The Queen`s Confession (11 page)

seen such a beautiful display. 77 We were almost at the Place Louis XV—which I did not know then—when our escort stopped abruptly. Our carriage pulled up with a jerk. I was aware of screams and shouting; I vaguely saw a mass of people and I had no idea what this meant. The driver turned our carriage; and, the bodyguard surrounding us, we started back with great speed the way we had come.

“What is it?” I asked.

Madame Adelaide did not answer. She was frightened and she did not say a word as we raced back to Versailles.

The next day I learned what had happened. Some of the fireworks had exploded and started a fire; a fireman’s cart coming into the square met a crowd of people and carriages hurrying from the fire; another crowd was rushing into the square to see what was happening; nothing could move;

the congestion was complete. Forty thousand people were held up in the Rue Royale, the Rue de la Bonne-Morue and the Rue Saint-Florenrin.

There was a panic. Many people fell and were trampled on; carriages toppled over; horses tried to break free. People were climbing over the bodies of those who had fallen in a vain endeavour to escape, and many were trampled to death: There were terrible stories of that night.

Everyone was talking about the disaster. The Dauphin came into our bedchamber; he was deeply shocked and this made him seem older, more alive. He told me that one hundred and thirty-two people had been killed on the previous night.

I felt the tears in my eyes and he looked at me and did not turn away quickly as he always had before.

“It’s my fault,” I said.

“If I hadn’t come here it would not have happened.”

He continued to look at me.

“I must do what I can to help,” he said.

“Oh yes,” I answered fervently.

“Please do.”

He sat down at a table and began to write and I went and looked over his shoulder.

“I have learned of the disaster,” he wrote, and I noticed 78 how swiftly his pen glided over the paper, ‘which came to Paris on my account. I am deeply distressed and I send you the sum which the King gives me each month for my private expenses. It is all I have to give.

I want it to help those who have been most badly hurt. “

He lifted his eyes to my face and touched my hand—just for a moment.

“It is the least I can do,” he said.
I should like to give what I have,” I told him. He nodded and looked down at the table. I knew then that he did not really dislike me. There was some other reason why he neglected me.

The disaster was talked of long afterwards. It was another of those omens. There was the storm which had spoilt the wedding-day celebrations; the blot I had made when signing my name; and then this great calamity when the people of Paris had come in their thousands to celebrate the wedding and had met death and disaster.

Don’t meddle in politics or interfere in other people’s affairs. You must not take this disappointment too much to heart. Never be peevish. Be tender but by no means demanding. If you caress your husband, do so in moderation. If you show impatience you could make matters worse.

Listen to no secrets and have no curiosity. I am sorry to have to say.

Confide nothing—even to your aunts.

MARIA THERESA TO MARIE ANTOINETTE

To refrain from showing civility towards persons whom the King has chosen as members of his own circle is derogatory to that circle, and all persons must be regarded as members of it whom the monarch looks upon as his confidants, no one being entitled to ask whether he is right or wrong in doing so.

KAUNITZ TO MARIE ANTOINETTE

The dread and embarrassment you are showing about speaking to persons you are advised to speak to is both ridiculous and childish. What a storm about a quick word . , . you have allowed yourself to become enslaved and your duty can no longer persuade you.

MARIA THERESA TO MARIE ANTOINETTE

I trust you will be satisfied. You may be sure that I will always sacrifice my personal prejudices as long as nothing is asked of me which goes against my honour.

MARIE ANTOINETTE TO MARIA THERESA

The Battle of Words

Choisy’ “Madame, my very dear Mother, ” I cannot express how much I am affected by Your Majesty’s kindness and I assure you that I have not

yet 80 received one of your dear letters without tears of regret filling my eyes at being parted from such a kind mother;

and although I am very happy here, I should earnestly wish to return to see my dear, very dear, family, if only for a short time.

