In October the current government introduces a new calendar, which has ten days in a week, and each day of the year has a unique pastoral name. While the names are poetic, they’re also extremely confusing. October is now called Vendémiaire, a month that spans from old mid-September to mid-October. On what would have been the fifteenth day of October, but is now called Amaryllis, I go to the market, an unassuming task for a grandly named day. I expect to return only with vegetables. It’s a good thing Léon and I both like soup, because I seem to be making a lot of it lately.
When I return from the market, Léon stands by the window of our small sitting room, staring listlessly outside. Two glasses stand on the table, both mostly full of wine. I put down my basket of carrots and go to his side, laying my hand on his arm. The tension in his body flows through to mine.
“What’s wrong, my love?”
He turns slowly to face me. “Robespierre called on me. He just departed.”
The reluctant cadence of Léon’s voice and the pinch of dread around the corners of his mouth and eyes tells me it wasn’t a welcome visit. Dread frosts across my skin and kicks my voice into a higher, tight note.
“What did he want?”
Léon slides his hands along my arms, settling them on my waist, holding me close. His fingers grasp protectively at my body. “He wanted to warn me that you’ll be facing investigation. He says they’re questioning everyone who may have been close to the queen. The Widow Capet,” he amends, clearly quoting Robespierre’s way of referring to her.
“What?” I stare wide-eyed into his anxious face, trying to quell the swirl of panic rising in my throat. “I’m not close to her. I was a servant—I haven’t worked for her in a year!”
“I know. I told him. I insisted you had no pertinent information you hadn’t already shared. He told me he was investigating your uncle, too, but that he proved his dedication to the revolution—for now. Apparently, Pierre has committed to provide sixty thousand rifles to the revolutionary armies. He’s probably going to Holland soon to arrange the purchase.”
This information registers in my mind, but dimly. My uncle has experience with munitions; he supplied them to the American Revolution a few years ago. He can take care of himself. “I don’t have any information for Robespierre—he can ask me himself. Why didn’t he?”
Léon cups my cheek in his hand, and his voice drops to such a gentle note that I know how deep his worry really goes. “He came to me first because you’re my wife. It’s proper that he didn’t approach you directly, and better this way. At the very least, I’m thankful he warned me. He said he felt duty bound by our friendship.” His mouth twists on the last word. Léon doesn’t consider them friends at all anymore, and hasn’t for some time.
“I still don’t know anything of use to him, not anymore.”
Léon presses his finger against my lips, stroking the shape of them once I stop protesting. “I know, mon ange. But if he asks too much—if he searches too far—there are things he could discover.”
“Why is he looking now?” I whisper. “The queen has already been sentenced to death. Her execution is tomorrow. He has won—he needs nothing else to condemn her. She’s past saving.” My voice cracks.
“He says he’s determined to promote the revolution, even if it means seeking out every royalist in Paris.”
“What else can I do? I’ve been wearing tricolor for ages, far longer than many.” Three weeks ago a decree had passed that all women must wear a tricolor ribbon in public. It hadn’t made a difference to me; I already did so.
“There is one thing.” Léon’s face creases with sorrow. “I’m sorry, Giselle. I told him we would be present at her execution tomorrow. I had to—he pressed me.”
His words make me flinch. He releases his gentle hold on me, letting me stagger back. “I can’t watch her die. I can’t save her, but she doesn’t deserve this fate. I can’t be part of it.” Her trial had ended only earlier today, but already news of the guilty verdict swarmed through Paris. People fairly shouted about it in the streets. I’d known about it before I even went to the market. “I can’t,” I repeat.
“You must.” A kind of wild steeliness enters Léon’s tone, and his hands reach for me again. “You must, because I can’t watch you die. And if we can’t turn Robespierre’s attention away from us, I fear that may happen. Paris is going mad for the guillotine, Giselle. And make no mistake, his attention is on us. Do you think it’s a coincidence he called when you weren’t home?”
