Abundance, A Novel of Marie Antionette

by Sena Jeter Naslund

  He is placed in the care of a rough cobbler, Simon. They say they must make him forget his rank. They teach him to swear. To please them, I can hear him saying vile things about his sister, his aunt, and me. He does not know what he is saying, but his keepers laugh with glee. Sometimes I stop up my ears with my fingers, but to do that is to deprive myself of the sound of his voice. Mon chou d’amour.

  1 August

  I have heard that subsequent to disastrous military defeats of the French, a member of the Committee of Public Safety raises this idea: the enemies of the nation have believed the French to be weak, and that false belief has given them the courage to achieve amazing victories in battle. Why have the enemies thought the French weak? Because the nation has an “over-long forgetfulness of the crimes of L’Austrichienne,” who, like her husband, must be brought before the bar of justice.

  I HAD HOPED that they would not come for me at night, but it is the dead of night—two o’clock in the morning—when we are awakened. They allow me no privacy for changing into a dress, but watch me. I am allowed to take a few items with me, including a handkerchief. I gather these meager things with an outward calm, but my heart is crying for my children and for my dear sister, who must now try to care for them by herself.

  In answer to my sister’s urgent inquiry, they say that I am to be taken to the ancient prison called the Conciergerie, on the Île de la Cité, in the midst of the Seine river. I ask nothing. I feel nothing, but I will my numb hands and feet to do what they must do and to go where they must go in their little circuit around my chamber.

  They allow little time to say farewell, but what opportunity I have I use to tell my daughter, my Marie Thérèse, to obey her aunt, to look upon her as a second mother, to help her brother. I recall the lines to his aunt of my son’s song—when he sang a verse, accompanied by the harpsichord—but I do not refer to them. With the lips of my most tender love, I kiss them each farewell. I know that my sister will be a rock of strength and that she will instruct my daughter to open her heart to God. My little son—I dare not even think his name.

  They lead me downstairs, and I strike my head, it seems.

  “Are you injured?” someone asks.

  In my mind, I hear the sound my skull must have just made against a low wooden beam, but I feel nothing.

  “No,” I reply to the guard’s question. “Nothing can hurt me now.”

  WE LEAVE THE TOWER and begin to traverse the dark and silent Temple gardens to the palace. Those surrounding me carry guns, swords, and daggers, and I feel that I move inside a beast made of metal with many legs and arms. We pass into and through the palace, and I remember the dinner there before we were taken up into the Tower, when the Princesse de Lamballe was yet with me.

  We pass into the street, where several hackney carriages wait along with a large group of soldiers. The city is utterly quiet, and the sounds of the carriage wheels, the hooves of the horses, and the boots of the soldiers on the cobblestones sound a somber cadence. The twin towers of the Cathédrale de Notre-Dame rise high above us, in their square, unfinished state, and I think of times when I have worshipped within that sanctuary and given thanks for my newborn children, how once I turned and saw the light streaming in the gigantic round window with a glory that made me want to fall on my knees again. The resplendent window serves as the manifest intermediary between God and man. Now we are at the bridge, and I recall that I used always to thrill at crossing a bridge—the slight danger that it might fall, the hope that one was crossing over into a newness of being.

  Ah, over the bridge and rolling onto the Île de la Cité, where Paris was born, where barbarians congregated, protected from enemies by the arms of the Seine, whose waters are behind me and also ahead of me. On this island, the Roman soldiers of Caesar found the beginnings of the Frankish culture. I remember that other small island, that neutral place around which rushed the waters of the Rhine when I gave up my Austrian name and became French. Maria Antonia—Antoine, they called me, those who loved me. I have not thought of myself by my German name for very many years.

  I have seen a most exquisite depiction of this place, this Conciergerie, in a facsimile of a medieval book once given me by the King, in the highly illuminated Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. Yes, I can picture that small and charming page and let it replace the blackness of this brutal night. The tiny painted building is proud, noble, and royal in its structure, but its setting is rustic. The peasants, wielding scythes, are making hay in the foreground, and women are raking the hay into tentlike shocks beside a stream where willows grow, for what surrounded the Conciergerie and is now the city of Paris was once a meadow. It is a lovely day, one of order and beauty. I too have known very rich hours—not of opulence but of the spirit.

