way and kissed it with real affection. I said to him: “Louis … do you rather like me?”
“How can you doubt it?” he asked.
It was hardly the impassioned declaration of a lover, but it was the nearest he had ever come to it; and I went to the aunts in a state of great excitement, which was foolish of me for they recognised at once that something had happened.
“You have just left Poor Berry,” said Adelaide.
“Has something happened?”
“He is going to sleep with me tonight Adelaide embraced me. and Victoire and Sophie looked at me in a startled fashion.
“Yes,” I announced triumphantly, he has told me so. “
“In a very short time you will be telling us some exciting news,” said Adelaide archly.
“I am sure of it.”
“I hope so. Oh, how I hope so.”
How foolish I was! Before the day was out the whole Court was buzzing with the news: “The Dauphin is going to sleep with the Dauphine.
Tonight is the night. ” Those cynical courtiers like Richelieu, that old roue, were laying bets on the success of our encounter.
“Will he?
Won’t he? ” There was whispering everywhere. Worst of all, Adelaide summoned Louis to her apartment because she wanted to ” Advise’ him.
That night I lay waiting for my husband. He did not appear. I should not have been surprised. My reckless talk had spoilt it.
Although the matter was now causing the gravest concern, I doubt that the King would have bestirred himself but for my mother. She was constantly writing to the King and begging him to do something. The truth about the Dauphin must be disclosed, and if there was a remedy it must be found.
Because of my mother’s importuning, the King sent for my husband and there was a long consultation; as a result Louis agreed to submit to an examination by the King’s physician, Monsieur Lassone, who reported that the Dauphin’s inability to consummate our marriage was due to nothing else but a physical defect which the knife could rectify. If the
Dauphin would submit to this operation all would be well.
Everyone was discussing the operation but Louis did not say whether he would submit to it. We slept in the same bed and he behaved like a lover; but our lovemaking always failed to reach that climax which we both so earnestly sought; and after a while we both found this state exhausting and humiliating.
There was no more talk of the operation. The King shrugged his shoulders; it was left to Louis to decide, and it became clear to me that he had decided against it. He was desperately trying to prove that he did not need it; but he did.
I cannot imagine why he would not submit to the opera-don at this time. He was no coward; but I suppose the whole business sickened him as it did me. If we had been an ordinary couple we should have seeded the matter in a very short time; but we were not; we were Dauphin and Dauphine of France. His impotence was discussed in the Court and in the Army. Our most intimate servants were constantly questioned, and when we discovered that the Spanish Ambassador had bribed one of the bedroom servants to examine the sheets and let him know the state of them, it seemed the last straw. Although we continued to occupy the same bed, Louis would retire early and be fast asleep by the time I went there; and when I awoke in the morning it would be to find him already gone.
This state of affairs continued, while I received angry letters from my mother, who cared much more than I did about the humiliation of my position.
And as I entered the second year of my marriage another controversy arose which made everyone forget the tragedy of our bedchamber.
My quarrel with Madame du Barry had been brewing ever since the aunts had told me of her true position at Court. I did not understand then that I should have been wiser to form an alliance with her than with the aunts. They, unknown to me, had resented my coming from the first.
They had been strongly against the Austrian alliance and were no real friends to me, whereas this woman of the people, vulgar as she might have been, had a good heart, and although Choiseui had arranged the marriage, and he was her enemy, she bore no animus towards me. Had I shown her the slightest friendliness she would have returned it doubly. But I was foolish. Egged on by the aunts, I continued to ignore her; I used my gift of mimicry and gave Hide imitations of her which caused a great deal of amusement and which, naturally, were reported to her. I could imitate her mannerisms, her vulgar laughter, her silly lisp and I did, exaggerating them ever so slightly to increase the amusement.
It did not occur to me that she must be wiser than I to have climbed to the top place at Court from the streets of Paris. The King doted on her; he allowed her to perch on the aim of his chair at a council meeting, to snatch papers from him when she wanted his attention, to call him “France’ in an insolently familiar way. All this he found amusing, and if anyone criticised her he would say, ” She is so pretty and she pleases me and that ought to be enough for you. ” So everyone realised that if they wished to remain in die King’s good graces they must please Madame du Barry. But I was in his good graces. I did not have to con form to ordinary standards so I thought and I made up my mind that I would never seek the friendship of a street-woman, no matter if she was the King’s mistress. So I behaved as though I could not see her. Often she would seek the opportunity to present herself before me but she could not speak to me until I spoke to her etiquette for bade it, and even she had to bow the knee to etiquette. So every time, I ignored her.
Although she was not a woman to bear rancour she was no respecter of persons either. She gave me the nickname of Little Austrian Carrots, and as this was taken up by others I grew very angry, and increased my imitations of her crudities and continued to look through her every time we met. This snubbing because so obvious that soon the whole Court was talking of it, and Madame du Barry became so incensed that she told the King she could endure it no longer and that Little Carrots should be ordered to speak to her.
The King, hating trouble, was annoyed, and I lacked the sense to realise that he was angry with me for making it. His first action was to send for Madame de Noailles, and naturally he did not come straight to the point. Madame de Noailles, in a state of fluster, reported to me immediately the King dismissed her. He had begun, she said, by saying one or two complimentary things about me, and then he had criticised me.
Criticised! ” cried Madame de Noailles in horror. you have evidently displeased him greatly. You are talking too freely and such chatter can have a bad effect on family life, he says. In ridiculing members of the King’s household you displease him.”
Which members? “
“His Majesty named no specific one, but I think that if you would say a few words to Madame du Barry you would please her, and she would report her pleasure to the King.”
I pressed my lips firmly together. Never! I thought, I’ll not allow that street-woman to dictate to me.
Foolishly I went at once to the aunts and told them what had happened.
What excitement there was in their apartments Adelaide clucked and clicked her tongue.
“The insolence of that putain. So the Dauphine of France must be dictated to by prostitutes!” She believed the woman was a witch and had the King under her spell. She could find no other reason for his behaviour. But how right I was to come to them! They would protect me from the King, if need be. She would think up a plan and in the meantime I must behave as though Madame de Noailles had not spoken to me. I must on no account give way to that woman.
The Abbe saw my indignation and asked the cause of it, so I told him; and he went straight to Mercy and told him. Mercy immediately saw the dangerous implications and sent an express messenger to Vienna with a full account of what had taken place.
My poor mother! How she suffered from my stupidities! One little word was all that was needed and I would not give it. I was certain that I was right then. My mother was a deeply religious woman who had always deplored light behaviour in her own sex and had set up a Committee of
Public Morals so that any prostitute found in Vienna was imprisoned in a corrective home; I was sure she would understand and approve my action. I could not see that my refusing to speak to the King’s mistress was a
