Flaunting, Extravagant Queen

Chapter VII MADAME ROYALE AND THE DAUPHIN

That was a happy summer and autumn for the Queen. She spent a great deal of time at her Petit Trianon; now she could watch the children playing on the grass with quiet pleasure, for soon there would be a royal child to play on that grass, to come running to her, to pull at her skirts and demand bonbons. A Dauphin! She was sure the child would be a Dauphin.

There were so many pleasant matters with which to occupy her mind, and she discussed them continually with Gabrielle and the Princesse de Lamballe.

‘He shall not be swaddled, my little Dauphin,’ she declared. ‘That is not good. It is old-fashioned and we shall employ no old-fashioned methods for Monsieur le Dauphin. He shall have everything that is modern. They say that children nowadays should be carried in a light cradle or in one’s arms, and that little by little they should be put in the open air and sunshine. And when they have grown accustomed to it they may be in it all the time – little legs and arms free that they may kick at will. That is the way to make them strong. I shall have a little railing built on the terrace, and there the Dauphin will have his own little kingdom. There he shall stand on his dear little legs and walk and grow strong.’

They listened to her; they discussed the garments he should wear; they planned the whole of his days. There was nothing which delighted the Queen more.

‘There is only one thing that plagues me,’ she said. ‘Monsieur le Dauphin, you are so long in coming.’

She could not feel very interested in anything else. When Artois made his customary bow to the stately statue of Louis Quatorze in the Orangerie at Versailles and cried: ‘Bonjour, Grandpapa,’ she no longer thought it as funny as she had hitherto. When the Prince de Ligne suggested he should hide behind the statue and, immediately after Artois uttered his greeting, reply to it in hollow tones to give the irreverent Artois a shock, she was only vaguely interested.

It was so difficult to think of anything but the Dauphin.

Little James Armand noticed the change in her. He would stand at her side, leaning fondly against her, his anxious eyes looking up into the beautiful face; for while she caressed his hair he sensed an absentmindedness in those delicate fingers, and a great fear came to him that even while she touched him, even while she smiled, her thoughts were far away.

‘Come back,’ he would say in panic. ‘Come back.’

Then she smiled. ‘What do you mean, my dear? Come back? I am here, am I not?’

‘You are going far away,’ he said.

‘You are an odd little boy, Monsieur James,’ she told him.

She noticed that his hand clutched her sleeve as it had that day when she had gone into his grandmother’s cottage; and she told him about the baby she was to have.

‘I have so longed for a baby. And now I am to have one.’

‘You have your Monsieur James,’ he reminded her. ‘Is he not enough?’

She laughed. ‘I am so greedy. And I love my Monsieur James so much that I could do with twenty like him.’

That made the boy laugh. But later she would find him standing in a corner, listening to the talk about the expected baby, a faint frown between his eyes.

She would call to him and make much of him, give him sweetmeats, those which he liked best. But he was disturbed, for he wanted more than sweetmeats.

It was during this period that Comte Hans Axel de Fersen came to the Court.

He was brought to her in the salon at the Palace of Versailles while she was with the King and surrounded by members of the Court.

As he knelt before her he saw the sudden recognition dawn in her eyes.

She spoke without thinking: ‘Ah, this is an old acquaintance. Welcome to the Court, Comte de Fersen.’

He murmured: ‘Your Majesty is gracious.’

The King scarcely noticed him. His mind was occupied with state matters. His enemies, the English, were at this time engaged in war with their colonists in America, and this war could prove of the utmost importance to France.

‘It pleases me to see you here,’ the Queen told the Comte. She was remembering that night at the Opéra ball and how bold this man had been; how he had snatched off her mask and known her for the Dauphine, as she had been then.

She had thought about him a great deal at the time; then other matters had claimed her attention. She was not surprised, studying him now, that he should have impressed her so deeply.

He was tall and very slender and the Swedish uniform became him well. His complexion was very pale but so clear as to seem almost transparent; his eyes, which were inclined to darkness, were very large, his nose straight and perfectly shaped, his mouth beautifully modelled, and his expression was both manly and tender.

Antoinette could readily understand how he had stirred her emotions at their romantic meeting.

She made him sit beside her and tell her all that had befallen him since their last meeting, of life in Sweden, of his father, the Senator, whom he greatly reverenced and admired.

He said suddenly: ‘There is one occasion in my life which I shall never forget: that night when I danced at the Opéra ball with Your Majesty.’

‘Did it shock you very much to discover who I was?’

‘It was the greatest shock of my life.’

‘You exaggerate, Comte,’ she told him.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I do not.’

She knew that she should not have kept him beside her talking, but she could not resist the temptation to do so.

‘I was a Dauphine then,’ she said. ‘Now I am a Queen I have greater liberty to do what I please.’

‘Queens,’ he said, ‘have less liberty to please themselves than Dauphines, Your Majesty.’

She laughed lightly. ‘I believe you have been listening to tales of me.’

‘I have treasured every word I ever heard spoken of you.’

‘Evil tales?’ she asked.

‘Nothing could be evil in my eyes if it concerned you. The fact that it did so would banish evil from it.’

‘That is a charming thing to say.’ She lifted her fan with the quizzing glass set in it, and looked at him. She was somewhat short-sighted and she wanted to see clearly every line of his face.

‘You find me changed,’ she said. ‘Different from the Dauphine with whom you danced.’

‘I find you changed … yet the same. I find you perfect, although I had thought the Dauphine that. Should I not pass on now? We are being closely watched.’

‘A plague on their watching eyes. They watch me continually. If I dismiss you that would surely be wrong, for everything I do is wrong in the eyes of those determined to condemn me. I merely have to do it to make it so. Therefore I will be wrong in commanding you to stay, for I surely should be if I dismissed you.’

‘Your Majesty is a very happy woman,’ he said wistfully.

