Chapter 20
Antoinette
Abigail, my dear friend,
Darkness is coming.
I am not surprised, given the continuing bankruptcy of France and the reappointment of that disagreeable Necker as minister of finance, not to mention the vile gossip being spread about both me and Louis.
I am a wicked adulteress, he is an impotent drunkard, both of us are comically stupid.
Even our extended family members have become a laughingstock.
No one seems to be escaping the raucous libel, not even the children, and I have it on good authority that coarse rhyming songs are even being sung among some of the courtiers.
There is no more respect for the monarchy here.
Louis has grown more despondent and disinclined to take action on anything, leaving him trapped by his own fears and confusion. I have tried to encourage him to take on a more active role—he would feel better if he were suitably occupied—but he remains sullen and pessimistic.
Worst of all, my darling Louis-Joseph is becoming weaker and frailer by the day.
He is as cheery and precocious as ever, but he is simply unable to walk on his own and limited in his possible exertions.
A mechanical wheelchair upholstered in green velvet with white wool cushions was constructed and brought to him.
I had to bid farewell to him as he was removed to a quiet house in Meudon in the hopes that the country air and peaceful environment will do him good.
I pray it will not be the last time I see him.
Voices are growing louder and more boisterous against us.
The Duc d’Orleans, Louis’s own cousin, has taken a stand against him without shame; he grows more critical of us every day.
Not only that, but he has been staging opportunities to give money and goods to the poor, appearing to the lower classes as some merciful angel while we—the king and queen—are viewed as snobbish, distant, and cold.
Just the other day, there was a grand procession to Mass, and someone shouted “Long live the Duc d’Orleans” directly in my face, making me stumble slightly.
Louis was so enraged by the treatment of me that he did not speak for several hours.
Our power and influence are waning, and every day seems to grow more dim on the horizon.
What will become of us? What will become of our country?
No one seems to have the answers. Not Necker, not the recalled Parlement, not the ministers murmuring in Louis’s ear.
I cannot remember the last time I smiled. Doom and discouragement are my constant companions, and I feel there is nothing more to hope for. Even with Louis-Joseph, I have come to accept the raw, unvarnished, ugly truth.
He is going to die.
Each and every doctor has told me so. There will be no complete recovery, only an extension of his short life. His childhood has ended, confined to the youthfulness in his size and his mind while his body continues to fail him.
Grief is a strange bedfellow. My son is still alive, yet I must already grieve his loss. I adore him endlessly, but I cannot deny the diminishment of his abilities. Every opportunity I have to see him merely forces me to reflect on his life from birth to the present. My agony is endless.
It would be difficult enough to endure this in times of contentment, but with the nation in disarray and the trouble with our reign, I feel as if everything precious is slipping away, not just my boy.
Misery. That is the state I live in now.
Various shades of misery.
France is a ship trapped in a storm and heading directly toward dangerous rocks and shoals.
My life is one dark cloud after another.
My husband is rapidly losing the light in his eyes and the color in his expression.
My children are being taken from me, one by one; I wish I could attach Thérèse and Louis-Charles to my side to ensure nothing bad ever touches them.
My only consolation are my letters to Charlotte and you. Only with you can I truly find comfort. Only with you can I expose the truth of my feelings—and crumble under their weight.
For everyone else, I must grow more indifferent, retreat more into myself. Where once I had been perfectly aloof and impervious to insults, now they strike true, finding every chink in my invisible armor and creating painful wounds I cannot heal.
Louis has confided that the members of the Third Estate—the commoners who are not part of the clergy or nobility—are discovering new rights for themselves and demanding immediate implementation.
It has heightened the tensions between the more conservative side of the nobility and the popular party, which only makes Louis more indecisive.
He wants to satisfy as many people as possible, but he cannot afford to alienate anyone.
He is as disabled as our son, in that way.
I have done my best to advise him, comfort him, but he is as blind to my guidance as he is to his own opinions. I have even been approached by those attempting to sway the king, even with opinions that do not match my own, in the hopes that such would persuade Louis to act.
But he will not act.
I am a widely hated figure now. Blamed for Louis’s indecision. Cursed for that wretched diamond necklace affair. Mocked for the slightest perceived flaw.
I have become a scapegoat for everything wrong with France.
The more Louis retreats, the more power the people receive, and the less a defense of me, or of him, is popular.
So yes, there is darkness. Everywhere. My mind and heart. My prospects. My home. My life.
I am a shell of the woman I once was, my heart a mere flickering of light doing just enough to keep me alive.
Something needs to give, and I very much fear that the weak spot that will send the entire tower of things crashing down is me.