‘Nonsense, fit only for the inspectors’ weekly report! None of it means a thing. Turgot has given himself a stick to be beaten with. He can’t complain now and blame everyone else.’
‘So you don’t see any indication of unrest or danger in it?’
‘Get a grip on yourself, Nicolas. I fear that, out of a legitimate concern for the safety of the State and the King, you have spent too long suspecting everyone and everything. There is no reason for you to feel ashamed, it’s what we expect of you and why you are under my authority.’
If any proof had been needed that Sartine, as all Paris claimed, was still running the police through his accomplice, Monsieur Lenoir, this remark would have been enough to convince the most sceptical.
‘Then what about that attempt on my life, which was clearly linked to Abbé Georgel’s schemes?’
‘It continued with the attack on Lastire. Think about it, my friend! The Austrians felt they had been provoked, and were taking their revenge. Not our friend Kaunitz, who’s much too sensible. Perhaps the Emperor and the authorities in Vienna, who weren’t fooled by the supposed object of the Marquis de Ranreuil’s mission.’
So the Chevalier had been attacked, which explained the bandage.
‘Nevertheless, Monseigneur—’
‘No, Nicolas! And you’d do well to avoid corpses pursuing you even into our friend Noblecourt’s house …’
He really did know everything before anyone else! Now that Monsieur de Saint-Florentin, the Duc de La Vrillière, Minister of the King’s Household, was ailing and in disgrace, Sartine had rediscovered his taste for police work while standing in for Monsieur Lenoir during his illness.
‘… You persist in scattering dead bodies beneath your feet before delivering them still warm to the indecent experiments of your surgeon friend and the public executioner!’
It was an old refrain of Sartine’s. Time for Nicolas to change the subject.
‘For someone like myself, Monseigneur, who left France two months ago, the anxiety and unrest among the people is very noticeable. Paris seems to be in a fever. Yet no orders have been given …’
‘Monsieur Turgot has been battering us with his innovations. There are moments when taking action would be weakness and would give the enemy the opportunity to strike. Let’s not yield to panic. That would merely lead to the clumsiest and most ill-considered of reactions. Monsieur Turgot wants the State to change its old habits. Well, we shall see which of the two wins out in the long run, Monsieur Turgot or reality.’
‘But—’
‘No buts, our young rebel. Go to see Their Majesties and receive the praise your mission has earned you. Then go back to Paris and study your mysterious death. Let’s hope it’s not a murder! A master baker, with all that’s going on!’
‘Nevertheless, there is violence in the provinces. I myself—’
‘That’s enough. You’re starting to annoy me. Tell it to Turgot. He’s the one who’s got us into this predicament.’
And Monsieur de Sartine went back to contemplating the new addition to his collection.
Once again, Nicolas left the minister’s study with a sense of helplessness. Knowing from experience that one should never answer an unasked question or raise a delicate matter that has not so far been raised, he had abstained from pointing out that Monsieur Lenoir had ordered him to follow the development of the unrest over the price of bread and the free circulation of grain. It was Monsieur Lenoir he had to obey. What would Monsieur de Sartine have said in the old days if he had taken his instructions from the Minister for the Navy? Basically, what Sartine had said was not so very different from what Vergennes had said. But although the latter’s attitude was understandable, given his diplomatic concerns, Sartine’s seemed wrapped in pretence and prevarication. That was confirmed by his vicious tone when it came to the comptroller general, which left no doubt as to his feelings: Monsieur Turgot’s announced reforms deserved the sternest censure. Regretfully, Nicolas, without himself forming an opinion on a matter he had not thought about, suspected a factional stand. It seemed that Sartine, liberated by the death of the late King, had gone back to his old friendships and inclinations. There was also no doubt that, as Minister for the Navy, he felt a long-lasting acrimony towards a comptroller general with whom conflict was inevitable. The department Sartine was running was a constant drain on resources and prone to increasing the treasury’s deficit. In addition, the Duc de La Vrillière’s decline had led him to hope that, with the Queen’s overt support, he would obtain the post of Minister of the King’s Household. Everyone was convinced that he would be much more comfortable there than in a department where he still had everything to learn.
