by Juliet Grey
I rose and walked to the glass doors, opening them myself. My heart began to tremble, for despite the warning signs posted on the grounds, anyone might talk his way into the presence of the sovereign and I had not been terribly popular of late. Perhaps this stranger meant me some harm. “Count Falkenstein?” I echoed doubtfully.
The gentleman stepped forward and doffed his hat, revealing a head of thinning blond hair, unpowdered, a pale face with light blue eyes, and a jovial smile with a fine set of teeth.
“Joseph!” I flung my arms about his neck and kissed him on both cheeks. When he drew away, he touched himself where I kissed him, and worried with an amused chuckle that he was now splotched with rouge. “What is this ‘Count Falkenstein’ business? I nearly had you removed from the property as a trespasser!”
“Have you already forgotten that I prefer to travel incognito? As soon as people know they are speaking to the Holy Roman Emperor I am given quite a different welcome and then I have an altogether distorted experience. No, I wish to see the world as any other man of good stature would, and so I kept my nom de voyage a secret even from my favorite sister.”
I stepped back to regard him more fully. “Mon Dieu! Look at you, mon frère! So—so—” I had not seen him since I was fourteen years old, on the day I left my homeland for France. In truth Joseph seemed a bit aged for his thirty-six years; perhaps because he was losing his hair and had not the vanity to wear a wig, at least in his disguise. “Come, you must meet my two dearest friends!” I clasped his hand and, suddenly a little girl again with her beloved oldest brother, tugged him up the three stone steps into the intimate Belvedère. On this afternoon in early spring, it was the loveliest spot in France, with its cream-colored walls frescoed with floral motifs in shades of gray and gold. I slipped my arm through Joseph’s.
He paused when he saw the two children playing on the floor, surrounded by a half-dozen toys and dolls. “Obviously not yours.”
“Hélas, non, but loveable all the same.” I knelt beside Julie and stroked her dark curls. “They belong to a miller and his wife. The roof of their cottage was in dreadful need of repair—and I offered to ameliorate their lot by adopting Jacques and Julie while the work was being done. Now that the spring has come and the roof has been rebuilt, I must regrettably return them to their parents soon.” I cast a mournful glance at the six-year-old boy and his sister. “But I hate to part with them.”
“Is Her Majesty kind to you?” my brother asked Jacques.
“Tell Count Falkenstein the truth, mon petit.”
“Oh, yes. But she doesn’t let us eat too many sweets,” the boy replied.
“She gave us two pairs of new shoes,” eight-year-old Julie volunteered, displaying her ankles. “With diamond buckles.”
“Do they play in the palace?” Joseph inquired, uttering the words between his teeth.
“Of course they do; they live there!” He blanched, clearly imagining the pair of them rolling hoops through the Galerie des Glaces. “Where else should they play? In my rooms there are dogs aplenty for them to romp with, and I have seen to it that they shall have no end of other amusements. I wish I could keep them forever.” I sighed. “There are so many advantages I could bestow that their parents could not.” I drew the children into my arms. “They could neither read nor write when I met them, and already they are becoming proficient.” The rush of crimson to my cheeks informed Joseph that Julie and Jacques were not the first children I had adopted and would doubtless not be the last.
“You do have to bring them home soon,” Joseph murmured. “Your duty is to bear children, not to borrow them.”
I kissed their sweet brows and rose to my feet. Best to change the subject. “Allow me to introduce you, brother, to my two dearest friends. The beautiful lady in lilac with the cloud of dark hair and the indigo eyes is the comtesse de Polignac. Her family is terribly poor,” I whispered. “Desperate straits, all of them, so I have found places for several of her relations at court. I have helped those who remain in the countryside with gifts of food and contributions from my privy purse. It’s the least I can do to help a friend. Louis, too, has been quite magnanimous, for he sees how greatly Gabrielle’s companionship pleases me.”
“Ah” was all Joseph said. “And the blond woman in the striped blue dress with the sad eyes. Does she never smile?”