‘I am to have a child and I have longed for a child. I have been wildly happy since I knew it was to be so. Now … an old friend, or one whom I think of as an old friend, returns. That makes me happier still. Do not worry about staying beside me. The King is busy with his ministers. They talk endlessly of this war between England and her colonists in America.’

‘French sympathies are with the settlers,’ he said.

‘Of a certainty. French sympathies are always contrary to English sympathies.’

‘Throughout France many are saying, Good luck to those who rise against the English crown.’

‘I know. Joseph, my brother who was here recently, was disturbed by such talk. When people praised those who were rebelling against the English crown he would grow a little angry, I must confess. Only, being Joseph, he never showed it. He used to say: “Mon métier est d’être royaliste,” in his very curt crisp way which seemed to announce: “I, the Emperor, say this; therefore it must be so.” Dear Joseph! He is the best brother in the world, but I cannot help laughing at him.’

Fersen laughed with her because her laughter was so infectious.

He told himself then: It was a mistake to come back to the Court. If she were Dauphine then, she is Queen now. She is even further away.

Antoinette kept him at her side until she left the salon for her apartments.

Josèphe and Thérèse were watching. They decided that the very next day they would visit the aunts at the Château of Bellevue where they were now installed. They would be able to talk of the Queen’s outrageous behaviour with the Comte de Fersen. It was a pity of course that the Comte had not been in Paris a little earlier. Then they might have started the rumour that the Queen’s condition might not have so much to do with the petit opération as most people had been deceived into thinking.

Still, it was always pleasant to gossip at Bellevue, where were gathering now all the disgruntled men and women of Versailles who were determined firmly to establish the growing unpopularity of the Queen.

Fersen must be a guest at the Petit Trianon; he must dance with the Queen on the lawn at her informal parties. ‘We stand on little ceremony here,’ the Queen told him. ‘This is our escape from Versailles. We must have our escape. The solemnity of the Court is something I could not endure all the time.’

Therefore dancing on the lawn was yet another reminder to them both of dancing at the Opéra ball in Paris.

Fersen had been deeply attracted by Antoinette from the first moment he had seen her. Within a few days after his arrival at Court he was deeply in love with her.

Antoinette was charmed with him; he was so handsome, so attractive, and so much in love. He moved her to a deeper emotion than Lauzun ever had; but her mind was largely occupied by the child she would have, and she was not by nature a promiscuous woman. Her physical desires were moderate; she had been afraid of her relationship with Lauzun because of the state of affairs between herself and Louis at that time; and the continual reproaches of her mother and those about her, on account of her failure to produce a Dauphin, had given her those affectations nerveuses of which Mercy had thought it necessary to write to her mother and which had been mainly instrumental in bringing about the visit of Joseph.

Fersen was wise.

Once before he had disappeared from her life; now he felt that the need to do so was even more urgent.

He spoke to her one day as he sat with her and some of the members of that little entourage of intimates assembled in the garden of Trianon.

‘Your Majesty,’ he said, ‘I shall soon be leaving the Court.’

She was startled and, he was delighted to see, deeply disappointed.

‘Monsieur de Fersen,’ she cried imperiously. ‘You must not leave us. We should miss you too sadly. You must not go back to Sweden. We shall not allow it.’

He lifted those handsome eyes to hers – for she was sitting on her chair which was like a throne, and her courtiers were ranged about her on the grass – and he said slowly: ‘Your Majesty, I am not going to Sweden. I am going to America.’

‘To … to fight!’

‘To fight against the forces of the King of England,’ he said. ‘To help in the fight for freedom.’

‘You shall not!’ she cried; and tears filled her eyes. She was silent for a while; then she went on: ‘But if it is what you wish … then you must do it.’

She was saddened. Her eyes followed him, and many noticed that they were filled with tears as she did so.

The Princesse de Lamballe begged her not to show her feelings for the young man so openly.

‘People are watching you all the time. Your sisters-in-law lose no opportunity of maligning you.’

‘I know it,’ said Antoinette. ‘And they are more angry with me still now that I am to have my Dauphin. But what do I care!’

‘You must care,’ said the Princesse. ‘They can do so much harm.’

‘I cannot help feeling sad when I see Axel. He will soon be far away, and I like my friends about me. It is so sad to think that soon he may be dying on some battlefield because he has interfered in a cause which is not his own.’

‘He has said that it is the cause of freedom, the cause of righteousness.’

‘I believe he is going away because he is afraid of staying here, because of the slander that is being spoken against us.’

‘Then he is wise to go,’ said the Princesse.

‘I am unlucky to be treated as I am,’ said Antoinette sadly. Then she laughed. ‘But if it is malicious of people to presume I take lovers, it is certainly very odd of me to have so many attributed to me and yet to do without them!’

The Princesse laughed with her; but Antoinette continued sad, contemplating the departure of Fersen.

And even after he had gone she thought a great deal about him until her mind was entirely occupied with her approaching confinement.

During the evenings she would walk on the terrace of the château with her friends. The summer had been unusually hot and Antoinette had spent the days resting, doing fine needlework while she listened to music and talked of the Dauphin. Therefore it was pleasant in the cool of the evening to walk on the terrace which was illuminated with fairy lights. Music would be playing in the Orangerie; the old custom was that at such times the people of Versailles might have free admittance into the château grounds and even to the terraces.

The Queen, with her ladies, was dressed in white muslin with a big straw hat and veil which were the fashion and were copied by many. Thus, as they sat or strolled on the terrace and the people wandered freely about, many would speak to the Queen without knowing who she was.

One night as she sat there a man came and stood beside her.

‘What a beautiful night!’ he said, and took a chair next to hers.

‘It is very beautiful,’ she replied.

She believed that he did not know who she was, for he was clearly of the tradesman class. She did not wish to humiliate him, so promised herself that she would say a few words then murmur that she must go and immediately leave him.

He was watching her intently.

‘There is not a lady in Versailles as beautiful as you,’ declared the man ardently.

