The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette (19 page)

I watched while two burly men came in with a small armchair on a platform. Then the barber-surgeon himself came in, a scruffy-looking man with a scraggly black beard, a cheap coat and tricorn hat. He nodded to us briefly and got to work.

A bowl of water was brought for him to wash his hands and I noticed that the wash water was very dirty when he finished. He laid out his instruments, then motioned for Louis-Joseph to be brought to him, and for his little flannel gown to be removed. Then he strapped the baby into the cruel-looking chair, with his poor little back and shoulder exposed. He took a long, sharp-looking steel needle and began jabbing it into his small white back. Louis-Joseph screamed, and I was so shocked I screamed with him. Blood dripped from the wounds as the
cruel probe moved upwards and over into the poor baby’s shoulder.

It was all over quickly, but I could hardly restrain myself, I was so upset. When the barber-surgeon finished, and his assistant began swabbing the wounds with an ointment and bandaging them, Louis asked the man gruffly, “Is it necessary to hurt him so?”

“Of course it is necessary. The muscles are weak. They must be strengthened through stimulation. That will be fifty francs,” he added.

“Send your bill to the minister of finance.”

“I require to be paid now.”

For a moment I thought Louis might strike the barber-surgeon, but he did not. It was unheard-of for a physician or tradesman or merchant to demand payment of the sovereign. But Louis, perhaps realizing that it had become a well known fact that many of our bills go unpaid for months or years, restrained his initial impulse. He paused, then went out into the corridor. I heard him speaking to Eric. Presently he came back in the room.

“I have sent for the funds. If you will wait—”

The barber-surgeon bowed. “Your majesty.”

The wailing Louis-Joseph was released from his confining straps and I took him in my arms, wrapping his blanket around him. I took him to the nursery and rocked him until he finally slept. But he woke again during the night, several times, and each time I applied oil of sassafras to his wounds, which had turned an ugly red.

Today he is fretful and has cried a lot. His back and arm are swollen and he feels hot to the touch. I wonder when we will see some evidence that the treatment has had a good effect.

May 10, 1782

Poor Louis-Joseph still has a swollen back and arm and it seems to me that he cannot easily move his arm now. He developed an abscess and it had to be lanced. I held him while the barber-surgeon cut open the abscess in hopes that my holding him would soothe him, but he cried anyway. I wonder, is he becoming accustomed to pain?

Sophie wants to bring an astrologer to court to cast his horoscope. She says it may give us hope for his future. But surely it might equally make us despair. I said no.

June 30, 1782

Despite our best efforts it has become impossible to keep Louis-Joseph’s condition our family secret. He can barely sit up and cannot crawl like a normal child his age and this cannot be concealed. He rarely smiles and never laughs. Toys and dogs do not interest him. My preoccupation with him and my anxious look and Louis’s frequent visits to the nursery are in themselves revealing. Mousseline is jealous of all the attention her brother receives and has become harder to manage. She is very temperamental and will not behave herself. I confess I do not know what to do to control her.

July 9, 1782

I have discovered, to my horror, that my bedchamber women are betting on when my son will die, the same way they bet among themselves last fall on when he would be born. Loulou and Sophie have orders to stop this morbid wagering.

August 2, 1782

Since the physicians and barber-surgeon have not been able to cure Louis-Joseph I decided to give in to the urgings of many at court who praise the healing gifts of the Neapolitan who calls himself Count Cagliostro.

He claims to be a healer and I have met people who say he took away their disease or their pain. He also claims to be three thousand years old and this of course I cannot believe. Nor do I think he learned his healing arts from the ancient Egyptian pharaohs or that he was raised among Arabs at the holy shrine of Mecca.

People are so gullible, they will believe anything if they are desperate enough. Their common sense goes out the window. Still, I believe there are some people who possess powers that cannot be easily explained and this Neapolitan may be one of them. If he can help my poor son I will be grateful.

I have summoned him to my apartments and he promises to come tomorrow evening.

August 4, 1782

Count Cagliostro came last night, a tall, robust man with penetrating eyes and a very theatrical manner. He wore an immense red cape and kept flourishing it as he strode through my salon, where some twenty people had gathered to witness his treatment of the dauphin. Loulou was there, and Yolande, and my sisters-in-law Josephine and Thérèse and even Count Mercy.

