Flaunting, Extravagant Queen

by Jean Plaidy

  They marched to the Tuileries, carrying banners to which had been nailed the symbol of a pair of ragged breeches – the sign of the sans-culottes, the name given to the revolutionary bands who had roamed the streets in their ragged clothes demanding bread and the downfall of the monarchy. They massed in the Place du Carrousel and the narrow streets which intersected it; they streamed along the Terrasse des Feuillants; and forced an entrance into the Palace itself.

  Louis heard them. He said calmly: ‘My people wish to see me. They must not be disappointed.’

  ‘Do not be afraid, Sire,’ said a member of the National Guard. ‘Remember, Sire, they have always loved you.’

  Louis took the man’s hand and placed it on his heart. ‘Feel if it beats more quickly than usual,’ he said.

  And the soldier was amazed, for the King’s heart-beats were quite steady.

  Elisabeth was with him. There was one fear in Louis’ mind. ‘Do not let them find the Queen,’ he whispered.

  Antoinette had hurried to her husband’s apartments but was told to keep away.

  ‘I will be with my husband,’ she said.

  ‘It is unwise, Madame. Your presence will inflame the people against him. Wait here in the Council chamber, while the King talks to them.’

  She had the children with her; at such moments Antoinette had little fear for herself because all her alarm was for them.

  Into the King’s apartments the mob had burst. They paused and looked at Louis and Elisabeth who stood side by side, outwardly calm.

  Many of them had never seen the royal family before, and they immediately mistook Elisabeth for Antoinette.

  ‘The Austrian woman!’ they cried.

  Elisabeth had one thought. She believed they had come to murder Antoinette, and she stepped forward crying: ‘Yes. I am the Austrian woman. You have come to kill me. Do so quickly … and go.’

  One of the guards said: ‘It is not the Queen. It is Madame Elisabeth.’

  The mob fell back. They had turned their attention to Louis, and two of the guards escorted Elisabeth from the room.

  Once again that complete calm of the King baffled them. If he had shown one sign of fear, one sign of haughty rancour, they would have fallen upon him and done him to bloody death. But the benign calm puzzled them. They stood back a little. They could only growl: ‘A bas le veto!’

  One or two of the guards had placed themselves beside Louis. ‘Citizens,’ one cried, ‘recognise the King. Respect him. The law demands it. We shall die rather than let any harm befall him.’

  A butcher stepped forward. ‘Listen to us, Louis Capet,’ he cried. ‘You are a traitor. You have deceived us. Take care! We are tired of being your playthings.’

  ‘Down with the veto,’ shouted the crowd.

  ‘My people,’ said Louis, ‘I cannot discuss the veto with you.’

  ‘You shall! You shall!’ cried the crowd, and one or two men advanced threateningly.

  Louis did not flinch. He stood on a stool and addressed them. ‘My people, I shall do what the Constitution demands of me, but I cannot discuss the veto with you.’

  One of the men pushed forward his pike on which he had stuck the red Phrygian cap which was the symbol of liberty. Louis, with one of those inspired gestures which came to him naturally at such times of danger, took the cap and placed it on his head.

  They stared at him. Someone cried: ‘Long live the King!’ The hard faces relaxed. Louis had once more saved his life.

  The mob had broken into the Council chamber in their search for the Queen.

  They found her there. She was standing erect behind the table. Madame Royale was beside her; and on the table sat the Dauphin. Antoinette had turned his face towards herself so that he should not see the mob. Several ladies stood with her, including the Princesse de Lamballe and Madame de Tourzel.

  A group of loyal guards stood about the table.

  There was a shriek of delight. ‘The Austrian woman!’ Here she was at last. The woman of a hundred fabulous stories, the woman who had lived the most scandalous life of any woman in the world – according to the rumours rife all over the country. Antoinette – l’Autrichienne.

  And there she stood, pale, handsome, looking beyond them as though they did not exist, showing no twitch of lips or eyes which might have betrayed the slightest nervousness.

