Abundance. Part 30

MIDSUMMER.

After the terrible accident, many of us have nightmares of falling. Sometimes I dream that I am aloft in a balloon with my three children; a dark cloud pursues us, and our basket begins to rock in the wind. I look to gather them about me, but little Louis Joseph is gone. The basket tips, and my infant Louis Charles tumbles out headfirst-I awake screaming. I have had variations on this dream more than once.

Every day, Louis Charles seems stronger and displays more baby smiles and winsome expressions. Everyone remarks how far beyond other babies of his age he has progressed. His big sister likes to teach him games, though of course he is still in his crib. Still, she earnestly explains life to him.

One day I am shocked to hear her call Louis Joseph to stand beside the crib. She looks back and forth between the faces of her two brothers. Louis Joseph looks as transparent as a little angel, his big eyes focused trustingly on his sister.

"Now," she says, "I am deciding which of you will someday be King of France. Do you have an opinion?"

Louis Joseph looks over his sister's shoulder at me and speaks in a firm, clear voice. "That is a matter for G.o.d to decide."

Following his gaze, she turns and sees me. "It was just a guessing game," she says.

I am troubled by her lack of frankness. "But the answer is the one your brother has given. You should pursue other entertainments, those more likely to be fun."

MY DAUGHTER'S GROWTH in body causes me no concern, but sometimes I worry about the growth of her spirit. She is haughty, and she does not understand that all people are G.o.d's children, regardless of their station in life.

Once I heard Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun say to her, "I admire your mother the Queen so much. She never loses an opportunity to make any person in her presence happier than they were."

I have invited a peasant girl to play with my daughter and to grow up with her, but Marie Therese does not want to wait on the other little girl, or take fair turns, and speaks to her ungraciously. Seeing my anxiety about my daughter, Elisabeth tries to rea.s.sure me. "She is still very young. As she sees more examples of kindness about her, she will gradually learn to consider the feelings of others. When I was a child, I was told, 'You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.' It made all the difference in my att.i.tude."

"And did you have a happy childhood, Elisabeth?"

"All day long I made little pictures. I drew with charcoal on slates, and with a stick in mud. Eventually I was given colored chalk and then paints. I was happy every minute I was at my art, and thoughts of art filled my hours."

"I enjoyed music and dancing, theatricals," I replied. "But I did not fill all my time that way."

"Your Majesty had many brothers and sisters to be happy with."

"Yes. We were very happy. My mother took care of everything."

BECAUSE I KNOW that the theatrical world offers a refuge from the world I must live in, I begin to learn my lines for the ingenue Rosine in The Barber of Seville. In the midst of focusing my attention on my part, I am given a note from the jeweler Boehmer, which I tuck away till later.

In my room I read it aloud to Madame Campan: "'Madame, We are at the summit of happiness...The latest arrangements proposed...New proof of our devotion to...Your Majesty. The most beautiful set of diamonds...The greatest and best of Queens.'"

"What is this about?" I ask my First Lady of the Bedchamber. "You are adept at solving newspaper riddles in the Mercure de France."

"This letter makes no sense to me." Madame Campan sounds weary.

Because this note also makes no sense to me, I twist the paper into a spill and thrust it into the flame of my candle and drop the ashes onto a plate. Instead of asking Madame Campan to read me to sleep, I decide to lie in bed considering my role in the play.

Is Rosine at all attracted to her would-be seducer? Suddenly I remember the old King, Louis XV, and his special kindness to me. I was always able to speak with him in a manner that he found charming, but in many ways I was uncomfortable in his presence. I have always thought my lack of ease with him arose from my knowledge of his morals in regard to women-that I was powerless in ending his scandalous relations.h.i.+p to the du Barry.

But at the same time, no female could not be attracted to his luminous eye, the charm of being in his favor.

I know now that he kept something like a harem of young prost.i.tutes, just the age I was then.

Lines from Beaumarchais's Figaro come to mind: "n.o.bility, fortune, rank, position make a lord so proud! What have you done to deserve these advantages? You were born-that is all."

My husband swore that the fortress-prison of the Bastille would have to be razed before he would allow the performance of such subversive lines. Then the Polignacs had the effrontery to tell the King he was acting like a despot. Next, Beaumarchais said he would excise the objectionable parts. a.s.suming he was as good as his word, I never bothered to read the revision, but only a few of the promised changes were made. I trusted where perhaps I should not have done so-but the play was so clever and funny!

The Barber of Seville was performed ten years ago. It is merely light and frothy-no one has ever found its ideas objectionable.

A HOAX IN DIAMONDS.

