Confessions of Marie Antoinette (48 page)

I take nothing for granted anymore. I eat only a quarter of my dinner, giving one quarter of the duck breast to Thisbe for her meal. The rest of the meat will feed us both again. I do the same when Rosalie brings my supper tray:
fricassée
of pigeon and slices of braised beef. All of my meals are prepared by Madame Richard herself, a mark of respect, or dare I imagine affection, that startles
me, for I never expected to find such goodness here. The concierge’s wife proudly informs me, and Rosalie confirms it, that when they go shopping for food and tell the vendors in the marketplace that it is “for the poor queen,” they are given the choicest cuts of meat, the plumpest chickens, and the freshest fruits and vegetables.

Even the gendarmes who guard my cell in the evenings are not altogether cruel. Although the two men who have been assigned to watch me throughout the day are indifferent to my distress, talking loudly and filling the tiny space with smoke, those charged with watching over me at night fulfill the requirements of their job while endeavoring to afford me a modicum of privacy by averting their gazes and concentrating on their hands of cards or their backgammon board. Of all of them, Citoyen Gilbert, younger than his compatriots, and with an open, trusting face, is the only man who seems genuinely kind and noble. The day after my incarceration began, he returned to take his place in my cell with a bouquet of late summer blooms. I am certain he must have purchased them with his own money. Brightening the prisoners’ quarters with flowers is hardly customary at the Conciergerie.

For so long I have been terrorized by the people’s hatred for me, told that there wasn’t a soul among the bourgeoisie and the laboring classes who harbored a shred of sympathy for me. How ironic that in death’s anteroom, of all places, I discover that I have been taught a lie. Although I insist on dressing myself, Rosalie nonetheless comes to my cell every morning with a fresh length of white ribbon to adorn my hair. I suppress a sad smile: Our little ritual invokes memories of happier and oh-so-much grander days at Versailles when my
dame d’atours
would deliver a pristine yard of ribbon every day with which to tie my
robe à negligée
after I emerged from my bath.

On Sunday morning, August 4, after I have breakfasted and made my meager toilette: a few drops of scented water and a bit of
face powder daubed on with a swansdown puff, viewing myself in a cheap hand mirror bordered in red with quaint Chinese characters on the back—an illicit purchase Rosalie had made on one of the quais, as inmates are not permitted to own a looking glass— Citoyen Michonis returns with a pair of visitors. He introduces me to a Mademoiselle Fouché, a pretty blond thing in a gown of printed muslin, and her uncle, Monsieur Charles.

When the guards are not looking, the young lady drops into a subtle curtsy. “You do not know me, madame, but I am a friend. There are still many of us here in Paris, more than you know. And I felt certain that in your season of peril you would wish to become acquainted with my ‘uncle.’ ”

The soi-disant Monsieur Charles motions to the screen and the three of us step behind it, to shield our bodies from the guards’ watchful gaze. He removes his black cloak to reveal a clergyman’s white stock tied about his throat. A small box dangles from a silken cord around his neck.

“He is not really my uncle,” Mademoiselle Fouché informs me as her companion takes off the necklace and opens the box to reveal the Host. The man holds a finger to his lips, then whispers, “I am abbé Magnin, madame, living in sanctuary with the Fouché family because I refused to swear the oath to uphold the Constitution.”

My eyes well with tears of amazement. These two souls have risked their lives to enter a prison so that a nonjuring priest can hear my confession and I might receive Holy Communion. I don’t know how to thank them, especially when the abbé promises to return.

Later that afternoon Rosalie brings me a paperboard box. “I thought you might like this for your linen. To keep it in a cleaner place, madame.”

I want to hug her. Clasping her hands, instead, I express my
gratitude with such effusion that one might have imagined she’d given me the key to my freedom.

