Виктория Холт - Flaunting, Extravagant Queen

Orléans, who many suspected had more to do with that night’s work than he would wish to be known, Provence, whose eyes were gleaming with speculation, and La Fayette, were all certain that the King must obey the mob who, even now, could be heard shouting outside the Palace: ‘Le Roi à Paris.’

* * *

‘I will speak to them,’ said the King. ‘I will do my best to explain.’

‘They will kill you,’ warned La Fayette.

‘They will not dare to kill their King,’ said Louis.

He stepped onto the balcony. He was bareheaded, and that in the eyes of the crowd seemed a gesture of humility.

They shouted: ‘Vive le Roi!’ ‘Vive Louis, the little father!’

Louis smiled at them and raised his hand. They were the masters though. They would not listen to him. He must not think he could speak to them. They were going to take him to Paris, and he must obey, but meanwhile they were content to shout: ‘Vive le Roi!’

Then a voice in the crowd cried: ‘Let the Queen show herself.’

Fersen had stepped to the side of the Queen. ‘It would be unwise,’ he said.

Antoinette looked at him, remembering tender moments in the Trianon, thinking: This may be the last time I see him. They will surely kill me when I appear. They have guns, and they have been calling for my death.

The shouts continued: ‘We want Antoinette. Let the Queen show herself.’

La Fayette said: ‘It is necessary, Madame, in order that you may placate them.’

She rose then. She looked pale but very lovely in her stateliness. Never had she looked more queenly than she did in that moment.

‘No!’ said Fersen.

She turned to him and smiled. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘As Monsieur de La Fayette says, it is necessary.’

She went to the balcony. Fersen had thrust the hands of the children into hers. He believed there was some hope of safety in doing this. Those people down there had cheered the King; they would surely not risk the life of the Dauphin.

With her head held high, all dignity, all courage, she stepped on to the balcony. There was a hush; then someone cried: ‘Send back the children.’

‘Go back,’ she said to them quietly; and they, too terrified to do anything else, obeyed.

Now she stood there alone, waiting. She looked down on those ugly faces beneath the unkempt heads, and she thought: This is the end of my life. I came from Austria to France for this.

And she folded her hands across her breast and waited.

The crowd gasped. Many of them had never seen her before. In her flowing dress she was infinitely graceful; her fair hair was falling about her shoulders, for there had been no time to dress it; those beautiful white hands, crossed on her breast as though protecting her, gave her a look of helplessness which mingled strangely with that calm dignity, that complete absence of any show of fear.

The hush lasted several seconds. Then La Fayette, despising himself for his negligence of the previous night, and overwhelmed by his admiration of this brave woman, stepped on to the balcony; with a courtly gesture he bowed before the Queen, took her hand and kissed it.

There was a startled cry; then the strangest thing happened. Someone in the crowd cried: ‘Vive la Reine!’

And the cry was taken up by those who, but a short while before, had vowed to have her head on a pike.

* * *

The victory was brief; the mob had determined to take the King to Paris.

Louis stood on the balcony and addressed them.

‘My children, you wish that I should follow you to Paris, and I consent to do this, but on the understanding that I shall not be separated from my wife and children; and I ask for the safety of my bodyguard.’

‘Vive le Roi!’ cried the crowd. ‘Vive les gardes du corps!’

And so began the most humiliating hours which Antoinette had yet lived through.

In the first coach Antoinette rode with the King and her children, Madame Elisabeth, Madame de Tourzel and Provence. Behind them came the carriages containing other members of the Court. Before the coaches, behind them and all about them, were the mob, peering into the carriages, shouting insults at the Queen, spitting at the Queen – always the Queen.

Before the procession a band of prostitutes marched, led by Théroigne de Méricourt, prancing, dancing, singing obscene songs about the Queen.

Past the royal carriage pikes were carried; on them were the bleeding heads of murdered guards.

‘We have the baker, the baker’s wife and the baker’s boy,’ they shouted. ‘We are bringing them to Paris. Citizens of Paris, come and meet the baker, meet the baker’s wife and the baker’s boy.’

