by Juliet Grey
As Minister of Finance, Anne-Robert Jacques Turgot, the baron de Laune, had also urged fiscal restraint in the coronation expenditures, reminding His Majesty that he would also be expected to host a grand fête in honor of the child of the comte and comtesse d’Artois, who was due to be born in August.
The homely little comtesse’s flaunting of her fertility, which I found to be exceptionally distasteful, was the subject of our discourse one afternoon as I strolled with the comtesse de Polignac about the Neptune fountain. Displaying a deep décolletée enhanced by a purple ribbon about her slender neck, Gabrielle wore a new robe à la française of the latest hue, a shade of gold with undertones of apricot called Cheveux de la Reine, named for the color of my hair. I had purchased it for her, feeling ashamed on her behalf for the shoddy condition of the chartreuse gown she had worn to my ball in honor of the Rites of Spring.
Gabrielle had been so grateful for the gift that she nearly burst into tears. Was it not honor enough that I had found an apartment at Versailles for her family? Never had someone been so kind, so generous, she insisted. But when she made a point of showing me her other gowns, and her linen, I was mortified to hear her confirm the rumor that the comte de Polignac did not give her a proper allowance, compelling her to make do at the most elegant court in the world with petticoats that were worn and frayed, silk stockings that were threadbare at the heels, and dresses with trimmings that were faded and woefully out of date. Gabrielle’s children, too—seven-year-old Agläié, who had her mother’s beautiful eyes; and her brother Armand, only four, practically resembled ragamuffins I’d seen begging for bread crusts near the Palais Royal. So I commissioned Rose Bertin to create a full wardrobe for my new friend. I also permitted the comtesse to have the first selection of my own discarded gloves and shoes, for it was a perquisite of my attendants to claim them after I had worn the accessories a requisite number of times, either to make use of the accoutrements themselves, or to sell them if they needed the money. The comtesse de Polignac clearly required both. Her son and daughter I would look after as if they were my own. Agläié had just lost her two front teeth; there was nothing I wouldn’t have done to see her smile.
A gentle breeze riffled the edges of our parasols and I tilted mine toward the sun to deflect its glancing rays. I slipped my arm through Gabrielle’s and gazed toward the honey-colored wing of the château where my in-laws resided. “As the most junior member of the family, Marie Thérèse should be far more deferential to me, and most certainly to the king. Why her newborn should deserve any great honors beyond its baptism is lost on me.” A great pageant for Louis’s future niece or nephew only served to emphasize my lack of fecundity and his failure in the boudoir.
Before the comtesse de Polignac could offer her reply, we heard a great commotion coming from the direction of the Ministers’ Courtyard. A trio of footmen clad in the red and blue Bourbon livery dashed across the wide gravel parterre, descending the broad stone steps two at a time, shouting breathlessly, long before they were able to reach us. “Votre Majesté, madame la comtesse, you must come indoors immediately—His Majesty’s orders.”
Clutching yards of silk, we hitched up our skirts and raced to meet them. The men’s faces, though damasked with exertion, were clearly alarmed. “What is going on?” I demanded.
The reply came in a series of halting gasps. “Rioters, Your Majesty. Eight thousand strong. Marching from Saint-Germain. They managed to force the gates and press into the courtyard.”
There had been bread riots in the village of Saint-Germain the previous day. Louis had told me about it. But he had also assured me there was no cause for alarm, for the disturbances had been sparked by false rumors of shortages.
Another footman, Denis, took up the story, as the three of them swiftly ushered us toward the palace. “They came here looking for bread, and finding the marketplace of Versailles shut, pillaged it. The stalls, the wagons, the sacks; everything was smashed, slashed, and torn to bits. The merchants will have nothing to return to on the morrow.”
“And the king?” I asked anxiously. Eight thousand angry, hungry souls. Enough to fill the Paris Opéra several times over. Blaming my husband, a twenty-year-old man, for nature’s uneven bounty. A sour taste spread from my stomach into the back of my throat and I quickened my step.
“The protesters are demanding that he step onto the balcony and speak to them,” said Denis.