I have never seen Madame Campan so distressed! Upon returning from a walk in the gardens, I was about to settle at the harp, when a servant reported that Monsieur Boehmer, the jeweler, wished to see me, here at Trianon! How irritating to be bothered at a place where everyone knows admission is only by special invitation! I waved my hand in the negative, then I casually asked Madame Campan if she had any idea why Boehmer was being persistent in his attentions.

All in a moment, her face becomes stricken. "Majesty, you recall the mysterious note two or three weeks ago?" Not waiting for my reply, she rushes on. "Last night, at my home in the country, the jeweler Boehmer came to me and spoke as though he had lost his mind. He said that Your Majesty had contracted to buy the diamond necklace, through the Cardinal de Rohan, that the necklace is in your possession, and a payment of four hundred thousand livres is now due."

"Impossible. I despise the Cardinal de Rohan. I would never use him as an intermediary. And I have no new diamond necklace, as you well know."

Madame Campan is not a woman given to hysterics, and she remained calm now.

"I said as much to Monsieur Boehmer. And I asked him what made him think you had given any such commission. He said that he possessed notes signed by the Queen to the cardinal."

"If he does have such notes," I say as calmly as I can, "they are forgeries. Certainly, I have no necklace from Boehmer or the cardinal." That last idea makes me shudder.

"Boehmer was distraught," Madame Campan explains. "He told me there are bankers involved, who lent him money on the strength of the letters to the cardinal said to bear your signature."

My signature! I am speechless.

Madame Campan continues. "I told Monsieur Boehmer to consult Breteuil, since he is the minister of the royal household. Instead the jeweler has gone straight to the cardinal."

Immediately I think of turning to Count Mercy for advice, but I know that his hemorrhoid condition has become exceedingly painful. "I must turn to Breteuil myself," I tell Madame Campan, "but also to the King."

"THE CARDINAL IS either a knave or a fool," the King thunders, when I tell him of my supposed purchase of an extravagant necklace.

For all of its over 670 diamonds, I never even thought the necklace beautiful. It hung like a halter around my neck, the one time I consented to try it on, years ago.

"I think he is both," I reply.

"As crown jeweler, Boehmer is a sworn officer of this court. His duty is to consult Breteuil or myself before such an outrageous purchase."

Trying to be fair to the jeweler, I add meekly, "I suppose if the cardinal, as a member of the House of Rohan, showed him a letter with my signature, he felt he had received a.s.surances enough."

I do not believe I have ever seen the King so angry, and I remind myself again of his goodness and loyalty to me.

A MONTH HAS Pa.s.sED slowly, as not even rehearsals drive from my mind my anxiety about this diamond necklace affair. The King has investigated the missing necklace to the extent possible and discussed matters with Breteuil and with our trusted advisor Abbe Vermond, both of whom hate the cardinal as much as I do. I am very glad the King includes Vermond, who has served first as my tutor, then as my spiritual advisor ever since I came to France.

At times, Vermond and Breteuil speak with glee about this necklace affair's being an opportunity to destroy Rohan, and I admit I would also like to do so sometimes. I am grateful that I am utterly innocent in the affair. Because I feel anxious, I do not care, really, if they destroy Cardinal de Rohan, whom I too have disliked for years; I only want my reputation to be untarnished. Yet of course I have been the subject of lying pamphlets for years. I do not know to what extent people may have believed such fabrications. I have considered them beneath my notice.

This is 15 August, the Feast of the a.s.sumption of the Virgin Mary, for whom my mother, all my sisters, and I are named. Today, as he makes his way in his red robes-I suppose his stockings are cardinal too-to celebrate the Ma.s.s, the cardinal will be summoned to appear before the King and his minister to give an accounting of this sordid business. Surely I can take the coincidence of the date as a good omen-that today the name of Marie Antoinette will be cleared of any vile a.s.sociation with this mystery of the diamond necklace. No one seems to know where it is.

It is Breteuil who conceived the idea of summoning the cardinal so publicly, in all his splendor, so as to cause the most embarra.s.sment. Breteuil, I explain to Madame Campan, does not forget that when the cardinal was recalled from Vienna, Breteuil was sent in his place. But Breteuil's work as amba.s.sador was then ruined by the cardinal, who spitefully cut off the connections Breteuil needed in Vienna to help him serve effectively.

Madame Campan responds that perhaps those insults in Vienna are best left to lie in the past.

I reply, "Because the Cardinal de Rohan helped to depose Choiseul, to whom I owe the happiness of my marriage, I, like Breteuil, have an old grudge to settle with him." I do not mention that his behavior has long offended me.

It is not without satisfaction, though I greatly dread the confrontation about to occur, that I consider how, as the defender of my good name, the King will also be able to disgrace and totally discredit the cardinal. It is a sign of the King's complete trust in me that he insists I be present-"That way you will always be perfectly easy about my role in this affair and about what has been said," he tells me. I can see the sorrow in his eyes that I am to be worried by such unpleasantness. It is noon, and we fall silent as we sit in the King's inner chamber, expecting any moment to hear the sound of the cardinal approaching the room.

