Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette (P.S.) (13 page)

I am so eager
to reach the apartment of Madame de Noailles that I take the Dauphin’s hand; we all but run through the rooms of the Château de Versailles, and we do run through the Hall of Mirrors. I watch us in the mirrors as we hasten out of one frame and past another, and another and another. It is the Versailles glide, smooth as ice-skating, but at a fine clip. Our attendants can hardly keep up. We shall have fun, we shall have fun! I remember how we rode lately to the hounds, leaping across ditches and over fences on horseback.

Before my husband and I reach the entrance to the apartment of Madame Etiquette, we can smell the aroma of roast pork and apples and cinnamon and game birds stuffed with sage, and something that must be a venison stew with much of celery and onions—all of the wonderful meaty smells and dishes that we shall have to forgo when Carnival is done and Lent has us in its fishy, forty-day grip. I know the Dauphin’s appetite is keen, and everyone will attend the dance with a special eagerness to make merry. Over the winter months, without his beloved hunting, my husband has put on flesh.

It is time to walk more sedately. Slowly, slowly, we are becoming friends. When he comes to my bed, I chatter and amuse him with great success. Once after a fit of laughter, he suddenly fell asleep, with a mighty snore. My own laughter erupted, at him—but he did not awaken. Then I cried. Huge sobs—the bed shook with them.

As for me, tonight, the young Artois and I will dance till our slippers fall off, if I have my way, and I can feel the brightness already inhabiting my eyes. To dance, especially with the innocent and graceful Artois, is to forget that I am far from home and will never go there again to see the shining faces of my brothers and sisters. It is Carnival, my first celebration of Carnival, and I am fifteen. I have been here in France more than half of an entire year!

When the door opens, whom do I see but the beautiful Princesse de Lamballe. She is accompanied by her father-in-law, the Duc de Penthièvre, the richest man in France next to the King; his valet carries two simple pots of creamy clay holding living violets. With graceful gestures, the good Penthièvre indicates that one is for his hostess Madame de Noailles and the other is for his beautiful, widowed daughter-in-law.

To my amazement, the Princesse de Lamballe bursts into tears. Rapidly a seat is placed behind her, and half fainting, she sits upon it and weeps.

“Their sweetness is too great,” she says, wiping her eyes.

To my second amazement, I find that tears have quickly come to my own eyes and are ready to spill. So appealing are the flowers that they appear to have been dug from the forest floor and brought by courier in all their freshness.

“She is overwhelmed by their naturalness,” the duc says sympathetically of his daughter-in-law, and he gestures to have the potted violets removed.

I find that I am on my knees beside the princess, touching her hand, and looking into her eyes to console her.

“I too have been touched by the
poignancy
of their faces,” I say, “when I rode to the hounds in the forest of Compiègne.”

“Don’t take them away,” the sensitive princess sobs. “But, dearest Papa, may I make a present of my pot to the Dauphine, whose sensibility I share.”

And suddenly, she smiles at me. The sun has come out from behind the cloud, and I am enchanted by the beauty of her wide-spaced blue eyes, and the steadiness of her gaze. She is neither afraid of me nor impressed by my position. It is myself whom she claims as a kindred spirit. And then I recall that she is of German origins, like myself. She continues to smile at me and clutches my hand in return, and I think of Charlotte, my sister, and how when we were girls at Schönbrunn, we would gaze into each other’s eyes and hold the gaze, till the exact thought passed from one mind to the other, without a single word spoken.

So it is now, and my heart fills itself and sighs with happiness, for I have found a friend.

Oh, Mesdames are upon me in a moment. They would pry me away from her, but elegant Count Mercy steps forward and with his hands cups each of us under the elbow, the princess and myself. I rise with the pressure of his fatherly hand, as does the princess.

“Let me guide you to a more comfortable settee,” Count Mercy says, “where you may speak of flowers and the friendship that I see blossoming between you.”

The aunts dare not follow and intrude. Mercy has known my needs, and he stands close by now, an elegant sentinel, at his ease and in complete command as the guardian of our tête-à-tête.

