Ribbons of Scarlet

by Kate Quinn

  “C’est joli celui là!” Lamballe picks up the puce pair, embroidered at the toes with pink roses and festooned with mossy green bows. “You have excellent taste. But I think you meant these to be a gift.” She smiles saucily, hiding my shoes behind her back. “Give me one reason I should not take them?”

  “I shall give you two: my very big feet. Those shoes would not stay on your tiny feet for an instant. You would walk or dance out of them at once.”

  “When was the last time anyone danced?” Lamballe’s voice is serious again.

  “Well, we shall hope for better things in the future,” I reply, holding out the box so she can replace the shoes.

  But I have more than just hope. I have faith in the God who has always sustained me and who will surely not fail me now. My family will escape, and my brother will find the strength to restore the world as it should be.

  “ÉLISABETH, YOUR PRIEST comes.” Lamballe sweeps into the sitting room where we ladies have secluded ourselves, by the queen’s command, for a morning of all-too-rare frivolity.

  “I know we have much that is serious yet to do and consider,” Antoinette said to me last evening as she pressed me to join her this morning. “But if we are not careful, our minds will become too exhausted to go on, like horses driven too hard. And Élisabeth, we must be prepared to go the distance with so much at stake.”

  The queen works relentlessly to find foreign aid for my brother in his difficulties, employing her sharp mind and her abundant ability to charm people—at least people of a certain set. But even the most determined and tireless worker must eventually become fatigued. Now, looking at Antoinette radiant where she relaxes into a silk armchair, cheeks flushed, I believe she was very wise in decreeing there must be no mention of politics, rioters, or any other unpleasant thing at this gathering. She needs, indeed all of us need, refreshing. So this morning only romantic gossip and discussions of fashion are being entertained. These are topics not particularly suited to me. No one has swooned over me in years, and when they did, it was all pretense. Foreign princes wooed me as a king’s sister, not a woman. And when it comes to fashion, I am rather too “cherubic,” as my sister-in-law kindly puts it, to wear most of what is à la mode well.

  When I was younger, I wished I could be more fashionable. But for some years now it has not bothered me that the rest of those in the queen’s sphere are far more glamorous than I. Today, some of these same beauties are not so sanguine. Madame de Sainte-Amaranthe and her seventeen-year-old daughter, Émilie, are among our visitors. The latter, who is the most exquisite creature I have ever seen, is the subject of many jealous glances. With her exquisitely proportioned figure, perfect curls, arched brows, and a smile that hints at intriguing hidden thoughts, she is a perfect mignon. A good number of my companions are feeling very plain indeed. Madame de Sainte-Amaranthe’s self-satisfied look suggests she knows this. I suspect that Émilie will be wooed for her own sake, but married off for advantage. Such is the way of things.

  “You are not going to leave us for a priest, are you?” Émilie asks, laughing.

  “Of course she is. The real question, mademoiselle”—Lamballe offers me a playful, challenging smile—“is whether Madame Élisabeth is going to confess the number of shoes she has purchased this week?”

  “Only if you confess how you covet them,” I reply, laughing.

  I excuse myself and search out Abbé de Firmont. To see him striding through the Tuileries in his cassock and rabat seems miraculous, as if I am witnessing our Savior walking on water.

  The Assembly began its attack on religion more than a year ago. First by placing the church’s property at the disposition of the government. Then by banning monastic vows and sentencing to death monks who failed to marry. And finally, by requiring all clergy to take an oath of loyalty to France. Most priests refused, as the oath conflicted with their duty to Rome by demanding they put nation before obedience to the pope. Such priests are labeled nonjuring, though I would call them the only true ecclesiastics in France. The clergy attached to our family—including my confessor—refused the oath and were banished from the Tuileries. My new confessor also refused, yet somehow he enters the palace daily, without any attempt at disguise.

  The abbé takes my hands. “Madame Élisabeth, how are you?”

