by Juliet Grey
I nodded emphatically. And if it had been up to me, the meeting of the Estates General would have been held far from Versailles, where it would have been more difficult for spectators, especially the clamorous Parisians, to attend. But Louis had heeded Necker instead. “These rebellious firebrands must be reminded that it is their duty to obey their king.” I began to pace about Louis’s study, nervously tying and untying my linen fichu. “Write this,” I said, dictating to my husband, who had been reluctant to commit to any particular tack. But if someone did not grasp the reins we were headed for the abyss. “ ‘To the burden of the taxes and the debts of the state there has been added a spirit of restlessness that will bring about the greatest disasters if it is not promptly checked.’ ” I came around behind him and made certain he had transcribed my words.
What would Maman tell the deputies under these circumstances? I wondered. I imagined myself in the stiff black gown of the late Empress Maria Theresa, unafraid, impervious, rather than the thin-skinned Marie Antoinette who could only feign her mother’s formidability. Resuming my dictation I added, “ ‘I hope that this assembly’—no, ‘this distinguished assembly’; we can allow them that—‘will show the obedience which is as necessary to the people’s happiness as it is to the conservation of the monarchy.’ ”
I clung to my opinion the following morning, as I instructed Léonard to dress my hair for the procession. “I must go like an actress, exhibit myself to a public that may hiss me,” I said, sighing. As I appraised my reflection in the mirror I caught him doing the same. Had he noticed that my shoulders had become a bit stooped and my bosom, which not too recently had measured forty-four inches, looked shrunken, as though I were considerably older than thirty-three?
Madame Campan helped me dress in the last of the gala gowns I had ordered from Mademoiselle Bertin, a robe of purple satin and cloth of silver with a white underskirt that sparkled with countless diamonds and paillettes. My tresses were swept into a violet bandeau studded with brilliants and crested with a single white heron feather.
Louis, too, was every inch the monarch in his glittering robes and plumed hat. His ample person coruscated with diamonds—on his cloth-of-gold suit, on the jewel-encrusted hilt of the court sword at his hip, on his shoe buckles, his garters, and on the orders of the Golden Fleece and the Saint-Esprit that he wore pinned to his bosom. Once again, he wore the enormous, and flawless, Regent diamond pinned to his hat.
Outside the palace gates, in the town of Versailles, stood an enormous hall known as the Salle des Menus Plaisirs. This repository of theatrical scenery and properties had always been the purview of the now gout-afflicted Papillon de la Ferté, the royal Steward of Small Pleasures; and for the purposes of the meeting of the Estates General he had transformed it into an ancient Greek temple, a triumph of gilded and faux marble and papier-mâché. The allusions to the birthplace of democracy were not lost on the Third Estate. The fact that the trappings were sham was not wasted on the first two delegations.
A broad center aisle was delineated by two lines of Doric columns leading to a raised dais upon which the king would repose beneath a carved baldachin of purple and gold and a canopy bearing the fleur-de-lis of France. Designated for me, a padded armchair was placed slightly to Louis’s left. The 1,214 deputies of the three Estates were seated according to strict etiquette, with the First Estate, the clergy, to the king’s right; the Second Estate, the nobility, to his left; and the representatives from the Third Estate arranged along the back of the salle, facing the throne. The balconies opposite us were thronged with spectators, eager to witness history in the making.
We had been compelled to wait for several hours before entering the hall while the roll was called and each of the delegates’ names was formally inscribed. It was after noon when the king and I entered the salle. Neither of us knew what to expect. Louis looked anxious. I expect I looked a bit haggard. Between the frustrations of composing his speech, my anger over the convening of the three Estates in the first place, and my fears for the dauphin’s failing health, how could I ever convey the portrait of regal serenity?
Cries of “Vive le roi!” greeted our arrival, yet as I crossed the threshold a frosty silence descended. The room grew horribly still. Beneath my stays, my belly fluttered with tiny convulsions.
Their hatred of me was palpable. Was that why the king jettisoned the words I had so assiduously helped him pen the previous day? A frisson of shock reverberated through my core and I fanned myself with undignified agitation.