  Here among the jumbled Parisian buildings, we move forward in the dark of night, a secret from the city. Beyond the roofs, I make out the shape of the upper story of the Gothic Sainte-Chapelle, the jewel box. Once I saw it on a snowy night, the lights within shining out through the rich color of the windows onto the snow. Though it is summer, I shiver; it is the blackness itself that wraps me with chill air. I too am dressed in black, a widow.

  We pass through wicker gates, where the turnkey waits. And suddenly, my forehead is bathed in sweat, and the oppression of the summer heat envelops me. Is it cold or hot? I scarcely know who I am.

  “What is your name?” the registrar asks, and I can only reply, “Look at me,” in the hope that he will recognize me and know who I am, though I have forgotten the words for myself.

  I am prisoner #280.

  Ah, my handkerchief is here to help me. I wipe my forehead. We move forward through the gates and corridors.

  THE DEATH OF MARIE ANTOINETTE

  Here is the end. My cell. The floor is brick, and I can smell the dampness coming up from the dark clay. Two chairs and a table wait for occupants. One chair is surely for me. I can imagine myself sitting here perhaps to read, or, if I am allowed needles and yarn, I might ply that art while sitting in one of those chairs; certainly, I will sit here to eat. I bless the chair, for I shall know it intimately. On the table is a cracked china basin where I shall wash my face. There is a cot with two mattresses on it, a lone pillow to elevate my head. The coverlet is of light weight, but we are in August now, the hottest month. Beside the bed is a bucket. Really, little more is needed.

  Two women enter, the younger of them carrying a stool. Their faces are kind. Madame Richard of the more lined face introduces herself and tells me that she and Monsieur Richard are the concierges of the prison. The candlelight casts a warm glow on her somewhat worn face.

  I glance at my gold watch. “I must apologize for the lateness of the hour,” I say. “It’s just now three o’clock in the morning. I know I have disturbed your rest.”

  The younger woman, holding the stool in her hands between us, looks exceedingly sleepy. Suddenly I realize her face is strikingly familiar. Where have I seen her before? “What is your name, my dear.”

  “Rosalie, Your Majesty.” She and the stool make a slight curtsy. In her other hand, her candle bobs. I was to be known as Rosalie during our escape.

  “Here,” I say, “we will not speak of royalty. We live here in equality, though my freedom is perhaps more in doubt than yours.” I smile reassuringly at her. “Please put down the stool, my child.”

  I see that a row of lace edges the pillowcase, which is clean and recently ironed.

  “You have carefully prepared this room for me,” I say to them. “What well-pressed lace.”

  Madame Richard replies, “I wanted you to see something—a little pretty, when you came in. We meant to be here to greet you. We heard you pass through the corridor.”

  “Madame Richard was awake and listening for you, but she let me sleep. She shook my arm just now and said, ‘Hurry, hurry, wake up, Rosalie.’”

  “And you brought your stool with you,” I add. The girl is quite befuddled.

  “Yes. I don’t know
why.”

  “I see a nail on the wall,” I say. “If I stand on your stool, I will be just tall enough to reach it, and there I will hang my watch.”

  She places the stool next to the wall, and with as much agility as any girl could muster, I scamper up its rung and stand on the little pedestal. Still I must rise up on tiptoe to reach high enough, but the stool is steady, and there! There, my watch dangles from the nail against the wall. I come down, a bit more cautiously than I ascended.

  “Well done, Madame,” Madame Richard says and smiles at me.

  I return the smile, and for a moment, the three of us regard one another. We feel very much contained in this space, defined as much by the presence of the furniture and of ourselves, as by the walls. Illumined in shifting patches and undulating strokes of candlelight, we are yet ourselves in spite of everything. I know that I am blessed in my keepers, one perhaps a few years younger than myself, the other really a very young woman. I am the matriarch of the group. “We should all retire to our beds,” I say, and I immediately begin to unbutton my clothes.

