And now the war was over and the Declaration of Independence had been signed. This was success for the settlers, success too for France. The stigma of the Seven Years’ War which had so humiliated the French was wiped away. Now they were victorious over their old enemies, the English.

It had been an easy war, as wars which were not fought in the homeland should be. France had recovered her colonies in the West Indies, in Senegal and India. She had hoped to regain Canada, but that country had refused to rise against the English.

It seemed that France was set for glory again as it had been in the days of Louis Quatorze. Here was the beginning of richness, the people told each other.

There were certain things they had forgotten.

The Déficit was greater than ever, for the war had cost forty-three million livres. Those reforms, which Louis had so dearly wished to put into being and in which he had ministers to support him, had had to be put off for the sake of the war.

This was bad; but there was one thing which, for the monarchy, was more dangerous still.

Soldiers sat in the taverns and cafés and talked of the new country. In the new land there were no Kings. There was more freedom in the New World.

A new cry had replaced ‘Long live the King’. It was ‘Long live Liberty!’


* * *

The Queen was oblivious of the change which was coming over the country. Her mind was occupied with one thing. She was again pregnant, and this time she was determined not to lose the child.

She shut herself away from the Court, took the utmost care of her health and saw few people apart from Louis and her dearest friends.

In the streets the people had ceased to talk of the new world and were discussing the coming of the child, for a royal birth was an event to eclipse all others.

The King was firm in declaring that he would not have the Queen submitted to the danger and indignity which she had suffered during the birth of Madame Royale. He proclaimed that only those close members of the family, doctors, ladies-in-waiting and those necessary to the occasion should forgather in the lying-in chamber. He did not forget how the Queen had come near to death by suffocation at her last confinement.

The King called the Queen’s ladies to him a few days before the child was expected.

‘I am anxious on the Queen’s behalf,’ he said. ‘I remember last time. If the child should be a girl she will be distressed, I know. This fact must be kept from her until she is well enough to learn the truth.’

The Princesse de Lamballe said: ‘Sire, if the child should be a boy, shall we not tell Her Majesty?’

‘No,’ said the King firmly. ‘For joy can be as big a shock as grief.’

‘And if she should ask, Sire?’

‘I shall be at hand. I shall tell her.’


* * *

She was waiting. She knew it could not be long now. ‘Holy Mother of God,’ she prayed, ‘send me a Dauphin.’ She paced up and down her room; she had dismissed her women; she wanted to be alone to think of the child. All was ready, waiting for him. ‘Oh, God, let it be a boy.’

If only Mother were alive, she thought. If I have a Dauphin, how happy Mother would be. Perhaps she is looking down on me now, being happy … knowing that soon I shall give birth to a healthy boy, the Dauphin of France.

She touched the beautiful Gobelin tapestry which lined her walls. ‘If I have a boy,’ she said, as though making a bargain, ‘I will be quite different. I will no longer gamble. I will do all I can to please the people. I will be quite sober … I will be the Queen whom Mother would have wished me to be. Oh, why was I not, when she was alive? What grief I must have caused her! Yet it was so hard … I was so bored … so utterly bored. I had to do something to stop thinking of the children I wanted. Now I have Charlotte. How I love Charlotte! And if there is a Dauphin …’

She would see less of Gabrielle. She was beginning to think she was less fond of Gabrielle. Gabrielle was so absorbed by her lover, and should she, the Queen, faithful wife of the King, accept Gabrieile and her lover as her close friends in the way she did? Gabrielle was a darling of course, but her relations … oh, her relations! There were too many of them, and they were too acquisitive. When she thought of all they had had it seemed incredible that they could ask for more. No wonder there were complaints about them. They were every bit as expensive as Grandpa Louis’ mistresses had been. The people were right in saying that.

She would spend more time with Madame Elisabeth, her pleasant little sister-in-law. She had always liked Elisabeth, from the moment she had seen her on her arrival in France; and, now that Clothilde was married, she and Elisabeth should be together more.

It was true Elisabeth was a little saintly and consequently a little dull, but she adored Antoinette’s little Charlotte and she would be such a pleasant companion.