The fair princess is twenty-one to my fifteen, but purity has kept her suitable for my confidence. She compares Count Mercy to her dear father-in-law in his thoughtfulness, and I tell her how I admired the family group of the Duc de Penthièvre as depicted in the painting
The Cup of Chocolate
in Madame Adelaide’s apartment, and how I had wished that I might have entered that frame and become a part of that happy family picture.

I speak of how that first day, when I saw the little dog in the picture and thought of Mops, that I feared I might weep, and immediately, again, tears well up in her own eyes, in sympathy with my former longing.

“And do you love little dogs too?” I ask, smiling cheerfully.

“And kittens,” she says, in a rapturous burst. A few tears brim over the edges of her eyes and course down her cheeks, but she bravely fights them off.

“And hippopotami,” I exclaim.

She is caught off guard and says, “I do not know hippopotami. What are they?”

It turns out she has not heard of rhinoceroses or giraffes either, and I am glad, because for once I am not the most ignorant person in a conversation. With some fear (I am almost trembling), I ask her if she likes to read.

“Sometimes,” she says, and she looks troubled, as though she fears her answer may not be adequate.

“I am the same,” I say.

“There is one book that always touches me,” she says, “and makes me feel that there are other sensitive people in the world.”

When I ask her its title, she says her favorite book—she has read it many times—is a novel titled
Julie, ou la Nouvelle Héloïse.
She has forgotten its author’s name.

“Jean-Jacques Rousseau,” I say, “but I have not yet read the book.”

“It is about nature, and friendship, and love,” she says.

For a moment, I simply regard her. She is as elaborately and beautifully dressed as I am, at great expense. What is it I want to share with her? My mind scrambles to find some emblem of myself. I think of the little topiary trees in the garden here at Versailles and that night when I hid inside the folds of the curtain and looked out at them, so still in the moonlight. But not that! It is their
opposite
that I want.

“The forest is always murmuring,” I say. “The great trees talk to one another with the rustling of their leaves.”

“They put their heads together,” she replies uncertainly, then smiles, “and share secrets, like sisters.”

Already she loves me! I mind my husband’s neglect a little less now.

All about us the drinking and dancing and eating of a party, late in the season of Carnival, goes on. At one point, I see Artois, beyond the princess’s pink silk shoulder, looking at me as though he has been neglected. Recalling how many times he has rescued me by inviting me to dance, I rise to dance with him, after promising the princess I shall return.

When I seat myself beside my new friend again, we are presented with small private tables bearing plates of food, which my aunts have had assembled for us. None of my favorite things are on the plate, and I send it away. The princess also refuses food.

She whispers, “How can one eat when the heart is engaged?”

I tell her that we must walk the gardens together the next day or be carried in our litters, if the ground is damp.

“We shall compare our favorite fountains,” she says.

“Let me guess,” I say.

“I don’t know if I could bear it, if you guessed wrong,” she says.

“I will not guess wrong,” I reply as confidently as though I were speaking to Maria Carolina, my Charlotte. “Your favorite fountain is Flora among the heaps of flowers.”

“It is true,” she says and sighs profoundly.

“Remind me, please,” I say, “of your given names.”

She begins, “Marie Thérèse—”

“My mother’s name—” I interrupt.

“Is?”

“The Empress of Austria—” I hint.

“Oh. What is her name?”

I can scarcely believe the princess does not know the name of my mother, who has arranged my marriage and the Austrian Alliance, but I say all the more gently, “Maria Theresa…like your name.”

“It is an omen,” she says, “for I am older than you.”

“And so you can easily guess which fountain I love best—after Flora.”

“Tell me.”

I see she has not studied mythology at all, and then I realize that perhaps the story of how Flora was taken from Ceres, her mother, to the Underworld by Hades, would be too heartrending for the princess. She has had a governess like my own darling Countess Brandeis, who guarded my sensibilities from shock, who ensured that I would have time to play, and who taught me very little.

“It is the fountain of Ceres, who was Flora’s mother. Ceres made the wheat, and all the cereals and flowers ripen. The violets too,” I add, “for which gift, I shall always honor your sweet and generous nature, from this night forward.”

