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

by Susan Nagel

  The Queen had demonstrated time and again that she would not be separated from her husband. They were a family; the children would stay with their parents and their parents would stay together. And so the royal family and its entourage returned to the Tuileries late into the evening of June 25, 1791. When Marie-Thérèse got to her room and removed her clothing the laundress noticed that the princess had a large tear in her dress that had been inflicted by the crowds. After disrobing, Marie-Thérèse opened the drawer to her desk and discovered that the money she had tucked away for charity had been stolen.

  The next morning, June 26, the Dauphin awoke having had another nightmare. He confided to Monsieur Hüe he had dreamt that ferocious wolves, tigers and other wild animals were devouring him. He tried to tell his servant more, but the Baron, aware that the guards surrounding the boy in his own bedroom were listening, told the Dauphin to be quiet, fearing that the boy might innocently divulge other information. Marie-Thérèse and her faithful aunt, Elisabeth, were the only members of the family whose bedrooms were not infiltrated by hostile guards. The Dauphin continued to have nightmares, and, while he could not control his tears and nervousness, Marie-Thérèse, sensitive to her parents’ profound depression after their unsuccessful escape attempt, once again dutifully feigned a cheerfulness that fooled no one.

  It was not long before government officials arrived to interview the King, his family and servants, including Mesdames Brunier, de Neuville and de Tourzel, about the aborted escape. Some others who may not have accompanied the royal family but who were suspected of having information, like Diet and Camot, who served the Queen, were also questioned. A handful of courtiers including Madame de Tourzel were thrown in the Abbaye Prison for the greater part of the summer. Many servants later testified that the trauma of recent events had turned the Queen’s hair from strawberry blonde to white. Upon her return to the Tuileries, Marie Antoinette attempted to contact her dearest friends to assure them that she was in fact all right. To the Princesse de Lamballe the Queen sent a lock of her hair in a ring accompanied by a note in which she, herself, described the sample as ‘blanché’. On June 28, Marie Antoinette wrote to Comte Fersen, ‘we live’; and, on the 29th, ‘I exist’.

  In early July, a faction led by Antoine Barnave, with whom the Queen had established a rapport during the solemn return to Paris, split from the Jacobins and formed their own political club called the Feuillants, named for the Couvent des Feuillants, a sixteenth-century convent situated between the Tuileries, along the rue St Honoré near the Place Vendôme and the Jacobin friary. This group stood for a constitutional monarchy and steadfastly against the dethronement of the King – which was now the topic of debate before the National Assembly. The prospects for Louis and his family had clearly worsened after their attempted flight to the border; but on July 7, just weeks after the King’s arrest, the situation for the royal family became ever more perilous with news that the King’s brothers were acting independently and against his orders. When Louis asked his younger brother, Provence, to help him word the document ‘Leaving Paris’, he also appointed him ‘Regent of France’ in the event of his own death or disablement. After the King’s arrest at Varennes, Provence declared that his brother was now ‘disabled’ from performing his role as King and he declared himself Regent. Provence enjoyed the support of many royalists in exile as well as some European monarchs who agreed that Louis XVI was indeed impotent and now he and his brother d’Artois joined the Prince de Condé and his armies in Coblenz and declared their intention to invade France.

  In Paris, knowledge of this growing threat from the exiles propelled the National Assembly to draft a new constitution giving the Assembly the power to pass legislation but retaining the King’s right to veto. Louis believed – and he would later make it known to his family and friends in exile – that he had no choice but to sign the new document. For Marie-Thérèse this very public act had very personal repercussions. She had witnessed tensions between her father and his cousin, the Duc d’Orléans; she was now about to experience the growing friction among the members of the family to whom she was closest.

