But that was another life, and, as he had learned to do over the years, he quickly shut the door on it.
Other gifts were presented, too, and some of these were intended for her attendants, such as a set of porcelain Sèvres for Prince Starhemberg. When the ceremony was over, the dauphine extended her hand again, and reverting to German a final time, said to the marquis, “I hope that we shall be great friends.”
“I am sure of it, Your Highness.”
“And I believe that I shall be in need of them here.”
She was young, but perhaps not so na?ve as he’d thought.
Over the next fifteen years she had learned fast, adapting to the rites and rituals, the pomp and circumstance, of the most refined court in Europe. He had watched her grow from an awkward girl to a confident, even imperious, woman. And tonight, when he saw her at the grand couvert—where the king and queen dined in solitary splendor, while dozens of spectators looked on—the queen raised her eyes above the gold-and-enamel saltcellar and nodded a greeting. If only she knew, he thought, that the saltcellar, commissioned by King Francis at Fontainebleau in 1543, was from his own hand.
Waving the Princesse de Lamballe to her side, she whispered in her ear, and moments later the princesse herself drew the marquis aside and said, “The queen invites you to join her at the Petit Trianon tonight. Count Cagliostro will be there, and she thinks you might like to meet him.”
“Indeed I would,” he said.
The Petit Trianon was the queen’s private refuge—a separate, small palace on the grounds of Versailles, where no one was admitted unless by order of the queen herself. Consequently, invitations to her salons there were terribly coveted, and hard to come by; the marquis had once heard that even the king, despite the fact that he had given it to her, had to ask permission to enter its gates.
At ten o’clock, Sant’Angelo approached the neoclassical palace, so much less ornate and extravagant than its Rococo counterparts, mounted the steps, and passed through several rooms painted a distinctively muted blue-gray. From the main salon des compagnie, he could hear the strains of a harp and a harpsichord, playing a song written by the queen’s favorite composer, Christoph Willibald Glück. He assumed that it was the queen herself, an accomplished musician, who was sitting at the keyboard.
And, as he entered, he saw that he was correct. Antoinette was playing the harpsichord, the Princesse de Lamballe the harp, while perhaps a dozen other members of the nobility were sprawled about on upholstered divans and gilded chairs, sipping cognac, playing cards, amusing themselves with one of the many Persian cats or small dogs that had the run of the place. The marquis, who had seen more than his share of imperial courts, had never known one to include quite so many pets. A parrot perched on the mantelpiece now, safely out of harm’s way, while a white monkey, on a long leather leash, explored the underside of a marble-topped console.
The marquis waited at the threshold to be acknowledged by the queen, but she was concentrating so hard on the score that she did not see him. He recognized the Countess de Noailles, Mistress of the Household, sitting with her dreary husband at a faro table; the high-spirited Duchesse de Polignac, reclining beside a portly man in an open frock coat (frock coats, which were considered too casual for court, were encouraged at the Trianon), and a dashing young officer in a Swedish Cavalry uniform festooned with gold braid. This was the Count Axel von Fersen, emissary to the French court, and from all accounts the queen’s lover.
When the piece was finished, Marie Antoinette looked up at the round of applause, and upon seeing the marquis, glided across the floor toward him. At Versailles, even the way women walked, their feet swishing across the floor as if barely in contact with it, was prescribed and artificial.
But there was nothing false about the warmth of her smile.
“It was such a wonderful surprise to see you tonight!” she declared. “I hope you will be spending many days with us!”
“I haven’t made my plans as yet,” he replied.
“Good! Then I’ll make them for you,” she said, taking his arm and introducing him to several of the guests he did not know. It was only here, at the Petit Trianon, that she could be so free-spirited and informal. She had made the place her private retreat, a refuge from all the stifling protocol and public display of the main palace; here, she had even arranged for the servants to be kept out of sight, and in her boudoir she had installed panels that could shutter the windows entirely with just the turn of a handle.
“Tomorrow,” she said to the marquis, “we’ll have a sleigh ride on the Grand Canal, then a performance at the theater. I’ll arrange it all! And tonight, of course, Count Cagliostro will be demonstrating his powers of mesmerism and mind reading.”