Becoming Marie Antoinette (51 page)

Upon our arrival at the city gates, four footmen alit from the carriage, and acting as runners or linkboys carried torches to illumine the capital’s dark and labyrinthine streets. I parted the curtains and peered out of the window. I had expected broad, cobblestone
allées
, lined with grand and imposing facades, like our streets in Vienna. Instead, the narrow houses leaned against one another like a string of drunken sailors intent on holding themselves upright as they faced their admiral’s inspection. The coach almost immediately became stuck in the mud, muck evidently being an omnipresent symptom of the unpaved
rues
.

By another comparison, the city’s stench made the dank, urine-permeated corridors of Versailles as fragrant as lilacs in May. “Are you sure this is Paris?” I breathed, tempted to hold my nose and unsure what to make of it, as fascinated as I was repelled.

Although they were none too pleased about such a filthy and onerous task, the footmen managed to disengage our coach with a minimal amount of difficulty and we were able to continue our adventure. At length the carriage clattered over a narrow bridge onto the Ile de la Cité, arriving in the public square outside Notre-Dame de Paris. There in the looming shadow of the cathedral, even after nightfall, and just like the Cour Royale of Versailles, were every sort of vendor imaginable, from ribbon sellers to pamphleteers. University students perused the bookstalls, and sharp-eyed marketwomen surveyed the cheap pottery. Live chickens scrabbled and squawked in their crates. A young woman trudged past our coach, her slender figure nearly doubled over by the weight of a large wicker basket on her back.

“Oysters, fresh oysters,” she cried, her clear voice rising above the hubbub.

“Oysters?” exclaimed the dauphin. He rapped on the roof of the carriage with the golden pommel of his walking stick. “Halt!”

Our coachman drew up his teams. In a trice, the doors to the carriage were opened and the traveling steps lowered. The comtesse and I were handed out first, descending straight into a mud puddle. I burst into a fit of giggles. “However shall I explain
this
to Madame Etiquette? Five gold louis to whoever comes up with the best story!”

The comte d’Artois clapped me heartily on the back. “I accept your challenge, madame!”

“You accept
any
challenge where there is wagering to be had,” the dauphin retorted prudishly. “And one day you will ruin yourself by it.”

“Papa Roi will pay my debts,” Artois replied cockily.

“When Papa Roi is dead I won’t pay them—you can be sure of that,” my husband retorted.

“The dauphin is far too earnest,” the comte de Provence teased. “Did he ever tell you about the day—this was many years ago—when he told off his equerry during a riding instruction?” Without waiting for a reply, the comte continued his anecdote. “The dauphin here was not performing terribly well; his horsemanship was an embarrassment to everyone. So the equerry scolded him. ‘Monsieur le dauphin, don’t you know that a prince who is destined to become a great king must know how to ride?’ And my brother, his face all serious, pushes his hat further down upon his big head, as if it would help him to assert himself, and says to the equerry, ‘No, sir, I was not aware of it. I only know that a great king should be just and make his people happy.’ The equerry and I laughed so hard at that!”

“It’s not funny,” the dauphin insisted. “In fact, it’s true. And, besides, no one could accuse me
now
of being a laggard on horseback,” he added sullenly.

“Oh, come, come,
mon cher
! Don’t be such a”—I discovered that my blue satin slipper had become entirely trapped in the muck—“a stick in the mud.” His brothers began to laugh heartily at his expense. The comtesse de Provence clasped her husband’s arm and tittered behind her ebony-handled fan.

“Ho, there!” my husband called to the oyster seller. “How much for two dozen?” From a hidden pocket in his domino he withdrew a velvet purse with his initials worked in silver thread. I stifled a gasp, for his insatiable hunger threatened to give us all away. Mercifully, the oyster girl, her eyes as round as the golden coins counted into her palm by my husband, showed not the slightest glimmer of recognition. Of course, how could she? It was not our profiles that graced the currency, and one well-fed nobleman in a large hooded cloak with a fat purse probably looked the same to her as any other.

