Marie-Antoinette, Daughter of the Caesars

by Elena Maria Vidal

  Louis XVI and Antoinette led the Eucharistic procession that opened the Estates-General on May 4, 1789. The Dauphin Louis-Joseph was desperately ill; he and his sister sat with Madame de Polignac on a balcony above the stables so they could watch the magnificent procession. The procession wound from the Royal Chapel, across the vast courtyard of the palace, through the streets of the town of Versailles, to the Church of Saint Louis. The monstrance, in the hands of a bishop, was under a rich canopy carried by Provence, Artois, Berry, and Angoulême. Everyone held a candle, except for the standard bearers, with the fluttering silken banners, and the royal falconers, with falcons on their wrists, looking both noble and fierce. The Duc d’Orléans, member of the Jacobin club, walked among the members of the Third Estate, even though he was a Prince of the Blood. The King, with a lighted taper, walked directly behind the monstrance. He wore a cloth of gold mantle and a plumed hat with the famous Regent diamond. He was wildly applauded by the crowds that lined the route. But when Antoinette, who with her ladies followed the King’s household, passed by in her gown of gold and silver tissue, every tongue fell silent. When passing beneath the balcony where Louis-Joseph was, she glanced up to blow him a kiss. The cry “Long live Orléans!” was at that moment taken up by the crowd, intended as an insult to the Queen.19 The Queen stumbled; Princesse de Lamballe steadied her. During Benediction at the Church of Saint Louis, the bishop preached against the luxury of the court which, he said, was causing the martyrdom of the French people. After the services, back in her rooms, she collapsed in a fit of convulsions. She trembled so violently, her pearl necklace and diamond bracelets broke. They had to cut off her dress in order to get her to bed.20

  She recovered enough the next day to be at the King’s side in the Hall of Lesser Pleasures at Versailles, where he gave his welcoming address to the deputies. Louis XVI, in his golden robes, was heartily applauded, while Antoinette, in her lavender-blue silk gown covered with silver spangles, received a few weak cheers. The King spoke and then His Keeper of the Seals, Monsieur de Miromesnil, then presented the King’s program of reform to the deputies: he wanted the clergy and nobility to share in the burden of taxation. The day appeared to be a success, in spite of a long, sonorous speech by the finance minister, Monsieur Necker. But in the following weeks, the King’s worst fears were realized. The deputies demanded more than the King thought it was possible to give. The Third Estate wanted to abolish all class distinctions and privileges of rank. They were not really interested in economic reform, but demanded the restructuring of society, the only society France had ever known, and they wanted it to happen immediately. On June 17, without the King’s permission, they created what they called the National Assembly—the basis of what they hoped would become a constitutional monarchy. And there were some who wanted no monarchy at all.

  While the fate of France was being decided, the Dauphin Louis-Joseph was dying an agonizing death, in great physical and mental torment. On June 2, Forty Hours devotion began, and the bell of Notre Dame tolled, summoning the people to pray for the dying heir of the Bourbons. In all the churches of Paris, the Blessed Sacrament was exposed. On June 4, the curtain of the Théatre Français was lowered after the first act. At one o’clock that morning, his agony came to an end. He was dressed in a golden crown and spurs, laid in a white coffin, and carried in procession to the Cathedral of Saint Denis, where he was buried in the royal crypt with his ancestors. Custom did not permit the bereaved parents to follow their son to his tomb. Instead, they went alone to the château of Marly, to mourn together for a week, until duty recalled them to Versailles. The King, incessantly badgered by deputies, was overcome by his son’s death, and cried out to them: “Are there no fathers in the Third Estate?” 21 He and Antoinette arranged for a thousand Masses to be said for the soul of Louis-Joseph, paying for the stipends with what was left of their silver plate.

