Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette

by Sena Jeter Naslund

  When I enter their court, I lift my head, for I am the daughter of Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria, and the mother of Marie Thérèse, the dearest girl in Christendom, my friend. And I am the friend of Rosalie, who has come to be my hidden daughter. It is I who represent the seamstresses, laundresses, and painters, the mothers and sisters of France, and not these rabid men. I look the man named Robespierre in the eye. Just once, I will show him my spirit. After this glance, he is beneath my regard.

  There are some forty witnesses to be called, and my lawyers whisper that we will not finish today. Ah, I am to live an extra day. It does not matter to me.

  I am sworn in as Marie Antoinette of Lorraine and Austria, widow of the King of France, born in Vienna, age almost thirty-eight, but I am always referred to in their discourse as the Woman Capet.

  It matters little to me. I make the shortest possible replies to their preposterous accusations: that I sent great sums of money to my brother Joseph II through the Polignacs, that I manipulated the King and gave him evil counsel, that I plotted to have the representatives of the people murdered with bayonets, that I made the guards drunk with wine, that I have slept with my young son.

  All witnesses against me lie. All is hearsay. They produce no documents, only assert that they could do so. From time to time I see that my hands are moving over the table as though they were playing the harpsichord. I do not know exactly what notes I finger. I think it is a piece of that form called a fantasia, one that is by its nature formless. It follows the thoughts of the composer as they float along, like clouds in a reverie.

  I once heard such a piece for pianoforte, composed by Mozart, whom I knew as a child, but he has been dead several years. They say he died a pauper, of neglect. And yet I am sure he had talent. He was a glittering child. As I have done throughout my life, I recall the child’s question. “Now do you love me?” he asked my mother, sitting in her lap.

  Suddenly I think of the immense talent of my friend the painter Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun. With all my heart, I hope she and her brushes have escaped this tiger nation.

  From my lawyers I have learned that the du Barry was denounced again by a fellow servant of the little Nubian page, now grown up and become her footman. They coveted her wealth. Like myself, she is imprisoned and may await that swift and humane death invented by the enlightened French. But the lawyers know nothing of my friend the painter.

  I believe that the court will finish with all the witnesses today. Perhaps I shall be marched straight to the guillotine, but no, there is to be a second day among them. For me, it is all one. Not so important as to be an ordeal, this event leaves me greatly fatigued, and I have bled so much that I fear the back of my dress may be besmirched.

  THIS NIGHT, ROSALIE comes to me. She brings fresh cloths and takes the soiled ones away to wash. “I will heat the flatiron and iron them till they are dry,” she whispers. “Now try to eat a bit.” She mothers me.

  The second day is much the same till they circle back to the question of my son.

  “Citizen President,” one of the jurors insists, “I ask you to request of the accused that she respond to the facts concerning what occurred between her and her son.”

  I am roused. I stand. My royal composure leaves me, and I speak with all the ardor of my outrage. “If I have not replied, it is because Nature itself refuses to respond to such a charge against a mother.” The courtroom stirs in response. Some women, the market women, cry out that this proceeding is unfair, that the court is an insult to all women, that the trial must be stopped.

  “I appeal to all mothers who may be present,” I add, and then I sit down.

  The murmurs subside. The market women are too curious to see what will happen next; they wish to be entertained. Today it is not their mood to change the course of human events.

  Close to panting, I try to subdue my impulse to gulp the air. Chauveau-Lagarde puts his hand over mine in a kindly fashion. It is finished.

  “Did I do well?” I ask him. I am flushed with the success of my appeal, how I have admitted nothing.

  “Madame, be yourself and you will always be perfect,” he replies.

  THERE IS A BREAK in the proceedings. I see Rosalie approaching, bearing no doubt some of the consommé of which she is so proud. A wife of one of the jurors stands in the girl’s way and insists that she will be the one to serve the deposed Queen of France. She is a careless woman, and I watch her spill a good deal of the soup onto the shoulder of another woman.

  I have eaten nothing since morning.

  It does not matter.

  Yes, there is a little left, and I spoon it to my mouth, seeking the eyes of Rosalie, to thank her only with a steadfast gaze. Nothing in my public expression can ever be construed as cause for her arrest.

