Confessions of Marie Antoinette (28 page)

He chuckles at the irony that a grocer should be named Sauce and shudders at the malevolence of the postmaster Drouet.

But he bristles at my mention of all the missed communications and relays—so many things I learned after they had taken place, such as Léonard’s inexplicable directive to Bouillé’s men to quit their posts. And by the time Bouillé finally roused his troops from their barracks and made for Varennes, they crested the hilltop above the village only to see our berline on the road below, lumbering out of town, followed by the coach carrying my attendants.

The utter futility of the scenario continues to rankle. Had Bouillé arrived but fifteen minutes sooner, the monarchy—we—might have been saved.

My recounting of the insults and jeers, the humiliations to which we were subjected during our three-day journey back to the capital, stabs at Axel’s heart and pricks at his conscience like an arsenal of bayonets.

“I should have been there,” he says, choking back angry, guilty tears. “I should never have quit you at Bondy. Had I traveled with you for the entire journey, we would have been prepared for contingencies—and—and I believe you and the king would have safely reached the frontier.” He glances at the door. “Does His Majesty visit you at night?”

I look at him, puzzled. “Most evenings he comes downstairs to my apartments to bid me
bonsoir
. If he finds the door locked, he will return to his own rooms; he is very solicitous of my feelings and doesn’t wish to disturb me or trouble me in any way by his intrusion.” Then I realize what Axel is really asking. “But to stay, you mean?” I shake my head. “We … we do not have regular relations anymore. My husband is not the sort of man to initiate romance; in nearly twenty-two years of marriage everything we have done between the bedclothes has been dictated by fidelity to our marital duty. He has never once come to my bedchamber to answer the call
of
desire
, or even to comfort me when my soul, and not my body, is in need of succor or solace,” I say wistfully. I glance away, at the shadows upon the blue velvet draperies made by the dancing candlelight. “We have never awakened beside each other, not even on the morning after our wedding night. He left the bed to go hunting,” I add softly. How well I still recall the humiliation of
“rien”
!

“I would like to do that,” Axel murmurs, enfolding me in his arms. “Tomorrow morning I would like to wake up beside you.”

At his words, something far more powerful than a frisson—a tremor—courses through me from my scalp to my deepest and most private parts. I search his eyes, which appear lapis blue in this subtle amber light, and realize that he is in earnest. All I can think of is that we will be caught—the risk—the soldiers—they still come to check on me in the wee hours of the night.

“If they are only making certain that you are present, they will not think to search the room for someone who may be hiding.”

I laugh for the first time in months. “You truly do not mean to jump into the wardrobe?” This is hardly the place to stage a scene from an
opéra buffa
!

“Then as soon as we hear footsteps outside your door, I will be sure to bolt from your narrow bed into that extremely uncomfortable-looking chair and chastise you at great length for all the sins you have committed against the kingdom and the people of France.”

“And if they wonder why I am being scolded by a priest at three in the morning? Or six? And suddenly conclude that you have been in my rooms for hours?” I retort.

“I will tell them that you are being forced to confess the litany of your crimes to me and they will not for a moment doubt that it has taken this long. In fact, I will concede that I am as astonished as they, that after so many hours I am still worming out so many dastardly transgressions.”

I rest my hand on his arm. “Perhaps you go too far,” I say, gently. “You jest, but remember, these soldiers are not educated men. You tell them a falsehood built on hyperbole and they will simply swallow it the way a pike does a minnow.”

We talk for hours, our voices never above a whisper. The new plan of escape that he and Gustavus are devising for us is a complicated one, relying on many factors. “But you must explain it all to Louis as well,” I urge Axel. “Even if I endorse a scheme, only the king may decide on the course we may take. I have pledged to support whatever he chooses to do, and whither he goes, there go I.”

I know that my husband will be unable to see the count this evening. Louis will hold his
lever
as usual, conversing with dignitaries and those members of the nobility in attendance. Then he will conduct his nightly meeting with Lafayette, who has a tendency to linger. Axel’s arrival was an unannounced surprise; tomorrow I must alert the king to his presence so that Louis can do whatever is necessary to convince his guards that he requires solitude at a certain hour. Axel will have to remain here until he can share his plans with him. It is just as dangerous to attempt to leave the Tuileries Palace as it is to enter it.

