Flaunting, Extravagant Queen

Chapter VIII PETIT TRIANON

Now that Antoinette was the mother of two children she was spending more and more time at the Petit Trianon. But it was not enough to live in her little house like a lady of the manor; she wanted to put into action that plan for creating her own petit hatneau. Madame de Pompadour had thought of doing it. Antoinette would do it.

She gathered her friends about her and made them enthusiastic over the project. She would build cottages – ideal cottages; there were many poor families who would be only too glad to come and live in them. They would have a farm and keep real sheep and real cows – the best sheep and cows in the world. She could scarcely wait to put her scheme into practice.

The cost did not worry her at all. The cost never worried her. Madame Bertin’s bills, arriving regularly, were never checked. Her dear Madame Bertin might be an expensive dressmaker, but then she was the best dressmaker in Paris.

She told the King of her scheme for a model village, her adorable hameau. He listened benignly. ‘It will please the people,’ she explained. ‘There will be many to share my model village. I shall be so happy to see them happy.’

So the work went on. The cottages were built – the prettiest cottages in France; the families were selected to live in them, families who were only too ready to enjoy the delights of that ideal village. There were eight little houses, tiny farms with their hayricks and byres and fowl-houses; and the sheep wore blue and pink ribbons round their necks. The Queen and her ladies, when they were tired of dancing on the grass or theatrical entertainments in the open air, decided they would make butter; they would be little farmers. The cows must be washed before they came into contact with the dainty Antoinette, and they were milked into porcelain vases decorated with the Queen’s crest.

It was the greatest fun. The Queen no longer wore rich silks. Rose Bertin must make her muslin dresses and charming shady hats.

Indeed, yes, declared Madame Bertin, but the muslin must of course be the finest, for she would simply refuse to make a dress for so exquisite a creature that was not of the finest material available; and as much skill – nay more – was needed to make a suitable muslin dress as one of silk or velvet. The Queen would understand that with fine fabrics they themselves provided elegance; but the simplicity of a line – ah, that was where skill was really needed.

‘You are right, of course, dear Bertin. You are a magician with clothes, I know,’ Antoinette told the woman.

And so the muslin dresses were made and the bills which followed them were larger than ever.

Then Antoinette must build a theatre, for now she had discovered a great love for the theatre, and she herself would play the chief roles.

The King came as a guest, for she had decided that in her Petit Trianon she was the ruler and the only ruler. Louis was pleased to see her so happy, and it was such a pleasure to watch the ladies making butter in dishes stamped with the Queen’s monogram, to see the be-ribboned sheep led by charming shepherds and shepherdesses, to see the women picturesquely washing their linen in the stream. It was all so ideal – all as a village should be in a perfect world.

So the Queen arranged special fêtes for the visiting King, which he enjoyed before he left for Versailles that he might be in bed by eleven.

And after he had gone the revelry would grow wilder, so that they were all somewhat glad to be relieved of his presence.

On one occasion Antoinette put the clock on so that he might leave even earlier than usual, so eager were they to continue with those frolics which were too wild to please Louis.

This was remarked and gave the country and the Court another whip with which to scourge her.

So the gay existence continued.

But the citizens of Paris asked themselves what the frivolity of the Queen was costing them in taxes; and in the oeil-de-boeuf between the chambre du roi and the chambre de la reine in the château of Versailles, those men and women, who were deprived of their Court duties because the Queen was no longer at Versailles, complained bitterly.

And thus the nobility and the people were full of complaints against the Austrian woman.

The Duc de Chartres was dissatisfied.

‘What,’ he demanded of his father the old Duc d’Orléans, ‘is happening to the old nobility? We are no longer even rich. These ministers with their reforms have cut us down to such an extent that we can no longer live as we used to.’

‘ ’Tis so,’ said the old Duke. ‘One wonders whither France is being led.’

It would mean little to him; the old regime would last long enough to see him out. He looked at his son and wondered what the future held for him.

Chartres was handsome and ambitious.

It was a sad thing, thought Orléans, to be so near the throne with no hope of possessing it. This curse had afflicted the whole line of Orléans. Chartres was feeling it now.

The old Duke realised what his son was asking himself. Why should such a one as I – alert of mind, clever, so worthy to wear the crown – have to stand aside and see it on the head of fat Louis, merely because he happens to trace his line from an eldest while I trace mine from a second son? France was in need of a strong king, a firm hand to govern.

Ah, thought Chartres, how much stronger I would be! How much more of a king than poor Louis!

Chartres was approaching his mid-thirties and growing restive.

A restive man in a restive age, thought the old Duke. But I shall not be here to see what he makes of his career.

‘There was a time,’ said Orléans, ‘when you were happy enough to follow the fashion of the Trianon. It was either you or Artois who was at the Queen’s side when she was gambling the country’s money away or dancing at her masked balls.’

Chartres was silent. It was true; he had found her enchanting, the Austrian woman. She was the loveliest lady of the Court; there was no doubt of that. He had been deeply attracted by her gay and almost childish ways.

He had been a normal young man; he looked for his pleasures in gambling, dancing, daring exploits, hunting – and above all, women.

She angered him. She was coquettish enough; one would think one had a chance. Perhaps deliberately she wished to give that impression. Why not? he had thought. She is beautiful, quite desirable. And the King? … All had known of the King’s disability. It would have been natural for the Queen to take a lover, and one such as the Duc de Chartres, a Prince of the blood-royal, would have been eminently suitable. And if by chance there had been a child, would that have been the first such? And what harm done? Their child would have had royal blood in his veins.

