The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette

by Carolly Erickson

  They began to file out, and I heard murmurs of “Haughty Austrian bitch!” and snatches of a song about “Madame Deficit.”

  Amélie was the last to leave. As she sauntered toward the door, rudely turning her backon us, she said a few parting words.

  “Thank you, your majesties, for all those pleasant months in the dungeons. And if I were you, Austrian, I would sell that damned jewel you wear and buy bread for your people!”

  The ushers grabbed Amélie but Louis signaled for them to release her. She smirked and chuckled as she left the grand room, running her nails down the gilded molding of the doorway and leaving a long deep gash in its burnished façade.

  September 19, 1789

  Louis still refuses to leave and will not listen to any of us who try our best to persuade him. However, he is strengthening the defenses here at Versailles and will bring in more troops to defend us if need be. Axel has gone to report to King Gustavus in Stockholm and will bring back more Swedish troops when he returns.

  I hear the tramp of the soldiers of the Flanders Regiment outside my window and feel a little less anxious. A detachment of the Gardes du Corps is always in the corridors outside my apartments. Eric too stays close to me. I told him about Amélie’s insolence and he said she had never attempted to contact him or the children since her liberation from prison. He has sent the children to safety, to live with his parents in Vienna. But he refuses to go himself, saying his place is with me. I am very touched and tell him so.

  September 23, 1789

  We have harvested the last of the fruit and grain at the Petit Trianon hamlet and I sent it to the Mayor of Paris personally, to be distributed to the hungry people. We were very short-handed in the harvest, as all but one of the peasant families living in the cottages have left. The animals are not being tended and I have told Chambertin to arrange for them to be sold. I said goodbye with sorrow to my two dear cows Brunette and Blanchette. Blanchette is pregnant. I fear I will never see her calf.

  September 26, 1789

  I am worried because the Marquis de la Tour du Pin has made the rounds of the sentry posts that guard the palace and says that we must be absolutely certain that all the gateways to the palace courtyards are locked at all times. Our security depends on this.

  He has detected a vulnerable spot between the Cour des Princes and the Cour Royale where only one man stands guard. The guard must be doubled or tripled there, and the loyalty of the sentries must be checked and double-checked.

  The marquis suggests that Louis and I and the children withdraw to Rambouillet which is much easier to defend. Louis says he will consider it. The marquis cautions me that many of the palace servants are compromised and have been won over by the disloyal Parisians. They stay on at Versailles because they hope to receive their back wages but once they are paid they will leave. Meanwhile they are not to be trusted.

  September 29, 1789

  Last night I persuaded Louis that we all should go to Rambouillet and the wagons were loaded so that we could leave this morning. But when we awoke Madame de Tourzel told us that Mousseline was ill and we decided to wait a few days until she recovered.

  October 5, 1789

  I wish we had gone to Rambouillet. I have a very uneasy feeling. This afternoon I went with Louis-Charles to the Petit Trianon and he was playing in the grotto. Eric called up to me and said, come quickly, there is a message from the palace. I picked up Louis-Charles, who has gotten quite heavy now that he is four and a half, and went slipping down the moss to where a valet in livery stood waiting with two horses.

  The valet knelt in the mud—it had begun to rain quite hard.

  “Your highness,” he said in a high, frightened voice, “the palace is under assault. I have been sent by the Marquis de la Tour du Pin to tell you that you must come quickly. They are closing the gates against the attackers.”

  We mounted the horses, the valet taking Louis-Charles, and galloped off through the rain toward the huge bulk of the palace, veiled by the mist of rain. Soldiers of the Flanders Regiment surrounded the walls.

  I thought as we drew closer, how will they be able to fire their muskets and their cannon when everything is so sodden and wet? Axel had told me what difficulties he and his men had in the American War, trying to fire their weapons when the weather was bad.

