Marie-Antoinette, Daughter of the Caesars

by Elena Maria Vidal

  Nevertheless, Antoinette was not completely forsaken. In spite of the high security, she almost escaped, due to the resourcefulness of Michonis, the chief of police, who was sympathetic towards her, and the Marquis de Rougeville. The concierge and his wife, Monsieur and Madame Richard and their maid Rosalie Lamorlière (1768 – 1848), prepared the Queen’s cell as well as they could; Rosalie even donated tapestry stool and a hand mirror for Antoinette’s use. The damp soon destroyed her clothes, especially her undergarments. Michonis sent for clean chemises and a pair of shoes to be sent over from the Temple. The Queen received them with gratitude, recognizing in the carefully folded linens “the work of my sister Élisabeth.” Michonis also made certain, at Élisabeth’s request, that Antoinette had bottles of the Ville d’Avray water to drink, since she did not drink wine and the water of the Seine made her sick.6

  The Richards provided good meals on pewter dishes while Rosalie helped the Queen with her hair and did her best to discreetly assist her without drawing the attention of the authorities. Rosalie was from a poor cobbler’s family; her life was one of great hardship; nevertheless she showed a kindness and mercy to Antoinette that makes her a shining star in the stories of the French Revolution. Once Madame Richard had brought her youngest son to cheer the desolate prisoner, but instead of being cheered, she burst into tears at the sight of one who so resembled her own boy. She gathered him into her arms, covering his face and hair with embraces.

  After the escape attempt, the Richards were implicated and replaced with the Baults. Monsieur Bault had the appearance and manner of a sans-culotte hiding the soul of a knight. He made certain the Queen was not harassed by the guards, whose language could be foul, and personally brought her meals to her to make certain they were not poisoned. However, Fouquier-Tinville, the public prosecutor, had the royal prisoner transferred to a veritable dungeon, too dark for reading or sewing; she was no longer able to work on the stockings she was knitting with two quills for the little King. She had been denied knitting needles; the authorities thought she might try to kill herself. It was very cold, and the walls dripped with moisture. Monsieur Bault asked for an extra quilt for her but Fouquier-Tinville denied the request. Instead, Bault was able to procure a mattress as a covering. Rosalie continued to do her best for the Queen, making her a nourishing, medicinal soup every morning for breakfast. At the market, the market women often gave their best fruits to the concierge’s wife, knowing it was for the Queen, passing along words of encouragement to her. For dinner she also had soup, fowl, or mutton chops, never drinking wine, only water like her mother the Empress. Nevertheless, her health continued to fail, and the prison conditions aged her prematurely. She began to have trouble with her eyes, either through an infection or a more serious affliction. After the capture at Varennes her hair was already white at the temples; now she rapidly dropped weight. There have been speculations that she was suffering from uterine cancer, due to the hemorrhaging she endured, but it has never been proven. There was always a gendarme outside her door, and another looking in the window, so she never had any privacy.

  A fellow prisoner at the Conciergerie was the ci-devant Duc d’Orléans, or “Philippe Egalité,” as he had been calling himself, in order to be in the good graces of the new order. He had nevertheless fallen out of favor with his Jacobin friends, and been thrown into the Conciergerie. He lived in his cell with many comforts and an elaborate wardrobe, including satin dressing-gowns, and silver plate. What a contrast to the Queen, whose shoes were soon dilapidated from mildew; who was so grateful when Rosalie brought her a cardboard box for her meager toiletries. Philippe was eventually guillotined as well.

  Two of her guards were practicing Catholics, and had permitted the non-juring priest Abbé Magnin to twice hear her confession, and once even say Mass in her cell. She had been able to receive Holy Communion for the first time in more than a year. The guards had assisted at Mass with her, along with a local woman, Mademoiselle Fouché, who made the necessary arrangements. Two nights before her trial began, another non-juring priest secretly brought her Holy Communion. On October 12, the Abbé Emery, former superior of Saint Sulpice and himself a prisoner in the Conciergerie sent her a message, telling her he would pass by her cell door at a certain time and say the words of absolution.