My husband rose from the throne, his stature appearing the more imposing, for he had gained so much weight of late that seated he resembled a fur-trimmed fleshpot. Never comfortable before a large audience, Louis nonetheless relied on one of his strengths; he spoke plainly and with compassion for his people.
“The day my heart has been awaiting has finally come,” he began sonorously, “as I stand amid the delegates of the nation I take so much pride in ruling. You have come before me to address the financial condition of France and to reestablish order where chaos has begun to rear its head. As your king, my power is great, bestowed by divine right, but my concern for my subjects is of equal magnitude. Messieurs, mes amis, everything you may expect of the most loving interest in the public happiness, all that can be asked of a sovereign who is also his subjects’ best friend, you may, you must, expect from my feelings.”
I was so relieved when his speech was interrupted by applause several times, not just from the clergy and nobility, but from members of the Third Estate as well. I frequently found myself gazing across this sea, hundreds deep, of pale, dour faces set off above by ink-hued tricorns they had refused to remove, and below by their mandated garments of the same shade. Who were they, these angry men, who so despised the monarchy, and so detested their queen? What had I done to them, or to their wives and children, their cousins and sisters, their mothers, brothers, and fathers? Was it any one of them, I wondered, who had written, or published, the vile tract called “Le Godemiche, or The Royal Dildo” or the “operatic proverb” titled “The Austrian Woman on the Rampage, or The Royal Orgy”? Veni Vidi was the farce’s bawdy Latin epigraph—I came, I saw. I blinked back tears imagining what Maman might have made of this denigration of her youngest daughter.
I felt sick. I had one son whose span of days was clearly numbered, as had been those of the daughter taken from me in her infancy. And over the past few years these antiroyalist monsters had stolen precious hours I could have spent with my children, even robbed me of thoughts I might have devoted to them by wasting my time instead on these vicious tracts. If the representatives of the three Estates and the spectators in the galleries, eager to find something unpleasant to say about the queen of France, returned home to write in their journals or told their friends that I looked sour or peevish, I was certain they dared not look within to divine the cause.
When the king finished speaking, he lowered himself into the throne and gave Monsieur Necker a nod. The Minister of Finance took the floor to resounding cheers, but after a few minutes it became painfully clear that at the pinnacle of his career the great Swiss banker was losing the courage of his progressive convictions. What followed for the next three hours—he became so hoarse that his assistant had to read the remainder of his speech—was a monotonous recitation of financial statistics. Where was the call for a Constitution that the Third Estate had expected him to proclaim? A tide of murmurs spread throughout the hall. Had the king forbidden him to mention it?
By the end of the session no one came away satisfied. I was becoming convinced that the entire assembly was not only a waste of time but a dangerous referendum against the monarchy in general, and most specifically, against the royal family.
THIRTY-ONE
Struggling for Life
Over the next several days, the deputies—308 from the First Estate, 285 from the Second, and 621 from the Third, presented their cahiers, or lists of grievances, to the king. These consisted of complaints that the
price of salt was too high, that farmlands had been greatly reduced because of hailstorms, or abused due to foot traffic caused by a detour from the roadway. High taxes, or the fact that taxes and duties were levied at all, was a perpetual objection. No progress had been made in weeks other than the decision by some of the lower orders of the clergy to join the ranks of the Third Estate. By the end of May, although most of the Second Estate firmly insisted on retaining their aristocratic perquisites, there were a few members of the nobility, most notably the duc d’Orléans, and one of our heroes of the American Revolution, the russet-haired marquis de Lafayette, who declared that they would not mind forfeiting a few of their privileges in exchange for a Constitution.
I had no stomach for their political haranguing. The dauphin had been conveyed a few miles away to Meudon where his doctors had insisted on assuming control of his care. Tiny Louis Joseph, covered with sores and as wizened and misshapen as an old man, lay atop the green baize of the brand-new billiard table—an odd wish, for he looked as though he were laid upon a bier; but it had been his own, and I was determined to indulge him, knowing it would be one of his final requests.
