Then came the demonstration on June 20th.
I was reclining in our parlor, toiling away on a manuscript of my own that would probably never see a concert hall, when we were told of the madness erupting around us. Mozart was scrawling away at his parchment in the corner—a shadow of himself. Somewhere deep inside I convinced myself that when he was finished, he would return to me. But his well-being had been trumped by the crowds on that day.
The young man I’d hired—Philip—rushed into the parlor and began to tell us of the demonstrations.
It had been the anniversary of the Tennis Court Oath—the sacred beginnings of the revolution for those who believed in such milestones. Just two years earlier, the Third Estate had announced their intention to form a new government without the use of the clergy or nobility. A government based on the will of the people. And it was the will of the people that showed up in the streets of Paris on that day. They showed up to petition against oppression—an oppression they felt was symbolized by one man. The king.
The king had held firm in some political battles, but there was no winning for Louis. Total abdication of the throne was all that would please the most ardent in the mobs, and Louis XVI was not ready for that. He entertained a group of the citizens and donned the red cap they had used as a symbol of the revolution.
They believed they had won him over.
They were mistaken. The king entrenched himself even deeper. He became bitter and humiliated.
It was the final straw for the monarch, but he did not realize it at the time.
As for myself and Mozart, we had a meeting with the king just days later. And the queen.
CRESCENDO
July 1, 1792
Paris
“We would like to make your concert a celebration of the crowning achievement of the revolution,” one of the representatives was saying. “That would be the storming of the Bastille on July 14th, 1789.”
“That will mark the two year anniversary for the people,” another one interjected.
While the various representatives spoke about equality and revolution, there was one man in the room who was considerably less equal than them at that moment—King Louis XVI. The man was still on the throne, but his power was limited and waning by the day. A figurehead, some might say. And he was being displayed in our meeting with representatives of the Legislative Assembly to show they could do as they pleased. He wore an impassive expression, but I knew it must chafe him to be in the same room.
The details of the concert were arranged between Mozart, myself, and the other men. It was to be a grand affair, held in the courtyard of the palace. The masses would be represented by the elite of the Bourgeois, and the only members of the other Estates there would be the King and Queen with their family. The intent was not verbalized, but the message was clear—we were to perform the world’s greatest music as a funeral dirge for the French monarchy.
As the meeting adjourned, Mozart and I stayed behind to have a brief talk with the king, if he permitted. He noticed our hesitation at departing and lingered as well. When the room had cleared, he leaned in to hear what we had to say.
“Thank you for hosting our concert,” I said to the king with a short bow. He nodded briefly, then turned to Mozart.
“I do not doubt your ability. I have been privileged to hear of your prowess before. In fact, when you were in Versailles on tour with your family as a child, I was blessed to hear your talent then. I am sure that now, almost thirty years later, your ability has increased tenfold,” King Louis XVI said. Mozart bowed his head briefly, but maintained eye contact with the king. The monarch pursed his lips before continuing. “However, I wonder if a simple musical tour is what brings the great Mozart to my palace this time.”
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. Mozart merely shrugged and offered a wan smile.
“I have been discovered, it appears,” Wolfgang began.
I put my hand on his arm suddenly. “Master!”
“Hush, Franz. It is only proper that this king know that his brother-in-law, the late Emperor Leopold II has sent us on this journey. That in his final hours, he wished for his royal family in France to remain safe and in good health. That is our purpose here,” Wolfgang noted.
I sat back, my breath escaping through my lips as I did. Why had I thought Mozart might tell the king of his unrequited love for the queen? Perhaps because I had seen the man on the edge of his sanity more than a few times in the past.
“You saw Leopold before you left Vienna?” Louis asked.
“We did. I told him I was on the verge of creating the greatest piece of music mankind would ever be blessed to hear, and he insisted that his own sister, devoid of joy in recent days, be allowed to hear it. He perished so soon after we left the country I am afraid our departure may have accelerated his own,” Mozart said.
The king rubbed his chin. Mozart’s words were pure hyperbole, but the king had no experience with the man for context. “Too true. I do wish he had hung on a bit longer. His son, it appears, is more eager to test his mettle than Leopold was.”
“Alas, our experience is not in the political arena, like you, but in the world of music. We will endeavor to bring you a fine concert, considering the circumstances,” I said to the king.
He coughed once. “Ah. Yes. The Bastille Day they are calling it. There is no use trying to deny it to them. They will have their celebration whether it is outside my windows, or inside my walls. Best to give them a symbol of the king on their precious day, true?”
“As you say, my lord,” Wolfgang replied.
The king stood to leave. It was Mozart’s turn to cough.
“Yes?”
“If I am not too bold, I would like a moment with the queen. She and I were good friends as children and have not seen each other in many years,” Mozart said. I noticed he conveniently left out that she sent him numerous letters over the years.
“Of course. Allow me to send for her. If you would remain here, she will be down in a few moments.” Louis XVI walked from the room, a king, yet somehow defeated at the same time.
