The Exchange of Princesses (23 page)

In the king’s carriage — ritually occupied by the same persons, whose conversations vary little — the level of hatred between Philip d’Orléans and M. le Duc goes up a notch. There are no changes in the usual tone, but the air is heavy with homicidal impulses. The king, without ever going very far away, has absented himself from his palace throughout much of the spring. His returns to Versailles last only for the time it takes to arrange his next sojourn in some different château.

Like a clock that’s been stopped for several years but found intact, the mechanism of Versailles has been put back into working order. The king’s comings and goings basically disrupt nothing. In his presence as in his absence, the courtiers are obliged to make a reverence when they pass in front of the royal bed. The infanta is kept informed of all the king’s movements. She plainly expresses her displeasure when she’s not invited along — which is often the case when the invitation has come from M. le Duc. However, as when she wasn’t allowed to travel to Reims for the king’s coronation, it doesn’t take much for the infanta to regain her confidence. A message, a jewel, a flower, and she welcomes the king back with demonstrations of affection. He persists in not talking to her. Mme de Ventadour insists that his reticence is proof of love. Can the infanta really believe that? She’d very much like to, but it’s becoming more and more difficult for her. There’s not only the matter of the king’s silence — always his most immediate reaction — but there’s
also the expression that accompanies it, the annoyance he doesn’t hesitate to display ostentatiously.

The infanta tells the king about her visit to the labyrinth in the gardens, moves on to one of Aesop’s fables, mimics the rabbit with the big ears, leaps from her chair to demonstrate how it scurries away; Louis XV seizes the opportunity to sneak off. The perfect image is starting to reveal some defects. A few shadowy areas are hiding in the brilliant mirror. And as for the portraits where they’re depicted as a couple and where the miracle of such a lovely union is documented for posterity, the infanta doesn’t fail to notice the fact that they never pose together. The painter begins with her, because she moves around so much that it takes a long time to capture her. But throughout those long sessions, she can’t stop believing that the king is going to join her, that the two of them will pose side by side for Jean-François de Troy or Alexis Simon Belle or Hyacinthe Rigaud. Eventually, Mariana Victoria’s disappointment puts her in a bad mood, which she takes out on the artist. As he has no desire to lose a royal commission, the painter is careful not to snap back at her. The infanta grows angrier and storms off the set, scattering paintbrushes in her wake. Mme de Ventadour catches up with her, implores her to take up her pose again. The infanta calms down and allows herself to be reinstalled on the velvet armchair. Her hairdo, her makeup, the folds of her dress, her gesture toward the crown — everything is properly adjusted once again. The sitting ends well. The infanta is happy and relieved, because these portraits are destined for her parents, destined to nurture their memory of her. And if there were no more portraits, or if they were
failures, then she would fall into the hole of oblivion, and as far as Madrid was concerned, it would be as if she hadn’t existed. A comment by Elisabeth Farnese in a letter to Don Luis gives a just idea of this fragile survival, so closely linked to the pictorial talent of the infanta’s painters: “Mariannina’s portrait has arrived. If it resembles her, she is very much changed, and not for the better.”

And in Versailles, where she in any case lives, does she really exist? Is her existence taken seriously? Her will is rarely opposed, and when it is, she’s willing to recognize that it’s for her own good; so well has she learned the lessons instilled by Mme de Ventadour. The child proudly reports her good conduct to her parents: “I am quite reasonable. I hardly ever get into moods anymore. Everyone loves me madly,” or, “My dear and much beloved Maman, I have been charming all this week,” or again, “To please you, I am as nice as can be.” For those around her, her desires are orders. The infanta’s charm (“everything she says,” “her little ways,” “her endless antics,” in the words of Mme de Ventadour) continues to work, except on the person she adores. There are certainly a few problems in the sphere where she reigns, but they seem insignificant. For example, on the days when she holds audience, her room is less full than it once was. There may be something of a drop, even a noticeable drop, in the general eagerness to see her. It’s that she’s no longer an event, and also that the Princess Palatine’s enthusiastic support of her was infectious: since she found her extraordinary, it was plain that she was. In the courtiers’ eyes, the queen-infanta has been trivialized. She’s still as remarkable as ever, she still seems older than her size indicates, but
that’s just the point; some are beginning to worry about her size and the rumor that she’s not growing starts to spread.