  We dismounted and I hurried inside, carrying Louis-Charles who was protesting and squirming. The soldiers quickly surrounded us and led us along in the direction of Louis’s apartments. As soon as we entered the palace we heard an uproar. People were shouting, running, colliding with one another in their haste. No one was in charge. The ushers who normally kept order were rushing here and there in as helter-skelter a fashion as the others. People stood in knots of three and four on the landings of the staircases, exchanging news. Some dragged half-empty satchels or baskets along the corridors, bound for hiding places or exits. A few managed to drop to their knees as I passed, but many were so intent on their own business that they ignored me, their eyes never meeting mine.

  And I too was intent on reaching safety, and on finding out what was happening. I had seen the angry crowds massed in front of the main gates leading to the Court of the Ministers but there was nothing unusual in that, they were there every day, milling and complaining, waiting for the food we distributed and then demonstrating in their noisy disruptive way. Where were the attackers? Clutching Louis-Charles, and with four of the soldiers of the Flanders Regiment escorting me, I hurried along the winding corridors and up the old staircases to Louis’s apartments, which were crowded with people, all talking at once.

  Louis was not there, he had gone hunting and was not expected to return for several hours. I handed Louis-Charles to Madame de Tourzel who had brought Mousseline up to Louis’s private study and was doing her best to comfort her. I hugged her and told her not to cry, that there were many soldiers to protect us and that we would be kept safe no matter what happened. I sent a valet to the kitchens to get as many baskets of food as he could, for us and the others, and after an hour he returned with bread and fruit and cold chicken and wine.

  A breathless, red-faced messenger arrived and the clamor grew louder. He had ridden hard to bring us news. He shouted that a mob of women was marching toward Versailles, armed with pikes and swords and scythes, demanding bread and threatening to kill the king and queen.

  “I have just come from Sèvres,” the man said. “They passed through there like a cloud of locusts. They took all the bread from the shops and most of the other food too. And I tell you, some of those women were not really women. There were plenty of men among them.”

  “How many? What arms did they have? Why did the National Guard not stop them?” The messenger was questioned ceaselessly, but all he knew was that the crowd was loud, wet and angry, and that they were only a few kilometers away.

  When Louis finally returned from his hunting trip, throwing down his coat and satchel, flinging his heavy belt on the floor and tossing his bloody hunting knife to Chambertin, who had accompanied him, he faced the courtiers and servants in the room and looked weary, leaning on the back of a chair for support as he was told of the approaching crowd.

  The ministers gathered around him, all of them, except the ever sanguine Necker, urging him to go to Rambouillet at once and take us with him.

  He sat down heavily and I brought him some of the food from the kitchen, which he proceeded to eat in silence.

  “Your majesty, there is no time!” said the Marquis de la Tour du Pin when the tension in the room had become unbearable. “You must go at once!”

  “I do not wish to compromise anyone,” was his response. “I do not wish to become a fugitive from my own palace, my own home.”

  One of the ministers, I don’t remember which one, said “Do you wish to become a corpse then?” and Louis reprimanded him sharply.

  “My subjects would not harm me. I am their father. They look to me for leadership.”

  “With respect, sire, they may not h
arm you, but they are threatening to cut the queen’s throat,” the messenger from Sèvres put in. “I heard some of them say, ‘We’ll tear her skin to bits for ribbons!’ ”

  “I will protect the queen. Now, let me eat my supper in peace.”

  He went on eating, while around the table the ministers kept up their debate. All but Necker were agreed that we should leave. I spoke up too and reminded Louis that we had been ready to go for weeks, and that Madame de Tourzel had prepared all the children’s things.

  Just then, however, we learned that General Lafayette, who is in command of the Paris soldiery, the National Guard, was coming to the palace and Louis said he would not leave before consulting with Lafayette who was surely in the best position to advise him.

  I was very tired but felt that I had to go to my own apartments to talk to my household servants—at least to those of them who were still there. I found them in my Grand Cabinet, in a state of great alarm. I addressed them, as calmly as I could, hoping to reassure them by my own hopeful and confident attitude. I was calm, as my mother would have been, and I looked each one in the eye as I talked, encouraging them to show bravery and not let a group of violent lawbreakers frighten them.

