Abundance, A Novel of Marie Antionette

by Sena Jeter Naslund

  Then I remember one night, how the draperies at the château moved, and a young girl had stepped out from their folds. The way Rosalie’s skirt swayed reminded me of that movement, and yes, Rosalie somewhat resembles that girl, though Rosalie is younger than that maid could be now. Yet, in the eyes of both these girls there is a haunting, a knowledge of human vulnerability and our need, regardless of our station.

  THROUGHOUT THE USELESS DAYS, my memory is full of places and the dear people who were once with me are recalled to inhabit those places. I remember the lattice-surrounded fountain of the fallen Titan Enceladus and of course the bosquets of Ceres and her daughter Flora. I think of my little bedroom in the Trianon, where the cornflowers are embroidered into the white wool that upholsters the chairs. I recall my daybed in the room called the Méridienne, in my private chamber deep within the château, and the mirror that covers the wall beside the little bed. I remember the Bernini bust of Louis XIV, and how I stood before it with Papa-Roi, Louis XV, when I was not yet fifteen. I remember lying in my wedding bed, holding the hand of the young Dauphin, and how we galloped on horseback during the hunt, leaping the ditches in graceful arcs. I remember my mother, always at her desk, always working. I never don my black dress without thinking of her, and her good round face. And sometimes I dream of dancing, to her delight, on the stage, dressed as a shepherdess. I am so slender and lithe my feet barely skim the boards of the stage. Always I am aware as I dance of how the great velvet curtains, like rivers, stream down at the sides of the stage.

  In the first week of incarceration, I tried not to picture such scenes or my loved ones—their absence made me too sad, even imagining their clothing broke my heart—but now I do not try to discipline my memory. I invite all who come to mind. Even my old enemy, the lovely Madame du Barry, and I recall how taken I myself was by her appearance when I first saw her and did not know of her relationship to the King. I wanted to know her. In some ways, I wanted to be her, with her beautiful bust, instead of myself with my skinny chest as straight as a shield. In some ways, perhaps, the Princesse de Lamballe, also blond, was a replacement for the du Barry, though not so fetching and a great deal more wholesome and pure.

  HERE, BY THE MONTH of September, I have established the reign of courtesy, and both the Richards, husband and wife, treat me with as much consideration as they dare. Rosalie extends a degree of affection which the Richards tacitly sanction by ignoring or casting their eyes discreetly elsewhere when the young woman’s face is lit by pity or love.

  All of them together conspire to bring me a priest of the old type, whose allegiance is to Rome and not the republic, and I receive much comfort from confession and communion. I learn that the wars are not going well for France, and the priest holds out some hope that the republic will be crushed and the old regime reinstated. I do not think that the foreign armies will reach me in time, and if they do arrive at the gates of Paris, I will be promptly butchered—still my only hope is for foreign rescue, and I know for this cause Fersen is working night and day.

  I whisper, “Father, is it not ironic that in my greatest hope also lies my greatest danger?”

  “The human condition is defined by irony,” he murmurs. “From that prison, there is no escape except through faith in the ultimate goodness of God.”

  He tells me the Comtesse du Barry was arrested over the summer, denounced by Zamore, her former page. Because she received, however, the unanimous support of the inhabitants of Louveciennes, the Committee for General Safety exonerated her, saying, “There is no accusation that can be made legitimately against the citizeness du Barry.”

  For a moment I think bitterly that even now she is better loved than I was, but that thought is sweetened by another: her essential goodness and beauty have inspired the magistrates to practice justice.

  SEEING HOW MUCH good this visit has done me, all of them together again conspire to let Hüe, who was once my son’s valet, visit me.

  “You appear to me more glorious than the angel Raphael,” I tell him.

