The confession of the King is extended, and it is only after a long wait that the Grand Almoner reappears to make public the repentance of the King, who has humbly agreed to his humiliation.
“The King instructs me to convey to you that he asks pardon for his offenses and for the scandalous life that he has lived before the people.”
THE MINUTES, and hours, and days drag on. They say he is turning black, that his body decomposes, and yet he lives. I believe it is 9 May today, and we have been told, once again, that the condition of the King is worsening. They say his swollen head resembles that of a Moor. The sight of his gaping mouth terrifies all those who see him, and the stench in the room is unbearable.
Yet we bear what we must—that is what the Empress used to say to me.
10 MAY. I glance wearily at this endless afternoon. It is but three o’clock, and I have just requested that the curtain be set aside for a quarter of an hour. Though the sun is shining brightly, I hear strange thunder in the distance.
It is a sound composed of many small sounds, each very much like the other. I remember the roar of love rising for me from the voices of thousands of throats—at Strasbourg when I first came to this country, and again, when the Dauphin and I, all dressed in gleaming white, entered Paris. The sound grows—not human voices, but something rumbling and building like thunder. The sound is bearing down upon us!
Suddenly I am on my feet, and the Dauphin beside me.
“It is the sound of people running!” I exclaim.
Together we fall to our knees.
The terrible noise of feet, running, running, grows louder and louder.
The door to our little chamber bursts open, and the Comtesse de Noailles runs forward to greet us—to congratulate us in our new identities.
Together the words tumble from our mouths as we kneel. “Dear God, guide us and help us. We are too young to reign!”
The room is aswirl with men and women who want to congratulate us. Because of the brightness of the day, we did not notice that the candle had been snuffed out. The guards draw their swords and declaim in unison, “The King is dead, long live the King!”
The sunlight plays all silvery on their blades, held aloft.
Act Three
THE FIRST GIFT OF THE NEW KING TO HIS WIFE
They tell me that the body of Louis XV has been wrapped, disinfected with spices and alcohol, and bundled off to be sealed in his tomb. The carriage has traveled at breakneck speed, as though he were going on a hunt, and the peasants who have seen the coach rattling past have cheered the passage of his corpse.
It is a terrible image, one fit for the pen of the caricaturists. One that fills me with horror. I do not know how the King, who was once admired and loved, could have fallen so far in the estimate of the French people, who are so naturally disposed to love their sovereigns. It is the people, not the nobles, whose spiritual lives include the monarchy as appointed and blessed by God. But the people jeer their passing king.
I think it must be a reaction to the long anxiety during his illness. They express their inappropriate relief that his suffering is over, and that the monarchy is renewed and born again with my husband and myself.
Our own carriage has been at the ready for days. Just as rapidly as the old King must be taken to the tomb of his ancestors at Saint-Denis, so must we be conveyed to healthy environs, to the château at Choisy.
The six of us stir from time to time as our coach hurries away from the pestilence. It is as though we have been asleep during the illness of the King. Now it is time to awake and to be young again.
“Does Her Majesty think of the benign Hilda, the hippopotamus, or the armored Clara, the rhinoceros?” the young Comte d’Artois asks.
“Why do you ask?” I say, startled.
“Because I see a slight curl at the corner of the pretty mouth of Her Majesty.”
Although he takes care to address me in the third person, with proper titles, his tone is as boyish and free as ever. He is only seventeen. I am very glad for his youth, and his gay countenance is an antidote to the image of the old King’s mask of black suffering.
“You are right,” I tell him. “I was thinking how lucky we are to be young and together in this carriage. And when I think of youth, I think of the patron saints of my childhood, St. Hilda and St. Clara.” Wickedly, I cross myself.
The whole carriage, even the somber new King, bursts into laughter.
Soon we are punching one another with the points of our elbows, and giggles erupt from us at the slightest witticism. We are free.
AT THE CHTEAU de Choisy, the King and I take a private walk in the gardens. We are full of the good that we hope to do for our people. As we walk among the fragrant rosebushes, we speak of the need for advisors, and the King mentions that his late father, the Dauphin who never became king, had a great respect for the Comte de Maurepas, now long in exile for writing scurrilous verses about Madame de Pompadour. The King worries a perfect pink rose from a bush and gives it to me. Unused to picking roses, his thick fingers struggle a moment with the wiry stem.
Of course I pronounce no criticism of the King, but I say, “Maurepas has paid a high price: many years of exile.”
When I bury my nose in the petals of the flower, the aroma of perfect sweetness refreshes me and replaces the stale and pestilential air of the galleries of Versailles. On our wedding day, Louis Auguste sent me a single pink rose by little Elisabeth.
“The people have faith that I will never betray my moral duties,” the King says proudly. “There will be no scandals of mistresses and Favorites. I will not repeat the mistakes that tarnished the reign of Louis XV.”
I reply, “We will keep the confidence they bestowed on us in Paris.” Unused to interfering directly, I hesitate before speaking.
