Marie Antoinette (13 page)

Elaborate preparations had been made for the celebration of the royal marriage by France’s capital city. Merchants agreed to put up their shutters both on the day of the wedding itself and for the setting off of the fireworks. Detailed police orders were also issued. But for some reason workmen had dug a series of trenches which blocked the exits from the Place Louis XV (now the Place de la Concorde). As the colossal crowds sought to move with the progress of the illuminations, men, women, children and, even more disastrously, horses and carriages plunged in. Altogether, 130 people were crushed to death. Lord Edward Beauclerk could not open his carriage door for the pile of corpses and when his groom finally got out, he found his own father dead in the heap. Fifty-five years later, the Comte de Ségur wrote of the dead in his memoirs: “Methinks I still hear their cries . . .” They were buried in a certain common grave by the Church of the Madeleine off the rue d’Anjou (which would later be used for those executed by the state). The next day the appalled young royal couple dedicated a month’s income each for the relief of the dependents.

A little while later, Marie Antoinette further established her public reputation for sweetness and mercy by stopping her carriage for over an hour to aid an injured postilion. She would not continue until she had established the presence of a surgeon. She then insisted on a stretcher for the wounded man, instead of an uncomfortable post-chaise, and followed its progress. This behaviour was much acclaimed, Mercy reported to Vienna. Another celebrated incident confirmed the image. When a peasant wine-grower was gored by a stag in the course of the royal hunt, the Dauphine conveyed the unfortunate man in her own coach, while making arrangements for the family he left behind and for his ruined crops. Wide publicity was given to the scene, commemorated in engravings, tapestries and even fans, under the general title, “An Example of Compassion.” This much-disseminated image of the lovely, caring Dauphine was felt to be completely appropriate for a future Queen of France.

For once publicity did not lie. The impulse of compassion was genuine enough and was deeply rooted in Marie Antoinette’s character. “She was so happy at doing good and hated to miss any opportunity of doing so,” wrote Madame Campan of a much later occasion: some country people addressed to her a petition on the subject of a predatory game-bird, reserved for the King’s sport, which was destroying their crops. Marie Antoinette ordered the bird to be destroyed. Six weeks later, when the arrival of a second petition made her aware that her orders had not been carried out, she was upset and angry.

It is true that Marie Antoinette’s insistence on personal involvement in humanitarian enterprises—a tradition in which she had been brought up in Vienna—was privately thought to be rather unnecessary at Versailles. Louis XV pointed this out when the Dauphine requested permission to go to Paris to comfort one of her Dames du Palais, the Comtesse de Mailly, who had lost her only child: “We are not accustomed to paying visits at a distance, my dear daughter.” All the same, he agreed that she might act according to the dictates of her “kind heart.”

This lauded public style contrasted dismally with what was actually going on behind the royal bedroom door. In short,
rien
, the word actually used by Louis Auguste in his hunting journal to denote a day without sport but curiously appropriate to his marital situation. Marie Antoinette herself attached much importance to his sixteenth birthday—23 August 1770—and the Dauphin seems to have made some promise to her that matters would be remedied when the royal family went to Compiègne around this date. Then “he would make her his wife.” Unfortunately the visit passed without any change in a situation that was at once puzzling and deeply humiliating. In September a further promise was made, but Marie Antoinette made the mistake of boasting about the impending glorious event to Mesdames Tantes who quickly spread the news. The Dauphin used this as an excuse to renege yet again.

No doubt out of embarrassment, having to run the gauntlet of speculative courtiers as he made his way there and, worse still, back again, Louis Auguste stopped visiting his wife’s bed on a regular basis. The proper apartments of the Dauphine, to which she had attached some hopes, were readied at last. In the process there was a considerable clash of wills between the royal architect Gabriel and the Dauphine, supported in this case by the Dauphin. The young couple wanted something plainer, simpler than the magnificent gilded style that had prevailed before. Above all, they wanted something that could be finished quickly. Marie Antoinette’s constant pleas were for the project to be most quickly realizable: “a white dais, any dais.” But Gabriel thought a square white platform would produce “a monstrous dissonance,” and in any case 50,000 livres had been allowed for the gilding thought suitable for a Dauphine. In the end roses and fleur-de-lys alternated, together with sphinxes holding the arms of France. Over the bed itself loomed the great double-headed eagle of Austria.

