The Queen’s Lover

by Francine du Plessix Gray

  But there were even louder shouts of “To Paris, to Paris!” For by this time the mob’s original objective of securing food had been replaced by the determination to transfer the royal family to the French capital. The queen walked back into the palace. “They’re going to force us to go to Paris,” she said tearfully, “the king and me, preceded by the heads of our bodyguards on pikes.” The clamor outside grew increasingly menacing. After a few more minutes of discussions with his ministers, the king, the queen, and Lafayette went out together onto the balcony. “My friends,” said the king in his loudest, most assertive voice, “I shall go to Paris with my family; I entrust what is most precious to me to the love of my good and loyal subjects.” Great applause followed as the royal family went inside.

  After returning to her quarters, the queen assembled her jewels to bring them to Paris, while the king, in his study, hastily gathered his most important papers. Lafayette had the carriages readied again and prepared all details for the family’s departure. They began to leave at one o’clock. Most of the crowd had dispersed; the palace precincts were more or less tranquil. The queen and king, their children, Madame Elisabeth, and Madame de Tourzel got into the same coach and set off toward the capital; they were surrounded by a mob made tumultuous by yet more wine, some of whom carried pikes surmounted by the decapitated heads of the queen’s bodyguards. The queen’s face showed signs, Madame Elisabeth reported, of “violent grief.” From time to time the king covered his face with his handkerchief to hide his tears. At the front and rear of the immense cortege was the National Guard. The royal carriage was escorted by Lafayette and followed by hundreds of coaches filled with delegates to the National Assembly and whatever members of the court of France who had remained in Versailles and not fled abroad. Behind them was a train of wagons and carts filled with flour from the royal bins. I traveled in a carriage a few hundred feet in back of the royal family. Trying to avert my gaze from the sight of the slain bodyguards’ mutilated heads, I hoped against hope that someone in the queen’s carriage would keep her from seeing the same horrifying vision. “We’re bringing back the baker, the baker’s wife, and the baker’s little boy!” the mob walking alongside the royal coach shouted loudly throughout the twelve miles that separate Versailles from Paris.

  The royal family had been advised that they would not be living at the Louvre, home of several ancestors of Louis XVI, but at the Tuileries, a huge 386-room building overlooking the Seine that had originally been built in the sixteenth century by Catherine de Médicis. They were met at the Chaillot tollgate by the mayor of Paris, Jean-Sylvain Bailly, who offered the king the keys to Paris on a velvet pillow. It was eight o’clock, already getting dark. However ardently the royal family wished to get to their new quarters at the Tuileries, they had to go first to the Hotel de Ville, where they again had to appear on a balcony, and were acclaimed by yet another excited crowd. How I would have wished to accompany my friends to their new home, and help them settle in as comfortably as possible! But it would have been madness on my part to thus compromise the queen. I left the royal procession a few minutes before it reached the Tuileries. And a few days later I wrote a brief note to my father about the day’s dreadful events, the news of which, I was sure, had spread throughout Europe.

  Paris, October 9th, 1789

  All the newspapers have probably told you, my dear father, of what happened at Versailles on Monday 5th and Tuesday 6th, and of the King’s coming to Paris with his family. I witnessed it all and I returned to Paris in one of the carriages of the King’s suite; we were six and a half hours on the way. God keep me from ever again seeing anything as afflicting as the events of those two days.

  The people seem enchanted to see the King and his family; the Queen is much applauded, and she can not fail to be when they get to know her, and do justice to her goodness and the kindness of her heart.

  Toward the end of the year 1789 I rejoined my regiment at Valenciennes. I quelled a rebellion that had arisen in its ranks, and punished its leaders. I then received orders from Gustavus to return to Paris and to remain there near the king of France in order to facilitate communication between the two sovereigns. For my monarch was clearly alarmed by the impact that the French Revolution might have on other European nations, and greatly feared similar uprisings. Although I myself was terrified of the Revolution’s impact on the French king and queen, I sought to allay his panic as best I could.