  “May I not assist you, Madame?” Rosalie asks in a clear, bell-like voice edged with fear.

  “Thank you, my child. For some time now I have had no one with me to help with undressing or dressing. I do it myself. Here too I will look after myself.”

  They glance at each other, then Madame Richard nods, licks her thumb and forefinger, and pinches the wick of her candle. Rosalie follows suit, but before she leaves, she bends to turn back the coverlet of my bed. Madame Richard is already at the door. Standing between them, I can hear Rosalie mutter, “It is unworthy,” but I do not know if Madame Richard hears her. As the wife of the current concierge of the prison, Madame Richard knows that to obey with alacrity is to show respect.

  Soon enough, they both leave. Because they are heavily shod, the two women make a clatter when they move over the bricks. Clodhoppers, my mother would have called their shoes. Again, in the semidarkness—the dawn is beginning to gray the blackness—my fingers find my buttons, familiar little sentinels. I pray for my children and for Elisabeth, in the Tower, for they are now beyond my help.

  SOON ENOUGH, I am awake again, for the Conciergerie is full of people coming and going. Lawyers, magistrates, prisoners—like so many ants they scurry around in this vast nest. The Revolutionary Tribunal itself is in this building, but at some distance. It is a place where, without doubt, I myself will be taken. This cell that I would call mine is only a holding pen.

  As the days pass, many curious people are taken here to see me, for I, in my cage, am a spectacle for which they can charge admission. Still it is not a cage, but merely a brick-floored, stone-walled room with bars here and there instead of curtains. The King used to say that I always fell in love with my possessions, that I was grateful to them for their mere proximity, and though it takes some time, I find, ruefully, that I become rather fond of the things here. I like one of the chairs better than the other. Rosalie does not reclaim her stool, and while the guards sometimes find it convenient to sit there, I always identify the sturdy stool with Rosalie, even when she is not present, and with her kindness. Because there is no other piece of furniture like it in this cell, the stool seems somewhat enigmatic.

  To pass the time with motion, I slide my diamond rings up and down my thin fingers.

  I cannot recall where I have seen Rosalie before, though the impression persists. Except for the guards, we are all women here, awaiting our trials. A barred window looks out on a paved courtyard, and sometimes I watch the women walking there for exercise.

  At first, they seem remote to me, but the second afternoon a woman who is a nun kneels before this window and stretches her arms toward it. I step back in surprise. Then I realize she has heard who prisoner #280 is, and she is praying for me. I step closer to the window, so she can see my features beyond the bars.

  What I like most to see is the patch of sky that hovers like a blue lid above the courtyard. The sky has always seemed the boundary of our world to me, even when it covered my gardens around the Trianon. I remember those flowers with great fondness. Sometimes I imagine myself walking those paths in various months of the year, for I know that each month had its mood, expressed in particular flowers.

  Assisted by Rosalie, the Richards serve my meals, breakfast at nine, dinner a bit after two o’clock. At first the girl stays shyly by the door, but I call to her, “Come on in, Rosalie. Don’t be afraid.”

  With great fascination she watches me use my knife to separate the meat of the baked chicken from its bone. At one point, almost in spite of herself, she murmurs, “You must have practiced many hours and very often to do it so well,” as though eating daintily were the necessary hallmark of royalty.

  Suddenly, I hear the sound of harp music, and my hands freeze in the air, holding the silver knife and fork.

  “What is it, Madame? What is the matter?” Rosalie asks.

  “Does one of the prisoners play the harp?” I reply.

  “It is the daughter of the glazier. She plays for her father while he works, replacing broken glass in the windows.”

  “I have spent many hours with my harp,” I tell her. “It was always a good friend to me. I always leaned it close to me with great affection, my fingers eager to pluck its strings.”

  “I think that angels in heaven often play the harp,” Rosalie says.

  “There are many depictions of them with harps,” I reply. “Or blowing trumpets.”

  “If you like books,” the girl says, “I know where some are.”

