The Blue Rose

by Kate Forsyth

  After a moment, the little boy nodded. Viviane knelt so he could pat the dog, who whined and licked his hand. The dauphin laughed.

  ‘What is that creature doing here? Gabrielle, I thought my instructions were clear. You know he is afraid of dogs!’

  The queen hurried towards them, looking worried and upset. It had been a difficult week, Viviane knew, with the price of bread rising day by day and causing riots and the looting of bakeries. Aristocrats were being accused of hoarding flour in some kind of sinister plot to starve the poor to death. Crowds gathered every day at the gilded gates of Versailles, throwing stones and rubbish, shouting ‘Death to the rich! Death to all aristocrats! Death to hoarders!’ Viviane had not dared go into town, for fear of being caught up in the mob.

  She jumped up and swept a deep curtsey, the dog still in her arms. ‘Your Majesty! I beg pardon …’

  The Duchesse de Polignac rose to her feet, laughing. ‘Ma cherie, you malign me! Would I allow your darling chou d’amour to be frightened by a dog? It is a stray, wandered in from the streets, no doubt. This sweet girl was just whisking it away for me. And she told the children the most enchanting story. Even your little dauphin was entranced and forgot to fear the dog.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Marie-Antoinette’s face softened and she smiled at Viviane. ‘What story did you tell, to work such a miracle, madame?’

  ‘It was just a story my wet-nurse used to tell me, Madame la Reine,’ Viviane said, colour mounting her cheeks. ‘I used to like it when I was small.’

  ‘It was about how the Devil invented the thimble,’ Marie-Thérèse told her mother. ‘I liked it. I like her. I want her to come and tell me another story.’

  ‘Very well, ma Mousseline la Sérieuse,’ the queen said with a laugh. It was not a term Viviane had ever heard before, but somehow it suited the princess. She was as pretty and delicate as muslin, but so serious and grave in her ways that no-one could ever think her frivolous.

  The queen took her son into her arms, kissing his soft curls. She looked at Viviane with keen interest. ‘You are the young Duchesse of Savageaux, are you not?’ she asked. ‘I heard of your marriage. It is hard to be married to a man you have never met. I remember well my own trepidation when I came here to France. And at least my bridegroom was not old enough to be my father. Or indeed, my grandfather.’

  Viviane’s eyes stung. She dropped her gaze, not wanting anyone to see her distress.

  The queen seemed to come to some kind of decision.

  ‘We are going to the Petit Trianon this afternoon. I must have an afternoon away from court. Would you care to accompany us?’

  ‘I would be honoured, madame,’ Viviane answered, with a deep curtsey. ‘I love gardens, and the fame of yours has spread far and wide.’

  The queen smiled. ‘Come dressed simply in muslin, as you are now, and remember, no curtseys or bows are allowed at Petit Trianon. And think of another story! I should like to hear one. As long as it has a happy ending.’

  13

  The Fall

  11–14 July 1789

  ‘Versailles is intolerably tedious,’ the Duc de Savageaux said.

  ‘Indeed,’ the Marquis de Valaine answered, yawning behind his fan. ‘All these earnest fellows thumping their pulpits.’

  ‘Let’s go to Paris,’ the duke suggested. ‘At least at the Palais-Royal, we can gamble to our heart’s content.’

  Neither men thought to consult their wives. Viviane and Clothilde were expected to do as they were told.

  As their carriage rattled into Paris, Viviane was surprised to find soldiers tramping the streets, guarding toll booths, and rolling heavy cannons into place at the city gates. They were not wearing the familiar ‘king’s blue’ coats of the Garde Française.

  ‘Why are there so many soldiers?’ Clothilde asked, her voice shrill with alarm.

  ‘No need to fret, my dear, the king just wishes to keep the peace,’ the marquis replied.

  ‘His Majesty has given secret orders for twenty thousand soldiers to gather around Paris and Versailles,’ the duke said. ‘For the people’s protection, of course.’

  ‘Of course,’ Viviane said bitterly. ‘Not because he wants to seize back control.’

  Her father raised his thin brows. ‘Viviane, you speak of His Majesty the King. He does not need to seize back control.’ He repeated her words with ironic emphasis. ‘The king controls all. He is the supreme ruler. One king, one law, one faith.’

