Marie-Therese, Child of Terror: The Fate of Marie Antoinette's Daughter

by Susan Nagel

  While plans were under way to cut every thread that had woven together the fabric of life in France for the past thousand years, the royal couple, like ordinary bourgeois French parents, spent their days supervising their children’s studies and writing letters to their friends and family. The Queen oversaw her daughter’s embroidery lessons as Marie-Thérèse worked on large pieces of tapestry. The King heard his daughter recite geography and history. The Dauphin, who had promised his mother that he would learn to read by the New Year, also practiced his skills out loud. Less aware than his sister of the forced effort to maintain the appearance of tranquility, he commented to a courtier that he was very excited to be able to spend so much time with his parents.

  The Queen continued to correspond with Comte Mercy, whom she regarded as a lifeline, and with Madame de Polignac, who had joined the Comte d’Artois in Italy. The King, using the pseudonym ‘M. d’Hanaud’, also wrote long and touching letters to his former favorite, assuring her that she could always count on him despite the distance. In December, Marie Antoinette assured the Duchess that the children were fine, and wrote that she knew that her exiled friend would be pained to hear anecdotes of her former charges, adding ‘my poor little girl has been a marvel to me’. Marie-Thérèse wrote her own letter to her former governess. The royal couple also received letters of concern from the Kings of Spain, Sweden and England, the formidable Empress Catherine of Russia – who advised the King to steer his own course undisturbed by the people – and, of course, Emperor Joseph, who remained steadfast and reassuring. To her childhood friends, the Princesses of Hesse, Marie Antoinette wrote adoring accounts of the children, who, she said, were constantly with her and who provided her with her only source of happiness.

  Such idle moments were few, however, and often shattered by the arrival of crowds in the palace courtyards and politicians arriving with the latest news from the National Assembly, apprizing the King of some new article of law that took away this or that privilege. The Jacobins, whose members now included Robespierre as leader, the Marquis de Mirabeau, who was widely known for his prodigious spending habits, and the orator and politician Antoine Barnave, created the beginnings of a political machine. The Jacobins’ goal was to carve up France like a geometric grid into a new, uniform, socio-economically level playing field. There would be one code of taxation for all, one system of weights and measures and departments instead of unruly provinces. Although the plan appeared consummately rational – a product of the Enlightenment -their agenda provoked a spontaneous outbreak of raw passion, anathema to the Age of Reason. Turmoil, disequilibrium and widespread brutality would result in a destabilized France rather than the equitable Utopia the political club had originally dreamt of.

  One of the Jacobins’ first proposals, meant as a grand, symbolic gesture, came across more as an attempt to mock the royal family. The Marquis de Mirabeau advised the National Assembly to insist that the King, Queen and their children wear revolutionary colors, even indoors. Madame Campan wrote that the Queen had told her that Mirabeau had previously been turned down for the post of ambassador to Constantinople. She believed the ambitious Mirabeau, thwarted in one arena, was ‘a dangerous man’ and that he was out for revenge as he sought to mold and influence the new government.

  As the year came to a close it was apparent that tensions between the more moderate legislators and their angry counterparts were escalating. On New Year’s Day, 1790, the sixth new President of the National Assembly since Mounier’s resignation on October 10 came to the Tuileries Palace to offer his good wishes. His name was Jean-Nicolas Démeunier. Démeunier was an author, a Freemason and a great supporter of America, whose cause he had written about eloquently. Madame de Tourzel recalled that Démeunier was evidently touched by the sight of the Queen flanked by her two children: one, full of life and joy and too young to comprehend the misfortune that menaced him; the other, who should have known only those same innocent emotions, appearing sorrowful, yet all the more brave for her understanding. Sympathizers such as Démeunier were very much a minority, however. Three days after his visit to the Tuileries, he, too, resigned his position. The Queen wrote to Madame de Polignac that it was becoming increasingly difficult for her to correspond as they were ‘under surveillance like criminals’. In the New Year, Comte Mercy, having returned to Paris despite the Queen’s warnings, turned up at a Tuileries diplomatic evening and surreptitiously exchanged packets of letters with Marie Antoinette.

