by Kate Forsyth
Marie-Antoinette shook her head dolefully.
‘Come, do not weep. I have brought you a gift.’ The princess turned and gestured to one of her footmen, who stood silently against the wall holding a basket. The servant brought it to her, and she opened the lid to reveal a red-and-white spaniel.
‘Oh, she is too precious!’ Marie-Antoinette lifted the spaniel into her arms. The puppy yapped and licked her chin, and the queen laughed.
‘See, she is cheering you up already.’ The princess nodded to the footman, who retreated back to the wall. He was wearing the Lamballe colours. Viviane wondered if the princess knew that the wearing of livery had been abolished.
‘What is her name?’ Marie-Antoinette asked, caressing the puppy’s long dangling ears.
‘Thisbe,’ Marie de Lamballe answered.
‘Oh, no, that is not a good name. Is Thisbe not the girl who killed herself and her blood dyed mulberries red? I shall call her Mignon. She may sleep under my bed and guard me, and warn me of assassins,’ the queen said, laughing even as she again dabbed at her eyes.
‘Maman-Reine, may I pat the puppy, please?’ Louis-Charles ran forward, his blue eyes glowing. Marie-Antoinette bent so he could reach the spaniel’s soft fur.
‘But what is this?’ the princess cried. ‘Our little chou d’amour is no longer afraid of dogs?’
‘No, not anymore. It is all due to the young Duchesse de Savageaux, the newest of my ladies.’ Marie-Antoinette gestured towards Viviane with a brief flashing smile. ‘She has a dog of her own, as you can see, and Louis spends a great deal of time playing with it.’
The Princesse de Lamballe glanced at Viviane with interest. ‘I am sorry,’ she murmured. ‘I do not think …’
‘I am new at court,’ Viviane answered, curtseying.
‘And married to the Duc de Savageaux? But was he not …’
‘Killed? Yes, madame. On the night of the fall of the Bastille.’
‘So young to be a widow,’ the princess said sadly. ‘But sometimes it is better to be a widow than a wife, yes?’
‘Yes,’ Viviane answered, and the two women shared a moment of silent understanding before the princess turned back to the dauphin.
‘If only I had known you were no longer afraid of dogs,’ she said, pinching Louis-Charles’s cheek. ‘I would have brought you a puppy too.’
‘Truly? Oh Maman-Reine, may I please have a puppy of my own? Please?’
So the young prince was given a toy spaniel for Christmas. Louis-Charles called her Coco, and carried the pup with him everywhere he went, tucked under his arm or dragged along by a ribbon.
The royal family had now been living in the Tuileries for three years. One of their problems was keeping the prince and princess happy and occupied within the gloomy confines of the old palace. When spring came, the king sought permission for Louis-Charles to have his own plot of garden by the terrace. The little boy – now almost seven – planted seeds and bulbs, and was ecstatic when they first began to flower. Every morning he rose early, and went out to tend his garden in the company of Coco and a chambermaid. He picked a scraggly bunch of flowers and carried it carefully up to his mother’s room. He laid it on her pillow, then – stifling his giggles – hid with his puppy behind the curtain.
Marie-Antoinette stretched and sighed theatrically, then opened her eyes. ‘My goodness, look at these lovely flowers!’ she murmured. ‘They are the prettiest flowers I have ever seen. I wonder what fine chevalier has been so kind as to bring them to me?’
Louis-Charles burst out from behind the curtain. ‘It’s me, Maman-Reine! I brought them!’
Rushing forward, the dauphin flung himself into his mother’s arms, and was kissed and caressed and thanked, the toy spaniel yapping at his heels.
He never tired of the surprise.
In February, Axel von Fersen returned to Paris. He had been instrumental in the failed royal escape, but the king – perhaps jealous of the queen’s affection for the Swedish count – had not allowed him to travel with their party. Viviane could not help but think the escape might have succeeded if the count – so vigorous and decisive – had been allowed a larger role to play.
Axel was full of plans and schemes for rescuing the royal family, but it seemed impossible. They were too closely guarded.