‘It is kind of you to say so,’ she said. ‘Pray excuse me now. I must join my family.’

She rose and looking about her saw her sisters-in-law standing not far off, watching.

‘Let us go now,’ she said to them.

Josèphe, seeing what had happened, came hurrying up.

‘Your Majesty has tired yourself,’ she said audibly; and her gleaming eyes were on the man.

She saw the smile touch his lips, and she knew that from the beginning he had been aware of the Queen’s identity.

Antoinette took Josèphe’s arm and they walked away. Josèphe later was gleeful as she recounted the incident to Provence. It was quite clear that many were beginning to believe in the légèreté of the Queen.

At last December came, and the whole Court was in a state of great excitement.

Many times during the day the King was making his way to the Queen’s apartments at the southern end of the Grande Galerie.

He was demanding to know how she was. Should she not rest more? Was there anything she desired?

He would question her ladies anxiously. Did the Queen seem a little tired? Did they think she was taking enough exercise? Too much exercise? One of them must send the accoucheur to his apartment. He wished to question both accoucheur and doctors immediately.

‘The Queen is in good spirits, Your Majesty,’ he was told. ‘And all is as it should be.’

But it was difficult for Louis to satisfy himself.

‘I could wish,’ he told the doctors, ‘that we could dispense with the ancient and barbaric customs which prevail at the Court at such times. It is monstrous that the people – not only my own family but any French subject – have the right to enter the lying-in chamber while the Queen gives birth to an enfant de France.’

The doctors agreed with the King; but etiquette – and particularly at such a time – must be preserved. The King knew that it was very necessary in this case, for although he had heard less than any of the rumours concerning Antoinette and himself which were circulating throughout the Court and the country, he could well imagine what would be said if he refused to allow witnesses into the lying-in chamber. In view of the long barren years it would surely be said that the child was not the King’s and Queen’s after all; that there was no royal birth. There had been such rumours before.

‘However,’ he said, ‘I have decided that the screens surrounding the bed shall be fastened with cords so that they cannot be overthrown by the crowds.’

In the early hours of that December morning Antoinette woke and called out to her women that she felt the first of her pains.

The news spread throughout the Palace. All the bells were ringing to summon the relatives of the royal family who were either in Paris or Versailles awaiting the event. Pages and equerries were galloping to Paris and Saint-Cloud to bring their employers to the château.

Antoinette’s ladies-in-waiting, headed by the Princesse de Lamballe and the Duchesse de Guémenée, arranged themselves about her bed.

‘Marie,’ whispered Antoinette, clinging to the hand of the Princesse, ‘as soon as my child is born, let me know if … it is a boy.’

‘It will be a boy,’ the Princesse assured her.

‘It must be a boy,’ said Antoinette, her face contorted with sudden pain.

‘Cling to me,’ said the Princesse. ‘The doctors and the accoucheur will be here very soon.’

‘I do not complain of these pains,’ said Antoinette. ‘I welcome them. It cannot be long now, Marie. Oh, pray that it cannot be long.’

Behind the screen the Princes and Princesses, the royal Dukes and Duchesses, noblemen and women of high rank sat waiting. Behind them the townsfolk crowded in as was their privilege. They stood on chairs that they might see beyond the screens; they jostled each other and shouted.

It was a strange scene – there in that stately room, the ceiling of which was decorated by Boucher and the walls with Gobelins tapestry. The young Queen writhed on her bed, now and then uttering a shriek of agony, and all under the watchful eyes, not only of the members of her family, but any who had been quick enough to force a way into the bedchamber.

Outside the bedchamber in the Salon de la Paix with its beautiful decorations and gilded doors the crowd massed. In the Grande Galerie they pressed against one another and cursed that ill-fortune which had made them too late to get a place in the lying-in chamber itself.

Meanwhile in the chamber, the windows of which had been sealed and seamed with paper to keep out the December draughts, the crowd waited.

The Queen lay exhausted on her bed, but at last her agony was over, her child delivered.

Antoinette’s eyes were on the child – the much longed-for child. She saw it – small, shrivelled, hardly like a human being. It lay still. It did not cry. She looked at the accoucheur who had taken it from the doctor. She saw the frightened eyes of the Princesse de Lamballe.

She tried to speak then. But the room seemed to be fading away. She was aware of a great silence all about her. She felt waves of heat sweeping over her; she was gasping for breath, for the air of the lying-in chamber was made hot and fetid by the curious invaders.

She thought she heard the cry of a child. Someone said: ‘The Queen! The Queen!’

Then she was lost in darkness.

‘It is a girl.’

The cry went up.

‘So … No Dauphin for France!’

‘But a healthy child … a girl.’

‘And the Queen?’

The doctors were at the bedside. The Queen was lying like a dead woman, and the King had ceased to think of the child now. He strode to one of the doctors and shook him.

‘The Queen!’ he said. ‘Attend to the Queen.’

‘This air … It is foul,’ said the doctor. ‘The room should be cleared, and fresh air let in.’

The King acted more quickly than he had ever done in his life.

‘Clear the room,’ he shouted. ‘Clear the room immediately.’

He fought his way through the crowd to the window. He did not wait to tear away the seals, but thrust his elbow through the glass. The cold air rushed into the room.

The spectators looked on in silence. His strength was great, and enhanced by fear he wrenched open the windows.

Then he turned to face them.

‘Did you not hear my orders? Clear the room immediately.’

‘Sire …’ began Provence.

But this was one of the rare moments in his life when Louis demanded immediate obedience. Louis was King, as he had been for a short while during the Guerre des Farines, and as such none dared disobey him.

The flunkeys were rushing about, turning out the crowds, while the doctors shouted for hot water.

No one had any hot water ready, the servants believing that the most important feature of a royal birth was to arrange for the spectators. It would be some time before hot water could be produced, and the Queen was in imminent danger.

Then one of the doctors lanced the Queen’s foot and the flow of blood with the sudden rush of cold fresh air brought her back to consciousness.