“Rarely,” I replied. “Yet that does not mean she is always unhappy. What a tease you are. Such a big brother to say cruel things about mes jolies amies—and I have not even introduced them to you! But aren’t they the most beautiful creatures in the world?”
Joseph released a little sniff. I’d almost forgotten his annoying way of laughing through his nose. “I couldn’t tell,” he said wryly. “The three of you look like a trio of painted dolls.”
“Now I think you have only come to France to vex me! I know we didn’t wear cheek and lip rouge in Austria, but here it is a mark of distinction, rank, and wealth. As silly as they look to you, these big red circles are emblematic of our stature at court and our ability to afford the most costly cosmetic in the kingdom. Now, before you insult me any further, where have you taken lodgings and will you not change your mind and allow me to furnish a grand suite for you at the château?”
When I discovered he had rented a modest hotel room near the Palais Royal for the next two months I warned him not to grow too close to the duc d’Orléans. “For he is ambitious and wishes he were king instead. I am certain he is behind the printing of some of the dreadful pamphlets about me, though we cannot prove it. I suspect that Monsieur has a hand in the libelles as well. He is just as cunning and conniving as Orléans.” I frowned and turned my attention to the swans, so perfectly paired, as they glided on the pond. Someone once told me they mate for life and are never unfaithful. How unlike the courtiers of Versailles! “To think that my brother-in-law once maintained the pretense of being our friend.”
Joseph chucked me on the chin. “I thank you for your counsel, little queen, but I hope you can trust me to form my own judgments.”
In his guise as Count Falkenstein Joseph was determined to play the vulgar German in the presence of the French aristocracy, perversely encouraging their negative impressions of our countrymen. At his first royal dinner, having insisted that he not be treated with the deference due to his rank and title, Joseph dined with Louis and me in my bedchamber, the lavishly laid table shoved up against the bed while the three of us perched upon identical folding stools. My husband was indifferent as always when he had food in front of him, and Joseph was amused by the entire charade. I could not stomach any more than a serving of chicken breast, mortified at such a humble reception when my brother was the first emperor to visit a French king in his own palace in nine hundred years. I departed anxiously after the meal to have my hair dressed for the evening, dreading the thought of leaving my brother and husband alone together.
Joseph attended my lever the following morning, quipping like a court jester at every turn. I found myself biting my lip at our secret, for no one was the wiser that my uncouth guest with his unpowdered hair and simple shoe buckles was none other than the Holy Roman Emperor. On the subject of the court-mandated rouge, he was relentless. As I carefully applied the two-inch-wide circles with my boar-bristle brush, my brother shocked the distinguished assemblage by declaring, “Lay it on, ma’am. Are you certain your rouge pot contains enough pigment? Perhaps a trowel might be a more useful implement than a brush. Surely the court stonemasons have one they can lend you. Slap some more of your cochineal under the eyes like that woman over there.” He rudely pointed to the marquise de Lorillard, legendary at court for the artificial appearance of her visage.
And he took an immediate dislike to Monsieur Léonard, who dressed my hair that morning with a quintet of lemon-yellow ostrich plumes and a topaz and sapphire aigrette. Expecting a compliment when I asked the soi-disant Count Falkenstein what he thought of my feathers, he quipped insultingly, “Too light to support a crown.”
But
once the sycophants had departed, we slipped through the secret door that led to my private apartments, and there, in the solitude of la Méridienne, we could finally converse as beloved siblings, without pretense, our public masks removed. “Would you like some refreshment?” I began. “Apart from chocolate and coffee, I drink mostly orange water and lemonade. The water from Versailles gives me indigestion, so I import bottles from Ville d’Avray; but I can ring for something stronger if you prefer. Eau de vie, perhaps?” I paced excitedly and was about to perch on the edge of my daybed when Joseph spoke.
“Don’t sit yet. Let me truly look at you. The Emperor of Austria wishes to admire the Queen of France.”
