Daughters of the Storm (13 page)

‘Dieu,
it is true,' muttered a keen-sighted man next to Louis, ‘they are women.'

There they were, a crowd – all sorts, all shapes, motley, bedraggled - which heaved and jostled like a stormy sea. The faces were still too far away for Louis to make out properly, but their intent was obvious. Onwards down the avenue they came, their cries becoming clearer with every step.

‘Le roi.'

‘Bread.'

‘To Paris with the king.'

‘Where is Mirabeau, our little father?'

Level with the Assembly at the Hôtel des Menus Plaisirs, the leaders turned and led the mob up towards the entrance. They beat back the terrified, protesting guard and a pistol shot rang out. The doorman fell, clutching at his arm. The women stepped over the gout of red that gushed from his wound on to the ground and forced their way inside. Louis learnt later that they had poured into the silent Assembly chamber, climbed on to the benches and shouted obscenities. The prettiest among them had sat herself on Mirabeau's lap and kissed him.

An hour passed and for the watchers at the palace gates every second was unbearably long, every minute an eternity. Watching, Louis was reminded of a lull before the storm which, in this case, he reckoned would echo through the world...

Tired of their sport in the Assembly, the women regrouped and headed down the road towards the Place d'Armes. Louis could make them out now. Some were dressed in the gaily striped toilettes of the well-to-do. Others were poorly but respectably dressed, their sodden tuckered muslins and linen aprons clinging to their figures. Others were in rags. Here and there an extra-large outline loomed out of the rain and Louis stiffened. These surely were not women? They were men, dressed as women. He tightened his grip on his sword.

Exhausted and cold, the figures lurched forward, and he saw that many of them had babies clutched to their half-naked breasts and babies' wails threaded through the furore.

‘They're drunk,' said Louis grimly to his sergeant.

God in Heaven, how was he supposed to fire on a rabble of drunken women? What had driven them to do this? Orléans' agents must have been more effective in spreading their anti-royalist lies than he supposed – or was it truly a collective madness born out of true hunger and desperation? Whatever is happening, he thought, is much bigger than I understand. He summoned his lieutenant.

‘Go to His Majesty,' he ordered, ‘and inform him that we recommend that Their Highnesses repair to Rambouillet. I cannot vouch for their safety if they remain here.'

Watching from their apartment window on the second floor of the ministry building, Héloïse and Sophie watched Louis' messenger cross the Cour des Ministres and pass through the connecting iron grille into the Cour Royale. Héloïse was so shocked she could hardly speak.

‘What do they want?' asked Sophie through dry lips.

‘To take the king to Paris,' reported Ned, who had been listening out of the window.

‘But this is monstrous,' cried Héloïse. ‘The king is not theirs to command.'

‘We must leave,' said Ned, looking worried. ‘If we order a carriage now there must be some way out of the palace. Mademoiselle de Guinot, you will know.'

‘But we can't leave,' said Sophie. ‘How could we commandeer a carriage at the moment?'

‘It is my duty to look after you,' Ned persisted. ‘And I think this looks dangerous.'

‘No, we cannot go,' Héloïse said in a strange voice. ‘It would not be right.'

Ned made an impatient sound and Sophie laid her hand on his arm. She knew that his worry was for her and not for himself. Héloïse resumed her vigil. By now the women had reached the Place d'Armes and were facing the soldiers. Somewhere among those soldiers would be Louis d'Épinon and she was frightened for him, but also beneath that apprehension she felt another - one she could not have explained if asked. It was the fear that the safe foundations of her life were crumbling.

Darkness came quickly that evening and blotted out the landscape. The palace buildings changed into indistinct shadowy blocks and only the torches, hissing in the rain, threw light enough to illuminate a soldier or the softer shapes of swirling skirts. The noise was incessant, and every now and again a scuffle broke out as a woman goaded a soldier. Louis was kept busy calling his men to order, many of whom, as he had suspected, showed an worrying tendency to sympathise with the women. The king had sent an answer in reply to his message saying that he was grateful for Monsieur le Capitaine's advice but he would remain at Versailles for the present. Louis had heard no more since then. He suppressed his anger as he gave yet more orders to his sergeant.

