by Jean Plaidy
‘He’s a forward little villain, that one is,’ said the grandmother. ‘That’s the Queen you’re speaking to.’
‘Queen,’ said the little boy, and in all her life Antoinette had never sensed so much adoration as she did now in that small voice.
She made one of her impulsive decisions.
‘Let me take him,’ she said. ‘Would you come with me? Would you be my little boy?’
The joy in his face was the most moving thing she had ever seen. The little hand was in hers now, clinging, clinging as though he was never going to let her go.
The Queen turned to the woman. ‘If you will let me take this boy, and adopt him,’ she said, ‘I will provide for the upbringing of the four who are left to you.’
The woman’s answer was to fall on her knees and kiss the hem of the Queen’s gown.
Antoinette was never so happy as when she was giving happiness.
‘Then rise,’ she said, ‘rise, my good woman. And have no fear for your family. All will be well, I promise you. And I shall take James Armand away with me now.’
She lifted the child in her arms. She kissed his grubby face; her reward was a pair of arms about her neck – a tight and suffocating hug.
She thought: he shall be bathed; he shall be suitably dressed. James Armand, you are my little boy from now on.
For a long time she was happy.
Each morning James Armand was brought to her; he would climb on to her bed; he would be happy merely to be with her. He asked nothing else. He was not like other children. He was glad of sweetmeats; he liked handsome toys; but nothing but the company of the Queen could give him real pleasure.
If she had danced late and was too tired to be disturbed he would sit outside her door waiting disconsolately. None of her ladies could lure him away with any promise of a treat.
There was only one thing which could satisfy James Armand, and that was the presence of his most beautiful Queen who had by the miracle of a summer’s morning become his own mother.
Sometimes he dreamed that he was at the cottage door watching the carriage pass by. There was a heavy gloom in those dreams because in them the royal calash had not pulled up and he was still living with his grandmother in her dark one-roomed cottage … the miracle had not happened, his enchantress had not appeared.
He would wake whimpering; then his little fingers would touch the fine linen of his bedclothes and he would see the gilded furniture in his room, and he would know that all was well.
Once she had seen the traces of tears on his cheeks and demanded to know the reason.
‘Dreamed you did not come,’ said James Armand.
Then he was caught in that perfumed embrace, and his happiness was so great that he was glad of the bad dream which had made it possible.
So heedlessly she lived through those gilded days.
The hours flew past, there was never time to be bored; and she dreaded boredom more than anything on earth. She confided this to Artois. It was a fear they had in common. So she must plan more dresses with Rose Bertin; she must give a ball, have firework displays; she would spend an hour or so playing with her dear James Armand who so adored her; she would ride out to Paris, masked for the Opéra ball, as she used to in the old days.
But there was something missing in her life. Her dear friends, Madame de Polignac and the Princesse de Lamballe, could not make up for that. Indeed, those young men who hovered about her, paying their compliments which could be delicate or bold, came nearer to providing it. Madame de Polignac had taken a lover – the Comte de Vaudreuil, a Creole, not very handsome, his face having been pitted by the smallpox, but so witty, so amusing that he was quite charming. Gabrielle Yolande confided in the Queen, and Antoinette felt those twinges of envy for women who could enjoy such a relationship.
Another of her friends, Madame de Guémenée, took the Duc de Coigny for her lover. It was not that Antoinette shared her confidence, nor indeed that she liked her, but she was often at her card parties, for gambling, Antoinette had discovered, was one of the surest ways of driving boredom away. It was purely for the sake of Madame de Guémenée’s card parties that the Queen frequented her apartments.
Madame de Guémenée belonged to the Rohan family and the Queen did not feel very friendly disposed towards one member of that family. This was Louis, Prince de Rohan, that Cardinal whom she had never forgotten because he was the first man who had looked at her with that kind of admiration which she now met on every side. He was the young man who had received her in place of his uncle the Bishop in the Strasbourg Cathedral, when she was on her way to France from Vienna.
She had good reason not to forget this man, for she had discovered that he had written disparagingly of her mother in a letter from Vienna, whither he had gone soon after the occasion of his first meeting with Antoinette. She had heard no other than Madame du Barry reading it aloud. And for that, Antoinette had said, she would never forgive Louis, Prince de Rohan. All the same she could not resist his relative’s card parties. Moreover Madame de Guémenée was a friend of Gabrielle’s and that meant that the Queen must receive her and try to like her.
And so, looking round at her friends and seeing their happiness, she found new emotions being stirred within her. She found herself listening more eagerly to the fulsome compliments of the men about her; she found herself encouraging these compliments.
The Duc de Lauzun was particularly charming and he was known to be something of a hot-head. During those dangerous days he was often in the company of the Queen. With Madame de Polignac and her lover, the Queen and Lauzun would stroll in the gardens, and dance their minuets and gavottes on the grass before the Petit Trianon.
It was beginning to be asked: ‘Is the Duc de Lauzun the Queen’s lover?’
As for Lauzun he grew more and more certain of the Queen’s surrender, and he found it becoming increasingly difficult to remain in her company without attempting to make love to her.