She’s measured more and more often, with less and less deference. Mariana Victoria feels a violent urge to modify the course of things. Wearing an undershirt and a petticoat, she stands barefoot on the floor. She rises on tiptoe under the measuring rod. The second physician thwacks the floor with the wooden rod and brings her back to reality. He announces the verdict. The third physician notes it down. The first physician sums up: same height as last time. The queen-infanta has tears in her eyes.

“I want to grow,” she says to Louis-Doll. “We must grow.” She gives him a three-point speech on the said necessity and undertakes to find out about magic potions. She invents some herself: decoctions of sand, water, fern roots, peppercorns, and orange blossoms. Carmen-Doll takes charge of producing the potions. Louis-Doll’s job is to taste them.

Toledo: First Time Alone Together

The Princess of Asturias, who gets on with no one, gets on with the climate. To unanimous disapproval, she has realized that she has to dress — or rather to undress — according to the temperature. When the first warm days arrive, she can no longer keep still, she demands new activities. She likes the Spanish summer, she likes the scorching air, the breathless nights, and at the first signs of the relentless heat to come, she comes to life. Her health is pretty good. Of course, she suffers constantly from indigestion because of the “vilenesses,” as the Prince of Asturias says, that she stuffs herself with. She never eats anything hot. When she’s supposed to make an appearance at a meal, the excuse she gives is that she has already dined. She eats sporadically, whenever the mood strikes her, which can be at any time. She gorges on vinegared vegetables and salted meats. Afterward she’s dying of thirst and swallows every liquid within reach. Her body makes disgusting sounds.
She laughs about them after she’s finished vomiting. These indispositions, for which she herself is responsible, don’t prevent her from growing taller and heavier and gaining energy. This spring she’s wild about gardening, taking walks, and riding horseback. It’s hard to follow her. Some of her ladies drop out. Louise Élisabeth hadn’t even noticed they were there.

In contrast with his wife’s burst of growth — peppered though it is, after her fashion, with bad moments — Don Luis’s health is by no means glowing. He’s losing weight and constantly catching cold. Louise Élisabeth is no more seduced than she was in the beginning by the gray-skinned young man to whom her father has joined her, but in spite of herself she’s responsive to his love for her, and most of all, she wants something to happen. Never seeing him weighs on her. And the fixed, immovable date of their wedding night, the consummation scheduled for August 25 without any preliminary meetings beforehand, strikes her as absurd. To a French diplomat, she expresses her surprise at the distance established and so strictly maintained between her and her husband. The Frenchman reports to Cardinal Dubois that she asked him, “blushing very much,” how the king was living with the infanta and whether they saw each other often.

“Very often,” responded the envoy from Versailles, playing his part in the high-level lying. “And there’s no doubt that their frequent interviews have resulted in a perfect understanding.”

“Indeed, I am sure that the king of France has nothing to reproach himself for on that account.”

M. de Coulanges explains that Louise Élisabeth smiled when she said that. A sad smile, because she’s comparing her fate to the queen-infanta’s happiness? Or a purely formal smile, because — unlike Philip V and Elisabeth Farnese, who believe what they’re told in the letters from France — she has her doubts? She knows her cousin, and she wonders whether M. de Coulanges isn’t obliged to stick to the official version. However that may be, her conversation with him has an effect. Philip V and Elisabeth Farnese arrange a trip for themselves and the young couple. The reason for the trip is a pious one: the royal family is traveling to Toledo Cathedral to hear a “Mozarabic” Mass, a rarity only to be found in that city. Louise Élisabeth hadn’t had any notion of what an auto-da-fé might be (now she knows; she still has the smell of burned flesh in her nostrils), and she isn’t any more informed concerning the existence of Mozarabic Masses. Makes no difference. At least it will be a distraction.

The characteristics of the Mass, celebrated in exact accordance with the liturgical forms and practices in use before the conquest of Spain by the Moors, don’t make much of an impression on her. Neither the dances nor the music draws her attention. Masses follow and resemble one another: so many blocks of time to get through, so many somnolent and often frigid hours. The real novelty is that the prince and the princess are authorized by Their Majesties to dine together, just the two of them.

