Doors
There were more than two hundred ways to get in and out of Versailles, not counting windows. Of course the door you used depended on who you were: for instance, the kitchen gardener's third assistant's lackey, delivering cherries, would have entered through a so-called Dutch door located at the nethermost tip of the south wing; whereas the rakish Due de Lauzun liked to sneak in through a door of the type that would come to be known as French, off the Large Reception Room; and the Archduke Maximilian, arriving for a visit in February of 1775, waddled in through one of three imposing gilt-grilled doors on the south wall of the Marble Court. This was the Queen's brother — her dear little Maxie — who had, as a child of three, decked out in a blue velvet coat, white twill breeches, and white silk stockings, transported guests with his ability to recite Italian verse from memory, but who had become, at fifteen, no longer cute.
February. Low gray skies and a dusting of snow. Snow disturbed by the carriage wheels, like bean flour in a draft. The Archduke rides with his head hanging out the window and his mouth open, catching snowflakes on his tongue. Both he and his sister adore snow and always have. When Antoinette was a little girl she told him she was made of snow, and he couldn't sleep, terrified that he'd come into her room in the morning and find nothing but a puddle.
Definitely not cute, the Archduke Maximilian — slow, rather, and grossly fat, as well as harelipped and given to "smudging" his consonants — though that's hardly reason for the Princes of the Blood to cut him, as they do. No sooner has he huffed and puffed his way up among the noisy stinking throng of courtiers and servants and messengers and sedan chairs crowding the Queen's Staircase, barely escaped the humiliation of walking smack into a trompe I'oeil vista at the head of the stairs, negotiated the narrow corridor that gives through an arcaded opening onto the Room of the Queen's Guard, made his way past the series of ornate gilt-painted doors that lead from the Queen's Antechamber to the Salon of the Nobles and into the Queen's Bedchamber, than Provence and Artois have hightailed it out the door at the rear of the bedroom, into the Salon of Peace and thence through the Hall of Mirrors (a million ungainly Provences, a million handsome Artoises) to the King's Bedchamber, where they collapse on a sofa in its winter upholstery of thick red velvet embroidered with over a hundred and twenty pounds of gold thread and break out laughing.
According to protocol, the Princes of the Blood are supposed to call on the Archduke, not the other way around. Certainly they aren't supposed to lead the Archduke a merry chase.
But is it Antoinette's naivete that permits her to trivialize the incident? Or is it, rather, her disdain for whatever it is in the French character that finds such protocol of vital importance? In fact the Princes are engaging in a political act that is openly hostile, but Antoinette is more interested in the steady accumulation of the snow, the way it's making the conical topiary on the Southern Terrace look like the little wooden trees in the manger scene she used to be allowed to play with at Christmas, before she took the Baby Jesus off to her room and lost it. The snow is turning the parterre's dark green love knots white and piling up on the heads of the statues, making them look like bewigged courtiers rather than Greek gods and goddesses.
Tomorrow is Valentine's Day. Antoinette's heart beats faster, though she has no one in mind, or maybe someone, but no one in particular. They'll ride out in a sledge, she and Maxie, just like when they were children. Later, boiled chicken, a potato. He isn't clever enough for cards, but maybe the Princesse de Guéménée can be persuaded to read his fortune. A little adventure, a little romance? A rendezvous at shepherd's hour with a mysterious dark-haired woman?
Not likely, given the harelip.
Snow falling softly, softly. Snow covering the 11,520 black and white paving stones of the Marble Court, where carriage traffic is strictly forbidden. Snow falling on the 250 carriages waiting in the Forward Court for their owners, and on the hatless head of the kitchen gardener's third assistant's lackey, waiting against an espaliered fruit tree for the arrival of Françoise, with whom he has been having a little dalliance, though tonight he will wait and wait, growing more and more furious to have been jilted on Valentine's Eve, without realizing that meanwhile Françoise is watching the first macule erupt on her pretty forehead and does not need her cards read to know she's doomed.
How late it is getting! The snow still falling though lighter now, little flakes through air made wet and fresh by the storm, an oddly pale lucent darkness. And footprints everywhere, up and down the Stairways of the Hundred Steps, along the Infants' Walk as far as the Neptune Fountain, in and out of the bosquet at the Baths of Apollo, and around and around Air, Water, Earth, and Fire; Spring, Summer, Winter, Fall. Footprints of messengers and courtiers, lovers and thieves. Rabbits and deer. Murderers. Foxes.
Notwithstanding which, the gilt-grilled doors surrounding the Marble Court, like all the doors at Versailles, are unlocked. Ironic, when you think about it, given the King's favorite pastime, though clearly he considers the locks he makes not so much safety devices as intriguing puzzles. In fact the mechanism of the locks themselves is still fairly primitive; protection is provided by elaborate warding, or the addition of secret shutters to hide the keyholes, or sometimes even imposter keyholes.
Besides, once you're inside the chateau you can go practically anywhere, assuming you don't get caught in a traffic jam of sedan chairs, or, having wended your way through the insane maze of corridors honeycombing the Nobles' Wing, landed in some airless hopeless squalid cabinet of a room where you will live out the rest of your life entirely forgotten by everybody including your closest relatives. On the other hand you might find yourself remembered, plucked up and dressed like a soldier and sent to fight the enemy in some foreign land — Turkey, or America, or Spain. After which you might find yourself dead, consigned to a coffin that is, at least, bigger than the cabinet you lived in before…
And the King? Oh, the King has no need for doors. Just look at him, climbing the facade hand over hand like a big tame monkey, hauling himself across the stone balustrade and suddenly appearing in the Queen's Bedchamber, scaring her half to death.
The King's Penis
The curtains part, revealing the Queen's Bedchamber; the bed curtains part, revealing the Queen. Elegant, coquettish, in charming disarray, she is seated on the right side of the bed, facing the audience. On her lap. Eggplant, a pug; to her left, Louis XVI, King of France, a softly snoringlump. It is the middle of the night — perhaps three o'clock. Though there is no moon, the room is eerily lit by recently fallen snow.
ANTOINETTE, speaking to the lump in the overwrought high-pitched "voice" of Eggplant, whom she's hoisted by his underarms and holds in front of her face: Ah! Mon Dieu! What is to be done with the Queen? She is incorrigible. When she isn't tearing around on horseback like an Amazon, she's at the races, rubbing shoulders with harlots. And really, who's to say which is which, Queen or harlot? Are those diamonds genuine or paste? It's so hard to tell these days. It's so hard to tell whose big blue eyes those are, riveted on the flies of all the handsome young men.
The lump suddenly sits up and speaks. Antoinette!
ANTOINETTE, still speaking through Eggplant: The King is awake. She returns the pug to her lap and leans over to give Louis a peck on the cheek. And did the King have pleasant dreams?