  ‘Times are changing,’ Viviane said.

  ‘Not if we can help it,’ the duke said. He made an elegant gesture out the coach window at the soldiers marching, muskets over their shoulders. ‘And not if the king can keep those unruly Parisian mobs under control. A few sharp lessons, and they’ll slink back to their slums.’

  ‘The Comte de Mirabeau said French soldiers are not automata, they will not fire on French citizens,’ Viviane said hotly.

  ‘How do you know that?’ her father asked.

  Viviane flushed. She could not admit Camille Desmoulins had told her. She had seen the fiery young revolutionary a few times since that day in the royal tennis court. He was thinner and more dishevelled and more passionate than ever. Viviane found his talk fascinating. He reminded her of David in so many ways – his dark unruly hair, his vehement conviction, his refusal to bow his head and bend his knee.

  ‘It is reported widely,’ she answered. ‘Strangely enough, I read the newspapers too.’

  ‘It is unbecoming,’ her father said sharply. ‘A woman should not know anything about politics, let alone have the temerity to voice an opinion.’

  Viviane clenched her jaw and did not answer.

  The duke shrugged his velvet-clad shoulders. ‘Well, she is right, no matter how unbecoming it is in her. That is why we do not see the Garde Française out in force, here in Paris, where they have so many friends and relatives. It is the Swiss and German mercenaries that the king has ordered to guard the city.’

  Viviane gazed out the window at swarms of begging children with dirty faces and ragged women with bare feet and arms hanging out scraps of clothing on drooping lines, and felt no comfort at all at the idea of well-fed foreign mercenaries marching through these narrow filthy streets.

  The following day was Sunday.

  The marquis and the duke took their young wives to promenade around the Palais-Royal. Owned by the Duc d’Orléans, the colonnades around the inner courtyard of the palace had been transformed into a shopping arcade filled with shops, theatres, cafés, bookshops, hair salons, museums and bars. People of all kinds meandered through the gardens, and browsed in the bookstores and museums.

  Men in tattered coats rubbed shoulders with rakes with rouged cheeks and black patches glued beside their reddened lips.

  Women in cheap satin and broken feathers beckoned from doorways, while young ladies in white muslin with sky-blue bows promenaded with their governesses.

  Young men in worn black suits sold newspapers and pamphlets, shouting out lewd headlines in hoarse voices, while a blind girl with the voice of an angel sang for coins flung into a wooden bowl at her feet.

  Viviane was wide-eyed and amazed, turning her head in all directions as she tried to take it all in. She had never seen such a place. It seemed as if all of Paris was here, enjoying the sunshine.

  It was not long before the marquis grew bored, however, and he and the duke went to find livelier company at one of the gambling dens. Viviane and Clothilde were left in the care of their footmen, two tall strapping young men with white powdered wigs and spotless livery.

  They sat for a while in one of the cafés, drinking coffee, and watched the crowd go by. Some boys nearby were running about and setting off firecrackers under people’s feet, to the accompaniment of much screaming and laughter.

  ‘They buy them cheaply here,’ Clothilde said. ‘I heard the sky over the Palais-Royal was ablaze with fireworks the night the king agreed the three estates should join together.’

  ‘Yet all the time
the king was giving secret orders for soldiers to converge on Paris,’ Viviane said.

  ‘Well, what do you expect? He can’t take all these threats to his power lying down.’

  ‘Does he think the commoners are idiots with no eyes in their heads? A child could see what was going on. He hopes to force the Third Estate to back down.’

  ‘Of course. Then life can return to normal, without all these histrionics.’ Clothilde took a sip of coffee, then made a face of distaste and put her cup down.

  ‘I don’t think the commoners will submit,’ Viviane replied, thinking of the young men she had seen, afire with zeal, determined to break the template of French society and make it anew.

  Clothilde laughed. ‘They’ll soon back down before the blast of a musket.’

  ‘I’m not so sure …’ Viviane began, but Clothilde was pulling on her gloves.

  ‘I want some new ostrich plumes, and some blue satin ribbon. I just adore the bows you have on your brocade shoes. Come and help me choose some.’

  ‘I’d rather look at the books,’ Viviane said.

