by Juliet Grey
All told, one hundred servants would see to my personal needs from now on, including a young woman whose sole office was to be my bath attendant. Was everyone in France employed at Versailles? Whatever would Liesl have made of all this … this superfluousness of servants? Even the Hofburg, with 2,500 to attend the royal family, paled in comparison. With so many people bustling about me every moment of the day, not to mention all the gentlemen and women of honor who were expected to keep me company during my hours of leisure, how would I ever get a moment’s peace?
After the thirty-third introduction (or maybe it was earlier than that … or later …) my mind stopped focusing and it all became a blur of bows and curtsies, and “I’m so honored, madame la dauphine” and “I wish you joy and good health, madame la dauphine.” Oh, Gott im Himmel—I mean Sacré Dieu—oh, God in Heaven, I was bored!
By the time the twenty-two members of the royal family gathered in the new opera house, or Salle de Spectacle, for the wedding banquet, the skies had opened once more and the wind was blowing the rain sideways in horizontal torrents.
“Papa Roi says the fireworks celebration will have to be canceled,” said the dauphin. He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye but dared not look me full in the face. “I am sorry for it, because I think you would have liked to see them, madame la dauphine.”
“They will have more illuminations later in the week, I am sure.” The comte d’Artois seemed unable to refrain from participating in any discussion that touched on a pastime or entertainment. “Might I escort you to one of the incendiary celebrations, madame la dauphine?”
Had my new brother been more than thirteen years old I might have thought he was trying to flirt with me. “I should be honored, monsieur le comte,” I said politely. I caught Madame Sophie, the youngest of Mesdames tantes, and the one her father called “Snip,” giving me an odd look. Then again, she seemed to regard everyone with sidelong glances, like a hare darting through a vegetable garden, expecting at any moment to be brained with a shovel.
A table set for twenty-two had been placed upon the raised stage of the Salle de Spectacle; it sparkled with nearly a hundred cut-crystal goblets and innumerable items of silver flatware, épergnes, and other serving dishes. The theater was bathed in the amber glow of thousands of candles, from the enormous silver candelabras to the gold and crystal chandeliers that ringed the opera house’s horseshoe-shaped interior.
No expense had been spared in its construction, although, like the trappings of a stage play, the finishes were faux. Wood painted to resemble marble, particularly the fluted Corinthian columns of coral-colored “stone” that echoed those in the royal chapel, fooled the eye into believing they were the genuine article—a masterpiece of trompe l’oeil. The boxes along the sides of the salle were adorned in gilded relief. Above our heads, at the apex of the proscenium arch, a pair of winged angels flanked the Bourbon coat of arms—all in blazing gold. The king sat directly beneath the escutcheon, while on either side of him the dauphin and I echoed the position of the seraphim. And there we were, the royal family of France, all lined up like a row of hens. In the candle glow, everyone, even Mesdames tantes, looked radiantly beautiful. Surely there had never been nearly two dozen people so gloriously arrayed. I had to admit that our formal court costume in Austria, ornate as it was, paled in comparison. Maman placed more value in what lay within the heart and in the head.
The wedding banquet could not have been more unlike the dinner en famille of the previous night. For one thing, no one spoke a word. Instead, forks were lifted, goblets were raised, and comestibles were served and consumed in terrifying silence, except for the strains of the eighty-piece orchestra and the dauphin’s energetic slurping of two dozen oysters. Indeed, as he had told me, he was oblivious to the presence of the spectators when there was a plate of food in front of him. His eyes were cast downwards, intent on peeling, shelling, slicing, or spooning, depending on the course.
I could not stomach a morsel, nor touch a drop of wine, even in celebration. What if I spilled something on my gown or used the wrong fork? The entire nobility of France would witness and remember it. They might think me provincial or clumsy. Better to sit still and stately with my neck long and elegant, and smile prettily as if there was nothing in the world I would rather have been doing. My new home, I thought. My family. My kingdom. My people. And when I paused to regard the daunting sea of faces avidly watching me as “my people,” the knot in my belly began to untie itself.
The orchestra was playing an odd sort of melody—exotic and percussive. “What sort of music is that, Papa Roi?” I whispered.
“It is the sort of music that is the height of fashion,” the king replied with a wink. “Turkish.”
“Who is Monsieur Turkish? Or is it Maestro Turkish?” Perhaps the composer was Italian. He certainly wasn’t German—no good German would write such strange sounds.
The king laughed out loud, and suddenly all eyes were upon him because they had not heard our discourse. “Ma petite, the Ottoman Turks command a vast land to the east. Surely you have heard of the Ottoman Empire?” I blushed furiously, crimson to the roots of my hair. “Or perhaps you have trod upon Turkey carpets?”
“Begging your pardon, Your Majesty. Sometimes I can be a little fool.”
The king leaned toward me, so close that I could smell the garlic on his breath. “Oh non, ma petite. Vous êtes absolument charmante. Absolutely charming and utterly captivating.”
A pyramid of featherlight puff pastries filled with sweetened whipped cream was placed on the table and the dauphin began to heap them onto his own plate. Although he had already consumed enough food for three men, he dove into the dessert with such enthusiasm that one might have mistaken his appetite for that of a half-starved beggar. I felt embarrassed for him; I did not want the loftiest souls in France to see my husband, their future king, in such an unflattering light.
