The Queen's Dollmaker (20 page)

Jean-Philippe escorted her back to their carriage, one hand covering hers as it rested tucked in his elbow. “Jean-Philippe, I saw very elegantly dressed workers in the pasture, but they did not seem to be doing much.”

“Those are the servants I told you the queen hires so she can watch them do farm chores on days that she is at the Hameau. They are hired to be present when the queen chooses to visit her cottage, but she doesn’t want them actually getting dirty, which would destroy the perfection of the queen’s vista.”

“Then how are the animals actually cared for?” The queen of France was proving to be perplexing.

“Once she returns to the main palace, the real farm workers will come and collect the animals to take care of feeding and stabling them.”

“I see.” But she really didn’t. Nevertheless, the queen had been very kind to her, certainly more benevolent than most people of far lesser stature had ever been to her.

Stepping back into the carriage, she lay back against the head cushion, closing her eyes and sighing contentedly. She opened her eyes presently to find Jean-Philippe gazing adoringly at her.

“Claudette, I have so much to show you while you’re here, to show you how much I still love you. Your time here in Paris will be unforgettable.”

William was finishing breakfast when Dobry presented him with a silver tray containing mail. William flipped through it quickly, looking for a letter from Claudette. Not seeing one, he set aside everything but
Le Journal de Paris,
the first of the French dailies. The news was sometimes weeks old, but it gave him an opportunity to stay in touch with activities on the Continent, and also to practice his French. Claudette avoided talking in her native tongue because she had been so poorly treated in some quarters for her nationality, so he never practiced with her. He shook his head, smiling. As though anyone could hear that charming accent and not know exactly where her homeland was.

He scanned the leaflet for social announcements. Turning the page, he spotted a headline for royal engagements at Versailles. Tracing his finger down the listings, he found it near the end.

He furrowed his brow. Who was this Renaud fellow? Probably one of the queen’s courtiers, escorting a woman alone to be introduced to the most famous woman in Europe. He forgot about it in the press of his day as he had to mediate a dispute between the local saddle-maker and one of his grooms, who claimed that a recently delivered harness was inferior and unacceptable.

Several days later the mail contained the much-anticipated envelope from Claudette. She recorded her visit with the queen, and described in detail the gardens of Versailles, the latest Parisian clothing styles, and the gastronomic delights she had forgotten about during her years in England.

She went on to give him specifics of the ship on which she was planning to return. With her letter she enclosed a sprig of jasmine she had surreptitiously plucked at the palace.

Attending soirées? With whom? Surely she was not cavorting about France alone. Was someone else dancing the
contredanse allemande
with her?

William grunted in his displeasure and went to his study to pen a reply. He kept it brief, giving her news about one of his mares in foal at Hevington and wishing her a safe sea journey on her return. He signed it “Her waiting servant, William.” It would do no good to caution her on her associations with the lecherous French. The woman was damnably stubborn when she wanted to be.

He would not sleep well until she was home again.

Jean-Philippe arrived at her hotel early the following morning, and every morning for a week, to escort Claudette to a new amusement or entertainment. They strolled about the public gardens at Versailles during the day, watched street performers at dusk, and went to the opera at night. Jean-Philippe constantly surprised her with gifts. A carriage full of flowers, a string of pearls brought with dessert in an elegant restaurant, a porcelain box adorned with cherubs waiting in her hotel room. She never knew what wondrous present would be awaiting her as she traveled around.

Each day they chattered about events that had occurred during their separation. Jean-Philippe had completed his interminable apprenticeship under Monsieur Gamain, who had taken his family in temporarily after the fire. Gamain wanted him to work as a locksmith for him, but Jean-Philippe was interested in Gamain only as a source of knowledge, not caring a whit about the detailed work with the metal mechanisms. Much to his father’s dismay, Jean-Philippe convinced Gamain to help him get a placement at court through his position as Louis XVI’s locksmith, so that he could personally witness all of the extravagances he had been hearing about throughout his apprenticeship.

Claudette asked about this. “And what do you think? Versailles is of course glorious, but do you think the queen is all the people accuse her of, an avaricious spendthrift? She seemed very kind and unpretentious to me.”

“Well, for certain the king is an
imbécile
. He would have been happier as Gamain’s apprentice than as ruler of France. Every day he either hunts or plays with mechanical things. So long as he does not have to deal with his cabinet and make sound decisions.

“As for the queen, I dislike her Austrian ways, although I suppose she is not unkind. She is as profligate as any of her courtiers, which I think is a disgrace in a queen at the helm of a nation full of starving people. They say she is having affairs with the Duchesse de Polignac and the Princesse de Lamballe.”

“The princesse!” Claudette was taken aback. “But that’s not who the queen is—” She stopped. How did she, a mere London dollmaker, know whether the queen was involved with Count Fersen?

