I can see young Elisabeth glancing at Fersen with utmost admiration. Lean and martial in appearance, he resembles a sculpted rock fashioned into a man. The King has grown soft and portly from many hours of sitting at council tables and at his desk, or reading, in spite of the hard riding of the hunt. The gossips compare him to a hog, a description that hurts me, for his sake. I would remind people that he is a moral and well-read man, one who considers the good of the people and not just the comfort of the nobility.
“I do not want the Dauphin to witness a disaster,” the King continues. Lovingly, he picks up our two-year-old son in his own arms. “Let’s inspect the balloon,” he proposes. To Fersen he adds in a low voice that so many undifferentiated people have not packed the courtyards of Versailles since the flour riots, soon after he became king. But this is a happy crowd, on holiday.
Some sixty feet long, the balloon lies in an immense azure puddle on the ground. His eyes large with the wonder of the expanse of fabric, the Dauphin points his little finger at what he correctly identifies as his father’s insignia painted in yellow on the limp side of the great balloon. Attendants lift up its huge mouth, and we look into the blue cavern. Soon it shall be pulled up, like a tent, by a hook-and-pulley system attached at the tops of two great wooden masts. A fire will be built beneath its opening so that the close-woven fabric will catch and retain the heated air until the balloon is inflated. When the great bubble is sufficiently filled, its gondola loaded with the animals and the tethers severed, we shall see if it will float upward, or run along the ground, or perhaps utterly collapse.
From our platform we watch the lighting of the fire, open our picnic baskets, and serve lemonade to our group. We share our picnic with two young Englishmen, William Pitt and William Wilberforce, who are members of the House of Commons in England, drawn here by their admiration for French culture and their desire to become proficient in our language.
Some hours pass before, at one o’clock in the afternoon, a startling drumroll is heard, and the great axes, made shiny for the occasion, are raised in readiness. The poor sheep, named Mont-au-ciel (“Climb-to-the-sky,” Fersen explains to the Englishmen), bleats pitifully. She does not like the proximity of the duck. Even more, she fears the sharp beak of the rooster, who crows loudly, as though to demonstrate his self-importance in this great experiment, and then pecks at the sheep’s eyes. Standing beside the fire under the balloon is Étienne Montgolfier, dressed very simply, all in black, the soul of modesty in his matter-of-fact demeanor. Thunderous applause for the creator of the balloon joins the drum as it rolls on and on. Then Montgolfier raises his hand. The crowd silences; the drumroll suddenly stops. There is an astonished quiet, the axes fall, the tethers are severed, and ever so slowly, the great balloon begins majestically to rise.
The crowd lets out a terrifying shriek of joy as the balloon continues, in stately manner, to ascend. On one side the duck thrusts his head through the bars of his cage, and on the other side appears the bright comb and wattles of the rooster. The sheep’s mouth is open, but I can no longer hear her distressed bleats. More quickly, now, the balloon rises, the crowd urging it on as though it were a racehorse. For as far as I can see out into the throng, tears of joy are flowing down the cheeks of the common people. The balloon rises to the level of the second floor of the surrounding buildings, and on up to the third level. Now it is even with the mansard roofs.
Will it actually rise above the chapel roof, crowned in gleaming gold? To do so almost seems sacrilege. But, yes, the balloon glides higher than the House of God. The crowd groans with fear, for suppose it should be divinely struck down in its vaulted pride, as well as all those assembled below who cheer this conquest of the air, heretofore the realm of angels and of birds? Though it is floating away from us, the balloon climbs not so high as the clouds—I could not bear it if it went so high as that.
Even should God allow such a man-made miracle, my heart would burst for fear of what human beings have become capable of achieving.
Now many of the crowd rush out of the courtyards in an attempt to follow the balloon as it drifts majestically away. It is like a large blue mushroom, proudly bearing the golden fleur-de-lis of the monarchy. The dangling circular kennel is dwarfed by the girth of the balloon and seems dragged after it, an afterthought. The balloon tilts a bit, as a sail would, because of the prevailing breeze.
