Becoming Marie Antoinette: A Novel

by Juliet Grey

  We sidestepped a puddle and moved on. Twin sisters displayed their magic lanterns, which were no more than cunning little candlelit boxes that illumined painted slides of pastoral scenery or exotic oriental landscapes. “A peek for a sou!” they cried.

  The comtesse de Provence and I opened our purses and paid the price of admission. The magic lanterns were nothing terribly special—certainly not compared to the pyrotechnics one might see in the theater or the opera, but we were caught up in the strange and colorful atmosphere, as foreign to us as Versailles might have seemed to any of them. By then our skirts were utterly spattered with mud; we would have the devil of a time explaining ourselves to our respective dames d’honneur.

  The cathedral bells tolled the hour of eleven. People began to disperse. I noticed the little pickpocket circling our party like a dog in search of a place to do his business or a hungry bird of prey. My husband, by far the most cautious among us, tugged at my cloak. “Perhaps we had better return,” he murmured.

  We clambered into our carriage, the comtesse and I cocooned in the voluminous poufs of our filthy skirts as the boys struggled to pry open the oyster shells with their pocket knives. Imbued with the odors of Paris we returned to the château amid gales of laughter, swearing each other to secrecy.

  Yet for all my bravado, I was afraid of receiving a scolding from Madame Etiquette regarding the myriad transgressions of protocol and my ruined garments, and thanked heaven that she had retired for the night by the time we reached the palace. With the aid of the sympathetic princesse de Lamballe I removed every stitch of clothing I had worn and concealed it in various places about the apartments. One by one I intended to surreptitiously dispose of them.

  Adventurous as it was, our clandestine night in the capital did not begin to prepare us for the spectacle of the joyeuse entrée.

  On the morning of June eighth, precisely at eleven o’clock, our arrival was heralded by the sound of the great guns booming from the prison fortress known as the Bastille as well as those in front of the Hôtel de Ville, the City Hall, where the governor of Paris, the duc de Brissac, presided. Our state coach drove up to the steps of the Hôtel de Ville, where the duc awaited us, presenting the dauphin and me with the keys to the city.

  Glorious sunshine! A sky of purest blue. The air smelled sweet and clean and was filled with music and the sound of joyous voices raised in song. The streets had been swept and tamped down to eliminate any traces of dust or mud. Breathless with excitement as I surveyed the multitude that had come out to welcome us, I turned to the dauphin and exclaimed, “Mon Dieu, how many of them there are!” There was nary a vagrant or beggar in sight. Instead, the citizens were decked out in their finest attire, as though it were a festival day. The aprons of the marketwomen were blindingly white; the balconies of the narrow houses were garlanded with flowers and ribbons and wreaths of welcome. Cheek by jowl the people were crushed together, turning out in the thousands to see us. Several must have awakened before dawn in order to secure a choice vantage, but at least they were not compelled to forfeit their breakfast: Enterprising women shouldering tin vessels steaming with aromatic café au lait did a brisk trade selling a cup of coffee for two sous.

  “Vive le dauphin!” they shouted. “Vive la dauphine!” We heard no cries of “Vive le roi.” The total absence of a cheer for him voiced his subjects’ discontent louder than any shout of derision.

  University students doffed their caps in greeting; children pelted us with flowers. It seemed as though every hospital, every convent, every shop and dwelling, had disgorged its residents into the crowded streets. Laborers mingled with tradesmen, the nobility with the bourgeois, apprentices with their masters.

  “Madame la dauphine!” I turned toward the shout, to see a frantically waving sister, wimple askew. I recognized her as the prioress from the Hôtel Dieu, the hospital that had recently been devastated by fire, resulting in a sorrowful loss of life. As I urged our bodyguard to let her pass, the nun pressed her way through the crowd. I reached for her hands and clasped them in mine. “May the Almighty bless and keep you forever!” she exclaimed, dropping into a deep curtsy amid the noisy crush of humanity all about us. I raised her to her feet; and as I kissed her on both cheeks, she whispered, “Do you know, madame, that you are the only one of the royal family to have opened your privy purse and sent us a donation?”

