‘Madame,’ she was saying, ‘I thank you from the bottom of my heart. This is indeed a time of deep sorrow for our family. But the King and I pray each day that God will guide us in the way we should go for the glory of France…. ’
She felt a movement at her feet and, glancing down, she saw the little Marquise hidden from the old dowager by the panniers of her – Antoinette’s – dress, sitting on the floor, peeping up at her, pulling her face into such a contortion that, in spite of its round and babyish look, she bore some resemblance to the lady who stood before the Queen.
It was too late to check the sudden smile which came to Antoinette’s lips. She hastily lifted her fan; but there were too many people watching her. Josèphe had seen. Thérèse had seen.
Almost immediately she collected herself; she went on with her speech; but for a Queen – and Queen of France – to laugh in the middle of a speech of thanks for the condolences of an honoured subject was so shocking that her enemies would not allow it to be passed over lightly.
Josèphe and Thérèse went as fast as they could to confer with the aunts. The aunts made sure that the story was circulated in those quarters where it would do most harm.
Provence seized on it. If at any time it should be necessary to prove the lightness of Antoinette such incidents as these should be remembered. Moreover they should be stressed at the time they happened; it would make them all the more effective if it should be necessary to resuscitate them.
The Duc d’Aiguillon’s party saw that it was repeated and exaggerated not only in the Court but throughout the whole of Paris.
She laughed, this chit from Austria, it was said. She dared to laugh at French customs.
For she had made fun of great and noble French ladies. And in doing that, was she not ridiculing France!
Her enemies wrote a song, for that was always the best way of making the people take up a cause for or against a person or a principle. Soon it was being sung in the streets and taverns.‘My little Queen, not twenty-one,
Maltreat the folks as you’ve begun,
And o’er the border you shall run …’
Antoinette heard it. She was bewildered.
‘But the people love me! Monsieur de Brissac said, when I first went into the city, that all Paris was in love with me.’
It was another lesson she had learned. The people could love one day and hate the next, for the people were a fickle mob.
Chapter V
REHEARSAL FOR REVOLUTION
During that year a new fashion began at Versailles. The King, in his affection for the Queen, was often seen walking with her in the gardens arm-in-arm. Then must the ladies and gentlemen of the Court follow their example, so that husbands and wives who were known to hate each other, even to be notoriously unfaithful to each other, must nevertheless wander through the Galerie des Glaces, through the Cour de Marbre or the Cour Royale, arm-in-arm.
It was pleasant to see the King and Queen so happy together, for it seemed that the longer they were married the stronger grew their affection. It was rare to find such devotion between a King and Queen of France – so rare that many doubted its authenticity.
These doubts were fostered by the Queen’s enemies.
Was it possible, they asked, that one so young and beautiful, so fond of gaiety and pleasure, so frivolous, so ready to listen to flattery, could love a man so gauche, so heavy, so unattractive to women as their Louis?
Louis! The strangest King who had ever sat upon the throne of France. There had been a time when some of his friends had sought to make a normal man of him, and talked to him of charming actresses at the Comédie Française. And what said Louis? Oh, he was not interested. If he had time to spare from his duties, he liked to spend it making locks in his forge or hunting the stag.
And it was to this boor, known to be impotent (for had not his grandfather forced him to submit to an examination, and had it not been one of those secrets which leak out and become common knowledge?) that a frivolous and quite lovely young girl was declared to be a faithful wife!
Is it possible? asked her enemies; and eventually the people in the streets began to ask the same question.
She was so careless of etiquette.
They had all heard how it was at her lever. The Royal lever and coucher had been matters of strictest etiquette for generations. The Queen’s chemise could only be handed to her in the bedchamber by the person of highest rank. Thus the lowest servant must first pick it up and hand it to the femme-dechambre, who must then give it to one of the ladies-in-waiting and, if that lady-in-waiting was of the highest rank present, she could then hand it to the Queen. But if, while that lady-in-waiting was about to hand it to the Queen, a lady of higher rank such as Madame de Chartres or one of her sisters-in-law entered, it must immediately be taken from the lady-in-waiting and given to the Queen by the lady who had newly arrived on the scene.
The malicious sisters-in-law did all they could to plague Antoinette and show those about her how careless she was of the dignities appertaining to the throne of France.
The Comtesse de Provence would make a point of coming in at the moment when Madame d’Artois was helping Antoinette into her chemise; then must the ritual begin again with Madame de Provence taking the principal role.
At length Antoinette declared that she found the ceremonies of rising and going to bed too tedious to be borne, and would go to her dressing-room, where she would dress and undress privately.
This was not only flouting tradition, it was depriving certain people of duties which they prized and which gave them special standing at Court.
Mercy’s letters to Maria Theresa were full of anxieties. The Queen’s légèreté was causing consternation, he wrote. Her spirits were too high; she was too fond of riding, too prone to ignore etiquette.
She had started a new fashion, aided by her hairdresser, Monsieur Léonard, who drove to Versailles in some state from Paris every day because she, fearing he might lose his skill if he devoted himself entirely to her, insisted that he continue with his business. He would comb the Queen’s hair, stiffen it with pomade until it stood straight up on her head, then with gigantic hairpins he would dress it into a tower – sometimes as much as three feet in height – and adorn it with decorations of flowers or miniature landscapes, gardens, or houses. Monsieur Léonard delighted in being topical, so that it was his pleasure to illustrate little scenes from Court life and display them on the Queen’s coiffure. Soon all the ladies were following the fashions set by the Queen, and this fashion was ridiculed by the citizens of Paris who had hoped for impossible blessings from the new reign. Pictures were circulated throughout the cafés – pictures of the Queen, her hair towering ridiculously above her head.
Maria Theresa’s letters were reproachful.
‘I cannot refrain from touching on a matter which has been brought to my notice. I refer to the way in which you are dressing your hair. They tell me that from the forehead it rises as much as three feet, and it is made higher by the addition of decoration, plumes and ribbons.’
Antoinette read her mother’s letters and shrugged aside the criticisms. She was after all a Queen now, not a child to be corrected; and, as all the ladies of the Court were following the hair fashions set by herself, they did not seem ridiculous in Court circles – which was, in her estimation, the only place where opinion on such matters was important.