Liberation, of course, is a dream. My jailers have been kind thus far, but I am not even permitted to walk in the courtyard just beyond my window, the only area of the prison where one can step outdoors and breathe fresh air. I hear that the male prisoners are envious because only women are permitted this luxury. When I am not eating, there is nothing to occupy my time. I have no playing cards or games. Denied my knitting, although I have a needle and some thread to mend any ripped garments, I have started picking the loose filaments from the fabric that has been nailed to wooden frames hanging on the stone walls to warm the cell, using straight pins to make a crude sort of lace with the threads, and employing my knee as a board. And with so much time for despairing thoughts, I have sought to escape in the only way I can for now—through adventure stories. Michonis has delivered some volumes from Louis’s library and it brings me comfort to imagine my husband reading these same pages;
The Voyages of Captain Cook
and
Un Voyage à Venise
, which mentions people I knew when I was a child.
A History of Famous Shipwrecks
was a particular favorite of the late king’s. Louis had a reverence for books; if he only knew that I, having never been a reader, was finally developing my own romance with them! Abbé Vermond, too, wherever he is, would undoubtedly be amused, for now I crave the sort of information he tried to cram into my girlish head.

The following day Madame Richard comes to my cell with a special companion and I scramble behind the screen to change my linen before I will let them see me. I have started bleeding quite profusely again, an ailment that continues to plague me. When the concierge’s wife notices that I have left my dinner tray untouched, she inquires whether I am well. “You are dreadfully pale, madame,” she remarks.

“It’s nothing. A stomach complaint,” I lie.

With maternal solicitousness, she promises to have Rosalie bring me a bowl of beef bouillon. “Madame Larivière makes it herself.” And then she introduces me to the boy standing by her side. “This is my youngest. We call him Fanfan,” she says, tousling his blond hair.

François Richard is an exceptionally beautiful child, the sort that Gainsborough is so fond of painting, with enormous china-blue eyes and soft curls. I sink to my knees and clasp him in my arms. “How old are you,
mon petit
?” I murmur.

Fanfan looks to his mother before replying. “Eight,” he says proudly.

“You’re the same age as
my
little boy!” I exclaim, clasping the surprised child to my breast. I smother Fanfan with kisses, caressing his hair, his cheeks. And then, the dam bursts and I find myself unable to control my tears. Hugging the concierge’s son reminds me just how much I miss Louis Charles. Over my sobs I show them the lock of hair, and a little yellow glove I have preserved as mementoes, rhapsodizing about my own boy, his sweet, innocent, obedient nature, and my heartbreak over his reeducation. “He has such a tremendous desire to please his elders, to give them the answers they want whenever they ask him a question.” Covering Fanfan’s ears I tell Madame Richard, “Citoyen Simon and his wife are teaching him to say the most appalling things about his relations. Michonis brings me word of my family, although he is not supposed to divulge anything.”

I embrace Fanfan tightly, as if my affection for him could somehow be transferred to
my
son, and the little king would once again feel his mother’s embrace, know her undying love. But the poor child isn’t sure how to react when this strange woman with the white hair fusses and fawns over him. When he looks to his mother again, I apologize profusely to Madame Richard. “I did not expect
to become this sensitive. It is so very difficult for me to be separated from my children. Night and day, I think of them every moment.”

They bid me adieu, and Fanfan even offers me a shallow bow. That evening, old Madame Larivière brings me a steaming bowl of bouillon and reminds me that I need my strength.

“For what?” I sigh. “Jacques Hébert wants to kill me.” My hand trembles as I try to steady the silver spoon and fill it with broth. From my pocket I retrieve the latest delivery from Citoyen Michonis, an excerpt from a recent edition of
Père Duchesne
that he smuggled into my cell in his boot. In a low, hollow voice I read, “ ‘I have promised my adherents, as well as the National Convention, Antoinette’s head. If there is any further delay in giving it to me, I will cut it off myself.’ ”

The soup spoon slips from my grasp and clatters to the floor.

On the fifth day after my arrival at the Conciergerie, Monsieur Richard visits my cell with Michonis. Their expressions are grim. “
Je regrette
, Citoyenne Capet,” the jailer begins, visibly uncomfortable with his errand. “But the authorities have demanded the forfeit of your watch.”

I spin about, and lift the chain from the nail on the wall, clasping the golden timepiece in my fist. “It belonged to my father, Francis of Lorraine. It is all I have left of him, messieurs, all I have left of my”—I am about to say “homeland,” but think better of it. “My childhood.”

