The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette

by Carolly Erickson

  I pray that we will be rescued in the new year.

  February 2, 1792

  I pray daily for rescue—and yesterday fresh hope of a rescue came.

  A dark-haired young laborer wearing a tricolor cockade on his shirt and carrying a basket of tools came into the small room I am using as a bedchamber after showing Amélie and the People’s Chamberwomen his special pass. Without looking at me he walked to the window and began scraping away at one corner of the frame, saying something about having been sent to repair a leak. He seemed to know what he was doing, and the women did not challenge him.

  Something about him intrigued me. I watched him work and after a short while, when the others had drifted out of the room, he dropped a small square of paper at my feet.

  “Excuse me, monsieur, but you dropped this,” I said, picking up the paper and holding it out to him.

  “Sh!” he whispered. “Read it!”

  Immediately I turned away from him and placed the paper in a book which I pretended to read. Once I was certain no one had overheard our exchange I furtively unfolded the paper and read:

  “I am the boy you once rescued from Prince Stanislaus’s beatings. You sent me to Vienna, where your brother Joseph enrolled me in a military academy. I am now Lieutenant de la Tour in the Austrian army, principal commander of the Knights of the Golden Dagger. We are four hundred men of noble birth here in Paris, pledged to guard and defend the king and his family. We will not fail. Look beneath the candle-holder. Burn this paper.”

  I reread the message, then crushed it in my hand. Lieutenant de la Tour took a plain pewter candleholder from his tool basket, stuck a candle-end in it, and lit it, placing it on the table in front of me. The afternoon was growing dark, and he needed the light to work by. Yet when he completed his repairs he left the candleholder on the table, and I burned his message in the dying flame. After the candle burned out, I turned the candleholder over. A tiny golden dagger was stamped into the metal—and when I touched it the entire base of the candleholder dropped open to reveal a hollow tube. Inside was another message, and when I unrolled it I was astonished to see hundreds of signatures, each followed by the words “To the death.”

  These surely were the signatures of the Knights of the Golden Dagger, the men pledged to safeguard us. Tears ran down my cheeks. So many names. Such honor. Such bravery. Quickly I rolled up the paper and put it back inside the candleholder, refastening the hinged bottom.

  I did my best to disguise from Amélie and the other women the delight I felt and the upsurge of hope that swept over me during the evening when for a precious half-hour I was allowed to join my family. I wanted to tell Louis what had happened but several of the National Guard were lounging in the doorway and of course I did not dare breathe a word about Lieutenant de la Tour’s visit. I played whist with Mousseline, and Louis read aloud to Louis-Charles from a storybook. We laughed and hugged each other.

  When Amélie came to get me to take me back to my apartment I kissed Louis goodbye on the cheek and whispered “I have good news.” I can hardly wait to share it with him.

  February 14, 1792

  Axel is with us once again. Despite all my warnings and entreaties, in my letters to him, that he not risk his safety and his freedom by returning to France, he is here. In our precious moments alone he kissed me hungrily and told me that he could not stay away, that he is continually anxious about me and devotes all his time and thought to freeing me and my family from the trap that is closing around us.

  Though he is still beautiful, as beautiful as a carved statue, he now looks like a hunted man. His face is thinner and his dear warm loving blue eyes are wary. His hair, drawn back republican-style and tied with a black ribbon, is shot through with threads of silver.

  He comes here as a representative of the Queen of Portugal (a disguise of course) and wears an immense black cloak and oddly shaped black hat of the kind Portuguese noblemen wear. He has dark-haired Portuguese servants and brings his big gray wolfhound Malachi with him wherever he goes. Axel says Malachi is the best bodyguard he could possibly have, quite mild and affectionate most of the time but able to tear out the throat of anyone who might attack him in a matter of seconds. I could not help noticing that Malachi growled whenever Amélie entered the room during Axel’s visit.

