Days of Splendor, Days of Sorrow (49 page)

Although I was displeased with the political climate, the weather could not have been more salubrious. Rays of sunshine caught the ornate gilding of Louis’s carriage at just the proper angles, lending the conveyance—drawn by six white horses caparisoned
and festively plumed in the same red, white, and blue of the royal livery—an otherworldly glow as it rolled along the cobbled
rues
. Although the Bourbon brothers often disagreed, that morning they presented a portrait of unity, with Monsieur seated to the king’s right, and the still-dashing Artois perched on the box. On the back seat, Artois’s sons, the ducs d’Angoulême, de Berri, and de Bourbon squirmed and fidgeted with their unfamiliar costumes, for everyone but Louis had sartorially stepped back in time to the late sixteenth century.

“Vive le roi!”
A cheer rose up from the crowd, echoed by the voices of the onlookers above the tapestry-bedecked windowsills, souls who had paid dearly for such an exceptional vantage. Men had clambered up to the rooftops; young boys precariously straddled chimneys. My carriage followed the king’s. I was clad in rose-colored silk taffeta, and Monsieur Léonard had dressed my hair with false plaits threaded with matching silk flowers. To my left sat ten-year-old Madame Royale, in buttercup yellow, with a fetching straw bonnet to protect her from the sun; at my right hand, Louis’s sister, the gentle princesse Élisabeth, in hyacinth blue. When it became clear that we were passing in stony silence as if we were riding in a hearse, my
belle-soeur
withdrew a handkerchief of finely woven cambric and blotted away her tears.

“It is not right,” Élisabeth whispered to me. “We have done them no harm.”

“It is not ‘we’ to whom they show such disrespect,” I murmured. “Neither you nor my daughter have done a thing to incur their displeasure.”

The silent journey to Notre Dame seemed interminable. Upon reaching the broad square in front of the church the royal family was met by the entire complement of the Estates General, clad according to centuries-old protocol: the nobles draped in silken cloaks trimmed with gold lace, their hats adorned with
enormous white plumes; the clergy—scarlet-robed cardinals and bishops in their purple cassocks; and, most unnerving, the soberly garbed representatives of the common people. They were dressed in black coats, vests, and breeches. Even their hose and tricorns were black. The severity of their wardrobe was relieved only by the white jabots at their throats. To a man, every deputy carried a candle.

Now the second leg of the procession began, more martial than regal, threading its way through the narrow streets of Versailles from Notre Dame to the gleaming white cathedral of Saint-Louis. The page boys and falconers were replaced with fife and drum, beating a brisk tattoo as the entire delegation started out on foot, this time led by the lowliest participants, the deputies from the Third Estate, proudly marching in two parallel lines.

As the last of their group went by, a great gasp, followed by a cheer, rose up from those nearest the delegations, for the rabble-rousing Philippe d’Orléans had chosen to walk with the representatives of the Third Estate, rather than take his place among the nobility. After such an extraordinary event, the sight of their resplendently garbed monarch—the massive Regent diamond gleaming in his hat—held little excitement for the clamorous crowd. Louis strode with tremendous pomp and dignity behind the baldachin; beneath that arch walked the venerated archbishop of Paris, whose surplice, sparkling with countless diamonds, glittered even more spectacularly; but it was the duplicitous duc, dressed in sober black silk, who received the loudest acclamation of the morning.

As I passed a group of market women, a brawny butcher darted out of the crowd, startling me.
“Vive le duc d’Orléans!”
she cried, as if to lob the words into my face. She had come so close that I could smell the perspiration on her chemise. For a moment I lost my equilibrium and felt my knees give way beneath me.

A man’s voice pierced the silence. A stage whisper.
“Voilà la victime.”
I turned toward the sound and located the source—a shaggy bear of a man, the comte de Mirabeau, one of my loudest detractors, walking with the black-clad delegation of the Third Estate.

My head swam, and I began to swoon. A moment or two later I felt someone at my elbow. It was Madame Élisabeth, supporting my weight. At my other side was the princesse de Lamballe, whom I had long ago forgiven for visiting the comtesse de Lamotte-Valois during her incarceration. The duchesse de Polignac and I had repaired our differences as well, but she was so roundly despised by the people that I thought it safest if she remained at the palace and did not take part in the procession.