But she had drawn back. Those bright blue eyes of hers had become ice-blue. ‘Oh, no, Monsieur le Duc, I indulge in a little coquetry. A light flirtation, if you will – but no further please.’

She was cold; she had no feeling. That must be so; how else could she have refused the fascinating Duc de Chartres? He was a royal Prince – as royal as she was, he would have her remember, as royal as poor impotent Louis.

Chartres’ love was self-love. He needed conquest – not to assuage desire for a certain woman but to placate his own conceit. He saw himself as irresistible; and he grew to hate any who tried to show him to be otherwise.

His father was now looking at him with those shrewd old eyes which seemed to see too much.

‘A man grows tired of vanities,’ said Chartres.

‘I am glad of that,’ his father told him, ‘for you know, my son, I am finding myself much poorer than of yore and I fear that I can no longer afford to live in this place.’

‘You cannot afford to live in the Palais Royal? But this is our home. The Palais Royal is to Orléans what Versailles is to the King!’

Orléans nodded. ‘I could not relinquish the old place altogether of course. What think you of this plan? I have considered opening the gardens to the public, and letting the ground floor – as cafés … shops …’

‘So it has come to this,’ burst out Chartres. ‘Louis lives in style at Versailles while we must turn over our palace to tradesmen.’

‘Do not envy Louis,’ said his father quickly.

The young man looked sharply at the elder.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I am an old man. France has changed a great deal in my lifetime. I have seen these changes – yet I never saw France in the mood she is in to-day.’

‘It is the war mayhap,’ suggested Chartres.

‘Wars put strange thoughts into the minds of men. Why, in the days of Louis Quatorze, I have heard it said, a man dared not speak his mind; in the days of Loius Quinze he whispered what he thought; in the days of Louis Seize he shouts it.’

‘The people of France are aware of the power of the monarchy,’ said Chartres. ‘I noticed the difference when I was in England. I noticed the difference in their mode of government. England is a sane and healthy country compared with France.’

The old Duke smiled at his son. ‘You have done nothing but sing the praises of England since you returned. I thought it was the English women who had so enchanted you.’

‘They did,’ answered Chartres, ‘but so did other things. The English parliamentary system is more advanced than ours. I would like to see their methods introduced here. I would like to see parliamentary elections conducted on the lines they are in England. In England, the Prince of Wales appears to lead the Opposition. A Prince on one side … a King on the other. I call that healthy politics.’

‘It could be unhealthy.’

‘Not in England. The people are not afraid to state their views. Can you call our Parlement representative of the people? Here the King’s will would appear to be absolute. That worked in the past. It will not much longer.’

‘As you are so impressed with these democratic ideas,’ said the old Duke, ‘you will not object as heartily as I thought you would to the letting of the ground floor.’

‘Cafés, you say,’ Chartres mused. ‘If they were cafés like the English coffee houses, where men gather to talk of affairs, I might not object so much.’

‘So you plan to bring English customs to the Palais Royal.’

Chartres did not answer. He was looking into the future. He saw himself wandering through those rooms on the ground floor, gathering about him men who were interested in ideas, men who would look up to him as a leader.

Faint lights of alarm appeared in the eyes of the Duc d’Orléans.

Then he shrugged lightly.

He had lived his life. He would not be there to see the great events which he sensed were about to break over France.

The Queen sat in her boudoir at Petit Trianon. She was holding the Dauphin in her lap, and Madame Royal was leaning against Madame Elisabeth who was reading aloud. James Armand had peeped in at the door and gone off again. He was growing up and too old to play with children. Antoinette was not listening to Elisabeth. She was thinking of the Dauphin. He worried her a little; he had not Madame Royale’s healthy looks. He was whimpering now.

My little Louis Joseph, she thought, you must not be sick. You must be big and strong like Uncle Joseph. I shall not mind if you think you are so right and all the world wrong – as Uncle Joseph does – if only you will be strong and well and eager for your food, not turning away from it as you so often do, my precious.

One of the ladies came in and announced that the Princesse de Guémenée was asking for an audience with the Queen.

Antoinette frowned. The Princesse had never been a great friend of hers; it was true that she had attended the woman’s card parties, but that was largely because the Princesse was a friend of Gabrielle’s. Now she herself no longer cared for Gabrielle as she once had. There was another reason why she was not very eager to see the Princesse. She was related to the Cardinal de Rohan; and ever since the baptism of the Dauphin, Antoinette had thought now and then of the man. Those piercing eyes of his disturbed her. He was a fool if he thought she was going to show friendship to one who had made light fun of her dear mother.

‘Your Majesty,’ went on the woman, ‘Madame la Princesse is in great distress.’

Antoinette’s sympathy was immediately aroused.

‘Tell her she may come to me,’ she said.

The Princesse came and threw herself on her knees before the Queen.

‘A terrible thing has happened,’ she cried. ‘And I implore Your Majesty to help me.’

‘What terrible thing is this?’ asked Antoinette.

‘My husband the Prince is so deeply in debt that he has had to declare himself bankrupt.’

‘The Prince? But you two have not been together for so long.’

