Marie-Therese, Child of Terror: The Fate of Marie Antoinette's Daughter

by Susan Nagel

  On July 25, the Queen wrote confidential instructions to the Marquise in order to prepare de Tourzel for her new job. It was a touching and honest letter revealing each child’s shortcomings and strengths. Marie Antoinette welcomed the new governess saying, ‘Madame, I had entrusted my children to friendship; today, I entrust them to virtue.’ She also asked the new governess to pay as much attention to Madame Royale as to the Dauphin. The Queen explained that it was the women who had been with Madame Royale since her birth, such as Mesdames Fréminville, Brunier and seven other ladies, who had made the greatest impression on Marie-Thérèse, and those women were very important to her daughter. They had attended Marie-Thérèse with diligence and care. The Queen confided, however, that ‘the men with her since birth are absolutely insignificant’.

  Delineating the failings of various servants, including complaints about both mother and daughter Mesdames de Mackau and de Soucy, the Queen also sketched intimate details of life in the royal nursery. The Queen revealed that although the Dauphin, now almost four years and four months old, was of robust health, and that he had been ‘born happy’, he was a sensitive boy and his nerves were delicate. Louis Charles could be indiscreet, the Queen warned, and he would innocently repeat things that he had overheard, embellishing imaginatively. She rightly understood this as the innocent babble of a small child; some people, however, would not be so forgiving.2 The Queen also stressed that the four-year-old Dauphin found apologizing – for example, after a temper tantrum -quite a challenge. She added that he did, however, have many redeeming qualities. One of his finest was that he ‘loves his sister deeply, and with a full heart. Every time that something gives him pleasure, whether to go somewhere or something that someone gives him, his first inclination is to always request that his sister have the same’.3

  Madame de Tourzel, who would later be honored with the hereditary title of Duchess, arrived at Versailles at the beginning of August. She slept in the Dauphin’s room, guarding him day and night. Displaying great loyalty, she brought along her own teenage daughter, Pauline, whom she could have sent out of the country to safety at any time. The children adored Pauline, and, although genuinely fond of the Marquise, they teasingly called her ‘Madame Sévère’.

  The royal couple kept up as regular a correspondence with the Duchesse de Polignac as was possible. In a letter to his former ‘favorite’, dated July 29, the King wrote that he was happy that she was safe, and closed with the tender words, ‘Goodnight, my dear Madame; you know the unchanging sentiments of your very humble and obedient servant.’ The Queen, knowing that Polignac would long to hear news of the royal children, put in place a chain of sympathizers who would send oral reports to the émigrée, now situated in Basel. The King and Queen smuggled letters to their refugee friends and family through the Queen’s long-time advisor (and her mother’s former spy), Comte Mercy. On August 12, the Queen wrote to Polignac that she had no doubt that word had arrived about the appointment of Madame de Tourzel and that although it pained her heart to replace her friend, it was necessary to find someone who had been far from all of the accusations and intrigue at court, someone who was above reproach. She also reported that the two girls were trying their best to be exemplary: ‘My daughter and Ernestine had been perfect for you, and, consequently, for me. As for my son, he is still too young and too scattered to deeply sense a separation.’ On August 31, the Queen’s letter to Polignac included a handwritten note from Marie-Thérèse, which said, ‘Madame, I was very angry to learn that you had left. Please know that I will never forget you.’

  While many of the émigrés, which included hairdressers and couturiers who lived off their rich patrons, believed that what they were encountering was a temporary hiatus, and that they would return to France as soon as the situation stabilized, Marie-Thérèse clearly believed in her heart that things would not get better. The ten-year-old was aware of the growing impatience of the populace with the legislators whom they themselves had put in place. Tensions escalated and the personal rights and very freedom of the royal family were eroded. In August, members of the National Assembly were busily constructing a manifesto based on the American Declaration of Independence, called the ‘Declaration of the Rights of Man’. Two weeks before the Declaration was passed on August 26, it was announced that no one in France would ever kneel before anyone else again. On August 25, the Fête of Saint-Louis, even the Mayor of Paris did not bow before the King and Queen on the King’s own name day. In September, Necker announced that the King and his household would drastically cut its expenditure. Rumors at the Palais-Royal spread that the King was going to live with the Dauphin at the Louvre Palace while the Queen was going to enter a convent. On September 13, in Paris, a baker was hanged for supposedly favoring his more affluent customers and offering only poor quality bread to those of lesser means. As the violence became random and more prolific, the King called upon the Flanders regiment, whom he believed loyal, to provide protection at Versailles.

