Flaunting, Extravagant Queen

by Jean Plaidy

  Now they had more heads to adorn their pikes. They looked at them with satisfaction. But there was that other head which they desired most of all, and on that morning of the 6th October, the canaille – the prostitutes, the hirelings, the seekers after power – were determined to have it.

  Madame de Tourzel and the Princesse de Lamballe were standing at the Queen’s bedside.

  ‘Wake … wake …’ they cried. ‘The mob is at your door.’

  Antoinette started up. She had only an hour before fallen into a deep sleep. She stared about her as though she were still in a nightmare.

  ‘Quick … quick! There is not a moment to lose. I can hear them hammering on the door.’

  Antoinette was out of bed, a shawl about her shoulders, her shoes in her hand; and with her two friends beside her she ran through the Oeil-de-Boeuf and the chambre de Louis XIV to the rooms of her husband.

  To her horror she found that the door of that room was locked. She hammered on the door in desperation. What agony she lived through then! Now she could hear the drunken shouts coming nearer; she heard them screaming her name. ‘Death … death to Antoinette! Death to the Austrian! Death … death … We’ll have her head on a pike … to show Paris. Death to Antoinette!’

  ‘Oh God,’ she cried, ‘let me escape them. Let me die, but not this way … not in their filthy hands. Oh, God, help me.’

  ‘Open! Open!’ she screamed. ‘For the love of God!’

  But help was long in coming. The King and his attendants had not heard the noise in her wing of the château. The door had been barred that night, as all doors had been barred, and the mob was coming nearer.

  She owed her life that night to the cupidity of the mob, who, even for the sake of Antoinette’s head, could not resist plundering the rich rooms through which they passed.

  And at length a slow-footed servant heard the hammering on the door, heard her screams, and carefully the door was opened.

  Louis who, sleeping soundly as he always did, had heard nothing until this moment and had believed that after he had talked to the deputation of women all would be well, was now hurrying to her side.

  The door was again barred and bolted; Louis put his arm about her; and into the courtyard rode La Fayette with his soldiers.

  La Fayette – nicknamed Général Morphée – who was never on the spot when needed, saw now the disaster which had taken place, saw his murdered guards and realised that he should have foreseen what would happen; and as he forced his way through the mad mob and saw the rich tapestries and gold and silver ornaments which they carried, he knew that it was not he and his soldiers who had saved the life of the Queen – and perhaps of the King.

  With him came Orléans and Provence, and for these two the mob made way respectfully. They were conducted to the King’s apartments where the Queen sat erect, her children on either side of her.

  It was now clear to everybody – even to the King – that there could be no parleying with the mob.

  Orléans, who many suspected had more to do with that night’s work than he would wish to be known, Provence, whose eyes were gleaming with speculation, and La Fayette, were all certain that the King must obey the mob who, even now, could be heard shouting outside the Palace: ‘Le Roi à Paris.’

  ‘I will speak to them,’ said the King. ‘I will do my best to explain.’

  ‘They will kill you,’ warned La Fayette.

  ‘They will not dare to kill their King,’ said Louis.

  He stepped onto the balcony. He was bareheaded, and that in the eyes of the crowd seemed a gesture of humility.

  They shouted: ‘Vive le Roi!’ ‘Vive Louis, the little father!’

  Louis smiled at them and raised his hand. They were the masters though. They would not listen to him. He must not think he could speak to them. They were going to take him to Paris, and he must obey, but meanwhile they were content to shout: ‘Vive le Roi!’

  Then a voice in the crowd cried: ‘Let the Queen show herself.’

  Fersen had stepped to the side of the Queen. ‘It would be unwise,’ he said.

  Antoinette looked at him, remembering tender moments in the Trianon, thinking: This may be the last time I see him. They will surely kill me when I appear. They have guns, and they have been calling for my death.

  The shouts continued: ‘We want Antoinette. Let the Queen show herself.’

  La Fayette said: ‘It is necessary, Madame, in order that you may placate them.’