Gabrielle clutched my arm as I faltered and stumbled, restoring me to stability. My foot had come out of my shoe and she knelt and slipped it back on for me. “Steady, ma chère amie,” she said, rising, “you have the strength to surmount this ordeal.” I withdrew a cambric handkerchief from my bodice with my cipher worked in white thread and pressed it to my nostrils, inhaling the calming scent of lavender. “I will stand beside him,” I insisted, as we pressed on.
Once inside, the comtesse de Polignac and I found ourselves surrounded by a flurry of frightened attendants, concerned as much for my safety as for their own, and none more so than poor gentle Lamballe. Her countenance was as pale as her hair. “I tremble for you,” she murmured, taking my arm.
“I must see the king!” I declared.
“He is in the Salon de Mars, Majesté,” replied Lamballe. I glided quickly toward the room where Louis held court; its walls of bloodred damask and dais draped in an ermine mantle embroidered with golden fleurs-de-lis provided a stark contrast to their beleaguered embodiment of authority. The king was slumped on the throne, his elbows resting on his knees, his large head buried in his hands. “I don’t know what to do,” he muttered.
I knelt beside him and placed my hands in his lap. “Where are Turgot and Maurepas?”
“Gone to Paris. To quell the disturbances there. We are all alone.” His watery blue eyes met mine. I had never seen him look so helpless.
I rose to my feet and extended my hand resolutely. “Come, Sire. You must show them you do not fear them. We will go onto the balcony together. The presence of a woman will soften their hearts and tame their zeal.” I feared my words were hardly convincing. I scarce believed them myself.
Louis reluctantly stood. He knew his duty but feared making a misstep; still, in my view, inaction was worse. As I urged haste, we made our way through the enfilade of State Apartments until we reached the leaded glass doors that opened onto the balcony on the south façade. Even from inside the château we could hear the shouts of the multitude, and the efforts of one man to appease them. Louis threw open the doors and the sound multiplied tenfold.
I had never seen a mob before. I had expected fire in their eyes and menace in their looks. I had imagined that they would bear sticks and crude homemade clubs; instead they carried placards denouncing the Bourbons as a degraded and corrupt family. Some of the protesters, farmers I would have guessed from their attire, brandished rakes and pitchforks; but their demeanor was strangely jovial, as if they were at a country fair. Many of them did not wear hats. I was surprised by the number of women in the crowd. On their arms were wicker baskets lined with colorful cloths of toile de Jouy and stuffed with moldy loaves of bread.
Louis stepped forward and held his arm aloft, indicating that he desired to address them, but the jeering persisted. Rioters shook their fists at him and pointed to me as though we were freaks at a traveling circus. I believe they may have been deriding us for the powder that dusted our hair, which they undoubtedly believed was concocted entirely of flour. Finally the king began to speak, raising his voice in an effort to be heard above the din, but to no avail.
A desperate young man in the blue and white uniform of the royal bodyguard stood below us in the courtyard, frantically gesturing to the horde, as a number of his unit unsuccessfully endeavored to dissuade him from his mission. “How much would you like to pay for bread?” he shouted to the crowd.
“Who is that?” I asked my husband.
“Two sous to the pound,” came the reply, shouted from the center of the throng. A cheer went up.
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bsp; Louis raised his hand to shade his eyes. “That is the prince de Poix, a colonel in the royal bodyguard,” he replied.
“Is he authorized to make such a negotiation?” But the answer was apparent. The mob began to pelt the young prince with flour. “If they don’t have it to bake bread, then why are they wasting it so?” I demanded.
The prince de Poix turned toward us and opened his arms in a gesture of supplication. His face and uniform were so coated with flour that if his life were not in jeopardy the sight would have been comical. Louis nodded gravely and the prince once again faced the rioters. “Très bien. Very well. Two sous it is, then. Now disperse at once. Return to your homes in peace.” He did not threaten the mob with violence although it seemed like an eternity before they agreed to depart. Louis and I had long since retreated to safety inside the palace.