With nothing in which to carry his precious cargo, the dauphin enlisted the aid of his brothers; there would be some additional explaining to do at the palace when the crowns of the comtes’ tricorns smelled of oysters and brine. This my husband found utterly hilarious. His braying laugh, so unmistakeable to the rest of us, echoed off the stone façade of the cathedral, and we found much amusement in the fact that Louis Auguste’s gaping maw was a mirror image of the grinning gargoyles overhead.

We took a stroll about the square, stopping to admire the organ grinder and his monkey, who was dressed in a little silk suit, complete with embroidered waistcoat and frothy cravat. “Don’t you think he looks exactly like the duc de la Vauguyon?” I exclaimed as the creature leapt onto my shoulder. “Although I daresay this little stinker is much more clever!” A few yards away
a stiltwalker whose face was made up to resemble a Pierrot strode through the crowd, high enough above it to become the perfect lookout for his confederate, a scrawny pickpocket who could not have been above the age of eleven or twelve. Vagrants, some shoeless and clad in rags, huddled in the gloomy recesses of the cathedral’s façade. I had seen their like before, on occasion. Beggars who had parleyed the coin they solicited into the proper accoutrements rented from vendors at the gates sometimes wandered the corridors of Versailles, making themselves at home by dozing off in various remote corners of the château, but were invariably detected by the royal bodyguards with their spaniels.

We sidestepped a puddle and moved on. Twin sisters displayed their magic lanterns, which were no more than cunning little candlelit boxes that illumined painted slides of pastoral scenery or exotic oriental landscapes. “A peek for a sou!” they cried.

The comtesse de Provence and I opened our purses and paid the price of admission. The magic lanterns were nothing terribly special—certainly not compared to the pyrotechnics one might see in the theater or the opera, but we were caught up in the strange and colorful atmosphere, as foreign to us as Versailles might have seemed to any of them. By then our skirts were utterly spattered with mud; we would have the devil of a time explaining ourselves to our respective
dames d’honneur
.

The cathedral bells tolled the hour of eleven. People began to disperse. I noticed the little pickpocket circling our party like a dog in search of a place to do his business or a hungry bird of prey. My husband, by far the most cautious among us, tugged at my cloak. “Perhaps we had better return,” he murmured.

We clambered into our carriage, the comtesse and I cocooned in the voluminous poufs of our filthy skirts as the boys struggled to pry open the oyster shells with their pocket knives. Imbued
with the odors of Paris we returned to the château amid gales of laughter, swearing each other to secrecy.

Yet for all my bravado, I was afraid of receiving a scolding from Madame Etiquette regarding the myriad transgressions of protocol and my ruined garments, and thanked heaven that she had retired for the night by the time we reached the palace. With the aid of the sympathetic princesse de Lamballe I removed every stitch of clothing I had worn and concealed it in various places about the apartments. One by one I intended to surreptitiously dispose of them.

Adventurous as it was, our clandestine night in the capital did not begin to prepare us for the spectacle of the
joyeuse entrée
.

On the morning of June eighth, precisely at eleven o’clock, our arrival was heralded by the sound of the great guns booming from the prison fortress known as the Bastille as well as those in front of the Hôtel de Ville, the City Hall, where the governor of Paris, the duc de Brissac, presided. Our state coach drove up to the steps of the Hôtel de Ville, where the duc awaited us, presenting the dauphin and me with the keys to the city.

Glorious sunshine! A sky of purest blue. The air smelled sweet and clean and was filled with music and the sound of joyous voices raised in song. The streets had been swept and tamped down to eliminate any traces of dust or mud. Breathless with excitement as I surveyed the multitude that had come out to welcome us, I turned to the dauphin and exclaimed, “
Mon Dieu
, how many of them there are!” There was nary a vagrant or beggar in sight. Instead, the citizens were decked out in their finest attire, as though it were a festival day. The aprons of the marketwomen were blindingly white; the balconies of the narrow houses were garlanded with flowers and ribbons and wreaths of welcome. Cheek by jowl the people were crushed together, turning out in the thousands to see us. Several must have awakened before
dawn in order to secure a choice vantage, but at least they were not compelled to forfeit their breakfast: Enterprising women shouldering tin vessels steaming with aromatic café au lait did a brisk trade selling a cup of coffee for two sous.