‘My baby?’ she asked.

The Princesse de Lamballe knelt by the bed, her eyes full of tears.

‘A little girl, Your Majesty. The dearest little girl.’

Antoinette closed her eyes. So there was no Dauphin. For a moment she was desolate, for the child of whom she had dreamed over the months of waiting had always been a boy.

She opened her eyes and saw Louis standing by the bed, and she felt a rush of affection for him because he looked so anxious.

‘Dear Louis,’ she said. ‘I have disappointed you. You so hoped for a Dauphin.’

‘Disappointed?’ said Louis, his mouth twitching with emotion. ‘How could that be? You are not going to die … and we have a child.’

She held out her hand. He took it and kissed it.

‘I want my baby,’ she said.

So they brought the child and laid it in her arms.

‘My poor child,’ she murmured. ‘We did not wish for a girl, but you will be none the less dear to me.’ She lifted her eyes to those about the bed. ‘Why, a son would have belonged more particularly to the State, but you will be mine. You will have all my care, you will share my happiness and assuage my griefs.’

The King came close and looked down at the baby. ‘Now you have seen this wonderful child, you must rest,’ he commanded. ‘Those are the doctors’ orders. Come, close your eyes. Have no fear, there are many here to watch over Madame Royale and give her a welcome into the world. Rest well. Your ordeal is over. The father of la petite Madame is as pleased with her as her mother is.’

So she handed the child to the Princesse and sank into contented sleep.

Louis could not tear himself away from the Queen’s apartments. He would stand for a long time by the cradle of his daughter, looking down at her and marvelling at the tiny perfection of her hands and feet. He would smile as the little fingers curled about his thumb. He would call to any who came near him: ‘Come here. Look at these beautiful fingers. Did you ever see anything so minute, yet so perfect? Is it not wonderful?’

All those called upon to share his enthusiasm would agree that it was.

The Queen would stand beside him, and they would laugh contentedly and ask each other whether they would, if they could, exchange this exquisite creature even for a Dauphin.

No, indeed they would not. Marie Thérèse Charlotte – Madame Royale – was perfect in their eyes and they would not lose her for the world.

Louis, loving husband and devoted father, wanted to show his affection in more tangible terms.

Antoinette loved jewels; he would send for the Court jewellers and command them to make something for the Queen which would delight her more than any piece of jewellery in her possession.

When the summons came to Messieurs Boehmer and Bassenge, the Court jewellers, Monsieur Boehmer rubbed his hands with delight. ‘Now,’ he said to his partner, ‘is the time to dispose of the diamond necklace.’

The diamond necklace was about to be completed. It was the most magnificent ornament ever made, both jewellers were sure, for who in the world could afford in the first place to procure the stones which went into it, and who in the second place would have the skill to make it?

They had taken four years to find stones of sufficient size and perfection and mount them into this necklace. It was, of course, made with the Queen in mind, and the jewellers had not a moment’s doubt that she would be so enchanted when she saw it that she would be unable to resist it.

The diamond necklace occupied the thoughts of Messieurs Boehmer and Bassenge all day and often part of the night. Its sale would make them rich men. They were comfortably off now, for business had been good since the Queen had such a taste for diamonds; and the Court followed the Queen. But the necklace was designed to make their fortunes.

The diamonds which formed a choker necklace were enormous, and graduated from the largest in the centre; from this choker necklace hung another looped rope from which was a pendant of diamonds culminating in a huge pear-shaped stone. More clusters hung from the choker; then there was a magnificent rope of double diamonds from which hung four tassels all composed of the finest diamonds in the world.

The jewellers hoped to sell this unique creation at 1,600,000 livres.

So when the King sent for Boehmer and the latter guessed that His Majesty wished to make a present to the Queen, he hastily completed the necklace and took it along to show Louis.

‘Your Majesty,’ he cried, ‘I show you here the finest ornament in the world, of which only Her Majesty is worthy.’

Louis was very impressed by the glittering jewellery, though the price made him flinch a little; but he was eager to show Antoinette and the world that he was a happy husband and father.

‘I will speak to the Queen before buying it,’ he said.

And the jeweller went away contented and confident.

James Armand stood with the Queen by the cradle.

He was looking with misgiving at the baby, for he now knew her to be his greatest rival at Court. It was useless for his beloved Queen to assure him that he was her little boy. He knew differently. She was absentminded now when she played with him. Indeed she played less with him than she had before.

He was frightened. He remembered his grandmother’s cottage and all the others there, and how they had refused to let him play with them, how they had shut him out of the games because he was the youngest.

He would go to the Queen when she was holding the baby and her ladies were about her, admiring the tiny creature.

‘James Armand is here,’ he would announce.

They would all laugh.

‘So James Armand is jealous of Madame Royale?’

One of the Queen’s ladies said: ‘You forget, James Armand. Madame Royale is the Queen’s own child.’

‘I am too,’ he declared hotly. ‘I also.’

The lady smiled and ruffled his hair. ‘Have a sweetmeat, James Armand. Come, here are your favourites.’

But he only ran away and hid himself.

He would cower in the hangings and watch the Queen with the baby, see her stoop over the cradle and kiss the child.

He heard her say: ‘It was the happiest moment in my life when I held my own child in my arms.’

He ran out then. He thought she referred to him; he said: ‘It was when you picked me up from the road after the horses had kicked me.’

She gave the baby to one of her women then and put her arms about him.

‘You must have no fear, James Armand,’ she said. ‘You will always be my boy.’

He gave himself up to the pleasure of that embrace, but he could not entirely believe it. There was so much to make him disbelieve.

The Queen was thoughtfully considering the boy, when the King came to her.

‘Boehmer has shown me the most magnificent diamond necklace I have ever seen,’ Louis told her.

‘The necklace?’ She smiled. ‘I have heard of that necklace.’

‘If you would like it, it shall be yours.’

‘I believe it would cost a great deal.’