‘This affects me even as it does him. His debts are so vast. He owes 33,000,000 livres all over the country, and now his creditors have declared they can wait no longer for the money.’

Antoinette shook her head sadly. ‘It is all talk of money nowadays. I do not know what I can do to help. I dare not ask for some post for the Prince which will bring him an income. You know what trouble there has been over the Polignacs.’

‘Your Majesty,’ said the Princesse, ‘my husband owes so much that no post at Court could save him now. I have come to ask you to intercede for him. If you could speak to the Comptroller-General there might be some way of preventing the Prince’s creditors making their demands for a little while at least.’

Antoinette immediately forgot her faint dislike of the Princesse. She could not bear to see anyone in trouble.

‘I can try,’ she said. ‘I will speak to Fleury and see what he can do about it.’

‘You are indeed gracious,’ murmured the Princesse. ‘I feel happier now that I know you are on my side.’

‘Sit down beside me,’ soothed Antoinette. ‘Tell me how this terrible situation has come about. What a sad thing it is that there are all these money troubles. I hear constant complaints on all sides – and it is always … money.’

The Queen summoned Joly de Fleury to her apartment and told him that she had given her word to help the Guémenées in their trouble.

Fleury looked grave.

‘Your Majesty,’ he said, ‘it is most unwise for you to have your name mentioned in connection with the Guémenées. The Prince is in debt to the tune of 33,000,000 livres. Your Majesty does not realise the import of this. All over the country tradesmen have given these people credit. Now these tradesmen are demanding the money owed to them. They need that money to save themselves from bankruptcy. It is not forthcoming. This is going to be a very bad thing, and not only for the Guémenées, Madame.’

‘I know. I know. But cannot something be done? If the tradesmen can be persuaded to wait awhile, mayhap the Prince will retrieve his fortunes. If he is made bankrupt, everybody suffers.’

‘Your Majesty, may I presume to offer you a piece of advice?’

She bowed her head a little wearily. There had been so much advice.

‘Keep clear of the Guémenées. Do not let their trouble touch Your Majesty.’

He did not understand that she would not dream of standing clear of them – even though they had never been great friends – merely because they were in trouble. It was at such times that she was prepared to be friendly even with those whom she did not like.

‘I trust,’ went on Fleury, ‘that Your Majesty will forgive me, but I can have nothing to do with this case. If you insist that I should, there would be nothing for me to do but to hand in my resignation. The people of France are in an ugly mood and have been for some time. This affair could have very unpleasant results. I beg of Your Majesty, consider well before you allow any to link your name with it.’

But she would not leave it at that. She went to the King. They could not allow the Prince to be declared bankrupt, she insisted. What good would it do? Would the people to whom they owed money receive it? No. Nobody would be any better off.

The King, always eager to indulge her, foolishly agreed that a moratorium upon debts should be imposed.

Triumphantly Antoinette called the Princesse de Guémenée to her, and the Princesse fell on her knees, kissing the hand of the Queen as she poured forth her gratitude.

First the carriage-maker went bankrupt. He could not pay his debts. He was an honest man. Where he had gone wrong was to trust the Prince de Guémenée. The glove-makers, the bakers, the butchers – all over Paris, and in the country too, they were going out of business.

They had, every one, allowed the Prince de Guémenée to run up vast debts. They had not thought it possible to do otherwise. Nor had it occurred to them that a connexion of the royal family could default, and while they had the Guémenées’ promise to pay they had felt it safe to go on supplying goods.

This was what came of taking the word of a nobleman.

People gathered in the streets – all those who had suffered, and all those whose sympathies were with the sufferers.

‘These Guémenées are Princes, are they not?’ they cried. ‘How much longer shall we allow Princes to ruin us?’

‘I hear the Guémenées have retired to their country house; that is very nice. Meanwhile the King takes care that they shall not be bothered. What of poor Lafarge? Oh, it does not matter. He is but a humble tradesman. What of the butcher, the baker? They have been supplying the Guémenées with food these last months. But what matters that? They are only tradesmen.’

‘You know why we have all this trouble, do you not?’

‘The Austrian woman!’

‘She is the one who sets the example for all this extravagance.’

‘Remember that song we used to sing:‘ “My little Queen not twenty-one …” ’

‘Ah, ’tis a great pity we did not send her across the border all those years ago. Much trouble would have been saved our country if we had.’

So the people in the streets grumbled; and they were a little more angry, a little more fierce than they had been before the Guémenée disaster.

Fleury was in a panic; he had to raise money somehow. He floated more loans.

It was clear that Necker’s Compte Rendu had been a very optimistic document; and it seemed to the King that only fresh loans could tide the country over disaster.

But it was not so easy to raise money as it had been previously. More taxes had to be levied.

This sent up a groan from the people; and the Parlement declared itself against the levying of more taxes.

So much money, declared members, had been wasted in the past, and the country was in no mood to pay more taxes merely to support the extravagance of certain people. Little jobs with big salaries had been created for some. A great deal of money had been spent on certain houses. This was a direct shaft for the Queen.

The Parlement then declared that if these taxes were imposed there must be an Estates-General, a gathering together of a representative assembly of the entire country – which had only been done in the history of France in cases of dire emergency. Fleury decided to try to raise money by other means. He wondered whether it would be possible to create new offices at Court, for which ambitious men would be willing to pay vast sums.

He knew though that the Parlement was setting itself against the monarchy.