Suddenly a rent appears high in the canopy of the balloon, and a quantity of the hot gray smoke is emitted. The balloon wobbles, and the crowd shrieks in fear, but it continues its journey out toward the countryside.
Consulting his watch, the King notes that the balloon has been aloft some three minutes.
“The possible uses for such a machine challenge the imagination,” Fersen says.
For the first time, his countenance looks fierce to me. As though he senses my thought, he quickly looks at me, and smiles. “Does Your Majesty think it a pretty spectacle?”
“I am afraid and happy all at once,” I answer truthfully.
“Look at the faces of the people,” the King says.
We see their wonder. They feel as though perhaps they too were lifted a little off the ground, when the balloon rose up. They seem to walk on tiptoe.
The King suggests that all the royal party return to the palace, for music and celebration.
THROUGHOUT THE HALL of Mirrors, on this eve of Fersen’s departure, we dance to mannered minuets, gavottes, and allemands. Our skirts swish and tilt over the floor in something of the manner of a herd of hot-air balloons. In one corner stands the dark column of Montgolfier, and all the brightly skirted ladies crowd around him, some with coifs to suggest balloons.
The ladies flutter their fans, decorated in anticipation of this gathering with pictures of balloons among the clouds. A few fans sport the figure of Montgolfier in the dark clothing of a chimney sweep standing next to a fire. Aloof, the man of science pays little attention to the coquetry of our ladies.
Because of my pregnancy—though I have gained little girth—I am careful not to dance too much. As I rest in a chair beside the King, all about us the courtiers speculate on the possibilities of human balloon travel—that it could be used for smuggling, that it might engender war in the skies with blood raining down on all those below. Someone expresses concern that the ascent of the balloon will undermine religion, because the Assumption of the Virgin into heaven may cease to appear miraculous.
Some wag suggests that, with the aid of hot-air balloons, lovers might be able to come down chimneys, then ascend back into their waiting balloons with the daughters of the house, clad only in their nightgowns. Glancing at the count, I cover my hand with my fan and giggle.
We learn that the balloon traveled for eight minutes before it landed in the woods a few miles beyond the château. The basket having opened, Montauciel the sheep was found nibbling greenery, as though she had not been the first sheep in history to fly. The cock and the duck huddled in a feathery trans-species embrace in a corner of their gondola.
BEFORE HE TAKES his formal leave, the count chooses the single moment when we are alone to offer me reassurance. He looks at me, bends toward my ear, and says calmly but with intensity, “Of course it is impossible that we can ever be parted.”
Fearing that someone at the ball has learned the art of lip reading, I merely nod.
A BITTER BIRTHDAY, 1783
It is my birthday. I have lost the unborn child on my birthday. Soon after Fersen left, the King and I admitted to each other that our beloved little Dauphin Louis Joseph is not robust, and this new child was very much wanted. I confessed one of my nightmares to the King, that I hear the Dauphin cry in the night, his little body afire with fever.
And now a miscarriage. A child who will never cry.
It is a bitter thing.
FOR MY BIRTHDAY, the King has given me a prayer book, a precious illuminated volume titled Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. Indeed, the pictures, very wonderful copies of the medieval ori
ginal, are enchanting. Some of the colors are like stained glass. Other scenes possess all the charm of real life, one of harvests and of peasants living in France in the fifteenth century, so long ago. Idly, I turn the pages. Rich hours? The title of the book seems ironic, on a day when I have lost an unborn child. These hours are leaden.
The poor King! Sitting beside me, he cries as though his heart would break! He covers his large face with his large hand, and weeps.
I AM ALMOST TOO WEAK to think. Too weak to look at my gift or to offer comfort to my husband. How many baskets full of cloths soaked with my blood did they carry away? One after another, with a clean cloth folded on top, so that I would not have to see the evidence of disaster. But I saw the blood through the weave of the basket, once, and I saw a drop fall down and be absorbed by the carpet.
