Becoming Marie Antoinette: A Novel

by Juliet Grey

  “Prettily said,” I replied, and meant it.

  One might be tempted to think that my days were passed leisurely, filled with naught but gaiety and pleasure. In truth, they were crammed with ceremony—religious, gustatory, and social. In addition to the presentations at court, I hated the cercles—another banality of life at Versailles. Various ladies would gather in my salon, in a sort of loose social circle; as dauphine it was my honor to act as the hostess; and I was expected to speak to each one of them directly. The comtesse de Noailles never tired of shepherding me through the cercles as though I were one of the Lipizzaner stallions being put through his paces at the Spanish Riding School back home in Vienna. I was to avoid all generalities; instead I was expected to say something polite (and quite specific) to each of my guests, and it was an onerous task to devise so many distinctive witty pleasantries.

  Oh, how I wanted to scream, “Who cares?” It was all I could do not to poke fun at the ceremonies, the women, and especially the haughty Madame Etiquette. Finally, I yielded to the temptation, reasoning that if I must endure such rigidity, at least I could find some entertainment in it. So prior to a cercle, I would torment my dame d’honneur with inane questions, pretending that I was preparing myself, storing up a cache of remarks individually tailored to my guests. “What is the proper protocol, madame la comtesse, for addressing a lady who has smeared her rouge so frightfully that the apples of her cheeks resemble pears?” Or, “If it is so important to find something singular to share with each of my visitors, what should I say to the duchesse de la Rochefoucauld, who always chews with her mouth open? Should I remark upon it?” It was worth the time it took to invent such ludicrous questions just to receive Madame de Noailles’s horrified reply and to watch the tips of her ears grow red with consternation.

  Mesdames tantes, those mistresses of the art of médisance, had taught me how to turn my wit on an unsuspecting target. Frustration with my still-virginal state was relieved by raillery, and I found comfort in laughter and mockery. My targets were none the wiser if I giggled or rolled my eyes behind the safety of my open fan.

  I found the elderly ladies particularly amusing, for they tried so hard to recapture the flush of youthful radiance that was the raison d’être for the mandated court maquillage. The prominent circles on their pixilated cheeks resembled wrinkled plums; and on some of the women, whose sight was evidently not what it once had been, the false blush was so clumsily applied that these aging aristocrats resembled the impoverished marketwomen of Paris who, I was told, stained their cheeks with cheap red wine because they could not afford rouge. On occasion, when boredom got the better of me, I would hide behind my fan so that only some of my ladies could see my features, and I would mimic the tipsy sway of a drunkard (as I imagined it, for I had never seen the genuine article) and roll my eyes heavenward with ennui.

  One day, I was receiving some newly minted comtesses. My ladies-in-waiting were arrayed behind me like petals on a rose, including the bookish Madame Campan, who as Mademoiselle Genet had been Mesdames tantes’ reader, though she was but three years my senior.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the comtesse de Noailles nodding her head up and down and emphatically raising and lowering her eyes as though she were following the progress of a fly. This odd motion was followed by a series of strange hand gestures. I could not decipher a bit of it. What had sent the comtesse into such a tizzy? It dawned on me that the furious movement was not a signal to me, but to someone standing behind me, so I turned ever so slightly to regard my ladies—and there was Madame Campan, with the white linen lappets of her cap still pinned to the crown of her head.

  “Your lappets, Henriette!” I muttered out of the corner of my mouth.

  “Quoi? What?” she whispered. “I can’t understand what you’re saying.”

  “Your lappets!” I repeated, a bit louder. Endeavoring to contain my laughter I added, “Don’t you know that it is the etiquette when receiving that the lappets must be down by your ears, like a spaniel? Let down your lappets or the comtesse de Noailles will expire from apoplexy!”

  I found another source of release in riding out to the hunt with the dauphin and the king. After the initial fun of suprising the party by clattering up in a carriage, the excitement subsided. So I ordered a horse to be saddled and caparisoned for me, that I might join them, if for no other reason than to enjoy an exhilarating gallop as I’d done on my pony when I was a little girl. Of course I could not accomplish this expedition alone; court etiquette dictated that my women accompany me. But several of them were afraid of horses in general, and not a single one had ever ridden astride, let alone attired in a man’s habit of split coat, breeches, and boots, as I had taken to doing.