  When I am asked if I wish to speak before the jury retires, I stand and say very simply, “No one has substantiated any claim against me. I conclude by remarking that I was the wife of Louis XVI. It was always my duty to obey him and to submit to his will.”

  Chauveau-Lagarde reminds the jury that I was never mentioned during the trial of Louis XVI as having influenced the King in any way. He has a graceful silver tongue with all the strength of iron. Then he argues against the charge that I conspired with foreign powers. There has been no proof. Chauveau-Lagarde speaks not only with conviction, but with ardor. Doucoudray argues that I have not conspired with enemies of the state within its borders. There has been no proof of conspiracies on my part, only empty allegations, he insists.

  When they have finished, I thank them with utmost warmth and gratitude. To my brave defenders I say, “Your elegance and honesty manifest themselves in every syllable. Forgive me, my own words are inadequate ever to thank you sufficiently.” Looking into Chauveau-Lagarde’s sympathetic eyes, I say, “Please know the inexpressible gratitude that I will feel to you, even until my last moments.”

  The man blushes, and bows. He has said all that he can say.

  I wait an hour. I imagine that I will be deported, for it is my due. I hope for that outcome, but I do not have faith in their justice.

  They summon me now.

  The verdict is that I am guilty of high treason and sentenced to death.

  I feel nothing. I feel my chin tilt up—ah, yes, the royal habit. I am pleased that my body remembers the gestures typical of my life.

  IN MY CELL, I am given pen and paper and I write to Madame Elisabeth:

  I have been sentenced, not to a shameful death, for it is shameful only for criminals, but to join your brother. Innocent like him, I hope to show the firmness he showed in these last moments.

  I deeply regret having to abandon my poor children. You know that I lived only for them and for you, my good and loving sister.

  For a moment, I think of Elisabeth as a small child, coming to help me unpack the great coffin of wedding jewels, how she handed me a pink rose. I loved her then, and I love her now. She has truly become my sister.

  You who have out of friendship sacrificed everything to be with us in all our troubles….

  May my son never forget his father’s last words, which I expressly repeat, that he is never to avenge our deaths. In regard to the great distress this child must have caused you, forgive him, my dear sister. Remember his age and how easy it is to make a child of only eight years say anything, even things he does not understand….

  I die in the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman religion, the religion of my fathers, the one in which I was brought up and which I have always professed….

  I forgive all my enemies the harm they have done me. I here bid farewell to my aunts and to all my brothers and sisters, my companions of many years.

  I had friends. The thought of being separated from them forever and their sorrow is among my greatest regrets in dying; may they know, at least, that I thought of them up to the very last.

  Farewell! Farewell.

  Now I lie in bed and think of my life here in the Conciergerie. In its own way, it was a new beginni
ng, bereft as I was of all those whom I loved and for whom all my efforts were made—my family. As a single soul, I have had to become acquainted with my starkest self. And yet I lived, though I suffered deeply. I saw the birth of some new affections. I explored the world of memory, that strange realm where nothing is real but thinking makes it seem so. I never imagined a future. I wish that I had tried to do so.

  I wish that I had laid aside my youthful self-righteousness and been kinder to the Comtesse du Barry. I wish her peace. I wish that I had chosen to have less so that the people of France might have had more. I wish them happiness.

  With my fingertips, I touch my own body. I am telling it good-bye—the protuberances of my wrist bones, my curving ribs. I touch an ear and feel the mobile cartilage within that gives it shape. I tug on the lobe of my ear. Finally, I place one hand on my head and the other on my body. My head is to be severed from my body tomorrow. I touch my throat, and then my fingers seek for vertebrae in the back of the neck. It is here that the blade will fall. It will have no difficulty, falling as it does from a height, parting this column of small bones. Will I think a last thought, perhaps even as the blood drains from my brain? If I must, I will. If not, then a blankness, perhaps a bit like this blank moment.

