‘So I should let him bleed to death,’ cried Antoinette scornfully, ‘because it is not etiquette for me to help him! No. I shall do as I wish. Get me bandages and hot water. You, Clothilde. You, Elisabeth.’

The Dauphin was kneeling beside her, and as he did so the man opened his eyes. ‘He is not badly hurt,’ said the Dauphin to Antoinette. And to the man he went on: ‘All is well.’ Antoinette noticed how soothing his voice was, and how the man looked at him with affection.

‘I am sorry, sir,’ he said. ‘I do not know how it happened … I must have slipped.’

‘Madame la Dauphine is concerned,’ the Dauphin told him. ‘She fears you must have done some damage to yourself.’

‘Madame,’ cried the man, struggling to his feet, ‘I am honoured …’

He was too weak to stand, and the Dauphin caught him in his strong arms. ‘You see, you are dizzy still.’

‘Let him sit here … with his back against this piece of furniture,’ suggested Antoinette.

‘He fears he should not sit in your presence,’ her husband explained.

‘What nonsense!’ She laughed her gay spontaneous laughter. ‘I suppose if a Frenchman is dying he must remember etiquette, for etiquette in France is more important than life and death.’

The Dauphin laughed with her. It was obvious that he was happy to have her with him.

Elisabeth and Clothilde came back with bandages and water. Artois said sulkily: ‘This atmosphere chokes me!’

‘Come,’ said Provence, ‘we can do nothing here. Clothilde! Elisabeth! You will return to your apartments.’

The little girls, who both wanted to stay and watch the strange behaviour of the Dauphine, looked appealingly towards their eldest brother; but he did not see them; he was watching his wife’s deft fingers as she bathed the wound. There was nothing they could do therefore but obey the orders of Provence.

‘There!’ said Antoinette. ‘It is not such a bad wound after all. Do you feel better?’

‘Yes, thank you, Madame.’

The man’s eyes were large with wonder that this exquisite creature could have taken so much care over him.

‘Now you should rest awhile,’ she commanded. ‘You should not continue with your work.’

‘It is true,’ said the Dauphin. ‘We will work no more today.’

The men bowed and went out, leaving the Dauphin and his wife together.

When they were alone, the Dauphin said: ‘You are so quick. You know what to do at once and you do it. I … wait too long. When I saw he had fallen I was … uncertain what to do.’

‘It is wrong, they tell me, to act without thinking. My mother continually scolds me for it.’

‘It was right this time.’ He was looking at her wonderingly. She gazed down at her hands and the marks on her dress. She grimaced. ‘I should change my dress,’ she said.

‘Not yet,’ he begged.

‘Not yet?’ she echoed. ‘Then I must not let any see me, for if I am seen in this condition I shall be reprimanded.’

‘Antoinette …’ he said. ‘You … you are happy here?’

‘That is what they all ask me,’ she told him. ‘Yes, I am happy. But France is not what I thought it. I thought we should have balls and parties every night. But what happens? I get up at half past nine or ten, dress and say my prayers. Then I have my hair dressed. Then it is time for church, and we go to Mass. We have our dinner while we are watched by the people, but we all eat very quickly and that is soon over. Then I retire to my room, where I do needlework. Then the Abbé comes and I have lessons. In the evening I play cards with the aunts. Then we wait for the King, and spend a little time with him. Then to bed. And that is all. It is dull; it is sober. It is not very different from life in Vienna.’

‘You have not seen Paris,’ he said. ‘There is much gaiety in Paris.’

‘Why can I not see Paris? I long to see Paris.’

‘It must be arranged one day.’

She stamped her foot impatiently. ‘But I want it now … now.’

‘You could not go without the consent of the King.’

‘Then can we not get the King’s consent?’

‘The aunts are against his giving it.’

‘The aunts! But why?’

‘They think you are too young.’

‘But he does not care for their opinions.’

The Dauphin looked uncomfortable. He was silent for some seconds, then he said: ‘Antoinette … did you … did your mother … talk to you before you came to France?’

‘She talked to me continually. She writes to me continually. She tells me all I ought to do. If I wish to know anything, I am to write to her. It is to be as though she is still with me.’

‘Did she … talk to you about … us … about our marriage … about what you must do … what you must expect?’

‘Oh, yes. She said I must have children … and soon … because that is what is expected of the Dauphine of France.’

A look of furtive horror crept slowly across his face. Antoinette went close to him and looking up at him whispered: ‘You do like me, do you not, Berry?’

‘Yes,’ said Berry, staring unhappily at the half-finished wall. ‘I like you very much.’

She had darted to the door suddenly and opened it.

Standing outside it was a man. He bowed, looking decidedly uncomfortable to be caught thus.

Antoinette said imperiously: ‘Who is this, Berry?’

‘Why …’ stammered the Dauphin, ‘it is Monsieur de la Vauguyon. Did you wish to see me?’

‘I wondered, sir, how the work was progressing.’

‘It progresses well, but there has been a little accident and we have decided that it shall be finished for the day.’

‘I do not think, Monsieur de la Vauguyon,’ said Antoinette, ‘that we need your presence here. Though I would rather see you stand before us than outside our closed door.’

The man looked startled, the Dauphin confused; but after a short hesitation Monsieur de la Vauguyon bowed again and went away.

Antoinette turned to her husband. ‘He was listening at the door. Did you know that?’

The Dauphin’s slow nod told her that he thought this was possible.

‘Why did you not show your anger?’

‘He is my tutor.’

‘That gives him no right to listen at doors. Does it?’

‘No … it does not.’

