles?”

  The King himself was so moved that he wept throughout the christening ceremony, conducted the day after the child’s birth, and Madame Campan tells me that he deploys his sentences so that he can utter the phrase “my son the Dauphin” as much as he can.

  The wet nurse is actually named Madame Poitrine, which means Mrs. Breast—it delights me so!—and anyone can see she is the very embodiment of robust country health. The tsarina of Russia has bestowed a rattle upon our son fashioned from coral and a multitude of diamonds. All these details are told and retold in every village and on the streets of Paris, where strangers suddenly embrace one another. At great expense, the King has caused the city to be illumined with torches burning at the crossroads, and all the fountains are filled with wine.

  How I wish I could have risen from my bed to see the tradesmen who came out from Paris, in a long procession of decorated wagons or floats ending at the Marble Courtyard. The guild of chimney sweeps carried a wonderful chimney from which sprang a tiny boy representing the Dauphin, and the locksmiths—how Louis loved to tell it, he himself being a crafter of locks—created a lock with a little Dauphin inside! I was told too that the league of wet nurses carried a woman in a sedan chair exhibited in the very act of nursing a child. Ah, Rousseau! Today you are vindicated!

  TODAY THE MARKET women have insisted on coming all the way to my bed. Dressed in black silk—their finest—they recite verses in praise of the event. One of their number—she has a splendid, firm voice, almost like a man—has the speech written on the back of her fan. She can read, and she consults her prompt from time to time, first peering down into the fan, then rolling her eyes upward and fluttering the fan like a coquette. What a droll sight!

  Then the fishwives recite couplets that they themselves have composed—some on the spot! The King and I laugh and we call for encores, and the entertainment is merrily repeated till we can whoop no more.

  We have a bountiful feast served to all their company.

  I LIKE TO THINK over it all and to tell myself again and again the details of the celebrations. But nothing compares to gazing at my little son as he lies in my arms. He has a more delicate face than his sister, and his eyes already seem thoughtful with a strange light in them. I am glad for him to have all the butterfat that Mrs. Poitrine’s ample breasts afford. Unlike my daughter, he is the heir to the throne. He is a treasure, not to be nursed by a mere mother!

  AH, AND THERE is more cheering and noise, about war, for we have heard that the Americans, aided by the French, have triumphed at Yorktown, and the British General Cornwallis has surrendered. They say that Lafayette will soon be home, and Count von Fersen and all the other gallant young soldiers. To think they have been gone three years.

  How difficult it must be for mothers to watch their sons go off to war! I hope that my dear baby boy will never have to lead his country into battle.

  As my husband and I look down into his crib, I ask, “Why is it that we rejoice in the happy conclusion of this American revolution? I know that this war has weakened England, but they have rebelled against their lawful king.”

  “George III and his Parliament taxed the colonies without regard for their prosperity. Because the king did not act as a good father to his American children, they felt it necessary to rebel.”

  “But was it truly right to do so?”

  The King sighs and strokes the small cheek of our little son. “We must try to be good monarchs to our people so that they are content and loving.”

  I feel that he has not answered my question in a direct way, but I do not wish to press the point. While Fersen and Lafayette have returned, unharmed, surely many people suffered and died in this war across the sea.

  “With the fruit of your womb comes the happiness of France,” my husband says, reaching out his hand to me.

  “You speak from the abundance of your heart,” I say, “and your words are beautiful. I am happy.”

  He does not utter a syllable but leans his whole body forward to cover my lips with his. Shyly, his tongue enters. Never have I received a richer gift.

  “Perhaps as a token of my appreciation of the birth of a Dauphin,” the King says quietly, “you would allow me to have furnished for you some small chamber within the Palace of Versailles. A quiet and intimate place such as you like so well, but near at hand, so that you need not go all the way to the foot of the gardens to your Petit Trianon. Would you like such a private apartment?”

  All in a flash, I remember the unused apartments I discovered deep within the maze of the palace, when I played the game of Seek and Seek with Artois. I think sadly how we are not such good friends now, of how he and his brother the Comte de Provence succumbed to jealousy once the King and I began to have children. With the birth of the Dauphin their own hopes for themselves or their children ever becoming king have surely dwindled to nothing.

  “Yes,” I reply slowly. “I can think of just such an intimate space. Its rooms have low ceilings and many little nooks and strange angles. The fireplaces are small and cunning. A daybed could be built there where I could rest in the afternoon.”

  “The Méridienne,” the King says, naming my retreat for afternoon naps. “There will be many symbols of the Dauphin there.”

  I think of the pastoral style of my Petit Trianon and determine that the style of this chamber will be quite different. Something in the newer style, called “antique,” that reflects the Roman culture, with Greek sphinxes and perfume censers as gilded carvings against the walls, the wainscotting and carved ornamentation all gold on white. Upholstery to be in a seeded light blue damask for the draperies around my little bed, and its coverlet, and the chairs nearby. Yes, gold and white and blue.

  I am quite overcome by the King’s desire to surround me with comforts and beauty of the types I find most refr
eshing.

  ONLY THE FACT that the Cardinal Louis de Rohan, now established as Grand Almoner, will hold in his hands our precious son at his christening upsets me. When the event occurs, I know that my heart will rebel against that hypocritical prince of the church. Yet people tell me that he would do anything to win my favor and admission to my circle of intimate friends. These ideas make me shudder. He must appear, it would seem, like an evil fairy from time to time in my life.

  SIMPLICITY

  I wish to dress myself more simply. Here at Trianon, I do not lead a public life but a private one, and it is ridiculous to apply big circles of bright rouge on my cheeks, to tread my garden paths impeded by skirts with wide panniers. Sometimes a rosebush leans a bit into the path and snags my stiff and cumbersome garment as I pass. It is nature’s reprimand. Muslin would be better—and much less of it! Thirty-six yards to clothe a single person? Absurd.

  Leonard has cut my hair short and feathery to help it thicken after the ravages of pregnancy. My whole head feels lighter and more airy. When I stroll in the autumnal garden, I simply wear a broad-brimmed hat instead of a towering coif topped further in an ungainly mound of velvet and ostrich feathers.

  From whence come these new ideas about fashion and decor? From the air. From the spirit of change. Ideas and feelings more invisible even than clouds can float into every brain to whisper: we must cast off old customs; they are too confining and inadequate to our present temperament and needs.

  My son, behind me, carried in the arms of his nurse as I stroll, makes sweet babble. Perhaps it is his presence that causes me to want a new world for his fresh and lovely being.

  Behind my son, another nurse holds the hand of my daughter, who insists on walking on her own two feet, though it makes our progress slow and almost tedious. I sigh. I feel grateful that there are so many lovely grasses and birds to observe. I lean over and pluck two blue asters, bits of star-shaped sky come to grow beside my path.