When he enters the room, the splendor of his garments, the richness of the fabric and of the lace at his throat, impresses me so much that I quail inside and am grateful that it is the King himself who conducts the interrogation. He shows all royal firmness and majesty in every syllable as he upbraids Rohan for the purchase of diamonds and then demands to know where they are. All of the time I am looking at the needlepoint of the cardinal's alb, which seems too beautiful for human fingers to touch.

"It is my impression," the cardinal replies, not without his own clerical dignity, "that the diamonds were delivered to the Queen."

"By what agent were they to be delivered?"

"A lady named the Comtesse de La Motte-Valois held the commission."

At this news-the name of someone with a reputation for many careless affairs, though personally quite unknown to all of us-we cannot suppress a gasp. Comtesse Jeanne La Motte!

The cardinal continues. "I believed I was pleasing Her Majesty because I received a letter from Her Majesty commissioning me to undertake the purchase."

"How could you ever have imagined, sir, that I would ask you to do such a thing?" I cannot mask either my indignation or my anger. "I have not spoken to you in eight years! Not since you returned, rejected, from Vienna have I said a single word to you. In fact, I treat you with nothing but coldness, and despite your stubborn requests, I have never granted you an audience. I would never select as a mediator such a person as the one you name." I am close to crying, but I gather all my dignity and glare at him hotly instead.

"Witnessing the agitation of Her Majesty," the cardinal says simply, "I now see quite clearly. Unmistakably, I have been duped. My ardent wish to be of service to Your Majesty blinded me."

To our amazement, he has come to this meeting somewhat prepared. From his sleeve, he produces a note. With false humility, he inclines his head and holds up the piece of paper. Immediately the King takes it from him and begins to read. My heart drums with astonis.h.i.+ng rapidity against my chest.

With full severity, the King p.r.o.nounces, "This letter was neither written by nor signed by the Queen. Are you, sir, of the House of Rohan? Are you the Grand Almoner? How could you possibly imagine that the Queen would sign herself as 'Marie Antoinette de France'?" The Queen never deigns to present herself so crudely. Her Christian name, alone, always represents the Queen. Everyone knows who she is. There has never been a single occasion on which she appends the phrase 'de France.' What need does 'Marie Antoinette,' the Queen, have for 'de France'? Furthermore, all queens and kings merely sign their doc.u.ments with their baptismal names. Surely you and your family are aware of the convention! The letter is an obvious forgery, and I can only ask how could you be such a villain?"

The King orders the cardinal to retire to an adjacent room to write out his account of the matter. As soon as he leaves the room, I burst into tears for a moment. Quickly I regain my composure, and we all chatter at once about the stupidity of forging a letter ending in the signature "Marie Antoinette de France." The King tells us his intention to have the cardinal arrested, no matter what explanation he offers. When the keeper of the seals asks if it is wise to arrest the cardinal while he is wearing his scarlet robes, the King replies, "The name of the Queen is precious to me and it has been compromised." As soon as the cardinal reappears in the room, now looking rather frightened, the King places Breteuil, the cardinal's enemy, in charge. I see the prelate blanch as he hears Breteuil's name p.r.o.nounced as the person who shall conduct the investigation.

When the King tells the cardinal that he shall shortly be arrested, the cardinal pleads for "the reputation of my family name."

The King responds in a sharp, ironic tone that he will try to shelter the cardinal's relatives from the disgrace. "I do what I must do, as a King and as a husband."

He then orders the cardinal to leave and subsequently arranges for the arrest to occur as the cardinal traverses the Hall of Mirrors, where all the court will be gathered. The cardinal is to be conducted straightaway to the Bastille. Breteuil is to arrange for the sealing of the cardinal's residence and all his papers there.

My heart overflows with grat.i.tude for the King's defense of my name, and for his firm decisiveness.

Thus, I am vindicated in a single afternoon by my champion, the King.

IT IS A GREAT PLEASURE to throw myself into the role of Rosine. Even while I am acting the part onstage, a part of my mind is saying, "You are not the maligned Queen; you are the young and simple maid Rosine." Then I feel her emotions, her gaiety, her alarm, her vibrancy a thousand times more intensely. Artois is splendid as Count Almaviva. Vaudreuil could have played Almaviva just as well, but he is adorable in The Barber of Seville as Figaro. He brings his high spirits to the role, and it amuses Yolande no end to see him as a barber.

I make the very most of my role. Those privileged to see the performance universally exclaim that I play the role as well as any real actress. The King is delighted with my acting, and the tiny theater a few minutes' walk from Trianon has never been more charming.