  On February 4, 1790, the King addressed the National Assembly asking that the new order proceed in a calm fashion and without a repeat of the violence of the previous July and October in which thousands had died. Louis had arranged for the purchase of foreign grain, and he called on the National Assembly to forge a path to financial solvency without further bloodshed. The King offered the legislators his support, declaring that he was raising his son, their future king, to understand the new France and that the National Assembly would have his full support if they could make the French people happy. He implored the Assembly to establish peace and stability so that those French men and women who had fled the country could return without fear or anxiety.

  Sixteen days after the King’s conciliatory speech, the Queen’s brother, Emperor Joseph II, died aged forty-eight. Joseph had been sick for two years after having accompanied his army into battle against the Ottomans. The war had not only turned out to be a fiasco, but it had also ruined his health. Joseph had been Marie Antoinette’s champion, her father figure, and the man, with his vast armies and allies, who loomed over Europe as his sister’s protector. On February 27, the day that Marie Antoinette learned of Joseph’s death, her brother Leopold was crowned his successor. Leopold, less close to his sister than Joseph, nonetheless wrote an affectionate letter to the Queen of France offering her and her family support, including refuge at the Hofburg Palace. Marie Antoinette replied expressing her gratitude but remained adamant that she would not be separated from her husband, who was not prepared to leave France.

  On Sunday, April 4, 1790, Easter Sunday, Marie-Thérèse was due to have her first communion, but even a day meant for celebration turned into a subdued affair. Like any other French girl, she dressed in white and waited with excitement to receive the sacrament. Customarily, the daughter of His Most Christian King would have been feted on this day with cheering crowds hailing her on her way to the church and a grand reception afterwards. The fear of an ugly spectacle, however, forced plans to be scaled down. As any event attended by the King would, at this point, have required the presence of a battery of soldiers, and permission from the National Assembly to sanction the expenditure, Marie-Thérèse was to be deprived of both her father’s presence at her communion and that of her brother. The day before, the Dauphin surprised his governess, revealing that he was more aware of his own unfortunate situation than he had let on. He explained to Madame de Tourzel that he longed for his garden for if he still had it he would have gathered beautiful flowers to make a bouquet for his sister for her special day.

  Before leaving the Tuileries, Marie-Thérèse appeared before her adoring father for his approval. In the presence of a small group of courtiers, which included Madame de Tourzel, Pauline and Hüe, who each recorded an account of the event, the Queen instructed Marie-Thérèse to kneel before the King and receive his benediction. The King addressed his eleven-year-old daughter solemnly:

  It is from the bottom of my heart, my daughter, that I bless you and ask Heaven to give you the grace to understand the great action you are about to take. Your heart is innocent and pure in the eyes of God; may your vows be agreeable to Him. Offer them to Him for your mother and for me. Ask Him to impart me with His grace necessary for me to provide happiness to those in the empire which He has given me, to those people whom I consider my children. Ask Him to deign to conserve the purity of religion in this realm, and remember well, my daughter, that this holy religion is the source of happiness and the sustenance against the adversities of life. Do not believe t
hat you are without shelter. You are so young, yet you have seen your father afflicted more than once. You do not know, my daughter, what Providence has destined for you: whether you will stay in this kingdom or if you will live in another. Wherever the hand of God places you, remember that you will teach by your example, do good every time you find the occasion. But, above all, my child, alleviate the unfortunate with all of your power. God had us born on the rung where we are to work for their happiness and console their pains. Go to the Altar where you are awaited, and beseech God for mercy to never allow you to forget the advice of your loving father.1

  The King then held his daughter in his arms and added, ‘Pray, my child, for France, and for us. The prayers of the innocent might soften divine anger.’2

