Marie-Antoinette, Daughter of the Caesars

by Elena Maria Vidal

  In August 1792, Louis XVI, Antoinette, their children, and Louis’ sister Madame Élisabeth were incarcerated in the Temple Prison. Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte later described their experiences in her memoirs:

  The following is the way our family passed their days. My father rose at seven, and was employed in his devotions till eight. Afterwards he dressed himself and my brother, and at nine came to breakfast with my mother. After breakfast, my father taught my brother his lessons till eleven. The child then played till twelve, at which hour the whole family was obliged to walk in the garden, whatever the weather might be; because the guard, which was relieved at the time, wished to see all the prisoners, and satisfy themselves that we were safe. The walk lasted till dinner, which was at two o'clock. After dinner my father and mother played at tric-trac or piquet, or, to speak more truly, pretended to play, that they might have an opportunity of saying a few words to one another. At four o'clock, my mother and we went up stairs and took my brother with us, as my father was accustomed to sleep a little at this hour. At six my brother went down again to my father to say his lessons, and to play till supper-time. After supper, at nine o'clock, my mother undressed him quickly, and put him to bed. We then went up to our own apartment again, and the King did not go to bed till eleven. My mother worked a good deal of tapestry: she directed my studies, and often made me read aloud. My aunt was frequently in prayer, and read every morning the divine service of the day. She read a good many religious books, and sometimes, at the Queen's request, would read aloud.33

  “Incarceration of the Royal family in the Temple, August, 1792.”

  “Murder of the Princesse de Lamballe”

  22 Les Adieux

  “I will drink the chalice to the dregs.” —Louis XVI

  In the Temple, the Queen and Madame Élisabeth managed to send messages to friends and relatives wrapped in balls of silk. They were separated from all of their attendants except for the steward Hüe, the valet Cléry and two footman, Chamilly and Turgy. The Princesse de Lamballe had been separated from the other prisoners, and was held in the dreaded prison of La Force. In the Temple, they were constantly derided by the guards. The King and Queen responded to the mockeries with either silence or courtesy, forbidding their children to complain, and insisting that they be polite to their captors, who reacted by writing graffiti on the wall which read “Strangle the cubs.”1 Louis and Antoinette focused on the education of Madame Royale and Louis-Charles. Antoinette instructed her daughter in Bible studies and music while Louis taught both children Latin, history, geography, and literature. Madame Élisabeth was the math teacher, although the guards confiscated the table she used for teaching arithmetic because they thought it was a secret code. The guards harassed the family a good deal, blowing tobacco smoke into their faces as they walked by. They threatened both the King and Queen in front of their children, describing how they would torture them to death, which frightened both children and reduced the Dauphin to tears.2

  The Temple tower had, until the Revolution, belonged to the Knights of Malta, of whom the honorary Grand Master had been Artois’ son the Duc d’Angoulême, and housed a library with 1400 books. The King pointed to books by Voltaire and Rousseau and said to his steward Hüe: “Those two men have been the ruin of France.”3 The King spent much of his time reading. Between August 1792 and January 1793 he read 250 books in several different languages. As always, he favored Shakespeare, Erasmus, and the classics of antiquity, as well as The Imitation of Christ. The Queen also read daily from The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis. The King taught his son a new prayer to say every day:

  God all-powerful, you have created me and redeemed me. I adore you. Preserve the days of the King my father, and those of my family. Protect us against our enemies. Give Madame de Tourzel the strength she needs to sustain herself through the pain she endures because of us.4

  On September 2, 1792 there began five days of carnage unlike anything Paris had experienced since the days of the Wars of Religion. The streets ran with blood, as the prisons were emptied, and the hapless inmates thrown to a sea of knives, pikes, and cudgels. Fourteen hundred people were slaughtered, and the murderers were seen to dip their baguettes into the blood of the victims. After refusing to renounce her allegiance to the King and Queen, the Princesse de Lamballe was handed over to two lines of criminals with sharp instruments. The first man to strike was a former protegé of the princess, whose baptism and religious instruction she had provided, but whom she had been forced to send from her service when he took to immoral ways. The blow killed her; her corpse was mutilated and raped. The princess’ head was borne to a hairdresser who, under duress, arranged and powdered the luxuriant, blood-splattered tresses. The head was then carried in triumph to the Temple, where the maniacs vowed to make the Queen kiss the cold face of her friend. Among the garments that had been stripped from the dead princess’ body were found a red moroccan volume of The Imitation of Christ and a Sacred Heart badge.

  In late November 1792, the King was separated from his family. This was a hardship especially for the little Dauphin because Louis played with him and kept his active mind engaged with lessons, games and stories. Louis found it particularly traumatic to have his son taken away. The King and the Dauphin had had their own quarters, separate from the women of the family. As Cléry recorded:

  At eleven o'clock, while the king was giving his son a reading-lesson, two municipals entered and told His Majesty that they had come to fetch young Louis and take him to his mother. The king wished to know the reason of this removal; the commissioners replied that they executed the orders of the council of the Commune. His Majesty kissed his son tenderly, and charged me to go with him. When I returned to the king, I told him I had left the young prince in his mother’s arms, and that seemed to tranquillize His Majesty. One of the commissioners entered to inform him that Chambon, mayor of Paris, was in the council-chamber and was coming up to see him.

