The Queen's Confession Part 16

Frederick had his spies everywhere, so he was well-informed of the King's inability to consummate our marriage, and an idea occurred to him that an experienced woman might achieve what a frivolous young girl had failed to do. Such a woman was the well-known actress of the Comedie Francaise, Louise Contat. She was more than beautiful; a woman of sensitivity, understanding, and great charm, she was sought after by many a n.o.bleman.

Such a mistress, Frederick the Great was certain, could greatly help the King. In any case it was worthy of a try. And it should be ascertained before the liaison was encouraged that the delectable Contat would be the friend of Prussia.

But for the vigilance of Vermond and Mercy I have no notion what would have grown out of this; but of one thing I am sure - my husband would never have been unfaithful.

Mercy was, however, soon writing to my mother. What a flutter there must have been in the Hofburg! I imagined the conferences between Joseph and my mother. Joseph had grown more pompous than ever and as head of the family believed it was his duty to castigate his family and keep it in order.

He had visited Naples to see Caroline and her conduct did not please him. Poor Caroline! What had the years done to her? She was creating scandal in Naples with the husband to whom she had gone so reluctantly. Joseph had plenty to lecture her about. Caroline's excuse was that she never entertained a lover until she was pregnant by her husband. As though as long as she secured the rightful succession nothing else mattered. Maria Amalia had been creating scandal in Parma ever since she had been there. And here was I in France, with the eyes of the world on me, frivolous and extravagant, but at least faithful to my husband - although rumor accused me of a hundred obscenities.

And now there was a possibility of my place in my husband's affections being taken by a brilliant and attractive actress who would be eternally grateful to my mother's greatest enemy for putting her into this exalted position.

Action must be taken without fail. It should have been long before.

My brother Joseph was coming to Versailles to discover the true state of affairs for himself and to see what could be done about them.

CHAPTER 12.

"Do you look for opportunities? Do you sincerely respond to the affection the King shows you? Are you cold and distrait when he caresses you? Do you appear bored or disgusted? If so, can it be expected that a man of cold temperament could make advances and love you with pa.s.sion?"

"In truth I tremble for your happiness because I believe in the long run things cannot continue as they are now ... The revolution will be a cruel one and perhaps of your own making."

-From the Emperor Joseph's Instructions to Marie Antoinette "I have attained the happiness which is of the greatest importance to my whole life ... My marriage was thoroughly consummated. Yesterday the attempt was repeated and was even more successful than the first time ... I don't think I am with child yet but I have hopes of becoming so at any moment."

-Marie Antoinette to Maria Theresa "I hope that next year will not go by without my giving you a nephew or niece ... Is is to you we owe this happiness."

-Louis XVI to the Emperor Joseph Imperial Visitor NEWS WAS BROUGHT TO ME that my brother had arrived in Paris and was staying at the Austrian Emba.s.sy, being entertained by Mercy. What, I wondered, was Mercy telling my brother about me at this moment? It could scarcely be anything flattering. I thought of the all reproachful letters I had received from Vienna. Nothing would have been kept from my brother the Emperor of Austria and co-ruler with my mother.

The last time I had seen him was when I had said good-bye to my home and he had traveled the first stage of the journey with me. I remembered yawning while I listened to his recounting my good fortune and how many horses were being used to carry me on my journey. I had not then been sorry to say good-bye to Joseph; but now I was both delighted and apprehensive at the prospect of seeing a member of my very own family.

Joseph had given instructions that there was to be no fuss, no ceremony. He was not even traveling as the Emperor of Austria but as Count Falkenstein, and had arrived at the Emba.s.sy in an open carriage in the heavy rain. This need not have happened, of course. He could have come in state.

I guessed that he would lecture me on my extravagance; it was something he particularly deplored, for he enjoyed living a Spartan life; he had always wanted to be a ruler whose first thought was the betterment of his people, and he liked to travel among them incognito, doing good by stealth; but malicious people said that, although he remained incognito for a while, he always liked his ident.i.ty to be revealed at the climax of his adventures, when he would arrange for someone to betray him. Then he could dramatically declare: "Yes, I am the Emperor."

I refused to believe this. It was more malicious gossip; but at the end of Joseph's visit I was not so sure. In fact it was rather tiresome of him to come incognito. Why should he stay at the Emba.s.sy? He had said that while he was at Versailles he had no intention of lodging at the chateau or the Trianon. Two furnished rooms must be found for him in the town, for he did not wish to be treated as the Emperor of Austria, but as an ordinary citizen.

Today, I thought, will be the day.

