by Kate Quinn
Finally, near the end of the line of carriages, with panic rising in my throat at the thought that I will never find our party, a footman on one of the vehicles looks familiar. He resembles one of the men who came with Monsieur Moustier for the king’s final instructions. But I cannot be sure, so I circle the carriage slowly. I am halfway around when the driver, who had been sitting on the carriage box, hat pulled low and smoking a clay pipe, jumps down into my path.
I spring backward, mumbling excuses, prepared to run.
“Allow me to open the door, mademoiselle.”
That voice! I raise my eyes and find myself face-to-face with Count von Fersen. God be thanked!
In my haste, I misplace a foot on the carriage step and pitch forward, treading on Madame Tourzel’s gown. A small cry comes from beneath the silk. As I fall onto the seat beside her, Madame raises her skirt to reveal a sleepy Louis-Charles, dressed as a girl, curled on the carriage floor.
“I thought it best, until we are under way,” she says simply.
I nod. The curtains are almost fully closed, but the light is enough to perceive the worry on her face, and on my niece’s.
“Ma chère.” I reach for Marie-Thérèse’s hand. “The court was quiet as I left, the halls deserted. Your papa will be with us soon.”
“But what if the guards . . .” Her voice trails off.
“Any guards who see him will think, there is that man in the brown-and-green suit we see nightly. Does he never change his clothing? And why does his valet or his wife not tell him that his wig is crooked?”
Marie-Thérèse giggles. And I say a prayer of thanksgiving for the chevalier who has come to the palace each evening for a fortnight dressed in a manner that mimics Louis’s disguise. I am grateful not only for his crooked wig that offers us this moment of levity, but because tonight the chevalier’s prior visits will help make my brother invisible.
Where is Louis?
As if in answer, the door swings wide and the king is with us, settling in beside my niece.
“God and all his saints be praised!” Hearing my voice quaver, I realize I was as worried as Marie-Thérèse despite my bravado.
Louis looks bemused by my show of emotion. “Nothing could have been easier. I stopped to buckle my shoe in the courtyard and not a single guard looked askance.”
“You didn’t!”
“I did.” He laughs at his own prank then gives me a broad smile. “But that is not the most interesting bit. Who do you think appeared unexpectedly at my coucher?” He slaps his thigh. “Our jailer-in-chief, Lafayette!”
Madame and I gasp.
“Think how it will sting him when we are safely in Montmédy and he realizes he was one of the last living souls to speak with me before I departed Paris! He will be mortified.”
Good. Perhaps they will punish the marquis for neglect of his duty in imprisoning us—a duty that ought to have been beneath him as a nobleman. And things will get worse still for him when we are at Montmédy, and it is widely known his cousin, General Bouillé, commands the troops defending us.
I remember the faith my brother once had in the marquis. How pleased Louis was when Lafayette was elected to head the new National Guard. How relieved the king was to see the marquis when we were surrounded by a mob of shrieking fruit sellers and ragpickers at Versailles, and a handful of them, led by a woman named Louise who dared meet my eyes with a chilling boldness as she gave her name, were given an audience with the king.
But I was wary of Lafayette from the beginning. After all, what sort of marquis would take a position at the head of troops comprised of commoners from the Third Estate? Men of Lafayette’s birth serve in the king’s own army. It is their birthright, their duty, and their honor.
“Only Madame Bonnet now, and then we are away.” Louis winks at Marie-Thérèse as he uses the queen’s false name.
We sit in silence waiting for Antoinette. The walls of the carriage seem to contract with each passing moment, and I find myself short of breath. Has something happened? If so, will Louis go on, or go back?
He has been adamant that we all leave Paris together, rejecting a plan that divided us into two parties pursuing different routes in lightweight carriages—a plan both Count von Fersen and General Bouillé preferred. I suspect if we hear an alarm raised, Louis will surrender so Antoinette is not abandoned. This impulse comes from all that is good, but it is still mistaken. Louis is more than husband—he is king, and preserving the monarchy ought to be the priority, however grim that sounds. I pray I will not have to press that argument upon him.
