The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette (15 page)

He took them and rapidly looked them over, his expression grave. “I see nothing amiss here.”

“But the amounts are twice the initial sums named when the renovations were begun.”

“Estimates are usually exceeded. One comes to expect that. It is impossible to anticipate every contingency.”

I was having difficulty keeping my temper.

“If you will look more carefully at the bills, you will see that the architects have added fees of their own, for work they did not do.”

The financier shrugged. “They supervised.”

Something in his manner put me on my guard. He was being just as evasive as the architects had been when I confronted them. Why? I watched him, putting the bills into a neat pile and setting them aside. The thought came to me, he’s in league with them. He’s being bribed. There is no one we can trust to honestly do what is best for France.

M. Necker met my gaze. An understanding passed between us.

“Madame,” he said after a pause, “the architects supervise, and for that they are paid. I supervise the royal finances, and
those who send in the bills, and for that I am also paid. The real question is not, how large are the bills, but rather, how will the funds be raised to pay the bills. That is where I am useful.”

He walked over to a carved cabinet where I keep a collection of fine porcelain figurines. He contemplated them, as if assessing their value, then turned back to me.

“I know the bankers. We speak the same language. I can persuade them to part with funds when others cannot. Therein lies my value. In the same way, the architects know the builders and decorators. They speak the same language. They can assure that work gets done, well and on time. Therein lies their value. I believe I have made my point. I wish you joy of your renovations.”

I saw that it was pointless to talk further, and ended our interview.

March 17, 1780

All the gardens of the Petit Trianon were illuminated tonight in honor of the visit of King Gustavus to our court. Fires burned in a deep ditch that encircled the groves and lakes and beds of shrubbery. Candles in thousands of little pots threw a flickering light on the trees, making them glow pale green and luminous. It was a fairytale scene, eerie and magical. The Temple of Love shone with an unearthly light, its marble gleaming as if lit from within.

Through it all walked Axel, in all his splendor, so fair, so noble in his features and his carriage. He came to me as I sat on a carved stone bench beside the lake.

The air was warm for March, and perfumed with the scents of lavender and jasmine from blossoming plants brought from the greenhouses. Reflected firelight sparkled on the surface of the lake, and shone from the gold buttons of his white uniform
and the row of gold medals that hung from colored ribbons across his chest.

He sat beside me and took me in his arms. I thought, I have never known such complete and perfect happiness. For an hour and more we sat there, no one near us, wrapped in each other’s arms, while the lights played across the trees and buildings, gradually dimming as the stars brightened and the moon rose.

April 7, 1780

King Gustavus is leaving in two days. This afternoon he came for his final audience with Louis, accompanied by Axel and several others. Louis received him in the Chinese Salon, and I was present with some of my ladies.

Louis gave Gustavus a medal making him a Knight of the Golden Lily, and I gave him some beautiful Sèvres vases and tapestries from the Gobelins works.

He thanked us for our hospitality and then took us completely by surprise. “I would like to invite your majesties to visit me, at my court. To help me in the creation of my Swedish Versailles.”

“Perhaps one day we shall,” said Louis curtly.

“Oh, sire, you misunderstand me. I would like you to come very soon. This summer.”

“Impossible,” said Louis. “I am needed here.”

“You need not stay longer than a few weeks.”

“It takes a few weeks just to get to your faroff country. No! I cannot.”

My thoughts were whirling. Sweden. Axel. Time with Axel.

King Gustavus looked over at me, then back at Louis. “How regrettable that your majesty cannot be spared. But perhaps your gracious queen could make the journey? I would so
greatly value her advice in the decoration of my new palace. She has such exquisite taste.”

I smiled. “And I would love to visit your beautiful country.”

I could tell that Louis was quite taken aback by this turn of events. His mouth worked nervously, and he narrowed his small eyes. All was quiet in the room while he pondered his decision. I dared not look at Axel.

Finally Louis blurted out his answer.

“Yes! Yes, she shall go—but only for a month or two. She must be back before the weather gets cold.”

