When the reception in the Galerie des Glaces was over we went for supper to the new opera house which the King had had built to celebrate my arrival in France. As we crossed to the opera house the Swiss Guards, splendid in starched ruffs and plumed caps, together with the bodyguards, equally colourful in their silver-braided coats, red breeches and stockings, made a guard for us.
The real function of this beautiful opera house had been of disguised.
A false floor had been set up to cover the seats, and on this was a table decorated with flowers and gleaming glass. With great ceremony we took our places: the King at the head of the table, myself on one side of him, my husband on the other, and next to me and for this I was thankful my mischievous younger brother-in-law, the Comte d’Artois, who was very attentive to me and proclaimed him-J self to be my squire, implying in his outrageous way that he would uphold the honour of France in the place of the Dauphin at any rime I wished! He was bold, but I had liked him from the moment we met.
On the other side of Artois was Madame Adelaide, clearly revelling in an occasion like this, keeping an eye on her sisters—Sophie next to her, Victoire opposite, next to Clothilde—and trying to talk to me over Artois, her sharp eyes everywhere. She hoped that she and I would be able to talk together in her apartments, intimately. It was imperative. Artois, listening, raised his eyebrows to me when Adelaide could not see, and I felt that we were allies. At the extreme end of the table—for she was of the lowest rank of the twenty-one members of the royal family—was the young woman who had interested me so much when I had first been presented to my new relations: the Princesse de Lamballe. She smiled at me very charmingly and I felt that with her and the King and my new champion Artois as my friends I need not be apprehensive about my future.
I was far too excited to eat, but I noticed that my husband had a good appetite. I had never known anyone who could appear so oblivious of his surroundings. While the King’s Meat (as the numerous dishes were called) was being brought in with the utmost ceremony he might have been sitting alone, for his one interest was the food, on which he fell as though he had just returned from a hard day’s hunting.
Noticing his grandson’s voracious appetite the King said to him quite audibly: “You are eating too heartily. Berry. You should not overload your stomach tonight of all nights.”
My husband spoke then, and everyone listened—I suppose because they heard his voice so rarely.
“I always sleep better after a good supper,” he said.
I was aware of Artois beside me suppressing his amusement, and many of the guests seemed suddenly intent on their plates; others had turned and were in deep conversation with then-neighbours, faces turned away from the head of the table.
The King looked at me rather sadly; then he began to talk over the Dauphin to the Comte de Provence.
The next part of the proceedings was so embarrassing that even now I do not care to think about it. The night had come. When I looked across the table and caught my husband’s eye he looked uneasy and turned away. I knew then that he was as disturbed as I was. I was aware of what was expected of me that night, and although I did not look for ward to it with any great pleasure, I was certain that, how ever distasteful it was, the result of what would happen would give me my dearest wish. I should have a child and any discomfort was worthwhile if I could become a mother.
Back to the Palace we went and the ceremony of putting the bride and groom to bed began. The Duchess de dart res the married lady of highest rank, handed me my nightgown; and I was led to the bedchamber where my husband, who had been helped into his nightshirt by the King, was waiting for me. We sat up in bed side by side, and all the time my husband had not looked at me. I was not sure whether he thought the whole affair incredibly silly or was just sleepy after all the food he had eaten.
The curtains were drawn back so that everyone could see us and the Archbishop of Rheims as he blessed the bed and sprinkled it with holy water. We must have appeared to be a strange little couple both so young, little more than children: myself flushed and apprehensive, my husband bored. In truth we were two frightened children.
The King smiled at me wistfully as though he longed to be in the Dauphin’s place, and then turned away to leave us together. Everyone bowed and followed him out and my attendants drew the bed curtains shutting me in alone with my bridegroom.
We lay in bed looking at the hangings. I felt lonely shut in with a stranger. He did not attempt to touch me; he did not even speak to me. There I lay listening to my heartbeats or were they his waiting . waiting.
This was what all the fuss of preparation had been about the solemn ceremony in the chapel, the glittering banquet, the public’s peepshow. I was to be the mother of the Enfants de France; from my activities in this bed I was to produce the future King of France.
But nothing happened . nothing. I lay awake. It must be soon, I said to myself; but still I lay and so did he . in silence, making no move to touch me, speaking no word.
After a long while I could tell by his breathing that he was asleep.
I was bewildered, and, in a way, disappointed. I know now that he suffered even as I did. The next day he wrote one word in his journal. It was “Rien.”
Omens
In consequence of the fire in the Place Louis XV which occurred at the time of the nuptial celebrations, the Dauphin and Dauphine sent the whole of their incomes for a year to the relief of the unfortunate families who lost their relatives on that disastrous day.
I am not sure now when I began to understand that nothing was as I had first believed it to be. The frivolous young girl I was, knowing little of life, formed quick conclusions from what she saw on the surface without understanding, not realising that her new countrymen, with their love of etiquette, their determination to preserve exquisite manners in all circumstances, were adepts at deception.
I had believed that my husband and I would be lovers, that we would wander hand in hand through the splendid gardens of Versailles, that I would be gloriously happy, and before a year of marriage had passed, would have my own little son, who would give me far more pleasure than all my little dogs put together. But I had a husband who was apparently indifferent to me.
I was bewildered; and everyone was watching us slyly, almost furtively: the King with detached resignation, the aunts with hysterical excitement, my brothers-in-law with suppressed amusement; but Mercy, Starhemburg and the Abbe Vermond were deeply concerned.
Something was wrong. The Dauphin did not like me—and I was to blame.
This did not occur to me during the first days. All I knew was that marriage was not what I had believed it would be. The day after that of the wedding was full of ceremonies and I had little time for thought as I was hustled from one to another. In the evening an opera was performed in the new opera house. It was Perseus, which might have been tolerable if someone had not tried to modernise it by inserting a new ballet.
Everything went wrong. The producer broke his leg at the dress rehearsal and was on a stretcher the whole evening None of the properties on the stage worked as they should. In compliment to me it had been arranged that a great Eagle the symbol of my House should be set high above the altar of Hymen, and this, instead of remaining perched high above the altar, slumped on to it. Perseus slipped and fell at the feet of Andromeda at the very moment of rescue. The only interesting moments were those of disaster and the producer had to be prevented from killing himself.