Abundance. Part 28

"The possible uses for such a machine challenge the imagination," Fersen says.

For the first time, his countenance looks fierce to me. As though he senses my thought, he quickly looks at me, and smiles. "Does Your Majesty think it a pretty spectacle?"

"I am afraid and happy all at once," I answer truthfully.

"Look at the faces of the people," the King says.

We see their wonder. They feel as though perhaps they too were lifted a little off the ground, when the balloon rose up. They seem to walk on tiptoe.

The King suggests that all the royal party return to the palace, for music and celebration.

THROUGHOUT THE HALL of Mirrors, on this eve of Fersen's departure, we dance to mannered minuets, gavottes, and allemands. Our skirts swish and tilt over the floor in something of the manner of a herd of hot-air balloons. In one corner stands the dark column of Montgolfier, and all the brightly skirted ladies crowd around him, some with coifs to suggest balloons.

The ladies flutter their fans, decorated in antic.i.p.ation of this gathering with pictures of balloons among the clouds. A few fans sport the figure of Montgolfier in the dark clothing of a chimney sweep standing next to a fire. Aloof, the man of science pays little attention to the coquetry of our ladies.

Because of my pregnancy-though I have gained little girth-I am careful not to dance too much. As I rest in a chair beside the King, all about us the courtiers speculate on the possibilities of human balloon travel-that it could be used for smuggling, that it might engender war in the skies with blood raining down on all those below. Someone expresses concern that the ascent of the balloon will undermine religion, because the a.s.sumption of the Virgin into heaven may cease to appear miraculous.

Some wag suggests that, with the aid of hot-air balloons, lovers might be able to come down chimneys, then ascend back into their waiting balloons with the daughters of the house, clad only in their nightgowns. Glancing at the count, I cover my hand with my fan and giggle.

We learn that the balloon traveled for eight minutes before it landed in the woods a few miles beyond the chateau. The basket having opened, Montauciel the sheep was found nibbling greenery, as though she had not been the first sheep in history to fly. The c.o.c.k and the duck huddled in a feathery trans-species embrace in a corner of their gondola.

BEFORE HE TAKES his formal leave, the count chooses the single moment when we are alone to offer me rea.s.surance. He looks at me, bends toward my ear, and says calmly but with intensity, "Of course it is impossible that we can ever be parted."

Fearing that someone at the ball has learned the art of lip reading, I merely nod.

A BITTER BIRTHDAY, 1783.

It is my birthday. I have lost the unborn child on my birthday. Soon after Fersen left, the King and I admitted to each other that our beloved little Dauphin Louis Joseph is not robust, and this new child was very much wanted. I confessed one of my nightmares to the King, that I hear the Dauphin cry in the night, his little body afire with fever.

And now a miscarriage. A child who will never cry.

It is a bitter thing.

FOR MY BIRTHDAY, the King has given me a prayer book, a precious illuminated volume t.i.tled Les Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. Indeed, the pictures, very wonderful copies of the medieval original, are enchanting. Some of the colors are like stained gla.s.s. Other scenes possess all the charm of real life, one of harvests and of peasants living in France in the fifteenth century, so long ago. Idly, I turn the pages. Rich hours? The t.i.tle of the book seems ironic, on a day when I have lost an unborn child. These hours are leaden.

The poor King! Sitting beside me, he cries as though his heart would break! He covers his large face with his large hand, and weeps.

I AM ALMOST TOO WEAK to think. Too weak to look at my gift or to offer comfort to my husband. How many baskets full of cloths soaked with my blood did they carry away? One after another, with a clean cloth folded on top, so that I would not have to see the evidence of disaster. But I saw the blood through the weave of the basket, once, and I saw a drop fall down and be absorbed by the carpet.

Because Fersen was here, during the summer months of this pregnancy, I thought G.o.d had sent me a good omen, for Fersen has always come during my pregnancies.

How Count von Fersen pleased me with his presence. Every moment was a treasure. Everyone said his gaze has grown more icy, since his time in the American War, that now he rarely smiles. His reserve tempts the ladies, for each wishes that she might have the power to restore his spirits to animation.

But I notice no such lack of animation in his spirit or his features. For me, he always smiles.

I ache with the misery of this loss.

