The Enemies of Versailles

by Sally Christie

  Lafayette bows in front of me. “Madame, if you permit.”

  With trembling hands, I take the detested ribbon and pin it to the front of my gown. Silent and mute, for there are no words to describe this humiliation, we head to the courtyard and are bundled into waiting carriages: myself, Victoire, Narbonne and Angélique, a few of her young children, all together in one. The king and queen and their children in another.

  “The hearses of the monarchy!” someone cries, and the mob surrounds our carriages, screaming and singing. Narbonne closes the curtains but Lafayette, riding alongside us, orders them open again.

  “Oh, they are horrible, horrible,” sobs Victoire, and one of Angélique’s babies starts crying lustily. Flames from torches light the night and the scene around us, the faces of the mob twisted in hate and triumph, a head on one pike, a strung ginger cat on another.

  “We have the baker, wife, and boy! We no longer need bread!” they chant in terrible glee.

  “What baker do they have? Have they taken the cooks as well?” wails Victoire, and one of Angélique’s children pipes up in a very calm and assured voice—children can sometimes see the truth through the strangeness: “They mean the king, Madame. He is the baker of whom they sing.”

  On the road to Paris we stop and a decision is made. Lafayette allows us to peel off and head for Bellevue, leaving the king and the rest of the royal family to go to Paris.

  “They are like prisoners,” wails Victoire, and I tell her she is being silly—they are not prisoners. Or perhaps they are: captives of a wild time.

  And Bellevue—will we be safe there?

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  In which Citizen Jeanne loses everything

  I stretch, open my eyes to the goddess painted on the wall, Hercule’s touch still a memory on my body. I am in a bedroom at his Paris house; last night he gave a feast to celebrate the Epiphany and the New Year: 1790. A whole new decade, the start of a new world. It was a lovely night: the guests pleasing, the food superb, the conversation as sparkling as the diamond earrings he gave me as a New Year’s gift. I wore them to bed and now I finger them idly.

  So many have fled the unrest, which never seems to end, but still there is a pleasant, gay society in Paris, and all—most—are enthused by the change in the air. Last night we drank toasts to the coming constitution, and I prepared beautiful cockades, made with dyed feathers and tied with a small ruby, for the guests to pin to their breasts; only the archconservative Comte de Montmorin refused and sat on his instead.

  I reach for the cup of warm chocolate on the tray beside me and delight in finding a small portion of fresh biscuits, still warm, in a porcelain basket. Lovely. I stretch and play out the memories of the night some more. Upstairs I can hear something heavy being moved, a table being dragged over the floors, no doubt.

  Hercule was up early and has already left, and I’ll go back to Louveciennes later today or tomorrow. I yawn and sip my chocolate, frown at the slight heaviness in my head. Too much champagne last night; I can no longer enjoy it as much as when I was young. Hercule is busy these days, but it is not Versailles that keeps him, for the royal family are now lodged at the Tuileries.

  After that dreadful day at Versailles when the family was forced to go to Paris, like cattle being herded to the slaughter, two of the wounded palace guards found their way to Louveciennes and I gladly offered them shelter. Chon and I cared for them and treated their wounds.

  Afterward I received a letter from the queen. A simple letter, thanking me for my support. My emotions, when I read it, overwhelmed me; I had thought that Versailles and that ugly contest of wills between us had ceased to be important to me. But her heartfelt words brought it all back: that silly struggle; her humiliation; my triumph. What did it all matter, and why did it have to be that way?

  When we were young we were more alike than either of us cared to admit: carefree, informal, wanting only a life of luxury and pleasure. And why not? She has matured now, become sober and responsible, but I . . . well, I still enjoy the good life. A sensuous sybarite, Chon always calls me, and I tease her that she should follow my lead. In one respect she has: she now has a lover.

  I happily replied to the queen and assured her of my endless devotion. Hercule told me she received my letter, but there was no reply. No matter; I am happy now that she knows of my loyalty and that she and the king can count on my support should they, in their sadly reduced circumstances, need it.

