The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette (30 page)

Madame de Tourzel was very brave, keeping up her role as the mistress of the traveling party and looking very elegant in her borrowed finery. (She is of noble birth but has never been well-to-do, and had to borrow a black silk traveling gown from Loulou, who is about her height.) Louis, in the dark overcoat and plain black hat of a valet, with no shiny buckles on his
shoes and no jeweled ornaments on his hat or rings on his fingers, drank from his brandy flask and then proceeded to doze quietly as the hours passed. I sat nervously on the edge of the white velvet seat, watching out the window and praying that nothing would happen to impede our progress.

The night wore on, the sky began to lighten and we stopped at the town of Meaux to change horses. I covered my face with the veil of my brown hat to ensure that no one would recognize me. Louis kept his head down on his chest, either sleeping or pretending to sleep. The people in the vicinity of the post-house stared at our carriage, because it was very large and expensive-looking, but did not look rudely in the windows as the Parisians customarily did and did not appear to be suspicious of us. Some of them, I was glad to see, wore the white cockades of the pro-monarchist party in their hats. Accustomed as I was to seeing only the red, white and blue cockades of the republicans, the sight of the white cockades cheered me and I wished I could tell the good citizens of Meaux who we were. But of course I did nothing to betray our true identities, and before long we were on the road again.

The children were hungry and I fed them some veal and bread from the large carriage larder, which I had ordered filled before we left. Louis awoke and ate too, and Madame de Tourzel nibbled on a wedge of cheese. I could eat nothing, I was far too anxious.

“Only a few more hours,” Louis told us all. “Soon we will be at Châlons and from there it is only a short way to Pont-Sommevel where the cavalry will be waiting for us. They will take us the last fifty miles or so to the border. No one will be able to stop us.”

I sat back against the soft padded cushion of the seat and sighed. Only a few more hours. I hoped I could nap—or at least rest.

But I had hardly dropped off to sleep when I felt a tremendous
jolt and heard the horses neigh shrilly. We shuddered to a halt. I jerked awake and looked out the window. We were on a narrow bridge above a swift stream, with expanses of forest stretching away on both banks. The horses had fallen, the carriage leaned to one side and I guessed we had broken an axle. Louis was swearing. The coachman and all three postilions were struggling to free the horses where they were pinned under the broken harness.

All was confusion and it took an hour at least before we were able to go on, slowly, to the next village. It was a costly delay. We were very late reaching Châlons, and even later reaching the next village beyond it, Pont-Sommevel, where we expected to be met by the cavalry detachment.

Something had gone terribly wrong. If the cavalry had been there, they had chosen not to wait for us. But what if they had never been there at all? What if they had met with a Committee of Search and had turned around and galloped away? We had no way of knowing. Were we in danger? Should we turn back? Or would we meet the horsemen further on?

We decided to go ahead, but Louis got out his musket and loaded it and kept it on his lap, beneath the folds of his coat.

The day was very hot, and the dust of the road blew in through the open carriage windows, making us cough. We coughed our way through the next village, and the next, aware that we were drawing more and more attention to ourselves. I kept my veil lowered and Louis kept his large round hat pulled down low over his face, but by the time we reached the village of Ste.-Ménéhould we were so alarmed and tense that our agitation was noticed and the villagers began to stare at us curiously. I saw not a single white cockade in the village, only the tricolor republican cockades everywhere.

There were soldiers scattered here and there, some of them quite drunk. One officer came up to our carriage.

“Nothing has gone as arranged,” the man whispered hurriedly. “I cannot be seen talking to you, or we will be suspected.”

He moved off quickly, but not before we had, in fact, drawn the suspicion of some of the villagers. I saw them staring, muttering, becoming all the more curious when some of the soldiers mounted their horses and began following our carriage as we rolled on through the village.

We now had an escort, albeit a very small one, and we were getting closer to the border with each slow mile we traveled. But it was getting dark by this time, and the road turned hilly and the ascent was difficult. Our coachman was tired, having been driving since midnight the previous night, and our own nerves were worn thin. Louis-Charles was fretful, Mousseline sick to her stomach and complaining.

