Flaunting, Extravagant Queen

by Jean Plaidy

  Antoinette had been greatly saddened at parting with these two. Marie de Lamballe had been her great friend for so long that it seemed an unnecessary hardship to do without her now.

  ‘It would seem,’ said Antoinette, on bidding farewell to her friend, ‘that they look about them and say “What would hurt her deeply?” And they do that. There are times when I am terrified … terrified of the future.’

  She had had a strand of her hair put into a ring, and the inscription engraved on it: ‘A tress whitened by misfortune.’

  ‘Keep it, dearest Marie,’ she said, ‘in memory of me.’

  Now they must live simply, as humble people, the King adapted himself with ease; so did Madame Elisabeth. She had always wanted the quiet life and had often thought of going into a nunnery. Life at the Temple, she told Antoinette, could not be unlike life at a convent.

  ‘All about a convent there is peace,’ said Antoinette. ‘All about the Temple there is terror.’

  She gave herself up to her children – playing with them, teaching them. Sometimes, when they laughed at their play, she would laugh with them; but always she was straining her ears for those sounds in the streets which could grow to a roar; always she was waiting for the next terrifying ordeal.

  Jacques Rene Hébert, Deputy Public Prosecutor of the Commune, was in charge of the Temple. He was the worst kind of revolutionary leader, inspired by no feelings but greed and envy. An unscrupulous criminal, he had been poor when the revolution began and had seen in it, as had so many, a means of profit and glory. Now he was a man of power. He had established his own newspaper Père Duchesne; and in this he vilified the monarchy.

  As soon as he took charge of the Temple there was a subtle change in the place. No one dared show leniency towards the King or Queen for fear that in Hébert’s eyes they would be suspected of having royalist leanings.

  He would watch the Queen whenever he could; she gave no one outside the Temple the opportunity of seeing her; she never ventured out; she could not endure the indignity of being shouted at by the mob.

  Hébert, deeply sensual, could not keep his eyes from the Queen. For all her sufferings, she was still a beautiful woman; she had preserved her dainty charm; and the whiteness of her hair accentuated her fine clear skin even as it had in the days of its golden beauty.

  He showed her some civility and asked that he might speak with her.

  He had tried to explain to her that the revolution was for the good of France.

  ‘I do not think,’ said Antoinette haughtily, ‘that you and I could agree on these matters.’

  ‘We could discuss them,’ Hébert had suggested.

  ‘I prefer not to,’ said the Queen.

  She rose and left him staring after her with lustful eyes.

  In his paper that day he asked why fat Louis and the Austrian strumpet should be allowed to live at the country’s expense. Was it not time for the employment of the national razor?

  On a warm September day the people began pouring into the streets.

  ‘Have you heard? The enemies of France are advancing.’

  ‘The Prussians are across the border.’

  ‘Verdun has fallen. The Prussians swear that ere long they will be in Versailles to drink the health of the Austrian woman.’

  ‘It shall not be.’

  ‘Antoinette à la lanterne!’

  They were mad with the lust for blood. They ran into their houses to snatch up weapons. They congregated in the Place du Carrousel and the Champs Elysées.

  ‘Citizens, to the lanterne with all these accursed aristocrats! It is they who have massed the world against us. Why should we wait, Citizens? Why should we wait?’

  Their inhuman yells filled the streets as they marched together.

  ‘Allons, enfants de la patrie …’ they sang, and the words inspired them with greater lust to kill.

  A crowd had assembled at La Force prison. ‘We want justice,’ they cried. ‘Bring out the prisoners. Let them be tried.’

  They knew of one exalted prisoner in La Force prison. It was the Princesse de Lamballe.

  They insisted on breaking into the prison and dragging her before the tribunal, which was presided over by Hébert.

  He looked at the woman; the proud tilt of her head reminded him of the Queen, and a savage fury possessed him.

  ‘Are you acquainted with the plots of the Palace?’ he asked.