“We have been here since yesterday and from one o’clock in the afternoon, when we dine, until one in the morning we cannot return to our apartments, which is very disagreeable to me. After dinner we have cards till six; then we go to the play rill half past nine; then supper; then cards again until one o’clock, sometimes even half past one. Only yesterday the King, seeing that I was tired out, kindly dismissed me at eleven to my great satisfaction, and I slept very well rill half past ten.

“Your Majesty is very kind to show interest in me even to the extent of how I spend my rime habitually when at Versailles. I will say, therefore, that I rise at ten o’clock or nine, and after dressing, I say my prayers; then I breakfast, after which I go to my aunts’ where I usually meet the King. This lasts rill half past ten. At eleven I go to have my hair dressed. At noon the Chambre is called and anyone of sufficient rank may come in. I put on my rouge and wash my hands before everyone; then the gentlemen go out; the ladies stay and I dress before them all. At twelve is Mass; and when the King is at Versailles I go to Mass with him and my husband and the aunts;

if he is not there I go with Monsieur Ie Dauphin, but always at the same hour. After Mass we dine together but it is over by half past one, as we both eat quickly. I then go to Monsieur Ie Dauphin. If he is busy, I return to my own apartments where I read, write or work, for I am embroidering a vest for the King, which does not get on very quickly, but I trust that, with God’s help, it will be finished in a few years. At three I go to my aunts’ where the King usually comes at that rime. At four the Abbe comes to me; at five the master for the harpsichord, or the singing master rill six. You must know that my

husband frequently comes with me to the aunts’. 81 At seven, card playing rill nine; and when the weather is fine I go out, and then the card playing takes place in my aunts’ apartment instead of mine. At nine, supper;

when the King is absent my aunts come to take supper with us; if the King is there we go to them after supper, and we wait for the King who usually comes at a quarter to eleven; but I lie on a sofa and sleep till his arrival; when he is not expected we go to bed at eleven. Such is my day. I entreat you, my dear Mother, to forgive me if this letter is too long; but my greatest pleasure is to be thus in communication with Your Majesty. 1 ask pardon also for this blotted letter, I have had to write two days running at my toilet, having no other time at my disposal;

and if I do not answer all the questions exactly, I trust Your Majesty will make allowances for my having too obediently burned your letter.

I must finish this, as I have to dress and go to the King’s Mass. I have the honour to be Your Majesty’s most submissive daughter, “Marie Antoinette.” This letter, which I wrote from Choisy, one of the royal palaces which we visited now and then, gives a picture of the monotony of my days at this time. I had thought that life in France would be exciting, full of novelty, and I found it more dull than it had ever been at Schonbrunn.

During those first months of my life at the French Court, I was often sick with longing for home and for my mother, although, when I received her letters I would shiver with apprehension, wondering what they contained. I did not then realise the extent to which Mercy was observing the intimate details of my life. He had always appeared to be a stem old statesman and the fact that he would be interested in what a young girl wore or how many times she laughed with a certain servant seemed incongruous. That was where I was so foolish. I had scarcely changed from the child who had romped in the gardens of Schonbrunn with her dogs; I was as inconsequential, as unaware. I did not realise then to my misfortune that the Dauphine of France, who would one day be Queen, was not so much a girl or woman as a symbol.

War and peace could hang 82 on her actions; her follies could make a throne tremble;

When I wrote to my mother and asked how she knew so much of my silly little actions she replied that ‘a little bird told me’; and she never mentioned that the little bird was Mercy. I should have known, of course. But at least Mercy was my friend, although an uncomfortable one; and I should have been grateful to him.

During that time there was of course one great matter which overshadowed my life: the unusual relationship between myself and my husband. I knew that everyone at Court was talking about it some gravely, but most with sniggering amusement. Provence, whom I could never like although his conduct was extremely correct, was pleased, I knew, because he was not the eldest, and believed and many agreed with him that he would have made a better Dauphin than my husband Louis.

Artois was gay and amusing, very flirtatious, constantly gazing at me with a wistful expression behind which mischief lurked. Mercy was always dropping hints that I should be wary of Artois. Then there were the aunts, throwing out a hundred suggestions, always trying to discover what was happening between “Poor Berry’ and myself.

