The Blue Rose

by Kate Forsyth

  Viviane sank down on to a low wall. ‘Was anyone hurt?’

  There was an odd silence.

  She looked up. ‘Briaca?’

  He tried to master himself, but could not. ‘She ran in … to try and stop him … I tried … but I was too late …’

  Viviane was tearless, breathless. ‘She’s dead?’

  He nodded.

  She could not believe it. ‘Briaca is dead?’

  He nodded. His face worked, and then he was in her arms, sobbing, heedless of who might see. She patted him and soothed him as if he was still the little boy she had once toddled about with, both in their long white gowns and caps. Luna whined, and put up her single front paw on to Viviane’s thigh, and she did her best to comfort the dog as well.

  She did not weep.

  ‘I’m all alone now,’ Pierrick cried. ‘I have no-one.’

  Viviane held him closer. She wanted so much to tell him that he was her brother. But she dared not. He’d do something mad, like challenge her father, or strike him, or demand restitution. Then Pierrick would be thrown onto the street, with no option but to join the starving hordes begging at the palace gates.

  She could not risk it.

  A few days later, the National Assembly declared all feudal rights abolished.

  Dovecotes to be locked. Any pigeon flying free considered prey.

  Rabbit warrens free to all.

  Hunting rights abolished, even in the royal forest.

  Poachers to be released from prison.

  Manorial courts suppressed.

  Tithes abolished.

  The fees of all parish priests and curates stopped.

  All privileges of the nobility eradicated.

  Then it was announced that no-one in France would ever kneel before anyone again.

  All this happened in an atmosphere of feverish exhilaration and dread.

  Many of the nobles were among the first to suggest the surrendering of their privileges. Viviane hardly noticed. She was so overcome with grief and despair she rarely rose from her bed.

  By the end of August, the National Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen were drawn up and published.

  ‘I notice women aren’t granted any rights,’ Viviane said bitterly to Pierrick. He had taken up his role as her footman again, though he seemed to spend all his time drinking in the inns and gathering rumours.

  He tried to grin. ‘Why do women need rights? They have men to take care of them.’

  Viviane’s chest felt tight. No man in her life had ever cared for her, apart from Pierrick, who was divided from her by a vast chasm of privilege, and David, who was dead. Viviane feared her father and had hated her husband. They had only cared for her lands, which were now worthless. Which meant she was worthless.

  ‘Mamzelle, don’t cry,’ Pierrick said in alarm. ‘I was only joking.’

  ‘I’m not crying,’ Viviane said, even though she was.

  September was a month of unrest and deprivation.

  Despite a rich harvest, bread was scarce. The multitudes of beggars and vagrants were swelled by periwig-makers, silk weavers, jewellers and mantua-makers, their luxury goods no longer in demand as the court emptied of its nobles.

  Those who remained were in a fever of self-denial. Duchesses and marquises donated their earrings and rings to the commoners. So many men cut off their silver shoe ornaments that a long chain of interlinked buckles was carried into the Assembly. From that time on, it was seen as dangerous and subversive to wear ostrich feathers in your hair, rings on your fingers, or lace on your fichu. Overnight, women began to wear loose white gowns without frills or ribbons or jewels. Even her father put away his embossed snuffboxes and plush velvets, and wore sensible dark coats, a red-white-and-blue cockade in his hat.

  In mid-September, a baker was hanged from a lamp-post in Paris, accused of hoarding his grain for aristocrats. Crowds demonstrated outside the Hôtel de Ville in Paris nearly every day, shouting ‘Bread! Bread! Give us bread.’

  The king called for reinforcements to guard the palace. More than a thousand soldiers of the elite Royal Flanders regiment marched to Versailles. That night, the king’s Garde du Corps welcomed them to the palace with a regimental feast.

  A message was brought to Viviane from the queen. With the Princesse de Lamballe and the Duchesse de Polignac both absent from Versailles, and many other court ladies gone to their country estates or fled, Marie-Antoinette was in need of new dames du palais. She requested Viviane’s service. Viviane had no heart for celebrations, but she could not ignore a royal summons. She rose, allowed herself to be dressed in her heavy black court dress, and went to scratch on the queen’s door. In Versailles, one did not knock. One scratched with the fingernail of the littlest left finger, grown long for the purpose.

