Antoinette delighted in their admiration. She liked to remember that she was not only a Queen but a very charming and desirable woman. This failure to get a child filled her with a great desire to have handsome men about her. It was not due to her lack of attraction that the King preferred his blacksmith’s shop. She wanted to reassure not only the Court of that but herself.

There was one who was in constant attendance. That was Artois. Louis had his state duties, and his relaxation with his books and locks; Louis liked to retire early to bed and rise early. Provence held himself aloof from the Queen’s set. He had his own reasons. He now firmly believed that he would follow his brother to the throne, for he was certain that Louis and Antoinette would never have children. He wanted to show France that he was quiet and steady – and that he would be a good King. He suffered from a disability similar to that which afflicted Louis. He was sterile, and poor Josèphe was as barren as Antoinette.

Artois, the youngest of the brothers, had no such ambitions. He wanted only to enjoy himself. He was high spirited, ready for any adventure; he was already heartily sick of Thérèse, the only one of the royal wives who proved fertile; she was already pregnant again, and Artois believed that his only duty was to make sure that Thérèse was pregnant and then desert her for his mistresses, of whom he had many. The love of gaiety which he sensed in the Queen was his own love of gaiety. He enjoyed her company and he contrived to make himself her constant attendant.

The rumours were soon circulating.

‘Artois is the Queen’s lover,’ said the people of Paris. ‘They are often seen together.’

These rumours did not reach the King. None cared to talk to him of his wife’s levity. As for Louis, he thought Antoinette the loveliest creature at Court and, because of his failure as a husband, he still felt the wish to indulge her. Provence heard the rumours and delighted in them. He was too shrewd to show his dislike of the Queen; his was a secret brooding antagonism. Many of the rumours were started by himself and Josèphe, but outwardly he feigned friendship.

Thus Antoinette was thrown into the company of Artois – which suited her own mood – and although she looked upon him merely as a convenient companion and brother, rumour persisted that they were lovers.

They were seen together at the Opéra balls; they went together to the races – a new innovation from England. Artois could be seen riding into Paris in his cabriolet and returning to Versailles in the early hours of the morning. In the winter he and Antoinette had sledging parties, much to the disgust of the people who declared this to be yet another Austrian fashion introduced by the Queen. They made up parties to see the sunrise. And after such a party, it was said that the Queen disappeared into a copse and remained there for quite a long time with one of the gentlemen.

The days were full for Antoinette and it was a matter of dashing from pleasure to pleasure. She rarely rose before four or five in the afternoon. How could she, when she had been dancing through the night? The ceremony of the rising would begin with her going through her book in which were pinned miniature models of all the dresses in her wardrobe. She would take a pin and place it in the model of the dress she wished to wear for the beginning of her day. There were endless discussions with her favourites, and Madame de Polignac was always nearest to the Queen, and the Princesse de Lamballe not far distant. And while the Queen was being dressed they would chatter together about the night’s fête or ball or entertainment. There might be a session with dear Madame Bertin who had become almost as great a friend as Lamballe and Polignac.

One day Antoinette’s carriage broke down as she was riding masked to Paris for a ball, and while the driver went to procure another carriage, the Queen saw a fiacre, hailed it and arrived at the ball in it.

Antoinette, delighted with her adventure, immediately began to talk of it. It was so amusing; and she had never ridden in a fiacre before.

This story was hailed with horror by all the Court. What lack of etiquette! What defiance of form!

The people of Paris supplied a sequel. The Queen had had her reasons for riding in a fiacre. Quite clearly she had come from a rendezvous with her latest lover.

This story brought protests from the Empress.

Antoinette must mend her ways. Whither was she going? asked her distracted mother. Gossip abounded. She danced through the night, slept through the day, scarcely saw her husband and had so far failed to give France a Dauphin.

She must change her mode of living.


* * *

It was a hot summer’s day. The Queen’s calash was speeding along the road past a group of cottages when a child ran out.

There was a wild scream and the boy was lying bleeding by the roadside.

The Queen called at once to the coachman to stop. The calash drew up and Antoinette alighted.

