Days of Splendor, Days of Sorrow

by Juliet Grey

At 7:30 in the morning on Easter Sunday, the twenty-seventh of March, I was delivered of another son, Louis Charles. France called him the duc de Normandie, but to me, my chubby infant, as fat and rosy as his older brother the dauphin was pale and fragile, would forever be mon “chou d’amour,” an affectionate nickname that, as I wrote to my English amie, the Duchess of Devonshire, defied a proper translation: “ ‘Love cabbage’ is the best I can furnish you, ma chère duchesse, but it hardly conveys a sense of charm in your native tongue. He is vigorous and healthy, and as sturdy as a typical peasant youngster. So I suppose I must admit that in this he favors his papa. I do hope that on your next excursion to Paris you will honor us with another visit so that you may meet him.” Though he certainly looked nothing like Axel, there were anonymous rumblings from someone who knew of our affaire de coeur, questioning the little duc’s paternity—the first time in all these years that the count’s name and mine had ever been linked. I was entirely certain the duc de Normandie was the king’s son, and Louis never for a moment doubted it. Nor did he address the rumors about Axel, which surely reached his ears. I would not dignify the gossip by discussing it with the king, nor did he speak of it to me. It did not lie within his nature to confront a thing directly. Moreover, like his grand-père, he avoided any unpleasantness like the pox.

  My beloved sister Maria Carolina, the queen of Naples, was our little duc’s godmother, although in her absence Gabrielle de Polignac, as royal governess, took her place at the baptismal font. My dear friend became so overcome with emotion as she held the infant prince that her husband had to stand by her elbow in case she swooned. It was all I could do not to grow queasy when the odious Grand Almoner kept gazing at me across the font with an ingratiating smirk pasted to his face.

  Something changed inside me with the advent of my second son’s birth. I had lost my desire to while away the evening hours at the Opéra and masquerades. Dancing no longer held the allure that it had in my youth, and I had even less of a taste for gaming.

  “The gaulles are for young women,” I told Rose Bertin in late May during one of her twice-weekly visits to Versailles. “The last time the royal dressmaker Madame Éloffe measured me, she could only cinch my waist to twenty-three inches in my stays,” and my bosom, so much longed for during my girlhood had increased to forty-four inches. “I feel foolish now, looking like ma petite Mousseline. It is,” I sighed with some resignation, “time for more structure than that afforded by the chemises à la Reine.” My untrammeled gaiety was a thing of the distant past, or so it seemed. Motherhood had changed me immeasurably, and my chief desire was to spend as much time as possible playing with my precious sons and daughter.

  Mademoiselle Bertin, as ever, was excited about the prospect of creating a different image for me, returning to Versailles bearing armloads of velvets in sumptuous jewel tones—garnet, ruby, amethyst, emerald, and sapphire. The marchande de modes was herself gowned in indigo taffeta with minimal embellishments, the taste for overdone furbelows being now on the wane. She was surprised, however, to find me in tears.

  “We must present a picture of maturity and restraint,” I told Rose, although my voice was breaking. “The scandalmongers are again having their day at my expense, and my husband’s censors seem powerless to halt the flood of their defamatory propaganda. If it is at all possible, I wish to limit the amount of fodder for these vultures. Perhaps it is naïve of me to think so, but if I can show them who I really am—a dignified and devoted mother—their pens will cease to scratch so vehemently.”

  “Regardez-la,” I said, handing the marchande a pamphlet. “His Majesty found this tucked into his napkin at supper on Tuesday. It could only have come from within the palace.”

  Mademoiselle Bertin shook her head in disgust. “My heart goes out to you as well as to the duchesse,” she muttered, referring to madame de Polignac.

  The repulsive engraving depicted me in a lascivious embrace with Gabrielle; one of her hands dandled my breast and the other foraged beneath my raised skirts. “She has been traduced nearly as much as I have for her extravagance,” I said bitterly. “And yet, were one to tot up the sums, even taking into account my generosity toward her, my dear friend has spent less in the decade or so since she came to court than Madame de Pompadour did in a single year. Do people truly believe she is my lover? Do they think she is my Pompadour? Is that what they mean by this filth?” I sighed heavily. “Maîtresses en titre have been tarred by the caricaturists for decades. But what has happened to the respect for the Crown? I warrant I am the first queen of France to be the target of such vulgarity.”

