Becoming Marie Antoinette: A Novel

by Juliet Grey

  The ambassador placed his hands on his knees and pitched himself toward me. The ruby he wore on his pinky finger flashed, caught in a sunbeam. “Who?”

  “Why, Madame Adélaïde.”

  He sat back against his chair and closed his eyes for a moment. Then he rested his elbows on his knees and steepled his hands together in contemplation. After some length, during which I began to look forward to my next appointment, he spoke. “Madame la dauphine, I wish you to listen very closely to what I am about to say. Your mother was wrong. Mesdames are not the positive influence she had expected them to be. Your allegiance is, and must always be, to the king above all others. You are the king’s first subject and if it pleases him for you to be pleasant to the woman he loves, then—no matter what you think of her, of her morals, or of her past—your obligation is to the king.”

  “Mesdames tantes told me we should save His Majesty from himself. When the king is behaving immorally by flaunting such a wanton woman before the entire court—what sort of lesson does that teach his subjects?”

  The comte de Mercy shook his head dolefully. “You are still only fifteen years old, madame la dauphine. Too young, and still too newly come to Versailles to be so proud.”

  “I am my mother’s daughter,” I said, with a touch of defiance. “And if she does not wish me to spend so much time in the company of my aunts she should be delighted to hear that since the marriage of the comte de Provence, I have been hosting the evening card parties in the dauphin’s apartments owing to our new rank as the senior couple.” This meant that I now spent far fewer hours in Mesdames’ rooms. In truth, I was glad of it, for my aunts were more than twice my age and cared naught for anything but gossip.

  The ambassador pressed his fingers to his temples. “I believe you should know, madame la dauphine, that your mother has, for the sake of—” He paused abruptly, as if he had caught himself about to say something he should not reveal, or else had changed his mind about what he intended to say in the first place. “Your mother,” he repeated, “firmly believes that you should resume an acquaintance with the comtesse du Barry. You spoke to her once when she visited your rooms to bring you a wedding gift—perhaps you even said a word or two to her on another occasion over a round of cavagnole or a hand of cards. It would not be such a terrible thing to countenance the favorite again.”

  I narrowed my eyes, doubtful that he was telling me the truth about Maman’s desires. After all, his talents lay in convincing people to do things that would not necessarily benefit them. I had already informed Maman, It is pitiful to see the king’s partiality for Madame du Barry, who is the most stupid and impertinent creature you can imagine. You can be well assured that I shall commit no fault either for her or against her.

  “It would make the king happy. It would make your mother happy.”

  “I cannot believe, for one thing, that Maman would give credence to the superiority of a woman of the streets, no matter whose bed she warms. For another, she raised her daughters with unparalleled propriety.” The ornate gold clock on the mantel chimed the half hour. “I regret that our interview must end,” I said, rising from my chair. “I am late for a visit with my new sister.”

  The comte de Mercy stood and bowed in farewell. As I escorted him to the door, I continued our conversation, for I wished to have the last word. “Did you know that for two months prior to my proxy wedding in Vienna, I spent every night in Maman’s bedchamber so that she could lecture me on how to maintain our good German morals in the licentious French court? And to always honor the teachings of our Holy Mother Church. And now you come here this afternoon and ask me to abandon them?” It was all I could do not to stamp my foot. Instead I raised my chin and straightened my shoulders because I knew that I walked the higher ground, not the former Mademoiselle l’Ange from the rue de la Jussienne. And even if Mesdames were chattering old magpies, they were also chaste women, and they most assuredly cared deeply for their father and wished to see him one day enter the kingdom of Heaven. “You tell me it would make the king happy were I to speak to the comtesse, and yet he has never made that request of me directly, nor chastised me for ignoring her. Maman spent months instructing me to avoid the debauchery of Versailles and yet you say she would be pleased if I countenanced the du Barry—quite the opposite of what she taught me—and you cannot give me a reason for it. So my answer, monsieur le comte, is non. I will not speak to Madame du Barry.”

