Flaunting, Extravagant Queen Read online

  She led him to a table on which lay the picture.

  The Dauphin looked at the charming oval-shaped face which was piquant rather than classically beautiful. The lips – a Habsburg heritage – were a little thick; the forehead was high and the colouring was so exquisite and the whole appearance one of such dainty charm that it occurred to Berry that, had they searched for a woman who was less like himself than any other in the world, they must have chosen Marie Antoinette.

  He tried to say this, but hesitated. It might not please his grandfather. The Dauphin was cautious by nature; he never rushed into anything. He always considered so long and so carefully that by the time he had formed an opinion it was usually too late to express it.

  ‘Is she not charming?’ prompted du Barry.

  ‘Why … yes … yes … indeed so.’

  ‘You are the luckiest bridegroom in France, Berry.’ The woman had thrust her painted face close to his, and he suppressed a shudder. He hated the suggestions in her eyes; they brought with them a renewal of his fears. He was dreading the marriage, for he was not like other boys of his age. He had listened to their talk of conquests; even his brothers, young as they were – Provence fourteen and Artois thirteen – had made their amatory experiments. Not so the Dauphin. He had no wish to, although there were pretty girls who were prepared to be more than charming to one who would one day be the King of France. He avoided them; they alarmed him; they made him certain that he was different. He did not care for those erotic excitements which seemed so attractive to others of his age. He only wanted to be alone, or with the blacksmith, Gamin, who was teaching him his trade. He found great pleasure in forging and filing and using his strength, as did his friend the blacksmith. When he was tired from his physical labours he liked to read or study the geographical charts which he treasured. It seemed to him that there was a deeper satisfaction to be gleaned from books than from the society of young and frivolous people; in the books of great writers he could preserve his solitude, think his thoughts slowly, and sink into that peace which he so loved.

  Therefore the sight of the portrait, far from delighting him, filled him with apprehension.

  ‘Think,’ said Madame du Barry, ‘the delightful creature is already your wife. She is already on her way to you.’

  The King said cynically: ‘I see, my dear, that the Dauphin can scarcely wait for the consummation of his marriage.’

  A burst of laughter escaped from Madame du Barry. The Dauphin turned his slow gaze upon her. Some might have hated her for the implied ridicule, but the Dauphin neither hated nor loved readily. His feelings were so slow to be roused that by the time he had realised them they were robbed of either venom or affection. He merely felt uncomfortable – not so much because he felt his grandfather’s eyes upon him, but because he was wondering how he was going to greet his wife.

  ‘Well, he is young, and the young are ardent,’ said du Barry almost tenderly.

  ‘Bring the portrait to me, my dear,’ said the King; and du Barry obeyed. ‘Ah,’ went on Louis, ‘you are indeed fortunate. Would I were sixteen years of age, and a Dauphin waiting to greet such a charming bride.’

  He looked down at the picture; he was reminded of those young girls whom he had so much enjoyed in the Parc aux Cerfs, whither they had been brought for his pleasure in his more virile days. Oh, to be young always, to be far away from the terrors of remorse! He believed he was getting dangerously near one of those periods of repentance.

  ‘Grandson,’ he said, ‘you have learned the new dances, I trust?’

  ‘Well, sir … I … I … I do not excel at the dance.’

  The King nodded grimly. ‘A wife will make a difference to you, Monsieur le Dauphin,’ he said. ‘You will discover through her much that makes life pleasant.’

  ‘Yes, Grandfather.’

  ‘What preparations are you making for her?’

  ‘I … I … Should I make preparations?’ There was a helpless look in the shortsighted eyes.

  ‘You will have to stop thinking of other charming girls now you have a Dauphine,’ said du Barry falsely, knowing full well that he had no interest whatsoever in charming girls. He met her gaze stolidly. He did not blush. When he stammered it was due to his slowness of thought.

  ‘Indeed yes,’ said the King. ‘And Berry, we want heirs for France. Do not forget it.’

  The Dauphin said: ‘There is time. We are both young.’