  It irked me how the royal hunting party often rode roughshod across the fields in pursuit of their quarry, heedless of the consequences to the local farmers. Frequently I insisted that the entire cortège divert its course in order to avoid trampling the wheat fields. The compensation Papa Roi offered to these poor men for despoiling their crops was so meager that I would privately supplement it from my allowance.

  The absence of charity at Versailles appalled me. Maman had taught her children to have compassion for a fellow Christian in distress, regardless of his place in society. I tried to lead by example, but the courtiers were too convinced of their own superiority to offer aid to anyone who was not born a comte or a duc. They even turned their backs on a peasant who’d been wounded by a frightened stag during a hunt near Fontainebleau. The man had been digging a ditch when the beast, pursued by dozens of galloping horses, careened into him with great force, piercing him in the belly and groin with his antlers.

  Upon hearing her husband’s agonized cry, the villager’s wife tore out of their cottage, her hair and dress in disarray. When she saw him lying in a pool of blood, she collapsed beside him, wailing hysterically and wishing for her own death.

  Papa Roi drew up his horse and paused for several moments, his face a picture of concern. Yet he did nothing to ameliorate the man’s suffering. It saddened and embarrassed me that he did not even offer the family so much as a sou, let alone send someone to summon a doctor.

  “Here, madame.” I knelt beside the woman and cradled her head in my arms. “Your husband most needs you to be strong when he is weak. Breathe, now,” I coaxed her, until she inhaled my smelling salts. How I wept to see her so distraught; I tried to imagine how she might manage, were she to lose her spouse. I dispatched several members of my retinue to Fontainebleau to fetch the royal surgeons. When the doctors arrived they placed the wounded man on a litter and carried him back to his humble cottage, where I lit a fire, put the kettle on the hob, and brewed a pot of coffee. Their hovel, with its floors of packed earth and walls made of mud and thatch, reminded me of some of the places I used to see when I accompanied Maman on her visits of charity. I gazed about the room at the contemptuous expressions on the courtiers’ faces and the gratitude etched on those of the cottagers. My guards were wary; my ladies of honor thought I was foolish. But I knew that God would not forgive me if I ignored the suffering of a fellow man.

  Before I departed the cottage I handed the villager’s wife my purse filled with gold écus. Her shining eyes, appreciative not only of the coins but for my compassion, were all the thanks I needed. A few days later I sent a messenger to inquire after the cottager’s health. He would mend, I was told, but the process would be a slow one and not without pain. It would be several months before he would be able to feed his family from the fruits of his own labors. I spoke with my almoner and ordered that baskets of food—fowl and bread and cheese and wine—be brought to the cottage every week until he was fully recovered.

  Why, I later asked the dauphin, was such Christian charity alien to the members of the French court? But Louis Auguste could only mumble a reply about how the Bourbons did not walk among their subjects as the Hapsburgs so often did. And yet I had seen him yield to his own philanthropic impulses, and it had gladde
ned my heart. There was hope for France yet.

  It soon became the talk of the court that the dauphine was participating in the hunts and exhibiting her enthusiasm as an equestrienne in riding habits that resembled military uniforms—conduct that was evidently not comme il faut. Other distaff members of the royal family rode to hounds on occasion—in fact, Madame Adélaïde was an accomplished horsewoman—but my predicament was unique. Thus, it was only a matter of time before my spirited activity was curtailed. Madame de Noailles put her silk-shod foot down, declaring that even a canter was too strenuous for the dauphine, who of course might have an announcement any day. I dared not blaspheme by retorting that such an announcement would give me much in common with the Blessed Virgin. But at the comtesse’s insistence, from then on, if I persisted in my wish to join the hunters, my mount would be a donkey.

