Days of Splendor, Days of Sorrow (17 page)
Read Days of Splendor, Days of Sorrow Online
Authors: Juliet Grey
She nodded contritely and sank into a deep reverence, kissing my hands in supplication when I assured her that arrangements would be made to bring her relations to Versailles as soon as it was practical to do so. But now I felt compelled to play the peacemaker with the soulful princesse de Lamballe, bent intently over her embroidery frame, undoubtedly pretending not to eavesdrop.
The fire crackled and blazed in the marble hearth. The room would have been a cozy retreat, had it not been for my closest friends’ chilly animosity toward each other. How could two such lovely women, born on the selfsame day, behave like rivals when I loved them in equal measure?
I settled into the fruitwood armchair beside the princesse and spoke to her in a voice so low and gentle that even the amiable abbé could not hear me. “
Ma très chère amie
, when I was a stranger in a strange court, sixteen years old and still a virginal bride after nearly two years, you were the only woman to extend her hand in friendship. And from that moment you have been as close and as dear to me as a sister. If you wish the queen to bend her knee to you, she shall, for I beg of you not to be jealous of others—it does not suit your impeccable dignity.”
The princesse smiled wanly, not entirely convinced that I honored her no less than Madame de Polignac. How I envied the comte de Mercy at that moment for his diplomatic talents. Eventually I mollified Madame de Lamballe the way one does a child, with the promise of a sleigh ride at dusk; for at Versailles, a courtier lived for those private moments spent in the presence of the sovereign. However, the internal strife among my entourage still weighed heavily upon me. While there was little amity
between the princesse de Lamballe and the comtesse de Polignac, covetous of my close bond with a lowly cleric of no birth, they were united in their lack of respect for the abbé Vermond. Their hauteur troubled me greatly because he remained my only connection to Austria and my girlhood.
Except of course, for the comte de Mercy and Maman.
Excess Is Never Enough
July 16, 1776
Your Imperial Majesty:
I regret to inform you that the Queen’s taste for jewelry is far from sated. Her Majesty has recently purchased diamond bracelets worth nearly 300,000 livres, in exchange for which she gave the court jewelers some stones which they appraised at a very low value, but she was compelled to make a large deposit for the balance. This sum, combined with her old debt of 300,000 livres for a pair of earrings, leaves her with an aggregate of 100,000 livres owing to the jewelers, in consequence of which, she has nothing left in her allowance for current expenses. In addition, she long ago exhausted her annual wardrobe allowance of 150,000 livres; she has become a slave to her
marchande de modes
Mlle. Bertin.
The Queen most reluctantly (and at least shamefacedly) asked the King to give her 2000 louis to settle the debt with
Herren Böhmer and Bassenge. The sovereign greeted her request with his usual kindness and affability, but was overheard murmuring to Her Majesty that he was not at all surprised that she had run out of money, given her fondness for diamonds.
The queen’s income has more than doubled, and yet now she has debts. At first the public was pleased that the King had given her le Petit Trianon as a country retreat, but now it is alarmed at the amounts of money being spent there. Antoinette ordered the gardens to be redone in the English manner, which is expected to cost at least 150,000 livres. She also had a theater built at Trianon for her private performances, but thus far she has given only one play there, followed by a supper, and the costs for one evening were considerable. Moreover, the servants at Trianon wear her own livery of red and silver, rather than the Bourbon uniforms, giving rise to further criticisms about the château’s exclusivity.
In addition to her acquisition of diamonds, her passion for gambling is an expensive one. She no longer plays ordinary games such as cavagnole where one cannot lose very much. Lansquenet and pharaon are all the rage, and the king has even taken steps to prohibit the latter game, which may have an effect elsewhere but not at court, and certainly not when his wife sits at the baize-covered table. These games are concealed from the king as much as possible, as the high stakes displease His Majesty.
However, the courtiers have grown worried about the astronomical losses they risk if they are invited to sit down to play with the queen, and yet how can they refuse?
