by Juliet Grey
“The Parlements have demanded that Louis summon a meeting of the Estates General,” I sighed. “Such an event has never happened in our lifetimes. Nor did the late king ever call them together. His Majesty reluctantly promised to set a meeting for next May, and so, for the first time since 1614, the three Estates will convene. At least it will give us plenty of time to research the etiquette,” I added gloomily. I scrubbed my hands through my hair.
“Majesté, s’il vous plaît, I must ask you to stop doing that,” Léonard chided gently. “You do it all the time now, and it is very bad for you. It is difficult for me to repair so much damage.”
I pressed his hand to my cheek. His long, tapered fingers felt cool against my face. “Ah, mon cher ami, what would I do without you?”
As the summer sun scorched the fields the treasury dried up as well. On August 15, the still-ailing Loménie de Brienne announced that the government would no longer honor its debts in cash, instead issuing promissory notes at 5 percent interest. Naturally, a hue and cry was heard across the land, as notes from a bankrupt treasury are worthless. Clearly, the archbishop of Toulouse was failing his duties as Comptroller General.
Louis and I now met daily in his library. If France was a ship in a tempest-tossed sea, he saw the pair of us as her sextant and compass, of necessity navigating together through the gathering storm.
It was the twenty-fourth of August. The heat was oppressive, even with the window sashes raised. My taffeta bodice clung damply to my back and my coiffure could scarcely retain its curl. The king, stouter than he had ever been, perspired heavily in his gray silk suit.
“Why must everything be so difficult?” Louis groaned. “You managed to persuade Necker to return—”
“Despite the fact that we dislike one another and that Artois once called him a fornicating bastard,” I interrupted. “He doesn’t much care for you, either.”
“But the people love him. However, he will not work with the archbishop, nor will Brienne work with him.” The king mopped his brow with an exasperated swipe of his handkerchief.
“But they need each other,” I insisted. “Necker’s visions for France are too radical and may anger the people if they are implemented too quickly, or at all, for that matter. Loménie de Brienne’s less progressive outlook will rein him in.”
Louis unfurled my fan and began to cool himself. “The archbishop views our recall of Necker as a personal affront to his ability.” He began to pace about the carpet. “I fear, ma chère, that we must choose between the lesser of the two evils: the progressive Swiss or the ineffective cleric.”
The following day, Loménie de Brienne was dismissed and the mercurial Jacques Necker reinstated as France’s Côntroleur-Général of Finance. “Long live Necker,” the people cried when they heard the news. For a few shining moments, the nation rejoiced. The government’s stocks rose and there were celebrations in the streets. But then the mood grew dark. An effigy of the archbishop was burned in the Place Dauphine. Tens of thousands participated in the violence, wielding clubs and lobbing stones. Their swords drawn, the guardsmen attempted to repel them. France, it seemed, could not exult without going mad.
It had been my idea to recall Necker; I had convinced Louis that it was best for the nation if he rejoined the government. I prayed I had done the right thing.
Only to Axel could I confide my true feelings about the entire state of affairs. “It seems to be my fate to bring misfortune, and if Necker should fail, like his predecessors, or damage the king’s authority, I shall be hated even more than I am now. I am blamed for every misfortune, but never ceded a scintilla of credit when anything good occurs. My happy days are over, since they made me into an intrigante.” I reclined on a yellow-striped sofa at le Petit Trianon, resting my head in his lap. The color lifted my spirits and the touch of his hand as he gently stroked my hair soothed my brow.
“There is nothing to be gained from blaming yourself,” he chided. “No matter what people may say, you and I know that you do nothing out of malice. If it would change anything, I would ride from house to house and tell every citizen in France the truth.” Odin padded over to us, demanding a caress.
“I am frightened,” I whispered.
I looked into Axel’s eyes; his expression had grown suddenly grave. “Now and always, I offer you my devotion.” He stroked the dog’s muzzle affectionately. “And while I cannot speak for my friend here, I would hazard that he is as loyal as I, and if necessary we would most willingly risk our lives to aid the Queen of France.”
THIRTY
Our Thoughts Divided
January 1789
My dearest Sophie,
Things grow steadily worse here. The queen is in a state of perpetual despair over the health of the dauphin. He has rickets as well as a malformed, protruding spine, and weighs significantly less than any boy of seven should.
The landscape of France is bleaker than ever. It has been an unseasonably cold winter; three weeks of thirteen-degree weather, without respite. It rarely snows here the way it does at home, but this season so much has fallen that the carters have been unable to remove the refuse, so it has been left to accumulate and stink. Garbage freezes in the gutters because it is too frigid for the water to wash it away, and the Seine has frozen as well. With the river a ribbon of ice no boats can traverse it, which of course means no grain can get through. No grain, no bread; and so the price of a single loaf has risen to an astronomical fourteen sous, and countless poor are starving. Cheaper English goods are flooding the French markets, which makes things even worse. Workshops are shutting down, and so unemployment is rising. The stock market, which had briefly risen after Monsieur Necker resumed the financial reins, has returned to the sewers.
