by Susie Kelly
The air smelt of damp clothing and hair, and chewing gum, but it was not offensive. During the 18th century, for all its splendour, one thing had been notable for its absence – proper sanitation. In the absence of lavatories, people answered the call of nature wherever they happened to be at the time the need arrived, both outside and inside the château, and the stench of urine and human faeces pervaded the air.
Ahead of us a band of solemn Japanese tourists listened intently to a gentleman holding a microphone and waving a bright orange flag on a long stick, as he shepherded them from room to room. Behind us a group of giggling American teenage girls seemed more interested in sending text messages than looking at the rooms and their contents. They would have been about the same age as the young Archduchess when she arrived at Versailles, and I wondered how any one of them would have reacted if she had been told that she was to be married to somebody she had never met, and who had neither good looks nor charm but with whom she would be obliged to share a bed and produce children. I doubt that any of these young American girls came from a particularly affluent or powerful family, but each of them would certainly have more control over their own destiny than the unlucky, beautiful and rich little girl whose scheming mother was one of the most powerful women in the Western world. Those were my thoughts as I watched the girls nudging each other, whispering behind their hands, and sharing photos on their mobile phones.
Where life at court in her native Austria had been relaxed and informal, and morals were strict, in contrast at Versailles etiquette ruled and morals were almost non-existent. Combined with the stifling, small-minded formality of the 17th century French court where a misplaced step in the minuet was cause for gasps and gossip, I thought that living in the palace of Versailles must have felt like being imprisoned in a constantly turning kaleidoscope.
The teenage Archduchess was entrusted to a lady of great virtue with an impeccable knowledge of court protocol. Her task was to ensure that the new arrival understood exactly what to do, when, how, where, and with and to whom. Nothing must be left to chance – a headdress worn at the wrong angle was sufficiently scandalous to provoke a fainting fit.
The Dauphine’s day was occupied by prayers, rituals of dressing and having her hair dressed in public, more prayers, visits with Royal family members – in particular her aunts (the granddaughters of Louis XV), dining in public, needlework, music lessons, more family visits, reaching a crescendo of excitement with late night games of cards. A particular trial was the custom of dining in front of an audience of people who came to Versailles specifically to watch the royals eat. While her husband could nonchalantly demolish as many dishes as were put before him, and his grandfather had delighted spectators by his skill at decapitating his egg with a single swipe of his fork, the new Dauphine must have made for poor entertainment, as she had a modest appetite, and washed her simple meals down with water.
Louis XV gave his granddaughters – the Dauphin’s aunts – affectionate nicknames: Pig, Tatters, Mite, and Rubbish. Madame Campan, Marie-Antoinette’s first lady of the bedchamber, describes Sophie, aka Mite, as a person of the most unprepossessing appearance: ‘…she walked with the greatest rapidity; and, in order to recognise the people who placed themselves along her path without looking at them, she acquired the habit of leering on one side, like a hare’.
Louise (Rubbish) moved into a Carmelite convent and became a nun.
A disinterested and gauche young husband, a licentious grandfather-in-law, four odd aunts and a strict disciplinarian guardian: what fun it must have not been.
Amongst the gilt and gloss and glitz of this museum I had difficulty in imagining it as a home, where men and women had lived and loved and schemed and dreamed and worked and died, and looked out of the same windows that we were looking out of, at the same views. What stories the walls could tell, if only ….
Contemporaneous accounts suggest that despite her youth, the new bride could be a bit of a handful when she chose. Until her arrival, the King’s powerful mistress, Madame du Barry, had been the undisputed Queen Bee at Versailles. As a commoner, and in Marie Antoinette’s eyes no better than she ought to be, etiquette decreed that the du Barry could not address her until she was invited to do so. Marie-Antoinette took it into her teenage head that she would not speak to the royal favourite. Du Barry waited; the King waited, the whole court waited for the necessary invitation; the King used all his powers of persuasion in various quarters, and the du Barry all but turned herself inside out in her efforts to win her over, but Marie-Antoinette continued to ignore her. Her stubborn refusal threatened to have serious consequences far beyond the walls of Versailles, reaching into the intricacies and intrigues of Eastern European politics. As Russia, Prussia and Austria were busily dividing Poland between themselves, the Polish king was appealing to the Western European powers for help. The last thing that the Dauphine’s mother, Empress Maria-Theresa of Austria needed was for the French to go to war on behalf of Poland. But the King was becoming increasingly angry and losing patience with his daughter-in-law; who knew what the repercussions might be. Maria-Theresa wrote to her daughter in such forceful terms that the girl finally agreed to bend her neck.