The fact remained that this refusal to consider the urgency of the current situation, this ironic flippancy about the coming dangers, left a bitter taste in Nicolas’s mouth. There was a strong risk that opportunities would be lost. He had known other times when the glory or downfall of the throne had been in the balance. He had come to wish for a monarchy freed from private contingencies, a monarchy which would express the general interest. In a vague way, being used to service, and having always tried to avoid anything that might make his certainties waver, he placed this hope in the young King. He clung more than ever to the kind of loyalty he had learnt about from the tales of chivalry he had once read by candlelight in Guérande. But he could not help feeling a pang when he realised that Sartine, who knew everything, clearly knew nothing about the fate of Louis, or he would surely have mentioned it.
Notes
1. See The Nicolas Le Floch Affair.
2. The image is borrowed from the writer Louis-Antoine Caraccioli (1721–1803).
3. A melody by Albinoni: the reader may recall that Monsieur de Sartine owned a musical wig library.
4. Giulio Alberoni (1664–1752): Italian cardinal and prime minister to Philip V of Spain.
VI
A TWENTY-YEAR-OLD KING
Royal authority is only ever shaken by the instruments
it believed were intended to strengthen it.
D’ARGENSON
Luck had smiled on him. As he was walking, lost in thought, in the Hall of Mirrors, trying to find a way of gaining access to the Queen, he came across the Empress’s ambassador to Versailles. Hardly a day went by that Monsieur de Mercy-Argenteau did not appear at Court with his friend the Abbé de Vermond, the Queen’s reader, for a private visit. The ambassador immediately poured out a stream of compliments on the success of a journey of which he seemed to know every detail. Having asked Nicolas why he was here, he offered to conduct him into the Queen’s presence. He took him by the arm and led him to the royal apartments. As he did so, he continued his comments, for it was in his nature to overwhelm his interlocutor with words, out of the midst of which a specific, insidious question occasionally emerged.
‘My dear Marquis, there has been much talk here about your Viennese triumphs. I wager – and I’m sure you’ll confirm this – that Monsieur de Breteuil was pleased to have crowned his debut with the arrival of an envoy such as yourself. It can certainly be called an unqualified success. And what did Kaunitz say?’
His head spinning from Mercy-Argenteau’s superfluous eloquence and florid style, Nicolas answered his increasingly insistent questions as simply as he could. The ambassador continued with his extravagant praise until they reached the Queen’s antechambers, where an usher placed them in the hands of one of the ladies-in-waiting, who in turn admitted them to the small rooms behind the Queen’s bedchamber. These almost bourgeois audiences never failed to surprise those less familiar with Court customs. It was well known that the Queen was weary of the ceremony of the levee, which she considered an imposition. She was gradually abolishing this slavery: once she had done her hair, she would wave goodbye to the audience in her ceremonial chamber then, followed by her servants, disappear into her private rooms. There, she would meet close friends, or sometimes Mademoiselle Bertin, the rising star among dressmakers, who had been
introduced into the Queen’s entourage at Marly by the Duchesse de Chartres soon after the death of Louis XV. For now, only the Abbé de Vermond was present, reading aloud from Anquetil’s Histoire de France. The Queen, who had been pensive and bored, was unable now to conceal her joy on seeing the visitors.
‘My friends,’ she cried, ‘come and distract me from this dear abbé, who is saddening me with stories of wars and treaties! My rider from Compiègne! It took you a long time to return …’
It seemed that many people had missed him, except, he thought bitterly, those of whom he was fondest. He immediately excepted the Noblecourt household from this observation.
‘… How is my dear mamma?’
‘Your Majesty can rest assured that she is in excellent health, as far as I was able to judge, having had the honour of spending more than an hour in her presence.’
