The Secret of the Chateau

by Kathleen McGurl

  The marchers were accompanied by drummers, and the constant rhythmic beat permeated the palace, even though the people were kept at some distance. Catherine felt as though it was forcing her heart to beat in time too. ‘Oh, how I wish they would stop!’ she said to one of the women. ‘I can’t bear it!’

  ‘Listen, they are shouting now,’ the other woman said, and Catherine followed her to a window. What she heard made her blood run cold.

  ‘Death to the Queen! Death to the Austrian bitch!’

  Catherine glanced over her shoulder at Marie Antoinette, who looked worried but otherwise calm, as she sat with her closest ladies-in-waiting, playing a game of cards. It was not clear whether she could hear the chants, but as Madame de Polignac leaned over and whispered in her ear, the Queen visibly paled, and she put down her hand of cards, stood and left the room.

  ‘She should stay near Louis,’ Catherine’s companion said. ‘The people still love him and will not hurt her while she is with him.’

  It was a long afternoon and evening, but eventually the members of court were informed that all was quiet and calm, negotiations had been reasonably successful and the immediate danger had passed. They could retire to their chambers in peace, protected as usual by the Swiss guard. Catherine was grateful to be reunited with Pierre, who’d spent the day with the King, advising him. He looked tired and grey.

  ‘Louis agreed to accept the August decree reforms, and most importantly, the Declaration of the Rights of Man,’ Pierre told her. ‘That is what they wanted. And he’ll do what he can about the bread situation, ensuring we build up as much reserves of wheat as we can. It’s hardly his fault though, that the last harvest was ruined by those violent hailstorms! But I think we are safe for now. Sleep well, my darling.’

  Catherine was woken early next morning, while it was still dark, by a commotion in the corridors outside her chamber. And was that … yes, it was gunfire! She scrambled out of bed, along with Pierre who urged her to go immediately to the Queen. He needed to find out what was going on. Catherine tugged a shawl around her shoulders and ran barefoot along the corridor, to the Queen’s chambers. Other ladies-in-waiting were there too, and all were in disarray.

  ‘What is happening?’

  ‘Some of the crowd gained access to the palace,’ one woman said. ‘The royal bodyguard are holding them back, but we must get the Queen to safety.’

  Catherine recalled with fear the chants of ‘Kill the Queen’ she’d heard the previous day, and shuddered. At that moment Marie Antoinette herself, attended by a couple of ladies, emerged from her chamber, barefoot just like Catherine.

  ‘Come,’ called Princesse de Lamballe to the rest of them. ‘We must find safety!’

  ‘To the King’s chamber,’ the Queen cried, and the group began running through the corridors of the palace, trailing their shawls, dropping nightcaps. Behind them they could hear the intruders getting closer, more musket fire, screams and cheers, and once more, shouts of ‘Get the Queen! Kill the bitch!’ It was terrifying. Catherine wished she’d stayed with Pierre – they could have locked themselves in their chamber, perhaps. She feared for the Queen’s life, for her own … As she ran, she held a protective hand over her swollen belly. If she was killed, this child would never even take its first breath. But surely she could not be in danger of death here in Versailles, where she had always felt so safe!

  They reached the King’s chamber but it was locked. Marie Antoinette at once began pummelling on the door, screaming to be allowed in, but the din around them had intensified and no one inside could hear. Catherine pressed herself against the wall, looking back along the corridor they’d run down, and saw the first of the mob rounding a corner at the far end – they’d be upon the ladies within seconds … She crouched down, hands covering her face, awaiting the feel of a musket shot or the thrust of a pike between her ribs.

  ‘Get up, come on!’ Hands hauled her to her feet and pushed her through the King’s door, opened at last and with only seconds to spare. The women piled inside, collapsing onto chairs, sofas or the floor, as a footman slammed the door closed behind them and locked it. More hammering on the door, this time accompanied by male shouts, ‘Give us the Queen! The King is safe!’