‘Get them in line. What do they think they are doing?'

The sergeant looked at Louis fair and square. ‘It's difficult, sir. They are not used to facing their own people,' he said.

‘Well, they had better get used to it. Fast.' Louis turned on his heel.

In the de Guinot apartments, Ned endeavoured once more to persuade Héloïse. ‘At least let us try to find Monsieur le Marquis,' he said.

To this Héloïse agreed, and they filed down the stairs and let themselves into the Cour des Ministres. Outside, the ranks of the soldiers glistened with rain. To their right the gates loomed up into a black sky. Beyond the gates and their illusion of safety were the lines of women and spluttering torches. At a stroke, the palace had been transformed into an alien place that bore no resemblance to its ornate, superior majesty of the day. Héloïse spoke to the soldier standing guard at the entrance to the Cour Royale. He stood back to let them pass. No one else challenged them, and within minutes they were climbing a deserted staircase and walking through a series of magnificent rooms towards the Hall of Mirrors.

Sophie gasped as she entered. Only a few of the thirty-two silver chandeliers had been lit, but there was still enough light to expose to view the famous mirrors and the silver tubs planted with flowers and orange trees. Huge Savonnerie carpets lay on the floor, and the walls and cornices were elaborately gilded, a reminder of the craftsmanship that the kings of France could command.

Sophie had never seen anything like it.

The courtiers were huddled in knots. Even so, there was a curious stillness and a palpable tension in the hall. The groups whispered together and the servants darted in every direction trying to carry out orders to pack, to unpack and to pack again. Héloïse searched the room for either of her parents.

‘Stay here,' she instructed the Luttrells, ‘and I'll try to find out what is happening.'

‘I'll come with you.' Ned placed his hand under Héloïse's elbow to support her.

They pushed their way towards the Oeil-de-Boeuf and managed to gain entrance. The famous false window after which the room was named looked serenely down on the confusion as advisers and ministers hurried to and from the inner sanctum of the king's bedchamber, which opened off it. The marquis was there, talking to his aides, but she managed to catch his eye. He detached himself, frowning and preoccupied.

‘Can you tell us what is happening?' asked Héloïse.

The marquis spoke in a low voice. ‘We have been trying to persuade His Majesty to leave, or, at least, Her Majesty. But neither of them will agree. It's probably too late anyway because it would be impossible to get at the carriages. The last time somebody tried, the insurgents cut the traces.' He took out his snuff box and inhaled a pinch. ‘His Majesty has received a deputation from the women and he has talked to them. They have professed themselves satisfied and I think he has persuaded them to return to Paris. If he has, the crisis is over.'

‘Thank God, sir,' Ned said with feeling.

‘Try to find your mother and see that she is comfortable,' the marquis addressed his daughter.

One of his aides tapped him on the arm.

‘Monsieur, there is news. Lafayette is coming. He has been persuaded to accompany the Paris National Guard. They are apparently under control, but, monsieur, they are bringing cannon.'

There was a distinct note of hysteria in the aide's voice. The marquis' face tightened.

‘Then, the crisis is not over,' he exclaimed. ‘God alone knows what they want – and I feel sure that not even Lafayette can control them.' He placed a hand on Héloïse's shoulder. ‘I know I can rely on you, daughter, and you, Monsieur Luttrell, to do what is best. I am needed here.'

Héloïse curtsied as he left them.

They found Sophie sitting wearily on the floor, propped up against the wall. Many of the other courtiers, careless of protocol, had done the same, chairs and footstools being in short supply. Ned and Héloïse rejoined her. They sat in almost total silence as the hours ticked by.

‘At least we are not outside,' commented Sophie.

‘I should have insisted that we left earlier,' said Ned, suppressing his anger. ‘I shall not forgive myself if either of you is harmed.'

‘You forget that we are guarded by our soldiers,' said Héloïse with a hint of reproof.

