Becoming Marie Antoinette: A Novel

by Juliet Grey

  But why? Had her piety been naught but platitudes? If so, then her entire life was a sham, for the world knew that the Hapsburg court, and the empress herself, were above reproach. This I would not believe. And as she was so free with her opinions and her undisguised efforts to encourage me to become an agent of Austrian interests, if there were a motive behind her insistence that I countenance the comtesse du Barry, surely she would have revealed it to me.

  The only consistency I could salvage from any of this was her perpetual insistence, then and now, to make myself beloved. And yet did she really intend the dauphine of France to bow and scrape so low that she picked up the refuse from the gutter? I could only surmise that Maman did not know the full story of the du Barry’s lineage, her origins as a natural daughter—of a friar, no less! How she had been passed from one nobleman to the next before she was judged ready to be dangled under the nose of the king the way a dog is teased with a tempting morsel of meat. She was coarse, and cutting, and cruel. I had even told Maman about the conversation I had overheard at the masquerade ball, about the du Barry’s spiteful sobriquet for me, l’Autrichienne—and still, my mother urged me to set aside my pride and tread the higher ground.

  How could she expect me to be cordial to the woman? Instead, she had accused me of being hochnäsig, or high-nosed, about the whole sordid affair.

  JULY 1, 1771

  “Why, monsieur le comte, your visits have become so frequent that madame la comtesse de Noailles is beginning to think you are now a member of my household!” Greeting him at the threshold of my apartments I extended my hand for him to kiss and offered him a beaming smile, although I knew the nature of his business. For the past several weeks, every time the comte de Mercy had come to call, it was to deliver a lecture—of late it was to inform me that my refusal to speak to the du Barry was jeopardizing the Franco-Austrian alliance. And when he had run out of his own words, he would hand me an angry missive from Maman, chiding me for the same perceived offense, even as she continued to withhold her reasons for urging me to act in a certain way. “She treats me like a marionette on strings, a witless puppet expected to dance,” I muttered to Mercy, as I led him through the first and second antechambers, my drawing room and bedchamber, into the relatively tranquil intimacy of my private study. I was aware of the murmurings within my entourage regarding the Austrian ambassador’s perceived omnipresence in my rooms, so I thought it best to conduct our conversations well beyond their hearing.

  “So, what is it to be today?” Unlike Maman’s correspondence, my letters to Vienna never contained unpleasantries. I could not bring myself to share bad news. My heart was always with my family in Austria. I was afraid to tell them when things went wrong, and if I quarreled with them I felt that my duties here would be too heavy to bear.

  Mercy began pacing about the study. “Madame la dauphine, you must believe me when I say that I have always had your best interests at heart—as an archduchess of Austria, and now, as the future queen of France.” He leaned against a heavily gilded rococo chest and turned to face me, exhaling heavily. “As the ambassador from the Austrian Imperial Court to the Court of Versailles, I am privy to the thoughts of two distinguished sovereigns.”

  I rested my chin in my hands; my engageantes dusted the surface of the writing desk behind which I sat. “Which is far more than I. As dauphine I have no business being concerned with affairs of state, even though Maman should like me to make it my business. And yet she does no more than paint her demands in the broadest of strokes.”

  The comte de Mercy cleared his throat. “I see. Then I shall take a finer brush to the canvas and limn some of the details of the larger picture. I do so now only because your mother has—finalement—given me leave to explain some things to you, which we hope will convince you that a certain diplomatic assignment—on your part—must soon be accomplished.”

  I grinned at him. “I am terribly fond of you, monsieur le comte, but I do wish you would come to the point.”

  “Well, then!” He rubbed his hands together as if he were about to embark upon a great expedition. “Your mother has of late been placed in a difficult situation.” He glanced searchingly about the room. “Tell me, have you a globe?”

  “There is one in the dauphin’s private study. Shall we go in there? He is not at home and no one will disturb us.”