I cannot imagine what went through their powdered heads, but Papa Roi did not stint on his opinion. “Ho, there, my boy! Don’t overload your stomach tonight!”
The dauphin glanced up, between mouthfuls. “Why?” he asked, somewhat confused. “I always sleep better after a good supper.”
The king turned his head away from his grandson and gave me a look that brimmed with both sorrow and sympathy. I was certain that every eye in the opera house saw it.
SEVENTEEN
Rien
The dreaded banquet finally ended; but for the thousands of voyeurs whose noble lineage entitled them to witness the events of the royal wedding, the real spectacle had just begun. A grand processional led by the king and the Archbishop of Rheims conducted my husband and me from the Salle de Spectacle to the dauphin’s apartments where a table had been set up in the music room. There, like the monkeys in my father’s zoo at the palace of Laxenburg, whose antics were displayed for the delight of the Austrian elite, Louis Auguste and I were expected to amuse the crush of ducs and duchesses, marquis and marquises, and comtes and comtesses whose rank accorded them the privilege of watching the heirs to the throne of France play a few rounds of cavagnole with members of the Orléans branch of the Bourbons. I was too anxious to acknowledge the exhaustion in my body. I knew I must play, and play deftly. And of course, because the courtiers loved the game so much, I tamped down all feelings of tedium, as one ticket after another was drawn from the banker’s bag, and the players held their breath to see if anyone had backed the winning number and whether the wager had been prodigious. Why they enjoyed such a dreary pastime remained a mystery to me.
Eventually, Louis Auguste stifled a yawn behind his hand. The archbishop, his fingers reflexively clasped, as if in a permanent state of prayer, glanced expectantly at the king, who regarded the pendulum clock on the mantel. Midnight had come and gone.
“Et maintenant—and now—it is time for the coucher,” said Papa Roi. The glimmer in his eye unnerved me. He took my arm and nestled it in the crook of his elbow as he escorted me to the dauphin’s bed
chamber. My husband lagged behind us like a sullen puppy.
During one of her many interminable lectures on the etiquette of the French court, the comtesse de Noailles had explained that certain members of the nobility (only the highest, of course) were entitled to spend their mornings attending the rising and formal dressing, or lever, of the king and of the dauphin and dauphine; and at the end of the evening, to attend the ritual of our undressing and getting into bed, or the coucher. But the explanation of it and my experiencing it were worlds apart. It was our wedding night! Were the dauphin and I to have no privacy?
A pair of intricately painted folding screens shielded our view from each other, but I suspected that my husband was enduring a similar agony. Every jewel in my hair and on my body and each article of my clothing—shoes, gown, panniers, pockets, petticoats, and stays—was removed with painstaking exactitude and humiliating longueur and passed hand to hand by a chain of women, including my ladies in waiting, Mesdames tantes, and Madame de Noailles. But some of these aristocratic handmaidens were unknown to me; as strange fingers touched my skin, it pebbled with modesty and cold. After my stays were removed, behind the rococo screen I crossed my arms over my bosom. This was one occasion on which I was grateful that my bare arms could completely cover my breasts.
Madame Etiquette tugged at the blue satin ribbons encircling my thighs. I began to protest, but her stern expression—the “il n’est pas comme il faut” look—cautioned me that it was the proper etiquette to submit with dignity to the humiliations of the coucher. My garters were untied and my white silk stockings were rolled down, as I extricated my feet with as much grace as I could muster. My legs were now bare as well.
I was as naked as the day I emerged into this world. What sort of a country had I come to—where every action was prescribed and proper, yet perfumed courtiers piddled in the palace corridors and the future queen of France was compelled to display her chaste limbs to the prying eyes of strangers? I could not bear to tell Maman about this ritual; she would be horrified! But she had enjoined me to make them love me, so for her sake I would try to endure it.
Salvation arrived in the form of my nightgown, a white-worked shift with a high collar and delicate lace at the wrists, white embroidery on fine linen of an equally virginal hue. I reached for it but the women might as well have been playing a game that I used to enjoy with my brothers and sisters where we would use any means necessary to keep an object out of the hands of the designated “seeker.” The embroidered nightgown passed through the grasp of several women who handled the garment as if it were a holy relic. Meanwhile, I did not have enough hands of my own to conceal my modesty.
Finally, a sweet-faced woman with a halo of blond hair and almond-shaped eyes slipped the shift over my head. It reached the middle of my calves in the front and was a few inches longer behind. The comtesse de Noailles, not immune to my look of despair, explained that etiquette dictated (but of course!) that the most recently wed, and highest ranking princess of the blood, could have the honor of handing the bridal nightshirt to the dauphine. This privileged attendant was the duchesse de Chartres, who had become a princess through marriage. I vaguely remembered her presence at the dinner en famille the previous night. So much had happened since then, my mind was blurry. I certainly recalled her husband, for the duc de Chartres had a very red nose and bad skin.