Ned fell silent and contented himself with looking around the hall. How ostentatious it was. His tastes were far simpler

Sophie watched a group of candles burn lower and lower and traced a pattern in the flames, wondering just how much danger they were in. Surely the famous Général Lafayette would be able to keep the National Guardsmen in check?

*

It was past midnight when Général Lafayette eventually walked into the Hall of Mirrors and made for the Oeil-de-Boeuf. He moved stiffly, racked with exhaustion and splattered with mud. The crowd parted to let him through. He looked neither to the right nor to the left, affecting not to notice the rattled courtiers who watched his every move. Would he save the palace from invasion? Could he?

In the Oeil-de-Boeuf, the door to the king's bedchamber opened and onlookers were granted an interesting glimpse into the room. A selection of the king's ministers stood clustered around the sovereign, while the king, his wig tumbling in disorder down his neck, peered at them short-sightedly. A hush fell. The general went down on one knee.

‘Sire, I have come to die in your service,' he said dramatically.

The king motioned him to rise and Lafayette entered the bedchamber. The door closed.

Héloïse looked up at this point and saw the marquise pushing her way through to her. She was walking with difficulty. Héloïse jumped to her feet.

‘Madame,
ma mère,
what has happened?'

The marquise shuddered.

‘That unspeakable rabble,' she said. ‘I was calling on your cousin in the town and when I tried to return they surrounded the coach and would not let it pass. I was thrown against the side.' She held up her arm, on which a purple bruise was forming. ‘I managed to get in through the gardens eventually, and I have been resting in Madame d'Hénin's apartments.'

‘You should not have risked coming back,' Héloïse reproved her, quite forgetting her customary deference to her mother. ‘It was too dangerous.'

The marquise's drained features still retained their hauteur as she looked at her daughter.

‘My place is with your father.'

Héloïse led her back to the Luttrells and somehow they managed to beg a stool for the marquise, who slumped down and closed her eyes with a sigh and permitted Héloïse to inspect her arm. Sophie made her way over to one of the great windows which overlooked the gardens and peered through the panes. The rain swept down outside, but she could just make out the silhouettes of the soldiers who had been ordered to bivouac for the night behind the palace.

In the Place d'Armes on the other side of the palace, rain trickled over the bottles littering the ground and hissed into the enormous campfires which had been lit to roast a couple of horses killed in a skirmish. The smell of their roasting flesh mixed with that of damp clothes and vomit. Bodies lay drunkenly on the wet ground. What women there were who had remained at Versailles, and were still upright, amused themselves by offering wine-laden kisses and coarse invitations to Lafayette's guardsmen, with varying success.

The town of Versailles itself had turned into a silent and terrified place. Accustomed only to devoting themselves to pleasure and frivolity, its occupants listened with mounting horror and incomprehension to the bands of armed Parisians who roamed the empty streets in search of plunder.

‘Miss Luttrell.'

Jerked out of her reverie, Sophie took a moment to recognise who addressed her.

William smiled.

‘We meet again,' he said.

Sophie's hand fluttered to her throat and tugged at her pearl pendant so hard that it was in danger of destruction. Why was she so absurdly glad to see Mr Jones?

‘Can I be of help?' he enquired.

Sophie's mind cleared and she held out her hand. William's clasp was firm and reassuring.

‘I did not expect my first visit to Versailles to be so eventful,' he said conversationally as she led him towards the marquise. ‘But I am glad I have found you.'

Héloïse was ministering to her mother, who was close to fainting. The marquise was ashen and she held her injured arm awkwardly on her lap. Sophie lifted up her skirts and tried discreetly to rip a strip of her petticoat, but failed. Then, blushing for her immodesty, she tugged at the muslin fichu that covered her breast.

‘Here,' she said, ‘use this as a sling.'

Héloïse accepted it gratefully. Sophie's neck and shoulders were left enticingly bare but there was no help for it. Ned took one look and his face changed, but he said nothing. William busied himself with helping Héloïse fashion a makeshift sling and offered up his own handkerchief so that she could wipe the marquise's damp forehead. Ned got to his feet.

‘I shall go and find out if there is any news,' he said and began to thread his way towards the Oeil-de-Boeuf. He returned within minutes.