This was bad; but there was one thing which, for the monarchy, was more dangerous still.

Soldiers sat in the taverns and cafés and talked of the new country. In the new land there were no Kings. There was more freedom in the New World.

A new cry had replaced ‘Long live the King’. It was ‘Long live Liberty!’


* * *

The Queen was oblivious of the change which was coming over the country. Her mind was occupied with one thing. She was again pregnant, and this time she was determined not to lose the child.

She shut herself away from the Court, took the utmost care of her health and saw few people apart from Louis and her dearest friends.

In the streets the people had ceased to talk of the new world and were discussing the coming of the child, for a royal birth was an event to eclipse all others.

The King was firm in declaring that he would not have the Queen submitted to the danger and indignity which she had suffered during the birth of Madame Royale. He proclaimed that only those close members of the family, doctors, ladies-in-waiting and those necessary to the occasion should forgather in the lying-in chamber. He did not forget how the Queen had come near to death by suffocation at her last confinement.

The King called the Queen’s ladies to him a few days before the child was expected.

‘I am anxious on the Queen’s behalf,’ he said. ‘I remember last time. If the child should be a girl she will be distressed, I know. This fact must be kept from her until she is well enough to learn the truth.’

The Princesse de Lamballe said: ‘Sire, if the child should be a boy, shall we not tell Her Majesty?’

‘No,’ said the King firmly. ‘For joy can be as big a shock as grief.’

‘And if she should ask, Sire?’

‘I shall be at hand. I shall tell her.’


* * *

She was waiting. She knew it could not be long now. ‘Holy Mother of God,’ she prayed, ‘send me a Dauphin.’ She paced up and down her room; she had dismissed her women; she wanted to be alone to think of the child. All was ready, waiting for him. ‘Oh, God, let it be a boy.’

If only Mother were alive, she thought. If I have a Dauphin, how happy Mother would be. Perhaps she is looking down on me now, being happy … knowing that soon I shall give birth to a healthy boy, the Dauphin of France.

She touched the beautiful Gobelin tapestry which lined her walls. ‘If I have a boy,’ she said, as though making a bargain, ‘I will be quite different. I will no longer gamble. I will do all I can to please the people. I will be quite sober … I will be the Queen whom Mother would have wished me to be. Oh, why was I not, when she was alive? What grief I must have caused her! Yet it was so hard … I was so bored … so utterly bored. I had to do something to stop thinking of the children I wanted. Now I have Charlotte. How I love Charlotte! And if there is a Dauphin …’

She would see less of Gabrielle. She was beginning to think she was less fond of Gabrielle. Gabrielle was so absorbed by her lover, and should she, the Queen, faithful wife of the King, accept Gabrieile and her lover as her close friends in the way she did? Gabrielle was a darling of course, but her relations … oh, her relations! There were too many of them, and they were too acquisitive. When she thought of all they had had it seemed incredible that they could ask for more. No wonder there were complaints about them. They were every bit as expensive as Grandpa Louis’ mistresses had been. The people were right in saying that.

She would spend more time with Madame Elisabeth, her pleasant little sister-in-law. She had always liked Elisabeth, from the moment she had seen her on her arrival in France; and, now that Clothilde was married, she and Elisabeth should be together more.

It was true Elisabeth was a little saintly and consequently a little dull, but she adored Antoinette’s little Charlotte and she would be such a pleasant companion.

‘Oh, give me a Dauphin and I will see less of Gabrielle,’ she prayed. ‘I will cultivate the love of Elisabeth; I will be with my children, and soon even the citizens of Paris will have nothing of which to complain.’

She caught her breath suddenly.

Her pains were starting.

She called. Marie de Lamballe, who was not far off and expecting the call, came hurrying to her.


* * *

The King was in the bedchamber, and with him were those members of the family whose duty it was to be present.

On the bed Antoinette lay, the doctors and accoucheur about her. Not far off hovered the Princesse de Lamballe and the Princesse de Guémenée whose position as Gouvernante des Enfants entitled her to be there.

The labour was not long and within three hours the child was born.

As the Queen emerged from the exhaustion of her ordeal she was immediately conscious of the silence all about her, and she was terrified suddenly by that silence.

Her eyes sought those of the Princesse, but Marie de Lamballe avoided her eyes.

Antoinette grasped the sheets. She thought: There is no child. It is born dead. After all these months!

She licked her lips and said: ‘You see how patient I am. I ask … nothing.’

Louis was at her bedside. He cried aloud, and his voice was like a fanfare of trumpets: ‘Monsieur le Dauphin begs leave to enter.’

Antoinette’s heart beat uncertainly as the Princesse de Guémenée laid her son in her arms.


* * *

There was great rejoicing throughout the country at the birth of an heir to the throne of France. Now would be the time for pageants and merrymaking, and in such festivities reality could be thrust aside.

Everyone was talking of the Dauphin, the King most of all. Every sentence he uttered seemed to begin with: ‘My son the Dauphin …’

He was continually in the Queen’s apartments; he was for ever bending over the cradle.

‘Madame de Guémenée, how fares my son, the Dauphin, today?’ ‘My son, the Dauphin, lies very still this morning. Is that as it should be?’