  Unlike Louis XVI, who had been given several months to prepare his case with his lawyers, Antoinette and the two men who were chosen to defend her— Guillaume Troncon Ducoudray (1750-1798) and Claude François Chauveau-Lagarde (1756-1841)—were given only a few hours on the evening before the trial to prepare for her defense. As Chauveau-Lagarde who as later to defend Madame Élisabeth, related:

  …I happened to be in the country when I received the news that I had been named with M. Tronson Ducoudray to defend the Queen before the revolutionary tribunal, and that the trial was to start on the following morning at eight o’clock. I immediately set out for the prison filled with a sense of the sacred duty which had been imposed on me, mingled with an intense feeling of bitterness. The Conciergerie, as is well known, is the prison in which are confined persons due to be judged or those due to be executed after sentence. After passing through two gates one enters a dark corridor which one could not locate without the aid of a lamp that lights up the entrance. On the right are the cells, and on the left there is a chamber into which the light enters by two small barred windows looking on to the little courtyard reserved for women. It was in this chamber that the Queen was confined. It was divided into two parts by a screen. On the left, as one entered, was an armed gendarme, and on the right the part of the room occupied by the Queen containing a bed, a table and two chairs. Her Majesty was attired in a white dress of extreme simplicity. No one capable of sympathetic imagination could fail to realize my feelings on finding in this place the wife of one of the worthiest successors of St. Louis and the august descendant of the Emperors of Germany, a Queen who by her grace and goodness had been the glory of the most brilliant court in Europe and the idol of the French nation. In presenting myself to the Queen with respectful devotion, I felt my knees trembling under me and my eyes wet with tears. I could not hide my emotion and my embarrassment was much greater than any I might have felt at being presented to Her Majesty in the midst of her court, seated on a throne and surrounded with the brilliant trappings of royalty. Her reception of me, at once majestic and kind put me at my ease and caused me to feel, as I spoke and she listened, that she was honoring me with her confidence.

  I read over with her the bill of indictment, which later became known to all Europe. I will not recall the horrible details. As I read this satanic document, I was absolutely overwhelmed, but I alone, for the Queen, without showing emotion, gave me her views on it. She perceived, and I had come to the same conclusion, that the gendarme could hear something of what she said. But she showed no sign of anxiety on this score and continued to express herself with the same confidence. I made my initial notes for her defense and then went up to the registry to examine what they called the relevant documents. There I found a pile of papers so confused and so voluminous that I should have needed whole weeks to examine them.When I observed to the Queen that it would not be possible for us to take cognizance of all these documents in such a short time and that it was indispensable to ask for an adjournment to give us time to examine them, the Queen said, ‘To whom must we apply for that?’

  I dreaded the effect of my reply, and as I replied in a low voice: ‘The National Convention,’ the Queen, turning her head to one side said: “No, never!”

  I added that we had to defend in the person of Her Majesty not only the Queen of France, but also the widow of Louis XVI, the mother of his children and the sister-in-law of our Princess, who were accused with her in the bill of indictment. This final consideration overcame her scruples. At the words sister, wife and mother natural feelings rose superior to a sovereign’s pride. Without uttering a single word, though she let a sigh escape her, the Queen took up her pen and wrote to the Assembly
in our names, a few lines full of noble dignity in which she complained that they had not allowed us time enough to examine the evidence and claimed on our behalf the necessary respite. The Queen’s application was transmitted to Fouquier-Tinville, who promised to submit it to the Assembly, But, in fact, he did nothing with it or, at least, nothing useful for the next day … the hearing began at eight in the morning.7

