“And the reception at Chaumont, I don’t know why but I always remember that well,” says Victoire dreamily, opening her eyes. “Will we pass through there again? Do you remember that, Angélique?”
“Now, I wasn’t with you then, Madame, but I am with you now, and look forward to it all the more,” says Angélique kindly.
“Ah, good. And I hope your mother will be there. Dear Civrac,” says Victoire, and closes her eyes again.
“My sister is not yet fully awake,” I whisper across to Angélique, but I think she understands. Has always understood.
“Of course, Madame, of course.”
Narbonne puts her arm around me and I can’t stop myself and soon I am sobbing openly. Tears from such an old woman may be foolish, but I don’t care anymore. There is love in this carriage, I think in the midst of my misery, there is love. They can’t take everything.
A journey of cold and humiliation, sullen peasants refusing to get out of the way of our carriage, ugly cries in the villages we pass through.
“There go the royal bitches!”
“The old carps from Bellevue are fleeing!”
“How ugly they are!”
At Ancy, two days from the border, we are detained, the people declaring our passports not in order. We are forced from our carriage and into a hovel that Narbonne claims is an inn. The innkeeper is a fat, older man who has a hard job of balancing his disdain with his awe; he keeps bowing then stopping himself, alternating between “Madame la Princesse” (as though I were a mere Princess of the Blood! I do not correct him—it hardly seems to matter now) and “Citoyenne.”
His wife is another matter. My age, I would say, though it is always hard to tell with these people; they age so much quicker than we do. As fast as dogs, Bernis once said, and now I see the wisdom of his words.
To eat, we are seated at a table that is really just a rough plank of wood, and I can feel splinters through my skirts from the bench. When she brings us our meal, the innkeeper’s wife fair throws the plates down and then to my horror sits herself opposite me. She starts to eat, without my permission, and I realize I am at the same table—plank of wood—as a peasant. I start trembling—is she mad?
The woman looks at me defiantly, a grim smile playing around her lips, her eyes glittering. Victoire moans and slumps over the plank of wood.
Narbonne instantly understands. “Madame, you are not well? Perhaps you would care to retire and eat later, in solitude?”
“No, no,” I say, my voice catching. “No, I shall eat right now.” I am strong, I think, taking a spoonful of the soup, raising it with a steady hand to my mouth. This new world will not defeat me. I take a mouthful and will myself not to splutter out the foul swill that tastes more of worm than the chicken we were promised. “But get my sister a glass of brandy—she is not as strong as I am.”
Narbonne turns to the innkeeper. “Some brandy,” she barks.
The woman turns her defiance to Narbonne. “It’s in the cellars. You’ll find the way.”
Oh my goodness. I close my eyes, then incline my head, indicating to Narbonne that she may go. I can do this. Then I am alone, at the table—plank—with the woman. I remember the labyrinth at Versailles and how terrified I was. Now, sitting with an unwashed grub, and a rude and surly one at that, with only two feet and one plank separating us.
“You enjoying the soup?” asks the woman with a smirk, addressing me not with the respectful vous but with the familiar tu. A form of language I had heard about, but never expected to experience.
“No,” I say. I shall speak directly to this woman who speaks directly to me. “It’s disgusting.” I glare at her, but the force of her hate is so much stronger, and it pushes back against me. There are so many of them. How did they grow so powerful, and where did all this hate come from? For one ludicrous moment I want to ask her why she hates me, but then I decide I don’t want to know the answer.
I force down the rest of the vile soup, and when Narbonne returns with the brandy I take my share. The woman and I stare at each other a good while longer, but then she rises abruptly and leaves; she has duties to attend to, more important than tormenting a princess, more important than showing the world that she is worth something, even though we both know she is not.
After eleven long days, we are free to go, and we continue west. A crowd gathers at Beauvoisin, where we will cross the border to Italy. As we roll across the bridge, there are derisive cries from behind us, and an armed guard to salute us and welcome us. In the carriage we are all crying as we leave our country behind.
