“Hear what?” There was a loud swishing sound coming from the hedges. “Okay, I heard it that time,” she agreed.
“Do you think they’re coming after us? Do you think they know about us?” Pierre whispered loudly, nervously wiping his hands on his uniform. He was clearly starting to panic. About what, she wasn’t sure.
“Know about us?” Louise whispered back, perplexed. Was he that embarrassed to be seen with her?
The rustling noise was getting closer; someone or something was moving quickly toward them.
“We need to hide,” Pierre grabbed Louise’s hand and they ducked behind a tall rosebush. Ouch. With thorns and all.
The crunching of leaves turned into a familiar high-pitched giggling.
“Marie Antoinette?” Louise whispered quietly in surprise to Pierre.
She stared with her mouth dropped open in shock as the dauphine and the handsome uniformed man from the hide-and-seek game, Count Fersen, who was most definitely about ten years younger and one million times cuter than Louis, ran by them holding hands, deeper into the garden. Ohmygawd. Did she really just see that?
As soon as they passed, Louise burst into nervous, relieved laughter.
“I guess we picked a popular meeting space. Think we’ll find anyone else in the hedges?” Louise joked, completely covered in rosebushes.
“I don’t know, but I must leave.” Pierre’s eyes nervously darted around as though someone were going to jump out of the shadows. Louise couldn’t help but feel a little hurt and confused by the strange way he was acting.
“Merci,” he said quietly with his thick eyelashes lowered to the ground. Without another word he ran off for the second time that day into the pitch-black night, leaving Louise standing alone, shivering in a thorny rosebush.
CHAPTER 23
Louise was abruptly awoken by a sharp rapping on her bedroom door. Startled, she lifted her powder pink silk sleeping mask and groggily opened one eye. How she had managed to finally fall asleep after replaying the night over and over on her mind’s movie screen and with her neck uncomfortably crooked up on three down pillows to support her giant pile of hair was beyond her. Today she was definitely going to have a bit of a crick, to say the least.
Marie Antoinette whisked into the room, looking fresh and dewy in a new key lime green dress, drawing open the heavy tapestry drapes and letting in a sharp stream of sunlight.
“My dear heart, Gabrielle,” she sang. Someone was in a good mood. Louise had a flashback to a giggling Marie Antoinette running through the moonlit gardens with that cute Swedish officer who was definitely not her doughy, awkward husband and had a little idea of why this might be. “Have you forgotten? Today we go to Paris. We must visit Rose Bertin’s shop to purchase some new frocks. You promised!”
She did? Umm, okay!
Paris? Shopping? That was more than enough to get Louise to forget about her sore neck and jump down from the huge platform canopy bed. It seemed like she was actually going to Paris after all! She wondered if she was living in a BLV (Before Louis Vuitton) era. She hoped not and was pretty sure the original Louis Vuitton founded the company in the mid-1800s. How cool would it be to actually own one of the original LV monogrammed steamer trunks! Now if only she could remember the dates of the French Revolution with such clarity then she’d be getting a much better grade in history class.
“My darling mother sent me another love letter today from Austria,” Marie Antoinette said, pulling out a folded sheet of cream-colored paper from the bodice of her dress. May I read you a snippet?”
My dearest daughter,
It’s not your beauty, which frankly is not very great. Nor your talents, nor your brilliance (you know perfectly well that you have neither).
The dauphine paused. “Shall I go on?”
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. “I’m sorry,” Louise shook her head in disbelief. She didn’t know what else to say. She couldn’t imagine getting a letter like that from her mother and wanted to distract her new friend from this awful note, so she gave her a reassuring squeeze then smiled. “Forget this for now. Let’s go shopping!” Louise would try to talk to the dauphine about Pierre’s family and everything else when they got back from the trip to Paris. This no longer seemed like the appropriate moment to bring it up.