The King raised his eyebrows. ‘Since when have you become concerned with cost?’

‘Since I was truly a mother perhaps. I am going to change now, Louis. I have been very extravagant. I have wasted so much money. It was because I longed to be a mother; and because I was not, I had to spend the time somehow. Now I have my dearest wish realised. I have my own child, and I shall have more. No, I will not have the necklace. Mother would send complaining letters, and you know how I am continually reproached for my extravagance. I have plenty of diamonds and they do not go so well with the new fashions of muslin and cambric. And I should wear this magnificent trinket only about half a dozen times during a year. No, Louis, I will show you and the world how I have changed. I will not have this diamond necklace. I will not even see it … for fear I should be tempted.’

‘It costs nearly two million livres – 1,600,000 to be precise. It is a great deal of money. One could build a man-o’-war with that.’

‘Then have your man-o’-war, Louis.’

‘I should have liked to give you this necklace …’

‘You have given me our little Charlotte. That is enough.’

He was looking at her with shining eyes of approval. She was right of course. She had been extravagant, and it would be good to show the people that she was so no longer.

He sent a messenger to Boehmer to tell him that the Queen had decided against the necklace.

When Boehmer received the message he was distraught.

‘We are ruined,’ he said to his partner. ‘We have borrowed so heavily to buy the stones. We have wasted four years on the necklace. Unless we can sell it we are ruined. I was counting on the Queen.’

‘Who would have believed she could resist it?’ cried Bassenge. ‘Who will buy it now?’

‘God knows! The price of it puts it out of the market. There is no one but the King and Queen who could afford the necklace. Many have seen it and admired it – but of course must consider it right out of their reach. There is only one thing to do if we are to be saved. I must start at once. I must visit all the Courts of Europe in the hope of finding a buyer.’

So the Queen did not have the diamond necklace. Instead a hundred couples, who were about to marry, were given a dowry besides new clothing, and money was distributed throughout the country; pardons were granted to certain criminals and many debtors were forgiven their debts. There were fireworks and illuminations in the Capital, wine flowed from fountains and all were admitted free into the Comédie Française. It seemed that the popularity of the Queen had been regained, for everywhere she went now she was acclaimed by shouts of ‘Vive la Reine!’

But her enemies were as strong as ever. The aunts continued to receive their visitors at Bellevue.

‘And how long do you think this reformation will last, eh?’ demanded Adelaide of her sisters.

They waited to hear from Adelaide how long, but they knew of course that Adelaide had already decided it should be of the shortest possible duration.

Josèphe and Thérèse continued to watch the Queen closely. The fond mother would soon become the frivolous Queen again, they were sure. For one thing she still kept her favourites about her. The Polignacs were as strong as ever. Gabrielle was the most favoured person in the whole of the Court.

‘In the old days it was the King’s mistresses,’ said Josèphe; ‘now it is the Queen’s friends.’

‘The people should be told that,’ cried Adelaide.

Her sisters nodded. They knew that Adelaide and Josèphe and others with them would see that remark was repeated throughout Paris.

The Comte de Vaudreuil, who was Gabrielle’s lover, had lost money in the West Indies owing to the American war, and Gabrielle begged the Queen to help her lover; the result was that the Comte was found a sinecure at Court which was a charge on public funds to the tune of 30,000 livres a year. Gabrielle’s lovely young daughter was affianced to the Duc de Guiche. The King must give her a dowry of 800,000 livres because the Queen so wished to please her dear friend Gabrielle; then, of course, the bridegroom must have his gifts also. There must be a command in the company of Guards, an estate and a pension for Monsieur de Guiche.

Gabrielle had been made a Duchesse and had been given estates at Bitche, and ever since she had been known throughout Paris as Bitchette.

Other members of the Polignac family were not forgotten. Even Gabrielle’s husband’s father, the old Vicomte de Polignac, who was far from brilliant, was sent to Switzerland as ambassador.

The Queen’s enemies made sure that the people knew of her follies; they were determined that her new-found popularity should not last. She lost this completely when, after a slight attack of measles, she decided to recuperate at the Petit Trianon.

‘This,’ she declared, ‘is what I must do, for the King has never had measles, so I must keep right away from him.’

‘Your Majesty must not be dull during convalescence,’ Gabrielle told her. ‘That would considerably retard your recovery. I for one shall be with you.’

‘If you have not had the measles, Gabrielle …’

‘Measles or not,’ said Gabrielle, ‘I shall be there.’

Four gentlemen of the Court came forward to say that they had also had measles. They said it so glibly that it was quite clear that they were not at all sure whether they had or not, but that they considered an attack little to pay for the intimate society of the Queen.

So with the Queen and a few – a very few – of her ladies went the Ducs de Coigny and de Guines, the Baron de Benseval and the Comte Esterhazy; and there at Petit Trianon they made her convalescence merry. Her bedroom was the centre of the gaiety, and it soon became known throughout Paris that the Queen entertained these men in her private bedchamber.

Now all the old scandals were revived. The people in the streets were inventing scandals and singing songs about her once more.

Mercy wrote frantically to Maria Theresa. Maria Theresa’s instructions came promptly in reply.

Mercy visited Petit Trianon and, as a result, the four gentlemen were commanded not to enter the Queen’s bedchamber after eleven o’clock in the day.

But the damage was done.

The finances of the country were in a tragic state.

Turgot had been replaced by Clugny de Nuis and, when the latter died, by Jacques Necker, the Genevese banker.

Necker was very popular and there was delight throughout the country on his appointment. A great deal had been heard about the Déficit, and it was firmly believed that Necker was the man who would put France on her feet again.

Necker, accustomed to dealing with finance, was horrified to discover that the national deficit was some 20,000,000 livres a year, and that owing to the American war – for France was supporting the settlers – the debt was increasing rapidly. He dared not inflict more taxes for he understood that the people would have risen in revolt if he had. Instead he resorted to loans.

