Becoming Marie Antoinette by Juliet Grey

Author:Juliet Grey [Grey, Juliet]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Adult, Historical, Young Adult, Romance
ISBN: 9780345523860
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 2000-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

At the stroke of one o’clock the bridal procession commenced the long walk from the State apartments to the chapel. Hand in hand, Louis Auguste and I walked together behind the Grand Master of Ceremonies with his tall staff. Thinking about how contented Maman would be to see me now, minutes away from taking my wedding vows, I found myself smiling, and out of excitement and impatience I squeezed the dauphin’s hand. How tall he seemed beside me! He gave me a shy smile, then turned his head away with a wince that made my stomach dip. On this day of all days, I wanted him, if not to be able to love me, at least to like me. I did not love him, of course; I scarcely knew him. But there was something about his plodding and deliberate manner that put me in mind of a horse yoked to an overburdened cart and made me wish to slip under the harness myself so that we might lighten the load by pulling it together.

Out of the corners of my eyes I watched our reflections as we passed through the twinkling Hall of Mirrors. Tiers of chairs had been placed along the entire length of the room. For two hundred and fifty feet on either side, five thousand invited guests sat elbow to elbow to witness our parade. They looked so splendid in their grands habits de cour: the men in their silk coats, hats, and swords, and the women in their enormous panniers and deep décolleté. And everyone, absolutely everyone, was wearing formal court maquillage, their faces so heavily painted that some defied recognition. I prayed I wouldn’t falter (or worse, trip) as I passed this aristocratic audience!

A magnificent procession snaked along behind us. Smartly dressed pages—such adorable children, I could have hugged each one for an hour—carried my voluminous brocaded train. In their wake followed the comtesse de Noailles, chin raised, with her angular nose in the air. The royal princes walked behind her—all the ducs and comtes who had dined with us, with the comtes de Provence and d’Artois at their heels, red heels, quite literally, a courtier’s privilege since the days of Le Roi Soleil. The king was the last of the men in the procession; from mirror to mirror I glimpsed him beaming, the only ray of sunlight on an otherwise inclement day.

The dauphin’s sisters, as excited to participate in the processional as Mesdames tantes were blasé about it, walked behind Papa Roi; and finally, a panoply of ladies of the court, sparkling with jewels from their powdered perruques to their shoe buckles, brought up the rear. We passed through the Salon de Guerre and the numerous rooms named for the gods of Roman antiquity—bright Apollo; clever Mercury; warlike Mars; chaste Diana; and finally, fittingly, the chamber named for the goddess of love, the Salon de Venus.

Some members of the bridal train were still on the marble staircase when the dauphin and I reached the cream-colored doors of the chapel, adorned with the gilded image of a Cupid.

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