  ‘There is never too much time for kings, my boy. The sooner the children appear, the better pleased shall we all be – myself, and the people of France. Your marriage will take place here at Versailles, in the chapel of your ancestor Louis Quatorze; as soon as that ceremony is over, the Dauphine will be in very truth your wife. I think we should delay the consummation until after that ceremony.’

  ‘Indeed yes,’ said the Dauphin thankfully.

  ‘Go now, my boy. Take the portrait with you. You will want to treasure it, I doubt not.’

  He took the portrait, made his clumsy bow and went from the apartment.

  ‘I could not bear to go on looking at him,’ said the King when he had gone. ‘He fills me with misgivings.’

  ‘He will grow up,’ soothed du Barry.

  ‘He’ll never make an ardent lover. He is unlike a King of France.’

  ‘I tell you, when he sees this lovely girl he will grow up suddenly. He is just slow in coming to maturity. He is hardly sixteen, remember.’

  ‘When I was sixteen …’

  ‘You, my bien-aimé … you were a god.’

  ‘My dear, I am uneasy. I was but five years old when the death of my great-grandfather made me King of France. My great-grandfather, the Grand Monarque, was of much the same age when he came to the throne; and it is not a good thing for minors to be kings.’

  ‘Then you should not be uneasy, for the Dauphin is now sixteen and almost a man; and you have many years before you yet.’

  ‘Times change. It may be that I have many years ahead of me. Who shall say? France is not the country I inherited from my great-grandfather, nor that country which the Grand Monarque inherited from his father. I am often uneasy. I remember a day thirteen years ago, when I was descending one of the staircases at Versailles, a man rushed at me and stabbed me with a penknife. The wound was not deep and I soon recovered, but I first began to think then that countries change, and the people who love us one year may hate us the next.’

  ‘That man with his penknife was a fanatic, a madman. His criminal act did not mean the people’s love had turned to hate. Why, Henri Quatre was stabbed to death, yet he was dearly loved and there are many who mourn him still.’

  ‘That is so; but I saw death close then … and I pondered many things. Times have changed since Damiens sought to take my life and died a hideous death as punishment. Now it would seem to me that we are less safe. We have our troubles here and abroad. There would seem at times to be friction between me and my ministers, and when that happens …’

  ‘Come, France, you grow morbid. Are you not known as Louis Bien-Aimé?’

  ‘Rarely now, my dear. That was a title bestowed on me long ago. The sight of that boy has upset me. I begin to think that now I am sixty life here in France is different from what it was when I was twenty. Sometimes I think of Cardinal Fleury and that the troubles of France have increased since his death. He was a good minister – another Richelieu, another Mazarin. He was my good tutor, and I fear my licentious ways distressed him greatly. No, my dear, France is not the happy country she was. I have been careless. I see that now, in my old age. And now I am too tired to be different. Sometimes I have dreams. The sight of that boy reminds me … ’

  ‘He is a good boy, the Dauphin,’ soothed du Barry. ‘It is not a bad thing that he is serious.’

  ‘He would seem to lack the kingly qualities – that is what I fear. He shuffles; he lacks dignity. Can such a one uphold the honour of France?’

  ‘He is but the Dauphin. He has many years to learn to be a King. You have
nothing to fear.’

  The King grasped her arm suddenly. His eyes were glazed slightly as he looked into space.

  ‘I have nothing to fear,’ he said. ‘I shall die and France will go on. Le roi est mort. Vive le roi. It has always been thus, has it not, my dear? But there are times when I say to myself: The kingdom will last my lifetime and … après moi – le déluge.’

  The bridal procession had reached Alsace. Bells were ringing, streets were strewn with flowers, and there was wine to take the place of water in the public fountains. The boats which sailed along the Rhine were bright with torches, and sweet music came from their decks.

  The people were enchanted by the lovely young girl in the glass chariot – a true fairy princess, they told each other. It was indeed a happy state of affairs when a marriage could unite two countries. And the bride who was to come to France and to her Dauphin was young, even as he was young. This was a happy augury for France.