  To His Majesty, the King of Sweden

  January 7, 1790

  …The detailed manner in which Your Majesty has approached the affairs of Sweden and France are a new proof of kindness by which I am deeply touched. France’s situation is distressing, and Y.M. has grasped it from the right point of view. I believe, as you do, that M. Necker is very guilty, and that nothing short of a civil or a foreign war can restore France and the royal authority; but how is that to be brought about, with the King a prisoner in Paris? It was a false step to allow him to be brought there. Now it becomes necessary to try to get him out of it….

  Once out of Paris, the King ought to be able to create a new political order…. His party is already much increased in the Assembly and in the provinces; the courage, firmness, and good conduct of the Queen have brought many back to her. All the nobles, except a few who are not worthy of being such, are devoted to her, as is the clergy…. Only the canaille is still stirred up by the famous words “despotism” and “aristocracy.”

  The noble, compassionate, and generous manner in which Y.M. expresses Himself on the situation of the King and Queen of France is worthy of Y.M. The letters that Y.M. sends to the King and Queen can only touch them—one is always more sensitive to kindness when unhappy. The assignment that Y.M. offers me is so appealing I could not fail to fulfill it.

  I came here from Valenciennes two days ago to see about Taube…. I’m not satisfied with his state of health.

  I am, Sire, with the most profound respect, Your Majesty’s very humble and obedient servant and faithful subject.

  CHAPTER 7

  Axel:

  AT THE TUILERIES

  OBEYING GUSTAVUS’S ORDERS, I returned to Paris at the end of January 1790 and remained there for another year and a half. So I witnessed the royal family’s adjustment to their new quarters at the Tuileries Palace, which had seldom been inhabited since Louis XIV (he had briefly lived there for a few months before moving to Versailles in 1682). Three decades later it would be occupied by Louis XV when he was still a minor, from 1715 to 1722. Since then the enormous building had been divided into apartments and assigned to courtiers, and to Parisian artisans and artists; they were all instantly evicted on October 6 to make room for the royal family. “Maman, it’s so ugly here!” the dauphin had exclaimed upon entering the Tuileries. But within a few weeks the edifice was made relatively comfortable. Furniture was moved from Versailles to make the place cozier. The queen had three rooms on the ground floor, and a little library upstairs next to her daughter’s bedroom. Louis XVI and the dauphin shared an apartment above the queen’s, connected to it by a small private staircase. Madame Elisabeth and the Princesse de Lamballe lived in the Pavillon de Flore, where they had a view of the Seine. The remaining rooms were distributed among Madame de Tourzel, the courtiers who had accompanied the royal family, and the domestic servants.

  These close quarters, unusual for any royals, created a very close family life. Marie Antoinette spent the morning attending to her children’s lessons, and the king frequently joined them, making Marie-Thérèse and the dauphin recite what they had learned that day. The royal couple dined en famile with their daughter and Madame Elisabeth; Marie Antoinette then played billiards with her husband to give him a limited amount of exercise. In the afternoons she wrote letters or did needlework until supper, at which the royals were joined by the Comte and Comtesse de Provence. The Tuileries gardens remained open to the public, as most of the Versailles Palace had been, and Parisians flocked there, displaying immense curiosity toward the royal
family. The king and queen, in turn, instructed their children to be unfailingly amiable toward visitors and to the National Guards, even though they did not trust the latter. The four-year-old dauphin tried hard to carry out his parents’ wishes, running to his mother and whispering, “Was that good?” when he spoke to one of the visitors.

  Yet notwithstanding this new intimacy, most court rituals were maintained. Though etiquette was more relaxed than at Versailles, the monarchs still continued the ceremony of the lever and coucher, and the tradition of lunching in public a few days a week. However, balls and concerts were banned, and the sovereigns tried hard to dramatize their captive state. The king refused to go out of the palace, and for the first time since his adolescence abstained from riding and hunting. The queen also restricted herself to the Tuileries, never attending any operas or plays, and rarely showing herself in public. This reticence was interpreted as proof of her coldness and haughtiness; within a few months both monarchs grew aware of their subjects’ disapproval, and ended their isolation to a degree. They visited such institutions as foundling hospitals and glass manufacturers in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. The king reviewed the troops. Marie Antoinette took her children out for drives around the city again.

