Farewell, My Queen

by Black Moishe

  “What use is a spoon when you’re making Welsh rabbit? and pea soup? No use. I like to have a spoon, that’s all. It’s my spoon. A man has a right to his little whims, maybe. Use it to eat a mash you can’t stomach. Maybe! And even then . . . I wouldn’t be too sure, no, sir, but with my Welsh rabbit I can be sure! She’s sure-fire, ’cause she sure cooks good on the fire!”—then, turning to the courtiers, whom he was always ready to treat as a bothersome lot—“What are they waiting around for, anyway? They’re all being mighty impolite today. Nothing new about that, but there are more of them and they all look so sober—sober as judges! Has there been more bad news, I wonder? Because lately, it’s been bad news all the time. Has the second Dauphin taken sick? Has the King recalled his minister, that Mister Necker? But why is it the French want that man so bad? They all go round shouting Necker Necker Necker like a lot of crazies. They call him their savior. I know all about that Necker. He comes from my part of the world, Necker does. Well, anyway, from the same country as my father. Nobody in Switzerland wants any part of him. Not so dumb, the Swiss; they let him go with no argument. If he was so wonderful, they’d have made sure to keep him for themselves. Necker, Necker, Necker . . . If he was a wizard of finance, for instance, filling the coffers as fast as they emptied. Or if he was like the Count Saint-Germain, a great man who simply on request produces as many diamonds as it takes to bail out the royal treasury. . . Then, I could understand people making a big push to hang onto such a rare bird. A magician who didn’t need to eat, he used to go to suppers and do nothing but talk. And did he have things to tell! I mean, after all, when you’ve lived several centuries, the way he had! How many centuries, exactly? Even one is pretty good. But it beats me why they would fight to keep Necker. A man who, in Switzerland, in his native country, is of no interest to anyone but his own little family. Wherever you look, they don’t give a damn about him. Except in France. The French are not an intelligent people. A people of grumblers is what they are. But just because you grumble, that doesn’t make you intelligent. They’re forever shouting: Down with this! or Death to whatsisname! They’re grumblers and they behave like sheep. Unbelievable! And when they change their minds, it’s for no good reason, all of a sudden, bang! For the time being, they want Necker, don’t ask me why . . . D’you suppose they’re gonna stay there a long time like that, without moving? They could maybe at least say hello to me! But they never do. They just come walking in here. This sure isn’t my day! If I’ve gone and split my spoon, when I only got it out by mistake in the first place, I’m gonna raise hell! But what are they after? I don’t think it’s Necker. Maybe they haven’t been told. Maybe. They’re waiting to go in and see the King, when there’s nobody on the other side of that door. No Petty Levee today. And consequently, since after all there is logic in this whole business, no Grand Levee. And that’s how it is. What’s this, now? They’re going to ask me. Isn’t the King getting up this morning? Maybe. All I know is, my Welsh rabbit’s burning. Okay, I’ll put it aside and try again later. If I don’t tell them, I’ll have them breathing down my neck till the cows come home. And there are more of them all the time, because others are starting to arrive for the Grand Levee.”

  It was true that we were all listening with bated breath to Füchs’s wordy monologue. But our dignity made it quite impossible to ask him questions. Finally, to relieve us of our doubts, or rather so we would leave him at peace in his little niche, he said clearly and distinctly that the King, the Queen, Monsieur, His Royal Highness the Count d’Artois, the Princes of the Blood, and the ministers had been in the Council Room since five o’clock that morning.