  ‘What does he want of me?’ asked the king.

  ‘I do not know,’ replied the municipal.

  His Majesty walked hastily up and down his room for some moments; then he seated himself in an arm-chair close to the head of his bed; the door was half closed and the municipal dared not enter, to avoid, as he told me, questions. Half an hour passed thus in the deepest silence. The commissioner became uneasy at not hearing the king; he entered softly, and found him with his head on one of his hands, apparently deeply absorbed.

  ‘What do you want?’ asked the king, in a loud voice.

  ‘I feared you were ill,’ replied the municipal.

  ‘I am obliged to you,’said the king, in a tone of the keenest sorrow, ‘but the manner in which my son has been taken from me is infinitely painful to me.’

  The municipal said nothing and withdrew.5

  On Christmas Day, Louis XVI, alone and still separated from his family, made his will.

  The last Will and Testament of Louis XVI, King of France and Navarre, given on Christmas day, 1792.

  In the name of the Very holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

  To-day, the 25th day of December, 1792, I, Louis XVI King of France, being for more than four months imprisoned with my family in the tower of the Temple at Paris, by those who were my subjects, and deprived of all communication whatsoever, even with my family, since the eleventh instant; moreover, involved in a trial the end of which it is impossible to foresee, on account of the passions of men, and for which one can find neither pretext nor means in any existing law, and having no other witnesses, for my thoughts than God to whom I can address myself, I hereby declare, in His presence, my last wishes and feelings.

  I leave my soul to God, my creator; I pray Him to receive it in His mercy, not to judge it according to its merits but according to those of Our Lord Jesus Christ who has offered Himself as a sacrifice to God His Father for us other men, no matter how hardened, and for me first.

  I die in communion with our Holy Mother, the Catholic, Apostolic, Roman
Church, which holds authority by an uninterrupted succession, from St. Peter, to whom Jesus Christ entrusted it; I believe firmly and I confess all that is contained in the creed and the commandments of God and the Church, the sacraments and the mysteries, those which the Catholic Church teaches and has always taught. I never pretend to set myself up as a judge of the various way of expounding the dogma which rend the church of Jesus Christ, but I agree and will always agree, if God grant me life the decisions which the ecclesiastical superiors of the Holy Catholic Church give and will always give, in conformity with the disciplines which the Church has followed since Jesus Christ. I pity with all my heart our brothers who may be in error but I do not claim to judge them, and I do not love them less in Christ, as our Christian charity teaches us, and I pray to God to pardon all my sins. I have sought scrupulously to know them, to detest them and to humiliate myself in His presence. Not being able to obtain the ministration of a Catholic priest, I pray God to receive the confession which I feel in having put my name (although this was against my will) to acts which might be contrary to the discipline and the belief of the Catholic church, to which I have always remained sincerely attached. I pray God to receive my firm resolution, if He grants me life, to have the ministrations of a Catholic priest, as soon as I can, in order to confess my sins and to receive the sacrament of penance.

  I beg all those whom I might have offended inadvertently (for I do not recall having knowingly offended any one), or those whom I may have given bad examples or scandals, to pardon the evil which they believe I could have done them.

  I beseech those who have the kindness to join their prayers to mine, to obtain pardon from God for my sins.

  I pardon with all my heart those who made themselves my enemies, without my have given them any cause, and I pray God to pardon them, as well as those who, through false or misunderstood zeal, did me much harm.

  I commend to God my wife and my children, my sister, my aunts, my brothers, and all those who are attached to me by ties of blood or by whatever other means. I pray God particularly to cast eyes of compassion upon my wife, my children, and my sister, who suffered with me for so long a time, to sustain them with His mercy if they shall lose me, and as long as they remain in his mortal world.

  I commend my children to my wife; I have never doubted her maternal tenderness for them. I enjoin her above all to make them good Christians and honest individuals; to make them view the grandeurs of this world (if they are condemned to experience them) as very dangerous and transient goods, and turn their attention towards the one solid and enduring glory, eternity. I beseech my sister to kindly continue her tenderness for my children and to take the place of a mother, should they have the misfortune of losing theirs.

  I beg my wife to forgive all the pain which she suffered for me, and the sorrows which I may have caused her in the course of our union; and she may feel sure that I hold nothing against her, if she has anything with which to reproach herself.

  I most warmly enjoin my children that, after what they owe to God, which should come first, they should remain forever united among themselves, submissive and obedient to their mother, and grateful for all the care and trouble which she has taken with them, as well as in memory of me. I beg them to regard my sister as their second mother.