  A bell tolls. I am yet in this world. I move my feet, flex my toes. I am cold, but they said I could not have an extra blanket. I pray, but always there is a numbness. I can will myself to go through certain motions—holding up my face, looking at the sky, watching for dawn. I cannot will myself to feel. It is better not to feel the pain of separation from those I hold so dear. It is true: here I have come to know myself in a way I have not done before.

  Rosalie is here.

  Reaching into my cardboard box, she tells me that they will not allow me to go to the scaffold in my widow’s black, lest it stir the sympathy of the populace. She helps me change into the white dress, and she tries to stand between me and the guards, whom I would not like to see either my nakedness nor my bloody cloths. I speak to the young man, as gently as I can, for he is too young to have learned much about the need for gentleness among human beings.

  “In the name of decency, monsieur, allow me to change my undergarments without witnesses.”

  “I cannot give my consent for your privacy,” he answers.

  Rosalie shields me, as she helps me. My new chemise is the white piqué, with a mild waffle texture. In the dark, I have already kissed Rosalie good-bye, explaining that I must not do so in front of our jailers, lest she, like the Richards, should be arrested for excess sympathy.

  I told her also, to kiss me, as a daughter would.

  “And again,” I say, “as a son would do. You are their proxy, but I love you, too, for your own dear self.”

  Between us, we contrive to stuff my bloody cloths into a crevice in the stone wall beside my bed.

  I hear bells toll perhaps ten times. It is morning, and they crowd in, to read to me again the indictment, and that occupies its time and is over.

  Here is the executioner, saying, “Hold out your hands.”

  “Must my hands be bound?” Hopefully, I remind them, “The hands of Louis XVI were not bound.”

  Executioner Sanson hesitates.

  “Do your duty,” the judges say, and with ostentatious roughness, he obeys.

  He removes my little bonnet to shear my hair. The blade passes against the nape of my neck, and in a single grainy slice, my hair is gone. I raise my head and have an odd urge to smile. There is that strange lightness one always feels after her hair is cut.

  In the courtyard waits the small cart with two large wooden wheels. It is an open cart, and no one who loves me is to ride with me. They order me to sit with my back to the horses, but before I turn around, I notice their powerful tan haunches. They are draft horses, very heavily muscled. I have always admired the huge haunches of such horses. I will be a light burden for them.

  When they start to move forward over the courtyard, I am jolted off balance and almost fall from my bench. Because my hands are bound behind me, I must sit on the edge of the plank, and I cannot steady myself with my hands, but I quickly extend a foot and regain my balance and my upright posture. I glance down at my plum shoes. They have lasted well, and I have always liked their shape and color, battered now though they are.

  For a moment, I wonder what cobbler’s hand fashioned my shoes, little suspecting that I would wear them now. I smile a little at the whimsy of my thought.

  I know that we move very slowly through a great throng of people, through the streets of Paris. What a crowd that day at Versailles when Montgolfier’s balloon ascended! That day, a sheep was made to fly. Montauciel did rise to the heavens. I hear the jeers and cries of derision, but my eyes and my ears are turned inward. Let them see a sacrificial lamb on its way to slaughter. Now is the time to think of those I have loved. Now is the time to meditate on God’s love for me and my faith in his mercy.

  There it stands, in the center of the vast circle now known as the Place de la Révolution…crowded with soldiers and spectators: their guillotine is a framework like an open door, with the shiny blade overhead. Is light more silvery or gold? It is misty today, and no sunshine gleams off the blade.

  All my body feels full of air. I seem to weigh nothing, and I move with great ease, almost as though I were dancing. I step down the little stair placed at the end of the cart. My balance is sure, and I forget that my hands are bound. I do not need them. Weightless, I mount the scaffold stairs. But on the platform, I tread upon a fleshy lump. I have stepped on the toe of Sanson, the executioner. Quickly, I beg pardon.

  “I did not do it on purpose,” I say with simple sincerity.

  One of their priests sanctioned by the revolution speaks to me, but I have not and will not turn to him for consolation. “This is the moment, Madame, to arm yourself with courage.”

  Ah, he does not know my mother armed me with courage when I was a child at her knee. Thousands of eyes regard me.

  “Courage!” I exclaim. “The moment when my ills are going to end is not the moment when courage is going to fail me.”