  He stayed with us most of the day yesterday, telling us, in low guarded tones, what we most wanted to hear: that sincere efforts are being made to deliver us from these monstrous men of the Legislative Assembly, which since last fall has been the governing body of France.

  I dare not put down all that we were told, but King Gustavus has been our most faithful ally, as it turns out. He has done much more than Stanny and Charlot who are slowly raising a small force of soldiers at Coblenz. Gustavus made a daring effort to send almost the entire Swedish fleet to Normandy last fall (I knew nothing of this) with the intent to land two thousand soldiers and then march toward Paris, gathering support in the loyal western provinces of France along the way. Had he succeeded in this grand plan I have no doubt the Swedes and the loyal French would have conquered Paris. The revolution would have collapsed and all the wicked deputies would have been locked up and tried as the traitors they are.

  That would have been a great day!

  Gustavus is preparing to launch a second invasion but in the meantime he can smuggle us out of the Tuileries if we will agree to go one at a time. Louis continues to resist any escape plan. He has given his word to General Lafayette that he will not attempt to leave the Tuileries and he intends to keep it. Axel told me he thinks Louis is being foolish and stubborn (when was Louis ever not foolish and stubborn?) yet he respects his integrity.

  February 17, 1792

  A false spring has made the trees bloom early outside my window, and I too am blooming a little after my long winter of ceaseless letter-writing and weary vigilance. With the connivance of blessed Dr. Concarneau, who managed to convince the new head of the Legislative Assembly that I am very ill and need warmth and rest, I have managed to spend a few days with Axel at St.-Cloud.

  February 19, 1792

  Wrapped in Axel’s strong arms, with the world kept at bay, here at St.-Cloud I am hardly aware of the passage of time.

  When he kisses me it is as thrilling as the first time. I am lost in him, lost in a daze, a dream of happiness.

  “My dearest little angel,” he murmurs, stroking my cheek, kissing my lips, my cheeks, my forehead. “We have been through so much together.”

  “You have risked everything for me—your career, your family life, your life itself.”

  “If only I could have done more,” he said tenderly, wiping away the tears his words caused me to shed. “Don’t you know by now that you mean more to me than my life?”

  Was any woman ever so loved as I am loved?

  We make love, we sleep, we eat, we talk, we stroll hand in hand through the gardens in the unusually mild weather. It is as if, though surrounded by a sea of hostility and danger, we two occupy an island of serenity and love.

  I passed a long mirrored panel this morning and dared to look at my reflection, something I rarely do as the sight of my old pinched, pale face depresses me. To my amazement I saw a radiant, happy woman with a faint blush of pink in her sunken cheeks. My eyes were bright and there was even a glint of the mischief I used to see there.

  Oh Axel, you work such miracles in me!

  February 27, 1792

  Axel left for Brussels this afternoon. We are full of hope that within the next few months either King Gustavus or an army raised by Stanny and Charlot will liberate us. In the meantime we can call on the Knights of the Golden Dagger for protection. Lieutenant de la Tour, who continues to work as a laborer at the palace and keeps a close watch over me, assures me that some fifty of the four hundred knights, disguised as Parisian revolutionaries, are always in the vicinity of the palace and have worked out a series of signals so that in the event of an emergency they can be at our side within a few minutes. I k
eep the pewter candleholder by me and use it to send out and receive messages.

  March 22, 1792

  Today I called Sophie in to help me dress and with her aid I put on a stiff sort of corset made from twelve layers of thick taffeta.

  “But you have always disliked corsets,” she said as she fastened the bulky garment in place. “Besides, you are so thin now you hardly need one.” Sophie has become quite tart in her speech and brusque in her manner. Amélie and the rough, coarse People’s Chamberwomen despise and mock Sophie constantly, and though she does her best to remain ladylike and unperturbed in the midst of their hostility I know that their cruel remarks and taunts disturb her and keep her on edge. I urged her to emigrate months ago but she would not leave me. I value her loyalty far more than I could ever tell her.

  “This is not just any corset,” I said. “I’ve had it specially made.”

