Thérèse had good reason to feel triumphant. She had proved herself fertile, and it seemed probable that neither of her husband’s brothers could provide those greatly wished-for enfants de France. If this were so, her children might one day wear the crown.

The lying-in chamber was crowded for it was the custom that all who cared to be were permitted to witness the birth of one who might inherit the throne of France.

Her sister Josèphe, she knew, was anxious; as for the Queen, it was said she would willingly give ten years of her life if she might give birth to an heir.

But neither of them was to have her wishes granted; and it was Thérèse, plain Thérèse, who was the fortunate one.

Antoinette was standing by the bed now.

‘Why, Thérèse,’ she said, ‘you are indeed fortunate. The baby is charming … charming … ’

Thérèse’s thin lips curled into a supercilious smile, and Antoinette turned from the bed. She knew what Thérèse was thinking. Indeed, everyone present was thinking the same. It seemed to her that the eyes of those whose vulgar curiosity had brought them to the chamber of birth at this time, were fixed on her.

For, thought Antoinette, they have not come to see the birth of Thérèse’s child, but to witness the mortification of a barren Queen.

She commanded that the child be brought to her that she might embrace it. There it lay on the velvet cushion, its little face red and puckered, its tiny hands clenched.

‘May God bless you, my child,’ she murmured.

There was a hush all about her. One of the women from the fish-market called out in her raucous voice: ‘’Tis your own child you should be holding in your arms.’

This vulgar poissarde had merely voiced what all were thinking. Antoinette turned to her and nodded slowly. Then with great dignity she handed the child back to the nurses, and went to the bed to take her leave of Thérèse.

‘You need rest,’ she said.

Thérèse agreed. She was exhausted, and the room was warm with the press of people.

‘It is a barbarous custom, this,’ whispered Antoinette. ‘So many to stare at a woman at such a time.’

‘Yes,’ said Thérèse with a hint of malice in her voice, ‘but one must endure the inconvenience for the satisfaction of giving birth to a child.’

‘I would willingly endure it,’ murmured Antoinette; and as she kissed her sister-in-law and turned away, she thought: ‘Most willingly.’

The sightseers fell back as she walked calmly to the door. She heard the whispers about her, for what did the common people, whose privilege it was to storm the bedchamber at such times, know of Court etiquette or ordinary good manners?

‘One would think she would be ashamed … ’

‘It may be that if she spent less time at her balls and fêtes, and more with the King …’

‘Yet there she goes, haughty as they make them … These Austrians … they are not like the French. They are cold, so they say. They do not make good mothers …’

‘Holy Mother of God,’ prayed Antoinette, ‘how can I endure it? Why cannot I have a child? If I had a child … a Dauphin for France, I should be the happiest woman in the world. Is it so much to ask? Is it not my due? Why should I be denied what I want more than anything on earth?’

Again she felt that choking sensation in her throat, and she was afraid that she would break down and show her misery to them all.

As she passed through the salle des gardes she was aware that the women of the fish-market were walking beside her.

To them she seemed unreal. Their hands were so red and coarse, chapped with handling cold and slimy fish; but those little hands, sparkling with jewels, looked as though they were made of china. The Queen herself looked as though she were made of china. Her golden hair was piled high and dressed with flowers and ribbons; her dress was of rich silk, cut low to show her dazzlingly white throat on which the diamonds blazed; her silk skirts rustled as she walked; and it seemed to the coarse women of the fish-market that such a creature was no more than a pretty doll and that France had need of something more than an ornament on its throne. Beside this exquisite creature they felt coarse, and, as always, envy bred hatred. Many of them had more children than they could afford to feed. They remembered the pain of childbirth, the sickening repetition of conception, gestation and birth. Why should we go through all that, they demanded of themselves, while this pretty piece of frivolity, who looks like a china ornament to be kept in a glass case for fear of breaking, knows how to have all the pleasure in the world and won’t even suffer the pain of bearing a child?

‘When are we going to see your lying-in, Madame?’ one demanded boldly.

‘Wouldn’t it be a better thing to give a child to France than so many fêtes to your friends?’ cried another.