If Antoinette fails to appear, or worse still, we hear an alarm raised, will Louis consent to flee if I offer to climb down and return in his stead? Antoinette and I are very different women, and for years we were cordial but not more. In the early months of the Revolution, when I would have preferred direct, firm repression of its adherents by the king, Antoinette supported political maneuverings, encouraging Louis to broker deals with various Assembly factions. In those months, I could hardly stand the sight of the queen.
But seeing the agony in her eyes as we rode from Versailles, I realized we each in our way wanted only one thing—the preservation of Louis and his crown. And in the long months of imprisonment and misfortune since, we have bonded as if we were sisters in blood and not just by marriage. So I would surrender my own hopes of liberty to give my brother peace of mind and to be at Antoinette’s side.
Without warning the carriage lurches. I grip the edge of the seat, readying myself for whatever comes. In a few feet we stop, the curtain twitches and I wish my brother had not flatly refused to carry a pistol. But it is only one of our guards.
“I am sorry, Baronne,” he says, “but the Marquis de Lafayette was passing and startled the horses.”
I shiver uncontrollably despite the warm summer air at the thought of the commander of the National Guard so close.
“And here is Madame Bonnet.” The door opens to reveal the queen, so unornamented in her plain black garments that I myself might mistake her for a gouvernante. As Antoinette is handed in, my brother rises. Without waiting for the privacy of a closed door, he takes his wife into his arms and kisses her on the lips.
I feel a blush rise. And as the king and queen sit down, hands clasped, I have my answer. The king has no intention of being separated from Antoinette; it is not a point he can think rationally upon.
Finally, we are under way.
As we roll toward rue de l’Échelle, I push back the curtain for a last look at the Palace des Tuileries. How different from the moment I leaned out of our carriage from Versailles for one last glimpse of my beloved Montreuil. That moment was agony—this one is ecstasy.
With the help of God and by our own hard work and fortitude, when we next return to Paris, Louis will be secure in his crown and the old order will be firmly restored.
“I DO NOT understand,” Fersen says, his face grave. “The carriage ought to be here.”
“We must get out and look,” Louis replies.
We are at the Barrier Saint-Martin; it is half past one in the morning, and the larger vehicle in which we are to ride for hundreds of miles to safety is missing.
“Your Maj—Monsieur,” the count catches himself. Even in this dark, deserted spot it is best not to use the honorific, best not to forget for a moment that the king will be hunted. “Monsieur, it would be better if you let me look—”
“I wish it had not taken me so long to be free of the palace.” The queen’s hands twist in her lap.
“No, my dear.” Louis lays a hand on hers. “You did well to pause when you saw Lafayette. He was preoccupied this evening, but not so much so that he could overlook the most beautiful face in France had he run upon you.”
I finger my rosary. Instead of hearing the comforting litany in my head, a little voice whispers a thousand doubts. What a feeble soul I am. I focus my will, and this time the familiar words come. I am halfway through my second set of Hail Marys when I hear the cli
nking of horse harnesses and turning wheels.
Please let it be our berline, not merely some travelers offering assistance. That would be a disaster.
This time, when Fersen’s face appears at the carriage window he smiles. “The berline is found.”
Bathed in the light of the gibbous moon, our carriage is a thing of beauty. Not because of its green and black paint, or the flashes of yellow on its wheels, but by its very presence. The others climb inside, but I stand transfixed, watching Fersen and two guards unharness the horses from the carriage we just exited. They send the beasts off with slaps on their rumps, then push the empty vehicle into the ditch.
Moustier, straightening from the effort, spots me. “Mademoiselle Rosalie,” he says with a little bow. “We must go.”
The berline is spacious. Even with its white velvet upholstery it is not to the standards of a vehicle from the king’s collection, but it is comfortable, and more importantly, entirely appropriate for a baronne making a long journey. Its construction was funded by a wealthy financier and adviser to the king, the Baron de Batz. The baron saw to it that the berline is outfitted so we may travel for miles without depending on the hospitality of anyone. When one wishes to go unobserved, the less stops the better. So we will eat on board and relieve ourselves in the berline’s leather pots de chambre.