When Fersen first appeared at court, in July, I said to him again, "Ah, an old acquaintance," which is how I greeted him before, after a long absence. I close my eyes; yes, better to remember the hours, days, afternoons that were years ago. He recognized the phrase, smiled, softly clicked his heels together, and all was between us exactly as it had been before, magnified, because now we knew our affection had outlasted time and distance.

He told me what a joy it was to be once more in my Private Society.

Almost, now, I want to smile. His presence now would cheer me.

BALLOONMANIA.

After several weeks in bed recovering from the miscarriage, I feel well enough to dine with my friends. Yolande has promised an amusing time. She does not usually employ the word amusing, so I am full of curiosity.

It is a pleasant dinner, but I cannot say that I have been amused. Nonetheless my appet.i.te has been good, and I have eaten beef, because the doctors say it strengthens the blood.

"For dessert," she says, her face exceedingly merry, "we shall have fruit tarts and fruit itself."

A very large dish is brought in, capped with a silver hood. At a nod from Yolande, the cover is removed by a servant, and there I see the tarts and fruit-but, behold! The fruit begins to rise! To my amazement-yes, vast amus.e.m.e.nt!-apples, oranges, a pineapple, limes, pears, a bunch of grapes, are steadily floating upward in the air!

"Balloons," she shrieks, "filled with methane gas."

"They are lighter than ordinary air," the King explains, his eyes twinkling, "so they rise."

IT HAS NOT been long since the fruit-shaped balloons rose up from the table, past the decanters of sherry and port, up to the level of the putti near the ceiling, that the King comes to my private chambers within the chateau to read me an article describing the first human ascent by balloon: a young physician of the last name of Rozier, age twenty-six, along with an army officer have been the first human beings to be carried aloft by a globe of hot air. While the King reads, I work at my needlepoint. The King explains that methane is too susceptible to explosion to be trusted in such a venture at the present time. Large balloons bearing people are best filled with hot air.

The King goes on to read aloud Pilatre de Rozier's life. To provide interaction with the public for scientists excluded by the Royal Academy, he created an open Musee des Sciences containing books and scientific equipment, in Paris. Not only men but women might be given admission to the museum-but only if they were recommended by three male members. Rozier has written a book t.i.tled Electricity and Loving.

"What is this electricity?" I ask.

"It was discovered by the American statesman Benjamin Franklin. It is the force in lightning that lights the sky and has the power to kill people and to knock the bark from trees."

"How is it related to loving?"

The King lays down his lorgnette. "I can't imagine," he replies.

Both of us look at one another, dumbfounded. Then we laugh.

It is the first time we have laughed together since the miscarriage.

ON THE FIRST of December, very formally at dinner, the King announces, "What months these are!"

We all wait to hear what he will say next. He lifts a gla.s.s of Bordeaux to propose a toast. All of us rise-we happen to be dining with his two brothers, the Comte de Provence and the Comte d'Artois, and their wives, planning festivities for the Christmas season-though we do not yet know what solemn occasion has just occurred.

"Congratulations to Messieurs Charles and Robert. From the Tuileries gardens in Paris, they have soared aloft for a full ninety minutes, come back safely to earth, and been greeted as they stepped from their basket by the Duc d'Orleans."

We all shout hooray, as though we were the triumphant aeronauts, but I can see that the King wishes with all his being that it had been he who had had the honor of greeting the heroes.

I notice my husband's eye falls with interest on another item in his paper, below the fold.

"Is there more to the story?" I ask.

"No, no," he replies. "Only here it says that in one's own kitchen one can make a miniature balloon from the bladder membrane of an ox."

All the rest of us burst into laughter.

The King looks a bit sheepish. "It says to use fish glue," he adds.

A DOUBLE PORTRAIT, SPRING 1784.

In a rapture of excitement, though I try not to show it, I watch my friend paint my children. We are all outside at Trianon, and they sit on a large stone step. As I watch her transport their actual beauty to the world of the canvas, I am radiant with pleasure. Such an art she has, Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun!

Not long ago, the Dauphin lay so ill with a consuming fever that he could not pa.s.s water, and his body bloated. The physicians explained that such an ordeal strengthens a child against future maladies and surely he would recover. Yes, I said, it is unthinkable that he will not recover. And he did, but when I look at him now, dressed in pale blue satin beside his sister, I want to say to her, "Hold him to you more closely."

