and a silver buckle. Not that Gustave, who was clearly indifferent to his own appearance, cared about that. But the important fact was that Axel was back in France.
I betrayed my emotions in a hundred ways. I immediately declared that we must give a fete at the Trianon in honour of the King of Sweden, and I was determined that never should there have been such a fete.
Those about me raised eyebrows; they tittered and whispered behind their hands. In whose honour was this fete being given?
I had never before liked Gustave, because the last time he had come to Prance I was Dauphine then he had given a diamond necklace to Madame du Barry’s favourite dog. This I had said was silly and vulgar, too, for he had done more honour to the King’s mistress than to the future King of France.
But now he was Axel’s King, and I longed to entertain him because then I should be entertaining Axel too.
We gave a performance in the Trianon theatre of Marmont el Le Dormeur Eveille; and after that we went into the English gardens.
Lights had been hidden in trees and bushes; and I had ordered that trenches be dug behind the Temple of Love, and these trenches were filled with faggots which when lighted made the Temple look as though it were supported by the flames.
Gustave commented that he could believe he was in the Etysian Fields.
That was the intention I had meant to convey; that was why I had commanded that everyone be dressed in white, so that they could wander about like in habitants of Paradise.
In this setting Axel and I could be closer than we ever had before. We could touch hands; we could even kiss. In white garments, and in the dusk of that enchanted night, we could believe that we were in another world, a world of our own where duty and reality had no place.
When supper was served we could no longer be together, and I walked from table to table seeing that my guests were served with venison which the King had killed in the chase, sturgeon, pheasants and all the delicacies known to us. This was how I wished it to be, for in spite of all the splendour and never had there been such a splendid fete even at this Court—I liked to preserve my illusion of living simply at the Trianon.
There were not many more opportunities for talking to Axel, and I knew that when Gustave departed he would have to go with him. A few days after our Elysian entertainment Axel and I, with Gustave and other members of our Court and the Swedish entourage, watched two men, Palatre de Rozier and a man named Proust, rise high above our heads in an air-inflated balloon. This had been embellished with the arms of France and Sweden, and the name of the balloon was the Marie Antoinette. I could scarcely believe my eyes, and everyone else was greatly impressed, expecting imminent disaster, but the balloon travelled from Versailles to Chanrilly and everyone was talking about the wonders of science.
But I was thinking of Axel, and that soon there must be another of those partings—each one harder to bear than the last.
I wanted to give him a memento, something by which he could remember me. So I gave him a little almanac on which I had embroidered the words:
“Poi, Amour, Esperance, Trois, unis a jamais.”
Then he went back to Sweden with his King.
Madame Vigee Le Brun was painting my portrait. “She was a charming dainty creature and I was attracted to her. I liked to chat with her while she worked. I watched the picture grow on her canvas, and one day I said: ” If I were not a Queen, one would say that I looked insolent, do you not think so? “
She turned the remark aside as one not expecting an answer. She might have replied that even though I was a Queen there were many who thought I looked insolent and haughty. The petulant lower lip which had been noticed when my appearance was being so freely discussed by the French envoys at my mother’s Court had become more pronounced. It was an inheritance from my Hapsburg ancestors.
I told Madame Le Brim this and she smilingly replied that she despaired of ever reproducing my complexion.
“It is so fresh, so flawless, that I have no colours to match it.”
Flattery for a Queen! But I certainly did possess this brilliant complexion and it would be false modesty to deny it.
My clothes were discussed at this time very freely throughout Paris as well as Versailles. It was discovered that I had paid 6,000 livres for one dress. Madame Benin was expensive, I knew, but then she was an artist, the finest couturiere in Paris. It was not that she was my sole dressmaker; she was the designer of my gowns and hats; but I had my sewing-women; there were special work-people for riding habits and dressing-gowns; there were makers of hoops and collarettes, flounces and petticoats.
My extravagances were a popular theme so I decided that Madame Vigee Le Brim should paint me in a gaulle, which was a blouse worn by the Creoles. This was as simple as a chemise and made of inexpensive lawn.
The picture was charming and was exhibited. The people flocked to see it, and it soon became apparent that nothing I could do was right.
The Queen was playing at being a chambermaid, was one comment.
“What she wishes to do is to ruin trade for the silk merchants and weavers of Lyons so that she can help the drapers of Flanders. Are they not her brother’s subjects?”
That was bad enough. But the most damaging and most significant comment was scribbled under the picture as it hung in the Salon:
“France, with the face of Austria, reduced to covering herself with a rag.”
The Diamond Necklace
Provided I don’t speak in. my writings of authority, of religion, of politics, of morality, of the officials of influential bodies, of other spectacles, of anyone who has any claim to anything, I can print anything freely, under the inspection of two or three censors.
Calumny! You don’t know what you are disdaining when you disdain that.
I have seen people of the utmost probity laid low by it. Believe me, there is no false report however crude, no abomination, no ridiculous falsehood, which the idlers in a great city cannot, if they take the trouble, make universally believed—and here we have little-tattlers who are past-masters of the art.
