Confessions of Marie Antoinette (22 page)

Louis sighs heavily, so quickly resigned. I despair. How can the passion he displayed only moments ago, bolstered by the soundness of his argument, have evanesced so quickly? Louis purses his lips. “Then we stay. Bouillé and Choiseul and their regiments will be here at any moment, anyway. In the meantime, my good monsieur, would you rustle up some bread and cheese to fortify my respite?”

I don’t think my husband is hungry now. As he has always done, he overeats to assuage his anxieties. With so many woes it is little wonder he has grown so stout. I am the opposite. Sick at heart, I cannot eat a morsel.

Monsieur Sauce bows obsequiously, clearly relieved to have been excused of any further political obligation. Food, the grocer can easily manage. “A bottle or two of wine, as well,
Votre Majesté?
Or perhaps some brandy?”

My husband declines the spirits. He rarely imbibes. In the past,
he has been accused of being a drunkard, when it was his shortsightedness and exhaustion that were to blame for his shambling gait.

The night drags on. I sit ignominiously on a lumpy bale of goods in a grocer’s home, so close to the frontier and yet so far from freedom that I fear now we may never obtain it. Although the tocsin finally ceased its fearful alarm, the clamor below the first-story window has scarcely abated. Outside, the sky has changed from ink blue to raven black. The pastel light of dawn has yet to break when we hear a pounding at the door. I reach into the pocket beneath my gown and glance at my father’s watch. Five in the morning.

The door to the chamber bursts open and there stands Monsieur de Romeuf, Lafayette’s deputy. He has a formal document in his hand and regret in his eyes. Acknowledging his companion, he announces, “
Vos Majestés
, Citoyen Bayon and I are here to carry out this order to all functionaries. By this decree, every member of the royal family of France is under arrest.”

Madame Élisabeth gasps and nearly swoons. Madame de Tourzel begins to weep.

I rise from the ridiculous bale, trembling with shock. “You of all people, Monsieur Romeuf?! I would never have expected it. I had always believed you were a friend.” I am embarrassed that I cannot control the tremolo in my voice. It makes me sound weak. But I have seen Lafayette’s aide-de-camp every day at the Tuileries and he has never had anything less than a smile for me. He is a handsome man, too. In another, brighter world, I might have marked him as a husband for one of my attendants.

With tears in his eyes, Romeuf hands the writ to Louis, who gives it a brief glance, then drops it onto the bed where his children sleep. “There is no longer a king in France,” he says, his voice hollow. He has given up.

As if in a dream I watch the paper float like a giant snowflake onto the coverlet, but suddenly I am jarred awake. I snatch it up from where it lies as if it has changed its composition and will set the downy blanket aflame, immolating our son and daughter. “I will not have this—this
thing
—contaminate—my children!” I exclaim, tossing the writ of arrest to the floor.

“I will take that,” says a gentleman, and I spin around to see—
finalement
—the young duc de Choiseul standing in the doorway; behind him, on the stairs descending to the main floor of Monsieur Sauce’s emporium, are a number of his hussars.
Where have they been all this time?
Instead, I demand, “Where are Général Bouillé and his men?”

The young duc pales. “They have just awakened, Your Majesty. Your
friseur
, Monsieur Hautier, told them that you were not coming, and so they eventually departed to their billets in Stenay. It is only the next town,
Majesté
. But they are remustering as I speak and are on their way as fast as their horses will carry them.”

I cannot comprehend a word of what I have just heard and so I demand an explanation. Choiseul stammers something about Léonard informing him that at some point during the night we had decided to take an alternate route, or some such nonsense. I cannot imagine what possessed my
friseur
to presume to speak for us when he had not seen me since our adieux or to assume the power to dismiss the regiment of soldiers that was prepared to escort us to safety and freedom. Every limb of my body trembles with fury. Léonard Hautier is no traitor; he is a royalist with every fiber of his being. But in a flash of clarity I see that he is also a scatterbrain and a coward, too easily spooked if things do not go exactly according to plan.

“There is still a way,
Majestés
,” Choiseul insists. He is but a pup himself, hardly possessing the gravitas or experience of his sainted uncle. I can hear Maman’s voice inside my head invoking the adage
about never trusting a boy to do the work of a man. “I have forty hussars with me. I can unseat seven of them, providing a horse for each of the adults and one for Madame Royale; the queen can ride with the dauphin in her arms. That leaves thirty-three to surround you as you make your escape.”

A cry goes up from the street. I tiptoe to the window and open the shutter just far enough to steal a glimpse at the square. There must be ten thousand people gathered outside, being whipped into a lather of hatred and fear by the postmaster Drouet and his confederate, Citoyen Bayon. Where did all these villagers come from, for surely so many do not live in Varennes?

“If Général Bouillé arrives now, he will raze your homes, every one of you! He will destroy your fields and burn your crops. He will call you traitors. But you are not traitors! You will stand your ground and show that you are patriots and that the king and his family must be brought back to Paris as criminals.”

I shutter the window again as “To Paris!” becomes an ominous chant. As daylight dawns, I hear a lone voice pierce the litany, “To Paris or I will shoot them all!”

Silence descends upon our little chamber. Monsieur Sauce shudders and his face turns ashen.

“What are our options?” Louis says methodically. He begins to weigh every word, stalling for time. “We could wait for the arrival of Général Bouillé and fight our way out.”

