Ahh… A month has already passed.
This place feels more exhausting than Vienna. At least there, all I had to do was avoid my mother-in-law.
Though once I met the Grand Duchess, Vienna would be more exhausting.
“I should have brought Franchi….”
“Even if you had brought him, you would not have been able to ride, Your Majesty.”
Ferenczy answered my muttering.
“I just wanted to feed him, that’s all.”
He may look frightening, but once you get to know him, he’s sweet.
“I heard Count Buol is going hunting today….”
“You must not, Your Majesty.”
When did Esterhazy get back?
“Instead, how about going somewhere else?”
Somewhere else?
She took a small note from her breast and showed it to me.
“Head Maid Bassano asked that this be delivered to Your Majesty.”
When I took the note, there was a short message written alongside Eugénie’s signature.
「Elisabeth, I hear you enjoy riding. If you wish, would you care to go on a promenade to the Bois de Boulogne tomorrow afternoon? — Your friend, Eugénie」
Mm… She didn’t look to be in good health, though.
“Isn’t horseback riding not to the Russian Empress’s taste?”
As far as I knew, she was a bookworm.
If I was an introvert who enjoyed outdoor activities alone, Empress Maria was an introvert who did not want to go outside at all.
“It is only a promenade.”
Yes, yes. Let’s say that’s true.
A promenade was something like a drive. A drive in a carriage, enjoying the scenery.
“I can hardly refuse the invitation of our host.”
*
The next afternoon, while I was in the middle of preparing to go out, Esterhazy offered me some advice.
“Your Majesty, it is highly likely that the Russian Empress will not come.”
“Why? She must have received an invitation as well.”
Esterhazy finished putting the glove on my hand as she spoke.
“She likely did receive one. But the Russian Empress likely declined politely.”
“For what reason?”
“The reason on the surface will be as she said yesterday.”
Health reasons, then.
She buttoned the glove so it would not slip down and continued.
“Empress Maria said that the true power of art comes not from novelty, but from eternity. And Empress Eugénie said that the newly reorganized streets and squares were her greatest interest.”
“The Bois de Boulogne is the very symbol of the novelty Empress Eugénie spoke of.”
“Precisely. In Empress Maria’s eyes, that place is not a real forest imbued with eternity, but merely an artificial garden filled with Parisian vanity.”
Esterhazy added one final reason.
“This invitation is a declaration of war from Empress Eugénie, who lost the battle of bloodline, stating that she will move the battlefield onto her own stage: style. And on that stage, she has intentionally excluded the Russian Empress.”
“Exactly as I said.”
“Yes. Empress Maria is aware of that fact as well. If she accepts this invitation, it would mean acknowledging Empress Eugénie’s stage and lowering herself to the same level as yesterday’s loser.”
Esterhazy adjusted the brooch on my chest and concluded.
“Empress Maria, who yesterday called her the Empress of the French and made clear the difference in their bloodlines, has no reason to stand as an attendant on that rootless stage.”
To be honest, isn’t she right?
She is the Empress of the French.
“Empress Eugénie must be quite bothered by it.”
“This is something I heard yesterday when I went to buy flowers for Your Majesty’s bath.”
This time, it was Ferenczy who spoke to me.
“They say a minister who had even taken part in the coup with him said he had not staged a coup merely to marry him off to some high-class courtesan.”
…Oh.
At least I’ve never had to hear anything like that.
“If someone like Archduchess Sophie were here, she would have fainted.”
Judging by that, the reason Eugénie and Napoleon are so obsessed with bloodline must be because they fight gossip like that every single day.
This is why good lineage really is good.
Except for my mother-in-law, no one says I behave like a scoundrel because I lack education.
They say the free-spiritedness of Bavaria shows through.
“I already miss His Majesty the Emperor.”
“Please take care of your body and remain safe, Your Majesty.”
…Why bring that up now?
Telling me to focus on my fertile period….
“In the end, once Empress Eugénie gave birth to the imperial prince, people’s gazes changed as well.”
“Somehow, the second time is harder than the first.”
The first one succeeded in one try.
“You should have seen Sophie walking, Chief Lady-in-Waiting.”
In the mirror, Ferenczy and Esterhazy looked at each other and shook their heads.
At first, they were happy about it.
“You are ready, Your Majesty.”
Lastly, they removed the cucumbers from my cheeks.
“Let’s go.”
*
“Chief Lady-in-Waiting.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“…Why did you not tell me it was a calèche?”
“It was the same carriage used at Your Majesty’s wedding.”
I thought that was a carriage only used for occasions like weddings or coronations.
I never imagined they would bring this out just to go for a stroll in the woods.