  “I come to speak of your children,” he says quickly, lest he be snatched away before his precious words can be uttered. “They are well. Madame Elisabeth cares for your daughter as though she were her own mother. And the little King—oh, he is very clever; he knows how to fool his jailers and make them think that he is one of them. But once or twice his sister exchanged a glance with him, and she declared that he is not at all changed, not in his loving heart, only a little taller now and very quick in his movements.”

  I watch the happiness in his eyes, his gladness to see me, his joy that we can speak together of those we love. He never runs out of scenes but describes one after another—what they were wearing, their very words, the quality of their glances—till Madame Richard finally says that to her regret the safe time for a visit is passing.

  Immediately, I rise from my chair. “Go at once, with all my blessings and love.” I fight back my emotion. I curtsy low, low to him and gain control of my features in that moment of bowing. When I rise, there is only a blankness where he stood. But he was real.

  My children are alive. They live!

  A FEW HOURS after he has left, Rosalie comes to me with a cup of the soothing herbal tea. Under the cup is a saucer decorated with a painted rose.

  “Monsieur Hüe wished to speak only of your dear family while he was here. But as I took him to the wicker gate, he whispered another story, a frightful one, to me.”

  “Whom does the story concern?” I ask her.

  “The Comtesse du Barry.” She bows her head as she pronounces her name so as to avoid, most tactfully, whatever expression may cross my face.

  “I think of her from time to time. I have come to wish her well.”

  Taking my reply as encouragement, Rosalie tells me that the lover of Madame du Barry, the Duc de Brissac, was massacred as he was taken from one jail to another. Within an hour, the mob had carried his head on a pike to Louveciennes. They broke a window and threw his head inside, to land at the feet of Madame du Barry.

  Now my teacup chatters on its saucer, and I squeeze my eyelids shut with all my might so that the guards will not know by my tears that I have received the most distressing news. In my mind, I turn to God, thanking Him for sparing me the sight of the severed head of my dearest and most loyal friend, the Princesse de Lamballe.

  That night I lie on my cot unable to sleep. If I could, I would fold the du Barry into my arms with every tenderness. In the dark I seek the scenes of friendship in my memory. Again and again, I picture myself chatting behind our fans with Yolande de Polignac, exchanging a knowing glance over the gaming tables with the Duchess of Devonshire, sitting among the mythic fountains of Versailles with the Princesse de Lamballe. Finally, when the square of my cell window begins to pinken, I recall that dawn when the princess sat with me on the grass and watched the glory of the sunrise. No clouds of rose and gold appear this dawn, but I remember their astonishing beauty.

  I think of my children, then, and the stories that Hüe told that made me picture them anew.

  ONE DAY WHEN both guards are so bored with their game that they fall asleep with fans of cards in their hands, Madame Richard comes to me and sits down at the table.

  “What do you knit?” she asks.

  “A pair of stockings with a rosy ladder up the side. They are for you.”

  She is overcome, presses her fingers against her throat. “My stockings have always been plain,” she replies. She lifts her skirt and thrusts out a black leg.

  I nod and continue the work of my fingers.

  “Once I heard a story,” she says. “Perhaps it was a fairy tale, not really about you and the King at all.”

  “A story?”

  “A pretty story.”

  “Then I would like to hear it.”

  “In your old country, where there were mountains, you loved to ride sleds?”

  “Yes,” I say, “and to go sleigh riding behind a swift horse. The King and I enjoyed sleigh riding
here many times.”

  “But one time, it being summer, there was no snow, but you wanted to go sleigh riding. You confided so, to the King, one hot evening.

  “In the night, he had the street of your little play village covered with sugar, and when you woke up you looked out, and all was sparkling white. Your windowsill was heaped with it.

  “You kissed the King and said, ‘With your magic wand, you have made snow in July!’

  “He said, ‘Your sleigh awaits.’

  “You looked out and there it was, snow piled everywhere, and a white horse bedecked with silver bells. You ran out and climbed in and put a red robe trimmed in ermine fur around your shoulders, and with the King beside you, holding the reins, you took a sleigh ride, as though it were frosty winter.

