by Juliet Grey
I knew she was a Savoyard by birth, a cousin to the garden-loving prince de Condé as well as the comtesse de Provence, though the princesse was as lovely as Madame de Provence was homely. “You know, I think I was predisposed to like you because you have the same names as my mother—Maria Theresa,” I said to the princesse. “So, your father is the duc de Penthièvre? He is a very kind and generous man. There are not many of those at Versailles.” As I chuckled, I wondered if I had said anything to upset her. Her eyes were so sad that one might have been tempted to think that her dog had just died.
As if he’d read my thoughts, Mops peered at us from his new abode, a blue velvet doghouse studded with golden nails.
“Non, madame la dauphine, the duc de Penthièvre is my father-in-law. But you are right about his kindness. He took me in as if I were his own daughter after the Prince de Lamballe passed on.”
I had heard the rumors: Her late husband, Louis Alexandre de Bourbon, was a grandson of the comte de Toulouse, one of the Sun King’s natural children who had then been legitimized. Monsieur de Lamballe had been fabulously wealthy and just as wild—a dissolute, a gambler, and an adulterer with a penchant for the most disreputable women imaginable, all of which had hastened him to a premature grave.
“Alexandre died in my arms,” said the Princesse de Lamballe. “I was only nineteen. And everyone in France knew about his … his behavior,” she said diplomatically. “There were all the women. And he gave them so much money.” She swallowed hard. “I am sure you heard that he sold my diamonds to pay the debts he incurred keeping an opera dancer. Everyone else did.” I wondered if she had loved him despite his debauchery, for her deep brown eyes were wet with tears.
“Are you crying for your husband or your diamonds?” I asked, trying to make a little joke to cheer her. I reached into my bosom and withdrew one of my monogrammed handkerchiefs. “Here,” I said, pressing it into her hands. “You are quite courageous to hold your head so high in the face of such adversity. I have heard nothing but praise for your character. As soiled as the prince’s reputation was, yours, madame la princesse, is spotless.”
Even though she was about five years older than I, I saw myself in her. A little bit lonely, a little bit frightened, highly principled, and very much in need of a friend. In the absence of my siblings, whom I thought of every day and still missed terribly, I saw the princesse de Lamballe almost as a sister.
At my request, the princesse was the only one keeping me company in my music room one afternoon in late February when my harp lesson was interrupted by an insistent knock at the door. I lowered the instrument to the floor so that it rested fully on its pedestal and looked up. “Please see who it is,” I told Madame de Lamballe. She rose to her feet and crossed the room with studied grace, her ice blue train forming an elegant wake.
An agitated comte de Mercy was ushered into the salon clutching a letter, his face a mask of fear. Even from across the room I recognized the seal immediately. My brother Joseph’s. “I have news of your mother, madame la dauphine.” The music master bowed and made a discreet exit.
Mercy offered a brief reverence to the princesse de Lamballe. “Madame la princesse, I suggest that you help the dauphine to a chaise longue.”
With the calm manner and swift efficiency of a good nurse, she immediately saw that I was comfortable, removing my brocaded slippers and easing a cushion behind my back.
“What is it, monsieur le comte?” I reached my hand toward the princesse and she knelt beside me, clasping it tightly in her own. My flesh had suddenly grown quite cold.
“The empress is gravely ill,” said Mercy solemnly. “She has twice been bled and her fever has not abated in four days.” His lips pressed together grimly.
My complexion turned as pale as parchment. “Heilege Gott!” I breathed, making the sign of the cross on my breast. I couldn’t breathe. The princesse de Lamballe began to untie my bodice, deftly working her fingers through the laces at my back. “Send for the dauphin!” I gasped. A footman set off down the corridor, fleet as a greyhound. I turned my frightened gaze to the ambassador. “Will she … is the empress expected to live?” The thought that Maman might not recover, that there would never be the possibility of seeing her alive again under any circumstances, was too terrible to contemplate.
Comte de Mercy’s expression was grave. “At this point, no one knows what will happen. She recovered from the pox in the past, and has survived several other illnesses, besides the birth of sixteen children. But she is nearly fifty-five years old.”