  As the ambassador and I strolled back through my rooms toward the apartments of the dauphin I was aware that we were being watched. In my two antechambers, my ladies glanced up from their conversations or their games of piquet and Écarté, and leaned toward each other, inclining their heads to whisper behind their fans. At least this time they had something else to gossip about besides the fact that my belly was still flat.

  And when the comte and I passed through the dauphin’s pair of antechambers, we received the same reaction from the gentlemen of his entourage, only they lacked the discretionary benefit of a fan. Finally, we closeted ourselves within my husband’s private study, where the comte de Mercy immediately made for the globe that rested inside an elaborate stand near the center of the room.

  “Poland,” he began, “is a commonwealth or protectorate of Russia located in central Europe.” He spun the globe and located the country with his index finger. “Come.” I stood beside him and regarded the great globe over his shoulder. “This is the Austrian Empire,” he said, drawing a wide swath with his hand. “And these are the lands that belong to your mother’s neighbors and two greatest enemies—the ‘greats’ themselves—Frederick the Great of Prussia and Catherine the Great of Russia.”

  “Mein Gott, that’s a lot of the globe,” I murmured. “It’s more than we have—I mean more than Maman has.”

  “And Russia has grown even more vast of late; for the past few years, during the ongoing Russo-Turkish Wars, the armies of Catherine the Great have been able to conquer enemy territories, so that now her borders are closer than ever to Hapsburg Austria. Your mother became understandably quite anxious about this and began considering a war with Russia. King Louis, being your mother’s ally, suggested, perhaps, that a peaceful solution might be found, a redistribution of lands in central Europe so that Imperial Austria would no longer feel small or diminished when compared to Russia.” He bunched his hands over the globe to illustrate the relative sizes of the empires. “Louis suggested that Austria might be happy with Silesia, but Frederick the Great—”

  “ ‘The Devil,’ Maman calls him—” I interjected, pleased to know something at least that was germane to our discussion.

  “ ‘The Devil.’ Yes, quite,” the comte agreed. “Frederick was not about to willingly part with Silesia, having so recently conquered it himself. The Prussian king’s solution was to turn Poland into the great roast instead. So, now we have Frederick and Catherine conspiring to carve up Poland for their own empires—claiming territories that will benefit each of them in some way, leaving only a small portion of Poland to the Poles.”

  “What does Poland have to say about all this?” I wondered aloud.

  “Nothing,” the comte replied sadly. “For Poland to try to assert herself against the combined armies of Russia and Prussia would be like a beetle expecting to win a battle against the heel of your boot.”

  “But what does any of this have to do with Maman? Or me for that matter?”

  “The empress is much disturbed by this unprecedented, and equally unprovoked, plan to invade an innocent kingdom, madame la dauphine; but I believe you should know that your brother, the Emperor Joseph, supports it.”

  I regarded the ambassador with increasing discomfort. “My mother and my brother do not always see eye to eye, as they say.” The truth was, they rarely did. Joseph was very forward-thinking, while Maman was quite the reverse. “What, then, does Joseph see that Maman does not?”

  “If the Austrian Empire supports the partitioning of Poland by Prussia and Russia, then Austria will also be able to slice off a piece of Poland to add to her empire. Consequently, your mother h
as been dragged into the middle of the negotiations. Here is the predicament as it now stands: If Her Imperial Majesty obeys the dictates of her conscience and objects to the partitioning of the innocent and unsuspecting commonwealth of Poland, the event will take place anyway and your mother will end up with none of the territory for Austria, while her enemies’ empires will be expanded around her.”

  “Making them even greater enemies,” I reasoned.

  “Of course,” said the comte de Mercy, nodding his head. Partitioning. It sounded so neat, so effortless, when it would surely be nothing of the sort. I imagined that armies would march into towns and villages, preceded by men on horseback flashing their sabers. What would they do? Draw a line at the edge of the town or the forest and tell the villagers, “You are all Prussians, now”?