As I close my eyes, exhausted and ready to rest, I hear the count yell, “Take them full speed! Be bold, be quick!”
“RÉVEILLE-TOI, SLEEPYHEAD.” ANTOINETTE’S voice is as warm as the sun I feel on my face. “You do not want to miss breakfast.”
My eyes flutter open to reveal the queen with a hamper in her lap, putting cheese, cold beef, and peas in aspic onto plates. Out the window, fields stretch as far as I can see.
“Where are we?”
“Close to Charmentray.” My brother looks up from a map spread on his knees. Louis-Charles, every bit as keen on maps as his papa, sits beside the king looking earnestly down at our route. “You have slept through two relays.”
So Count von Fersen has left us. I glance at the queen to see if I can detect any unease. But she is a master of composure, so she appears completely content. I am sure she does not feel so.
Nor, for that matter, do I.
Throughout May, as the plan we now pursue took firm form, everyone who had a voice in the matter understood the division of responsibilities. Funded by our friend Baron de Batz, General Bouillé, the loyal royalist commander at Metz, would take charge of troop movements to ensure that the king was properly received at Montmédy, with adequate forces to rule from a position of strength. Count von Fersen would deliver us to that place of safety. But on the evening Fersen brought our faux passports, my brother announced the count must leave our party at Bondy.
Fersen bowed to the king’s decision. The queen and I did not. As soon as we had Louis alone, we pressed him as to why he made this change. Louis replied that Fersen was a foreigner, and should our escape be discovered his presence might lead some to doubt their king—to believe that he intended to cross the border and take up arms against them in what so many already believed was an existing foreign conspiracy.
And perhaps you should take up arms and join forces with our allies, brother, I’d thought.
I look outside again. The carriage moves smoothly over the paving stones, shaded by tall, slender trees. Antoinette hands me my plate, and I use my fingers to devour my portion. I begin to feel better, lighter. It is silly to dwell on Fersen’s absence.
As dishes are put away, Louis says, “We ought to have gone into the countryside, among our people, earlier. Do you remember our trip to Cherbourg, Antoinette, when the harbor was under construction? That was five years ago, and yet it was the last time I traveled this far from Paris. Remember the scarlet coat I had embroidered for the trip? It would not button now. But never mind, my dear.” He smiles. “Soon I will be in the saddle again, hunting and inspecting troops, and I shall regain my vigor and my figure.”
Louis sighs and looks out the window.
“How the crowds cheered us,” he says after a pause. “How beautiful you were standing under the great arch of flowers they built. I long to hear ‘Vive le roi’ shouted by a crowd so large that my ears are left ringing.”
“And you will, Louis,” the queen says, her voice brimming with conviction. “Once we’re away from the nest of vipers in Paris, you will.” The look she gives my brother is so fiercely fond that it makes my heart ache.
“And, brother,” I add, “you can shout ‘vive mon peuple,’ in return. I remember you telling me how your people loved that.”
The morning passes with a sweet, simple pleasantness. There are no spies within the four walls of the berline. No need to guard words or looks. The children are gayer than I have seen them in months. When we make a stop by the roadside, Louis-Charles chases butterflies, and Marie-Thérèse, forgetting the gravitas she often adopts as a young lady of twelve, spins in circles watching her cotton skirt billow. I lift my own skirt, exposing the pink roses on my shoes to the summer sunlight, and run after Louis-Charles.
When we pull into Montmirail, the guard who rides ahead is waiting with eleven new horses and our next driver. I reach to shut the curtain as it was agreed we would as a safeguard when stopping. But before I can, my brother opens the door and descends.
What is he thinking?
I am assuredly less recognizable than the queen, so I clamber down after Louis.
“Monsieur Durand,” I say, catching up to him. “Is it wise, given your condition, to be in the open air?”
