Days of Splendor, Days of Sorrow (10 page)

Moments later, a discreet scratching at the door announced the arrival of Monsieur Lassone, the king’s
premier médecin
, or first physician. Even in the dead of night he was clad from head to toe in his habitual black suit with a pristine white jabot at his throat. Rising from his reverence, the doctor read the expression of terror on the king’s face. “Please, sit,” he said gently, gesturing to the bed.

Louis hesitated, then perched tentatively on the edge of the
embroidered coverlet. I sat beside him and took his hand in mine. Before the
médecin
could ask a question, I volunteered, “Things have been no better. It is not the king’s habits of exercise—not his enthusiastic hunting, nor his … his gourmandizing, that are the problem. He gave them up when you advised him to do so last year, and our … difficulties have remained the same.”

The doctor took a step back and regarded the pair of us with paternal concern. “And what difficulties are they—exactly? How then, would you describe their nature?”

I glanced at my husband. “I … can’t,” he whispered.

Monsieur Lassone lowered his chin to his chest and studied the king gravely. “What is it, Sire, that you cannot do? Is it that you do not have the words to explain, or that you are unable to …” He hesitated, searching for the best way, even for a man of medicine, to address the sovereign of the realm on the most sensitive, but vital, subject facing the House of Bourbon—the future of the dynasty itself.

Even in the golden lantern light I could see Louis’s full cheeks flush a deep shade of carmine. He lowered his gaze. “I love my wife,” he began, so softly I could barely hear him. “But every time I try to … to do my duty … nay, not a duty, for I
wish
to make love to her … I find that my …” his voice trailed off, and he placed his hand lightly in his lap, as if to protect himself. “It hurts,
monsieur le médecin
. I cannot account for it, for the will is there. It begins with a throbbing, and as my desire increases, the pain becomes so sharp, so intense, that it is impossible to bear and I cannot continue.”

For months Louis had been telling me “It hurts,” but would say nothing more, refusing to discuss it. I felt relieved that he was finally confiding in Monsieur Lassone. But was there a remedy? My chest felt constricted. I realized I was holding my breath.

Louis turned to face me and took my hands in his. “Do you
remember the day we met, Toinette, that first afternoon in the forest of Compiègne?”

I nodded. How could I have forgotten? He had been dressed like a tradesman in a suit of brown ratteen with an unadorned tricorn. Even his shoe buckles had been of plain silver. He’d hung back by the coach while Papa Roi embraced me like a daughter long lost to him. And all during the ride to the hunting lodge of Compiègne, the dauphin hadn’t uttered a word that wasn’t prompted by his
grand-père
. I attributed his reticence to shyness; after all, by virtue of my proxy marriage in Vienna a month earlier we were already married, and yet we were complete strangers to each other.

“When I first saw you, I thought you were the most beautiful creature on earth, and I … 
it …
” he emphasized, moving his palm to his
pénis
, “it became the way it does when it … when it
grows …
when I prepare to make love to you … and when …” he blushed deeply, “whenever I think about you—or look at you. Which is very often, you will admit. And whenever that happens to me—to
it
—the discomfort and then the pain become so awful that I can no longer bear it.” He tugged off his nightcap and placed it protectively in his lap, covering his privates.

A spontaneous cry escaped my lips; I raised my fist to stifle the sound. “And all this time—for more than four years—I thought you found me so repugnant that the very sight of me made you flinch.”

Louis looked aghast. “My poor queen. The torment I have put you through. When quite the opposite is the case.”

I pressed his hand to my lips and bathed it with my tears, even more ashamed of my girlish
tendre
for the duc de Lauzun. “I understand now,” I murmured, weeping. “But don’t you see … I was so afraid you would send me back to Austria.”

A man of science, Monsieur Lassone appeared at a loss in the
presence of such sentimental confessions, but by now he clearly comprehended that something quite tangible must be the source of Louis’s inordinate physical discomfort. I could see that he dared not tell the king of France that his condition was not normal. At length, after my husband and I had managed to compose ourselves, his doctor asked him to disrobe.