  In addition to a grand reception, it was also customary for the daughter of the King of France to receive a suite of diamonds on this special day; however, that tradition was also dispensed with for Marie-Thérèse, as the King explained to his daughter:

  I know that you are too reasonable, my daughter, to believe that at the moment when you should be entirely occupied with the care of adorning your heart and making of it a dignified sanctuary of the divinity, to attach a great price to these artificial ornaments. Moreover, my child, the public’s misery is extreme, the poor abound, and undoubtedly you would like it better to go without gems than to know that others are going without bread.3

  Marie-Thérèse, Ernestine, who was also receiving her first communion, Madame de Tourzel and Pauline, Madame de Mackau and the Duchesse de Charost made their way from the Tuileries to the local parish church, Saint Germain-l’Auxerrois. This was a small medieval chapel used by the kings of France when they had lived at the Louvre. The Queen, determined not to let her daughter feel that she had been abandoned, made her way to the church on her own, disguised in simple clothes. Although Marie Antoinette sat quietly apart from the royal party, Marie-Thérèse knew that her mother was in the audience. The only public statement or acknowledgment that their majesties had chosen to make on the occasion of Madame Royale’s communion was an offering of alms to various churches in Paris. Privately, however, the King expressed his delight in a letter to Madame de Polignac. He wrote that her ‘little friend had had her first communion at Easter. We have all been content with the way she comported herself. I also see with pleasure that she remembers you, as she should. The other is fine and is reading well enough at present.’

  The ‘other’ – the Dauphin – who had expressed such sadness at not having been able to grow flowers to give to his sister on her special day, was shortly afterwards given a small garden by his father near the Seine. This same little plot of earth would later be given to the King of Rome by his father, Napoleon I; to the Duc de Bordeaux, by his grandfather, Charles X; and to the Comte de Paris by his grandfather, King Louis-Philippe. Every time Louis Charles went to tend his plot armed soldiers of the National Guard would escort him. The Dauphin was so excited about having ‘his very own soldiers’ that he asked to have his own National Guard uniform made for him, which he would wear whenever he went to the garden. The tiny royal soldier chatted away with his guards about ‘paparoi’ – ‘daddyking’ – and his mother ‘mamareine’ – ‘mummyqueen’, which was said to have melted the most hardened hearts among them. Word of the gatherings spread among the Parisians and the Abbot Antheaume approached the King for permission to form a corps called the ‘Regiment of the Dauphin’ made up of young boys who wanted to emulate the little Dauphin. With Louis Charles as their patron, the boys became cadets, and got to dress and parade like soldiers. Twice a week, they held military drills under Antheaume’s supervision and they would march on the streets in the prelate’s neighborhood and every now and then present themselves at the Tuileries for inspection.

  Five days after Marie-Thérèse’s first communion, the National Assembly passed a vote declaring that the Catholic Church would no longer be the official state religion. In the south of France, Catholics and Protestants resumed old battles. The National Assembly also issued an order that commanded all priests to swear oaths of loyalty to the State instead of the Church. Some monarchs like Marie Antoinette’s late brother Joseph whose public role was to uphold the power of the Church were privately admirers of the Enlightenment, and were not especially religious. Louis, however, was deeply pious and considered such moves to erode the Church’s powers as blasphemous.

  On May 23, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette led the Holy Sacrament procession to Saint Germain-l’Auxerrois and attended the Fête de la Pentecôte accompanied by some of the members of the Assembly who believed that the attacks on the Church in France were overly harsh and vindictive. Marie-Thérèse was not feeling well that day, so she and her brother stayed behind and watched their parents through a window at the Louvre Palace. Over the course of the year, while the National Assembly turned their powers against the Church, Marie-Thérèse observed very closely the awful conflict of conscience that caused her father so much suffering. For Louis, daily prayers and strong Christian faith were inseparable from the notion of the King’s divine right, and the apostasy of the French revolutionaries was appalling and incomprehensible.