  There was a general rush toward the Hall of Mirrors. Everyone was anxious to be there when they came out. The bereaved—the troup of mourners with no tears, at this funeral with no procession—reassembled, not outside the closed door of the King’s Bedchamber, but outside the closed door of the Royal Council Chamber. Oh, surely no one would have believed, seeing this pitiful gathering, that these were the same people who, only four days previously, had strutted along the Gallery like so many conquerors! Sunday, July 12 had been a splendid Sunday at Court. With Necker dismissed, and Paris submissive, there was no further cause for worry. Jubilation was in the air. There had been other rebellions, and they had always been quelled . . . Everyone was so smugly pleased about peace having been restored. The whole affair had been nothing more than a false alarm. We all felt tremendously comforted by the coup d’état of July 11. The new government hastily appointed to support Baron de Breteuil put everyone’s mind at rest. We were a big, happy family once more. The hum of voices in the château sounded a joyful note. Conversations were carried on more loudly than usual, and though the courtiers never referred directly to the recent event, their happiness at the outcome found expression in renewed volubility, laughter, a sparkle in eye and ornament alike (diamonds, coincidentally readmitted for wear at Court that very day, set against the black of moiré and silk, gave an effect of supreme elegance). Without prior arrangement, they had all assembled in the Hall of Mirrors. They walked the length of it again and again, stepping jauntily with head erect, exchanging, as they met one another, enthusiastic remarks about what a fine day it was. Not all these observations had the wealth of detail to be found in Monsieur de Faucheux’s accounts of the weather. He was its unrivaled bard, whatever the climate (this put him in the King’s good graces; though the Sovereign’s own interest in the weather was confined strictly to the figures indicating temperatures, he was very sympathetic to any conversation that included those figures). On that special Sunday, however, the courtiers’ remarks about the fine weather, though succinct, were all uttered with conviction. Across the face of mirrors picked out in gold, there had passed that day thousands of knowing smiles, thousands of curtsies from twirling gowns, light touches bestowed by velvet-gloved fingertips, gentle physical contacts, swift embraces during which flounces with pearled tucks were caught for a moment on flower-decked lapel points . . .Yes, it had been a splendid Sunday.

  In the afternoon, while the King was hunting, I had read aloud, for the Queen and Gabrielle de Polignac, poems by Louise Labé. Through the dark hangings of the Queen’s bedchamber I saw that the silk of the summer tapestries was back in bloom. Petals and feathers took wing. They spiraled upward in the orange-tinted light of their private theater. And I imagined I could hear, during the brief intervals between words, petals and feathers settling in minuscule layers on the canopy over the bed.

  A scant few days later, nothing was further from our thoughts than a victory celebration. These were not the same people, or the same demeanor, or the same faces. To me, however, their appearance was by no means strange. I recognized the look of panic and of sleeplessness that characterized those who waited for me in the sea-green morning hours, trusting I would come and do a bit of reading, so that with the opium of my voice, as Baroness de L’Allée liked to say, I might procure them a brief interval of peace. These faces bearing the mark of defeat were familiar to me (just as their skill at erasing all trace of wounds with the coming of daylight, although it never ceased to surprise me, was also familiar to me). But this time the courtiers had stopped trying to disguise their wan countenances for each other’s benefit. Besides, I was in the same sorry state they were.

  We had only enough time to stand aside before the Council members filed out. They certainly had not planned for their reappearance to be public. I saw first, without really identifying them, several brilliant, ornately clad persons, engaged in very animated, perhaps even vehement, discussion. At the center of the group, immediately visible, was the Queen. She was the only woman. She was conferring with the Prince de Condé. Nearby, the Prince de Conti was apparently being subjected to a long speech by Baron de Breteuil. The Baron, who, in his usual manner, clicked his heels as he walked and banged his cane against the floor, was loudly proclaiming his anger. At the same time, I noted that the Count d’Artois was furious as well and was being even more vocal about it than
the Baron. Purple in the face, beside himself with rage, he was venting his anger on the King. Suddenly, in a gesture that struck me as totally insane, he cast himself down at the King’s feet and pleaded:

  “We must leave this place, I tell you; what do I have to do, Sir, to convince you of that fact? What words must I employ, O my brother, to ask it of you?”