In the ground-floor rooms of the Palais Royal men and women gathered to discuss the latest events.

Often would be seen walking among them, or sitting at one of the tables, that handsome young man, the Duc de Chartres.

He was a good fellow. He did not seem to mind mixing with them in the least – in fact he seemed to enjoy it. Nothing seemed to delight him more than to sit at a table and chat with a member of the bourgeoisie. He would not disagree if any ranted about the aristocracy. He would nod his head slowly and often he would say: ‘ ’Tis true. ’Tis all true, my friend. I am one of them, and will you believe me when I tell you I am not always proud of that?’

They would shout down his apologies.

‘But you, Monsieur le Duc, you are different. Ah, Monsieur, if there were more like you at Versailles!’

‘I certainly see things from the citizens’ viewpoint,’ he would say.

Then he would tell them about the English Parliament – a far more democratic institution than the French Parlement.

They liked to listen to him. They were flattered to nod and chat with him, to share a bottle of wine.

‘Why should we not have such a parliament in France, Monsieur le Duc?’

‘Ah! Why not indeed? We have an absolute monarchy here, that is why. The King is sole ruler. What use is a parliament? It is a different matter in England.’

‘But we beat the English in the war, did we not, Monsieur?’

‘Poof! Are they beaten? What think you? Who is mistress of the seas? Who is building up the biggest empire the world has ever seen? Not France, Messieurs. No, my heart bleeds to say it, but not our country.’

‘And you think this parliament … ?’

‘The King is my own cousin, Monsieur …’ The Duke smiled apologetically.

‘Monsieur le Duc, you are a good Frenchman.’

‘I hope so.’

‘Then should the fact that the King is your cousin interfere with your judgement?’

The Duke brought his fist down on the table. ‘You are right. You are right. Nothing but justice should determine the thoughts of a good Frenchman.’

‘Monsieur le Duc, you have been at Court … in the company of the King and the Queen … these stories of the Queen …’

The Duke stood up. ‘I cannot remain, my friends. I cannot listen to scandal concerning the Queen.’

‘You could defend her?’ suggested someone.

‘It is precisely because I cannot, that I will take my leave.’

It was dramatic, but he was dramatic. They watched him go.

Monsieur le Duc is a fine man, they said among themselves. He is the finer because he has lived as they have, and seen the folly and injustice of such living. Monsieur le Duc is a leader of men.

The Duke walked in the gardens of the Palais Royal. All sorts of men and women wandered there. The prostitutes came looking for customers. They mingled with the politicians.

The Duc d’Orléans watched his son.

He said to him: ‘It would seem you are King of this demi-monde.’

King! thought Chartres. Yes, indeed they treated him as such. He was welcome everywhere. The cafés of the Palais Royal prospered largely because so many of the patrons came in the hope of speaking to him or at least of catching a glimpse of Monsieur le Duc.

He was their friend. They talked of him, of what he had said last night, of what he had seen in England. He was in truth King of that demi-monde.

Then he began to dream of being King of more than that small domain.

King of France!

Why not? What if the people decided they had had enough of Louis and his extravagant Queen? What if they decided to replace him by King Louis Philippe Joseph?

So he moved among his friends; and he never missed an opportunity of letting the slow poison of contempt for Louis and his Queen seep into their minds.

Such scandals as the affair of the Guémenées delighted him. He was ready to declaim against the extravagance of the Court set, to remind his listeners that the Princesse de Guémenée had been a friend of the Polignacs – and they all knew the disgraceful story of that family.

Now there was this suggestion of fresh taxes.

Would the people of France be so weak as to accept them? Taxes? For what purpose? To buy pink and green ribbons for the sheep of the little village at Trianon?

Again and again he brought the conversation back to the Queen, for he sensed that in the Queen they saw their true enemy. The King was slow and gentle and kind; he was a man who had been led astray.

And who had led him astray? The foreigner in their midst, the wicked woman from Austria.

In the gardens of the Petit Trianon Madame Poitrine rocked the baby. She watched the workmen who were making a new lake where they had built the Fisherman’s Tower.

Madame Poitrine thought it strange that they should be putting fish in the lake merely that the King and his guests could come here to take them out again. It did not make sense to her practical mind.

‘Come, come, Monsieur,’ she said to the baby. ‘Suck time!’

Then she shook her head from side to side and frowned over the little one. He was not growing as she would have wished, and it was not due to any deficiency in her milk. Her own was a fine and healthy brood.

‘Something in the blood,’ she murmured. ‘Something wrong with a child who don’t cry for his milk and has to have it forced on him.’

She surveyed the tower with its twelve columns, and clicked her tongue.

The Dauphin began to suck.

‘That’s better, my pretty. We’ll make a strong little man of you yet.’

She began to sing in a soft voice which was quite different from her everyday one, and which she kept for her babies.‘Malbrook s’en va-t-en guerre …’

And her eyes had a far-away look as they rested on La Tour de Marlborough, which they called this new tower they were building.

Antoinette was angry.

The people had begun to hate her again.

‘What have I done?’ she would demand of Madame Elisabeth. ‘Such a short while ago they were cheering me. That was when the Dauphin was born. What have I done since then?’

Elisabeth shook her head sadly. ‘The people are unaccountable.’

‘Unaccountable indeed,’ said Antoinette angrily. ‘Stupid. Foolish. There is only one way in which to treat them. Ignore them.’

