We leave for Versailles in half an hour and I am already sitting here in all of my finery and diamonds, waiting to go. I have been up since dawn and have not had nearly enough sleep thanks to the thunderstorm that raged overhead in the middle of the night, the seemingly endless sound of rain beating against the window panes and the flutterings of panic deep in my stomach.
I had to rush to my little privy to be horribly sick after the fashionable Parisian coiffure had finished dressing, pomading and powdering my hair and poor Mesdames de Chaulnes and Mailly had to hold my ringlets, lace sleeves and blue satin skirts back as I clutched the china chamber pot and heaved and shuddered.
‘You worry too much,’ Jeanne de Mailly remarked afterwards with a kindly smile as I wiped my face with a linen cloth and tried to compose myself. ‘Everyone here thinks that you are exquisite and absolutely charming.’ She took my hand and gave it a comforting squeeze. ‘You really have nothing to worry about.’
‘But what if it all goes wrong?’ I said dubiously. ‘After all, the Dauphin can barely bring himself to look at me! What if he doesn’t like me? Can he have me sent back home to Vienna?’
Jeanne rolled her eyes. ‘Dear me, did no one take you aside before you left Vienna and tell you what an odd, cold fish your fiancé is?’ She took a cup of freshly made orange blossom tea from Madame de Chaulnes and handed it to me. ‘Drink this. I can’t promise you any miracles but it will at least help to calm your nerves.’
I drank thankfully. ‘So the Dauphin doesn’t really hate me?’ I asked nervously.
Both ladies laughed. ‘No, he really doesn’t hate you,’ Madame de Chaulnes replied with a smile. ‘It’s just the way that he is.’ She shrugged. ‘You should consider yourself fortunate that he isn’t a shameless flirt like his grandfather.’
‘Marie-Paule!’ Madame de Mailly stared at her friend, clearly torn between consternation and amusement. ‘Be careful!’
Madame de Chaulnes just shrugged again. ‘Oh why not just say it?’ she said, taking away my cup of tea and putting it back on the table beside us. ‘It’s only the truth after all.’
That’s also one thing that struck me — no one seemed to let MA know how the Dauphin was… or did she ever enquire, at least? A cold and odd person is a very apt description. Perhaps everyone thought being Dauphine and later Queen was more than enough reward and who cared about how the Dauphin was?