I was at my toilette. My hair was hanging about my shoulders, for Monsieur Leonard's six in hand had not yet rattled along the road between Paris and Versailles when I heard the clatter of horses' hoofs in the courtyard. It was half-past nine, and I paid little attention, therefore I was most surprised when I was told that the Abbe Vermond was without and he had a visitor to see me. The visitor did not wait to be announced but burst in on me unceremoniously.

"It is ..." I cried. "Really it is ... my brother Joseph."

Then I forgot everything but that this was my brother; and I felt like a child again, as though I were in the Schonbrunn about to be reproached for something and I ran to him and threw my arms about him. Joseph was moved too and as he embraced me there were tears in his eyes.

"My little sister ... my beautiful little sister!"

"But, Joseph, it is wonderful to see you ... It is so long ... and I have thought of you so much and our dearest mother and home ..."

I was chattering incoherently in German, for I had slipped back to my native tongue unconsciously. "Oh, Joseph, it is wonderful. It is like being a little girl again."

Joseph said it did him good to look at me and at that moment he was not a bit like the stem brother who had been so critical of my frivolity back in Vienna. But we Germans are a sentimental people. Living so long with the French I had forgotten how much so.

We went on chattering. And how is dear Mamma? And what of the Schonbrunn gardens? Do the fountains still play as they did? What of our little theater in the Hofburg where we used to perform our plays? What of the servants? What of my dogs ... those I had to leave behind? Is Mamma well and happy? I'm afraid she has been anxious. How I should love to see her. You must tell her, Joseph ... tell her that I long to see her again.

We were laughing and crying and Joseph said I had grown beautiful. I had been a pretty little creature when I left; now I had become a beautiful woman. If he could find a woman as beautiful as I was, he would marry again.

This was just the excitement of our reunion. We reveled in it for that first hour or so, before he embarked on the unpleasant task which had brought him to France, which was of course to lecture me, to criticize me, and to teach me how to rectify my follies.

When my almost hysterical joy in reunion was over, I was able to look at him clearly and, I have to admit, critically. He was scarcely handsome; he was purposely very plainly dressed, for his suit was meant to be of service rather than to flatter. It was of a color known in the Court as puce since Rose Bertin had made me a dress in a silk of the same shade and the King, seeing it, had cried out that it was the color of a flea. From then on "puce" had become fas.h.i.+onable. But it scarcely suited my brother. I disliked his short boots, which gave him a look of the people; and the way in which his hair was dressed was certainly not becoming to an Emperor; he wore it in a single curl. He stooped a little and had aged a great deal since I had last seen him.

"You are thinking that I do not look like the Emperor of Austria. Confess it."

"You look like my brother Joseph and that is all I ask."

"Ah, they have taught you to pay fancy compliments here, but I am a plain man and I like plain speaking. Now let us be completely alone together, for I wish to talk to you."

"You will wish me to conduct you to the King, who will be anxious to meet you."

"All in good time," said Joseph. "First I want to hear from your own lips if these rumors are true. You must be frank with me, because it is on account of this that I am at Versailles ... on account of this and other matters. And I must know the truth with nothing held back."

I conducted him into a small antechamber and shut the door.

"The whole of Europe," he said, "talks of your marriage. It is true, is it not, that the King is unable to consummate that marriage?"

"It's true."

"Although he has made many attempts."

"He has made many attempts."

"And the doctors have examined him and find that the knife is necessary to make him a normal man."

I nodded.

"He shrinks from this operation?"

I nodded again.

"I see. He must be made to see his duty."

Joseph walked up and down the apartment as though communing with himself. In spite of his plain garments he adopted what I thought of as a very Imperial att.i.tude. I began to wonder then whether Joseph was as modest as he wanted us to believe.

He asked many intimate questions and I answered him frankly.

He said: "It was time I came."

I sent a messenger to tell the King that my brother was in the chateau and I proposed bringing him to him without delay; then I slipped my arm through that of Joseph and led him to the King's apartments.

Louis hurried to my brother and embraced him.

I noticed that Louis was taller and, although he was by no means the most elegant man at Court, he looked distinguished beside Joseph. But Joseph had the manner of the elder brother. He might like to travel incognito, but he immediately made it clear that he considered the King of France inferior to the Emperor of Austria. Louis was at the moment in purple velvet because he was in mourning for the King of Portugal, who had died a short while before.

They exchanged pleasantries and Louis a.s.sured my brother that the whole of the chateau was at his disposal, to which Joseph laughed, shaking his head.

"No, brother," he said. "I prefer to live as a simple man. My lodgings in Versailles will suit me very well. I have two rooms which are good enough for me in the house of one of your bath attendants."

