The Enemies of Versailles

by Sally Christie

  “With your garter? Ah, my dear, I cannot imagine these constant shocks are good for my health.” Louis sighs again. “Luckily, Fleury recognized my state and married me off quickly—seven times on my first night with the queen. At last, a sanctified outlet for my impure thoughts and deeds.”

  “What did you like best about her?” I ask, hooking my arm in his and leading him through a parterre of yellow lilies. I only saw the queen from afar, that one time during the peace celebrations in Paris. A large portrait of her—looking regal and sad—hangs in the Salon of Diana, and Mirie told me one day that she thought Madame Victoire was the spitting image.

  “Ah, it was so long ago, almost another lifetime. She was soft, and fair—and there. I never left her alone, poor woman, her womb was full of my sticky seed.”

  Louis stops in frustration, back in the present. “And yet with that cow dolt it has been seven weeks!” he peeves. “I assumed the dratted oaf was a virgin, and Vauguyon confirmed that there had been no dalliances, but still—what is he waiting for? The health of a nation is the health of their sovereign—the people will never respect a king who is not a man!”

  “The dauphine must be devastated,” I commiserate, smiling inwardly and imagining the depths of her humiliation. Last night she twittered at the Comtesse de Tavannes, standing next to me, that a certain woman reminded her of a crow, always pecking around for shiny objects. I swallowed the insult, but I could feel my cheeks burn. “To be spurned by her own husband! Not to be able to give it away.”

  “Dearest, do not talk of our daughter-in-law in that manner,” says Louis in a mild, reproving voice. “The daughter of an empress and your future queen.”

  “But you called the dauphin a cowhand.”

  “True, indeed, but I am his grandfather and the family connection gives one certain prerogatives.”

  “And you are the King,” I concede. “Perhaps the dauphine doesn’t know what is supposed to happen?”

  The king sighs. “It may be, it may be. Vauguyon assures me the dauphin is instructed in the mechanics of the thing, but perhaps Antoinette’s mother—the empress is a woman of profound morals—did not choose to inform her daughter. Were that the queen were alive, that she might undertake the task! It seems an unfair burden to place on the Comtesse de Noailles’ shoulders; I have heard she is quite suffering from an outbreak of hives brought on by the strain of her position. Perhaps I may trust one of my daughters to help the dauphine . . . understand.”

  “Those raddled old virgins?”

  “Hush, dearest, they are as pure as nature intended. But they are of mature years and certainly . . . aware. There was a book, a rather smutty one—I must ask Richelieu to get me a copy that we might enjoy it together,” he says, getting a little flushed and picking at the rose in his hand. “Yes, perhaps they should be the ones to guide the little dauphine, who, I fear, is quite naive.”

  We turn back toward the palace, and Louis kisses me good-bye. “I must be off, back to the palace—I’m thinking Vallette shall have the honor at the debottée, he speared six boars this afternoon, and the pleasant squealing of the sow with the piglets—boarlets?—was most enjoyable.”

  He rides off and I turn back to the cool interior of the Trianon; I’ll walk back to Versailles later with Chon and Zamor. It will be a good summer, I think, suddenly determined. It will be. And surely the dauphine cannot continue cold and silent toward me forever?

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  In which Madame Adélaïde undertakes a task as delicate as a . . . as a . . .

  The hymns are finished and we return from the chapel. I am deep in thought and contemplation, and mull over the words of the sermon—the subject was servants, and their gratitude—as I make my way back to my apartment.

  I settle in with my sisters and prepare for the morning visit of the dauphine. While her dependence gladdens my heart, this strange situation is abhorrent to me. The dauphin, my pure, lovable Louis-Auguste, is being mocked. Consummation—it is all the Court can talk about, and I fear I will never enjoy my consommé again.

  Antoinette—she has insisted I use her Christian name, quite against our conventions—extracted a promise from her husband that he would make her his true wife while we were at Compiègne this summer, but the longed-for coupling did not take place.

  Now Vauguyon tells us that the dauphin needs more time; such sensitivity of feeling is certainly commendable in his virginal state. And there is a growing consensus that the fault lies not with him, but with the dauphine. It is unthinkable that Louis-Auguste be at fault, for he is a man, and men always seem to know the ins and outs of this delicate matter.