  The Queen was tried in the Grande Chambre of the Palais de Justice, renamed the “Hall of Liberty,” overflowing with people who had come to see the trial. Preceding her trial had been preliminary hearings, which according to revolutionary custom had occurred in the middle of the night. In the name of liberty, the famous Crucifixion scene by Dürer had been replaced by a large reproduction of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. In the galleries were the tricoteuses, the rugged women of Paris, who hovered about at every revolutionary event, bringing their knitting with them. At eight o’clock in the morning of October 14, 1793, Antoinette was led to a raised platform, where she could be heard and seen by all, in front of a long table, at which sat young Nicolas Hermann, the President of the Revolutionary Tribunal, and five other judges. Hermann was a great friend of Robespierre, whose Committee of Public Safety now ruled France. As it was commonly known, once Robespierre decided someone needed to be gotten out of the way the person was usually abandoned to Mother Guillotine, bribes and pleas having no effect on the “incorruptible.” Robespierre and his friends thought France was overpopulated and needed to be thoroughly purged, of peasants as well as aristocrats, the peasants being the ones who clung so adamantly to superstitions like Christianity. The public prosecutor Fouquier-Tinville was a pale man with thick black eye-brows. Both he and Hermann wore medals on which were inscribed the words La Loi, “the law.” The men were clothed in the deepest black; even their round hats, turned up in front, had black ostrich plumes. The wretched woman was made to stand while forty-one witnesses took their oaths. Then Hermann said: “The accused may be seated!” Antoinette slowly sat in the chair that had been provided for her. “What is your name, surname, age, position, place of birth and residence?” asked Hermann.8

  She replied, steadily. “My name is Marie-Antoinette of Lorraine-Austria, aged about thirty-eight, widow of the King of France, born in Vienna. At the time of my arrest I was in the session hall of the National Assembly.” A clerk then began to read the eight page indictment about orgies and elaborate feasts, of extravagances, of engineering a famine, of printing pamphlets slandering herself so as to gain sympathy, of dominating her husband, of being a counterrevolutionary, of dissipation and waste. Behind her chair stood her lawyers Troncon Ducoudray and Chauveau-Lagarde.

  When the clerk finished reading the accusation, Hermann spoke. “This is what you are accused of. You will now hear the testimony against you. First witness to the stand!” The first witness was a deputy of the convention, formerly second in command of the National Guard at Versailles. He began to testify about orgies he had witnessed at the palace. He went on for two hours, turning the banquet for the Flanders regiment at the Versailles Opera into a bacchanalian revel, in which the Queen had presided like a harpy, stamping on the red, white and blue revolutionary cockade. Hermann addressed the Queen. “Have you anything to say about the testimony?” he asked.

  “I have no knowledge of the majority of the incidents mentioned by the witness,” she replied. “As for the bodyguards’ feast, we briefly visited them while at table, but that is all.” He accused her of inciting regiments against the Revolution. “I have nothing to say,” she replied.

  “How did you use the huge sums of money given to you by the various ministers of finance?”

  “I was never given huge sums. My allowance I used to pay the people in my service.”

  “Why did you lavish gold upon the Polignac family and several others?”

  “They had positions at court which supplied them with wealth,” she replied.

  The interrogation went on and on. The tricoteuses began shouting because they were having difficulty hearing the Queen’s responses. “Make the Widow Capet stand up!” they cried.

  The Queen sighed to her lawyers. “Will the people ever grow weary of my sufferings?”

  The public prosecutor Fouquier-Tinville called to the stand the procurator Hébert, publisher of the raunchy gazette Père Duchesne. Hébert was one of the men responsible for removing Louis-Charles. He accused her of sexually molesting her own son. He declared that Louis-Charles, “Little Capet,” had testified that she, his mother, had led him into unnatural vice in order to weaken his constitution, so she could rule France through him. Madame Élisabeth was likewise accused.

  “What reply have you to Citizen Hébert’s testimony?” asked Hermann.

  “I have no knowledge of the incidents he speaks of,” she replied.

