The Parlement determined to oppose every scheme which Brienne laid before it. The minister made one great mistake. He declared that the Queen should have a place at the meetings of the Council and thus help to govern.

The people were outraged. ‘We are being governed by Madame Déficit,’ they cried. And the rumours increased; the affair of the Diamond Necklace was discussed and garnished with fresh libels. In Bellevue and the Palais Royal it was said: ‘It is not the King who is at fault. It is the Queen.’

Everywhere a cry went up for an Estates-General. Brienne started borrowing again; he planned to float new loans; the Parlement would not agree.

The King then rose and declared: ‘I command you to carry out what you have heard.’

Orléans leaped to his feet and, knowing that he had more than the support of those who nightly gathered in the Palais Royal behind him, assured the King that what he had said was illegal.

Louis, angry and weary with the continual conflict, lost his habitual calm for once and shouted: ‘You are banished, Monsieur d’Orléans. You will leave at once for your estates in Villers-Cotterets.’

That was a sign. The rift between the King and the Parlement was now an open one.

But if he had subdued the Parlement of Paris, this was not the case with the provincial parlements. They stood firmly beside the Paris Parlement; they refused to accept the edicts proposed by Brienne, and rioting broke out all over the country.

The demand for an Estates-General was renewed. This time a promise had to be given that it should be elected and called for the following year.

The people were calling for the return of Necker, and in this also the King had to give way.


* * *

Those were days which seemed to be oppressive with foreboding.

Antoinette had at last begun to understand the need for reform. Now that she took her place as a Privy Councillor she was beginning to see – even more clearly than did the King – what great danger the country was in.

She set about reforming her household, and when Madame Bertin presented herself she was sadly received.

‘I shall not be sending for you often,’ Antoinette told the dressmaker. ‘I have many dresses in my wardrobe. These will suffice for a while.’

‘But Your Majesty is joking,’ cried the dressmaker. ‘We have the honour of France to uphold. I have here a delicious velvet …’

‘No,’ said the Queen. ‘Go now, my dear Bertin. I will not discuss dresses now. If I should need your services I will send for you.’

Inwardly fuming with rage Madame Bertin left the Palace. She saw her lucrative business being snatched from her. ‘What is this new fad?’ she demanded when she returned to her workroom. ‘What is that empty-headed idiot up to now?’ Then she laughed. ‘She’ll be calling for me to-morrow. She’ll not be able to resist the new velvet.’

And when the Queen did not call for her, Madame Bertin’s rage was beyond her control. She spat out insults against the Queen, who had been so good to her; she chatted in les Holies with the market-women; and she vilified the Queen as loudly as any of them.

Antoinette then called the Duc de Polignac to her and told him that she must relieve him of his post as Director-General of her horses. For this she had paid him 50,000 livres a year and, as it had been necessary to fill her stables with horses in order to make the post something more than a sinecure, this had been a further expense. Polignac was deeply hurt. The Queen would ruin him, he declared. ‘It may be necessary for some of us to be ruined,’ Antoinette told him, ‘in order to save France.’

She summoned Vaudreuil and told him that he must give up his post of Grand Falconer, which was not exactly essential.

Vaudreuil was horrified.

‘I shall be bankrupt,’ he declared.

‘That may be,’ answered Antoinette sadly, ‘but it is better that you rather than your country should be so.’

This was outrageous, this was unthinkable. Was the Queen deserting her friends?

‘I hope that is something I shall never do,’ she told them. ‘But the times are dangerous. Have you not heard of these riots? Do you not know that an Estates-General is to be called? We must cut down expenses everywhere … everywhere.’

‘The Queen has gone mad,’ said Vaudreuil to his mistress Gabrielle.

It was not often that Antoinette appeared in public now. She always dreaded such appearances.

But there had come a request from the Opéra House, where a gala performance was to take place. How could there be a gala performance without the presence of the King and Queen?

‘I dread going,’ she told Louis. ‘It is always the same. It is I whom they hate. You they accept and excuse. You are the King and a Bourbon. They cannot forget that I am a Habsburg and a foreigner.’