‘Rescue must come from the outside,’ the queen said firmly. ‘My brother … can he not be brought to invade France? What are his scruples? I do not understand his hesitation. He knows what I am suffering!’
‘Austria and Prussia have signed a military convention, promising to invade and restore the crown to the king, but there are still those who argue that this is French business, and that this new government seems determined to defend their rights …’
‘This new government is nothing but a heap of blackguards, madmen and beasts,’ the queen said bitterly. ‘They could no more command an army than a troop of monkeys! Oh, Axel, I am in despair. I have missed you so much …’ Glancing around, she saw Viviane sitting in the window seat, Luna curled up on her hem. ‘Madame,’ she cried, a little wildly. ‘Will you leave us? Go and see if Madame de Tourzel needs some help. Perhaps you might play hide-and-seek with the children. They need some exercise.’
‘Yes, Your Majesty.’ Viviane curtsied and left the room, though she knew the queen was meant never to be left alone.
She hoped the count would be able to console her, just a little.
By April, France was at war.
Beggars were everywhere, pleading for food. Battalions of poorly equipped soldiers marched off to defend the borders.
In late May, the Assembly ordered the deportation of any priest who had not sworn his loyalty to the new French government. A few weeks later, the king used his right to veto any new law, and declared that the rebel priests could stay. He had already vetoed the law that those émigrés who had fled the country during the outbreaks of violence were to be condemned to death, their property confiscated, if they did not return at once. His own brothers were amongst those who would have been so condemned, but his vetoes infuriated the populace.
The 20th of June was the anniversary of the king and queen’s failed escape attempt. Thirty thousand people marched upon the Tuileries. Viviane heard them coming long before she saw them. They were singing ‘Ça ira, ça ira!’ as they marched.
It was a terrifying sight from the palace windows. Men, women and children, filthy and ragged, armed with pikes, scythes, hammers, axes, pitchforks. Crude tricolour banners fluttered above their heads.
‘Vivent les sans-culottes!’ the crowd screamed. Viviane did not know what the term meant. She guessed it signified all those who did not wear the fine satin breeches, or culottes, that were the fashion amongst the nobility.
Children hurled cobblestones against the windows, breaking the glass. ‘Down with the aristos!’ they shrilled.
As the mob reached the palace, they began to smash at the doors with hatchets.
‘My God!’ The queen started to her feet, one hand pressed against her heart. ‘They wish to break in.’
‘They will tear us from limb to limb!’ one of her ladies-in-waiting cried.
‘Just listen to them!’ Madame Élisabeth clung to her brother’s arm. The king was pale and sweating.
‘I must speak with them, try and calm them,’ he said, in a shaking voice.
‘No, no!’ The queen was distraught.
‘No, Papa-Roi!’ the dauphin flung himself on his father.
‘Find the Austrian bitch! Hang her high,’ shouted a woman in the crowd.
‘Toinette, you must take the children and hide,’ Louis instructed.
‘No, no, my place is by your side,’ Marie-Antoinette cried.
‘Madame, it is too dangerous. Your presence will only make them angrier. You must think of your children.’ The Princesse de Lamballe caught the queen by the hand. ‘Please, Toinette.’
The queen wavered, not knowing what to do.
The Princesse de Lamballe turne
d to Viviane. ‘Madame, help me. We must keep Her Majesty safe.’
Viviane gazed at the queen beseechingly. ‘Please, Madame la Reine. For the children’s sake.’
Marie-Antoinette cast one last anguished look at her husband, then let herself be hurried from the room. Madame de Tourzel’s daughter Pauline held Marie-Thérèse’s hand, the young girl sobbing in fright. Viviane carried Louis-Charles, his puppy squirming and yelping in his too-tight grasp. Luna slinked at her heels, tail tucked away tight.
‘I shall stay with you, Louis,’ Madame Élisabeth cried.
‘They may think you are Toinette,’ the Princesse de Lamballe protested, her hand on the door.
‘Then do not undeceive them, let them believe me the queen,’ Madame Élisabeth said bravely, though she was white to her lips.
Viviane looked back, and saw the slight young woman clinging to her brother’s coat-tails as he was hustled into a window embrasure, his guards all raising their weapons as the howls of the mob came ever closer.