‘If it is possible,’ said Elisabeth.

‘I shall make it possible.’

She was sad suddenly.

‘You care about the people,’ said Elisabeth. ‘You care very much.’

‘I wanted to be loved. I’ve always wanted to be loved. I thought they did love me. When I came to Paris Monsieur de Brissac said that all Paris was in love with me.’

‘Times change,’ said Elisabeth sadly.

‘Is it my fault the Guémenées are bankrupt? They blame me. They blame me for everything. It makes me unhappy.’

‘Pray,’ said Elisabeth quietly. ‘Pray to God.’

Antoinette glanced impatiently at her sister-in-law. Elisabeth was so mild; she found such comfort in her religion. She would never marry, thought Antoinette. Joseph had thought about asking for her hand; but the reports he had had on her appearance, had not encouraged him to do so. Antoinette was glad, which was selfish of her, she admitted. She wanted to keep Elisabeth with her. But perhaps it was not so selfish – remembering Joseph; and Elisabeth was the sort of person who would be happier in the single state.

It was not easy to talk to her of what was in her mind. Antoinette knew that if she ventured out into the streets she would hear songs about herself – about her extravagance, her wickedness, her imaginary immorality. It seemed that nothing they could think of would be too bad. Every innocent escapade of her girlhood seemed to have been remembered and made into a song, that the people on the streets might slander her.

Pamphlets were being written about her. These pamphlets, were illustrated, and she knew that the buyers would be disappointed if she did not figure in every illustration.

It was unbearable to contemplate these things. She would be pictured in compromising situations which would be explained in the lurid text.

They were even smuggled into the palace; she would find her ladies hastily thrusting them into the pockets of their gowns if she came upon them suddenly. The fact that they touched such things, read such things, and could do so with interest instead of indignation, made her wonder whether they were truly her friends.

Yesterday, when she and Louis had entered their box at the theatre and they had stood for a while acknowledging the cheers of the audience before sitting down, she had noticed that while many called “Vive le Roi!’ few cried ‘Vive la Reine!’

And as they had stood there, she had caught sight of the paper pinned on the balustrade in front of the King’s seat and had seized it while the King was bowing and smiling. She was glad that his short-sighted eyes had failed to notice it. She herself was short-sighted, but these pieces of paper were very familiar to her.

The cruel verse had unnerved her temporarily. It was addressed to the King but, as usual, it vilified the Queen.‘Louis, si tu veux voir

Bâtard, cocu, putain,

Regarde ton miroir,

La Reine et le Dauphin.’

She knew that her enemies were all about her. There were very few whom she could trust. She knew that the aunts at Bellevue, Provence in the Luxembourg, and most of all Chartres in the Palais Royal, were her enemies. Whom could she trust? Louis? Certainly Louis. And Elisabeth. Mild Elisabeth who would have been happier in a nunnery than at the Court!

The Princesse de Lamballe was her friend. Who else?

Then there returned to the Court one in whom she knew she could put her whole trust.

The war had changed Axel de Fersen. His face had lost that pale yet healthy complexion; there were lines under the handsome eyes; but it seemed to Antoinette that the man who returned to Court was more charming than the handsome boy who had gone away to fight the English in America.

She could not help showing her pleasure in his return.

‘You have been away for a long time,’ she murmured to him.

The eyes which met hers were passionate and angry – not angry with her, but with the fate which had made her a Queen.

He had gone away, he wanted to remind her, not because he wished to, but because he feared to stay.

He was a Swede among Frenchmen, he was less voluble than they; he did not show his feelings; his emotions were locked away within him but it would seem that they went deeper because of that.

He told her: ‘I have been away so long, but I have never ceased to think of you. I have heard many rumours about what goes on at Court and, because it occurred to me that you might be less happy than you once were, I wanted to come to see you for myself.’

‘It was good of you to come,’ she said. ‘There are times in one’s life when it is pleasant to know real friends are near.’

He had heard of the stories about her which were circulated throughout France; he had seen many of the pamphlets. ‘There will be many to watch us,’ he said. ‘We must be careful.’ He knew that his name had already been linked with hers, that many knew of that very first meeting at the Opéra ball. They knew that she had watched him leave for America with tears in her eyes. There were so many spies about them.

‘You must come to Petit Trianon,’ she said. ‘Yes, you must visit me in my little home. There I enjoy some privacy.’

He looked at her with tenderness. There was much she did not understand. There was little privacy in her life; and it was her activities at Petit Trianon which had called forth the most cruel of the gossip.

But what could he do? He had stayed away so long; he had thought of her during the campaign – thought of her continually. There had been others of course. Charming American girls, but the affaires had been of short duration; he had forgotten them; he had indulged in them merely to forget the charm of the Queen who was out of reach.

So he went to Petit Trianon. He walked with her in the pastoral surroundings; he danced; he joined in the butter-making; he rode in the forest, and each day it became more and more difficult to hide his feelings from the Queen – and others.

He would entertain the company with talk of his adventures as aide-de-camp to La Fayette. He told how his contingent and the insurgents beat the English, and how they had forced Lord Cornwallis to sign a capitulation which was more humiliating to the English than that of Saratoga; and how George Washington, when he received the sword from O’Hara, who had taken Cornwallis’ place, was really accepting his country’s independence.

