The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette

by Carolly Erickson

  “Oh, of course. He has been expecting you these many months.”

  We came to the low door of the hut.

  “Your highness, it is I, Chambertin. I have brought you a visitor. A very special, charming visitor.”

  Silence. Then, as if from far away, a choked voice.

  “Go away.”

  My companion waited for a moment, his composure unruffled by the curt response, then called out again.

  “She has come a very long way, just to see you. Please let us in.”

  Again the choked voice from the other side of the door. “I am busy. Come back next week.”

  I turned to go. “The prince is occupied. I can return tomorrow, after I have had a bath, and some food—”

  “Please, your highness. I know how to deal with his moods.”

  Chambertin lifted his hand to knock on the door, and at the same instant Mufti, who was in my sleeve, emerged from the froth of lace and barked sharply.

  Almost at once the door opened a crack, and Louis peered out.

  “Is that a dog? I like dogs.”

  “This is Mufti, your highness. I brought her all the way from Vienna.” I held her out toward the prince, who opened the door to let us in.

  The interior of the hut was dark, save for a fire in the hearth and lantern on the wall. On long tables were twigs and stems and bits of bark and leaves, each accompanied by a sheet of paper with careful handwriting. Shelves on the walls held jars and baskets, and in a glass-fronted cabinet were displays of moths and butterflies. The remains of the prince’s dinner—a plate of cold meat, a hunk of cheese with the knife still in it, a loaf of black bread and a mug of beer—were on a low bench by the fire.

  Prince Louis stared at us, wide-eyed, taking in my high-piled blond hair, coming loose here and there as a result of the day’s wear and tear, my blue silk day-dress and pearl necklace, my finery in sharp contrast to the bare, rough interior of the hut and to his own attire. He was dressed like a farmer in pantaloons and a tunic of coarse brown cloth.

  I held Mufti out to him and said, “She won’t bite.”

  Some of the alarm in his face receded as he took the little dog in his arms and stroked her. He smiled—a lovely, childlike smile. I was touched.

  “I know who you are,” the prince said after a long pause. “I sent you some mushrooms. Did you receive them?”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  “I am making a grand catalog of all the plants in the forest. When it is completed I shall go on to make a catalog of the insects. No one has ever done it before.”

  “What a worthy endeavor.”

  “My grandfather doesn’t think so.” Louis’s tone was bitter. “He thinks little of me. But he will like you, you are pretty.”

  “I’m glad you think so. Will you show me some of your plants?”

  Prince Louis seemed to lose his shyness as he led me around the hut, pointing out one bit of foliage after another. He showed me drawings he had made, dozens of them, and I said I thought they were very good.

  “I suppose I will have to marry you,” he remarked after a time, looking at me balefully.

  “It is expected of us.”

  For one alarming moment I thought he might cry. But he only reached for my hand and put it to his lips.

  “Then I shall.”

  “If your highness is ready, we ought to rejoin the others,” said Chambertin.

  Louis sighed, then handed Mufti back to me. He doused the fire and put on a frayed black greatcoat that hung on a peg by the door.

  “Very well then,” he said, squaring his shoulders, “let us go.”

  It was all so surprising to me, I am still pondering the experience. This cold, sad boy is to be my husband, and to rule France?

  May 18, 1770

  I am now dauphine. Louis and I were married yesterday by the Archbishop of Rheims, with a great crowd looking on in the chapel at Versailles.

  My heart went out to poor Louis, who was so ill at ease and restless. I held his hand as we walked through the long galleries of the palace between rows of onlookers and I could feel him trembling. He repeated his vows before the archbishop in a low voice, stumbling over the words. I said my vows clearly and did not falter. Maman would have been proud of me.

  May 24, 1770

  I am a wife—yet not a wife. Louis comes to my bed each night as he is bound to do, but turns his back to me and snores. I am lonely. I am afraid I do not please him. What am I to do?