Cagliostro began speaking in some strange language and told us he was praying to the Egyptian god Anubis. He talked at length of his many memories, of the eras of Greece and Rome and the Middle Ages. Count Mercy snickered and I certainly understood why. It was evident to me that this Neapolitan
was trying to impress the gullible. He had no more lived in the time of Socrates and Caesar than I have—although there are some who say we have all lived many past lives, and I suppose it is possible. Besides, as Charlot remarked to me about Cagliostro, “You do realize, dear Antoinette, that the man may be a poseur and also possess genuine powers.” I was willing to wait to see the genuine powers work.

Eventually the count took a flask from an inner pocket and pulled out the stopper. A very pungent, musky scent filled the room.

“I shall now invoke the power of the ancient healer Batok, priest of Thoth,” he said solemnly. “Do not be afraid. Batok is a benevolent spirit. Should he appear to you, be assured that he is entirely harmless.”

He came over to Louis-Joseph’s cradle—I was sitting next to it—and after asking my permission, he put a drop of the liquid on the baby’s forehead, murmuring some incantations as he did so.

A whitish fog rose from the cradle and seemed, just for a moment, to form itself into a vaguely human shape before it dissipated and was gone.

“Do not be alarmed, your majesty,” Cagliostro whispered to me, bending low and touching my arm reassuringly.

The onlookers gasped and I gasped with them, but it all happened so quickly that I did not have time to react and snatch Louis-Joseph away from any danger. I looked down at him as he lay in his cradle, and saw that, very briefly, he opened his small blue eyes and for once, he seemed to actually see what was around him instead of looking vacant. The flicker of interest appeared to pass as quickly as it had come. His eyes closed and he was soundly asleep again.

Cagliostro was applauded and there were shouts of admiration and approval. With a twirl of his red cloak he was out of the room and gone.

I did not know what to think. I watched Louis-Joseph for an hour and he continued to sleep peacefully. Then, leaving Sophie to watch him, I sought out Louis who was in his library, eating pastries and reading. I told him all that had happened, and he laughed.

“A white vapor, you say? An old magician’s trick. They use a preparation called Vaporous Phosphor. It makes a puff of smoke. He probably hid it under his cloak, or it was in his flask. Batok, priest of Thoth indeed. What rubbish.”

“And yet some people swear he has helped them, that they are well because of him.”

“They have persuaded themselves into getting well,” Louis said. “But that only works for adults. Don’t expect any improvement in Louis-Joseph.”

Today, this morning, Louis-Joseph seems no different. Did I only imagine that he had a momentary mental awakening? I don’t know. At any rate, Sophie came to tell me that Count Cagliostro left in his coach at midnight last night, bound for Italy. A small crowd came to see him off, tossing rose petals in his path and begging him to return soon.

September 12, 1782

I have had my fill of healers and charlatans. First there was Count Cagliostro, then a trio of water-gazers from Martinique who claimed to see maman’s face in a bowl of water, then the Irishman who sold us Hamlin’s Wizard Oil to ease Louis-Joseph’s pains, then Sophie’s astrologer (I finally said yes to an astrologer) who predicted that Louis-Joseph would live to be ninety and have seven children.

None of them were any helpto us, though the Hamlin’s Wizard Oil did seem to ease the pain in the baby’s arm somewhat and I thought he moved it more easily after I rubbed it on.

September 20, 1782

Joseph has sent a doctor from Vienna who is able to repair crippled limbs and backs. Using the tools in Louis’s workshops he has made a small stiff brace for Louis-Joseph’s back. It has to stay on night and day, though sleeping in it is quite difficult and I’m sure Louis-Joseph will never be able to learn to walk until the corset is taken off.

September 22, 1782

I have not slept in three days and Louis-Joseph has not either. He has cried so much he is hoarse. The stiff contraption to correct his back and arm is too tight. I’m certain of it. But the doctor says no, it must stay as it is. The baby will adjust to it. Unless it is very tight it cannot work.