  “How could I have done otherwise?” I replied, privately appalled that none of my Bourbon relations, including the dauphin, had thought to do the same.

  The archbishop stood in front of Notre-Dame, his arms outstretched in welcome. I stole a secret smile, in recollection of my nocturnal adventure there the previous week. I had heard that the archbishop was a good man, a true man of God. I could not fail to be reminded of the last time a prince of the church had greeted me outside a cathedral. My thoughts drifted to my arrival in Strasbourg, my earliest footsteps in France and the memories of the Coadjutor Bishop, my distant relation the unctuous Prince de Rohan. A particular favorite of Madame du Barry, and at her instigation, he had been named by Papa Roi as his ambassador to Austria, recalling the marquis de Durfort. Maman remained appalled by the appointment, for the prince had nothing good to say about the Hapsburgs and was particularly insulting to her. In the presence of the maîtresse en titre, the prince de Rohan repeated a jest Frederick of Prussia had made at Maman’s expense after the partition of Poland was finally affected in August of 1772. “The Devil” had said that in one hand my mother held a handkerchief and wept for the poor innocent Poles, while in her other, she wielded a sword against them.

  I was jolted back to the present as the archbishop welcomed us into the cathedral where we attended Mass. And what a revelation awaited me! Viennese architecture was quite different from the soaring High Gothic church—lace in stone. Sunlight refracted off the vibrant stained-glass windows, scattering bits of colored light all around us like ephemeral gems.

  We emerged from the cathedral to discover that an even greater crowd had gathered. My eyes shone with delight. As the dauphin and I squeezed through the throng, I heard people exclaim, “Look, how beautiful she is.” I had never felt so much love. Remarking upon my husband’s countenance came the assessment, “He looks so kind.” I glanced at the dauphin; he, too, was beaming. And when he addressed the people, he was both commanding and humble. Louis Auguste spoke with grace and nobility and promised that when the time came he would make a worthy and judicious steward of France.

  Even the comte de Mercy seemed moved by all the adulation we engendered. Noticing that his jaded eyes were moist, and knowing how important our reception was to the people of Austria as well as to the Bourbons, I clasped his arm and drew him toward me, vowing, “I shall make as few mistakes as I can. And when I do make any, I shall always admit it.”

  Luncheon had been arranged at the Tuileries palace. Like the grands couverts of Versailles, the meal was a sport for spectators, except that the privilege was not reserved for those of noble rank alone. Fifty women from the Paris market, fishwives and cheese-mongers among them, had been invited to dine with us. Afterwards, the dauphin and I shook their hands and thanked them for sharing our meal. How fascinated they were by my jewels and my gown, reaching out to touch the silk, rubbing it between their fingers like cloth merchants, and ogling the grandeur of my coiffure.

  No sooner did we return to Versailles, flushed with the headiness of our ebullient reception, than I sat down at my escritoire and scribbled an exultant letter to Maman.

  I shall never forget it as long as I live. As we were driving to the Tuileries in the royal coach, the crush was so great that the carriage was stopped at a total standstill for upwards of three-quarters of an hour! And just before we began to make our way back home, we waited for a half hour on the open terrace, waving to the throngs of people who dared not let us depart. How happy we are to be able to gain the affection of a whole nation with so little trouble! Their broad smiles touched me to the core. As for honors, we received ev
ery tribute that one could imagine—yet all of those encomiums were not what pleased me most. What bestirred my heart more than proclamations and ribbons and speeches was the fondness and eagerness of the poor people who lavished their adulation upon us despite the taxes that burden them. Truly, they were swept away with joy at the sight of us!

  TWENTY-NINE

  Very Much a Woman … Yet Still Not a Wife

  OCTOBER 1773

  “Wait—no. There.” The dauphin and I fumbled beneath the crisp linen sheets. I wriggled my hips under his so that our anatomies settled into the optimal position. I felt him poking against me.

  “Ouch!” He tried to roll away, but I gently placed my hands on his shoulders, pressing his bulk against my breast, holding him in an awkward embrace. “I didn’t even touch you down there.”