  There were mutterings on our side, and only then did they realize that people were waiting for them to appear, that there were spectators. It was not a pleasant surprise. The Count d’Artois got back to his feet. Still angry and shaken, he bowed to the King and Queen and walked away. He was followed in short order by the Prince de Condé and the Prince de Conti. I was standing beside Monsieur Le Paon, who painted battles for the Prince de Condé. He was anxiously scanning the entire scene. He said to me: “Take care; this is no time to get left behind.” The members of the new government also looked anxious. They were casting timid glances at Baron de Breteuil. I asked Monsieur Le Paon to tell me their names. He pointed out the Duke de La Vauguyon, Minister for Foreign Affairs; Monsieur de La Porte, Minister of the Navy; Monsieur de Barentin, who was still Lord Privy Seal; and Laurent de Villedeuil, who had retained his post as Minister of the Royal Household. “At least, that was the situation as of a few hours ago,” he added.

  Once they became aware that people were watching, the personages emerging from the Council Chamber had lost all their spontaneity. There was no longer the slightest hint of wrath on any of their faces. More accurately, there was no expression of any kind. Flattened against the wall (we could retreat no farther), we were smothered in curtsies and bows. It was imperative that we straighten up and scan those masks again, for our fate depended on them.

  The King, as always when he was prey to strong emotion, seemed to be asleep; indeed, perhaps he really was. His heavy, drooping eyelids, the downturned pouting lips, his clumsy, swaying gait, gave him the appearance of a sleepwalker. It was like watching an enormous mass of flesh that might collapse from one moment to the next if he were suddenly roused from his comatose slumber. There was no danger of the Queen being the one to rouse him; though walking at his side, she seemed a thousand leagues away. Too heavily made up, she was a beacon of red. She was looking straight in front of her, paying no heed to the people who were present. Her eyes were swollen. Looking at the royal pair side by side, it occurred to me not for the first time that neither of them, because of the extreme myopia they suffered from, compounded with his timidity and her pride, had ever seen anyone at Versailles. A few stock phrases enabled them to keep up the deception. The fact was that they could properly distinguish almost nothing; they carried on with their daily activities in a world whose outlines were totally blurred. And this had been the case from the very outset, from the moment following the death of Louis XV, when they had heard the galloping footsteps of courtiers rushing toward the King’s Bedchamber. Then, truly united, terrified, they had petitioned: “O Lord, pray for us . . . We are too young to reign.”

  Nearly fifteen years later, on this somber July morning, they were still young and still terrified. But not united. True, they were side by side, but almost with their backs to one another. She with a hard, steady gaze. He with his eyes shut . . . Louis XVI in the pose of a blind king was a convincing sight. From the thin slit of pale blue color that filtered past his eyelids, no active presence, no sort of alertness could be inferred. On the contrary, that minimal reminder of the blue of his eyes confirmed the absence of seeing, of looking outward, confirmed the never explicitly formulated but obstinately desired No that he used as a defense against the world. No, I will not be king, it is not my destiny to be king. And I found myself remembering what people said about his childhood, that he was only the younger son, and that the Dauphin, the one born to reign, was an exceptional child, an intelligent, charming, imperious, adulated little boy. The Dauphin did want to reign. And he sobbed, howled, expended his last ounces of strength in outbursts of rage, when he grasped the fact that his illness was leading him deathward, that he would not grow up, would never be king. In vain did he become more and more demanding, tormenting those in his service, including the one he could get at to greatest effect: his brother, poor Louis-Auguste, constantly at his bedside. The sick child could feel royalty slipping away from him, and it was royalty he saw flowing out of him in the warm froth of blood that drenched his sheets.

  “Why was I not born God?” the Duke of Burgundy—for that was the child’s title—sometimes asked. Between hemorrhages, he would prophesy: “I shall bring England under my yoke, I shall make the King of Prussia my prisoner. I shall do whatever I want . . . ” And he would dictate to his brother a sentence to be entered in his Spiritual Diary: “Hurry up, then, Berry! Don’t stand there looking an utter ass,” the Child-King, almost Child-God, would exclaim impatiently . . . “Hurry up, then, Berry!” Everything can always be explained, I thought to myself at the time, by the missing link of a dead child.