Her arm is around his little shoulders; his sweet hand touches her forearm. In the painting they appear to tend some little gray birds, though actually the birds are products of taxidermy. When my friend paints them, she imagines them back into life; she paints the one in the Dauphin's hand with an open beak.

His fingers enclose the feathery bird, a meadowlark, so gently, as though he would not for all the world squeeze the life out of it. In the hand resting on her lap, Marie Therese holds the nest, with a number of other occupants.

The Dauphin's eyes look right out at us, but they are wistful, and I can easily see the traces of illness in his expression. My friend paints it just so-his large, tired eyes-for she knows my anguish and how I treasure him for his delicacy.

She is no less accurate in capturing my daughter's expression: her smile that curves slightly down, the tight little pressure that is often between her lips. Her taffeta dress is the technical masterpiece of the painting: peach and blue stripes, smooth here but slightly crumpled there, reflecting the light in a hundred different ways. A wisp of scarf softens the neckline, while a pink flower-is it an apple blossom?-is pinned to one side. My daughter's gaze is partly on her brother, partly on the twiggy nest; her gaze seems partly unfocused, or focused on inward thoughts. Sometimes I feel just like that-softly absent. The pointed toe of a white satin slipper peeps out from under the hem of her skirt.

I love the softness of Madame Vigee-Lebrun's touch, the vibrancy of her colors, even when they are pastel. I wish there had been such a painter in Vienna to capture the enchantment of my own childhood.

My children hold a nest, but they themselves are little birds with open beaks, needing the careful care of those who would hold them tenderly.

The court calls the time I lavish on my children frivolity. They criticize me for wis.h.i.+ng to take care of my own children, for they feel I neglect my duties as Queen, which is to say, spending time at court with them. But what do they want of me? Only favors and gossip. They are behind the times in not appreciating the appeal of children, and when they are old, they will regret that they preferred to hold stiff playing cards in their hands instead of the trusting fingers of their children and that they studied the faces of jacks and spades instead of the sweet eyes and lips of innocence.

When my friend painted me in my muslin dress, the courtiers demanded that the picture be removed from the Salon. They said it was unseemly to portray the Queen in her chemise, her undergarment, yet less of my bosom is exposed than if I wore a court dress. Moreover, this same Salon accepted Adelaide Labille-Guiard's portrait of Madame Mitoire breast feeding her babe, a subject never depicted in modern painting. When they scorned the simple appeal of my straw hat, I knew all their criticism of my portrait was actually an attack on me. They call me Madame Deficite. I think they wanted to criticize the very rose that I held in my hand, but it is my favorite painting of myself, and the one that is truest to my spirit. And such simple clothes are less expensive.

Now my friend proposes to paint me again in the same att.i.tude, only this time dressed in blue satin.

I am glad the Dauphin is wearing blue satin for his portrait, for I could not bear it if they criticized my son. I would want to run away to another country, and then they would have no king and no future! I would want to lock us behind gates that they could never enter, and there we would have an uninterrupted idyll, my dear family, my true friends, and I.

THE SEASON OF THE HAMEAU.

Count von Fersen writes to me that my letters are all about the building of the hamlet of late, and that I mention the theater less and less frequently. This observation surprises me-certainly it is not a criticism. It is an observation about a change that is perhaps made so slowly that I hardly detect it.

I fear such changes. Sometimes I wonder if the Dauphin is not slowly losing ground, and because the change is gradual, I fail to take proper note of it. The doctors are so determined not to upset me that I sometimes wonder about the veracity of their explanations. When I mention my fear to the King, he only looks at me sadly, his eyelids at half-mast. He grunts in a troubled, sympathetic way. He offers no opinion. When I press him, he says we must rely on the doctors.

It is true that thoughts and plans for the Hameau delight me. We have a model of how it will all be built. When I look down on the model, I feel rather like a G.o.ddess viewing the earth from Olympus, only this is a very French earth, with tiny model French cows and French sheep beautifully placed in the pasture of the miniature working farm, to be located at the edge of the village and to supply the wholesome things we shall eat there, our cheese and b.u.t.ter.