But the weather is always cold in Sweden, I wanted to say, then checked myself.

“Your highness is most generous,” King Gustavus said, and then addressed me.

“We will do our best to make you feel at home in Sweden, my dear.” He kissed my hand, bowed to Louis who nodded back, and then took his leave. One by one the members of the king’s entourage kissed my outstretched hand—last of all Axel, who as he straightened up, smiled at me and winked.

June 20, 1780

Here it is, the middle of the night by my clock only outside my window the sky is light. Not the bright light of noon, but light enough to read by. What a remarkable place this is. And what remarkable changes it is making in me!

I have been here at the palace of Drottningholm in Sweden for nearly three weeks. Each day I consult with the chief palace architects and decorators on the repairs and renovations being done. King Gustavus asks for my advice constantly, on a great variety of matters, not only the design of the palace but such things as how the royal dining table is set at Versailles and how many courses are served when the public is admitted to watch King Louis dine. In my small traveling party I brought along engineers, carpenters and gardeners. They have answered hundreds of Gustavus’s queries about palace drainage and the repair of outdoor fountains, the usefulness of sunflowers in keeping mosquitoes away and methods of thatching and repairing roofs.

In all my life, no one has ever turned to me so constantly for advice and help. And I am finding that I like it very much! Louis relies on me a good deal, of course, but his pleas for help are only now and then. Long intervals pass between his spasms of panic. And what Louis needs, I cannot really provide. I cannot stiffen his backbone or shore up his confidence in himself.

I can only provide the support of my presence and my concern, both of which hearten him until the next wave of fear strikes.

I must try to sleep, but it is hard, even with the curtains closed against the brightness of the midnight sun.

June 27, 1780

Every afternoon this week Gustavus has called together a group of officials or learned men to talk over important issues. He has invited me to be present. Axel is there to help in the discussions and also to learn, as Gustavus expects him to become his principal adviser one day. The men speak in French for my benefit, but it is a strange sort of French, and I cannot always understand them, especially when their speech is hurried. Axel has taught me a few words and phrases in Swedish, so that I can count to ten and name the days of the week and say “Please” and “Thank you” and “I’m very glad to meet you.”

I don’t understand why this is happening. Why all these deepmatters are being aired in my presence. Gustavus says he wants to know, what do the French do? What do the French think? And he looks to me for those answers. I point out that I am not French but Austrian. He says that I am French by marriage.

I think Gustavus wants to impress me as much as consult me on French ways and attitudes. Axel says I am right to think this.

July 1, 1780

I miss my little Mousseline but it is better that she is not here. She is delicate and the weather here is very changeable. I
receive news of her every two or three days and Chambertin writes with news of Louis. Louis himself has only written me three letters, all very brief. In the last one he included a vial of syrup of poppy, to help me sleep during the long light nights. I don’t know why he sent it, unless he thinks Sweden is such a backward place that the apothecaries have no syrup of poppy. But that is nonsense. The shops here are well stocked with all sorts of medicinal remedies, as well as beautiful furs and carvings and warm knitted jackets and hats and mittens.

July 4, 1780

King Gustavus is to be occupied with the Riksdag, the Swedish Parliament, in the coming days and Axel has invited me to his estate, Fredenholm, which means the Place of Peace.

July 6, 1780

We arrived here yesterday after a long journey through deep woods and across snowy fields. Even though it is July, it snows here and there are areas where the snow never melts, from one year to the next.

The countryside is very beautiful, so untouched and with so few people living here. Vast forests of fir and pine, many small blue lakes, larks and finches swooping and diving in the air. The purity and freshness of the air overwhelm me. I keep filling my lungs with it. I cannot get enough.

Axel’s estate is really a large working farm, six hundred acres, and he rents out the fields to ten families who have been here since the 1500s. They were serfs at one time but his grandfather freed them and now they are tenant farmers,
though they still look on Axel as an overlord and come to him to solve their problems and settle their disputes.