  I wish to say nervous—to divulge that even as I kept company with the queen and her gay companions, part of me wondered if this is the day our false passports will arrive, the day I will learn the role I am to play during the upcoming escape. But, though I might appropriately confess my most grievous sins to the abbé, to mention our flight would be an act of disloyalty to my brother. So I merely reply, “Better for seeing you, Father.”

  I go to my table, eager to see what passage from the Bible Abbé de Firmont will raise for discussion. Hoping, in a sign from God, it might be from the story of the Israelites’ flight from Egypt. But when he is seated, he only looks at me.

  “Madame Élisabeth,” he says at last, “in our short acquaintance, I have come to wonder why you are not a holy sister. The calling shines from you like light from a summer sun.”

  I feel heat in my cheeks. “I do not deny, Father, as a younger woman that was my devout wish.” I pause, considering how to explain the most difficult decision of my life, a decision that sometimes leads me to a place of self-indulgent regret.

  “I was orphaned young. I have no memories of my father, and those of my mother may merely be stories I was told by my gouvernantes. But my memories of my brothers”—I smile and shake my head—“are the best of my girlhood. Their love surrounded me. And Louis—I mean His Majesty—the bond between us is the strongest bond of affection I have ever known. So I set aside my desire to be a nun because Louis asked me to.”

  I remember the day as if it was yesterday. I returned to Versailles from visiting the convent at Saint-Denis, and Louis came to the courtyard to greet me. He tucked my hand over his arm and listened to what I had to say, but his eyes told me his thoughts were not on the improvements under way at the convent. At the bottom of the steps, before we were surrounded by courtiers, he stopped. “Dear sister,” he said, looking into both my eyes and my soul, “I am willing that you should visit our sisters in Christ, but on the condition that you will not imitate them. Let God have other pious young women, Élisabeth. I need you.” At that moment I took a different vow—I chose to devote myself to my brother in his labors as king, to advise him and to put him always before myself.

  “I worry sometimes, Father, that God is disappointed,” I say now. “Sacrifice is surely something He would approve, but if He thought to have my service . . .”

  “He has it,” the abbé responds. “Can you believe that I could move among the members of the court without coming to know of your good deeds?”

  I look down at my hands. My gouvernantes spent years teaching me that good deeds were to be done, not spoken of. And stubborn girl that I was, I resisted the lesson longer than I should have.

  “I heard a story from the Princess de Lamballe,” he says softly. “A jeweler visited Versailles. He spread things on a velvet cloth for the ladies of the court to admire. There was a pin. You picked it up again and again.”

  I can see it in my hand, the lovely corsage ornament, with flowers so natural, despite being of enamel and diamonds, they reminded me of a bouquet I might have gathered at my farm, Montreuil.

  “The princess pinned it on you, urging you to buy it,” the abbé continues. “But you took it off, saying that for such a price you could set up two little homes for families living in want.”

  “I buy many things for myself,” I say, “shoes, books.”

  Every day when I rise I experience both the pleasure of being filled with God’s love and the disappointment of knowing I could be worthier of it.

  “You have not taken a vow of poverty.” My priest lays his hand momentarily on my own where it rests on the table. “Countless courtiers with incomes many times your own do less, or nothing a
t all. I suspect most of your royal pension goes not to things worn upon your feet but to your farm. This autumn, village children all around Montreuil will go to bed with stomachs full because of you.”

  While I hope the harvest this year is as good as my steward predicts, and I pray that there will be no more hunger, no more bread riots, I can hardly bear to think of my farm. Sometimes, as the date for our escape approaches, I find myself selfishly anticipating not only Louis’s restoration to power, but my return to Montreuil. Imagining myself in my gardens, my orangerie, my library. And always the same resolution forms in my heart, as tears prick my eyes: I will never willingly quit Montreuil again. Better to die there.

  “Please, can we speak of something else?”

  “Yes, of course. But first, I must embarrass you for a moment longer. Élisabeth Philippine Marie Hélène de France, you are a woman of true faith, good heart, and perseverance. Remember that always, and have confidence that wherever you walk you will do so in righteousness”—the abbé gives a mischievous smile—“whichever pair of pretty shoes you wear.”

