Quickly, the King begins to chat. He is much at ease, I see, with girls my age, glancing at me quickly but fully and then away. He is telling me of his own mother, who also came from far away to join the royal family, who died when His Majesty was only two, but, he says, that for a moment when he saw me, I reminded him of the goodness and charm of his own girlish mother. “I think she would have been as spontaneous as you,” he tells me, and he is imagining and enjoying again how I glided straight to him and fell humbly upon my knees.
FROM THE FOREST near the bridge where the road crosses a small river, we progress to the Château de Compiègne for the evening. There, many of the Princes and Princesses of the Blood are presented to me, but the one whose fair countenance incites my instant admiration is the Princesse de Lamballe. When we traveled in the carriage, the Comtesse de Noailles said this young widow’s face framed by shining hair shows a spiritual nature, and that she not only looks like an angel but also bears the nickname “the Good Angel.” She is half German and half Italian, but the German side has lent her both a pure blondness and an air of melancholy, which clashes pleasantly with the fairness of her complexion. My mother wished me to be like an angel to the French, but when I compare myself to the Princesse de Lamballe, I seem more a sprite of green earth than she who is soulful as a sweet blue sky.
To his brothers, Louis Auguste presents himself just as he has to me: he has little to say. He stands ill at ease, with an almost sulky expression on his face.
Just as my sisters and I were all named Maria, several of them bear the first name Louis. Louis Xavier, the Comte de Provence, is my own age, but he would make three of me, he is so fat. Much fatter than Louis Auguste, Louis Xavier is as full of chatter as a magpie, and many lively expressions animate his face. His body is ponderous, but his mind and tongue are agile.
The third and youngest of the King’s grandsons is dashingly handsome and resembles his grandfather Louis XV. This brother, who is only twelve, Charles Comte d’Artois, is slender and fair of face, but his eyes lack the darkly luminous warmth of Papa-Roi.
“You are so light,” the Comte d’Artois says to me. “Someday we must have a race.” When he smiles, he looks as ready for fun as one of my own brothers.
“I look forward to your friendship,” I reply.
I guess that Artois would be a graceful dancer. His fair hair floats around his face; he nudges the Dauphin with his elbow and does not treat him with proper respect.
To the Dauphin, he says, “I imagine she is fleet as any doe. You’ll have to pant to catch her.” His pleasant smile makes me forgive his impudence, but the Dauphin jerks his head up, stares at the ceiling, and looks miserable.
I am the center of everything. Not having seen me in the flesh before, they are full of curiosity. There are too many of them for me to have the luxury of curiosity, but the color and splendor of their clothes makes me giddy with excitement. En masse, the spectacle of their dress, their jewelry, their dazzling bosoms, their heavily powdered hair, their style of gesturing, sings to me in a different key than that of the evening galas of Vienna. Nothing of the froth in my chest is manifest as frenzy in my manner; I give off only a quiet and gracious sparkle. Through a chain of whispers, the King’s verdict is wafted close to my ear: “She is a most satisfying morsel.” Eventually the King comes to me, and in his best fatherly manner Papa-Roi suggests that I have traveled long and far and should now take my rest.
Tonight I sleep by myself, of course, and my new ladies put me to bed with cheerful talk of dresses and bracelets and hairstyles and ribbons. My mother would call their quick French frivolous, but I like the lightness of their chatter. They speak of tomorrow when we go south to the lovely Château de La Muette for more festivities. La Muette lies closer, much closer, to Versailles, only a morning’s drive from the site of my wedding.
When they have left me, I squeeze my eyes hard shut and think ahead: tomorrow night when I lay my head on the pillow of my chamber in the Château de La Muette, it will be my last night as my virgin self. The next morning after La Muette, which will be Wednesday, 16 May 1770, I arrive at Versailles, where my marriage will be signed again and the marriage ceremony enacted again, but that night I will share my bed for the first time.