  ‘I know of no plot,’ answered the Princesse.

  ‘Swear to love liberty and equality. Swear to hate the King, Queen and royalty.’

  The Princesse did not answer. Like an accursed aristocrat, thought Hébert, she stood, haughty and unmoved by his threats.

  He shook her. ‘Swear … swear … if you value your life,’ he demanded.

  ‘I will take the first oath,’ she said coldly. ‘I could not take the second. I should merely lie if I did so.’

  Hébert looked about the court; the mob was pushing its way into the room. He could put her in safe keeping or he could send her back to prison. The latter would be to send her to certain death – and violent horrible death – for the mob were waiting for her and they would spare her nothing.

  She had been an intimate of the Queen. The Queen had kissed her often.

  ‘Take her away,’ he said.

  He had the satisfaction of hearing the gasp of demoniacal glee from the crowd as she stepped into the street, a guard on either side of her. But what were two guards in such company? He saw a knife raised; he saw the red blood of an aristocrat. The Princesse had fallen swooning to the ground and the crowd were upon her.

  Outside the Temple the crowd was calling for Antoinette.

  ‘Come to your window, Antoinette. See what we have here for you.’

  The shouts and blood-curdling screams filled the Temple.

  The King went to the window, and started back in horror at what he saw.

  ‘Antoinette! Antoinette! Come to the window, Antoinette!’

  The shouts continued. ‘Come and see your dear little friend. Come and kiss her lips now.’

  Antoinette was behind her husband.

  ‘No,’ said Louis. ‘No … no! Go away.’

  ‘I must see. I must see …’ cried the Queen.

  But Louis had seized her and forced her back into the room.

  Elisabeth was with them. Her horrified eyes went to the window; the head of their dear friend was scarcely recognizable. It was fixed on a pike, covered with mud and blood; and behind it on other pikes came the remains of the once beautiful body of the Princesse de Lamballe.

  ‘Come and kiss the lips of the Lamballe,’ chanted the crowd. ‘Come, Antoinette! It is your turn now …’

  Antoinette did not see that ghastly sight, thanks to the intervention of Louis who for once was prompt. But she understood. She fell fainting to the floor.

  Later that night a ring was smuggled in to her. Someone had managed to tear it from the finger of the murdered Princesse and return it to the Queen.

  Engraved in the ring were the words ‘A tress whitened by misfortune’.

  It did not seem to matter to the Queen that the National Guard had managed once more to save the royal family from the mob.

  ‘I feel my heart is broken,’ said Antoinette that night. ‘I feel that I have reached the very dregs of sorrow. I know that all feeling will be soon drained from me and that I shall wish only for death.’

  Three weeks later there was more shouting in the streets. This time the shouts were of joy.

  ‘The monarchy is abolished,’ cried the people. ‘The man in the Temple is no longer Louis Seize. He is Louis Capet.’

  Now it was the delight of all in the Temple to show the Capets that they were ordinary folk. The lowest servant would sprawl on a chair and put his feet on the table in the presence of the Queen. An uncouth couple named Tison were brought ostensibly to keep the cell clean, but their main work was to spy on the family. Any who were likely to come into contact with them were ordered to address
them as plain Monsieur and Madame; and to take off a hat when addressing them would be considered an insult to the new France wherein all men were equal.

  The family went about its daily life with quiet dignity, teaching the children, playing with the children, subdued, a certain hopelessness manifest in their faces.

  The children were charming, and even the rough servants could not help softening towards them. This was particularly so in the case of the Dauphin. Even the grimmest of their captors – even Hébert – was not quite immune from the Dauphin’s charm.

  Then came that terrible day when Louis was ordered to make ready to leave his family.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’ he asked.

  ‘To other quarters.’

  ‘In this building?’

  ‘Yes, in this building.’

  Louis was less distressed. They were not to be entirely separated then.