  * * *

  Sunday, June 17, 1791

  We spend the evening as a family: Louis and Antoinette; my niece, Marie-Thérèse, madame royale; my nephew, the dauphin, Louis-Charles; myself; and the children’s gouvernante, Madame Tourzel. My second-eldest brother, the Count of Provence, and his wife are not with us. Such is our mania for secrecy in these last days before our escape that Provence—who will depart in a small carriage disguised as an Englishman—has refrained from telling his own wife they are leaving. She is a terrible gossip and will not be told anything until the evening of the escape, just before she is trundled off to her carriage.

  Antoinette sits calmly embroidering, but I know her mind—as sharp as her needle—is not thinking of the silk flowers she creates. She has been instrumental in organizing our escape plan, developing it in great detail before presenting it to the king. And tonight that plan takes another step forward. She looks at Louis with a soft smile while changing needles as he resets the backgammon board between us after my victory. Six-year-old Louis-Charles plays with toy soldiers at his father’s feet, blond curls framing his face.

  It is a wonder none of our minders have made a fuss over my nephew’s little figures, for they wear the uniforms not of the National Guard, but of the king’s disbanded Garde du Corps. But our captors have no interest in things that are royal—unless it is to despoil and disrespect them. Well, when Louis is safely installed away from Paris, we will soon put a stop to that.

  Madame Royale is reciting from Plutarch’s essay on affection between siblings when the softest of raps sounds at the door from my brother’s antechamber. Louis’s breath quickens where he sits across from me, and I drop the dice I was about to roll, my flesh prickling in anticipation. For while the children do not know it, we await a collaborator. One we have never met.

  Only Antoinette manages to appear entirely tranquil, nodding at Madame Tourzel.

  “Say good night to your papa and maman,” the gouvernante instructs.

  “Am I not to finish?” Marie-Thérèse looks surprised. It is early. Even the dauphin would not ordinarily retire at such an hour.

  “Another time, my Mousseline Serieuse,” the queen replies, giving her daughter the same gentle, encouraging smile she so often offers the king.

  Madame Tourzel leads the children behind an elaborately painted screen where they slip through another of the concealed doors installed to assist in our escape. As soon as they are gone, Antoinette opens the outer door. A gentleman enters, bowing immediately and deeply.

  “Majesties, I am François-Melchior de Moustier, for many years a member of Your Majesty’s Garde du Corps. My former commander tells me that you have need of my service. I am honored to think so.”

  My brother rises and embraces Moustier. “The honor is ours, for in a time when few can be depended upon, those I trust tell me you are a true subject, willing to pledge yourself to your king.”

  If only Louis could meet each of his subjects in such a manner.

  In close quarters, he has a way with people. I am convinced Louis’s genuine interest and caring would be visible even to the most radical of men—men like Jean-Paul Marat, whose newspaper L’Ami du Peuple becomes increasingly influential. For some months I read L’Ami, knowing I could be useful to my brother if I keep abreast of the most extreme ideas. At first Marat contented himself with attacking those revolutionaries not rabid enough for his tastes—men like Lafayette. And I did not mind reading his insults against the marquis.

  But soon Marat’s words went beyond offensive to terrifying. When he called for the severing of “five or six hundred heads”—royalist heads—as a way of assuring the “repose, freedom and happiness” of his revolutionary followers, I could not sleep for three full days. And I could no longer bring myself to look at his paper. But I still force myself to endure the writings of other radicals, including the so-called philosopher Marquis de Condorcet. Though I merely skimmed his essay denouncing God. Such vile writings do not deserve serious attention.

  “Your Majesty,” Moustier says, “my honor and my life shall always be yours to command.”

  “That is good, monsieur, for I will place in your hands not only my safety but the safety of my family, whose lives I hold dearer than my own.”

  “What would Your Majesty have me do?” Moustier asks.

  “For now, acquire three matching suits of clothing. The sort of short coats, suede knee britches, and broad-brimmed hats appropriate to those accompanying the coach of a family of wealth, but not royalty. One is for yourself.”