‘Oh, give me a Dauphin and I will see less of Gabrielle,’ she prayed. ‘I will cultivate the love of Elisabeth; I will be with my children, and soon even the citizens of Paris will have nothing of which to complain.’

She caught her breath suddenly.

Her pains were starting.

She called. Marie de Lamballe, who was not far off and expecting the call, came hurrying to her.


* * *

The King was in the bedchamber, and with him were those members of the family whose duty it was to be present.

On the bed Antoinette lay, the doctors and accoucheur about her. Not far off hovered the Princesse de Lamballe and the Princesse de Guémenée whose position as Gouvernante des Enfants entitled her to be there.

The labour was not long and within three hours the child was born.

As the Queen emerged from the exhaustion of her ordeal she was immediately conscious of the silence all about her, and she was terrified suddenly by that silence.

Her eyes sought those of the Princesse, but Marie de Lamballe avoided her eyes.

Antoinette grasped the sheets. She thought: There is no child. It is born dead. After all these months!

She licked her lips and said: ‘You see how patient I am. I ask … nothing.’

Louis was at her bedside. He cried aloud, and his voice was like a fanfare of trumpets: ‘Monsieur le Dauphin begs leave to enter.’

Antoinette’s heart beat uncertainly as the Princesse de Guémenée laid her son in her arms.


* * *

There was great rejoicing throughout the country at the birth of an heir to the throne of France. Now would be the time for pageants and merrymaking, and in such festivities reality could be thrust aside.

Everyone was talking of the Dauphin, the King most of all. Every sentence he uttered seemed to begin with: ‘My son the Dauphin …’

He was continually in the Queen’s apartments; he was for ever bending over the cradle.

‘Madame de Guémenée, how fares my son, the Dauphin, today?’ ‘My son, the Dauphin, lies very still this morning. Is that as it should be?’

He welcomed the child’s wet-nurse, called Madame Poitrine by the Court – a gruff peasant woman, wife of one of the gardeners, a woman who cared for nothing except the Dauphin, and refused to conform to etiquette or show the slightest respect for her new surroundings.

When asked to powder her hair, she roared in her coarse voice:

‘I’ve never powdered my hair nor will I now. I have come here to suckle the little one – not to stand about like one of those dummies I see all over the place. I’ll not have that nasty powder near me.’

She told the King himself this, without a ‘Your Majesty’ or ‘Sire’ to accompany the gruff words. The King smiled at her. He knew her for a good honest woman; one who would serve the Dauphin well.

‘And my son?’ he asked her. ‘The Dauphin? His appetite is good to-day?’

‘Fair enough,’ said Madame Poitrine. ‘Dauphins or gardener’s sons, they’re all the same greedy brats.’

‘Take care of my son,’ the King begged her.

‘Your son’s all right. Don’t you worry,’ said Madame Poitrine kindly, as though the King were another of her children.

Louis would sit by the Queen’s bed, and all their conversation was of the Dauphin or Madame Royale.

They were proud parents now, and they could not forget it.

Little James Armand realised, on the birth of the newcomer, that he had had good reason to fear. The Queen rarely asked for him and, when she did, she scarcely seemed to see him.

The ladies laughed together about Antoinette’s preoccupation with motherhood. It had been the same when Madame Royale was born. In the middle of a conversation – and this happened even when she talked with the ministers – she would break in with the latest saying of Madame Royale, or explain how the Dauphin chuckled when Madame Poitrine took him up for his feed.

The Grand Almoner presided over the Dauphin’s baptism. He was none other than Louis, Prince and Cardinal de Rohan, that man who had welcomed Antoinette in Strasbourg Cathedral when she had first arrived in France.

Antoinette would have preferred another to have officiated, but it was clearly the duty of the Grand Almoner and, since Rohan held this office, he must take charge of the Dauphin’s baptism.

She decided she would ignore him. She would have nothing to do with a man who had slandered her mother; she had heard too that he had talked to Joseph of herself when he was in Austria, for Joseph had made a friend of the man in spite of the fact that Maria Theresa had so disliked him.