The Secret Door

“Let them eat cake!” or . . . dramatic pause, drum roll please . . . “Find my secret door!”

They’ll never find it, the secret door, that is, not the cake. Of this, I am sure. A queen keeps her secrets close to her chest, after all. The doorway is hiding in plain sight, right in front of everyone’s nose, should they dare to look. It couldn’t be any more obvious, as a matter of fact.

With everything I have been through and with everything I have to endure in my daily life as queen, I think I have a right to my privacy and secrets. What do I have to endure, you ask? What is so bad about being a queen? I know many of you peasants in the French countryside are starving. You hardly feel sympathy towards me. You are also uneducated. You probably can’t even read this story, but hopefully someone will read it to you, so then you can see and understand my side of things. You probably hate my guts, thinking I live in the lap of luxury and decadence. I don’t have a single right to complain, you tell yourself.

Well, you may be right. I don’t know what things are like on your end. I have no idea what it’s like to be hungry and cold. I beg you to consider, however, just how things are from my point of view. After doing so, then, and only then, I dare you to judge me. After telling you my story, you will surely understand why I felt the need to build a secret door and lead such an opulent lifestyle, while you are all starving.

Let me start at the very beginning, however. Once upon a time, there lived a young lady, a teenager, over in Austria. Her name was Marie Antoinette. Yes, as many of you know, I’m not really French and I don’t speak your language. I am Austrian and I was but fourteen years old, when I was first told that I was to marry your king, Louis XVI, straight away. I had no choice in the matter. You see, our countries, Austria and France, had been feuding for about three centuries. We finally became allies, however, after much strife and turmoil. Someone obviously thought it was a good idea to marry our countries together through the marriage of its young royals, namely Louis and me, Marie Antoinette.

Most alarming to me was the fact that I had to leave my home, family, and country behind – everything I held dear, really. I was forced to travel to a strange land, to marry a man I had never met who spoke a language foreign to me. In Louis’ defense, however, I think he also had no choice in the matter. We were both forced to make the best of a bad situation. He wasn’t much older than me, being only fifteen when we wed. We were but mere babes in the woods surrounding Versailles.

When I arrived at the palace, we knelt down in front of the Archbishop in the Chapel and recited our vows in front of God and man. Louis slipped a ring on my shaking finger, and later also presented me with a beautiful carved wooden cabinet that was filled to the brim with bright, shiny jewels and other precious objects. That cabinet and those jewels were just the beginning of my lifelong love affair with beautiful things. (Hint, hint, my secret doorway is located in a corner of the palace in a lavishly decorated spot befitting a queen – a place full of dazzling beauty and overwhelming ostentatiousness. Some feel that place, where my secret door is located, is just too much of an assault on the senses – too much bedazzlement in one place, truly blinding to its viewers. I beg you to remember that I am but a mere girl, however, and like a crow who can’t help himself, I am attracted to bright shiny things! )

But I digress. Back to the story of our momentous, historic nuptials. Immediately, after our marriage, it was also part of the tradition that the courtiers had to witness Louis and I sharing the marital bed. Could anything be more insulting and inappropriate than having the public witness one’s honeymoon, or lune de miel as you French say? I soon discovered, however, that this voyeurism was only the beginning of my lack of privacy.

It’s no wonder that so many royals live their lives to excess or take up with mistresses. Having a bad habit, whatever it may be, or secret, romantic life is nothing more than a coping mechanism. If you need to sneak around to have a love life, you might as well sneak around with someone exciting. It’s a long standing tradition that kings don’t marry for love. They marry for duty, connections and to carry on the royal bloodline. For true romance and their own enjoyment, they are encouraged to take mistresses. It’s not really a scandal. It is accepted in our world. Everyone turns a blind eye to royal dalliances or merely looks the other way.

Surprisingly, however, Louis was a gentleman. He honored our marriage vows. In his eyes, taking a mistress would be wrong. Although we were very young when we entered into our arranged marriage, he took his vows seriously. He did not cheat on me, not once, although he had plenty of opportunities to do so with all of the courtiers and fancy ladies milling about Versailles in their frilly, low cut dresses. I know for a fact that many of those women tried to catch Louis’ attention. It’s quite prestigious, you see, to be the King’s mistress.