  ‘Thank you for coming,’ Marie-Antoinette said. ‘I am fearful of my reception, and it will help to have friends around me.’

  ‘It is my honour,’ Viviane replied, rising from her curtsey.

  The queen was dressed in white, a turquoise necklace about her neck. She carried the four-year-old dauphin, and held her daughter by the hand. Marie-Thérèse gazed up at Viviane with solemn eyes. ‘Will you tell me another story?’ she whispered.

  ‘Of course,’ Viviane answered. ‘I will come and tell one to you tonight, at bedtime, if your mother the queen will permit.’

  The little girl gave one of her grave smiles. ‘I would like that.’

  ‘Would you go on ahead with Madame Campan, and make sure it is safe for me to bring my little ones in?’ Marie-Antoinette asked. ‘I cannot rid myself of the great fear in my heart that there are those who wish us harm.’

  Madame Campan, an elegant lady in her late thirties, was the first lady of the chamber, responsible for the queen’s dressing and undressing ceremonies. She nodded coolly to Viviane, and led her into the opera hall, along with a few other young ladies.

  The opera hall was an oval room with ornate balconies receding upwards and backwards towards the magnificent painted ceiling of Apollo giving crowns to the nine muses. The stalls had been raised on pulleys, transforming the auditorium into a great banqueting-hall. A long trestle table was set with white linen tablecloths, well-polished silver and fine porcelain plates rimmed with gold. Mirrors lined the back of the theatre, reflecting the chandeliers so the whole room dazzled with light. The soldiers were in a merry mood, singing and laughing and drinking deeply of the wine in their crystal glasses. Their uniforms were blue, over breeches of white, and most wore the tri-coloured cockade pinned to their coats.

  ‘To the king!’ one shouted. They all rose and clinked glasses and shouted the ovation.

  Madame Campan, Viviane and the other ladies joined in, as a matter of course.

  A dwarfish man in the plain black coat of a commoner turned to them. His head seemed too big for his body, and his eyes too large for his head. His dark hair was uncut and greasy, hanging on his neck.

  ‘Why do you cheer for a man who, according to our new declaration, has no more importance than any other?’ he sneered.

  Madame Campan drew herself up. ‘How dare you speak so of His Majesty the King?’

  ‘Soon there will be no king in France,’ the man replied. ‘All men will be equal.’

  Madame Campan stared at him in consternation. Just then the king and queen – not waiting for her signal – entered the hall, smiling. They must have heard the shouts and cheers.

  The room resounded with acclaim. ‘Vive le Roi! Vive la Reine!’

  One of the soldiers asked the queen if the regiment could meet the dauphin, and rather anxiously she agreed. The soldier lifted the little boy to stand on the table. Louis-Charles acknowledged the cheers and claps with a cheeky smile and a wave of his chubby hand. Many of the soldiers saluted him with their swords.

  ‘We swear our loyalty to you, Your Majesty, and will serve you with honour,’ the captain said, his hat pressed against his heart. He then, in a spontaneous gesture, unpinned the cock
ade on his coat and turned it over to show the pure white lining, the colour of the Bourbons. ‘To the king!’

  The crowd cheered, then many followed suit, turning their cockades to white. The queen thanked them, her face alight.

  As the royal entourage turned to go, Viviane saw the dwarfish man slip out the back door.

  15

  The Baker, the Baker’s Wife and the Baker’s Boy

  5–6 October 1789

  Viviane sat on the sloping lawn of the belvedere, making daisy chains with Marie-Thérèse. The dauphin played nearby with Luna, throwing a ball for her then clapping his hands when she obediently fetched it and dropped it at his feet. The sun sparkled on the lake, and the waterfall foamed down the rock which hid the grotto.

  The queen was sitting at a table outside the dainty belvedere, her head bent down over her hands, her eyes swollen and red. A fair-haired man sat with her, holding her hands, murmuring comfort. He was Axel von Fersen, the Swedish count long rumoured to be the queen’s lover.

