Confessions of Marie Antoinette (19 page)

My son giggles. “What fun!”

I mouth my thanks to his little friend, then tell my son, “But we must hurry,
mon chou d’amour
, or we will be late. And we must be as quiet as mice—”

“But mice go
‘eep, eep’
!”

“Quieter, then! We mustn’t make a single sound because it’s a surprise.”

We fetch Madame Royale and creep down the staircase to my apartment. Tracing the path that Axel and I had previously discovered, we leave my salon through the secret door hidden within the
wall, scuttle down the interior corridor, and dash through Madame de Ronchreuil’s chamber into the adjacent apartment, the former residence of the duc de Villequier. Waiting for us—hidden inside a cupboard, for we are taking no precautions—is a gentleman sporting a dark blue greatcoat and one of the high-crowned round hats worn nowadays by men of fashion. I have met him just once before. He is a connection of Axel’s, presented to me only as Monsieur de Malden, who will act as one of our bodyguards this night. Axel has somehow smuggled him into the Tuileries.

I tremble at the prospect of entrusting the safety of my children to a stranger. It is sobering to think that I have no choice but to rely upon him. Malden’s knowledge of the palace’s configuration cannot be as thorough as Axel’s for, as far as I know, he has been inside the Tuileries only once. If he is discovered and questioned, what would he say? What would my children tell their interrogators? “I am so grateful for your assistance, Monsieur,” I say to Malden, unable to still the quavering in my voice.

Monsieur de Malden bows and kisses my hand. “The pleasure is mine, Your Majesty.”

From his accent, I realize that he is an Englishman, and I wonder how he has managed to infiltrate the guard, for clearly he is no soldier. Several brave British aristocrats are secretly helping our noblemen and women escape the Revolution and emigrate across the Channel, to the Low Countries, or to Brussels. I wonder, too, as we stand in this vacant room, if Monsieur de Malden had also aided the duc de Villequier in his departure. Sinking to my knees I embrace each of my children as if we might never meet again, bathing them with a mother’s tears. “My darlings, you must go now with this kind gentleman. Promise to do everything he asks of you without making a sound. And Maman will see you very soon.”

The dauphin smothers my cheeks with moist kisses while my daughter clings to me more tightly than she ever has before, betraying
her frequent claims to independence and maturity. It cracks my heart to leave them, but every moment is accounted for this night and I must return to the salon where the king is playing backgammon with the rest of the royal family; then we must go through the mummery of our respective
couchers
as if nothing untoward is about to transpire. We bid good night to Monsieur and Madame, who, as usual, will quit the Tuileries and return to their residence in the Palais du Luxembourg. From there they will depart in a light post-chaise for Bruxelles. Our plan is to meet up with them two days hence at the Château de Thonnelle near Montmédy, which the marquis de Bouillé has already prepared for our arrival.

Cocooned within the damask bedcurtains I lie abed in my nightgown and cap staring at the underside of the tester, impatiently waiting for the clock to strike the quarter hour. The single chime will tell me that it is eleven fifteen. Enough time will have elapsed to permit my maidservants to return to their duties and allow me to don my disguise.

My traveling garments are more befitting Madame de Tourzel, for I am playing the role of my own children’s governess. Madame Campan helps me dress in the plain gray-brown silk gown of a
gouvernante
, a short black coat, and a black hat with a heavy veil in a sepia-toned violet hue that obscures my face enough to render it unrecognizable. “Godspeed,
Majesté
,” murmurs Campan, sinking into a deep curtsy.

I raise her to her feet and embrace her, kissing her on both cheeks. She is weeping. “Thank you for your devotion,
mon amie
, for indeed you are one of the few friends I have ever had. I will write as soon as we reach Montmédy.”

“Go!” she whispers, practically spinning me toward the door.

I creep down the stairs leading to a side door that will open onto the covered arcade where Monsieur de Malden should be waiting to escort me to the fiacre that will then take us to the berline.
Just outside I spy his coat, silhouetted against the palace’s gray façade. “The children—?” I ask, grabbing his sleeve.

“Safe inside the hackney,” Malden replies. “Fersen is on the box.” He chuckles. “You’ll never recognize him.”

I exhale with relief. The seconds cannot tick by swiftly enough until we are reunited. Monsieur de Malden clasps my elbow and steers me along the arcade as we make our way along the Place du Carrousel toward the rue des Echelles where the first fiacre awaits to transport us to the traveling berline.