  When she finished fastening the thing tightly around me I went to my wardrobe and took out a knife that I keep concealed there. Telling Sophie to close the door and lock it to keep Amélie out (she bursts in unannounced so often!) I handed Sophie the knife.

  “Now, stab me,” I said, shutting my eyes and standing in front of her bravely, waiting for the blow.

  “What?”

  “I said, stab me.”

  She swore in German, an oath I will not write here.

  “As your mistress, I order you to drive that knife into my chest, with all your force.”

  With a cry unlike any sound I had ever before heard Sophie make she struck me with the point of the blade—only to break it against the stiff armor of my protective corset.

  I laughed. “You see, Sophie, I am not mad, though you must thinkme so. This corset will keep me safe. Not even a musket ball can penetrate it. And I have had one made for Louis as well.”

  I heard a snuffling sound. Sophie was crying, head in hands. I was astonished. I had never before seen my sensible, practical, capable Sophie in tears. I realized that I had been thoughtless in demanding that she prove the reliability of the corset by trying to thrust a knife through it. I had known that she could not harm me, but she had not.

  “Oh, your highness,” she said through her tears, “I am so afraid for you!”

  I realized then, in that moment, how worried she was about my safety, and how bravely she had borne her worries, keeping them hidden from me under a mask of impatience and irritability.

  “Dearest Sophie,” I said, hugging her. “How I rely on you! How grateful I am to have you near me. But you mustn’t worry, really you mustn’t. We are close to being rescued, I assure you. It won’t be long.”

  We heard raucous singing in the adjacent room. The People’s Chamberwomen have added a new song to their repertoire recently, a song introduced by the men from Marseilles who have been pouring into Paris to help defend the city.

  “To arms, citizens!” they sang. “Form your battalions! Let’s march! Let the tainted blood spill out over our fields!”

  I groaned at the off-key singing. “Oh no, not again!”

  Sophie smiled a little, then she looked at me seriously.

  “If your wise mother were here, your highness, she would tell you to put no faith in corsets, or in phantom rescuers from across the border. She would say, go away with that man who loves you.”

  “Axel.”

  “Of course.”

  “We did go away, last summer. Remember? Only we didn’t get far enough, and the National Guard caught us and brought us back.”

  Sophie lowered her voice. “I think you know what I mean. Go away, with that Swedish man, by yourself. I’ll take the children. Leave the king to his fate.”

  “And if I did that, Sophie, could I ever forgive myself?”

  “The king would want you and the children protected.”

  “In all this weary time, since the earliest days of our danger, he has never once come to me and urged me to go without him.”

  Sophie pursed her lips and said nothing, but her eyes were full of disdain.

  “I will say nothing against my sovereign. However, there are times when I wish he showed better sense.”

  There was nothing either of us could say to that, so I asked Sophie to help me out of my heavy corset and put it away in the wardrobe with my petticoats.

  I have noticed that for the rest of the day today she has been less tart with me.

  April 15, 1792

  Mercy has sent me a secret message to say that my brother Leopold is dead and his son, my nephew Francis, who is only a boy, is now emperor. What will this mean for us? Axel will know. I await his next letter.

  May 10, 1792

  The Parisian savages have a horrible new device for executing criminals which they call the Blade of Eternity. It is like a gigantic chopping block. A heavy razor-sharp blade falls with a thunderous loud rattling sound on the neck of the poor criminal and cuts off his head instantly. The bloody head falls away and there is a fountain of red blood.

  Louis says great crowds gather to watch the killing machine at work. It is thought to be very fair and in keeping with the ideals of the revolution which are Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. The Blade of Eternity makes all men equal in death, whereas in the past noblemen were executed by the sword and the common people were hanged or died under torture.

  I shiver at the thought of how much easier and more mechanical it is to take life with this device. It is all so cold and precise, so lacking in feeling and dignity. Amélie reads to me from a newspaper called The People’s Friend and in it a writer called Marat says that if France is to be calm again, two hundred thousand heads must be cut off.