  The dauphine is distressingly naive, and, I fear, not of the highest intelligence. We tried to include her in our afternoon astronomy lessons, but she pleaded that they were too hard. I was tempted to rebuke her and remind her that if Sophie could learn, then so could she, but the girl looked so distressed I gracefully permitted her absence.

  It has not escaped me that if the little Austrian is not the true wife of Louis-Auguste, then she could quite easily be sent back to Austria and a new, more suitable, and less Austrian dauphine might be obtained. Despite these thoughts—and they are not only mine—the girl seems oblivious of the danger she is in, almost as if she has never been exposed to intrigue before. Extraordinary. What on earth were they doing at the Austrian Court?

  But the situation is distressing to Papa, and he kindly asked my help in resolving it. I take a deep breath. If France needs me, I shall not shirk my duty.

  Narbonne, knowing my task, suggested I seek an intimate time alone with the dauphine to broach the delicate subject. Ah, my dear Narbonne, I think fondly, she is becoming more and more of a rock. When she was in my sister Élisabeth’s household, I thought her a trifle loose and sluttish, and of course there were those preposterous rumors about her and my father. But now that she is firmly ugly, she has become a kindred spirit and I believe we see the world in a very similar way. Though I am not usually partial to children, her two sons are quite charming, and Victoire used to dote on them rather heavily when they were children. Myself too, if I am to be honest.

  My dear Narbonne also in some ways knows what the dauphine suffers, for her husband lost that vital part of his manhood in battle, even before their wedding. I pause, making a connection I have hitherto ignored. But I shake my head; now is no time to go wandering down side paths—I must focus on what is important.

  “My dear.” I rise and greet the dauphine before she can sit down. I peer at her suspiciously—it is almost as though she is not wearing stays, her yellow morning gown heeding rather too much to the contours of her body. “It is such a delightful morning—I thought we might take a stroll around the garden, walk down a side path . . .”

  “Now?” The girl jumps, as nervous as a hare. A little of her fresh bloom has already worn off, I note with pleasure.

  “Indeed. Now. It is quite proper, I assure you, I have already apprised Madame de Noailles.” I hold up my hand at Victoire, who is happily reaching for her gloves. “Just the two of us. Our ladies may follow, but there is something I would discuss with you, alone.”

  A frightened lamb of an archduchess follows me out onto the terraces. “Come, I thought we might walk down here,” I say, steering her down the steps toward the gardens.

  It is early morning and the gardens are quite empty; inside the palace, toilettes are still being performed, Mass attended, the great rising for another day, the beehive humming to life. I take a moment to gather my thoughts, and as though sensing the importance of the occasion, for once the girl is silent and doesn’t start blathering on about the flowers or chasing butterflies. Though she does stoop down to pick up a peacock feather, missed by the early-morning sweepers, and does not heed my warnings that it is dirty, and that she should wait for Noailles to give it to someone to clean.

  We walk briskly down a yew-framed alley. This is a fearsome task, a delicate task, but one for which my unique combination of fe
mininity and strength is well suited. The very future of France and of the Bourbon succession is now in my hands. I think happily of when my father approached me: the kind request; his dependence on me, unstated but obvious; the relief in his eyes when I quickly understood what he wanted.

  “My dear . . . Antoinette. We must talk of a delicate matter.” I take a deep breath, thinking of Sophie’s foolish words. “A very delicate matter indeed.”

  “Yes, Tante?” says the dauphine meekly, biting her lower lip and looking very white and thin. Victoire is always going on about how difficult her position is.

  “She’s so young,” said Victoire sadly last week. “I remember when I was fourteen.” I think to when I was her age: I was perfectly in control of my emotions and surroundings. It was 1747—the year Josepha arrived, a time when the Pompadour was still firmly in power. I compare myself to the dauphine at that age: certainly, my French was better, and I was more in command of my person, and never thought once to complain.

