Flaunting, Extravagant Queen

by Jean Plaidy

  On the walls of the château was written: ‘If the price does not go down we will exterminate the King and the whole race of Bourbons.’

  The King was more distressed than ever for he knew that his enemies were within the Palace.

  He wanted to talk of this with someone whom he could trust. He turned to the Queen, but could he trust her? She would mean no harm but she was too impulsive; she spoke without thinking. No, he could not speak to the Queen.

  And thinking of her, he remembered those men whose blood was his blood, his own relations.

  Antoinette could not grasp how deeply she had offended Orléans, Condé and Conti, when her brother had been visiting France. Antoinette could never put herself in the place of another. She saw the world through the eyes of Antoinette – a gay and lovely place where everyone should be kind to others and all should realise that nothing was of any great moment compared with enjoyment of the sunny hours.

  And thinking thus, Louis remembered Conti, Conti, the most vindictive of them all, Conti who had held aloof from the Court, blaming his gout. Conti, whose house of L’Isle Adam was in Pontoise, that area in which, so it had been discovered, the riots had started.

  Conti, the King knew, had speculated heavily in grain, and Turgot’s edict which was calculated to bring down prices – and which would have succeeded but for bad harvest and lack of transport – had been resented by him, Conti, who was hostile to Turgot, hostile to the Queen.

  It was alarming. An enemy so close. An enemy in his family. And an enemy who could contemplate the destruction of the monarchy.

  Louis trembled. He knew he must act with firmness.

  The wig-maker and the gauze-worker were publicly hanged, and the sight of those two men on the gallows brought about a more serious mood among the rioters.

  The example had been necessary. Those men who had been paid to begin the Guerre des Farines, and who, when arrested, had been found to have money in their purses, were glad to be released, and keep the peace.

  The great turning-point of Louis’ life had come; but he did not know it, and he hesitated. His moment of firm determination was over.

  Because of those hideous suspicions which had been aroused in his mind, he was afraid to continue with the enquiry. He was afraid to discover who might be behind this rehearsal for a revolution.

  Louis was not the only one whose suspicions had fallen on his cousin. It was being whispered in knowledgeable circles that Conti was deeply involved in the disturbances. Louis was afraid, and he continued to waver.

  To Turgot he wrote: ‘The suspicion is dreadful and it is difficult to know what line to take. But unhappily, those who have said this are not the only ones. I hope for the sake of my name that they are only calumniators.’

  The riots had subsided with the punishment meted out to the wig-maker and gauze-worker.

  Louis’ hour of boldness had passed. He took a definite turning on that day when thankfully he decided to let matters rest because he was afraid whom revelation might expose.

  Chapter VI

  THE EMPEROR AT VERSAILLES

  It was a June day, and the citizens of Rheims were eager to show the loyalty they bore towards their King and Queen. Forgotten were the recent riots. Here was pageantry, all that royalty meant to people whose lives were so drab that they rejoiced in those days when the kings and queens came close to them in their brilliant splendour.

  On the previous night the Queen, with her brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, had ridden through the moonlit streets while the crowds had cried: ‘Long live the Queen! Long live the royal family!’

  This was the day when Louis Seize was to be crowned King of France.

  Antoinette was not with him. Louis was anxious to spare his country the expense of a double coronation; he was even anxious to spare the country the expense of his own traditional crowning.

  ‘I would rather,’ he declared, ‘hold my crown by my people’s love. There is no need for them to swear to serve me. Let them do so only while it is their will that they should.’

  Louis in any case hated such ceremonies.

  But his desire for privacy and avoidance of expense was overruled. The people wished for the ancient ceremony to be performed.

  ‘Soon,’ he had said, ‘we shall have further expense with Clothilde’s wedding. Then there will be the lying-in of Thérèse.’

  But it was no use. The people demanded to see their King in purple velvet. So Louis must submit, although both he and the Queen had agreed that he only should be crowned.

