upbringing that Marie Antoinette told her foster-brother Joseph Weber had been inadequately supervised. One of the favourite maxims that Weber remembered her repeating on the importance of education had a sad ring of truth: “To be a king, you have to learn to be a king.” The same might be well said of a queen, whatever her graces, whatever her charms.
The young Dauphin of France, prospective bridegroom of this pleasing but uneducated child, was in quite a different way not particularly promising material. Somehow his life had got off to an unlucky start. His mother was bowed with grief during her third pregnancy, thanks to the death of her second child, the infant Duc d’Aquitaine. It was, however, the death of the eldest boy, the Duc de Bourgogne, in 1761 that left the seven-year-old Louis Auguste with a permanent inferiority complex. Bourgogne’s death was long-drawn-out and agonizing. Yet according to the inexorable etiquette of Versailles, Louis Auguste was moved into the apartments of his dead brother on the very day of his death.
His parents made no secret of their lamentations at the death of the favourite (whom Maria Josepha had called that special pet name, her chou d’amour ). The man in charge of Louis Auguste, the Duc de Vauguyon, Governor of the Children of France from 1758, also took the opportunity to lecture him on his inadequacy for the role once played by his incomparable brother. Perhaps Vauguyon thought this was for his pupil’s spiritual good; but the result was a terrible lack of self-confidence in the unwilling supplanter. It was all very well being taught the maxim, “Firmness is of all the virtues the one most necessary to a king,” but his upbringing was hardly qualified to help him put this firmness into practice. The death of his father, the Dauphin Louis Ferdinand, in 1765 meant that Louis Auguste, now Dauphin, was only a heartbeat away from the throne of France.
What he lacked in confidence, the Dauphin certainly did not make up for in physical attraction. He was heavily built, his weight increasing further as time passed. There was some kind of gene of fatness in this branch of the Bourbon family, which may have been glandular in origin. His father had been enormously fat. Maria Josepha’s father Augustus III had also been obese, while the prodigious physique of her grandfather Augustus II had been saluted with the cognomen “the Strong”; at least one of her brothers, Clement, was extremely fat. Wherever the inheritance came from—possibly from the meeting of two similar genes—there was no doubt that Louis Auguste, his nearest brother the Comte de Provence and his younger sister Clothilde all had what would now be called a weight problem. Clothilde was actually nicknamed “Gros-Madame.” They also all had enormous appetites.
Notoriously clumsy, the Dauphin cut an unfortunate figure at court dances; he had a tin ear so that his singing caused general shudders. His clear “Saxon” blue eyes—unlike the sparkling black “Slavic” eyes of his grandfather Louis XV and his youngest brother the Comte d’Artois—were myopic, causing him to peer at courtiers and fail to recognize them; more often he kept his head down so as to avoid the confrontation altogether. Ill equipped for formal life at Versailles, the Dauphin took refuge in a profound passion for hunting, a traditional royal occupation. From the age of nine onwards he recorded his exploits in a hunting journal which constituted a sportsman’s log (such as the young Louis XV had kept for seven years), rather than a conventional record of day-to-day events.
The Dauphin was, however, intelligent, naturally studious and well instructed by the rote-learning methods of the time. He liked literature and the “sublime melodies” of Racine. Above all, he had that love of history that was inculcated at David Hume’s visit. He was pious too, in an unquestioning way that seemed appropriate enough to a future King of
The young Dauphin of France, prospective bridegroom of this pleasing but uneducated child, was in quite a different way not particularly promising material. Somehow his life had got off to an unlucky start. His mother was bowed with grief during her third pregnancy, thanks to the death of her second child, the infant Duc d’Aquitaine. It was, however, the death of the eldest boy, the Duc de Bourgogne, in 1761 that left the seven-year-old Louis Auguste with a permanent inferiority complex. Bourgogne’s death was long-drawn-out and agonizing. Yet according to the inexorable etiquette of Versailles, Louis Auguste was moved into the apartments of his dead brother on the very day of his death.
His parents made no secret of their lamentations at the death of the favourite (whom Maria Josepha had called that special pet name, her chou d’amour ). The man in charge of Louis Auguste, the Duc de Vauguyon, Governor of the Children of France from 1758, also took the opportunity to lecture him on his inadequacy for the role once played by his incomparable brother. Perhaps Vauguyon thought this was for his pupil’s spiritual good; but the result was a terrible lack of self-confidence in the unwilling supplanter. It was all very well being taught the maxim, “Firmness is of all the virtues the one most necessary to a king,” but his upbringing was hardly qualified to help him put this firmness into practice. The death of his father, the Dauphin Louis Ferdinand, in 1765 meant that Louis Auguste, now Dauphin, was only a heartbeat away from the throne of France.
What he lacked in confidence, the Dauphin certainly did not make up for in physical attraction. He was heavily built, his weight increasing further as time passed. There was some kind of gene of fatness in this branch of the Bourbon family, which may have been glandular in origin. His father had been enormously fat. Maria Josepha’s father Augustus III had also been obese, while the prodigious physique of her grandfather Augustus II had been saluted with the cognomen “the Strong”; at least one of her brothers, Clement, was extremely fat. Wherever the inheritance came from—possibly from the meeting of two similar genes—there was no doubt that Louis Auguste, his nearest brother the Comte de Provence and his younger sister Clothilde all had what would now be called a weight problem. Clothilde was actually nicknamed “Gros-Madame.” They also all had enormous appetites.
Notoriously clumsy, the Dauphin cut an unfortunate figure at court dances; he had a tin ear so that his singing caused general shudders. His clear “Saxon” blue eyes—unlike the sparkling black “Slavic” eyes of his grandfather Louis XV and his youngest brother the Comte d’Artois—were myopic, causing him to peer at courtiers and fail to recognize them; more often he kept his head down so as to avoid the confrontation altogether. Ill equipped for formal life at Versailles, the Dauphin took refuge in a profound passion for hunting, a traditional royal occupation. From the age of nine onwards he recorded his exploits in a hunting journal which constituted a sportsman’s log (such as the young Louis XV had kept for seven years), rather than a conventional record of day-to-day events.
The Dauphin was, however, intelligent, naturally studious and well instructed by the rote-learning methods of the time. He liked literature and the “sublime melodies” of Racine. Above all, he had that love of history that was inculcated at David Hume’s visit. He was pious too, in an unquestioning way that seemed appropriate enough to a future King of
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