  In Paris, the royal family, and even the queen, are more popular than they have been in years, and when they ride out they are acclaimed. The people are convinced that having the king in their midst will lead to great changes. Having the royal couple in Paris, Hercule says, has removed some of the majesty and mystique that grew too thick around the crown, but it has also restored some of the humanity.

  “Was Versailles a mistake?” Hercule mused one night. “To remove the King of France so far from his capital? Should he have been in Paris from the beginning? In London, they have St. James, and even in Austria, the Hofburg Palace is in the heart of Vienna.”

  Versailles—a mistake? It hardly seems possible. “Versailles is not so far from Paris,” I said doubtfully. “I wonder if they will ever return there?” When I am at Louveciennes, I often think to ride over and have a look, but never find the time. Perhaps I don’t want to see it; they say the rooms are desecrated, and a pack of wild dogs has completely overtaken the chapel.

  The furious, dizzying pace of change is enough to make one’s head spin. Feudal rights abolished, the king seemingly at the mercy of the people, and now religious orders are under attack. The monk Guimard could marry now; how sad Ma is not around for him.

  A little of Hercule’s earlier optimism is replaced with concern at the pace of change, the hatred for the Church, and the radicalism of some of the factions of the National Assembly. Still, he is confident that a compromise, and a new constitution, will be achieved before the year is over.

  “It doesn’t seem they are too interested in compromise. Not everyone is as rational as you, my dear.”

  “Nonsense.” Hercule traveled to his estates in Brittany last year, and there his people still acclaimed him. “And they may abolish titles, but they can’t abolish blood. I am still a noble at heart, yet can proudly wear the title of citoyen—citizen. Who is to say one is better than another?”

  “Fairly much everyone.” I am now the Citoyenne Barry, which really doesn’t have the same ring to it as the Comtesse du Barry, but does sound rather modern and exciting. Sometimes I fear I am too old for these new times—I am nearing fifty—but then in many ways I still feel as youthful and spry as twenty years ago.

  Nonetheless, it is true what Hercule says: they may abolish titles, but really, not much has changed, apart from some rudeness where before one expected deference. My friend Pauline complained at dinner last night that her coachman had to physically strike a wretch to clear him off the street, whereas before they would have leaped out of the way, and bowed, before the whip could fall.

  From above, I can hear Hercule’s wife’s loud, imperious voice, ordering chairs to be moved. She is here more often, now that the royal family is at the Tuileries, and last night we had a stiff encounter in the courtyard. Then footsteps running higher and higher up the stairs. A sudden sense of foreboding and I put my chocolate down with shaking hands. Henriette, my maid who traveled with me, bursts in with Dénis Morin, my steward from Louveciennes.

  “Oh, madame, madame,” he says, falling on his knees before the bed. “Gone, all gone.”

  “Morin, what are you doing here? What’s wrong? Who is gone?” I pull my robe around me, worried by his frantic look. Behind my two servants I can see some of Brissac’s people crowding in, their eyes hungry for more of whatever this is.

  “They are gone. The jewels, all of them. Your treasures. Thieves, last night.”

  With a shaking heart I piece the whole story together. Thieves—they stole everything. Well, not everything, but m
ost of my jewel collection that Louis gave me, all my memories and all my treasures. I race back to Louveciennes in mounting distress and throw myself in Chon’s arms. She is leaving; she is going back to Toulouse and is busy packing for her departure. She says Paris is a beast she wants to get far, far away from, but I think she is overreacting. At least she’s not going to Switzerland, but still, Toulouse is quite the ends of the earth.

  We hug and she tells me the whole sordid story: a ladder discovered outside my bedroom, thieves that came through the open window, my rooms ransacked. All gone. I sit down and feel as though I will never get up. Who would do this? Not someone from the village, surely. They love me and I give so much to charity; just last year, I paid for the new church roof. Who would do such a thing?

  The constabulary arrives and assures me that my remarkable jewelry will be very difficult to dispose of, and that I should not worry: they will recover all of the pieces. He recommends publishing the detailed inventory he has taken, but Chon counsels prudence.