  The comte left my rooms defeated in his embassy, perhaps for the first time in our long acquaintance. But how could I violate everything I had been inculcated to believe—with only the flimsiest rationale to salve my conscience?

  ——

  “Mon Dieu!” The bookcases that the comtesse de Provence had commissioned to be built in their apartments had been the talk of Versailles for the past few weeks. I pretended not to hear the rude comments comparing our scholarly interests, in which I emerged unfavorably—such as the jibe from the duchesse de Valentinois, another intimate of the comtesse du Barry, in which she asserted that the Provence’s comprehensive library conferred her with far more “spine” than the dauphine—a dig at my lack of intellectual rigor as well as my refusal to wear a corset.

  The sawdust had been swept away, and the lacquer had dried, revealing a masterpiece of décor. The giltwork alone was stunning, and the carved and routed embellishments nonpareil. I set my gift of a large beribboned basket of oranges in the center of the room and sought out my new sister who was superintending the unpacking of her library. Wooden crates with her initials burned into them covered nearly every square inch of the room. As the covers were pried off, an army of servants hastened to remove the straw packing.

  “Stai attento! Be careful!” she shrieked in Italian, as a particularly diminutive maid struggled to lift a heavy, leatherbound volume from one of the crates. It slid out of its large velvet pouch and tumbled to the floor with an audible thump. “Stupido! How dare you touch my Catullus with your dirty hands?”

  Marie Joséphine’s double chin trembled with rage. Even the dark hairs above her upper lip stood on end, so offended was she by her servant’s clumsiness. I stood agape, having never seen her like this. Where was the amiable and diffident creature who despaired of putting a foot wrong at her new court?

  The comtesse looked up and caught my eye. Smoothing her hands on her saffron-satin skirts—an unfortunate hue for a sallow complexion—she cocked her head coyly, and offered a wan smile. “Forgive me, sister,” she said in her lilting Savoy accent. “You are lucky that you are not a reader, because it is such a headache to organize so much.” She gestured flamboyantly at the numerous crates and the multiple bookcases that lined the walls. “And everything must have its proper place or I will never be able to put my thumb—my finger, I mean—on it when I need it. There are the Greek books and the Latin ones, the history, the poetry—and I have one shelf just for Dante.” Her hands flapped like the wings of a sparrow and flew to her heart. “Ah, Dante!” she exclaimed, casting her eyes heavenward. “Have you read him?” I shook my head. “I didn’t think so. You are welcome to borrow a volume—if,” she forced a chuckle, “your hands are clean. Do you read Italian?”

  Meeting her artificial smile with one of my own, “Only French and German,” I replied.

  I glided back to the dauphin’s apartments with uncommon speed, my thoughts fixated on a single purpose. I made a grand sweep of all of the rooms with a discerning eye toward the décor and was disappointed with the shabbiness of what I saw. The apartments had not been redecorated since the dauphin’s late father was a youth. Carpets, curtains, hangings, and upholstery, once vibrant, had long since grown faded and dingy; furniture was nicked, some pieces having been scratched and gnawed for years by the claws and teeth of generations of overindulged dogs and cats. My own general inattentiveness since my arrival at Versailles had not ameliorated matters. I had been too lax; in that, Maman was right, and the advent of the comtesse de Provence threatened to usurp my place—at present
, as the arbiter of interior décor, and someday, perhaps as the mother of the future king of France if things remained the same in my lit matrimonial.

  I turned to address the comtesse de Noailles. “Madame, I should like to have a library built in these rooms. Please arrange for Monsieur Gabriel to come and see me so that we may draw up the plans.”

  Madame Etiquette arched an eyebrow. “Monsieur Gabriel? But he—”

  “Oui, oui, I know that he is the premier architecte de France. If he can design the opera house in which the dauphin and I were wed, if he can design le Petit Trianon, then surely he can build me a room full of bookcases!”

  Aware of my impatience with reading, the comtesse de Noailles looked as if she wished to humor me. I don’t suppose she realized that the dauphine of France needed cabinets to rival the magnificently carved bookcases that had been made for the comtesse de Provence. No, not rival: exceed them.