The dissension in Her Majesty’s entourage has other roots as well. The princesse de Lamballe, by multiplying her claims and defending them arrogantly, creates endless conflicts
within the Queen’s Household whose ladies are complaining about her despotism, and Antoinette is continually forced to adjudicate. Frustrated with her
dame d’honneur
, for now, anyway, she has returned to her taste for the comtesse de Polignac, in whose coterie intrigues of all sorts are born, and where, regrettably, Her Majesty’s frenzied spirit of dissipation is encouraged.
Your Obedient Servant,
Mercy
I felt so useless. I had come to France more than six years earlier to produce children and still had none. That was my role and as it remained unfulfilled, I tried to create a new one. How else might I be of service to my husband, to my friends? Louis and I routinely gave alms; but I yearned for other ways to enrich our subjects.
Maman grew livid when I advanced one of my favorites, our ambassador to England, the comte de Guines, insisting that Louis offer him a dukedom, even as the Contrôleur-Général, Monsieur Turgot, was investigating him for some sort of misconduct. The minister’s agenda of financial reforms had displeased me—for I knew it would be highly unpopular with the nobility, and my husband needed as many friends as he could amass in these antagonistic times. It was perceived that I had forced Turgot’s resignation—which prompted the inevitable dressing-down from my mother.
July 26, 1776
Madame my dear daughter:
Unlike the Queen of Naples you lack the talent for political intrigue; however, were you to apply yourself to anything
substantive you would be your sister’s equal and advance our relations with France instead of creating an embarrassment. If you would have looked through the eyes of an administrator and not with those of a spoiled and petulant child who is denied an increase in her allowance, you would have seen that Turgot’s plans were in fact the king’s best hopes for reining in the morass of France’s economy. You have no business interfering in such matters, and it is such naïve meddling that has lost you the support of those upon whom you should most rely. I hear you are taking delight, even credit, for the fact that an excellent and beloved minister has retired rather than accept dismissal, while an unscrupulous
ami
has been made a duc. I can only sigh in amazement and wonder where is the Antonia I sent across the border.
As to your ongoing frivolity, I cannot conceal my fears on this subject. To go into debt over a few trinkets? A queen only degrades herself in adorning her body with all that tinsel, and even more if she spends exorbitant sums of money on it. Everyone knows that the king is very moderate in his expenditures, and therefore the entire blame will be laid at your feet. I hope I shall not live to see the consequences.
Your loving Maman
As wise as Maman was, she refused to comprehend my world. At Versailles, everyone vied to outdo their rivals and wore their family’s wealth about their wrists, throats, and fingers, and sewn onto their gowns, coats, cuffs, and bodices. It shouldn’t have to be spelled out for her that the queen of France had to sparkle with far greater effulgence than her courtiers. The price of asserting my dominance was certainly worth a few hundred thousand livres. And times were hard, it was true. But in my view this dazzling competition could only benefit the merchants who catered
to the nobility. If I set the tone for lavish diamond bracelets, or for anything—then everyone from Paris to Marseille knew that a clamor would ensue to possess whatever was being worn by Her Majesty. And, by increasing the income of these
marchandes
and
vendeuses
, their coffers were enlarged, thereby enriching others, from fellow merchants to farmers to craftsmen. Everyone in France ultimately stood to profit.
The golden cupids on the mantel clock struck the center gong, tolling the hour of ten.
“Heavens, how late it has grown!” the king exclaimed. “I hadn’t thought it possible I’d remained in this pleasant company for so long.” He stifled a yawn. “But you must excuse me, madame,” he said, turning to address me directly, “for it is time for me to go to bed.”
“Yet Your Majesty has just arrived,” chirped the comtesse de Polignac. “Though you are hardly dressed to join us at the masquerade, unless, saving your honor, you are in disguise as a notary.” At le Petit Trianon, she dared to laugh at the king’s expense.
Louis managed a chuckle as well. Gesturing about the room full of sartorial popinjays, brightly clad in shades of mustard, peacock, fuchsia, and garnet, he jested wryly, “I know when I am beaten. I would never, madame la comtesse, endeavor to compete with such splendor.” Appraising her pouf with a narrowed gaze, he remarked, “What will you do if your headdress hatches while you are in the carriage bound for Paris tonight?”
