have admired it: Threatened by a blossoming club, a snake coiled itself about a ripe, blooming olive tree, representing the cadeusus of Aesculapius; and above it all shone a rising sun. You must admit it was genius. And you must allow, too, that Versailles is very different from the Hapsburg court. Everything, from the pace to the fashions, has a
tempo con brio
here; the Hofburg is a stately pavane by comparison. How can I make you see it, Maman? I enclose a copy of a poem penned by an anonymous hand that is readily for sale in the shops of Paris praising “the coiffure of our queen” and her “perfect taste.”
You taught me well, my dearest mother. And for that I remain as mindful as I am grateful. So you see, it is quite possible to be at the same time fashionable and not neglect one’s duty to those less fortunate.
Your devoted Antoinette
A PRIL 1775
As the cold earth began to thaw, yielding to the crocuses and yellow buttercups, and the trees became once again stippled with buds, I decided to host a ball in the Hall of Mirrors in honor of Flora, the goddess of spring.
I had obliged Louis’s requests for economies by curtailing the number of masquerades; we had them now only twice a month instead of every Monday. For the vernal fête, I instructed Papillon de la Ferté to inform the guests that in the tradition of my Winter Ball where everyone had to dress in white, this time everyone was compelled to wear green.
Tant pis
for my Savoyard sisters-in-law, who, with their sallow complexions looked positively bilious in every version of the hue. This was my gentle revenge against them for daring to complain about dining with us from now on.
Outside, although it was too brisk to stroll along the parterres, the topiaries twinkled with countless fairy lights. To reflect their glow I’d ordered the gravel along the
allées
to be painted gold, and in the distance myriad paper lanterns danced from the boughs.
Beneath the thousand candles that flickered from the Hall of Mirrors’ forty-three chandeliers, the bespoke perfumes of hundreds of members of France’s aristocracy commingled.
Attired in verdigris satin, my hair adorned with a pouf that featured a naturally blooming garden of miniature tea roses, I found myself admiring the ingenuity of some of the costumes, for although I had not specified masquerade dress, a dozen or so courtiers had elected to pay homage to a salient event in the reign of Louis XV—the Yew Tree Ball. It was one of many dances thathonored the nuptials of his only son, my late husband’s father, to the Infanta of Spain in 1745.
The ball derived its unusual nickname because Papa Roi and a number of his attendants had arrived identically garbed as topiaries. The king was seen spending the better part of the night flirting through his unwieldy headdress with a married young woman whose acquaintance he had made some time earlier. Soon, as Madame de Pompadour, she would become the most powerful woman in France.
At my Homage to the Rites of Spring I, too, became utterly captivated by a stranger. Even in the crush of people, she stood out, for this striking young woman, with her flushed cheeks and cloud of unpowdered chestnut hair, was dressed from head to toe in a color I would have described as
yellow
.
“That poor woman!” exclaimed the princesse de Lamballe. Her emerald velvet gown embroidered with golden threads set off her pale blond hair to perfection. She clasped me by the elbow and drew me toward the perimeter of the Hall where we might derive a modicum of quiet. “Everyone has been talking about her all evening,” the princesse informed me. “Of course, one can never know how much to believe from the gossip one hears in a ballroom; but they say she is the wife of comte Jules de Polignac, an army colonel whose debts are so burdensome that he cannot afford to keep his wife in the latest fashions, and that it is a wonder they dare show their faces at court at all.”
The princesse
tempo con brio
here; the Hofburg is a stately pavane by comparison. How can I make you see it, Maman? I enclose a copy of a poem penned by an anonymous hand that is readily for sale in the shops of Paris praising “the coiffure of our queen” and her “perfect taste.”
You taught me well, my dearest mother. And for that I remain as mindful as I am grateful. So you see, it is quite possible to be at the same time fashionable and not neglect one’s duty to those less fortunate.
Your devoted Antoinette
A PRIL 1775
As the cold earth began to thaw, yielding to the crocuses and yellow buttercups, and the trees became once again stippled with buds, I decided to host a ball in the Hall of Mirrors in honor of Flora, the goddess of spring.
I had obliged Louis’s requests for economies by curtailing the number of masquerades; we had them now only twice a month instead of every Monday. For the vernal fête, I instructed Papillon de la Ferté to inform the guests that in the tradition of my Winter Ball where everyone had to dress in white, this time everyone was compelled to wear green.
Tant pis
for my Savoyard sisters-in-law, who, with their sallow complexions looked positively bilious in every version of the hue. This was my gentle revenge against them for daring to complain about dining with us from now on.
Outside, although it was too brisk to stroll along the parterres, the topiaries twinkled with countless fairy lights. To reflect their glow I’d ordered the gravel along the
allées
to be painted gold, and in the distance myriad paper lanterns danced from the boughs.
Beneath the thousand candles that flickered from the Hall of Mirrors’ forty-three chandeliers, the bespoke perfumes of hundreds of members of France’s aristocracy commingled.
Attired in verdigris satin, my hair adorned with a pouf that featured a naturally blooming garden of miniature tea roses, I found myself admiring the ingenuity of some of the costumes, for although I had not specified masquerade dress, a dozen or so courtiers had elected to pay homage to a salient event in the reign of Louis XV—the Yew Tree Ball. It was one of many dances thathonored the nuptials of his only son, my late husband’s father, to the Infanta of Spain in 1745.
The ball derived its unusual nickname because Papa Roi and a number of his attendants had arrived identically garbed as topiaries. The king was seen spending the better part of the night flirting through his unwieldy headdress with a married young woman whose acquaintance he had made some time earlier. Soon, as Madame de Pompadour, she would become the most powerful woman in France.
At my Homage to the Rites of Spring I, too, became utterly captivated by a stranger. Even in the crush of people, she stood out, for this striking young woman, with her flushed cheeks and cloud of unpowdered chestnut hair, was dressed from head to toe in a color I would have described as
yellow
.
“That poor woman!” exclaimed the princesse de Lamballe. Her emerald velvet gown embroidered with golden threads set off her pale blond hair to perfection. She clasped me by the elbow and drew me toward the perimeter of the Hall where we might derive a modicum of quiet. “Everyone has been talking about her all evening,” the princesse informed me. “Of course, one can never know how much to believe from the gossip one hears in a ballroom; but they say she is the wife of comte Jules de Polignac, an army colonel whose debts are so burdensome that he cannot afford to keep his wife in the latest fashions, and that it is a wonder they dare show their faces at court at all.”
The princesse
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