The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette (12 page)

“Your highness,” he said, his voice deep and inviting.

I held out my small hand to him. He took it in his much larger one and pressed his warm lips to my wrist. I felt a spurt of flame ignite at my wrist and spread up my arm, across my chest, into my neck and cheeks. I could not speak. I could not move or think.

Somehow the moment passed, and the next thing I knew I was standing in a circle of friends, whispering to Loulou, “Who is that beautiful man?”

“That is Count Axel Fersen. He’s just come from Sweden.

His father is Field Marshal Fersen of the Swedish Army.”

“Tell me he isn’t going back to Sweden right away.”

“Shall I find out?”

“Yes. No. Oh yes, please find out. Invite him—invite him to a late supper in my apartments tomorrow night.”

Out of the corner of my eye I watched Loulou make her way through the crowded room to where Count Fersen stood, taller than most of the men around him, his fair hair gleaming in the candlelight. They spoke together briefly, then Loulou turned and left him to return to me. At that moment he looked in my direction, fleetingly, and before I turned my head away I thought I saw the merest glimmer of a smile on his lips.

Tomorrow I will see him again. Will I be able to sleep tonight?

January 5,1778

Last night Axel came to supper and as soon as he entered the room I felt once again the strange and wonderful impact of his presence. Our eyes met and even though he was not near me I
saw, or thought I saw, a look of recognition on his handsome face. Not the recognition of me as Antoinette, but a different kind of recognition entirely, as of someone close to him whom he had known for a long time. I cannot describe it, but I felt it, and I knew that he felt it too.

We were twelve at supper. Louis was absent. He never came to my late suppers, preferring to eat an early supper served to him by Chambertin and then retire to bed with a box of bonbons.

Axel sat across the table from me, between Yolande and the old Duchesse de Lorme, who is seventy and quite hard of hearing. He spoke wittily and very graciously to both of them, nodding patiently when the duchess misunderstood him and turning aside Yolande’s flirtatious compliments with jokes and light banter.

Through it all, in passing, he glanced at me again and again, each glance a thrilling reminder to me of our unspoken closeness. For I did feel very close to him throughout that long supper, as aware of him there across the table as I was aware of my own breathing, my own heartbeat. We did not speak directly to each other, yet how much was said without words! How much was felt!

When the evening ended and he took my hand to kiss in parting I felt him slip a note into my palm.

“Good night, your majesty,” he said. “And au revoir.”

“Good night, count. I look forward to seeing you again soon.”

I could hardly wait to read the note.

“Shall I come to you tomorrow afternoon at the Petit Trianon?” he wrote. “Please say yes.”

I sent a page to Axel’s lodgings with a note that consisted of only one word.

“Yes.”

January 7, 1778

I can think of only one thing: Axel. Axel. Axel.

My world has been turned upside down and I am happily spinning and reeling with the impact. What glorious confusion!

I hardly know what words to put here, for there are not words to describe what is happening to me. It is as if I am newly born. As if I have crossed a threshold into an unknown land, the land of the heart.

Abbé Vermond has read to me about the Beatific Vision, when a saint glimpses the face of God and a new world opens before him. I too have had my Beatific Vision. I have glimpsed, as if for the first time, the face of love.

Axel came to me yesterday at the Petit Trianon and I told Loulou to send him up at once to my private rooms. He stepped across the threshold, held out his arms and I rushed into them, letting him enfold me as if he would never let me go.

“How can this be?” I said to him wonderingly when at last he released me and we stood, hands clasped tightly, regarding each other. “How can I love you so, when I don’t even know you?”

I spoke without thought, and was surprised at the boldness of my own words. Yet they were true. Why not speak them?

“My little angel, I am hardly the one to ask for an explanation. All I know is, I am enraptured with you.”

He kissed me then, long and fervently, and for the next hour I was lost in a sweet haze of joy and pleasure. He was a skillful and tender lover, and told me again and again how beautiful I was, calling me his little angel. When he stroked my cheek and smoothed my hair his hands were very gentle, and when we looked at each other I could not look away, so caught up was I in the beauty and depth and infinite sweetness in his fine blue eyes.