“
Voici
. Inhale.” The princesse held a vinaigrette of my beloved orange flower water under my nose.

I took a quick sniff and blinked hard. “I cannot let them see me this way,” I whispered. I could never permit anyone with cruelty or malice on their mind the satisfaction of seeing that they had affected me. I would be lost forever if I did.

“
Regardez!
There is the dauphin!” cried Élisabeth. He had wished to watch the procession and so we set up a mattress on the little balcony of the royal stables. The future king was swathed in a velvet cloak, nestled amid a pile of silken cushions, for he had long been too weak to stand. Swallowing my tears, “We must smile for him,” I told his doting aunt. Madame Élisabeth and I raised our gloved hands and waved. “Would they accuse me of being undignified if I blew my dying son a kiss?” I wondered aloud.

At the church of Saint-Louis, the archbishop of Nancy blessed the gathering; then, with his notorious oratorical gifts—and to the delight of the deputies of the Third Estate—he began to inveigh against the excesses of the monarchy and the insensitive
extravagance of the courtiers—but most particularly the queen. When he promulgated the lie that the walls of my little theater at Trianon were covered with precious stones, my lower lip trembled with anger. Had the acquittal of the cardinal in the affair of the necklace given the clergy carte blanche to be insolent to us? I glanced at the king, but he had fallen asleep and was snoring softly beside me, blissfully oblivious to the insults raining down upon us from the pulpit. Now I would be compelled to invite a delegation of deputies from the Third Estate to my private idyll simply to prove that not only the décor, but the archbishop’s words, were false.

I passed a sleepless night. Louis, however, always enjoyed the deep slumber of the unencumbered—how well I recall our wedding night—no matter the circumstances. We had spent the better part of the evening drafting the speech he was to present the following day at the inaugural session of the Estates General. Much of the time had been spent arguing over the tone: The king had wished to be conciliatory, while Artois and I most adamantly felt that the sovereign must stand firmly against these adversarial, even antimonarchical, voices. “The duc d’Orléans must be silenced,” I insisted. “You are the father of France and they are as unruly children testing the limits of their leading strings. What they truly require is the guidance of a wise and authoritarian parent.”

“And if they refuse to accept it, they must be told they shall be punished,” added Artois.

I nodded emphatically. And if it had been up to me, the meeting of the Estates General would have been held far from Versailles, where it would have been more difficult for spectators, especially the clamorous Parisians, to attend. But Louis had heeded Necker instead. “These rebellious firebrands must be reminded that it is their duty to obey their king.” I began to pace about Louis’s study, nervously tying and untying my linen fichu.
“Write this,” I said, dictating to my husband, who had been reluctant to commit to any particular tack. But if someone did not grasp the reins we were headed for the abyss. “ ‘To the burden of the taxes and the debts of the state there has been added a spirit of restlessness that will bring about the greatest disasters if it is not promptly checked.’ ” I came around behind him and made certain he had transcribed my words.

What would Maman tell the deputies under these circumstances? I wondered. I imagined myself in the stiff black gown of the late Empress Maria Theresa, unafraid, impervious, rather than the thin-skinned Marie Antoinette who could only feign her mother’s formidability. Resuming my dictation I added, “ ‘I hope that this assembly’—no, ‘this
distinguished
assembly’; we can allow them that—‘will show the obedience which is as necessary to the people’s happiness as it is to the conservation of the monarchy.’ ”

I clung to my opinion the following morning, as I instructed Léonard to dress my hair for the procession. “I must go like an actress, exhibit myself to a public that may hiss me,” I said, sighing. As I appraised my reflection in the mirror I caught him doing the same. Had he noticed that my shoulders had become a bit stooped and my bosom, which not too recently had measured forty-four inches, looked shrunken, as though I were considerably older than thirty-three?

Madame Campan helped me dress in the last of the gala gowns I had ordered from Mademoiselle Bertin, a robe of purple satin and cloth of silver with a white underskirt that sparkled with countless diamonds and paillettes. My tresses were swept into a violet bandeau studded with brilliants and crested with a single white heron feather.