"You will surely not find the comfort to which you are accustomed there."

"I do not give much thought to comfort, brother, and I am not so accustomed to it as you are. A camp bed and a bearskin is all I ask."

He looked round the gilded apartment as he spoke and his gaze was a little scornful as though there was something sinful in our splendor.

He must meet the members of the royal family, said the King; and some of his ministers, most certainly Monsieur de Maurepas. Nothing would delight him more, replied Joseph; and the morning was spent in receiving people and presenting them to him. I felt a little uncomfortable because my hair was not dressed and there was no time to have this lengthy ceremony performed. Poor Monsieur Leonard, I guessed, was in despair but naturally I could not leave my brother. If he had given us a time when he would arrive, how much more comfortable it would have been for us all! But Joseph's simple habits were to make life considerably more complicated for us during his stay.

We took dinner in my bedchamber. No ceremony, demanded Joseph, so a table was brought and we sat on stools, which was somewhat uncomfortable. So there we were perched on our stools - eating in the bedchamber, the three of us informally; we were none of us quite at ease and I was sure both Louis and I would have been less strained if we had eaten in the normal way.

We talked a great deal together during the next few days. Joseph had come to France with a threefold purpose: to warn me to repent of my frivolous ways; to cement the alliance between France and Austria; and, perhaps most important of all, to discover the truth behind my unsatisfactory marriage and set it to rights. It was characteristic of Joseph that he believed himself capable of achieving all three.

During the first days the sentimental feelings aroused by our reunion continued. I could see, though, that he thought the French Court a very extravagant place and he was very critical of it.

On the second day Joseph took an intimate supper with the family in Elisabeth's apartments. I wanted my brother to be fond of Elisabeth because I was, and she was growing into an enchanting creature. The idea crossed my mind that Joseph needed a wife; he had suffered two unhappy marriages, first with the beautiful and strange Isabella, whom he had loved, and then with the wife whom he had hated; his only child was dead. He was Emperor of Austria and he needed an heir ... although of course he had brothers to follow him. Yet if Elisabeth married Joseph, she would go away from France and that did not seem to me such a good idea.

I fancied that Artois was laughing at my brother behind his back. He and Provence would consider Joseph inelegant and uncultured.

So that was an uneasy meal. Oh, dear, how I wished Joseph would behave like normal visiting royalty!

Something seemed to have happened to all three brothers that night. I daresay it was provoked by Joseph's stilted conversation; but when we rose, Provence stuck out a leg and Louis tripped over it; then Louis fell on Provence and they wrestled together; Artois joined in. It was only a game, but it seemed extraordinary to Joseph. I had seen my husband and his brothers romp in this way before, sometimes it was half in fun, at others half in anger, for Provence, I believe, was so jealous of Louis that this kind of fighting relieved his feelings. As for Louis himself, he always enjoyed this sort of game, perhaps because he usually emerged the victor. Artois of course was mischievous enough to delight in something which would shock the visitor.

Elisabeth and I exchanged glances of horror, but Joseph ignored the romping young men and talked to us, showing not the slightest surprise.

Later I said to him: "Madame Elisabeth is already quite the woman!" and he replied sternly: "It would be more satisfactory if the King were quite the man."

I was eager to show Joseph the Pet.i.t Trianon and the next day I took him there, with only two ladies in attendance, because I told Joseph: "The Trianon is my retreat and there I can live simply."

With pride I took him to see the English garden, which was almost finished.

He was not interested. He began to lecture me.

Did I not realize that I was heading for disaster? I surrounded myself with men and women of questionable morals. It was small wonder that my own morals were questioned. "You are a featherhead," he cried. "You think of nothing but pleasure."

"I must occupy my time."

"Then occupy it worthily."

"If I had children ..."

"Ah. That's at the core of the matter. But your behavior toward the King displeases me."

"Displeases you."

"A wife should be subservient to her husband. You do not seek to please him enough. You should court him. You should go out of your way to please him."

"His tastes are very different from mine."

"You should make his tastes yours."

"Can you see me at the forge." I held out my hand. "Can you see me making locks ... wrestling on the floor with my sisters-in-law perhaps? It is quite impossible for me to follow the King's tastes."

"You should not do these things, of course. But you should be more submissive. You should show that you find pleasure in his company. You could do a great deal to make him normal."

I was silent. And Joseph went on to lecture me on my dancing throughout the night, on my gambling, on my choice of friends and my extravagances.

I said meekly: "I shall try to mend my ways, Joseph." And indeed since I had adopted little Armand, I had improved a little. But somehow, though I loved the little boy, he only made me long the more for children of my own.