Returning obliquely to the topic of unfulfilled marriages, we discuss his sister Sophie, who is unhappily wed. In Sweden, Axel shares a residence with Sophie and her lover, Baron von Taube. “I spare no confidence from them,” he tells me. “Although my father may not be able to fathom why I am still a bachelor, my sister has known the reason for years.” He places his hands on my shoulders and looks directly into my eyes. “She knows there is only one woman to whom I could completely dedicate my life. And since that woman cannot be mine, then I will have no wife at all.”

His lips brush mine, ever so tenderly. When he touches my hair, so thin and white, I want to stop him, to tell him
no, I’ve somehow grown old, ugly, undesirable
, but he leads me into the adjoining room, guiding me to the bed. By now, the hour is late, the candles guttering stubs.

We sit beside each other. Axel pulls me into his embrace and softly, oh so softly kisses my brow, my eyelids, my cheeks, neck and throat. He teases away the fichu tied about my shoulders. I melt into his embrace, as our lips meet in a kiss born of desire, hunger, passion, and even despair. Axel begins to unlace the back of my gown and my body is acquiescent to his touch, until …

“I—” Suddenly I don’t know what to say. And when I gather my thoughts I cannot express them. Instead, I shudder and Axel pauses.

“Is something the matter,
mon coeur
?”

The world has changed so much since I first gave myself to Count von Fersen. And it has changed me. I no longer recognize the carefree queen who gamboled in the fairy-lit gardens of Trianon. If I were to meet her today I do not know what we would converse about, except perhaps, having little in common with the husband that dynasty and destiny gave us. Yet I think about Louis now—

My muscles tense at the echo of footsteps in the corridor outside my apartments. In horror, I press my hand to Axel’s mouth. All my fears of discovery are bearing fruit. I point to the next room and Count von Fersen tiptoes across the floor, leaving me on the bed. The only way for him to hide is behind his disguise. Several agonizing moments pass. Finally he moves his fingers as if to indicate claws, then wiggles his pinky—a scratching at the outer door. Only those conversant with the etiquette of Versailles would do such a thing.

My first instinct says it must be Louis. And it is vital for him to speak with Axel. But what if it is not? It might just as well be the
princesse de Lamballe. Or Madame Élisabeth. The former would keep our secret, but with the latter, things are not so simple. For one thing, she has been too much in correspondence with her brothers in Belgium and they seem content to leave us to the bloodthirsty jaws of the revolutionaries. Nor would I wish to discuss with my pious
belle-soeur
the presence at this late hour of Count von Fersen in the guise of a juring priest and the reason that my gown is in disarray.

I know the door is locked. Privacy is such a rarity for the royal family at the Tuileries; thus we respect it so well that we do not intrude on one another without permission. If it is a friend, they will not try to open the door themselves.

If it is a foe, we are truly lost.

Finally, the footsteps retreat; I hold my breath until the sound recedes, leaving a tense silence in its wake.

“Do you think there will be any more intrusions?” Axel asks.

I shrug. Anything is possible. “Since you are already here, it is unsafe to leave the room. But neither of us should undress. If the guards enter when they change their shift we must be prepared to enact our little scenario with all the brimstone of Père Bourdaloue preaching to Madame de Montespan on the sins of pride and corruption of the flesh.”

He embraces me; and suddenly the tears begin to flow and all I want to do is burrow into his chest and remain there until life is once again sweet and pure and untrammeled.

“Je t’aime,”
I whisper into his open mouth. “I love you.” And we kiss with the ardor of young lovers. “Hold me,” I murmur. “I want to fall asleep in your arms. We have never spent the entire night together, greeting the dawn as lovers do.” I return his caresses, stroking the fine planes of his cheeks and jaw, clasping a fistful of his hair, smoothing my palm along his torso and limbs, obscured
even as they are by the
curé
’s soutane. This will surely be our only night together and most assuredly our last chance to make love again.

Nevertheless, it is a different sort of intimacy I crave. I am seized with revulsion at the notion of Axel touching my bare flesh. I do not wish his final memory of our coupling to be marred by the recollection of my beauty’s devastation, for him to leave me tomorrow, secretly thinking that he felt like he had pleasured his grandmother.