“If I had known it would be like this, I should have said I was ill.”
And make myself a spectacle for the citizens of Paris, who aren’t even my subjects in Vienna?
I can’t back out now….
Fine. Let’s think of this as acting too. A play with a large stage and a large audience.
“Empress Elisabeth.”
Today, she had appeared in perfect armor.
Her pale blue, extravagant dress, sparkling in the sunlight, seemed to flaunt that she was the true mistress of Paris.
I swallowed a sigh inwardly.
My bloodline was a shackle that oppressed me in Vienna, but for Eugénie, it was the foundation she so desperately craved.
The moment we boarded the carriage and left the palace gates, a great crowd had gathered.
“Elisabeth, look. This is the vitality of Paris.”
“This is not merely a promenade. It is a passionate parade of Paris.”
Let’s just praise it vaguely and move on.
Through this parade, Eugénie was showing off to the citizens of Paris.
First, the newly transformed appearance of Paris; and second, the legitimacy she possessed, enough to appear alongside the Habsburg Empress.
But, Eugénie.
Do you know how much money I pour into this appearance? I’m not spending all that money to show it to those Parisian bastards.
If I smile at Joseph with my eyes, he’d even pretend to die on the spot.
…Maybe not.
Anyway.
Is it because of some instinct embedded in my DNA?
Why do I feel like my stomach turns every time I see Parisian bastards?
“Ah, I understand why.”
“Why what?”
I smiled brightly at Eugénie.
“It was because this is the Place de la Concorde.”
For a brief instant, Eugénie’s expression stiffened.
Eugénie, you have brought me now to the place where Archduchess Marie Antoinette died.
“That was not my intention. It is merely the road to the Bois de Boulogne.”
I know that well enough.
The Place de la Concorde was merely the gateway to showing me the new Paris; I did not think Eugénie had deliberately intended to put me in an awkward position.
“But if I pass by like this, what would the Austrians think? You can understand, can you not?”
I asked Eugénie, but I did not expect an answer.
My hand, having removed the flower brooch from my chest, went toward the square without hesitation.
“This is the only flower I have with me.”
***
Count Buol smiled in satisfaction at the terms of the treaty.
‘Nothing has changed.’
Without hesitation, he wrote his name on the final page of the treaty.
The Russian representative seated across from him did the same.
He looked over the treaty once more.
Tens of thousands had shed their blood in Italy, but in the end, they had defended it.
Britain had poured in enormous war expenses and yet failed to disarm Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
France, as the host of this conference, had sought to enjoy the glory of being Europe’s mediator, but in the end, it had gained only hollow glory.
As if afraid the treaty might disappear, Count Buol carefully placed it into his leather bag.
‘As expected… citizens are dangerous. If Austria and Russia had listened to the voices of their citizens as they did, we could not have achieved this result.’
For the first time, war correspondents had appeared and lived directly with the soldiers in the trenches. Articles had been written criticizing the horrors of war and the incompetence of the military command.
In the end, Britain could not overcome public opinion; the cabinet resigned en masse, and antiwar sentiment rose.
“To the new peace of Europe.”
The French Minister of Foreign Affairs forced a bright expression.
Count Buol lifted his glass with a smile-filled face.
‘I did hear that Her Majesty the Empress caused an incident, but they are here to resolve that much, are they not?’
***
“Her Majesty the Empress asked me to convey once again that she cannot help but feel truly regretful.”
Riding with Eugénie in the Bois de Boulogne had been fun.
“I am all right. I only worry that the friendship between the two of us may be cracked.”
She shared similar tastes with me.
Losing a riding friend was always a shame.
“If she is truly sorry, please tell her to send a reply to the letter I sent.”
“Understood.”
After the French head maid withdrew, I once again enjoyed my free time.
Now I really am going home….
I felt as if lightning had struck my head.
“…Chief Lady-in-Waiting.”
Esterhazy seemed to have noticed something as well.
“…Yes, Your Majesty. Please speak.”
“I think… I am pregnant, am I not?”
“…I suspect the same, but we will only know for certain after we arrive in Vienna and have the court physician examine you.”
It seems roughly right.
I had not had my period for over a month in Paris.
“So it was not because the French food was delicious that I kept eating.”
I had felt much hungrier than usual.
Last time, I would normally have eaten Sachertorte a few times out of courtesy and then stopped.
“Chief Lady-in-Waiting.”
“I will prepare a comfortable dress at once.”
Yes, yes.
I should wear an empire-style dress like last time.
The artist style still has the problem of not quite fitting etiquette for official occasions.
And while I’m at it, I can block the political attacks that would fall on Eugénie too.