The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette (10 page)

Sensing Chambertin’s unease I took him and the servant into my bedchamber, where a startled Sophie, who had been napping on a sofa, put on her dressing gown and looked at me
expectantly. The pugs came yapping happily toward me but I shooed them back to their corner.

Chambertin led me to an alcove.

“Your majesty, this boy has been a page to Prince Stanislaus. But he cannot return to that service. If he does he will be killed. I’m certain of it.”

I looked over at the boy, standing with head bent, his face contorted in pain. He was quite young, perhaps thirteen or fourteen.

“He can stay here.” I went to the boy, asked his name, and assured him that we would look after him. At a nod from me Sophie got her box of salves and ointments and bandages. I told her to take the boy up to Louis’s carpentry shop in the attic where there were empty rooms and odds and ends of old furniture.

“Thank you, your majesty.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“As you know, the prince is very fond of good-looking young boys. Some of them return his fondness, but others do not. He becomes angry and beats them. He has beaten this boy before, but never so severely. If I had not happened to be passing, and heard the boy’s cries for help, I’m afraid—”

“Yes, I see.” Stanny. Angry, frustrated Stanny. Stanny who, as the rumor went, preferred boys to women. Now that his hopes to take Louis’s place had come to nothing, he was taking out his anger on his pages.

“I didn’t want Dr. Boisgilbert to find out. He would announce the incident to the entire court.”

“No, of course not.” I thought a moment. “The question is, where will he be truly safe? If the prince finds out that I have taken him into my household, as my page, he will be furious.”

“Prince Stanislaus bears many grudges,” Chambertin said. “He does not forgive.”

“Then the boy must go to Vienna. I’ll send him with Count Mercy when he leaves for Schönbrunn in September. Until then he can hide upin Louis’s workrooms. Stanny never goes there.”

Sophie says young Monsieur de la Tour is resting comfortably today. He has a broken rib and many bruises, which are all sore, but she bound up his chest and gave him an opiate for the pain. He is so relieved to be out of Stanny’s reach and is overjoyed to learn that he will be going to Vienna. He told Sophie he wants to see the world and become a soldier.

Someone should punish Stanny and keep him in line.

August 1, 1774

Louis told me last night that two noblemen brought him a beautiful young actress from the Comédie-Française in hopes that he would make her his mistress. He laughed at them and sent the girl away.

I have sent young Monsieur de la Tour to Vienna with Count Mercy. The boy has been concealed from Stanny and no one will know where he has gone or why.

January 16, 1775

Finally I have this journal back!

I kept it locked in a wooden chest and last fall the chest got moved to Fontainebleau without my knowledge and only yesterday it was brought back. The court moves so often and I can never be sure what is to be taken and what is to be left. I must find a better hiding place for my journal.

January 24, 1775

It has snowed heavily for the past week and this morning when the sun came out Yolande, Loulou and I went to take some exercise in the palace gardens.

We slid down hillsides and made snow people and broke icicles off the roofs of the garden sheds. As we were walking through the rose garden we stumbled over two hard objects and, looking closely, we realized that they were bodies. We scraped away the snow and saw that two old women had frozen there, huddled together for warmth, a single scrap of blanket between them.

None of us said anything at first. We were too affected by the shocking sight.

“And to think,” I said eventually, when I had begun to recover a little, “that last night while these poor women were out here freezing, we were dancing at Madame Solange’s ball.”

I went to Abbé Vermond and arranged for a funeral mass for the two women but as we had no idea who they were, they had to be sent to the pauper’s cemetery in Ste. Sulpice for burial.

March 3, 1775

We have had a harsh winter and Loulou, Yolande and I have been collecting money from our friends and palace officials to buy bread to feed the poor. Maman used to do this at Schönbrunn. Abbé Vermond is in charge of ordering the loaves from the palace kitchens and supervising the distribution at the palace gates early in the morning.

Louis scoffs at me, though he always puts ten or twenty silver florins in my gold collecting box when he thinks I am not looking.