“Can’t you let the children sleep a while longer?” pleads Madame de Tourzel. “What harm would it do? You see how exhausted they are. They are only innocents.”

In the street below, the crowd is baying for our removal to the capital. Suddenly, my lady-in-waiting Madame de Neuville shrieks like a madwoman and flings herself to the floor. Her body, seized with convulsions, spasms uncontrollably.

Louis clasps my wrist and draws me close. “You never told me madame la marquise was an epileptic,” he whispers with great concern.

“She is not,” I murmur. “But I daresay she is an actress worthy of the Comédie-Française.”

We call for water, air, whatever one gives a woman in such a condition. We ask to summon a doctor but our request is denied. Then my husband announces that he is famished. Surely there is more bread and cheese. And where is that vegetable soup he has heard so much about? It is all I can do, even in my agitated state, to suppress a chuckle, for the king of France has always inhaled his food like a man half starved. I have never seen him eat a meal more slowly. He chews every crust with precision, allowing the seconds to tick by, hoping that any one of them will herald our rescue.

Yet after much deliberation, Louis decides not to attempt an escape. Among the thousands of people in the square below and in the surrounding streets, several must surely be armed, he says. They would have sickles and pikes; some undoubtedly will have muskets. He will not risk the life of a single one of us, nor will he endanger any of his subjects should the hussars fire into the crowd in retaliation. “There are innocent women and children among them,” he insists. Woefully he regards the writ still crumpled on the floor. “Someone must see to their welfare.”

By six
A.M
. Bouillé and his men have not yet arrived. Every minute I imagine that I hear distant hoofbeats, only to be disappointed.

“
Majesté
, what is your opinion?” Choiseul asks me. “My men are at your disposal.”

I glance at my husband. Louis’s tendency to indecision has always maddened me, and when the needle of his compass finally
settles upon a course, it may be the right one, but he always seems to be setting it too late. Still, I am merely his consort, despite what the people believe. “Monsieur le duc, it is up to His Majesty to give the orders; my duty is to follow them. Besides,” I add, thrusting my nose in the air for the benefit of the repugnant Citoyen Drouet, who has just entered the room, “Général Bouillé will not be long in arriving now.”

Drouet flings open the shutters and the tiny bedchamber fills with noise. “Do you think they will dare to pass through
that
?” he exclaims, pointing down the stairs. “The loyal men and women of Varennes will cut them down as if they are mowing wheat.”

We are lambs trapped in a pen.

At six-thirty our horses are in harness and the berline, as well as the carriage that conveyed my two attendants, is in the Place de Latry. Led by Drouet and Bayon, our party is escorted down the narrow flight of stairs and onto the steps of Monsieur Sauce’s residence, where the postmaster announces that the “good citizens have won the day and will bring the king back to the National Assembly.” Excited shouts fill the air, including a few of
“Vive le roi!”
although there are many more of
“Vive la Nation!”
I suddenly spy several heads sporting the ridiculous red “liberty bonnets.”

The duc de Choiseul and his hussars part the crowd so that we may reach the coaches. As he hands me into the berline, I clasp the young duc’s arm and look directly into his eyes. “Do you think Count von Fersen is safe?” I murmur.

“I am sure of it,” he replies tersely, clearly having no idea of the truth.

“Don’t leave us,” I plead, an urgent whisper.

A moment later, a member of the Garde Nationale strikes him in the back, and the duc falls to the ground. He reaches for his saber but the guardsman steps on his hand. The sound of crunching
bone, accompanied by a piercing howl, sends shivers through me. I turn back to aid our fallen champion, but I am rudely bundled into the berline by another armed guard. The coachman cracks his whip and as the horses begin to clip-clop out of the square I hear the chilling order to “Arrest Citoyen Choiseul!”

SIXTEEN

The Long Ride Home

J
UNE
22, 1791

We have not bathed in three days. No perfume can mask the odors of anxiety and fear. The interior of the berline is stiflingly hot and it is not yet mid-morning. There are so many jeering voices and leering faces crowding the carriage, it seems like an eternity before we can get out of the Place de Latry. I recall with perfect clarity that awful day in October two years ago when we were forced to depart Versailles. The taunts, too, are nearly the same, accompanied by revolutionary songs, including the vicious verses of the
Ça Ira
. The madmen are in control of the asylum.

Although we had galloped with all due speed toward the frontier, we return to the capital with the protracted pace of a funeral cortege, retracing the route we had taken on our eastward journey. When we stop to change horses and I wonder aloud why we are taking the same roads, one of our outriders, a soldier of the National Guard, tells me that because there are fewer houses along
this route the chances are more slender that the royal family will be assassinated. My skin pebbles with fear and my mouth goes dry. “I understand,” I reply, barely able to voice the words.

As the sun beats down upon the berline the family quarrels about whether it is better to open the windows. We are moving so slowly that to do so will only invite flies and bees into the carriage, making it all the more unpleasant.

At length we reach Châlons-sur-Marne. There a great crowd has gathered to witness our disgrace. Yet a single, brave soul, the old comte de Dampierre, doffs his hat and salutes our carriage as it enters the center of town. What follows is a tremendous uproar. The berline is halted by the mob, forbidden to pass any farther. I open the window and lean my head out to see what is causing such a clamor. “Nothing to trouble yourself with,
Majesté
,” comes the reply from one of our escort. “A madman has been killed for daring to approach your carriage.”