  “And I would like this mess disposed of.” My broad gesture encompassed the entire suite of rooms—both the dauphin’s and the dauphine’s. “We shall commission miniature houses for the dogs so that each has its own place.” In addition to my little Mops, the maréchale de Mirepoix, hearing of my fondness for pugs, had made me a gift of four of them. “Please see that the apartments are thoroughly aired and cleaned and the broken furniture repaired. If there are stains, the upholstery and carpets are to be replaced.” The comtesse de Noailles looked astonished, her mouth and eyes widening. But I was not finished. I pointed to a pile of dirty clothes, some of which had been shredded by little canine teeth or ripped by the servants’ children when they played “dress-up” in them. “Please see that those are patched and distributed among the poor. I will no longer have it said, madame la comtesse, that the dauphine glides about Versailles looking like a match girl.”

  “Absolutely, madame la dauphine. It shall be done tout de suite!” Madame Etiquette looked so elated that she was almost ready to scoop up the offending garments herself.

  “One more thing,” I said, as the chambermaids began to bustle about, doing my bidding. “Because such shabby gowns are not in keeping with the dignity of the first woman in France, I should like to see the royal dressmakers first thing tomorrow.” The comtesse de Noailles dropped an obliging curtsy. Well then, I said to myself, take that, Madame du Barry and Comtesse de Provence. From now on there will be no mistaking who is the future queen of France.

  When the dauphin returned to our apartments, I began to regale him with all the events of the day, but he interrupted me with news of his own. “Monsieur Gamain is teaching me how to make a new kind of lock,” he said proudly, as Clery, his chief valet de chambre, helped him out of his coat and waistcoat. Then, grimy and exhausted from spending several hours at his forge, he flung himself onto a chaise and extended his arms expansively across the emerald-colored damask. His batiste chemise was marred with unsightly yellow rings beneath his armpits. I knelt at my husband’s feet, my salmon silk skirts billowing about me like a macaron, and gazed into his light eyes. “I do believe that if you had not been born a Bourbon, you would much rather have been apprenticed to the royal locksmith,” I opined candidly. He did not demur. “I will send the servants to fetch a basin and ewer,” I said, with wifely solicitousness. “We can’t possibly host your brother this evening with you looking like that.”

  The dauphin clapped his hand to his head. “Oh, mon Dieu, I’d forgotten! After a long day with Gamain, I lack the stomach to parry with Provence.”

  I laughed. “No matter—he has stomach enough for both of you! And so does his comtesse.” I settled onto a stool beside him and told him about our little tête-à-tête that afternoon. “You should have heard her abuse her maid,” I told the dauphin. “Or perhaps not; it was hardly a pleasant thing to witness. But the comtesse is quite particular about her treasures.” I glanced about the room at the faded splendor of our furnishings. “When we are king and queen, considerable renovations must be done!” I declared. “In the meantime, I will not have the comtesse de Provence lord her library over me, as if to say not only are her accoutrements finer than mine, but her mind is superior as well.”

  The dauphin reached for my hand, entwining his fingers with mine in a rare gesture of intimacy and affection, particularly as it took place in the light of day and in the full view of his valet de chambre. “Envy, ma chère, is an ugly thing.” He chuckled to himself and squeezed my hand. “And yet we cannot seem to avoid it. But all the friseurs and tailleurs and marchands de mode in the kingdom have not the magical arts to transform that fat, hairy, ill-tempered sow into the charming and radiant beauty who is the dauphine of France.”

  He raised my fingers to his lips, practically lifting me off the tabouret in the process, and gently kissed my knuckles. I felt a blush begin at the bridge of my nose and spread from my cheeks up into my hairline and down over my poitrine. And then I smiled more broadly than I had ever done since I arrived at Versailles. “Merci,” I whispered. “Tu es très gentil et doux. Now, let us show the Provences our mettle this evening!”

  But things did not quite turn out as planned.

