Confessions of Marie Antoinette (32 page)

Like a master of ceremonies at a circus sideshow, Santerre invites the crowd, one by one, to get a closer look at our humiliation. Barricaded behind the vast table, we are the freaks on display. “See the Queen of France and the Prince Royal,” the
général
booms, urging the invaders to queue up and walk by the table in an orderly fashion to feast their eyes upon “Madame Veto” and “the little bastard.”

For at least two hours we sit behind the makeshift barricade as thousands of people file past, each with a vulgar insult on his or her lips. One woman, who had kept her head bowed so that no one could see her features clearly, approaches the table and when she believes no one can hear her, murmurs to me as she passes, “The king is safe.” Her voice catches me by surprise. Madame Élisabeth has bravely quit her brother’s side to join this macabre queue solely to bring me news of my husband. It is the first report I have had in hours.

Somewhere a clock strikes the hour of six. “Your Majesty, good citizens of France, I come to announce that all is well.” The face is familiar, but Louison cannot place it. “It is the mayor, Monsieur Pétion,” Armand informs her. Louison wonders why he has not arrived with another detachment of the National Guard. Isn’t it the mayor’s responsibility to quell any riots or disturbances in the capital?

Pétion approaches the king. “Your Majesty, I have only just learned of your situation.”

“How astonishing,” the king replies, his tone indignant, “for this has been going on for quite some time.”

Hoisted upon the sturdy shoulders of four grenadiers, the mayor compliments the crowd on their behavior. “You have comported yourselves this day with the pride and dignity of free men,” he declares, before ordering the mob to peaceably disperse.

Louison wonders by what portal the mayor entered the palace, for if he had come by way of the Place du Carrousel, he surely would have witnessed the destruction that the willful rabble had left in its wake.

Suddenly the king speaks. “Would the people of Paris like to see the State Apartments?”

Louison can hardly believe her ears. Is the king of France offering to usher thousands of unwashed citizens through the grand rooms of the palace? She tugs at Armand’s sleeve and tells him she would like to follow the king. But her eagerness earns her a cross look from her lover. “It is only to see for ourselves what the Bourbons have stolen from the people,” he says churlishly. On their way out of the Oeil de Boeuf, at the sight of a massive silver urn embellished with vine leaves and bunches of grapes, he spits. “If they sold that, they could feed the residents of the Faubourg Saint-Germain for a year.”

The doors to the Council Chamber are thrown wide for this impromptu tour, and to the astonishment of all, particularly the king, there sits Madame Veto with their children. As the sovereign rushes to his wife’s side, the queen flings herself into his arms. “Thank God you’re safe!” She bursts into undignified tears, sobbing against his ample breast, and Louison feels a pang of guilt. The poor lady is vilified for behaving regally, yet derided when she acts like any other woman would do under such terrible circumstances.

“The duc de Mouchy will lead whoever wishes to remain through the rest of the State Rooms,” says the monarch, blotting his tears with a handkerchief. He still wears the red liberty cap. The old courtier who had placed himself in harm’s way by standing in front of the king when the mob surged into the Oeil de Boeuf beckons the intruders to join him. As Louison and Armand join the stragglers the sculptress casts a backward glance at the royal family. They are hugging and kissing one another as if they feared they would never reunite. The queen removes the
bonnet rouge
from her son’s head and dashes it to the floor. A lump rises in Louison’s throat. She is not supposed to pity them.

Realizing that he still wears the liberty cap, Louis yanks it from his head and tosses it on the floor where it joins the one I have just taken away from the dauphin. “Ah, madame, why did I take you away from your homeland, only to associate you with the ignominy of such a day as we have passed!”

It had not been my choice to quit Austria to wed a youth I had never met, and until recently, did not realize how deeply I loved. But now, more than twenty-two years after our wedding, I have no regrets.

I cry until there are no more salt tears to weep. I have never missed my husband as much as in these last three or four desperate
hours. But our family is not yet permitted the luxury of rejoicing in privacy. Deputies from the Assembly have lingered, and as dusk descends outside our shattered windows, they display no haste to depart. If I cannot enjoy this time alone with my husband and children, I will make the most of the delegates’ presence. As I escort them toward my apartments, which I heard have been reduced to rubble, I politely caution the men not to step on any of the broken glass that litters the halls. It is my first opportunity to assess the awful damage as well. “This is what your mayor calls ‘pride and dignity’?” Entering the dauphin’s rooms, “This is what your
dignified
citizens did to the chambers of an innocent little boy,” I exclaim angrily, pointing out the smashed locks, the pastoral murals, now utterly demolished. The ruffians have even broken his toys. Our attendants approach with reports of the destruction done to the palace—on the staircases and in every salon the monsters entered. Hardly a door stands on its hinges. Even the roof has been damaged. “Who will pay for this?” I demand. “You call
us
spendthrifts, but
we
did not render these rooms uninhabitable!
Regardez
, messieurs, this wanton destruction of a palace and its treasures that has stood since the days of Catherine de Medici. You should be ashamed to call yourselves Frenchmen.”