My hands seek the cool blank spaces lying on either side of me. In which blank will he lie? Like two blind moles, my fingertips explore the low flatness between the sheets. I pretend it is a landscape all its own, where field and sky are scarcely separated. Perhaps Madame de Noailles will inform me there is a rule of etiquette that answers the question. What is etiquette and what is it for? It makes life orderly, the Empress once explained to all of us little ones at lesson time, for we had notions of etiquette in Austria too. But these people are conscious and proud in their etiquette in a way we were not. It is as though they are always dancing a minuet.
On which side of me will he lie? Nature, not etiquette, gives me an answer: the Dauphin will lie on the right side in our bed, for then he can, more comfortably, reach across his own body with his right hand to touch me. His hands and fingers are as big as a man’s.
For my deportment so far, the Empress would be pleased with me. Tonight, I wish that she could know, now, in France, I have made no mistakes—at least I know of none. The King, who is of course the most important, likes me and I like him. With success and no mistakes, I have met the three aunts and treated them as my most dear mother has instructed. If I have not yet become an angel to the French, I have seen someone here who embodies the idea of goodness because of her beauty: the Princesse de Lamballe. I wish to know her better.
With wide-open eyes, I turn my head and press my cheek into the pillow to look to my right. The white wall reminds me of the pale side of the moon, as though she has come down and stands close to me, over there. The chamber walls are embellished with gilded arabesques; moonbeams make the gilding gleam like graceful curls and swirls of light. Ah, there is a high oval window, uncurtained, that admits the moonlight. Beyond this château, the endless trees of Compiègne lie all about us, and deer hide among the trees from hunters.
Just yesterday, I was riding, confined, in the glass coach through the forest.
I think of my three new aunts, like three good fairies, plump and perhaps soft, but I do not know, for they did not embrace me. My thoughts retract inward, like the sensitive eyestalks of snails. When I close my eyes to the visible world, immediately, the moon has gone back to the sky.
I think of Charlotte and how she made the coach stop. She was leaving Vienna to go to Naples and live a married life, but she stopped the coach so she could descend and hug me farewell once more. When we embraced, our bodies melted together, and I could not tell which was Charlotte and which was I.
To my surprise, behind our hats, she kissed me right on the lips and whispered I will always love you best, my beautiful little sister.
The Dauphin will close his eyes and I will close mine and then I will feel his lips covering mine.
To my sleepy mind, Sister Thérèse Augustine appears. She turns around, fluttering away from me like a raven down the corridor of the convent. That snowy Saint Nicholas’s Day when I was only seven, half a lifetime away, I saw ravens walking on the snow, leaving their prints behind. With a rush of wings, they all rise up together and fly toward the western mountains. Hold on tight, Marie—the wintry mountains whisper. The sled rushes over the snow as I watch till the birds are mere black specks against the thin blue sky. I blink, and they are gone. Hold on, Marie Antoinette.
IN THE DEPTHS
A woman with a hunched back stands under a tree; now she turns her face, ravaged with poverty, toward me. Is that Adelaide, Sow, or Grub, or Sister Thérèse Augustine standing beside a chestnut tree? Close to her cheek hangs a clear glass globe suspended from a branch. The globe transforms to glassy apple red and then to lemon yellow. Swiftly, the woman reaches for the fruit of the tree. “No!” I call out and know, in terror, that she is Mother Eve and not the Blessed Virgin. She snatc
hes the globe from the tree and bites savagely into it. It shatters in her teeth, and yellow glass shards fall from her lips. Her mouth is full of blood.
When I gnash my teeth and cry out, some attendant, some stranger, as though she waited at my door for just this purpose, opens my chamber and rushes to hold me in her arms. Fear not, little one, she whispers. Do I only dream that comfort has come—is she too a dream?
Her face seems to be that of the Princesse de Lamballe.
But how could she ever have found me here?
When I awake, I am dressed, and I ride all day as though suspended inside a clear glass globe. The world surrounds me, but I am separate from it. No clocks tick, but I arrive at La Muette, am undressed, then dressed again for festivities.