Yet the incident was far from over. Monsieur Turgot advised Louis to disregard the prince de Poix’s proposal, sticking to the figure of three and a half sous for a one-pound loaf. Believing the Crown had betrayed them, there were riots in Paris the following day, despite Turgot’s efforts to stave off the violence. A hundred and sixty-two protesters were arrested and Louis summoned Paris’s judicial body, the Parlement, to Versailles, to warn them not to interfere in this affair, as he intended to mete out the rioters’ punishment himself. But only two men were sentenced to death for pillaging, a gauze maker and a wigmaker; the other troublemakers received far more lenient treatment. By May 9, the price of a loaf had dropped by a sou without being artificially manipulated, and by the sixteenth of the month, the bread riots were over.
Yet there was something that did not quite tally about the whole business. The bakers’ shops had been well stocked, even in Paris. The granaries were full and flour had been plentiful. The crowd that marched on Versailles had been exceedingly vocal, but otherwise rather docile, apart from pelting the prince de Poix with flour. But they had not thrown stones—and where had so many likely illiterate people gotten those placards criticizing the king? And then there was the matter of the barley bread the soi-disant rioters had brandished in our faces; it was almost artfully moldy. Louis and his ministers had their suspicions. The king’s cousins, known as the Princes of the Blood, had never been supportive either of Louis or of his grand-père, Louis XV. It nearly tested my friendship with the duchesse de Chartres, for I knew that wealthy rabble-rousers like her father-in-law, the duc d’Orléans, and the prince de Conti believed that if the power had lain within their hands instead, they would have wielded it with more dexterity. These men had the means to cross hundreds, if not thousands, of palms with silver coins; and even a few sous will buy as much loyalty as bread to a starving man.
Nevertheless both cousins were ostentatiously in attendance at Rheims along with every other member of the royal family, save the enceinte comtesse d’Artois, for my husband’s coronation on Trinity Sunday, June 11.
We’d set out from Versailles for Louis’s hunting lodge at Compiègne on the fifth of June, leading an opulent procession consisting of the entire court. Nobles clad in silks, velvets, and taffeta glittered with a kingdom’s worth of precious gems on their wrists, bosoms, and fingers, on their chapeaux, and in their towering coiffures surmounted with foot-long plumes that dipped and fluttered in the gentle spring breeze. They were followed by a parade of clerics in cassocks and soutanes of scarlet and violet. Those who rode were borne in a cavalcade of carriages burnished with ebony and gold drawn by glossy-coated horses, their manes and tails braided and perfumed. For much of our dry and dusty journey the route was lined with people who had clearly never seen such splendor; but my mood rose and fell nearly as often as my breath, for we were not greeted with universal admiration. While some faces, from ruddy to fair, wore proud broad smiles beneath their tricorns or straw chip hats and muslin bonnets, others peered through narrowed eyes, their lips pressed together in grim disapproval, begrudging their monarch the pageantry that had surely been the prerogative of his predecessors. More than once along the roadside—which Turgot grumbled would now have to be repaired twice—laborers knelt in supplication as we passed, outstretching their arms for bread. But at least they did not throw stones, although a few epithets were hurled at us.
“I overheard Monsieur say that Turgot artificially inflated the price of bread and that is why some are starving,” I said to Louis. “Tell me, is that true?”
His dark look told me not to stick my nose where it did not belong. “There are reasons for everything that are not always readily apparent, ma chère,” my husband answered, somewhat condescendingly. “Sometimes a decision is made that is misunderstood because it does not appear to be in the best interests of the populace, when in fact the opposite is true. You of all people should know better than to credit propaganda.”
I should know better than to believe Monsieur. He did not have his brother’s best interests at heart. But I did not trust Turgot. He continued to press for financial reforms that were certainly unpopular among the nobility, and the king could ill afford to lose their support.
The court rested for two days at Compiègne. Louis was visibly anxious, eating even more than usual, while I could barely touch a morsel. As was the custom, we kept separate chambers but he did not visit my bed. I lay awake praying for the health of the kingdom, asking the Almighty to send my husband our subjects’ love, for Louis’s task was so immense and burdensome that he needed the patience and understanding of his people. If only they comprehended that he cared deeply for their welfare and appreciated how difficult it was to please everyone at once. It was inevitable that someone would end up disgruntled.