Without torchlight, though, we soon become disoriented. Monsieur de Malden seems unfamiliar with the grounds outside the Tuileries and the adjacent
rues
, and I never walk the streets of Paris alone, nor at night. I ride everywhere. How should I know where to go on my own? My fear and anxiety create an additional distraction, and before I know it we have somehow gotten ourselves turned around and have traversed the Pont Royal, ending up on the opposite bank of the Seine. I look up at the side of the building, trying to see the street name written on the façade. We are in the rue de Bac. Now we have to sneak back across the river to locate Axel and the carriage.

I hitch up my skirts and make a dash for it, with Monsieur de Malden right behind me, as we keep to the shadows the way children play at jumping from one mud puddle to the next. As we near the rue de l’Échelle, suddenly, the Petit Carrousel is illuminated with torchlight and I hear a clatter of hoofbeats. A coach appears to be bearing down upon us—is it because the driver spots our shadows? My heart pounds wildly. The flickering carriage lights on either side of the conveyance reveal the crest on the door as well as the illustrious passenger—none other than Lafayette, speeding away from the Tuileries, having completed his nightly inspection. Malden and I leap back into the shadows, cowering in a niche until the carriage passes.

The danger was so imminent, so tangible, I find it hard to catch my breath. “Steady on, now,” Malden says reassuringly, and it is all I can do to put one foot in front of the other as we continue to make our way to the rue de l’Échelle. We scurry along the cobbles of the Petit Carrousel like a pair of rats; finally I spy the coach.

A plump man wearing an ill-fitting coat and a battered, oversized tricorn pushed down over his straw-colored hair sits atop the coachman’s box. He grins when he sees us, revealing blackened teeth, and spits a fat wad of tobacco. It sails an impressive distance, all the way across the
rue
, landing in the opposite gutter. He winks at me as Monsieur de Malden is about to hand me inside the carriage and I realize that of course this bumpkin, only slightly better dressed than a
sans-culotte
, is Axel, enjoying his role immensely.

“And how is Madame Rochet this evening?” he asks.

“Tr—très bien, merci, monsieur,”
I stammer.

“La baronne de Korff et Mamselles Amélie et Agläe sont dedans.”
He nods and informs me that Madame de Tourzel and my children, who will be passed off as
her
daughters, are already inside the carriage.

I glance at my father’s gold watch and realize the king is late. Louis should be right on my heels, disguised as the baronne’s steward.
“Où est Monsieur Durand?”
I ask Axel anxiously. He shakes his head. What if something happened to Louis?
What if he doesn’t come?
How will we explain our costumes? I peer through the window, my gaze fixed on the palace.

After an eternity, a stout man in a gray coat that all but obscures his satin waistcoat and gray breeches, an outrageous black curled wig, and an enormous lackey’s hat comes huffing and puffing along the Petit Carrousel, escorted by Monsieur de Malden. When they reach us, Malden unfolds the steps and Louis all but tumbles into the coach with relief. “How glad I am to see you here,
ma chère
!” he exclaims, reaching over to embrace me with uncharacteristic
ardor. He kisses each of the children as well, and then, at a sign from Monsieur de Malden, Louis raps upon the roof of the coach to signal Axel to depart.

Dressed as footmen and other menials, our attendants and outriders are in fact noblemen, but to appease their sensibilities, for they had balked so much at the nature of their disguises, I had commissioned brand-new liveries for them with frothy gold lace at the cuffs.

“He would not leave,” Louis says breathlessly.

“Who, my sweet?”

“Lafayette! He attended my
coucher
and then lingered afterwards for a full forty-five minutes, discussing banalities. I might have sworn he knew something. I thought he would never quit the room.”

I tell him of my own narrow escape. “As he left the palace, his carriage drove past, so close to where I stood that I could have touched the wheels.”

The king nearly laughs to speak of it now as he tells us how he slipped between the drawn bed hangings while his valet was placing his clothes in the wardrobe; and, wearing nothing but his nightgown, crept barefoot into his study, where his wig and bourgeois garments had been concealed.

