their territory at will. In the absence of pisspots in every room, the thousand courtiers who resided under our sloping roofs, our visiting ministers, and any tourist eager to see how and where the king and queen of France lived, relieved themselves in the corners and stairwells, behind tapestries and draperies, in vases and urns. I could return to Versailles blindfolded and still know it by the smell.
The renovations I had commissioned at Saint-Cloud in 1787 from Monsieur Mique, who had designed le Petit Trianon’s pastoral hameau , will seem unfamiliar now. We could not even afford to complete them. But whatever has been done will be preferable to the Tuileries where, like the animals in the royal menagerie at Versailles, we are permitted only the illusion of freedom.
Rushing into the palace ahead of their governess, our children immediately make a game out of traversing the black and white tiled entrance hall, hopping from one black square to the next and imposing a penalty—two squares backwards, on the diagonal—for accidentally stepping out of bounds and landing upon a white tile instead.
After only one day, the entire royal family is in a buoyant, festive mood. Even Monsieur and Madame are filled with uncharacteristic pleasantries and compliments, although they refuse Louis’s offer to remain with us at Saint-Cloud, preferring to take up residence in a villa nearby.
Our sojourn at the château is most delightful. June brings a riot of color to the formal gardens, where every day the dauphin romps, growing more accustomed to the company of exuberant hounds. To my immense joy, after a few weeks, he no longer fears them. As a family, we walk all the way to the park at Meudon in the evening,although the air there hangs about my shoulders like a shawl woven of sorrows. For it was at Meudon that my firstborn son, only eight years old, drew his last breaths. I did not believe it a year ago when the abbé Vermond, in his endeavors to console me, assured me that the first dauphin had departed this life for a better one. After everything we have seen since last July, I am now certain my old friend was right.
“Louise, can you play billiards?” the king inquires one evening. The table, covered in green baize, is set up in the Salon d’Aurore. Above the heads of the players, which include Madame Campan, the princesse de Lamballe, and my husband, half-clad nymphs cavort with winged putti in a permanent depiction of daybreak, the painted sky tinged with soft yellows and pinks. The gilded walls of the gaming room are a riot of reds and vermilions, one of the only salons to incorporate my scheme for a Chinoiserie décor. The atmosphere deliberately invokes my childhood and the round Chinese Room at Schönbrunn, one of my favorite salons in the Hapsburgs’ summer palace.
Madame de Tourzel shakes her head, too awed to try her hand with the cue in the presence of the king. “Nonsense,” Louis insists. “Billiards are a fundamental part of anyone’s lexicon of pastimes. I will personally take charge of your lessons!” And as soon as the game in progress is completed, the king keeps his word and gives the royal gouvernante her first tutorial at the billiards table. The children are frightfully amused for it seems their governess has dreadful aim and the balls do not roll toward the pockets but skip and jump all over the baize as if she were skimming pebbles over a lake. We have not laughed so much in months. I wish I could bottle this moment in one of Monsieur Fargeon’s flacons and daub it on my wrists and behind my ears whenever I find myself once again in need of mirth and merriment.
EIGHT
The Lion Lies Down with the Lambs
J ULY 1790
A visit from the comte de Mercy at the end of June brings surprising news. He is accompanied by an old friend from the Bourbon court, the thirty-six-year-old comte de la Marck whose family has always served with distinction either in the Austrian army or in mercenary regiments
The renovations I had commissioned at Saint-Cloud in 1787 from Monsieur Mique, who had designed le Petit Trianon’s pastoral hameau , will seem unfamiliar now. We could not even afford to complete them. But whatever has been done will be preferable to the Tuileries where, like the animals in the royal menagerie at Versailles, we are permitted only the illusion of freedom.
Rushing into the palace ahead of their governess, our children immediately make a game out of traversing the black and white tiled entrance hall, hopping from one black square to the next and imposing a penalty—two squares backwards, on the diagonal—for accidentally stepping out of bounds and landing upon a white tile instead.
After only one day, the entire royal family is in a buoyant, festive mood. Even Monsieur and Madame are filled with uncharacteristic pleasantries and compliments, although they refuse Louis’s offer to remain with us at Saint-Cloud, preferring to take up residence in a villa nearby.
Our sojourn at the château is most delightful. June brings a riot of color to the formal gardens, where every day the dauphin romps, growing more accustomed to the company of exuberant hounds. To my immense joy, after a few weeks, he no longer fears them. As a family, we walk all the way to the park at Meudon in the evening,although the air there hangs about my shoulders like a shawl woven of sorrows. For it was at Meudon that my firstborn son, only eight years old, drew his last breaths. I did not believe it a year ago when the abbé Vermond, in his endeavors to console me, assured me that the first dauphin had departed this life for a better one. After everything we have seen since last July, I am now certain my old friend was right.
“Louise, can you play billiards?” the king inquires one evening. The table, covered in green baize, is set up in the Salon d’Aurore. Above the heads of the players, which include Madame Campan, the princesse de Lamballe, and my husband, half-clad nymphs cavort with winged putti in a permanent depiction of daybreak, the painted sky tinged with soft yellows and pinks. The gilded walls of the gaming room are a riot of reds and vermilions, one of the only salons to incorporate my scheme for a Chinoiserie décor. The atmosphere deliberately invokes my childhood and the round Chinese Room at Schönbrunn, one of my favorite salons in the Hapsburgs’ summer palace.
Madame de Tourzel shakes her head, too awed to try her hand with the cue in the presence of the king. “Nonsense,” Louis insists. “Billiards are a fundamental part of anyone’s lexicon of pastimes. I will personally take charge of your lessons!” And as soon as the game in progress is completed, the king keeps his word and gives the royal gouvernante her first tutorial at the billiards table. The children are frightfully amused for it seems their governess has dreadful aim and the balls do not roll toward the pockets but skip and jump all over the baize as if she were skimming pebbles over a lake. We have not laughed so much in months. I wish I could bottle this moment in one of Monsieur Fargeon’s flacons and daub it on my wrists and behind my ears whenever I find myself once again in need of mirth and merriment.
EIGHT
The Lion Lies Down with the Lambs
J ULY 1790
A visit from the comte de Mercy at the end of June brings surprising news. He is accompanied by an old friend from the Bourbon court, the thirty-six-year-old comte de la Marck whose family has always served with distinction either in the Austrian army or in mercenary regiments
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