With the borrowed money it seemed that Necker was succeeding. He was cutting down expenses throughout the country. He had believed in the beginning that if he could make France prosperous he would be able to repay the loans when the time came for repayment.

This he failed to do. The war was virtually over and he realised that his only means of repaying the loans was through further taxation. This he could shelve for a little while; so, determined not to throw the nation into a panic, he published a little booklet which he called Compte Rendu, and in this he set out details of the national income and the national expenditure. As he falsely included the loans as income he was able to show, instead of a deficit, a credit balance of 10,000,000 livres.

There was general rejoicing and the cry went up: ‘Long live Necker! He is the saviour of France!’

Antoinette was joyfully pregnant again.

James Armand stood behind her chair, listening to her talking about the new baby which was coming. ‘This time,’ said the Queen, ‘it must be a boy.’

It was a pleasure now to write to her mother. It was a pleasure to open her letters. Maria Theresa would forget to scold if there was a Dauphin on the way.

It was, however, but a few months after the child was conceived when she had her miscarriage. She was very sad about this, and wept often, but when she was assured again and again by her friends that she would almost certainly be pregnant again, her spirits lifted.

James Armand stood by the bed smiling his satisfaction. At least for the present there would be no other rival to be set beside the little girl in her cradle.

Antoinette laughed at him and told him he was a wicked little subject of the King. James Armand laughed with her. He cared not for the King, he told her; he was the Queen’s little boy.

‘Now,’ she said to Gabrielle, ‘there will be more letters from my mother. I shall be told that I must at all costs avoid le lit à part. Poor Mother, this will be a great shock to her. Ah, Monsieur James, is it not strange that what rejoices you will fill my dear mother with dismay?’

But the letters from Maria Theresa were coming less frequently.

In the last few years she had grown very fat. She had suffered badly from the smallpox, and Antoinette would not have recognised her if she had seen her at that time. The Empress knew that she had not long to live; and one day, soon after Antoinette’s miscarriage, when driving, she had caught a chill. A few days later she was dead.

When the news was brought to Antoinette she was prostrate with grief.

The King had sent the Abbé de Vermond to break it to her gently; he himself, guessing how broken-hearted she would be, declared he could not bear to do so. But as she lay on her bed, too dazed for speech, Louis came to her and took her into his arms.

‘I cannot believe it, Louis,’ she said. ‘Mother … dead. But she was so vital. I think she believed she would be immortal.’

‘We are none of us that,’ said Louis.

‘Yet she seemed so. And to think I have sometimes put her letters aside because I knew they would contain scoldings. As if she ever scolded when I did not merit a scolding. Louis, who will look after me now?’

‘I will,’ said Louis.

She smiled at him tenderly. Dear Louis. But Poor Louis. How different he seemed to her from that strong woman to whom she had felt she could always turn.

‘I cannot believe,’ she went on, ‘that she is not there. You see, Louis, she was always there … from the moment I first became aware of anything she was there …’

He soothed her. She felt closer to Louis than ever before; and in those days of mourning she wished to be shut away from everyone but her husband and her dear friends, Madame de Polignac and the Princesse de Lamballe.

The finances of France were tottering.

Necker had overlooked the fact that when he had made his drastic plans for reducing expenditure, the result would produce unemployment and the dissatisfaction of a great number of people; and that hundreds who had looked upon the service of the nobility as their livelihood would be without means of earning a living.

Necker was idealistic. The state of the hospitals appalled him, so he prevailed on the King to pay secret visits to those of Paris; and Louis, whose great desire was to serve his country, was willing to do so. What Louis saw in places such as the Hôtel-Dieu filled him with horror. Disguised he had wandered through the wards and seen the dying lying in heaps in corners, had seen as many as four people crowded into one narrow bed, all in various stages of misery.

He had come back to the Palace and told the Queen what he had seen; and he and Antoinette had wept together. Something must be done for the hospitals. In the provincial cities they were moderately satisfactory; it was in Paris that they provoked such horror and shame.

The Queen founded a maternity hospital at Versailles; the King bought new beds to be installed in the Hôtel-Dieu. This was admirable; but it cost money. Turgot, Malesherbes and Necker were all reformers, all idealists, but all lacked the means to bring their reforms into being.

Necker was now at the height of his popularity. Only Maurepas, now in his eighties, wise and shrewd, doubted the banker. Maurepas could not believe that the country’s financial state was as good as Necker had made it out to be; to Maurepas’ practical mind it was an impossibility. Trouble started between Necker and Maurepas when the banker rejected a proposal to strengthen the Navy, which had been put forward by de Sartines, who was then Minister for Naval Affairs and whom Maurepas was supporting.

There was an open rupture in high places. Necker, who was cheered every time he went into the streets, thought to score off the old statesman by demanding the post of Minister of State.

Maurepas then threatened to resign and take the Administration with him, pointing out that Necker was a Protestant and no Protestant had ever held the post of Minister of State since the days of Henri Quatre; but Necker imagined that, since the people believed in him, new rules should be made on his account.

The King and the Queen were reluctant to accept Necker’s resignation, but this was forced on them. Necker fell from power; and the men and women in the streets murmured because of it.

There was another disturbing factor. Many French had returned from America, now that war was being brought to a satisfactory conclusion. This sent the citizens of Paris wild with joy. From the beginning they had been on the side of those who called for liberty. They had cheered Benjamin Franklin, Arthur Lee and Silas Deane when they had appeared in Paris some years before to enlist French support. Many had sailed to America under the Marquis de la Fayette.

The King had wanted to remain aloof. It was because he was distrustful of war. He had an uneasy feeling too that, as a royalist, he would be fighting on the wrong side. All Europe was declaring against England in the struggle, not on principle but because they feared that mighty rising Power.

And now the war was over and the Declaration of Independence had been signed. This was success for the settlers, success too for France. The stigma of the Seven Years’ War which had so humiliated the French was wiped away. Now they were victorious over their old enemies, the English.