  June 15, 1770

  Everyone has descended on me at once. I was awakened this morning not by Sophie, who usually brings me my morning chocolate, but by the Comtesse de Noailles, who told me to put on a dressing gown as Dr. Boisgilbert was coming to examine me.

  At the sound of Dr. Boisgilbert’s name Louis, who had been sleeping restlessly beside me, sat up quickly and, without waiting to summon Chambertin, who usually dressed him, quickly put on his trousers over his nightshirt and ran out of the room.

  I was spared no embarrassment. The doctor quickly determined that I was not pregnant (“The hymen is intact,” he remarked matter-of-factly to the countess), and gave his opinion that my failure to experience my monthly bleeding was due to nervousness.

  “Your royal highness,” he said to me when I had refastened my dressing gown and recovered some of my dignity, “I am informed that the prince shares your bed each night. The king has asked me to ask you whether he has attempted to consummate your marriage.”

  “We are—as friends, as brother and sister,” I told him.

  “It is as I thought. The boy is as yet too young. He must mature.”

  Soon after Dr. Boisgilbert left I received a message that the Duc de Choiseul would be calling on me. I summoned Sophie, who dressed me and hurriedly arranged my hair.

  “Monsieur,” I began when the duke was ushered in, “I am aware that everyone is disappointed that I am not yet pregnant. But it is not my fault. Louis is still a boy. He acts like a boy, not a man.”

  “I fear he may always be a boy—unless he is led in a more desirable direction. It is up to you to lead him. There must be a son. Several sons. Entice him. Seduce him. It is what I brought you here for.” Having delivered that abrupt message, he left.

  Count Mercy, who came later that afternoon, was more practical. As my mother’s representative at the French court he was used to solving problems. And unlike the duke, he was sympathetic to me.

  He bowed, then came to sit beside me, ignoring the strict rules prevailing at Versailles about who could and who could not sit in the presence of royalty.

  “Dearest Antonia,” he said, speaking in German, “how very distressing and awkward all this must be for you. In a strange place, among strangers, with so much expected of you. It is a great deal to take on, at so young an age.” He put a consoling arm around me, and I began to feel a little less alone.

  “I have spoken to Dr. Boisgilbert,” the count said, “and I think I understand what is going on. Prince Louis is unable to take the lead, as a man needs to, in the combat of love. Am I right?”

  I nodded.

  “So you, madame, must learn to take the lead for him.” He patted my hand and stood up. “I know a lady who can help you in that task. You will meet her tomorrow. Her name is Madame Solange, and she is very charming. I know you will like her. She belongs to a world you know little of, I think. The French call it the demimonde. She is not respectable, but in her own arena she is without peer. Pay close attention and you will learn a great deal from her.”

  June 16, 1770

  What an afternoon I have spent! I am quite enraptured by Madame Solange, who is one of the most beautiful and delightful women I have ever met. I know my mother would not approve of my friendship with her, my mother disapproves of courtesans and orders her Chastity Commission to fine them and send them away from Vienna. But I like Madame Solange very much and hope to see her again.

  She invited me to her apartments which were small but tastefully decorated in white with g
ilded moldings. A flowery, spicy scent filled the rooms which were lit by dozens of glowing candles, the curtains being drawn against the afternoon glare.

  I felt myself relax, basking in the delicious scent and soft light and in the warm, caressing voice in which the smiling Solange spoke to me.

  “Madame la dauphine, you do me honor. Please join me.” She led me into her boudoir, where an ornate bed of carved mahogany with a red velvet canopy stood against walls hung with glimmering pale silk. Madame Solange opened a wardrobe of polished wood and brought out a nightgown gossamer sheer and trimmed with fine lace and pink ribbons.

  “This would be lovely on you, I think,” she said, handing me the delicate garment, which when I took it, weighed almost nothing. It was much more immodest than anything in my trousseau, and at the thought of wearing it I blushed.

  “Pink cheeks become you, your highness. With your blond hair and blue eyes and smooth white skin, and your trim figure, you are like a little love-doll, every man’s dream of pleasure.”

