The Queen`s Confession (65 page)

All through the night I lay sleepless, shivering on my bed.

I was up in the early morning waiting for him; but he did not come.

dery came to us.

He feared it would distress you too much,” she said.

I sat and waited, thinking of my husband, of our first meeting and what I knew now had been our last.

I did not know how time was passing. I was numb with misery; and suddenly I heard the roll of drums; I heard the shouts of the people.

Underneath my window the sentry cried: “Long live the Republic.”

And I knew that I was a widow.

Vewlle Dieu tout-puissant saucer une tete si eh’ ere faurais trap perdu si je la per ds

COMTE DE FERSEN

My dear Sophie, you have no doubt learned by now about the terrible disaster of the removal of the Queen to the Conciergerie and about the decree of that despicable Convention which delivers her to the Revolutionary Tribunal for judgment. Since I heard of this I have no longer been alive, for it is not truly life to exist as I do and to suffer the pains 1 now endure. If I could but do something to bring about her liberation I think the agony would be less, but I find it terrible that my only resource is to ask others to help her. I would give my life to save her and cannot; and my greatest happiness would be to die for her in order to save her.

AXEL DE FERSEN TO HIS SISTER SOPHIE

Non, jam ah il ny aura plus pour moi de beaux jours, man bonheur est passe, et je suis condamne a d’etemels regrets et a trainer une vie triste et languissante.

FERSEN’S JOURNAL

In the Anteroom

They gave me mourning clothes; I had a black dress and petticoat, black silk gloves, and two head scarves of black taffeta.

I looked at them with indifference. I told myself that it could not be long now until the end.

I never went down to the courtyard because I could not bear to go past those rooms which the King had occupied;

but with Elisabeth and the children I went to the top of .

the tower for fresh air; there was a gallery there surrounded by a parapet, and there we would walk during those winter afternoons.

Toulon, one of the guards, had brought to me a ring and a seal and a lock of Louis’s hair. These had been confiscated by the Commune, but Toulon had stolen them and brought them to me because he believed they would comfort me. ” Toulon! A man who had been at the storming of the Tuileries; who had determined on our destruction. He had been set in charge of us because of his fierce revolutionary views; because he was trustworthy and reliable. They had forgotten that he also had a heart.

I had seen the tears in his eyes; I had seen his admiration for our fortitude. He was a brave man. There was another too, named Lepitre, who had been won over to our side.

I still had Clery, the King’s valet, and Turgy, who had been in the kitchen of Versailles; he was a bold and brazen fellow and very brave, for he had managed by fabricating stories about his revolutionary zeal to become one of my guards.

I am thankful to these loyal people; it was they who gave me hope during those dark days. For the first weeks after Louis’s death I would sit listless thinking of the past, full of remorse, accusing myself of a hundred follies.

I would talk to my friends sadly of the loss of the Ring. It was Toulon who said: “Madame, there is still a King of France.”

This was true. My little boy was now Louis XVII. If I could get him out of this prison . if I could join my friends . I was suddenly alive again. I had a purpose.

My little circle was delighted in the change in me. I realised that I was the centre of that little circle, for Elisabeth was too passive to be, the children too young. Toulon and Lepitre thought of all kinds of ways of smuggling news in to me. Turgy, who served meals, would wrap notes round the corks of bottles so that it would appear that the paper had been put there to make them fit more securely; and

although the Tisons would examine the bread to see if notes H were in it and peer under the covers of dishes, they never id discovered this ruse. Turgy sometimes would carry notes in his pockets and at an arranged signal one of us would lift them out as he brushed past when serving us. From ; Madame Clery shouting the news outside our windows I learned that the whole of Europe was shocked by the execution of Louis; even in Philadelphia and Virginia, murder was shuddered at. All very well to depose a tyrannical monarchy, but not ruthlessly to kill its figurehead, who could scarcely i be entirely responsible.