  So the ancient ceremony began that morning with the procession arriving at his bedchamber and the Grand Chorister rapping on the door.

  The words were still ringing in Louis’ ears as he rode in his great state carriage to the Cathedral.

  ‘What is your wish?’

  ‘I wish for the King.’

  ‘The King sleeps.’

  There followed a repetition of these words three times, when the Bishop replied: ‘We ask for Louis Seize whom God has given us for King.’

  So they had led him to his carriage, he feeling gauche in the crimson robes with his mantle of silver and the plumes and diamonds in his cap.

  How could he help thinking of those monarchs who had gone before him: Charlemagne, St Louis, Henri Quatre, Louis Quatorze – even his grandfather! How different they must have looked to the people from the fleshly, somewhat sullen-faced man who was now their King.

  But, as he knelt before the altar and the robes of royal velvet decorated with golden lilies were laid about him, he was swearing that he would never cease to work for his country, that his aim in life should be to restore France to prosperity, that he would give his life if need be in the service of his country.

  He looked up suddenly and saw Antoinette. She was in a gallery close to the altar, and he saw that she was leaning forward and that she was quietly weeping.

  He paused and she smiled at him through her tears, while many witnessed their exchange of glances, sensing their emotion and the affection in those looks they gave each other. Some wept, and all applauded, crying: ‘Long live the King and his Queen!’

  It was a moving moment, a departure from tradition; and never, it was said, were there a King and Queen so devoted to one another as this King and Queen.

  As soon as he was able he joined Antoinette. She held out her hands to him and lifted her face to his.

  ‘We will always be together,’ said Louis.

  She nodded mutely, for she, who was much more easily moved than he was, had at this time nothing to say.

  The people were calling for them. They must walk along that gallery which had been erected from the Cathedral to the Archbishop’s Palace.

  ‘Come,’ said Louis, and he drew her hand through his arm.

  Thus they walked, and the crowds on either side of the gallery saw the affection in the King’s face, saw the emotion in the Queen’s.

  ‘God bless them!’ the cry went up. ‘Long life to Louis and his Queen!’

  Thérèse, Comtesse d’Artois lay back on her pillows; she was exhausted but triumphant. She was the first of the royal wives to give birth to a child.

  Thérèse had good reason to feel triumphant. She had proved herself fertile, and it seemed probable that neither of her husband’s brothers could provide those greatly wished-for enfants de France. If this were so, her children might one day wear the crown.

  The lying-in chamber was crowded for it was the custom that all who cared to be were permitted to witness the birth of one who might inherit the throne of France.

  Her sister Josèphe, she knew, was anxious; as for the Queen, it was said she would willingly give ten years of her life if she might give birth to an heir.

  But neither of them was to have her wishes granted; and it was Thérèse, plain Thérèse, who was the fortunate one.

  Antoinette was standing by the bed now.

  ‘Why, Thérèse,’ she said, ‘you are indeed fortunate. The baby is charming … charming …
’

  Thérèse’s thin lips curled into a supercilious smile, and Antoinette turned from the bed. She knew what Thérèse was thinking. Indeed, everyone present was thinking the same. It seemed to her that the eyes of those whose vulgar curiosity had brought them to the chamber of birth at this time, were fixed on her.

  For, thought Antoinette, they have not come to see the birth of Thérèse’s child, but to witness the mortification of a barren Queen.

  She commanded that the child be brought to her that she might embrace it. There it lay on the velvet cushion, its little face red and puckered, its tiny hands clenched.

  ‘May God bless you, my child,’ she murmured.

  There was a hush all about her. One of the women from the fish-market called out in her raucous voice: ‘’Tis your own child you should be holding in your arms.’

  This vulgar poissarde had merely voiced what all were thinking. Antoinette turned to her and nodded slowly. Then with great dignity she handed the child back to the nurses, and went to the bed to take her leave of Thérèse.

  ‘You need rest,’ she said.