We are just four citizens and two little children in this carriage, sharing all the burdens and the humiliations of a world gone wrong. It is not only France we are leaving, but all our memories of all those who didn’t make the journey with us: Papa; my mother; my brother; his wife, Josepha; all my lost sisters.
After Turin and a tearful reunion with Clothilde—how I regret that we arrived without her sister Élisabeth—we travel south toward Rome, and when we are in sight of the holy city a great calm comes over me. We made the right choice, and all will be well. God oversees all, and Louis-Aug and his family will be fine. A constitution, which those wretches want, will be agreed upon and then life will return to peace. We could be like England, perhaps, where the king is heavily bound by his parliament, but at least they still live in their palaces. Of course, their king is mad; no one blames their constitution for it, but I have my suspicions.
A whirl of dust as a carriage approaches. It pulls up alongside us and Narbonne opens our window. A small, elaborate carriage, the two prancing horses decked in scarlet robes. A corpulent man greets us with the face of a friend: the Cardinal de Bernis.
“Welcome, Mesdames, to Rome. ‘In times of sorrow and sadness / We welcome you with joy and gladness.’”
Chapter Fifty-Eight
In which the revolution finally comes for Citizen Jeanne
“My mother was at the fish woman’s presentation,” says Julie de Clermont in her little high voice. “Sorry, Comtesse, those were her words, not mine. I remember her saying the world was turned upside down, but really, she had no idea. I wonder what she would say to see her daughter thus?” She looks sadly down at her lap. “I’m a seamstress! And I told Madame Smith I would have this cover done by tomorrow, and so can’t join Victor’s charade party tonight. And look at this finger—my dear husband demanded to know what horned crud trailed across his back last night? I was so ashamed!”
She puts out a thin, white finger, and to oblige I feel the tip and the beginning of a faint callus.
I cluck. “Poor duck! You shall have all of my aloe cream. I will send Henriette over with the entirety of it.”
Julie smiles sadly. Her mother rents two rooms on the top of this house in London, and I make a point of visiting as often as I can. London—two months after the theft, my jewels were found here, and I was obliged to travel to England to push the slow, and complicated, wheels of the judicial system forward.
I was quite excited—I had never traveled far from Paris—but I have been quite disappointed by London so far. It’s cold and rather dirty, and everything seems plain and poor. Even the finest of their houses are drab in comparison to ours, and often the walls are covered in just plain paint, with not a single panel of beautiful scenery to be found! There are many émigrés here; it is 1791, almost two years since the first of them arrived, and their early optimism about a quick resolution to the troubles, and a quick return to France, has been replaced by worry and increasing penury.
“Dames aux tabourets becoming milliners, countesses becoming courtesans,” sniffs the old Duchesse de Bouillon, sitting erect, though we are only amongst women. She is wearing a dreadfully old-fashioned jacket—pink, a color one hardly sees these days—that looks as though it hasn’t been cleaned for years. “I used to sit on a stool, and now I find myself making covers for one. And not for pleasure, or charity.”
Julie laughs sadly. “Countesses to courtesan
s is right! I didn’t tell you, Comtesse,” she says, turning to me, “when my cousin Stéphanie first arrived, she was accused of being a trollop, and simply because she thought to be polite and wear some rouge!” She runs her callused finger over her cheek. The English hardly wear any rouge, but even if it were the fashion, none of these ladies could afford it. I still keep some and wear a small amount; I’m almost fifty and though my complexion is fair, it does need help.
There are many sad pockets such as these ladies amongst the émigré groups in London, the women passing their days using their needlework skills to make money, or giving music lessons, the men hiding in shame and drinking their idleness away. They receive me—anyone from home, with money, is very welcome—but I find the sadness too trying for me and keep my visits as short as possible.
“Dear ladies, I must be going,” I say, getting up and pressing a shilling coin into the palm of Julie’s little girl, who earlier sang us a beautiful aria. “Mr. Forth says he has some news for me, though it’ll probably just be another ring around.”
