Chapter 23
There seems to be some plot of Fate to act against me of late.
First, my husband nearly perishes by an accident with a ladder.
Then my son suffers a dreadful relapse. A riot breaks out in Paris from a manufacturer cutting wages.
Then we are insulted in our procession by an icy silence for myself and cheers for the Duc d’Orleans, some directly into my face.
As though we have not enough to contend with as the Estates General continue to weasel their way into the hearts of the people and nudge us into the roles of villains of France.
And now I return to Meudon to see my poor, weak, diminishing son. Perhaps for the last time. Shall the sun ever shine upon me again?
Antoinette
“Mama, look! I am sleeping on top of the billiards table!”
Antoinette smiled at her sweet Louis-Joseph, so frail and weak and yet so delighted by the simplest things.
He had indeed arranged the billiards table into some semblance of a grand bed, much of the bedding from his room being brought out and arranged there for him.
He was laid out on it in a surprisingly formal position, like some strange tableau of childhood.
And yet it also resembled something far more morbid and terrifying.
A lying-in-state of a corpse.
His pallor. His stillness. His sunken appearance. The finery around him.
This was precisely what he would look like when that dreaded time came.
Her heart lodged itself in her throat, choking her and pulsing angrily at the idea.
“It looks marvelous, my love,” Antoinette managed to say despite the pain coursing through her.
His smile was faint, but the light in his eyes was as bright as it had ever been. He was still there, despite no longer being able to walk or play or do any of the things that a boy of his age should do. He was still her boy, even like this.
Even when she was losing him.
Loss was something she was coming to understand and expect from her life. The loss of her nationality when she married Louis. The loss of a child in pregnancy. The loss of her baby girl, Sophie. The loss of the respect of France. The loss of her reputation.
And soon, the loss of the Dauphin of France.
She had also nearly lost her husband a few months ago when he had gone for a stroll to take the air, choosing the roof of Versailles as his path, and a ladder on the roof that he had taken a moment to lean upon gave way. He would have plunged to his death had an alert workman not saved him.
Clinging to her husband had become an impulse Antoinette now had to learn to control. She had already lost so much. Losing Louis would be unbearable.
She sank into a nearby chair as her son fell asleep, her eyes tracing over his every feature.
His skin was mottled with open sores, and surely he was in pain constantly.
Yet he rarely complained. Madame Campan had told her that he was brave even when a clumsy valet had made his daily ministrations painful.
He could have turned into a tyrant, being the Dauphin of France, and sent the man away, but he did not.
He was never anything less than sweet. Professing his affection for those around him without hesitation. Always determined to perform the honors due to Antoinette as queen, even at dinner. Wiping her tears that she shed over him, even if he never commented on them.
Louis-Joseph was an angel, and he would soon be returning to the heaven from whence he came.
Sob after sob poured out of her, racked from her through torturous reflections and the memory of his birth.
Such a triumphant moment, the delivery of a healthy heir to the throne of France.
He had brought such joy to her and to Louis, such light and hope, such promise for the future.
His siblings adored him. His servants and household treasured him.
Even France had no harsh opinions of him.
How could any of them bear this?
“Mama,” Louis-Joseph rasped, his voice weak and filled with sleep.
Antoinette swiped at her cheeks and moved to the billiards table upon which he slept. “Yes, my boy?”
“Come sit with me.”
Unable to speak, Antoinette moved her chair closer and took his outstretched palm in her hands, kissing his skin tenderly as her tears fell.
His little thumb brushed against her hands as his breathing settled and he resumed sleep.
She leaned against the billiards table, freeing one of her hands and running her fingers through the locks of his hair.
If only Louis were here with her. The Third Estate was making more trouble and demanding more of his attention, and unless a doctor insisted the last moments were upon them, Louis could not be away. Antoinette was determined to remain here to the end, but Louis was not permitted such freedom.
He came as often as he could, reveling in every moment he had with his boy.
Louis-Joseph adored his father, and the feeling was absolutely mutual.
It was not a king and his heir when they were together.
They were simply father and son, embracing their relationship and their bond without anything else coming between them.
It was how a father and son ought to be.
There was no escaping their fate—their place in the monarchy—but Louis never treated him as his replacement.
“Madame?”
Thérèse de Lamballe approached, standing before her with damp, concerned eyes.
Antoinette tried to smile but found her face unable to cooperate. “Thérèse.”
“Can I get you anything? Tea? Mineral water?”
She shook her head. “I need nothing but my boy—unless you can bring my husband.” Her voice broke, and she clenched her teeth to keep her jaw from quivering.
Thérèse offered an understanding smile. “You believe this is . . . the end, then?”
Shakily, Antoinette nodded. “I cannot say why. Just . . . a feeling.”
Her friend and lady-in-waiting crouched before her. “The Dauphin has been reading more history lately.”
“He shares his father’s interest in the subject,” Antoinette whispered, each word feeling like a gasp.