‘Then we are in agreement that this Monsieur de la Vauguyon is an insolent man.’

‘He … he is my tutor,’ reiterated the Dauphin.

Antoinette looked at him quizzically; and at that moment a tenderness was born within her for the young man she had married.

He was so shy, afraid of many things. It is due to his grandfather’s shutting him away from affairs, she decided; it is due to his always referring to him as Poor Berry; and it must also be due in some way to that odious Monsieur de la Vauguyon who listens at doors.

She was fierce in her hates and loves. She was now ready to love the shy Dauphin and hate all those who had been responsible for making him afraid – of what, she was not quite sure.


* * *

It was two years since the marriage of Marie Antoinette, and still she lived the quiet life in the Palace of Versailles; still she had not visited the Capital.

Her life was set in a certain pattern, governed by Madame de Noailles, her chief lady-in-waiting, whose one great passion in life was the observance of convention. Madame Etiquette infuriated the girl and made her determined to act in an unconventional manner whenever possible.

Letters came regularly from her mother. Maria Theresa was watching over her daughter’s career from afar. The Comte de Mercy-Argenteau, ambassador from Maria Theresa to the French Court, regarded it as one of his most urgent duties to spy upon the girl and report to her mother every trivial detail of her daily life. Antoinette was aware that she was under constant surveillance for often would come a reprimand, a word of advice concerning some little incident which she had not realised had been noticed by anyone.

Each morning she must go to Mass, must visit the aunts in the company of her husband; she must keep up a regular correspondence with her mother. She was embroidering a waistcoat for the King, which she feared would take her years to complete as she hated sitting still very long with her needle; she would have liked to run and romp in the gardens with her dogs, but Madame Etiquette was always at her elbow admonishing her. ‘Madame la Dauphine, but it is not for a lady of your position to do this, to do that … ’

She must not play with the bedchamber woman’s children. Antoinette was sorry for that; she loved children and had in fact engaged the woman on account of her children, and it had been such a pleasure to encourage high spirits. She could not bring all her dogs into the apartment, for some were not too clean in their habits. ‘Madame la Dauphine, it is not possible for a lady in your position … What a weary round it could be! Curtsying as she walked soberly in the gardens – a bright smile for a Duchess because she had royal blood in her veins, a haughty nod for a humbler personage; and of course she must learn to look at some people as though they did not exist.

‘You must do this; you must do that.’ There were injunctions from every side. She enjoyed riding; but Mercy wrote to her mother regarding the dangers of riding for one so young. It was said that riding spoiled the complexion and added to the weight. The impulsive young Dauphine had appealed to her husband for permission to ride. He had hesitated. It was not, he explained in his laborious way, that he wished to curtail her pleasure; it was merely that he hesitated to go against the wishes of her mother. ‘Then,’ she said, ‘if others agreed to let me ride, would you?’ He admitted that he would; and she construed that as his consent.

When she was next with the King she asked him to give his consent to her riding, and as Louis hated to refuse pretty young girls anything, and never did so when what they asked could be given at no cost to himself, he agreed that she might ride when she wished.

But still Maria Theresa protested. She had heard that beauty was of great importance at the Court of France and, through Mercy, she forbade her daughter to ride anything but the quietest donkey.

Such had been the power of Maria Theresa over her daughter’s youth that Antoinette could not escape from it after two years’ absence.

She rode her donkey and on one occasion, when she fell from it and all those who were with her rushed to her aid, she sat on the grass and declared: ‘You must not touch me. You must leave me here on the ground while we wait for Madame de Noailles who will show you the right way in which to pick up a Dauphine who has tumbled off a donkey.’

It was quite clear from the very beginning that the young Dauphine was one who would not take kindly to the enforcement of authority and conventions.

She rebelled against squeezing her slender young body into the corps de baleine – so necessary, it was said, to preserve a graceful figure; and it was only after much remonstrance in her mother’s letters that she submitted to this mild torture.

News went to Maria Theresa, through Mercy, that her daughter had slighted certain noblemen of German nationality who were visiting the Court. ‘I pray you,’ wrote Maria Theresa, ‘do not be ashamed of being German. You show this shame by your gaucherie towards Germans. German blood is in your veins, and you must accept and be proud of it.’

She was a source of great anxiety to her mother and of some amusement to the Court. She was an impulsive wayward girl who acted often in a most unexpected manner. Her goodness of heart was always ready to lead her into trouble. When she had been hunting with the royal party, and a peasant had been wounded by a stag, she had hurried to his rescue and, to the shocked amusement of all, insisted on driving him to his cottage in her coach. One day one of her postilions was hurt, and it was she who sent for the physician and stayed beside the postilion, soothing him until help arrived.

The people heard these stories, and they said: ‘She is charming, this little Dauphine. It will be a happy day when she is Queen of France.’

But there arose some matters which were of a more serious nature, and into which she plunged in her impulsive way.

When she arrived at Versailles there were two opposing parties at Court. One was headed by the Duc de Choiseul, who was the King’s minister-in-chief, the other by the Duc d’Aiguillon who aspired to that office. Choiseul, although by no means handsome, was a man of great charm, and because he had arranged the Dauphin’s marriage he set himself out to be particularly charming to the Dauphin’s wife. Choiseul had refused to submit to the dominion of Madame du Barry, and she had long ago decided to end his career. The King was lazy; Choiseul’s enemies grew in number. The Abbé Terray, an unscrupulous man, allied himself to the Duc d’Aiguillon, and both these men aided by du Barry set out to bring about the overthrow of Choiseul.