  The comte rapped on the globe with his knuckles. “Now we come to the next obstacle. Austria and France have signed a treaty to aid Poland, should the commonwealth be invaded. Poland is about to be invaded. Invaded and partitioned; with some of her lands going to Russia, some to Prussia—and some, yes, to Austria. Which is why Austria isn’t going to do anything to stop the invasion, despite the language of the Franco-Austrian treaty. And Austria now needs France—desperately—to support her change of heart.

  “And here, madame la dauphine, is where the matter directly concerns you.” Comte de Mercy had lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. I stood a little straighter. “As I mentioned at the beginning of our discussion, I am the confidant of two rulers. Your mother’s political predicament is a precarious one. Austria needs France. But France is not just a place on a map. France is Louis. And it pains me to admit to you, madame la dauphine, that Louis would be very much inclined to leave your mother dangling from a political limb unless the insult to his maîtresse en titre is addressed; and the comtesse du Barry’s reputation, stained as it may be, is restored.”

  I wasn’t entirely certain I understood him. “What are you saying?” It all seemed so convoluted. “Why can’t you diplomats ever speak plainly?”

  The ambassador took a deep breath. “All right then, I will be perfectly blunt. The partition of Poland might very well lead to war, and all because you are behaving like a spoiled little girl instead of like a princess—by refusing to speak to a whore.”

  He took full advantage of the shocked expression on my face and my inability to formulate a reply, by providing me with additional details of his conversation with the king about the whole affair. “I told you, by virtue of my embassy I am privy to the thoughts and wishes of two distinguished rulers. I have the ear of the king of France on the matter of your uttering a few words to the comtesse du Barry.”

  “ ‘I love my granddaughter,’ ” Papa Roi had told the comte de Mercy. “ ‘She is the epitome of charm, grace, and spirit, and a delight to behold. So here is what I would like you to do: Impress upon her that my love and generosity will be boundless; all she must do is speak to Madame du Barry. A few simple, innocuous words. And the storm clouds will disappear, leaving a clear blue sky.’ ”

  “He really said that?”

  The ambassador nodded and offered me his arm. “He was speaking of several clouds, you realize: not merely the ones that lower over the du Barry’s apartments, but those that rumble over Austria and Poland. Shall we return to your rooms now?”

  My heart felt so much lighter, free of the burden it had borne. The only thing that gnawed at my conscience was that the king himself had never said a word to me regarding the subject of his favorite, and he seemed quite aware that I had been deliberately snubbing her. And perhaps the little exchange between himself and the king that the ambassador had so colorfully reenacted for me had merely been the comte’s invention, in order to sway my decision. After all, wasn’t that what diplomacy was all about?

  Yet … if a few little words might forestall, or even eliminate, any unnecessary carnage, what were a few scruples compared to the possibility that thousands of lives might be lost?

  But by the time we reached my drawing room, where I bid au revoir to the comte, I was exhausted from being pushed in so many directions. Still, I knew what I must do, even if it pained me. “Little said, soon amended,” the Countess von Brandeiss used to say to Charlotte and me when she wanted us to apologize for something. “Say it quickly and put it behind you.”

  I sought out my dame d’honneur and assigned her the task I dreaded, for I was terrified to go to the king directly. My heart beat wildly; I could only imagine how much worse it would be on the evening itself. “Madame de Noailles, kindly inform His Majesty that I will honor Madame du Barry with a word or two at the card game after supper on July the eleventh.” It irked me just to utter that sentence.

  She always wanted me to do the proper thing in matters of etiquette, but I knew from my first night at Versailles that she disdained the royal mistress with every fastidious fiber of her haughty being. With disappointment in her eyes, the comtesse de Noailles pressed her lips together. “It shall be done, madame la dauphine.”

  I groaned and clutched my head in my hands. My heavy coiffure was giving me a headache. The incessant chattering of my ladies-in-waiting, and the vibrant red damask walls of the drawing room, “couleur de feu,” were giving me a headache. Everything was giving me a headache.