“He loves it,” Thérèse agreed with a small nod. “Lately, he has enjoyed reading about the fifteenth century and Charles VII, especially Joan of Arc. I asked why he enjoyed that era, and he said that it was a time of many heroes.” She swallowed, her eyes growing watery.
Antoinette felt her own tears rolling down her cheeks, their pace slow and steady, dragging a chill along her skin.
“I’ll fetch you a wrap, Your Majesty,” Thérèse murmured as she rose. “It will grow cold in here.”
She departed before Antoinette responded, but there really wasn’t a need.
She wasn’t going to move, and she wasn’t going to sleep.
Louis would be here in the morning, unless something else forced him to delay.
Only when he was sitting here beside their son would she be able to consider sleep.
The doctors had been saying for days that there was nothing they could do and that Louis-Joseph would pass when his body wore out. There was no predicting a time.
It was so different from sitting by Sophie’s bedside. So unsettling with the unknown. She was afraid to blink. Afraid to leave the room. Afraid . . .
Just afraid.
Cold, alone, and afraid.
Her mind cast itself to her secret friends, Charlotte and Abigail, both acutely aware of a mother’s pain in moments such as these. She imagined them gathering beside her, angels standing vigil over this dear boy of hers.
How long she sat there, stroking her boy’s hair and clutching his hand, she could not say. Time ceased to exist. Her body knew no aching or fatigue. Her eyes never moved from the face of her firstborn son.
And then, in the midst of her vigil, his chest stopped moving.
The perfectly still child went even more still.
The hand she held grew heavier.
The feel of his skin grew colder.
The beating of her own heart consumed every one of her senses.
She kept waiting for breath to return to his lungs, for him to snore or mumble in that childlike way, for his lips to part, for his eyes to twitch. Anything.
But there was nothing.
Antoinette went completely numb.
No sensation. No emotion. No air or light.
She couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t see anything but the small figure of Louis-Joseph before her. She couldn’t stop her hand from stroking his hair. Couldn’t release her hold on his hand.
Somewhere in the distance, a clock chimed.
One o’clock in the morning.
And her son was gone, taking a portion of her soul with him.
The days that followed were hollow and heavy. Louis fell to his knees when he arrived to find their son had passed. He wept in her arms, cradled Louis-Joseph to his chest, and gripped Antoinette’s hand as though it was his only tether to the earth.
Antoinette was barely aware of anything.
She recalled eating at times, lying in bed at times, hugging her living children.
She did not recall speaking. Or crying. Or sleeping, really.
There had been meetings regarding the funeral, and the pronouncement that neither she nor Louis could be involved in the funeral rites, as per tradition.
Louis had protested heartily for them both, his voice choked and breaking.
How could they find consolation in their son’s death without the ritual that was intended to bring exactly that?
Antoinette had simply sat there, still raw and devoid of feeling.
She was suffocating in a world of silence and emptiness.
A barren wasteland that had once been her body.
Not even the masses of people coming to view her son lying in state could touch her.
Not the sprinkling of holy water. Not the honors given.
Not the silver cloth draped across his tiny coffin, the crown and sword placed atop them both, nor the Order of the Dauphin of France.
Where Marie Antoinette of Austria, Queen of France, had once been there was now a dark, cold, fathomless void.
How could she be alive when her seven-year-old son was dead? How could everything from the hairs on her head to her very eyes ache every second while she herself felt nothing? How could she be acutely aware of herself and somehow removed from it as well?
An in-between existence that made no sense and brought neither comfort nor relief.
It was not until three days later when one of the staff told Louis that members of the Third Estate were demanding to visit him in spite of their mourning that Antoinette seemed to break free from her prison of hollowness.
“Are you telling me I have held them off for as long as I can in our present situation?” Louis asked in a rasping tone.
“I am afraid so, Your Majesty.”
Louis looked at Antoinette, his eyes filling with tears. “Are there no fathers in the Third Estate?”
The pained words wrenched a sob from Antoinette, and she covered her mouth as her hand trembled.
It was the first sound she recalled making since Louis-Joseph had passed.
Her husband forced himself out of his chair and started to leave, then came back to her and pressed his lips first to her brow then to the crown of her head, inhaling slowly. “My darling,” he murmured.
Unable to stop her sobs, Antoinette gripped his shirt. How could these people be so cruel? Did they not see Louis as a man as well as their king? Was he simply an enemy to be conquered and not a father burying his son? Who were they to demand anything of him at this time?
He pried her fingers from his shirt and kissed them twice before placing them gently in her lap and leaving their quarters to meet those insisting upon it.
Left alone with her grief, Antoinette sank back against her chair, wrapping her arms around herself and letting herself feel her agony for what seemed to be the first time.
Not only was their boy gone, but the country was in a frenzy over its new demands. Court mourning meant nothing. The late Dauphin meant nothing.
France’s heir had died, and the nation hardly seemed to notice.
What cruel land did she live in, and why were the inhabitants of it so heartless?