She put her hands together in a somewhat forced expression of delight. ‘Did she ask many questions about her daughter?’
‘The Empress thinks of nothing but the Queen’s happiness.’
‘I am sure that is so.’ She threw Monsieur de Mercy a slightly provocative glance. ‘I hope she was not too grandig?’1
Nicolas was convinced that the ambassador knew every detail of his interview with Maria Theresa. Had he informed the Queen? In broad outline, certainly. He looked at Marie Antoinette’s hair, which was so high that you were obliged to look up to see the top of it. Her mother’s fears on the subject were well founded. He had heard that one of the reasons for no longer dressing in public was that it was now necessary to step into your clothes rather than putting them on over your head, an exercise that could not decently be carried out in public. He realised that the Queen was waiting for an answer. He surmised the meaning of the German word.
‘Her Imperial Majesty showed me the most sustained kindness, and did me the honour of making me her messenger to my Queen.’
She tilted her head and gave him a charming smile. Half bowed, he handed over the package and the letter. She looked at her mother’s message with a kind of anxious circumspection, offering an image of indecision as if she feared an expected and much dreaded admonishment. After a moment, she threw the letter on the mantelshelf behind her and opened the package with little sighs of impatience. She gazed at the medallion, then, in a somewhat theatrical gesture, lifted it to her lips. A surreptitious glance in the direction of Mercy caught Nicolas’s eye: it seemed to him that she was much more concerned with what the ambassador would report than with the spontaneous expression of filial affection.
‘How grateful I am to you, Marquis, for being my dear mamma’s messenger. She has declared herself well pleased with your visit, as the ambassador has been telling me. How did you find Vienna?’
‘As Your Majesty knows, it was my first visit to the city of the Caesars. Its splendour and riches are a constant marvel to the traveller, as are the embellishments wrought by your mother. I also had the privilege of attending the first performance of Haydn’s oratorio The Return of Tobias, at the Kärntnertor theatre … and I dined at the Prater and drank Nussberger like a true Viennese!’
The Queen laughed and clapped her hands. A young lady she might be, but she was still a child at heart.
‘I thought of you a few days ago …’
Nicolas bowed.
‘… when my brother-in-law introduced an engineer who builds automata. One of them actually drew my portrait. Isn’t that remarkable? How is it done? Perhaps like the ones Monsieur de Vaucanson2 showed us—’
Nicolas raised a finger to his lips.
‘Oh, yes, of course, that’s a secret between us.’
The glances exchanged by Mercy and Vermond did not escape the Queen’s attention.
‘Yes, that’s right! The marquis and I, gentlemen, have our secrets. I hope my mother did not overwhelm you with too many questions on my clothes?’
‘I impressed on Her Imperial Majesty that it was the Queen’s duty to be the arbiter of elegance, the ideal on whom the French model their taste.’
The Queen nodded and looked insistently at Mercy. ‘Now that’s the sort of thing you should be telling my mother. Marquis, I should not like to be deprived of your presence again for too long.’
Realising that the interview had come to an end, Nicolas bowed and withdrew backwards. Once in the antechamber, he felt pleased to have navigated his craft so skilfully in the presence of such treacherous witnesses. Inwardly, he found himself slightly ridiculous, and yet, in using such courtly language, he was merely being polite and not sacrificing the truth. There still remained between the Queen and himself the memory of their first encounter in the forest of Compiègne, an encounter full of surprise and laughter. She was still at heart a shy but impish adolescent girl who recognised him as the young man he had been then. As he descended the stairs, a hand came to rest on his shoulder. It was the Abbé de Vermond.
‘Monsieur, I should like to assure you that I am at your service. I am an old friend of Monsieur de Breteuil’s. He has written to me in praise of you. Until we meet again!’
