Free Confessions of Marie Antoinette by Juliet Grey Page A

Heels and Red Bonnets
    N OVEMBER 1789
    We are settling in and making the best of it. Madame Élisabeth has moved to an apartment on the first story of the palace, while I have vacated the first-floor suite adjacent to the king’s. The children of France will occupy those rooms now so they can be close to their father. My new apartment is on the ground floor. Consisting of a boudoir, a dressing room, and a salon, it can hardly be called grand. Its very modesty and coziness somehow make me feel more secure. Louis’s rooms lie directly above mine, although his library is adjacent to my suite. In the mornings, he comes downstairs with the children by a narrow private staircase that connects our apartments and we breakfast as a family. Only one attendant serves us our chocolate and toast, but we have not complained. Fewer servants mean fewer spies.
    I have commissioned a number of new gowns from MadameÉloffe that pay visual homage to the symbols of the Revolution. The tricolore cockade rather than the black rosette of the aristocracy is affixed upon my hats and pinned to my sashes. White, for “purity,” is once again the fashion and I will wear a good deal of blue as well, ordering a few tailored redingotes to wear over a striped underskirt. Do the rebels recall how only two years ago my riding coats imported from England were mocked and derided as “mannish,” and I was depicted as a harpy for wearing them? Yet now the same silhouette and even the identical hue are considered de rigueur for the modish revolutionary. It passes all bounds of reason that the garments now viewed as the height of “patriotism” to the new order were anathema when popularized by the queen of France.
    Now that the tumult seems to have subsided, my children’s education must recommence. Much has happened since their former gouvernante , the duchesse de Polignac, departed so hastily in July. The marquise de Tourzel is utterly devoted to Madame Royale and the dauphin. But there is much I would like to impart to Louise about my son’s character in order to help him become a fine young prince.
    After my lever one morning I speak to her with as much privacy as we are permitted while Madame Élisabeth makes sure the children do not get up to any mischief. I do not wish them to say anything in the presence of our guards, for I have cautioned them repeatedly that these men are not our friends. As his governess has surely seen by now, the four-year-old dauphin suffers no deficit of confidence. Rather, one of his deficiencies is the inability to apologize or to ask for forgiveness when he knows he has behaved badly. “He will only say ‘I’m sorry’ with tears of vexation in his eyes,” I admit to Madame de Tourzel. “Like any little boy, Louis Charles can be thoughtless, impatient, and impetuous. His chief fault, madame, and above all, the one it is essential to correct, is his tendencytoward indiscretion. Regrettably, he is all too ready to repeat whatever he has heard, be it a bawdy joke, a cruel taunt, or an outright lie. And often enough, without any intention to tell a falsehood, my son will embroider the truth. He has an active imagination.” The marquise de Tourzel listens intently, nodding or smiling on occasion upon the recollection of certain events that match my description of the boy’s less-than-perfect behavior.
    “He is still too young to comprehend the exalted position he occupies,” I add. “And yet his sister understands it all too well. Madame Royale knows her worth to the realm as a daughter of France is so little compared to that of the dauphin. I take great pains to show that Marie Thérèse is not loved the less for it, but I am never certain she believes me. Her brother adores her, and whenever anything brings him pleasure, his first instinct is to ask that Madame Royale be permitted the same indulgence.” I reach for the governess’s hand. “I should like this system of encouraging his instinctive benevolence to