  However, the queen did not trust her new guards, and at first was wary of receiving visitors in her new quarters. Although she maintained a cheerful front for the sake of her children, she was deeply unhappy in her new life, as she confided on December 29, 1789, in a letter to Madame de Polignac, who was exiled in Switzerland.

  “Our troubles, those of our friends, and those of everyone around us, make a load too heavy to bear. And if my heart were not so bound to my children, and to you…I would often wish to die…. The chou d’amour is charming, and I love him to distraction…. He’s very well, growing strong, and no longer throws tantrums.” In a postscript to this missive the queen cryptically added: “I have seen him. After three months of grief and separation…the person and I managed to see each other safely once. You know us both, so you can imagine our happiness.”

  She was of course referring to me, and we had indeed shared a day of blissful reunion that Christmas week. “At last on the 24th I spent the whole day with Her,” I wrote my sister. “Imagine my joy.”

  Sophie and her lover, Evert Taube, were the only persons in the world to whom I had confided my love for Marie Antoinette. I had restrained from similarly informing Gustavus. My king, notwithstanding his great qualities, was such a chatterbox that although I always praised the queen in my letters to him I referred to her with formality and circumspection.

  A POLITICAL HIGHLIGHT of the year was the monarchs’ decision to consult the all-powerful Mirabeau, who was eager to convince the king to accept a constitution, and had been writing the sovereigns copious notes about the political situation. Louis XVI had originally refused to meet with this libertine radical, whom he considered to be one of those responsible for the Revolution. However, the queen, being far more cunning than her husband, consented to a secret conference with Mirabeau even though she had always found him repellent and referred to him as “a rascal” whose “whole existence is deceit, cunning, and lies.” She met the tall, courtly, heavily pockmarked nobleman at night, in her apartments, and the meeting lasted for nearly an hour. Mirabeau did most of the talking, imploring Marie Antoinette to not heed the partisans of the counterrevolution, who were exiled in Belgium and other countries and led by Artois. She listened to Mirabeau with immense attention, and he was enormously impressed with her courage, wisdom, and sagacity. As he was taking leave of her, the queen held out her hand to him with that graciousness unique to her; “The monarchy is saved!” he whispered as he knelt down to kiss it. “The king has only one man with him—his wife,” Mirabeau wrote to a friend after their meeting.

  That summer of 1790, the royal family was allowed to move to Saint-Cloud, where the queen’s spirits improved considerably. She invited actors and musicians to the château, and she sang again, accompanying herself on the clavichord. I had taken quarters at Auteuil, not far from Saint-Cloud, and joined her in her apartments on most evenings. Were we throwing caution to the winds again? Tongues wagged, but she did not seem to care. I was almost arrested one night, when I was leaving the park of Saint-Cloud at three in the morning. The Comte de Saint-Priest warned the queen that my nocturnal visits could prove to be dangerous. “Tell that to him,” she replied impatiently. “As for myself, I don’t care.” Never had my feelings for the queen been more tender. “She is the most perfect creature I know,” I wrote to Sophie. “…She is extremely unhappy and very courageous. She is an angel. I try to console her as best I can, I owe it to her, she is so wonderful to me. My only sorrow lies in not being able to fully console her for all her misfortunes, and not making her as happy as she deserves to be.”

  As for my relations with the king, they can best be described as a watchful amity. How aware was he of my true relations with the queen? I know that he totally trusted, and was most grateful for, my loyalty and devotion to his cause. And even though I deplored his political judgments, I respected, and was deeply moved by, his integrity and the goodness of his heart. The queen, meanwhile, had used all her feminine wiles to convince the king that her relationship with me was totally innocent. While intimating that I was the only friend whom they could blindly trust, she was forthright to her husband about all the public gossip concerning our affair, and offered to stop seeing me, which Louis refused. Although he never gave any overt sign that he either suspected a liaison or was troubled by it, I imagine that in truth the unfathomable king was aware of his wife’s love for me. Louis’s friends were so few that he may well have realized he could not afford to lose the support of a man known for his zeal and his devotion to the royal cause. Or might it be possible that the king concealed his jealousy for many years, and made use of my talents with the intention of sidelining me at a later moment?