In avoiding the predatory gaze of the eagle—and the expectant little eagle lying below it—Louis Auguste was helped by the custom of the French court by which married couples did not necessarily share beds. This became an enduring bone of contention between the Empress and her daughter. Maria Teresa, who, believing in the marital double bed herself, attached enormous importance to this spending-the-night-together, presumably hoping that passion might strike the Dauphin in some unguarded moment in the middle of the night or the early morning. Austrian ways in this respect were in her opinion definitely preferable. Maria Teresa refused to listen to Marie Antoinette’s citation of the usages of France—those usages that in another context she had specifically told her daughter to respect.

The irritation of the Empress with a situation that even she could not control—although she tried hard—grew with the months. Her personal solution (quite apart from a double bed), which she advocated relentlessly over the coming months, was caresses and “redoubled caresses.” Had she not given her own recipe for a happy marriage—a subject on which she was an acknowledged expert—in May? “Everything depends on the wife, if she is willing, sweet and
amusante
.”

The attitude of the French King, whose flagrant enjoyment of extramarital bliss provided such an embarrassing contrast to the laggardliness of his grandson, was rather more laid back. A royal doctor made a physical inspection and for the time being had nothing adverse to report. An enquiry to Louis Auguste himself brought about the temporizing reply that although he found the Dauphine delightful, he could not as yet conquer his shyness. So there was no progress. When the Duchess of Northumberland, making diplomatic small talk, suggested that the Dauphin, who had been hunting all day, must have been impatient to get back to his wife, the King answered drily: “I can’t say he mentioned anything on the subject.” Privately he told his favourite grandson, Don Ferdinand of Parma: “It will happen when we least expect it.”

Yet there was a more serious aspect to the situation than the implied refusal of a gawky adolescent boy (“The Dauphin is not a man like others!” wrote Maria Teresa crossly) to act the husband. This was the manifest public coldness that he showed to his young wife. In the summer of 1770, Mercy optimistically predicted of Marie Antoinette’s relationship with Louis Auguste: “There can be no doubt that with a little caution, she will be able to dominate him completely.” But of that there was little sign.

It was true that the influence of the Duc de Vauguyon, the Dauphin’s anti-Austrian Governor, began to wane. Marie Antoinette reported proudly that she had managed to elude the appointment of a confessor in the Vauguyon camp by appealing directly to the King to appoint one. (Although the rules of the Catholic Church concerning the secrecy of the confessional were strict enough for the Dauphine’s spiritual faults to be safe from inspection, a confessor could still exercise considerable influence merely by the advice he gave.) Marie Antoinette also told a comic tale of catching Vauguyon listening at the keyhole when she was in conversation with the Dauphin; in her version the two young people laughed together at Vauguyon’s discomfiture.

Nevertheless the lessons of his tutor had been well learnt by Louis Auguste in his youth. He had been warned in advance against the domination of an Austrian archduchess—in the interests of Austria—and dark stories had been told about the Habsburgs. Here was the Archduchess in person. From the point of view of Maria Teresa, it was an error to suppose that sexual incompatibility was the only problem facing her daughter, and that if that was solved, everything was solved. Louis Auguste’s uncommunicative
Journal
does, however, give details of his health. Throughout the summer he suffered a series of digestive upsets, which although attributed to his habit of guzzling sweet pastries (about which Marie Antoinette ticked him off) were surely linked to the pressure he felt.