I leave the small room and the muted hopes of the émigrés, who can only dream of their homes so fair and far away. Hercule writes that a constitution is just around the corner—though he’s been saying that for years now—and is confident it will have a clause for the return of these impoverished aristocrats.
I have been many weeks in London, but so far, the investigation into the theft has proven frustrating. It has been determined that indeed, my jewels are somewhere here in this city (stolen and smuggled over by a group of Jews), and though that knowledge gives me great comfort, the wheels of bureaucracy are hardly even spinning and everything is achingly slow.
I want to go back to France and Louveciennes, and away from the cramped cold of London and the aching sadness of the émigrés.
One more meeting, then another, and another, and I am still no closer to my jewels. Finally I decide nothing is going to be resolved, and I depart with Pauline and the few servants who accompanied me.
At Calais, they are looking for émigrés departing, not returning.
“They caught the Comte de Puysieux last week,” says Pauline sadly. “Wanted for crimes against the National Assembly, whatever that means. I hear they put him in La Pélagie.”
I shake my head; I don’t want to know about my imprisoned friends. Imprisoned for what? And what are they planning on doing with them?
I present my papers to the controller and he raises his eyebrows. “Forty-two? Madame?”
“Yes,” I say defiantly. I will keep my small vanities, even as the world crumbles around me. Beside me, Pauline stifles a snort and I pinch her arm and suddenly feel like laughing. It’s good to be home.
“Oh, my dearest, how happy I am you are back, but how I fear for you—should you have returned?” Hercule takes me in his arms and slowly we walk through the rooms at Louveciennes. Nothing has changed, except I notice the three west salons have not been properly dusted.
“I had to come back. For you.”
“I missed you dreadfully. But I fear France is becoming quite unsafe.”
“La! I’m not going to be the one washed away in this rising tide of discontent, I’m not a dreaded noble like you were. My mother was a chicken roaster and I’m just Citoyenne Jeanne. It’s you we must be worried about.” Hercule is now the Commander of the King’s Constitutional Guard, placing him worryingly close to the monarchy and the royalist cause. In London, Pauline’s husband the Comte de Lauraguais—we embrace now as friends, the rivalries of old times forgotten—declared one night at supper that our king was doomed. Of course not, but still, I wish Hercule had not accepted the command that places him so close to the royal family.
Hercule shakes his head. “Ah, blood does not mean what it once did, nor does birth; all these changes are troubling for everyone.”
“Nonsense.” He has aged, I think sadly, pushing a gray lock of hair back and adjusting his spectacles. Few men wear wigs now; I miss the smell of powder and the deep odors of life that used to get trapped in them.
In September 1791 a constitution is finally accepted by the king, and Hercule has faith that the hostilities will soon be over. He even prepares a copy of that vaunted document for me to read:
The National Assembly, deciding to establish a French Constitution based on the principles which we believe in, abolishes irrevocably any institution which harms liberty and equality: There is no more nobility, nor peerage, nor hereditary distinctions, nor . . .
I decide it is a silly document, and suddenly I am tired of everything. I want my old life back, not the one at Versailles—that one is gone forever—but the pleasant sweetness of my life at Louveciennes before all this madness started.
And Paris is looking far too much like London: too many somber-clad men and even the women wearing dark colors. I miss a world where men wore pink and everything was soft and easy; now all is hard and dark, everyone a drab citoyen. Where have the gorgeous dresses gone?
Hercule advises me and I start hiding my remaining jewels, my plate and porcelain. My paintings, my knickknacks and gewgaws. Slowly the rooms empty and now my treasures lie in sacks beneath the chicken coops, the greenhouses, the outhouses. Morin and a few faithful men are my foot soldiers, and we sneak around like thieves in the night, for I am not sure who I can trust in my household—Zamor is still spouting his revolutionary nonsense, and I have noticed a new truculence amongst some of the staff.
I make another trip to London but the wheels of justice are moving far too slowly. I hate London, and leave back for France again, despite the entreaties of my friends. I miss Hercule more than I thought possible, and I think I am being spied on; in April, France declared war on Austria, and international tensions are rising.