‘We are expected to go,’ said Louis.

She knew it was a duty she could not evade.

She rode to the Opéra House with the King. There were some in the brilliant assembly there to cheer them; but the cheers were for the King, and Antoinette’s ears were alert for the whisper, which could grow to a shout, of ‘Madame Déficit’; she was trying to catch the hisses among the cheers.

And as she stepped into the royal box she saw what had been pinned there. It was a placard and on it had been scribbled in huge letters:

‘Tremble, Tyrants. Your reign is nearly over.’

A servant hastily removed it but all during that performance it seemed to dance before the Queen’s eyes, and wherever she looked, from the stage to the glittering audience, she saw those words, ‘Tremble, Tyrants’.

And she did tremble.


* * *

The terrible sense of foreboding stayed with her.

Soon the members of the Estates-General would be in Versailles; with this new foresight, which had come to Antoinette in her new mood of seriousness, she had begged Louis to hold the assembly in some provincial town, somewhere far distant from Paris, where storms were not so likely to blow up. But Louis was adamant. He was bewildered by what was happening, but he continued to look upon himself as the father of his people, and if he showed no sensitivity to the rising storms, neither did he show fear.

Certainly the Estates-General must come to Versailles and the Capital.

‘The Estates-General are elected members from all classes of society,’ she reminded him. ‘It is the first time men have been elected from the lower ranks of society to take a part in the country’s government. Louis, it is a complete turnabout. It will rob you of your power.’

‘It was necessary,’ said the King.

And she was afraid of the Estates-General.

But there was one matter which caused her greater sadness. The health of her eldest son was rapidly failing.

The little Dauphin was subject to sudden attacks of fever; one of his legs was shorter than the other, and his spine was twisted; he was unable to stand, for he suffered from that complaint which had affected so many Bourbons: rickets.

Each day his mother sat beside him and wondered whether it would be his last. Often she would remember how Louis loved their children, even as she did; how kind and gentle he always was to them. She said to Madame de Campan: ‘Do you remember how the King used to sit up with me night after night when Madame Royale was a baby and she was sick?’

Madame de Campan remembered.

‘The King is a good man,’ said Antoinette. She put out a hand suddenly to Madame de Campan. ‘I will go to my rest now,’ she said. ‘It is a big day to-morrow.’

The Princesse de Lamballe said: ‘You will wear your dress of violet, white and silver. It is a beautiful dress, one of the best Your Majesty ever had.’

Antoinette did not answer.

‘And your ostrich plume headdress is so becoming,’ went on the Princesse.

But still Antoinette was not listening. ‘Light my candles,’ she said. ‘I will go to bed now.’

They lighted four candles on her dressing-table and as they took off her elaborate headdress one of them went out. Madame de Campan relighted it, but almost at once the second candle went out.

‘What is wrong with the candles to-night?’ said the Queen.

‘There is a draught coming from somewhere,’ replied Madame de Campan.

‘Pray shut the windows. I do not like to see the candles going out like this. It frightens me.’

The windows were shut and the room seemed very quiet, and then the third candle went out.

The Queen turned suddenly to the Princesse and caught her in an embrace. ‘My misfortunes make me superstitious,’ she said. ‘I am afraid of something … something near me … something evil. I feel that the candles are warning me to-night. I believe that if the fourth candle goes out it will be an omen of overwhelming evil.’

‘You are distraught,’ said the Princesse. ‘It is the ordeal of to-morrow of which you think. But be assured, dearest, that it will soon be over and …’

The Princesse had stopped. The three women were all looking at the fourth candle which had gone out.


* * *

‘Maman,’ said the Dauphin, ‘how beautiful you are!’

She smiled and danced daintily before him in the violet, white and silver gown.

‘Kneel down,’ said the Dauphin, ‘that I may see your feathers.’

So she knelt, and he tried to put up a thin arm to touch them. She caught his arm and kissed it; then she held him pressed against her, that he might not see her tears.

‘Maman,’ he said, ‘I wish I were strong. I wish I could ride in the carriage beside you to-day. You look so pretty … all the people will love you.’