  The Queen had run into her husband’s arms, and was standing with him, shaking, yet still somehow dignified, Catherine thought, as she watched. She too was shaking, and to her horror realised she was going to be sick – here, in the King’s private apartments, in front of the Queen … But there was no stopping it. She heaved, and when her stomach was empty, she wiped her mouth with the corner of her shawl.

  As daylight broke, word came that the intruders had been overwhelmed and the palace was once more secure, although the crowd of many thousands were still gathered outside. The Marquis de Lafayette came to consult with the King, and the ladies were allowed to return to their own chambers, to freshen up and dress. There were many more Swiss guards inside the palace now, on every corridor and at every door. Catherine felt a little reassured, but still apprehensive as to what would happen next. As she glanced out of a window, she could see the crowd was bigger still than it had been the previous day. The night’s events had shown the royal family and all members of court were vulnerable, even inside the greatest palace in Europe.

  Pierre was not in their chambers to Catherine’s dismay. How she wanted to be held and comforted by him! But she had to make do with the attentions of Claudette, who helped her remove her soiled nightwear, wash, and dress for the day.

  ‘Madame, it must have been very frightening,’ Claudette said, in her thick Provençal accent. She had been lady’s maid to Pierre’s first wife, travelling with them from Pierre’s château in the mountains when he’d first come to Paris.

  ‘Yes. The poor Queen.’ Catherine was still shaking.

  ‘I mean for you. You should not have had to be caught up in it all, Madame.’ Claudette gently brushed Catherine’s hair, soothing her and making her presentable for whatever lay ahead. Who knew what the day would bring? Catherine had a sense that nothing would ever be the same again. An era was ending.

  Later, the Court gathered in the Hall of Mirrors as the King consulted with his advisers. Catherine stood with the Queen and the other ladies, and was relieved to see Pierre across the room, safe, but looking tired and fearful. She managed a brief, whispered conversation with him.

  ‘The King is going to appear on the balcony,’ he said. ‘He must face the people. They have the power.’

  Catherine was horrified. ‘What if they attack? They might fire a musket upon him!’

  Pierre’s expression was grim. ‘He must take that risk. It is the people who are now in control, and he must show himself to be compliant. I think also, he must agree to their demands that he go to Paris. The Tuileries Palace is habitable. And my sweet’ – here Pierre lowered his voice still further, so that Catherine had to strain to hear his next words – ‘if that happens then you and I will take our chance and leave the court. Claudette will come too. I have spoken to her. It will be safer for us, in the long term. We have our little one to think about.’

  ‘Go to your château in the south?’

  ‘Yes. Let us see what the day brings first, though.’

  Catherine couldn’t believe it. Leave Versailles, leave the Court, leave her beloved Queen? A few months ago she’d have absolutely refused. But now, with this new life growing inside her, she realised the most important thing was their child’s safety. Pierre had always said they should move to his family château when they had a family. Perhaps now was the time.

  A little later, as Pierre had said, the King went out to the balcony to appear in front of the crowd. There was a tense moment as everyone waited to hear the crowd’s reaction, and then relief as a cheer went up, ‘Vive le Roi!’ It was soon taken up by the whole crowd.

  ‘They love him still,’ said Marie Antoinette, her eyes glistening with unshed tears as she clutched her children, Madame Royale and the Dauphin, to her.
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br />   ‘But do they also love you?’ asked Princesse de Lamballe.

  A new chant was heard: ‘Bring us the Queen!’

  The Marquis de Lafayette approached. ‘Will you step onto the balcony, your Majesty? With your children?’

  Catherine watched as the Queen straightened her back and nodded, then followed him out to the balcony, still clutching her children to her sides.

  Her reception was different to that of the King’s. There were jeers and insults, muskets pointing at her and calls for the children to be taken back inside. They want to take a shot at her, thought Catherine, in horror. They want the children removed to keep them safe, to allow them to take a clean shot at her.

  But the Queen stood firm, her arms crossed over her chest and her head slightly bowed, as though she was her own effigy, and she kept the children at her sides. Gradually Catherine, peeping from another window, sensed a change in the atmosphere. The crowd were beginning to appreciate the Queen’s courage, her steadfastness in standing there, despite the fact many in the crowd were pointing muskets directly at her. Gradually the guns were lowered, and then, to everyone’s astonishment, a new cry went up, tentative at first but soon gaining in volume: ‘Vive la Reine!’