  I exhort my son, should he have the misfortune of becoming king, to remember he owes himself wholly to the happiness of his fellow citizens; that he should forget all hates and all grudges, particularly those connected with the misfortunes and sorrows which I am experiencing; that he can make the people happy only by ruling according to laws: but at the same time to remember that a king cannot make himself respected and do the good that is in his heart unless he has the necessary authority, and that otherwise, being tangled up in his activities and not inspiring respect, he is more harmful than useful.

  I exhort my son to care for all the persons who are attached to me, as much as his circumstances will allow, to remember that it is a sacred debt which I have contracted towards the children and relatives of those who have perished for me and also those who are wretched for my sake. I know that there are many persons, among those who were near me, who did not conduct themselves towards me as they should have and who have even shown

  ingratitude, but I pardon them (often in moments of trouble and turmoil one is not master of oneself), and I beg my son that, if he finds an occasion, he should think only of their misfortunes.

  I should have wanted here to show my gratitude to those who have given me a true and disinterested affection; if, on the one hand, I was keenly hurt by the ingratitude and disloyalty of those to whom I have always shown kindness, as well as to their relatives and friends, on the other hand I have had the consolation of seeing the affection and voluntary interest which many persons have shown me. I beg them to receive my thanks. In the situation in which matters still are, I fear to compromise them if I should speak more explicitly, but I especially enjoin my son to seek occasion to recognize them.

  I should, nevertheless, consider it a calumny on the nation if I did not openly recommend to my son MM. De Chamilly and Hüe, whose genuine attachment for me led them to imprison themselves with me in this sad abode. I also recommend Clery, for whose attentiveness I have nothing but praise ever since he has been with me. Since it is he who has remained with me until the end, I beg the gentlemen of the commune to hand over to him my clothes, my books, my watch, my purse, and all other small effects which have been deposited with the council of the commune.

  I pardon again very readily those who guard me, the ill treatment and the vexations which they thought it necessary to impose upon me. I found a few sensitive and compassionate souls among them – may they in their hearts enjoy the tranquillity which their way of thinking gives them.

  I beg MM. De Malesherbes, Tronchet and De Sèze to receive all my thanks and the expressions of my feelings for all the cares and troubles they took for me.

  I finish by declaring before God, and ready to appear before Him, that I do not reproach myself with any of the crimes with which I am charged.

  Made in duplicate in the Tower of the Temple, the 25th of December 1792.

  LOUIS 6 7

  The King was brought to trial before the Commune of the new republic on December 26, 1792. The charges leveled against him were quite flimsy; the trial was a mockery. Among other things, he was accused of distributing money to the poor for the purposes of “enslaving the nation.”8

  “I always took pleasure in relieving the needy,” he candidly answered, “but I never had any treacherous motives.” When accused of shedding the blood of his own people, his composure, it was reported, clouded with pain and disbelief, since he had avoided violence at great cost to himself and his family. The dignified resignation of his manner, the straightforward honesty of his replies, the serenity in his eyes, brought even his most virulent enemies to a confused and admiring silence, so that even a cry of “Long live the King!” would not have seemed out of place. With the help of his lawyers, Messieurs de Séze and de Malesherbes, he insisted that he had always upheld the Constitution, he had not broken any of the new laws, and could not be held responsible for his political actions before his acceptance of the Constitution.9 At the end of his defence of the King, Raymond de Sèze stated:

  Louis ascended the throne at the age of twenty, and at the age of twenty he gave to the throne the example of character. He brought to the throne no wicked weaknesses, no corrupting passions. He was economical, just, severe. He showed himself always the constant friend of the people. The people wanted the abolition of servitude. He began by abolishing it on his own lands. The people asked for reforms in the criminal law… he carried out these reforms. The people wanted liberty: he gave it to them. The people themselves came before him in his sacrifices. Nevertheless, it is in the name of these very people that one today demands… Citizens, I cannot finish… I stop myself before History. think how it will judge your judgment, and that the judgment of him will be jud
ged by the centuries.10

  When the Commune voted for his death, the deciding vote was cast by the King’s own cousin, the Duc d’Orléans, now known as Philippe Egalité, a fervent revolutionary. To everyone’s disgust, he voted when he could have legally abstained. On January 18, 1793, the King was sentenced to death. Abbé Edgeworth was sent for, the King having heard of him through the recommendation of Madame Élisabeth. His own confessor, a Eudist priest, had been killed during the September massacres. In the streets of Paris, young boys were hawking copies of The Trial of Charles I.

  On January 20, 1793, Louis XVI said farewell to his family. He was to be guillotined the next morning. Madame Royale later recorded their last meeting; it is said that she fainted when saying good-bye to her father.

  About seven o'clock in the evening we learned the sentence by the newsmen, who came crying it under our windows: a decree of the Convention permitted us to see the King. We ran to his apartment, and found him much altered; he wept for us, not for fear of death; he related his trial to my mother, apologizing for the wretches who had condemned him; he told her, that it was proposed to attempt to save him by having recourse to the primary assemblies, but that he would not consent, lest it should excite confusion in the country. He then gave my brother some religious advice, and desired, him above all, to forgive those who caused his death and he gave him his blessing, as well as to me.