The queen and her ladies-in-waiting took refuge in the dauphin’s room.
‘We cannot lock the door,’ the Princesse de Lamballe cried. ‘What shall we do?’
Viviane looked around wildly. There was no way to escape. The drop from the window was too high and, besides, the courtyard was filled with screaming crowds.
‘Let us shut the door and barricade it with the table,’ she said. ‘Perhaps that will stop them.’
The princess nodded. ‘It is the best we can do. Quick, quick! Do it.’
Pauline darted forward and helped Viviane drag the table across the door. The sound of shouting, smashing glass and the drumming of running feet in sabots came closer and closer.
‘Let’s find that imbecile, the king, and knock some sense into his thick skull!’
‘Death to Monsieur and Madame Veto!’
‘Where’s that Austrian bitch? We’ll hang her from the lamp-posts by her own guts!’
Voices right outside the door.
The door-handle was wrenched from side to side. The door rattled, then heaved. Then wood fractured under the steel blades of axes.
Marie-Thérèse stood stiffly against the wall, her face blank, fingers spread. Louis-Charles sobbed and cowered against his mother. It is too cruel, Viviane thought. She is only thirteen, he is only seven. Children should not have to see and hear such things.
No-one should.
Marie-Antoinette sat hunched in an armchair. Her breath came in harsh pants like a hare that has been hunted to exhaustion. Viviane remembered the queen as she had first seen her. Marie-Antoinette had been gorgeously dressed in pink silk, dancing and laughing, the epitome of grace and elegance.
Now she was thin and haunted, her red-gold hair faded to ash-white.
The axe smashed through the wood. The women in the room all tensed, trying not to breathe.
Then the door broke down.
The Princesse de Lamballe stood before the queen, shielding her.
A surge of people. Sharp blades glinting. Sweaty faces contorted with hate. The reek of their hot, half-naked bodies. Hands reached out, pinching, shoving. Foul breath blasting Viviane’s face. Foul words scorching her ears.
The ladies-in-waiting all huddled together, trying to hide the queen and her children. The guards stood tense, waiting, keeping the crowd at bay with rifle muzzles.
One brawny-armed woman, dressed in a bloodied apron, her hair hanging in greasy knots, pushed forward with a stained red bonnet and shoved it at Marie-Antoinette.
‘Put it on the dear little prince’s head,’ she sneered. ‘Show us what a good patriot he is.’
With trembling hands, Marie-Antoinette fitted the revolutionary cap over her son’s bright curls. It was far too big for him, and drooped over his eyes. Louis-Charles tried to push it away and the woman hissed through her blackened teeth. Marie-Antoinette hurriedly straightened it.
Cockades were offered from all sides. Viviane pinned one to her own hair, and then bent to fix one to Marie-Thérèse’s long curls. The girl looked up at her with strained eyes, but submitted quietly. Viviane then tied another to Luna’s collar, making the crowd laugh and shout ribald comments about bitches in heat.
The ordeal seemed to go on for hours. To Viviane, it was just a blur of cruel laughing faces. She saw an ox’s heart impaled on a pike, dripping blood on the placard which read ‘the king’s heart’. Women dangled tiny dolls with nooses about their necks. One man pranced about with cuckold’s horns on his head, naming himself Louis, king of pigs.
At last things began to calm down. Men from the Assembly called for order, and soldiers marched sullenly in. The mob retreated. Silence fell.
‘My husband,’ Marie-Antoinette whispered. ‘Please.’
Cautiously Viviane and Pauline crept out. The corridor was a shambles of broken furniture and smashed china. Blood smeared on the floor. A dead soldier, limbs akimbo. Viviane’s legs trembled so much she could hardly stand.
Luna tried to follow her, whining. Viviane turned and put up one hand. ‘Stay!’ Luna sank to her haunches, eyes dark and fearful, ears low.
Clinging to each other, the two young women tiptoed towards the king’s rooms. They found Louis sitting on a chair on top of a table, a red revolutionary bonnet crammed on his large head, an empty wine glass clutched in his hand.
