Confessions of Marie Antoinette (42 page)

At about ten, I suggest to the children that they might like some breakfast, but they are too disconsolate to eat.

The drummers in the courtyard begin to beat a frenetic tattoo. I glance at my father’s gold watch. It is 10:22. The cry of
“Vive la Nation!”
is nearly drowned out by the distant reports of muskets being fired in a salute. From the direction of the Place de la Révolution comes a thundering rumble of drums, the staccato snap of sticks against snares, rising to a terrifying crescendo.

The eerie silence that follows is pierced by my daughter’s shriek.

“Monsters—now are you content?” Madame Élisabeth exclaims, raising her eyes heavenward.

I am rooted to the floor, cold and immobile, as if I’d been carved of marble. My mouth twists in a silent, agonizing scream and I double over in torment. When I finally lift my head, I meet my son’s teary gaze, so fearful and inquiring, and I drop to my knees. “The king is dead, long live the king,” I murmur, kissing his hand.
“Vive le roi Louis dix-sept.”

TWENTY-SIX

“Everything Leads Me to You”

W
INTER
–S
PRING
1793

On the afternoon of Louis’s death, Monsieur Cléry scratches at my door. It is a measure of respect that he adheres to a custom that the Revolution, in its ruthless abolition of the monarchy, has relegated to the dustbin of time.

“From His Majesty,” Cléry tells me. “The Commune confiscated these effects when he was detained.” He empties the contents of a soft black velvet bag onto my dressing table.

I gasp at the sight of the wedding ring Louis had sent me to wear for our proxy marriage in Vienna. Here, too, are locks of each of the children’s hair, as well as his own, and the royal seal with the arms of France embossed upon it. I caress the individual curls, memorizing their texture as I rub them between my fingers, wondering when Louis obtained them. No one would have imagined him such a sentimental man. “How were you able to secure these items?”

The valet touches his finger to his lips. “You have an advocate in Citizen Toulan. The Commune had locked them up. Monsieur Toulan stole them. But he made it look like an ordinary burglary, so no one will imagine he had anything to do with the theft.”

I run my hands over these treasures, amazed at how Cléry came by them, moved by his dedication to our family and by the enormous risks Commissioner Toulan has taken on our behalf.

“The king wished you to have this, too,” Cléry says, reaching into a pocket. He takes out Louis’s wedding ring, engraved with the letters M.A.A.A. for Marie Antoinette Archduchess of Austria, and presses it into my palm. “His Majesty said, ‘Tell my wife that I part with this ring only because I am parting with my life. I commend my children to her and I beg her to forgive me. Poor princesse; I promised her a crown,’ he lamented. ‘Please tell her that I leave her with sorrow.’ ” Choking with emotion, the valet buries his face in his hands.

Non! It is
I
who should beg this fine and noble man’s forgiveness for the suffering
I
surely caused
him! I know Louis believed he had failed me—as a king, as a husband, and as a man. I slip his wedding ring onto my finger and slide it toward my own band, watching the two gold circles kiss. “What did he say at the end?” I beseech Cléry. I want to drink in every word. I want to know each one Louis said after we bid adieu, to hear the ones he uttered before entering eternity. “On the scaffold? Did he address the people?”

Hanet Cléry turns back to me. His voice barely rises above a whisper. “His Majesty said, ‘I die innocent of the crimes of which I am accused. Yet I forgive the authors of my death and pray God that the blood you are about to shed may never fall back upon the people of France.’ ”

Will the people of France be satisfied, now that they have murdered their king? Will their thirst for blood be quenched with Louis’s death? All he ever wanted was for his people to be happy. I
know that if the answer to these morbid questions is “yes,” my husband would have believed that he had not died in vain.

I, however, am a skeptic.

Madame Éloffe comes to measure us for mourning clothes. My accessories are to be all black as well: fichus, underskirts, stockings, shoes, fans, and gloves. She clucks in disapproval as she wraps her tape about my
poitrine
. “You have lost ten inches,” the dressmaker scolds. I confide a less apparent secret. The black petticoats will mask some of the accidents I have been having. Générale Krottendorf, as we Hapsburg ladies called our monthly courses, has never in my life been a punctual visitor. But for the past year at least, I have bled between my times and with little rhyme or reason.

In a final act of patronage—perhaps the Commune would see it as defiance for returning to my old ways—I spend a percentage of my wardrobe allowance for mourning garb with Mademoiselle Bertin, sending my commission to her in London, although I can afford a mere fraction of what the same coin will purchase from Madame Éloffe. Rose embellishes a petticoat and a few bonnets and fichus as well as a black gown with a sizable train and a high headdress of black silk bordered in white organza. She also provides me with two dozen black ribbons with which to dress my hair.

The wintry days are dark, and precious little light seeps in above the shutters. Were it not for my father’s timepiece I would not know the time of day. Little do I care. Grief has cast its icy pall. The only sense of purpose I can summon in the early days after Louis’s death is to continue the education of our son. To his family he is Louis XVII and it brings me a measure of hope that he must be prepared to assume the throne someday. Madame Élisabeth and I devote a few hours a day to the boy’s studies of geography, mathematics, and the history of France. It is what his father would have wanted.

When the young king is not at his lessons, my
belle-soeur
and I sit before the fire knitting or reading our missals. Cards and backgammon in the evenings are a relic of happier days.