But certainly I have loved the theater well. Last spring I was playing the roles of Babet and Pierrette, both of them simple, loving country girls. In contrast, this spring I talk endlessly with Hubert Robert and Richard Mique about our designs for the Hameau. I shall have over one thousand white porcelain flowerpots, decorated in blue with my own monogram, modeled on that lovely superimposition of the letters M and A on the clasp of the bracelet I received at the time of my marriage. These rustic pots will be placed on the wooden staircase that spirals up to the balcony and on the balcony itself, lined up like so many little soldiers. And the darling pots will also adorn the winding stair up the Marlborough lighthouse tower, overlooking the pond. I think the pots will be filled with red geraniums, but the air of the Hameau will be redolent from spring through summer with the aroma of lilac, roses, jasmine, and myrtle. And I will have nightingales to sing during the evening hours! Wild ones, but so well fed with the nicest seeds that they will never want to fly away.

My white lawn dresses, tied with a simple sash, topped with a straw hat, can be worn whether I am in the artificed world of the Hameau or receiving guests in the chateau itself. Pa.s.sing from one world to another-is not that the provenance of spirits?

I've already spoken to the artisans at Sevres about my milk buckets, made of porcelain to resemble rough wood. Every detail will be artistically perfect, and I've already named the cows Blanchette and Brunette.

And so, does my attention wander from the theater? I think I am taking the world of imagination off the stage and into the real world. The sets are no longer flat paper cutouts to be slid out of the wings into the glow of the theatrical lamps, but real places, where one can go in and out.

NOW WHILE THE Hameau is half finished, it seems especially to hang between two worlds. The model village was like a seed, but there is the life-size reality, half completed. I myself have often felt half created, hanging between my past and my future.

I step through the frame for a doorway and inhale the aroma of newly cut lumber. Just as easily, I pa.s.s out again between the studs of an uncompleted wall, an improvised and temporary door. In future days, this pa.s.sage will be as impenetrable as the walls of a prison. I look out at the flat stone where my children sat to be painted. Now the stone is blank, but I fancy I call to them and they rise, then step forward out of the flat world of canvas to join me among the rustic cottages.

We admire the heavy thick thatch at the edge of a completed roof. A meadowlark visits to tug at a reed for her nest, but the thatch is too tightly compacted, and she flies away with nothing. I rejoice in being outdoors under the puffy clouds. The builders sit over there beneath a chestnut, eating lunch.

I will walk back to the chateau, change my dress, prepare to be painted myself, to be placed on a flat canvas. In this moment, I fill my lungs with sweet country air. All laziness, I recall my out-of-doors play as a child.

PORTRAIT OF A QUEEN IN BLUE SATIN, HOLDING A PINK ROSE.

Having heard that the bloom of youth begins to fade after one turns twenty-eight, I have determined to have myself painted again, and this time I look forward to the sitting, for Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun shall be the portraitist. My request is that she present herself to me in my private apartment, in the interior of the chateau, where all the rooms are small and cozy. Long ago, the King gave me these small rooms, and I have claimed them as my own intimate nest, exquisitely decorated. When I cannot escape to Trianon-just as my husband planned-they provide me with privacy. While I have been painted in my state apartment with my harp, by Gautier-Dagoty, in 1777, surrounded by my friends, by a singer and a reader, I do not like the expression he gave to my face-more like that of a doll than a living person. Here I will be myself, with a true friend.

Madame Vigee-Lebrun sets up her easel with an expert flick of its tripod legs, and takes out a new wooden palette on which to mix her colors. While she prepares the other implements of her art-brushes, rags, turpentine-she glances quickly at me, as though she is taking impressions and looking for just the right angle. I stroll about a bit restlessly, for it is wise to dissipate excess energy before attempting to remain immobile, for the sake of the artist.

As though she reads my thoughts, Madame Vigee-Lebrun tells me that she will not require that I stand perfectly still. Then she asks if I have forgotten to wear my pearls. Touching my throat, I find, indeed, she is correct, and I send for them. When I was painted en chemise I wore no necklace or bracelets. Perhaps it was the omission of jewelry that made me appear naked or half-dressed to the objecting public.