‘They wanted me to drink to the health of the nation,’ the king said. ‘So I did. Then they said that I must revoke my veto. I told them I could not, that I had voted with my conscience. And so they begged my pardon, and drank my health, and went away.’
He looked at the two young women with perplexed eyes. ‘I was sure they meant to kill me. Why did they not kill me?’
‘You are their king, Sire,’ Pauline said in a rush. ‘Of course they could not kill you.’
Louis shook his head, the red bonnet waggling.
Viviane could not speak, as confounded as the king.
18
Evil Work
10 August – 3 September 1792
All night, the bells tolled.
Viviane could not sleep. No-one could. Small groups of people clustered near the windows, peering out into the shadowy gardens. Nothing could be seen. The Paris Commune had locked the gates to the Tuileries. Yet the city could still be heard. A constant low roar, like an ocean gathering itself into a tidal wave.
It had been six long weeks since the mob had invaded the Tuileries. Each day seemed to bring a new crisis. An army had gathered on the border, reinforced by regiments of exiled nobles determined to put the king back on his throne. The Assembly had ordered all French citizens to prepare for war.
Every day, crowds of people milled about the Tuileries Palace, shouting for the king and queen to reveal themselves, to prove they had not again tried to flee. Again and again, Louis and Marie-Antoinette showed their faces at the windows, only to be hissed and jeered. The king had responded by sinking into a strange sort of stupor. He hardly moved or spoke, just sat staring at the wall, shoulders slumped. Even the queen’s tears and pleadings did not rouse him.
Louis-Charles had hardly spoken since that awful night. He sat with his father, sucking his thumb till it was red and swollen, the puppy clamped under his arm. Marie-Thérèse was unnaturally silent too. All she had said to Viviane, in a voice of irony far older than her years, ‘I thought you said no harm can come to the innocent? I should have known it was just a story.’
Viviane’s eyes prickled with tears at the memory.
‘Mamzelle!’
At the sound of Pierrick’s voice, Viviane rose to her feet and hurried to the door. Her milk-brother was pale and dishevelled.
‘Mamzelle, we must get out of here! The Jacobins have occupied the Hôtel de Ville. They’ve taken over the Paris Commune. It’s a coup!’
Viviane felt that familiar sickening twist of fear in the pit of her stomach. ‘What does that mean?’
‘It doesn’t bode well for the king and queen,’ Pierrick said. ‘Or, indeed, for an
y of us. We need to get away from here, fast.’
‘What shall we do? Oh, I wish we could just go back to Belisima.’
‘Why don’t we?’ Pierrick said.
‘But it’s nothing but a ruin!’
He shook his head. ‘I locked the gates, remember, and threw the key in the well. Half of it was still standing when I left it. And all the land is still there, and the forest. We could plant some vegetables, hunt for rabbits.’
At the word ‘rabbits’, Luna’s tail beat against the floor. She looked up at Viviane and whined.
She smiled faintly. ‘Luna would love that. Oh, Pierrick, I want to … but what of my father? He will never let me go.’
‘Don’t tell him. We’ll sneak away, dressed as peasants. By the time he notices you’re gone, we’ll be far away.’
‘But he will follow me … he’ll have me thrown in prison.’
‘There are no lettres de cachet anymore,’ Pierrick said. ‘He’s not a marquis now, he’s just a man. He has no right to throw anyone in prison. That’s why we tore the Bastille down.’
Hope flowered painfully in her breast. ‘Is it possible?’ she whispered. ‘Can I really escape?’
‘We must try,’ Pierrick said sharply. ‘They’re coming. Can’t you hear them?’
The sound of the mob crashed around the dark palace. An orange glare penetrated the windows. Viviane rushed to the windows and looked out.
‘It is too late,’ she cried. ‘They’re here.’
Singing a bloodthirsty new anthem, waving pikes, axes, pitchforks and iron bars, the mob surged upon the palace. The Swiss officers fired upon them, but were vastly outnumbered. It was not long before the soldiers had to retreat.
Arise, children of the Fatherland,
The day of glory has arrived!
Against us, tyranny’s bloody standard is raised.