He found her one day alone in her boudoir – that charmingly intimate chamber – where she often received her visitors and where she herself had commanded that ceremony be set aside.
‘Antoinette,’ said Lauzun, taking both her hands, ‘how long can we go on like this?’
She looked at him in astonishment, but they both knew the astonishment to be feigned.
‘I do not understand you,’ she said in a whisper.
He drew her to him and murmured: ‘Then you must … for it is more than I can humanly endure to go on like this … seeing you day after day … so close … so near to me … and never to kiss your lips … never to hold you … ’
‘I pray you stop,’ she cried in a panic.
But he would not stop. She had played the coquette so long, so often; she had played at taking a lover as she had played at being a mother to a motherless boy.
This was different. The play-acting had suddenly become a reality. There was no mistaking Lauzun’s meaning. He was suggesting that they should be lovers – even as Gabrielle and Vaudreuil were – even as Victoire Guémenée and her lover were.
She felt herself tremble. The blood rushed to her head and drained away again. She was almost fainting with horror.
This must never be.
What if she were to have a child – a child that all would know was not the King’s child.
She drew herself up to her full height. She suppressed her raging senses; she would not look into the fiercely demanding eyes of the Duc de Lauzun.
The game had gone too far.
‘Never, never, never,’ she said to herself. To him she said coldly, ‘Go away from here, Monsieur. You must never come here without my permission. You must never be with me alone…. ’
‘My dearest,’ began the Duke.
But the Queen turned away. She ran out of her boudoir and shut herself into her bedchamber.
She was trembling with fear and the knowledge that she had needed all her strength to tear herself away from temptation.
There were sp
ies even in the ideal kingdom of the Petit Trianon.
Mercy was alarmed. He wrote in haste to Maria Theresa. It was no use remonstrating with Antoinette now. Remonstrances were useless. What had she said when the Empress had begged her to curb her extravagant love of jewels, having heard that she had just purchased a magnificent pair of diamond earrings? ‘So my earrings have travelled to Vienna?’
No! Letters were no use. But something drastic must be done to prevent the Queen’s rushing headlong into disaster.
The great trouble was the King’s disability, brooded the wise Maria Theresa.
She called her son to her.
‘Joseph,’ she said, ‘you must pay a visit to your sister. You must talk to her tactfully. Do not lecture, for if you do so you will make her angry and that will drive her mayhap to greater folly. Try to instil some sound sense in her. At the same time try to strengthen the alliance between our two countries.’
Joseph looked at his mother ironically.
‘You have left unsaid the most important part of my mission,’ he said.
She nodded.
‘I will speak to Louis,’ said Joseph, ‘and see if an end cannot be made to this sorry state of affairs.’
So Joseph II, Emperor of Austria, came into France.
Joseph was entirely sure of his ability to set matters right for his sister, for Joseph had a very high opinion of his own powers. He looked upon himself as the most important and the most successful ruler in Europe.
Everywhere he went he called attention to himself by his alleged desire for no ceremony. He did not travel as a mighty Emperor might be expected to travel.
‘Indeed not,’ said Joseph. ‘To all on the road from Vienna to Paris I shall be known as Count Falkenstein.’
So through all the villages and towns his servants implored great secrecy.
‘Hush!’ they said. ‘Count Falkenstein demands privacy. Above all he wants no fuss. Make sure that there is complete secrecy as to his arrival.’
‘And who is Count Falkenstein?’ asked the villagers and townsfolk. In Austria they knew, of course. They had often been made aware of the Emperor’s aliases.
The rain was pouring down when he arrived in Paris. He came in an ordinary little open carriage such as any minor nobleman might affect. He sat in it soaked to the skin, greatly enjoying the experience. He had refused to go in state to Versailles where splendid apartments had been offered him.
‘No, no, no,’ he protested. ‘Mercy shall put me up at the Embassy. I want no fuss. My camp-bed will suffice, and a bearskin will serve for a mattress.’
It pleased him greatly – he the mighty Emperor – to live as an ordinary man. He wanted the world to know that he despised physical comforts. Comfort for him was to know he ruled his country well, that his subjects should know he carried their welfare close to his heart.
The day after his arrival in Paris, the news of which he had begged should be kept from the royal family, he set out in a post-chaise from his Paris lodging for Versailles.
‘I am most anxious,’ he had already written to the Abbé de Vermond, ‘to avoid sightseers or any demonstration. When I arrive I wish you to meet me and conduct me with all speed and with no fuss to the petits appartements of my sister.’
This was done.
Antoinette had been informed that he was in Paris and, although she had been unsure of the hour he would come to Versailles and in what manner, was not altogether surprised to receive him.
She had made a point of retiring early the night before. She was a little afraid of Joseph, much as she longed to see someone from home. He was, after all, fourteen years older than she was and had always been the domineering elder brother.
‘Much as I long to see him,’ she had said to Gabrielle, ‘I know there are going to be some stern lectures. Joseph could never resist them.’
He came bursting into the apartment wearing with pride his plain brown jacket which he believed gave him the appearance of a humble citizen; and he took one look at his little sister who was seated at her mirror while her ladies were combing her hair. It was hanging round her shoulders, and even Joseph was moved at the sight of so much beauty.