High atop Gabrielle’s brow perched an actual bird’s nest in which a trio of eggs, covered in glittering diamond pavé, were guarded by a gold filigree songbird. If the comtesse were to touch a spring hidden in her hair, the bird would appear to fly above her coiffure and sing a charming air composed by my childhood friend Herr Mozart. The mechanism was the clever invention
of Sieur Beaulard, one of Léonard’s rivals. Beaulard had made a name for himself among the fashionable women of Paris with his whimsically named
coiffure à la grand-mère
, because a lady could lower his stratospheric creations by as much as two feet by pressing upon the hidden spring, thereby appeasing even the most disapproving grandmother. I had worn a few of Sieur Beaulard’s mechanical coiffures myself. But not tonight. I would have to kneel on the floor of my carriage in a most undignified manner if I expected my puce-colored ostrich plumes to survive the journey intact.
“Must you depart so soon?” I said, lightly touching my husband’s arm. It was all for show, a pantomime we had played for the benefit of our courtiers countless times over the past two years. My husband would arrive at le Petit Trianon toward the end of the gaming, and when the clock struck ten he would apologize for retiring so early while I would make a great display of regretting that he would miss the rest of the night’s adventures. But my friends knew something about these nightly charades at the Petit Trianon that Louis did not; it was not ten
P.M
. at all. It was only nine. I deliberately set the clocks ahead an hour so that he would plod back to the palace thinking it was his bedtime, and we could continue our fun.
Le pauvre homme
never noticed and never suspected a thing. In our artificial sphere, lies lay cocooned inside of lies, and it was the most natural thing in the world to maintain them.
Drawing my husband toward me, I murmured in his ear, “I will return late. You needn’t visit me tonight.” I winced at his expression of palpable relief and suddenly began to feel less guilty about resetting my clocks. He wished me
bon soir
and turned to leave, shambling away. I watched his retreating form, grown even stouter of late from his diet of charlotte russe and meringues, and surreptitiously brushed away a falling tear. Then, addressing my
devotees, I clapped my hands and announced gaily, “Who will come with me to the masquerade? My
carosse de gala
will hold eight!”
The comte d’Artois rose immediately, as did the duc de Guines, and an old friend lately returned to court, the duc de Lauzun. The comtesse de Polignac and the princesses de Lamballe and de Guéméné folded their hands of cards and collected what winnings they had amassed. “Well, then, I suppose the pair of you will have to draw your swords for the last place in my carriage,” I jested, glancing at the dear old baron de Besenval and the duc de Coigny.
“I believe that age should have the prior claim,” said the Field Marshal gallantly, “and so I will defer to the baron.”
“Try not to look so disappointed, sister,” Artois whispered to me.
I playfully rapped him on the knuckles with my fan. “Mustn’t start rumors! But everyone must have dominoes!” At the opposite end of the room a panel cleverly concealed a cabinet. Inside it hung an array of splendid cloaks and masks, from pure black silk to silver tissue. “Help yourselves!” I declared. “And make haste, or we will be late.”
I called for my coach and the eight of us piled inside the gilded conveyance. Giggling, glittering, and spangled, dripping with feathers and jewels, we resembled an opulent gypsy band.
“You must open the windows so we ladies can stick our heads outside,” insisted Gabrielle de Polignac.
Lamballe frowned prettily. “But the horses mustn’t go too quickly or our poufs will be destroyed by the breeze.” Atop her head was a spring garden of fresh vegetables to match her gown of lawn-green faille.
“If they don’t, Marie Thérèse, we shall never get to Paris. The three of you must do as I do—come!” I crouched on the carriage
floor, and still, my coronet of feathers brushed the velvet underside of the roof. “The ladies must arrange themselves first, and then the gentlemen must make do around us.” And oh, what a jumble of limbs we made, as elbows brushed thighs and knees found breasts, and tight sleeves and corseted torsos made it all the more difficult to extricate ourselves. I think we laughed for leagues as the heavily sprung
carosse
jounced along the road. Artois entertained us with a string of bawdy jokes as the comtesse, the pair of princesses, and I bounced about, our derrières rising from the floor every time the wheels hit a rut. “My eggs!” cried Gabrielle, as she reached up to steady the bird’s nest.
