Chapter 14
I have put off my brother, the Emperor, yet again, and finally feel as though I am settled there. I am not Austrian; I am French. I must think of France and her needs, her aims, her wishes. There is plenty to occupy me in France without visiting Joseph and receiving a lecture on shared interests.
If only Louis would confide in me on the political matters of France.
I know he trusts me and respects me as his queen, but his ministers will never see me as anything but an Austrian.
Not only some foreign power that cannot be trusted, but a woman, whose mind is too delicate for weighty matters.
And sweet, insecure, indecisive Louis is too timid to stand for me.
I am never more than the second person in this state, and, despite the confidence that the first person has in me, he often makes me feel it.
And when he comes to me at night weeping, I know not how to console him.
And who, in my time of need, can console me?
Antoinette
A pained whimper roused Antoinette from her dozing. She blinked rapidly, looking around the room for a moment, unsure of her location and situation.
One look at the small bed before her brought her crashing back down into her painful reality.
Sophie lay on the bed, pale and small, her breathing rapid and rasping. Her brow was visibly damp, and her tiny body trembled beneath the coverlet like a frightened animal.
Antoinette choked back a sob and fell to her knees, leaning over the bed to kiss her daughter’s brow, brushing her light hair off her face. “My sweet girl,” she whispered against the heated skin. “Please fight.”
It had been days, and this intolerable fever would not break.
It might fall, but never for long, and would rise again with a fury.
Tuberculosis had weakened Sophie these last few months, but she had always been delicate.
The sweetest little girl, her very own porcelain doll, and always so curious about the world around her.
But now she was reduced to this feverous state, convulsing and seizing from something as simple as cutting teeth.
Her first birthday was approaching, and it seemed as though that milestone would never arrive.
Was this the fifth or sixth day Antoinette had spent by her bedside?
They all blurred together at this point.
To spare the other children in the nursery, they had set up a sickroom for the baby.
Her father and her siblings visited often, but Antoinette could not bear to leave her side for even a moment.
She only rested when Sophie was calm and sleeping, but the smallest sounds woke her.
The doctors were trying everything they could for her. Every possible treatment, every herbal solution, every wild idea that worked on animals. They were exerting their every influence and iota of knowledge or experience.
It was changing nothing.
At this point, it seemed that only the Almighty and Sophie herself could have any influence.
Antoinette had already begged the Almighty enough to make a priest weep. She had pleaded with Sophie to find the strength to fight.
Now she wondered if she ought to ask Sophie to just rest.
But she could not surrender her sweet girl just yet. She needed more time. She needed to hear her sweet voice chattering quietly. She needed to hear her attempts at singing. She needed to hear her attempt to say Mama again.
She needed everything again.
Perhaps then it would be enough to content her.
To let her treasure them up for what might come.
The door to the room opened, and Louis stood hesitantly, looking toward the bed, his eyes red and already streaming. “My love?”
Antoinette ran a finger along Sophie’s cheek, listening to her breathing one more time. “Nothing.”
He pushed into the room and nearly collapsed beside her, taking Sophie’s hand and bringing it to his lips, inhaling as though it were the sweetest fragrance. “Little one,” he whispered. “Papa needs you. So much.”
Biting down on her lip hard, Antoinette shook her head. “Louis, I can’t . . .”
He lowered Sophie’s hand and turned to Antoinette, burying his face in her hair and sobbing.
She was not surprised by his outburst. He’d been coming to her at night and crying for weeks, no longer a king, but as a man who feared he was broken beyond repair and breaking still. He was racked with despair over France, over the people, over his reign.
And then Sophie had fallen ill.
And now his emotions were even more pronounced.
But for the moment, he did not seem to be smelling overly of alcohol, which was some improvement.
He had taken to excessive drinking to try to drown his sorrows and numb his pain.
She would not condemn him for it, though she had pled with him for temperance, because she alone saw the depth of his feelings.
How things had fallen in the last year!
Louis hunted more than he ought to, as though it were an escape rather than a pleasure, and he was fatigued beyond what was reasonable.
