Marie Antoinette
Page 39
In the King’s carriage, where the occupants were in a state of slumped horror, a significant exchange took place between Louis XVI and Madame Elisabeth. He saw her gazing out of the window as they passed her beloved Montreuil. “Are you admiring your lime avenue?” he asked in his kindly way. “No, I am saying goodbye to Montreuil,” replied his sister.48
Back at Versailles, the coiffeur Léonard, left behind in a situation that for once did not require his ministrations, found that nothing had changed in the Queen’s apartments. There were the slippers Marie Antoinette had not put on, lying there; there was a fichu, and half-turned silk stockings ready for the royal foot. The gilt panels were, however, desecrated and the wind of this blustery day blew through the splintered door. Some members of the diplomatic corps actually travelled to Versailles from Paris on that day because it was a Tuesday, the usual day of their reception; they found complete disorder and they also encountered bands of marauders who offered them some bloody relics. Being diplomats, they indicated cautious approval before departing.49
Henceforward Versailles, the château out of whose windows eager spectators had watched the arrival of the young Dauphine nearly twenty years ago, would have the desolate air of a place fallen under a spell.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
HER MAJESTY THE PRISONER
“Your Majesty is a prisoner . . . Yes, it’s true. Since Her Majesty no longer has her Guard of Honour, she is a prisoner.”
SECRETARY AUGEARD TO MARIE ANTOINETTE, 7 OCTOBER 1789
“I’m fine; don’t worry.” With this note Marie Antoinette attempted to allay the fears of Count Mercy the day after her arrival in Paris. (The ambassador himself had only been preserved from attack by the fact that he was wearing an overcoat over his ambassadorial silks due to the heavy rains.) If the Queen was bravely reassuring, the King was phlegmatic. In his Journal he summed up the extraordinary day of 6 October 1789 following the devastating night as follows: “Departure for Paris 12.30, visit to the Hôtel de Ville, dine and sleep at the Tuileries.”1
These economical words hardly covered the ordeal suffered by the King of France, the Queen, their two young children, his sister Madame Elisabeth, his brother and sister-in-law the Comte and Comtesse de Provence—and the reputation and authority of the French monarchy. When the cortège arrived at the gates of Paris, it was met by the Mayor, Bailly, who managed an aphoristic reference to history, about the King’s ancestor Henri IV having conquered the city, and now the city had conquered Louis XVI. Matters went better at the Hôtel de Ville. Madame Elisabeth who was present noted how affably the King spoke: “It is always with pleasure and confidence that I find myself amid the worthy inhabitants of my good city of Paris.” When Bailly repeated the royal words, he left out “confidence” but the King made him put it back. As for Marie Antoinette, outwardly she was her usual serene self as though nothing untoward had happened in the last twenty-four hours.2
The scene that greeted them at the Tuileries was, however, hardly likely to inspire the confidence of which the King spoke. Furthermore their familiar royal bodyguards were now removed in favour of the National Guards under La Fayette. It was undoubtedly a prudent move from the point of view of the former’s safety; Marie Antoinette never ceased to mourn those “brave and faithful” men who had died in her defence. But the change increased the feeling of alienation for royalties who had been accustomed to a special kind of security since childhood.
The trouble was that the palace of the Tuileries was both decayed and populated. Begun by Catherine de’ Medici in the sixteenth century, the sprawling structure, overlooking the Seine on the south side, had three pavilions and nearly four hundred rooms; a long gallery built by Henri IV linked it to the Louvre. But by the 1770s there was duckweed growing in the ornamental waters of the gardens, once thought to be the most beautiful in Europe, while prostitutes preferred to ply their trade in the grounds there because they were quieter than those of the Palais-Royal. Most of the interior was dark and depressing, with ancient, faded tapestries and workmen’s ladders everywhere. The King’s grandfather had ignored the Tuileries after a brief visit over forty years ago. Although Marie Antoinette maintained a small pied-à-terre in the royal apartments for late-lasting visits to Paris, the real inhabitants were the royal servants and their relations, about 120 of them, who had seized the opportunity to move in.3 There was also the Théâtre de Monsieur (the Comte de Provence), which had recently been installed in the Salle des Machines; still more people slept in the actors’ dressing rooms there. All of these human barnacles now had to be summarily ejected.