Madame Royale and the Dauphin cowered close to their mother who had them on either side of her, her arms about them; she scarcely moved during that long ride, sitting erect, only now and then lifting a hand to take the head of the Dauphin or Madame Royale and hold it tightly against her breast, that they might not see sights too horrifying for their young eyes.

‘Papa,’ said the Dauphin, ‘who are these people? What are they going to do to us?’

‘There are evil men,’ said the King, ‘who have stirred up the people against us. But we must not bear a grudge against the people. They are as little children and not to blame.’

‘They will not kill you, Papa?’ enquired the Dauphin.

‘No, my son, they will not kill me.’

‘You are a good man, Papa, so they will not kill you.’

‘No, my son. They will not kill me.’

‘Nor will they kill my mother,’ said the Dauphin; and he smiled up at her. He kept looking at her, for when he did so he was not afraid.

It was seven o’clock in the evening when they reached the Hôtel de Ville. Bailly greeted the King.

‘It is a good day,’ he said, ‘which has brought you to Paris, sir.’

‘I come,’ answered Louis, ‘with joy and confidence to the people of Paris.’

‘What says the King?’ cried the crowd.

‘That he comes with joy to Paris.’

Antoinette said in loud tones: ‘You have forgotten, sir, that the King said “with confidence”.’

‘To the Tuileries!’ shouted the crowd.

The carriages rumbled on.

How desolate seemed the old Palace after the glories of Versailles. There were few beds and few furnishings; and a dank coldness pervaded the atmosphere.

‘This is an ugly place,’ complained the Dauphin. ‘I do not like it. Let us go home now.’

‘Why, my son,’ said the Queen briskly, ‘your great ancestor, Louis Quatorze, used to live here. He liked it very well. So you must like it too.’

‘Tell me about him,’ begged the Dauphin.

‘Some other time,’ said the Queen.

‘Tell me why the people shout in the streets.’

‘Because they love to shout.’

‘They love us,’ said the Dauphin. ‘They love Papa because he is good, and you because you are good, and my sister because she is good, and me because I am good. They would never kill us, would they?’

‘We are safe here,’ said his mother gently. ‘Safe in the old Palace of Louis Quatorze.’

But that night the Dauphin woke in his hastily improvised bed, screaming that he saw men in his room, men with heads on pikes, and they were marching all round him.

His mother had him brought to her, and she kept him beside her. Madame Royale slept on the other side of her.

Only the King slept soundly, the sleep of exhaustion.

And lying in that grim old Palace, splendid no longer, damp, unlived in, full of foreboding, Antoinette felt that she was a prisoner – a prisoner whom the people had condemned to death.

Through that dreary winter the royal family lived, shut off from the world, in the ancient Palace of the Tuileries. How different this from the glories of Versailles, the charm of Trianon! Antoinette’s apartments were on the ground floor, those of the King and the children on the first floor; and these apartments had their own private staircases – dark and smelling of damp, as were all the passages of the Palace; and even during the day they were lighted by oil lamps which smoked and gave out a foul smell. All these passages, staircases and apartments were patrolled by the National Guard, so that the royal family were not allowed to forget for one waking moment of the day or night that they were the country’s prisoners.

But that almost unnatural calm of the King, allied with the stately courage of the Queen and the youthful innocence of their children, created an atmosphere of royalty even in this dark prison. Antoinette was able to ignore the presence of her guards; to Louis they were, as were all his subjects, his dear children, playing a game of which he did not altogether approve but which he accepted as a childish vagary; as for the children, Madame Royale had her mother’s dignity, and the Dauphin was soon on good terms with the soldiers.

Each day was very like another. Antoinette spent a great part of the morning with her children. She liked to be present while they had their lessons; again and again it was necessary to call the Dauphin’s attention to that which the Abbé Davout was trying to teach him. His thoughts strayed and were often with the soldiers who could always be seen from the windows.

Every day the family attended Mass; and they had their midday meal together, like any family of the bourgeoisie, while the children prattled and their parents smiled at each other over their artless talk. Antoinette had never felt that she belonged so intimately to her family as she did in those days at the Tuileries.