Виктория Холт - Flaunting, Extravagant Queen

Provence and Elisabeth stood proxy for the baby’s godparents, who were his uncle the Emperor Joseph and the Princesse de Piedmont.

Antoinette found that during the impressive ceremony she could not help being aware of Rohan’s piercing eyes; and she believed that, while he went through his duties at the baptismal service, he was thinking of her, pleading with her not to hate him, trying to tell her of some strong emotion which she aroused in him.

It was uncomfortable to be near the man.

* * *

The bells continued to ring through the Capital. There were processions and festivities in the streets – all in honour of Louis Joseph Xavier François, the Dauphin of France.

The trade guilds banded together to make their own offering of thanksgiving, and one day shortly after the birth they came marching to Versailles from Paris. The King, the Queen and members of the royal family stood on the balcony before the King’s apartments while the members of the different guilds crowded into the courtyard.

With them came the market-women wearing black silk gowns; and their leader congratulated the Queen, speaking for the women of Paris, on the birth of the Dauphin; she assured the Queen of the love and loyalty of the women of Paris, and Antoinette, forgetting all the cruel slanders concerning herself which these very women had helped to circulate, wept tears of joy and pleasure to see them thus.

Then came the members of the various guilds with their offering for the Dauphin. All wore the best clothes they could muster, and each guild had brought a symbol of their trade to show the King that they would serve the Dauphin as they had served his ancestors. The butchers brought an ox for roasting; the chairmen carried a sedan chair, a glorious object decorated with golden lilies in which sat a model of the wet-nurse holding the Dauphin. The tailors presented a uniform, perfect in every detail, calculated to fit a small boy and give him the appearance of a Guards officer; the cobblers had made a pair of exquisite shoes, and these they presented to the King for the Dauphin; the little chimney-sweeps had built a model of a chimney, and on the top of this was a small boy – the smallest of all chimney-sweeps. They carried it ceremoniously into the courtyard of Versailles to show that the chimney-sweeps were loyal to the monarchy.

Then came the locksmiths. They came proudly, and their leader asked to be conducted to the King.

By this time Louis and the Queen had come into the courtyard to mingle with the loyal members of the guilds and to express their joy in welcoming them to Versailles.

The chief locksmith cleared his throat and, bowing low, presented a small locked box to the King.

‘We have heard of Your Majesty’s interest in our craft,’ he said, ‘and it is our honour to present you with this box with the secret lock. We doubt not that Your Majesty’s skill in our craft will enable you to discover the combination in a very short time, and it would be our delight to see you do so here before us all.’

Louis, smiling blandly and deeply moved by all the honour which was done to his son, feeling that his dear people shared his joy this day, declared he was all interest and could not let another moment pass without attempting to discover the secret of the combination.

The locksmiths watched him set to work, nodding with approval, holding their breath with delighted expectation.

In a few minutes the King had found the secret.

There was laughter and cries of delight; then a burst of cheering for, as he opened the lock, a tiny figure sprang out of the box.

It was a model of a Dauphin in steel – a boy in his robes of state.

The King stood still, holding the model in his hand; the Queen, standing beside him, put out a hand to touch it, and those near her saw the tears in her eyes.

The crowd began to cheer wildly, calling ‘Long live the King! Long live the Queen! Long live the Dauphin!’

The people love us after all, thought Antoinette. It but needs an occasion like this to show it.

Then she looked up and saw a small party of men approaching. Over their shoulders they carried spades.

‘But look,’ cried Antoinette. ‘Who are these?’

The King, holding the model Dauphin in his hands, looked up with her.

Someone beside them whispered: ‘These are the grave-diggers, Your Majesty. They insisted on showing their loyalty with the rest.’

‘Welcome,’ said Louis. ‘Welcome.’

But a certain fear had touched the Queen’s heart. She did not wish to be reminded of death on such a day. It was as though a faint shadow crossed her happiness.