Because Fersen was here, during the summer months of this pregnancy, I thought God had sent me a good omen, for Fersen has always come during my pregnancies.
How Count von Fersen pleased me with his presence. Every moment was a treasure. Everyone said his gaze has grown more icy, since his time in the American War, that now he rarely smiles. His reserve tempts the ladies, for each wishes that she might have the power to restore his spirits to animation.
But I notice no such lack of animation in his spirit or his features. For me, he always smiles.
I ache with the misery of this loss.
When Fersen first appeared at court, in July, I said to him again, “Ah, an old acquaintance,” which is how I greeted him before, after a long absence. I close my eyes; yes, better to remember the hours, days, afternoons that were years ago. He recognized the phrase, smiled, softly clicked his heels together, and all was between us exactly as it had been before, magnified, because now we knew our affection had outlasted time and distance.
He told me what a joy it was to be once more in my Private Society.
Almost, now, I want to smile. His presence now would cheer me.
BALLOONMANIA
After several weeks in bed recovering from the miscarriage, I feel well enough to dine with my friends. Yolande has promised an amusing time. She does not usually employ the word amusing, so I am full of curiosity.
It is a pleasant dinner, but I cannot say that I have been amused. Nonetheless my appetite has been good, and I have eaten beef, because the doctors say it strengthens the blood.
“For dessert,” she says, her face exceedingly merry, “we shall have fruit tarts and fruit itself.”
A very large dish is brought in, capped with a silver hood. At a nod from Yolande, the cover is removed by a servant, and there I see the tarts and fruit—but, behold! The fruit begins to rise! To my amazement—yes, vast amusement!—apples, oranges, a pineapple, limes, pears, a bunch of grapes, are steadily floating upward in the air!
“Balloons,” she shrieks, “filled with methane gas.”
“They are lighter than ordinary air,” the King explains, his eyes twinkling, “so they rise.”
IT HAS NOT been long since the fruit-shaped balloons rose up from the table, past the decanters of sherry and port, up to the level of the putti near the ceiling, that the King comes to my private chambers within the château to read me an article describing the first human ascent by balloon: a young physician of the last name of Rozier, age twenty-six, along with an army officer have been the first human beings to be carried aloft by a globe of hot air. While the King reads, I work at my needlepoint. The King explains that methane is too susceptible to explosion to be trusted in such a venture at the present time. Large balloons bearing people are best filled with hot air.
The King goes on to read aloud Pilâtre de Rozier’s life. To provide interaction with the public for scientists excluded by the Royal Academy, he created an open Musée des Sciences containing books and scientific equipment, in Paris. Not only men but women might be given admission to the museum—but only if they were recommended by three male members. Rozier has written a book titled Electricity and Loving.
“What is this electricity?” I ask.
“It was discovered by the American statesman Benjamin Franklin. It is the force in lightning that lights the sky and has the power to kill people and to knock the bark from trees.”
“How is it related to loving?”
The King lays down his lorgnette. “I can’t imagine,” he replies.
Both of us look at one another, dumbfounded. Then we laugh.
It is the first time we have laughed together since the miscarriage.
ON THE FIRST of December, very formally at dinner, the King announces, “What months these are!”
We all wait to hear what he will say next. He lifts a glass of Bordeaux to propose a toast. All of us rise—we happen to be dining with his two brothers, the Comte de Provence and the Comte d'Artois, and their wives, planning festivities for the Christmas season—though we do not yet know what solemn occasion has just occurred.
“Congratulations to Messieurs Charles and Robert. From the Tuileries gardens in Paris, they have soared aloft for a full ninety minutes, come back safely to earth, and been greeted as they stepped from their basket by the Duc d'Orléans."
We all shout hooray, as though we were the triumphant aeronauts, but I can see that the King wishes with all his being that it had been he who had had the honor of greeting the heroes.
I notice my husband’s eye falls with interest on another item in his paper, below the fold.