  “Is it true?”

  “Perhaps not in every part,” I say, because I can see the pleasure she takes in imagining the pictures.

  “Is it true that you were loved—so splendidly?”

  Suddenly I see the image of Fersen, sitting on the high box of the berlin, with the straps of leather, the reins, hanging loosely in his gloved hands. And I envision the King beside him, ready to play the role of coachman for my sake.

  “Yes,” I say. “I was loved so splendidly.”

  AMID A CROWD of the usual sightseers, here is someone I know, carrying two red carnations: Alexandre de Rougeville. He drops the flowers at my feet. Immediately I bend to pick them up. I turn my back for a moment on this crowd of visitors, my fingers seeking and finding a tiny note, and in a flash it is read. Escape? it reads.

  In a terrifying moment, these people visiting my cell coincidentally begin to discuss how attempts at organizing my escape have been hatched by people outside, plans of which I have known nothing. The Wigmakers, I learn from this casual chatter, formulated a plan, and the former pastry cooks at the château tried to join the plot before it was discovered. The terrible danger such people are in fills me with horror. I pluck a pin from my dress and try, with shaking hand to prick out Non onto the scrap of paper, but someone not in on the plan calls attention to my unfinished pricking. A guard is called, then two or three; hurriedly the visitors leave while I conceal the note in my sleeve.

  When I see that Rougeville has escaped, I say yes there was a note but I have dropped it. All of us together get on the floor and look for it. I find it only when enough time has passed for the visitors to have reached the outside. Bearing away the little note (Escape? with a few holes pricked in it: No), the guards stomp away. There is great menace in their determined feet, but I try to calm myself.

  Holding the pretty red flowers with their fringy petals in my hands, I say, “I once had a passion for such flowers.” Without saying a word, the brave Rosalie improvises a vase for them from a brown jug.

  THE CARNATION PLOT is not without repercussions, for that night they come to interrogate me in my cell. They leave, only to come again, determined to squeeze some truth from my words.

  I am questioned for sixteen hours, but a lovely calm has come upon me. I no longer fear that I will make mistakes or say something stupid or dangerous. Within this calm, I find that I am quite as intelligent and cunning as the lawyers. I have practiced tact all my life; now I use it to confound them.

  They want to know if I take an interest in the military victories of the enemies of France.

  After glancing around the walls of this impenetrable cell, I reply that my only interest is in the success of the nation to which my son belongs.

  “And to which nation does he give allegiance?”

  “Isn’t he French?” I reply, as though puzzled.

  Surrounding me, they have the faces of wolves. But I do not falter. I will not fall. I think of the words of the brave Princesse de Lamballe: It matters little to me whether I die now or later, for it is the fate of all of us to die.

  “When you were in the Tower, after the execution of the King, did you not give your son, who bore the empty title of king, a special place at the head of the table—eh, Madame? And special privileges to instill in him the idea of his innate superiority?”

  “My only desire is to see France powerful and happy,” I reply.

  “You cannot deny that you wish to see a king on the throne of France.”

  “If France is content to have a king, I would like that king to be my son, but I am just as happy, as is he, if France is content to be without a king.”

  “Can you deny that you support the enemies of France through your emissaries and by secret communications?”

  “I regard as my enemies any who would bring harm to my children.”

  “What do you mean by harm? What do you regard as harmful, Madame?” His voice is sharp as a razor.

  I blunt my reply. I repeat myself. “Any kind of harm…Whatever might be harmful.”

  My words meander vaguely. Yes, I have been trained to act a role. My mind is as keen as his, and, fundamentally, I have truth on my side, for I have always desired the happiness of France.

  ALAS, THE GOOD Richards are arrested!

  My diamond rings and the golden watch that hung on its nail like a lucky charm are taken away. That night I cannot control my sobs. I cry into my pillow like the girl I was when the watch first came into my hands, from the hands of my mother. I position Rosalie’s stool beside my bed and pretend it is that sympathetic girl.