  Viviane did not know what had so distressed the queen, but she could guess. Two days after the welcome feast, a journalist named Jean-Paul Marat had published an article called ‘L’Orgie des Gardes Français’. The queen was depicted feasting and dancing and drinking gallons of wine, while the soldiers wrenched off their cockades and trampled and spat on them.

  The queen must have felt as if she could do nothing right.

  Church bells rang the half hour. The queen lifted her head and straightened her shoulders with an effort. ‘Come, you must be hungry,’ she called to the children. ‘Shall we eat our lunch in the grotto today? We can pretend that we are castaways on a desert island, with no-one near for miles and miles.’

  She rose and held out her hand, and the dauphin ran to her. The count made his farewells and bowed to the little prince and princess, then withdrew. His handsome face was troubled.

  Marie-Antoinette and her son went through the vine-hung entrance of the stone grotto, a series of dimly lit caves carefully constructed to look real. Viviane followed with the princess, the crown of daisies sitting crookedly on her flaxen curls. Madame de Tourzel, the new governess for the royal children, came to join them with her daughter, Pauline. A lovely, laughing girl, Pauline was less than two years younger than Viviane, and the two smiled tentatively at each other.

  The small party ate their simple picnic of bread and cold chicken and brie and fig jam, sitting on a rug spread on a stone shelf in the grotto. Marie-Antoinette and Madame de Tourzel whispered together, heads close, and so Viviane began to tell the children a story.

  ‘Madame la Reine!’ a frightened voice cried. Somebody was running down the passageway towards them. The queen leapt to her feet, her hand at her throat. The king’s sister, Madame Élisabeth, rushed into the dimness of the cave. She was a slim young woman, only twenty-four years old. ‘Madame … you must come!’

  ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ The queen’s voice was shrill.

  Madame Élisabeth glanced at the wide-eyed children, then beckoned the queen away. White-faced, Marie-Antoinette went with her.

  Viviane got to her feet. Hurriedly she began to pack up the picnic basket. Dread coiled in her stomach.

  The queen came back into the grotto. She was pale, her lips colourless. ‘We must return to the palace. Hurry!’

  ‘What has happened?’ Madame de Tourzel asked.

  ‘A mob of women are marching from Versailles. They have sacked the Hôtel de Ville in Paris, and are armed with guns and cannons. They want bread, they say, and also the heads of the men who spat on the cockade. But it is all lies, no-one spat on the cockade!’ The queen wrung her hands in distress.

  They hurried back to the palace. The king had been out hunting, along with Viviane’s father, but returned in haste, galloping all the way up the Grand Avenue. The court gathered in the Galerie des Glaces. The afternoon light streamed in through the seventeen tall arched windows, and gleamed in the ranks of mirrors opposite. The marble floors rang with the agitated pacing of high-heeled shoes.

  No-one knew what to do.

  ‘You should retreat to Rambouillet,’ Viviane’s father said. He, like most of the other men, was still dressed in riding clothes. ‘You must not face an enraged mob, Your Majesty. Think of what they did to poor Foulon de Doué!’

  The king’s face bunched in distress. ‘But I am their king! Surely they will not harm me?’

  ‘At the very least, Madame la Reine should take the children and go,’ Count Fersen urged. ‘I will gladly escort them.’

  ‘The horses are still hitched to the dauphin’s carriage, for his afternoon drive. If you leave now, you will get away safely,’ Madame de Tourzel said.

  ‘I cannot leave my husband,’ Marie-Antoinette said. ‘My place is by his side.’

  ‘I beg you, my liege, leave before it is too late!’ Viviane’s father urged.

  ‘You must not go, Your Majesty.’ Monsieur Necker spoke with great authority. The finance minister was a tall, heavily built man, with thick black brows in stark contrast with his pure white wig. ‘The cost of transferring the court to Rambouillet is prohibitive. It will be seen as improvident and cowardly. You need to stay here in Versailles, and agree to the August Decrees, and ratify the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen. Once they know that you intend to support the constitutional modifications, the populace shall …’

  ‘We do not have time for one of your windbag speeches,’ Viviane’s father interrupted. ‘The mob shall be here soon. Your Majesty, let us get you to safety.’