“Would it be appropriate,” I ask, “to recall Prince Louis de Rohan from his position as ambassador to Vienna? His immoral behavior has long fretted my mother. Because of his gossip about me, I count him a personal enemy. My mother would regard his being recalled as a mark of your consideration for both her and her innocent daughter.”
“Nothing will be easier to do,” my husband gallantly replies.
Breathing in the aroma of the rose, my own confidence bestirs itself—that perhaps now the King will more strongly feel a man’s urges, that he will know me in the biblical sense, and that we shall produce an heir. The people need to have a sense of next.
I admire the blue cornflowers as we pass and wonder if it was their abundance and satisfying color that caused Louis XV to select this color for the livery here at Choisy, where one visited only by invitation.
Suddenly, the King stoops and picks a handful of cornflowers, to which he adds white Queen Anne’s lace, and yellow-eyed daisies, and lavender clover, one of which he snatches right out from under a bumblebee. Then he takes the pink rose from my hand, adds it to the group, and returns it to me.
“To you who love flowers so much,” he says, “I will give a whole bouquet.”
Because he is flushed with the pleasure of his gallant gesture, I lean forward, stand on tiptoe, and kiss his cheek. “Your Majesty is my delight,” I reply. “With all my heart, I thank you.”
“Do you like the little house, the Petit Trianon?” he asks.
Small and square, made of stone, with large windows on every side, the smaller of the two structures referred to as Trianon sits not far from the large one, both being situated at the foot of the immense formal gardens of the Château de Versailles.
“Nothing could be more exquisite in its proportions than the Petit Trianon,” I reply, recalling that the late King had it built for Madame de Pompadour, who despite her poor morals had exquisite taste.
“The du Barry was rarely there,” the King adds. “As my first act as king, I intend to give it to you. Really give it to you, in your own name.”
I am astonished. Not even queens hold property in their own names.
“I shall have a new key made for i
t, with your name on it. The Petit Trianon is the bouquet I will give you, as your own private retreat, to do with exactly as you please, a haven from the etiquette of the court.”
I cannot speak. I am completely surprised, and enrapt with delight I kiss him again, seeking his lips.
“And may I have my own livery there?”
“You may do exactly as you please.”
I had hoped that one day I might have a private apartment within the Château de Versailles. He has given me much more—a private house, almost in the country, and the land around it—the Petit Trianon.
MARIA THERESA TO MARIE ANTOINETTE
Everything I hear about you heartens and pleases me. It is difficult to find the words to express how very pleased I am. The entire world is right in being ecstatic over the change in France. Now they will have a young king, only twenty, and a queen who is only nineteen, and both of you are known for your human kindness, your generosity, not to mention prudence and even wisdom.
Religion and decent living will be your watchword, for they are essential to attract God’s blessing and for the guidance of the behavior of your people. My heart soars above me on the wings of joy. I pray God to keep you well for the sake of your people, for the entire world, really, and especially for your family, and for your old mama to whom you have given both joy and hope.
The gift to you of Trianon, which I hear is a most lovely and comfortable place for relaxation and close enough to the château at Versailles to walk there in less than half an hour, is an amazing token of the King’s esteem for you.
Most of all, I am proud of you and the King for refusing the tax called don gratuit, even though it is your right to tax the people upon accession to the throne. Instead, you take pity on their impoverished state in refusing the so-called Queen’s Belt, and I congratulate you on your witty statement of denial: “Belts are no longer worn.” When one can marry wit to kindness, the people remember, and the countryside buzzes with your own words.
Let us hope that when the late King’s private strongbox is opened that millions will be found there.
I must express too my admiration for the aunts in staying with their father and risking smallpox; however, I advise that you take the King away from them, if they have come to Choisy.
Think of me not just as your mother, who loves you, but as an intimate friend. If you are too busy to answer this letter immediately, be assured that I understand and that I know you must attend to your duties. If the King wants to write me more often, urge him to be completely informal.
Remember what I wrote in my last letter to you: try to be the King’s trusted friend; both his happiness and your own depend on that friendship.
THE CHTEAU DE MARLY, JUNE 1774
Most of the family of the King and his brothers, and the Comtesse d’Artois are rather ill. Following the King’s lead, they have all decided to be inoculated against the smallpox. And so I walk beautiful Marly almost alone, with only my attendants trailing along. Rousseau thought it good to be alone at times and that perhaps our natures bloomed most purely at such times.
It is hard to say even to myself what my nature is. I know that I am overjoyed in my soul that my dear mama is pleased with me. I can only be happy when she is pleased with me, and for the first time, I think this is a fault in my character. I should have the ability to be happy in myself, to be pleased with who I am. Not the Queen but who I am.
I am glad that I had nothing to do with the King’s decision to be inoculated in this hot season. While everything at Marly is verdant, we humans wilt in the heat, and I think it makes the body less resistant to serious illness. For three days, I have been truly worried about the King because of his high fever, but when the eruptions on his skin began, then the fever went down.
He will not be disfigured in any way, but he did have large pustules on his nose. It would have been comical had he felt less weak and sick, but he himself laughed at himself when looking in the glass. I am fortunate in his sense of humor. Also his wrists and chest showed eruptions, but the doctors lanced them at the base, and, thank God, I can write my mother that he is doing much better.
