by Jean Plaidy
Shall I ever see him again? she wondered. What will be the end of all this misery?
She could not resist writing to him.
‘Let me assure you; we are still alive. I have been terribly uneasy about you, and I am distressed because I know how you will suffer if you get no news of us. Do not return here on any pretext whatsoever. They know that you aided our escape, and we are watched night and day. I can only tell you that I love you. Do not be uneasy about me. I crave so much to know that you are well. Write to me in cipher. Let me know where I am to address my letters, for I cannot live without writing to you. Farewell, most loved and most loving of men.’ Letters? What poor consolation!
It was February in the Tuileries – eight weary months after the humiliating return to what could only be called captivity.
Life had been harder to bear than before the escape. There were guards in the Palace; they filled the gardens; they were determined not to let the King and Queen escape again.
Always the Queen’s mind was busy with plans for escape.
‘I have been foolish,’ she declared again and again to her dear friends, the Princesse de Lamballe and Madame Elisabeth. ‘When I might have learnt of state matters I danced and gambled. Now I find myself ignorant.’
‘You are learning quickly,’ said Elisabeth.
‘And bitterly, little sister.’
It was true. That September following the return, the King had been forced to accept the Constitution. This meant that not only was absolute monarchy finished but that the King was shorn of all power. Government was to be by an elected body of men.
Louis had held out as long as he could, but he realised that if he accepted the Constitution there would be no reason for continuing with the revolution. It was true that when he gave way there was a lull in the riots.
But the Jacobins were not pleased at this turn of events. Their great desire was to continue with the revolution and, knowing that the King would not agree that émigrés should be recalled to France and sentenced to death if they did not return, they began to agitate for this.
The law was passed that November, but Louis, thinking of his two émigré brothers, and knowing that they would not return refused to have the death penalty pronounced on them. He applied the veto; and soon the whole of Paris – inflamed by the Jacobins – was calling out against a King who dared veto the desires of the government. Monsieur Veto, they called the King; and of course Madame Veto was blamed for the King’s refusal to submit.
Meanwhile the émigrés, including Provence and Artois, talked of raising forces against the revolutionaries, and so angered the people of France. Antoinette cried out against them – for neither Provence nor Artois were in a position to help – and even Louis agreed that they were doing more harm than good to him and his family.
The Queen was now in despair. She was writing to Fersen and receiving letters from him. She was stunned by the behaviour of her husband who seemed unable to arouse himself from his lethargy. Again and again she thought how different their lives might have been if Louis had but possessed a little initiative, if he would only act, and could conquer the vacillation which seemed to beset him on every important occasion.
She wrote to her brother Leopold, who had succeeded Joseph, and implored his help. The countries of Europe, while not prepared to risk much on behalf of the King and Queen, were anxious that the monarchy should be preserved. They feared the rot might spread to them.
Leopold and Frederick of Prussia met and issued a call to other European nations to get together and save the French monarchy. Meanwhile Fersen was using all his powers to persuade his King, Gustavus, to come to the aid of the royal family.
The people in the streets were now saying that the Queen was sending secret messages to the foreign Princes imploring them to destroy the French. She was distraught. She knew for once that what was said of her was true.
‘Nothing but armed force can set things right again!’ she cried to Louis.
‘I do not wish for bloodshed,’ said the King.
‘I believe,’ she cried passionately, ‘that you would see your crown trampled in the dust – I believe you would go smiling to your death, if they bade you.’
‘My life is in their hands,’ said Louis. ‘I would be King through their love or not at all.’
She cried out in exasperated anger: ‘Yes, I see. I see it is this meekness of yours that is bringing us to ruin.’
Then she burst into tears and flung herself into his arms. Louis comforted her.
‘It is too much for you to bear,’ he said. ‘You must rest. You must let things take their course.’
‘Louis … Louis …’ she cried. ‘How can we know what to do? I ask Leopold to put himself at the head of the armies and lead them across our borders. I tell him the revolutionaries would be terrified if he did because of what they have done to us. Then I am afraid. If Leopold marched, what would become of us? They would put our heads under the knife. What can we do? What can we do?’
Louis could only shake his head. Of what use was Louis? She went to Esterhazy who was about to leave for Sweden.
She cried: ‘You are going to see someone who is a friend of us both. Tell him that although we are miles apart nothing can separate our hearts. It is a torment to have no news of those we love. Take this ring to him. I have always worn it. Now I would like him to wear it and think sometimes of me.’
There was an inscription on the ring; she read it for the last time: ‘Faintheart he who forsakes her.’
And no sooner had she sent the ring than she was afraid. Would he see in it a reproach? Would he come to her – he for whom the French were waiting?
She wrote to him immediately and despatched the letter by yet another messenger.
‘You must not attempt to come here. Your coming would ruin my happiness. I have a great longing to see you, do not doubt that, but you must not come here.’
He wrote to her. He thanked her for her gift. ‘I live only to serve you,’ he wrote.