I grabbed Wolfgang’s shirt and spun him towards me. He gave almost no resistance; I found less muscle to his arms than I had recalled. I barely gave the movement any thought, however. I was more concerned about what was about to happen.
“What are you doing?” I asked through gritted teeth.
The man—the utterly brilliant man—smiled that boyish grin. I knew he had planned this moment for months if not longer and no matter what he would get his moment with the queen. He didn’t even say a word—I think he wanted to save any word he might say for her.
I sat back, and waited. Mozart did not waste an opportunity for a drink, welcoming himself to the bottle of wine on the nearby table, pouring a couple glasses. I refused one, so he downed it himself while the queen approached.
After a few minutes, I heard a noise in the hallway, The door opened and a figure of beauty and grace entered the room. She was exquisite. Her hair was a mass of snow—rumor had it that the shock of the royal family’s treatment the year before had changed the pigment forevermore. She entered the room and it didn’t even seem as if she walked, rather, she seemed to glide on the air until she reached us. I could see how Wolfgang had been smitten by her. I bowed low as she came near, but I needn’t have concerned myself. The two only had eyes for each other. I backed away and stood against the wall.
“Hello, Amadeus,” she said. She held out her hand limply. He took it and kissed the back of it, but kept holding on, keeping his eyes locked on hers.
“Hello, my Maria Antonia,” he said.
She offered a slight grin, and tilted her head. “That’s a name I’ve not heard in quite some time.”
“It’s the only name I think of when I think of you,” Wolfgang confessed. “And I think of you often.”
Even with powder on her face and her stark white hair, the blush was evident on Marie’s face. In the past few years, the opportunity for fl
attery was probably lost. I wondered if the compliment had gone too far, however, when she pulled her hand away from his and took a seat nearby. He offered her a glass of wine, which she accepted, but did not drink.
“My husband told me you were here and you wanted to see me,” she said. “Come. Tell me about your trip. Tell me about this concert.”
It was as if he hadn’t even heard Marie mention the king at all. He sat next to her, still grinning like a schoolboy who’d found an unsupervised pie on a kitchen counter.
“Our trip does not matter. What matters is you. Your letters have kept me going throughout these years. I daresay I could have perished in Vienna, had it not been for your words. How are you?”
She touched her hair, but did not mention how she’d been affected by the chaos all around the palace. She did not talk about how she was effectively a prisoner in her own home while the country was reshaped all around her. She did not complain. Instead, she surprised me.
“I am well. I have my family together and healthy.”
Evidently, she surprised Wolfgang as well.
“Well?” he asked, genuine concern flashing across his face. “My Maria Antonia, you have been writing to me for years, telling me of your life here in Paris. I cannot believe your words now.”
She stiffened at the mention of her letters. “Do not attempt to know who I am by some words I may have written in a time of weakness. I am stronger than you know, just as France is strong with the king at the head.”
Mozart couldn’t help but laugh. “France? What has France done for you? Imprison you? Terrorize you and your family with an unpredictable life at the whim of a mob?”
She glanced my way for an instant. She was afraid I was a spy for the Bourgeois, and she was right to be concerned. I waved my hand to dismiss her thoughts. “I am merely here to serve my lord Mozart, your grace,” I said humbly.
She nodded briefly, and relaxed her shoulders, but her words remained defiant.
“That is good. It is true that my life has become one challenge after another over the past couple years, but I can endure. My mother taught me much as a girl in Vienna, and weathering the storms shows the people the qualities of a ruler, and I will not give in to these people.”
“But I can take you away from all of this,” he uttered.
And there it was. Our plan. He’d just loosed what we’d come to do.
But she was having none of it.
Her eyes narrowed and she drew her shoulders back. “Is that what this is? Some gallant attempt to save the poor queen from her own people? Some pathetic excuse to bring me in shame back to Vienna? What of my children? What of my husband?”
Her voice rose higher and higher, and Mozart cringed a little.
“I am here only for you. We can make a plan for your children, but as for the king... I did not consider him. I only considered you... and I.”
The room fell silent as she glared at him.
“Please tell me this entire trip was not wrapped up in some delusional fantasy that we are destined lovers? Please allay my fears you have done this and planned for my escape all based on the childish hopes that I would run away without considering my children, my husband... my country.”
Her glare towards the withering Mozart could penetrate to the core of the Alps themselves. She stood and towered over the composer. Her voice grew and she tossed her glass of wine across the room in disgust. “How dare you? Did you think your name and a barely remembered concert when I was a small girl would sweep me off my feet? Did you think me so cold and distant from my own family and country I could leave them now? If that is what you believed about me, that is certainly not love. You love an idea—the idea of a woman who will do whatever you wish. That is a fantasy, one you could invent in an opera perhaps, but one that you will certainly not find at the Tuileries today.” Her voice reverberated off the stone walls. I was concerned her outburst might draw others, including her husband. As if she realized the same, she smoothed the front of her dress and lowered her voice as she leaned in to emphasize her final point. “As much as the French have harmed me, I am their queen. I will not desert them now. There is still hope.”