  It was the demeanour of the royal family which baffled the crowds whenever they met it. The sight of her standing there, the children beside her, must make the most sanguinary revolutionary pause. Madame Royale, so pretty, so charming, so gentle, so clearly adored this woman of a thousand evil rumours. The little boy – their own Dauphin – was clinging to her for protection.

  But they must not forget that she was Antoinette.

  They shouted insults and obscenities. Several of them held miniature gallows made of wood, from which dangled rag dolls. Cards were attached to these on which was written in red letters ‘Antoinette à la lanterne!’

  A tricolor rosette was thrown at her. The Queen looked at it disdainfully as it fell on the table. ‘Take it,’ someone screamed.

  ‘Oh, take it, Mama, please,’ whispered Madame Royale; and to soothe her daughter, Antoinette placed it in her hair.

  ‘A cap of liberty for the Dauphin!’ cried another.

  ‘No,’ said the Queen.

  ‘Madame, it is unwise to refuse,’ murmured one of the guards; and a woman stepped up and crammed the cap onto the Dauphin’s head.

  He began to cry, for the cap stank horribly, and it had slipped down over his face.

  Fortunately one of the revolutionaries, seeing that the little boy was in danger of suffocation advanced and removed the cap.

  Red-faced and gasping, the little boy flung himself into his mother’s arms.

  Meanwhile the crowds filled the room, wrecking the furnishings, shouting insults, only kept from attacking the Queen by the fixed bayonets of the guards.

  The heat of that day was intense; and the stench of the sweating bodies nauseated Antoinette. For three hours she was stared at and threatened; and every moment of that period was pregnant with danger.

  A woman forced her way to the table and, disregarding the soldiers’ bayonets, began to repeat some of the hideous stories she had heard of the Queen; she called the Dauphin and his sister bastards; she knew she was safe because, if the guards so much as touched her or any one of the mob, the crowd would tear them to pieces.

  The Queen leaned forward suddenly. ‘What have I done to you?’ she asked softly. ‘Have you ever seen me before? They have deceived you about me. I am the wife of your King, and the mother of your Dauphin. I am French as you are French. Tell me what wrong I have done you.’

  ‘You have caused misery to the nation,’ said the woman.

  ‘That is what you have been told. I would never consciously harm France. I was happy when the people loved me.’

  The woman’s fierce expression collapsed suddenly.

  She stared at Antoinette and burst into tears.

  ‘You see,’ said Antoinette, ‘when you come face to face with me you know these tales of me to be false.’

  There was a short silence. Then the weeping woman dropped a curtsy before she was dragged back into the crowd.

  ‘She is drunk,’ they cried and the vilifying continued. ‘Antoinette à la lanterne!’ The Queen continued to stand. The Dauphin, his face hidden from the horror behind him, clutched at the lace of her bodice with hot and fearful hands.

  But some fire had gone out of the mob. Their cries were less fierce. To see her there, so haughty, so very much the Queen, made it impossible for them to accept the lies which had been told of her.

  And, after three hours of this terrifying ordeal, a shout went up that the Mayor of Paris had arrived with a detachment of the National Guard.

  The crowd dispersed; and there was quiet in the pillaged Palace of the Tuileries.

  She wrote that night to Fersen: ‘I am still alive, though it seems I am so by a mira
cle. The ordeal was terrible. But you must not be anxious about me. Have faith in my courage to live through these terrible days.’

  The men of the south were marching into Paris. Ragged, unkempt, and fiercer than the men of the north, these were the men of Marseilles, and their aim was to depose the King and end the monarchy for ever.

  Relentless, ruthless, as they marched they sang a song which had been composed by one of the officers, and which they had adopted as the hymn of the revolution.

  Into the capital they came, welcomed by the Jacobins, cheered as they assembled in the Champs Elysées.