It was a stirring story, and Fersen with his quiet method of understatement – so different from that of the French – was regarded as a hero and one of the most welcome visitors to Trianon. The Queen was finding it difficult to do without him, and those about her were excited by his visits because it was so amusing to watch the passionate friendship between the Queen and the Swedish Count.

Rumour seeped out, Fersen’s father wrote from Sweden demanding to know what was detaining his son so long at the Court of France.

In desperation and seeking to turn his father’s suspicions from the real reason, Fersen declared that he was seeking to marry the daughter of Necker, the ex-minister and millionaire.

It was very pleasant to forget the storms outside Petit Trianon, to walk about the gardens, with a company of intimate friends which must always include Axel. Antoinette would watch Madame Royale playing in the gardens, and the little Dauphin, now two years old, tottering about on his rickety legs.

If, thought Antoinette, Axel were my husband and King of France, if my little son were strong and healthy … why then I should be perfectly happy.

She rarely asked what had become of James Armand. He did not come into her presence now. He was so jealous, she had been told, of the Dauphin.

‘Foolish child!’ she murmured. ‘I must reprimand him.’

But she always forgot.

James Armand must be growing up. She had forgotten how old he was, for she was forgetting so much about him since the birth of her children. Madame Royale was now five years old, and Antoinette had adopted James Armand before the girl’s birth. He must be quite ten years old. Quite a little man. Ah, he did not want the company of women and children now. He had been so charmingly fond of her once, but doubtless now he found boys of his own age with whom to play.

James Armand had indeed found interests. He was often with the servants, listening to their talk; sometimes they took him to the cafés in the Palais Royal. There he listened to the talk. He discovered a new emotion – hatred of Madame Royale and the Dauphin. In the Palais Royal there were gathered others who knew how to hate. They hated the Queen more fiercely than any, and James Armand began to consider that hatred.

Meanwhile Axel’s father was alarmed. He approached his King and asked that his son might be recalled to Sweden; and the result was a summons from King Gustavus.

Axel went to the Queen and begged a private interview, and as soon as she looked into his eyes she saw his distress.

‘What is it?’ she asked fearfully.

‘A summons home.’

‘Oh, no! We must prevent that. You must not go from here.’

She held out her hands impulsively and as impulsively he took them; he kissed them fervently.

She smiled through her tears. ‘There are times,’ she said, ‘when even Swedish reserve may be broken down.’

He said: ‘How shall I endure the days without seeing you?’

Her answer was quiet but as impassioned as his. ‘How shall I endure mine?’

‘Antoinette,’ he said. ‘You know …’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You love me. I know it, and it delights me because I love you also.’

‘This summons, to come now!’

‘You must stay here. A post must be found for you.’

‘This summons comes from my King.’

‘Then there shall be another from a Queen.’

‘You are impulsive,’ he said. ‘Were you not ever so? Oh, if I stayed what would become of us?’

She cried: ‘I do not ask for anything … only that you stay.’

He smiled at her tenderly. ‘To see you thus before me … confirms me in my belief that I must go.’

‘If you stayed

‘We should be lovers in very truth. That is an impossible situation. You … the Queen of France! All eyes watch you. Do you not know that?’

‘I have been innocent.’

‘Innocent you must remain. What if you were … guilty?’

‘I would not care,’ she cried. ‘Why should I care? They have falsely credited me with so many lovers. Why should I not have one in truth?’

‘Your Majesty is distraught.’

‘I will not let you go. Why should I let you go? I love you. Why should I not know this pleasure, as others have? For years I have been frustrated …’

‘There is the King.’

‘Oh, the King. My poor Louis! I am fond of Louis. Who could help but be fond of Louis! In the beginning … You do not know. I will not talk of that. But how could I love Louis as … I now know love?’

‘Antoinette,’ he said, ‘the people must not have a chance to spread new slanders.’

‘They spread them in any case. Let me give them just cause for once.’

‘No. No. Never forget you are Queen of France, Antoinette.’

‘Axel, what sort of a lover are you? You tell me you love me, and forbid me to love you in the next breath.’

It was too much for him. He held her in his arms. But he was so much wiser than she was. He had recently come from the conflict of war. He had learned much about greed and cruelty, malice and envy – particularly envy. He saw the Queen – the woman he loved – as a target for her enemies, a fragile target. He knew that he dared not disobey his King; he knew that for Antoinette’s sake he must not stay another night in France. He took his leave, and that night he left for his own country.

The Queen was preparing to make the journey to Notre Dame that she might give thanks for the recovery from her confinement. It was a year since Axel had gone away, and a great deal had happened in that year.

He had been right, of course, to go. If he had stayed, neither of them would have been able to stem that passion which was between them. Its fruition must have been as inevitable as its beginnings. Axel was a man whom she could love; he was strong; he was competent; and beneath his calm was an ardent passion; he had everything that she would wish for in a husband, all of which Louis lacked.

And now she had another child, who did much to soothe her. He was a boy, and it was clear from the first that he was as healthy as a young peasant. She thought sadly of the child’s elder brother who grew more wan each day. She feared that he was a victim of the wasting disease which from time to time attacked the Bourbons.

Dear little Louis Joseph! She prayed for him constantly. The rude health of little Louis Charles, while it delighted her, yet saddened her because it must remind her of Louis Joseph.