  With my thumb I stroke the blank finger where I wore my loose rings, as I lie in bed. They would gladly have stripped them from my fingers. “Wait,” I commanded. Then I took the rings off myself and placed them into the outstretched palm of the guard. I noticed the palm was yellow and calloused with work, as though it were turning into some hornlike substance. He closed his big fingers over my little silver circles.

  Today, Monsieur Bault, the new concierge, takes away the stool.

  13 October

  Two lawyers appear in my cell. They have only been appointed recently, and they wish me to write, asking for an extension of time so that they may prepare my defense.

  “When is my trial to commence?” I inquire.

  “Tomorrow,” they say in duet, with expressions of the most extreme anxiety and urgency defining their faces.

  “I do not wish to ask them for any mercy or consideration,” I reply. “They have no authority either to judge me or to respond to my petition.”

  Monsieur Chauveau-Lagarde says that he wishes to preserve my life. “For your own sake, Madame, of course, but even more so that your children will not be left motherless.”

  I look at this man more carefully. His hair is pulled back from his keen, birdlike face. He is fearless. I see something of myself in him. “You are willing to defend a helpless woman?”

  “I have defended Charlotte Corday, tried for the murder of Marat, as he sat in his bathtub.”

  “Marat the extremist is killed?” Marat spoke against the proposal that we should be exiled in America.

  “As he sat in his tub,” the other lawyer adds. His name is Tronson Doucoudray.

  “And what was her fate—Charlotte Corday?” When I try to imagine her, I see Jeanne d’Arc.

  Chauveau-Lagarde does not answer, but Tronson Doucoudray says, with intentional irony, “She met the swift, humane death offered by the guillotine.”

  “You are brave men to agree to defend me.”

  Now Chauveau-Lagarde smiles. “Not so very brave. As I passed through the wicket-gates and through the labyrinth of corridors, I felt I was descending into hell. My knees trembled. But we must make this effort, Madame, for your children.”

  “For the sanity of France,” his partner adds.

  “For your children,” Chauveau-Lagarde reiterates. “We defend in your person, the widow of Louis XVI, the mother of the King’s children.”

  I pick up my pen and ask for three days’ delay, so that the numerous documents pertinent to my situation may be examined by those appointed to conduct my defense. With wan satisfaction, the three of us smile at the reasonableness of our request.r />
  Before they leave, my lawyers regretfully prepare me for the fact that my son’s keepers have extracted from him statements resulting in documents claiming that I and his aunt caused him to lie between us in bed and to have intercourse with us of a sexual nature.

  “There are documents from interviews with his sister and from his aunt contradicting the charges.”

  “The villains have trumped up this charge in its entirety,” I say boldly, but my heart is stricken. How they must have manipulated my son to make him say such things. How they have sullied him and stolen away his innocence.

  They wish to try me not as a human being, but as a monster. In their filthy pamphlets I have been depicted that way: a harpy wearing my face, a devil woman with talons of steel.

  THE PETITION for postponement is ignored, and today, 14 October, the guards come to conduct me to a far part of this enormous fortress, where I am to be tried before the tribunal of the National Convention.

  As I walk the corridors to their court, my resolve is only to preserve my dignity. How strange it is to move one foot in front of the other. In a few days, I have no doubt, these feet will have no life in them, and I will lie under the earth. Such ideas lack vividness in my mind, yet I believe them to be true. Only my shoes are vivid, their plum-colored toes occasionally emerging from under the hem of my black dress, appropriate for a widow, as I walk through the hallway.

  Sometimes I feel the blood of my womanhood gush from my body, but Rosalie has tied me up into cloths very securely in that region, using her own chemises for the purpose. How strange it was to stand before her, her gentle fingers sometimes brushing my old flesh, making me as secure as possible.