When the King Took Flight (7 page)

The queen, on the other hand, had never overcome, nor made
much effort to overcome, the decidedly negative image acquired
early in her reign. Pregnancy and the overseeing of her children's
education had slowed her style somewhat, attenuating the perpetual
carnival atmosphere of her first years in the French palace. Yet she
had never felt entirely comfortable in France and always disliked
the endless rounds of public ceremony associated with Versailles.
She became ever more private and cliquish in her socializing, gathering around her a small group of attractive young women and
men, notably the count of Artois (the king's youngest brother), the
princess de Lamballe, and the beautiful duchess de Polignac. The
"Austrian woman," as she was called dismissively, became the subject of endless rumors and innuendoes. She was even featured in
pornographic accounts of alleged incestuous and lesbian activities.
The tawdry Diamond Necklace Affair, in which the queen was
accused of complicity in an expensive court swindle, further tarnished her public image." Given the king's limited interest in the
court and the queen's exclusiveness, many of the older aristocratic
families found themselves marginalized or ostracized. Several of the younger members of these families would soon embrace the reforms of the Revolution."

Although most of the rumors about Marie's sex life were certainly false, one of her male favorites did in fact assume a very special relationship with the queen. She first met the Swedish count and
military officer Axel von Fersen when they were still adolescents,
she a princess and he on his grand tour of Europe. He was away for
several years, fighting under General Rochambeau in the American
Revolutionary War, but he returned to Versailles periodically thereafter, whenever his military duties permitted. Never enthralled by
the French, the queen was immediately attracted to this handsome
foreigner, with his quiet dignity and reserve, so unlike the other
young men at court. Through her help, Fersen acquired a French
regiment of his own and a residence in Paris. After the birth of her
last child in 1786, Marie and the king began living separately once
again, and it was probably during this period that she and the Swedish count became particularly close. We will probably never know
if they were lovers. Fersen always maintained a remarkably discreet
position at court. But they had numerous encounters alone in the
Petit Trianon palace in the forests near Versailles. The count de
Saint-Priest, a minister who knew the royal couple well, believed
there was no doubt about the matter, describing Fersen as the
queen's "titular lover"-as Madame de Pompadour was once called
the "titular mistress" of Louis XV. Whatever the extent of their
physical relationship, the two maintained a deep and close attachment-as was made amply clear in Fersen's private correspondence
with his sister-an attachment that would play a central role in the
flight of the royal family in 1791.19

By the late 178os the king and the queen and all of France had been
swept up in a period of state instability and crisis. The country's
ever-increasing fiscal difficulties were driven by France's successful
but enormously expensive involvement in the War of the American Revolution and by an inefficient and inequitable tax structure that
left the state struggling to pay its bills. The role of the king in the
crisis of the Old Regime and in the coming of the French Revolution can be argued endlessly. But Louis' most pervasive impact on
the train of events probably came less from what he did than from
what he did not do: from his very lack of leadership, his indecision
and inconsistency.

[To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Count Axel von Fersen in zy85.

In the early days of his reign, following the death of his grandfather Louis XV in 1774, the young monarch seems to have applied
himself to the kingship with a considerable effort of will and a sense
of duty. He spent long hours reading reports and communicating
with councilors. His correspondence with his foreign minister, awk ward and a bit clumsy at times, revealed nevertheless an able grasp
of the complexities of international relations. He carefully followed
the revolutionary events in the American colonies, and he measurably contributed in developing a policy of French intervention, in
part to "support an oppressed people who have come to ask my
help," but above all to direct a blow at England, "the rival and natural enemy of my house," for its past "insults to the honor of
France."" Yet he had always relied heavily on the advice and decisions of the two elder councilors who had directed and tutored him
since he first became king, the counts Maurepas and Vergennes.
With the successive deaths of his two mentors in 1781 and 1787,
with the fiscal crisis of the 178os becoming ever more intractable,
with the intrigues and infighting among his remaining ministers intensifying, the king turned nervously from one adviser to another
and seemed increasingly overwhelmed by the tasks at hand. Year after year he spent more time hunting, and the number of "kills"
listed in his logs rose sharply." He continued, in principle, to want
the best for "his people," but he remained uncertain and divided as
to how that aim might be achieved. Those who observed him at
close hand in the late 178os found him growing almost lethargic.
Always taciturn and uncommunicative, he now seemed even more
inarticulate and silent, even sleeping-and snoring-in the midst
of critical debates.22 Much of his later reign oscillated between
progressive ministers and caretaker ministers, between efforts for
dramatic, radical reforms from above and reactionary retrenchment. Finally, in mid-1788, under the ascendancy first of Archbishop Lomenie de Brienne and then of the Swiss banker Jacques
Necker, Louis was persuaded to take the momentous step of convoking the Estates General for consultations on the deteriorating
situation. But the continual fluctuations in policy not only created a
deep sense of uncertainty and instability in the nation, but alsothrough the inconsistent fits of reform-helped educate and accustom the population to the possibility of massive change.

