When the King Took Flight (10 page)

Despite the elaborate plans developed for the king's escape, remarkably little attention seems to have been given to what the king
would do when he actually arrived in Montmedy. Bouille claimed
that he was never informed of the king's intentions. Louis may have
planned to establish a provisional government with his conservative
ex-minister, the baron Breteuil, as prime minister. Breteuil was
asked to draft a policy paper from his exile in Switzerland and to
join the king in Montmedy as soon as possible. But the draft, sent
ahead to Luxembourg for delivery to the monarch, was never
opened and was apparently destroyed.6' To judge from the declaration left on his desk at the time of his departure-and from his
speech of June 23, 1789, to which the declaration referred-Louis
would probably have maintained the National Assembly. But he
continued to refer to the Assembly as the "Estates General," and he
suggested that the nobles would play a dominant role within that
body and regain most of their former privileges. And in other ways
he indicated his intention of dismantling most of the Revolution,
reclaiming the greater part of his former royal powers, abrogating the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, returning the church property
seized by the Revolutionaries, and generally repudiating all laws
passed since October 1789. In Louis' mind, this sweeping "counterrevolution" would be peacefully "negotiated" between the fatherking in Montmedy and his recalcitrant subjects, whom he graciously
promised to forgive for all the humiliations he had suffered. When
the situation had calmed, he would return from his frontier fortress
and choose a residence a safe distance from Paris-perhaps in the
palace of Compiegne, some seventy-five miles north of the "former" capital."

But would the king's subjects docilely accept the settlement that
Louis proposed? Given their reactions in the days following the
flight, it seems certain that a large segment of the population would
not. It is difficult to imagine that the king's successful escape would
not have led to a civil war. Both the queen and General Bouille presumed this would be the case. Moreover, Marie and the general also
assumed that Louis would soon have to retire into Austrian territory
for his own safety, and they were already making plans to persuade
him to do so.63 Despite his long-stated intention of remaining
within his kingdom, the king would almost certainly have crossed
into foreign territory, only a short distance away, once it was evident that his family was in danger-and once those around him,
who knew so well how to manipulate him, began exerting pressure.
Although Louis may have imagined he was acting only for the good
of his people, it is more than likely that a successful escape would
have ignited a full-scale civil war and probably an international war
as well-with the prospect of untold suffering for the very people
the king called "his children."

The Austrian ambassador, Mercy-Argenteuil, had no doubts on
this score. In a long series of letters written through the winter and
spring, Mercy had begged the queen to reflect on the consequences
of flight, and on what would transpire if the escape were to fail. The king and queen, Mercy argued, had greatly underestimated the
extent of popular support for the Revolution: "escape has become
impossible at this time. Every village could be an insurmountable
barrier to your passage. And I tremble to think of the catastrophe
that would arise if the enterprise fails." He understood that the situation was frustrating and unhappy and that the king had lost much
of his former power. But the family would do far better, the Austrian diplomat argued, to wait out the storm. "If only you persist
where you are, you can be certain that sooner or later the mad creations of the Revolutionaries will collapse by themselves"; in contrast, choosing "the extreme solution [of flight] will inevitably decide, for better or for worse, the fate of the king and the kingship."64

These, then, were the stakes, if Louis should attempt an escape.
And the stakes were high indeed. Success could well mean civil war.
Failure might bring "catastrophe" and perhaps the end of the monarchy.

THE ROYAL COUPLE'S CHALLENGE on that last day before their
flight was clear and sobering: to extricate themselves and their entire family undetected from a palace staffed by no less than two
thousand people-national guardsmen, domestics, and government
workers-whose lives centered entirely on the presence of the king
and queen. The task was all the more daunting in that rumors of
just such an escape plan had been circulating in Paris for some time.
Following the denunciation by the queen's servingwoman, extra
guards had been established in and around the Tuileries. Indeed,
with suspicion in the air, it was particularly important that the
royal family maintain their systematic deception to the final moment. Thus the queen scrupulously maintained her usual schedule
throughout the day. She attended mass; she had her hair done;
she went out for a drive with her children and several courtiers to
the Tivoli palace; she dined with the family, including the king's
brother and sister, before retiring for the night. Yet her daughter,
the twelve-year-old "Madame Royale"-as she was called-sensed
that her parents were unusually tense. She was especially mystified
when all her attendants, with the exception of the chief nurse, Madame Brunier, were sent away for the day on the pretense that the
princess was sick.'

