by Jean Plaidy
And as soon as the ring was off her finger, Antoinette felt desolation touch her. Now she was indeed far from home.
Her eyes brilliant with rebellious tears which she was holding in check with all the restraint of which she was capable, she turned to the door where Count Starhemberg was waiting to conduct her into the great hall.
She laid her hand on his arm, and in that moment the small slender girl looked like a queen. The rich skirts of her French dress, so becoming to her youth and beauty, rustled as she walked, and the French, who stood on the west side of the great table, which had been placed in the centre of the hall like a barrier between two countries, were touched by her youthful charm although their faces, stiff with formality, did not show this.
The furniture in the hall had been lent by the citizens of Strasbourg for this occasion, and the rich tapestries which adorned the walls helped to disguise the rough workmanship of the hastily constructed building. But the young girl did not notice the furnishings; she was only conscious of the solemn men on the west side of the table and her own countrymen and women who stayed so significantly on the east side.
The Count was leading her towards the table. Her legs were trembling and she wondered how she could have laughed so gaily and enjoyed all the festivities which had really been leading up to this moment.
The Count was ceremoniously drawing her round the table, and there was a deep silence in the room as all eyes were turned on her. She felt this was the most solemn moment of her life, far more solemn than the marriage ceremony had been. To her that had been like a piece of elaborate play-acting, for the man who had stood beside her had not been her husband.
Now that she had passed round the table and was on the west side, it was almost as though there was a sigh of relief from the watchers, as though they had expected her to refuse to take the necessary steps, or to lie on the floor and kick and scream her refusal to become a subject of King Louis and demand to be taken home to her mother, as she would have done when she was four years old.
Now they were ready to receive her – their Dauphine who would one day be their Queen.
One by one they approached her; they bowed; they kissed her hand. And when it was the turn of Madame de Noailles to curtsy, Antoinette could not hold back her tears. They began to fall silently.
Madame Noailles rose in alarm, and turned to one of the men in attendance.
He said: ‘The carriages are here. We should leave at once.’
Thus the ceremony was cut short that the quiet tears of the new Dauphine should not become noisy sobbing. Etiquette must be preserved at all costs.
So Marie Antoinette left the neutral territory of the Rhine and, as the bells of Strasbourg pealed forth, said her last goodbye to her old home and journeyed on to France.
In the apartment of the King of France Madame du Barry dismissed all attendants as she wished to be alone with the King, and the word of Madame du Barry was law at the Court of France.
Poor France! she was thinking. He is looking old to-day.
She liked to refer to him familiarly as ‘France’; it reminded her that he was the King and that because she wielded great power over him, she was, in a measure, ruler of the land. That was a pleasant thought for the daughter of a Vancouleurs dressmaker and, apart from a few uneasy moments, she was a contented woman. Nothing delighted her more than to receive her guests in her salon and to realise that they counted themselves highly favoured to be received thus by her, for it was understood that if they wished for honours at Court, it was to Madame du Barry they must look for them.
‘France’ had been good to her; he had provided her with a useful husband – none other than the Comte du Barry – who was, at the King’s command, ready to marry her and then remove himself from Court so that he never embarrassed any by his presence there, thus giving her the title of a great lady while the riches and honours were supplied by Louis. They were good to each other – she and Louis. It was true that he was sixty years old and looked it; not even Kings could live lives such as Louis Quinze had led and remain unmarked by their vices; she was twenty-seven and, if she were beginning to look a little raddled, she knew how to repair such ravages at her mirror; and those jewels and costly garments which were not supplied by Louis were bestowed upon her by those wishing for the King’s favour.
Since the death of Madame de Pompadour, some six years before, the Comtesse du Barry had been the most powerful woman at the Court of France.
She was a happy woman. It comes, she would tell herself, of having known less fortunate days. She had no patience with fine ladies who were dissatisfied with their lives of leisure. She would like to take them to Vancouleurs and show them the attic in which she had been born. She would like to make them work with their needle by the light of tallow candles. She would like to turn them adrift in Paris without a sou, with nothing but their bodies to sell. Then, said Madame du Barry, would these fine ladies appreciate their good fortune – even as Madame du Barry appreciated hers.
She made little attempt to ape their manners. She was herself – bold, brazen, handsome, vulgar and very much in love with life.
There was an anxiety however which was ever present. Louis was ageing and, if he should die, what would become of Madame du Barry? It was so natural that a woman in her delicate and yet so greatly influential position should have made many enemies. Of all the tasks which she must accomplish, that of keeping the King alive was of paramount importance. Moreover she was fond of him. Vulgar and acquisitive she might be, but she was good-hearted and, when one had known poverty such as she had, gratitude towards those who had made life easy could never be forgotten.
So now she was studying her lover with tender solicitude.
‘You are tired to-day,’ she said. ‘Your little visitor was too much for you last night.’
Louis smiled at the recollection of last night’s little visitor.
‘Nay, ’twas not so,’ he said.