I made certain we were alone all afternoon, and we dined on sweet cream and strawberries and goose liver paté while
Axel told me all about his life, bending over me from time to time and kissing me as he talked. I love listening to him talk. He speaks French and German very well but with a funny Swedish accent. His voice is low and deep and he talks slowly, everything he does is unhurried and full of grace.

His father is an important nobleman in Sweden and an adviser to the king. Axel expects to be like him. He has many military honors and decorations and has been in battles before. He jokes about it but I am sure he is very brave.

I cannot think of anything but Axel. I feel swallowed up by love for him, afloat on a vast sea of love, basking under the warm sun of love. They say that love between two people grows slowly over time and becomes deeper and richer with the years. That is nonsense. I now know that real love sweeps into one’s life with the fury of a sudden storm. It is instant and powerful. Nothing else matters. Reason, restraint, judgment are swept away with the force of a swollen river surging past its banks, and nothing—not thought or feeling, sensations or life itself—can ever be the same again.

January 15, 1778

Axel is to be here only a short time. He is going to America with General Rochambeau. They are taking troops to help the Americans defeat the British, our enemies. They will fight in the savage wilderness, with the wild animals. There will be terrible danger. I am worried about his safety but he only laughs and says he thinks the court of Versailles is not a very safe place either.

He attended Louis’s levee in full uniform and when he was introduced, Louis stared at his chest with its expanse of ribbons and gleaming stars and gold medallions. I stood by, saying nothing.

Louis stepped very close to Axel and said quite loudly, “How did you get all those? Did you steal them?”

Axel smiled. “They gave me this one for ducking well under fire,” he said, pointing to one of the shining medals. “And this one for staying out of artillery range.”

Louis’s loud laugh could be heard all across the large salon. He clapped Axel on the back roughly. “That’s good. I’ll remember that. For staying out of artillery range. That’s good.”

“I’ve never been near a battle myself,” Louis added, watching Axel as he spoke to see how he would react.

“Your highness is much too important to the realm to be risked in combat,” was the deft reply. “You are needed to direct the course of battles, not fight in them.”

“I suppose so. In fact I would probably be in the way,” was Louis’s frank admission.

“I am told your majesty has a fine collection of maps,” Axel said, avoiding the awkward subject of Louis’s questionable value on the battlefield. “Have you any of the British colonies in the Americas? I would very much like to study them.”

I moved away to talk to some Italian dignitaries and did not hear any more. I felt uneasy standing there, so close to both my husband and the man I love most in the world. I hoped I was not growing red in the face with embarrassment. At this court, as at Schönbrunn, women socialize with their husbands and lovers in a very relaxed and matter-of-fact way. However, this deception is new to me. I never felt any awkwardness or embarrassment about my infatuation with Eric, because he was only a servant. No servant could ever be a true rival to the king. But Axel, so highborn, so much at ease in the splendors of Versailles, he was a different matter entirely. And I must admit that my love for Axel is as far above my love for Eric as the heavens are above the earth.

January 24, 1778

He is to leave in three weeks. I cannot bear the thought of parting from him. What will I do?

January 27, 1778

This afternoon Axel and I lay naked in front of the fire on a thick bearskin rug, while it snowed outside. We have had a severe storm and there is deep snow everywhere. The view from my windows is all white. Only Loulou knows that Axel is here with me, and she brings us our food and keeps the other servants away, especially Amélie.

It was so warm and cosy by the fire, and the crackle of the logs as they burned was soothing and restful. I could almost forget, as I lay in his arms, that he will soon be gone. Almost—but not quite. When we made love I clung to him, as if by holding him as tightly as I could I might be able to keep him with me forever.

Afterwards, while he drowsed, I traced the long lines of his beautiful lean body with my fingertips, admiring each curve and hollow, each strong muscle, the curling blond hair on his broad chest, the smooth belly and taut loins, the entirety of him. He opened his eyes, took my hand and kissed my fingertips.