September 23, 1782

Exhausted and bleary-eyed, I went to Louis today, taking the weeping Louis-Joseph with me, and begged him to send the Viennese doctor away. I showed him the deep cuts on the baby’s back made by the cruel corset.

He refused to consider my request at first, but I was stubborn, and Louis-Joseph’s piteous faint scratching wailing sounds eventually became too much for him. With a great oath he threw the piece of machinery he was working on against the wall and said, “Bring him over here.” Taking his sharp cutters he cut away the stiff corset and gave the order for the Viennese doctor to be dismissed. I will write to Joseph and explain what happened.

October 18, 1782

For many months devout people have been advising me to take my son to a healing shrine, such as St.-Martin or Chartres. Pilgrims are cured at these shrines every day, they say. Why not the dauphin?

Eric told me about a series of healings that have taken place recently in St.-Brolâdre, a village not too far from here. There is an ancient spring near where a hermit lived many centuries ago. A chapel was built nearby over the hermit’s grave. People go there to pray to St. Brolâdre and many are cured. Amélie’s aunt and cousin are both alive today because of the healing powers of the saint.

“Her family lives in the village,” Eric said. “She grew up there.”

“I wonder why she did not tell me this herself.”

“I imagine, your majesty, that she was afraid you might blame her if you took your son to the shrine and he was not healed.”

I looked at Eric, his fine blue eyes as clear and earnest, his face even handsomer now than it had been when I first became infatuated with him when I was a girl so many years ago. We are both parents now, he a mature thirty-two or thirty-three, I nearly twenty-seven. We are both dissatisfied in our marriages, Eric quite miserable and I more or less resigned to Louis’s limitations as a husband, yet made happy by the knowledge of Axel’s love. I wondered whether Eric had found someone to love, a woman he could not marry but who made him happy. I hoped so.

We both knew that what he had just said about Amélie was a polite lie. We exchanged glances, wordlessly letting the lie hang in the air, unchallenged.

“I would be honored to escort you to St.-Brolâdre if you like. I know the curate there very well. He could tell you far
better than I of the many remarkable healings performed by the saint.”

“Perhaps a small traveling party, a single coach with an escort of five or six guardsmen,” I said, thinking aloud. I was remembering the times maman took us to the shrine of Ste. Radegunde, to pray with the villagers and the pious Viennese who made the pilgrimage often, taking their sick relatives and even their animals.

Maman had dressed in the plain black gown of a penitent for these excursions, and had refused to display any signs of her high birth and imperial power. She herded us all into a modest coach, crowded in together, and ordered the driver to take us to the point where the well-worn pilgrim path began. Then, taking us little ones by the hand, with my older brothers (Karl was still alive then, in my memories) and sisters walking on ahead, maman had walked amid the crowd of commoners, singing hymns and chanting prayers as the others did. Once at the shrine she had knelt in the dust, humbling herself, and prayed for those in need of healing. We witnessed several remarkable cures at that shrine, though Joseph was always skeptical of them; I remember him telling me that people are suggestible and any cures they undergo are due to their own self-hypnosis, not divine power. This is exactly what Louis says.

I thought for a moment, then smiled at Eric. “I will talk to the king about this,” I said. “If he agrees, we will go, and we will be grateful for your help.”

Eric kissed my hand and left me, saying nothing further about Amélie.

November 5, 1782

We have been to the shrine of St.-Brolâdre, but our journey did not turn out at all as we had expected it would.

In order to reach the village we had to travel through the outskirts of Paris. It has been years since I was there. I had forgotten how nasty and overcrowded the streets are, filled with rotting garbage and death-carts hauling away corpses and open sewers flowing down the center of the narrow old alleys. Far from welcoming us, the Parisians we passed looked askance at our carriage, which was clearly a nobleman’s vehicle even though it did not bear the royal coat of arms. Eric and six uniformed guardsmen rode beside the carriage and two postilions led the way.

We had hardly gone any distance along the city streets when we began attracting a crowd. Looking out of the carriage window, I could see a variety of faces, some blankly staring, some excited and smiling, many frowning and surly. The carriage slowed to let a herdsman drive some pigs past, and I clutched the sleeping Louis-Joseph more tightly in my arms.