  While the King and Queen mourned a dead child, their enemies were busy. Orléans devoted himself to stirring up the people. By the end of June, there was rioting in the streets of Paris. The King saw to the replenishment of the grain supply, but the citizens were not appeased. To protect Paris and Versailles, and restore law and order, Louis summoned six regiments from the eastern frontier. He was accused of tyranny, and on July 14 an enraged mob stormed the Bastille. Monsieur de Launay, the Governor of the Bastille, who treated with great benevolence the seven criminals who were housed therein, was tricked by the leaders of the mob, and decapitated. When word reached Versailles of the bloody events, the reaction was shock and horror. Many courtiers left, including the Polignacs. The Artois family decided to leave as well. Louis and Antoinette considered leaving. Louis wanted Antoinette to go with the children but she refused to leave him. Provence advised them all to stay and they did, although Louis later regretted it deeply.22

  On July 17, Louis arranged to go to Paris to be reconciled with the citizens of Paris. He made his will before he left. Antoinette was in a panic while he was gone, and insisted that horses be kept in readiness for her to be taken to her husband in case he was made a prisoner. She read Madame Campan a short speech she had prepared to give before the National Assembly: “Gentlemen, I come to put in your hands the wife and family of your sovereign. Do not suffer those who have been united by Heaven to be put asunder on earth.”23 She seemed to have a deep fear of being separated from Louis, as she also displayed great anxiety when he journeyed to Cherbourg. When he returned, she and her children, along with Madame Élisabeth, ran to greet him as he stepped out of his coach. According to an eye-witness account:

  This princess, as virtuous as she was amiable, whom monsters later on accused of having never loved her husband, was absolutely in despair. As soon as she heard the King’s carriage entering the Cour Royale she ran towards him holding the Dauphin in her arms, then breathless and almost fainting she fell into those of the King who was no less moved than she was. Holding out one hand to his children who covered it with kisses, with the other wiping the tears from the eyes of Marie-Antoinette and Madame Elisabeth, Louis XVI smiled again…he kept on repeating: ‘Happily no blood was shed, and I swear that not a drop of French blood will ever be shed on my orders.’24

  The King recalled Necker, who was popular with the people. The peace was short-lived, as tumults erupted in Paris throughout the summer. From Normandy, Alsace and Provence there were horrific reports of the country estates being attacked by the populace and innocent men, women, and children being tortured, raped and murdered. In other provinces, however, the local authorities immediately put down the social unrest.25 In the National Assembly, all tithes and noble privileges were abolished. There was a movement led by Orléans and Mirabeau to overthrow Louis and replace him on the throne with Orléans. In the middle of September a rumor came to Versailles that an attack was being planned to achieve the removal of Louis, or at least bring him back to Paris where he would be under the thumb of the Assembly. Louis sent for more troops to come to protect Versailles. On October 1, the Royal Bodyguards at Versailles gave a banquet at the palace opera for the Flanders regiment, who had recently arrived as reinforcements to protect the Royal Family. Four-year-old Louis-Charles, the new Dauphin, was eager to see the soldiers. Against their better judgment the King and Queen decided to take him, and Madame Royale, too. They walked over to the opera with both of their children, and the troops welcomed them with thunderous cheers and acclamations. “Long live the King! Long live the Queen! Long live the Dauphin!” Then the soldiers began to sing a song from Grétry’s opera Richard Coeur de Lion:

  O, Richard, O mon Roi

  L’ univers t’abandonne.

  Sur la terre il n’est donc que moi

  Qui m’intéresse à ta personne.

  The little Dauphin went with one of the soldiers, and proudly walked the length of the large horseshoe table without upsetting a single glass. Unfortunately, within a couple of days, the banquet was turned into a story of a wild orgy in which Antoinette, the evil Austrian woman, trample
d on the red, white and blue revolutionary cockade, inciting the soldiers to cry: “Down with the Assembly!” It was a far cry from the truth, but people were ready to believe anything bad about the Queen.26

