The Queen`s Confession

by Виктория Холт

  On this particular day I was undressed waiting for my undergarments to be handed to me and was just about to take them from the maid of honour when the door opened and the Duchesse d’Orleans came in. Seeing what was happening she took off her gloves and, receiving the garment from the maid of honour, handed it to me; but at that moment the Comtesse de Provence appeared.

  I sighed deeply, my irritation rising. There was I without my clothes, already delayed by the Duchesse d’Orleans, and now here was my sister-in-law, who would be deeply affronted if anyone but herself put on my clothes. I handed her the garment, folded my hands across my breasts and, with an expression of resignation, waited, grateful for only one thing:

  there could not be a lady of higher rank than my sister-in-law to come and repeat this stupid performance.

  Marie Josephe, seeing my impatience and that I was cold, did not stop to remove her gloves but put the shift over my head and knocked my cap off while doing so.

  I could not contain myself.

  “Disgraceful!” I muttered.

  “How tiresome!”

  Then I laughed to hide my irritation; but I was more determined than ever to put my foot through their silly etiquette. I understood that it was probably necessary on certain state occasions, but to carry it to these lengths was quite ridiculous.

  Thus I revelled in bringing Rose Benin into my private apartments where no tradesman had been admitted before. And I spent more and more time at the Trianon.

  The really great ceremony of the day was that of dressing my hair.

  Naturally I employed the best hairdresser in Paris, which probably meant in the world. Monsieur Leonard was as important a personage in his way as Rose Bertin was in hers. Every morning he drove to Versailles from his establishment in Paris to dress my hair, and people used to come out to watch him in his splendid carriage drawn by six horses. No wonder there was growing discontent about my extravagance. As Rose Bertin invented new fashions for me alone, he invented new hair styles. My high forehead had been a cause of complaint years before, but now styles were worn to suit high foreheads, and hair styles gradually became more and more fantastic.

  The hair was stiffened with pomades and made to stand straight up from the head then padded with hair of the same colour; as far up as eighteen inches from the forehead. Monsieur Leonard would then begin his original creation. He would create fruit, birds, even ships and landscape scenes with artificial flowers and ribbons.

  My appearance was a constant topic of conversation throughout Versailles and Paris; it was written and joked about, while my extravagances were deplored.

  Mercy, of course, was reporting; but my mother did not need him, to learn about this.

  She wrote reprovingly:

  I cannot refrain from commenting on a subject which many newspapers have brought to my notice. I mean your manner of hairdressing. I gather that from the roots on the forehead it rises as much as three feet and on top of that are feathers and ribbons. “

  I replied that the lofty head-dresses were fashionable and that no one in the world thought them in the least strange.

  She wrote back:

  “I have always held that it is well to be in the fashion but one should never be outre in one’s dress. Surely a good-looking Queen, blessed with charm, has no need of such foolishness. Simplicity of attire enhances these gifts, and is much more suitable to exalted rank. Since as Queen you set the fashion, all the world will follow you when you do these foolish things. But I, who love my little Queen and watch her every footstep, must not hesitate to warn her of her frivolity.”

  There was a different tone in my mother’s letters these days. She warned; she did not command; and constantly she was telling me that she advised me through her great love for me.

  I should have paid more attention to her; but it was so long since I had seen her, and even her influence was beginning to wane. I no longer trembled at the sight of her handwriting; after all, if she was an Empress, I was the Queen—and the Queen of France. I was a woman now and could act as I pleased. I Continued to consult with Rose Benin; my dress bills were of enormous proportions and my hair styles grew more preposterous each day.

  Moreover Artois and his cousin Chartres were encouraging me to gamble. We played faro, at which it was possible to lose a great deal of money. The money which the King gave me to pay my debts each week all seemed to go at the gambling table.

  I had no sense of money; all I had to do was scribble “Payez’ on the bills which were presented to me and let my servants deal with the matter.

  My husband was too indulgent. I think he understood that driving passion not to be bored, not to stop and think, and blamed himself for it. Always he must have been conscious of the shadow of the scalpel which he could not bring himself to face. He paid my debts and never lectured me; but he did try to curtail the gambling not for me only, but for the whole Court.

  But what excited me more than anything more than clothes, gambling, dancing and hair styles were diamonds. How I loved those gorgeous sparkling stones; and they became me as no others did. They were cold yet full of fire; and I was too. I never once allowed a young man to be alone with me; I was frigid, it was said; but beneath the frigidity there was a brilliant fire which like a diamond could flash in certain circumstances.

  I had many jewels some I had brought from Austria, and then there was the casket my grandfather had given me for a wedding present but a new jewel could always fascinate me. If the people grumbled at my extravagance, at least the tradespeople were delighted. The Court jewellers, Boehmer and Bassenge, who had come to France from Germany, were as delighted with me as Rose Bertin and Leonard were. They would present their beautifully-set stones to me, looking so delicious in their satin-and-velvet cases that I found them altogether irresistible. When they showed me a pair of diamond bracelets I was fascinated by them and I did not think of the price until I had decided I must have them.