  Her stepmother shrugged. ‘As you please.’ She glanced up at the clock on the pediment, held aloft by two stone angels. It was almost three o’clock. ‘I will meet you back here in an hour.’

  Off she swept, followed by her footman, his arms laden with all the furbelows the marquise had already bought. Viviane wandered over to the dusty old books piled high on tables and shelves in the bookstore, her footman keeping a discreet few steps away.

  Viviane was turning over the pages of an age-spotted book when a sudden roar of applause caught her attention.

  She looked up. A crowd had gathered around the Café Foy, where an orator was standing on a table in the shade of an ancient chestnut tree. He held high a sheaf of paper, shaking it excitedly. Curious, Viviane went a little closer.

  ‘Have you heard the n-n-news?’ a familiar stammering voice cried. It was Camille Desmoulins, more dishevelled and ardent than ever. ‘The king has f-f-forced Monsieur Necker to resign. Our only hope of rescuing our nation from bank … bankruptcy! We patriots will be next. They shall ma-ma-massacre us in the street as they once massacred the Huguenots.’

  There was a great roar of anger and disapproval. Everyone was shouting and shaking their fists.

  ‘Make the king bring back Monsieur Necker!’

  ‘Does he think we’re fools?’

  ‘Nothing will ever change …’

  ‘… unless we make it change!’

  ‘To arms! To arms!’ Camille cried, pulling a pistol from his pocket and raising it high. ‘We must fight, else all will be l-l-lost.’

  ‘Let us find guns,’ someone in the crowd shouted.

  ‘But the guards … the soldiers will shoot us down.’

  ‘We must shoot them first.’

  ‘I would rather d-die than live a slave,’ Camille shouted. He reached up and snatched a leaf from the chestnut tree and stuck it in his hat. ‘All of you, take a leaf. Green is the c-c-colour of hope. If we wear green cockades in our hats, we will know who is one … one of us. Find green ribbons, green scarves, anything to mark out who the true patriots are! To arms, I say.’

  ‘Bravo! Bravo!’

  He was lifted high onto men’s shoulders and carried away. Viviane shrank back, afraid he would recognise her, but he did not see her as the crowd surged around him.

  Men leapt high to grasp leaves from the chestnut branches, or ran to nearby shops, snatching rolls of green silk and ripping them to shreds, tying the scraps to their hats or their buttonholes. A fat lady in a green dress found her clothes being torn from her shoulders.

  ‘Pardon, madame, but I must get you away,’ her footman cried. ‘This is no place for a lady.’

  Shoved and jostled on all sides, her ears ringing with the shouts and screams, Viviane could only agree. She let him lead her away from the tumult and lift her up into the carriage, waiting in the street beyond.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, as he shut the door upon her. ‘I am sorry, I do not know your name.’

  He bowed his head to her. ‘I am Henri Dumont, madame. You were most kind to me in Bretagne, when we first arrived.’

  For a moment she did not know what he meant, then he prompted, ‘You offered me mulled wine.’

  Then she remembered the footmen who had been made to run ahead of her father’s carriage all the way from Paris to Bretagne, a distance of some two hundred and fifty miles.

  She nodded her head. ‘I wish I could have done more.’

  ‘A kind word was more than I expected.’

  Viviane wanted to apologise for her father’s heartlessness, but it would not be proper. Instead she said, ‘What of the others? If I take the carriage, how will they get home?’

  She could not bear to say, My husband, my father, my stepmother …

  ‘I will see you returned to safety, then return to find them, madame,’ he said, and withdrew.

  As the carriage clattered away from the Palais-Royal, she saw the crowd surging towards the Jardin des Tuileries. Then she heard distant gunfire.

  Back at the duke’s townhouse, Viviane paced back and forth. She was tense and agitated. That cry: To arms! To arms!

  Bells rang the alarm. Smoke tinged the air bitter orange.

  The duke returned at last, white around the mouth. He ordered the footmen to barricade the doors.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Viviane cried.

  ‘The king’s soldiers are under attack by a mob,’ he said shortly. ‘But order will be restored soon.’