He welcomed the child’s wet-nurse, called Madame Poitrine by the Court – a gruff peasant woman, wife of one of the gardeners, a woman who cared for nothing except the Dauphin, and refused to conform to etiquette or show the slightest respect for her new surroundings.

When asked to powder her hair, she roared in her coarse voice:

‘I’ve never powdered my hair nor will I now. I have come here to suckle the little one – not to stand about like one of those dummies I see all over the place. I’ll not have that nasty powder near me.’

She told the King himself this, without a ‘Your Majesty’ or ‘Sire’ to accompany the gruff words. The King smiled at her. He knew her for a good honest woman; one who would serve the Dauphin well.

‘And my son?’ he asked her. ‘The Dauphin? His appetite is good to-day?’

‘Fair enough,’ said Madame Poitrine. ‘Dauphins or gardener’s sons, they’re all the same greedy brats.’

‘Take care of my son,’ the King begged her.

‘Your son’s all right. Don’t you worry,’ said Madame Poitrine kindly, as though the King were another of her children.

Louis would sit by the Queen’s bed, and all their conversation was of the Dauphin or Madame Royale.

They were proud parents now, and they could not forget it.

Little James Armand realised, on the birth of the newcomer, that he had had good reason to fear. The Queen rarely asked for him and, when she did, she scarcely seemed to see him.

The ladies laughed together about Antoinette’s preoccupation with motherhood. It had been the same when Madame Royale was born. In the middle of a conversation – and this happened even when she talked with the ministers – she would break in with the latest saying of Madame Royale, or explain how the Dauphin chuckled when Madame Poitrine took him up for his feed.

The Grand Almoner presided over the Dauphin’s baptism. He was none other than Louis, Prince and Cardinal de Rohan, that man who had welcomed Antoinette in Strasbourg Cathedral when she had first arrived in France.

Antoinette would have preferred another to have officiated, but it was clearly the duty of the Grand Almoner and, since Rohan held this office, he must take charge of the Dauphin’s baptism.

She decided she would ignore him. She would have nothing to do with a man who had slandered her mother; she had heard too that he had talked to Joseph of herself when he was in Austria, for Joseph had made a friend of the man in spite of the fact that Maria Theresa had so disliked him.

Provence and Elisabeth stood proxy for the baby’s godparents, who were his uncle the Emperor Joseph and the Princesse de Piedmont.

Antoinette found that during the impressive ceremony she could not help being aware of Rohan’s piercing eyes; and she believed that, while he went through his duties at the baptismal service, he was thinking of her, pleading with her not to hate him, trying to tell her of some strong emotion which she aroused in him.

It was uncomfortable to be near the man.


* * *

The bells continued to ring through the Capital. There were processions and festivities in the streets – all in honour of Louis Joseph Xavier François, the Dauphin of France.

The trade guilds banded together to make their own offering of thanksgiving, and one day shortly after the birth they came marching to Versailles from Paris. The King, the Queen and members of the royal family stood on the balcony before the King’s apartments while the members of the different guilds crowded into the courtyard.

With them came the market-women wearing black silk gowns; and their leader congratulated the Queen, speaking for the women of Paris, on the birth of the Dauphin; she assured the Queen of the love and loyalty of the women of Paris, and Antoinette, forgetting all the cruel slanders concerning herself which these very women had helped to circulate, wept tears of joy and pleasure to see them thus.

Then came the members of the various guilds with their offering for the Dauphin. All wore the best clothes they could muster, and each guild had brought a symbol of their trade to show the King that they would serve the Dauphin as they had served his ancestors. The butchers brought an ox for roasting; the chairmen carried a sedan chair, a glorious object decorated with golden lilies in which sat a model of the wet-nurse holding the Dauphin. The tailors presented a uniform, perfect in every detail, calculated to fit a small boy and give him the appearance of a Guards officer; the cobblers had made a pair of exquisite shoes, and these they presented to the King for the Dauphin; the little chimney-sweeps had built a model of a chimney, and on the top of this was a small boy – the smallest of all chimney-sweeps. They carried it ceremoniously into the courtyard of Versailles to show that the chimney-sweeps were loyal to the monarchy.

Then came the locksmiths. They came proudly, and their leader asked to be conducted to the King.

By this time Louis and the Queen had come into the courtyard to mingle with the loyal members of the guilds and to express their joy in welcoming them to Versailles.

The chief locksmith cleared his throat and, bowing low, presented a small locked box to the King.

‘We have heard of Your Majesty’s interest in our craft,’ he said, ‘and it is our honour to present you with this box with the secret lock. We doubt not that Your Majesty’s skill in our craft will enable you to discover the combination in a very short time, and it would be our delight to see you do so here before us all.’

Louis, smiling blandly and deeply moved by all the honour which was done to his son, feeling that his dear people shared his joy this day, declared he was all interest and could not let another moment pass without attempting to discover the secret of the combination.

The locksmiths watched him set to work, nodding with approval, holding their breath with delighted expectation.

In a few minutes the King had found the secret.

There was laughter and cries of delight; then a burst of cheering for, as he opened the lock, a tiny figure sprang out of the box.

It was a model of a Dauphin in steel – a boy in his robes of state.

The King stood still, holding the model in his hand; the Queen, standing beside him, put out a hand to touch it, and those near her saw the tears in her eyes.