‘There are a lot of people at Versailles today,’ she said, addressing the du Barry for the first and very last time. Those few words represented a victory for the King’s mistress, a defeat for the Dauphine, a source of mixed delight and disappointment for the Court, according to whose side they had supported, and they sealed Poland’s fate.
While the young couple were still in their teens, Louis XV contracted smallpox, and was dying a gruesome death – ‘the whole surface of his body coming off piecemeal and corrupted’ was the unpleasantly graphic description by contemporary historian, Jean-Louis Soulavie. The King’s priests would neither receive his confession nor administer the last rites as long as his mistress was living under the roof of the palace. So Madame du Barry was bundled off, and the King mercifully died, in a state of grace and decomposition. It was customary for monarchs to be embalmed, but the chief surgeon was not prepared to risk his own certain death by fiddling with the infectious remains; when ordered to do so by the First Gentleman of the King’s bedchamber, the surgeon responded that he would obey if the First Gentleman would hold the royal head, as his position required him to do. The matter was dropped, and the defunct monarch quickly whisked away for burial without any of the usual pomp, leaving two mismatched adolescents the new King and Queen of France and heralding the promise of a new golden age under the reign of Louis XVI.
We arrived at Marie-Antoinette’s bedroom, which is sandwiched between a dining room and a gaming room. Whether it was always so, I’ve no idea. Seems a bit odd. But in any case she enjoyed very little privacy, even in her own bed. Each day when she woke it was to a room full of courtiers elbowing each other aside for her attention as she performed her toilette. It was the privilege of the highest-ranking lady present to help the Queen into such items of clothing as she chose from a gold or silver tray. Should a lady of superior rank arrive during the dressing ceremony, then she would take control of the garment, while the Queen had to wait patiently for it to change hands until it reached her so that she could finish dressing. To preserve her modesty when bathing, she wore a flannel gown that enclosed her from neck to ankles; and with the same modesty she went to bed wearing beribboned corsets with lace sleeves.
There was no privacy, either, in the very depths of the intimate lives of the royal couple. Marie Antoinette had not been given to France as an ornament. Her function was to produce an heir, something that required the active participation of both parties; but Louis didn’t appear to be active; or if he was, he was not effective, and no fruit was forthcoming to add to the family tree. Spiteful courtiers pointed cruel accusatory fingers at the young bride. It was plainly her fault. Despite her best efforts, and the explicit advice given to her in letters from her mother, the future Queen was still a virgin seven years after her marriage. Her sex li
fe was public property, openly discussed by family, friends, foes, foreign ambassadors and the ladies of the bedchamber, right down to the lowliest washerwomen. Everybody knew that the marriage had not been consummated. Differing explanations were given for this unsatisfactory situation, depending upon who was doing the explaining. Either it was a small irregularity in Louis’ equipment, which needed a minor operation to enable him to function, or it was a serious disproportion between the couple that made the process too painful. Whichever it was, once things were finally working correctly, Louis confided in one of his aunts that he had discovered a source of very great pleasure, and regretted that it had taken him so long to do so. It seems somewhat unusual that a young man should discuss his sex life with a maiden aunt, but anyway, it’s good to know that he enjoyed his marital obligations. We don’t know whether his wife shared his enthusiasm, but she certainly did look forward to having children, and had sometimes wept in private over her inability to become a mother whilst her sisters and sisters-in-law were regularly churning out infants.