  “I know, but …” He sighed heavily. “It hurts. I can’t explain it.”

  “Mon cher, I am so sorry,” I soothed, shocked nearly to tears that something purportedly enjoyable should cause him any discomfort. “Am I hurting you?” I asked softly.

  “No, it’s not you—it’s me, somehow. I don’t know why. I mean—I want to,” he added with an anguished moan.

  “Want to or have to?” I murmured, afraid to hear the answer.

  “No—I want to. You are beautiful, Toinette.”

  “Really?” My eyes welled with tears and I held him even closer, although his weight was nearly crushing me. Gaining courage from his words I took a breath and asked the most painful question that ever came to my lips. “Remember when Monsieur Lassone examined you … and you told Papa Roi that you loved me? Did you really mean it?”

  My husband became so silent I could hear the rapid beating of our hearts as they pressed together. Finally, he replied, almost incredulously, “Do you doubt it?” I didn’t know what to say—because in truth my answer would have been, Perhaps. “I love you sincerely, Antoinette. And,” he added, our faces nearly touching, “I respect you even more.” He stroked my cheek so tenderly that I nearly bathed his hand with tears.

  My heart became so full that it took my breath away. My thoughts jumbled together. I had not thought it possible, and felt ashamed for believing all this time that he was incapable of love. He was not by nature sentimental. When he’d told the king he loved me I had been immeasurably touched; but after his confession that evening, which was more of an explanation than anything else, there had been no tangible proof of it.

  My rank entitled me to deference. Men bowed and doffed their hats, and women curtsied as I passed. But respect was another thing altogether. It was a rare achievement. Think, I told myself, of all of the people who no longer respect the king. No one else had ever told me they respected me. Maman loved me, but I knew she did not respect me; I had always known that. So perhaps it was an even greater gift than love that the dauphin was giving me.

  “I didn’t know you thought that, Louis,” I murmured. “I mean—you never said it. That you respect me, I mean.”

  “Just because I—ow!—never said it doesn’t mean I don’t think it. Ooh!”

  “What is it this time?” I asked, holding him closer still.

  “Don’t—ooh—dooo that. It only makes it worse.”

  “Hugging you? Louis!”

  He winced, his mouth widening into a grimace of pain, and rolled over onto his back. Tears welled in the corners of his eyes as he cupped his hands protectively over his pénis. I had never felt more humiliated—or hurt—not only for myself, but for my husband. Between my thighs, on the fabric of my nightgown, and on the bedlinens beneath my derrière was a warm, sticky liquid. I edged away so that I would not have to fall asleep in the puddle. The maids would notice it in the morning and report the stains to whoever was crossing their palms with coins in exchange for our connubial news. Moments later, my husband’s snores, the telltale sign of deep slumber. The room was filled with noise, while I remained empty inside.

  On November 2, 1773, I celebrated my eighteenth birthday. Appraising myself in a looking glass I noticed that the coltishness that had distinguished my figure upon my arrival in France was all but gone, replaced—finally, Gott sei dank!—with a rounded bosom and the gentle curve of a pair of woman’s hips, a chrysalis on the verge of emerging. And with this new silhouette came stirrings within me I had not previously known. I found myself the object of adoring gazes and suddenly noticed that they were worn by handsome faces. Flirting, not merely de rigueur at the court of Versailles, but raised to an art form here, had never had an effect on me. Now, I would find myself blushing to the roots of my hair.

  My new sister-in-law, Marie Thérèse, the comtesse d’Artois, who wed the dauphin’s youngest brother the same month, immodestly remarked (in company, no less) that I had no need of rouge when certain well-made courtiers came to my cercles. She, ugly little thing, insinuated that I should take a lover to palliate the stirrings in my loins that my husband could not satisfy. It was easy for her to be smug: Her spouse was handsome and charming and had managed to overcome his aversion to her ugliness on their wedding night.