She was uneasy, conscious of the grave-diggers as, at the baptismal ceremony, she had been made uneasy by the presence of the Prince Cardinal de Rohan.

Now that Antoinette was the mother of two children she was spending more and more time at the Petit Trianon. But it was not enough to live in her little house like a lady of the manor; she wanted to put into action that plan for creating her own petit hatneau. Madame de Pompadour had thought of doing it. Antoinette would do it.

She gathered her friends about her and made them enthusiastic over the project. She would build cottages – ideal cottages; there were many poor families who would be only too glad to come and live in them. They would have a farm and keep real sheep and real cows – the best sheep and cows in the world. She could scarcely wait to put her scheme into practice.

The cost did not worry her at all. The cost never worried her. Madame Bertin’s bills, arriving regularly, were never checked. Her dear Madame Bertin might be an expensive dressmaker, but then she was the best dressmaker in Paris.

She told the King of her scheme for a model village, her adorable hameau. He listened benignly. ‘It will please the people,’ she explained. ‘There will be many to share my model village. I shall be so happy to see them happy.’

So the work went on. The cottages were built – the prettiest cottages in France; the families were selected to live in them, families who were only too ready to enjoy the delights of that ideal village. There were eight little houses, tiny farms with their hayricks and byres and fowl-houses; and the sheep wore blue and pink ribbons round their necks. The Queen and her ladies, when they were tired of dancing on the grass or theatrical entertainments in the open air, decided they would make butter; they would be little farmers. The cows must be washed before they came into contact with the dainty Antoinette, and they were milked into porcelain vases decorated with the Queen’s crest.

It was the greatest fun. The Queen no longer wore rich silks. Rose Bertin must make her muslin dresses and charming shady hats.

Indeed, yes, declared Madame Bertin, but the muslin must of course be the finest, for she would simply refuse to make a dress for so exquisite a creature that was not of the finest material available; and as much skill – nay more – was needed to make a suitable muslin dress as one of silk or velvet. The Queen would understand that with fine fabrics they themselves provided elegance; but the simplicity of a line – ah, that was where skill was really needed.

‘You are right, of course, dear Bertin. You are a magician with clothes, I know,’ Antoinette told the woman.

And so the muslin dresses were made and the bills which followed them were larger than ever.

Then Antoinette must build a theatre, for now she had discovered a great love for the theatre, and she herself would play the chief roles.

The King came as a guest, for she had decided that in her Petit Trianon she was the ruler and the only ruler. Louis was pleased to see her so happy, and it was such a pleasure to watch the ladies making butter in dishes stamped with the Queen’s monogram, to see the be-ribboned sheep led by charming shepherds and shepherdesses, to see the women picturesquely washing their linen in the stream. It was all so ideal – all as a village should be in a perfect world.

So the Queen arranged special fêtes for the visiting King, which he enjoyed before he left for Versailles that he might be in bed by eleven.

And after he had gone the revelry would grow wilder, so that they were all somewhat glad to be relieved of his presence.

On one occasion Antoinette put the clock on so that he might leave even earlier than usual, so eager were they to continue with those frolics which were too wild to please Louis.

This was remarked and gave the country and the Court another whip with which to scourge her.

So the gay existence continued.

But the citizens of Paris asked themselves what the frivolity of the Queen was costing them in taxes; and in the oeil-de-boeuf between the chambre du roi and the chambre de la reine in the château of Versailles, those men and women, who were deprived of their Court duties because the Queen was no longer at Versailles, complained bitterly.

And thus the nobility and the people were full of complaints against the Austrian woman.

* * *

The Duc de Chartres was dissatisfied.

‘What,’ he demanded of his father the old Duc d’Orléans, ‘is happening to the old nobility? We are no longer even rich. These ministers with their reforms have cut us down to such an extent that we can no longer live as we used to.’

‘ ’Tis so,’ said the old Duke. ‘One wonders whither France is being led.’

It would mean little to him; the old regime would last long enough to see him out. He looked at his son and wondered what the future held for him.