The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette (11 page)

June 28, 1775

How hot it is! I long to plunge into a cool lake wearing nothing but my chemise but I can never do that here. One afternoon Loulou and Yolande and I escaped to the Petit Trianon and ran in the fountains.

July 11, 1775

André has created a new hairstyle for the coronation. He has been practicing on my ladies, and this afternoon he tried it on me for the first time. He combed and fluffed my poor hair for half an hour, thickening it with paste, and then wrapped it over two thick horsehair pads and added more and more
lengths of false hair until the whole elaborate tower was nearly two feet high. Miniature gold crowns with diamonds were braided into the strands so that they sparkled.

The effect is beautiful but I can hardly turn my head and the pins that hold the whole tower together keep pricking my head. My scalp itches from all the pomade. Worst of all, I have to sleep in this Coronation Pouf until the ceremony itself, which is not for several weeks.

July 29, 1775

At last I am able to write about Louis’s wonderful coronation, which left me so tired that I have done almost nothing but sleep ever since.

He dreaded it so much that for days before the ceremony he made himself sick by overeating. He drank camomile tea constantly to calm his nerves but still he couldn’t sleep. He kept me awake with his pacing.

I thought he might disappear to his favorite place, his hut in the forest of Compiègne, so that he could avoid being crowned, but he was courageous and went through with the ceremony. I was very proud of him.

He sat on the golden throne in the great Cathedral of Rheims and the archbishop put the crown on his head and everyone in the church shouted “May the king live forever!” and clapped and clapped. They clapped for me too, and reached out to touch my gown as I passed. So many grimy hands, clutching at my skirts. So many grinning faces, toothless mouths, calling out and cheering.

On our way back to Versailles Louis snored in the carriage, still wearing his ermine and velvet. There were poor people kneeling by the side of the road calling out “Give us bread, your majesty!” but we had no bread to give them, and rode on.

April 13, 1777

Joseph is here! I have not seen him in so long, I want to be near him every minute. I can’t get over how much he has changed. He has gotten old-looking and is almost bald, like the paintings of grandfather in maman’s study. His clothes are out of fashion and he says he doesn’t care. Father Kunibert is with him and I am trying to stay out of his way, so he doesn’t lecture me.

April 17, 1777

I lied to Father Kunibert. I told him I no longer wrote in my journal and that it was lost years ago. He says I look like the Whore of Babylon in my high-piled hair and silken gowns.

“Oh no, father,” Joseph corrected him with a smile. “The Queen of Babylon, surely.”

“You babble on a good deal yourself, brother,” I said, making Joseph laugh so that all the lines around his eyes creased deeply. “Please tell me all about maman and the others.”

He obliged me, and described the many changes at our court in Schönbrunn since I left. There was much to tell, and Joseph does like to talk. Finally he came to the subject closest to my heart.

“How is maman?” I asked him. “Tell me truly.”

He patted my hand. “Our dear maman is growing old. It is as simple as that. Her strength is declining. There are the usual aches and pains of old age, but something else eats away at her and is a deeper pitfall for her to surmount. She is fearful.”

“She fears the pains of hell,” Father Kunibert put in. “She is a sinner.”

Ignoring him, Joseph went on. “As she grows weaker, she fears losing her power. She gives more and more of it to me, yet she resents me for accepting it. She fears that I will change our empire, and she is right. I shall change it.

“Despite her old-fashioned ideas, she is a very wise and far-sighted woman. She has glimpsed the future, and it frightens her, for she knows she will not be here to prevent it.”

I do not know what Joseph means by this, but just hearing him talk about it is enough to frighten me.

“The future, hah!” spat out Father Kunibert. “It is all right there, in the Book of Revelation. This world has no future. It is going to end, and soon. All the signs are here. Plague, pestilence, wars and rumors of wars—”

“Is there going to be a war?” I interrupted, asking Joseph. “Count Mercy is always saying so.”

Joseph looked at me. “Our mother sent me here to help preserve the peace. By talking to you, as she would if she could travel so far, and if she could be spared in Vienna, which she could not.

“If I may be blunt, Antonia, and I hardly know how to speak otherwise, your frivolous behavior, and your failure to have a son, are harming Austria far more than you imagine. The result may well be war.”