And now she must ride to the cathedral of Notre Dame; and she was beginning to dread her excursions into Paris. This time the birth of a son would not regain for her her lost popularity. There would be many in the streets to repeat that wicked verse against her and the new child. Whose child this time? they would be asking.

At such times she longed fiercely for Axel. If he had remained and they had become lovers, she would have been glad. She wanted to shout at those who slandered her, ‘Yes, I have a lover. You are right. I have a lover.’

But all she did was to pass among them, her head high, never for once losing her look of haughty disdain which infuriated them more than anything.

What a long year it had seemed since he had gone. And when would he return? Would he ever return?

At first there had been nothing to do but seek to be gay. The days had been so dreary: to sit for her portraits by Madame Elisabeth Vigée le Brun who painted her and her children so charmingly and in so many different poses; to play with her children; to dance a little, to gamble. She had been glad she had her theatre. There was forgetfulness to be found in watching the comedies and tragedies enacted before her eyes. There was great fun too in taking part in them. Often she and Artois would play together, for her younger brother-in-law was not unlike her in temperament. She was glad of his company during that time, although of course the rumours concerning their relationship were revived.

Yet, whoever she had with her, there would be scandal. She was reputed to be not only the lover of men but of women. Madame de Polignac and the Princesse de Lamballe had not escaped the scandal which accompanied the Queen wherever she went.

Calonne had been appointed to the ministry; he was a friend of the Polignacs. His idea for the recovery of the country’s finances was further loans; he believed that all France needed was confidence in her position, and that the spending of money on public services would give this confidence. ‘We are prosperous,’ people would say to one another; and the baker would spend with the candlestick-maker, and the butcher with the tailor. Hence prosperity would return to France. When he decided to build roads and bridges, the people were impressed. But that winter was harder than ever before, and there was a great deal of suffering throughout the land.

Necker wached the new minister’s activities with a sneer. Borrowing was not the way to success. He published a new book: Administrations of the Finances of France. In it he deplored Calonne’s policy, and so Calonne prevailed upon Louis to exile the banker.

Necker left, but the people’s suspicions were then thoroughly aroused. They began to distrust the glib Calonne and, as soon as they did so, they remembered that the man whom they had praised when he was spending borrowed money for public works, was a friend of the Polignacs.

Now they cried: ‘Calonne! He is the Queen’s man!’

When the Grand Duke Paul of Russia visited France he was delighted with the French theatre and expressed a desire to see acted on the French stage a play he had recently read. This was Beaumarchais’ Le Mariage de Figaro, a play which Beaumarchais had already tried to have played, but which had been banned by the King, for Figaro, the pert barber and central character, was the mouthpiece of Beaumarchais’ views on existing society in France, and many of the King’s advisers had been astute enough to see that the playwright was making fun of the nobility; and that if the sober citizens of Paris saw the play and brooded on Figaro’s observations, they would certainly come out of the theatre with less respect than ever before for those whom tradition had taught them to believe were their betters.

‘Keep Figaro off the stage,’ Louis had been advised; and he had accepted that advice.

The Polignac faction, always anxious to show its power with the Queen, and never more than now when they felt they were losing it, had declared in favour of the piece, and they implored Antoinette to use her influence with the King.

Louis read the play through with her, pointing out the allusions to the government and the nobility. Antoinette was disappointed that he would not give his permission, and Artois, who thought of nothing but frivolous pleasure, longed to see the play performed. He fancied himself in the role of Figaro. He declared that the King often changed his mind, and suggested that plans for production should go on.

Louis, however, was determined to be firm in this instance, and stopped the show a few hours before the curtain was to rise.

Then Vaudreuil and his mistress, Gabrielle, determined to do the play privately; and this they did at Vaudreuil’s château at Gennevilliers. The Queen, much as she would have liked to attend, and much as she wanted some such pleasure to turn her mind from her longing for Axel and her fears for her son, decided that since the play was being performed against the wishes of the King she could not do so. Artois came back to Court and with Vaudreuil and Gabrielle began to sing the play’s praises.

Antoinette then sought out the King. ‘If you do not allow this play to be played either in Paris or Versailles they will say that you are a tyrant. Many have heard of its success at Gennevilliers and are asking for it to be played here.’

Louis, who always saw himself as the indulgent Papa, wavered; the play was read again, and four out of six judges declared it fit to be played, for Beaumarchais had pretended to make cuts of the speeches objected to, and believing this to have been done, the judges agreed that it might safely go on.

And so on an April day Le Mariage de Figaro was played at the Théâtre-Français, and the crowds had waited in the streets all during the previous night to make sure of getting seats.

The Parisians applauded the sentiments of the impudent barber, particularly where they saw references to certain members of the Court.

They stamped their feet, laughed and applauded; but after the show they stood about outside the theatre and considered the daring remarks of the comic barber.

Antoinette had enjoyed the play and had shared Artois’ feelings about it. It would be amusing, she had said to him, to put it on in the lovely gilded theatre she had had built at Trianon.

Artois was enthusiastic. He pranced about the apartment, quoting the merry barber.

But in the weeks following the showing of Le Mariage de Figaro, there had been more pamphlets than ever before; when she sat at table Antoinette would find them beneath her plate, and the King would discover them among his papers.