Every day I rode out to visit my son, and all too often I was met with “You may not see him, Majesté,” from one of his médecins.
“But I must—I am his mother!” I would implore, clasping the physician by the arms, and when they remained impassive, I would beseech the dauphin’s preceptor, the duc d’Harcourt, to intercede for me and allow me to attend him.
“You know the etiquette, Majesté. I can only accept instructions from one of His Royal Highness’s doctors,” the duc would reply stiffly.
There is something remarkable about children who know they are about to enter the kingdom of Heaven; they are stronger than we can ever imagine ourselves, were we to be faced with the same fate. When Louis and I were granted permission to visit the dauphin, my son would insist that his cooks prepare my favorite dishes; he would gallantly play the host, propped up on the green velvet cushions of his mechanical wheelchair, although his diminutive body was nearly swallowed up by the metal and wicker contraption. And he could not bear to dismiss the footman who served us merely because the man was clumsy. “He is only shortsighted like Papa, and if a servant can suffer the same malady as a king, why should he be punished for it when the sovereign is not?”
I endeavored to assume a bright countenance in his presence, foolishly tried to convince the dauphin that I was at least as brave as he. He told me he had wished for the room to be painted the color of the summer sky so he could pretend to be outdoors. But finally, he admitted his true reason for choosing that particular shade of blue. “I want to grow accustomed to looking at Paradise, Maman.”
There was not one specific day when I was summoned, told that the end was near, for his doctors truly did not know. Each hour was much like the last and would be like the next. And so I made certain to travel from Versailles to Meudon every day, unable to concentrate on the contentious meetings of the Estates General as my son was slipping further and further from our earthly grasp. Special prayers for the dauphin were ordered to be said in all the churches on June 2. And on the morning of June 4, shortly after the hour of one, as I held my firstborn son in my arms, he looked at me as if to tell me something, and then his eyelids gently fluttered closed for the last time.
I had been sent to France for one purpose: to bear this little boy. And now he was gone. Wracked with agonized convulsions, I rocked his ruined body in my arms, raining tears upon his lifeless form.
A few minutes later, Monsieur Lamartine, the dauphine’s premier médecin, entered the room. “Pardon, Majesté, but I must ask you to leave. Etiquette demands that the monarchs remain absent during the examination of the corpse and the ensuing autopsy.”
“But he is my son,” I cried, choking on my sobs. “Je m’en fous! I never gave a damn for etiquette and I certainly do not care a whit for it now.” I saw Lamartine look to another physician for assistance. “Try to restrain the Queen of France—try to stop me from staying with mon pauvre petit—”
Madame Campan rushed into the chamber and helped me to my feet. Her round face was wet with tears. “Come, Madame,” she soothed. “His Majesty will have need of you most.”
When we reached Versailles, Louis, whose temperament was maddeningly placid even on the direst of occasions, was in a foul mood. His valet, the faithful Hanet Cléry, was collecting discarded handkerchiefs from the floor of his study. My husband’s light eyes, like mine, were rimmed with red, the lids puffy and swollen. He threw his hands in the air. “The Paris deputy from the Third Estate, the astronomer fellow—Bailly,” he began. “He insisted on seeing me today. Today! ‘I must have an audience with the king,’ he said. I sent a man to tell him ‘Monsieur, His Majesty is grieving. The dauphin died this morning.’ But the heathen only said, ‘I am mightily sorry for His Majesty’s loss. Nevertheless, I and a delegation of others need to speak with him as soon as possible.’ So I went to the threshold myself and opened the door and let him see my face. And before he could say a word, I asked him, ‘Are there no fathers among you?’ ”
All they cared about was politics. At the death of my poor little dauphin, the nation hardly seemed to notice.
I slipped into Louis’s embrace and we clung to each other. I wept anew, my tears staining his embroidered waistcoat, while he rested his cheek against my hair, claiming one new handkerchief after another from Cléry.