So ramshackle were the arrangements, so great the lack of preparation, that the Dauphin was obliged to spend the night in a room barricaded with furniture because the doors did not shut, with his faithful Governess the Marquise de Tourzel sitting on his bed, sleepless with anxiety. It was understandable that the little boy should wake up the next morning and ask in dismay: “Is today going to be like yesterday?” Nevertheless when he told the Queen, “Everything is very ugly here, Maman,” she replied firmly: “My son, Louis XIV lodged here comfortably enough; we must not be more particular than him.”4
At least the Queen herself was able to occupy the ground-floor apartments of the south wing, which had been recently decorated by the Comtesse de La Marck, a seventy-year-old member of the Noailles family, for her own use. However, the King, at the insistence of the Queen, had to buy out the Comtesse’s furnishings of marbles, boiseries and mirrors at an estimated cost of 117,000 livres.5 The royal children slept on the first floor, above the Queen. The King had three rooms on the ground floor, a cabinet for study on the mezzanine and his bedchamber on the first floor. (Once again the Queen thought it right that she, as the target of popular wrath—something amply confirmed by the shouts and insults throughout their journey—should not put the King in danger by her presence.) Madame Elisabeth was also on the ground floor, which she found so repugnant when the market-women pressed their faces to her windows that she asked to be rehoused in the Pavillon de Flore. Mesdames Tantes occupied the so-called Pavillon de Marsan, named for Louis XVI’s Governess. The Comte and Comtesse de Provence went to their own handsome palace of the Luxembourg.
Saint-Priest and Fersen greeted the King and Queen on their arrival from the Hôtel de Ville. The latter had travelled as part of the cortège in one of the King’s carriages and as he told his father: “I was a witness to everything.” Although Saint-Priest subsequently expressed himself shocked at Fersen’s presence, it merely underlined the fact that Fersen was one of the surviving members of the Queen’s Private Society, even if his precise status might defy definition. Fersen now sold the house and horses that he had acquired in Versailles and took up residence in Paris. Here he would soon be able to visit “Elle”—the Queen—while at the same time acting as the unofficial observer for the King of Sweden, Gustav being increasingly worried about the effects of French revolutionary violence on the rest of Europe. Other supporters of the Queen also rushed to greet her, including the Princesse de Lamballe, who had been absent for some time due to ill health. Madame Campan was also summoned; she found her mistress very flushed, although still exercising her charm and kindness towards those around her, winning them over by personal contact in a way that would have been incomprehensible to the mob at Versailles.6
“Kings who become prisoners are not far from death,” murmured Marie Antoinette to Madame Campan. But were they prisoners? It remained an interesting and for the time being unresolved question, since the events of recent days meant that no one in the royal family was going to test the limits of their freedom. The Queen poured out her thoughts on her future to Mercy; her emphasis was on the waiting game she now needed to play. She might personally need time to recover from the tragic deaths of her guards, but she also realized that the people needed time to rid themselves of their “horrible mistrust.” The only method of getting the royal family out of its present situation was “patience, time and inspiring [in the French] a
great confidence.”7
With this in mind, the Queen would make a memorable comment to one deputation from the Commune of Paris on the subject of the events of 6 October: “I’ve seen everything, known everything and forgotten everything.” To Mercy in private her tune was very different. She worried about the effects of the recent risings in Alsace; if something went wrong there, the people would be persuaded it was the fault of “the Germans” and that would rebound on her. With this in mind, she intended to lead a secluded life and play no part in public appointments.8
There was more to the Queen’s fears than identification with “the Germans.” For the first time she was appreciating that the actions of those in the royal family who had emigrated would inevitably be attributed to her, the Austrian woman, however much she disagreed with them, however much they acted against her own husband’s interests. “Prudence, patience are my lot,” the Queen repeated in conclusion. “Above all, courage. And I can tell you that I need much more of it to support the everyday afflictions than the dangers of the night of the fifth of October.” It remained to be seen whether prudence and patience, let alone courage, would be enough to deal with the double challenge of royalty confined at home and royalties rampant abroad.