It was almost an hour before the dauphin arrived. Wheezing and breathless, Louis Auguste fairly slid into the room, wig askew, and dripping with sweat. “It’s Maman,” I told him. “They don’t know what’s wrong.” He gently stroked my cheek and I clasped his hand; I noticed there was dirt under his nails from working at his forge.
As I couldn’t think of what else to do, I asked him to pray with me. My eyes were moist, beseeching. The princesse de Lamballe fetched the little chaplet of beads that Maman had given me on the day I left Austria. I clasped them in my hands and knelt beside the dauphin. We closed our eyes and murmured the paternoster and a couple of psalms before offering orisons of our own, both voiced and silent.
I stole a glance at my husband, looking so earnest, so devout, so concerned, and my heart flooded with love. I knew he was not enamored of Austria, and was not much fonder of Austrians. He had never met Maman, and assuredly was not terribly enamored of her, if only because of the dreadful epistolary scoldings I received with such alarming regularity. But he had seen his own beloved mother, Marie Josèphe of Saxony, waste away from consumption; he recognized and understood the terror and sadness in my eyes.
That evening, he came to my bed. “I thought you might want company tonight,” he offered shyly.
I burrowed against him, as if his back were a bulwark, sheltering me from unpleasantness and pain. “You know, if Maman”—I could scarcely say the words for weeping, even as I tried to see my own life with my mother’s unsentimental vision. “If Maman … does not recover, it would mean the world to me to know that she went to her reward in Heaven with the knowledge that we … that we …” In the darkness, I groped for his hand. I felt his entire arm stiffen with fear.
“I … I am … no, not tonight,” he whispered hoarsely. His breath was ragged with apprehension. “Please forgive me. I am so sorry, Antoinette.”
For yet another night I swallowed my pride. “What a husband you are,” I said with forced gaiety. “Do you know that I could have married young Herr Mozart instead?”
Relieved from his conjugal obligation, the dauphin’s tone brightened. “No! Really?”
“Yes!” I told him about the command performance Mozart and his older sister Nannerl gave for the imperial family at Schönbrunn in 1762. “Wolfgang was all of six years old, and I was only seven. And after the concert, he was making his way across the drawing room to where Maman was seated so he could offer her a reverence, when he slipped and fell on the highly polished floor. Down he went on his little bottom in his blue satin breeches. You can imagine the collective hush. But then the entire court began to laugh at him and he grew red in the face. I felt so dreadful for him; he had played so magnificently and we all thought he was so remarkable; we had never seen such talent, and in a child no higher than your waist, and then—plop—he was just for one moment a clumsy little boy. My heart went out to him, so I scampered to the center of the room and helped him to his feet and gave him a little kiss on the cheek. ‘You are so kind,’ he said to me, ‘I would like to marry you!’ ‘Whatever for?’ I asked him. I’m sure I was blushing. ‘Why, out of gratitude,’ he replied. And then he finally made his way over to Maman and she lifted him onto her lap and gave him a sweet to eat. She gave him a proper present as well, to thank him for his performance.” My mood darkened as I grew thoughtful. “Do you know that she never did as much for any of us? Her own children, I mean? No laps and petting and soft words and sweets.”
“But just think, Frau Mozart, what your life might have been like if you had married him!” The dauphin playfully poked me in the ribs.
“Ouch! You don’t know your own strength sometimes. You are a big boy and I am just a little slip of a girl,” I chirped.
“Not so little anymore,” Louis Auguste retorted. “You have grown quite a lot since you first came to Versailles.”
“Up, mostly,” I agreed. I placed my hands over my bosom. “Not so much out. Not yet, anyway.” I sought to change our subject of discourse from my underdeveloped poitrine, as it would only double back to the conversation regarding our nonexistent marital relations. “Mozart has me thinking,” I began. “One day I should like to bring an Austrian composer to Versailles; perhaps Herr Gluck, my former music master.” I sighed. “I should like to commission an opera. That will show her,” I murmured.