Several people came out from the cottages, but Antoinette did not see them; she had picked up the child and was looking with dismay at the blood on his woollen cap.

And as she looked at him he opened his eyes and met her gaze.

‘I thank God,’ said the Queen, ‘he is not dead.’ She turned to a woman who was standing near by. ‘Could we not take him into his home? He ran out in front of the horses. I feared he might have been killed. Where does he live?’

The woman indicated a cottage.

‘I will carry him there,’ said the Queen.

The driver of her calash was beside her. ‘Permit me, Your Majesty.’

But Antoinette, deeply conscious of that emotion which children never failed to arouse in her, held the child tightly in her arms and refused to relinquish him. The boy was gazing up at her and a little colour had returned to his cheeks. Antoinette saw with relief that he was not badly hurt after all.

An old woman had come to the door of that cottage for which they were making. She saw Antoinette, recognised her, and knelt beside her water butt.

‘I pray you rise,’ said Antoinette. ‘This little boy has been hurt. He is yours?’

‘He is my grandson, Your Majesty.’

‘We must see how badly hurt he is.’

The old woman turned and led the way into the cottage. Antoinette had never before been inside such a place. There was one room only, which housed a big family, and it seemed that there were children everywhere. They were all regarding the splendid apparition with astonished bewilderment.

‘Make your curtsys,’ said the old woman. ‘This is the Queen.’

The children bobbed quaint curtsys which made the susceptible Antoinette’s eyes fill with tears.

Oh, the squalor, the unclean smell – and so many children in one small room, when the spacious royal nursery was quite bare! It was heartbreaking.

She laid the child on the table because there appeared to be nowhere else to put him.

‘I don’t think he is badly hurt,’ she said. ‘I was afraid when I saw the blood on his face.’

‘What was he up to?’ asked the old woman. And the Queen noticed that the child cowered away from her. One small hand was grasping the Queen’s dress, and it was as though those round eyes were pleading for royal protection.

‘ ’Twas but natural for a child to run into the road,’ said the Queen. ‘If we had some water we could bathe that wound on his forehead and mayhap we could bandage it.’

‘Odette,’ cried the woman. ‘Get some water.’

A dark-eyed girl, whose matted hair fell about her face, could not remove her eyes from the Queen as she took a bucket and went out to the well.

‘What is the little one’s name?’ asked the Queen.

‘James Armand, Madame,’ the woman replied.

‘Ah, Monsieur James Armand,’ said Antoinette, ‘are you feeling better now?’

The child smiled, and again she felt the tears spring to her eyes. There was a fascinating gap in his teeth; she noticed that his hand had tightened on her sleeve.

‘Could you stand, my dear, then we shall see if there are any bones broken?’ She lifted him up and he stood on the table – a minute little man in the woollen cap and clogs of the peasantry.

‘Do your legs feel all right?’ asked Antoinette.

He nodded.

‘Does he talk?’ she wanted to know.

‘Oh, he talks well enough. There’s no stopping him. He knows he’s done wrong though. He’s a cunning one.’

‘It was not wrong,’ said the Queen. ‘It was but a childish action.’

The girl had returned with the bucket of water, and the Queen took off the woollen cap and bathed the child’s brow. She longed now to leave the cottage. It was so stuffy and malodorous; yet she was loth to leave little James Armand.

The water was cold; there was no cloth, so she tore her fine kerchief into two pieces and damped one with water.

‘Does that hurt?’ she asked tenderly. ‘Ah, I see you are brave, Monsieur James Armand.’

The little boy had moved closer to her.

‘You have a large family,’ she said to the woman.

‘These five are my daughter’s,’ was the answer. ‘She died last year and left me to care for them.’

‘That is very sad. I am sorry for you.’

‘That is life, Madame,’ said the woman with bleak stoicism.

Antoinette tied the dry half of her kerchief about the boy’s head. ‘There! Now I think you will suffer no harm, monsieur.’

She drew away from the table, but the boy kept hold of her sleeve; his mouth began to turn down at the corners and his eyes filled with tears.