  In the Cathedral, to which she was conducted to hear Mass, Marie Antoinette was received by the Prince de Rohan. He was young and handsome and his eyes gleamed with admiration as they rested upon her.

  She was artlessly surprised that one so young should greet her; she had expected the Bishop, whom she knew to be by no means as young or handsome as the man who did not seem to be able to take his eyes from her face.

  He had taken her hand; his lips lingered on it. He did not release it but kept it in his while he said, in a voice which seemed over-charged with emotion: ‘You will be for us all the living image of the beloved Empress, your noble mother, whom all Europe has so long admired and who posterity will never cease to venerate. It is as though the spirit of Maria Theresa is about to unite with the spirit of the Bourbons.’

  She smiled her thanks and withdrew her hand; but as he led her to the altar she was conscious of him – of his handsome looks, of his ardent eyes. She knew that, although he talked of the spirits of two countries, he was thinking of two people – herself and himself.

  It was a strange feeling to experience in a church, a strange beginning to her life in her new country; he was telling her so clearly that she was the most enchanting creature he had ever set eyes on; and in that moment she began to feel less misery, less longing for her mother and her home.

  In a few days she would have forgotten his name, but in that moment she warmed towards him. He had brought home to her the fact that she was young and lovely and that wherever she went she must excite admiration.

  So, because of the ardent glances of the Bishop’s nephew, Louis, Prince de Rohan, apprehension was replaced in the facile mind of the young girl by excited anticipation.

  In the forest of Compiègne the procession was halted. Here branches had been decorated with garlands, and banners of silk and velvet were draped across the trees. The ladies and gentlemen of the Court, exquisitely clad, waited under those trees for the ceremonial meeting between the Austrian Dauphine and the King and Dauphin of France.

  The King’s guard, in brilliant uniforms, was drawn up in a glade while heralds and buglers played a fanfare of greeting.

  In the glass carriage Antoinette knew that the great moment had at last arrived.

  The King alighted from his carriage. Antoinette saw him and, with charming grace, left her own, and with a childish abandon ran towards the King of France and curtsied in the manner which she had practised again and again before she had left Vienna.

  Louis looked down at the dainty creature. So small, so exquisitely formed, he thought her like a china doll, and her charm moved him, for he had a deep-rooted tenderness for young girls.

  He lifted her in his arms and could not take his eyes from the flushed oval face with the exquisite colouring, the artless expression of an innocent desire to please and a certainty that she could not fail to do so.

  The King embraced her with slightly more fervour than was necessary; then he held her at arm’s length; and kissed her cheeks.

  ‘Welcome! Welcome to France, my little one,’ he greeted her. And he let his hand linger on her shoulder. Such firm plump flesh, he thought; and he envied his grandson.

  He was aware of all those who looked on. They would be smiling, understanding; they would be murmuring: ‘Here is one the old voluptuary must relinquish!’

  It was true. A pity … a pity. But where was the Dauphin?

  The King looked over his shoulder. It was the signal. The Dauphin shuffled forward – at his worst on such an occasion – and looked at the lovely girl as though she were a wild animal of which he was truly scared. Can he be a future King of France? wondered the King. A pity it was not Provence, or Artois. It would not have been such a tragedy to have a boor like this for a second or third grandson – but the eldest, the Dauphin, the heir to the throne! It was the Polish blood in him. His grandmother Marie Leckzinska had been the daughter of the dispossessed King Stanislaus of Poland. His mother was Marie-Josèphe, the daughter of the Elector of Saxony; and the Dauphin had inherited many qualities from the distaff side. He was heavy, clumsy, beside the polished grace of Frenchmen.

  ‘My dear,’ said the King, reluctantly taking his hands from her, ‘here is the Dauphin, your bridegroom.’

  Antoinette was now face to face with the Dauphin. My husband, she thought, and looked anxiously into his face. She saw a tall boy not much older than herself, with sleepy sheepish eyes which did not seem to want to look at her, and which reminded her, by very contrast, of the eager good looks of the young and handsome Prince de Rohan. His forehead receded rather abruptly from his brows; his nose was big – the Bourbon nose; his chin was rounded and fleshy. He was tall and not altogether unprepossessing; she did not know why it was that he looked so unlike a royal Dauphin. Was it because his clothes, though elaborate, did not seem to fit; was it because his hands were not as shapely as those which had lifted the monstrance for the benediction such a short while ago?