“Show who what?” the dauphin said sleepily.
It amazed me how he could appear so wide awake in one instant, and in the next be resting comfortably in the arms of Morpheus. “The du Barry. Please stay awake a bit longer,” I urged him. “She thinks that Neapolitan composer—Niccolò Piccini—is such a talent. But the Italians are nothing compared to the German composers.”
My husband chuckled. “Now you sound like your mother.”
“You don’t know what she sounds like! However, I used to be able to imitate her very well.” But then, as I heard her voice in my head and was about to mimic it, my throat caught. “I can’t,” I murmured sadly. “Not tonight. Just imagine a euphonium. With a tempo con brio.”
I rolled over onto my side and smoothed my nightgown beneath me. “Besides, I’m certain that she wouldn’t approve of my real reason for inviting Herr Gluck to France. Of course it would be for his brilliant opera—but it would also prove my superiority over Madame du Barry. Didn’t you hear that Papa Roi is trying to arrange a divorce from her husband? If the king weds her and they have a son—he would be dauphin. And we would be—”
A massive shudder reverberated through the dauphin’s body. “Superfluous,” he said, his voice as hollow as a reed.
TWENTY-SEVEN
The Dauphin’s Little Problem
MARCH 1772
Madame du Barry organized a grand fête to celebrate the king’s gift to her of le Petit Trianon, the little jewel box of a villa on the grounds of Versailles that he had originally commissioned for her predecessor in his bed, Madame de Pompadour. The centerpiece of the event was a stage spectacle featuring one hundred singers and dancers and elaborate moving sets that parted to reveal a Cupid—the triumph of true love. But to the du Barry’s immense embarrassment, her royal paramour did not even make an appearance at the festivities, nor did most of the courtiers, although hundreds were invited. Instead, a meager complement of thirty souls attended, and few of them held any position of great rank.
I wished to revel in Madame du Barry’s humiliation, but I hadn’t the stomach to gloat. My frustration with my still-virginal state after nearly two years of marriage was now my chief occupation.
To my immense delight, Maman was recovering from the sudden illness that had befallen her. The princesse de Lamballe had been as dear to me as any of my sisters during those dark days and wept as much as I did when we feared the worst. Louis Auguste was patient and kind; and Papa Roi remained quite solicitous during those anxious weeks while we waited for news. Naturally, he rejoiced when the comte de Mercy informed us, with palpable relief etched into his face, that all would be well.
Convalescing comfortably, with no additional crises on her hands, my mother resumed her favorite litany. Her letters grew increasingly inquisitive. She could not comprehend (nor could I, of course), “la conduite si étrange”—the odd behavior—of the dauphin when it came to the consummation of our union; why did he continue to shy like a horse at a stile? I assured her that the rumors of my husband’s impotence were just that, but of course I had no evidence, such as a swollen belly, to prove the gossips wrong.
One night I dared to place the dauphin’s palm against my breast, but he snatched his hand away as though he had accidentally stuck it in the fire. A week later, he tentatively returned to that location of his own volition, but did not remain there for more than a moment. Another week went by; the same frustrating exercise with the same maddening results. Finally I gently placed my hand over the dauphin’s and left it there so he could feel the stirrings in my flesh. But that seemed to agitate him all the more.
During the summer months, things progressed a bit further. One night in July he slid his hand under my nightgown and gently pressed it against my thigh. His fingers trembled so much that silent tears coursed down my face; what wife can be happy when she believes that it causes her husband such consternation to touch her bare flesh? Was I so repugnant to him?
On the night of the twenty-third of August, the dauphin’s eighteenth birthday, I pushed aside my timidity and my fear that I physically disgusted him and mustered every ounce of courage. My heart pounded as my arm inched toward his body. Smoothing my palm over his nightgown, my hand found his belly, and tentatively crept downward until it rested on his manhood.
“Ah!” Louis Auguste nearly jumped out of his skin. “What are you doing?”
He had startled me as well. “What do you think I am doing?” I tried to touch him again, but my husband pushed my hand away.
