Becoming Marie Antoinette (50 page)

I knew that the dauphin had been dreading this audience with his
grand-père
for weeks. The king’s legendary appetite, not for the gustatory pleasures in which my husband derived such satisfaction, but for the amatory delights he found in the arms of his mistresses, only heightened the dauphin’s humiliation. Papa Roi was still a vigorous lover at the age of sixty-three, while my eighteen-year-old husband, after nearly three years of marriage, remained as chaste as the day of his birth.

“Please come with me tonight,” Louis Auguste had whispered, just before our respective
couchers
. We had undressed in our separate bedchambers and waited, abed, until our clocks struck the hour of half past three. Then, with the aid of a single, trusted attendant to dress us—the princesse de Lamballe for me; and Monsieur Clery, the dauphin’s young
valet de chambre
who was so much wiser than his years—we crept out of our rooms and independently began the lengthy walk to the king’s apartments.

My husband had arrived before I did. He was seated on the edge of the enormous bed of state that dominated the room in which Louis XV officially slept and held court. I had never before seen it at night. By day the bed conveyed such majesty; from the white plumes above the golden fringe on the tester to the bedskirt of woven brocade, it represented the potency of the sovereign, the patriarch and father of his subjects. But by night the crackling warmth of the fire and the softness of light conferred upon it other qualities entirely: a frightening, almost thrilling melding of sensuality, power, and magic.

I regarded the dauphin, too terrified to firmly plant his derrière on the coverlet of red and gold brocade, too timid to own the bed in which he would one day sleep as king of France. Even in
the gentle, amber candle glow, I could tell that the armholes of his suit of pale blue satin were dark with nervous sweat. Clery had not tamed his snarled mass of thick brown hair. My heart was breaking for him. I sat beside him on the vast bed and took his hand in mine, but Louis Auguste seemed too absorbed in his own terror to notice. Instead, his head was bent like a penitent as he picked at the embroidery on his waistcoat.

The king was conferring softly with another gentleman, the bespectacled Dr. Joseph Maria Francis de Lassone, the dauphin’s physician.

“Well?” demanded Louis anxiously. “I am heartily sick of the volley of letters I have been receiving from the empress of Austria. Please tell me something that will set her mind—and mine—to rest. We are of the same vintage, you and I, Monsieur Lassone. Surely you understand the imperative of ensuring one’s legacy. Without an heir to follow Louis Auguste, France could descend into chaos. Factions will form, if they have not done so already, in favor of one or the other of his brothers. And
they
may produce sons, although Provence and his wife seem to be as slow off the mark as the dauphin and dauphine. The comte d’Artois will be married in November—” The king began ticking off the months on his fingers. “That’s eight months from now, and he’s very much in my own mold—nothing like his elder brothers—so add nine months to eight and we still have more than a year and a half before there’s even a chance for a little duc d’Angoulême—” Papa Roi threw his hands into the air in disgust. “And if I worry about whether the duc d’Orléans will try to claim the throne in the absence of an heir, you will be treating me for apoplexy.”

I wasn’t so certain that the comte d’Artois could be depended upon to become the first of the Bourbon grandsons to become a father. He was to be yoked in matrimony to his own sister-in-law,
Marie Thérèse, the younger, and even uglier, sister of the comtesse de Provence. Papa Roi had granted the comtesse du Barry the honor of arranging all the wedding festivities, as she had done for the comte de Provence; and it rankled every fiber of my being that she should be given a role that the queen would ordinarily assume.

I wondered if the smirk would disappear from Artois’s too-handsome countenance when he found himself in the dark with a girl who had been described as having a thin, vulpine face, an ugly tip on the end of her long nose, crossed eyes, and a large mouth! And if her hygiene was as nonexistent as her sister’s …

The king and the dauphin’s physician approached the bed. Monsieur Lassone was a dignified-looking man who dressed in black and white from head to toe, and was obviously fastidious about his toilette—a reassuring quality in a medical man. “Why is madame la dauphine present?” he inquired. “It is most irregular.”

“Because I asked her to be here,” the dauphin mumbled.

Papa Roi shrugged. “Perhaps the dauphine would prefer to wait behind the screen,” the doctor said. He gestured to a six-paneled gilt-edged screen embellished with floral motifs.

“Will the physician insist on examining me without my clothes?” Louis Auguste asked. His voice was high and frightened. He squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his fists until Monsieur Lassone assured him that he could remain fully dressed, although he maintained that he could not observe the dauphin’s heartbeat unless His Royal Highness relaxed his hands.

“Then if I am not to disrobe, my wife may remain.” The dauphin patted my hand. His palms were damp and cold.

Monsieur Lassone raised his lorgnette and peered at him. Then he felt his pulse. Louis Auguste held his breath. I watched while the doctor assessed my husband’s height and measured his
girth. He pitched forward on his toes to
relevé
and examined the dauphin’s eyes. “Myopic, but not rheumy,” he informed the king. “Well, at least we know he can
see
madame la dauphine!”

The men discussed the dauphin’s customary activities as well as his prodigious appetite. I listened with avidity, for Maman would expect a full report. I would tell her that my husband’s physician had declared that the dauphin’s constitution was lethargic from overexerting himself during the hunt and at the forge, and from devouring too much rich food and confections. “As such he lacks the fire in his belly to do his duty,” were Monsieur Lassone’s words.

“I wish I were dead,” the dauphin whispered in my ear. I had never heard him sound so glum. His eyes were moist and he swallowed hard, as if he were trying to fight back the tears forming in his throat. “They have no idea what it feels like to be me. To be discussed as though I were not in the room, or worse—am present, yet have no feelings.”