Of the crosses she had to bear, surely the Queen’s domineering mother must have been one of the heaviest. During the first seven barren years of her marriage, she had not only to endure the contempt and disappointment of France, but also relentless pressure and advice from her mother, who had casually produced a litter of sixteen little Archdukes and Archduchesses. Each month, the unfortunate girl wrote to her mother, apologising that she could not give her the news she wanted. Each month, her fecund parent wrote back with admonishments and advice as to how her daughter should behave in the bedroom. Unlike her daughter, Maria Theresa was fortunate enough to have been in love with her husband, so she would not have known what it was like to have to regularly climb into bed with somebody with whom she had nothing in common, purely for the purpose of procreating.
His mother-in-law strongly disapproved of Louis’ preference for sleeping alone. She disapproved of him tiring himself out hunting, and prayed that bad weather would keep him indoors. She disapproved of her daughter staying up late at night gambling. And she never hesitated to express her disapproval in her endless nagging letters. Even after the birth of Marie-Antoinette’s first child, a daughter, the bombardment of letters kept on coming.
‘We must have a Dauphin!’ wrote Maria Theresa in June 1780.
In August 1780 again she wrote: ‘We must have a Dauphin!’
It is an indication of the obedient and good-natured character of her daughter that she wrote to ‘Madame ma très chère mère’, with never-failing politeness and patience. A less dutiful daughter might well have written: ‘OK, mother. You’re the expert. You come and do it’.
Once her royal spouse had mastered the necessary technique, over the following eight years Marie-Antoinette became dutifully pregnant five times, and produced four live children.
By tradition, royal mothers gave birth in public, and when the Queen went into labour for the first time in December of 1778 it was in front of a huge and motley crowd who rushed into the bedroom, clambering on top of the furniture in their determination not to miss an exciting moment of the spectacle. Producing a baby whilst surrounded by such a commotion caused the Queen to develop life-threatening symptoms, and she had to be bled.
And after all that, it was only a daughter.
By an unkind stroke of fate her manipulative mother died three years later. Only thirteen months after her death, Marie-Antoinette triumphantly produced a son, the new Dauphin, who would, if things had worked out differently, have one day become Louis XVII of France. The King mentioned ‘my son, the Dauphin’ at every opportunity, and there was jubilation throughout the land, although it was not shared by either of Louis’ two younger brothers. Charles-Philippe, the Comte d’Artois, and the Comte de Provence, also confusingly named Louis, had both been rather hoping to have the crown for themselves.
Marie-Antoinette was a loving and devoted mother, set on bringing up her children sensibly, outside the rigid royal protocol. After the arrival of her first baby, she wrote to her mother:
‘The way children are raised now, they are much less fussed over. They are not wrapped up the moment they can go outside, and, as they gradually become accustomed to it, they end up spending most of the time there. I think it is the best and the healthiest way to raise them. My child will stay downstairs, with a little barrier that will separate her from the rest of the terrace, where she can also learn to walk sooner than she would on the parquet floors.’ [Madame Campan, ‘Memoirs of the Private Life of Marie Antoinette’.]
We shuffled on to the Hall of Mirrors, which was in the throes of restoration, but even with only half of it visible, this room sparkled. In Elisabeth Feydeau’s book The Scented Palace, she describes the weird colours which were created for fabrics during Marie-Antoinette’s reign: ‘flea’ which came in shades of young, old, belly, back and leg. Face powders bore names like ‘Dauphin’s poo’ and ‘Goose-shit’. Beauty spots shaped like stars, crescents or hearts were used to signal the mood of the wearer depending on whereabouts they were placed, or alternatively used to cover up a ‘sapphire’, more commonly known as a pimple. Like peacocks the men and women of the court minced around, prancing and preening themselves. Hairdressers created ever more bizarre styles: towering structures stuffed with fruits, vegetables and flowers, birds, ships, dolls, ribbons, feathers and ornaments. Hats and hairstyles became so tall that the wearers could no longer travel in their carriages without either kneeling on the floor, or having the seats lowered. People lived to show off and out-do one another, and the Hall of Mirrors provided the ideal setting for them to do so and to admire themselves.