  Hébert then accused her of treating her son as if he were king.

  “Did you witness it?” she calmly asked him.

  “I did not, but the municipal guard will confirm it,” affirmed Hébert. “You allowed your son to take precedence at table.”

  One of the jurors rose. “Citizen President, the accused has not fully replied concerning the incident mentioned by Citizen Hébert, regarding what allegedly happened between herself and her son.”

  The Queen rose to her feet. “If I did not reply, it was because nature recoils at such an accusation against a mother.” She turned to the galleries. “I appeal to all the mothers who may be here!” A stir broke out among the spectators. The tricoteuses all began talking at once, and a few of them cheered her, with boos and hisses at Hébert. They were generally disgusted with him. The judges and jurors whispered among themselves. Hermann had to suspend the proceedings for two hours, after which they continued again until eleven o’clock at night. The Queen was led across the courtyard of the Palais de Justice to the Conciergerie and her damp, moldy cell.

  The following day was Tuesday, October 15, the Feast of Saint Teresa, the name-day of her mother and her daughter. The Christian calendar having been abolished in France, the new republic celebrated the day as the feast of the Amaryllis. At nine o’clock there began eighteen hours of more cross-examination. At one point, Hermann had the usher display her personal belongings, holding up each one, and demanding an explanation from her. “A packet containing various colors of hair,” he announced.

  “They come from my dead and living children, and from my husband,” explained Antoinette.

  “A paper with numbers on it.”

  “It is a table for teaching my son how to count.” The Temple guards had confiscated the little arithmetic table, thinking she was teaching Charles how to send messages in secret code. The clerk displayed her sewing kit, her hand mirror, a ring with a lock of her mother’s hair. Then he held up her prayer cards.

  “A paper on which are two gold hearts with initials, and another paper on which is inscribed ‘Prayer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus,’ ‘Prayer to the Immaculate Conception.’ ” Finally, he held up a portrait of Princesse de Lamballe.

  “Whose is that portrait?” asked Hermann.

  “Madame de Lamballe,” answered the Queen.

  “Two other portraits of women,” announced the clerk.

  “Who are they?” inquired Hermann.

  “They are two ladies with whom I was raised in Vienna.”

  “What are their names?”

  “Mesdames de Mecklembourg and de Hesse.”

  The clerk exhibited her scapular, which Fouquier-Tinville loudly denounced as being “counter-revolutionary.” She was also vehemently denounced for the Sacred Heart badge that Hébert had found in her missal. Eventually they came to the subject of Trianon.“Where did you get the money to build and furnish the Petit Trianon, where you gave parties at which you were always the goddess?” asked Hermann.

  “There were funds especially for that purpose,” replied Antoinette.

  “Those funds must have been extensive,” said the judge, “for Petit Trianon mu
st have cost immense sums.” He was obviously not aware that she had not built Trianon; she was merely given it by her husband, keeping most of the original furnishings of the former chatelaine, Madame du Barry.

  She answered with frankness: “It is possible that the Little Trianon cost immense sums, perhaps more than I would have wished. We were gradually involved in more and more expense. Besides, I am more anxious than anyone else that what went on there should be known.”

  “Was it not at the Little Trianon that you knew the woman called La Motte?” He was referring to the infamous thief of Boehmer’s diamond necklace.

  “I have never seen her.”

  “Was she not your victim in the infamous affair of the necklace?”

  “She cannot have been, since I never met her.”

  “Do you persist in denying that you knew her?” asked the judge,

  “It is the truth I have told and will persist in telling.”

  As the hours dragged by, they set out to prove she had been an unnatural wife. Fouquier-Tinville declared, “Through your influence, you made the King, your husband, do whatever you wished.”

  “There is an immense difference,” said the Queen, “between counseling that something should be done, and having it carried out.”

  The prosecutor pointed threateningly at her. “You made use of his weak character to make him perform many evil deeds!”