“Is there more to the story?” I ask.
“No, no,” he replies. “Only here it says that in one’s own kitchen one can make a miniature balloon from the bladder membrane of an ox.”
All the rest of us burst into laughter.
The King looks a bit sheepish. “It says to use fish glue,” he adds.
A DOUBLE PORTRAIT, SPRING 1784
In a rapture of excitement, though I try not to show it, I watch my friend paint my children. We are all outside at Trianon, and they sit on a large stone step. As I watch her transport their actual beauty to the world of the canvas, I am radiant with pleasure. Such an art she has, Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun!
Not long ago, the Dauphin lay so ill with a consuming fever that he could not pass water, and his body bloated. The physicians explained that such an ordeal strengthens a child against future maladies and surely he would recover. Yes, I said, it is unthinkable that he will not recover. And he did, but when I look at him now, dressed in pale blue satin beside his sister, I want to say to her, “Hold him to you more closely.”
Her arm is around his little shoulders; his sweet hand touches her forearm. In the painting they appear to tend some little gray birds, though actually the birds are products of taxidermy. When my friend paints them, she imagines them back into life; she paints the one in the Dauphin’s hand with an open beak.
His fingers enclose the feathery bird, a meadowlark, so gently, as though he would not for all the world squeeze the life out of it. In the hand resting on her lap, Marie Thérèse holds the nest, with a number of other occupants.
The Dauphin’s eyes look right out at us, but they are wistful, and I can easily see the traces of illness in his expression. My friend paints it just so—his large, tired eyes—for she knows my anguish and how I treasure him for his delicacy.
She is no less accurate in capturing my daughter’s expression: her smile that curves slightly down, the tight little pressure that is often between her lips. Her taffeta dress is the technical masterpiece of the painting: peach and blue stripes, smooth here but slightly crumpled there, reflecting the light in a hundred different ways. A wisp of scarf softens the neckline, while a pink flower—is it an apple blossom?—is pinned to one side. My daughter’s gaze is partly on her brother, partly on the twiggy nest; her gaze seems partly unfocused, or focused on inward thoughts. Sometimes I feel just like that—softly absent. The pointed toe of a white satin slipper peeps out from under the hem of her skirt.
I love the softness of Madame Vigée-Lebrun’s touch, the vibrancy of her col
ors, even when they are pastel. I wish there had been such a painter in Vienna to capture the enchantment of my own childhood.
My children hold a nest, but they themselves are little birds with open beaks, needing the careful care of those who would hold them tenderly.
The court calls the time I lavish on my children frivolity. They criticize me for wishing to take care of my own children, for they feel I neglect my duties as Queen, which is to say, spending time at court with them. But what do they want of me? Only favors and gossip. They are behind the times in not appreciating the appeal of children, and when they are old, they will regret that they preferred to hold stiff playing cards in their hands instead of the trusting fingers of their children and that they studied the faces of jacks and spades instead of the sweet eyes and lips of innocence.
When my friend painted me in my muslin dress, the courtiers demanded that the picture be removed from the Salon. They said it was unseemly to portray the Queen in her chemise, her undergarment, yet less of my bosom is exposed than if I wore a court dress. Moreover, this same Salon accepted Adélaide Labille-Guiard’s portrait of Madame Mitoire breast feeding her babe, a subject never depicted in modern painting. When they scorned the simple appeal of my straw hat, I knew all their criticism of my portrait was actually an attack on me. They call me Madame Déficite. I think they wanted to criticize the very rose that I held in my hand, but it is my favorite painting of myself, and the one that is truest to my spirit. And such simple clothes are less expensive.
Now my friend proposes to paint me again in the same attitude, only this time dressed in blue satin.
I am glad the Dauphin is wearing blue satin for his portrait, for I could not bear it if they criticized my son. I would want to run away to another country, and then they would have no king and no future! I would want to lock us behind gates that they could never enter, and there we would have an uninterrupted idyll, my dear family, my true friends, and I.