  This brought protests from my mother. I hear that you have bought bracelets which have cost two hundred and fifty thousand livres, with the result that you have thrown your finances into disorder and are in debt. This deeply disturbs me, particularly when I con template the future. A Queen degrades herself by decking herself out in this ostentatious manner, and still more so by lack of thrift. I know how extravagant you can be, and I cannot keep quiet about this matter because I love you too well to flatter you. Do not lose through your frivolous behaviour the good name you acquired when you arrived in France. It is well known that the King is not extravagant, so blame will rest on you. I hope I shall not live to see the disaster that will ensue unless you change your ways. ” The warning continued, for news of my gambling debts bad reached her.

  Gambling is without doubt one of the worst pleasures. It attracts bad company and provokes gossip. Let me beg of you, my dear daughter, do not give way to this passion. Let me beg of you to stop this habit.

  If I do not hear that you accept this advice I shall be forced to ask the King’s help in this matter so that I may save you from greater misfortune. I know too well what consequences will ensue, and you will lose caste not only with the people of France, but abroad also which will distress me deeply, for I love you so tenderly. “

  I wanted to please her and tried to for a while, but soon I was slipping back into the old ways. When Mercy reproached me I answered:

  “I do not think my mother can understand the difficulties of life here.”

  I think he, who was closer at hand, did, as did the Abbe Vermond.

  Perhaps this made them a little less severe in condemning my follies.

  The Trianon was a delight. I was laying out the gardens afresh with the help of the Prince de Ligne, who had made for himself one of the loveliest gardens in France at Bel Oeil. There was a fashion for everything English at this time. Frenchmen tried to dress like Englishmen in long coats cut close and thick stockings, with stock hats not at Court of course, where they were most elaborately attired, but we noticed this
in the streets of Paris. Signs were hung outside shops:

  “English spoken here’; lemonade-sellers now sold punch, and everyone was drinking Ie the. Artois had introduced horse-racing to France and I often went with him to the races. It was another excuse for gambling. So of course I must have an English garden at the Trianon. I was planning a little temple in the gardens which was to surround an exquisite statue of Eros by Bouchardon. I decided on Corinthian pillars about the statue and I would call it the Temple of Love. It became clear to me that the Prince de Ligne was in love with me; and I was sad about this because I enjoyed his company so much and I dared not allow that friendship to develop.

  My feeling for him must have been noticed, for my mother wrote and said that she thought it wrong that he should spend so much time in Versailles, so I told him to join his regiment for a while and then come back. I was surprised bow sorry I was that he must go away.

  But it was clear to me that I had to be careful.

  Mercy came to me-and spoke to me Severely. I had made many new friends; I was constantly in their company. They seemed to him to be people of questionable morals. Was I being wise?

  I looked at him slyly, because I knew that he had a mistress, an opera singer, Mademoiselle Rosalie Levasseur; he had lived with her for years, and although theirs was a very respectable relationship, as far as it could be in the circumstances, it was one without benefit of clergy.

  I did not mention this. I contented myself with a lighthearted rejoinder that one must enjoy oneself while one was young.

  “When I grow older I shall be more serious; then my frivolity will disappear.”

  I was surprised that old Kaunitz understood my position far better than my mother or my brother. He wrote to Mercy:

  “We are young yet, and I fear we shall be so for a very long time.”

  This time was difficult for my husband too. The kingly bearing he displayed at the time of the guerre des farines seemed to have disappeared; be asserted himseu in odd ways. He liked to fight with his attendants, and often I would go to his apartments and see him wrestling on the floor. He always got the better of his opponents, for he was much stronger than they were; this must have given him the feeling of superiority he needed to feel.

  He was the absolute antithesis of everything that I was. He did not complain of my extravagance, but he was so thrifty that he was almost mean; there was no subtlety about him. Sometimes he would fix one of his friends by his expression and walk towards him so that the poor man had to retreat until he was standing against a wall. Then Louis would find he had nothing to say and would laugh loudly and walk away.

  His appetite was voracious. I have seen him eat for break fast a chicken and four cutlets, several slices of ham and six eggs all washed down with half a bottle of champagne. He worked at the forge which he had had installed on the top story and there he would hammer away and make boxes of iron, and keys. Locks were his passion. He had a work man up there named Gamain who treated him as though he were a fellow-worker and even jeered at his efforts, all of which Louis took in the utmost good humour, declaring that in the forge Gamain was a better man than he was.

  At his coucher he was as impatient of etiquette as I was and would take his cordon bleu and throw it at the nearest man. Stripped to the waist he would scratch himself before the courtiers and when the noblest present tried to help him into his nightgown he would run round the room leaping over the furniture, forcing them to chase him which they did until they were out of breath. Then he would take pity on them and allow them to put on his nightgown. The nightgown on, and his breeches loosed, he would engage them in conversation, walking about the room with his breeches about his ankles so that he was obliged to shuffle.