  Because she is so eager, I reply with all graciousness, “I should very much like to read some books.”

  When she smiles at me, her face becomes the most youthfully beautiful face I have ever seen.

  FROM BEYOND these thick walls, a package arrives, and in it a white dress, several chemises, more handkerchiefs, black silk stockings, a petticoat made from cotton of India, and for my shoulders two fichus, one of crepe and one of muslin, and ribbons—ribbons to tie back my thin, white hair. All of this has been folded and wrapped so lovingly that I exclaim, “I detect the hand of my sister Elisabeth in this kind work.”

  Now I have a few possessions, a wardrobe, and each item is treasured. They can be combined in countless ways.

  “I believe that I could dress Madame’s hair now,” Rosalie says. “People say I have a hand with hair.” Indeed, her own chestnut hair is arranged differently every day, sometimes parted here, sometimes there, sometimes hanging loosely, sometimes tied back with a short scarf.

  “I would be most grateful,” I reply. “Do you suppose,” I ask Madame Richard, “that I could have a box to keep my things in?”

  Madame Richard regretfully bows her head. “I dare not, Madame. They would think I favored you in a special way that would be dangerous to us both.”

  “I have a cardboard box,” Rosalie says. “Might I have permission to bring it here?”

  Keeping her eyes on the floor, Madame Richard mumbles, “Yes.”

  One of the guards says, “I could remove the rust from the heels of your shoes, Madame, with my knife.”

  Without hesitation I sit on the edge of my bed and hand him first one and then the other of my plum-colored slippers. A sort of brown moss has grown up from the damp floor to coat the little scooped heels, but he carefully scrapes them clean for me again, and their graceful curve emerges from what had become an unsightly clump under my foot.

  In return, I give him my sincere thanks and bow my head.

  The good gendarme is so moved that he must leave the cell to hide his tears.

  That night, waiting for sleep, I picture Elisabeth, how she has gathered ribbons and yarn for me. I wonder how my children are passing the time since I have been away, and I ache to think of their concern for me. “I am all right,” I whisper. “There are many reasons to hope.”

  I hardly notice anymore the crowds of people who pay admission to gawk at me. Perhaps captive animals do not see beyond the grilles
of their menageries.

  ONE EVENING ROSALIE startles me. She is standing in the very dim light near the door, watching me, but the light catches only her skirt, how it hangs in folds, and though it is a very plain skirt, the way it drapes reminds me of the curtains hanging beside the windows of the château at Versailles. Fearing mental displacement, I jump at the moment of mistaken recognition.

  “Please pardon me,” Rosalie says in her sweetest, clearest voice, soft as a vesper bell. “I have brought you some tea with herbs in it. For your nerves, so that you can sleep better.”

  My guard is asleep. Noiselessly, she crosses the floor, and I see that she is in her bare feet on the clammy stones. Quickly, I drink the tea and hand her back the cup, indicating with my eyes that she is to leave as rapidly as possible, taking the saucerless cup. In handing the cup to her, its last drop splashes onto the brick floor.

  She smiles at me, and even in the dark, I can see how her face is shining.

  She is gone.

  Then tears come to my eyes. I stoop and with a swoop of my index finger wipe up that drop, lest its presence in some way signal an unsanctioned visitation.

  Ah yes, there are many lessons learned at the Conciergerie, this one of the overwhelming beauty of simple goodness. It is not the deeds themselves but the spirit in which they are done—the slightest glance of understanding—that comforts me. How is it that she, a simple girl, understands so perfectly how I feel and how to offer companionship?

  I return to my bed, opposite the window, so I can lie looking at the window, though now it is only a black square. The taste and temperature of the warm tea linger in my mouth.

  With her presence, Rosalie makes of the moment something less lonely. I remember how it was when I was a child, after Charlotte left Austria to be married, a girl named Lynn was brought to play with me. Simply to see her made me glad. And Fersen, the friend of my heart. Yes, this Rosalie, little Lynn, and he—the quality of their attention, that is what distinguishes them, no matter the occasion.