  On my first such adventure, I plodded along with great docility, as bored as it was possible to be, until the beast lost his footing on a root and stumbled, throwing me off his back and onto my well-padded derrière—plop in the center of a mud puddle. My ladies gasped and dismounted from their own asses, rushing to my aid.

  “Why is she laughing?” quizzed the duchesse de Ventadour, much confused. “She is covered head to toe with la boue.”

  “Oh, I don’t mind the mud at all!” I told her between peals of giggles. “I think the color suits me, don’t you? We shall have a silk of just this shade woven in Lyon next season and name it ‘boue de la chasse’—mud of the hunt! Duchesse,” I said, beckoning the timid woman closer, “run and fetch the comtesse de Noailles and demand to know the correct etiquette if a dauphine should fall off her donkey!”

  October 7, 1770

  Your Imperial Majesty:

  I have made sure of three persons in the service of the dauphine: one of her women and two of her menservants, who now give me full reports of what goes on. Then, from day to day I am told of the conversations she has with abbé Vermond, from whom she still hides nothing. Besides that, the marquise de Durfort, who is in their service, passes on to me everything she says to her aunts. I also have sources of information as to what goes on whenever your daughter sees the king. Added to this are my personal observations of her conduct so that there really is not an hour of the day when I lack information concerning what the dauphine may have said, or done, or heard. I have made my inquiries this extensive because I know how essential it is to Your Majesty’s tranquility that you should be fully informed of even the smallest detail.

  Consequently, I must dutifully report the following: Madame la dauphine is putting herself in a precarious position by heeding the advice given by Mesdames, her aunts. We must own the blame for this, having so long labored under the misapprehension that the king’s three maiden daughters were an anchor in the treacherous seas of the French court. Instead, the case has proven to be quite the reverse.

  All the good qualities of our charming princess are nullified by Mesdames, who, devoid of principles and reflections (not to mention any education to speak of), conduct themselves in the most contemptible manner, encouraging the dauphine in mockery and mimicry of others the way one teases a kitten with a toy mouse on a string. The cat, of course, is not aware that she is being manipulated in order to provide them with entertainment. Who can answer for such conduct? I can only postulate that, as Mesdames were the highest-ranking women at court after the death of the queen, perhaps they do not appreciate being supplanted, let alone by one so young.

  Not content to influence madame la dauphine’s conduct and turn her mind against others at court, Mesdames even endeavor to poison her thoughts against one another. Madame Adélaïde and Madame Sophie are trying to make the dauphine dislike Madame Victoire, who is without doubt the best of the sisters, being the princess with the most character and the least malice in her. At your request I shall continue to observe madame la dauphine and to submit my reports.

  Your humble servant,

  Mercy

  TWENTY-TWO

  Enemies Within

  LATE AUTUMN 1770

  In the absence of marital intimacy, I found other projects to fill the void, chief among them the ostracism of the king’s mistress, who was thick as thieves with the duc de la Vauguyon and the odious duc d’Aiguillon, Emmanuel-Armand de Richelieu. Ever since the summer, when my aunts had counseled me to snub Madame du Barry, I had taken pains to put the creature in her place. I knew she continued to mock me behind my back, and it irked me that Papa Roi appeared ignorant of her deviousness. When the du Barry was in her lover’s company, no one else existed; she made sure to dazzle the king with her eyes, her smiles, her jewels, and her décolletage.

  I relished opportunities for revenge, particularly proud of the way my entourage had cut her back in September, when the court visited the Château de Choisy. We were crammed into the small theater to view a command performance; several of my ladies occupied the first row of seats, their wide skirts billowing about them, dangerously grazing the cans concealing the footlight torches. The du Barry had entered the room with her little coterie after we were already seated and the chandeliers had been raised, and demanded that room be made for them. Well, that would not do for the duchesse de Gramont! The sister of His Majesty’s chief minister, the duc de Choiseul, could not permit such a coarse woman to sit in our midst, whether or not she was dripping with diamonds—and the du Barry was wearing a necklace that outshone all others in the room. But, according to Madame Adélaïde, Béatrice de Gramont would have disdained the comtesse no matter what she wore or where she wished to sit, because Madame de Gramont had at one time desired the king as a lover! Alas for her, Papa Roi had no interest in tall women with broad shoulders and russet hair, and in any case, he then fell in love with Madame du Barry.