Even when the royal family is finally alone, we remain subjected to scowling guards and suspicious looks. The dauphin clings either to his father or to me. Ordinarily a voluble child, he does not utter a word. When he is addressed directly, he bursts into tears. His sister moves as if in a dream, the events of the twentieth of June so terrifying that it would seem she wishes never to see or hear again, for fear that the news will never be joyful.

The morning after the riot, awakening in my bedchamber because his own rooms were too damaged for him to return, my son finally speaks. In a plaintive query to Louis’s valet, Monsieur Hüe, he asks, “Is it still yesterday?”

TWENTY-ONE

The Wolves Return

S
UMMER
1792

I still exist, but it is only by a miracle
, I write to Axel in cipher, after the incident on June 20.

It was a dreadful day, not to be imagined. It has become clear that the people are no longer bitter toward me alone; nowadays their hatred is just as forcefully directed toward the king. They no longer trouble to conceal their scorn. Some have demanded his life. He demonstrated a dignity and strength yesterday that momentarily impressed the citizens, but the mood is ugly and we are keenly aware that their show of affection can change at any moment. As the band of assassins grows larger every day, I am endeavoring to persuade the king to wear a vest of mail beneath his waistcoat. Madame Campan has fashioned a bodice for me which she assures me will resist bullets and knives, but I refuse to don it. Nevertheless, I no
longer walk in the gardens. Even if I were to enjoy the flowers, one of the few things that can still make me smile, the
citoyens
who are constantly encamped there sing the
Ça Ira
in a ceaseless refrain. This vicious anthem has numerous verses and it seems as though every week a new refrain has been added. My ears are assailed now with the incessant strain, “Madame Veto has promised to butcher all of Paris.” I no longer ask myself, “How can anyone believe such absurd propaganda?” I still don’t know the answer: all I know is that they
do
. Even the chapel orchestra plays the
Ça Ira
and we must sit through it when we attend Mass. The only comfort I derive from this madness is the knowledge that if God hears how we are being so falsely traduced, He will deliver us.

I remain unguarded at night. I am convinced this is not because the Assembly is graciously offering me this modicum of privacy, but as a means of permitting access to anyone who will murder me. Thisbe is not as much of a watchdog as I had anticipated. I woke the other night—and she did not—to see a shadowy figure tiptoeing about my bedchamber. I lay as still as I could, praying the assassin would not have the courage to fulfill his errand. Yet, in the morning, nothing had been moved or stolen and the windows and doors were as I had left them. I wonder now if I dreamed the whole incident.

There are days when I think if my life ended, it would solve everything and bring about the rapprochement between the people and the crown that France so desperately needs. If the insurgents assassinate me it will be a blessing, for it will deliver me from a miserable existence.

I hope you are receiving news of us. Farewell for now and for our sake, take care of yourself.

I know that Count von Fersen is secretly working on new plots to rescue us. In the wake of the invasion of the Tuileries, he is collaborating with the Duke of Brunswick, commander of the allied forces, on the drafting of a manifesto to present to the Assembly, which has declared that France is “in danger.” The National Assembly believes that the king and I are clandestinely in league with the foreign powers; mercifully, they have no proof to substantiate their contentions.

On July 3, I inform the comte de Mercy,
Our condition is becoming ever more critical. On one side, we have only violence and fury. On the other, weakness and inertia
, I add, referring to Louis’s reluctance to commit to any definite course of action.

We can no longer depend upon the Garde Nationale, or the army, to defend us. I am convinced that every one of them is a scoundrel. And so we do not know whether it is better to abandon the capital, despite Louis’s promise to the Assembly, or to stay in Paris. There is no stability here; the ministries change every few weeks—sometimes as often as every few days.

I do see merit in your plan to decamp to Compiègne, and agree that it will be easier to flee from there, where fewer eyes are watching us. Insofar as where we might go from Compiègne, either Amiens or Abbéville, as you suggest, would be acceptable as long as the royalists there are prepared to aid us and will not panic and turn us away when they realize they have placed their own lives at peril to shelter us.

You may convey our thanks to the Landgravine of Hesse-Darmstadt for her generosity, but I must decline it. For one thing, I fear the efficacy of a plan to smuggle me out of Paris. Moreover, I have pledged never to leave the king and it is a
promise I will not retract. Nearly every other day we are secretly presented with alternate plans of escape. Another smuggling plot, one involving the king alone, was rejected for the same reason I must decline the Landgravine’s offer.