“They call me the Austrian bitch.”

“And worse.”

“What could be worse?” I asked.

“The Whore of Babylon,” said Father Kunibert, and shuffled out of the room, shaking his head.

Joseph and I dined together in private, with Dr. Boisgilbert as our only guest. We discussed Louis.

“He has a slight deformity of the foreskin, nothing more,” the doctor told Joseph. “Antonia knows all about it. I explained the problem to her. Two or three swift incisions would correct it. But he cannot face the pain. One look at my knives and he practically faints.”

“Why not let him faint, and then perform the operation?”

“I could hardly do that, merely on my own initiative.”

“No, of course you couldn’t,” Joseph said, suddenly thoughtful. “But what if I authorized it—indeed insisted on it?”

“Then, I suppose, I would have no choice but to obey.”

“What if,” Joseph went on, his fork poised in midair, “he were to injure himself, and faint, and while you were setting a bone or bandaging a wound you brought out your knives and took care of the other small problem?”

“I suppose it could be done, under the right circumstances.”

“Are you a hunter, doctor?”

“Certainly.”

“Then let us join the king when he goes after deer, or boar, or whatever tiresome animal it is we are supposed to slaughter at this season. Perhaps he will have an accident.”

“Not a serious accident,” I said, alarmed at what Joseph might be planning.

“If he is as clumsy on a horse as he is on the dance floor, he can hardly avoid falling off.”

It was true, Louis often fell when riding. Once he hit his head and was without sense or feeling for at least half an hour.

“When does he hunt again?”

“Now that the weather is fine, he goes nearly every day,” I said. “He brings me back trophies.” I had a cabinet full of ears,
horns and stinking tails my husband had given me over the years, proofs of his skill as a hunter.

“Then there is one more trophy to be won.” Joseph smiled. “A slice of the royal foreskin. Venery for venery, eh, doctor?”

April 27, 1777

They have done it.

Joseph and Dr. Boisgilbert went along on a hunting party, got Louis so drunk he tried to jump a fence and fell. He was in a lot of pain from bruises on his legs and back and the doctor gave him a strong sleeping draught. He hardly struggled at all when they lifted him onto a farmer’s cart to bring him back to the palace. Along the way they stopped to put up a canvas over the cart because it was beginning to rain. Under the canvas the doctor hurriedly performed the surgery.

Louis is still in pain today and resting.

May 2, 1777

At last.

May 10, 1777

Everything has changed. I am a woman now and I hope to be a mother soon. Louis is as delighted by sex as a child with a new toy. I blush to write the infantile things he likes to do. Fortunately I have Loulou and Yolande to talk to and Madame Solange as well though Joseph has cautioned me that I must never be seen speaking to her as it reflects badly on me. I tell
them everything and they laugh and reassure me that my husband is acting like an inexperienced new bridegroom, which is exactly what he is.

I am certain that Louis is performing adequately to make me pregnant and he performs often so that is also likely to produce a good result. Sophie says little but I notice she is smiling more these days and watching my belly when I dress. Joseph too is smiling these days and he has made me promise that my first son will be called Louis-Joseph.

August 3, 1777

This afternoon I waited for Eric in the Temple of Love at the Petit Trianon. He was late, which was unlike him, and while I waited for him I fanned myself and loosened the sash of my white lace gown. The pillows on the wooden bench where I sat were soft, and I felt drowsy, sitting there in the midst of the garden, with the scent of roses and laburnum in the air. I lay back against the pillows and let my eyes close.

I must have dropped off to sleep when the sound of Eric’s voice awakened me.

“How lovely you look, lying there,” he said softly.

“Come, there is room for two.”

“I long to, you know how I long to.”

“My dear Eric.” I sat up and he settled into a bench next to me. He smiled but I noticed lines of worry on his handsome forehead, and a look of anxiety in his fine dark eyes as he leaned over to kiss me.

It was hard for me to restrain myself, and I kissed him back passionately. After a time he released me, as he invariably did, his will being stronger than mine.