  On the afternoon of October 5, 1789, the Queen was relaxing in her grotto at Trianon, when the Comte de Saint-Priest sent word that a huge mob was marching on Versailles. As it started to rain, Antoinette rushed back to the main palace where her children were. The King was hunting in the forest of Meudon; he was found and galloped home. The Comte de Saint-Priest, who was Minister of the Royal Household, had carriages made ready to take the Royal Family to Rambouillet. Louis could not make up his mind; he wanted Antoinette and the children to go but once again the Queen would not leave her husband. The mob arrived, led by fishwives armed with pikes and all manner of sharp objects, as well as men dressed like women. They were demanding bread, and saying they had come for the “Baker, the Baker’s wife and the Baker’s boy” meaning the King, the Queen and the Dauphin.They were also shouting for the Queen’s intestines, in order to make cockades of them, as well as other gruesome terroristic threats. Louis refused to allow his soldiers to fire upon women; he met with a delegation of them inside the palace and the clamor seemed to calm down when he assured them they would have bread. The Marquis de Lafayette, hero of the American Revolution, was in charge of securing the safety of the palace inhabitants, but for some reason he went to sleep in a house in town, leaving the palace poorly guarded, with only two Swiss Guards to guard the Queen’s staircase. He trusted the word of the Revolutionary leaders that peace would be preserved. Around 5:30 am a huge crowd found an unguarded entrance and began raging its way through the palace, dismembering any guards they happened upon, on their way to Antoinette’s room. They were shouting “Long live the Duc d’Orléans!” which showed whose cause they were supporting.27 It seems they were determined to kill the Queen. Although she had sent her ladies away, Madame Thibaut and Madame Auguié “the Lioness” insisted on keeping watch outside the Queen’s bedchamber. It was a good thing they did because when they heard the mob they leaped up and woke the Queen, throwing a yellow dressing gown around her and fleeing with her down the passage to the king’s room. The door was locked; they banged on it in a panic until a valet finally opened it.28 Louis was not there; he had been rescuing the Dauphin and his governesses, who followed him down a dark subterranean passage to avoid the mob. At last, the family was safe in the King’s room, including the Mesdames Tantes and Madame Élisabeth. As one biographer describes the ordeal:

  Louis XVI…always calm and self-controlled, he called the ministers together in the Council Hall. The Queen, the Dauphin, Madame Royale, Madame Elisabeth, the Count of Provence, the aunts, were all collected in the King’s bedroom. The Dauphin said to his mother, ‘Mamma, I’m hungry.’

  ‘Be patient,’ answered Marie Antoinette; ‘this will soon be over.’

  The palace courtyards were filled with battalions of the National Guard and with the populace. Marie Antoinette stood, perfectly calm, at a window, looking out on the vast throng. While everyone about her was giving way to tears or despair, she did not lose her head for a moment, but consoled and encouraged everyone. Louis XVI went out on the balcony, with the same air of confidence and kindness that he always wore. Cries of ‘The Queen, the Queen!’ were heard. La Fayette advised Marie Antoinette to show herself; he said it was the only way to allay the excitement.

  ‘Very well,’ answered the Queen, ‘if I have to go to my execution, I shall not hesitate; I will go.’…Marie Antoinette, pale, with disheveled hair, appeared at the balcony of the King’s room, accompanied by La Fayette, and holding the Dauphin with one hand, her daughter with the other. The cries redoubled; shouts of ‘No children! No children! The Queen alone!’ arose from all sides…Without thinking about the probable evil significance of these shouts, Marie Antoinette gave the Dauphin and his sister to their father; then she came out alone, fearless, heroic, and calmly letting her eyes run over the multitude, folded her arms. It was the daughter of the Caesars who appeared. The noble haughtiness of her brow, the dignity of her bearing, wrung from the crowd a shout of admiration and surprise. Even those who, a moment before, wanted to kill her, joined in the cry. A loud roar of ‘Long live the Queen!’ burst forth. Marie Antoinette was not the dupe of this greeting; she heard the crowd shouting another alarming cry: ‘To Paris with the King!’ and, leaving the balcony, she went up to Madame Necker, and said sadly, ‘They are going to make the King and me go to Paris, with the heads of our guards carried before us on the ends of their pikes.’29