I feel cold inside. My fingers tremble against Léon’s. “He has spies watching me?” I shouldn’t be surprised, but I hear it echoing in my voice. I’d suspected what kind of man Robespierre was from the first moment I saw him at Café du Foy, when he memorized my face. I’d brought myself into his notice when I described my closeness to the queen. And he must have wondered why Léon became estranged so suddenly.…
I know he’s right about the execution tomorrow. I sink onto the worn sofa, dragging him down beside me. “I must witness her death and appear as a fervent revolutionary.” My voice sounds dull, heavy with dread as I recite my duties. “I must not let my true feelings show.”
“Yes,” says Léon simply. “I’m sorry. But I will be with you. I’ll support you however I can. If we can make him believe you feel no pity for her, that you truly support the revolution, he will turn his attention elsewhere.”
“I hope you’re right.” I press my fingers to my forehead. My skin burns with dread. “I thought the horrible rumors I heard in the market this morning were the worst news I could receive today. I should have known better.” Each drop of blood dripping from the guillotine brings more horror to the city.
He wraps his arm around my shoulders, pulling me comfortingly close. “What did you hear?”
“Stories of Marie Antoinette’s trial. They interrogated her children.” They must have been so afraid, surrounded by unfriendly strangers.
“I know.” The softness of his voice tells me that he’s also heard the terrible things said of her, with her own son’s word as evidence. Robespierre probably told him, and in my current bitter mind-set, it is easy to imagine that he enjoyed sharing such crude information.
“Everybody knows now that poor little Louis said his mother molested him.” Even saying the words makes me feel sick inside, and Marie Antoinette must feel even worse, knowing that some people must believe these vile, trumped-up charges against her. I try to quell the curious kind of emotional nausea rising in my throat. Marie Antoinette has her faults, but she was always the best mother she could be, and I know the chance of an inappropriate relationship with her son was nonexistent. Aside from the fact that her personality didn’t seem capable of such atrocity, the servants would have known about it. In Versailles and even Tuileries, crawling with attendants, such a thing could never have been kept a secret. Thank God, Madame Campan has fled to the country and isn’t in Paris to hear these disgusting tales. I hope they don’t reach her for a long time.
“It isn’t true,” I say to Léon, even though I know he doesn’t believe it. I stare at the floor, since he doesn’t deserve my vehemence.
“Robespierre all but admitted that the boy agreed with any question posed to him. He’s frightened enough to go along with anything.” The sharp edge of condemnation in Léon’s voice matches the spasm of pain I feel when thinking of the little prince’s spirit being broken.
“And Madame Royale? What did she say?” It’s a dangerous way to refer to Marie Antoinette’s daughter, but we’re safe from judging ears in our own house.
“Upon seeing the brother she’s been parted from for months, she rushed to embrace him. They wouldn’t allow this until she answered their questions satisfactorily.” Léon paused, and his dark eyes glittered with approval. “She did not. Over and over, she refused to repudiate her mother.”
I feel a surge of pride for the headstrong princess. “But it was not enough to save the queen.”
Léon shakes his head slow
ly. “How could it, when the decision was made before the trial? They never intended to acquit her.”
Indignation blazes through me, burning my cheeks. “And incest was the only way they could think of to ensure her execution? It’s shameful, and it shows just how much they fear her, even now.”
“Yes,” says Léon. He watches me with stark sympathy. I know he loathes this situation nearly as much as I do. He folds my hands gently between both of his. “Giselle, I see the fire in you—I know how strongly you feel. If you can channel your resentment tomorrow, pretend it is instead fervency for the revolution. Convince Robespierre to turn his dangerous attention elsewhere.”
I know he’s right, and I will do it, but the idea of Robespierre chasing after another, someone who might even be more innocent than I am makes me sad. “Thank God, we have plans to leave Paris for Toulouse.”