Once the desolation of the arrival was over—we must try to forget how we got here, Marie Antoinette told Mercy, in a show of oblivion belied by her memories—life at the Tuileries approached a kind of weird normality. Besides the royal apartments, there were several antechambers and more formal rooms including a salon, and a billiard room in the Galerie de Diane. A large convoy of vehicles brought furniture from Versailles. The Queen had her favourite mechanical dressing-table imported. Further furniture was commissioned from Riesener and others to brighten up those rooms that the Dauphin found so ugly. Léonard arrived and paid his visits, becoming ever more of a confidant. Mademoiselle Rose Bertin continued to be in attendance, although the Queen’s bills were down by a third from the peak in 1788 and her accounts showed more evidence of alterations and adaptation of existing garments.9
On 8 October, when the psychological wounds of what had happened were still raw, there was a traditional diplomatic reception at the Tuileries of the sort that some diplomats had actually expected at Versailles on the day of the ignominious royal departure. Lord Robert Fitzgerald, the English Minister, deputy to the Ambassador, commented on the extreme melancholy of the occasion; how the Queen looked very pale, and her eyes were full of tears. Nevertheless the reception took place. As time passed, the Princesse de Lamballe even attempted to give some soirées in her apartments, one of her duties as Superintendent of the Household. Marie Antoinette attended for a while until, according to Madame Campan, the sight of an English lord playing with a ring that contained a lock of the regicide Cromwell’s hair upset her.10 Ladies present sported more royalist tokens—white ribbons and white lilies at the breast—although in the streets they put up with the tricolour to avoid embarrassment.
The Comte and Comtesse de Provence continued to arrive from the Luxembourg for the family supper that they had been enjoying together for so many years. In the circumstances the cheerful company of the Comtesse, reading characters from faces in a way that made Pauline de Tourzel giggle, was most welcome, even if the girl felt stupid on being subjected to Provence’s carefully polished discourses. As for Madame Elisabeth, she might have said goodbye to Montreuil but she was nevertheless able to have her own milk and cream sent in from her country estate, and to receive happy news of the pregnancies of both her maidservants and of her cows.11
The financial allowance given by the National Assembly to the King for his living expenses—25 million livres—was not ungenerous and there were still the revenues of his estates. The National Guards who attended the King were not monsters but sensible and well-educated members of the bourgeoisie, under the immediate command of a member of the Noailles family. Presentations were still made, and in a gesture of accommodation to the new order Mayor Bailly was granted the Rights of Entry. Public dinners were still given twice weekly; the King had his lever and his coucher. Routine bulletins about the King’s health continued to be given as though no serious threat to that health had ever existed.
There were still over 150 people attached to the court and nearly 700 people at the Tuileries altogether, without counting troops. Even the Duc d’Orléans, making an appearance in a somewhat shamefaced manner, was there, for he was, after all, the first Prince of the Blood. Marie Antoinette, despite her hardening conviction of his implication in her ordeal, had learnt diplomacy since the distant days when she would not speak to the Comtesse Du Barry. Calmly, the Queen addressed a few words to her “cousin.” Orléans then departed for the more salubrious atmosphere of the English court, although even here Queen Charlotte was careful to note in her diary that he was received “not in a public capacity.”12
Marie Antoinette’s own domestic life was singularly unchanged. The royal family continued to go to Mass in public as they had done at Versailles. She worked at her tapestry with her ladies, as she had always liked to do, including large-scale projects for covering furniture. She played billiards with the King, who delighted in teaching “our dear Pauline” the game.*75 Above all, the Queen spent time with her children who were, as she told Princesse Louise, growing up: “They are always with me and give me my sole happiness.”14 Madame Royale now had all her lessons in her mother’s presence, Marie Antoinette being at last able to play that assiduous maternal role that she had originally planned for herself.