“
Non
, my love.” Reclining, I clasp his hand to pull him down beside me, to do something with Axel that I have never experienced with my husband. “Just hold me close and do not let me go until morning.” We nestle like spoons. His arm secures me, his hand strays to cup my breast as it swells above the top of my stays, his fingertips caress my flesh. My beloved’s chest is warm against my back; I can feel the rise and fall of every breath, the warm exhalations blowing my hair off my neck, the pulse of the heart that beats for me, lulling me to slumber.

Awakening to Axel’s hazel gaze—how long has he been watching me sleep?—reminds me that he must remain in hiding until I can arrange for him to discuss Gustavus’s plan with Louis. Even a sympathetic guard like Saint-Paix cannot be permitted to discover Axel’s presence, let alone his identity.

How sweetly fitting it is that today is Saint Valentine’s Day. When it is safe to do so, Axel and I exchange loving glances and kisses, but from time to time as the hours pass and I await a message from Louis, sharing the food from my meal trays with the count, he does indeed sermonize, warning me to pray for my immortal soul, so that any passerby hearing voices in my rooms will not think anything is amiss.

At four o’clock, Saint-Paix slides a sealed note under my door. It is from the king, and advises me to expect his arrival in my rooms
at six-thirty. Louis appears punctually and greets Axel with the warmth and effusiveness of a brother. For the next three hours we discuss the plot that Axel has devised with the Swedish sovereign.

Count von Fersen lays out the plan in detail. Monsieur de Malden will once again aid in our escape from the palace where we will be taken by light, swift carriage to Calais; and from there, across the English Channel to Dover. Meanwhile, the shores of Normandy will be invaded by the allied navies of Sweden and Russia.

Louis listens carefully, but I can tell from the troubled cast in his eye and the quivering in his cheeks that he is uncomfortable with the scheme. “I know my people accuse me of irresolution and weakness,” he confesses, sounding as if he has given up all hope. “But name me another man who has found himself in such a difficult situation. I had one chance of escape and I missed it,” he sighs, recounting for Axel’s benefit the contentious debate over whether the royal family should flee or remain in France after the Bastille was taken. “Such a chance never came again.” Louis swallows hard. “And now the whole world has abandoned me.”

I glance at Axel. “We have not,” I insist, placing my hand over my husband’s.

“I have pledged my word and my honor to bring Your Majesties to safety,” Count von Fersen avers.

Louis emits another ponderous sigh. The weight of France—her fate, too, it seems—rests so heavily on his broad shoulders. “And I have given my word to the Assembly that I will remain in Paris.” For whatever my opinion is worth, because I have pledged to stay by Louis’s side, no matter the course he chooses, I remind my husband that we cannot trust the Assembly as far as we can throw an orange. So why should His Majesty feel the necessity of upholding his promise when our lives are at stake and when the deputies will only betray us in the end?

Louis buries his head in his hands. In the candlelight the gemstones on his rings spray the ivory-colored wall paneling with dozens of candy-colored sparkles. “Because,
ma chère femme
, a man is worth nothing if his word has no value.”

I study Axel’s face as Louis rejects the Swedish plot. Will the count be insulted that the immense amount of effort he has expended to coordinate such an intricate plan will now be for naught? If so, he does not reveal his emotions. Axel says merely, “You are in truth, Sire, a man of honor.”

The count stands, his errand accomplished. I begin to tremble, knowing that after he quits my rooms, it is doubtful we will see each other ever again. My lover may never give up trying to rescue us, even though my husband will never consent to his schemes. And I will never allow myself to be separated from Louis and our children.

The men embrace, regretful tears clouding their eyes. Louis glances at the clock. Taking my hands in his, he tells me sorrowfully, “I bid you good night,
ma chère
.” Then, turning to Count von Fersen, he says, his voice and his words pregnant with import—or perhaps in my present state of mind I read too much into them—”You have always been the most stalwart champion of my wife and me, our Lancelot. But I fear that France will suffer the fate of Camelot nonetheless. Despite our best intentions, our genuine love for our subjects, and our desire to avoid bloodshed and keep the peace, the forces of rebellion foment confrontation. I fear they will ultimately destroy us. Please tender my profound thanks and esteem to your sovereign. Speaking for the two of us,” he says, acknowledging me, “it has hardly escaped our attention that our sovereign brother Gustavus has been more of a sibling to us than the queen’s blood brothers or my own. As for you: you have done everything you can,
mon ami
, well beyond the ordinary expectations of your commission.”