Sensing the disapproval did nothing to make the Republic 1 more lenient towards us; in fact it increased their severity.

But the thought that I had friends had given me a reason for living:

Escape.

And when I heard that Axel was trying to rouse Mercy to action, that he had prevailed upon him to ask the Prince of Coburg to send a regiment of picked men to march on Paris and pluck me from die Temple wild as it was, rejected as it was it put new heart in me. It was the plan of a lover rather than a strategist, just as the night to Varennes had been. I saw now that it indicated a frantic desire for my safety which was too passionate in its Intensity to be practical. And I loved him all the more because of this.

One piece of news which was brought to me was that Jacques Armand had died at the battle of Jemappes. I thought sadly of the lovely little boy whom I had picked up on the road when I so longed for children. He had been my substitute until I had my own. He had never forgiven me for that. and now, poor boy, he was dead.

I spoke to Elisabeth of the sadness of this and she tried to comfort me, pointing out the different life he had had because of what I had done for him; but I only replied:

“I used him, Elisabeth. I used him as a toy with which to amuse myself for a while. One cannot use people in that way. I see it now. There is so much I see that I did not see then. But one thing I believe, Elisabeth. No woman ever paid more highly for her follies than I have done. If I am given another chance …”

“You will be,” she told me in her placid way. But 1 was not sure. I lacked her faith.

Each evening the illuminateur came to light the lamps. I welcomed his coming because he had two little boys and I had always loved children.

They were rather dirty, their clothes stained by the oil used in the lamps, for they helped their father. The Qluminatew never looked in my direction. There were so many like him who were afraid of appearing royalist. This dreadful revolution was not called the Terror for nothing. Countless numbers of its supporters went in terror of their lives never knowing when the great monster they had created would snap at them.

Sometimes the children would look wistfully at the food on the table and I liked to give them some of it. This they ate greedily; and I would find their eyes under their floppy hats regarding me intently. I wondered what tales they had heard of the Queen.

Madame Tison would come hustling in frowning at them, searching them, looking to see whether I bad given them some message to take out.

The visits of the illuminateur were one of the pleasant interludes of the day because of the children.

Toulon spoke to the lamplighter and asked him whether the boys were learning the trade. The lamplighter nodded.

Toulon saw the boys regarding me with awe.

“At what are you looking?”

he demanded.

“The woman? No need to blush, boy. We’re all equal now.”

The illuminateur gave his agreement by spitting on the floor.

I was accustomed to this; I wondered whether Toulon had scented something suspicious in the illuminateur’s attitude and that was why he had mentioned we were all equal.

We all had to be very careful.

I was disappointed when the illuminateur came alone. I set my eyes on my book.

very skilful way and 1 realised that 4 was noi the same man ‘”” who had come with the children.

“I’m Jarjayes, Madame. General Jarjayes.”

Why yes . “

Toulon bribed the illuminateur and got him the worse for drink in a tavern. I am in touch with the Comte de Fersen. “

At the mention of that name I could have fainted with happiness.

“The Comte is determined to free you. He has sent a message to say he will not rest until you are free.”

I knew he would do this—I knew. “

“We have to plan carefully. But Madame, be ready. Toulon is our good friend. Lepitre too … but we must be sure of him.”

I saw Madame Tison hovering in the doorway and I tried to convey by my expression that we were spied on.

The General went away, and I felt a wild hope surging within me.

Axel had not forgotten me. He had not given up hope.

From Toulon I heard how the plan was progressing. He was to smuggle clothes into the prison which when they put them on would make the Dauphin and his sister look like the lamplighter’s boys. Elisabeth and I were to be disguised as municipal councillors. It would not be difficult to obtain the hats, cloaks and boots, and of course the tricolour sashes which would be required.

The Tisons, who were never far from us, would be Ola-great difficulty. We could never escape while they were watching over us.

But Toulon was a man of imagination. We will drug them,” he said.