But when my mother wrote that perhaps it was best that things were as they were because we ‘were both so young,” I felt I could put the matter out of my mind for a while and try to enjoy life as well as I could.

There was one man who was my friend at Court and this was the Due de Choiseul. He was eager that my marriage should be a success, because he had arranged it. It was my misfortune that I should have come to France when his power was on the wane, for he would have been as helpful to me as Mercy was and far more powerful since he was the King’s chief minister. He was rather an ugly man, but it was a charming ugliness; he was fascinating and I was fond of him from the moment we met. My mother had told me that I could trust him because he was a friend of Austria, and that drew me to him. But he was in disgrace.

Mademoiselle Genet told me that he had made friends with Madame de

Pompadour to their mutual advantage, 83 but had underrated the power of Madame du Barry, and that was one of the reasons why he fell.

Although I had at first found Madame du Barry fascinating, I now childishly loathed her because the King had allowed her to come to that first intimate supper, and, according to Mercy, that was an insult to me. I wrote to my mother, “She is a silly and impertinent woman,” believing that, knowing her function at Court, my mother would consider my attitude towards the woman the correct one.

“Don’t meddle in politics or interfere in other people’s affairs,” was my mother’s reply, but I did not realise she was referring to Madame du Barry, and like so many other important matters it went right over my head. I did not want to meddle in politics. It was as much as I could manage, to do my lessons. I wanted to enjoy my life. I wanted to see Paris but I was not allowed to until I did so officially, and that was a matter which had to be considered in all sorts of ways before it could be put into action.

“Etiquette 1’ I groaned.

“At least,” I said to Mercy, “I could have two of my dogs brought from Vienna.”

“You already have two dogs,” he answered sternly.

“Yes, I know, but I love them and they’ll be pining for me in Vienna.

Little Mops will, I know. Please ask them to send him. “

He wanted to refuse but could not very well go so blatantly against my wishes. I had my four dogs. When puppies arrived I should have more and I would not be parted from them, although Mercy was hinting at unclean habits which would be frowned on in the elaborate Versailles apartments.

During those first weeks the Due de Choiseui visited me frequently and he too told me how I should behave to the King.

“Be earnest and natural,” he said, ‘and not too childish, although His Majesty does not expect you to have a knowledge of politics. “

I said I was glad of that and told him of my dislike of Madame du Barry.

“I cannot bear to hear her silly lisp, and she seems to think she is the most important lady of the Court. I always look straight through her when I see her as though she does not exist. Yet she always looks hopefully my way as though she is imploring me to speak to her.”

Monsieur de Choiseui laughed and said that naturally she wanted a show of friendship from the Dauphine.

“She will not get it,” I retorted, and since this was exactly what Monsieur de Choiseui wanted me to say I made up my mind that I would keep to it.

Dear Monsieur de Choiseui! He was so charming and at the same time so sincere . where I was concerned. I am sure that if he could have stayed near me I should have been saved from many follies.

When I arrived in France the odious du Barry had already become the centre of a party which called itself the Bar-riens, and in this were some of the most powerful ministers, such as the Due d’Aiguillon, the Due de Vauguyon and the Due de Richelieu—and these men were all enemies of Choiseui and sought to bring him down. This they were managing very successfully, blaming him for the disaster of the Seven Years War—which had broken out the year I was born and in which my country was involved—and the loss of the French Colonies to England.

He was blamed for everything; and I understood afterwards that the Austrian marriage was a plan of his to attempt to reinstate himself.

He must have been a very worried man when I met him, but he gave no sign of this; he was one of the gayest people I had ever met.

It was a great blow to me when he received his lettre de cachet from the King banishing him to his chateau at Chanteloup. It happened suddenly—on Christmas Eve. He simply disappeared and I could not believe he had gone. It was sad to lose a friend, and at the same time it alarmed me that such a fate could befall someone so rapidly. I was particularly hurt by Mercy’s attitude towards the Due.