A MISTAKE AT THE CHTEAU DE LA MUETTE
It is a supper party, and lightning glimmers around the edges of the drawn curtains. They are a heavy yellow damask, and no light passes through them, but around them leak the silver flashes of a storm, though it is far away. The thunder is a mere low growl, as though lions as far away as Africa were roaring.
Although I feel hungry, it seems impossible to do more than nibble from the edges of the elaborate dishes endlessly presented. I wish for two simple apples in a blue bowl. Too many eyes are upon me. At every moment, it is incumbent on me to appear engaged in pleasant conversation, else they may think I’m a dolt.
Silent and morose, across the table, sits Louis Auguste, but I know that he is only timid and perhaps resentful that he must endure another party that makes him feel caged and miserable. I smile at him encouragingly. He looks down, as though embarrassed. Still he could not fail to note my friendliness, and that with me, he may remain as silent as he pleases. Nothing will discourage me in my attempt to be amiable.
It is a kindness to me to let me gain familiarity with the Dauphin through these festivities so I do not feel I am marrying a total stranger.
ALL AROUND US is the clatter of conversation as pleasant as the faint rap of silver against porcelain. Still, I find it hard to eat. I ask the Comtesse de Noailles to tell me something of the beautiful widow Lamballe and her husband.
The Comtesse de Noailles informs me, “Her husband was not old.”
“And was he as handsome as she is beautiful?” I ask.
“Handsome enough,” she answers. “But given to vices. Unspeakable vices,” she whispers. She glances around, unsure that the topic is appropriate for a supper party among the notables. How the dresses and frock coats gleam in the candlelight. The odor of powder from the wigs hangs heavy in the air. “We were all very sorry for her.”
I say of the Princesse de Lamballe, “She has the special beauty that sadness leaves on a face.”
“And how can Antoinette know anything of sadness?” The comtesse speaks to me from amid her thousand wrinkles, speaks lightly to me, as though she would encourage me in my happiness. Is there faint mockery in her tone?
I inquire if the Princesse de Lamballe might not marry again.
“Should she do so—” The Comtesse de Noailles speaks with a certain haughtiness and sits even straighter in her chair. “Should she do so, she might lose that standing she now enjoys at court.”
When I ask for further explanation, the comtesse expounds: the rank of the princess springs from the family into which she married. “The Princesse de Lamballe devotes herself to her husband’s father, the Duc de Penthièvre. His generosity toward her is well known, as is his generosity to the poor.”
The story is interrupted as the Dauphin suddenly asks me if I have read the works of the English philosopher David Hume.
I reply that I have not had the pleasure, but I feel a flicker of irritation in my brain, for I am much more interested in the story of the Princesse de Lamballe.
“I met David Hume when I was but a child,” the Dauphin tells me. “And I often read his work.”
“My brother, the Emperor Joseph, advises that I spend two hours a day with books,” I reply. “But so far, I have not had the time to do it.”
“Hume writes with great insight about the plight of Charles I.”
Suddenly the Dauphin’s chubby brother, Louis Xavier, the Comte de Provence, rolls his eyes in his expressive face. “But, please, none of that bloody ax business at table.”
The Dauphin bows his head, acquiescing, and says graciously to the comtesse, “Pray continue your account of the beautiful princess, whom my grandfather honors with his special esteem, as do we all.”
Ah, my Dauphin does not lack social graces, if he chooses to employ them.
“The duc, her gracious father-in-law, is himself a grandson of Louis XIV.” When the comtesse suddenly lowers her voice to a whisper, both the Dauphin and Louis Xavier courteously look away to either side. It is the gesture etiquette requires, I note, when someone in the conversation group whispers to the Dauphine—to myself. And perhaps to anyone?
Appreciating that she is among gentlemen, the comtesse confidently hisses on. “The duc’s father was a bastard son. Louis took pity on this son, called the Comte de Toulouse, who possessed something of the goodness evident in his saintly and immensely wealthy progeny, and declared him legitimate.” The Comtesse de Noailles seems as smug as though she herself has had the power to declare an immoral result “legitimate.”