Our respective retinues must have arranged a mutual signal, because the dauphin and I emerged from behind our screens at the same moment. And what a comical sight! Louis Auguste was dressed in an identical nightshirt, although the royal seamstresses could have stitched three of mine out of the fabric used to construct my husband’s. In a rare moment of spontaneity for the French court, we exchanged a glance and burst out laughing. The comtesse de Noailles frowned. So did the Archbishop of Rheims. He invited the dauphin and me to face the matrimonial bed, which he then sprinkled with holy water—mattress, hangings, tester, and bolsters, blessing our union and praying for our connubial success.
The king and cleric, and all of the aristocratic assemblage, watched as we climbed into bed. Were they going to watch us consummate our nuptials as well?
We were as pallid as our nightshirts. I noticed that Louis Auguste was holding his breath. So was I. What were we supposed to do next?
After an interminable, and tremendously uncomfortable, silence, the hangings were finally drawn. Someone extinguished the candles. “Bonne nuit,” came a chorus of murmurs, as the king and courtiers exited the chamber. “We leave you to it, eh bien?” a man’s voice chuckled. I hoped that it wasn’t the archbishop. My husband and I lay in the dark, side by side on our backs with an ocean of fine white linen between us. It was the first time we had been alone all day.
“Who handed you your nightgown?” I whispered.
“The king,” my husband whispered drowsily.
“I got a duchesse.” Silence. “Don’t you think it’s silly that so many people have to touch something as simple as a nightshirt before we may put it on?” Silence. “Monsieur le dauphin? Louis Auguste?”
“What?” he grumbled. “And call me Louis. I hate Louis Auguste.”
“But the king is Louis. You have to be Louis Auguste, at least until … well, you just have to, so no one is confused when I mention ‘Louis.’ ”
“All right, I suppose.” Silence. “Why are we whispering?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered. “I asked you a question. I asked if you thought it was silly that such common things as our nightgowns are treated with so much reverence.”
“I’m tired,” he whispered. “And I never thought about whether it’s silly or not. I just do it. I’ve been doing it all my life. Besides, it’s not about the nightgown. Everything we touch, everything we wear, is a reflection of our glory and divine right.”
“Do you like it?” I asked my husband. “The etiquette, I mean.”
“No,” he replied groggily.
“Then when you’re king, can you make it stop? Because I hate it.”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t know what?”
“Don’t know if I want to make it stop.”
“Why not?”
“Because we’ve been doing it for nearly a hundred years. It’s what makes our court special. And if I stopped it, who would we be?”
I thought about it, eyes open, gazing at the underside of the tester and a ceiling I couldn’t see. My body was stiff with fear. Our banter had helped me to relax a little bit, but now Louis Auguste was silent. I wondered if he would try to touch me. Maman had explained what was supposed to happen on a wedding night, particularly between two royal spouses.
Aren’t we going to make a treaty? I mean—a baby. I didn’t voice my thought. Instead I let my left hand creep, inch by awkward inch, toward my husband’s snoring frame. My fingers found his right arm, grazing it. He flinched, already asleep, and I yanked my hand away, heart pounding furiously.
I dared to admit to myself that somewhere deep inside I was relieved that Louis Auguste had not leapt on top of me. And yet I had not fulfilled my duty as a bride. Guilt mingled with relief. I stared into the blackness overhead. I had always imagined that after today everything would begin to fall into place and my fears about becoming the wife of a stranger and the future queen of a foreign land would begin to evanesce. But my husband winced nearly every time he looked at me, and had little interest in any discourse. If he did not like me, or even find my companionship tolerable (and if his gustatory enjoyment would always result in the snoring bulk beside me), how were we to give the Bourbons an heir?
The golden ring on my finger was an indication that our goal was only half completed. It would take a baby boy in my belly to fully satisfy Maman’s alliance with France.
When the hangings were drawn open the following morning I awoke to a sunlit day and an empty bed. The dauphin was gone—but where?
“Hunting, madame la dauphine,” said the maidservant who brought me a Sèvres chamber pot. “Monsieur l
e dauphin always goes hunting in the morning. Except for the special occasions … like his wedding yesterday.” I could not fathom the reason for her sly grin until I glanced back at the bed and realized that a half dozen maids were inspecting the linens for telltale smears of carmine. Oh, mon Dieu, I realized with a gasp. There would be no blood. Nothing had happened during the previous night. My bridegroom and I had slept together as chastely as if we had been siblings.
While the maids bustled about the bed, clucking over the sheets that remained mortifyingly unsoiled, I noticed that the dauphin had left his hunting diary on a pretty little fruitwood table. Dare I? I was insatiably curious to see what he had written on our wedding day. I already knew that he was not one for long-winded descriptions. As he was unable to go hunting, what might he have written about all the festivities?
The red ribbon marked the current page; and, taking full advantage of a rare moment when no one was looking at me, I stole a peek.
What?
I blinked in surprise. On the page was but a single, solitary word: Rien. Nothing. Years from now people would read Louis Auguste’s journal and think that rien—nothing—had occurred on the sixteenth of May in the year 1770. My face reddened. Bad enough that I was poking my nose into my husband’s business, but oh, how humiliating to read what I had found.