  We made deeper bows and lower curtsies without moving from the spot, and they continued to walk by. To ignore us and walk on by. Finally, without shedding his cloak of painful nonpresence, the King gave a perfunctory bow and quietly vanished. No one paid attention. Everyone knew where he was headed. Half past ten: it was time for one of the several trips he made in the course of the day to the Apollo Salon, where he would consult a big crystal thermometer hanging there to see what the temperature was. The other Council members were left standing stock-still, as though transfixed by the conflict dividing them. Only the Count de Provence, apparently recovered from his walk of the previous day, was smiling affably; he responded with a line from Horace when Jacob-Nicolas Moreau eagerly asked what had been decided in Council:

  “In a manner of speaking, nothing important,” said the King’s brother (I noticed that he had very fine, slender hands, and an attractive way of drumming his fingers in the air. Everything in his manner constantly gave the lie to his heaviness of body: speech, style of humor, the way he stood . . . and those graceful hands). “Nothing that would really alter the course of life here.”

  Flattered to receive this confidence, the Historiographer bowed. Monsieur and his group of courtiers moved on. His wife, looking very much alarmed, went toward him. Monsieur put aside his smile and his refined manner.

  Some of the courtiers gathered in little groups. I heard one man say:

  “Nothing has been decided. It was a perfectly ordinary meeting.”

  “At five in the morning, with the Queen and the King’s brothers present! I would not call that perfectly ordinary.”

  The members of the new government had apparently vanished into thin air. Baron de Breteuil had withdrawn from the Hall of Mirrors, not long after the Count d’Artois. But Marshal de Broglie was still there. A circle had formed around him. At first he was reluctant to speak. Finally he made up his mind and declared quite frankly:

  “The disaster is total and complete. The King hesitated a long time and then reached a decision. He intends to stay. The Breteuil government is dismissed.”

  “And is Necker coming back?”

  “I don’t know. As of now, it is not absolutely certain that he will return.”

  A deathly silence greeted these words.

  Monsieur de Barentin offered his assessment (he spoke very softly, his hands clasped on his chest, as though he were going to pray or make a lengthy statement, but he was brief):

  “I think, gentlemen, that we must reconcile ourselves to a change of dynasty.”

  Marshal de Broglie’s next words supported this judgment: “Louis XVI is no longer free to make his own decisions. He is a hostage of the Revolution.”

  These words, delivered bluntly by a military commander of Marshal de Broglie’s standing, echoed like a death knell. The King and his Court no longer ruled. My world was crumbling.

  I looked around for the Queen. Unbelievably, this scene was taking place in her presence. People were discussing the situation openly; some had gone. They had left the Hall o
f Mirrors without waiting for her to leave first. And she seemed unaware of the scandal. Her face was puffy, her shoulders sagged; nothing remained of the elegantly lofty bearing that was naturally hers at Court, as she scanned one by one the people now standing before her. The Princess de Lamballe, who was closest to her, stepped forward, offered a supporting hand. The Princess was hoping for a smile, or some acknowledgment. And a moment later she could not hide her chagrin, for the Queen conspicuously ignored her. It was not the Princess de Lamballe she wanted. Not on the Princess’s account had she opened her fan, in which a lorgnette was concealed. Oblivious to the fact that people were watching, the Queen stood there, tense, with her face pressed to her fan. No, she could not find the one she sought. She was forced to pursue her inspection, and she did so, with unimaginable persistence. Madame de Lamballe offered her services once again. And for the second time, the Queen rejected them. Haughtily. Adding arrogance to hard-heartedness. Using cruelty to console herself for the pain she was suffering. She continued to scrutinize the assembled group, her eye still glued to her fan. At last she gave up the quest. Gabrielle de Polignac was not there; the Queen had no reason to linger. She turned her back on us.

  I went over to a window and opened it without attracting attention. I did not want to be considered a foolhardy troublemaker. But everyone was too taken up with unhappy private thoughts to take any notice of me. I leaned out. There, in the morning light, pointed like a magnetic compass toward the place where the Queen was, her unrequited lover waited. He caught sight of me and shouted: “You, there, the bookworm: don’t look at me!”