The Queen's Confession Part 35

Mirabeau lifted his shoulders. "In an affair of this nature, certain risks must be taken. The mood of the people at this moment is such that I do not think the Queen would be harmed. That mood can, of course, change suddenly."

"I do not care for the Queen to expose herself to the rabble," said Axel fiercely.

So even between these two there was disagreement.

But there was new hope in the Tuileries. Axel was working for us as only a fervent lover could; Mirabeau was using all the fierce determination of an ambitious man for the same purpose. I believed that this could not fail.

Fate was against us, for ill fortune always seemed close behind ready to catch up with us.

I could not believe it when I was told that Mirabeau was dead. The day before, he had appeared to be in perfect health, his vitality astonis.h.i.+ng everyone. By day he was haranguing the National a.s.sembly, formulating plans with the King and at the same time working with the a.s.sembly. By night he continued to indulge in the pleasures of the flesh. I heard that the night before he died, he slept with two opera singers. We did not know exactly how he died. All we knew was that he was no longer with us.

The verdict was death from natural causes; but we shall never know what killed Mirabeau. He was a man who no doubt suffered from certain ailments. The life he had been leading for so long may have made them inevitable; but there were many who said that the Orleanists had determined to be rid of a man who was trying to run with the Monarchy and hunt with the National a.s.sembly. It would not be difficult to find someone ready to slip a little something into his food or wine. The fact remained that we had lost Mirabeau and with him our best hope of restoring the Monarchy to France.

And so we were back to the routine of the Tuileries. I spent a great deal of time in my room, writing. I was learning now where I had taken my most fatal steps and how I might have acted. If I ever had a chance, I decided, I would not make the same mistakes again.

I was embroidering my tapestry rug with Elisabeth and we spent long hours together talking of the children; sometimes I played a game of billiards with the King. For exercise we walked in the Bois de Boulogne, but we were always uneasy when out of doors. Our experiences at Versailles had taught us that walls could not protect us from the fury of the mob, but there was a certain sense of security within walls. My son remained very friendly with the soldiers and I encouraged this because I thought that he must inspire some affection in them and if the mob ever broke in on us as they had at Versailles, these soldier friends of his would protect him.

I was longing for the summer and the comparative freedom of Saint-Cloud. It seemed far away and I suggested to the King that we slip away to Saint-Cloud for Easter. He agreed to this and I said we would make ready.

Remembering how, when the aunts had left, the mob had surrounded their carriage and had debated whether or not to let them go, I said that we must not let it be generally known that we were going. All the same certain preparations had to be made and the members of my intimate circle knew of them. I trusted them absolutely, although there was a newcomer named Madame Rochereuil of whom I knew very little, but she had been well recommended and it never occurred to me to doubt that she was not to be relied on.

Preparations were complete; Easter was almost on us; the carriages were in the courtyard and we were ready to leave. But as we began the drive we found ourselves surrounded by the rabble; this was the same kind of mob which had brought us from Versailles to Paris. I felt sick with horror; my son turned his face from the window of the carriage and I put my arm about him to comfort him.

The insults came - the crude obscenities.

"Little Papa must stay with his children," cried the crowd.

La Fayette came up with his soldiers and ordered the mob to retire and let the royal carriages pa.s.s, but he was jeered at and mud was flung at him. I knew instinctively that this was another organized revolt.

"You are behaving as enemies of the Const.i.tution," cried La Fayette. "In preventing the King from leaving you make him a prisoner and you annul the decrees he has sanctioned."

But they would not listen to reason. What had reason to do with them? They had been gathered together for this purpose; they had been paid to do what they did.

They leered in at the carriage windows. When the King tried to speak, they shouted "Fat pig!" at him.

I could not help showing my disdain for them. It was something I could never hide. My looks betrayed the contempt I felt for these people.

"Look at her," they cried. "Shall we let this putain dictate to us?"

La Fayette rode to the carriage.

"Sire," he said, "have I your orders to fire on the mob?"

"I could never permit it," cried Louis. "I do not want one drop of blood to be shed for me. We will return to the Tuileries."