  Garrisoned at the frontier, 1,100 men arrived at the palace on September 23, most with enthusiasm, though this was somewhat diluted when they came into contact with and fraternized with the National Guard, organized by the National Assembly of France. To honor their newly arrived Flemish comrades, the gardes du corps – the King’s own palace guards – planned a feast, inviting the Swiss and National Guards as well. The banquet was held on October 1 in the Opera House at Versailles, the very same place where the royal couple’s spectacular wedding reception had taken place nearly twenty years before.

  The King and Queen were advised to make an appearance. Marie Antoinette was afraid that she would be harmed, so she sent Madame Campan ahead to spy on the crowd. Campan surveyed the scene accompanied by one of her nieces and Ernestine. When the girls joined some soldiers in singing a chorus of ‘O Richard, oh my king!’ and shouted ‘Vive le Roi!’, a deputy chided them for screaming outrageously for the life of one man who, according to the Declaration of the Rights of Man, had no more importance than any other. Madame Campan’s niece responded sharply and Campan herself told the man to shut up. Suddenly, without having waited for a signal to enter, the royal family arrived: the Queen, dressed in white and pale blue and wearing a turquoise necklace and a feather in her hair, carried the Dauphin -dressed in a lilac sailor suit – in one arm. Marie-Thérèse, in green and white, held her mother’s other hand. Madame de Tourzel and Pauline walked behind. A soldier approached the Queen and asked if she would permit him to take the Dauphin to join the men downstairs, and although she complied graciously, she was terrified. The boy was lifted onto a table and as he walked along it fearlessly, the convivial crowd sang with gusto. Some of the soldiers saluted the boy with their swords and the Dauphin received a spontaneous ovation. A few members of the National Guard turned their cockades inside out displaying the white lining as a tribute to the Bourbons and then the entire militia escorted the royal family back to their quarters.

  As the royal family prepared for bed, they felt more optimistic than they had for many months. Soldiers sang and danced under the King’s windows, and one belonging to the Flanders regiment climbed up onto the King’s balcony loudly shouting, ‘Vive le Roi!’ The euphoria lulled the royal family into a false sense of calm. They quickly tried to recover their customary daily domestic routine and pursue normal activities. Meanwhile, rumors proliferated that the soldiers’ revelry at Versailles had been no less than an orgy and a counter-revolutionary celebration that was held to restore all powers to the King. On the morning following the festivities, October 2, an inflammatory and excoriating article appeared in the newspaper L’ Ami du Peuple, published by revolutionary leader Marat, portraying the previous night’s revelries as a gross affront to the people, and a song about the King’s surfeited guards, glass in hand, called ‘L’Orgie des Gardes francaises’, became an overnight anthem. Members of the National Assembly met to denounce the evening.

  According to the stories, the Queen had gorged herself with the most dele
ctable, succulent food and had become drunk on the ‘gallons of fine wines’ at the festivities. When, on October 4, the peasants of Paris were told there was no bread in the entire city, they rioted, turned violent, and hanged another unfortunate baker on the spot. Later, they would learn that the Duc d’Orléans had secretly amassed an immense hoard of grain with the intent of causing a shortage, in effect starving and killing many of the people who thought him a savior. Ignorant of the Duke’s malevolence, a mob of six to seven thousand Parisians, angry and hungry and armed with guns, pikes and iron hooks, gathered at Place Louis XV and set out in the pouring rain on the twelve-mile walk to Versailles, to get their hands on bounty.