To do justice to this extravaganza of extravagance of a room, it called for men in high-heels, curly wigs and hats crowned with feathers; ladies with powdered white skin and rouged cheeks, in big dresses with their bosoms spilling out; pet monkeys and peacocks, whispers and laughs, sly looks and fluttered eyelashes; it needed liveried flunkies carrying pyramids of exotic fruits, petits fours and bonnes bouches on golden platters; hothouse plants and rival scents. It needed lapdogs and hunting dogs, swords and beauty patches, baroque music, jewelled fans, and sycophants. Today’s throng of scruffy 21st century tourists wearing woolly hats, backpacks, cameras, anoraks and open mouths, and a woman in Lycra with purple hair didn’t quite work.
In the Coronation Room we relished David’s enormous painting of Napoléon’s coronation. The artist had captured every sour and indignant line on the face of Pope Pius as the Emperor, already crowned by his own hand, places the crown on Josephine’s head. His message was clear: there is only one top dog here, and it isn’t the Pope.
The Hall of Battles was exactly that: one giant canvas after another depicting victorious French generals and armies engaged in battle with their neighbours. There may well have been some French defeats shown too, but there were so many paintings, and all of them such a mêlée of limbs, weapons and animals that it was difficult to see who was winning, and our fellow visitors stood in the way of the captions that might have enlightened us.
Not everybody who had lived at Versailles had done so in comfort or elegance. Some nobles had to make do with attics, but luckily a tour of these was not included in the cost of our tickets. Neither did I want to visit any more royal apartments. After admiring four or five rooms, I had already seen enough for one day, or possibly for a lifetime. The more I saw, the more I found them oppressive and suffocating. The concept of ‘Less is more’ had certainly not intruded into Versailles.
Ranks of busts of French notables gazed blindly down their proud marble noses as we made our way to the exit. Terry, who loves ornate decoration and furnishings, said he thought the palace of Versailles was magnificent, and was already suggesting new decorating ideas for our house. My choice leans more towards plain white walls and functional furniture that doesn’t collect dust, and although I could appreciate the craftsmanship that had gone into the palace, I was relieved to get out into the uncomplicated cold grey air and pelt
ing rain.
By the time we had cycled back to our chambre d’hôte we were saturated, and blue with cold. Watching the storm lashing against the windows that rattled with every crash of thunder, I felt vindicated and justified at having baulked at the exorbitant fees charged by the local camp site, opting instead for this dry, warm room where we could soak away the misery of the weather in a good deep bath.
Swathed in grey gloom, the town of Versailles felt to me as if, after the beleaguered royals had been frog-marched off to the capital in 1789 by the Parisian fish-wives, the town had decided that it had seen enough excitement to last for the foreseeable future, and beyond, and now wished for nothing more than to sink into obscurity, peace and quiet.
For dinner we went to a piano-bar restaurant that advertised live music. When we were quite well into our meal, and no piano player had appeared, I asked our waiter what time we could expect this to happen. Apparently we could not, as we had chosen one of the rare nights when there was no live piano, but instead taped music – Michael Jackson, Zucchero, Garou; not exactly what we were expecting, but nevertheless very much to my taste, and acceptable to Terry. Simultaneously a large television, suspended from the ceiling, with the sound turned off, was showing an old black and white documentary about the development of jazz, jive and jitterbug. Watching the one, while listening to the other, was really a rather surreal experience, with its total lack of synchronisation of movement and sound.
A group of eight people at a table nearby were holding a meeting of some kind, dominated by one man with a very loud voice and strong opinions that he emphasised by standing up and flailing his arms around. He was either oblivious of, or indifferent to the fact that he was in a restaurant where people were trying to enjoy a meal, and the obvious frustration of his colleagues who were cut off in mid-sentence each time one of them tried to speak. Several times they gathered together their papers and stood up as if ready to leave, but were compelled to sit down again by the sheer force of his personality. Between the sound of the music, the jerky black and white images and the loud man, the atmosphere in the piano bar was not at all what we had anticipated, but the food and service were fine. Although we had only arrived in Versailles at 3.00 pm that afternoon, it felt as if we had packed quite a lot into the last seven hours.