Confessions of Marie Antoinette (40 page)

“What is this about?” I demand, my voice strained. I have a sudden, sick sensation in my belly, as if it is crawling with worms.

“Louis Capet is accused of treasonous crimes against the nation,” Commissioner Daujon answers tersely.

“Non—it cannot be possible!” I cry, rushing to my husband’s side and protectively slipping my arm through his. Madame Élisabeth turns white.

“The former king of France enjoyed clandestine correspondence with, among others, enemies of the Revolution.” I feel like I am holding my breath, waiting for Daujon to elaborate. “He kept the papers locked in an
armoire de fer
, an iron chest, hidden within
the Tuileries. The information was recently brought to the attention of Citizen Roland, Minister of the Interior.”

“The Tuileries Palace was ransacked—everything we owned destroyed months ago,” I insist, adding, “My husband is an honorable man.”
But we have indeed corresponded with the enemies of the new French Republic
. Mon Dieu,
what have they found? What do they know?

“There were no secret documents. This purported
armoire de fer
is a fiction,” Louis says evenly. He is perspiring heavily.

“We have evidence to the contrary, monsieur,” Manuel replies. “A reliable informer, a friend of the Revolution, told Citoyen Roland exactly where to find it—concealed behind a false door within a section of wooden paneling.”

We cannot imagine who the informer might be. Louis endeavors to maintain his composure as Manuel presses his case. “You made the lock for the iron chest yourself, Citoyen Capet. Now, how would I know this,” he adds silkily, “unless a little bird told me?”

Since he was a youth, and for several years under the tutelage of a master locksmith, Louis has made many locks for many chests. “I wish to know the name of this purported informant,” Louis says. “Every man in the republic, no matter how low or how high, deserves to know the name of his accuser.”

Manuel’s lips curve into a triumphant smile. “I think you already know his name, citoyen.” After a tense, dramatic pause the commissioner says, “His name is François Gamain.”

Louis and I exchange a horrified glance. Betrayed by the master who was his own mentor, a man whom he has known all his life, whom he trusted implicitly!

The subterfuge is over. We are lost.

Noticing our expressions, Commissioner Manuel twists the knife even deeper. “The iron chest has been located, exactly where
Gamain said it was. Inside it we found several incriminating documents, most intriguingly, His Former Majesty’s correspondence with several royalist ministers, financiers, and advisors—including Général Lafayette and the late Citoyen Riqueti, the comte de Mirabeau, whose duplicity and betrayal of the principles of the Revolution were exposed quite clearly. In consequence, the remains of the traitor Mirabeau will be removed from the Pantheon. He is no hero to our cause.”

It is a cruel game these men play, unspooling information bit by bit in an effort to trip us up, to compel Louis to reveal something to them. “We have come to believe, however, that Minister Roland, due to incompetence, or perhaps to secret royalist sympathies, has attempted to obstruct the motion of the wheels of justice,” says Commissioner Daujon. At Louis’s quizzical look, he elaborates. “The minister may have destroyed some of the contents of the
armoire de fer
, including correspondence with his fellow Girondist, Citoyen Danton. Moreover, after the chest was confiscated from the Tuileries, Citoyen Roland left it unsealed, either accidentally—or deliberately. Despite his efforts to suppress the documents, five days ago, by order of the National Convention, they were delivered to the National Printing Office to be published. These papers will reveal the widespread complicity of many prominent sympathizers of the Revolution with the former monarch himself. Citizen Capet has corrupted the morals of these officials.”

Louis doesn’t move; he seems to be holding his breath. Commissioner Manuel shifts his weight impatiently from foot to foot. “Therefore, in the name of the Commune, we have orders to remove Citoyen Capet from the Temple, pending a trial on charges of high treason.”

Her face drained of color, Madame Élisabeth sinks into a chair.
“Non—c’est pas possible!”
I cry, flinging my arms about Louis’s
neck as if my weight, like a human millstone, would anchor him to the floor and prevent his removal.

Madame Royale begins to weep. “You cannot take my papa!” she shrieks angrily.

“Will you come back, Papa?” the dauphin asks naively.

Lifting our son into his arms as if he weighs no more than a sack of apples, Louis kisses his brow, and then, playfully, his nose and chin. “Of course I will come back,
mon petit
,” he promises, casting me a heartbreaking look. “But in the meantime, you must be very brave for your maman, your sister, and your
tante
Élisabeth. You are the man of the house, now.”

I sink to my knees to plead with Pétion, “Please,
monsieur le maire
—I beg you—by all that you hold sacred. Do not take my husband. He is an honorable man who has sought only to preserve the lives of his family and to lessen the burdens of our captivity.”

It is Louis who raises me to my feet. “
Sois courageuse
, madame,” he murmurs, taking me into his arms. “It is you who must be brave for the children.”

“We will visit you every day,” I insist tearfully. “Send word to us where we must go.”

He shakes his head. “It will be too painful for us both, Toinette. And too difficult for them,” he adds, nodding his chin at Madame Royale, who is comforting her brother.

“You will miss her fourteenth birthday, then. She will be brokenhearted not to share it with her papa.” Mousseline has always been the light of her father’s eyes. When I finally bore a daughter after so many years of celibacy, even though her birth meant that France remained without an heir, Louis assured me from the start that he would never love Marie Thérèse the less for her sex.

“It is better this way; trust me,” Louis avers. “Absence, time, and distance render it more easy to forget.”

“You are speaking as though we have already begun to mourn,” I whisper. “I won’t hear of it. It is not true. Cooler, more pragmatic heads will prevail. The Girondins will gain the upper hand over the radical Jacobins. You
will
return to us.”