His meals had become lavish, his words brusque and thoughtless, and his moods so variable that there was no predicting any of them.
Only in their private apartments did Louis allow his true vulnerability to show.
Only with Antoinette did his tears fall.
Only with Antoinette could he share the burden.
She would have loved to share his burdens before he had become so depressed and despairing, but she was still not given the chance to help with anything political.
Or be involved at all.
Most of Louis’s recent policies had failed, and the important changes he’d wished to make were not considered necessary or appropriate by ministers and Parlement. Failure after failure seemed to be flung in his face, crushing his already sensitive spirit.
To compound matters, national bankruptcy threatened France, and the general populace were furious about it. They blamed Antoinette and her lavish lifestyle, parties, caprices. They claimed she overindulged in everything from wine to delicacies to silks.
The pressure she felt from the public had led her to abandon her once-extravagant, towering hairstyles in favor of a new, simpler style that she hoped would project a more maternal image.
She did not even drink alcohol, only mineral water from Ville d’Avray, yet everyone was pleased to take the king’s behaviors as her own.
Worse than his own, as Louis stumbled occasionally due to poor eyesight, not drunkenness, but Antoinette was suspected of always behaving recklessly and spending impulsively.
Louis could not stop the slander no matter what he did, so his desire to protect Antoinette and avenge her could never be fulfilled.
For such a proud man, the blow was beyond devastating.
“They . . .” Louis sobbed against her. “They call you Madame Deficit. I cannot make them stop. They . . .”
“Shh,” Antoinette soothed, cupping his head against her shoulder as her own tears of despair fell. “I know, love. I know.”
She knew all about “Madame Deficit.” Her ladies had told her a few days earlier, and she had waged her own internal, emotional war against it.
When the members of the Assembly would not adjust their expenditures, she’d had to cut more than one hundred fifty positions in her own household.
Louis’s precious horses had to be reduced in number.
Her advisers had been swift and ruthless.
But she and Louis were not the only royals, nor were they the ones to spend exorbitantly.
Louis had two brothers, each with their own wife and household. There were two maiden aunts who refused to be moderate, plus Louis’s sister, his nephews, and the needs of his own children.
Worst of all were the notables in the court aristocracy, who viewed their positions and fortunes as their rightful inheritance and station.
They would not listen to reason when Louis and Antoinette had explained the restrictions, retrenchment, and elimination of positions.
Why, the Duc de Coigny had almost struck Louis at the news of his disbandment.
The de Polignacs were staying in England for a time, which was better for them and their favorite, the duchess of Devonshire, but not without resentment.
Others grumbled from one day to the next about losing their belongings, claiming such savagery belonged to other parts of the world and not the glory of France.
It was enough to make anyone attempting to create change feel discouraged and wish to find a momentary retreat or exile from it all.
But there would be no such luxury for Louis, nor for Antoinette.
“I have failed you, Antoinette,” Louis whispered, his fingers finding her recently shortened locks and running through them weakly. “I have failed our kingdom and our family.”
“No, my love.” She pressed a kiss to his cheek and cradled him into her, rocking gently. “All of this cannot be laid at your door.”
Louis shook his head swiftly, his frame shuddering like Sophie’s had been. “I am no king. I am hardly a man . . . God, take me and not my daughter! I cannot bear this.”
Antoinette squeezed her eyes shut, clutching him as her tears flowed over her cheeks. Her heart broke for her tender husband, for her baby girl in the sickbed, for her own strength that was beginning to crumble in earnest.
“Give it time,” Antoinette begged, curling her fingers into the hair at Louis’s nape, scratching a soothing pattern amidst her cries. “We’ve d-done what we can. Do not wish yourself away, I beg you. I cannot do this alone.” Her voice broke before she finished, a gasp replacing the words.
His arms reached around her at once, seemingly spurred on by her revelation of need. She might have been holding him, but whatever strength and support Louis had, he was giving to her.
“This is not the life I wished for you,” Louis murmured. “What have I brought you to?”