And with that, he went back upstairs. What a strange place the Court was, a country with tortuous roads. Apart from the successive strata of names, titles, positions and honours, there was also another hierarchy of hidden powers, family relationships, secret friendships and unofficial influences. These clans and groups, held together by subtle links, plotted their ascendancy, promoted their followers and spun their webs. It was the confrontation between these various influences that determined the balance of power, that balance that caused some to falter and others to rise. Nicolas recalled that the Abbé de Vermond was still friendly with, and indebted to, Choiseul, as were, for different reasons, Breteuil and Sartine. There was no reason to suppose that the snub-nosed former minister, a man of great arrogance, had in any way given up on the idea of returning to office: on the contrary, he seemed to be motivating his troops to organise themselves, extend their sway and recruit new members. You were of little account in this country if you did not belong to one of the opposing factions. Ignoring the risks he ran, Nicolas had only one allegiance, and that was to the King. That others might think he inclined towards their cause was a matter of indifference to him. In this particular case, he knew that the Queen, either out of gratitude to the man who had brought about her marriage or out of a spirit of intrigue, was determined to do everything she could to favour the return of the former minister. There was nothing to suggest that this fiercely held desire corresponded to the wishes of the Empress and Emperor in Vienna. In fact, it was quite likely that they were less inclined than she was to desire the return of a man whose career was considered to have run its course and whose whims no longer suited the present situation.
Wishing to ponder all these things, Nicolas entered the grounds, where he finally sat down at the edge of the Swiss Lake. There he stayed for many hours, until the cold of evening drove him from his refuge. The sun was setting on a landscape still numbed by the excessively long, rough winter. The dark blue-green waters of the Grand Canal appeared devoid of life. It suddenly struck him that one day Versailles, like Athens and Rome, would be reduced to fields of ruins, a vast, nostalgic remnant of faded grandeur.
Fortunately, the need to act always provided the impulse that saved him from melancholy. He walked back to the great stables and retrieved his horse, which was now rested, rubbed down and fed. He rewarded the groom for his skilful care. Picking up that morning’s conversation where they had left off, the groom told him the latest news. Things were getting worse. Apparently, the château of the Duchesse de La Rochefoucauld at La Roche-Guyon had been overrun. That great family were known to own most of the flour mills in the Paris area, a monopoly which had already marked them out as being part of the supposed famine pact. An angry mob of about two or three thousand men were said to have threatened the noble lady, leaving her almost overcome with terror. The same mob had later looted a boat transporting wheat whose path they crossed. The plan had then been fo
rmed to proceed to Versailles, the thinking being that their sheer numbers would impress everyone, the local people would join them, and they would force bread to be sold at two sols a pound. The latest rumour was that the Saint-Germain market had been sacked during the day. At seven o’clock, Nicolas found himself sitting at table with the Chevalier de Lastire in front of a roast lamb and a dish of new beans.
‘I have an extraordinary adventure to tell you about,’ Lastire began. ‘After leaving Vienna, the first part of my journey passed without incident—’
‘I’m sorry to interrupt you,’ said Nicolas, ‘but have I understood correctly? You left a month before us, and yet you’ve arrived almost at the same time.’
‘That’s true, alas, and with good reason! Carefree as things were originally, they soon turned into a nightmare. I made good progress at first. It was bitterly cold but at least the ground was hard, even though it treacherously concealed a few deadly patches of black ice. I must confess I prefer that to the muddy potholes we encountered on our outward journey. I was as cautious as I could be, sometimes taking back roads and only approaching a town when I had to change horses. In fact, my route was an extremely tortuous one, convinced as I was that my hurried departure had immediately been reported to the Austrian agencies and that they would try to stop me and check my papers, and perhaps slow me down. It was just as well that I did proceed that way, for in the early stages, everything went as planned. Things became more complicated when I reached the borders of the hereditary States. I found myself in a kind of funnel where roadblocks and patrols were commonplace. Twice, I was almost stopped, and I was only saved by the speed of my horse. The necessity of halting at the staging posts forced me back onto the main roads. In addition, the weather had turned stormy again …’
‘But you managed to escape all these snares and—’
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