  The women exchanged words and their contretemps escalated to such an extent that they nearly came to blows. I smiled with delight to see the king’s paramour so openly humiliated.

  However, my triumph was so short-lived that it took my breath away. The following day, the creature complained to the king—her bosom heaving with sobs, so I had heard—and Papa Roi banished the duchesse de Gramont to her country estate! Even if the duchesse had lost some of my esteem, an insult to her was also a slight against her noble brother, and I owed the duc de Choiseul much.

  I believed that the duchesse had been wrongly dismissed, but was afraid to approach His Majesty on my own to tell him so; when it came to matters of import, the king’s magnificence intimidated me. So one morning I sought my aunts’ advice on the matter after the king had breakfasted with us in their apartments.

  “We supped together, Papa Roi and I, after the card game on the nineteenth and I urged him, as sweetly as I knew how, to allow the duchesse to return to court. I poured his wine for him, I let him hold my hand, I complimented his skill at cavagnole—I don’t know what more I can do.”

  “What did he say?” Madame Victoire inquired. She was still swathed in her négligée—a morning gown of striped satin embroidered all over with tiny bouquets of roses. I could have had at least two dresses made for myself from the same amount of yardage.

  “Not much,” I admitted. “He gave me a cordial smile—not warm, just cordial, for I am learning the distinctions when it comes to his ways—and told me that he would think about it.”

  Madame Sophie, whose sea green watered silk made her appear to recede apologetically into Madame Victoire’s floral wall covering, fiddled nervously with her cup of chocolate. “Did he say when he might arrive at an answer?”

  “Perhaps it is best to leave the matter alone for now and allow our father to see his way clear to the right thing to do,” Victoire suggested.

  Madame Adélaïde rose and began to pace, her footsteps silent on the colorful Aubusson carpet. She circled the room like a bird of prey, coming to roost beside my right shoulder. Leaning toward me, her large white cap a puff of taffeta meringue, she murmured in my ear, “Do not react to what I am saying; just nod your head and smile. My sister
s are idiots and I despise them. Their counsel is not worth a sou.

  “Then we must take the subject firmly in hand,” she said loudly, straightening her posture. “Papa does not understand what is good for him—and good for France.” At that moment, I recalled one of my nocturnal conversations with the dauphin. He’d said it was hardly surprising that Mesdames should be so critical of their father, and that likewise the king did not think much of them. “He treated my grandmother the queen most cruelly,” Louis Auguste had remarked, “flaunting his mistresses before the court; refusing Her Majesty permission to accompany him, and she, poor lady, was so humiliated by it. Her daughters naturally took her part against their straying Papa.”

  Adélaïde wheeled on her sisters and exclaimed, “That woman,” pointing toward the door, beyond which the royal mistress’s apartments were situated, a mere three rooms separating the two grand suites. “She who came from the streets and now glides about Versailles with an entourage to rival our own—such presumptuous ostentation! As if she was one of us! I take it, madame la dauphine, that you have seen how she swans about the château—with that little blackamoor following her like a trained monkey! Surely you would not wish her to continue to feather her nest, mes chères; the du Barry is a viper and she must be strangled!”

  I had often seen the du Barry’s page, a Bengali boy named Zamor who was nearly my age and who always wore a pink velvet jacket and trousers, his head wrapped with a white turban to set off the unique color of his walnut-hued skin. He shadowed her every move, most often with a tall parasol to shield his mistress’s pale complexion from the harsh glances of the sun—even indoors. It was true that none of the royal family had such an exotic train, which in and of itself was scandalous—that a common trollop should command such attention. That the former Madamoiselle Bécu should lord her triumph, and that the duchesse de Gramont, whose family had been loyal courtiers for decades, and who herself had not been well, should suffer a swift and terrible punishment that did not fit the crime, was more than I was prepared to bear. “Then what must I do next, Madame Adélaïde?”