“I could never have imagined, when I left Vienna, that I would meet anyone like you. That I would feel as I do now. For a long time I wished, secretly, that I had never come to France at all. Nothing here has gone as I hoped—as my family hoped. As a wife I am a failure.”

“Surely not. The Swedish ambassador has told me how good you have always been to your husband. How you have helped him and understood him when no one else could have.”

“But I have failed. I have not given him a son, an heir to the throne of France.”

“Not yet, perhaps. But you may be a mother in the future—unless Louis is incapable. Has he any bastards?”

“No. I’m sure he hasn’t.”

“Then the fault may lie with him, not with you. You mustn’t blame yourself.”

“Count Mercy used to tell me to take a lover, some nobleman who looked like Louis, and have children with him. But I couldn’t imagine doing that, lying about who the real father was.”

“No. Besides, the truth would be bound to come out sooner or later.”

“Axel,” I said a little hesitantly, “there is something I need to confess to you.”

“What is that, my little angel?”

“There is someone I loved before I met you.”

He smiled indulgently and stroked my hair. “Yes? And who was this lucky man? Don’t worry. I may envy him but I won’t challenge him to a duel.”

“My groom, Eric.” My voice was very low. “We never actually made love, but—”

“Yes, yes, I understand. It was a beautiful, innocent young love. I’m glad you told me. And I too must confess, dearest angel, that I have had loves of my own.”

“Have there been many women in your life?”

“Many. But only a few whom I have truly loved.”

“And did you never want to marry?”

At this Axel’s face grew grim, his mouth set in a firm line.

“It is expected of me. One day, I suppose, I shall have to fulfill those expectations. Meanwhile, I have a—a friend, a very dear friend, Madame Eleanora Sullivan, who lives in Paris and whose company I treasure. She is a courtesan, and I have known her for a long time.”

“A courtesan like my friend Madame Solange.”

“Madame Solange is very lovely. Eleanora is far less lovely, and much more seasoned, but she has a warm heart and a generous spirit. Unlike so many people in this world, she has truly lived. She has been many things, a wife, an entertainer, an acrobat in the circus. She is fearless, and always completely herself. I admire her very much. She has taught me a good deal about life.”

He saw that I looked crestfallen, and hastened to reassure me.

“Ah, my little angel, I would never want you to think of Eleanora as a rival.” He took my face in his cupped hands, looked at me fondly, and kissed me. “I have never treasured any woman the way I treasure you now, this moment. You are all I think of, all I want. If only I didn’t have to leave you—”

We stopped talking then, and made love again, and slept, and ate, and then talked some more, until Loulou came to light the lamps and Axel had to go.

Oh, how I love him! I would walk through fire for him. I would go, if he asked me, to the ends of the earth to be with him. If only he did not have to leave for America, and risk his life there. If only I could make him stay here, in this warm room, his long, lean white body gleaming in the firelight, his soft blue eyes full of love.

February 20, 1778

Axel is gone and I am in mourning. I could not bear to see him go. I was in tears when he came with General Rochambeau for his formal leavetaking. His sister was there, Baroness Piper. She wept and he embraced her very tenderly. He did not dare embrace me, he merely kissed my hand and pressed a note into it. Later I read it.

“My darling little angel, I carry your love with me. Keep mine in your heart until I return.”

Where is he now? How soon will he come back to me?

April 12, 1778

I am going to have a baby. Sophie thinks all the signs are there. General Krottendorf is late, my breasts are tender and sore and I am sleepy all the time.

Louis is the father, of course, not Axel. Axel was very careful when we made love. He told me he wanted to ensure that there were no consequences.

Louis says we must wait another month before we announce my condition to the world, and Dr. Boisgilbert agrees. I have not written the good news to maman yet. How very happy she will be to hear it.

April 21, 1778

Our soldiers are gathering by the thousands in the camps in Brittany and Normandy. Mercy says we may invade England, which has declared war on us because we made an alliance with the American colonies. Louis spends a great deal of time going over lists of supplies and provisions for the troops and writing letters to the arms manufacturers pointing out defects in guns and cannon. He hates meeting with the ministers and complains to me that they ignore him and do the opposite of what he thinks is best.