“But that doesn’t seem like something the queen would do,” she finished lamely. Jean-Philippe didn’t notice.

Claudette told him of her desperate search for him and her subsequent flight to England, her employment with the Ashbys, and the establishment of her doll shop. She made no mention of William Greycliffe. Jean-Philippe laughed uproariously at her final altercation with Mrs. Ashby.

“Oh, my love, you are truly an independent spirit with an innate understanding of the rights of man.”

While sipping cordials one afternoon at an outdoor café, Jean-Philippe presented Claudette with his latest offering: a box of candied flowers, each dusted with a different color of sugar. He leaned forward eagerly to be heard over the street noise of carriages rumbling down the dusty street and their bawling drivers jockeying for position in traffic. Claudette was not sure if passage was worse in London or Paris. Both cities were full of bullying carriage drivers.

“Claudette, finding you has been remarkable. Could you have imagined that we would find each other again? You will want to move back to Paris right away so we can be married.”

She hesitated. “Jean-Philippe, I have obligations in London. My shop…”

He waved a hand. “You can create your dolls here. After all, the queen is your biggest customer. You belong here with me.”

“This is all very sudden.”

“Surely you cannot mean that you have any uncertainty about this? Claudette, we are still betrothed. Look.” From his pocket he pulled two small jewel boxes. He opened one. Inside was the locket she had given him.

“Do you still have your ring?” he asked.

She reached into her reticule and pulled at some stitching she had done in the lining. Tucked in a secret compartment was the ring, which she pulled out and silently showed him.

“You carry it but do not wear it? When did you stop wearing it?”

“Once I realized how difficult life was going to remain for me at the Ashbys, I became worried that one of the housemaids might steal it. So I sewed it in here to keep it safe. I suppose once I left there I did not think it wise to wear while in the workroom.”

“What you mean to say is that you forgot about it. And me.”

“That is not true! Jean-Philippe, I was heartsick for ages over you.”

“And at some point you ceased to be. Nothing has changed for me, Claudette, but perhaps it has for you. I can see that I have to work more arduously to convince you to become my wife.” He sat back and stuffed both of the tiny boxes back into his pocket without showing her the contents of the second one.

Claudette returned to her hotel that night with her thoughts muddled. Where
did
she belong? Was she still French or was she now English? Had all of her feelings for Jean-Philippe indeed vanished? And there was William’s curt and impersonal letter delivered to her room today. Had she offended him more than she knew by coming to France? Would he welcome her home? Where
was
home?

When Jolie came to undress her and comb her hair, she remarked that madame was unusually quiet. Claudette smiled wanly and assured the maid she had simply had a busy day. The girl shook her head but made no comment.

Notes had been delivered each day to Claudette’s hotel, expressing Jean-Philippe’s utter and unfailing devotion to her. The following morning’s missive grew more passionate.

Is this what I want?
she wondered. She mentally compared her life in England with what it might be in France again. Oh, to live in her home country, speaking her native language and enjoying custom with the Bourbon court. But William’s face loomed up before her, and the thought of his kisses and masculine ways threatened to undo her.

Claudette made her toilette as usual that morning with the assistance of Jolie, who was quickly becoming indispensable to her. She scrawled out notes to Rose Bertin and Marie Grosholtz containing her thoughts on the doll commission and seeking a time to meet with them both. Jolie took the letters and promised to give them to a messenger. After a quick breakfast with other travelers in the dining room, she was greeted by Jean-Philippe in the lobby.

“I have a surprise for you today, Claudette.” As always, he carried a small, fragrant bouquet of flowers for her.

Each day brought something new, so she was hardly bowled over to hear this. “Again, Jean-Philippe? Could there possibly be anything new in France that you have not yet shown me?”

“This is not entirely new, but I think it will please you greatly.”

He escorted her to another of the palace carriages, this one painted pink, with gilded wheels and a hunting scene painted on the door. She was quickly becoming accustomed to this luxury and indulgence, and knew she would need to return to England soon before she became so heady from the magnificence of the French court and the joy of being home again that she would be unable to leave.

“Jean-Philippe, are we going to Versailles again?” she asked, as they were pulling up to the palace gates.

“
Oui
, but to a place you have not seen.” He signaled to the guard to let them pass. The carriage continued on its way along the Grand Canal. It seemed from Claudette’s perspective to go on forever, and she said so aloud.

“Yes,” Jean-Philippe replied. “The Sun King had it designed so that it gets wider the farther away one is from the main palace, so that when viewing its length from close to the palace, it seems to have the same perspective of width all the way to its end. It was really quite clever, I must admit.”

They continued in companionable silence. Jean-Philippe reached over and placed his hand over Claudette’s, and she did not resist its warmth.