  The Comte de Provence dispatched ambassadors to Vienna, St Petersburg, London and Madrid to ask for men, arms and financial support. The word from the English Parliament was that Britain would not involve itself in war: it would remain neutral and not impede a royalist invasion. Provence, acting as Regent of France, and his brother, d’Artois, set up a court in exile at Schönbornlust Castle – the ancestral seat of the Saxon sovereigns – lent to them by their uncle, the Elector of Treves. On August 25, the crowned heads of Europe, including the Holy Roman Emperor, Leopold II, and King Frederick William II of Prussia, convened at the castle in Pillnitz, near Dresden, and issued a statement. ‘The Declaration of Pillnitz’ called on all European powers to intervene in the internal struggle in France. Leopold, as Emperor of Austria, declared that his country would go to war against France if it received the backing of the rest of Europe, though as Leopold well knew, the English had already declined to intervene and for that reason the manifesto was an idle threat. The French people believed that their King was sanctioning foreign invasion and now any vestiges of sympathy for Louis and his family completely evaporated.

  When Marie Antoinette saw the signatures of her brothers-in-law on the Declaration of Pillnitz, she uttered just one word: ‘Cain’. For Madame Elisabeth, whose loyalty to the King had hitherto been steadfast, and for whom defiance of the monarch was an unthinkable act, the Queen’s pronouncement caused divided affections. For the first time in her life Madame Elisabeth openly disagreed with the King, and wrote her émigré brothers supportive notes. Never before had Marie-Thérèse witnessed tensions between her parents and her beloved aunt.

  The Dauphin was now forced to spend his days and nights under lock and key – even the Queen had to ask the guard for permission to see her son. When Madame de Tourzel was released from jail she returned to the Tuileries to find that the Dauphin had been brainwashed by servants employed by the new regime into believing that his own beloved governess had committed a crime. When she asked him why he was angry with her, the Dauphin replied that she had ‘done something bad’. Madame de Tourzel then asked if it was a bad thing to respect the King. The little boy apologized, burst into tears and asked her never to tell his dear Pauline that he had thought ill of her mother because Pauline might not love him anymore. Madame de Tourzel wrote that she despised the guards for poisoning the boy’s mind, and found their decision to prohibit the children from attending religious services – on the grounds that the chapel of the Tuileries was too far from their bedrooms – ‘amoral’.

  Monsieur – later Baron – Hüe recalled in his memoir that one of the few pleasures left to the Queen was the chance to join her children for their studies. They had not had their lessons for some time and when Louis Charles’s tutor resumed their schedule he suggested to the boy that he would not be at all surprised if the young Prince had forgotten his language studies on the degrees of comparison. ‘Not at all,’ replied the five-year-old:

  The positive, the comparative, the superlative … The positive is when I say, ‘My abbé is a good abbé.’ The comparative is when I say ‘My abbé; is better than another abbé.’ The superlative (he continued, fixing his eyes on the Queen) is when I say ‘Mummy is the kindest and most loving of all mothers.’

  As ever, few seemed immune to the boy’s winning ways. It was said that even the soldiers and crowds who marched on the Tuileries smiled when Louis Charles saluted them. One of the officers stationed to guard the royal family at the palace demanded that Louis Charles surrender his gun. The little boy refused, telling the guard, ‘If you had said, “Give it to me”, I would have, but you said, “Surrender”.’ The officer was impressed.

  On September 3, the boy’s father made demands of his own when the National Assembly presented the King with the finalized new constitution. Louis would only agree to sign if two conditions were met. First, all those who
had taken part in the flight to Varennes would have to be pardoned; second, all émigrés would receive amnesty and would be welcomed back in France without consequence. When his two conditions were agreed to, the King and the National Assembly scheduled a formal signing. First, a delegation of sixty representatives of the National Assembly appeared together at the Tuileries to confirm that the King had agreed to sign the new constitution. Then the Queen brought Madame Royale and the Dauphin to the King’s chambers where she and her husband, watched by their children, swore that they would all respect the new government of France. On September 12, the Queen said goodbye to her dearest and most loyal friend, the Princesse de Lamballe. According to Lamballe’s own lady-in-waiting, the Baronne de Courtot, Marie Antoinette dispatched her friend on a mission of ‘utmost importance and secrecy’. Lamballe was to go to England to try to persuade George III to invade France by sea. In London, Lamballe did indeed meet with both the King and Prime Minister Pitt; however, she did not succeed in convincing them to launch an attack.