Because it is blue inside, I think of the blue interior of the balloon with Montauciel the sheep aboard. In my theater, I feel as though I have entered the balloon and here live in an enchanted world where all turns out well.

SAD DAYS.

I am happy to be with the King these days, for I continue to be as grateful as I was the moment when he spoke in my behalf as a husband and as a king. I give him a warmer warmth when he comes to me, and I am more determined than I ever have been that he will take pleasure in our bed. Although I know that I am utterly innocent in the imbroglio involving the cardinal, I feel guilty-perhaps for past extravagances. It gives me a sort of wicked pleasure to feel when the King and I are together that I am doing my duty, as a good wife should, be she queen or peasant or shopkeeper's spouse.

As soon as the performance of The Barber of Seville is over, we leave for Saint-Cloud. As September with its change of season comes on again, I am outdoors a great deal, riding in the open carriage with the Comte d'Artois, whose mischievous and naughty tongue makes me laugh and laugh and forget his ambitious side.

Sometimes I ride in the Bois de Boulogne. I have had the large painting made in 1783 of me riding in the hunt with the King brought to Saint-Cloud. It is not in the tender style of Vigee-Lebrun, this painter being Louis-Auguste Brun, but Elisabeth does not paint horses. Actually I look as though I am about to fall from the horse, but the posture displays my gray riding habit and tall plumed hat to great advantage. My horse is painted in the very act of leaping a ditch. Under the arch of his forelegs one sees in the distance a miniature line of other riders. It is really quite charming, but I suppose it is a sign of my age that I now prefer to look at the painting and derive vicarious enjoyment instead of actually riding at such a clip.

Occasionally I hear gossip or actual information that adds to the increasingly scandalous tale of the diamond necklace. Some people, as is only to be expected, believe that the cardinal actually gave me the necklace in exchange for certain favors of the flesh. Such a preposterous notion almost makes me laugh, but then I find my eyes full of tears at the outrage of the idea. The King told me that he gave the cardinal a choice of trial by the Parlement of Paris, or a royal verdict and sentence, and the cardinal has chosen the trial.

Someone said that at the time of his arrest, Rohan was able to slip a note to his valet directing that his papers, in a certain red valise, be destroyed at once. In any case, Breteuil's investigators found little left at the cardinal's residence to merit its sealing.

Here at Saint-Cloud, I allow people who come out from Paris to stroll around the grounds and to gawk at the royal family. It's quite different, in that way, from life at my Trianon. Cafes have actually sprung up along the way to feed the people on their Sunday outings. They seem so delighted to see me with the Dauphin or my other children that I feel loved again by the populace.

I indulge a whim to have a yacht built for myself, and in October I very much enjoy gliding down the Seine to Fountainebleau. When we pa.s.s the Invalides, cannon go off in a fine salute, as they did when I first entered Paris. But we do not stop at Paris.

Fontainebleau is always a sparkling setting for concerts and entertainments, but I prefer to stay in my own chambers there. Often I find myself halflying down doing nothing, not even my beloved needlework. A great la.s.situde comes over me. Until this scandal is settled, I seem disengaged from myself and my life.

THE STORY HAS IT that I was impersonated in the gardens of Versailles, that the cardinal was sent a forged letter by Jeanne La Motte, pretending to be me, calling for a rendezvous with the cardinal. She actually hired a prost.i.tute, a woman named Oliva, who bore an uncanny resemblance to me, to speak with him. Their meeting was brief, and she was heavily veiled in black, they say, but he was certain it was I.

At the trial, I feel sure, people will see this trollop, and those who know me will remark the resemblance. I myself will not be there, and the King has promised that my name will be p.r.o.nounced as little as possible.

HERE IS THE KING, all sweaty and dusty from hunting in the woods of Fontainebleau. He says he has come in early, that he had a premonition that I might be in some despair. He has come to comfort me. I hold out my arms to him.

The silk counterpane is ruined when he comes to me half-clothed, but there are many others like it in the storage closets. The careful matching and shading of colors in the room will not be disrupted.

After his bath, the King and I sit together with a small round table between us. "People are saying," the King remarks, "that the cardinal is more fool than knave, that he was quite deceived by Jeanne La Motte, who was his mistress. He was not her accomplice, perhaps, but her victim."

Neither he nor I can grant any credence to this account.

FOR CHRISTMAS, I ask the factory at Sevres to prepare settings of porcelain with inset jewels. They will be the most expensive I have ever ordered, but when I hold one of the sample cups in my hand, the large ruby on the cup catches the light in just such a way as to make me feel that I am about to drink liquid light. The fancy pleases me. "Ah, this cup takes me to fairyland," I say to the King, who always leaves the holiday selection of porcelain entirely up to me.

"Then you must have plates and dishes galore," he says.

"Some with topaz stones," I suggest, "some with emeralds."