There was a frightening hailstorm a few weeks ago but the people have conveniently forgotten about the king’s twelve-million-franc lottery to benefit the families ruined by the national disaster. They talk only of his avarice and his insensitivity, which, if you knew His Majesty, are qualities one could scarce attribute to him.
What they conveniently remembered was the grand gesture made by the king’s cousin, the duc d’Orléans, who sold his finest paintings and donated the eight million francs he received for them to charity.
Taking advantage of the increasing discontent with the monarchs and the ministers and courtiers who are loyal to them are two distinct factions: the increasingly literate populace who have read and appreciated the writings of such philosophes as Voltaire and Rousseau, as well as those who ascribe to American ideals, and have swallowed the belief that all men have rights and are equal under God; and those who have been antagonized by the court in the past—a cabal led by none other than the duc d’Orléans. I fear for the sovereigns. Philippe d’Orléans is not merely powerful, but dangerous. For all his democratic posturing, I believe that his deepest desire is to wear the crown himself.
As with my previous letters, I trust you will also burn this one.
Your affectionate brother,
Axel
The king had begun to seek the advice of men who had their fingers on the pulse of the people, among them a lawyer who was also a talented botanist—such accomplishments were de rigueur in our enlightened society—named Lamoignon de Malesherbes. Both of them were avid students of world history, and the evident malaise among the representatives of the three Estates in advance of May’s assembly was a subject of some concern.
“Pause, Sire, for a moment or two, to consider the predicament of Charles the First of England,” urged Monsieur Malesherbes. “Your position, like his, lies in the conflict between the earlier customs of authority, and the present demands of the citizens.” With a faint smile, he added, “Fortunately, in this case, religious disagreement is not involved.”
“Ah, oui, we are indeed fortunate. One can thank heaven for that,” Louis readily agreed, taking the commoner’s arm in an unprecedented gesture of equality. “So the ferocity will not be the same.”
“Besides, t
he gentler ways of our time guarantee you against the excesses of those days. I can assure you that things will not reach the stage they did with Charles the First; but Majesté, although France is a nation of high-principled idealists, I cannot answer for the absence of any other forms of excess, and you must turn your mind to preventing them.”
Their conversation sent shivers along my spine. My husband had always been an assiduous student of the life of this particular British monarch, although he had never countenanced the possibility of civil war until now. He took Malesherbes’s words to heart and grew determined to make the gathering of the Estates General a resounding success. To ensure that it would be truly representative of the entire nation, Louis decided that the Third Estate should, for the first time, be comprised of as many deputies as the first two Estates combined, ignoring the suggestion of the Princes of the Blood who insisted that the Estates should be constituted just as they had been in 1614, with each order possessing the same numerical strength, which of course would mean that the clergy and nobility would always outnumber the populace two to one.
“What matter if my authority suffer, provided my people are happy,” my husband declared. His words, published in every newspaper in France, elevated his popularity and banished our fears.
On May second, before the assemblage formally convened, etiquette demanded that they be received by the king in the Royal Chamber at the Château de Versailles. In accordance with protocol, both doors were open to admit the nobility; only one door was open for the clergy to file through; and the portals remained shut in the face of the Third Estate, which had to request permission to enter.
The folderol commenced on the morning of May 4, when the royal family rode in state from the palace to the church of Notre Dame in the town of Versailles. Our cavalcade left the palace precisely at ten. Cherub-cheeked pages in bright liveries re-created from the reign of the venerated Henri IV, complete with white goffered neck ruffs and billowing breeches, led the way, followed by the falconers with their majestic hooded birds sporting tinkling bells on their leather jesses. Thousands had turned out to witness the pageantry and to see their king and queen ride by in their respective coaches, even as they anticipated the dawn of a new era and the possibility of a Constitution or a similar document granting all men equality in the sight of God.
Although I was displeased with the political climate, the weather could not have been more salubrious. Rays of sunshine caught the ornate gilding of Louis’s carriage at just the proper angles, lending the conveyance—drawn by six white horses caparisoned and festively plumed in the same red, white, and blue of the royal livery—an otherworldly glow as it rolled along the cobbled rues. Although the Bourbon brothers often disagreed, that morning they presented a portrait of unity, with Monsieur seated to the king’s right, and the still-dashing Artois perched on the box. On the back seat, Artois’s sons, the ducs d’Angoulême, de Berri, and de Bourbon squirmed and fidgeted with their unfamiliar costumes, for everyone but Louis had sartorially stepped back in time to the late sixteenth century.
“Vive le roi!” A cheer rose up from the crowd, echoed by the voices of the onlookers above the tapestry-bedecked windowsills, souls who had paid dearly for such an exceptional vantage. Men had clambered up to the rooftops; young boys precariously straddled chimneys. My carriage followed the king’s. I was clad in rose-colored silk taffeta, and Monsieur Léonard had dressed my hair with false plaits threaded with matching silk flowers. To my left sat ten-year-old Madame Royale, in buttercup yellow, with a fetching straw bonnet to protect her from the sun; at my right hand, Louis’s sister, the gentle princesse Élisabeth, in hyacinth blue. When it became clear that we were passing in stony silence as if we were riding in a hearse, my belle-soeur withdrew a handkerchief of finely woven cambric and blotted away her tears.
