The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette

by Carolly Erickson

  Hardly anyone came to Sophie’s funeral. She was of no importance to anyone but me, even though she was a princess of France. She did not live quite a year. May God preserve her precious soul.

  July 13, 1787

  I have hardly left my room since Sophie died, and I have no appetite. My children are my comfort, especially my little chou d’amour, as I like to call him, Louis-Charles, who is two years old now and cannot keep still, he is so full of high spirits. Mousseline and Louis-Joseph play cards, chou d’amour chases the pugs and runs laughing along the corridor with Sophie chasing him. Abbé Vermond has been very kind to me. His presence is always a consolation. I realized recently that he has been my confessor since I was twelve or thirteen years old—nearly twenty years. He has been with me, at my side whenever I need him, all that time.

  August 2, 1787

  I have come to St.-Cloud with the children. Louis is at Compiègne. There is nothing but bad news from Paris, and I don’t want to hear it.

  September 9, 1787

  A miracle has happened. Yesterday I was in the forecourt of the palace, which was crowded with coaches and wagons and carts, all assembling for the annual trek to Fontainebleau. I was supervising the loading of the wagon with Louis-Joseph’s things, something I ordinarily leave to the servants. I just happened to be there, standing in the dusty courtyard, when I saw a great white coach with the arms of King Gustavus drive in through the main gate. I knew at once that it must be Axel.

  When he stepped down out of the coach he looked different, not only because he has abandoned his powdered wig and wears his own blond hair tied back off his face but because the set of his features is more resolute. Something has changed in him, I can sense it.

  I was overjoyed to see him. I had been imagining that I would never see him again, and trying to resign myself to having lost him to Margaretta von Roddinge. Louis was very happy to see him as well, and that night at dinner, Louis began telling Axel all about his bookon the plants and animals of the forest. (He has returned to writing his book Flora and Fauna of the Forest of Compiègne.) Axel told us of his military duties, of the war that is going on just now between Sweden and Russia and the troops he has led into battle. He said nothing about his family, and I did not raise the subject. Only the next day, when we met at the Petit Trianon, did he speakof his personal life.

  “When I left you last to go to Italy with the king, I thought nothing would ever be the same between us again. I thought I would force myself to marry and give up my roving life, set aside my great love.” He kissed me and stroked my cheek.

  “I tried—but I found I could not do it. Not honestly. Not wholeheartedly. You were always in the way.” He smiled. “A lot of people were angry at me when I finally made up my mind not to marry.”

  “Not to marry! But I thought it was all arranged.”

  “Not quite. I never actually made the girl an offer.”

  I felt giddy, lightheaded. As though I were about to lift off into the air, like one of Charlot’s balloons.

  “And all this time I thought—I thought I had lost you.”

  “You could never lose me. You never shall lose me.”

  We embraced then, long and lovingly, and talked no more of anything but how sweet it was to be together again.

  September 20, 1787

  Axel is with us at Fontainebleau but goes to Paris from time to time to attend to King Gustavus’s business and military affairs. When he returns from Paris his jaw is always clenched in anger.

  “The whole city is in chaos!” he burst out two nights ago when he returned from his last trip and came to see me. “My carriage can hardly move, the crowds are so thick in the streets. And the things they shout! They threaten us all. You are ‘Madame Deficit,’ as you know. Louis is ‘Louis the Chicken-Hearted’ or ‘Louis the Triple-Chinned.’ They join hands and sing, and dance around bonfires, looking like the savages I watched dancing around their campfires in Virginia.

  “Even well educated people, cultivated people, have caught the fever of criticizing the government. I went to a dinner party, and all I heard was ‘There is no government any more! We need a new government! We need the Estates-General!’ ”

  “What’s that?”

  “Some medieval assembly, I suppose. They like the idea of it because it sounds like the English Parliament, and you know how Parisians like everything English at the moment!”