  Yet the bells kept clanging, punctuated with bursts of gunfire and screaming. The duke ordered Henri to go and gather news. The footman hesitated, then said, ‘Yes, monsieur, of course. May I change first? Out of my livery? I would not wish to get dirty.’ He gestured to his white satin breeches.

  The duke jerked a nod in response, and Henri withdrew. Viviane knew it was not concern for his livery, but for his life, that caused the footman to break the rules of etiquette that required a servant to wear his master’s uniform at all times.

  Henri returned long after nightfall. He was ruffled and dirty, with his old woollen jacket torn at the shoulder. He wore a green ribbon tied around his arm.

  ‘Paris is lost,’ he gasped.

  The duke stared at him. ‘Whatever can you mean?’

  ‘Monsieur, the Garde Française have joined forces with the mob. They fired against the German soldiers.’

  ‘The king’s guards fired against the king’s mercenaries? You must be mistaken.’

  ‘I am not mistaken, monsieur. I saw it with my own eyes. The German soldiers were surrounded by the mob, using whatever weapons they could lay their hands on. Chairs, cobblestones, smashed statues, broomsticks. The horses could not run the mob down, there were too many of them. The Germans lay about them with their sabres, killing many. Then the Garde Française arrived, guns at the ready. Everyone thought they meant to join forces with the Germans, but they would not shoot their fellow Frenchmen. The Germans were driven back. They have abandoned Paris, they have retreated all the way to Pont de Sèvres.’ Henri’s eyes were wild, his hands shaking.

  ‘What of the mob?’ Viviane demanded. ‘What is happening now?’

  ‘They are raiding the gunsmiths and the armouries,’ Henri answered. ‘Anyone who resists is being knocked down, assaulted. They are tearing down the toll booths, madame, they are knocking down the city walls!’

  Viviane nodded in understanding. She knew how much the people of Paris hated the wall of the Ferme Générale, which had been built over the past few years to ensure that tax was paid on every single item that was taken in and out of the city. Fifteen feet high and almost seven leagues long, it encircled nearly all of Paris, making all those who lived within prisoners.

  ‘This is an outrage,’ the duke cried. ‘The king’s guard should all be shot.’

  ‘It is the king’s mercenaries who are being shot,’ Henri replied, then added quickly, ‘monsieur le duc.’
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br />   The duke called for his carriage. He must go back to Versailles, he said, and inform the king.

  ‘You will never get out, monsieur,’ Henri said. ‘The city has been taken over. They have formed a new National Guard, and are arming themselves even now. You’ll be killed.’

  ‘I am the Duc de Savageaux. Who will dare touch me?’ he said contemptuously.

  Henri bowed and said no more, and soon the duke drove off into the night.

  It was difficult to rest. The sky was lit up with a reddish glare. Throngs of people ran through the streets, looting shops, stealing sacks of grain and wheels of cheese and bottles of wine, brandishing stolen muskets and pistols. The duke had ordered all the doors barricaded with furniture, and shots fired over the heads of anyone who tried to break in. At dawn, every bell in the city was rung with a great clangour. Guns boomed. Drums rumbled. The streets were full of the clatter of running feet.

  Yvette failed to bring Viviane her coffee and pain au chocolat for breakfast. Tying a wrapper over her nightgown, she went down to the servants’ quarters. There seemed fewer than usual. Yvette and Henri were hunched over the newspapers, their faces white and frightened. They looked up as Viviane came in, and rose to bow and curtsey, but she thought she saw hostility in their faces. She wanted to tell them that she was a duchess against her will, that she did not believe she was born better than any of them, but thought miserably no-one would believe her.

  ‘Pardon, madame,’ Henri said. ‘We did not know you were awake. Go back to bed, and Yvette will bring you something to eat.’

  But when it came, her coffee was cold and bitter, and the bread was stale.

  Looking out into the street from behind her shutter, Viviane saw that many of those marching in the streets were now wearing a cockade of red and blue ribbons, the medieval colours of Paris. They were laughing and singing and dragging cannons. Women and children as well as men, many with nothing more than a rolling-pin or broomstick as a weapon.

  Viviane quickly unfastened the blue ribbon from her favourite shoes and fashioned it into a rosette. She dressed herself in her oldest gown, borrowed some sabots from Yvette’s room, and slipped out into the streets, the rosette pinned to her cap.