I brought out fruit, beef and cheese and a bottle of wine and we ate in anxious silence, as the carriage lurched and lumbered through the gathering darkness.

We knew that we were in a very hostile area, one patrolled by German and Swiss mercenaries in the pay of Austria who preyed on the villagers and bullied them, demanding food and liquor and money. Axel had warned us before we left the palace that all travelers coming from the direction of the capital were routinely stopped and questioned in this region, and we were prepared to be questioned.

We were not prepared, however, for the road to be blockaded and our forward progress halted completely.

We arrived in the village of Varennes and found that some of the local officials had closed off the road so that we could not pass on through. There was a hubbub in the street. Late as it was, people were coming out of their houses and raising the alarm. I saw National Guard soldiers mustering, holding their muskets and standing to attention. I wondered whether our own small cavalry escort would gallop off into the woods and abandon us.

“It’s no good,” Louis said to me in an undertone. “Someone has betrayed us.”

An official came up to the carriage, opened the door, and began to question us, holding a candle up to our faces and demanding that I raise my veil and Louis remove his hat. They ignored Madame de Tourzel entirely, and I saw that she had quietly begun to cry.

“Who are you, and what is your destination?”

“I am Monsieur Hippolyte Durand, valet to Baroness Korff,” Louis asserted, attempting to brazen out our imposture.

Our questioner snorted. “You are not! You are Louis Capet, Chief Public Functionary of France, former king. I recognize you. Your fat face is on the worthless promissory notes issued from your treasury.”

He looked over at me, and I could not return his gaze. I felt sick. My stomach churned, there was a terrible pain in the back of my neck and I suddenly needed to relieve myself.

“And you, lady, are the Chief Public Functionary’s wife, the one who has been robbing us for years, taking bread from our children and spending our money on diamonds for yourself! Tell me, where are all those diamonds now? Are they in this carriage?” He began rummaging under our seats, pushing us roughly aside while he searched for treasure. I clutched Mousseline, who clung to me, her eyes wide with fear.

“Your trunks will be searched,” the official said. “And you will not be allowed to proceed further. Get down out of this carriage now.”

With a sigh Louis heaved his large bulk out of the carriage, which rocked and lurched with each of his heavy steps. The musket he had been keeping on his lap fell to the ground, and the official picked it up.

“Was it your intent to fire on the people’s representatives?” he demanded to know.

“I would have protected my family, had the need arisen.”

“I believe it was your intent to incite a counter-revolution. I believe the Chief Public Functionary has become an enemy of the people of France.”

In response to this Louis reached up and pulled out, from under the collar of his plain linen shirt, the medal he wore on a chain around his neck. He held it out to his questioner so that the man could read the inscription: “Restorer of French Liberty and True Friend of His People.”

“This was presented to me,” Louis said with dignity, “by the people of Paris.”

“Some friend you are! Attempting to flee the country, leaving your people to the mercy of the cruel troops who harass us! Abandoning France in her hour of need!”

“Please, sir,” I could not be quiet any longer. I was doubled over in pain and badly in need of my chamber pot.

“Yes, yes. Madame Sauce!” he called out loudly. “Take this woman inside before she becomes a nuisance.”

A stout gray-haired woman in a nightgown and white mobcap stepped out from the ever increasing crowd of villagers.

“Come with me,” she said brusquely and helped me out of the carriage. The children and Madame de Tourzel followed. The woman led me into a dark shop where barrels of goods were arrayed in front of a wide counter.

“Maman,” Louis-Charles said, his voice uncertain. He had never been in a place of this kind before.

“It is all right, papa will come soon. We will be all right here.”

To my great relief we were shown up some narrow stairs into a small bedroom lit by a single candle. The children lay down and Madame de Tourzel tucked them in bed. I went into an adjoining room and made use of the chipped porcelain chamber pot the woman handed me with evident distaste. Afterwards I bathed my face and hands in a washbasin and asked Madame de Tourzel for a willow bark powder for my pounding head.