It was unfortunate that the purchase of Saint-Cloud should have been made so public. She had been worried about the Dauphin’s health and, when repairs to the château of Versailles were necessary, had not wanted to take him into Paris. She had often visited Saint-Cloud, which had belonged to the Orléans family since the days of Louis Quatorze, and she had thought that they, complaining as they did of their poverty, would have been glad to sell at a reasonable price, or perhaps take one of the royal houses in exchange.

Chartres, with whom it was necessary to deal, the old Duke being so ill now that he could not live much longer, had prevaricated and Calonne, who was handling the transaction on behalf of the King and Queen, was prevailed upon to pay a very large sum for it.

The news was out. In the streets they were talking about the further waste of money, the great extravagance of the Queen. Rumours immediately began to circulate. It was declared that the Queen planned to spend money at Saint-Cloud as she had at Trianon.

‘What is all this talk of a deficit?’ demanded the people. ‘What is this deficit? What does it mean?’

The answer to that was: ‘There is one who can answer that question, for she is Madame Déficit.’

Now in the pamphlets she had a new name: Madame Déficit.

Everything I do, she told herself, is turned to my disadvantage. The Emperor Joseph had asked the Dutch to open the Scheldt and so bring prosperity back to the Netherlands which were under Austrian dominion. The Dutch had refused to do this, and flooded their country, as they had done before in order to save it from the invader. Louis and his ministers, realising that a European war was about to break out, offered mediation between the two countries, with the result that the Scheldt was to remain closed but the Austrians were to be paid a sum of money by the Dutch as compensation. As the Dutch were unable to find this money, the French came to their rescue. This was no altruism on the part of the French; a conflict so close to them could have involved them in war, and one thing France’s tottering financial structure could not endure at that time was participation in a war; therefore 5,000,000 florins seemed, to the ministers of France, a small price to pay for peace.

But it was not possible to expect the people to understand this.

‘Déficit! Déficit! Déficit!’ they cried. ‘We are nearly bankrupt. So what do we do? We send money to the Queen’s family. For what purpose? Oh, that they may build Petit Trianons in Austria, that they may have their little farms and houses and theatres … just as l’Autrichienne does in France. What matters it? The French pay. Ask Madame Déficit.’

‘It matters not what I do,’ she told herself. ‘Nothing I do could be good in their eyes.’

She went down to her gilded coach which was to take her into the Capital.

Josèphe was already waiting for her. The years had not improved Josèphe. She was even more sour than she had been when she had first come to France; though it would have been difficult at the time to believe that was possible. She was barren of children and of hope, for now that the King of France had two sons she believed her husband would never be King.

As they made the journey from Versailles into the Capital, Antoinette knew that Josèphe was delighted at the cold reception given the Queen.

The crowds were there to watch, but they did not cheer. They merely stared at her as she passed.

She knew they were calling her haughty. If she had unbent they would have called her frivolous.

Ah, she thought, when they have determined to hate a sovereign as they have determined to hate me, there is no hope of gaining their affection.

The ceremony over, she emerged from Notre Dame.

Now she must make her way to Sainte-Geneviève. She must enter the church and endure further ceremony, for Sainte-Geneviève was the patron saint of Paris.

‘Why should I?’ she asked herself. ‘I am weary of their ceremonies. Why should I do my part when they will not do theirs? Why should I prolong the ceremony simply because it is their patron saint they wish me to honour? The people of Paris do not honour me.’

The coach had slowed down and the Abbé of Sainte-Geneviève had come out to greet her.

She answered his greeting with warmth and charm, and told him that she would be late for the banquet which was being given at the Tuileries and that she would therefore be unable to enter the church.

The Abbé bowed his head. The people gasped.

‘It is an insult to our Patroness!’ they murmured. ‘It is an insult to Paris.’

Josèphe was smiling, well pleased. It always pleased her to see the foolish frivolous creature make her mistakes.

‘You are well pleased, Josèphe,’ said Antoinette as they drove to the Tuileries.

‘Like you,’ said Josèphe demurely, ‘I am glad the tiresome ceremony is over.’

‘We but exchange one tiresome ceremony for another,’ said the Queen wearily.

She thought how pleasant it would be to sit on the lawn before her dear little house watching the children play, dressed in one of her muslin dresses, a shady hat on her head.

But the ceremonies must go on. There must be the banquet at that cheerless palace. Even the performance at the Opéra, which followed, raised her spirits very little, although the audience did not treat her with the same contempt as that which she had received in the streets, and there were a few lukewarm cheers.

After the Opéra she and the King went to supper at The Temple, Artois’ Paris home.

She shivered as she entered the place. ‘It’s so ancient,’ she complained to Artois. ‘Why do you not rid yourself of the place and build yourself something modern?’

Artois bent his mischievous face close to hers and whispered: ‘How would it be if I asked Calonne to arrange to buy Saint-Cloud from you?’

They laughed. She could be gay in the company of Artois. He refused to take anything seriously. The people of Paris were grumbling about the purchase of Saint-Cloud. Let them grumble! was Artois’ way of thinking. Who cares for the people of Paris!

When she was with him she could share that insouciance, and it was as though they were young again, arousing the wrath of the people with the Austrian habit of sledging, and riding back to Versailles in the early hours of the morning.

‘All the same,’ she said. ‘I find the Temple a gloomy residence. I command you, brother, change it for another.’

Artois bowed over her hand. ‘The Queen commands,’ he said and lightly kissed her fingers.