I decided not to bring any servants with me so I dress myself and arrange my own hair very simply. What a relief, not to have to endure the tedious hours-long toilette and all the time in front of the mirror with my hairdresser André. I feel more myself, more alive.

July 7, 1780

I awoke this morning to the sound of an axe chopping wood and when I went to the window I saw Axel hard at work, the sleeves of his linen shirt rolled up above his elbows, quartering logs. While I watched he methodically finished chopping the pile he had in front of him and brought them into the house where he soon had a warm fire going in the immense tiled stove, black with soot. The house is small enough that one stove warms it all, while providing hot water and a hot oven for cooking our food. We breakfasted on fresh bread and reindeer cheese and fish caught last night in the lake, plus a mound of sweet cloudberries from the bushes beside the door.

This afternoon we packed a basket with food and went walking in the hills. It is hard to say how long we walked because the light did not change. By the time Axel looked at his watch it was past six o’clock and we spread out our blanket in a dry spot overlooking a lake and sat down.

“So, my little angel,” he said as we ate, “how do you like it here?”

“It is very beautiful, and very peaceful. And above all, very simple. That I like best.”

He nodded. “So simple it is bleak. But there is something here, some pristine quality, that draws me back again and again. I have been spending my summers here ever since I was
a boy. I love the solitude, the serenity. I have cousins living near by, and my sister the schoolteacher runs the school in the village. She does a lot of good there.”

“As do you.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I follow in my father’s footsteps. He was a soldier, a diplomat, and a statesman. I will never reach his eminence.”

We were silent for awhile, watching a flock of geese land in the lake. It was a sight I had never seen before, hundreds of black, gray and white birds, all identical, landing in the water and floating as if in formation, honking harshly and pecking at each other.

“It’s good for me here,” Axel said after a time. “It renews me. All the outdoor work and fresh air. While I’m in Fredenholm I don’t regret yesterday and I don’t anticipate tomorrow. I live in today, and revel in it.”

“Maybe that’s why my father retired here in his old age. For the enjoyment of each day. He was very ill, at the end, dying of pthisick. He could hardly eat anything and had a terrible cough. Yet he liked to sit out among the trees, in the summer weather, with his big wolfhound at his feet. He was at peace.”

Axel laid his head in my lap and I stroked his fair hair. He had never talked to me so intimately before, of his family. I had often talked to him of maman and my brothers and sisters, especially Joseph and Carlotta.

One name hung in the air between us, as yet unspoken: Louis. We didn’t mention him, but I knew he was in our thoughts as, hand in hand, we made our way back along the hill path in a worsening drizzle toward the warmth and shelter of Fredenholm.

July 9, 1780

I am learning all the names of the mushrooms. Also which ones we dare not eat. There are so many different kinds, chanterelles and Nun’s Cap, gray Stink Horn and the poisonous Jack-my-lantern that glows in the dark only it is never dark so how can we tell?

Every day that I spend here I am feeling better, happier and more relaxed.

July 11, 1780

One of Axel’s tenants got married yesterday and we went to the wedding. I asked to borrow a red skirt and white shirt of the kind the peasant women wear and the clothes were brought to me, along with a pair of soft felt boots and a garland of roses to carry.

We joined the hundreds of guests that had come from surrounding villages. Two bands played lively music and we danced with all the others, doing our best to follow the steps, stumbling and laughing. The women sang in a style I had never heard before, making an eerie sound like cats fighting. It was all very raucous and joyous.

I felt so free. No one had any idea who I was, only that I was a foreign noblewoman who was a friend or relative of Axel’s. That I might be a queen must have been the farthest thing from any of their thoughts. When I moved into the center of the circle of dancers and took my turn dancing a solo (which, I admit, had more steps of the quadrille than of a country dance), they all clapped and cheered.

What a time I had! Twirling in my borrowed red skirt, my borrowed boots clomping on the rough stones and tough meadow grass, my hair free of restraints and tossing in the pure
summer air. And Axel nearby, clapping, dancing, smiling his approval of me.