  “They are not true Frenchmen and Frenchwomen, these bandits who threaten us,” I said, uncomfortably aware of my German accent. “They are renegades, who deserve to be put in prison.”

  I pointed to the detachment of the Gardes du Corps that was posted just outside the window and told everyone to go to bed—as by this time it was quite late—and do their best to get a good night’s sleep.

  But as it turned out, I spoke too soon. General Lafayette arrived at the palace about midnight, and I went up to Louis’s apartments to hear what he had to say. All the ministers were still there, and many courtiers as well, dozing on the furniture or on cushions on the floor. Madame de Tourzel had put Louis-Charles and Mousseline to bed in the guardroom adjacent to Louis’s study, the safest room in the entire palace.

  Lafayette came in, looking roadworn and very weary, his boots caked with mud and his uniform wet and dirty. He had with him two delegates from the National Assembly, also looking much the worse for the weather and from lack of rest.

  “I have brought twenty thousand men,” the general told Louis, “plus some Parisians who are pledged to protect you. From what I have seen, I don’t believe they are needed. There was a rabble of women in the vicinity, but they seem to have melted away. We saw no armed mob.”

  The delegates from the National Assembly requested that Louis move to Paris, where he would be safer and on hand to ratify the Assembly’s decrees.

  He ignored this implied challenge to his supreme authority and politely agreed to consider their request. Then Lafayette dismissed most of the troops, including the comforting detachment of the Gardes du Corps that had been positioned outside my window, and we all went to our beds.

  I hope I can sleep tonight. As I write this, I can hear the troops marching off, going back to Paris or to their barracks at Rambouillet twenty-five miles away.

  October 6, 1789

  At daybreak this morning I was awakened by a low rumbling sound which became louder and louder and then changed to a fearsome mixture of tramping feet and screaming and shouting.

  “Your highness! Your highness! Get up! Run! Leave as quickly as you can!”

  My lady-in-waiting Madame Thibaut, still wearing the gown she had on last night, had run into my room. I could tell she hadn’t slept, but had been keeping watch.

  Through the open door I could see into the salon beyond. Eric was there, with several of the Gardes du Corps. They were guarding the outer door. Suddenly I heard loud thuds. Someone was trying to break down the salon door.

  I heard musket fire, and many women’s voices, shouting “Where is the whore? We want the Austrian whore!” The shouting became a chant. “Whore whore whore. Where is the Austrian whore?”

  My hands trembling and my heart pounding, I hurriedly put on the overskirt Madame Thibaut held out to me and grabbed a dressing gown. The salon door burst open and I saw Eric and the soldiers lunge at the first of the intruders, trying to block the doorway with their bodies.

  As long as I live I will never forget what I saw next. How can I write it! My hand trembles now, as I struggle to hold the pen.

  A huge man, dressed from head to foot in black, thrust himself into the room, holding an immense axe whose blade was smeared red with blood. He swung the axe, and cut off the head of one of the soldiers. A cheer went up.

  “Headchopper! Headchopper!”

  More people began pouring into the room through the gap in the doorway and I heard Eric call out, “Save the queen! They want to kill the queen!”

  The axe swung a second time, and I screamed.

  “Eric!”

  I stood paralyzed, unable to move or act, so filled with horror that I forgot to breathe.

  Madame Thibaut tugged at me. “Madame, you must come. Remember your husband, your children—”

  She pulled me along, stumbling, out the far door of the room and along the passage that connected my bedroom with Louis’s, a passage no one knew about but the two of us and our most trusted servants and the pages who often slept on benches in the corridor.

  I ran, blindly, the noise from my apartments loud in my ears. I felt torn. I wanted to go back, to kneel beside Eric and mourn him. In one horrible instant he had given his life for me, he had loved me that much. And once, long ago, I had loved him.