I was amazed. This woman... this remarkable woman was being shown a possibility of hope and safety with someone who loved her... who believed he loved her, and she was shutting the door as quickly as it was opened. I admired her more in that instant than in any time I’d previously given thought to her.
But as much as I was awestruck, Mozart was crushed. His entire resolve was gone, and the pain and destruction of his plan was etched on his face. As pale as he had been in recent days, the shock of the queen’s words resonated in the room and seemed to hit him straight in the heart, weakening him. He was immediately more pale and frail.
Marie Antoinette stood and addressed him again. “I am not Maria Antonia. That was a name for a child, and I am no more that girl. You may call me Marie Antoinette, the queen of France. I hope this does not deter you from your promised concert in less than two weeks’ time,” she said. She turned and walked towards the door. Before she departed, she turned back. “I do apologize if you somehow received the wrong intentions from my letters. I love my family and I have grown fond of France, in spite of my treatment. You are more than welcome to tour the palace and I hope to see you again on the evening of the Bastille celebration. Good day.”
I expected rage. I expected anger.
I did not expect Mozart to withdraw into himself. She departed the room and he seemed to depart as well. The only signal of her rejection was when he tossed his own wine glass and drank the rest of the bottle without blinking.
In a way, I was more concerned than ever. I could deal with the rage. I had done it for years. This…this was something else entirely, and I was not sure what he was going to do next. Would he cancel the concert? If so, what would we do?
The future was unclear and for that I was really worried.
DIMINUENDO
July 14, 1792
Paris
In the two weeks since our disastrous meeting with the queen, I had watched Wolfgang crumble. The queen's words had disastrous effects on the man, and I saw first-hand how the perceived love from one to another could so quickly change a person’s life. It was clear that even if Mozart had a plan for rescuing Marie, she would not willingly go with him.
Each day when Philip visited, he told us about how Marie Antoinette had been out with the people of France. Each time she left the palace, it seemed as though she attempted to embrace France, and leave her Austrian roots behind her. Her words were loyal to Paris, and rejected her nephew—the emperor—in Vienna. But as I watched Mozart when Philip spoke, the words also rejected him. She not only crushed his hopes at the palace, she continued to dash them against the rocks again and again each day as the concert drew closer.
Even then, he continued to toil away on his manuscript. Day after day, I looked up from working on my own compositions to see Wolfgang still slaving away at finishing Requiem. Day after day I found him exhausted, weak, and lethargic. Drunk. Yet still he continued. His work at the pianoforte was tedious and repetitive as he played note after note, aiming for perfection.
I asked him more than a few times about canceling the concert in light of what we knew, but he just waved me off and kept working. I let him be, knowing the day of the Bastille celebration would be the crowning achievement of his life’s work.
* * *
I awoke early, hoping to review Requiem before the concert. If we were to perform it in front of thousands, I needed to see it. To hear it. I suspected Mozart would already be awake, putting any finishing touches on it.
I found him in his bed. When I reached for him, though, his skin was cold. Clammy. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart would not be waking up on this day.
I attempted to keep tears at bay, but they sprang to my eyes regardless. My master. My teacher. My life. Gone.
I sat on the edge of the bed and wept for my friend and for the music he had in
him that never reached a manuscript page. The carefully orchestrated piece that never reached another person’s ear. I wept for the world that would never know what Mozart could have done.
When I glanced over at him, I noticed a sheaf of paper clutched in one hand. I slid it out of his grip and unrolled it. He must’ve known he was near the end. He must’ve known for a while. The date at the top of the page was from weeks earlier. He’d worked himself to death and knew he was doing it.
The letter was addressed to me.
Franz,
I hope you are not too distressed at my death. We all have to face our Creator, and it is my time. I pray that my Requiem is enough.
I finished it. As God as my guide, I put the last notes in my Requiem in time for the Bastille Celebration Concert. It may not be the best work I’ve ever completed, but it will be the work I put the most into.
As I wrote the piece, I first had in mind to dedicate it to Maria Antonia, my Austrian Princess. But as we found, her feelings are not the same ones I thought she had. Then, I thought about Constance. Her love was a thing I never deserved, but somehow received anyway.
As time wore on, and I realized this would be my final piece, I was determined to finish it for your sake. I knew if I did not finish that you would be compelled to complete my work. You may believe yourself only capable of picking up my scraps, but you deserve more than that. More than anything I could ever give you—so I give you freedom. I give you the opportunity to write your own music instead of finishing mine. Take the life you have left and compose your own music. Set your own key and time signature and use this moment to begin your own Requiem. I cannot give you Significance, but I trust you to take what you learned from me to make the days of your life as Significant as you can.
Be well, my friend.
Alt.History 102 (The Future Chronicles) Page 7