“It’s fine. I know she is simply worried about securing the alliance between our two countries, which of course won’t be assured until I have our first child.” A dark flicker of emotion quickly passed over Marie Antoinette’s face and in an instant her happy disposition reappeared like the sun after a brief afternoon shower. “Not even she can ruin a glorious day as today! I will wait for you in the north garden by the Neptune basin. Please be hasty, my sweet, the carriage is ready.”
As if they were waiting in the wings for their stage cue, Gabrielle’s two personal maids, one still stout and one still tall, marched purposefully into the bedroom with their arms full of clothing and corsets to prepare Louise for her first journey to Paris.
CHAPTER 24
Even though the interior of the horse-drawn carriage was superluxurious like everything else Marie Antoinette owned, with plush peacock blue velvet seats and gold detailing, the ride was still a bumpy and loud ordeal with the wheels getting caught in the uneven countryside and rocking the two girls to and fro like a tossing ship on an angry sea. Marie Antoinette had to partially open the carriage window and slightly angle her head out so that the top of her two-foot-high pouf wouldn’t get smashed into the roof of the coach. To divert herself from the nauseating ride, Louise had decided to busy herself with her favorite distraction—fashion.
“When was the last time Rose Bertin made you a new gown?” she asked, suddenly remembering Rose Bertin was the same designer Marla and Glenda were talking about at the sale. The same woman who had designed Louise’s glorious blue dress… and she was about to meet her… in person!
“Yesterday, I suppose,” Marie Antoinette answered distractedly. “She visits me twice a week with new ideas and fabrics and sketches. I would spend all day with her if I could. Rose is far more interesting than any of the dull dignitaries the king insists I entertain.”
“That sounds amazing,” Louise sighed, realizing she may have found the one person more obsessed with fashion than herself. “I mean, I know, isn’t it amazing?”
“It is, isn’t it?” Marie Antoinette marveled, turning her full attention to Louise. “All of you women in my court may only purchase your frocks from her from now on. It won’t be long before Paris becomes the epicenter of fashion, and Rose and I will be the reason why. The rest of Europe will look toward us to see what is couture.”
So this is when Paris became the place for haute couture. And Louise was here to see the beginning of it all! “I believe you’re right about that epicenter stuff,” she remarked enthusiastically. “How did you discover Rose?” Louise momentarily forgot to keep up the Gabrielle act.
“I met her through the Princesse de Lamballe, of course. And I recognized her talent immediately. She has been working closely with me ever since, as you know, my dear.”
They drove through miles of heavily wooded landscape and unspoiled rolling hills spotted with the occasional thatched-roof cottage. It all started to blur together until they finally felt the smooth cobblestone under the coach wheels. Louise was actually in Paris!
“Stop here,” Marie Antoinette ordered the driver, rapping sharply on the carriage window with her ginormous canary yellow diamond ring. “After that long journey, a small walk will do us some good. Don’t you think, Gabrielle?”
Louise nodded mutely. She was doing her best not to be carsick or horse-drawn-carriage sick. A little Dramamine like her mother sometimes gave her on particularly long car rides would have been nice.
When the two fancily dressed girls were helped down from their luxurious carriage, the first thing that hit Louise was the stench. The air smelled pungent and thick, like rotten food mixed with sweat and body odor. To kee
p from gagging, she had to cover her mouth with her perfumed handkerchief (which now seemed like a very wise accessory to have tucked into her skirts). Why did this place smell so… disgusting?
The second was the noise. Street vendors selling bread, brooms, and oysters were shouting, hawking their wares, and trying to compete with the clatter of horse-drawn carriages barreling down the crowded cobblestone streets.
“Shoe shine, get your shoe shine here!” a man with a patched-up overcoat carrying a brush and kit yelled at the top of his lungs on the other side of the narrow lane. Louise thought for a moment about Pierre’s family and suddenly understood why he would be scared to lose his gardening job at the palace. Life outside the tall iron-and-gold gates looked hard.
Paris was not at all what she had expected, to say the least. From every French movie Louise saw, the city was supposed to be postcard beautiful and utterly romantic. She thought the charming streets were going to be filled with the most fashionably dressed people on the planet, walking around with Hermès scarves knotted effortlessly around their necks, baguettes popping out of their classic Birkin bags, and drinking little coffees at elegant cafés. What she was quickly learning was that the Paris of the past was a totally different, far less cinematic story.