  ‘They love her still,’ Catherine whispered, echoing the Queen’s words about her husband. The crisis was over for now – the royal family were safe. Perhaps they could stay at Versailles after all? Perhaps things could go on as they were?

  Across the room, she caught Pierre’s eye. He looked faintly relieved, but still grim-faced. He gave a tiny shake of his head, as if to tell her, it’s not over yet.

  Chapter 9

  Lu

  Life began slipping into a comfortable routine, as April progressed into May. Steve had started a wonderful habit of getting up early, donning his running clothes and going out for a morning run with an empty rucksack on his back. He’d loop round so that he returned through the village and on the way stopped at the boulangerie to buy fresh bread, croissants and occasionally also something from the patisserie, for our breakfast. We usually had a stock of local cheese and fresh fruit in the pantry. The perfect French breakfast! Only Phil, who’d been advised to give up eating cheese, couldn’t partake of it all, but he’d proclaimed himself happy with a fruit and yoghurt breakfast. He’d never have touched such a thing in England.

  We’d spend the morning doing jobs around the château – cleaning, painting, gardening. Phil had always quite liked gardening and now was planning to dig up the lawn in the sunniest corner of the garden to make a vegetable patch. ‘We’ll be self-sufficient in no time,’ he announced, after sowing a line of lettuce. The exercise was doing him good, though I fretted sometimes that he would overdo it, and had quietly asked Gray to help him with any heavy digging.

  In the afternoons we’d go out – either all together to a local tourist spot or nearby hilltop village, or separately. Gray and Steve for bike rides, Manda and I for walks. Phil would most likely stay home and continue gardening, and we’d come home later to find him asleep on a sofa. I had to admit it was good living here in the summer. Like an extended holiday. But I still fretted about how well we’d fit into the community in the long term, and how we’d cope with the winter months.

  Manda and I went on several walks in those early weeks along the well-marked trails in the hills above the village. One of them, we were pleased to see, ran right past the top end of our land. ‘We must get a couple of rooms ready as guest rooms,’ she said. ‘Wonder who’ll be our first visitors?’

  ‘Tom’s talking about coming soon,’ I said. Our eldest son was working for an engineering company in Liverpool, and ready for an early summer holiday in Provence. He was a keen walker and cyclist, and as Gray had brought three bikes with him Tom was hoping to borrow one and cycle up and down a few Alpine passes in the area.

  ‘Great – so he’ll be our guinea pig! Which room shall we put him in?’

  I laughed. ‘He’s already said he wants to sleep in the tower.’

  ‘That dirty little circular room? We’ve no bed in there and I’m not sure how we’d get one up that spiral staircase.’

  ‘He says he’ll sleep on a blow-up mattress, or on the floor. He’s determined.’ Tom had always adored castles, ever since he was four years old and we’d first taken him to Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight. I smiled remembering how he’d run up every spiral staircase, peered into every room, brandishing the little wooden sword we’d bought him in the gift shop at his imagined enemies.

  ‘Ha! Well, we’d better give it a clean, then,’ Manda said. The tower room had obviously been used only for storage when the château functioned as a hotel. The previous owners had left some rubbish up there – boxes of chipped crockery, bundles of decades-old magazines tied up with string. Nothing of any interest, but so far we hadn’t found time to take it down and dump it. We’d have to, before Tom slept there, as the room also needed a good scrubbing.

  ‘Tomorrow’s job,’ I said, as we paused at a turn in the path. There was a convenient bench set just off the track, positioned so that it faced across the valley. We didn’t need to say anything – we both knew that the bench was there just for us, to take a seat for a moment, rest and enjoy the view.

  ‘Look, you can see the château from here,’ Manda said, pointing. She was right. Tucked among the trees the roof was visible, the tower with its little pointed turret, the main building, part of the lawn. And the outbuildings, plus the charred ruins from the fire hundreds of years ago. I wondered who had lived there when that happened, and whether anyone had perished in the fire.

