by Juliet Grey
“Ah, Broglie!” The king hailed the newly appointed Minister of War, who offered him a reverence. “Condé here has just offered his services to lead an army against the rebellious citizens. He is of course the only professional soldier among us Bourbons. What say you?” But before the elderly maréchal could furnish his reply, the king had offered one of his own. “I have all but graciously refused. I cannot countenance the idea of civil war in France.”
Maréchal Broglie’s moon-shaped face looked as if it might explode. “But perhaps you should bend your mind to it, Majesté. You might be persuaded to reconsider your refusal after you hear this intelligence.” Close to apoplexy, he finally paused to catch his breath. “Parts of the countryside have been utterly decimated. Lawlessness reigns. Half the soldiers are disaffected; they are, I fear, in no manner prepared to march on Paris to keep the peace or to protect the royalists there.”
Louis seemed to become lost in thought. What was there to deliberate? I wondered. How could he remain so unruffled? He did not know that I had spent the wee hours of the morning packing my jewels and burning compromising papers in case we had to flee. Even so, like the comte d’Artois, I was in favor of resistance. At present, there was no legitimate reason to head for the border, to abandon crown and country.
An airless chamber filled with anxious relations and courtiers staining their garments with perspiration and fear waited for the king to speak. The seconds ticked by. A sweaty rivulet snaked through my hair, and down the back of my neck, trickling uncomfortably beneath my stays. “I am not an ignorant man,” the king said. “Nor am I naïve. But history bears me out. And,” he added—either stalwartly or stubbornly, depending on one’s opinion—“I will not believe that Frenchmen would rebel against the Crown.”
The rest of the day was passed with as much normalcy as we could muster. As he had not gone hunting for the third day running, Louis succinctly penned the word rien in his journal. That night he retired at his customary bedtime of ten o’clock. He did not visit my boudoir, and according to court etiquette he was not to be disturbed or awakened. But at two in the morning the doors of his bedchamber were thrown open and the Master of the Wardrobe, the duc de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, his red damask banyan unbuttoned, burst into the room as if a pack of rabid dogs was at his heels.
“Arise, Sire, the Bastille has been taken!”
Bleary-eyed and disoriented, the king tossed off the silken coverlet and hefted his legs over the edge of the bed. As it seemed clear that his sovereign was having difficulty processing the news, the duc delivered an even more devastating blow. “A mob twenty thousand strong, Majesté—they commandeered the muskets and cannon from Les Invalides. Claiming to be in possession of twenty kilos of gunpowder they threatened the prison governor that if he did not surrender the fortress they would blow up the entire quartier of Paris. The comte de Launay surrendered without a single show of resistance, and all seven prisoners in the Bastille were released. But then the rabble … they”—the old duc’s voice became choked with tears—“they murdered the governor, spitting the poor comte’s head upon a pike and parading it through the streets of Paris.”
The king shuddered, and blinked disbelievingly at the duc de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt. “Is it a revolt?” he breathed.
“No, Sire,” came the horrified reply. “It is a revolution.”
THIRTY-THREE
Stay or Go?
In window after window candles were illuminated as the residents of Versailles were awakened by their servants in the small hours of the morning. Rousing herself, the duchesse de Polignac observed ruefully, “There was a time when we could not have been dragged away from the pharaon tables at such an o’clock—when we would not have dreamt of retiring so early; and tonight we would give much for another hour of untrammeled slumber.”
The members of the royal family and their respective households assembled in the Hall of Mirrors. Monsieur and Madame waddled into the Galerie in their quilted satin dressing gowns, looking like a pair of pepper pots. In the past they had entertained rival factions at court and had behaved quite cruelly to Louis and me. But the petty intrigues of Versailles were clearly laid aside for the grave matters that now faced us and a common enemy that threatened the very fiber of the monarchy. Madame Élisabeth was hugging her nephews, the sons of the comte and comtesse d’Artois, and murmuring words of reassurance, as much for her own sake as for theirs. My body had not stopped trembling since we had heard the news from Paris. My face was barren of all cosmetics and my hair was disarranged. Who could imagine a coiffure at such a time?