  “This is not the time to be flaunting your wealth,” she warns, and says the list will only stimulate envy and greed. I am having none of it.

  “You don’t understand! They are not just jewels, they are everything to me.”

  “Private riches are an abomination against the natural order of men,” says a grim voice from the corner.

  “Oh, shut up!” I cry to Zamor, passionately sick of his sly, black face. “Get out of here. You and your radical mewlings—just get out.”

  “Jewels are just jewels; you should just be glad you’ve still got your life,” Chon says. There has been more unrest in the countryside, more châteaux looted and burned. But minor incidents, and in places where the nobles were not loved.

  “Of course I have my life! The people of Louveciennes love me.” They do, and besides, I’m not a hated aristocrat.

  “You’re living inside a cloud, Jeanne! This gathering storm will not be good for the aristocrats, or for those that live like them. All the charity in the world won’t stop them hating you.”

  “Nonsense; I’m a woman of the people. They’ll never hate me.”

  “Perhaps not yet. But listing all your jewels isn’t going to help anything.”

  “Of course it will! It will help me find the jewels! Which is the most important thing right now!” What is wrong with everyone this morning? Chon and I glare at each other. I wish she wasn’t going, though her lack of sympathy is making her departure easier.

  “Well, you make your own decisions now,” says Chon finally, shaking her head. “I’ve delayed the coach until tomorrow, but I’ve got to finish packing. Good luck, Jeanne, and do write.”

  Only Hercule sees reason and agrees I must do whatever I can to recover the items that mean so much to me. The list makes me sad, each one associated with a memory and a treasured time that will never come again:

  A pair of bracelets, each with 6 rows of pearls, clasped by an emerald mounted on a bed of diamonds. To celebrate our first year together.

  A pair of diamond buckles with 84 gems. New Year’s, 1773

  A studded hair clip with 3 large emeralds, with smaller gems on both sides. Our first fight.

  A set of sleeve buttons, one emerald, one sapphire, one ruby and one yellow diamond. Winter, 1773

  A necklace with 24 diamonds. “Because I love you,” he whispered.

  A ring with a heart-shaped sapphire, encircled with diamonds. When I was upset over Madame Pater.

  A ring with a portrait of Louis XV in onyx, his hair worked in sardonyx. On his sixty-third birthday.

  And so much, much more.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  In which Madame Adélaïde undertakes a journey

  When I was younger, my sisters and I visited the spas at Plombières and we traveled there in the style befitting our rank as daughters of France. I was accompanied by a gentleman-in-waiting, a lady-in-waiting, a lady of the chamber, three lady companions, a first woman of the bedchamber, three other female attendants, two women of the wardrobe, and one woman for the bed linens. Three gentlemen ushers, one footman, a porter, one equerry, two grooms, two pages, one doctor, a surgeon, an apothecary, and a confessor. Three guards and a lance corporal. Then the same again for each of my sisters, all of us in twenty-two carriages with sixty-six horses alongside. We were all together then: me, Victoire, Sophie, Louise, even Henriette, and what a sweet time it was, and how joyous the acclaim!

  Now . . . we flee in the night like criminals, with only our ladies and a handful of servants, in carriages without proper heaters, only dear Louis de Narbonne and Angélique’s husband, the Comte de Chastellux, riding beside us as escort.

  The country I grew up in is no more, and I am not who I was. I am no longer Madame but a simple citoyenne. Not even the Comtesse de Provence is Madame now—that dignified title, that spoke of glory in its simplicity, is gone. France has turned against its rulers; all that was once sunny and dear is now dark and wrong, midnight in morning.

  After that dreadful day in October, the trickle of émigrés (as they are now so hatefully called) became a flood. We resolved to stay, but life became intolerable. Daily wondering if we would be safer in the Tuileries, daily waiting to see what new humiliation would come our way. At Bellevue, we were prisoners of fear and nerves: the reply of a servant—was her pause a second too long? The disemboweled chicken found on the terrace—a fearful omen or just a fox?