‘Oh, Madame is too dainty, too pretty to bear children. Madame is afraid that would spoil her dainty figure.’

She could not look at them; she dared not. What would they say in the streets of Paris if these creatures went back to their stalls and told how the Queen had so far forgotten her majesty that she had wept before them?

So she held her head high; she looked neither to the left nor to the right, and it seemed to her a very long walk from the lying-in chamber of Thérèse to her own apartments.

They misinterpreted her gesture. The high colour in her cheeks, the tilt of her head – that was haughtiness, that was Austrian manners which she was bringing into France.

Their blood was up. Now they spoke to her and each other in the coarsest terms. They told each other crudely why she and the King could not have children. They repeated all the rumours, all the stories, which were circulating in the lowest cafés and taverns of the town.

They would show the proud Austrian that French poissardes did not mince their words.

Still she walked on; they were surrounding her and she could feel their hands on her clothes; their hot breath, smelling of garlic, their clothes saturated with the stench of fish, made her fear she would faint.

The Princesse de Lamballe, who walked beside her, was breathing heavily, and Antoinette knew that the Princesse was afraid of the people when they came too close. These women crowding about them reminded Antoinette of the mob she had seen from the balconies at the time of the Guerre des Farines. They were the same people who had shouted Vive le Roi! Vive la Reine! in Rheims – the same people in a different mood.

The apartments were reached at last. The pages opened the door. For one hideous second she was afraid the poissardes would follow her. In that second it was possible to think other evil thoughts. She was able to picture them, laying their dirty hands upon her, stripping her of her clothes, while their obscene observations became more obscene.

She thought: I am afraid of the people of France.

Then the door was shut and there was peace. She could no longer hear the voices, no longer smell the fish market.

The Princesse de Lamballe, her dearest friend, was beside her.

‘They should not upset you,’ murmured the Princesse. ‘The low rabble … what do we care for them?’

‘I care, not for them nor their lewdness, their obscenity,’ said Antoinette. ‘I care only that I am a barren Queen.’

Then she went to her bed and lay there sobbing quietly.

The Princesse de Lamballe drew the curtains and left her to sob out her grief.


* * *

The Princesse de Lamballe, whom the Queen had selected for her special friend soon after she came to the throne, was a charming young girl, generous and sentimental, truly fond of the Queen, truly distressed to see her unhappy.

As Marie Thérèse Louise de Savoie-Carignan, a member of the noble house of Savoy, she had been married very early to Louis Stanislas de Bourbon, Prince de Lamballe, who was the only son of a grandson of Louis Quatorze and Madame de Montespan. Fortunately for the Princesse her husband had died a year after their marriage, worn out by a life of excessive dissipation; and the Princesse’s experiment in matrimony, being so brief, had left her gentle and eager for friendship. She was a little naive in her outlook, young for her years in spite of her experiences, and Antoinette, perhaps owing to her own unfortunate matrimonial experiences, found the girl’s company attractive.

Antoinette had bestowed on the Princesse the post of superintendent of her houshold and, as this post had not been held by anyone for over thirty years, it was clearly of no great importance although it carried with it a salary of 150,000 livres. Antoinette wished to keep her charming friend at her side and see her entertain at the Court; therefore it had been her great pleasure to bestow the post upon her.

It was unwise, since there were so many to watch and criticise her actions, but Antoinette shut her eyes to criticism.

After that humiliating and even alarming walk from the lying-in chamber of Madame d’Artois to the Queen’s apartments, the Princesse, drawing the curtains about the Queen’s bed, stood uncertainly, wondering what she could do to comfort her beloved mistress.

Sensing that Antoinette wished to be alone with her grief she tiptoed to the door and there was met by the little Marquise de Clermont-Tonnerre.

‘Rose Bertin has come to see you,’ she said, ‘concerning a dress. I told her you were with the Queen and that she had no right to come to the château unless sent for. I could not get rid of her.’

The Princesse, glad to have something to do, said that she would go to her apartments, which adjoined those of the Queen, and that Rose Bertin should be brought to her there.