In fact her parents were preoccupied with the myriad of lastminute arrangements that had to be made if the escape was actually
to come off. One of their most pressing concerns was to brief the
three professional soldiers who were to accompany the flight, take
charge of the practical details, and provide some limited measure of
protection. For this task the count d'Agoult, former commander of
the now disbanded royal bodyguards, had recruited three of his best
men. Francois-Florent de Valory, Francois-Melchoir de Moustier,
and Jean-Francois Malden were obscure provincial nobles who had
served in the same company of the king's guard for almost twenty
years. All three had seen their regiment humiliated by the Paris
crowds during the October Days, and they had since frequented
the circle of reactionary nobles in Paris who had rushed to the
king's defense on February 28-though they claimed not to have
participated themselves. All had taken oaths of submission to the
king, and they would maintain their loyalty to "their master" even
under the harsh questioning of the Revolutionary interrogators after their arrest. "Entirely dedicated to my king," as Valory would
tell them, "I would never have questioned his orders, having sworn
to him my loyalty, my obedience, my respect, and my love." Louis
himself first called in Moustier on June I'7 and asked him to obtain the disguise of a private courier for himself and for the two
others: short coats, suede knee breeches, and round-brimmed hats.
Just before dinner on the evening of the escape, the king and queen
had the men secretly led into their chambers through the back corridors of the Louvre. Here the king gave them their instructions in
detail, instructions that had been worked out by Fersen and Bouille
over the previous months. The three always claimed, and there is
no reason to disbelieve them, that they knew nothing of the escape
before that night.2

In the meantime, Fersen was a whirlwind of activity, setting
into motion a complex choreography of men, coaches, and horses.
During the day of June zo he visited his banker and the Swedish
ambassador; he secretly passed through the Tuileries to pick up
more packages for the berline; he saw to the last-minute purchase of horses, saddles, and riding whips, and to the final movements
of the various carriages-often in stages, to avoid arousing suspicion. About six that evening Fersen's German coachman, Balthasar
Sapel, drove the large black escape coach from the carriagemaker's
shop to the home of a wealthy Englishman on Rue de Clichy. Toward eight o'clock the two-wheeled cabriolet that was to carry the
two nurses was parked on the Seine across the river from the palace. At about the same time an ordinary fiacre, or hackney cab,
was left near the Tuileries gardens on the Champs-Elysees, where
Fersen himself would pick it up later. At half past nine, Valory and
Moustier met Sapel on Rue de Clichy, and they drove the berline together on a circuitous route through the western suburbs and then
out around the new northern boulevards just beyond the city walls,
positioning it near the Saint-Martin's customs gate at the northeast
corner of Paris. Valory then rode off to the village of Bondy to
prepare horses for the first relay stop.'

In the palace itself the first phase of the escape plan was launched
at about three in the afternoon, when the duke de Choiseul, who
had been sent to Paris with final messages from Bouille, left by carriage for the relay post of Somme-Vesle, where he was to meet the
advance detachment of cavalry sent out for the protection of the
king. In his company was perhaps the most unlikely participant in
the whole adventure, the queen's hairdresser, Jean-Francois Autie,
known to all the world as "Monsieur Leonard." In the final days
the queen had decided that it would be unthinkable to face the rigors of life in Montmedy without a proper coiffeur. Shortly before
Choiseul's departure she had called in Leonard and asked him if he
was ready to do anything she asked. When the hairdresser responded enthusiastically in the affirmative-and what else could
one say to a queen?-she told him to leave with Monsieur de
Choiseul and to follow his orders to the word. With no idea where
he was going, with no change of clothes, without even the possibility of canceling his afternoon appointments, the thirty-three-yearold hairdresser, stunned and confused, left with Choiseul on the
road east.'

At about half past ten the escape of the royal family itself was set
into motion. When dinner was finished, Louis embraced his younger brother, the count of Provence, and sent him off on his own
successful escape northward to Brussels-the last time the two
brothers would ever see each other. Then Marie-Antoinette and
Madame de Tourzel slipped away to awaken the two royal children
and to inform their nurses of the departure set for that evening.
The two royal caretakers, Madame Brunier and Madame de Neuville, were scarcely less surprised than Monsieur Leonard. But they
were utterly devoted to the royal family and prepared to follow
them anywhere-indeed, it was Neuville who had rushed through
the halls of Versailles with the dauphin in her arms during the October Days. The queen, Tourzel, and the nurses leading or carrying
their royal charges went quietly down the back stairway to the
ground floor and into the dark apartment abandoned by the king's
first gentleman. The nurses quickly helped the children change into
their disguises, with the dauphin and his sister both dressed as
young girls. Once they had prepared the children, the nurses were
led by the guard Malden back upstairs, out the main palace entrance, and across the Seine to the waiting carriage. A hired coachman drove them to the village of Claye, the second relay stop on
the planned escape route, where they would wait anxiously through
the nights

Back in the darkened ground-floor room, the queen quietly unlocked the exterior door of the apartment with a key she had obtained through a ruse some weeks earlier. A gibbous moon was low
on the horizon and probably covered in clouds. The queen had
carefully timed their exit to correspond with the moment when
large numbers of servants left the palace to return to their homes.'
In the considerable nightly exodus of men and women, the exterior
guards seem never to have noticed the departure of the disguised
escapees. Trembling, Madame de Tourzel gathered up the sleepy
prince, took the older girl by the hand, and walked casually across the somber outside courtyard toward the line of carriages with their
lanterns lit in the street just east of the palace-where they commonly waited at this time of night to pick up those leaving the
Tuileries. Fersen himself, dressed as a common driver, was waiting
in his hackney cab. They then took a short drive around the city until it was time for the rest of the family to leave, returning about
eleven to the same spot. Tourzel was amazed at the Swede's imitation of a Parisian coachman, his whistling, his stopping to chat and
exchange tobacco with the other drivers. The princess remembered
only that "never had time seemed so long."'