“It is not right,” Élisabeth whispered to me. “We have done them no harm.”
“It is not ‘we’ to whom they show such disrespect,” I murmured. “Neither you nor my daughter have done a thing to incur their displeasure.”
The silent journey to Notre Dame seemed interminable. Upon reaching the broad square in front of the church the royal family was met by the entire complement of the Estates General, clad according to centuries-old protocol: the nobles draped in silken cloaks trimmed with gold lace, their hats adorned with enormous white plumes; the clergy—scarlet-robed cardinals and bishops in their purple cassocks; and, most unnerving, the soberly garbed representatives of the common people. They were dressed in black coats, vests, and breeches. Even their hose and tricorns were black. The severity of their wardrobe was relieved only by the white jabots at their throats. To a man, every deputy carried a candle.
Now the second leg of the procession began, more martial than regal, threading its way through the narrow streets of Versailles from Notre Dame to the gleaming white cathedral of Saint-Louis. The page boys and falconers were replaced with fife and drum, beating a brisk tattoo as the entire delegation started out on foot, this time led by the lowliest participants, the deputies from the Third Estate, proudly marching in two parallel lines.
As the last of their group went by, a great gasp, followed by a cheer, rose up from those nearest the delegations, for the rabble-rousing Philippe d’Orléans had chosen to walk with the representatives of the Third Estate, rather than take his place among the nobility. After such an extraordinary event, the sight of their resplendently garbed monarch—the massive Regent diamond gleaming in his hat—held little excitement for the clamorous crowd. Louis strode with tremendous pomp and dignity behind the baldachin; beneath that arch walked the venerated archbishop of Paris, whose surplice, sparkling with countless diamonds, glittered even more spectacularly; but it was the duplicitous duc, dressed in sober black silk, who received the loudest acclamation of the morning.
As I passed a group of market women, a brawny butcher darted out of the crowd, startling me. “Vive le duc d’Orléans!” she cried, as if to lob the words into my face. She had come so close that I could smell the perspiration on her chemise. For a moment I lost my equilibrium and felt my knees give way beneath me.
A man’s voice pierced the silence. A stage whisper. “Voilà la victime.” I turned toward the sound and located the source—a shaggy bear of a man, the comte de Mirabeau, one of my loudest detractors, walking with the black-clad delegation of the Third Estate.
My head swam, and I began to swoon. A moment or two later I felt someone at my elbow. It was Madame Élisabeth, supporting my weight. At my other side was the princesse de Lamballe, whom I had long ago forgiven for visiting the comtesse de Lamotte-Valois during her incarceration. The duchesse de Polignac and I had repaired our differences as well, but she was so roundly despised by the people that I thought it safest if she remained at the palace and did not take part in the procession.
“Voici. Inhale.” The princesse held a vinaigrette of my beloved orange flower water under my nose.
I took a quick sniff and blinked hard. “I cannot let them see me this way,” I whispered. I could never permit anyone with cruelty or malice on their mind the satisfaction of seeing that they had affected me. I would be lost forever if I did.
“Regardez! There is the dauphin!” cried Élisabeth. He had wished to watch the procession and so we set up a mattress on the little balcony of the royal stables. The future king was swathed in a velvet cloak, nestled amid a pile of silken cushions, for he had long been too weak to stand. Swallowing my tears, “We must smile for him,” I told his doting aunt. Madame Élisabeth and I raised our gloved hands and waved. “Would they accuse me of being undignified if I blew my dying son a kiss?” I wondered aloud.
At the church of Saint-Louis, the archbishop of Nancy blessed the gathering; then, with his notorious oratorical gifts—and to the delight of the deputies of the Third Estate—he began to inveigh against the excesses of the monarchy and the insensitive extravagance of the courtiers—but most particularly the queen. When he promulgated the lie that the w
alls of my little theater at Trianon were covered with precious stones, my lower lip trembled with anger. Had the acquittal of the cardinal in the affair of the necklace given the clergy carte blanche to be insolent to us? I glanced at the king, but he had fallen asleep and was snoring softly beside me, blissfully oblivious to the insults raining down upon us from the pulpit. Now I would be compelled to invite a delegation of deputies from the Third Estate to my private idyll simply to prove that not only the décor, but the archbishop’s words, were false.
I passed a sleepless night. Louis, however, always enjoyed the deep slumber of the unencumbered—how well I recall our wedding night—no matter the circumstances. We had spent the better part of the evening drafting the speech he was to present the following day at the inaugural session of the Estates General. Much of the time had been spent arguing over the tone: The king had wished to be conciliatory, while Artois and I most adamantly felt that the sovereign must stand firmly against these adversarial, even antimonarchical, voices. “The duc d’Orléans must be silenced,” I insisted. “You are the father of France and they are as unruly children testing the limits of their leading strings. What they truly require is the guidance of a wise and authoritarian parent.”
“And if they refuse to accept it, they must be told they shall be punished,” added Artois.
