Joseph had given instructions that there was to be no fuss, no ceremony. He was not even travelling as the Emperor of Austria but as Count Falkenstein, and had arrived at the Embassy in an open carriage in the heavy rain. This need not have happened, of course. He could have come in state.
I guessed that he would lecture me on my extravagance;
it was something he particularly deplored for he enjoyed living a Spartan life; he had always wanted to be a ruler whose first thought was the betterment of his people, and he liked to travel among them incognito, doing good by stealth; but malicious people said that although he remained incognito for a while he always liked his identity to be revealed at the climax of his adventures, when he would arrange for someone to betray him. Then he could dramatically declare:
“Yes, I am the Emperor.”
I refused to believe this. It was more malicious gossip; but at the end of Joseph’s visit, I was not so sure. In fact it was rather tiresome of him to come incognito. Why should he stay at the Embassy?
He had said that while he was at Versailles he had no intention of lodging at the chateau or the Trianon. Two furnished rooms must be found for him in the town for he did not wish to be treated as the Emperor of Austria, but as an ordinary citizen.
Today, I thought, will be the day.
I was at my toilette. My hair was hanging about my shoulders, for Monsieur Leonard’s six in hand had not yet rattled along the road between Paris and Versailles, when I heard the clatter of horses’ hoofs in the courtyard. It was half past nine, and I paid little attention, therefore I was most surprised when I was told that the Abbe Vermond was without and he had a visitor to see me. The visitor did not wait to be announced, but burst in on me unceremoniously.
It is! ” I cried.
“It really is … my brother Joseph.” Then I forgot everything but that this was my brother; and I felt like a child again, as though I were in the Schonbrunn about to be reproached for something, and I ran to him and threw my arms about him. Joseph was moved too, and as he embraced me there were tears in his eyes.
My little sister . my beautiful little sister !’ “But Joseph, it is wonderful to see you…. It is so long … and I have thought of you so much and our dearest mother and home….”
I was chattering incoherently in German, for I had slipped back to my native tongue unconsciously. oh Joseph, it is wonderful. It is like being a little girl again. “
Joseph said it did him good to look at me, and at that moment he was not a bit like the stem brother who had been so critical of my frivolity back in Vienna. But we Germans are a sentimental people.
Living so long with the French, I had forgotten how much so.
We went on chattering. And how is dear Mamma? And what of the Schonbrunn gardens? Do the fountains still play as they did? What of our little theatre in the Hofburg where we used to perform our plays?
What of the servants? What of my dogs . those I had to leave behind?
Is Mamma well and happy? I’m afraid she has been anxious. How I should love to see her. You must tell her, Joseph . tell her that I long to see her again.
We were laughing and crying and Joseph said I had grown beautiful. I had been a pretty little creature when I left; now I had become a beautiful woman. If he could find a woman as beautiful as I was he would marry again.
This was just the excitement of our reunion. We revelled in it for that first hour or so, before he embarked on the unpleasant task which had brought him to France, which was of course to lecture me, to criticise me, and to teach me how to rectify my follies.
When my almost hysterical joy in reunion was over I was able to look at him clearly and, I have to admit, critically. He was scarcely handsome; he was purposely very plainly dressed, for his suit was meant to be of service rather than to flatter. It was of a colour known in the Court as puce, since Rose Benin had made me a dress in a silk of the same shade and the King seeing it had cried out that it was the colour of a flea. From then on, ‘puce’ had become fashionable. But it scarcely suited my brother. I disliked his short boots, which gave him a look of the people; and the way in which his hair was dressed was certainly not becoming to an Emperor; he wore it in a single curl. He stooped a little and had aged a great deal since I had last seen him.
“You are thinking that I do not look like the Emperor of Austria.
Confess it. “
“You look like my brother Joseph and that is all I ask.”
“Ah, they have taught you to pay fancy compliments here, but I am a plain man and I like plain speaking. Now let us be completely alone together for I wish to talk to you.”
“You will wish me to conduct you to the King, who will be anxious to meet you.”
“All in good time,” said Joseph.
“First I want to hear from your own lips if these rumours are true. You must be frank with me, because it is on account of this that I am at Versailles—on account of this and other matters. And I must know the truth with nothing held back.”
I conducted him into a small antechamber and shut the door.
“The whole of Europe,” he said, ‘talks of your marriage. It is true, is it not, that the King is unable to consummate that marriage? “
It’s true. “
“Although he has made many attempts ” He has made many attempts. “
“And the doctors have examined him and find that the knife is necessary to make him a normal man.”
I nodded.
“He shrinks from this operation?”
I nodded again.
“I see. He must be made to see his duty Joseph walked up and down the apartment as though commiming with himself. In spite of his plain garments he adopted what I thought of as a very Imperial attitude. I began to wonder then whether Joseph was as modest as he wanted us to believe.
He asked many intimate questions and I answered him frankly.
He said: “It was time I came.”
I sent a messenger to tell the King that my brother was in the chateau and I proposed bringing him to him without delay; then I slipped my arm through that of Joseph and led him to the King’s apartments.
Louis hurried to my brother and embraced him.
I noticed that Louis was taller, and although he was by no means the most elegant man at Court he looked distinguished beside Joseph. But Joseph had the manner of the elder brother. He might like to travel incognito but he immediately made it clear that he considered the King of France inferior to the Emperor of Austria. Louis was at the moment in purple velvet because he was in mourning for the King of Portugal, who had died a short while before.
They exchanged pleasantries and Louis assured my brother that the whole of the chateau was at his disposal, to which Joseph laughed, shaking his head.
“No, brother,” he said, I prefer to live as a simple man. My lodgings in Versailles will suit me very well. I have two rooms which are good enough for me in the house of one of your bath attendants. “
“You will surely not find the comfort to which you are accustomed there.”
“I do not give much thought to comfort, brother, and I am not so accustomed to it as you are. A camp bed and a bearskin is all I ask.”
He looked round the gilded apartment as he spoke, and his gaze was a little scornful as though there was some thing sinful in our splendour.
He must meet the members of the Royal Family, said the King; and some of his ministers, most certainly Monsieur de Maurepas. Nothing would delight him more, replied Joseph; and the morning was spent in receiving people and presenting them to him. I felt a little, uncomfortable because my hair was not dressed and there was no time to have this lengthy ceremony performed. Poor Monsieur Leonard, I guessed, was in despair, but naturally I could not leave my brother. If he had given us a time when he would arrive, how much more comfortable it would have been for us all I But Joseph’s simple habits were to make life considerably more complicated for us during his stay.