  I SHOULD RIGHT NOW admit that I was not exclusively absorbed, at this period of my life, by my love for the queen and my deep concern for the fate of the royal family. In the fall of 1789—the first months of the monarchs’ seclusion at the Tuileries—intimacy with my beloved Toinette had become harder to come by. And I’d become the prey of an aggressive beauty called Eleanore Sullivan, a voluptuous Italian-born brunette with milky skin and large onyx eyes who had spent her early years as a dancer and trapezist with an ambulating actors’ troupe. She had already passed through the arms—and beds—of many prominent men. First came the Duke of Württemberg, to whom she bore a daughter. Next in line was Emperor Joseph II, Marie Antoinette’s brother, though that liaison was made brief by Empress Maria Theresa’s irate demand that Eleanore leave the country. Upon moving to Paris, Eleanore had married an Irish diplomat, Mr. Sullivan, who took her to India, where he was seeking to increase his fortune. It was in India that she met Quentin Craufurd, a very rich Scotsman who had made his money in the British colony of Manila through his dealings with the East India Company (he was referred to as “the nabob of Manila”). Craufurd swiftly captured Eleanore from the inconsequential Sullivan in the early 1780s and brought her back to Paris, where they settled in a large house on the rue de Clichy. It was graced with Craufurd’s sumptuous paintings and furniture, which soon came to be looked on as one of Paris’s most reputed art collections. His intelligence, wealth, and notoriously fine eye for art endeared him to many of Paris’s preeminent aristocrats. The Duc de Lauzun, the Vicomte de Noailles, and Talleyrand, to whom he often loaned money, were among his friends. His two-volume history of Indian civilization, translated into French by the Comte de Montesquiou, had been exceedingly well received. A British comrade of his, the Marquess of Hutley, had introduced him to Marie Antoinette, who took a great shine to him and always referred to him as “ce bon Craufurd.” In sum, Craufurd was one of Paris’s most distinguished expatriates.

  I met Craufurd in 1789 at the Club de Valois, a gentlemen’s association I belonged to at which we played many a game of backgammo
n. He invited me to his home to meet Eleanore, and I very soon became her lover, a pleasure that remained unknown to Craufurd for some years to come because of his very frequent trips to London. Being devoted to the queen, my sister worried a great deal about my relationship to Eleanore. “I’m warning you, dear Axel, for the love of Her to whom it would cause a fatal blow if she heard the news. Everyone is watching you and talking about you. Think of unhappy Her. Spare her the most fatal pain of all.” Such kind cautions, for the time being, remained unheeded. Both of my new friends—Craufurd and Eleanore, the latter of whom had loving memories of her tryst with Joseph II, were ardent supporters of Marie Antoinette. Ah Eleanore of the engulfing mouth and round, invasive arms…. Much more about you later on. I merely wished to record another aspect of my life during the years in which I continued to write my father about France’s worsening crisis.

  Paris, February 1, 1790

  What a frightful situation this kingdom is in! It is complete anarchy. All bonds are dissolved; there is no obedience to laws, no respect for religion, which does not exist except in name. The people have learned to use its strength, and is doing it with ferocity. The nobles, clergy, and parliament, who set the first examples of disobedience and resistance, are the first victims; they are ruined and their châteaus burned. The upper bourgeoisie, who were also seduced, now repent, but it is too late. Workmen, manufacturers, and artisans are all ruined and dissatisfied, for purses are closed…. Numerous persons incited by hatreds, jealousies, and private revenge have conducted themselves badly toward the king and have forgotten their obligations to him…. They are inciting the canaille with the great words “liberty,” “despotism,” and “aristocracy.”