“Don’t,” he said. His voice sounded pained.
“Louis … you don’t have to love me,” I whispered, barely able to speak the words for what it was costing me emotionally. In the darkness, with the bed hangings pulled around us, he could not see my tears and I was determined that he not hear them in my voice. “We just have to make love.” His breathing was ragged and heavy. “We both know what is expected of us.” Silence. “It is our duty.” More silence. My voice was small and plaintive. “People are talking.”
“Let them,” he groaned.
“You know we can’t do that.”
My husband ignored me and soon fell asleep. But I lay awake, my unseeing eyes fixed on the bed hangings and the underside of the canopy as the steady rumble and wheeze of his snoring filled the room, reverberating within our silk cocoon.
Finally, as a seventeenth birthday gift to me on November 2, 1772, when the dauphin visited my bed, he set about the business, if clumsily, of making me his true wife. In his furtive effort to climb on top of me, he knelt upon the fabric of my nightgown so that I could scarcely stir; and when I whispered that we might be better off if I could move my limbs, he stammered a profuse apology and rearranged his legs about me, pressing his knees into the soft feather mattresses. I trembled with fear and the skin on my exposed legs and downy nether regions began to pebble as he pushed my nightshirt northward toward my chest.
He raised his own gown, adjusting himself so that our private parts were touching. Our heavy breathing owed a greater debt to dread than to passion. Of course I had never felt a man against me, had not a notion of what to expect. My premarital conversations with Maman had scarcely prepared me for the real thing. Against die Schiede—mon vagin—he felt the way a stick of wood enveloped in velvet might, were it to be pressed against a sensitive spot. I was too afraid to touch him with my hands, to guide him where I knew he needed to go. That much, Maman had taught me. We were not ignorant, the dauphin and I: We were terrified.
“Oh, non!” My husband had scarcely found me with the tip of son pénis when he cried out and rolled away. I turned over and snuggled beside him. Caresses, cajoleries, Maman had reminded me. I gently stroked his broad back. “Shh,” I soothed, “it’s all right.”
“No, it’s not,” my husband muttered angrily, before drifting off to sleep.
It would be several more months before the attempt would be repeated.
MARCH 1773
The dauphin and I arrived at the King’s Chamber separately, in order to avoid any unnecessary gossip, although the hour was so late that no one was about but a few Swiss Guards. Even the
most avid of gamblers had dropped off to sleep, dozing and drooling, and dreaming of better luck the following evening. The rainy night belonged to shadows: those that scampered, like the occasional mouse racing blindly along the moldings; those that slinked, like the unattended cats that silently prowled the tiled floors of the galleries, their glowing eyes caught momentarily in the torchlight; or those that hovered, like the busts and statues of cold marble that seemed even more imposing than when the halls were thronged with living souls.
The layout of the state apartments in the château de Versailles reminded me of a topiary maze. Along the perimeter were the salons in which the public was welcome. They were perennially noisy, crowded with humanity—courtiers, foreign dignitaries and their entourages garbed in the most colorful and exotic costumes I had ever seen, and even common travelers who had come all the way to see where and how the king of France and his family lived.
Just inside the outermost row of salons lay a second, more irregularly arranged set of rooms, which were primarily audience and presence chambers. There, I thought of the royal family as actors upon a stage, offering an opulent performance of our daily activities for select members of the public. We ate; we received visitors; we entertained.
Yet this inner series of rooms concealed innumerable secrets. A gentle touch upon a certain spot on a damask-covered wall would reveal a door instead, a cunningly concealed portal that was often so low that a taller gentleman, and, certainement, a lady with a towering coiffure, would have to stoop to pass through it. Beyond the doorways, depending on where you entered, you might find a staircase, unprepossessing in itself, that led to a rabbit’s warren of rooms, modest in size but opulent in décor. Or the door might open to a corridor that led directly to a set of apartments that could be reached only through these clandestine means. Even the state apartments themselves, where the monarch resided and reposed, could be accessed from a secret, labyrinthine passage.