It had been an easy war, as wars which were not fought in the homeland should be. France had recovered her colonies in the West Indies, in Senegal and India. She had hoped to regain Canada, but that country had refused to rise against the English.

It seemed that France was set for glory again as it had been in the days of Louis Quatorze. Here was the beginning of richness, the people told each other.

There were certain things they had forgotten.

The Déficit was greater than ever, for the war had cost forty-three million livres. Those reforms, which Louis had so dearly wished to put into being and in which he had ministers to support him, had had to be put off for the sake of the war.

This was bad; but there was one thing which, for the monarchy, was more dangerous still.

Soldiers sat in the taverns and cafés and talked of the new country. In the new land there were no Kings. There was more freedom in the New World.

A new cry had replaced ‘Long live the King’. It was ‘Long live Liberty!’

The Queen was oblivious of the change which was coming over the country. Her mind was occupied with one thing. She was again pregnant, and this time she was determined not to lose the child.

She shut herself away from the Court, took the utmost care of her health and saw few people apart from Louis and her dearest friends.

In the streets the people had ceased to talk of the new world and were discussing the coming of the child, for a royal birth was an event to eclipse all others.

The King was firm in declaring that he would not have the Queen submitted to the danger and indignity which she had suffered during the birth of Madame Royale. He proclaimed that only those close members of the family, doctors, ladies-in-waiting and those necessary to the occasion should forgather in the lying-in chamber. He did not forget how the Queen had come near to death by suffocation at her last confinement.

The King called the Queen’s ladies to him a few days before the child was expected.

‘I am anxious on the Queen’s behalf,’ he said. ‘I remember last time. If the child should be a girl she will be distressed, I know. This fact must be kept from her until she is well enough to learn the truth.’

The Princesse de Lamballe said: ‘Sire, if the child should be a boy, shall we not tell Her Majesty?’

‘No,’ said the King firmly. ‘For joy can be as big a shock as grief.’

‘And if she should ask, Sire?’

‘I shall be at hand. I shall tell her.’

She was waiting. She knew it could not be long now. ‘Holy Mother of God,’ she prayed, ‘send me a Dauphin.’ She paced up and down her room; she had dismissed her women; she wanted to be alone to think of the child. All was ready, waiting for him. ‘Oh, God, let it be a boy.’

If only Mother were alive, she thought. If I have a Dauphin, how happy Mother would be. Perhaps she is looking down on me now, being happy … knowing that soon I shall give birth to a healthy boy, the Dauphin of France.

She touched the beautiful Gobelin tapestry which lined her walls. ‘If I have a boy,’ she said, as though making a bargain, ‘I will be quite different. I will no longer gamble. I will do all I can to please the people. I will be quite sober … I will be the Queen whom Mother would have wished me to be. Oh, why was I not, when she was alive? What grief I must have caused her! Yet it was so hard … I was so bored … so utterly bored. I had to do something to stop thinking of the children I wanted. Now I have Charlotte. How I love Charlotte! And if there is a Dauphin …’

She would see less of Gabrielle. She was beginning to think she was less fond of Gabrielle. Gabrielle was so absorbed by her lover, and should she, the Queen, faithful wife of the King, accept Gabrieile and her lover as her close friends in the way she did? Gabrielle was a darling of course, but her relations … oh, her relations! There were too many of them, and they were too acquisitive. When she thought of all they had had it seemed incredible that they could ask for more. No wonder there were complaints about them. They were every bit as expensive as Grandpa Louis’ mistresses had been. The people were right in saying that.

She would spend more time with Madame Elisabeth, her pleasant little sister-in-law. She had always liked Elisabeth, from the moment she had seen her on her arrival in France; and, now that Clothilde was married, she and Elisabeth should be together more.

It was true Elisabeth was a little saintly and consequently a little dull, but she adored Antoinette’s little Charlotte and she would be such a pleasant companion.

‘Oh, give me a Dauphin and I will see less of Gabrielle,’ she prayed. ‘I will cultivate the love of Elisabeth; I will be with my children, and soon even the citizens of Paris will have nothing of which to complain.’

She caught her breath suddenly.

Her pains were starting.

She called. Marie de Lamballe, who was not far off and expecting the call, came hurrying to her.

The King was in the bedchamber, and with him were those members of the family whose duty it was to be present.

On the bed Antoinette lay, the doctors and accoucheur about her. Not far off hovered the Princesse de Lamballe and the Princesse de Guémenée whose position as Gouvernante des Enfants entitled her to be there.

The labour was not long and within three hours the child was born.

As the Queen emerged from the exhaustion of her ordeal she was immediately conscious of the silence all about her, and she was terrified suddenly by that silence.

Her eyes sought those of the Princesse, but Marie de Lamballe avoided her eyes.

Antoinette grasped the sheets. She thought: There is no child. It is born dead. After all these months!

She licked her lips and said: ‘You see how patient I am. I ask … nothing.’

Louis was at her bedside. He cried aloud, and his voice was like a fanfare of trumpets: ‘Monsieur le Dauphin begs leave to enter.’

Antoinette’s heart beat uncertainly as the Princesse de Guémenée laid her son in her arms.

There was great rejoicing throughout the country at the birth of an heir to the throne of France. Now would be the time for pageants and merrymaking, and in such festivities reality could be thrust aside.

Everyone was talking of the Dauphin, the King most of all. Every sentence he uttered seemed to begin with: ‘My son the Dauphin …’

He was continually in the Queen’s apartments; he was for ever bending over the cradle.

‘Madame de Guémenée, how fares my son, the Dauphin, today?’ ‘My son, the Dauphin, lies very still this morning. Is that as it should be?’

He welcomed the child’s wet-nurse, called Madame Poitrine by the Court – a gruff peasant woman, wife of one of the gardeners, a woman who cared for nothing except the Dauphin, and refused to conform to etiquette or show the slightest respect for her new surroundings.