“We must tell the children,” I said tearfully, and summoned the duchesse de Polignac. When Gabrielle entered the room, it was clear that she, too, had been crying. “Please bring Mousseline et mon chou d’amour here,” I said, using my pet names for Madame Royale and Louis Charles.
As ever, our daughter’s countenance was grave. “What will happen now, Papa?” she asked, addressing her father directly.
Louis pulled her onto his knee. Balanced in the crook of his arm was our surviving son, as pink and sturdy of limb as his late brother had been sickly and pale. “You are the dauphin now, mon brave,” said the king, chucking the tot under the chin. Still only four, Louis Charles giggled uncomprehendingly, bringing the first smile in weeks to his father’s broad face.
“What then shall I be?”
“You shall marry your charming cousin the duc d’Angoulême, and become a great lady, ma petite, just like we always talk about,” I said without hesitation. But I knew what Marie Thérèse was really asking. Royal daughters were simply not as important as their brothers. I did not make the rules. She thought I loved her the less for it. And that knowledge daily cracked my heart.
The dauphin lay in state for several days; his tiny form reposed inside a coffin lined with royal blue velvet and draped with a silver cloth that was embroidered with a crown, a sword, and the Order of the Dauphin of France.
The political insults heaped upon us by the three Estates continued to inflict deeply personal wounds as well. According to royal custom, Louis Joseph’s heart was not to be buried with his body. The honors of escorting the urn that contained the vital organ to the Benedictine convent of Val-de-Grâce fell to the highest-ranking Prince of the Blood.
“He will not go,” Louis informed me angrily.
“Quoi?!”
“Philippe d’Orléans will not escort the heart of his cousin to the convent.”
I was brushing my hair at the time and noticed with each stroke how many strands remained in the boar-bristle brush. “Does he give a reason?” I demanded, my hatred for the duc increasing with each passing moment.
Louis hesitated. “I don’t wish to vex you. You are distraught enough,” he said gently.
“Then another moment of pique will hardly make things much worse.”
He came behind me and affectionately stroked my cheek. “Philippe says that his role as deputy and the affairs of the Estates keep him too busy to depart on other business. He has offered to send his oldest son in his stead.”
I rested my chin in my hands and gazed at
my husband in the mirror. “I should not be surprised, I suppose.” I sighed with regret to think that our son had not been conceived in as much intimacy as the pair of us now shared while we prepared to discuss his funeral arrangements.
The dauphin was buried on June 12. In keeping with tradition, the king and I were not permitted to attend the rites at the Cathedral of Saint-Denis, but that night I dreamt of him. And I did so for several nights thereafter. I was no longer able to fall asleep with ease. One evening, I was telling Madame Campan about my dreams, how the dauphin looked, what he said to me. Four guttering candles illuminated my mirrored dressing table. As one went out, I assumed that a slight draft had extinguished the flame. Campan relit it, but a minute or so later two of the others died out. As Madame Campan went to relight them, I clasped her wrist. “My mother taught her children not to be superstitious, but we talk of shades tonight. If that fourth candle goes out, with all that has happened of late, I will regard it as a very bad omen.”
As if on cue, the flame sputtered, hissed, and expired.
THIRTY-TWO
Confusion Reigns
“They shout ‘Down with the rich!’ and cry for ‘Democracy’ and ‘Liberty’ outside the Palais Royal where it seems every hour a new pamphlet is being hawked by the newsboys. Three or four madmen lead the whole thing. They have frightened a waxworker named Curtius into lending them his busts of Necker and the duc d’Orléans and the rabble parade them through the streets as through they are holy relics.”
“You must be our eyes and ears,” I urged Axel. “For we could not travel to the capital even if we dared.” Louis was equally appreciative that we had a trusted advocate to keep us apprised of the ever-changing mood in the Parisian rues. In the two short weeks since the death of the dauphin, an insolent new order was emerging with little interest, it seemed, in the way of the world for the past thousand years. The king’s blue and gold library with its leather-bound monogrammed volumes and thick soft carpets had become an oasis from the storm.