  She rose then. She looked pale but very lovely in her stateliness. Never had she looked more queenly than she did in that moment.

  ‘No!’ said Fersen.

  She turned to him and smiled. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘As Monsieur de La Fayette says, it is necessary.’

  She went to the balcony. Fersen had thrust the hands of the children into hers. He believed there was some hope of safety in doing this. Those people down there had cheered the King; they would surely not risk the life of the Dauphin.

  With her head held high, all dignity, all courage, she stepped on to the balcony. There was a hush; then someone cried: ‘Send back the children.’

  ‘Go back,’ she said to them quietly; and they, too terrified to do anything else, obeyed.

  Now she stood there alone, waiting. She looked down on those ugly faces beneath the unkempt heads, and she thought: This is the end of my life. I came from Austria to France for this.

  And she folded her hands across her breast and waited.

  The crowd gasped. Many of them had never seen her before. In her flowing dress she was infinitely graceful; her fair hair was falling about her shoulders, for there had been no time to dress it; those beautiful white hands, crossed on her breast as though protecting her, gave her a look of helplessness which mingled strangely with that calm dignity, that complete absence of any show of fear.

  The hush lasted several seconds. Then La Fayette, despising himself for his negligence of the previous night, and overwhelmed by his admiration of this brave woman, stepped on to the balcony; with a courtly gesture he bowed before the Queen, took her hand and kissed it.

  There was a startled cry; then the strangest thing happened. Someone in the crowd cried: ‘Vive la Reine!’

  And the cry was taken up by those who, but a short while before, had vowed to have her head on a pike.

  The victory was brief; the mob had determined to take the King to Paris.

  Louis stood on the balcony and addressed them.

  ‘My children, you wish that I should follow you to Paris, and I consent to do this, but on the understanding that I shall not be separated from my wife and children; and I ask for the safety of my bodyguard.’

  ‘Vive le Roi!’ cried the crowd. ‘Vive les gardes du corps!’

  And so began the most humiliating hours which Antoinette had yet lived through.

  In the first coach Antoinette rode with the King and her children, Madame Elisabeth, Madame de Tourzel and Provence. Behind them came the carriages containing other members of the Court. Before the coaches, behind them and all about them, were the mob, peering into the carriages, shouting insults at the Queen, spitting at the Queen – always the Queen.

  Before the procession a band of prostitutes marched, led by Théroigne de Méricourt, prancing, dancing, singing obscene songs about the Queen.

  Past the royal carriage pikes were carried; on them were the bleeding heads of murdered guards.

  ‘We have the baker, the baker’s wife and the baker’s boy,’ they shouted. ‘We are bringing them to Paris. Citizens of Paris, come and meet the baker, meet the baker’s wife and the baker’s boy.’

  Madame Royale and the Dauphin cowered close to their mother who had them on either side of her, her arms about them; she scarcely moved during that long ride, sitting erect, only now and then lifting a hand to take the head of the Dauphin or Madame Royale and hold it tightly against her breast, that they might not see sights too horrifying for their young eyes.

  ‘Papa,’ said the Dauphin, �
��who are these people? What are they going to do to us?’

  ‘There are evil men,’ said the King, ‘who have stirred up the people against us. But we must not bear a grudge against the people. They are as little children and not to blame.’

  ‘They will not kill you, Papa?’ enquired the Dauphin.

  ‘No, my son, they will not kill me.’

  ‘You are a good man, Papa, so they will not kill you.’

  ‘No, my son. They will not kill me.’

  ‘Nor will they kill my mother,’ said the Dauphin; and he smiled up at her. He kept looking at her, for when he did so he was not afraid.

  It was seven o’clock in the evening when they reached the Hôtel de Ville. Bailly greeted the King.

  ‘It is a good day,’ he said, ‘which has brought you to Paris, sir.’

  ‘I come,’ answered Louis, ‘with joy and confidence to the people of Paris.’

  ‘What says the King?’ cried the crowd.