But back to that secret door. I’m sure you can understand now why I needed to sneak off somewhere private. Surely you understand how I didn’t want to consummate my marriage in front of a gaping audience. And it’s not just our dalliances that are witnessed. Imagine, if you will, what it is like to live in a fish bowl.

Everything I do is witnessed by adoring masses – from the moment I wake up in the morning to the moment I close my eyes to sleep at night. Yes, I begin each day with the “waking up ceremony” which is as bad as it sounds. I really don’t see what’s so exciting about watching someone open their sleepy eyes and wake up with a bedhead and morning breath. No, I don’t see the attraction in that at all. Yet people line up every morning to get front row seats to watch me wake up. Go figure!

For this reason, the utter lack of privacy and decorum, Louis and I both have separate apartments, apart from those viewed by the public. At heart, I am a modest person, despite my love of shiny things. We access our respective private apartments through our own secret doors. (And yes, my door is in a shiny spot!)

I know just where Louis’ secret door is. It’s behind a bookcase in his master bedroom. He, however, has no clue where my door is. Some secrets are healthy for a marriage. Unlike me, he has no imagination when it comes to the secret hiding spot for his door. Once he enters the secret door, the passage leading from it is quite narrow. Only one person can squeeze through at a time. The narrow, winding passage leads either to his secret apartment, or, if you continue walking further, lets out into the garden.

My secret doorway does the same. If I ever want to be intimate with Louis and have a thrilling rendezvous as any young, newly married couple might do, I sneak away to his private apartment where he never turns me away. He is a typical guy, after all, and we are still teenagers and newlyweds to boot. Our hormones rage just like anyone else’s. Other times, I just want to go to bed undisturbed, not spied upon by others. My secret doorway and private apartment allow me to do so, away from prying eyes.

Besides our respective private apartments in the main part of the palace, I also have my very own smaller palace on the grounds of our estate. It’s called the Petit Trianon, and it’s a smaller palace gifted to me by my dear Louis. There, I can really get away from everything and be myself, let my hair down, so to speak. I also reach this petite palace through my secret doorway and a passageway that leads to the garden and then to the Trianon. At the Petit Trianon, I can entertain my own friends.

Yes, I have a life outside of the main castle and Louis. I have my own group of friends and interests, separate from my royal duties. I just met someone really interesting, as a matter of fact, a Swedish count named Axel von Fersen. We have become good friends, and he visits the Petit Trianon quite often. There’s something about him that I just find fascinating. He always has a twinkle in his eye. I enjoy our verbal sparring matches very much. He excites me with his challenging comments. Somehow he seems to peer inside my very soul and knows me like no other, in a way that Louis does not, I am afraid to say.

I am sure many of my courtiers think we are lovers. Are we? Like the location of my hidden doorway, some things are better left unknowable. I say this coyly (wink, wink!) – I’ll never tell if we are lovers or not. Again, a queen deserves her secrets. Plus, I don’t want to hurt Louis – not when he’s been so good to me and gifted me with so many things – not to mention the fact that he has never strayed outside of our marriage. What Louis doesn’t know, however, won’t hurt him. I can be very discreet when I want to be. Like I said earlier, some secrets are good for a marriage.

Plus now, as the years roll by, somehow we now share four children, Louis and I: Marie-Thérѐse Charlotte, Louis-Joseph, Louis-Charles, and little Sophie Béatrice. As an aside, and so that you will further appreciate the horrors of never having privacy, I should tell you that as queen, I even had to give birth in full view of my courtiers. Can you imagine what it’s like to be in the throes of full labor and have everyone witnessing you pushing a child out from your private lady parts, screaming bloody murder all the while? Now, you should realize the importance of secret doorways, hidden apartments, and a petite queen’s palace, a.k.a. Le Petit Trianon!

But right now, I am back at the main palace with Louis and all four children. What’s that noise I hear, though? There is a tremendous pounding on the castle door and much shouting and pounding of feet. All at once, I hear a bloodcurdling scream.