“A little air will do me good,” Louis replies. “I wish to use the necessary shed and stretch my legs.”
“Exercise is a fine idea”—I lay a hand on his arm—“but we must not delay the baronne. Perhaps a walk when she next draws off the road?”
This is not what I want to ask. I want to ask why. Why take any chance of being recognized? I give my brother a piercing look, hoping to convey these unspoken sentiments.
“Nonsense,” he replies blithely. “I will be back before the new horses are harnessed.”
And then, as if he were indeed the unknown Monsieur Durand, instead of Louis XVI of France, whose image is on the fifty-livre assignat, my brother wanders away. He does not get far. Noticing a wagon driver, examining the ties securing his load, the king speaks to the man.
I cannot hear what either says from this distance. But the driver cocks his head first one way then the other, after which he suddenly snatches off his hat. He is clearly not certain that my brother is the king, for he offers no bow, but the skin on my arms prickles with unease. I am relieved when our driver climbs atop the carriage and calls that we are ready to depart.
As Louis takes his seat I bite my tongue to keep from chastising him. My belle-soeur has spots of color in her cheeks. Perhaps she will remind Louis of the need for caution.
“How well things go!” she declares. “If we were going to be stopped, surely we would have been before now. Knowing we are gone—and our captors must know it by now—is very different from determining our destination and route. There are a hundred possibilities.”
“They will assume Austria,” I say. Given that Antoinette is sneeringly called the Austrian whore, the southern roads will probably be explored first. Perhaps Louis’s indiscretion was not so important as my dread would make it.
Sometime later the queen asks, “How far have we come?”
Louis consults his map then hands it to the dauphin. “More than sixty miles. There is little to fear now, and once we have passed Châlons there will be nothing at all.”
He has barely finished speaking when a terrible thump jolts the berline, setting it swaying with such force that Louis-Charles is thrown, still clutching the map, from his seat. I slide into my niece, who crushes Madame Tourzel against the sidewall. Outside, the air is full of the distressed whinnying of horses and shouted curses.
“What has happened?” the king demands as if we know something he
does not.
“I will find out,” I say decisively. The last thing we need is for Louis to expose himself again.
I wrench the door open. Our driver is off the box shouting at our guide: “What is the point of you riding the lead horse if you are going to take us into a road marker!”
I look back. Sure enough, the nearest marker is streaked with black and yellow from our wheel.
The guide grumbles and begins inspecting the animals. As the guard sitting on the box climbs down to join him, the smaller carriage carrying the queen’s ladies pulls up, followed by Monsieur Moustier. The guard beside the horses calls to him, “Are you any good with harnesses?”
“What does that mean?” All eyes turn to me. “What,” I stammer slightly, “shall I tell the baronne?”
“Four of six animals broke harnesses in the stumble. We must repair them before we can be on our way.”
“Nothing to worry about,” Louis opines when I relate our situation. He stretches out his legs, clasps his hands behind his head, and closes his eyes. But, like me, the queen glances at her watch.
Fifteen minutes later, Madame opens the carriage door and takes the children to stretch their legs. The sun is hot, they return thirsty, and still we show no sign of moving. Is Louis really sleeping? Antoinette fans herself with her hand and looks at me. “Surely it cannot be much longer.”
But it is. When the berline at last rolls onward, we have lost more than three-quarters of an hour.
“What time are we expected at Pont de Somme-Vesle?” I ask.
“Between half past two and half past four,” the king replies, proving he is indeed awake. He opens his eyes, sits up, and retrieves his map from the floor where it has lain since the dauphin dropped it. “Here,” he says to Louis-Charles. “This is where we are now, and this is Somme-Vesle.”
So far. We must stop at Chaintrix and Châlons before that! There is no chance our rendezvous will be on schedule. Am I the only one concerned? It appears so. For Louis and the dauphin play a game with the map, and the queen and Madame Tourzel chat animatedly. Surely then my unease comes from my own nature—I am fiercely punctual, a point in my character that has provided fodder for good-natured jests.