As for the Dauphin, he made everyone happy with his innocent gaiety. He was able to profit from the gardens of the Tuileries, for that fresh air and exercise which the Queen had told the Marquise de Tourzel were essential to his health; there (in sharp contrast to his mother) he was generally admired by doting spectators. Many people, whatever their political views, found it possible to see in the lively, handsome little boy a more agreeable symbol of the future of France than that represented by his corpulent, graceless father or his malevolent Austrian mother. Playing in the palace gardens, he became one of the sights of Paris, on one occasion presenting flowers to a large body of visiting Bretons until they ran out and then tearing lilac leaves in two to complete the process. Soon, with the resilience of youth, the Dauphin had quite forgotten his original disgust with the Tuileries. When asked whether he preferred Versailles or Paris, Louis Charles replied: “Paris, because I see so much more of Papa and Maman.”15 It was true.
Perhaps it was the balm of her children’s constant presence that caused the Queen’s health—long a cause for concern—to improve once she was settled in the Tuileries. Although her confidential communications to Count Mercy referred without cease to her “agitation,” the fact was that, according to Madame Campan, her frequent “hysterical disorders” vanished. Or perhaps it was simply, in Madame Campan’s words, that “all the faculties of her soul were called forth to support her physical strength.”16 In other words, Marie Antoinette, the daughter of Maria Teresa, knew how to put on a good show.
Marie Antoinette—for all the abuse heaped upon her, the people who deliberately splashed her with their carriages when she was out walking, the others who talked loudly and insultingly about her a short, safe distance away—was still expected to exercise that traditional benevolence that was an integral part of the duties of the Queen of France. Demands were quickly made that she should fund the many poor women encumbered with debt who had pawned their vital goods. The King merely authorised the redemption of pledges for goods worth one louis or less, but still the principle of the Queen’s innate compassion was maintained. In early January 1790 she presided over a committee meeting of a charité maternelle in aid of poverty-stricken mothers, at which a report was submitted to about forty women present. Marie Antoinette impressed the rich ladies in attendance by inviting everyone to sit in her presence. When she was asked to state her preferences, since funds did not permit helping more than two mothers at a time, she tactfully announced that she h
ad consulted the National Assembly on the subject. Miraculously their two candidates were also her own. The Queen then gave a further financial gift, which in the words of one of those present, Madame Necker, would enable them to help further unfortunates in “the asylum of misery.”17
In February various visits were paid to a foundling hospital. The Queen showed the Dauphin, shortly to have his fifth birthday on 27 March 1790, a baby recently discovered on the steps of Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois, the parish church of the Tuileries, and gave him a little lecture: “Don’t forget what you have seen and let your protection extend one day to these unfortunate children.” Easter Week saw the royal family, accompanied by La Fayette, paying a visit to the working-class Faubourg Saint-Antoine where most of the trouble in July had started. There were demonstrations of joy, according to the Journal de Paris, and acclamations when alms were presented. Mayor Bailly remarked to the Queen that Her Majesty could see for herself “the joy of these good people.” The Marquis de Bombelles (who was not present) heard that Marie Antoinette replied: “Yes, the people are good when their masters visit them, but they are savage when they visit their masters.” At which the Mayor blushed. Whether the Queen gave such a pointed answer or not—it has an apocryphal ring at a time when Marie Antoinette was bending every effort to show “patience, prudence”—she certainly impressed a member of the National Guard on the same date. Standing very close to her, he admired the display of composure and even enjoyment that she put on at the public dinner.18
The next day, Maundy Thursday, both King and Queen washed the feet of the poor in an ancient ceremony to commemorate Easter Week. Another member of the National Guard, who watched, was impressed by the efficiency of the ritual: twelve poor people, dressed in new clothes at the expense of the King, sat on a bench, their right foot bare and resting on the edge of basin of hot water. The King “washed” the foot by flinging water over it from a little scoop in his hand. Next the Queen took a napkin from the stack on the silver platter held out to her and passed it over the newly pristine foot before moving on to the next foot—and the next napkin. Alms were then presented as the beneficiaries hastily resumed their right shoes and helped themselves to provisions set out in wooden boxes.19