March 19, 1775

There is unrest in Paris because of the bad weather and hunger and several bakeries were broken into. This would never happen in Vienna, the soldiers would prevent it.

April 5, 1775

Count Mercy has come to see Louis and asked me to be present at their talk, which annoyed Louis.

The count has recently come back from Vienna where, he says, Joseph now rules more than maman does. Joseph is forcing his ideas on everyone and I can tell that the count thinks they are bad ideas, though he did not actually say so.

“At least there is no famine in the Austrian lands this spring, God be thanked,” Mercy told us. “The finances are not managed well, but they are managed. Unlike those of France.”

At these words Louis, who had been pacing nervously and looking at his watch, stopped where he was and glowered at Mercy.

“Monsieur Turgot has made great progress in bringing in revenues, which were sadly neglected during my grandfather’s reign.”

“Monsieur Turgot has wrecked the economy.”

Louis, who usually slouches, now pulled himself up to his full height. “We have eliminated much waste. I myself fired two under-gardeners and reduced the hunting staff by seven.”

“But you found all the men positions in the kennels and the kitchens,” I reminded Louis, who gave me a furious look and muttered, “Both were understaffed.”

“The problems of your highness’s treasury extend far beyond the royal household. Though palace costs are undoubtedly
excessive. I am told that certain balls cost in excess of one hundred thousand silver florins.”

I kept silent at this. I had no idea what our balls cost, but I was sure it was a lot.

“My purpose in speaking to you both is to bring you a message from his imperial highness.” He meant Joseph. “He speaks to you, sire, as a fond brother, which he is by marriage, and to you, madame, as his favorite sister. He wishes you both a prosperous and successful reign. He offers you a list of suggestions which he urges you to follow.”

Mercy took a sheet of paper from his leather portfolio. It bore the imperial stamp.

“Please give thought to these principles of monarchical rule, and apply them to your decisions.”

Louis took the offered document with an ill grace.

“One final word of advice. These disturbances in the capital. Don’t let them get out of hand. I am told two flour mills have been attacked and all the grain seized.”

Louis shrugged. “There is food rioting every spring, when the winter reserves are gone. It is inevitable.”

“This spring is different, your highness. Two things move the people: hunger and anger. Hunger can be controlled by lowering the price of bread, which I urge your majesty to do as soon as possible. But anger, the kind of anger that is spreading through the capital and out into the country villages this winter, that cannot be counteracted so easily.

“The people blame your majesty’s ministers for the shortage of food. And though they do not understand all of M. Turgot’s regulations, they are right. When hunger and anger combine, there can only be disaster.”

After Count Mercy left I thought about what he had said. I was still thinking about it when I went out riding Bravane, though it was hard to keep my thoughts on serious things when the sun was so warm and the air so balmy, and the scent
of the budding apple trees was so very fragrant with the promise of spring.

April 19, 1775

Louis has ordered all the bakers to lower the price of bread.

May 2, 1775

I was awakened early this morning by a sound like a herd of cows mooing. Sophie, who sleeps at the foot of my bed when Louis is not there, was already upand pulling on her dressing gown.

“What is that noise?” I asked her. She went to the window and pulled back the curtain, and beckoned for me to join her. We could see, in the courtyard below, dozens of servants shouting and rushing in and out of the palace and a squadron of guardsmen assembling with a mounted officer giving them orders.

Then in addition to the loud mooing sound I heard a terrific crash, followed by shrieks from elsewhere in my apartments and increased activity in the courtyard. I heard someone shout, “It’s the gate! They’ve knocked over the gate!”

I hurriedly put on a morning gown and went out into the sitting room where my maids and chamberwomen were huddled together. Some of them were crying and all of them were very frightened. I told them not to worry, that whatever happened, we would all be safe because we had the protection of the king my husband and of the Garde du Corps, the royal bodyguard.

Sophie helped me gather up the dogs and together we all made our way to Louis’s rooms where there were guards at every door and more in the hallways outside. I saw M. Turgot, red-faced and looking very grim, go out with the Colonel of
the Home Guard and several other ministers were trying to get Louis’s attention.

