The Queen`s Confession (29 page)

“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 rumours 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 com213 miming with himself. In spite of his plain garments he adopted what I thought of as a very Imperial attitude. 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 assured 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 some thing sinful in our splendour.

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 214 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 I 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 most 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 dare say 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 I’ and he replied sternly: ” It would be more satisfactory if the King were quite the man. “

I was eager to show Joseph the Petit 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 realise 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 behaviour towards the King displeases me. “

Displeases yw 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 Ring’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 Annand 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, sombrely dressed in his plain puce-coloured coat, taking with him two servants in quiet grey.

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 un recognised his identity 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 bear and become more bourgeois than b 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 None Dame. To stand apart and look at Paris was an enchanting sight, he told me. Had I ever looked back at die spire of the St. Chapelle and die 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 their government and their 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 fac tories; he wanted to see bow the dyes were made, and wandered about the Rue de la Juiverie, the Rue des Marmousets and such-like unsavoury places to chat with the workers. His accent, his determination not to be recognised, 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 recognised

him at once in his plain puce garments, his un powdered hair, its simple 218 style, and his earnest endeavour to show them that he was one of them and dispense with all etiquette. They delighted in aim and he was extremely popular; on the rare occasions when he was seen with us, all the cheers were for him.

I noticed his secret satisfaction, and I knew then that his favourite re1e 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 theatres and the Opera balls, although he did deign to visit the Comedie Francaise. He called on Madame du Barry, who was at this time at Louvedennes, which her old friend Maurepas had arranged should be hers after the two and half years she had spent at the Font 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 free-thinker who was not shocked by the life she had led. It was surprising that he had no time for the Due de Choigeui, 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 criticised 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 endeavour to have more 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’s 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 219 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 coarse 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 assured 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 passionately.

Joseph expressed his astonishment, for while she caressed him in a loveriike way she assured him that it was perfectly all right: such liberties must be allowed an old aunt.

Joseph on telling me this warned me to make sure he was never alone with any of the aunts again.

“They have always behaved a little oddly,” I told him.

“Indeed it is so, but they count for nothing in this Court. It is the others of whom you must be watchful. Provence, cold as a snake, and his intriguer of a wife. The other one is too frivolous and his company is not good for you. He is the only one who can beget children, and when I have shown your husband how to overcome his infirmity and you become pregnant it would be as well not to have been too friendly with Artois. You are too much in his company. It could give rise to talk.”