His silk banyan half untied, Louis moved lethargically, as if in a dream, his face drained of all color. “There is nothing for it but to abdicate,” he declared numbly, before anyone else had uttered a word.
Frightened, disbelieving glances were exchanged. Had a King of France ever abandoned his throne?
I proposed that we immediately set out for Metz, convinced that the fortified town in Lorraine not far from the German border would provide a safe haven. “The garrison will protect us,” I reasoned.
“Yes, of course you can go to Metz—we can all go to Metz—but what shall we do when we get there?” Without his wig Maréchal-Général Broglie resembled a plucked chicken. He had lit a clay pipe and was anxiously puffing away. “With officers who dare not shoot, what good are the soldiers?”
“The princesse has fainted!” A cry went up and I saw that Madame de Lamballe had swooned, surely overcome at the thought of the dangers that might befall us in Metz, or perhaps by the ones that might attend us, should we elect to remain at Versailles. Several attendants began to root about in their pockets for vinaigrettes.
“Mon frère, you cannot flee!” Monsieur was adamant. Louis looked from his brother to me and back as if he were watching a jeu de paume. Although their fraternal rivalry had always been intense, my husband genuinely esteemed Monsieur’s judgment and intelligence. Stanislas had always been considered the cleverest of the brothers. Now was the time to bend his fine mind toward preserving the monarchy.
“To fly now is to abandon your crown forever.” Monsieur grew more insistent as he watched the king waver on the brink of a decision. “Her Majesty is deluding herself if she thinks we can all take a holiday in Lorraine and expect the fervor of democracy to blow away like an ill wind. If you quit the throne, I guarantee that you will not be able to win it back without a war, and the old maréchal here has just informed us that our soliders are unwilling to raise their muskets and prime their cannon. Look!” He seized Louis by the shoulders and spun him about to face the mirrored walls. “Regardez, mon Sire! Look at all of us! Regardless of our hasty toilettes this morning, in these glaces is reflected the glory of France, the forms and features belonging to the most ancient and venerated families in the kingdom.”
Louis was quite moved by his brother’s eloquence and I could tell that he was allowing himself to be persuaded to remain, but the prospect of staying had clearly unnerved Gabrielle de Polignac. Pointing toward the king’s Master of the Wardrobe, she whispered to me, “The duc says the mob shouted ‘Death to Artois and the Polignacs!’ ” She threw her arms about my neck and began to weep. “Your Majesty, I am so afraid.”
I held her while she sobbed and stroked her back to soothe her nerves. Even the king’s eyes were moist; for despite our occasional differences about her he, too, greatly esteemed the duchesse. “In your situation, there is no question of it—you must depart for safety as soon as possible. Go while there is still time; remember that you are a mother. You will not be the only ones to flee. The prince de Condé is headed for the border as well. Perhaps he will escort your family.”
“Please know that I do not want to leave you, ma chère Majesté,” she insisted, but I continued to assure her that the violence in Paris, albeit terrifying, was a temporary political hiccough and before long she would be able to return. Still, with people chanting for her blood, we thought it best for her to assume a disguise, and so sh
e donned the mobcap and skirts of a chambermaid.
We clung to each other like sisters. I was reminded of the tearful partings I had endured with Charlotte before she left for Naples and with Josepha when Maman had demanded that she descend into the Kaisergruft to pay her respects to our late sister-in-law; Josepha had been overcome by the premonition that we would never see each other again.
“Adieu, ma très chère amie. Farewell, dearest of friends,” I murmured into her rose-scented hair. “Such a dreadful word—‘adieu’—as if one of us is really going to God. Attends!” She waited while I absented myself for a few minutes, returning with a small but weighty purse. “There are five hundred louis in here. Guard them carefully. It might arouse suspicion if a chambermaid is found with so much wealth about her.”