BEAUMARCHAIS
The Cardinal has made we of my name like a vile and clumsy forger. It is probable that he did so under pressure and an urgent need for money and believed he would be able to pay the jeweller without anything being discovered.
MARIE ANTOINETTE TO THE EMPEROR JOSEPH
In May of the year 1785 a great joy came to me when I gave birth to my second son. My confinement was attended with the same ceremony as that which there had been at the birth of my little Dauphin. My husband declared that never again should I be submitted to the danger I had faced at the time of my daughter’s birth.
Louis himself came to my bedside and emotionally declared: We have another little boy! ” And there was my dear Gabrielle holding the child in her arms coming to my bed.
I insisted on holding him. A little boy . a perfect little boy! I wept; the King wept; in fact everyone was weeping, with joy.
My husband commanded that messages be sent to Paris with the news. My little son was baptised in Notre Dame by Cardinal de Rohan, as his brother had been, and he was christened Louis-Charles. Te Deums were sung; the tocsins were sounding; the salute of guns was fired. There was rejoicing in Versailles for four days and nights. I was so happy.
My dreams were coming true. I had two sons and a daughter. I would often bend over the little newcomer as he lay in his beautiful cradle.
You will be happy, my darling,” I told him. Oh, if I could have foreseen the misery into which I had brought this unfortunate child I How much better if he had never been born I
There was one man whose name was on every lip. It was the author Beaumarchais, who had written a play called Le Manage de Figaro in which there was tremendous interest throughout the Court and I believe the country. The author had had difficulty in getting the play performed because the Lieutenant of the Police, the magistrates, the Keeper of the Seals and strangely enough the King did not think it would be
good for the country to see it.
I had thought what fun it would be to put it on at my Trianon theatre and Artois agreed with me, seeing himself in the part of the Barber.
He flitted about my apartments, doing the rogue of a Barber to the life. It was small wonder that people had suggested that Artois and I were closer friends than propriety permitted. We were completely in tune on matters such as this. He could not see why we should not do the play any more than I could.
I see it now, of course; I see how that dialogue is full of innuendo, I can see that Figaro is meant to represent the People; and that the Comte Ahnaviva is the old regime, the tottering structure of aristocracy. Almost every line of the dialogue is charged with meaning. This was not a play about a Comte who commits adultery as naturally as eating and breathing; it was not an account of the shrewdness of a wily barber.
It was a picture of France—the uselessness of the aristocracy and the growing awareness of the shrewd people of the state of their country;
it was meant to set them wondering as to how it could be remedied. I think of little snatches of dialogue.
I was born to be a courtier. “
I understand it is a difficult profession. “
“Receive, take, ask. There’s the secret of it in three words.”
With character and intelligence you may one day rise in your office.
”Intelligence to help advancement? Your lordship is laughing at mine. Be commonplace and cringing and one can get anywhere. “
“Are you a prince to be flattered? Hear die truth, you wretch, since you have not the money to recompense a liar.”
Nobility, wealth, rank, office—that makes you very proud! What have you done for these blessings? You have taken the trouble to be born, and nothing else. “
I was too immersed in my own affairs to be fully aware of the crumbling society in which I was living. I saw nothing explosive in these remarks. To me they were merely excessively amusing. But my husband saw the dangers immediately.
“This man turns everything to ridicule—everything which should be respected in a government.”
“Then won’t it be played?” I asked, showing my disappointment.
“No, it will not,” replied my husband, quite sharply for him.
“You may be sure of that.”
I often think of him now, poor Louis. He saw so much that I could not understand. He was clever; he could have been a good king. He had the best will in the world; he was the kindest, the most amiable of men;
he sought nothing for himself. He had his ministers—Maurepas, Turgot who was replaced by Necker in his turn replaced by Calonne-but none of these ministers was great enough to carry us safely over the yawning abyss which was widening rapidly beneath our very feet. Dear Louis, who wanted to please.
But it was so difficult to please everyone. And what did I do? I was the tool of ambitious factions and did nothing to help my husband, who wanted to please me and wanted to please his ministers, and vacillated between the two. That was his crime: not cruelty, not indifference to the suffering of others, not lechery—not all those crimes which had undermined the Monarchy and set the pillars on which it was erected mouldering to dust: it was vacillation, in which he was helped by a giddy thoughtless wife.
This affair of the play was characteristic of Louis’s weakess and my frivolity.
When Figaro was banned everyone became greatly interested in it. When Beaumarchais declared that only little men were afraid of little writings, how clever that was! And how well he understood human nature I There was no one who wished to be thought a ‘little man,” and his supporters were springing up everywhere. Gabrielle told me that her family believed the play should be performed. What sort of society was this where artists were not allowed to speak their minds I The play could not be performed, but what was to prevent people’s reading it?
“Have you read Figaro’?” It was the constant question asked everywhere. If you had not, if you did not burst into immediate praise, you were a ‘little man or woman. ” Clever Beaumarchais had said so.
