“And what event causes Maurepas to foresee the weakening of England?”
The Dauphin speaks but continues to look straight ahead. “Some say the American colonies are virtually in rebellion. Maurepas agrees.”
“Would we support the rebellion of a people against their monarch?”
“If George III lost his English colonies, their empire would suffer. He would hesitate to engage in combat with France and Austria.”
“Yes,” I say, “because of our Alliance.”
Still, I wonder if it is proper for us to hope for revolution, even if it occurs far from us, across the Atlantic.
THE DRIVERS, whose high backs rise above us, and the up-curve of the front of the sleigh have shielded us from the wind. Heat still toasts our feet. I listen to the merry music of the sleigh bells, and the steady swish of the runners over the snow.
“This is all so beautiful,” I say. “Not just a means of transport to Paris, but a pleasure in itself.”
“That’s why I voted to come. I wished to be with you alone, in a beautiful place.”
I turn to him again and kiss him on the cheek.
I hear the postilion jump off the runner behind us and run a few steps. I realize he must be doing it to stir the blood, that his feet are cold.
“Do you know the postilion by name?” I ask.
“He seems familiar to you?”
“Who is he?”
The Dauphin reaches under the cover to take my hand.
“Once there was a beautiful princess,” he says, “who came to France to be married to something of a dolt—”
I stir and start to protest, but he says “Shhhh,” and then reminds me, “We have promised to speak our hearts when we are alone with each other.”
I am glad he cannot see me blush. He is in a rare mood, serene, here under the glittering eyes of heaven. Words flow from him as smoothly as our runners flow over the snow.
“Let’s imagine, not a complete dolt but something of a dolt. Still, he had some sense of the goodness that might lie behind a pretty face. He liked to hunt, and fortunately for him, so did his bride, even though to do so meant disobeying the strictures of her most dear and beloved mother. But the mother lived in a faraway land. Still, people tattled on the princess—people like her mother’s ambassador—”
“No,” I said, “I don’t believe Mercy tattles on me. Sometimes he brags about me, and I confess, in my own way I sometimes manipulate him to brag—”
“Well, someone who was in a position to tattle on her about her naughty riding to the hounds, someone—let's not say who—who had her complete confidence, and who had spies placed everywhere, but who meant well—certainly he means well…for the interests of Austria—did tattle repeatedly, but the princess bore up under her mother’s continued disapproval because she so much wanted to please her husband—who also wants to please her. In short, she continued to ride across the country, after the hounds.”
I know better: she rode to the hounds to please herself, for the exhilaration of it.
My husband continues his story in a low, confidential voice. “As sometimes happens during a royal hunt, crops are accidentally damaged. On this particular day, a stag who was being pursued ran into the vineyard of a peasant winegrower. The man tried to defend his vines, but the angry stag gored him. It happened that the Dauphine herself was nearby with her coach. Hearing the wailing of the man’s wife, she stopped to investigate what had happened. When she saw the poor man’s grievous injury, she took him into her own coach to convey him to a doctor, and, also, on the spot, she gave charity from her own purse to meet the immediate needs of the wife and quite a number of children—five or six—as well as to compensate for the loss of the crop. When it turned out that the peasant’s wounds were mortal, the Dauphine took further steps of generosity. For all that, her husband blessed her, certainly because of the gifts, but more so for her brave sym pathy and practical action in the face of the blood and pain of humble people.
“Although she acted entirely without self-interest, the people of France heard of the little Samaritan. Her deed was honored by pictorial engravings, by images woven into tapestries and paintings on fans. Often the images of the lovely, compassionate Dauphine bore the suitable title: ‘An Example of Compassion.’ And the people of France did not forget. When she made her official entry into Paris, they roared their approving welcome for the embodiment of goodness and beauty.”
At first I cannot speak. Moved not so much by the story, precise in all its details, but by the loving manner in which it was told, I find no words.