She had received that letter on a cold day a week ago, and she re-read it and cherished it; and she thought of him, pleading her cause with Gustavus, begging Gustavus to act. But what cared Gustavus for Louis and Antoinette? He cared though for the preservation of the monarchy. He had said he did not care whether it was Louis the 16th, 17th or 18th who reigned in France. But the rabble should not be allowed to sweep away a throne.
I am foolish, she thought. My tragedy is that I learned what life was, too late. For so many years I thought it was made up of dancing and beautiful clothes, extravagant balls; then when it was too late I found that this was not so.
She smiled faintly, thinking of her beautiful Trianon. Ah, Trianon, shall I ever see you again?
It was easy to drift into dreams – and so pleasant; for only in dreams of the past was there happiness for her.
She heard a sound in her room suddenly. She did not move. She knew that someone had silently opened a door. She had heard the turning of a key. She was alone in her apartments, and her rooms were on the ground floor. She dared not move. All through the days and nights she was tense, waiting … never knowing who would come upon her suddenly.
And now … someone was in her room.
‘Antoinette.’ She did not look round. She dared not. She thought, Oh, God, I am dreaming. It cannot be.
‘Antoinette!’
He was coming towards her. It was a dream of course. She was delirious. In truth it could not have happened.
She turned and saw the familiar figure; the rough wig he wore, the all-concealing great-coat could not hide him from her.
She flew to him and threw herself into his arms. She let her fingers explore his face while the tears ran silently down her cheeks.
‘It is a dream, I know,’ she cried. ‘But, oh Holy Mother of God, let me go on dreaming.’
‘It is no dream,’ he said.
And he wiped the tears from her cheeks.
‘It is not truly you?’
/> ‘But it is. I have come to you – all the way from Sweden.’
‘But why … why?’
‘To see you. To hold you thus. Does not the ring say “Faintheart he who forsakes her”?’
‘Oh, give me the ring, give me the ring. I should never have sent it. It has brought you here … to danger … to God knows what. Axel … my love … you are truly here. You are in this room, are you not? Oh, foolish one … foolish one to come and risk your life to see me.’
‘Of what use is life to me when I do not see you?’
‘Hold me tightly, Axel … for a little while. I wish to dream. I call you foolish … and foolish you are, to come here. But I am the greatest fool in the world because I have called you here, because I have brought to danger the one I love.’
‘It is well that, in danger, we should be together.’
‘At any moment you could be discovered. At any moment the guards may be at my window. They are all about us … Do you know there is a price on your head? There is nothing these beasts, this canaille, want more, than to find you. They know it was you who took us to Varennes … they know that if you had stayed with us … if you had not left us at Bondy … all would be well with us now, and ill with them. Axel … go … go quickly. But how did you come? But let us not stand here where any might see us; come into my little dressing-room. There we shall be safer. There is only Lamballe and Tourzel, and mayhap Elisabeth, who would see you. No other must, Axel. It is foolish to trust any … ’
She drew him into the dressing-room. She lifted her hands to take off the wig. She ran her fingers through his thick hair.
‘Let this minute go on and on …’ she said. ‘If it is a dream …’
‘It is not a dream.’
‘But how did you get here?’
‘I had the key. You remember I had it when I came to get the children on that night. I have kept it. I walked past the guards. There are so many who look as I do … rough wig … great-coat … I was not even challenged.’
‘And if you had been?’ she asked, breathless at the thought.
‘I have a good passport … forged, of course. I am supposed to be travelling to Lisbon on a mission from my King,’ he said.
‘That is my story. ’Tis true I am on a mission … It is this: I shall get you out of France and this time I shall do it thoroughly. I shall be with you the whole of the time. Nothing on earth will make me give up my part until you are safe across the frontier.’
‘Axel …’ she cried. ‘What heart you put into me! What you set out to do … you do.’
‘I have planned everything,’ he said. ‘I have come here to lay those plans before you and the King.’
The mention of Louis brought Antoinette back to reality.
‘Louis will never go.’
‘We must persuade him.’
‘I fear we cannot. I have tried to persuade him. He has some idealistic notion that his place is with his people.’
‘A people who do not want him.’
‘He will not believe that.’
‘We must persuade him. I hear terrible stories. You have been safe so far. Do you think you will go on being safe? Your life is in danger. How I wish you were not a Queen. How I wish you were only my love. Then I would not listen to protests … I would take you with me … whether you were willing or not.’
She lay against him. ‘I like to hear you say that, Axel. It is fantastic, but it is beautiful. How I would love you to take me with you!’
Fersen said: ‘If the King should refuse …’
She answered quickly: ‘And the children?’
‘You and the children …’
She let herself contemplate such a solution for she was still living in her dream. He had come to her, her lover, and he talked of taking her and her beloved children out of this hell.
This was a magic night, a night in which it was possible to believe anything. It was as though she had conjured up his image out of her longings. On such a night anything, however fantastic, could be true.