  ‘I would not like to be thought a coward,’ Louis said hesitantly.

  ‘It is not cowardly to preserve your well-being for the sake of France,’ Viviane’s father said.

  ‘If you abscond, you will be acting in accordance with the rabble’s worst view of you and doing exactly what your cousin, the Duc d’Orléans, would wish,’ Monsieur Necker continued in his ponderous way.

  ‘You think Monsieur le Duc is behind this?’ the queen asked, hands clenched.

  ‘I think it is a possibility, madame. His Majesty has yet to sign the August decrees or the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen. It is widely believed the Duc d’Orléans would gladly sanction these radical proposals, so there has been much discussion about the possibility of creating a constitutional monarchy under the leadership of the duke instead of His Majesty, who so far has resisted the abolition of the feudal system.’

  ‘Do the people of France forget the dauphin?’ the queen said wildly.

  ‘Not to mention myself, or my brother and his noisy brats,’ the Comte de Provence interjected from his couch by the fireplace. The older of the king’s two brothers, he was enormously fat and rarely bestirred once he had settled himself. Viviane had thought him asleep.

  ‘Monsieur le Comte, the people of France think you and your brother more royalist than the king himself,’ Monsieur Necker replied dryly. ‘I must reiterate, Your Majesty, the necessity of convincing the people of France that you are not averse to the endorsement of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen as a precursor to maintaining some measure of control over any constitutional modifications …’

  ‘Good lord!’ Viviane’s father cried. ‘If I must listen to this upstart drone on anymore, I swear I shall swoon from sheer boredom. I cannot understand why the canaille adore him so much. They have obviously never heard him speak.’

  ‘It is utterly disgraceful!’ cried Madame Adélaïde, the king’s aunt, banging her stick on the ground. ‘Order your soldiers to shoot and kill these upstart rebels! Teach them a lesson they will not soon forget.’

  ‘But they are my people … I do not wish to have their blood on my hands,’ the king said, his round face troubled.

  ‘Do you wish your blood on their hands?’ his aunt snapped. ‘Grow a spine, for God’s sake!’

  ‘But the people of France love me, I am their king,’ Louis answered.

  Madame Adélaïde snorted. ‘The boy is a fool.
Our grandfather must be rolling in his grave,’ she said to her younger sister, Madame Victoire.

  ‘He is not a boy anymore,’ Madame Victoire replied in her soft, faded voice. ‘Why, he is a father now himself, have you forgotten?’

  Madame Adélaïde glared at her. ‘My memory is faultless, thank you very much. I mean simply that he acts like a child. He is a man now, and a king! He should behave like one and hang them all.’

  The discussion broke down into heated argument, everyone raising their voices to be heard. If the king had made some kind of decision, action could have been taken, but he vacillated between the views of stronger wills than his, and made no decision. The afternoon wore away.

  ‘If I flee now, will I not end up a fugitive king like the English king, Charles Stuart?’ Louis said at last, in plaintive tones. ‘No, no, far better to stay and reason with these women, and promise them what they want. To flee would be to admit wrongdoing.’

  ‘You shall not flee before a crowd of fishwives!’ Madame Adélaïde spat. ‘Arrest them! Throw them in an oubliette! Send them to be galley-slaves. I do not care, as long as you begin acting like a king.’

  ‘Your Majesty, I must insist …’ Monsieur Necker began.

  ‘But the queen! The children!’ Madame de Tourzel cried.

  Viviane could not bear the hubbub. With Luna at her side, she slipped away through the long sequence of state apartments to the Hercules Room at the far end. It was like being enclosed within an over-gilded jewellery box. Every surface was painted and adorned, enamelled and garlanded. She sat on a chair of crimson damask, settling her heavy black skirts, looking out the window into the dreary autumn evening. Rain had been washing intermittently against the palace, but she could see a faint line of pale gold to the west where the clouds had cleared.

  She wished she was far away from here. If only she had run away with David when she could!

  Viviane watched the guards close the immense gold gates of the palace. It had been so long since they had been shut, the gates had rusted into place and it took a great deal of exertion to move them.