I was never the most talented, the brightest, or the most beautiful of my mother’s daughters, but I have tried to be good and to do my Christian duty, and I feel many old hurts healing in the wake of the idea that now I am loved.
Finally I say in a small voice, “But I asked you about the postilion.”
Clearing his throat, for the Dauphin too is moved, he simply answers: “The postilion was the older son of the man whom the stag killed. When he felt his maturity, he came to the palace, asking if he might not serve us, in some humble capacity.”
And so it is: a moral lesson—good deeds echo after us, long after we have forgotten their enactment.
I breathe in the frigid night air with appreciation of all the good things God has given us. My brain tingles with the thought of the goodness of God who dwells behind the stars. I have so much awe of the starry realm I am almost afraid of it. The night sky is remote, austere. The blue sky of day hangs lower, has always been my friend.
The Dauphin and I ride on. We feel entranced by darkness, the holy cold, and the pristine world. Soon, however, the sledge slows and then stops still in the midst of the great vacancy.
One of the drivers slides down from his high seat to approach the horses, and the young postilion joins him. Walking to the head of each horse, they remove a glove and place their bare hand over the muzzle of each. After each visitation, the horse tosses his head, shakes it, and then shudders his neck, with a sudden jangle of sleigh bells.
“Are they giving them sugar?” I ask. The earth seems covered with sparkling sugar.
“It is so cold that the horses’ breath freezes in their nostrils,” the Dauphin explains. “With the warmth of their hands, our men are freeing the horses’ nostrils of frost, so they can breathe.”
Suddenly I realize how desperately cold it is, and the idea ignites me with excitement. “What fun the ball will be tonight!” I exclaim.
To dance, to dance with all my heart seems a matter of survival.
WHEN WE ARRIVE IN PARIS, I notice that fewer people are about in the streets, and many of the men and women, of all classes, wear fur caps or some scrap of plain cloth wound around their necks, mouths, and noses.
Almost, I am sorry our intimate journey is finished. It is a night to make one fall in love. The ride from Versailles to Paris has had its own enchantment.
Suddenly I want to know more about the politics we spoke of earlier. I ask Louis Auguste, “And what of England and the colonies? Does their fate affect us?”
The Dauphin answers: “It need not.”
Suddenly, I remember that he is nineteen years old, and I a year less. What can we possibly know about such matters?
The Dauphin continues: “But if England loses its colonies, then they have lost a resource and commerce is also diminished. Yes, they will be weaker.”
The paving stones in the streets of Paris and the walkways are icy. People slip, fling out their arms, and come close to falling. Over it all sifts the jingle of harness bells.
Our sleigh arrives at the dome of l’Opéra and stops. Carefully, I dislodge myself from under the coverlets and, aided by a footman, leave the warm nest of the sleigh. I do not proceed immediately but pause to beckon the young postilion to approach.
“I remember your father well,” I say. “He was a brave man, who, even as he was dying in my arms, spoke of his love of his family. I reassured him that they would never want.”
The boy covers his face with his gloved hand and weeps.
AWASH IN MERRIMENT and mystery, never have the red velvet walls and curtains of l’Opéra looked more warm. We are stepping inside a great heart, thrumming with voices and music, pulsing with people embracing and greeting one another. Who is Who? Nobody knows!
Because the Dauphin has been taking dancing lessons, he bows to me more graciously than ever before, his black robe shrouding his body swings forward as he leans and bows deeply. I love the theater of it! We take our places at the foot of the minuet. Normally, of course, we would be expected to go to the head of the line, but here nobody knows! We look across the little space that separates us, and the rhythm of the music begins to infuse both our bodies. In spite of the fact that the domino covers most of his face, I know the Dauphin is as delighted as I am—I can tell just by his eyes. Suddenly he winks at me. Through the hole in his mask, I watch the lid of his eye come down.
Now it is time to reach up and touch the tips of our fingers, to turn, to promenade. We have joined the dance.