We embraced one last time. “Je t’aime, ma chère coeur.” I was sobbing, for how could I not love someone who had been a dear and trusted friend for the better part of fifteen years?
It was just as dangerous for the comte d’Artois and his family to remain as it was for the Polignacs. Relieving them of the awkwardness of choosing whether to flee or stay, Louis issued a royal order for them to depart. After the children had said good-bye to their governess, I encouraged Mousseline, “Now bid farewell to your cousin.” She bashfully approached Louis-Antoine, the duc d’Angoulême, nearly fourteen now, with just the glimmer of a shadow of hair above his upper lip. My memory journeyed back to a spring day in 1770; his father, the comte d’Artois, had been even younger when first we met.
The two young cousins, promised to each other in marriage since my daughter’s birth, shyly, but affectionately, embraced. I stole a glance at Louis, who was saying good-bye to his youngest, devil-may-care brother, the audacious young man who had brought the sport of horse racing to France, flouted the conventions of fashion, and encouraged us to embark on so many delightful adventures. Would we live to attend the nuptials of our innocent children who now so fondly said adieu?
By the time the pale light of dawn rose on the morning of July 15, the Polignacs and the Artois famille were already hours away.
Ever since I came to France I had watched Monsieur do everything imaginable to undermine his older brother’s confidence. Yet today, when the very fate of the throne was at stake, petty differences, grudges, and jealousies melted away. Or … for a fleeting moment I thought Monsieur was so extraordinarily clever that by insisting the king appear before the National Assembly, he was sending him to certain death, leaving the field open for a regency, for who else would rule during little Louis Charles’s minority?
I tried to push those black thoughts from my mind. Monsieur was a cunning man, but I dared not think his heart was fratricidal.
Finally, Louis reached a decision. Blotting his brow, he conceded, “Even a king can have a moment of weakness. He is, after all, just a man, although I am comforted by the thought that only those who are dearest to me have witnessed my craven behavior this night. But a sovereign is the father of his people. And to abandon them at the hour when they most have need of his guidance and governance would be akin to leaving one’s children at the mercy of wild beasts in the wilderness.” He turned to me and caught my trembling hand in his. “I must remain, ma chère,” he said with a ponderous sigh of finality.
My heart beat wildly; my eyes filled with tears. “Then we stay. And stay together en famille. I would never dream of leaving without you. My duty is to remain where Providence has placed me and to present my body to the daggers of the assassins who wish to reach the king.” It was inconceivable to depart without our children, to separate from them, or to leave Louis behind to face his enemies alone.
On the seventeenth of July, Louis traveled to Paris to address the National Assembly, unescorted, in an unadorned black carriage. In an atmosphere that was already highly charged with agitation, we feared that any sign of ostentation would have increased the risk of harm to his person. When I kissed him good-bye that morning, pinning the Order of Saint-Louis to his brown silk jacket and making certain his tricorn was adjusted at the proper angle, we pretended that his leave-taking was as ordinary as any other, as if he were merely going hunting in the Bois de Boulogne. But his jowls were quivering as if he were close to tears, and my stomach was rumbling and knotted with fear.
The king returned to the château in the late afternoon, perspiring heavily and looking somewhat relieved. As soon as I heard his carriage clattering into the Cour Royale I ran out to meet him with the dauphin in my arms. Madame Élisabeth and Mousseline were on my heels. Louis descended from the coach and I nearly fell, weeping, into his embrace, so relieved I was to see him home. Soon he was drying all our tears with a handkerchief in each hand.
“What is this?” I demanded, once I got a better look at him and determined that he was in one piece. Affixed to the king’s hat was a red, white, and blue cockade—the colors of Paris wedded to the white of the Bourbons, he explained. An insignia to denote the concord achieved between the National Assembly and the monarchy.
“What happened?” I inquired eagerly. Closeted within la Méridienne, I wished to hear the news before Louis shared it with anyone else.