  As she wordlessly clucked in disgust at the libelles, Rose draped the deep blue velvet yardage across my chest. “This brings out your eyes even more, Majesté. You absolutely must have a gown made up. It is because you are not a native Frenchwoman that they disparage you so,” she said, changing the subject. “C’est vrai, la Pompadour also came in for much criticism at the time, but she was one of our own. The French have never taken outsiders to their bosom.”

  “But my union with the king was not of my choosing,” I replied. “Or of Louis’s. Everyone knows that.”

  “Hatred and Reason are natural enemies,” said Rose, fussing with the sapphire velvet. “I would wear diamonds with this. You will resemble the goddess of the moon in the night sky, twinkling with stars.”

  As she removed the fabric and began to play with the bolt of ruby red, “No more diamonds,” I replied. “I have enough already and despite what people have said, although some years ago I purchased a set of bracelets, and I am fond of my girandole ear bobs, the brilliants have never been my favorite gem.” I glanced at the little duc de Normandie, blissfully asleep in his cradle. “You would think that by breastfeeding him, I would shrink a bit, but hélas, that hasn’t happened,” I chuckled, recalling both the scandal it created when I insisted on feeding Madame Royale myself and Count von Fersen’s present appreciation of my pulchritude. He had recently returned from his Grand Tour with the king of Sweden, gratified to be back in France once more. I had not seen him since the previous summer when we fêted Gustavus at Trianon. Axel and I had resumed our liaison, but even now, I was too often burdened with other cares to give myself over to delights of the flesh, and bedeviled with the pangs of a guilty conscience every time my thoughts of him turned amorous. Ours remained a Grand Passion, but what we shared most often now were confidences and dreams, hopes and fears.

  Axel listened to me without judgments; he carried all my secrets. How, I marveled, did he always manage to remain above the fray, immune to the petty intrigues and squabbles of the other courtiers? I might have said it was because he was a foreigner at our court, but my Trianon cercle alone was filled with them. I preferred to see Count von Fersen as the constant oasis of calm at the eye of a perpetual maelstrom; and in a world of girls and boys, so often the only adult, wise beyond his years.

  Where once my coterie, and then Axel, had brought me the most fulfillment, my children had become everything to me, and there were no lengths to which I would not go to see them happy and healthy. When something was wrong with one of them, I suffered just as greatly. That spring Louis had purchased the château of Saint-Cloud in my name after we agreed that the dauphin required the fresh air of a more healthful climate. The king’s charming hunting lodge La Muette was too small for our burgeoning family and the entourage necessary to accompany us. Returning to the subject of diamonds, I told Mademoiselle Bertin, “Besides, if I had the funds for any new extravagances, I would renovate Saint-Cloud.”

  JULY

  The prince de Rohan had been on edge since April; Comtesse de Lamotte-Valois had delivered the “slave’s collar” to the queen several weeks earlier and he had yet to see her wearing it. “Did you not assure me I would see it about her neck at Pentecost?” he murmured to Jeanne during one of their trysts.

  Jeanne had cupped his face in her hands; giving him a lingering kiss, she convinced him that Her Majesty had changed her mind and now
intended to surprise the king by donning the diamonds when he least expected to see them. The comtesse couldn’t admit, of course, that the cardinal would never see the necklace adorning the throat of Marie Antoinette. For as soon as Jeanne had taken possession of the brilliants, her husband and lover prized them from their settings with the intention of selling them to various jewelers. Rétaux had a close call when a suspicious merchant alerted the gendarmes and he was imprisoned while the authorities made some inquiries. Jeanne was terrified that their grand scheme might be smashed like a crystal decanter. But after the police determined that no shops had recently been robbed, the trio exhaled a collective sigh and decided to alter their plans.