* * *
For Marie Antoinette’s execution, I dress as revolutionary as possible. Robespierre will be watching me, and if not him personally, he’ll have spies in the crowd to do it. Both are a possibility. I wear my white dress embroidered with tricolor, and pin a tricolor cockade to one shoulder of my red fichu, and one to my hat, also displaying my Bastille necklace. I can’t help remembering the times when I helped Marie Antoinette coordinate her outfits to appear revolutionary. She would loathe my outfit today. All the tricolor ribbons make me feel like a horse decked out for a parade. To complete the parade feeling, I also carry a red-white-and-blue handkerchief, waving it like a revolutionary flag.
“Are you ready?” asks Léon. He has dark shadows under his eyes.
“I have to be,” I say simply, and take his arm so we may walk together to the place de la Révolution.
Before the queen is brought for her execution, the crowd gathers. I can’t bear to look at the guillotine, stained and looming before us, so I furtively scan for Robespierre’s possible spy, without much luck. I feel as though I’m on a stage, and when I think that this is how Marie Antoinette must have felt for much of her life, hysteria threatens to summon wild laughter. My breath shakes.
The ugly roar of jeers and screamed insults tears through the air long before the cart carrying Marie Antoinette comes into sight. For a moment I worry the sound will smash through my composure, but I breathe slowly and guard my expression. I lift the little tricolor flag I brought and wave it, a testament to my supposed revolutionary fervor.
I’d been told that the late king had been transported to the guillotine in a closed carriage. Marie Antoinette is afforded no such dignity or protection. The rough-planked cart is hardly better than what a cabbage farmer might use, and even the clergyman sitting beside her looks uncomfortable. He wears the recognizable attire of a constitutional priest who has taken a civic oath, the only order now allowed to attend to prisoners and enemies of the state. Marie Antoinette sits straight-backed and proud, but as the cart swings past me, I see that her eyes look huge and wild. I recoil back against Léon, who clutches at my arm and randomly shoves at the person nearest as if they had pushed me. His wariness for potential spies watching me reminds me that I must put on a show to rival the most talented actress. I wave my little flag again as Léon shouts for liberty.
Fortunately, Marie Antoinette stares straight ahead the entire time and doesn’t see me. I’d be heartbroken if she knew I was part of this abominable crowd. In her white dress, clean though plain, she still looks regal. The stark, pure whiteness of her gown stands out in the crowd, more so because she wears no other color. No black widow’s ribbons, no jewelry. Her hair looks pale now too, where it curls out from under the plain white bonnet. Even on her way to her death, she projects a bold image. The horrors of her imprisonment and the execution of her husband have aged her, made her thin and gray, but they haven’t destroyed her innate elegant poise.
She climbs down from the cart nimbly enough, and thankfully the guards keep the crowd back so she has space to disembark and climb the steps to the guillotine without being swarmed. She stumbles slightly halfway up the stairs, and her scuffed purple shoe falls down to the ground. It reminds me of Cendrillon losing her glass slipper, and how Marie Antoinette liked to tell the story to her daughter. Watching her avidly, I see her pause for a heartbeat, and then she hurries the rest of the way up the stairs, clearly deciding that she can meet her fate with one bare foot. I wish I couldn’t see her as well as I do—Léon had suggested that we push our way to the side of the crowd, almost behind the guillotine, so that we will be near enough to please Robespierre but also have little risk of being spotted by the queen herself.
At the top of the steps, she seems dismayed by the swell of the shouting crowd before her at such a near distance. The executioner moves closer. With her gaze focused on the vicious crowd, she accidentally steps on his foot with her bare one.
“I’m sorry; I did not mean to,” she says. I can mostly make out the words by watching her lips—knowing her as I do, and the practice I had watching faces during my time as a spy, it’s easy to read the brief, polite apology. I wave my flag harder, lifting it to face level, struggling not to show my wonder and sorrow that she can retain her manners even now.
The executioner shrugs it off and helps her to stand behind the guillotine. His motions brisk, but not rough, he removes her white cap and lifts a handful of her gray-streaked hair and slices it away, leaving her neck bare for the guillotine’s blade. Marie Antoinette is not given the opportunity to make a final speech. Her last thoughts shall be hers alone. The executioner reaches to help her kneel.