Louis makes no answer. He kisses me gently, then embraces his sister. Praising her impeccable dignity in the face of every adversity, he encourages her to maintain it even now. “Only Heaven knows when we will see each other again,” he says, donning his hat. He will not leave the Temple bareheaded, like a penitent.

That night, with the dauphin in my arms, I cry myself to sleep.

TWENTY-FIVE

The Widow Capet

J
ANUARY
1793

During the remaining weeks of December our kitchen attendant Monsieur Turgy and Louis’s valet Hanet Cléry deliver whatever news they are able to glean in the streets of the capital. And, to my surprise, I discover a sympathetic friend in François Adrien Toulan, one of the Commune’s commissioners. Although Citoyen Toulan, a former music seller, is a fervent republican, he has bribed a newsagent to cry the
nouvelles
within earshot of the Grosse Tour, so that I might learn about the latest troop movements, victories, and defeats between the French army and the allies, as well as any reports from the National Convention regarding Louis’s trial.

Mais hélas
, I have only a tenuous hope for an encouraging word about the king. On December 22, 1792, the venomous Jacques Hébert is appointed Deputy Public Prosecutor. Hébert has never desired anything less than our deaths.

From what we can surmise from the news criers of Louis’s trial,
the delegates to the National Convention cannot agree on his fate. Some propose exile; others imprisonment. Still others desire his execution. The balloting goes on for several days.

On the morning of Sunday, January 20, one of the republic’s priests visits the large tower to conduct Mass although Madame Élisabeth remains in her room with her missal, refusing to accept the Host from a clergyman who swore an oath to the Constitution. Early that afternoon, when we seek a breath of fresh air upon the parapet below the tower’s cap, the
nouvelles
announce the worst. The news crier, not much older than the dauphin, shouts for all and sundry to hear, “The National Convention has reached a verdict in the trial of Louis Capet! A single vote—cast by Philippe Égalité—has tipped the balance between life and death! The Convention decrees that Louis Capet shall suffer the death penalty. The execution will take place within twenty-four hours of notification to the prisoner!”

My head begins to swim and my eyes become blinded by sudden tears. Philippe Égalité—the
ci-devant
duc d’Orléans—Louis’s own cousin—a prince of the blood, has murdered my husband just as surely as if he were Monsieur Sanson, the public executioner. Placing my hand upon a crenellation, I steady myself and vomit over the serrated parapet. My sobs are uncontrollable. A
poissarde
might just as well have gutted me with her knife and left me to bleed to death. Surely my weeping can be heard in the streets below the Temple.

I do not permit Madame Royale and the dauphin to leave my sight. We cling to each other in our despair. Our tears are interrupted by a visit from an officer of the National Convention. The blue trousers of his uniform and the red facings on his coat are stained with food. He hands me a paper folded in three. It reads,
BY AN EXCEPTIONAL INDULGENCE ISSUED ON BEHALF OF THE CONVENTION THE
FAMILLE
CAPET IS PERMITTED TO VISIT THE CONDEMNED IN HIS FORMER ROOMS WITHIN THE GROSSE TOUR FOR THE PURPOSES OF SAYING FAREWELL
.

At a few minutes before seven, we descend the stairs from my apartments so that the moment the clock strikes the hour, we will enter Louis’s rooms. I want him to remember me in one of his favorite colors, a gown of gunmetal-gray silk with a delicate white fichu about my shoulders, secured by a sapphire brooch at my breast. The shawl’s fullness masks the fact that I have lost so much weight, my once ample bosom has shrunk to nothing.

At the sight of my husband I stifle a sob with my fist, for he is much changed. Although he remains stout as ever, his skin has a greenish cast to it made more bilious by his sage-colored coat, and his hair has grown thin. In the six weeks that have passed since he was led away from the Temple, his teeth have become yellow and appear more prominent within his large head. His hands tremble as though he has a touch of the palsy. The stresses of his trial and, perhaps even more devastating, the absence from his adoring family, have turned him into an old man at the age of thirty-eight.

At the sight of us, tears begin to bathe his face, far too many to be successfully blotted away with a handkerchief. “I do not weep for myself,” Louis says softly, meeting our own anguished faces, “but for you, for the grief you must endure on my behalf.” We rush toward him eager to throw our arms about him, never wishing to release him from our collective embrace.

“You are so thin,” my husband says. “I think I could wrap my arms about you twice.”

“I cannot eat,” I reply. “I have had no appetite since they took you away.”

As the clock chimes half past eight, we are ushered into the dining room and I gently shut the glass doors that divide this chamber from the others. Our minders are able to witness every gesture we make, but they cannot hear our voices. Tonight, Louis
seats himself at the center of the table. Madame Élisabeth and I flank him, on the right and to the left. The dauphin is perched upon Louis’s lap and Madame Royale sits across from her papa. Only fourteen,
ma pauvre
Mousseline, the light of his eyes, will lose him at the same age I was when I wed him.

Every sentence the king utters triggers renewed embraces and fresh tears. “I could never have wished for a kinder and more devoted family,” he says, kissing his sister’s hands. “You are Papa’s most beautiful jewel, and always will be,” he assures our daughter. “Never permit your sadness to dull your beauty or cloud your self-worth.” To the dauphin he says, “Mon
fils
, you must give me your solemn promise never to think of avenging my death. I have never condoned violence against another man and I will not begin to do so in my final hours. If you are ever so unfortunate to become king, you must dedicate your life instead to the happiness of your people, just as I have always endeavored to do.” Louis Charles regards his papa solemnly then starts to bawl again. “Did you hear what I said?” Louis asks the boy. “Lift your hand and swear that you will fulfill your father’s final request.”