The Queen`s Confession (35 page)

I caught sight of Annand standing at the door scowling ? r us and I

smiled at him but he dropped his eyes. And as 260 I passed him I ruffled his hair. He was no longer as pre ny as he had once been; but perhaps I was comparing him with my own little ones.

The tocsins rang for three days and nights. When I awoke I heard them and the realisation of my great joy would come flooding over me. A two-day holiday was declared through out Paris. Wine flowed freely in the streets; buffets of meat were set up; and people wore garlands of artificial flowers about their necks and called to each other “Long live the Dauphin!” as a kind of greeting.

Festival followed festival. Each of the guilds sent representatives to Versailles; and for nine days the ceremonies continued. The whole Court assembled to receive them and there was great hilarity when the sedan-chairmen’s guild sent a chair with a model of a wet-nurse and a Dauphin seated in it. The nurse was a copy of the one we had engaged who had been speedily nicknamed Madame Poitrine. The chimney sweeps brought a model of a chimney on which small chimney-sweeps sat and sang praises of the new-born heir to the throne; the tailors brought a miniature uniform, the blacksmiths an anvil on which they played a tune. The market women put on their black silk dresses, which they kept for years and brought out only on the most auspicious occasions, and sang praises of me and my little son. But the most unusual of all were the locksmiths, who felt they had a special affinity with the King because of his interest in their profession. They brought a huge lock, which they presented to the King, and their leader asked if His Majesty would care to try to unlock it. To do so was the task of a true locksmith, and if the King would prefer one of then-band to demonstrate he had but to command, but knowing His Majesty’s skill. and so on. The King, thus challenged, determined to have a try, and amid great applause he very quickly succeeded. And as he turned the lock, from it sprang a steel -figure which was seen to be a marvellously-wrought tiny Dauphin.

The celebrations continued. When I rode out into the streets of Paris the people cheered me.

I believed my indiscretions and follies of the past were 261 forgotten because I had given this country what it wanted:

an heir, a little Dauphin.

Looking back I think I reached the peak of my contentment then. The King shared my emotions. Almost every sentence he uttered contained the word ‘my son’ . or ‘the Dauphin. ” All the servants adored him;

people would wait for hours for a glimpse of him. He was a wonderful baby, a beautiful contented child—the centre of our lives. Louis went about giving his hand to everyone, listening avidly to their conversation—about the Dauphin, of course; tears came into his eyes every time the child was referred to-so, as can be imagined, he was constantly in tears. Elisabeth told me that at the baptism—she was his godmother—the King had been unable to take his eyes from the child.

Madame Poitrine was an important person in our lives. The name fitted her; she was enormous and the doctors agreed that her milk was excellent. She was the wife of one of the gardeners and she regarded the Dauphin as her own, and as he was the most important person in the palace, she took second place. She shouted like a grenadier; she swore often;

but her placidity was remarkable: neither my presence nor that of the King ruffled her in the least. She would say:

“You can’t touch him now. I’ve just got him off. I won’t have him disturbed.” Which amused us and made us laugh and be very content, for we knew how she cared for our baby. She accepted the clothes we gave her, the laces and fine linen, with a shrug, but absolutely refused to use rouge or powder on her hair. She just did not hold with all that, she said, and she couldn’t see what good it would do her baby.

Long after, Elisabeth showed me a letter which at the time she had received from a friend, Madame de Bombelles. It brought those days back so clearly and we both wept over the paper.

I saw our little Dauphin this morning. He is very well, and lovely as an angel. The people’s enthusiasm continues the same. In the streets one meets nothing but fiddles, singing and dancing. I call that

touching, and in fact I know no more amiable nation than ours 262 Oh yes, they were happy then, and pleased with us. Why did it not remain so?

I look back over the last years and I try to see where all the tragedies could have been prevented. There must have been a way of stopping them.