  Such ridiculous statements have become more and more commonplace. Amélie forces me to listen to this sort of monstrous rubbish but I try to shut my ears to it. This Marat is even uglier than Mirabeau and has some sort of repulsive skin disease that makes him stink. According to Dr. Concarneau all the men in Paris are trying to make themselves as dirty and smelly as possible in order to be true to the revolution. They wear long untrimmed moustaches, ragged loose trousers and wooden shoes. And, of course, the red, white and blue cockade and the red cap of liberty. The doctor has taken to wearing loose trousers because if he wears the tight breeches of a nobleman he is spat on.

  May 15, 1792

  We are all in a state of great excitement because we are at war and the Austrian armies are advancing with great success. The French soldiers have no courage at all and run like rabbits at the sight of true Austrian arms. When the French met our Austrian forces at Lille they were so frightened and confused that they murdered their own commander!

  Soon the Austrians will be in Paris and we will all be safe. Meanwhile the Parisians are becoming more and more suspicious of each other and use their terrible killing machine to cut off each other’s heads.

  June 7, 1792

  Lieutenant de la Tour has cautioned me that my journal may be used by the revolutionaries to condemn me as an enemy of the people so from now on I am writing on little scraps of paper which I stuff into the candleholder on my table.

  Axel has sent word to me that King Gustavus, our great friend and benefactor, is dead, stabbed by a nobleman who, Axel says, resented him for his liberal ideas. Axel is now without a protector and benefactor although he is very active in supporting the Austrian and Prussian troops which will surely be here soon. He may lead an army himself in support of the Duke of Brunswick who is in charge of the combined forces.

  I dream of Axel, proud and handsome on a tall white horse, riding at the head of hundreds of strong warriors thundering into the courtyard of the palace and conquering the National Guard and all the hateful Parisians. The dream is so vivid that when I wake I still think I hear hoofbeats.

  June 28, 1792

  Something has gone wrong. The Austrian army is not yet here and I cannot understand why.

  July 3, 1792

  My poor darling Mousseline has become a woman. I have done my best to prepare her for this day and to make her welc
ome the changes her body is undergoing. I hope that she looks forward to becoming a wife and mother. If only we lived in normal times she would have been betrothed by now, or even married. She is nearly fourteen and very pretty, though I have to confess that she has something of her father’s heaviness of manner and she lacks charm though not affection.

  Looking at my dear daughter I see the future, and some of my hope is restored. Some day I will hold my grandchildren in my arms and tell them about these terrible days we are living through, and how we were saved and the king’s rightful powers were restored to him.

  Some day . . .

  July 21, 1792

  Yesterday Amélie and six of the People’s Chamberwomen took me roughly by the arms and dragged me into a cupboard where brooms and mops and workmen’s tools are kept. I called for help but they covered my mouth with their dirty hands and threatened to lock me in the cupboard with no food or water if I screamed again.

  They tore off all my clothes, even my old patched and stained slippers, and left me in my chemise, shorn of its valuable lace which they cut off. Amélie, in triumph, ripped out one of my gold earrings, cutting my earlobe which bled a lot.

  It all happened very quickly, and with much commotion, as the cupboard was small and the women kept yelling at me and bumping into the walls and overturning buckets and boxes. I don’t know what more they would have done to me if the cupboard door hadn’t been flung open and Lieutenant de la Tour, dressed as usual as a laborer, hadn’t stood there, his presence putting a temporary stop to their assault.

  He pretended to be looking for a box of nails he kept in the cupboard and Amélie, who has been very flirtatious with him in the past, ordered the chamberwomen out so that he could find what he was looking for.

  There I was, blushing, in my torn chemise, barefoot, bleeding from my ear, frightened and trying to hide my shame. To his great credit the lieutenant did not react to the scene with the anger I’m sure he felt but went on poking about in the cupboard, taking scant notice of me but calmly removing his jacket and holding it out to me to put on as if the gesture was the most natural thing in the world.