Becoming Marie Antoinette (34 page)

I snatched the ribbon from Mops and pretended to scold him, mostly for the abbé’s benefit. “Naughty dog. We don’t eat ribbons.” The chastened look in the pug’s big black eyes was only momentary. He went for a slipper of pink brocade, changed his mind, and scampered off to gnaw upon a fan he found lying on the carpet.

The dauphin was already in the doorway. Leaving me again. “I missed you, today,” I said glumly. Softly. Tentatively. He didn’t hear me. Or if he did, he paid my words no heed. A second later he was gone.

Was this to be part of our daily routine as well? Two nights had come and gone and I was no closer to bearing an heir. Charlotte had become fully a woman on her wedding night. Even if the experience had been an unpleasant one, she knew her duty and had begun to accomplish it from the outset. Already I felt the weight of my responsibility.

A plan began to take shape in the corners of my mind. Louis Auguste would not dare touch me even when he couldn’t see me. But perhaps if what he saw by day intrigued him …

He had indicated a preference for simplicity to fripperies and furbelows. Although my conduct might violate countless precepts of Versailles’ etiquette, and the comtesse de Noailles would undoubtedly become apoplectic, I was the dauphine, the highest woman in France—and I needed to entice my husband into consummating our marriage. Who would dare gainsay me?

Two weeks after my wedding, during an otherwise unremarkable afternoon of conversation and embroidery, I received a visit from a most extraordinary quarter. No sooner had the guest been admitted than I requested the ladies attending me to retreat to the antechamber. Nonetheless, I could overhear their astonished whispers: What business, they wondered, could the comtesse have to transact with the dauphine?

I remained standing in the center of the room, the mistress of my world. According to court etiquette, as a member of the royal family I was compelled to speak first, or my visitor would be prevented from uttering a word. Endeavoring to mask my surprise I inquired warmly, “To what do I owe the honor of your call, Comtesse du Barry?”

“I have come to offer my felicitations on your marriage, madame la dauphine.” She spoke in the same soft girlish voice that seemed to enrapture the king. The comtesse sank effortlessly into the deepest of court curtsies while I stood in the center of the room. She was wearing a gown of cornflower blue silk, a shade almost identical to that of her eyes, with a stomacher and underskirt heavily embroidered with silver thread. Her pale hair was dressed with diamond aiguillettes. My dress of sea foam green satin accented with pink ruching seemed childish by comparison. In that moment I wished that I was taller, more sophisticated, more commanding. My recent efforts to appear less artificial to the dauphin seemed even more out of place beside the most glittering, glamorous creature at court. Yet when the comtesse rose from her reverence I detected a throbbing in her ample chest. For all her feigned composure, she must have been as nervous as I.

“
Merci bien
,” I said.

The comtesse could not have known, unless someone told her—and I hoped they hadn’t—that I had declared myself her rival that first night I saw her. Since then I had often spied her in the company of the king—never during the day when he visited Mesdames
tantes
in their apartments, although her presence as His Majesty’s favored companion at the formal state events celebrating my marriage was the talk of the court. People seemed shocked, yet no one criticized it openly. Apparently, the lady was extremely influential.

Maman had cautioned me that nearly everyone at Versailles
wanted something from the king. Clearly the comtesse had already managed to gain his ear. Regarding her now, so splendidly garbed and jeweled, I wondered if it had been a mistake to simplify my appearance in order to appeal to the dauphin’s more rustic tastes. For if it was the
king’s
attention I hoped to secure in order to strengthen Austria’s alliance, I would surely not obtain it looking more like a petite bourgeoise of fourteen.

I felt myself flush. I knew that my attire had given rise to gossip among the court. Although I was the highest woman in the land, it had been a mistake to risk my credit, and so soon after my arrival, when such a vibrant woman had the honor of being seated at the king’s right hand. I sensed that Madame du Barry’s slightest desire would be made manifest by His Majesty; and wasn’t that what Maman expected me to garner on Austria’s behalf? I raised my chin a little higher, a reminder that I was a Hapsburg.

The comtesse regarded me from beneath her thick lashes, a gesture I read as an attempt at humility. “If I may, madame la dauphine—I have a wedding gift for you … 
un petit cadeau
.” From one of the pockets she wore beneath her skirts she withdrew a small box tied with a blue satin ribbon. “I would be honored if you were to open it in my presence,” she urged.

Inside the velvet box was a tiny jeweled hummingbird, its throat encrusted with rubies of the richest hue I had ever seen. The body was pebbled with diamond pavé and the eye was a tiny sapphire. I smiled. “It’s very lovely.”

A chasm of silence opened between us. Neither of us quite knew what to say next.

On more than one occasion I had noticed the du Barry in conversation with the duc de la Vauguyon. Taking a second look at the little hummingbird I wondered if she was among those at Versailles who had secretly been against my marriage. Yet she had made such a kind and open gesture by visiting me that I
began to regret my suspicion; after all, it must be difficult for a beautiful woman to be a favorite companion of the king. No wonder she was the subject of so much gossip—I was learning as much myself about the power of rumor and innuendo at Versailles.

We assessed each other for what seemed like an interminable length of time. My ladies’ customary chatter wafting in from the antechamber had grown strangely silent, as if every one of my attendants was eavesdropping intently. The golden pendulum on the mantel clock swung to and fro, and I found myself counting the seconds as they ticked past. Finally I asked whether the comtesse planned to attend the
bal champêtre
in the gardens of the Palais Royal that evening. This ball was yet another nuptial celebration, although the king and my husband had declined to attend it, for reasons I did not fully comprehend; the dauphin had mumbled something about Papa Roi not being on good terms with the local officials. Nonetheless, I found it difficult to contain my excitement, for this would be my first trip to Paris, even if I was to be chaperoned by Mesdames
tantes
, and even if I would see little of the city beyond the environs of the Palais Royal. “I hear that the duc and duchesse de Chartres will open their gardens to the public for the fireworks illumination.”

“And may I express the hope that this time they will not be postponed on account of thunderstorms.” Madame du Barry smiled politely, and sank to her knees again with astonishing
longueur
. I would have to practice my own curtsies so that hers were not better. “Allow me to take my leave of you, madame la dauphine.”

I nodded my head, and she rose gracefully. The du Barry smiled. I smiled. Then she backed out of the room with studied dignity, like an actress called upon to sham the behavior of a great lady.

My warm smile remained until she had disappeared from
view, trailing a cloud of essence of orange flower behind her. Then I allowed the corners of my mouth to relax. If the comtesse was a party to the same anti-Austrian faction as the duc de la Vauguyon, and was also a confidante of Papa Roi, perhaps I would do well to cultivate her acquaintance. Yet I would show her nothing but
douceur
and amiability. Madame du Barry would find me always sweet and kind; therefore, she would be unable to speak a word against me to her friend Monsieur de la Vauguyon without appearing churlish.

But potential palace gossip and
médisance
, backbiting—an art in itself, I was warned—paled in comparison to the genuine tragedy I witnessed in Paris that evening. The
bal champêtre
began as a joyful celebration, but for many, it turned into a nightmare.

I was still convulsed with sobs when Louis Auguste came to my bed that night. My hysterical recollections, punctuated as they were by ragged breaths, sniffles, and hiccups, must have sounded to him like the ravings of a madwoman. “I wish I could have stopped it. But there were so many. Crushed.
Petits enfants
!—innocents!—who turned out for the spectacle on their parents’ shoulders.”

My husband looked confused. “What happened tonight?”