Louis was still in his long white nightshirt, his old green slippers on his feet, examining one of the muskets a guardsman had handed him and trying to adjust the firing mechanism.

I don’t know how long we waited there, in Louis’s apartments, while soldiers came and went and equerries rushed in and out, bringing messages to Louis and the household officers. It seemed as though everyone was talking at once, there was such a din and commotion. We were in the way. We took an alcove for ourselves and watched everything that happened.

Soon we began hearing musket fire outside and screams and shouts. In the midst of all the confusion a servant from the palace kitchens appeared with a large basket of cakes and pastries and we ate greedily.

Before long we heard the roar of cannon. They were firing from the roof of the palace. With each loud boom the floor shook under us and I wondered if the old building could stand all the shaking. We all said our prayers and some of my maids, the younger and more timid ones, began crying again. The booming stopped after about a quarter of an hour and it seemed as though there were fewer people and less confusion in Louis’s rooms. He withdrew to get dressed and when he came back, wearing the uniform of a cavalry commander, he looked more like a king than I had ever seen him look before.

By about three in the afternoon the noise and shouting and musket firing had died down. We still heard horses clattering in and out of the courtyard, and agitated servants came and went, delivering messages to Louis and leaving on errands. However, the usual patterns of life in the palace began to come back. I took all my maids and ladies and dogs back to my own apartments where some collapsed and went to sleep and others resumed their duties, after a fashion. I had my hair dressed by a trembling André, who had spent the past few
hours under my bed, and then made my toilette as usual.

I was trying to keep everyone calm but of course I wanted to know what had happened. Were we at war? Would all the noise and fear come back later on? Should we move to another palace where we would be safer?

Finally after supper I learned what had gone on. Villagers from nearby Saint-Paul-d’Avray and Saumoy had come to the palace gates in the early morning as they always did, to receive their distribution of loaves and food scraps from the Bouche du Roi, the king’s private kitchen. Abbé Vermond had been there to hand out the loaves I contributed.

But instead of taking the food and leaving, the villagers stayed on and demanded more. The crowd at the gate grew larger and larger. They shouted at Abbé Vermond and insisted that he bring out more loaves. He told me that it made him angry, and he shouted back, “Who am I, the Lord Jesus Himself, that I can multiply the loaves?” They jeered at him and called him a creature of the king, who wanted them all to starve so that he could take their lands.

They spat at him and tore his clothes. As he hurried back to the safety of the palace, the villagers, now hundreds of them, took hold of the iron gates and tried to pull them down.

Abbé Vermond is a mild man, highly intelligent and educated, completely unlike the gruff and irritable Father Kunibert. I have almost never seen Abbé Vermond angry. But he was angry tonight when he came to talk to me and pray with me for the souls of those who died today. He said that the villagers were ungrateful for all I did for them, and for the protection they enjoyed living so close to the great palace of Versailles.

“Don’t they know that the king’s soldiers protect them from bandits, and keep marauders from destroying their crops? Doesn’t the king offer to take their sons into his army, and give their daughters work in his dairies and even in the palace itself? Why, the head gardener allows them to gather acorns in
the fall to feed their pigs and to help harvest chestnuts and apples and cherries.”

“Count Mercy always says that the only thing the villagers know is that the king’s tax collectors take everything they have, and the king’s bakers charge them too much for their bread.”

“Ignorant people despise their betters. They obey them, they are frightened of them, and deep down, they despise them.”

We said our prayers for the dead. There were many who died, for the cannon had fired into the crowd of people as they milled in the outer courtyard and later the cavalry had ridden into their midst, the soldiers slashing at them right and left with their sharp swords. All afternoon carts came and went, loaded with bodies. Fresh sand was sprinkled in the courtyard to cover the blood. Tomorrow, Abbé Vermond told me, the gate will be repaired and soon there will be no signs left to show that anything at all went on today.

There will be no signs, but I will remember.