For the benefit of the children I propose that we play a game, and instruct the dauphin to curl up on the floor of the coach, hiding beneath Madame de Tourzel’s full skirts. The little angel does so obligingly, as Axel deliberately takes us on a circuitous route through the narrow streets toward the rue de Clichy where the traveling berline awaits. Yet he seems to spend so much time driving up and down the same side streets searching for the coach that I am not entirely certain he has not become lost as well.

The king and I hold our breath as we approach the heavily guarded Porte Saint-Martin. Even at this impossibly late hour,
torches illuminate this fortified entrance to the city. A cluster of soldiers and customs clerks crowd around two or three bonfires, carousing and gobbling undoubtedly confiscated food and spirits. Mercifully for us, the men show no interest in interrupting their revelry to bother with an unmarked carriage clattering through the gates.

With the city at our backs and only the dim coachlights to mark our way, we continue to search for the unpaved
rue
where the traveling berline awaits. At this hour, everything looks the same and every sound appears magnified. The hoot of an owl pierces the night, startling me so that I nearly jump off the seat of the hackney.

The carriage halts and I hear Axel descending from the box. He raps upon the window, informing us that he is going in search of the berline. Minutes tick by; my father’s watch, clutched in my palm, turns warm. Finally, Louis, sighing heavily, announces, “I will help him look.” He reaches for the door handle.

“Mon Dieu, non!”
The last thing we need is for the king of France to be discovered wandering about the outskirts of his capital in disguise. But my husband will hear no remonstrance. He descends from the hackney and disappears into the darkness. I clutch Madame Élisabeth’s hand as the dauphin asks, “What is happening, Maman? Where are we?” I don’t know what to answer, so I hug him to my chest instead and stroke his hair, hoping he cannot tell how rapidly my heart is beating.

Madame de Tourzel, my
belle-soeur
, and I sit in anxious silence as the exhausted children fall asleep once more. The two most important men in my world have been wandering about the countryside for what seems like an eternity. Finally, Axel returns, having spotted the berline; the bottle-green and black conveyance was so well concealed that the carriage lights had been veiled. In a matter of minutes the hackney approaches it. Four horses are already in the traces. Axel skillfully maneuvers the fiacre so that we can step
from one coach to the other without having to descend from the hackney into the muddy
rue
. Once we are safely inside the capacious coach, nestled upon its seats of green Moroccan leather, I worry whether the white velvet and silk interior is not too indiscreet, for the light color is so easily illuminated. I glance at my father’s watch. It is just past two in the morning. According to our carefully laid plans, we should have transferred carriages at around midnight. Two precious hours have been irretrievably lost! How will we ever make up the time? Our schedule of arrivals in the various towns along our route has been meticulously plotted. The young duc de Choiseul is in charge of ensuring that the marquis de Bouillé’s troops are prepared to meet and escort us at the previously agreed-upon locales. Léonard’s rendezvous has been timed as well. If we are not where we must be at the right time, our fragile plans could collapse.

Another half hour ticks by as the additional horses from the first fiacre are finally harnessed. With all eight mounts in the traces, Axel cracks the whip and we are off at last for Montmédy, the heavy berline clattering along the rutted
rues
as fast as the count can drive the teams, our bodyguards disguised as footmen undoubtedly clinging to the box as the coach sways from side to side.

“I haven’t felt so free in weeks,” Louis remarks, stretching his legs. I draw open the green taffeta curtains. With each passing minute, as we speed toward freedom and the fetid winds of revolution grow fainter, the mood within the berline becomes almost jolly. Although the children are asleep, the adults begin to explore the coach’s numerous concealed luxuries. My husband, hungry, wishes to break out the picnic hamper, but I suggest that we wait until Bondy, our first stop, only a half hour’s ride from the gates of the capital. And yet, there is a tiny chamber of my heart that wishes it would take an eternity to reach this sleepy town, for it is here that Axel and I must bid farewell.

At Bondy, both the king and I descend from the berline to say good-bye to Count von Fersen. The barest sliver of moonlight illuminates the road. Axel’s handsome face is obscured beneath his broad-brimmed coachman’s hat. The two men embrace fraternally. I hear a catch in Louis’s throat when he thanks Axel for his service to us, not only on this night of all nights, but in the entire planning and execution of our flight. “You have been a great friend to me … and … to my family,” my husband murmurs. He turns away, as if to reboard the berline, affording me the opportunity to speak to the count privately.