I look out a tall arched window at a horrifying sight. There are dirty throngs of peasants milling around holding lit torches and sharpened spears. They are shouting and pressing on the heavy wooden door that is the main entrance to the castle. At their feet lie many knights and noblemen, with blood pooling around them. One grizzled peasant holds a bloody eyeball aloft and looks down at the knight who lies still at his feet, his empty eye socket a grotesque sight. As I stare in horrified fascination, the peasant holds the eye up like an apple and takes a triumphant bite out of it, while the blood from the eyeball dribbles down his chin. I feel my stomach roil in protest and try to swallow down my nausea. I stand in front of the children to block out the noise coming through the window, saying a thankful prayer that the window is too high up for my children to witness the gruesome scene.

My mind races. We need to leave the castle at once. There is some kind of riot happening outside. Those who dwell in the palace are obviously in danger. The queen and king naturally are now the biggest target. The masses have now taken a large heavy log that they are using as a battering ram to knock down the solid oaken door to the castle. A line of about ten men hold the log in their wiry arms and charge all at once to the heavy door as if possessed, pounding the heavy log solidly into the doorframe. The door groans and shudders in protest at the tremendous assault. I shudder along in unison. What are we going to do?

While they are doing this, the bloody assault continues out on the courtyard with bodies flying everywhere, most of them knights. The grass which was once a vibrant green is now covered in dripping blood. The bloody entrails of those massacred are spilled all over the lawn. Everywhere I look, knights lie dead, many of whom I recognize as having solemnly pledged their lives to protect us, their king and queen.

The children, who can not see this horrible spectacle, can still, however, hear the screams of the dying men, rapidly being massacred by the angry throng. The crazed masses are surely coming for us next. Blood is on their hands, and the peasants thirst for more. They are like sharks circling a wounded body in the water.

My eye travels up to where the bookcase rests alongside the wall in Louis’ room. He really should have picked a better hiding place for the hidden door. Suddenly I wish we were near my own hidden door. My hiding spot is so much better than Louis’. I pray that no one will spot us if and when we enter the portal. I think we have no other choice but to flee.

“Hurry!” I say to Louis. “Take one child in each hand. I will take the other two. We need to enter the passageway.”

Louis rushes to do my bidding. He hurriedly pushes the bookcase aside, and we push open the door and descend as a group into the gloom. Before I close the door firmly behind me, I pull the bookcase back into place, so that it lays flush against the wall. Once again, I pray that no one can spot the hidden doorway.

The children, while they feel like whimpering, are too terrified to make a sound. They follow their father into the dark depths of the castle, and I bring up the rear, holding tight to the baby, Sophie Béatrice. We walk through the winding passageway of the castle and finally emerge far away at the other end of the tunnel.

As we exit the tunnel, I find to my surprise that my Swedish count Axel stands waiting for me, along with several horses, a carriage and other loyal courtsmen. He grins broadly at me, his eyes somehow still twinkling at me despite the madness around us.

“Lovely night for a carriage ride,” he says dryly.

I say nothing, looking worriedly at him and also at Louis. Louis holds tight to our oldest children’s hands and ushers them into the carriage. I quickly step in behind him with the younger two children, and our driver snaps the reins hard on the horse’s flanks.

We sit hurriedly down on the carriage’s plush velvet seats. As the carriage wheels begin to finally roll, I heave a sigh of relief and look out the carriage’s window at Axel riding loyally beside us.

“Thank you,” I mouth at him through the window.

He doffs his wide brimmed, feathered hat at me and continues to ride alongside me. I turn away from him at last and take one last look up at the castle. Out of the corner of my eye, I see light reflected from a window in the palace's famous Hall of Mirrors. I realize suddenly that I will never gaze into those shiny mirrors again. I wonder idly if anyone will discover the door hidden behind one of its bevelled, ornate looking glasses – the secret door that I had walked through numerous times.

I fear that my life as a queen, both public and private, is now over. I am now on the run from deranged killers. Hopefully another secret door and apartment where I can hide with my family will somehow magically appear. It is my only hope for survival.