  I almost slapped her for her impertinence. Such dishonesty embodied everything I detested; it would have made me no better than Madame du Barry. And besides, even if my nature were so inclined (and it was not!), until I bore the dauphin a son, there could be no thoughts of other men. It would never do for the paternity of my heir to be in any way questionable. And if I did not remain pure, I could be sent back to Austria, destroying the delicate alliance between my homeland and France with a single heedless act. As it was, my chastity threatened to damn me, not only in the eyes of my native and adopted lands, but in those of the Catholic Church. Barrenness was as great a sin as promiscuity.

  THIRTY

  New Passions

  JANUARY 1774

  For the past half year I had been enjoying a love affair—though of course the dauphin knew all about it. Having tasted the adulation of the people of Paris during our joyeuse entrée, it became an elixir I could no longer live without, ambrosia that sweetened the pain of my husband’s connubial neglect. I yearned to forget, if only for a few hours, how little he wished to touch my body. Instead, several nights a week I allowed the Parisians to touch my soul, losing myself in the soaring strains of operatic arias and the delicious anonymity of myriad masquerade balls.

  Literally terrified of being bored, I had thrown myself headlong into every form of entertainment that could be devised. At Versailles, I played lansquenet into the wee hours of the morning, fortified by orangeade; by day I immersed myself in our amateur theatricals. We—meaning the dauphin’s brothers, their wives, and I, with Louis Auguste as our only audience member—performed in an entresol room in his apartments, on a cunning stage that folded out and then disappeared into the wall—a tremendous advantage because no one, including Papa Roi, knew what we were up to! The comte de Provence was quite a talented actor. It came as no surprise to me that he made an excellent Tartuffe, as he was merely playing himself—fat, witty, and balding (for he had a skin ailment that for some reason caused him to lose much of his hair at the age of sixteen). Still, he possessed a sharp eye for the right clothes and accoutrements, so the business of costuming our clandestine little troupe fell to him. The comte d’Artois was quite skilled as well; he made a wonderful lovesick swain and excelled in any role that called for dancing. I enjoyed playing the myriad maids and shepherdesses, grateful for the opportunity to wear lighter clothing. It was all grand fun, and it tickled me to pretend I was someone else, if only for a while. But I needed a wider audience than the dauphin.

  The masquerade balls in Paris provided the perfect stage. My husband had little use for them; he believed quite heartily in the adage about being early to bed and early to rise, and by the time the clock struck ten he would be yawning ostentatiously. So I would ride off to the capital with my ladies. With our enormous skirts, three or four of us managed quite well, if not entirely comfortably, in my elegant glass coach.

  On Sunday, January 30,
1774, I attended an opera ball, yet another masquerade, following the Parisian premiere of Sacchini’s Armida. My gown was silver and pink and I wore white plumes and diamonds in my coiffure. I carried my mask on a stick, like an elaborate lorgnette, the better to emphasize the cascade of Chantilly lace at my elbow. With such a disguise it took great discipline to conceal my identity, as my hands were known to flutter during excited conversation. My ladies and I promenaded about the crowded salon as best as we could, offering a nod of the head here and there. Because of my rank I curtsied to no one, but there was such a crush of people that not a soul seemed to take notice of it. The high windows remained shut to ward off the wintry chill, rendering the room even more stifling.

  “Madame, change with me,” the princesse de Lamballe whispered in my ear. “There are so many people here that the room has grown warm. You will want a glass of lemonade and it will be too difficult to manage at once the stick and the goblet.”

  She was right, of course. “Vous avez raison,” I agreed, and we found a quiet corner where, obscured by a gilded column, we exchanged disguises.

  We reentered the ballroom. A lively tune was being played and I longed to be invited to dance. Men and women swirled about us in eddies of silk and perfume as our nostrils were assailed by the pungent aromas of hair pomade and perspiration. A deep voice at my elbow said, “You looked thirsty, Madame.”

  I turned, startled by the interruption. A tall man, perhaps the dauphin’s height, though with a finer, more slender figure, was offering me a glass of wine. “I-I—pardon, monsieur,” I stammered. “I do not drink. Spirits.”

  “Lemonade then?” He smiled warmly and with his other hand proffered another crystal goblet filled with the only other liquid refreshment on offer. I accepted it gratefully. The stranger watched as I brought my lips to the glass, draining half its contents.