The night is full of dances, figures, rhythms, moods: gavotte, allemande, courante, a daring saraband. Suddenly, I am afraid to dance the saraband, a dance my mother, with medieval sensibility, considered lewd. The rhythm of it demands a thrust of the hip, with sudden passion, on the offbeat. In medieval times, the church considered it the dance of whores. But to me, its rhythm engages the body like no other rhythm. It makes the heart ache with loss and wanting. No, I would reveal my soul if I danced the saraband.
I heard the saraband first as a child of twelve, when they had put wires on my teeth to straighten them, after my mother and her counselors decided I was destined to marry the Dauphin. From a distant room in the Schönbrunn palace, I heard a saraband played on a low-throated stringed instrument. The ache in the music expressed the throbbing in my gums—urgent, almost desperate for release and relief. Later, I asked my teacher, my Gluck, what music that might have been. He told me it was by J. S. Bach, for the violoncello, from the Third Suite, performed by my brother Joseph. He added that my mother had also heard the piece and sent word that it was never to be played again, as she recognized the form to be a saraband, the forbidden expression. Was my mother so satiated by my father during his lifetime that she never felt the poignant throb of desire? As in so many instances, my imperial brother sacrificed his own pleasure to the will of our mother.
If I wrote her that during Carnival 1774, I had abstained from dancing a saraband, she would perhaps be pleased with me. That ghostly saraband I heard when I was twelve—the memory makes me want to ask now for a cello, and for lessons in how to play it.
I find that I have raised a finger to wipe under my eye. I am surprised to encounter the cloth of my domino. I had felt unmasked.
“And would you dance the next number with me, elegant lady?” a stranger asks. He wears no mask. Have I ever seen anyone so handsome?
“Elegant lady?” I ask. “We all look exactly alike! To make distinction is to indulge in dishonest flattery.”
“Not at all, for with your carriage, when you simply walk from here to there—never mind dancing—all eyes follow the grace of your movement. Have your feet turned to wheels?”
“You would have to lift my skirt to know.”
“I dare not, and more important, I would not, for my heart falls down before you, like the stag before Diana. Are you the huntress?”
“I will not tell my name. My mask is my name. The other ladies would feel betrayed, if all too soon, revelations of identity began to limit our freedom and allure.”
“I swear on my kneeling heart that nothing could diminish your allure. Not even if you are a lady’s maid in stolen garb.”
The man is tall, with the elegance of Count Mercy, but young. Instead of shrewdness, his face is that of unprecedented romance. He is the embodiment of a gentleman, and though he speaks French almost to perfection, there is something slightly foreign in his pronunciation.
“A lady’s maid? That I am not.” I hear unexpected gravity in my tone, for I would not too thoroughly mislead a man of honor. For him, if he is as worldly as he seems, there may be honor, and honor, a whole cascade of levels, to suit the opportunity.
“No, that you are not, my lady. Would I be permitted to proffer you my name, without diminishing your pleasure in your freedom?”
“Your identity in no way could impinge on my pleasure.”
The man restrains from repartee. He bows low. He could not be more formal, or more elegant, if we were at court. “I am Count Axel von Fersen.”
By his tone, I hear he takes himself seriously. I do not think he would besmirch his name any more than I would. His bearing is that of all humility and simple fact.
“You are devoid of unbecoming pride, Count von Fersen.” I make sure that there is no unbecoming haughtiness in my own tone. I speak as a simple milkmaid might speak to her master, whom she likes, though he is beyond her reach. “If you like, please follow me to the side, and we’ll speak some more.” He offers me his arm, and we progress to stand beside the velvet wall. As we approach a sconce of glittering crystal, I could swear the light glows more brightly. I position him to face the candles so that I can follow the nuances of his expressive face.
“And you have traveled here from Sweden,” I hazard. I would not like to be mistaken, but it is only a brief and casual conversation, a pause between dances.
A gigue has begun, and I am glad not to be dancing, though I could have met the challenge. Now everyone dances with gusto, for they have caught their breaths while dancing the slow and measured saraband. The large room bobs with bodies, up and down and swirling round, like tops in a bowl of water.