  He had to learn that his jailers had no intention of leniency for, although he was kept in the same building, he was not allowed a sight of his wife or children, nor was he given any news of their health.

  Antoinette lost her control when he prepared to go.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘this is too cruel. In all our misfortunes we have been together.’

  ‘Have courage,’ said Louis.

  ‘I cannot let you go. I cannot.’

  ‘Remember the children. We shall meet soon. They cannot separate us for long.’

  She kissed him fervently, remembering all his goodness, and she was filled with remorse because she had loved another man more than this kind Louis.

  ‘It is more than I can bear,’ she cried. ‘I would they would kill us and put us out of our misery.’

  But the children were coming in, and they must hide their grief.

  ‘Papa,’ said the Dauphin, ‘where are you going?’

  ‘Away for a little while, my son. I’ll be back.’

  And with a kiss for them all, and a pat on the head for the Dauphin, he went.

  Antoinette received no news of Louis. She could only wonder what was happening to him.

  ‘Oh, Louis … Louis …’ she would cry into her pillows at night. ‘Where are you? Why do they torture us?’

  She was allowed no newspapers. The woman, Tison, watched her every move. Everything she said, everything Elisabeth or the children said, was falsely recorded, was twisted … written down to be used against them.

  During that December of the year 1792 Louis stood on trial for his life. The revolution was victorious. The French had turned the tide of war in their favour. Their enemies had evacuated Verdun and retired across the frontier.

  France would show the world that it cared nothing for the rattling sabres of the King’s friends.

  Louis was accused of treason, of assembling armed forces to attack Paris.

  He protested but mildly. ‘I have always had the right of ordering troops,’ he explained patiently, ‘but I never had the intention of shedding blood.’ And when they continually referred to him as Louis Capet, he mildly reproached them. ‘Capet is not my name,’ he said, ‘it is the surname of one of my ancestors.’

  They continued to call him Capet; and they continued to call him traitor.

  ‘The tree of liberty grows when it is watered with the blood of tyrants,’ said one.

  ‘I vote for death,’ cried Robespierre.

  ‘I vote for the death of the tyrant,’ declared Danton.

  There was another who voted for death; the Duc d’Orléans.

  The voting was over, and the President announced the result.

  ‘365 have voted for death,’ he announced; ‘286 for detention or banishment; 46 for death after a delay, as an inseparable condition of their vote; 26 for death, while expressing a wish for the sentence to be revised by the Assembly. I declare, therefore, in the name of the Convention, that the punishment pronounced by them against Louis Capet is that of death.’

  There was silence in the great hall; and the man who seemed less disturbed than any was the King himself.

  There was one last interview.

  She had known, as soon as she had been told that she might see him. She threw herself into his arms and clung to him, weeping bitterly and calling down curses on the men who had condemned him to die.

  ‘Nay,’ he said, stroking her hair, ‘remember the children. And you must not blame these men. They thought they did their duty. You must forgive them, Antoinette, as I do.’

  The Dauphin cried: ‘Where are you going, Papa? Why do you say good-bye?’

  And Louis took the little boy onto his knee and told him gently that he was going away and that they would never meet again.

  ‘They have decided that I must die, my son. One day you will understand; and never, my dear boy, try to avenge your father. Try to forgive all those who have sent me to my death, for only in this forgiveness can there be peace in our country. One day, if God is willing, you may be King of this country. Remember, my dearest boy, that a King is the father of his people. He must never set himself up as their executioner.’

  ‘Papa, I do not want you to go. I want to fly our kite together …’

  ‘Ah, my son, that is of the past. Promise me what I ask. Promise me now, for there is little time.’

  ‘I promise,’ said the Dauphin.

  ‘Make the sign of the cross, that it may be a sacred promise.’

  The Dauphin did so.

  ‘Love your mother well. And be a good Catholic. Then you too, as I do, will find great comfort in your faith.’

  Madame Royale was kneeling at his feet, weeping quietly, and Louis, knowing that his presence with them could do nothing but increase their grief, left them.