  Marie-Thérèse was very aware that both of her parents were engaged in hushed meetings; she understood their personalities – the Queen, engaging, clever, decisive and brave; the King, gentle and thoughtful – and that by their very natures, her parents often operated very differently. While the Queen insisted on taking a firm stand against the revolutionary movement and hoped to engage foreign help to quash it, the King tried to tread a more moderate and conciliatory path, always hoping to avoid spilling the blood of his countrymen. On September 13, the King wrote to the legislature that he would sign the new constitution in public, and the following day the royal family traveled from the Tuileries to the Assembly. Although the Assembly, like the États-Généraux, was largely composed of aristocrats, this alliance was not at all similar to the ‘Fronde’, the rebellion of a coalition of privileged local nobility and sénéchals who, a century earlier, had demanded of King Louis XIV increased entitlements. The legislators who forged the new constitution in 1791 had deliberately abolished all of the honors and prerogatives so dear to many of their own forebears. At noon, Louis XVI, without his crown and accompanied by his family, appeared before the Assembly and signed the document that, in effect, dethroned the Bourbons.

  The Jacobins and Feuillants swiftly put aside their differences and agreed on one thing: it was essential that the nation perceive the new constitution to be the result of their joint efforts and therefore a show of political unity was required. The Assembly arranged for the royal family to attend public events to celebrate France’s new constitution, including a Te Deum at the cathedral of Notre Dame and illuminations and festivities – the Queen remarking that all of the jubilation made her miserable. On Saturday, October 8, the King, Queen, Marie-Thérèse and the Dauphin attended a performance at the Théâtre Italien where the little boy, sitting on his mother’s lap, charmed the crowd with his animated reactions to the play. The King, Queen, Marie-Thérèse and Madame Elisabeth went to the Opéra where they saw Castor and Pollux by Jean-Philippe Rameau, to the Théâtre Français for a performance of La Gouvernante by Pierre Claude Nivelle de La Chaussée and again to the Théâtre Italien for Grétry’s Les Evénements Imprévus. Unfortunately this last performance was interrupted when fighting broke out between royalists and republicans, and the National Guard had to be brought in to subdue the crowd. It was almost impossible for the King and Queen and their children to attempt to go anywhere in public without emotions running high and in all directions.

  Society had been turned upside down. No longer was the word ‘sovereign’ associated with the King; rather it was a right belonging to the masses, and while the royal Bourbons were suffering a total lack of freedom, the press enjoyed an unbridled lack of censorship. The King was now completely powerless in protecting his wife from libel, and pamphleteers took aim at Marie Antoinette with extraordinary liberty and viciousness. Pornographic illustrations appeared depicting the Queen engaged in bestiality. Poetry and plays such as The Triumph of the Damned were printed, which detailed the Queen’s alleged sexual escapades with a variety of male and female lovers. Forged letters appeared as the Queen’s ‘true confessions’. In these sometimes melodramatic musings, the Queen would ‘confess’ to having lived a wanton life and to have wronged the people of France. One opera libretto featured a ménage à trois comprising the Queen of France, the Comte d’Artois and the Duchesse de Polignac.

  A number of very vocal women had hoped for a new order in France, where all citizens would indeed be equal. They were sadly disappointed, however, when it turned out that they would remain voiceless in the formation of this new society. Although there were salons controlled by liberal thinkers such as Madame Roland, Pauline Léon, and the dramatist Olympe de Gouges – who wrote her own ‘Declarations of the Rights of Women’ in response to the proclamation hammered out by the representatives of the National Assembly – their assertions were ignored. De Gouges would later be tried and executed for treason as a result of her outspoken criticism of the Revolution’s unequal treatment of women.

  The Queen’s new friend, Barnave, encouraged her to send for the Princesse de Lamballe, who was still in England. Barnave advised the Queen that since Lamballe had been head of the Queen’s household, it would show good faith on the Queen’s part to openly encourage her friend and other prominent émigrés to return to Paris. The King agreed with Barnave and wrote letters to his brothers telling them to return to the capital for the sake of the family, explaining that their reluctance to return would cause suspicion among the masses. Unsurprisingly the royal princes disobeyed their brother’s wishes, claiming that they believed the King had been coerced into writing the letters. As for the Queen, despite advice from Barnave, she wrote asking her dear friend, Madame de Polignac, to ‘stay away from the mouth of the tiger’.