I feel a burst of empathy for her, that she must face this death alone, with a crowd of enemies in front of her. Before I’ve really thought, I bash my way through the crowd, moving closer to the front of the guillotine where she might see me. A few people punch at my shoulders for getting in their way, but I hardly notice. Léon clutches at my arm, following close behind me.
At first I don’t think she’ll see me, but as I wave my flag furiously, her eyes flick toward me. Our gazes lock, and I feel connected to her. I wave my flag harder and feign dropping it. While righting myself, it allows me to bend slightly, to show I would still bow to her if I could. It’s the best I can do; I can’t speak any words that she’d hear above the catcalls of the crowd. There’s no other way for me to convey my feeling that she’s a woman who does not deserve her fate, or all the blame heaped upon her personally, no matter what errors she’s made.
I think she understands. She watches me a heartbeat longer, then lifts her chin high. Her gaze sweeps skyward for the last time before she lets the executioner help her to kneel. With her neck outstretched on the base of the guillotine, she can see nothing but the scaffold. The sight of Marie Antoinette in such a vulnerable position hushes the crowd. Even though it’s not completely silent, the sudden shift to quiet feels eerie. The blade of the guillotine flashes in the noonday sun during its rapid descent and collides with Marie Antoinette’s slender neck with a soft, wet sound. The following thunk as the blade rests at the bottom of the scaffold again seems loud in the tense silence.
The quiet grows in an endless second, and then the crowd shrieks again, with approval and patriotism and excited horror. My flag flutters crazily in front of me, my fingers knotted so tightly around the cloth that it cuts off the circulation of my blood. I shout about France and freedom, and my voice cracks with hoarseness. I hardly know what I say because I don’t care anymore about the revolution. My mind swirls between the shock of the queen’s death, and the reminder not to show any sorrow, so I channel it into pretended revolutionary fervor instead.
A group of Girondins are to be executed next, and the Duc d’Orleans as well. We have to stay for it all, but Léon draws us to the side again, away from the worst crush of the crowd. One of the Girondins somehow commits suicide while waiting for his turn to approach the guillotine, but they still lay his lifeless body on the scaffold and slice his head off.
The Duc d’Orleans is granted the chance to say a few words, and he spits about regr
etting that he must shamefully die under the same blade that killed the deposed King Louis. I feel numb, watching him die, still mired in the aftermath of watching Marie Antoinette’s life be chopped away. I dimly remember when Geneviève and I mocked the duc’s attempt to appear Third Estate by wearing bourgeois clothing. It feels like a long time ago.
Robespierre finds us when the crowd at last begins to dissipate and sawdust has been scattered around to soak up the blood. The fact that he spotted us in the mad bustle of the place de la Révolution tells me that he must indeed have someone watching us. The knowledge forms a knot underneath my ribs and makes it hard to breathe.
I greet him respectfully and make sure to hold my tricolor flag high.
“Madame Gauvain, how nice to see you again,” he says. “I didn’t know if you would attend today. I know these events can be rather intense for women, who tend to be of more delicate sensibility. And you knew the Widow Capet, didn’t you? I’d nearly forgotten.”
I stare back into his lying catlike eyes, narrow and cold. “I would not have missed it. Today I witnessed history in the making. France is fortunate to experience such liberation.” Somehow I keep my voice free of bitterness and manage to sound slightly awed. I refrain from remarking upon his reference to my past at Versailles.
“Of course. Washed free of the heavy inadequacies of the past, France will be a leader in politics. We will create an egalitarian society never before been seen, even in classical times.” He clears his throat. “You missed the execution of Louis Capet, though, I believe? Another momentous day—a pity you were absent.”
“I wanted to be there, monsieur. Unfortunately, I was ill.” He looks skeptical, so I lay my hand across my belly, making sure to drape the tricolor cloth across my dress. “I thought I might have been with child, but unfortunately it wasn’t so. Perhaps now that Paris is cleansed, I may conceive a child who will be born into better times.” For a moment, I fear that my zealousness was overdone, but after regarding me for a moment, his face relaxes.
The Wardrobe Mistress Page 27