In the company of my brothers-in-law and Madame, I departed Compiègne just after sunset on June 8. Aided by the glow of a resplendent moon our procession traveled by torchlight through the falling shadows as the dusky night sky was transformed from lilac to indigo. I wore a gown of palest blue accessorized with a suite of flawless diamonds from the court jewelers Herren Böhmer and Bassenge, while overhead the twinkling constellations illuminated our way northeast toward Rheims.
We arrived before dawn and were shown to charming lodgings in the center of the city. I scarcely had time to sleep before I was expected to greet the local dignitaries and members of the aristocracy, which I had to do on my own, as Louis’s entourage had not yet arrived. Maman would have been proud of me that day. I recalled her parting words to me when I left Vienna: Let the people of France say I have sent them an angel. And I believe the courtiers of Champagne were not displeased at the reception I accorded them, offering each a unique and personal welcome which truly came from my heart. I was surprised that the women, whom I had expected to be garbed somewhat provincially, were instead dressed in the latest fashion, from their feathered headdresses to the colors of their gowns, the soft shades we now favored at Versailles and Fontainebleau, including dairy cream, pale turquoise, and pea shoot.
Louis did not reach Rheims until one o’clock that afternoon. I waved to him from a balcony as his gilded coach, followed by a dozen beautifully caparisoned outriders, approached at a majestic pace. The glass carriage was pulled by four perfectly matched teams of white horses, their red, white, and blue plumes bobbing gaily in the breeze; and the beasts pranced and snorted almost as if they knew all eyes were upon their magnificent passenger. The citizens of Rheims had planned for the king’s arrival in much the same way as the kind people of Strasbourg had greeted me when I first set foot in France as a naïve girl of fourteen. Floral garlands bedecked the facades of the brick and half-timbered shops and residences; allegorical statues graced the square in front of the medieval cathedral; and leafy arches had been constructed bestriding the cobbled rues so that Louis’s carriage would rumble beneath them like a triumphant Caesar.
The following day we attended Vespers at the cathedral in preparation for the coronation ceremonies the next day. As queen consort I had no ceremonial role, nor would I be crowned. I jested with Louis that I would be known as the First Spectator. I scar
cely slept, for the proceedings began at seven A.M.; and Mademoiselle Bertin and Monsieur Léonard, who had traveled with me, at state expense, toiled all through the night to dress my hair in a style that Rose had dubbed the “Coiffure à la Révolte,” in honor of recent events—the Flour Wars. The very artificiality of the pouf subtly mocked the false pretenses under which the protests had been staged at our doorstep.
Léonard, his suit of peacock-blue satin protected by a gray cotton smock, availed himself of the lower treads of a wooden stepladder to tease my hair high above the crown of my head, securing a pad of horsehair. This would eventually form the stage for the inventive tableau that would be affixed to it with a number of long metal hairpins. Then he slathered his hands with bergamot-scented pomade and began to work them through the flamelike cone of hair before using a rattail comb to section off strands which he would then frizzle with his hot iron.
Once his task was completed it was Rose’s turn to work her magic. She positioned the figures in each tableau: the farmers with their sheaves of wheat; the rioters destroying mills and markets and granaries only to discover that there were stores aplenty after all; and the strangely convivial assembly with their placards and artfully moldy bread who had come to Versailles, ostensibly to demand a lower price per pound. Mademoiselle Bertin’s miniatures were tiny feats of engineering, from the gristmill’s fully functioning water wheel to the leaded mullions on the doors that opened onto the balcony of the château to the downy mold on the infinitesimal baguettes.
There was tremendous precedent for the robing of the gentlemen at a coronation, but no queen had been present since 1547, because the last several kings had been unmarried when they were crowned. I suppose I could have paid homage to the era of Henri IV with my wardrobe, which was how the men were garbed, Henri being universally regarded as the wisest and most just of all French monarchs. For some reason, the Age of Chivalry held an uncommon allure for the enlightened denizens of the eighteenth century. But I decided to embrace the present and look toward the future, rather than cast a backward glance at the past.