‘Joseph!’ she cried, and the tears brimmed over and began to fall down her cheeks.
‘My little Toinette,’ returned Joseph, genuinely moved as he took her into his arms.
‘It is so long,’ he said.
‘Far, far too long, Joseph.’
They held each other at arm’s length, looked into each other’s faces and both began to speak rapidly in German.
‘And how is my dearest mother?’
‘As well as we can expect, and longing to hear news of you.’
‘She hears too much news of me.’
‘I hope to take good news back to her.’
‘Oh, Joseph, Joseph! It is so wonderful to see someone from home.’
‘You are prettier than I thought,’ said Joseph in an unusual rush of sentiment which this reunion had aroused. ‘If I could find a woman as pretty, I would marry again.’
That made her laugh and hug him and grimace at his plain brown jacket, and call him Herr Joseph … plain Herr Joseph.
‘I will take you to the King’s apartment,’ she declared, and she led him there by the hand.
The King was not fully dressed, but Joseph shared a disregard of ceremony with his sister.
He took his brother-in-law in his arms and kissed his cheeks. Then he looked at him with affection which veiled a certain contempt, for Joseph felt old and wise in the presence of Louis.
The King was delighted to see the Queen’s pleasure in her brother, and welcomed Joseph on behalf of France.
The Emperor had come to Versailles unheralded, and there would be many who would wish to pay him homage. He must meet the King’s brothers, the King’s ministers, the noblemen of the Court.
Joseph smiled benignly but with faint superciliousness. He considered all this ceremony, all this gilded splendour, unnecessary to the ruling of a country.
The table was laid for dinner in the Queen’s bedchamber, and three armchairs had been placed at it for the King, the Queen and the Emperor.
‘No, no!’ cried Joseph, for now the emotion he had felt at his reunion with his sister had passed and he was himself again, the Spartan Emperor, determined to behave as an ordinary man, determined to excite attention by his desire for anonymity, determined to receive great honour by his disregard for it. ‘No chair for me. No chair for me. I am a plain and ordinary man. A stool is good enough for Count Falkenstein.’
‘Bring a stool for the Emperor,’ ordered the King. ‘And since our guest uses a stool, so must we. Let three stools be brought.’
So the chairs were removed and the stools brought, and the King and Queen rested their aching backs against the Queen’s bed during the meal, while the Emperor, smiling at their weakness, sat erect on his stool.
‘I look forward,’ he told the King, ‘to meeting your brothers and their wives. I believe we shall have much to say to each other.’
He was already preparing the lectures he would deliver to the King’s brothers. Provence did not enter enough into public affairs. Artois was too irresponsible. The King was a poor conversationalist; he should practise conversation instead of shutting himself away with his locksmith. Joseph must therefore have many improving talks with his brother-in-law. He clearly had a great many tasks to perform before he returned to Vienna.
‘My dear sister,’ began the Emperor when they were alone together. ‘All this preoccupation with gaiety is causing a great deal of comment throughout Europe. You may be sure it is causing more in France. You are a Queen, and Queen of a great country. I would not suggest that you meddle in state affairs, but I beg of you, try to infuse into your behaviour a greater seriousness. We hear of your extravagance in Vienna – the jewels, the dresses, the way in which you spend your days. We have heard of your expenditure at your country house. It is fantastic’
Antoinette lau
ghed. ‘Joseph, this is not Vienna. The people of France wish their Kings and Queens to look like Kings and Queens. They would not appreciate a Spartan Emperor.’
Joseph did not believe that. He was sure that he would be appreciated wherever he lived.
‘Your love of gambling could be disastrous,’ went on the Emperor. ‘You consort with the wrong people. That Madame de Guémenée is no friend for you. Her apartment is nothing more than a gambling den. I was shocked to see that last night in your presence someone was accused of cheating. Do you not understand what lack of dignity there is in that? And look at your hair!’
‘What is wrong with my hair? Does this style not become me?’
‘Become you it may, but it seems to me that piled up thus it is over-fragile to bear a crown.’
‘Joseph, you know not our customs.’
‘I know the ways of the world, and I believe that things cannot go on here as they have been going on. I am afraid for your happiness. Things cannot go on like this. You only think of amusing yourself. Have you no feeling for the King?’
He saw the look of pain in her eyes.
‘But,’ he went on, ‘if there were a child it would be different. There must be a Dauphin.’
‘Ah, Joseph,’ said Antoinette, ‘if that were but possible!’
The Emperor’s lips tightened. His look implied that, as with God, all things were possible with the Emperor Joseph.
In any case it was concerning this matter of the Dauphin that he had come to France.
Joseph walked about the streets of Paris in his plain brown coat, followed only by two lackeys in sombre grey.
He was noticed. It was inevitable, for no one else looked at all like the Emperor.
The citizens of Paris liked him – liked that lack of fuss and ceremony in him; that indifference to formality, which they so deplored in his sister, perversely they found charming in the Emperor.
‘Long live the Emperor Joseph!’ they cried.
He would hold up his hand deprecatingly. ‘My good people … my good people, I am sorry you recognise me. I had hoped to mingle among you like an ordinary man.’