  ‘That he comes with joy to Paris.’

  Antoinette said in loud tones: ‘You have forgotten, sir, that the King said “with confidence”.’

  ‘To the Tuileries!’ shouted the crowd.

  The carriages rumbled on.

  How desolate seemed the old Palace after the glories of Versailles. There were few beds and few furnishings; and a dank coldness pervaded the atmosphere.

  ‘This is an ugly place,’ complained the Dauphin. ‘I do not like it. Let us go home now.’

  ‘Why, my son,’ said the Queen briskly, ‘your great ancestor, Louis Quatorze, used to live here. He liked it very well. So you must like it too.’

  ‘Tell me about him,’ begged the Dauphin.

  ‘Some other time,’ said the Queen.

  ‘Tell me why the people shout in the streets.’

  ‘Because they love to shout.’

  ‘They love us,’ said the Dauphin. ‘They love Papa because he is good, and you because you are good, and my sister because she is good, and me because I am good. They would never kill us, would they?’

  ‘We are safe here,’ said his mother gently. ‘Safe in the old Palace of Louis Quatorze.’

  But that night the Dauphin woke in his hastily improvised bed, screaming that he saw men in his room, men with heads on pikes, and they were marching all round him.

  His mother had him brought to her, and she kept him beside her. Madame Royale slept on the other side of her.

  Only the King slept soundly, the sleep of exhaustion.

  And lying in that grim old Palace, splendid no longer, damp, unlived in, full of foreboding, Antoinette felt that she was a prisoner – a prisoner whom the people had condemned to death.

  Chapter XII

  MIRABEAU

  Through that dreary winter the royal family lived, shut off from the world, in the ancient Palace of the Tuileries. How different this from the glories of Versailles, the charm of Trianon! Antoinette’s apartments were on the ground floor, those of the King and the children on the first floor; and these apartments had their own private staircases – dark and smelling of damp, as were all the passages of the Palace; and even during the day they were lighted by oil lamps which smoked and gave out a foul smell. All these passages, staircases and apartments were patrolled by the National Guard, so that the royal family were not allowed to forget for one waking moment of the day or night that they were the country’s prisoners.

  But that almost unnatural calm of the King, allied with the stately courage of the Queen and the youthful innocence of their children, created an atmosphere of royalty even in this dark prison. Antoinette was able to ignore the presence of her guards; to Louis they were, as were all his subjects, his dear children, playing a game of which he did not altogether approve but which he accepted as a childish vagary; as for the children, Madame Royale had her mother’s dignity, and the Dauphin was soon on good terms with the soldiers.

  Each day was very like another. Antoinette spent a great part of the morning with her children. She liked to be present while they had their lessons; again and again it was necessary to call the Dauphin’s attention to that which the Abbé Davout was trying to teach him. His thoughts strayed and were often with the soldiers who could always be seen from the windows.

  Every day the family attended Mass; and they had their midday meal together, like any family of the bourgeoisie, while the children prattled and their parents smiled at each other over their artless talk. Antoinette had never felt that she belonged so intimately to her family as she did in those days at the Tuileries.

  After the meal, the King would slump in his chair and doze, or go to his apartments to do so. Antoinette would retire to her apartments where she would talk with her friends. Fersen was a frequent visitor, but she did not see him alone. Their passionate love-making belonged to the Trianon, and each was aware of the longing in the other to return there. The Tuileries offered them no opportunities.

  Fersen was continually anxious for Antoinette’s safety. He, even more than Antoinette, found it difficult to forget that terrible drive from Versailles on October 6th, and his active mind was concerning itself with one thing: escape.

  Antoinette knew this; and in it was her comfort.

  The family took their supper together; and with them would be Provence and Josèphe, Adelaide and Victoire (strangely subdued these days) bewildered, clinging together, wondering what was happening to their world.

  The Queen often suggested a game of cards or billiards – anything to prevent those fearful silences, those sudden bursts of conversation which would often end in the hysterical tears of Adelaide and Victoire.