“You must take some air,” insists Monsieur Goret at the end of January, noting that the royal family has remained indoors ever since the king’s execution. “At least for the sake of your children.” Despite his assignment to watch our every move, he remains secretly sympathetic to our circumstances.

“I cannot go into the courtyard or the garden,” I reply. When Goret asks if the reason is because I do not have a warm cloak, I shake my head. “I have no desire to pass the door through which my husband left, only to die,” I reply.

“Then if you will not descend the stairs, why not step out upon the parapet near the top of the keep? No one will see you from the courtyard. You can be alone there with your grief.”

I accept Goret’s suggestion, if only because it will provide me with the opportunity to discuss my future and that of my family with those who have pledged to aid, or even to rescue us. During the first week in February, Madame Royale and I are joined in our aerie by Claude Antoine Moëlle, one of the members of the Paris Commune assigned to oversee the towers of the Temple.

A bracing wind whips about the pointed turret like the veil of a medieval hennin. Moëlle clutches his ink-blue cloak about him, hunching his shoulders as if to retreat inside the woolen carapace. “What news from the National Convention?” I inquire anxiously. “What do they intend to do with me?”

“There is talk of banishment—exile,” the commissioner confides.

“Do you mean that Francis the Second will reclaim me in the name of Austria?” I have never met the current emperor, the eldest son of my late brother Leopold. He is only in his twenties. But there is a grand tradition of queen consorts being returned to their
families when, for any number of reasons, they prove unsatisfactory.

“You are shivering, madame.” Commissioner Moëlle offers me his cloak.

Would it be such a terrible thing if I were carried off by a sudden chill? “You are too kind, monsieur. But I think you require it more than I do.”

“C’est possible.”
Moëlle chuckles and tugs the cloak more tightly about his throat. “The Convention believes that any new excess would be a gratuitous horror.” He is speaking euphemistically of my own execution. I exhale with relief, a puff of warm breath that floats in the chilly air. “Moreover, it is contrary to policy. Justice has already been served.”

Marie Thérèse grips my arm. “There is hope, Maman.” It is the most she has said since her father met his death.

“Then let us pray that the National Convention has no further interest in a tired old woman from Austria.” I smile at the commissioner. At least my teeth are still healthy.

Moëlle’s cheeks turn rosy. “I cannot answer for the opinion of the Convention, but to me, you are still lovely,
citoyenne
. And hardly old,” he hastens to add, extending the compliment. “For if
you
are old, so then am I!”

I may have a modicum of good fortune when it comes to charming my captors, but the rest of February brings discouraging news. The conflict between the new republic and the allies escalates and France declares war on England, Holland, and Spain. I pray that the recent allied victory will bode well for us, but the opposite appears to be true. The emperor of Austria takes the same neutral stance with regard to the politics of France as my favorite brother Joseph had done. My nephew will not lift so much as a finger to rescue me, let alone my children and my
belle-soeur
. Moreover, the various factions of the National Convention cannot agree
on a course of action. The Jacobins continue to tar the Girondins as too moderate. The flames of Revolution, they say, must continually be fanned with propaganda so that the people will never lose their thirst for blood. “Little fish grow big,” Jacques Hébert rages in
Père Duchesne
. “And liberty hangs by a thread. The people must not rest until the Widow Capet and her foul progeny have been destroyed.”

Such poisonous diatribes have the intended effect but they inspire counterrevolutionary sympathies as well. In early March, I receive several visits from Commissioners Toulan and Lepître, who have formulated a plot to spirit the royal family out of the Temple. The scheme also involves the participation of the Chevalier de Jarjayes, a trusted emissary of the crown who has been working closely with Axel to devise plans for our escape.

Late one evening, Madame Élisabeth and I rendezvous with the commissioners in our salon. “I will provide the men’s garments—as well as the
bonnets rouge
,” Lepître says, approaching the fire. It is nearly banked, with little left but glowing embers, and he rubs his hands together to warm them. “You women will catch your death in here,” he remarks. “Are the children warm enough?”

“Won’t we be detected?” the princesse inquires anxiously.

Citoyen Toulan shakes his head. “Not with cotton batting. We will pad the coats to disguise the shape of your bodies.”

“But what about the children? How is Madame Royale to be costumed?” Afraid they have made no contingencies for my children, I will never leave them.

“Your daughter will be provided with a suitable disguise,” Monsieur Lepître assures me. “The lamplighter makes his rounds at five thirty every evening. She will leave the Temple with him, as if she is one of his children. The chevalier will see that she is delivered safely. He intends to disguise himself as one of the people. Toulan will tell the lamplighter that he has a friend who is curious to see the inside of the palace and wishes to follow him on his
nightly tour. He is a gullible fellow and when I suggest that my friend wishes to look like another lamplighter, the man will be happy to lend him another set of clothes and let him carry his equipment.”

“And His Majesty?”

The men exchange a brief, confused glance, until they realize I am speaking of Louis Charles. Toulan blows on his clenched hands. The chamber is frightfully cold. “We have two possibilities under discussion. Dressed little better than an urchin, he can join his sister as the lamplighter’s son—”

“Or we can schedule the flight for the same night that the laundry is taken out of the Temple,” Citoyen Lepître interrupts excitedly. “The ki—Louis Charles Capet—will be hidden inside the hamper beneath the soiled linens.”