They had a fondness for Spanish tobacco. Why should not Toulon present them with some? It would be heavily drugged and make them unconscious for several hours. When they were under its influence we would hastily dress in our clothes and pass out of the prison in the company of

Toulon. It was a bold but not impossible plan. 490 “I should need a passport,” 1 fold him, but be had thought of that.

Lepitre could provide it.

By the time the flight was discovered we could all be in England.

We were all ready, waiting.

But Lepitre was not a brave man. Perhaps it was too much to ask of him. He had prepared the passport, but a chance remark of Madame Tison’s made him wonder whether she knew that something was brewing.

Lepitre could not bring himself to go on with it. It was too risky, he said. We must make another plan in which I alone should escape.

This I would not do. I would not consent to be parted from the children and Elisabeth.

I wrote to Jarjayes:

“We have bad a beautiful dream and that is all. But we have gained much in finding again on this new occasion a further proof of your wholehearted devotion to me. My trust in you is limitless. You will always find I have some courage, but the interests of my son are my sole care, and whatsoever happiness I may be able to win, I can never consent to leave him. I could do nothing without my children, and the failure of any such idea is something I do not even regret I sent him my husband’s ring and lock of hair that he might take them to the Comte de Provence or d’Artois, for I feared they would be taken from me; and I had a wax impression made of a ring Axel had given me on which was inscribed: ” All leads me to thee. “

I sent this impression to Jarjayes with a note which said:

“I wish you to give this wax impression to one you know of, who came to see me from Brussels last year. Tell him at the same time that the device has never been more true.”

There was another attempt, but I believe I expected failure from the start. I had begun to believe that I was doomed and nothing could save me.

Baron de Batz, a royalist adventurer, formulated a plan in which Elisabeth, Marie Therese and I were to walk out of the prison in the uniform of soldiers with members of the loyal guard; the Dauphin was to be hidden under the cloak of one of the officers.

Everything was prepared but the Tisons had grown suspicious, and the day before that fixed for the escape Madame declared that she suspected Toulon and Lepitre of being too friendly with me.

As a result they were removed, and that plan collapsed, for it could not be carried out without their help.

I can scarcely write of this scene. It fills me with emotion and a sorrow so acute that my hand grows limp with agony. They could not have thought of a more exquisite torture. During these days of gloom and horror my great solace had been my children. They had enabled me to feign a haughty indifference to insolence and cruelty. Now they saw the way to pierce that armour of indifference and disdain.

It was July—hot, turgid—and we were in our room together—Elisabeth, Marie Therese, my boy and I. I was mending my son’s coat and Elisabeth was reading aloud to us.

We looked up startled, for this was no ordinary visit. Six members of the Municipaux bad come into the room.

I rose to my feet.

“Messieurs,” I began.

One of them spoke, and his words struck me like the funeral knell for a loved one.

“We have come to take Louis-Charles Capet to his new prison.”

I gave a cry. I reached for my son. He ran to me, his eyes wide with terror.

“You cannot …”

“The Commune believes it is time he was put into the care of a tutor.

Citizen Simon will care for him. “

Simon! I knew this man. A cobbler of the lowest, coarsest, crudest type.

No, no, no! ” I cried.

We’re in a hurry,” said one of the men roughly.

“Come on, Capet.

You’re moving from here. “

I could feel my son clutching my skirts. But rough hands were on him;

they were dragging him away. I ran after them but they threw me off.

Elisabeth and my daughter caught me as I fell.

They had gone. They had taken my boy with them.

I could think of nothing but that. My sister-in-law and my daughter tried to comfort me.

There was no comfort. I shall never forget the cries of my son as they carried him away. I could hear him screaming for me.

“Maman … Maman … don’t let them.”

It haunts my dreams. Never never can I forget. Never never can I forgive them for doing this to me, This was the depth of sorrow; there could be nothing more terrible. I was wrong. These fiends had found they could plunge me into even further despair.

So I was without him.