They pulled up in front of a square marble building, three stories high and diminutive in comparison with the main palace, but far grander than most French citizens could ever imagine. Shrubbery in enormous planters lined the first-floor windows.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“This is the Petit Trianon. In addition to her Hameau, this is the other project on which the queen wastes vast quantities of money repainting, redecorating, and refinishing.” He shook his head wryly. “I obtained special permission for you to come and see her personal doll collection. Even the king has to ask consent to set foot inside this home of the queen’s. It is for her and her friends only.”

“Oh!” Claudette nearly squealed in delight. She impulsively kissed his cheek. Embarrassed, she jumped down from the carriage without waiting for him to help her.

“Is the queen here?”

“No. She is receiving official visitors today from Austria. No one is here except for a few groundskeepers.”

Inside the Petit Trianon, which was just as elaborately furnished as Louis XIV’s grand palace at the top of the Grand Canal, Jean-Philippe escorted Claudette through the rooms, each decorated with thick, detailed carpets; rich draperies in blues and golds; hand-painted wallpaper; intricately carved, gilded furniture; and the finest of porcelain and other ornamentation.

“Louis XV built this for his mistress, Madame du Pompadour,” Jean-Philippe explained. “She died before it was completed, so he gave it to his next mistress, Madame du Barry, whom the current queen still despises even though she left the palace as soon as the old king was dead. Our current Louis gave it to Marie Antoinette when he ascended the throne. She was nineteen years old when she came in possession of it.”

In one salon, Claudette noticed that some of the floorboards had been pulled up, leaving a large gaping hole in the parquet flooring. She asked about it.

“Oh, the queen is having mechanical devices built so that servants can load the tables with food from within the cellar and then the tables can be lifted up to this room for her specially invited guests. Then the tables will be cranked back down again, and the flooring laid back down in large planks after each meal.”

Claudette was astonished. “But why?”

“So that the room can be used for other things, instead of being blocked by a large dining table. And also so the servants do not have to be seen.”

Again Claudette saw there was great irony in the French queen. She could be endlessly kind and sincere to a mere commoner such as herself, yet she had a great sense of her own importance and was careless about spending great sums of peasant taxes on her own pleasure. It was as though she didn’t understand that maintaining her “simple” lifestyle was onerous on the royal purse.

They finally ended up in one of the queen’s private chambers containing her doll collection. There were dolls everywhere, lining the walls from floor to ceiling on specially constructed shelving. The dolls seemed to reach the sky, and indeed the ceiling of the twenty-foot-tall room was painted with puffy clouds, birds, and pink-faced cherubs looking down on visitors from the corners of the ceiling. Each doll had its own rounded ledge that protruded from the wall on a support. The ledges were gilded and ornamented to match twenty chest-high pedestals placed around the room. Each of these pedestals held what were obviously the queen’s favorites in her collection. One pedestal in the center of the room was conspicuously devoid of an exhibit.

“Why is there no doll here?” she asked.

“I believe it is waiting for the Princesse de Lamballe doll you are creating. Undoubtedly the queen and her friends will have some extravagant party to celebrate its arrival.”

“Well, it is an honor for me and my shop to be recognized by the queen of France.”

Jean-Philippe scowled but did not protest.

From this room, they went outside to stroll about the set of gardens attached to the Petit Trianon. In contrast to the formal French style, the architect had developed a landscape of meandering paths, hills, and streams. Flowering shrubs were deliberately planted according to size and color against backdrops of trees with gracefully arching limbs, with the intent of pleasing the eye in an eruption of complementary colors.

The whole look was one of cultivated wilderness. From atop one of these hills, Claudette could see that the grounds connected to the Hameau, the queen’s little farming village.

Standing next to her and also looking out at the Hameau, Jean-Philippe said, “Some people call the Petit Trianon ‘Little Vienna.’ They think the queen is trying to establish a foreign court here.”

“Do you believe this to be true? I don’t. I think the queen is every inch the Frenchwoman. Remember how coarse her pronunciation was when we met her carriage all those years ago? All traces of her Austrian accent are gone. She seems very devoted to her family and friends here.”

He shrugged.

They finished their evening together over coffee and pastries, Jean-Philippe clearly amused that Claudette had developed a taste for the bitter drink.

In response to Claudette’s note, Marie Grosholtz arranged a sitting with Claudette, Madame Bertin, the Princesse de Lamballe, and herself. When the queen heard of their impending appointment, she insisted that they come to the Petit Trianon to spend the day with her. Claudette was privileged to see Marie Antoinette even more relaxed that day. She dressed simply but elegantly, in a dark blue dress with a white apron over it, and a relatively basic poufed hat with just a single feather as adornment. A choker set with a single sapphire outlined in diamonds gleamed on her neck as her only piece of jewelry.