  “I will do it straightaway, Majesty.” Moustier bows.

  He is nearly to the door when Louis speaks. “And, monsieur, though you may tell no one, you will be leaving Paris before week’s end. So get your affairs in order.” There is strength and certitude in my brother’s voice.

  It is really happening! In three nights—after months of heated discussions and agonizing planning, after dates chosen and moved, we will ride out of Paris and into our futures!

  THE YOUNG WOMAN is clad in dark, plain, unremarkable clothing, befitting a nurse-companion. “Mademoiselle Rosalie,” I ask her solemnly, “are you ready to depart?” The figure does not respond. She is not sure. I am not sure. Now that the moment has come, my heart beats in my throat. I look in the mirror again. I am not Élisabeth of France. I cannot be once I leave my apartment; not until we are safely in Montmédy where we will establish Louis’s new court.

  That is more than two hundred miles of being someone else.

  No, pretending to be someone else, I remind myself as I put on the large-brimmed hat that casts my face in shadow. I recall Abbé de Firmont’s admonition. You are Élisabeth Philippine Marie Hélène de France . . . remember that. That is particularly critical in this moment, for I do not know this Rosalie, but I know myself well, and I will need all the better parts of my nature—my faith in God, my devotion to Louis, and yes, I suspect, my stubbornness—in the next hours.

  Glancing at my clock, I hesitate, then snatch up the puce shoes Lamballe so admires. I exchange them for the plain, black leather shoes I wear. Again before the mirror, I make certain they cannot be seen beneath my skirts. Then, to remind myself who I really am, I lift my petticoats and let their pink roses peek out.

  Time to go.

  I do not regret leaving the Tuileries. I have always hated this palace and the captivity it represents. My wardrobe for life at Montmédy is already on its way in a carriage with Her Majesty’s ladies. So I do not need a backward glance at things left behind—I only wish memories of my time here were as easy to discard.

  As I trigger the secret door in the bookcase, I carry only my rosary, my prayer book, and Mr. Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France. Of all the books I have acquired to try to comprehend the events that sweep us up, I take Burke because, while he indulges the faulty idea that kings are not divinely ordained, he seems to understand that
if the tail of society is allowed to eat the head, comprised of men of property and education with the knowledge and experience to lead the body politic, the tail will not be satiated. Philosophers like Lafayette and Condorcet who hope only to shift the government, but who tolerate or encourage the mobs to that end, will one day be surrounded by the same screaming, distorted faces I saw from my carriage window when I was forced to leave my farm.

  Those who stir up these great mobs will be eaten too.

  In the dark of the hidden passage, fear surges through me. O vere adorator et unice amator dei, miserere nobis. The prayer soothes. I put a hand against the wall, feeling my way along until I find the door into a set of deserted apartments. The dust in the room tickles my nose. Pieces of covered furniture crouch like ghostly beasts in the moonlight, heightening my feeling of peril.

  I ease the door to the hallway open, praying under my breath. Empty. When the Tuileries go dark nightly, many of those attendant upon us—both courtiers and menial folk—depart. It is in this nightly exodus that the king and I hope to lose ourselves.

  A throng of people crosses the courtyard as I exit by a door befitting my newly assumed station. I brush elbows with a servant, and my mouth goes dry. What if she recognizes me? But she does not pause or give me a glance. Without my fine clothing, and in a setting where no one would expect to see me, it seems that I have become invisible. What a marvelous and, under the circumstances, reassuring thing.

  A handful of guards loiter in the torchlight, talking. I look past them to the place ou Carousel, where private carriages mix with coaches for hire. Count von Fersen sits atop one of these unremarkable vehicles. Having cleared the gate, it is my task to find him.

  Driver after driver looks unfamiliar. I double back to be sure I have not missed the carriage, then quicken my pace. My niece and nephew are already on board with their gouvernante—no, the baronne, I remind myself. Madame Tourzel plays the role of a Russian baronne, traveling with her two daughters. I am eager to be with them.