  And on the lips of all was the hymn of revolution:

  ‘Allons, enfants de la patrie,

  Le jour de gloire est arrivé,

  Contre nous, de la tyrannie,

  Le couteau sanglant est levé …’

  The terror of life at the Tuileries had increased. There were more spies in the household. Each night mobs gathered outside the Palace and shouted threats at those within.

  Antoinette wrote often to her lover. Fersen was desperate; he travelled from Sweden to Brussels, spending long hours at the Courts doing all in his power to urge the monarchs of Europe to unite and go to the aid of Louis and Antoinette. The Duke of Brunswick, the commander of the Austrian and Prussian armies, was preparing to cross the frontier. Fersen, irritated by the delay of this old soldier who refused to be hurried, was terrified that the Queen would be murdered before help reached her. He urged Brunswick to issue a manifesto threatening Paris with destruction if the royal family came to any harm at its hands.

  The people congregated in the Place du Carrousel, in the Palais Royal and the Champs Elysées – indeed any spot where they could gather to talk about the manifesto.

  The hot weather continued and the tension increased. Elisabeth and the Princesse de Lamballe stayed with the Queen even during the night.

  ‘I feel it in the air,’ said the Queen. ‘They are gathering against us now … and this time there will be no respite.’

  They did not go to bed at all that night. They started at the sound of the tocsin; they listened, alert to the distant sounds. And all the time they were waiting.

  They knew that the guard was being corrupted; and without the guard they would be brutally murdered, with the revolutionaries in their present mood.

  The morning came. Sleepless, his hair unpowdered, his cravat loose, Louis came into the Queen’s apartment.

  ‘Louis, what next?’ asked the Queen.

  Louis shook his head. Antoinette thought: Even he is shaken at last.

  Outside the window the guards were drawn up.

  ‘Louis,’ said Antoinette, ‘you should show yourself. You should review the troops. You should let them see that you are a leader.’

  The King turned to the window and looked out. Then, as though in a dream, he left the Queen.

  A few minutes later she saw him from the window – unkempt as he was – walking between the lines of the troops.

  ‘I have confidence in you,’ he was saying. ‘I know I can trust you.

  Antoinette heard a jeering laugh from one of the men. She saw several of them break from their ranks and imitate the slow and somewhat ungainly walk of the King.

  For what could they hope from such guards?

  The Attorney-General of Paris came in haste to the Tuileries. He demanded to see the King, and was shown at once to the King’s chamber where Antoinette was with him.

  ‘The crowds are massing,’ he said, ‘for an attack on the Tuileries. It is necessary for you to leave at once.’

  ‘For where?’ asked Antoinette.

  ‘You will be safest in the manège. The Assembly is in session, and the mob will not attack you while you are there.’

  ‘We have troops to protect us,’ said Antoinette.

  ‘I fear not, Madame,’ said the Attorney-General. ‘All Paris is marching, and with Paris are the men of Marseilles. You dare not hesitate. You must think of the children of France.’

  ‘We will accompany you,’ said Louis.

  Antoinette ran for her children and brought them to the King’s apartment.

  ‘We should leave at once,’ said the Attorney-General. ‘The faubourgs are on the march.’

  Antoinette held the Dauphin’s hand very firmly in hers and, as they came through the gardens, the little boy kicked the leaves at his feet. He was laughing. There were too many alarms in his life for him to take them seriously any more. As long as he was with his mother and the dirty people did not try to suffocate him with their red caps, he was happy.

  ‘The leaves have fallen very early this year,’ said the King in a melancholy voice.

  There were already crowds gathered outside the Palace. They saw the royal family through the railings, and shouts of derision went up.

  The little party reached the Assembly Hall in safety, and the King cried to all those present: ‘Gentlemen, I come here to prevent a crime. I think I and my family cannot be safer than with you.’

  The President’s reply was that the Assembly had sworn to protect the Constitution, and the King could count on its protection.

  The royal family were then placed in the box where the reporters usually sat. It was small and the heat was intense. The family sat there, and those who had escaped with them crowded about the box.