  It was only a fortnight later that Tom arrived. Manda and I had cleared out the tower room – dumping all those boxes and bundles which had indeed turned out to be nothing but rubbish accumulated over the last thirty years or so. I’d been vaguely hoping there might be some gem among it all – some remnant of the château’s older history, some papers hinting at a mystery to be solved – but there was nothing. It all dated from the château’s time as a small hotel. The only thing of interest was a poorly executed watercolour painting of the château, silhouetted against what appeared to be a fire. The painting was dated 1963 and a sticker on the back read: L’incendie du Château.

  ‘Shall we hang it up downstairs?’ I asked.

  Manda shook her head. ‘No. Even Steve can paint better than that, and he hasn’t an artistic bone in his body.’

  Once the room was cleared, we lugged buckets and brooms and mops up the spiral staircase and set about cleaning it. There were no electric sockets up there so we couldn’t use a vacuum cleaner but with a little effort we soon had the room dust free, the cobwebs gone, the window sparkling to reveal a stunning view. The walls were partly covered with cracking plaster, and partly clad in wooden panelling. The whole lot had been painted a dull grey, and the paint was badly peeling in some places. I picked at a bit of the painted panelling with my fingernail and exposed a warm-looking wood beneath. It’d be nice to strip the paint off and restore it to its original state. Big job, though. That would have to wait a while.

  We laid a rug on the floor, brought up a blow-up bed and made it up, added a chair and a bedside table and it looked quite homely. The floor creaked loudly as we moved around, but we paid it no attention, being well-used to the various sounds the château made by now. There were no curtains or shutters for the window but we’d found a piece of board which could be slotted into the window recess to block out most of the light. It would have to do for Tom’s visit. And an old paraffin lamp Phil had bought in the Saturday market would do to light the room.

  Phil drove to Nice airport to pick up Tom, while the rest of us sat impatiently awaiting our first visitor. We had plenty more lined up – all the kids (except Zoe, who was still in Australia) were booked in, and several friends wanted to come too. The summer was going to be busy.

  At last the sound of a car outside alerted us to their arrival, and we all went to the door to welcome Tom. I gave him a huge mum-hug at th
e door. ‘So good to see you! Our first visitor!’

  ‘Great to be here, Mum,’ he said, leaning back so that he lifted me off my feet.

  ‘Arrgh! Put me down!’ I laughed, and once my feet were back on the floor I led him through to the sitting room where, it being late afternoon and the ‘sun over the yard-arm’ as Steve liked to say, we had a bottle of bubbly chilling and ready to celebrate his arrival. Steve, who was fast becoming our resident baker as well as the bread-buyer and chef for most meals, had made a cake. Chocolate, decorated with French flag icing.

  But Tom wanted a tour before he’d agree to sit down and eat cake. ‘Show me round, Mum,’ he said. ‘From the outside this place looks awesome!’

  ‘It is,’ I agreed, and took him off for the tour.

  Of course, it was the tower he liked best. He said the little circular room was perfect, as he dumped his rucksack down beside the chair we’d hauled up there. He peered out of the little window, exclaiming at the view just as I had on the day we’d moved in, and turned to me with a grin. ‘This place is fabulous, Mum. I hope you are going to be really happy here, all of you.’

  ‘So far so good,’ I said, ‘and no reason it shouldn’t get even better, once your dad gets the veg plot going.’

  ‘Mmm. Dad as a gardener, who’d have thought it,’ Tom said. ‘Well I’m already considering which of my friends I want to move in with when I’m old, so I think you’ve set a precedent.’

  ‘Oy, less of the “old”,’ I said, throwing him a mock punch. ‘None of us are sixty yet.’

  ‘Dad’s birthday next month?’

  ‘Well, yeah.’ Phil was the oldest of us. Then Gray. The rest of us were, as we still liked to say even after all these years, a ‘school year’ below them. Both Phil and Gray had taken a gap year before going to university, travelling for a few months each, and working. Phil had done bar work in Australia and Gray had done voluntary work setting up a school in Malawi. The rest of us had gone straight to university after sixth form.