  It was the Due de Lauzan who made me realise how dangerously Louis and I had drifted apart. At a party at the house of the Princesse de Guemenee, Lauzan appeared in a very splendid uniform and on his helmet was the most magnificent heron’s plume. I thought it very beautiful and impulsively said so. The very next day a messenger came from the Princesse de Guemenee with the feather and a note from the Princesse which said that the Due de Lauzan had begged her to implore me to accept it.

  I was embarrassed, but I knew that to return the feather would be to wound him deeply, and impulsively decided that I would wear the feather once and then lay it aside.

  Monsieur Leonard used it for my head-dress, and when Lauzan saw it his eyes gleamed with pleasure.

  The next day he presented himself at my apartment and begged an interview. Madame Campan was in attendance and I granted the interview as I should have done to anyone. He wished, he said, to speak to me privately if I would so honour him.

  I glanced at Madame Campan; she knew the signal. She would go into the anteroom and leave the door open, because she knew that I was never alone with men.

  When she had disappeared he threw himself on to his knees and began kissing my hands.

  “I was overcome with joy,” he cried, ‘when I saw you wearing the aigrette. It was your answer the answer I longed for. You have made me the happiest man in the world. “

  “Stop,” I said.

  “Are you mad. Monsieur de Lauzan?”

  He stumbled to his feet, the colour draining from his face. He said:

  “Your Majesty was gracious enough to show me by our token …”

  “You are dismissed,” I told him.

  “But you …”

  “Will you go. Monsieur de Lauzan? Immediately! … Madame Campan come here please!”

  She was there as I knew she would be.

  There was only one thing Lauzan could do. He bowed and retired.

  I said to Madame Campan: “That man shall never again come within my doors.”

  I was shaking with apprehension. I was both angry and alarmed. I knew that I was to blame in a way. I had behaved coquettishly; and I had been so foolish as to wear the plume. Why could not these people understand that I merely wanted to be amused I Lauzan never forgave me. His feelings for me were indeed strong and if he could not be my lover he could at least become my enemy. He was that—in the years when I so needed friends.

  There were times when I longed to escape from the Court; and there was the Petit Trianon waiting to welcome me; but sometimes I felt as though I wanted to get far away;

  I wanted to ride out in my calash and be alone—which was strange for me. Not that I was alone. There was ceremony even when I went riding informally in this way;

  I must have my coachman and postilions.

  We rode through villages and I looked out at the children at play—beautiful creatures whom I should have been so happy to call mine; as we rode along, suddenly one of these littles ones ran out of a cottage and almost under the horses’ hoofs. I cried out, the coachman pulled up sharply; the little boy lay sprawled in the road.

  Is he hurt? ” I cried, leaning out.

  The child began to scream wildly as one of the postilions picked him up.

  He kicked furiously, and the postilion grinned.

  “I cannot think much ails him. Your Majesty. But he’s frightened.”

  “Bring him to me.”

  He was brought. His clothes were ragged but not unclean;

  he stopped crying as I took him, and looked up at me wonderingly. He had large blue eyes and light-coloured waving hair. He was like a little cherub.

  “You are not hurt, darling,” I said.

  “And there is nothing to fear.”

  A woman had come out of the cottage; two children, older than the little boy, ran after her and I caught a glimpse of others.

  “The boy …” began the woman; and she looked at me in astonishment.

  I was not sure if she knew who I was.

  “Jacques, what are you doing?”

  The little boy on my lap turned his head from her and nestled closer to me. That decided me. He was mine. Providence had given him to me.

  I beckoned to the woman and she came closer to the calash.

  “You
are his mother?” I asked.

  No, Madame. His grandmother. His mother my daughter died last winter.

  She has left five children on my hands. ” I was exultant.

  “On my hands!” It was significant.

  I will take little Jacques. I will adopt him. I will bring him up as my child. “

  “He is the naughtiest of them all. One of the others …”

  “He is mine,” I said, for I loved him already.

  “Give him to me and you will never regret it.”

  “Madame … you are …”

  “I am the Queen,” I said. She dropped a clumsy curtsy and I added:

  ‘you shall be rewarded. ” And my eyes filled with tears at her gratitude, for like my husband I loved to help the poor when I was made aware of the difficult lives they led.

  “And this little one shall be as my own child.”

  The little one sat up suddenly and began to cry: “I don’t want the Queen. I want Marianne….”

  “His sister, Madame,” said his grandmother.

  “He is very wayward. He will run away.”

  I kissed him.

  “Not from me,” I said, but he tried to wriggle away from me. I signed to Campan to take the name of the woman and to remind me that something should be done; and then I gave orders to return to the palace.

  Little Jacques kicked all the way and kept screaming that he wanted Marianne and his brother Louis. He was a bright little fellow.

  “You do not know, darling, what a happy day this is for you,” I told him, ‘and for me. “

  I told him of the toys he should have . a little pony of his own.

  What did he think of that? He listened and said:

  “I want Marianne.”

  “He is a faithful little fellow,” I said.