  Chapter VI

  The End of the Fairy Tale

  Marie-Thérèse reported in her journal that Monday, October 5, 1789, began as a rather tranquil day at Versailles. She and her brother were playing in the gardens at the Petit Trianon and they joined their mother for lunch at 1.30 in the afternoon. The Comte de Provence and his wife were at Versailles, and her favorite aunt, Madame Elisabeth, was on a drive toward Montreuil. The King, hunting at Meudon, was feeling quite happy with his booty of forty-one birds when a gentleman on his staff interrupted. The servant informed the King that a mob was en route to Versailles from Paris. Madame Elisabeth was eating lunch at Montreuil when she, too, was alerted. According to Marie-Thérèse, her aunt immediately headed back to Versailles, where she went to her brother’s apartment. The Comte de Provence said he had heard rumors of a march, but did not believe them. Madame Elisabeth assured her brother that the story was true and the two of them went directly to the Petit Trianon where they found the Queen dining with her children. Marie Antoinette realized there was something gravely wrong as soon as she saw her sister-in-law and left the room so that she could receive her news in private. That was the last time that Marie Antoinette would see her beloved Petit Trianon.

  The Queen, the children, her brother and sisters-in-law returned to the palace and sequestered themselves for the remainder of the afternoon while courtiers paced silently. The children remained on the second floor with their mother and were forbidden from going outside. Soldiers slammed shut the palace’s massive iron gates. The rain intensified and then subsided, then poured down again – a mirror of the ebb and flow of emotion and resolution that the royal family would experience during their last few hours at Versailles.

  Félix d’Hézecques, a young page in the King’s service, recalled that the King was so worried about the safety of his wife and children that he refused a carriage, mounted one of the strongest horses in the Meudon stables and galloped at full speed the five miles to Versailles. People on the roads who saw the King charging on horseback at breakneck speed were so stunned, they simply scurried out of his way to the side of the road. Traditionally, there would have been about a hundred of the elite Swiss guard inside the palace to protect the King’s person or to be on call for ceremonial duties, with another nine hundred posted in the palace grounds. The King had agreed, as part of the cost-cutting measures for the royal household, to reduce the number of these soldiers. It was an admirable public relations attempt, stating in effect that the King had full confidence in the National Assembly, but as a security measure, it was a disaster. Many of the King’s personal guard, now let go, had defected to the National Guard, led by the Marquis de Lafayette, an aristocrat who had gained fame and glory as a war hero in the American battle for independence from the British. Other soldiers remained but had little desire to risk their own lives for this King and the despised ‘I’Autrichienne’.

  Panic consumed the entire court during those last few hours at Versailles and versions of events vary with almost every testimony. Most accounts agree that the King raced back to Versailles believing that he and his family could escape the palace before the onslaught of rioters. Some eyewitnesses state that the King arrived at Versailles at three in the afternoon; others claim it was two hours later. Intent on moving his loved ones to Fontainebleau or Rambouillet, the King began making escape arrangements. It was not a simple process, however, as it necessitated the cooperation of his ministers and a few loyal courtiers. As always, notwithstanding the fact that the King had suffered an immeasurable loss of status, he could not simply abandon one palace without detection and without considering public opinion.

  Some bystanders’ accounts claim the rioters arrived at the palace gates at about four in the afternoon; Marie-Thérèse and Monsieur Hüe both, however, place that event at about six that evening. When the poissardes – the women from Paris’s fish markets – arrived at the head of the mob, shouting obscenities through the bolted gates, they came face to face with the King’s gardes du corps, poised for battle. These coarse and brawny women, who earned their living eviscerating fish, came in their blood-and-gut-stained white aprons armed with their tools of the trade. They appeared unafraid of the Flanders regiment stationed in the vast courtyard of the chateau. Some insist that General Lafayette accompanied the mob to the palace, arriving at the same hour; others place his arrival five hours later, in a deliberate attempt, despite the fact that he had known about the march on Versailles since early that morning, to stall his soldiers and appear just at the moment of crisis.

  Conversation inside the palace walls took place in whispers as ministers including Necker, the Comte de Saint-Priest, the Marquis de La Tour du Pin, and Marshal Beauvau came and went to speak with the King to discuss whether he and his family should evacuate the palace. These discussions are recorded in accounts with great variation. Saint-Priest suggested that the Queen, the children and Madame Elisabeth depart for Rambouillet. The famous literary figure Madame de Staël, who was present, saw her father, finance minister Necker, as the voice of wisdom. Necker, ever the financier, advised against the departure of the royal family, explaining that moving would be expensive. He also suggested that if the King did not stand his ground, he would be playing right into the Duc d’Orléans’s hands. Although the Queen had ordered her belongings to be packed, she refused to be separated from her husband and children. The King maintained his desire to stay and help his people, and when he ruefully rejected the idea out of hand with the comment ‘A king in flight?’, Marie Antoinette told her staff that the family would be staying put.