  When we got to the door that led into Louis’s apartments it was locked. We banged on it and screamed and finally a frightened Chambertin opened it, just an inch at first, then all the way. After we were inside he slammed it and bolted it and moved a heavy wardrobe against it.

  Louis was in his nightshirt, unshaven, sitting at a table. There was a plate of food in front of him but he had eaten little. He looked up at me as I entered the room and said, “I did the wrong thing last night. I did the wrong thing.” He shook his head and looked down at the table.

  I went to Madame de Tourzel and was assured that the children were all right. Thank heavens they had not seen what I saw, I thought. I said nothing about it to anyone, though I heard Madame Thibaut describing the scene in the salon to all those in Louis’s room.

  For the next several hours we waited in terror, barricaded against the invading mob, hoping that the soldiers who had not been sent away last night would be able to restore order. We heard musket fire from time to time, and through the windows we could see, in the muddy courtyard below, hundreds of people thronging and exulting together, some with blood smeared on their faces and hands, others dragging severed arms and legs, gruesome trophies of their savagery.

  I watched in horror as one of the dead soldiers of the Gardes du Corps was carried out into the courtyard, his corpse hacked to pieces before my eyes. The palace was being stripped of everything of value. People carried gold plates and goblets, jewel casks, lengths of fine fabric, hangings and paintings out into the courtyard and loaded them on wagons, unimpeded by soldiers or any of the Versailles servants.

  At about one in the afternoon we heard a pounding on the door to the outer corridor and a desperate screaming. The door was opened and one of my chambermaids was admitted, a young girl of only eighteen. She saw me and rushed to me, sobbing and holding her arm which was bleeding. I wrapped some linen around her arm and held her until she recovered herself somewhat.

  “Your highness, it was Amélie,” she was eventually able to say. “She came after us with a knife!”

  “Don’t worry. She can’t hurt you now.”

  The girl began to cry afresh. “She said—she told us—she was coming for you.”

  “As you see, I am safe.”

  “She bragged to us that she had unlocked the gate to let the murderers in.”

  “Amélie has much to mourn this day. Her husband has been killed.”

  “Oh I know. She watched him die. She says she’s glad he’s dead.”

&n
bsp; “Her children will mourn him, as will we all. He was a fine and loyal man.”

  I did not let the girl see how shocked and saddened I was to learn of Amélie’s betrayal. But later on, when I was alone, I wept.

  In the afternoon Lafayette came to tell us that he was bargaining with the leaders of the mob, and that they agreed to leave the palace if Louis went out on the balcony and confronted them.

  “Don’t go, sire,” Chambertin urged him. “You will be killed for certain.”

  “My people will not harm me.”

  I admired Louis then, even though I felt that he was denying the reality of his danger. He told Lafayette to announce that he would appear on the balcony in half an hour, then asked one of his valets to shave him and dress his hair. He borrowed breeches and a shirt and jacket, and put a red, white and blue cockade on his lapel. I went to sit beside him while he was shaved, and held his hand. He smiled at me. When at last he was presentable, he stood up and bent over to whisper in my ear.

  “If the worst happens, my dear, promise me you will guard the children with your life.” “You know I will.”

  He nodded then to the servant who was holding the window open that led out onto the balcony. As he stepped out we heard the commotion increase. “The king to Paris! The king to Paris!” came the shouts. I thought I heard Louis try to say a few words but his voice was drowned out by the clamor below him.

  I waited for a fatal musket shot to be fired, but heard none. Eventually there were a few cries of “Vive le roi!” Soon the shouting became a new chant. “The queen! We want the queen!”

  Having faced the crowd before, I knew what a terrifying experience it was. My knees felt weak, and for a moment I thought I might faint. Madame Thibaut came up to me as if to help me, but there was nothing she could do. I had to face this ordeal alone. Or did I? On an impulse I went into the guardroom and held out my arms for Mousseline and Louis-Charles, who ran to me and embraced me.

  “I need your help now. Will you help your maman?” Both children nodded wordlessly and clung to me.