Her satin high-heeled slipper got caught in a rut and Louise had to grab on to Marie Antoinette so that she didn’t totally wipe out on the cobblestone street, which was slick with grime, and fall into the pungent open sewer running alongside it. Piles of garbage were rotting on every street corner. Tiny children with wide eyes, dressed in raggedy clothing, were huddled in the corners, hands outstretched, begging for coins or a piece of bread. Louise noticed that the attendants walking with them made sure none of the children got too close. It seemed as though they were doing their best to keep the poverty at the periphery of Marie Antoinette’s vision, and she herself didn’t seem to want to see what wasn’t directly in front of her.
Louise began fumbling for her change purse, which was tucked into the lining of her heavy maroon cloak, saddened and unprepared to see so much suffering after being isolated in the excess and riches of life at Versailles.
“Stop,” the burly attendant ordered. “As you are aware, if you give them anything we will be mobbed. Keep walking and smile. Do as the dauphine does.” Scolded, Louise lowered her head and continued on past the drab stone houses colored gray with soot.
“When will you give us an heir to the throne?” an angry voice called from the crowd. Louise looked over at Marie Antoinette, who flinched at the question, or rather, the demand. An heir? The people expected her to have a son. She was barely a few years older than Louise and she was already getting yelled at for not having a baby?!
It made Louise sad to see the blatant suffering of the Parisians but also to see this young girl with the weight and responsibility of a nation on her delicate shoulders. Though the dauphine seemed to recover instantly. She readjusted her beautiful cobalt blue velvet wrap and walked proudly through the dirty Parisian streets toward Rose Bertin’s shop.
They soon arrived at Rue Saint-Honoré. The boutique, which Marie Antoinette told her was known as Au Grand Mogol, was impossible to miss, as there were several large showcase windows displaying all the beautiful dresses and jewelry and lace shawls that evidently made the Rose Bertin brand famous. The juxtaposition of this fancy store and the utter poverty she had just witnessed a few streets away baffled Louise. A uniformed doorman quickly led them inside the boutique, collecting their cloaks with a dramatic flourish.
Marie Antoinette let out a small sigh and Louise could tell she was immediately soothed by the luxurious dresses and familiar atmosphere. The overpowering fishy smell of trash was instantly transformed into the sweet scents of talcum powder mixed with floral perfume. It actually smelled a lot like Versailles.
“My dear dauphine, so lovely for you to make the trip to Paris to visit my humble atelier,” Rose announced with a slight deferential curtsey. “And it’s wonderful to see you again, too, Duchesse de Polignac. I do hope the journey wasn’t too taxing.”
Louise looked around and raised her eyebrows at the elaborate decor. Humble atelier? The shop reminded her of a dressing room back at the palace with tall vaulted ceilings, pink-and-gold silk brocade-upholstered stools and love seats positioned underneath richly painted landscapes in ornate frames, and round marble tables topped with tall vases of white lilies. A yard of red silk was draped over a mannequin fitted with a big bustle, as though Rose was interrupted in the midst of sewing together her latest creation. There was definitely nothing humble about this place. Compared with the Paris she had just walked through, the opulence of this shop made her a little queasy.
Rose Bertin, the godmother of French couture, turned out to be a stout woman with a rough, ruddy complexion. She looked more like she should be working on a farm—the opposite image of her refined boutique and overtly feminine dresses. She was much older and coarser than Louise had expected. Rose had several assistants working for her in the shop, who all did a slight curtsey when Marie Antoinette and Gabrielle walked in. They were young, beautiful, and wearing sophisticated pink uniforms. The assistants seemed to exemplify the Rose Bertin brand that, at least physically, Rose herself did not.
“I love Paris. One simply must escape Versailles every so often and reconnect with the city and the people,” Marie Antoinette gushed as she picked up a sapphire-jeweled haircomb from a velvet box and stuck it into her platinum blonde pouf.