  It was true. There was a vogue for English dress, English hairstyles, even the English way of walking, which was very strange and undignified.

  “The alarming thing is, the entire city is alive with this ferment of political talk. There are clubs and debating societies in every coffeehouse, everybody seems to belong to one. Walls are covered over with political slogans and ugly caricatures. Paris is holding its breath, waiting to explode.”

  I talked to Archbishop Loménie de Brienne about all this when he came to bring me some papers to sign for Louis. He said he was aware of the unrest in Paris but that it was only a temporary madness, stirred up by a few troublemakers. It would pass, he assured me. He told me about an earlier time in French history, over a hundred years ago, when King Louis XIV was a boy. There were great crowds in Paris then too, and terrible rioting, and criticism of the government. But in time it passed and tranquillity was restored.

  Later I read about that violent time in one of Louis’s histories. The more I read the more troubled I became. The revolt in Louis XIV’s childhood, called the Fronde, began over the government’s lackof money. The people rebelled, the parlement of Paris rebelled, and eventually the queen, who was ruling on behalf of her son, had to give in to the will of the people.

  I could not help but think, sitting by the fire and reading, that our situation was like that earlier one. Our government is out of money. The people are rebellious, and Louis is always saying how obstinate the parlement of Paris is. Will I, the queen who must often take my husband’s place, have to give in to the will of the people?

  November 2, 1787

  I have little time to write anything in this journal these days but will write a few lines today to mark my thirty-second birthday. How terribly old I have grown! Sophie keeps finding gray hairs here and there among my blond ones and trying to pull them out.

  December 8, 1787

  We are attempting to economize. More of my household servants have been dismissed and over half the gardeners at the Petit Trianon as well. I was very sorry to see them go, and worried too. How will they feed their families? There was one in particular, a giant of a man who has planted and weeded and raked in my garden for many years, to whom I said a heartfelt farewell. He nodded to me but did not smile. Who will hire such a huge menacing brutish man? How will he survive? I don’t believe he has ever worked anywhere but at Versailles. I wanted to give him a purse of coins but Abbé Vermond cautioned me against it.

  “If you reward one you must reward all,” he told me. “Otherwise you will do more harm than good.”

  I cannot possibly give them all money. I don’t have enough. If only they knew the severe measures I am taking to spend less. I have ordered no new gowns for spring from Rose Bertin. Instead, four seamstresses are at work mending and sewing new lace and trims on old gowns. (I call them “old” but of course most of them appear new, as most of them have hardly ever been worn and have been kept carefully preserved, packed in lengths of taffeta in my wardrobe trunks.) Mousseline’s spring gowns are being made from my old ones. It takes only a few ells of cloth to make her a gown.

  Loulou has sent several large boxes filled with my satin and brocade slippers to be resoled. I have been wasteful with my slippers, and will not be wasteful any longer. Instead of wearing each pair only once—as with my gloves—and then discarding them I will wear them until they need repair. At least two or three times.

  December 18, 1787

  Our Archbishop Loménie de Brienne is too ill to continue as chief minister. (The other ministers are reluctant to work with him, so he has been ta
king much of the responsibility for the running of our extremely shaky government.) He must retire soon. What will we do when he is gone?

  February 1, 1788

  All our troubles seem to be descending on us at once. Louis-Joseph is feverish and terribly thin, and spends most of his time in bed. His poor back hurts him and he looks up at me with his large, grave eyes and says “I’m sorry maman.” It breaks my heart.

  Louis has ordered the disobedient Paris parlement to disband and once again there is rioting, not only in the capital but in other cities. Axel is urging me to counsel Louis to abdicate and let Stanny govern as regent until Louis-Joseph is old enough to reign. Stanny would not let this unrest go on unchecked, Axel says. He would bring in the troops, make mass arrests, and force the rebellious part of the people to obey.