  Within days the prince de Rohan received a letter in the queen’s hand, requesting him to take a holiday at his residence in Alsace, while Nicolas de Lamotte-Valois boarded a ship at Calais, bound for England, where he would retail the diamonds, a few at a time, to the London jewelers, claiming they had come from family heirlooms. Doubtless he would not be paid what they were worth; but, as they were not his to dispose of in the first place, and too much negotiation might raise eyebrows, the conspirators agreed that whatever the comte received would be quite an acceptable sum.

  On the tenth of July, back in Paris with only three weeks to spare before he was due to deliver the first installment of 400,000 livres, the prince de Rohan summoned Herren Böhmer and Bassenge to the Palais Cardinal. His Alençon cuffs were limp with perspiration as he confessed, with a good deal of embarrassment, to an unavoidable delay, blotting his panicked brow with a fine cambric handkerchief throughout the interview.

  Herr Böhmer’s narrow face was pale. “We have a written agreement, Your Eminence.”

  “Oui, oui, je sais. I know that,” stammered the cardinal. What could he tell them? That it had been impossible to raise the funds? His eyes darted about the room at the silk tapestries, the oils and bronzes, the objets d’art of porcelain, crystal, and marble; treasures that had been in his family for decades, if not centuries. To part with a single one of them would sully the illustrious name of Rohan.

  “Her Majesty has requested an additional discount,” said the prince, improvising wildly. “Consequently, until the adjusted sum has been agreed upon, she cannot honor the August first payment date.” The doubt and concern in the jewelers’ eyes as they exchanged anxious glances prompted him to raise the stakes. “However, the queen has instructed me to inform you that to compensate for the lateness of the payment, she will remit the sum of seven hundred thousand livres shortly after the settlement of the revised price of the necklace.” De Rohan knew he was rambling. His throat felt tight. Was his excuse convincing? Beneath his red moiré soutane his legs were trembling.

  “Monsieur le Cardinal, I cannot say that we are pleased to hear this.” Herr Böhmer held his ground. “We have ourselves borrowed a considerable sum of money agaist the sale of the necklace.”

  “We have a lengthy association with the Crown and enjoy an excellent reputation as jewelers to the court,” added Herr Bassenge. “If we default on our own loan, our credit, as well as our credibility, will be irretrievably embarrassed.”

  “We stand to be entirely ruined by it,” added his business partner bluntly. “In a word—bankrupted.”

  “It is, certainement, an extremely delicate situation,” Bassenge interjected, “and we appreciate the difficult position in which you have been placed, Your Eminence. Perhaps, then, being businessmen of long standing with the queen, Herr Böhmer and I might have better luck were we to approach Her Majesty directly.”

  The cardinal felt his gut plummet. Marie Antoinette had singled him out, relying upon his tact, discretion, and secrecy to complete this commission. What would this bode for his grand ambition to be named France’s Chief Minister? Moreover, what would she think of him now, believing he had failed her?

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Who Is the Spider and Who Is the Fly?

  On July 12, a strange letter was delivered while I was in my salon rehearsing my lines for Le Barbier de Séville with my lady-in-waiting, Madame Campan. In her youth, this handsome woman, three years my senior, with her broad face and intelligent, dark eyes, had been Mesdames tantes’ reader and I found her to be an exemplary prompter, for she read aloud with tremendous sensibility.

  The note read:

  Madame,

  We are at the pinnacle of happiness in daring to believe that the latest arrangements proposed to us, which we accepted with both zeal and respect, afford new proof of our submission and devotion to Your Majesty’s orders, and we take genuine satisfaction in the thought that the most exquisite set of diamonds in the world will adorn the greatest and best of queens.

  Your servants always,

  Paul Bassenge and Charles Auguste Böhmer

  “Regardez, Henriette.” I showed the letter to Madame Campan. “Since you are so adept at solving the riddles in Le Mercure de France, perhaps you might assay this conundrum, for I haven’t the slightest idea what the gentlemen refer to.”

  She could make neither head nor tail of the note either. Determining that the jewelers must have written it in error, I took it back to my escritoire, rolled it into a spill, and set it alight with the candle I kept illuminated on the desk to melt the sealing wax for my correspondence.