In this way Marie Antoinette’s efforts to share the Dauphin’s predominant interest by attending the hunt even if she did not actually hunt herself, in short, to make herself part of his daytime life if not his night-time occupation, were well advised. Maria Teresa, however, waxed furious about the fact that she rode. It was true that a riding mishap would have been most unfortunate if the Dauphine had actually had any chance of being pregnant; but since she had none, that issue could hardly be said to arise. Nevertheless the Empress, ignoring her own sporting past, preached against the practice. In vain the Dauphine pointed out that the King of France himself—to whose wishes she was supposed to be subject—had given her money for horses and had welcomed her presence. Maria Teresa merely told an anecdote of a princess of Portugal who had had a miscarriage through riding. The implication that her daughter had really only one function, one that she was not fulfilling successfully, was inescapable.

Illogically—but then the Empress, like many people who believe themselves to be always in the right, was not necessarily logical—Maria Teresa praised a portrait of her daughter in riding-costume carried out by Joseph Krantzinger in 1771, and rated it her favourite. This charming equestrian study showed the Dauphine wearing a raking tricorne-hat (which concealed her high forehead), her eyes wide and doe-like, her pretty hands well displayed. It was found to be “very like” by the mother and also incidentally by the ambassador. Maria Teresa kept it in her study and another in the private little room where she worked at night: “Thus, I have you always with me, under my eyes.” These were words, of course, that were capable of a metaphorical interpretation.

Mercy, who in principle deplored the Dauphine’s spontaneity, while paradoxically praising her for her “good instincts,” was similarly critical when she handed out cold meats at a hunting party to young people of the court. This was conduct unbecoming in the Dauphine of France. And yet the attempt to secure Louis Auguste’s friendship by undemanding friendliness—and hunting was, so far as could be seen, his only unequivocal passion—was surely as good, if not better, a method of proceeding as Maria Teresa’s “redoubled caresses,” which had no appearance of being welcome. In December 1770, the Dauphine began to give little dances in her apartments which the Dauphin attended; they might at least enjoy a normal social life if a normal sexual one still eluded them. The sight of his wife dancing even elicited a wistful comment from the Dauphin who was so clumsy himself. When a court lady praised Marie Antoinette, Louis Auguste replied: “She has so much grace that she does everything perfectly.”

Coming to terms as she was with her hutx1and’s lack of sexual interest, Marie Antoinette also had to cope with the implications of his grandfather’s continuing sexual energy. The presence of the Du Barry at court constituted a problem—but only if it was allowed to become one. Morals at Versailles were lightly worn. The nobility married young, their marriages being more or less arranged, and then lapsed gracefully into extramarital relationships, which were generally tolerated provided they were conducted in sufficiently elegant style. The polite expostulation of the Duc de Richelieu on finding his wife in bed with her lover, expressed the mood: “Just think, Madame, of the embarrassment if anyone but myself had discovered you.” The Duc de Guiche apologized to his wife for returning unexpectedly and finding her in a similar situation; he was the one at fault for not giving due warning.

There were many long liaisons established at court, such as that of the Prince de Guéméné with the beautiful half-Irish Madame Dillon. The conduct of their affair demonstrated the cool manners of the day. The Comtesse d’Ossun said that when she first arrived at court she understood they were lovers, but six months later she no longer believed it. Affairs with actresses, singers and dancers were accepted with similar sophistication. When the Prince de Hénin began an affair with the famous singer Sophie Arnould, the Princesse professed herself delighted that her husband had found an occupation on the grounds that “an unemployed man is so dull.”

In such a climate, the presence of a royal
ma"tresse-en-titre
as such was hardly likely to raise many eyebrows among the majority of the French courtiers who had been accustomed to a changing cast of such ladies for most of the long reign, even if the Du Barry’s disreputable origins were more difficult to accept. Nevertheless by now “the new lady,” as she was known, was simply a force with whose influence they had to reckon. Unfortunately there were three reasons why Marie Antoinette found herself unable to take such a pragmatic view of simply accepting the fact that “the Harlot” pleased the King (the attitude she had innocently expressed at La Muette when she declared herself the rival to the unknown charmer). In that first surviving letter of 9 July 1770, Marie Antoinette described the Du Barry as “the most stupid and impertinent creature that you can imagine” and she expressed pity for the King’s “weakness” for her. She now began to pride herself on giving the favourite no formal acknowledgement.