  Outside there was murder and bloodshed such as had never been seen before during the whole of the revolution. Houses were looted; men and women dragged into the streets and cruelly murdered. Shots were fired; voices shouted in exultation and screamed in horror. The faubourgs were in revolt; the smell of burning was in the air.

  Murder, rapine, pillage stalked the streets of Paris on that day. It was a day to remember with that of the St Bartholomew two hundred years before.

  The Tuileries was looted. The Queen’s apartments in particular were desecrated. The streets echoed with the terrible cry ‘A la lanterne!’

  And all over Paris could be heard the triumphant song:

  ‘Allons, enfants de la patrie …’

  In the crowd which was raiding the Tuileries was a young man who did not join in; he stood a little apart. His attitude was cold and detached.

  Another man, too old to share in the violence of his friends, came up and stood beside him. ‘Great days for France, Citizen,’ he said.

  ‘Great days,’ agreed the young man.

  ‘We are seeing the passing of an old regime which has lasted in France for many years.’

  ‘Old regimes must pass,’ said the young man. ‘There must be new ones.’

  ‘It is the way of life, and we must accept it.’

  ‘We need not accept,’ said the young man. ‘We can make our own world.’

  ‘Louis Capet has little hope of doing that.’

  ‘Louis Capet could have done it,’ said the young man. He paused and then went on: ‘What imbeciles! How could they allow that canaille to enter? They should have swept away four or five hundred of them with cannons and the rest would still be running.’

  ‘You are not in the riots, Citizen. You are not fighting for liberty. I see you are not a Frenchman.’

  ‘I am from Corsica,’ said the young man.

  ‘Ah, it is for that reason that you remain cold.’

  ‘Adieu,’ said the young man. ‘I’ll be on my way.’

  The old man looked after him. A strong face, a strange young man. Was it true, what he said?

  Meanwhile Napoleone di Buonaparte turned his back on the riots and contemplated the power of arms appropriately used.

  The family was homeless now. The Tuileries was unfit for human habitation.

  Where should they go now?

  It was decided that the Temple, that medieval palace which had once sheltered the Knights Templar, should be their home.

  Antoinette cried out in protest when she heard. She had always hated the place. But it was not for her to protest. She must be grateful that a shelter was provided for her, grateful that she and her family were alive
to need it.

  The rioting had died down, and carriages were brought to the Assembly Hall. The postilions no longer wore the royal livery and their hats were decorated with the tricolor.

  The carriage made a slow journey from the Assembly Hall to the Temple, the crowds shouting after it as it crawled along.

  And so they came to the new home – ancient and gloomy, a more fearful prison than that of the Tuileries.

  Chapter XV

  THE KING ON TRIAL

  Those who had been set to guard the King and Queen found it impossible to dislike them.

  The Queen’s aloofness, her determination to show no fear, aroused their respect. As for Louis, how could they call this man a tyrant when he was so gentle?

  In the Temple they saw him accept the life of an ordinary man. He never complained; he ate heartily, took his exercise in the grounds, and was often seen walking in the courtyard with the Dauphin, the little boy’s hand in his.

  Watching the King and his son together they saw how human was this man, how indulgent, how unselfish. He would abandon himself to the Dauphin’s game, and when he taught the boy how to fly his kite, it would seem that the most important task possible was the maintenance of that kite. They would measure the distance with their steps in the courtyards, and the Dauphin’s shrill voice could be heard consulting with his father.

  It was impossible for ordinary human beings to hate this man or see him as a tyrant, except when they were intoxicated by wine or the words of violent revolutionaries.

  When they first arrived at the Temple certain alterations had been allowed to be made in the place for their comfort. Four rooms were made into the King’s suite and another four were refurnished for the use of the Queen, Madame Elisabeth, Madame Royale and the Dauphin.

  But although the Assembly had saved the lives of the royal family they wished them to understand that Court life, as they had once known it at Versailles, was over. They accordingly removed the Princesse de Lamballe and Madame de Tourzel to another prison. The royal family must live simply.