  “Now, let me start with a homily, from the Greeks, on duty and marriage.” I had thought long and hard about how to begin this interview, and had fastened on the story of Atalanta, reluctantly wed, as an excellent starting point.

  “And so you see, Atalanta, who had derided her female duty, was finally compelled to marry, and her husband Hippo . . . Hippo . . . Hippocrates? Yes, then he made an oath to serve his patients faithfully, I mean his wife, wait—”

  The archduchess is becoming confused, and in truth, so am I. In such situations, it is always best to be direct. “In sum, what I am trying to say, my dear: we must all do things that require sacrifice, and the act of . . .” I raise my eyes to the heavens; the skies offer me no help, but I take a deep breath and steel myself: “The act of penetration within the bounds of the marriage bed is sanctified by our Lord.”

  The sentence was well practiced, and I believe it came out admirably.

  “Tante Adelaide,” says Antoinette slowly, and I notice she is not blushing, though I feel my own cheeks burning. “Tante, I understand . . . I understand it . . .”

  Oh, thank goodness! I feel the need to collapse, and steer her into the Bosque des Reines, rimmed and private. A rabbit startles and dashes off into a dewy hedge, and I sit down heavily on a stone bench.

  “But”—she is still speaking; thank goodness I do not have to—“I do not understand what is expected of me . . . He, ah . . .” A delicate pause, and I am aware, for the first time, of a certain dignity she carries, intrinsic to her person. “A few times he has, um, climbed on . . . on me, but nothing . . . nothing happens. Oh, it is so very hard . . .”

  “What is hard?” I ask sharply.

  “Everything. I do not know what I am supposed to do.” Finally, the dauphine’s face is starting to show some distress. “You know he promised me at Compiègne, but nothing happened, and he does say now he is fond of me, but . . . but . . .”

  “Good!” Fondness is certainly a start. “Good—you understand what needs to be done, you are just not doing it well enough.”

  “Yes, Tante,” says the girl dully. She sits down beside me and stares blankly ahead of her, twisting the peacock feather in her gloved hands. Outside the copse, I can hear the faint crunch of gravel and the sound of someone greeting Narbonne.

  “You must try harder. To . . . entice him. A young man will not respond to a . . . a . . . cold woman, so you must entice him.” Entice—I am not sure that word is quite proper. I realize I am starting to breathe rather heavily. A statue of a Greek hetaera gazes over me in cool marble judgment, and for some reason I am reminded of the way the harlot stared at me across the beriberi table yesterday evening. She was laughing in her vulgar, throaty way, and the Prince de Soubise’s eyes followed her, his mouth gaping open, looking as though he would like to eat her.

  “I would offer you advice . . .” I remember a picture from that smutty book, the one that the Comtesse d’Andlau foisted on my unsuspecting purity when I was a child. Henriette and I looked through it and tittered—so long ago. The woman was dismissed, of course, and put in the Bastille, but still, the damage had been done. I remember one of the pictures. “Bare buttocks. Show him your bare buttocks.”

  “Yes, Tante.” Antoinette starts crying, softly, and I see the unhappiness etched on her face, the tears running rivulets through her face powder.

  I lean back, tired and spent, not wishing to see her distasteful tears. I close my eyes but the image of bare buttocks, lined up in a row, does not leave my mind. If I open my eyes and stare directly at the sun, I could be blinded, and then perhaps the disturbing images would leave. The sun is weak on this September morning, but perhaps still sufficient? One of my women, the Comtesse de Chabannes, has a brother who is blind from birth. Of course he does not come to Court—such a thing would be unthinkable—but how extraordinary it would be, never to see and never to know—

  “Tante Adélaïde?” It is the dauphine; I had forgotten where we were, and who was beside me. What we had been talking about. “Might we go back to the palace now? The king said I could ride out with him this afternoon, and I do not wish to be late?”

  I open my eyes slowly. It has been a good conversation, I decide, and smile heartily at the young dauphine, and note with pleasure she has dried her eyes well and looks composed. How long have we been sitting here?

  I rise, proud of having accomplished my mission; fortitude and forbearance have been my friends throughout my life.