Joseph refused to leave his furnished rooms and declared that he wished to see Paris as a tourist, not as an Emperor. He would ride out of Versailles in his little open carriage, somberly dressed in his plain puce-colored coat, taking with him two servants in quiet gray. When he reached the capital, he left his carriage and walked about the streets hoping to be taken for a man of the people, but somehow doing it so ostentatiously that most people guessed he was a personage, and as it was known that my brother was visiting us and was a simple man who liked to remain unrecognized, his ident.i.ty was quickly revealed.

He would go into shops and make purchases, having the article wrapped and taking it away himself while the lackeys waited outside. If he heard whispers of "It is the Emperor," he pretended not to hear and become more bourgeois than ever.

He would return from these trips a little bespattered by the Paris mud but pleased with his journeys. I could see that Paris was beginning to enchant him. He talked of the sunset from the Bourbon Quay and the imposing silhouette of Notre Dame. To stand apart and look at Paris was an enchanting sight, he told me. Had I ever looked back at the spire of the Sainte-Chapelle and the turrets of the Conciergerie? No, he answered for me. There was only one spot in Paris that I showed any interest in: the Opera House where I danced.

He lectured Louis, too. What did he know of his people? It was a ruler's duty to mingle with his people ... incognito, of course. Louis should be up one morning to see the peasants from the country arriving at Les Halles with their produce; he should mingle with the bakers of Gonesse. He should see the gardeners wheeling their barrows into the city full of fruit and vegetables; he should see the clerks on their way to work and the waiters at the lemonade shops serving early customers with their coffee and rolls; he should buy coffee from one of the coffee women who carried their urns on their backs and he should stand there in the street and drink it from an earthenware cup. He should ride on the carrabas and take a trip in a pot de chambre. It was the way for a King to know what his people were thinking of its government and its King. And he must do all this incognito.

In fact it seemed that Joseph was far more interested in the people of France than any members of the royal family. He included in his tour museums, printing houses, and factories; he wanted to see how the dyes were made and wandered about the Rue de la Juiverie, the Rue de Marmousets, and such like unsavory places to chat with the workers. His accent, his clothes, his determination not to be recognized, all gave him away. In a very short time the people of Paris were aware that the Emperor of Austria was among them and they looked out for him. They recognized him at once in his plain puce garments, his unpowdered hair, its simple style, and his earnest endeavor to show them that he was one of them and dispense with all etiquette. They delighted in him and he was extremely popular; on the rare occasion when he was seen with us, all the cheers were for him.

I noticed his secret satisfaction and I knew then that his favorite role was the Emperor who was discovered to be an Emperor.

From the soap works he went to the tapestry makers, the botanical gardens, and the hospitals. These interested him far more than the theaters and the opera b.a.l.l.s, although he did deign to visit the Comedie Francaise. He called on Madame du Barry who was at this time at Louveciennes, which her old friend Maurepas had arranged should be hers after the two and half years she had spent at the Pont aux Dames.

This gesture I did not understand in my brother unless he was curious to see a very beautiful woman; or perhaps to show that he was a tolerant freethinker who was not shocked by the life she had led. It was surprising that he had no time for the Duc de Choiseul, who had been a good friend to Austria until the time of his disgrace and was responsible for arranging my marriage.

It seemed ironical too that the people who had criticized me for flouting their etiquette should so admire Joseph for doing the same.

But my brother did not confine himself to visiting Paris; he sought to set our household in order. Not only was I subjected to lectures, which I have no doubt I deserved, but my brothers-in-law were also.

He told Artois that he was a fop. He should not think because he was the third brother he could devote himself to a life of frivolity. He should be more serious. During his stay he, Joseph, would endeavor to have some private conversations with Artois, who should discuss his difficulties with the Emperor; then he could be given the benefit of Imperial advice. I could imagine Artois' reactions to this. He listened demurely enough; but I heard the laughter coming from his apartments and guessed how he was entertaining his friends.

Of Provence he was a little uncertain. He did not offer him advice, but he did warn me of him. "There is something cold about him. As for that wife of his, she is an intriguer. She's not a Piedmontese for nothing. She's coa.r.s.e and ugly but don't dismiss her as of no importance on that score."

Naturally the aunts were very eager for his company. They had so much to tell him, Adelaide a.s.sured him; and Joseph never missed an opportunity for receiving information. However, he was rather startled when Adelaide invited him into a small room to show him some pictures and then fell upon him and embraced him pa.s.sionately.

Joseph expressed his astonishment, for while she caressed him in a loverlike way she a.s.sured him that it was perfectly all right. Such liberties must be allowed an old aunt.