Outside, church bells had begun to ring and more and more
houses were lit up. The whole village had come awake, dogs were barking and roosters crowing. I lay down next to Louis on a hard narrow bed, hoping the pain in my temples would grow less if I tried to rest.

Presently I heard a noise at the window. I got up to open the shutter. On a ledge outside was a young cavalry officer, his white uniform smudged and stained. Evidently he had climbed up from the alley below, which was dark and deserted, all the villagers having assembled in the street facing the front of the houses and none in the back.

“Madame, I must speak to the king.”

I shook Louis out of his drowse, and drew him over to the window.

“Sire, come quickly. I have twenty men waiting to take you to General Bouillé. He is only eight miles away. Give me your son and I can hand him down to safety. We have horses ready for you. But you must come now, at once.”

Louis squinted at the young officer. “Is that the Duc de Choiseul?”

“Yes, sire.”

“You are a good young man, like your father before you.”

“Thank you, sire. Now please! Do not hesitate!”

“Go! Now!” I pushed Louis toward the window. “I’ll lift Louis-Charles out after you have gone.”

“But—”

“You must do this. It may be your only chance.”

“But—the soldiers—the National Guard—”

“We can outrun them, sire. Our horses are faster.”

“Surely they will raise an alarm, fire at us.”

“That is the chance we must take. But we will surprise them. We will be gone before they can take aim.”

Prodded by me, Louis had put one leg over the windowsill.

“What about you?” he said, turning back and looking at me. There was no affection in his eyes, only bewilderment.

I shook my head, impatiently. “I am not important. You are. You and Louis-Charles. Besides,” I added ruefully, “I am the one they really want. The one they hate.”

I heard a whistle from the alley. A signal, I assumed.

“Hurry, sire. Hurry!”

Louis started to climb out on the ledge, then stopped.

“No,” he said quietly, and began to climb back in.

I knew he was afraid of heights, but what a time to give in to his fears!

“Go on!” I said, as loudly as I dared, not wanting to alert whoever was in the shop below us. “Don’t stop now! You can make it!”

“I will not leave my family.”

I knew that tone of voice. It had a terrible finality in it.

Louis was now backin the room, brushing off his brown coat.

“Ride to General Bouillé on my behalf,” he was telling the young officer. “Tell him to bring his entire force here, as swiftly as possible.”

“But sire, what if—”

“Go now.”

There was no countermanding that regal voice. Crestfallen, the young duke agreed and began going back down toward the street, from which came another shrill whistle.

“Be safe!” I called down after him. “And thank you.”

Two hours, I thought to myself. With fresh, swift horses and a good road, he can be back with General Bouillé and his men in two hours. By then it will be dawn. What will they do with us then?

With a sudden unexpected gesture Louis reached for me and embraced me, pressing me to his heart in a way he seldom did. I crumpled in his arms, and wept.

Together we waited, counting the minutes, praying for General Bouillé and his men to come, while more National
Guardsmen poured into the town and the restive, chanting crowd sang the hated Parisian song “Ça ira” and beat against the walls of the shop with sticks in a very unnerving way.

Dawn came, and with it the distinct sound of hoofbeats. But there were not many riders, not General Bouillé and his hundreds. Only two. They came galloping up to the knot of officials standing in the street outside our building and I heard one of them announce in a voice of authority that he was Captain Romeuf, aide-de-camp to General Lafayette, and that he was carrying important papers from the National Assembly. The other rider was also an officer, but I did not hear anything he said.

The newcomers conferred with the officials, while I kept thinking, two hours must have passed by now. Where is General Bouillé? He must come soon. I stood at the window, looking down, clenching and unclenching my fists.

The official who had questioned us was addressing the crowd.

“As you know, the Chief Public Functionary is here among us.” At these words loud boos came from the crowd. “He has been stopped here, by the loyal citizens of Varennes, before he could reach the frontier. By his attempt at flight, he has shown himself to be a deceitful traitor to the people of France. I took from him this musket.” The official held up Louis’s old gun, and at the sight of it the crowd booed again, more loudly this time. I could hear cries of “Shoot him with it!” “Death to the Chief Public Functionary!”