  Jean-Joseph Mounier, the President of the National Assembly, also traveled to Versailles that day. Until then, the King had refused to sanction the reforms passed by the National Assembly in August and September, including the ‘Declaration of the Rights of Man’, and, in reaction, there had been discussion to pass a resolution declaring the Duc d’Orléans King. Mounier arrived to tell His Majesty that he needed to agree to the Assembly’s decree, ‘the Rights of Man’, and nineteen articles of the new constitution. Mounier explained that the rioting had now spread beyond Paris to the provinces. There had been reports of the sacking and burning down of chateaux. Mounier reasoned that it was necessary for peace in the country to give the National Assembly his blessing, warning the King that there could be civil war. Mounier later recalled that when he stood to face the King he saw a frightened man. He reassured the monarch that General Lafayette was on his way and that the royal family would not be harmed. Marie-Thérèse later reflected that she thought Mounier meant well; Hüe, on the other hand, thought that Mounier’s understanding of the situation was simplistic, and, thus, a recipe for disaster. For several hours, Mounier went back and forth to the Salle des Menus-Plaisirs, where Assembly leaders were gathered to debate and negotiate.

  To Mounier’s satisfaction, the King agreed to ratify the Assembly’s decisions. Marie-Thérèse recalled that she saw Mounier come to the Château several times that evening. First, he came on an errand on behalf of the new government; he then returned as a mediator, in what he perceived to be a conciliatory role. Mounier believed that the citizen army was rioting for a fair and proper cause, so he asked the King to allow a small group of the female peasants to be permitted through the gates. This designated group of women, representing the larger
mob, would speak with the King, he said, in a civilized manner, and express the concerns of His Majesty’s subjects.

  Madame de Tourzel counted that twelve representatives of the citizen army were let inside the palace to see the King; others claimed there were five. In either case, the small delegation was ushered to the Salon de l’Oeil-de-Boeuf, so named by Louis XV who liked to joke that the oval window in its cornice looked like a bull’s eye. Seventeen-year-old Louise Chabry was the designated spokesperson. Some have since regarded her as a ‘Palais-Royal mole’, claiming that she then theatrically feigned a state of near collapse in order to gain a measure of notoriety and sympathy, though, in truth, the march itself would have exhausted even the fittest. When the King exhibited concern for the young woman and asked her what it was she wanted, Chabry tearfully replied: ‘bread’. Louis XVI immediately requested that a glass of wine be served to the shaking Mademoiselle Chabry, and he further ordered that bread from two of the palace’s granaries be distributed among the women. The group seemed appeased, even stunned, by His Majesty’s compassion. Mounier again assured the King that, since Lafayette was en route and the King had complied with the National Assembly, His Majesty should demonstrate even more good faith and disperse his soldiers.

  At about seven o’clock, the delegation of women returned to their comrades outside the palace gates with a handwritten promise from the King, shouting, ‘We will have bread!’ A small group responded, ‘Vive le Roi!’ One woman in the crowd told her friends to shut up because the demand for bread was merely a pretext. One of the gardes du corps, on horseback, claimed he heard a woman cry, ‘Go back to the palace and tell them we will be there soon to cut off the Queen’s head.’ Another shouted, ‘We will roast the Queen’s heart tomorrow!’ The onset of rain did not deter the crowd from their mission of finding a way to enter the palace. While a struggle conveniently erupted among some soldiers in the Place d’Armes, a group of the brigands found a small, unprotected gate, slipped onto the grounds of the palace and made their way to the kitchen, where they broke in. When confronted by members of the King’s staff, some broke down, claiming that they had been forced to march. The Marquis de La Maisonfort, later a royalist spy, and Madame Campan both referred to the female rebels as ‘furies’; to others, the hordes of screaming women were ‘harpies’ or ‘Orléans’s prostitutes’. Hüe alleged that Orléans had engaged real Parisian prostitutes to seduce the soldiers away from their posts at Versailles, that some of the regiments, led by aristocratic officers, resisted temptation, remaining strong, but some succumbed, abandoned their King and donned the tri-colored hats of the revolutionaries, causing confusion in the ranks.