“So that’s it,” I teased, playfully striking a pose at the center of the octagonal salon. “People think my life is effortless because everything is done for me—but they are wrong. Playing the queen takes a good deal of exertion. The constraints are endless; it seems that to be natural is a crime. Now, if I believed that my favorite brother wished to appraise his youngest sister’s appearance after seven springs, an eternity since he last saw her as an awkward, coltish girl, then I might deliver an inventory of her improvements. To begin, you might remind Maman that the bosom which was the subject of so much international agonizing all those years ago, finally developed, arriving without fanfare in 1773.”
The passages inside my nose began to sting, a harbinger of tears. I squeezed my eyes shut in an effort to stave them off. “Yet what a cruel joke that was. The Savoyard sisters who married Louis’s brothers are dark, squat, hairy little gnomes, but they were wed all the same. It mattered to Papa Roi whether I ‘had good breasts.’ But Louis is not like other men. He couldn’t even glance at me then without wincing. And even after I discovered the reason, it didn’t matter, for nothing changed between us, despite his avowals of esteem and affection.” My chest rose and fell as I wept, releasing the tears that had been corked up for so long. “Try as we both have, we are ill suited. My tastes do not accord with the king’s. He is only interested in hunting and mechanical work.” My words came in wet gulps as I sought to explain my marriage to Joseph, for I knew he had heard much, but most of it was fanciful, or at the very least, exaggeration, designed to discredit me. “I know you will agree that I should not look particularly well standing beside a forge, that the part of Vulcan would not suit me; and I fancy the role of Venus would be more uncongenial to him than my tastes.” I told my brother that earlier in the year, despite his plans to economize, Louis had doubled the number of spectacles at court. Placing my hands over my flat belly, I said, “He feels he must indulge me in other ways, you see.”
Joseph remained silent, his arms resting on the padded chair, his light eyes full of concern. He seemed to be studying me as if I were some exotic specimen. “It has not always been easy to be me,” I said, with a note of self-mocking.
Reaching into my pocket for a ring of skeleton keys, I unlocked a cabinet inlaid with mother-of-pearl. I withdrew a red leather box containing a sheaf of pamphlets and a number of loose sheets of paper. Some were clearly published professionally; others bore the hallmarks of an amateur press. “Did you know there were printing presses right here at Versailles?” I said rhetorically. “Oh yes, they belong to some of the noblemen who reside here. Louis and I house them, feed them, grant them perquisites, honors, and largesse, and they repay us by printing screeds such as these.” I thrust the papers into his hands. “Most of the others are made on foreign presses—in England and Holland primarily. But they are secretly financed by powerful men right here in France.” I chuckled bitterly. “Well, I suppose it is only half a secret, for we know about the printings. We just don’t know the identities of the instigators.”
Joseph was leafing through the pamphlets. “Go ahead; read them,” I urged him. “Read them aloud so you can taste the words in your mouth. For only then will you know what it feels like to be on the receiving end of such filth.”
“ ‘It is not there that the trouble lies/Says the Royal Clitoris/But nothing comes out but Water,’ ” Joseph read, his voice devoid of expression. He thumbed through the loose pages and found another diatribe. “ ‘One says he can’t get it up, Another—he can’t get it in.’ ” Muttering with disgust, he picked one of the bound pamphlets at random and read, “ ‘Everyone asks in a whisper/The King—can he or can’t he?/The sad queen is in despair.’ ”
“She is indeed.” I sighed heavily. “One might almost think that last one was published by someone who was sympathique—at least to me.” I felt the tears well up again. Perhaps it was the comfort of a family member and the privacy of our reunion that gave me the freedom to cry, for I had not wept so copiously in recent memory. “I hope you plan to stay in France at least past the sixteenth of May, for it would be a great honor to her king and queen to join these virgin monarchs for the celebration of their seventh wedding anniversary!” I blotted my tears with a lace-edged handkerchief whiteworked with my cipher.
My brother continued to study me. At length, stating the obvious, he reminded me, “The Austrian alliance depends upon your bearing a son. Tell me,” he said, his manner almost clinical, “do you ever make any efforts to seduce your husband?”
Beneath my circles of rouge, I blushed profusely. “For my perceived excesses and an influence upon the king that I do not in truth possess, I have been compared to Pompadour and du Barry by many people—but to have my own brother suggest that I behave like a concubine, I—I am at a loss for words!” I recalled the humiliation I’d felt after suggesting to Louis that we make love à levrette. Never again could I abase myself in such a manner or risk another embarrassing rejection of my efforts to excite my husband.