Louis balked, but I insisted. I am not the daughter of the pragmatic empress of Austria for nothing. To afford the men their privacy I took a chair by the window and allowed Monsieur Lassone to reposition a large floral screen about the foot of the bed so that he might examine the king in strictest confidence.

I waited anxiously. From the opposite side of the screen, I could hear Louis petulantly kicking the side of the bed with his large feet, an annoyed boy rather than a head of state, grumbling that Monsieur hadn’t managed to get
his
wife with child in three years, despite his boasts of sexual prowess; and yet no one was up in arms about Stanislas Xavier’s failures in the boudoir.

“With your permission to reply,
Votre Majesté
, that is because Monsieur is not the king of France,” the doctor said calmly.

“But
he
will be the next king of France if
we
don’t produce an heir,
mon chou
,” said I.

Louis groaned as Monsieur Lassone touched him, poking and prodding his delicate anatomy. After several more minutes, the
médecin
offered his diagnosis. “Well, I think I have discovered the source of our woes.”

I rose from the padded armchair and stepped behind the screen.

“Non!”
Louis cried.

“
Shh
, I am your wife,” I murmured, taking his hand in mine. “Ailments and illnesses, and even unpleasant news are facts of life. If there are obstacles to be overcome, there is strength in doing so together.”

Pulling away, my husband hid his face in his hands, mortified that I should see his naked flesh. Monsieur Lassone placed his fingers beneath the king’s penis and gently raised it. As our amorous efforts had always taken place under the sheets and brocade coverlet, and we never would have dared to remove our nightshirts, I had never seen a man’s private parts before; it looked like a bone with a funny little nipple at the tip.

“
Vos Majestés
, I regret to inform you that the king is suffering from a condition known as phimosis,” Monsieur Lassone began. “As you can see, the prepuce, or foreskin, does not retract from the member. This would render the act of copulation, or even the occasion of an erection, an immensely painful event. Am I correct, Sire?”

Crimson with embarrassment, Louis slowly nodded his head. Louis stared dolefully at his penis as if it were a young child that had disappointed him. He crossed his hands over his lap, unable to withstand further humiliation.
“Ça suffit,”
he said weakly. “Enough. I don’t want to hear any more.” A large tear trickled down the side of his face, followed by another, and another. I read the thoughts between his falling tears:
Tant pis
—too bad—if it was not considered manly to weep. With such a deformity, he might as well have not been a man at all.

I wondered why this issue had not been diagnosed during Louis’s childhood. He had once told me of submitting to the humiliation of having been stripped naked at the age of five and having his limbs examined for their soundness. No mention was made of this phimosis at the time, unless the report had been suppressed. Could it have been because the
pénis
of a boy of five was tiny enough that the doctors didn’t take notice of an abnormality, were too busy looking at his arms and legs and spine, or were too embarrassed to poke about the privates of a prince? Or perhaps, as his older brother was then dauphin, the
médecins
didn’t concern
themselves with what they saw, or wished not to alarm the royal family; and consequently, little thought was given to any future difficulties he might have in the boudoir and how they might impact upon the kingdom? Or,
c’est possible …
maybe maybe the physicians believed that his situation might resolve itself as he grew older.

“Is there a remedy?” I inquired softly. “We cannot go on as we are if the pain renders His Majesty incapable of sustaining … well, France must have an heir! And I very much want a child.” I looked imploringly into the doctor’s eyes. “What can be done for the king?”

Monsieur Lassone steepled his fingers and brought them to his lips. He remained lost in thought for a moment or two. “There is only one remedy, Your Majesties, which would entirely alleviate the issue of pain on erection and copulation. And that is circumcision.”

Louis’s hands closed over his nightcap, his knuckles whitening. “The Covenant of Abraham? Will you turn me Jew?” he exclaimed.