‘And you found her charming, eh?’ murmured du Barry, smiling with pleasure, for the King’s enjoyment of the charming little girls whom she brought to him from time to time was a compliment to herself. She was too wise to expect him to remain faithful to her. Louis had so long practised promiscuity that it would have been unnatural for him to do otherwise. Therefore his whims must be gratified and, although he must take pleasure in other women, the shrewd du Barry was determined to see that she shared in that pleasure. Accordingly she had made it one of her tasks – when she imagined his passion for herself was declining – to bring him young girls to stimulate his erotic desires. She was not only indulgent mistress and shrewd adviser; she was procuress as well.
‘All the same,’ she went on tenderly, ‘you must have a quiet night to follow – with only your loving du Barry for company.’
He smiled at her again; she was amusing; she was clever; and he was fond of her. He often laughed to think of her in her sumptuous apartments in the great Palace of Versailles, with the little staircase he had built to connect her apartments with his, and the apartments of his three prudish daughters separated from hers only by a few rooms. He was content that she should be the reigning star of his Court. He was too old for ambitions; he had never been like the preceding monarch, his great-grandfather Louis Quatorze, Grand Monarque, le Roi Soleil, with his ambitions to build a great Empire the centre of which was flamboyant, brilliant, autocratic Versailles, and in truth the King himself. ‘L’état c’est moi,’ had said that ambitious Louis; and it was true that much glory had been brought to France in his name, yet it was the predominance of literature and art which would make that reign for ever memorable. Racine, Molière, Corneille, La Fontaine, Boileau! What bright stars to illuminate a glorious reign of more than seventy years! Le Roi Soleil was one of the fortunate Kings of France. He had been as handsome as a god, adored, and doubly blessed, for although he had come to the throne when he was a boy of four, the affairs of the country had been in the capable hands of Cardinal Mazarin. The Court had spar
kled with genius. La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyère, Pascal, Poussin – one could go on indefinitely recalling such great names. More fortunate still, Louis Quatorze had lived in an age when men were more ready to accept the divine rights of Kings to rule. Although he himself had been called Bien-Aimé, there was not the same tolerance shown to Louis Quinze as there had been for Louis Quatorze, and for all his preoccupation with pleasure he was fully aware of this.
The position of France in the world had deteriorated rapidly in the years of his reign. England was in command of the seas, and England was the perennial enemy of France. France was losing control of her colonies, and Louis was indifferent. He was too old for anything but indifference. He had given himself up to pleasure; he had been ruled by women and he could not break the habit. Now that he was getting older there were periods of alarm when he surveyed his past life and, during these periods, he would be overcome by the urgent need for repentance. Then he would shut himself away from his pleasures and try to live like a monk. But as soon as his health improved he would send for Madame du Barry, and she would continue her task of pandering to his pleasure and helping him to forget the need for repentance.
There they lived – he and du Barry – in the utmost splendour; yet he was aware of impending doom. They might shrug it aside, but ever in the background of their minds was his fear of being called upon to expiate his sins in hell, and her fear of the loss of power which his death would mean to her.
Du Barry was not worried about her soul. She was young still and fear of the future life was a malaise which did not attack until middle-age.
She said to him now: ‘When are you going to dismiss Choiseul? Has not the man governed you long enough?’
‘There is time … there is time …’ murmured the King wearily.
Du Barry could be tenacious where her enemies were concerned. The great politician, Choiseul, caused her some anxiety. For twelve years he had held undisputed power; he was not, however, the man to bow to the will of one such as du Barry, and she knew that she dared not allow a man who did not do so to remain in such a position. It was in her circle that the plot against him had been launched. With the Duc d’Aiguillon and the Abbé Terray she had assured the King that Choiseul must go, and that he could be replaced by another more able than himself.
‘Think of what harm this man can do to you,’ said du Barry. ‘Have you forgotten the Guiana settlement? What a fiasco! Think of all those settlers who died because they had been sent out to the new country lacking all that they would need. Equinoctial France did not remain French long, Louis. Everywhere the English triumph over us. And why? Bad management at home! And who manages affairs at home? It is Choiseul. It is always Choiseul! You know you would have rid yourself of the fellow long ago but for his pretty wife who cleverly remains virtuous and rejects the royal advances. And what impudence is this! To reject France!’
‘My dear, you grow too vehement.’
‘And so I shall when any woman thinks herself too good for the bed of France. But she’ll come fast enough, Louis, my bien-aimé … once Choiseul is in disgrace.’
‘There may be something in what you say,’ said Louis indolently. ‘But do not forget that he arranged this marriage with Austria.’
‘Marriages as good could have been arranged, and think you not that Aiguillon could not have arranged the marriage had you wished him to ?’
Louis was silent. He was thinking of his grandson the Dauphin, Duc de Berry. He was often sad when he thought of the boy.
‘How will he fare as a husband, think you, my dear?’
‘Berry?’ Du Barry laughed, rather loudly, raucously, the laugh of the market places of Paris. ‘He’ll grow up.’
‘He’ll be King of France one day ….’
‘That day is far distant,’ said du Barry fiercely.
The King smiled at her, half tenderly, half compassionately. He was very fond of her; he relied on her. What will become of her when I’m gone? he often wondered. But he did not want to think of when he was gone. When he did so he found himself veering towards one of those periods of repentance. He hated them; and in any case he always left them to plunge more violently than ever into debauchery.