“Listen before you dismiss it out of hand,” he scolded. “I merely propose that you entice the king to your bed in the afternoon when he still has energy from the hunt or his smithing. After a day of strenuous exercise, how can he be expected to rouse himself in the middle of the night, when you have finally exhausted your round of amusements? And he will be equally useless in the bedchamber right after a large meal, if yesterday was an indication of his daily consumption.”
Joseph did not mince words, nor did he spare my feelings. I nodded obediently. “You have become a beautiful and desirable woman,” he added, “with a charm and vivacity that are undeniable. Were you not my sister, and were I considering exchanging my widowed state, I would be delighted to find a bride such as you.” He studied me with a long, appraising look. I felt uncomfortable being so scrutinized and glanced away. “You are coloring all the way to your hairline,” he observed. “Mercy reports that you have been experiencing sudden attacks of affectations nerveuses, and it would appear to me as though you might be about to have one now. He believes that compliments on your beauty from virile gentlemen are the cause. And you have quite a number of handsome admirers.”
My breath was catching in my throat. Joseph was right. Feeling light-headed, I sank onto my daybed; la Méridienne became a blur of aqua, celadon, cream, and gold. “What are you saying?”
The emperor was about to rise from his chair, when a familiar face appeared from behind a table and began to nuzzle his leg. “Mein Gott, is this Mops?” I nodded and he lifted my pug into the air and gave him a cuddle. After so many years the dog must have remembered my brother’s scent, for he eagerly licked his hands and face. “Maman is right,” Joseph laughed. “You are unparalleled at deflecting someone’s attention from anything you find unpleasant.” He allowed Mops to slip from his arms and took a stroll about the room to stretch his legs.
“My point, dear sister, is that you are surrounded by temptation. I expect that you comprehend the dangers of giving yourself to a lover before you have given France a lawful heir. You could be sent back to Vienna, Toinette.”
I lowered my head and shut my eyes tightly. “You need not fear my sense of duty. And my faith is just as strong.” I sat up straighter. “I am Maman’s daughter, not Papa’s.” Reaching for Mops, I stroked his thick, tawny coat. He was
an old boy, now. Would he live long enough to play with my children? “Besides, there is no one at court who sets my heart aflutter; my friseur has more substance. And I do think about how Louis would feel.”
Joseph produced a snuffbox from the pocket of his puce-colored coat. The ladies of Paris found him so amusing for he thought he sported the height of fashion, but “flea’s thigh,” “young flea,” and “flea’s belly” were hues that were already seasons out of date. Now, “dandies’ guts” and “boue de Paris”—Paris mud—were all the rage. “In that case, do you ever suppress any of your own wishes for the king’s sake? Do you occupy yourself with matters which he has neglected, in order to assist when he has stumbled? Do you ever sacrifice yourself to him in any way, or are all your concerns for yourself? Do you silence those who dare to allude to his errors or infirmities, or do you mock them as well?”
His sudden barrage of questions stunned me. “For this is what a good wife does, Toinette. Listen to a brother who loves you, a twice-widowed man of the world who was fortunate enough to once know love. But love is not the principal ingredient of a marriage. Esteem and obligation, as well as trust, are essential.”
I wished to remind Joseph that he’d had so little esteem for his second wife, Maria Josepha of Bavaria, that he had a wall constructed on their balcony so that he would not even have to look at her, but he was so intent on reprimanding me that I could not insert a word edgewise.
“Have you ever taken the trouble to consider the effect that your friendships and intimacies may have upon the public when you fail—as you do—to give your high regard to your husband and instead squander your good opinion upon those who are untrustworthy and who encourage you in acts of vice rather than those of virtue? When was the last time you visited a convent as you used to do with Maman? Do you ever reflect upon the disastrous consequences of playing hazard and pharaon, on the bad company that assembles on these occasions, and then bear in mind that the king never plays games of chance?”