Louise didn’t think rushing through a mob of angry and hungry Parisians and directly into a fancy boutique constituted reconnecting with the people, but she wasn’t going to say anything to her now. She also didn’t understand how this young royal could be so oblivious to the blatant suffering of the average French person. Maybe if Louise could somehow explain things to her and tell her that she needed to take their situation as seriously as she took picking out a new dress, then she, or rather Gabrielle, could help change history.
“We had a visit yesterday from the lovely Mademoiselle de Mirecourt,” Rose Bertin remarked as she gathered some baubles and sparkly accessories from around the shop to show to the dauphine.
“Oh, yes, and what did she purchase?” Marie Antoinette asked with a raised eyebrow.
“I am making her a turquoise lévite,” Rose Bertin announced, holding up a fluttery, sheer, blue-green gown. “It’s similar to the one you ordered last month.”
“Very good,” Marie Antoinette answered, apparently relieved she wore the design first.
“You must have a look at this fabulous chenille fabric. You are the first to see it, of course. I think that with your milky complexion this will look simply marvelous on you,” Rose sang confidently as an assistant pulled out a roll of gauzy soft yellow hidden underneath the long mahogany counter, the color of the buttercups in Marie Antoinette’s vast garden.
“That’s divine; do you have ribbon trim?” she asked, clapping her hands in excitement.
“Of course.” Another stylishly dressed assistant climbed up on a wooden step stool and pulled down a thick spool of matching yellow silk ribbon from the upper shelf.
“I’d like one right away. Would you, Gabrielle?” Marie Antoinette asked, turning toward Louise.
“Yes, please.” Louise immediately replied. She wasn’t one to turn down a free couture dress.
“Perhaps you would prefer the puce color?” Rose Bertin quickly interjected, signaling to a different assistant to get down another roll of muted pinkish-brown fabric.
“But I like this one,” Louise insisted, admiring the yellow silk. The other was kind of… blah.
“My dear, puce is more your color, correct?” Rose asked curtly. “I am always right about these things—you must trust me.” She gave Louise a searing look. Maybe yellow was really not Gabrielle’s color? Louise noticed the assistants shooting subtle but nervous glances at one another. Then she realized she wasn’t supposed to wear the same thing as the dauphine. That must have been the
expected court protocol.
“I suppose you’re right. The other one is beautiful, too,” Louise agreed quickly, touching the silky spool of puce-colored fabric.
Marie Antoinette smiled. “I was hoping you would choose that one. I’ve always loved to see you in puce.”
CHAPTER 25
“Why do you shop so much?” Louise couldn’t help but wonder aloud on the long and bumpy carriage ride back to Versailles. The plushly upholstered compartment was completely packed with their beautifully wrapped parcels. The two girls were wedged between the boxes of new dresses, shoes, and fabric. Marie Antoinette had made so many purchases that the driver had to secure some trunks on top of the carriage with rope. Louise hoped the already shaky stagecoach wouldn’t topple over.
There was no money involved in the transaction; the dauphine simply had to sign her name in a thick leather-bound ledger where Rose Bertin tallied up her accounts. Who, exactly, pays for these outfits? Louise had wondered. And what would a shopping spree like this cost? The young royal reminded her of a high-school girl with unlimited access to her parents’ platinum American Express card. She remembered back to Miss Morris’s lesson about historical France’s unfair system of taxation where the poorest people wound up paying for the excessive lifestyle of the monarchy. People like Pierre’s family. It was so unfair and she was starting to regret the puce gown she had just ordered.
Marie Antoinette looked at her with a raised eyebrow, as though no one had ever asked her why she shopped so much before. “Well, because I can,” she eventually replied with a giggle, drawing a childish-looking heart in the foggy window of the carriage with her fingertip. “I’m simply terrified of being bored.”
“But you can do other things, too. What about painting or reading or dancing?” Louise definitely needed to get this girl another hobby before she bankrupted the whole country.
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