Ever since I had been Queen I had had periodic visits from the two very clever Court jewellers Boehmer and Has-senge. Madame du Barry had admired their work. Perhaps it was because of this that they had made a fantastic necklace which they had hoped to sell to her. They had collected the finest stones in Europe, sinking their capital in this project. Unfortunately for them Louis XV died before it could be offered, and then there was, of course, no hope of Madame du Barry’s having it.

They were in despair and their first thought was of me. When they showed it to me I was dazzled at the sight of all those magnificent stones, but secretly I thought the necklace, which was rather like a slave-collar, a little vulgar. It was not the great temptation the jewellers had thought it would be, and perhaps the knowledge that it had been made with Madame du Barry in mind did not attract me either.

The jewellers were astounded and horrified. They had thought I should be enchanted and find some means to get it, knowing my passion for diamonds.

They showed the necklace to the King, who called me to look at it.

“You like it?” asked my husband.

I was in one of my penitent moods at the time, having been severely reprimanded by my mother for extravagance, and I said that I thought we had more need of a ship than a diamond necklace.

The King agreed with me, but like the jewellers he was surprised. They pleaded. They must sell the necklace and they had hoped that I would have it. But I was firm; I was not going to incur the expense and my mother’s anger—for she would surely hear of the purchase—for something I did not very much like.

The King told me that if I wanted the necklace he would 263 empty his privy purse of everything he possessed to please me.

I laughed and thanked him. He was so good, I told him, but I had enough diamonds. 1,600,000 francs for an ornament that would only be worn four or five times a year. It was ridiculous.

I forgot all about the necklace, and then several years later when I was with my little daughter Boehmer called and asked if he might see me.

Thinking he had some small trinket to show me which my daughter might like to see I said he should be admitted. As soon as he came in I saw how distressed he was, for he flung himself on his knees and burst into tears.

“Madame,” he cried, “I shall be ruined if you do not buy my necklace.”

“That necklace!” I cried.

“I thought we had heard the last of it.”

“I am on the verge of ruin, Madame. If you do not buy my necklace I shall throw myself into the river.”

My daughter moved closer to me, gripping my skirts, she was staring in horror at the hysterical man.

“Get up, Boehmer,” I said.

“I do not like such behaviour. Honest people do not have to beg on their knees. I shall be sorry if you kill yourself, but I shall in no way be responsible for your death. I did not order the necklace and I have always told you that I do not want it. Please do not speak to me of it again. Try to break it up and sell the stones instead of talking of drowning yourself. I am displeased that you should make such a scene in my presence and that of my daughter. Please do not let this happen again, and now go.”

He went, and after that I avoided him. I heard, though, that he was still desperately trying to sell the necklace, and I asked Madame Campan to find out how he was succeeding, for I was sorry for the man.

Madame Campan one day told me that die necklace had been sold to the Sultan of Constantinople for his favourite wife.

I sighed with relief.

“How glad I am that now we shall have heard the last of that vulgar necklace.”

I was spending more and more time at the Petit Trianon. My theatre was now completed and I was longing to put on some plays. I had formed my troupe, which consisted of Elisabeth, Artois and some of his friends, the Polignacs and theirs.

My sister-in-law Marie Josephe refused to join us, saying it was beneath her dignity to act on a stage.

“But if the Queen of France can act, surely you can too.”

1 may not be the Queen,” she replied, ‘but’I am the stuff of which they are made.”

That made me laugh, but she refused to join us; so she was always a member of the audience instead. Monsieur Cam-pan was of great help as prompter and part-producer, the role he had occupied in those days when we had played secretly in the room at Versailles. This was different. This was a real theatre. I threw myself into acting with a wild enthusiasm; we did several plays and comic operas. I remember the names of some of them: L’Anglais a Bordeaux, Le Sorcier, Rose et Colas. In Le Sabot Perdu, I had the part of Babet, who is kissed on the stage by her lover; Artois played the lover, and this was talked of and written of as something like an orgy.