  Thérèse agreed. She was exhausted, and the room was warm with the press of people.

  ‘It is a barbarous custom, this,’ whispered Antoinette. ‘So many to stare at a woman at such a time.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Thérèse with a hint of malice in her voice, ‘but one must endure the inconvenience for the satisfaction of giving birth to a child.’

  ‘I would willingly endure it,’ murmured Antoinette; and as she kissed her sister-in-law and turned away, she thought: ‘Most willingly.’

  The sightseers fell back as she walked calmly to the door. She heard the whispers about her, for what did the common people, whose privilege it was to storm the bedchamber at such times, know of Court etiquette or ordinary good manners?

  ‘One would think she would be ashamed … ’

  ‘It may be that if she spent less time at her balls and fêtes, and more with the King …’

  ‘Yet there she goes, haughty as they make them … These Austrians … they are not like the French. They are cold, so they say. They do not make good mothers …’

  ‘Holy Mother of God,’ prayed Antoinette, ‘how can I endure it? Why cannot I have a child? If I had a child … a Dauphin for France, I should be the happiest woman in the world. Is it so much to ask? Is it not my due? Why should I be denied what I want more than anything on earth?’

  Again she felt that choking sensation in her throat, and she was afraid that she would break down and show her misery to them all.

  As she passed through the salle des gardes she was aware that the women of the fish-market were walking beside her.

  To them she seemed unreal. Their hands were so red and coarse, chapped with handling cold and slimy fish; but those little hands, sparkling with jewels, looked as though they were made of china. The Queen herself looked as though she were made of china. Her golden hair was piled high and dressed with flowers and ribbons; her dress was of rich silk, cut low to show her dazzlingly white throat on which the diamonds blazed; her silk skirts rustled as she walked; and it seemed to the coarse women of the fish-market that such a creature was no more than a pretty doll and that France had need of something more than an ornament on its throne. Beside this exquisite creature they felt coarse, and, as always, envy bred hatred. Many of them had more children than they could afford to feed. They remembered the pain of childbirth, the sickening repetition of conception, gestation and birth. Why should we go through all that, they demanded of themselves, while this pretty piece of frivolity, who looks like a china ornament to be kept in a glass case for fear of breaking, knows how to have all the pleasure in the world and won’t even suffer the pain of bearing a child?

  ‘When are we going to see your lying-in, Madame?’ one demanded boldly.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be a better thing to give a child to France than so many fêtes to your friends?’ cried another.

  ‘Oh, Madame is too dainty, too pretty to bear children. Madame is afraid that would spoil her dainty figure.’

  She could not look at them; she dared not. What would they say in the streets of Paris if these creatures went back to their stalls and told how the Queen had so far forgotten her majesty that she had wept before them?

  So she held her head high; she looked neither to the left nor to the right, and it seemed to her a very long walk from the lying-in chamber of Thérèse to her own apartments.

  They misinterpreted her gesture. The high colour in her cheeks, the tilt of her head – that was haughtiness, that was Austrian manners which she was bringing into France.

  Their blood was up. Now they spoke to her and each other in the coarsest terms. They told each other crudely why she and the King could not have children. They repeated all the rumours, all the stories, which were circulating in the lowest cafés and taverns of the town.

  They would show the proud Austrian that French poissardes did not mince their words.

  Still she walked on; they were surrounding her and she could feel their hands on her clothes; their hot breath, smelling of garlic, their clothes saturated with the stench of fish, made her fear she would faint.

  The Princesse de Lamballe, who walked beside her, was breathing heavily, and Antoinette knew that the Princesse was afraid of the people when they came too close. These women crowding about them reminded Antoinette of the mob she had seen from the balconies at the time of the Guerre des Farines. They were the same people who had shouted Vive le Roi! Vive la Reine! in Rheims – the same people in a different mood.