“I think Amélie suspects that we meet like this, in secret. I
must not see you for a while. I’m going to pretend, for your sake, that I am in love with someone else. Then Amélie can be jealous of her, and not of you.”

He kissed my hand, and then my cheek, which was wet with tears.

“I understand,” I managed to say. “You are right, of course. There must be no doubt about my fidelity, no gossip. Already there are rumors enough.”

It was true. People said I was the mistress of Comte d’Adhemar, and the Prince de Ligne and the rich Hungarian Count Esterházy, and even Louis’s youngest brother Charlot, whose company I enjoy and who was known to be the lover of many women of the court.

Eric and I took a tender leave of one another and I do not expect to see him alone for some time. Of course I see him often when others are present, since his duties as equerry bring him to my apartments or my husband’s frequently. He is also in charge of my stables at the Petit Trianon. It is tantalizing to be so near him so often, to feel the thrill that his presence always arouses in me, and yet to have to keep my correct and formal distance.

It is tantalizing, it is unnatural. It is cruel. If only Eric were my husband instead of Louis, how happy my life would be. Meanwhile I worry, and wait.

August 27, 1777

Amélie is pregnant again. She brought me a medal of Ste. Lucille which she says I must put under my pillow to bring me a child.

She curtseyed when she offered it to me, and looked up slyly with a half-smile.

“Ste. Lucille will bring you a child,” she said, her voice
sharp, “if you are faithful to your husband only, and leave other women’s husbands alone.”

“Our mistress is a faithful wife,” said Sophie tartly.

“I hope that may be so,” Amélie retorted. “Even you cannot observe her every moment of the day.”

“You forget yourself, Amélie. Resume your duties.”

“I will resume mine, your highness, if you will do yours.”

“You should dismiss that impertinent girl,” was Sophie’s advice after Amélie had sauntered off. But of course I could not dismiss Amélie. I could not take the risk that she would spread spiteful gossip, or that she would force Eric to leave the court.

“She does her work well enough,” Loulou remarked, knowing the reasons that I wanted Amélie to remain in my household. “I will insist that she speak respectfully.”

October 20, 1777

We are all wearing a new hairstyle. It is called the American Pouf. Red, white and blue ribbons and little American flags are entwined in mounds of hair and hairpieces. I began the fashion when the famous American Benjamin Franklin was brought to my husband’s levee by Joseph and Louis and Mr. Franklin talked on and on about his inventions.

We are giving the Americans arms and food to help them fight the British but it is all done in secret.

December 14, 1777

Winter is dreary already and I am in low spirits. I think now that I will never have a child. Maman has sent me a girdle blessed by Ste. Radegunde, to wear to bed. It is a precious relic
from the abbey of Melk embroidered with secret prayers and occult symbols and she says it has never been known to fail.

Loulou and Yolande look at me with pity in their eyes. They know how much I want and need a child. Mercy says there is new talk of finding a way to have me put aside and marrying Louis to someone else. No one wants Stanny to become king and if Louis were to die Stanny would rule. If Stanny died then it would be Charlot, and after Charlot would come his sons. Charlot and his foolish wife Thérèse have three children already.

When will my prayers be answered?

January 3, 1778

A thousand candles lit the long staircase at Yolande’s ball last night, and as I began to go up the stairs the musicians were playing a sweet Viennese tune.

I remember thinking, they’re playing that song just for me, because they know I love it, and then I remember glancing up the staircase, and then—oh, then—my memory folds in and out on itself like a kaleidoscope and the images grow blurry in my mind.

For I saw, coming down the staircase toward me, the most beautiful man I have ever seen. He was wearing a white uniform, and he looked so tall and slender and regal—no, more than regal, almost like a marble statue of a Greek god come to life. He had blond hair, a little ruffled by the wind as he came in from outside I suppose, and he smiled, not just with his lips but with his beautiful blue eyes and his whole face.

I stopped breathing and stared, forgetting everything else around me, as he came down the stairs toward me. The musicians must have been continuing to play but I did not hear their music. All around me people must have been coming and
going, others dancing and talking on the dance floor below. But I was unaware of any of it. I saw only the smiling blond man in the white uniform, holding out his hand to me in friendship, walking toward me with the slowness of a dream.