  Then early to bed – the King to his apartments, the Queen to hers. They had not shared a bed since Fersen had become her lover.

  Louis slept soundly, for no disaster could rob him of his sleep or his appetite; but in her bed Antoinette lay sleepless, listening to the tramp of the guards, afraid to sleep lest she dream of those hideous shouts, lest she see in her fantasy those leering faces close to hers; afraid to sleep lest they should come upon her while she was unaware, as they had at Versailles. Always waiting, listening, wondering what that night and the day which followed would hold.

  The Parisians were ashamed of the march from Versailles, for it was soon realised that those screaming hordes did not represent the people of Paris. The poissardes and the women of the Market even went so far as to present a petition to the Tuileries in which they firmly stated that they had no part in the outrage, and that they considered justice should be done to those who were responsible for it.

  It had become clear to many of those who sincerely wished for reforms that the revolution, which they had hoped to bring about by peaceful means, was in the hands of the rabble. Some of these, including Lally-Tollendal, left the country because they did not wish to be involved in shameful massacres.

  La Fayette, suspecting the march to Versailles to have been organised by Orléans, declared that he was an ardent supporter of liberty and he believed that if Orléans were successful there would be no liberty in France. There was no point in replacing one absolute monarch by another.

  He sought out Orléans and, in the blunt way of a soldier, told him of his suspicions.

  ‘I suspect,’ said La Fayette, ‘that you, Monseigneur, are at the head of a formidable party which plans to send the King away – perhaps worse than that – and proclaim yourself Regent. I am afraid, Monseigneur, that there will soon be on the scaffold the head of someone of your name.’

  Orléans professed his utmost surprise. ‘I understand you not,’ he said.

  ‘You will now do your utmost to have me assassinated,’ retorted La Fayette. ‘If you attempt this, be sure you will follow me an hour later.’

  ‘I assure you that you wrong me. I swear this on my honour,’ said the Duke.

  ‘I must accept that word,’ said La Fayette coolly, ‘but I have the strongest proof of your misconduct. Your Highness must leave France or I shall bring you before a tribunal within twenty-four ho
urs. The King has descended several steps from the throne, but I have placed myself on the last. He will descend no further, and to reach him – and the throne – you will have to pass over my body. I know you have cause for complaint against the Queen – so have I – but at such a time we must forget all grievances.’

  ‘What proof have you of my complicity in the events of October?’ demanded the Duke.

  ‘Ample proof. Aye, and I can get more. I know, Monseigneur, that you had a hand in organising that rabble which marched to Versailles – mostly men dressed as women, not good Parisians, but hirelings, foreigners and rough men of the South, your paid agitators. It has been suggested that you were with them to guide them to the Queen’s apartments.’

  ‘This is absurd.’

  ‘Then stand before the Tribunal and prove it.’

  The Duke shrugged his shoulders. The events of those October days had failed; he saw that. The King was still the King; the Queen was still alive; they were prisoners in the Tuileries, it was true, but the Tuileries was now the Court; and many good citizens had become disgusted by the methods of the mob.

  He said: ‘These are dangerous days. Any man may be accused of he knows not what. I will leave the country for a while if that is necessary.’

  La Fayette then went to the King, who was very distressed to hear of the suspected perfidy of his cousin.

  ‘A member of my own family,’ he murmured. ‘Is it credible?’

  ‘It can be proved,’ said La Fayette, ‘that certain cries were heard among the October mob. Not only “Vive le bon Duc d’Orléans”, Sire, but “Vivre notre roi d’Orléans”. You are most unsafe while Orléans lives.’

  ‘He is my cousin,’ said Louis helplessly.

  ‘He would have seen your head on the lanterne, Sire.’

  Louis shook his head. ‘Let him be sent to England. He is fond of the English, and they of him. He will then be out of our way. And let it be said that he goes on a mission for me. I would not wish it to be known that I suspect a member of our family – my own cousin – of such conduct.’