“You are both correct and incorrect in your surmise.” He laughs pleasantly.
“Which means,” I say, taking up the challenge of his puzzle, “that your native country is Sweden, but you have traveled for—perhaps, two years?”
“Brilliant deduction!”
“You are too kind in pretending that I am clever when it is a commonplace that young men of your age make the grand tour to finish their educations.”
“And you too are a foreigner in this most sophisticated assemblage?”
“Can you guess?”
“I hear a bit of Lorraine in your speech.”
Suddenly I feel very serious. “Then you hear my father’s influence, for he was from Lorraine.”
Sensing my shift, he has the poise to hesitate. He does not tumble on, with immediate banter. With perfect courtesy, he waits for my direction.
“And have you yet been to court?”
“I meant to go early on New Year’s Day.”
On New Year’s Day two years ago I made my formal, empty rapprochement with the du Barry. I remembered my own awakening on that day, shivering while I waited for the creaky gears of etiquette to bring me my chemise.
“You shiver. Perhaps you are remembering the recent bitter cold?” he went on. “It was so extremely frigid, with deep snow and ice hanging from the eaves, that I thought I should wait for a new fur cloak. But my tailor was behind. In truth”—he smiled in a most natural and friendly way—“I confess I wanted the cloak as much for the style as for the warmth. But you are correct in identifying me as Swedish, and hence my Norseman bones recognize momentous cold. I gladly give it the respect due. Wind and cold are no respecter of one’s station in life. My departure for the château was delayed till nine in the morning.”
“And may I ask whom you know?”
“Ah, a number of people. A few days later I was received by the Comtesse de Brionne.”
“At her official toilette, I imagine. Being coiffed. And it was amusant?”
Yes. Amused to recall the scene, he chatters away, sometimes making gestures, in such a way as to make clear that he is quite at ease in such scenes. Without a hint of disrespect, he speaks of how she used a cunning little silver knife to scrape off excess powder. He described the varieties of rouge, six pots of diff
erent colors. “Very dark and imposing,” he said. “One was almost black. And her daughter came in—like yourself, she hailed from Lorraine, but more directly, I think, than you have come.”
Almost, I let slip that Mademoiselle de Lorraine is in fact my cousin, through my father, but I restrain myself just in time. I like my incognito too much to betray myself, if I can help it. Without revealing my own age, I discover that he too is eighteen, and two months older than myself. Lasting for several years, his travels allowed him to practice his Italian and German, in which he also converses fluently. I am delighted that on his travels he met my brother, the Archduke Leopold, and that without knowing of my relation to him, speaks of him fondly, though he adds the qualification that Leopold was said not to be so confident or so assertive as his older brother, Joseph.
“But that is only natural,” I said, “for a younger brother. Of course, he himself is older brother to Ferdinand and Max.”
For just a moment, I see him pause, attentive to my familiarity with the Hapsburg family.
“Are you yourself a younger or an older sister?” he asks.
“Ah, you mustn’t try to guess my secrets,” I tease. “But let me answer in a riddle: I am both.”
“But mainly?”
“Mainly I am younger. And that goes quite far enough.”
“Then let us dance the minuet.”
And so we appear to dance, but my soul is flying. Has anyone ever danced as well as Axel von Fersen? Artois, almost. But he is at Versailles with his wife. The Swede and I dance until it is nearly three o’clock in the morning, at which time, I am definitely recognized.
At once, everyone presses around me, and the young Swede very politely gives ground. He looks at me with utmost admiration, but he is not in the least discomforted by the news that he has been speaking with the Dauphine, an archduchess of Austria. No, it is the human being whom he has engaged—what do title and position matter? I have rarely seen such self-possession, such ease with himself and others, not even in much older men than Count von Fersen.
“I depart in a month for England,” he courteously informs me as he withdraws.
Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette Page 16