“Do not humiliate yourself, madame, by forcing us to pry it from your fingers,” Michonis says coolly, and I am reminded that even though he brings me word of my children’s welfare, he is not my friend. I have no friends here. I cannot let them destroy this treasure by wresting it from me, and so I uncurl my fingers and hold out my hand, like a little girl showing her governess what she discovered while playing in the meadow. I kiss the watch as if it were a sacred relic. The metal lies heavily in my palm, but when
Citoyen Richard takes it my burden feels infinitely heavier. Now, when my departure from this realm is only a matter of days, they will take the one item they let me have upon entering it. From this moment on, one gloomy hour will be like any other, blurring into the next.

I have run out of time.

THIRTY-ONE

Carnations and Deprivations

One morning soon after, I awaken to see a strange woman sitting in my cell, watching me with the unwavering attention a mother bird bestows upon her fledglings. Her small eyes and Roman nose, a hawklike beak, only enhance this illusion. “Who are you?” I whisper anxiously. The woman does not reply, but continues to regard me as though I have in some way irritated her merely by virtue of my presence.

When Rosalie arrives with my breakfast tray, lowering it onto the little table by my cot, she murmurs, “I see you have met Madame Harel.”

“Is that her name? She has not spoken a single word to me since I have risen. Why is she here?”

Rosalie sighs. “A representative from the National Convention came to the prison last night. They heard somehow that Madame Larivière has gone out of her way to make you comfortable. She has been relieved of her duties. Madame Harel has been assigned to look after you from now on.”

Look
at
me would be closer to the truth. So, the newcomer is to remain seated in that chair night and day, her brief to observe everything I do, everyone I speak to, everything I say. For a moment I pity the homely Madame Harel, for she is as much a prisoner as I am. “But what about you?” I ask Rosalie.

She smiles coyly. “I am Madame Richard’s personal maidservant, and I do what madame bids me. And Madame Richard has asked me to dress your hair today.” She takes the length of white ribbon from her pocket and begins to arrange my coiffure, sprinkling my parted hair with a bit of scented powder, then binding the ends with the ribbon, firmly tying a knot before twisting my tresses and pinning them to the top of my head in a loose chignon.

Observing this procedure, Madame Harel scowls.

“I can dress myself,” I say hastily, indicating the black silk dress draped over the other chair. Having taught myself to lace my stays and gown without Rosalie’s assistance, I do so, then look for my plum satin heels. The cell is so small, they could not have gone far. Not finding them, I don a different pair.

The shoes are not located until Officers Gilbert and Dufresne relieve the gendarmes who guard my cell during the day. Citoyen Gilbert had begun to clean them for me, using his sword to scrape away the mold that, owing to the cell’s dampness, had settled upon the satin. I humbly thank him, but when I feel Madame Harel’s eyes upon me, I fear that the chivalrous gendarme may be removed from his post as well. I have no doubt that the woman is an informer.

I begin to settle into a routine, reading and tatting to pass the time. Rosalie has noticed that I have developed the habit whenever I grow anxious or bored of taking off my rings, rolling them about my palm, and then putting them back on my fingers again. Only to her do I confide my feminine distress: the unnatural bleeding. To
help me stanch and conceal it, she rips up her own chemises and brings me the strips of fabric to hide under my bolster.

On the 28th of August, the prison administrator enters my cell with a round-faced man whose dark blue suit is splotched with mud. I wonder if it is raining outside. Apart from the stifling heat that gums my clothes to my body, I have no notion of what the weather is like beyond the prison walls. I cannot even hear when raindrops spatter the stones in the courtyard.

I recognize the Chevalier de Rougeville as the gallant soul who helped me to safety when the Tuileries was stormed last June, although he is aghast to see me so altered. “I am afraid I have aged considerably in the last year, monsieur,” I say, making small talk. While Michonis converses with the guards, the chevalier removes his two boutonnieres and tosses the carnations toward the rear wall of the cell, near my bucket of slops. He arches an eyebrow. I answer with an uncomprehending look. We play this little charade for a few moments until finally de Rougeville draws closer and whispers, “Pick up the flowers; there is a note concealed within the petals of each of them.”