  As the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille grew closer, General Lafayette, the National Assembly, and the royal family all feared another potentially violent insurrection. A great celebration called the Fête de la Federation was planned for July 14, which, it was hoped, would appease the masses. In the meantime Lafayette urged the powers of the Assembly to permit the King and his family to leave for Saint-Cloud. The castle, on the outskirts of Paris, would keep the King and Queen somewhat out of harm’s way, but it was close enough to the capital for the King to maintain a presence. Soldiers were posted around the estate to keep the royal party safe and at the same time reassure those who worried that the King and Queen might try to flee. It was announced that the entire family would return to Paris for the festivities that would take place on the fourteenth.

  The royal family left for Saint-Cloud on June 4, the first anniversary of the death of the first Dauphin. They had been under house arrest at the Tuileries for eight months. Saint-Cloud would give them an opportunity to hunt, garden, and receive visitors, which would include the Comte de Provence who had leased a house just inside the city gates in order to visit his brother every day.

  Madame Royale, having received her first communion, now ate every meal with her father, according to the ancient rules of court etiquette. No one except the Princes of the Blood and those invited by the King who had been presented at court could dine at the same table as the King, but Louis broke with such etiquette and invited Pauline de Tourzel to join them for meals. Pauline was not a member of the Bourbon royal family and, because of her age, she had not even been presented at court. The King’s aunts pointed out that the rules of the court must never be broken, but Louis declared that extraordinary times required a change of attitude, and Pauline acquired a regular place at the King’s table, sitting between her mother the governess and Madame Royale. Once in a while, the King would seat Pauline near him as a sign of honor; Pauline also recalled her delight at being asked by the Comtesse de Provence to sit next to her. His Majesty tried to entertain the teenagers, and, one evening, in a jovial mood, Louis taught an awestruck Pauline to play billiards. Pauline recalled later that it was that particular summer, the summer at Saint-Cloud in 1790, which cemented the beginning of a lifelong friendship with Marie-Thérèse – a friendship from which Pauline would be the beneficiary of many kindnesses. Pauline would always dismiss criticism that Marie-Thérèse was ‘haughty’, insisting that these tales had circulated among people who had no real acquaintance with Madame Royale and that the Princess possessed ‘an excellent heart’.

  Marie-Thérèse observed her parents and their constant agony – their profound grief for the first Dauphin, the absence of their friends and family, and the violent scenes of July 14 and October 6, which intruded into everyone’s thoughts. The King admitted in a lette
r sent to Madame de Polignac from Saint-Cloud that despite the summer break from the strife in Paris, he had not been able to divert his mind from the difficulties that had befallen his family and those dear to him in exile. ‘I arrived in the countryside. The air will do us well, but this sojourn we appear changed. The luncheon salon – how sad – none of you is there. I do not lose hope that we find each other.’

  Political infighting had resulted in the creation of splinter factions from the Jacobins. The Queen had been correct when she privately remarked that Mirabeau possessed unbounded ambition. The Marquis, while professing his devotion to the new government, was hoping that there would be a return to absolutism with himself as the King’s right hand. He also needed money. In early July, Mirabeau came to Saint-Cloud to visit the royal couple. Marie Antoinette did not trust him but she understood that he was now in a position to benefit her family. The two struck a deal: Mirabeau would work for the good of the royal family and Marie Antoinette would pay him the handsome sum of 5,000 livres a month. They were an unlikely pair of conspirators. Mirabeau’s enemies, already suspicious, noticed that he was spending a great deal of money and that he had bought an impressive house in Paris. The high-living aristocrat was denounced as a traitor to the revolution. He retorted that Marie Antoinette was a marvel of strength and solidity, famously adding, ‘The King has only one man: his wife.’ Some fifteen years later, this same compliment would echo eerily when Napoleon referred to Marie-Thérèse with awe as ‘the only man in the family’, after she had fearlessly defied him.