“I promise I will keep you in my heart,” she says, and I feel that I have heard the truth. “Always,” the princess adds. “To the death.” She seems frightened.

To such sincere words I can frame no reply, but I reach out with my hand and squeeze hers.

“Now we must join the others and dance,” I say, “or gossip will begin.”

Blithely she rises, with airy lightness, but she turns back to smile at me, her face all softness, surrounded by soft, fair hair. As I dance—with everyone—sometimes I steal a glance at her, and I see that there is a touching melancholy about her face that makes her even more beautiful. I want to take care of her, but there is no need for that, since the good Duc de Penthièvre is devoted to her.

A
S THE
D
AUPHIN
and I walk through the state apartments back to our chambers, he softly touches my waist from time to time, and as we pass through the Mars state room, he dismisses our attendants. I glance up to see again the wolves who draw the chariot of Mars. My husband seems to want more intimacy, but I have been disappointed so many times by his slight overtures of interest that I do not let my mind evaluate what these gentle touches may mean tonight.

Instead, I think of the graceful charm of the Princesse de Lamballe, her small waist, her willingness to share confidences with me. I shall ask her about her husband, who, I already know, died of syphilis at age twenty-nine, consequent on his savage and insatiable appetite, and I shall tell her something of my own disappointments, of which, like everyone else at court, she must surely be already aware. Though they all know the problem lies with the Dauphin, they blame me anyway. They laugh at him.

The princess knows the fact of my situation; she cannot know the feelings within me, for they are shared only in careful and courteous language in letters to my mother. The disappointments of the princess and myself with the men to whom we have been bonded may concern quite different sorts of behaviors, on the husbands’ parts, but the hurt hearts in the Princess and myself are surely kin.

Almost, tonight, I do not care whether my husband lies in bed with me, or what he does or does not do as we wait for sleep.

As we pass through the Venus drawing room, again I look up. When I see the gentle doves pulling the chariot of the goddess, I think of the soft face and hair of the princess whose name begins Marie Thérèse. Seated on the divan, she and I cooed together like doves.

When I look down, I see protruding from the hem of one of the curtains, the toe of an old and worn boot, one that I believe I noticed on the night of my wedding. Nothing happened in our bed that night, and I take the scuffed leather as an omen that nothing will happen tonight.
If I do not guard myself against expectations, I will go mad.
I must beat down my hope—I and only I can regulate my feelings. All sorts of people have access to the palace; one of them has left her boot behind. That is the only meaning of the scuffed toe protruding from under the curtain.

Tomorrow morning my husband will write
Rien
in his journal, if he bothers to keep a diary of married life. Certainly, our marriage is less exciting than hunting, though perhaps more important to the fate of Europe.

The curtain moves. My husband notices the movement; when he sees the boot, he pulls the brocade aside.

A female figure, about my own size, stands in a tattered skirt. She wears a cape, such as I have seen in drawings of the peasant Jeanne d’Arc, and its hood is up. Her face is turned from us, as though she has been gazing out the window at the moonlit garden.

For an instant I remember my nightmare of Mother Eve biting glass fruit, and I gasp.

“Don’t be afraid,” my husband says, but he is speaking to her and not to me.

Nor need he! I am not one to be afraid, no, not the daughter of the Empress of Austria.

The girl looks him full in the face. Her features denote only one emotion: wonder. Her delicate countenance is unlined, smooth; it shows no sign of hardship, though her body is too thin. There is a transparency to her skin. She raises one frail hand and presses her long thin fingers against her cheek. It is a gesture that seems to ask
Am I real? Her face somewhat resembles mine.

She has but one short glance for me.

I realize the quickest of glances is all that is needed for me: she has seen me before.
Recognition
is in that single glance. Perhaps she sees me every day, so many people come and go through the palace, but her clothes are too poor for me not to have noticed such a figure. Her loose dress is the color of old moss draped in folds. She looks as poor as the fish market women. Perhaps she is one of their daughters. But no, her features are too soft to have issued from such stridency.