“I approved the appointment of the marquis de Lafayette as commander of the National Guard—I hope he remembers the day when he served the Crown so admirably in North America—as well as that of Jean-Sylvain Bailly, the astronomer who wouldn’t let me mourn the passing of the dauphin, as mayor of Paris.” My husband removed his hat and regarded the tricolor cockade. “Perhaps if they look to the stars for guidance they will be offered the hand of God and begin to walk in His way instead of seeking to deny and destroy what has made France the envy of other nations. Nonetheless,” Louis said, sinking into a fauteuil upholstered in celadon-colored silk, “I assured the Assembly that my people could always count on the love of their king.”
He handed me the tricorn and I quickly hid the hat behind the doors of a tallboy so that I should not have to look at the offensive cockade.
“They believe the monarch has been restored to their bosom, now that his ‘evil counselors’ have been exiled,” Louis said, bitter at the sacrifice of his youngest brother and my beloved Gabrielle. “But if that is the price of harmony from now on, you must admit, it is not as dear as it might have been. Happily there was no bloodshed.” His wan smile broadened into a relaxed grin. Enfolding me in his arms he added, “And I swear to you, Toinette, French blood will never be shed by my order.”
“And although hardships and misfortunes surround us at every turn, I promise that adversity hasn’t lessened my strength or my courage.” I clasped my husband’s hands in mine and brought my lips to them. His palms were as moist as the day we first met, timid adolescents thoroughly schooled in our royal duties, yet utterly unprepared to navigate the vicissitudes of life. Since the day we exchanged our vows I had been accused of every vice imaginable from frivolity to extravagance to adultery to tribadism. And the king’s had always been the first and loudest voice to defend me. Now, more than nineteen years later, stouter, graying, and perhaps a bit wiser, we were facing challenges that as newlyweds, scarcely older than children, our minds and hearts never could have imagined.
Three nights earlier I thought the world we knew was ending. In hindsight, it was merely heralding another dawn. The day could only grow brighter. It was the law of Nature.
For MZR …
who made the suggestion that recharted the course of my life.
Merci mille fois.
Acknowledgments
Un très grand merci to my editor Caitlin Alexander for her enthusiasm, her vision, her passion, and her patience; to my agent extraordinaire Irene Goodman who has always been everything one could wish for and whose devotion to my career in macrocosm and to the Marie Antoinette trilogy in microcosm has never flagged; to the historical fiction blogging community for being so supportive of the genre in general and my Marie Antoinette novels in particular; to the spectacularly talented authors who took time from their own pro
lific careers to blurb the first novel in the trilogy, which was in print before I could publicly acknowledge my gratitude to them; to Christine Trent for spurring me to stay on schedule (as much as possible) by threatening to create a spreadsheet for me; to Pauline Gardner and my classmates at the Equinox Spa in Manchester, Vermont, for their encouragement throughout the birthing process and for being sympathetic ears, and soft shoulders to cry on when I felt overwhelmed by deadlines. Et finalement, à mon très cher mari Scott, for making my life a better place every day, which makes it infinitely easier to be creative.
Bibliography
Although it is not customary to provide a bibliography for a work of fiction, my research for the Marie Antoinette trilogy has been so extensive that I wished to share my sources with my readers. I am indebted to the following fine scholars and historians.
Abbott, John S. C. History of Maria Antoinette. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1849.
Administration of Schönbrunn Palace. Schönbrunn. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Staatsdruckerei, 1971.
Asquith, Annunziata. Marie Antoinette. New York: Taplinger Publishing Company, 1976.
Bernier, Olivier. Secrets of Marie Antoinette: A Collection of Letters. New York: Fromm International Publishing Corporation, 1986.
Boyer, Marie-France, and Halard, François. The Private Realm of Marie Antoinette. New York: Thames & Hudson, 1996.
Cadbury, Deborah. The Lost King of France: How DNA Solved the Mystery of the Murdered Son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2002.
Castelot, André. (trans. Denise Folliot). Queen of France: A Biography of Marie Antoinette. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1957.