I return to an evil, ugly country, and though I hide myself at Louveciennes, even my charmed pleasure palace cannot keep the outside world away entirely.
Then Hercule is imprisoned, accused of conspiring to free the king. Last June the royal family attempted an escape. They didn’t even tell Hercule of their plans, despite his years of devoted service. He thinks it is because of his association with me that he is still not fully trusted by the people he serves so faithfully. The plan failed and they were caught and brought back to Paris and kept under guard; since then they have been real prisoners in the Tuileries.
I visit Hercule at his prison in Orléans, three strings of pearls hidden neatly in a pot of apricot preserves, but he refuses to bribe the guards and make his escape.
“What would be my life?” he says sadly. I also brought him fresh linen and a new jacket; his wife helped me pick it out and praised my strength and courage for making this journey. “To flee this country and live as a fugitive? I have done no wrong and all know me to be a man loyal to France. My place is here with the king, as my ancestors have always been.”
I stare at him in distress. “Please? Please? I would be lost without you.” We have been together for almost twenty years; he is not a part of my life, he is my life.
“You will not be without me. Do not fear, my angel, I shall be with you at Louveciennes before the month is out. But for now, my proper place is next to the king.”
“But you aren’t next to the king! And he doesn’t deserve your loyalty.”
Hercule raises a hand to counsel prudence, but then we both stop and start laughing. In this new world, insulting the king is not the crime it once was; indeed, it might even help our cause. I grip the pot of apricot jam tightly, for it holds the future. I need words to convince him that he must escape. He sometimes accuses me of being blind, but he is the one who cannot see the reality of this new hatred. He cannot see past the blinkers of his blood and birth and what he thinks his honor means.
“Please! Please!” is all I can say. I need Chon, someone who can muster the words to convince him that France no longer wants him. As I struggle to find them, I see too late that words do have power, perhaps even more than beauty or love. “Please. Come with me. Today.”
Yes, he is a good man, and has done no wrong and only followed orders, but these animals don’t know reason. They have a new killing machine; I saw it on one of my rare visits to Paris—we went to watch a few common criminals beheaded, then had a picnic on the grounds of the Palais Royal—and it made me shudder. Though we may be modern and live the best of lives the world has ever known, at heart we are still beasts. If this new machine makes killing easier, will there also be more deaths?
But Hercule will not bend and finally I leave, sobbing openly, clinging to him as the guard comes to see me out. I leave the jam with him, but I know he won’t use what is inside.
August 1792 is a terrible month: the king, a prisoner of the Legislative Assembly, is stripped of all his royal prerogatives and he and his family are moved like the prisoners they are to the grim Temple. When I hear the news I sit in my Louis’ chair, and feel such sadness—how distressed he would be to see his grandson so reduced! I must hide his portrait, I think, staring up at him in sadness. I don’t want him to see any more of this world that has turned ugly and dark with hatred everywhere.
I feel as though the world has started to move too fast and I am caught up in something I don’t understand, and won’t until it is too late.
Now it is September but summer still lingers in the heavy heat. In Paris, mobs attack the prisons and there are horrible massacres of monks and others, including the Princess de Lamballe. Torn apart by barbarians: I almost fainted when I heard the news.
Hercules will be transported to Versailles today, then on to Paris, where he will stand trial. Morin told me the cages at the Menagerie on the grounds of the palace are going to house him and his fellow prisoners—like animals. As the day passes and no word comes, my unease mounts. I prepare a package to bring him in Paris, a new set of sheets and a few books, another pot of jam, filled with more hope.
Pauline is with me at Louveciennes, escaping the heat and the turmoil of Paris. I would prefer to be alone with my worry and my prayers, but at least she keeps me occupied. I miss Chon, I think suddenly. She writes me copious letters from Toulouse, and I try to return the favor, but I wish she were here beside me. I need her.
The Enemies of Versailles Page 36