There was one section of society which placed itself firmly behind Beaumarchais. Catherine the Great and her son the Grand Duke Paul expressed their approval of the play and declared they would introduce it into Russia. But the most important supporter was Artois. I think he longed for us to play it and therefore he was determined to see it performed. He was as lighthearted as I, and even went so far as to order a rehearsal in the King’s own theatre—Menus Plaisirs. Here my husband showed himself firm for once. As die audience was beginning to arrive he sent the Due de Villequier to forbid the performance.
Shortly afterwards the Comte de Vaudreuil, that most forceful lover of Gabrielle’s, declared that he could see no reason why the play should not be performed privately, and gathered together actors and actresses from the Comedie Francaise, and the play was put on in his chateau at Gennevilliers. Artois was there to see it performed. Everyone present declared it a masterpiece and demanded to know what was going to happen to French literature if its most important artists were muzzled.
Beaumarchais made fun of the censorship in the play itself:
“Provided I don’t speak in my writings of authority, of religion, of politics, of morality, of the officials of influential bodies, of other spectacles, of anyone who has any claim to anything, I can print anything freely, under the inspection of two or three censors.”
This was, many people were declaring, not to be tolerated. France was the centre of culture. Any country which failed to appreciate its artists was committing cultural suicide.
Louis was beginning to waver, and I repeated all the arguments I had heard. If certain offensive passages were removed . “Perhaps,” said the King. They would see.
It was a half-victory. I knew that he could soon be persuaded.
I was right. In April 1784 in the theatre of the Comedie Francaise, Le Manage de Figaro was performed and there was a stampede to get tickets. Members of the nobility stayed all day in the theatre to make sure of their places, and all through the day the crowd collected and when the doors were open they rushed in; they were standing in the aisles; but they listened spellbound to the performance.
Paris went wild with joy over Figaro; he was being quoted all over the country.
A victory for culture! What the nobility did not realise was that it was a step farther in the direction of the guillotine.
I believed that I had been right to add my voice to those who persuaded the King. I wished to show my appreciation of Beaumarchais and to honour him, so I suggested that my little company of friends should perform his play Le Barbier de Seville at the Trianon, in which I myself would play Rosine.
At the beginning of August in that year 1785, five months after the birth of my adorable little Louis-Charles, I was at the Trianon; and I intended to stay there undl the festival of Saint Louis, and. while I was there to play in Le Barbier de Seville.
As always, I was happier there than anywhere else. I remember walking round the gardens to look at the flowers and to see what progress my workmen had made—there were always changes being made at the Trianon—and pausing close to the summer house to look at my theatre with its Ionic columns, supporting a pediment on which a carved cupid held a lyre and a wreath of laurels. I remember the thrill I always experienced when I entered the theatre and the joy I took in its white and gold decorations. Above the curtain concealing the stage were two lovely nymphs holding my coat of arms and the ceiling had been exquisitely painted by Lagrenee. It looked very small with the curtain hiding the stage—that . stage which was my pride and delight—and which was enormous, large enough for the performance of any play; and if the space provided for the audience was small, well, it was a family affair, so we did not need the space of an ordinary theatre.
What I enjoyed most at the Trianon—apart from acting-was what were called the Sunday balls. Anyone could attend if suitably dressed. I had said that mothers with children and nurses with th
eir charges were to be presented to me and I enjoyed talking to these guardians of the little ones about their charming ways and their ailments. I talked to the children and told them about my own. I was happiest then.
Sometimes I would take part in a square dance, passing from partner to partner, to let the people know that the Trianon was conducted without the formality of Versailles.
I was particularly happy at that time, having no idea that a storm was about to break. Why should I have had? It all began so simply.
The King was giving a present of a diamond epaulet and buckles to his nephew, the Due d’Angouleme, son of Artois, and had ordered these through Boehmer and Bassenge, the Court jewellers; he asked them to deliver them to me.
After the manner in which Boehmer had behaved about his diamond necklace before my little daughter I had ordered that he was not to come into my presence but should deal with my valet de chambre.
I was with Madame Campan rehearsing my part in The Barber when the epaulet and buckles were delivered to me. The valet de chambre who brought them told me that Monsieur Boehmer had delivered a letter for me at the same time as he had brought the jewels.
I sighed as I took it. I was really thinking of my part.
“That tiresome man,” I said.
“I do believe he is a little mad.”
One of the women was sealing letters by a lighted wax taper and I went on talking to Madame Campan: “Do you think that I put enough emphasis into that last sentence? Do you think she would have said it in that way? Try it show me how you would do it, dear Campan.”
Campan did it excellently. What a way she had with words! Not that she looked in the least like Rosine . my dear serious Campan I “Excellent!” I said, and opened the letter. I ran my eye over it yawning slightly. Boehmer always made me want to yawn.
“Madame, ” We are filled with happiness and venture to think that the last arrangements proposed to us, which we have carried out with zeal and respect, are a further proof of our sub mission and devotion to Your Majesty’s orders and we have real satisfaction in thinking that the most beautiful diamonds in existence will belong to the greatest and best of Queens. “
The Queen`s Confession Page 29