  “But not my husband’s,” I said.

  “That will change, I hope. We must make you irresistible.”

  She talked to me then, at some length, about matters of love and lovemaking, describing to me ways of stroking and caressing a man, of playfully teasing him, making him want me. As she spoke I could not help thinking of Eric, and the desire I had seen in his eyes and the feel of his lips on mine. Try as I would, I could not force myself to think of Louis, with his ungainly, overstuffed body and sad, plain features.

  But I listened, and asked questions, and by the time the afternoon was over I felt much older and wiser in the ways of the world. Merely being in the presence of so experienced a woman as Madame Solange was a lesson in worldliness, for she spoke with such frankness about the body and its natural needs, as if sex were as normal as eating or sleeping.

  I thought of Father Kunibert and his talk of wicked carnality, and remembered too my mother’s cautions about the French, how they are candid and liberal-minded and how this can seem welcome yet be very dangerous.

  I am determined to use what I have learned, to make my husband desire me. If only I could talk to Carlotta, how much I would have to tell her! I don’t dare put my thoughts down in a letter to her, as all our correspondence is read by spies.

  I have begun locking this journal because Count Mercy warned me not to trust my French chamberwomen, who are paid by Choiseul to find out everything they can about my private life. Of course, I imagine that most of them cannot read, and so could not decipher what I write here.

  June 18, 1770

  Last night Madame Solange helped me prepare myself and my bedchamber for my husband’s nightly visit. I put on the revealing nightgown, loosened my hair so that it fell in long curls down my back instead of letting Sophie braid it as she usually does, and together we scented the room with a potpourri of cloves and vanilla.

  We lit small candles and madame made me a gift of some slippery satin sheets for the bed. Madame Solange tinted my lips and cheeks with rouge, which made me look very grown up.

  Then she left and I waited for Louis to arrive.

  He did not come until after ten o’clock, and I was very drowsy. He was dirty and sweaty, as he had been working alongside some laborers who were digging a new wine cellar. His clothes were full of mud and he dropped them on the carpet and clumped heavily over to the bed, pulling on his nightshirt.

  “What’s that smell?” he asked me. “It makes me want to sneeze.”

  He started to lie down and then caught sight of me in my thin nightgown, lit by the soft candlelight.

  He fairly leapt out of bed, startled.

  He shouted an obscenity. “Cover yourself! And take that paint off your face! What are you, a common whore?”

  I wanted to flee, I felt so confused and ashamed. But I am not a coward. I stood my ground.

  “I only wanted to please you, Louis. So that there will be love between us.” I found a handkerchief and wiped my face, and tied on a dressing gown over the beautiful nightgown.

  Louis climbed back into bed. I got in beside him, hardly knowing what to do or say. Had I made everything worse by trying to seduce him? I had earned his trust; had I now forfeited it?

  We lay side by side, in silence, for what seemed like an hour. I couldn’t sleep. I wondered if Louis was awake. He wasn’t snoring, so I assumed he must be awake too.

  The candles began to gutter in their holders, then to burn out. In the dimness, I felt Louis stir. He sat up in bed, resting against the pillows.

  I heard his breathing.

  “Are you awake?”

  “Yes.”

  I felt his large hand on my shoulder. It was an affectionate gesture he sometimes made, almost a comradely one, resting his hand there. After a long pause he began to talk.

  “It was never supposed to be me, you know. It was supposed to be my father. He was the next heir.”

  I knew what he meant, for Abbé Vermond had taught me the family tree of the Bourbons. The king, Louis XV, had a son who died young, making his eldest surviving son, my husband, heir to the throne.

  “But he died. All I have left of him is his old black coat, the one I wear when I go into the forest. He never taught me to take his place. He didn’t expect to die, you see.”

  “Yes, I understand.”

  “I can’t do what they all want of me.”

  “You can—we can together. I will help you.”

  “Not everyone can be a king.”

  I sat up myself then, and looked over at my glum husband.

