‘I know. I know. But cannot something be done? If the tradesmen can be persuaded to wait awhile, mayhap the Prince will retrieve his fortunes. If he is made bankrupt, everybody suffers.’

‘Your Majesty, may I presume to offer you a piece of advice?’

She bowed her head a little wearily. There had been so much advice.

‘Keep clear of the Guémenées. Do not let their trouble touch Your Majesty.’

He did not understand that she would not dream of standing clear of them – even though they had never been great friends – merely because they were in trouble. It was at such times that she was prepared to be friendly even with those whom she did not like.

‘I trust,’ went on Fleury, ‘that Your Majesty will forgive me, but I can have nothing to do with this case. If you insist that I should, there would be nothing for me to do but to hand in my resignation. The people of France are in an ugly mood and have been for some time. This affair could have very unpleasant results. I beg of Your Majesty, consider well before you allow any to link your name with it.’

But she would not leave it at that. She went to the King. They could not allow the Prince to be declared bankrupt, she insisted. What good would it do? Would the people to whom they owed money receive it? No. Nobody would be any better off.

The King, always eager to indulge her, foolishly agreed that a moratorium upon debts should be imposed.

Triumphantly Antoinette called the Princesse de Guémenée to her, and the Princesse fell on her knees, kissing the hand of the Queen as she poured forth her gratitude.


* * *

First the carriage-maker went bankrupt. He could not pay his debts. He was an honest man. Where he had gone wrong was to trust the Prince de Guémenée. The glove-makers, the bakers, the butchers – all over Paris, and in the country too, they were going out of business.

They had, every one, allowed the Prince de Guémenée to run up vast debts. They had not thought it possible to do otherwise. Nor had it occurred to them that a connexion of the royal family could default, and while they had the Guémenées’ promise to pay they had felt it safe to go on supplying goods.

This was what came of taking the word of a nobleman.

People gathered in the streets – all those who had suffered, and all those whose sympathies were with the sufferers.

‘These Guémenées are Princes, are they not?’ they cried. ‘How much longer shall we allow Princes to ruin us?’

‘I hear the Guémenées have retired to their country house; that is very nice. Meanwhile the King takes care that they shall not be bothered. What of poor Lafarge? Oh, it does not matter. He is but a humble tradesman. What of the butcher, the baker? They have been supplying the Guémenées with food these last months. But what matters that? They are only tradesmen.’

‘You know why we have all this trouble, do you not?’

‘The Austrian woman!’

‘She is the one who sets the example for all this extravagance.’

‘Remember that song we used to sing:‘ “My little Queen not twenty-one …” ’

‘Ah, ’tis a great pity we did not send her across the border all those years ago. Much trouble would have been saved our country if we had.’

So the people in the streets grumbled; and they were a little more angry, a little more fierce than they had been before the Guémenée disaster.


* * *

Fleury was in a panic; he had to raise money somehow. He floated more loans.

It was clear that Necker’s Compte Rendu had been a very optimistic document; and it seemed to the King that only fresh loans could tide the country over disaster.

But it was not so easy to raise money as it had been previously. More taxes had to be levied.

This sent up a groan from the people; and the Parlement declared itself against the levying of more taxes.

So much money, declared members, had been wasted in the past, and the country was in no mood to pay more taxes merely to support the extravagance of certain people. Little jobs with big salaries had been created for some. A great deal of money had been spent on certain houses. This was a direct shaft for the Queen.

The Parlement then declared that if these taxes were imposed there must be an Estates-General, a gathering together of a representative assembly of the entire country – which had only been done in the history of France in cases of dire emergency. Fleury decided to try to raise money by other means. He wondered whether it would be possible to create new offices at Court, for which ambitious men would be willing to pay vast sums.

He knew though that the Parlement was setting itself against the monarchy.


* * *

In the ground-floor rooms of the Palais Royal men and women gathered to discuss the latest events.

Often would be seen walking among them, or sitting at one of the tables, that handsome young man, the Duc de Chartres.