  Then the dauphin loped into the room, reeking of animal blood and dead flesh, and shocking the soi-disant delicate sensibilities of my attendants, who daintily pinched their noses as they used their fans for something other than flirtation and gossip. Heedless of the mess, he used his dusty brown tricorn to blot the sweat that had beaded on his forehead and then sent the hat sailing onto the seat of an armchair.

  “Not again! It is enough! No more! I won’t have it!”

  The dauphin regarded me with a befuddled expression. “Won’t have what? What is enough?” he asked lethargically.

  I slipped my arm through his and briskly led him out of the drawing room toward our more private chambers. “My mother, the king, Mesdames, the comte de Mercy! I am beset with demands from all sides. Everyone is telling me something different. Meanwhile, you ride off to the hunt, leaving me to sort out right from wrong without your guidance.” I could sense my temper beginning to get the better of me, but it was like steam escaping from a kettle and I could not call it back.

  By now we had reached my private study. He tried to evade me, but my wide panniers impeded his efforts to pass. “When you are not hunting, you leave my bed while I am still a-slumber—to go hunting! Heaven forfend you should wake with me and we could enjoy a petit-déjeuner. But never once—not even on the morning after our wedding night—have we breakfasted together. When the weather is poor, you head off to your smithy. When the weather is fine, you hunt with your brothers and the king—and then you go off and play with your hammer and tongs! Or you spend hours with the masons and the carpenters, exhausting yourself by heaving paving stones, lumbering about as though you were one of the laborers. And after the sun has gone down, do you come to your wife of your own volition? No—you wait until the last possible moment. When we dine, you have no conversation and I am once again left to fend for myself while you eat enough to fill a wheelbarrow! And every time I believe that you and I are finally growing closer, that we are comfortable enough with one another to—to do what we must, for the good of France, I find myself humiliated yet again.”

  “That’s enough,” the dauphin said quietly. He plodded past me toward the door at the far end of the room.

  “Where are you going? I have not finished talking to you!”

  “I am going to my own rooms. And you are not talking; you are scolding,” he said simply.

  I followed him into the next room. And the next, and the next. “And finally—when that awful coucher is over and everyone has left, you come to my bed looking as though you are about to face the executioner—not your wife!”

  Louis Auguste bent over as if the weight of the world rested upon him. He placed his large hand on a marble tableto
p to steady himself. His overburdened shoulders began to heave with sobs.

  Mon Dieu, I thought, what have I done? I tiptoed behind my husband and very gently placed my hands on his broad back, then rested my cheek against his grimy hunting coat, smearing my rouge. “Oh, dear God, what has become of me? I am so sorry, mon cher, so sorry.” My hot tears stained the brown velvet. “I became my mother and the comtesse de Noailles all rolled into one. Please forgive me. I did not mean to hurt you so.… I am so sorry and … and I love you.” Those three little words slipped out of my mouth, astonishing the both of us. But I would not call them back, for no one was as surprised as I was to realize that I had meant them. A secret smile crept across my face and a silent tear rolled into the crescent of my mouth.

  We remained that way for several moments. The room was quiet, but for the sounds of our weeping. Finally, the dauphin turned around to face me and we slipped our arms around each other. He pressed me to his chest and shyly stroked my hair. “I am sorry, too,” he whispered. I felt his warm breath on the crown of my head. “I didn’t realize … I go on as I always did before we were wed.”

  “Did it ever occur to you how lonely I am?” I asked him, my voice small and strained. I scrubbed away a few wayward tears with my fist.

  “No,” he replied quietly, truthfully. “We are surrounded by people nearly all day, so I never thought about being lonely. And when I am at my forge I revel in the solitude. In his own pasture the black sheep doesn’t know he’s the odd one out,” he added with a chuckle.

  I had not thought of it that way. Yet he had found a way to embrace his isolation, while I, more naturally sociable, was fighting it like a demon.

  “But I am sorry I did not think about how it must be for you,” my husband said gently. “I will try to be more sensible of it in the future. I promise.” He pulled away and regarded me at arm’s length. “Do you forgive me?”