The
médecin
cleared his throat. “Although I can,
ahh
, recommend certain positions that might be more comfortable than the traditional one, without the procedure you are condemned to endure this excruciating pain in what should be, Your Majesty, a highly pleasurable experience. Especially with a beautiful wife. The recuperation period would span less than a month and there would be few sacrifices expected of you. You could not ride or hunt, and as you enjoy both to excess, perhaps the coming winter would be the best time …”

The physician’s voice became an incoherent drone. Louis’s eyes widened; he clutched his penis and cods more tightly, as if to protect them from imminent torture and a procedure that would undoubtedly be bloody, agonizing, and, given his lack of confidence
in sterilization procedures and the unhygienic conditions pervasive at Versailles, perhaps even fatal.

My husband and I had grown close enough over the past few years that I could safely hazard a guess as to what he was thinking.
Would they really do this to him?
No doubt he envisioned the cold knife, soaked in vinegar to sanitize it, pressing against his most tender flesh the way he insinuated the blade of his penknife into the rigid carapace of an oyster shell to shuck out the succulent meat, slicing—

“Non!”
The king exclaimed.

“Well, it is not a decision to be taken lightly,” Monsieur Lassone admitted. “It is not imperative that Your Majesty undergo such an operation, and I must advise you that there are as many risks as there are rewards.” As if he anticipated my question, the
médecin
added, “There will be blood. I would be remiss in my duty if I did not tell you that it is quite possible that His Majesty could lose a good deal of it.”

Louis blanched and I clutched his hand. The stakes and consequences were higher than any decision we had ever faced. On one hand, my husband would be risking his life; on the other, the future of his dynasty.

“You need not arrive at a determination tonight. It is of course a weighty one, which must be thoroughly discussed between you—”

The king raised his hand to call for silence. “I’ll do it,” he said quietly.

According to my husband’s ministers, Louis XV had left France’s treasury in a woeful state. The expenditures of the royal family, and even those of the thousand courtiers who resided at Versailles, were paltry, they said, when compared to the disbursements necessary to rule the nation, but the deluge must be stanched somewhere.
Mon mari
began his reign as
Louis le Desiré
—the Desired One—a sobriquet his subjects bestowed upon him in the hope that he would restore morality and economic sanity after decades of flagrant excess during his grandfather’s reign, and he was anxious to retain their goodwill. But he quickly learned that the business of governance often resulted in disappointing, if not outright angering, a substantial portion of the populace.

Soon after he inherited the throne, Louis confided miserably, “I feel as though I carry the universe on my shoulders. Still, a king must be just and make his people happy.” Eager to earn their love, my fastidious husband immediately sought ways to trim the fat, as he put it. He commissioned only six new suits, and those were
of such a modest cloth that his courtiers, who continued to live so far beyond their means that their debts encumbered them like iron shackles, blushed to see him.

Other members of the royal family had long been accustomed to having separate establishments; their apartments even had kitchens and larders. When Louis was dauphin, Monsieur and Madame hosted their own lavish suppers, while the comte d’Artois and his wife, who was Madame’s younger sister, did the same. Louis’s sisters, the princesses Clothilde and Élisabeth, were dependent on him for their well-being, and so they had always dined
en famille
with us or with Papa Roi when he was alive.

But Louis decided that it would set an example to the realm if the Crown were the first to make sacrifices. So he commanded the members of his immediate family to take all of their meals with us henceforth. Food would no longer go to waste and fewer cooks, footmen, and other servants would be required, thus saving the monarchy a fair number of salaries.

But this was not perceived as a pragmatic attempt to economize by my
beaux-frères
and their wives. Louis’s brothers, particularly Monsieur, viewed the king’s thrift as a punishment and in our presence their displeasure was thinly veiled. Behind our backs Stanislas and Marie Joséphine spread the word that no attendant’s job was secure—but how could my husband (who hated to rob someone of his employment) maintain the status quo for the aristocratic residents of Versailles and still satisfy his ministers’ urging and his subjects’ demands for fiscal restraint? Pleasing everyone at once was an impossibility; but if the king let things continue in the same vein as his grandfather had done, the Finance Minister warned that they would grow even worse, for money did not buy nowadays what it had done in the time of Louis XV.