I am sorry to have to tell her that the late King’s strongbox was a disappointment. It held only fifty thousand francs—not enough to be any boost to the treasury worthy of note. They say that the extreme heat will hurt the grain harvests throughout the country, for those plants lack the deep roots of the trees, which are capable of reaching far down in the earth for water. Now that we are the monarchs, I almost feel responsible for the weather. I worry that the people hold us accountable for all features of their well-being.
From the hillside at Marly, I look down at the beautiful Seine winding its way toward Paris. The vista is incomparable. If I were to construct my own landscape, an artificial one, it would certainly include water. Not like the Grand Canal or the Swiss Lake at Versailles with their straight and regimented sides, but something with soft shores that bend in here and there, something sinuous like the shape of the Seine.
Here at Marly, my thoughts turn often to the Petit Trianon. After the death of Louis XV, we have wandered some six months—to be sure that Versailles is well aired from the pestilence—but soon I will return and claim that beautiful, natural place for myself and the friends I love most. Part of my promise to myself as Queen is to reward those who have been good to me, who have been pleasant company, and sympathized with my trials. I can do as I please now, and I shall have my friend the Princesse de Lamballe as the superintendent of my household, instead of the Comtesse de Noailles.
WHEN I RETURN to his bedroom, I present my convalescing husband with diverse flowers of the field, like those he gave me at Choisy. He smells them, and we ask for a vase, but while we wait, he falls asleep again.
I sit beside him and prepare to write a letter to my mama. I suppose had he died of the inoculation, I would be able to return to Vienna, but I am very glad he did not die. With the old King gone and Comtesse du Barry sent to a convent—it was the King who decided she should go there, not I—I feel larger, more free. This beautiful place, Fontainebleau, Compiègne, and all the others, are ours. It is not the châteaux but the beautiful trees and meadows and the sky above them that I love most. When I was a child in Austria, I did not properly appreciate nature, except for the mountains. Now it all seems beautiful to me, and I wish that I could embrace it.
“To whom do you write?” he suddenly asks me.
“To my mother, to tell her you are better.”
“She has been very affectionate to me, and I am grateful.”
I ask if he would like to append some such words to my letter, in his own hand.
Willingly, he sits up, propped with pillows, and takes the lap desk in hand. There is still a very large white pimple on the end of his nose, and I can see he has been scratching his wrists. He writes:
As my wife says, I am completely over the inoculation, my dear Mama, and I actually suffered very little. I would ask for your permission to kiss you if my face were cleaner.
TO FURTHER ENTERTAIN the King, I send for my Inoculation Pouf. Rather like a hat, this incredible concoction is to be worn high above my head, some thirty-six inches or so above my forehead. “Headpieces have grown so tall,” I tell the King, “that ladies must now kneel in their carriages to accommodate their new heights.”
His eyes glint with merriment. “And how does this pouf represent inoculation?”
“Here is an olive tree, and this is a snake wrapped around the trunk.”
“A garden of Eden?” he asks.
“But here the snake does not triumph. This is a club made of blossoms, and it will vanquish the snake. Science in the shape of the club conquers evil pestilence.”
“And will you really wear such an outrage on your majestic head?”
“With pride and dignity.”
The King looks skeptical. I kiss the end of my finger and plant the kiss on his nose, next to the white wart. “It is the style,” I say in a tone that can
not be challenged.
THE DRESSMAKER
There have been bread riots throughout the kingdom, including Paris—against which the King has sent troops to restore order. If Monsieur Turgot, the minister of finance, had his way, the coronation would not occur at the ancient site of Rheims, but in Paris. He says it will be less expensive there and also that the economy of Paris will flourish if people pour into the city for the event. The King thinks Rheims will add dignity and history to his ascension, and Rheims is farther away than Paris from troubled areas. It shocks me that the people riot just as we come to power, even in Paris which has shown such love for us.
I HAVE A NEW DRESSMAKER—Rose Bertin! She unpacks her trunks of dresses and hats as though she were unloading the costumes for the most sumptuous of plays. She will fashion my dress for the coronation, and I shall be simply encrusted in jewels.
When she comes to my apartment today, I ask Rose Bertin if she has in her employ the little seamstress named Marie Jeanne.
“Marie Jeanne de France?” she asks, her voice a river of energy.
“Yes.”
“She stole from me.”
At that moment, Rose Bertin throws open the lid of her trunk, and I behold such an array of baubles and feathers as I have scarcely seen before. Whose fingers would not itch to take up a pin shaped like an emerald bird or a unicorn all aglitter in diamonds, or a peacock feather with its velvety blue-green eye?
“What did she steal?” Surely the seamstress had no need to steal.
“A crust of bread.”
I am taken aback. “Real bread?” I ask.
“Such as only the rats would relish.”
“I am amazed. I know her family to be well fed.” I wonder if my contribution for their care has gone astray. I stammer, “They want for nothing.”