  The mob stabbed at the Queen’s bed and smashed up her room,30 which they had been told was hung with black satin and burned black candles. Lafayette asked Antoinette what her personal intentions were and she replied: “I know the fate which awaits me but my duty is to die at the feet of the King and in the arms of my children.”31The same night saw the church of St. Louis, the parish church of Versailles, the site of sacrilege as well as vandalism, until the vicar came and offered Mass, which stopped the commotions.32

  In the morning, the Royal Family was packed up and taken to Paris, surrounded by hostile crowds, with heads of decapitated guards on the pikes carried in front of them. The bloodcurdling journey took most of the day; it was late in the afternoon of October 6 when they arrived at the Tuileries palace. What had once been a royal residence had been broken up into apartments for retired retainers and other private persons, who were summarily asked to vacate the premises. It was crowded, untidy, and in a state of disrepair. Four-year-old Louis-Charles exclaimed: “But it is so ugly here, Maman!” The little boy was extremely anxious after the terror to which he had been subjected. Antoinette decided to keep her family as close to her as possible, with the governess Madame de Tourzel sleeping in the same room with the Dauphin. Some of the doors could not be locked and had to be barricaded for privacy. The next day, a noisy crowd gathered under their windows. Louis-Charles asked: “Is it still yesterday?’ as he threw himself into his mother’s arms, frightened and sobbing.33 The next few years would see Antoinette frightened not of the mob nor of popular opinion but of being separated from her husband and children. She was especially anxious about having her son taken away from her. However, when asked to give a statement on the ordeal of being attacked in her bedroom and then dragged from Versailles to Paris, the Queen responded: “I saw everything, knew everything, and have forgotten everything,”34 meaning that she held no rancor against the people, whom she knew were being used as tools by men who wished to seize power. In was in her nature to look ahead and hope for the best. She refused to give in to despair.

  “Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette in profile”

  “Marie-Antoinette as Vesta, based on painting by Dumont.”

  2 1 At the Tuileries

  “Calumny kills much more quickly, and they will use calumny to kill me.” ―Marie-Antoinette to Madame Campan

  The next few moths saw major redecorating of the state appartments at the Tuileries as the Royal household was reorganized to suit the new conditions. In the summer, while still at Versailles, Antoinette composed a letter to her children’s new governess, Madame de Tourzel, about the details of their upbringing. It is worth reading in its entirety due to the prudence which the Queen displays when it came to her children:

  July 24, 1789.

  My son is four years and four months less two days old. I say nothing of his figure or of his appearance; you have only to see him. His health has always been good; but even in the cradle we perceived that his nerves were delicate, and the slightest unusual noise affected him. He was backward in cutting his first teeth, but they came without illness or accident. It was not until with the last—I think it was with the sixth—that he had a convulsion at Fontainebleau. Since then he has had two,—one in the winter of 1787 and 1788, and the other at the time of his inoculation; but this last was very slight. As a result of his sensitive nerves, any noise to which he is not accustomed frightens him; for examp
le, he is afraid of dogs, because he has heard them bark near him. I have never forced him to see them, because I believe that as his reason develops, his fears will subside. He is, like all strong and healthy children, very quick and violent in his anger; but he is a good child, tender, and caressing even, when his impulsiveness does not carry him away. He possesses inordinate vanity, which, if well directed, may some day turn to his advantage. Until he is quite at ease with any one he will control himself, and even stifle his impatience and anger, that he may appear gentle and amiable. He is most trustworthy when he has promised anything, but he is very indiscreet; he repeats readily anything he has heard, and often, without meaning to lie, he adds what his imagination has made him see. This is his greatest fault, and one which it is most necessary to correct. Nevertheless, I say it again, he is a good child; and with kindness, and at the same time with firmness, but not too great severity, any one can make of him what one will. Severity, however, drives him to rebellion, because for his age he has a great deal of character: to give an example, from his babyhood the word ‘pardon’ has always been offensive to him. He will do and say all that one may wish when he is in the wrong; but he will not pronounce the word ‘pardon’ without tears and great reluctance.