The dinner goes well. Louise Élisabeth devours hers. She says two or three words to the prince. He eats nothing and contemplates her. He’s absolutely charmed. She doesn’t vomit.

Frog Fishing

After their return to Madrid, Philip V and Elisabeth Farnese leave for Valsaín and the prince and princess for El Escorial. She’s going to resume her hazardous horseback rides. He’s going to insist on scouring the terrain, gun in hand, anxious to obtain some good hunting trophies to present to his father. All things considered, it’s not a good season. The prince laments having repeatedly missed his targets; the king reassures him: “One can’t kill without shooting, my well-beloved son, and thus you must console yourself for yesterday’s bad hunting. You will perhaps be able to make up for it today.”

But the results remain mediocre. “I am vexed, my well-beloved son, that you did not have better partridge hunting … perhaps you have made up for it today by killing some large beast …” And when for lack of anything better Don Luis begins to go frog fishing, the shame is great. For although such hunting delights the princess and the infantes, it does nothing at all for Their Majesties: “If you have been able to kill a stag today, my well-beloved son, or even a fallow deer, I believe it will have meant more to you than yesterday’s twelve frogs.”

The frog fishing amuses Louise Élisabeth. She and others put on a play, a comedy (Philip V’s comment to his son: “In spite of what you wrote to me in your letter about the comedy yesterday, a half-pound carp would probably have given you more pleasure in fishing …”), and at the end of July, a
jeu
d’anneau tournant
, a rotating ring game, is installed. “I am very glad, my well-beloved son, that you have such a lovely
jeu d’anneau tournant
as the one you described in yesterday’s letter,” writes the king, immediately followed by the queen: “I was very happy to learn from your letter yesterday that you and the Princess and all the others enjoyed the rotating ring game, and I am quite delighted that it is beautiful, desiring infinitely as I do all that can contribute to your satisfaction.” Louise Élisabeth doesn’t have her mother-in-law’s lively pen. As she’s incapable of dilating indefinitely upon racket or ring games, she avoids answering her mail as much as possible. The queen: “When the letters came this morning I wondered if the Princess was indisposed, because we haven’t heard from her at all, even though yesterday was her writing day, but I see from the Duchess de Montellano’s note that the Princess is well, thank God.”

After the hunts for large and small game, the prince tackles garter snakes. Philip V approves: “I rejoice with you in your destruction of the garter snakes,” and Elisabeth Farnese is even more supportive: “I am very glad that you have destroyed so many garter snakes, because as you know they are no friends of mine.”

The outside world rarely manifests itself in these inter-palace exchanges; sometimes Philip V mentions the arrival of news from France. Don Luis, for his part, writes to his half-sister Mariana Victoria. Their father passes the missive along: “Your letter for the Queen my daughter, who is very well, will leave with the next mail” (July 11, 1723).

Besides that, there’s nothing to report.

He Will Never Be Pope

The drought in France extends its ravages. What storms there are bring no rain; the Seine is very low. In Paris, to breathe is to poison yourself. In the country, fires break out on their own. Flocks of sheep die in place, on cracked, white-hot earth. Branches of trees — those that still have leaves — are cut off to feed animals. Landscapes of stones and skeletons. The peasants have nothing to offer that might appease the wrath of God. They drag themselves along on their knees across the countryside, getting scratches from roadside thorns, flogging and bruising themselves. They chant their guilt and beg for pardon. Priests, their faces turned skyward, their hands lifted up in the torrid air, call for rain. The processions thin out between one wayside cross and another, the hymns break up, bit by bit. There’s not a cloud. Not a drop.

The peasants, who would like to murder the priests, slip at dusk into witches’ shacks, utter occult formulas, try
crucifying victims other than, or rather lesser than, the son of God. The witches thrash about. The peasants support them in their paroxysms. Not a cloud. Not a drop. The distress is total. People turn to the church. People speak to Philip d’Orléans. In this emergency, what’s needed is a remedy of the last resort, a divine intervention. After some tense negotiations (it’s important that the ceremony be regarded as an exception), the bishop of Paris agrees to announce a procession and most importantly grants an authorization (hitherto unheard of) to take Saint Genevieve’s reliquary out of its church and carry it about the streets. Not a cloud. Not a drop. The drought provokes epidemics. The desolation gets worse.