  The other young royals detested cavagnole as much as I did, so we had one of the gaming tables set for piquet. Provence and I had sat down to play, while the comtesse, her lawn green silk made bilious in the candle glow, leaned over her husband’s shoulder observing his hand and whispering strategies in his ear as to which cards to discard and how many to draw from the stock at the center of the table. As it would have been unseemly to openly snipe at each other, we found common ground for our médisance at the royal mistress’s expense, taking delight in performing the ribald songs and repeating the scathing jests that were making the rounds of the palace.

  “Brother, have you heard this one about the ci-devant Mademoiselle l’Ange?” Provence asked the dauphin. For some reason, Louis Auguste had decided to hang back from the table. As he observed the game, he toyed with one of his riding crops, petulantly striking his brother on the arm from time to time.

  The comte slid his chair a foot or two away from the gaming table and declaimed,

  “I wonder that it isn’t slack

  From all that work upon your back;

  And does your other lover wheedle,

  When he longs to thread his needle?”

  “Oh,” I gasped, “you have managed to skewer the duc d’Aiguillon, too!” It was now commonly surmised by all but the king that Madame du Barry was also pleasuring his foreign minister, and aiguille was the word for “needle.”

  My portly brother-in-law was very clever, and far more articulate than the dauphin. It made his company refreshing, but only in modest doses; the comte could just as easily turn his sharp tongue against his purported friends.

  Thwack went the riding crop against Provence’s upper arm. It had to have been the seventh or eighth time my husband had struck him. I caught his eye and shook my head. “C’est tout,” I mouthed. “Enough.” I knew what could happen when the boys allowed their baser natures to get the better of them. I knew they were envious of his place in the birth order, even though it was all because their oldest brother had died. But Provence was the clever boy and Artois was the handsome one, and both believed themselves to be infinitely more accomplished—let alone ambitious about becoming king of France, a fire that admittedly did not burn in my husband’s belly, regardless of his birthright.

  I don’t know whether it was Provence’s pointed refusal to react to the first several blows that angered my husband, or whether the dauphin was jealous that his brother and I were having such fun (for Louis Auguste had never before expressed the slightest envy when I amused myself with his siblings), but evidently, he struck his younger brother one time too many for the comte to continue to consider it a game. With a sudden movement Provence grabbed the loop of the leather whip, abruptly pushed his chair back from the table, and tugged my husband toward him. The two boys faced off, fists raised against each other.

  “Arrêtez!” I shouted, as the
comtesse tried to squeeze herself into a corner. “Both of you, stop this nonsense!” I ducked under Provence’s arm and snatched the whip from him. Then I flung the riding crop across the room; it landed under a chaise. Mops and my other pugs, frightened by all the commotion, began to bark. The comtesse held her ears as she released a string of oaths in her native dialect. Then she grabbed her husband by the sleeve and the pair of them waddled out of our apartments without so much as a bonne nuit.

  Later that evening, when Louis Auguste dutifully came to my bed, I scolded him for behaving like a jealous fool. The comte de Provence was my brother and although I admired his wit, I saw nothing else of merit about him. “We are one, you and I,” I assured the dauphin, “and you must never doubt my fidelity. And I’ll tell you something else.”

  “What?” he demanded sullenly.

  I tentatively touched his arm, feeling his warmth through the sleeve of his nightgown. “Although our union was not of our making, I am more and more convinced that if I had to choose a husband from the three of you—yes, Artois included—I should prefer the one Heaven has given me.” True, Louis Auguste was awkward and ungainly; he was diffident to the point of exasperation; but in his own odd way I think he was finally trying to show me every possible attention and kindness, and for that I was immensely grateful. How much worse it could have been!

  TWENTY-FIVE

  The Battle Royal Continues

  JUNE 15, 1771

  My mother’s letter quivered in my hand, so livid had I become at her words. After months of filling my head with sermons and warnings about falling prey to the licentiousness of the French court, after endless lectures assuring me that no matter how louche, they would love me all the more for adhering to my sturdy German morals, now Maman was encouraging me, in no uncertain terms, to set aside all she had taught me.