‘The Kings of France,’ went on du Barry lightly, ‘have given a good account of themselves with women.’
‘So good,’ said Louis, ‘that mayhap for that reason there must be the occasional exception.’
‘Nay, he’ll grow up.’
‘He’s quite different from his brothers, Provence and Artois. Sometimes I think it is a pity that one of them was not the eldest.’
‘It is often seen that there is depth in these quiet ones,’ soothed du Barry. ‘I have heard that the little Austrian is quite charming; in fact, a regular little beauty. Put them to bed together and, mark my words, France, there’ll be no need to complain of the Dauphin’s lack of virility.’
‘The boy gives me great cause for alarm,’ said Louis.
Du Barry was uneasy. She must continually guard the King from unpleasant thoughts, and she knew from experience that thinking of his young grandson could often lead him to repentance. She was afraid of these fits of repentance which resulted in her banishment from his presence, and could so easily bring about her banishment from his life.
‘It is long since I saw him,’ said the King. ‘Send for him, my dear, and I will have a word with him about this marriage.’
‘Bien-Aimé, you are feeling tired after last night’s little gallantry.’
Louis, still smiling, said firmly: ‘Send for the boy, my dear.’
Du Barry, frowning lightly, went to the door. She called to a waiting page. ‘Go at once to the Dauphin’s apartment and bring him here. It is His Majesty’s command.’
Louis was staring at his ringed hands, not seeing them but thinking of the past. An old man’s habit, he mused, thinking of the past and wishing it had been different. If he had been more like his great-grandfather, Louis Quatorze, would France have been in its present state of unrest? Six years ago, when there had been great agitation against the Jesuits, he had tried to stand aloof. He had felt that his parliament was striking at him through the Jesuits. He had then begun to wonder whether the monarchy, which had seemed to stand so firm in the reign of his predecessor, had not begun to shake a little. He would never forget a letter – an anonymous one – which had been addressed to him and Madame Pompadour, and which declared: ‘There is no longer any hope of government. A time will come when the people’s eyes will be opened, and peradventure that time is approaching.’ Jean Jacques Rousseau was writing perniciously against the monarchy. François Marie Arouet de Voltaire was another of those philosophers who made uneasy reading. The memory of that anonymous letter, like the thoughts of hell-fire, often crept up on the Well-Beloved like assassins in dark and lonely places.
That was why, when he thought of his young grandson, he was remorseful. Had the boy been different – say a young Louis Quatorze, or better still a young Henri Quatre – he could have forgotten his fears. But young Berry was indeed a problem.
What bad luck that the Dauphin had died. Who would have believed that could happen? It was only five years ago when he was in camp at Compiègne, and there had over-taxed his strength, it was said. Only thirty-six! It was young to die; and France needed him.
He had been unlike his father – pious, perhaps too devoted to the clergy, but would that have been a bad thing for France? He had been an ideal Dauphin; he had even produced three sons, and it had seemed that he would fulfil his duty to France when France needed a strong hand. Then he had disappointed the sober members of the community by dying. There had been so many deaths at that time. Louis’ Queen, the Polish woman Marie Leckzinska, had died three years after her son, and a year before that the pleasant little Dauphine, Marie-Josèphe of Saxony, had followed her husband to the grave. These two women, quiet, modest and shrewd, were lost to the little boy who would so sadly need advisers.
Louis would never forget the day he ha
d heard of his son’s death. He had sent for his grandson. Little Berry had stood before him, tall for his age, yet so lacking in charm, so slow – though they said he was not stupid at his books. He was merely lethargic and seemed unable to think quickly. His tutors assured his grandfather that the boy was conscientious, even clever, but lacked the gift of fluency, the ability to come to a quick decision.
And looking at that big heavy boy with his lustreless eyes, Louis had murmured: ‘Poor France! A King of fifty-five, and a Dauphin of eleven!’
It was then that he had begun to feel uneasy.
Now the boy was being ushered into the apartment. A pity that it must be done with such ceremony, because the Dauphin was always at his worst on ceremonious occasions. He shuffled rather than walked to where his grandfather was sitting; he almost stumbled as he fell on his knees. The King’s hand was seized in a grip that hurt; he winced in an annoyance which did not smother the tenderness he felt for his grandson.
‘You may get up, Berry,’ he said.
The Dauphin rose. He said nothing; he merely stood expectantly; a somewhat strained expression in the short-sighted eyes.
The King waved his hands to the pages.
‘Leave us,’ he said; and they bowed and retired. He studied his grandson with pitying eyes while the Dauphin looked from his grandfather to his grandfather’s mistress as though apologising for his clumsiness, his ungainly appearance, and the fact that he could think of nothing to say.
‘Berry,’ said Louis, ‘we have called you here to speak of your marriage and to show you the newest portrait of your little Dauphine. We are charmed. She is quite enchanting. Show Berry the portrait, my dear.’
Madame du Barry went to the Dauphin and laid a motherly hand on his shoulder. ‘Here, Berry. You will see that she is in truth the loveliest of Dauphines.’