  On October 1 1791, reflecting the increasing radicalization of French politics, the Assembly was restyled ‘the Legislative’ and it immediately expelled the members of the former Constitutional Assembly. On October 31, the new legislators, having dismissed the moderate Feuillant group, proposed that émigrés who did not immediately return would have their land confiscated and the same would apply to their family members who remained in France. The King was able to veto this bill; nonetheless, under continuing pressure from Barnave, the Queen relented and wrote to the Princesse de Lamballe asking her to return. She knew that Lamballe, the most loyal of friends, would do as she was asked the moment she was asked. Ironically, at the same time that Lamballe returned to France, in November, Barnave, having been accused by the Jacobins of being a crony of the Queen, implemented his own escape plans and exiled himself to Grenoble.

  On December 19, Marie-Thérèse turned thirteen and on New Year’s Day, 1792, the King was forced to declare that all émigrés, many of whom Madame Royale had known and loved dearly since birth, were officially condemned as traitors to France. In the meantime, the émigrés made their own plans. It was rumored that the King’s nephew, the Duc d’Angoulême, once the main contender for Madame Royale’s hand in marriage, was to marry without the King’s consent an Austrian archduchess whose dowry was the Austrian Lowlands. The marriage, however, did not take place. Marie-Thérèse was acutely aware that her immediate family was divided. She also became aware that the other rulers of Europe – also family – were ridiculing her father for his acquiescence and that he was now regarded as the shame of European sovereigns. The Swedish king, Gustav III, stood alone as an empathetically. With Fersen as his emissary, Gustav worked feverishly toward a European alliance that would actually effect change for the King and Queen of France.

  The Queen spent her days cloistered with her children and writing desperate letters in cipher to European monarchs including her brother Leopold, Gustav III, and Catherine of Russia. To her childhood friend, Louise of Hesse, whose sister Charlotte had died in childbirth in 1785, Marie Antoinette wrote that her only solace was her children. On January 7, the Queen, who always wrote to her friend, Madame de Polignac,
of the children, reported that their lives were miserable. They could not go out for fresh air without being physically threatened. They could not go to the windows without being shouted at. The family tried to create their own cocoon inside the palace: writing to friends, recounting fond memories and hoping for better times. ‘My daughter speaks to me of you often … your little note has given her infinite pleasure,’ the Queen told de Polignac on March 17.

  It was widely known in Paris that Comte Fersen had been involved in the King’s escape attempt. Despite this, on February 13, Fersen returned to the capital disguised as a courier. Claiming that he had a letter from his King as well as the support of Catherine of Russia, Fersen begged the King and Queen to follow him to Quiberon on the coast of Brittany where a ship would be waiting for them. However, two days later Fersen was recognized and was forced to flee.

  On New Year’s Day, 1792, the French Legislative Assembly denounced Provence, d’Artois and their cousins as traitors and had them stripped of their lands and titles. Tensions already existed between France’s new constitutional government and the Holy Roman Empire due to the Emperor of Austria’s support for the émigré army in Coblenz. Now, the elderly Austrian Chancellor, Kaunitz, presented a letter of demands to the French Assembly that included the immediate liberation of King Louis XVI and his family and the restoration of German lands in Alsace. On March 1, Emperor Leopold II died and his son, Franz (Francis) II, became the new Holy Roman Emperor. As Marie Antoinette’s nephew, he might have been even less inclined to come to the aid of the Queen of France than his father; but Franz was young and brash, and encouraged by reports that France’s armies were disorganized and poorly equipped, he began to taunt the Jacobins into war.

  Comte Fersen, now in Brussels, reported to his own King in March that, as Gustav III had predicted, the Jacobins had seized total power, reporting ‘their triumph is complete’. Fersen was gone, Leopold II dead and on March 16, Gustav III was shot in the back at a masked ball and died a fortnight later. The Swedish King’s tragic assassination would inspire Giuseppe Verdi’s opera, Un Ballo in Maschera.