  The priest had looked at her as though she were a bride; her bridegroom looked at her as though he had little desire to make her further acquaintance and was wondering how soon he could escape from her.

  She saw that his neck was short, a flaw which robbed him of dignity, and that although he was tall he was somewhat fat. Still, there was nothing cruel in his expression.

  Now he had laid his hands on her shoulders as his father had done. Everyone was watching while he kissed her cheeks in the formal way of greeting.

  The King’s kisses had been warm and lingering – kisses of admiration and affection, but the Dauphin’s lips scarcely touched her skin, and he released her as though she were a burning ember which scorched him.

  ‘Now come,’ said the King, ‘join us in our chariot, and away to Versailles.’

  She sat in the royal coach between the King and the Dauphin. The Dauphin had moved as far into the corner as he could; the King pressed against her.

  ‘My dear,’ whispered the King, ‘this is indeed one of the happiest days of my life.’

  ‘Your Majesty is gracious,’ murmured Antoinette.

  ‘And it shall be our great desire to make you our happy granddaughter.’

  ‘You are so kind,’ she answered.

  ‘You are as happy as I am … as the Dauphin is?’

  ‘I miss my mother,’ she admitted.

  ‘Ah! There is sadness in parting. But that is life, my dear. The Dauphin will not let you be long unhappy. Is that not so, Berry?’

  The Dauphin started as though he had not heard.

  ‘I was saying it is our greatest wish to make this dear child forget she has left her mother; we shall do all in our power to make her love us and France.’

  ‘Y … yes,’ agreed the Dauphin uncertainly.

  The King laughed; he brought his face near to that of his new granddaughter. ‘Forgive him, my dear,’ he said. ‘He is overcome by your beauty … as I am.’

  And riding through France, sitting beside the King, Antoinette was so intoxicated by the admiring glances of the people and many of the men about her – includi
ng the King – that it seemed to her that the Antoinette she had become was a charming, irresistible woman who bore little relationship to the young girl who had so recently left Austria.

  The true and second ceremony of marriage was performed in the Chapel of Louis Quatorze at Versailles. May sunshine penetrated the stained-glass windows and shone on the young bride and her groom. Never yet had Antoinette looked so beautiful as she did in her wedding garments; she was a fairylike being in the midst of all those splendidly apparelled men and women who attended the ceremony. None but the most noble was allowed to be present. Beside her the bridegroom, breathing heavily, sweated uneasily. He was glad that his bride did not share his fear. He himself was terrified, not of the ceremony – there had been many ceremonies in his life – but of that moment when they would be left together in the nuptial bed. He feared that he would be unable to accomplish what was expected of him.

  During the ceremony, while he put the ring on that slender finger and gave her the gold pieces which had been blessed by the Archbishop of Rheims who was officiating, he was wondering what he would say to her, how he could attempt to explain his inadequacy. What explanation was there? Would she understand? His grandfather would be ashamed of him; everybody would be ashamed of him; and he would be ashamed of himself.

  He fervently wished that he need not marry. He much preferred the company of Gamin to that of this pretty young creature. He would much rather file a piece of iron than dance, rather listen to the ring of the anvil than the inane conversation of frivolous young people.

  The Archbishop was giving them his blessing, and two pages were holding a silver canopy over the heads of himself and his bride.

  He could not pay proper attention to the religious ceremony. She must be aware of his damp and clammy hands; she who was as dainty as a spring flower must find him gross.

  His spirits lifted a little. Perhaps he could say to her: ‘Do not expect anything of me … anything … and I will expect nothing of you. Is it our fault that they have married us?’

  But no. They had their duty. He had been brought up on a diet of etiquette and he knew that he could not evade his duty. If he had been anyone but the heir to the throne, he might have been able to do so. But he was the Dauphin; he must beget sons for France. The thought horrified him.