The later 178os also saw a progressive rise of the queen's political influence. In the first years of his reign, Louis had systematically excluded Marie from policy decisions and council meetings-following the advice of the king's anti-Austrian tutors, or so the queen
believed. Yet she had long exercised an indirect influence through
her ability to make or break individual ministers. Her involvement
in court intrigue undoubtedly played a role in the fall of the reforming minister Turgot in 1775 and of Necker's first ministry in
1781. At the time, her brother the emperor had been outraged by
her "meddling," particularly as it did not necessarily advance the
Austrian position. But Joseph II and his able ambassador, the count
de Mercy-Argenteuil, regularly coached the young queen on Hapsburg policy, initiating her into the workings of international politics
and grooming her to be a veritable Austrian agent at the heart of
the French regime.23 As the Revolution approached, as Louis lost
his most trusted mentors, and as he became more perplexed and uncertain through the failure of the various reforms, he came to rely
on Marie for advice of all kinds. By 1788 he had begun inviting her
to attend certain council meetings. Even when she was not present,
he would sometimes leave the room in the midst of discussions to
consult with her-much to the consternation and bewilderment of
the royal ministers. And unlike Louis, the queen was not plagued by
indecision and uncertainty. She never doubted for a moment that
the reforms being proposed by "patriots" and liberal ministers were
anathema to everything she believed in. Her steady and determined
opposition to all reforms invariably came to influence the king as
well.24

Throughout the first months of the Revolution, through the momentous events of the creation of a National Assembly, the popular
uprisings in Paris against the Bastille, the suppression of noble and
clerical privilege, and the dismantling of the "feudal system," the
king remained remarkably popular among almost every element of
the French population. The patriot deputies were deeply disappointed by his speech on June 23, in which he adhered to the position of the conservative nobility and rejected the existence of a National Assembly. But he was soon forgiven in the rush of events that
followed, events that turned clearly to the advantage of the Revolu tionaries. Most patriots remained convinced that he was well meaning and genuinely seeking the best interests of the nation, that it
was the classic case of a good king badly advised. Later developments seemed to present evidence that Louis had put aside once and
for all the "prejudices" of his caste and embraced the Revolution.
The positive perception of the monarch was further reinforced by
the great Festival of Federation, on the first anniversary of the fall
of the Bastille. It was here, in the presence of several hundred thousand cheering people, that Justin George, Etienne Radet, and the
other national guardsmen from Varennes had seen Louis raise his
hand before the "altar of the Fatherland" and swear an oath to uphold the new constitution. Since everyone knew that Louis was a
devout man for whom such an oath must be a sacred act, there was
widespread rejoicing that the Revolution had now been won and
that the monarch was definitively on the side of the people, well deserving the title of "king of the French."

But in retrospect we know that this popular view was more a
product of wishful thinking than of reality. Already in early June
1789 the king had been angered by the perceived insensitivity of the
patriot deputies to the sad death of his oldest son. He was also
deeply unhappy with the National Assembly's failure to grant him
an absolute veto in September 1789. Yet for Louis and for the queen
the pivotal event of that year was undoubtedly the terrible "October Days." On October 5-6 several hundred Parisian women, followed somewhat later by several thousand armed national guardsmen, marched on Versailles and coerced the king into moving his
residence to Paris. No one in the royal entourage could ever forget
the queen's early-morning race for safety down the corridors of the
palace, clothed only in her dressing gown, followed closely by the
nursemaids and the royal children.25 We will never know whether
the crowds who pursued her sought to do her harm or only wished
to talk to her and appeal for bread. But Marie herself had no doubt
that she had escaped murder by the slimmest of margins. The royal
family's slow carriage drive back to Paris that afternoon, followed
by the rough and boisterous crowds of men and women-some with the severed heads of royal guards held aloft on pikes-only
further intensified the horror and revulsion of the experience.

Grim and sullen, the family had moved into their assigned residence in the Tuileries palace, at the western end of the great Louvre
complex in the heart of the capital. For weeks thereafter they refused even to leave the buildings or to stroll in the adjacent gar-
dens.26 A few days after the event the king wrote to his cousin the
king of Spain an extremely significant letter-discovered by historians only in the twentieth century. In it he openly and self-consciously repudiated virtually the entire Revolution and protested
"all those acts contrary to royal authority that have been extorted
from me by intimidation" since the attack on the Bastille. Whatever
temptations he might once have felt to cooperate with a reform
movement, he now fully embraced a traditional image of authoritarian kingship: "I owe it to myself, I owe it to my children, I owe it
to my entire family to ensure that royal authority, confirmed in my
dynastic line through the test of time, shall not be diminished in any
respect." And he solemnly declared that his conservative declaration on June 23 was the only policy to which he would subscribe.27
Both he and the queen had now come to believe that a small group
of Parisian radicals, the Jacobins, had seized control of the state and
that the great mass of the population outside the capital fully
backed the king and only awaited the opportunity to show him their
love and obedience. But for the time being, insofar as the king had a
policy, it was a "politique du pire": to wait patiently and allow the
evil to work its course until the Revolutionaries destroyed themselves through their unworkable schemes of democracy and social
equality. "He had persuaded himself," wrote Saint-Priest, "that the
Assembly would be discredited through its own errors. The king's
weakness led him to take hold of this idea, thus relieving him of the
need for a permanent day-to-day opposition, too difficult for his
character to sustain."28

We now know that the king's oath and his various appearances
before the National Assembly-when he seemingly supported their
actions-had been largely choreographed by the patriot leadership and notably by the marquis de Lafayette, the young hero of the
American Revolution and the single most influential revolutionary
leader in 1790. To be sure, a steadfast consistency was never Louis'
forte, and he may have wavered at times in his assessment of the situation. In the spring of 1790 the family had finally begun venturing
out of the Tuileries palace into the gardens and even by carriage
into the city. In June they were allowed to drive to the queen's chateau of Saint-Cloud just to the west of Paris, and the time spent in
the country seems to have raised their spirits. The king was also
greatly affected by his enthusiastic popular reception during the
Festival of Federation and the weeklong celebration that accompanied it. He rode out daily to review troops and national guard units
and their rousing cheers of "Long live the king," pronounced with
such fervor and sincerity, helped fill his need to be loved and appreciated by his people.29 For a time both he and the queen seem also to
have come under the spell of the great orator and Revolutionary
leader Count Mirabeau, who had now sold himself as secret adviser
to the monarchy, and who held out the vision of a compromise that
would return the king to power as a greatly strengthened constitutional monarch.30