He was a good fellow. He did not seem to mind mixing with them in the least – in fact he seemed to enjoy it. Nothing seemed to delight him more than to sit at a table and chat with a member of the bourgeoisie. He would not disagree if any ranted about the aristocracy. He would nod his head slowly and often he would say: ‘ ’Tis true. ’Tis all true, my friend. I am one of them, and will you believe me when I tell you I am not always proud of that?’

They would shout down his apologies.

‘But you, Monsieur le Duc, you are different. Ah, Monsieur, if there were more like you at Versailles!’

‘I certainly see things from the citizens’ viewpoint,’ he would say.

Then he would tell them about the English Parliament – a far more democratic institution than the French Parlement.

They liked to listen to him. They were flattered to nod and chat with him, to share a bottle of wine.

‘Why should we not have such a parliament in France, Monsieur le Duc?’

‘Ah! Why not indeed? We have an absolute monarchy here, that is why. The King is sole ruler. What use is a parliament? It is a different matter in England.’

‘But we beat the English in the war, did we not, Monsieur?’

‘Poof! Are they beaten? What think you? Who is mistress of the seas? Who is building up the biggest empire the world has ever seen? Not France, Messieurs. No, my heart bleeds to say it, but not our country.’

‘And you think this parliament … ?’

‘The King is my own cousin, Monsieur …’ The Duke smiled apologetically.

‘Monsieur le Duc, you are a good Frenchman.’

‘I hope so.’

‘Then should the fact that the King is your cousin interfere with your judgement?’

The Duke brought his fist down on the table. ‘You are right. You are right. Nothing but justice should determine the thoughts of a good Frenchman.’

‘Monsieur le Duc, you have been at Court … in the company of the King and the Queen … these stories of the Queen …’

The Duke stood up. ‘I cannot remain, my friends. I cannot listen to scandal concerning the Queen.’

‘You could defend her?’ suggested someone.

‘It is precisely because I cannot, that I will take my leave.’

It was dramatic, but he was dramatic. They watched him go.

Monsieur le Duc is a fine man, they said among themselves. He is the finer because he has lived as they have, and seen the folly and injustice of such living. Monsieur le Duc is a leader of men.

The Duke walked in the gardens of the Palais Royal. All sorts of men and women wandered there. The prostitutes came looking for customers. They mingled with the politicians.

The Duc d’Orléans watched his son.

He said to him: ‘It would seem you are King of this demi-monde.’

King! thought Chartres. Yes, indeed they treated him as such. He was welcome everywhere. The cafés of the Palais Royal prospered largely because so many of the patrons came in the hope of speaking to him or at least of catching a glimpse of Monsieur le Duc.

He was their friend. They talked of him, of what he had said last night, of what he had seen in England. He was in truth King of that demi-monde.

Then he began to dream of being King of more than that small domain.

King of France!

Why not? What if the people decided they had had enough of Louis and his extravagant Queen? What if they decided to replace him by King Louis Philippe Joseph?

So he moved among his friends; and he never missed an opportunity of letting the slow poison of contempt for Louis and his Queen seep into their minds.

Such scandals as the affair of the Guémenées delighted him. He was ready to declaim against the extravagance of the Court set, to remind his listeners that the Princesse de Guémenée had been a friend of the Polignacs – and they all knew the disgraceful story of that family.

Now there was this suggestion of fresh taxes.

Would the people of France be so weak as to accept them? Taxes? For what purpose? To buy pink and green ribbons for the sheep of the little village at Trianon?

Again and again he brought the conversation back to the Queen, for he sensed that in the Queen they saw their true enemy. The King was slow and gentle and kind; he was a man who had been led astray.

And who had led him astray? The foreigner in their midst, the wicked woman from Austria.


* * *

In the gardens of the Petit Trianon Madame Poitrine rocked the baby. She watched the workmen who were making a new lake where they had built the Fisherman’s Tower.