  “You could give up the throne, I suppose. It has been done before.”

  Louis snorted. “They would never let me. My grandfather, Choiseul, all of them. They would sooner I died.”

  “We could run off to America. Disguise ourselves. You could become a lieutenant of artillery and I could be your laundress.”

  He laughed.

  “General Lafayette is looking for volunteers.”

  “But if you went to America you couldn’t finish your catalog of the forest.”

  “I want to stay,” Louis said decidedly. “I just don’t want to be king.”

  “It may not happen for some time yet,” I said.

  “My grandfather is growing old. Boisgilbert says he cannot last long.”

  I decided to risk asking about the thing I was most anxious about.

  “Louis, do you dislike me?” He turned his face away.

  “No,” he said, his voice very low.

  “Then why—”

  “I cannot. Do not ask me why. I cannot.” The anguish in his voice was enough to silence me. After a time I said, “I didn’t mean to shock you tonight, only to entice you.”

  “I know.”

  We went to sleep, curled together like puppies, his hand on my shoulder. Soon I heard his heavy breaths turn to snores. I am growing used to the sound.

  August 27, 1770

  For months I have been afraid to write about Eric, but now that I keep this journal under lock and key, and keep the key with me at all times, I am going to risk putting down what has happened.

  I have seen Eric often since coming to France, but we are never alone. I am chaperoned everywhere, either by my official watchdog the Comtesse de Noailles or by one of my husband’s aunts or by someone sent to spy on me by Choiseul or Mercy. So when I am in the stables or out riding Lysander with Eric and others as escort, every word we speak to each other is overheard.

  He speaks respectfully to me, and I acknowledge his words and his aid with my horse just as I should, as the dauphine ought to speak to a groom. When our eyes meet, however, there is an unspoken warmth, a secret communication between us.

  I am sure Eric knows, for it is common gossip throughout the court, that Louis and I are not married partners in the true sense. Sometimes I imagine that I see a flicker of pity in his eyes, but I am not sure. He is careful to hide his emotions. He is pleasant and deferential to me, and that is all.

  Ye
sterday I was riding with Yolande de Polignac and Eric was with us as escort. We were part of a larger group, including Louis’s two brothers and their grooms, but Yolande and I were racing and we got some distance ahead of the others. Lysander stumbled and I was thrown. I was not hurt, merely bruised a little. In a moment Eric had dismounted and was kneeling beside me. I assured him that I was all right, and as he helped me to my feet he whispered to me.

  “Your royal highness, I must speak to you.”

  “Of course, Eric. Come to my levee, I will tell the chamberlain to admit you.”

  “I mean, I need to speak to you alone. The levee will be full of people.”

  I thought for a moment.

  “I will wait after mass tomorrow to make my confession. When I come out of the confessional, I’ll look for you.”

  Today after mass I made my confession and when I emerged from the side chapel where the confession box is Eric was waiting in the dim vestibule. He looked distracted.

  He came toward me, bowed and murmured, “Your royal highness, I am to be married. My father has urged me to marry a Frenchwoman and the stable master has promised that when I marry he will make me an equerry with lodging for myself and my wife.”

  It took me a moment to realize what I was hearing. My handsome Eric, who loved and wanted me, was marrying someone else. Another woman would have all his ardor, all his sweetness. I envied that other woman, whoever she was.

  I composed myself as best I could. “If that is what you truly want, Eric, then I am happy for you—and your wife-to-be, of course.”

  “It is not what I truly want,” he said, his eyes full of anguish. “But that I cannot have, as you know better than anyone.”

  I looked away, not wanting Eric to see the tears starting in my eyes. I became aware that Madame de Noailles was approaching. I did not worry about her overhearing what we said, as we were speaking in German. But I did not want her to think I was being overly familiar with a servant. She had chastised me several times for that fault.

  “Then neither of us has what we want,” I whispered, and reached out to squeeze Eric’s arm, turning my body so that the countess would not be able to see the gesture.