  I know Louis would never agree to this. He hates Stanny too much. Besides, Louis imagines that, despite all his fears, and his dread of confrontation, deep down he understands his subjects and can be a good ruler to them. Axel says this is a dangerous delusion and provides proof that Louis is not fit to be king.

  April 3, 1788

  For some time now Axel has been living in an apartment just above mine, an apartment I ordered renovated for his use. It is heated by an enormous Swedish tile stove, and Swedish servants are in attendance. It is very easy for us to spend time together now, easier than ever. Louis says nothing but of course he knows that Axel and I are lovers and I sense that he accepts the situation. He trusts me. He knows I will not desert him. I believe that he wants me to be happy. He also trusts Axel and relies on Axel’s love for me to benefit the entire royal family. Needless to say, Louis does not realize that Axel would be only too glad to see him step aside as king.

  Officially, Axel is the representative of King Gustavus of Sweden at the court of France. Just as Count Mercy is the representative of my brother, Emperor Joseph. Unofficially, Axel is our friend and adviser, and far more of one than Count Mercy has been in recent years. That Axel is also my lover is of no significance—except to me of course.

  April 15, 1788

  Last night Axel and I were sitting in a swing in the palace rose garden, just at twilight. It had been a warm day, and the evening was pleasant, the air scented with the sweetness of the first early blooms. My head rested against Axel’s shoulder, and he looked across at me and smiled. We did not speak, we were too caught up in enjoying the quiet beauty around us, and the slow fall of night.

  The sound of heavy footfalls made me tense. In a moment Louis came into view, walking by himself along the path toward us.

  “Ah, good evening,” he said when he had gotten quite close to us. “Yes, a lovely evening. I just came out to checkon the ardura japonica. It usually begins to bloom just about this time, in mid-April. There are specimens in Compiègne Forest too, you understand. But they bloom earlier, around the first of April.”

  “Won’t you join us, your highness?”

  “Ah—I suppose so, yes. Just for a moment.” He sat on a nearby bench, making the old wood creak and groan under his weight. There was an awkward silence. Suddenly he got up again.

  “You must excuse me. The light is failing, and I must take my samples from the trees while I can still see them clearly.”

  “Yes, indeed you must,” I said. “I believe I’ll stay out here a little longer.”

  “Of course, if you like. Er—whatever your pleasure is.”

  He shambled off, whistling, in the direction of the cherry orchard.

  May 16, 1788

  A battle is being waged, a battle for Louis’s soul. At least, that is the way Jean-Jacques would have seen it, and written about it.

  It is a battle between the time-honored way of ruling and a new and untried way, untried except in England. Louis knows only the time-honored way, the way followed by his grandfather Louis XV and my mother and most of the kings of Europe. The king’s word is law, the king is absolute. Long live the king.

  But the new royal councillor Malesherbes is trying to convince Louis to adopt the English way. Malesherbes urges Louis to write a constitution and offer it to the people. Share power with them, he says. Only in this way can the monarchy be saved.

  The battle rages.

  June 11, 1788

  It has been unbearably hot. We sit by the open windows but the air is perfectly still. My maids of honor fan me constantly and I try to rest. The children suffer.

  June 12, 1788

  This morning an extremely high wind blew up out of nowhere and trees and bushes were uprooted in the gardens. I sent Eric to the Petit Trianon to help the villagers and try to secure the animals. The sound of the wind was like a great waterfall or onrushing torrent. A fearful sound.

  We quickly shut all the windows and tried to get everyone into the cellars where the wine and ice and foodstores are kept. We could hear windows breaking all over the palace. Louis is out hunting. I hope he will be safe.

  June 14, 1788

  Everyone is saying God sent the great storm to remind us all that man is not in charge of events on this earth. Some say that the disobedient Parisians are being chastised for their disloyalty to the king.

  Reports of enormous damage are arriving by messenger from as far away as Ghent in the north and Tours in the south. The great wind destroyed the wheat crops and fruit trees and thousands of animals and birds have been killed by giant hailstones. There will be famine.