  I kneel in order to lie upon their board, and they help my body to lie straight. So lay my noble husband nine months ago; I but follow. Through a crack between the planks—a man squats beneath on the balls of his feet. He has the dirty, upturned face of madness. Ah, he is waiting to bathe in my blood. I meet his wild eye. The sled slides forward—the basket—no need to hold on—I open my hands resting on the small of my back—the basket—I had friends, loving friends (I am not afraid)

  Afterword

  For readers interested in the historical fates of those dear to the heart of Marie Antoinette, perhaps a few facts will suffice. Her young son Louis Charles (Louis XVII) died in prison on 8 June 1795, probably of tuberculosis, as had his older brother Louis Joseph. Her daughter Marie Thérèse was released from prison in an exchange of prisoners with Austria in 1795, when she was seventeen. She eventually married her cousin, the Duc d’Angoulême, the son of Artois. The unhappy marriage was not consummated, and she died in 1851, at the age of seventy-three.

  Both of the ambitious brothers of Louis XVI became kings of France. The Comte de Provence became Louis XVIII in 1814 and died in 1824. The Comte d’Artois became Charles X and abdicated in 1830.

  Tried on trumped-up charges as a British spy, the Comtesse du Barry was executed during the Terror, December 1793. Like Marie Antoinette, she was conveyed in a cart to the Place de la Révolution. In spite of her sobs, pleas, and resistance, she was carried up the steps to the guillotine.

  Count Axel von Fersen died 20 June 1810, torn apart by an angry Swedish mob who believed he had poisoned the heir to the Swedish throne, Christian.

  By abandoning her belongings and disguising herself and her young daughter, Julie, as commoners, Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, Marie Antoinette’s friend and portrait painter, escaped the French Revolution. Resuming her work as an artist, Vigée-Lebrun traveled throughout Europe and reestabli
shed herself as a painter in Turin, Florence, Rome, Vienna, St. Petersburg (where she painted Catherine II), Berlin, and London, eventually returning to Paris and settling in a pleasant home in Louveciennes, where she lived until she was almost eighty-seven.

  Acknowledgments

  The friendship, encouragement, and guiding wisdom of both Joy Harris, my literary agent, and Marjorie Braman, my editor, make possible my work as a writer.

  Abundance, A Novel of Marie Antoinette is dedicated to my daughter Flora, who has given me much joy and inspiration. John C. Morrison, my husband, translated material concerning Axel von Fersen from the Swedish; both John and Flora continually supported me with their loving encouragement throughout the writing of this novel. To my family and friends who traveled with me on research trips to France, Austria, and Sweden, I owe a happy debt of gratitude: John Morrison, Flora Naslund, Amanda Jeter, John Sims Jeter, Derelene Jeter, Lynn Greenberg, Nancy Brooks Moore, and Marcia Woodruff Dalton. I offer profound thanks to those writer-friends/ family who read the typescript of this novel and generously gave me their professional advice: Nancy Bowden, Julie Brickman, Lucinda Dixon Sullivan, John Morrison, John Sims Jeter, Marcia Woodruff Dalton, Katy Yocom, and Karen Mann. I thank Kelly Creagh, graduate assistant in the Spalding University MFA in Writing, for help with typescript preparation.

  To other friends and family who gave me their invaluable heartfelt support—Ralph d’Neville-Raby, Frank Richmond, Nana Lampton, Kay Callaghan, Mary Welp, Alan Naslund, Robin Lippincott, Neela Vaswani, Thelma Wyland, Pam Cox, Debbie Grubbs, Pam and Bob Sexton, Deborah and David Stewart, Suzette Henke and Jim Rooney, Annette Allen and Osgood Wiggins, Patricia and Charles Gaines, Elaine and Bobby Hughes, Loretta and Bill Cobb, Norman and Joan MacMillan, Sandra and John Lott; David Morrison, Marvin “Bubba” Jeter and Charlotte Copeland, Sara, Michael, and Ashley MacQuilling—a very special thank-you. I thank Leslie Townsend for an illuminating conversation on the concept of abundance.