The king pulled the dauphin to his feet. “So, my boy, Monsieur Lassone’s diagnosis seems to me to be well reasoned. What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I like to eat,” the dauphin muttered defensively.

“Speak louder,” the king commanded. “This is a serious matter.” He began to grow agitated. “The fate of France hangs in the balance like the sword of Damocles. Close your eyes and imagine people cheering
Vive le roi Stanislas Xavier, le ci-devant comte de Provence
. And if he is carried away by disease, imagine the cries of
Vive le roi Charles Philippe, le ci-devant comte d’Artois!
And if your brothers both die young, are you going to let one of those ugly Savoyard sisters married to them bear the next Bourbon heir? Or will the princes of the blood fight it out? Will your successor be an Orléans? The son of the pretty little duchesse de Chartres?”

“I like to
eat
,” Louis Auguste repeated emphatically. “And I
like to ride. And hunt. And to build my cabinets and forge my locks under the tutelage of Monsieur Gamain.”

“That’s all very well and good,” replied the king. “But if they interfere with your ability to do the one thing that is required of you at this stage in your life, such activities will have to be curtailed.”

The dauphin was horrified. “For how long?”

Louis Quinze glanced at me. “I would say, until madame la dauphine is increasing.” He turned to the physician. “Would that be a reasonable assessment, Monsieur Lassone?” The doctor nodded his assent. “I am certain Her Imperial Majesty Maria Theresa would approve as well,” the king added, meeting my gaze.

I said nothing. Whenever I was in Papa Roi’s presence, I felt more like a child than a woman. Seated on the bed of state, whose inescapable symbolism seemed to mock my own conjugal inadequacy, I was cowed all the more. The only thing that could have made it worse would have been the presence of the king’s most powerful minister, the duc d’Aiguillon, lording his triumph over my misfortune. I could just imagine the creature of the comtesse du Barry’s advancement, standing beside the bed and urging the king to send the inadequate
Autrichienne
back across the border, for surely there could be nothing wrong with His Majesty’s grandson.

Louis Auguste shuffled his feet and stared glumly at his diamond shoe buckles. “It’s not the food,” he mumbled. “Nor the riding, neither.”

“Oho!” The king’s eyes widened with mock horror. “So you know better than your physician now.”

A log exploded with a loud pop and shifted precariously on the andirons. The candles hissed and guttered. The dauphin looked like an old dog that had been kicked for stealing table scraps. After several moments of silence, he found his voice. “It is
not from exhaustion that I am unable to … to do my duty. I find my wife charming, Papa Roi. I love her, but I still need a little time to overcome my timidity.” Was it the warmth from the fire, or his embarrassment that caused his face to blush?

I began to tremble, not from fear, but with amazement. Adjusting myself on the great bed of state, my eyes wet with happiness, I pressed my lips to his warm and rosy cheek.

He
loved
me? Why had he never said so before?

J
UNE
1773

Ever since I’d come to Versailles, I had been begging Papa Roi to arrange a formal, official visit to Paris, but the answer was always a resounding
non
! I had even tried to wheedle Mesdames
tantes
into pleading with him on my behalf, and had spoken to the comte de Mercy as well. “Do you think my
grand-père
is afraid that the dauphin and I will be received there with too much enthusiasm?” I jested. But as time wore on, I had overheard, from vendors in the courtyard and corridors, from hopeful petitioners, and from backbiting courtiers, that Louis Quinze was no longer considered “
le Bien-Aimé
,” by the Parisians.

In the three years since my arrival in France, the scales had fallen from my eyes. At first I had revered Papa Roi with appreciation and awe; he was tall and handsome, with a noble profile—in short, everything a king should appear to be to an unschooled girl of fourteen. But I was seventeen now, and had absorbed
enough of the jaded ambience of the French court to adopt a certain cynicism. My fervently held beliefs as a good Catholic, and the prolonged contretemps over my refusal to acknowledge Madame du Barry had taught me much; I had come to see the king for what he was: a vain and selfish man with alarmingly fluid morals.

But finally (and more than likely because Papa Roi felt the cold breath of his own mortality on the back of his neck), as it was the custom for the king’s heir to present himself to the people of Paris before the reigning sovereign died, Louis relented and set the date of June 8, 1773, for the “
joyeuse entrée
,” the joyous entry that would mark the first formal visit of the dauphin and dauphine to the capital. Even Louis Auguste grew excited at the prospect, so much so that he was willing (along with his brothers) to become a party to a scheme I was concocting. I was certain the
joyeuse entrée
would be a grand and glorious event, but would it not be just as exhilarating, if not more so, to first visit the capital incognito? To see the areas of the city beyond the narrow scope of our previous excursions to the Palais Royal and the adjacent opera house! After the eighth of June we would never be able to do so with such surety because by then everyone would know what we looked like.

The comte d’Artois, who of all his brothers possessed a playfulness of character most similar to mine, elected to undertake the planning of the adventure; and thus it was on the night of June 1, 1773, two hours past sundown, that the five of us—the dauphin and I, the comte and comtesse de Provence, and the comte d’Artois, cloaked ourselves to the point of anonymity in voluminous black dominoes, their capacious
calèche
hoods tugged over our heads. The comtesse and I feared for our highly piled coiffures at first, but the wicked pleasure we derived by flouting court etiquette in sneaking into the capital unattended far outweighed
our vanity. A burgundy-colored carriage, unmarked, conveyed us the ten miles from Versailles into Paris, rumbling along the rutted King’s Road, the coachman having been bribed with the promise of a bottle of Imperial Tokay at the conclusion of the illicit excursion.