  The apartments were reached at last. The pages opened the door. For one hideous second she was afraid the poissardes would follow her. In that second it was possible to think other evil thoughts. She was able to picture them, laying their dirty hands upon her, stripping her of her clothes, while their obscene observations became more obscene.

  She thought: I am afraid of the people of France.

  Then the door was shut and there was peace. She could no longer hear the voices, no longer smell the fish market.

  The Princesse de Lamballe, her dearest friend, was beside her.

  ‘They should not upset you,’ murmured the Princesse. ‘The low rabble … what do we care for them?’

  ‘I care, not for them nor their lewdness, their obscenity,’ said Antoinette. ‘I care only that I am a barren Queen.’

  Then she went to her bed and lay there sobbing quietly.

  The Princesse de Lamballe drew the curtains and left her to sob out her grief.

  The Princesse de Lamballe, whom the Queen had selected for her special friend soon after she came to the throne, was a charming young girl, generous and sentimental, truly fond of the Queen, truly distressed to see her unhappy.

  As Marie Thérèse Louise de Savoie-Carignan, a member of the noble house of Savoy, she had been married very early to Louis Stanislas de Bourbon, Prince de Lamballe, who was the only son of a grandson of Louis Quatorze and Madame de Montespan. Fortunately for the Princesse her husband had died a year after their marriage, worn out by a life of excessive dissipation; and the Princesse’s experiment in matrimony, being so brief, had left her gentle and eager for friendship. She was a little naive in her outlook, young for her years in spite of her experiences, and Antoinette, perhaps owing to her own unfortunate matrimonial experiences, found the girl’s company attractive.

  Antoinette had bestowed on the Princesse the post of superintendent of her houshold and, as this post had not been held by anyone for over thirty years, it was clearly of no great importance although it carried with it a salary of 150,000 livres. Antoinette wished to keep her charming friend at her side and see her entertain at the Court; therefore it had been her great pleasure to bestow the post upon her.

  It was unwise, since there were so many to watch and criticise her actions, but Antoinette shut her eyes to criticism.

  After that humiliating and even alarming walk from the lying-in chamber of Madame d’Artois to the Quee
n’s apartments, the Princesse, drawing the curtains about the Queen’s bed, stood uncertainly, wondering what she could do to comfort her beloved mistress.

  Sensing that Antoinette wished to be alone with her grief she tiptoed to the door and there was met by the little Marquise de Clermont-Tonnerre.

  ‘Rose Bertin has come to see you,’ she said, ‘concerning a dress. I told her you were with the Queen and that she had no right to come to the château unless sent for. I could not get rid of her.’

  The Princesse, glad to have something to do, said that she would go to her apartments, which adjoined those of the Queen, and that Rose Bertin should be brought to her there.

  No sooner had she gone there than the modiste was shown in.

  Rose Bertin, sprung from the lower classes, was a woman of vigour, imagination and determination. As dressmaker to Court ladies her great ambition was to serve the Queen. She had on many occasions tried to insinuate herself into the château, but the rigorous etiquette imposed on tradespeople had meant that she had never been allowed to speak to the Queen.

  Madame Bertin did not know how to take No for an answer. She had applied herself to her trade and knew herself to be the best dressmaker in Paris, but even the best dressmaker needed luck and good friends to achieve the goal she had set for herself.

  She had at last made a dress for the Princesse de Lamballe, and she knew that that lady was delighted with her work, as she had intended she should be. She had pictured the Queen’s admiration; and the question: ‘But who is your dressmaker?’ And the answer: ‘Oh, it is a little dressmaker from the rue Saint-Honoré. Rose Bertin by name.’ And then the Queen’s command: ‘Send for Rose Bertin.’

  But it had not happened, and Rose Bertin was not one to sit down and wait for things to happen.

  She had been in the lying-in chamber; had witnessed the departure of the Queen. The modiste in her longed to dress that exquisite figure while the business woman reminded herself of the benefits which could accrue from the dressing of a Queen.