  The dissolution of monastic orders and the subordination of the clergy in February 1790 decided us—I want no part of this country that turns not only against its rulers, but also against God. A France where we can no longer worship in peace? Never. And by leaving, I decide, we will lessen the burden on our nephew.

  A burden—something we have been all our lives, but I had never properly realized it before. A burden, I think as the freezing carriage rolls over the winter roads, my head resting on a cushion. The dreaded Lady of Introspection accompanies me on this worst of carriage rides, but now I look at her squarely, and see that she is me. Perhaps I was always a burden, but I think everyone is, in their own way. And it is not my fault; I was born a Princess of France, and that role defined a life that was perhaps not of my choosing.

  Before we left, we visited the Tuileries to say our good-byes and get our passports—we used those hateful “rights of man” that everyone talks of these days, and stated it was our right to travel freely. Emigration was still not illegal, though pressure was on the king to make it so; he acquiesced only eight days after we left.

  As we said our tender and tearful good-byes, I could not help but contrast it with the traditional leave-taking due to a sovereign on the eve of departure: the informal clothes allowed in the presence of the king, the priests to bless the journey, the pretty curtsies and bows. Did Versailles even exist? How could October have happened, how could any of this have happened? It all seems so long ago; sometimes when I try I can’t even remember the color of the wallpaper in my study, or whether my sheets were blue or green, or whether the windows opened in or out.

  Up to the last minute, I was afraid the king would change his mind—in the face of difficult decisions, he is frighteningly irresolute. He does not understand what is happening; this is not what he was born to nor is it the world he deserves. Instead, it is Antoinette who has become my hope. She is fast by her husband’s side and all the dreadful events have turned her into a woman of strength. I am glad to leave her to Louis.

  “Dearest Tante,” she murmured to me; her hair is now almost completely white but her dignity is solid and she exudes fortitude. “Godspeed, and thank you for everything.”

  “God willing we will all be together again soon,” I replied, and we embraced. When I held her in my arms, a clear vision came to me: we were back in the gardens at our beloved Versailles and she was just a young girl, so recently arrived, and yes, lost and unsure of herself, caught in intrigues beyond her ken. I felt a flash of regret, for I could see that I had not been overly sympathetic to her. But
perhaps adversity is what makes us, and she has had plenty, and she has survived.

  I embraced each of her children in turn, and then my niece Élisabeth, now a woman of twenty-nine. I wanted to bring her with us, but she refused to leave her brother. Her piety and fixity of purpose are strong, but where once I might have been envious, now there is only admiration, and a heart-wrenching sadness.

  Finally I said good-bye to Louis-Aug, and that was the hardest. Victoire could not stop the tears, and even I felt my eyes well up. My darling nephew, so good and sincere, yet so poor in judgment and decision, and what a terrible place that flaw has led him to.

  We returned to Bellevue with our passports and started packing, but then a rumor came that the fish women were coming to drag us back to Paris. And so we fled in the night, leaving everything behind, including the memories of our only happy days.

  As dawn starts to filter into the carriage, Narbonne shifts under the weight of two of Angélique’s children and opens the curtains. But what do I want to see of this frozen landscape, of this land that has turned against us?

  “Are we there yet? At Plombières?” asks Victoire in a small voice, waking up and looking around her in confusion. My sister has not the strength that I do, and this has all been so hard on her. How she wept over her melons that froze last winter, when we were unable to procure the burlap to cover them.

  I reach over to take her hands, and hold them tightly. “Soon. Soon we will be at Plombières.”

  “Oh, wonderful,” she says sleepily. “Do you remember how warm the waters were? What a relief it shall be—it’s so cold in this carriage.”

  “Do you remember the little girls, with the flowers, and how prettily they sang in greeting?” asks Narbonne, leaning over to pull Victoire’s bonnet back around her ears.

  “Oh yes! But why aren’t they cheering for us now? It’s so quiet outside.”

  “It’s early as yet, Madame. The crowds will come out soon enough.”