  How much more can we bear in this terrible year?

  June 29, 1788

  The storm is long over but the damage lingers. Prices have fallen desperately low on the stock exchange, and the comptroller-general has had to put his own money into the fund to help storm victims. The Comédie-Française is also giving a performance of Athalie for the benefit of those who lost their crops and homes.

  I have been officially informed that the treasury is in arrears by 240 million francs. It is an unimaginable sum.

  August 8, 1788

  The Parisians are furious and no one in the capital is safe from their fury. Loulou went there on necessary business and when she came back she was white-faced and terrified. Eggs had been thrown at her carriage and garbage hurled inside. She told me she thought she would never get out of the city alive.

  What happened was that an announcement was made about the government’s debts. The treasury is empty and as a result, no more payments are to be made in cash, only in slips of paper promising to pay some time in the future. No one trusts the government to honor these promises. The Parisians feel cheated. Now they have one more reason to hate us.

  August 23, 1788

  I feel guilty, being so deeply happy and content with Axel while the rest of France is in such turmoil. I have known all the joy life has to offer. How lucky I am! I say this even though I have known sorrow and distress, and there may be more sorrow and distress to come.

  Never mind. I am the happiest woman on earth.

  September 1, 1788

  Louis has yielded to all the criticism and destructive rioting and to the advice of Malesherbes and many others. He has declared that the Estates-General will be summoned next May. Archbishop Loménie de Brienne has resigned, and we have heard that the Parisians flocked into the Palais-Royale in the thousands when they learned this news and rejoiced noisily. Necker has been restored as finance minister. Within twentyfour hours of his appointment, they say, he had begun to raise loans and restore the government’s credit once again.

  TWELVE

  April 15, 1789

  Things are happening too fast. Often I feel lost in the whirl of events. I have not thought it safe to write much because twice I discovered servants reading my journal. My old hiding place for scraps of paper in the yellow Chinese jar is no good. I have a new hiding place now. Axel knows about my journal and so does Chambertin. Should anything happen to me, I have decided that the journal must be preserved. It will go to Louis-Joseph and his heirs. I want them to know the truth about me, not the endless lies my enemies tell.

&nbs
p; The delegates are gathering from all over France to attend the Estates-General about which there has been so much talk and debate all last fall and winter. They are coming here to Versailles, away from all the unrest and disturbance in Paris. The residents of Versailles are delighted, because the deputies need accommodation and all the rooms in the town can be rented at high prices.

  We have summoned yet another specialist from England to examine Louis-Joseph, who has not gotten out of bed for three months and has a very bad sore throat. Sophie has been giving him tea made with cold water root and bathing his feet. He wears a wool scarf even though the air is mild. He complains of an odd taste in his mouth and constant pressure and pain in his side and back.

  I sit by his bed and sometimes, when it has been a long time since I’ve slept, I find myself staring at Louis-Joseph’s small white hand. It is so pale in the candlelight that I can almost see right through it. The veins stand out blue and spidery, the long fingers are very narrow at the tips, like the fingers of a fine violinist. As he sleeps, coughing often, his breath catching in his throat, his fingers jerk and twitch, and I clasp his fragile small hand between my two big stronger ones, as if trying to give him what strength I possess.

  April 30, 1789

  The English specialist says Louis-Joseph’s lungs are slowly collapsing because his spine is becoming more twisted as he grows older. There is nothing he can do.

  We continue to do our best for him, yet he vomits most of what he is given to eat. Sucking ice helps a little to prevent this. His cheeks are red with fever but he smiles at me and I know he is glad I am there beside him. Louis cannot bear his suffering and only stays by him for a few minutes at a time. He quickly becomes overcome and weeps, and does not want the servants to see his weakness. Sometimes he gets very angry and kicks at the walls or the door. His left foot is swollen and sore and Dr. Boisgilbert has put a poultice on it.

  Tomorrow the Estates-General assembles officially.