  He went to his confessor and as they sat together he said to him: ‘Why must one love and be loved?’

  He did not see the Queen again. ‘It would be too painful for her,’ he said.

  His hair was cut and he was prepared for his journey.

  Those who watched him go were shaken. ‘Such courage in the face of death is not human,’ they said.

  He stood on the scaffold. He unbuttoned his shirt himself, and his fingers showed no sign of trembling. He lifted his hand suddenly and said in a loud firm voice:

  ‘Frenchmen, I die innocent. I pardon my enemies, and I pray God that my blood may not fall back on France.’

  That was all.

  When it was over the executioner held up the head of King Louis XVI, and a few cried: ‘Long live the Republic!’

  But the cry was half-hearted; the crowd could not forget the calm acceptance of his fate by the man who had been their King.

  The Duc d’Orléans was smitten with a terrible remorse such as he had not believed possible and when, on his return to the Palais Royal, his little son, the Comte de Beaujolais, came running to meet him, he could not bear to look at the boy.

  ‘Go away from me now,’ he said to the astonished child, ‘for I do not think I am worthy to be your father.’

  And all that day there was a silence throughout the Capital as though of mourning.

  Chapter XVI

  THE WIDOW IN THE TEMPLE

  She sat in her prison – the widow Capet – and there were those among her guards who were stirred to pity.

  In the streets there were still many who called for her blood; but those who came into contact with her could not but respect her. There were some who were incapable of pity. There was Simon the rough cobbler, uncouth and of the gutter, who had been chosen by Hébert because he feared the compassion of the more cultured. Simon was brutalised; it amused him to spit on the floor of the Queen’s prison. There was Madame Tison, asking herself a hundred times a day: ‘Why should I be poor and she be rich? Why should I have lived in a garret while she lived in luxury in that wicked Trianon?’

  But there were others.

  There was François Toulan, one of the guards of the Temple. He had been as eager as any to fight for the revolution; he had been among those who had stormed the Tuileries and shouted for
the blood of the King and Queen. It was a different matter when he saw the Queen every day.

  ‘How she suffers!’ he would murmur to himself as he stood on duty. The Dauphin came close and looked at him.

  ‘What’s that medal?’ he demanded.

  And Toulan had invented some story, for he was ashamed to say he had won it for pillaging the Tuileries and bringing distress to the boy’s family.

  Toulan longed to do something to make up for his conduct on that June day, so he stole the King’s belongings which had been put in the security of the Commune – there was a locket containing some hair of Madame Royale’s, a watch, a seal and a ring – and took them to the Queen, for it was easy to reach her now, far more easy than it had been when the King was alive.

  ‘Madame,’ he said haltingly, ‘I have brought you these.’ For some seconds Antoinette would not look, expecting mockery. He thrust them into her hands, and when he saw the sudden rush of tears he turned quickly away. But she knew then that she had a friend.

  Toulan could not rest now. He longed to set the Queen free. Greatly daring he asked for a private interview with a General who was an official in the War Office. He knew that General Jarjayes was a secret supporter of the monarchy, and he suggested to him that, with the help of one of the regular guardians of the Temple such as himself, and the money which such as General Jarjayes could provide, the Queen’s escape could be brought about.

  The General was ready to consider this plan and asked Toulan to keep his eyes open and see how it could be brought about.

  The Queen and Elisabeth sat in the small room with the bars across the window. They were working on a piece of embroidery. It was good to keep the hands busy although, as Antoinette had said, that did not prevent the thoughts from going their own way.

  They had heard news this day; it was news which made the Queen very thoughtful.

  She had heard that James Armand had been killed fighting for the French last November at the battle of Jemappes.

  ‘Poor James,’ she said. ‘I shall never forget seeing his face close to mine … he was a member of the mob then … one of our enemies. Little James, whom I had nursed and kissed so often. You remember how he used to call himself my little boy?’