The people seemed to have forgotten the devotion they had shown me at the time of the Dauphin’s birth. Pamphlets were coming out at an alarming rate and I was always the central figure portrayed. I could not understand why they should have chosen me. I believed it was because I was not French. The French had hated Catherine de Medici, not because of her evil reputation but because she was not French.

They had called her the Italian Woman;

now I was the Austrian Woman.

Les Amours de Chariot et “Toinette was a popular little book which was supposed to be an account of my relationship with the Comte d’Aitois, with whom, ever since I had come to France, my name had been coupled.

One day the King found a booklet called Vie Privee 265 Antoinette in his private apartments which showed that I had enemies inside the palace, for one of them must have placed it there.

I refused to read them. They were so absurd, I said. Anyone who knew me would simply laugh at them. I did not realise that my enemies were building up a public image of me, and that was the woman so many people believed me to be.

There was one pamphlet which was supposed to have been written by me, for it was in the first person. This seemed sillier than any, for it was ridiculous to imagine that if I were guilty of all the crimes they attributed to me I should have made a confession and allowed it to be printed and circulated.

“Catherine de Medici, Cleopatra, Agrippina, Messalina, my crimes surpass yours, and if the memory of your infamous deeds still causes people to shudder, what emotions could be aroused by an account of the cruel and lascivious Marie Antoinette of Austria…. A barbarous Queen, an adulterous spouse, soiled with crimes and debaucheries… “

When I saw this I laughed and tore it up. No one would take it seriously. But this infamous document called Essai Historique sur la Vie de Marie Antoinette was sold’re printed again and again, and is in circulation at the time I am writing.

Why did I not understand that there were people who were determined to believe these things of me? The only way I could have shown them up as the ridiculous lies they were was by living a quiet and thrifty life.

And what did I do? I retired in disgust to the Petit Trianon. It was my little world. Even the King could only come there at my invitation. He respected this and gravely waited to be invited. He enjoyed those visits, for to him, grappling with state affairs, it was indeed a boon to escape from ceremonies and tiring interviews with statesmen.

When we were not acting plays we played childish games. The favourite game was called Descampativos, which had derived from blind man’s buff.

One of the players was sent out of the room, and when he or she bad left, the rest of us would cover ourselves completely with sheets. Then the one who was outside would be called in; in turn we would touch him and he would have to guess who we were. The great point about this game was die forfeits which had to be paid, and these became wilder and wilder. Everything we did was exaggerated; the simplest pleasure was described as a Roman bacchanalia. Another game was tire en jam be in which we all mounted sticks and fought each other. This gave rise to a lot of horse-play, and although the King liked to wrestle and play rough games he had little liking for this.

My garden occupied a great deal of my time. I was constantly planning and replanning. I said I wanted it to look as little like Versailles as possible. I wanted a natural garden. Oddly enough it seemed more costly to create that than the symmetrical lawns and fountains which Louis XIV had made so popular. I had plants brought from all over the world; hundreds of gardeners were employed to produce a natural landscape. I wanted a brook running through a meadow, but there was no spring from which the water could be obtained.

“You cannot obtain water!” I cried.

“But that is ridiculous.” And water had to be piped and brought from Marley. Some comments were that it was gold not water that filled the charming little stream at the Trianon. Rustic bridges were built over the stream; there was a pond and an island;

and all these had to be created as though nature had put them there.

The price of all this was staggering, only I never considered it. I would yawn as I looked at the amounts; I was never quite sure of the number of noughts; but I was constantly thinking of how I could improve my little world, and it occurred to me that I should create a village, for no rustic scene was complete without people. There should be cottages, I decided, eight of them: little farms with real people and real animals. I summoned Monsieur Mique, one of the most famous of our architects, and told him what I planned. He was enchanted with the idea. Then I asked the artist

Monsieur Hubert Robert to work with Mique. They must build for me eight little farmhouses, with thatched roofs and even dung-heaps. They must be charming but natural.