When asked to powder her hair, she roared in her coarse voice:

‘I’ve never powdered my hair nor will I now. I have come here to suckle the little one – not to stand about like one of those dummies I see all over the place. I’ll not have that nasty powder near me.’

She told the King himself this, without a ‘Your Majesty’ or ‘Sire’ to accompany the gruff words. The King smiled at her. He knew her for a good honest woman; one who would serve the Dauphin well.

‘And my son?’ he asked her. ‘The Dauphin? His appetite is good to-day?’

‘Fair enough,’ said Madame Poitrine. ‘Dauphins or gardener’s sons, they’re all the same greedy brats.’

‘Take care of my son,’ the King begged her.

‘Your son’s all right. Don’t you worry,’ said Madame Poitrine kindly, as though the King were another of her children.

Louis would sit by the Queen’s bed, and all their conversation was of the Dauphin or Madame Royale.

They were proud parents now, and they could not forget it.

Little James Armand realised, on the birth of the newcomer, that he had had good reason to fear. The Queen rarely asked for him and, when she did, she scarcely seemed to see him.

The ladies laughed together about Antoinette’s preoccupation with motherhood. It had been the same when Madame Royale was born. In the middle of a conversation – and this happened even when she talked with the ministers – she would break in with the latest saying of Madame Royale, or explain how the Dauphin chuckled when Madame Poitrine took him up for his feed.

The Grand Almoner presided over the Dauphin’s baptism. He was none other than Louis, Prince and Cardinal de Rohan, that man who had welcomed Antoinette in Strasbourg Cathedral when she had first arrived in France.

Antoinette would have preferred another to have officiated, but it was clearly the duty of the Grand Almoner and, since Rohan held this office, he must take charge of the Dauphin’s baptism.

She decided she would ignore him. She would have nothing to do with a man who had slandered her mother; she had heard too that he had talked to Joseph of herself when he was in Austria, for Joseph had made a friend of the man in spite of the fact that Maria Theresa had so disliked him.

Provence and Elisabeth stood proxy for the baby’s godparents, who were his uncle the Emperor Joseph and the Princesse de Piedmont.

Antoinette found that during the impressive ceremony she could not help being aware of Rohan’s piercing eyes; and she believed that, while he went through his duties at the baptismal service, he was thinking of her, pleading with her not to hate him, trying to tell her of some strong emotion which she aroused in him.

It was uncomfortable to be near the man.

The bells continued to ring through the Capital. There were processions and festivities in the streets – all in honour of Louis Joseph Xavier François, the Dauphin of France.

The trade guilds banded together to make their own offering of thanksgiving, and one day shortly after the birth they came marching to Versailles from Paris. The King, the Queen and members of the royal family stood on the balcony before the King’s apartments while the members of the different guilds crowded into the courtyard.

With them came the market-women wearing black silk gowns; and their leader congratulated the Queen, speaking for the women of Paris, on the birth of the Dauphin; she assured the Queen of the love and loyalty of the women of Paris, and Antoinette, forgetting all the cruel slanders concerning herself which these very women had helped to circulate, wept tears of joy and pleasure to see them thus.

Then came the members of the various guilds with their offering for the Dauphin. All wore the best clothes they could muster, and each guild had brought a symbol of their trade to show the King that they would serve the Dauphin as they had served his ancestors. The butchers brought an ox for roasting; the chairmen carried a sedan chair, a glorious object decorated with golden lilies in which sat a model of the wet-nurse holding the Dauphin. The tailors presented a uniform, perfect in every detail, calculated to fit a small boy and give him the appearance of a Guards officer; the cobblers had made a pair of exquisite shoes, and these they presented to the King for the Dauphin; the little chimney-sweeps had built a model of a chimney, and on the top of this was a small boy – the smallest of all chimney-sweeps. They carried it ceremoniously into the courtyard of Versailles to show that the chimney-sweeps were loyal to the monarchy.

Then came the locksmiths. They came proudly, and their leader asked to be conducted to the King.

By this time Louis and the Queen had come into the courtyard to mingle with the loyal members of the guilds and to express their joy in welcoming them to Versailles.

The chief locksmith cleared his throat and, bowing low, presented a small locked box to the King.

‘We have heard of Your Majesty’s interest in our craft,’ he said, ‘and it is our honour to present you with this box with the secret lock. We doubt not that Your Majesty’s skill in our craft will enable you to discover the combination in a very short time, and it would be our delight to see you do so here before us all.’

Louis, smiling blandly and deeply moved by all the honour which was done to his son, feeling that his dear people shared his joy this day, declared he was all interest and could not let another moment pass without attempting to discover the secret of the combination.

The locksmiths watched him set to work, nodding with approval, holding their breath with delighted expectation.

In a few minutes the King had found the secret.

There was laughter and cries of delight; then a burst of cheering for, as he opened the lock, a tiny figure sprang out of the box.

It was a model of a Dauphin in steel – a boy in his robes of state.

The King stood still, holding the model in his hand; the Queen, standing beside him, put out a hand to touch it, and those near her saw the tears in her eyes.

The crowd began to cheer wildly, calling ‘Long live the King! Long live the Queen! Long live the Dauphin!’

The people love us after all, thought Antoinette. It but needs an occasion like this to show it.

Then she looked up and saw a small party of men approaching. Over their shoulders they carried spades.

‘But look,’ cried Antoinette. ‘Who are these?’

The King, holding the model Dauphin in his hands, looked up with her.

Someone beside them whispered: ‘These are the grave-diggers, Your Majesty. They insisted on showing their loyalty with the rest.’

‘Welcome,’ said Louis. ‘Welcome.’

But a certain fear had touched the Queen’s heart. She did not wish to be reminded of death on such a day. It was as though a faint shadow crossed her happiness.

She was uneasy, conscious of the grave-diggers as, at the baptismal ceremony, she had been made uneasy by the presence of the Prince Cardinal de Rohan.