  But the strange business reared its head again nearly a month later when Herr Böhmer, in a state of extreme agitation, rode out to Versailles and most vociferously insisted on an interview with me. After being shown to le Petit Trianon, with exquisite politeness he reminded me of the letter he had sent the previous month and, endeavoring to swallow his evident embarrassment, demanded the payment of the first installment on the diamond necklace that he claimed I had agreed to purchase from him for 1.6 million livres. “The ‘slave’s collar,’ ” he added, describing it in detail. “In short, Your Majesty, as you have possession of the necklace, and the Grand Almoner insists he does not have the necessary funds, I regret the unpleasantness of appealing to you directly.”

  Then, taking my confusion for prevarication, the jeweler resorted to threats. “The time for pretense has passed, Madame. Deign to admit that you have my diamond necklace and render me assistance. If not, my bankruptcy will bring the whole affair to light!”

  In great distress, reiterating that I had no idea what he was talking about and assuring him that I had neither the necklace nor the money, nor would I be blackmailed, I dismissed Herr Böhmer from my rooms. That same day the puzzle grew even more complex when the abbé Vermond confided that a few hours earlier he had received a visit from Monsieur Saint-James, a prominent Parisian banker. Evidently, the prince de Rohan had approached him to request a loan of 700,000 livres in the queen’s name. As the sum was prodigious, Saint-James informed the cardinal that he would have to secure specific orders from Her Majesty before lending him so much money. Sensing that something was amiss, the banker contacted Vermond, aware that the abbé was my trusted confidant.

  Events quickly spiraled out of control. Two days later Herr Böhmer returned to the palace in a state of increased agitation.

  After affecting a low bow, he spilled the purpose of his errand in a torrent of words. “My dear Majesty,” he began, “it seems that we have all been the dupes of a forged contract.” He mentioned that a comtesse whose name I did not recognize had visited the jewelers’ shop in the rue Vendôme and informed Herr Bassenge that they had been the victims of a hoax involving the Grand Almoner’s acquisition of a diamond necklace, ostensibly on my behalf.

  “Whyever would I authorize the prince de Rohan to do anything for me, let alone purchase a necklace that you say is worth nearly two million livres? I recall perfectly well that back in 1781 when you showed that very piece to the king in the hopes of selling it to him, he was quite taken with it, but I refused such an extravagance. ‘Our navy needs the money more than I require the diamonds. I have more than enough,’ I told His Majesty, and I am certain my reply was conveyed to you and to Herr Bassenge. In the past I
have purchased several bracelets and a pair of earrings from you, and those are all the brilliants I desire. With the crown jewels at my disposal, and the pearls that belonged to Anne of Austria, which are larger than sugared almonds—” I broke off and began to tremble.

  “And there are no remittances outstanding, messieurs. Her Majesty’s account was settled in full with you long ago,” Madame Campan interjected, her color rising.

  I demanded a written report within twenty-four hours detailing the entire sordid business. “I expect you to appear before me tomorrow with the document in your hands, Herr Böhmer. And bring this alleged contract as well.”

  “I am too distracted to rehearse any more,” I told Madame Campan after the jeweler had left. What I dared not admit to my lady-in-waiting was how alarmed I was made by his visit. I had to confide in someone and I was too frightened to speak to Louis, so I wrote to my brother in Vienna, telling Joseph, “I feel sure that the cardinal has used my name like a vile and clumsy counterfeiter. In all probability, temporarily pressed for money, he assumed he would be able to pay the jewelers the first installment before anyone discovered the fraud he had perpetrated.”

  But nothing prepared me for the contract Herr Böhmer showed me the following day, visiting me in the privacy of la Méridienne. My hands shook as I read it, for I had never seen such a calumny. “Madame Campan, s’il vous plaît, summon the baron de Breteuil,” I said weakly. The jeweler and I sat in silence while the minutes ticked by inexorably, as we waited for the king’s Minister of the Household to arrive.

  The burly Louis-Auguste le Tonnelier, baron de Breteuil, impulsive and passionate, had seen much in his fifty-five years. Having served as France’s ambassador to Imperial Russia, he had sparred with Catherine the Great and had no qualms about making his opinions known in a stentorian baritone that echoed off the plastered walls. He also had no love for the pompous cardinal, as each was angling for the same plum ministerial appointment.