Louis, too, was every inch the monarch in his glittering robes and plumed hat. His ample person coruscated with diamonds—on his cloth-of-gold suit, on the jewel-encrusted hilt of the court sword at his hip, on his shoe buckles, his garters, and
on the orders of the Golden Fleece and the Saint-Esprit that he wore pinned to his bosom. Once again, he wore the enormous, and flawless, Regent diamond pinned to his hat.

Outside the palace gates, in the town of Versailles, stood an enormous hall known as the Salle des Menus Plaisirs. This repository of theatrical scenery and properties had always been the purview of the now gout-afflicted Papillon de la Ferté, the royal Steward of Small Pleasures; and for the purposes of the meeting of the Estates General he had transformed it into an ancient Greek temple, a triumph of gilded and faux marble and papier-mâché. The allusions to the birthplace of democracy were not lost on the Third Estate. The fact that the trappings were sham was not wasted on the first two delegations.

A broad center aisle was delineated by two lines of Doric columns leading to a raised dais upon which the king would repose beneath a carved baldachin of purple and gold and a canopy bearing the fleur-de-lis of France. Designated for me, a padded armchair was placed slightly to Louis’s left. The 1,214 deputies of the three Estates were seated according to strict etiquette, with the First Estate, the clergy, to the king’s right; the Second Estate, the nobility, to his left; and the representatives from the Third Estate arranged along the back of the
salle
, facing the throne. The balconies opposite us were thronged with spectators, eager to witness history in the making.

We had been compelled to wait for several hours before entering the hall while the roll was called and each of the delegates’ names was formally inscribed. It was after noon when the king and I entered the
salle
. Neither of us knew what to expect. Louis looked anxious. I expect I looked a bit haggard. Between the frustrations of composing his speech, my anger over the convening of the three Estates in the first place, and my fears for the dauphin’s failing health, how could I ever convey the portrait of regal serenity?

Cries of
“Vive le roi!”
greeted our arrival, yet as I crossed the threshold a frosty silence descended. The room grew horribly still. Beneath my stays, my belly fluttered with tiny convulsions.

Their hatred of me was palpable. Was that why the king jettisoned the words I had so assiduously helped him pen the previous day? A frisson of shock reverberated through my core and I fanned myself with undignified agitation.

My husband rose from the throne, his stature appearing the more imposing, for he had gained so much weight of late that seated he resembled a fur-trimmed fleshpot. Never comfortable before a large audience, Louis nonetheless relied on one of his strengths; he spoke plainly and with compassion for his people.

“The day my heart has been awaiting has finally come,” he began sonorously, “as I stand amid the delegates of the nation I take so much pride in ruling. You have come before me to address the financial condition of France and to reestablish order where chaos has begun to rear its head. As your king, my power is great, bestowed by divine right, but my concern for my subjects is of equal magnitude.
Messieurs, mes amis
, everything you may expect of the most loving interest in the public happiness, all that can be asked of a sovereign who is also his subjects’ best friend, you may, you
must
, expect from my feelings.”

I was so relieved when his speech was interrupted by applause several times, not just from the clergy and nobility, but from members of the Third Estate as well. I frequently found myself gazing across this sea, hundreds deep, of pale, dour faces set off above by ink-hued tricorns they had refused to remove, and below by their mandated garments of the same shade. Who were they, these angry men, who so despised the monarchy, and so detested their queen? What had I done to them, or to their wives and children, their cousins and sisters, their mothers, brothers, and fathers? Was it any one of them, I wondered, who had written, or published, the vile tract called “
Le Godemiche
, or
The Royal Dildo” or the “operatic proverb” titled “The Austrian Woman on the Rampage, or The Royal Orgy”?
Veni Vidi
was the farce’s bawdy Latin epigraph—I came, I saw. I blinked back tears imagining what Maman might have made of this denigration of her youngest daughter.

I felt sick. I had one son whose span of days was clearly numbered, as had been those of the daughter taken from me in her infancy. And over the past few years these antiroyalist monsters had stolen precious hours I could have spent with my children, even robbed me of thoughts I might have devoted to them by wasting my time instead on these vicious tracts. If the representatives of the three Estates and the spectators in the galleries, eager to find something unpleasant to say about the queen of France, returned home to write in their journals or told their friends that I looked sour or peevish, I was certain they dared not look within to divine the cause.