“
Vive le dauphin!
” they shouted. “
Vive la dauphine!
” We heard no cries of “
Vive le roi.
” The total absence of a cheer for him voiced his subjects’ discontent louder than any shout of derision.

University students doffed their caps in greeting; children pelted us with flowers. It seemed as though every hospital, every convent, every shop and dwelling, had disgorged its residents into the crowded streets. Laborers mingled with tradesmen, the nobility with the bourgeois, apprentices with their masters.

“Madame la dauphine!” I turned toward the shout, to see a frantically waving sister, wimple askew. I recognized her as the prioress from the Hôtel Dieu, the hospital that had recently been devastated by fire, resulting in a sorrowful loss of life. As I urged our bodyguard to let her pass, the nun pressed her way through the crowd. I reached for her hands and clasped them in mine. “May the Almighty bless and keep you forever!” she exclaimed, dropping into a deep curtsy amid the noisy crush of humanity all about us. I raised her to her feet; and as I kissed her on both cheeks, she whispered, “Do you know, madame, that you are the only one of the royal family to have opened your privy purse and sent us a donation?”

“How could I have done otherwise?” I replied, privately appalled that none of my Bourbon relations, including the dauphin, had thought to do the same.

The archbishop stood in front of Notre-Dame, his arms outstretched in welcome. I stole a secret smile, in recollection of my nocturnal adventure there the previous week. I had heard that the archbishop was a good man, a true man of God. I could not fail to be reminded of the last time a prince of the church had
greeted me outside a cathedral. My thoughts drifted to my arrival in Strasbourg, my earliest footsteps in France and the memories of the Coadjutor Bishop, my distant relation the unctuous Prince de Rohan. A particular favorite of Madame du Barry, and at her instigation, he had been named by Papa Roi as his ambassador to Austria, recalling the marquis de Durfort. Maman remained appalled by the appointment, for the prince had nothing good to say about the Hapsburgs and was particularly insulting to her. In the presence of the
maîtresse en titre
, the prince de Rohan repeated a jest Frederick of Prussia had made at Maman’s expense after the partition of Poland was finally affected in August of 1772. “The Devil” had said that in one hand my mother held a handkerchief and wept for the poor innocent Poles, while in her other, she wielded a sword against them.

I was jolted back to the present as the archbishop welcomed us into the cathedral where we attended Mass. And what a revelation awaited me! Viennese architecture was quite different from the soaring High Gothic church—lace in stone. Sunlight refracted off the vibrant stained-glass windows, scattering bits of colored light all around us like ephemeral gems.

We emerged from the cathedral to discover that an even greater crowd had gathered. My eyes shone with delight. As the dauphin and I squeezed through the throng, I heard people exclaim, “Look, how beautiful she is.” I had never felt so much love. Remarking upon my husband’s countenance came the assessment, “He looks so kind.” I glanced at the dauphin; he, too, was beaming. And when he addressed the people, he was both commanding and humble. Louis Auguste spoke with grace and nobility and promised that when the time came he would make a worthy and judicious steward of France.

Even the comte de Mercy seemed moved by all the adulation we engendered. Noticing that his jaded eyes were moist, and
knowing how important our reception was to the people of Austria as well as to the Bourbons, I clasped his arm and drew him toward me, vowing, “I shall make as few mistakes as I can. And when I do make any, I shall always admit it.”

Luncheon had been arranged at the Tuileries palace. Like the
grands couverts
of Versailles, the meal was a sport for spectators, except that the privilege was not reserved for those of noble rank alone. Fifty women from the Paris market, fishwives and cheese-mongers among them, had been invited to dine with us. Afterwards, the dauphin and I shook their hands and thanked them for sharing our meal. How fascinated they were by my jewels and my gown, reaching out to touch the silk, rubbing it between their fingers like cloth merchants, and ogling the grandeur of my coiffure.

No sooner did we return to Versailles, flushed with the headiness of our ebullient reception, than I sat down at my escritoire and scribbled an exultant letter to Maman.