Inhaling, I enjoy the aroma of mushrooms in butter, of pheasant, of pork in cinnamon and stewed apples, of haricots in slivered almonds, of a puff pie stuffed with truffles and onions, chestnuts and hazelnuts, but for all their lovely fragrance, I merely nibble. I am too stuffed with information and with impressions to have room for real food.
ACROSS THE ROOM, I note a certain woman I but glimpsed from a distance at Compiègne. Not the Princesse de Lamballe, but another woman, less ethereal but perhaps even more enchanting. At the window curtains, the lightning flashes again and again so rapidly that several people pause for a moment in their conversation and appraise the curtained windows. The blond enchantress is one of them. She has very large blue eyes. If the Princesse de Lamballe reminds me of the cool refinement of silver, then this woman reminds me of the warmer luster of gold. They both have blue eyes and blond hair, but the princess has feathery curls, and this woman has massively abundant golden hair. Her bosom is of the most ripe perfection, though her waist is small. A gentleman standing close to me is also looking at the enchantress.
“She but looks at the fabric of the curtained window,” he says, “but even then her frank regard has a caress in it.” I am shocked by the impropriety of his remark.
“I think she is looking at the lightning,” I reply, “and she is afraid.”
Now the woman who is the subject of his remark glances at me, as though she senses she has been the object of a comment. I ask the Comtesse de Noailles, still seated on my left, who the enchantress is, as she has not yet been presented to me.
The comtesse does not answer at once. She picks up her fork and plays with it, pressing the tines into the cloth of the table. Still, she hesitates, so I turn my face to her and see she is, indeed, at a loss for words and is searching for them. My curiosity grows, and I ask again Who is she?
Finally the comtesse says, “She is here to give the King pleasure.”
I laugh and speak gaily, “Oh, in that case I shall be her rival, because I too wish to give pleasure to the King." I inquire of her lineage, for the comtesse is never at a loss on this subject: she must have ten thousand names crowded into her memory.
“Marie Jeanne Bécu. She has no lineage.”
Suddenly the three aunts are leaning around my shoulders, speaking in disapproving whispers. They say she has no right to be here; they say her presence is a disgrace; they say that she is the staircase by means of which the King may descend into hell. Their righteousness and hatred bubbles around me as though risen from a cauldron.
Aunt Adelaide settles the matter. “But to answer your question, she is now known as Madame du Barry. Lately married to an obliging, legitimate count. Now he has conveniently
absented himself from the court. You have no need to speak to her.”
The other aunts agree, but the Comtesse de Noailles raises her chin and gives no sign. Mesdames les Tantes pat my shoulders and repeat that there is no need to acknowledge the woman across the room. When my skin crawls as though an insect has traversed my thigh, I understand with my body that the enchantress is little better than a harlot. Surely my mother knew of her existence. Why was I not prepared for her presence?
“We will protect you from her,” Aunt Sophie says, leaning over my shoulder and tilting her head on one side, the better to look into my face.
“The English ambassador says she has the most wanton eyes he has ever seen,” Victoire adds, just behind my ear.
“After the wedding,” Aunt Adelaide says, “make it your habit, in the mornings, to come first to visit us. The King himself always comes, with his coffee cup in his hand, and you can see him there, without her.”
Knowing that the King finds me charming, I wonder to myself if my own innocence might not help to save the King from the influence of such a seducer. And does he look at her with such kind, fatherly warmth as he looked at me?
I ask, “What does the King say of her? To excuse her presence?”
Adelaide replies, “He knows that she is nothing. He merely says that she’s pretty, and she pleases him.”
I resolve that I shall never speak to her and that gradually through sweet words I will help in guiding the King away from her. He will sense the sympathy of my soul for his soul. Again, she glances my way and takes note that the aunts are lending me their guidance. The woman half-smiles at me: as though to say she wishes me no harm. What a wanton charm she does possess. She is not afraid.