  “Certainly, let us return. But I would be leery of riding too much.” Antoinette accompanies Papa on the hunt several times a week, sometimes wearing a distastefully masculine riding habit. “It is an unsafe activity, if there is the risk of your being preg—indisposed . . .”

  “But, Tante, there is little likelihood . . .”

  “No, I shall not be contradicted on the matter. It is well known that riding causes miscarriages. Follow in a carriage, if you must, but not on the horse. Now, come, we don’t want you to be late, and it would be unseemly to be rushing. Rushing—that is something we the French do not approve of. I am not sure what happens in Vienna, but at Versailles, it is never appropriate to have the appearance of haste. I do believe haste is a . . .”

  Chapter Thirty

  In which the Comtesse du Barry watches Choiseul ride away into oblivion

  The dauphine’s star is hastily fading; she still hasn’t been able to get the dauphin to fulfill his duty—in my kinder moments, I wonder if she really is to blame, as everyone contends—and some of her behavior shocks the older members of the Court. Her list of crimes grows daily, and she is unfavorable compared to Josepha, the last dauphine, whose legacy as a paragon of virtue only grows as the Austrian girl trips merrily through the quicksand of Versailles malice.

  “Chasing butterflies,” the Marquise de Flavacourt says in disgust. “Riding donkeys. Walking through a door without waiting for the second one to be opened, as though she were a mere countess without the honors!”

  “Larking around with the king’s younger brothers!”

  “Romping on the carpet—the carpet!—with her maid’s children!”

  “Trying to get out of wearing stays, even with court costume!”

  The consensus is that she is acting more like a shopgirl from Labille’s than a future queen, and I sometimes think sadly that were we not pitted against each other, we might find much common ground in our zest for life. But she remains frosty and silent and has yet to address a single word to me. It is well known that Mesdames—well, Madame Adélaïde, at least—have the girl firmly under their rather dismal and expansive wings and have even allied themselves with Choiseul in their mission to get the girl to unseat me. They are using the pathetic girl as their weapon, and even suggested that she lecture the king on the filth that surrounds him.

  Me—filth! Needless to say, Louis was not pleased. Nor was I.

  “The effrontery! That chit of a girl, to try and moralize with me. I was greatly displeased. Well, you know, you saw me after.”

/>   “I did,” I murmur; Louis’ purple face had quite alarmed me. The girl is greatly misguided if she thinks that the king would respond to piety and sermonizing. I can definitely sense Adélaïde’s clumsy and rather large man-hand behind this matter.

  Last week one of the ladies of the dauphine’s household, the Comtesse de Gramont (a sister-in-law of Beatrice’s husband), deliberately stepped on my train as I was leaving the chapel, and didn’t even apologize but just tittered alongside her mistress. After I complained, Louis quickly banished the countess, and signaled his displeasure to Count Mercy at the dauphine’s treatment of me. Yet still she remains stubborn and does not speak to me.

  Despite the fading star of his protégée, Choiseul is as arrogant as ever and continues to resist my overtures.

  “Choiseul’s greatest strength,” Chon observes one afternoon, “is that he is the only man of any substance surrounding the king. Well, apart from Maupeou and Terray,” she finishes, referring to another two of the king’s chief ministers.

  “The king likes a man who is both courtier and adviser,” observes Richelieu, “and much as I hate to admit it, only Choiseul plays both parts well.” Richelieu is getting older—well into his seventies now—but intrigue still invigorates him.

  “I fear we are stuck with him,” I say. It is inconceivable to me that he has not succumbed to my charms. He is a well-known aficionado of the female sex, which makes my lack of progress all the more puzzling. Dratted man. “But unfortunately, Louis would be lost without him.”

  “The king only thinks he would be lost without him. We must stop trying to placate Choiseul—compromise is overrated. He’s a thorn, and might I remind you: thorns only grow,” says Chon impatiently.

  “And thorns need to be cut off,” observes Richelieu.

  Chon and Richelieu look at each other and smile; they have decided that the Duc d’Aiguillon, Richelieu’s nephew, would be a perfect replacement for Choiseul. I suddenly realize that Chon’s new dress is made from the same fabric as Richelieu’s coat. Extraordinary—what are they doing?