The Palace was quiet; now and then they heard the sound of the guards marching by. But in her little dressing-room they were safe.
She locked the door, shutting them in.
And that night she was alone with her lover, and they loved frantically, desperately, as though each feared that they might never love or meet again.
The next day she went to Louis. She whispered to him: ‘Fersen is here.’
‘Impossible!’
‘I thought so too. He has come disguised; he has plans.’
‘What plans could there be?’
‘You must see him. Come to my apartments at six this evening. Then it will be dark and there will be few people about. He cannot come to you, for fear of the guards.’
‘There is nothing he can do,’ said Louis.
Louis came to the apartment. Fersen was in the dressing-room, and Antoinette took the King to him there.
Fersen kissed the King’s hand and Louis confessed his amazement that he should have been able to get into the Palace.
‘I come with plans, Sire,’ said Fersen.
‘It will be a hundred times more difficult to escape now,’ said Louis; ‘and the last attempt failed.’
‘Sire, we learn by our mistakes. It was wrong to have travelled all together. We should have broken up the party and travelled more simply. I realise now the folly of the way we did it and yet, with a little luck then, we should have succeeded.’
‘I have misused my chance of escape,’ said the King. ‘It is no longer possible.’
He did not look at Antoinette. She was standing, pale and tense, her arms folded across her breast. Oh, God, she thought, Louis will be defeated because he accepts defeat.
She loved them both – so much and so differently. She wanted to run to Axel and beg him to take her in his arms, never to leave her, but she wanted to cradle Louis’ head in her arms and comfort him.
Fersen argued. It was at least worth an attempt. While the King was in Paris, while he accepted the new Constitution, it was difficult for the European countries to come to his aid. Once he was out of the country he could defy the Constitution; he could call loyal men to his aid, and he could fight for his throne.
Louis faced Fersen and said quickly: ‘I could never try to escape, and for this reason: I have given my word to the National Assembly that I will not do so again.’
‘But these men are your enemies.’
‘It matters not. I have given them my word.’
Fersen knew that he was defeated. Louis, who could never make up his mind as to what action he should take in most circumstances, was firmly resolved on this.
He had given his word.
The King said: ‘I will leave you now. Take care when you leave the Palace. Take care while you are in Paris. You risk your life to come here.’
Fersen bowed. ‘My pleasure is to serve Your Majesties.’
Louis nodded. But he understood.
He went away and left them together.
It was the last embrace; he held her as though he could never let her go.
She murmured: ‘If I could but die at this moment …’
‘Do not speak of dying,’ he said roughly.
Then he released her and turned away, only to turn back and take her in his arms once more.
But he must be gone. Every moment he spent in the Palace was a danger.
She would be expected to appear in the salon, to talk, to seem as usual, and all the time her thoughts would be with him. Where is he now? Is he safe?
What had become of her life which had once been so gay, when the newest hair-style arranged by Monsieur Léonard had provided such excitement in her life?
Why should there be such violent contrasts in the life of one woman?
‘You must not stay,’ she said. ‘You must go …’
‘One day,’ he said, ‘I’ll be back.’
She thought of the little Dauphin, who had said ‘One day.’ She thought of h
is dying in her arms.
‘Don’t say that,’ she said. ‘It frightens me. Whether we meet again or not I have this night to remember.’
‘For ever …’ he said.
She was alert. ‘I hear the sentry. He is coming this way. Oh, go quickly … now, or it will be too late. He may look in. He may decide to search the apartment. Oh, go … my love … go quickly.’
He kissed her hands. She pushed him from her. She longed to keep him, and yet a greater need demanded that she send him away.
He was gone. She stood at the door, watching his figure swallowed up in the darkness.
Then she returned to her apartments. She heard the sentry marching past her window; and she covered her face with her hands as though to hold in her emotions.
The uneasy months were passing. Summer had come. In the streets a new publication was being sold. It was La Vie Scandaleuse de Marie Antoinette. Madame de Lamotte had supplied a great deal of the material which went into this and other compilations.
The Assembly had brought forward a proposal that priests who refused to swear to be loyal to the Constitution should be expelled from France. Louis, who was a devout Catholic, declared he could never assent to such a law. In all other matters he had given way. He had even declared war on Austria at the command of the Assembly – Austria, the country whose aim was to restore his monarchy.
It was characteristic of Louis that he should choose his weakest moment to stand out against the Assembly.
Monsieur and Madame Veto had dared attempt to oppose the Assembly, had dared to try to stem the tide of revolution.
It was hot June and the people gathered in the streets; life at the Tuileries had been lived too peaceably since the King and Queen had been brought back to Paris after their ignoble flight. It was time they were taught a lesson, since they had not yet discovered that the Assembly would not allow them to raise their voices in protest against the people.
‘Ça ira!’ was the song the people were singing as they gathered in the squares.
‘A bas le veto!’ they shouted.