So the carriages were turned and amid shouting and jeers we rode back. As he alighted Louis said with a sigh: "You will bear witness that henceforward we are not free."

I was desolate. I said to my husband as we entered that palace of doom: "We are indeed prisoners. They are determined that we shall never leave the Tuileries."

CHAPTER 24.

"Are you imbeciles that you take no steps to prevent the flight of the royal family. Parisians, fools that you are, I am weary of saying to you over and over again that you should have the King and the Dauphin in safekeeping, that you should lock up the Austrian woman ..."

-Marat in L'Ami du Peuple June 11th. "La Fayette has ordered that the sentinels be doubled and that all carriages be searched."

June 18th. "With the Queen from 2:30 till 6."

June 19th. "With the King ... Stayed at the chateau from eleven till midnight."

June 20th. "On taking leave of me the King said: 'Monsieur de Fersen, whatever may happen, I shall never forget all you have done for me.' The Queen wept a great deal. At six I left her ... Returned home. At eight I wrote to the Queen to change the meeting place of the waiting women and to tell them to let me know the exact time by the bodyguards ..."

-Comte de Fersen's Journal "Louis has abdicated from the Monarchy. Henceforth Louis is nothing to us. We are now free and without a King. It remains to be seen whether it is worthwhile appointing another."

-Resolution pa.s.sed by the Jacobin Club after the flight of the Royal Family "Sire, Your Majesty knows my attachment to you, but I did not leave you unaware that if you separated your cause from that of the people, I would remain on the side of the people."

-La Fayette to Louis XVI To Varennes WHEN AXEL HEARD THAT WE had been turned back to the Tuileries, he came straight to Paris from Auteuil, the little village near Saint-Cloud where he had arrived intending to stay there while we were at the chateau. He was deeply disturbed, convinced that we were in acute danger.

I took him to my husband, who listened to what he had to say, and prodded by the memory of the mob's insolence, he was ready to agree that we must consider flight.

Artois and the Prince de Conde, who had safely reached the frontier, were aggravating the situation by talking too freely of their attempts to bring an army against the revolutionaries. They were traveling from foreign court to foreign court trying to urge rulers to make war on the French people and force them to restore the Monarchy.

My brother Leopold was aware of this; he wrote to Mercy: "The Comte d'Artois has little concern for his brother and my sister. He ignores the dangers to which his projects and his attempts expose them."

Mercy was urging me to persuade the King to consider flight also. We must escape from Paris; the King must raise a loyal army and take by force or menaces that which had been s.n.a.t.c.hed from him. Louis was beginning to realize that this was necessary - but it was too late now that Mirabeau was dead, for Mirabeau was the man who could have managed it.

However, we still had friends and at length we had persuaded Louis that flight was essential.

Axel begged to be in charge of the preparations. He would start preparations immediately and the first was to have a carriage - a berlin - made which would be suitable for the escape.

He was a constant caller at the Tuileries and, lest this should attract too much attention, sometimes came disguised; I could never be sure whether he would come as a lackey, a coachman, or stooping a little as an aging n.o.bleman.

This lent excitement to the days. I had not felt so alive for a long time, and Axel was possessed with a furious determination to make the plan succeed.

"I shall carry you off to safety," he told me.

He would talk of the berlin, which was to be a very luxurious affair. "Nothing but the best will do," he had declared; he had mortgaged some estates in Sweden to provide the money. It was wonderful to be so loved. His plan was that we should leave with as few people as possible. Madame de Tourzel must come with us because the children would need her to look after them, so Axel's plan was that Madame de Tourzel would be a Russian lady, Madame de Korff, traveling with her children, their governess and one lackey; and three women servants, one of whom should be Madame Elisabeth. I was to be the governess, Madame Rochet. He had acquired a pa.s.sport in the name of Madame de Korff and we knew we could trust Madame de Tourzel to play her part.

The days were flying past; we were so excited; even Louis was caught up in it and eager to begin our flight. But, said Axel, there must be no hitches; everything must be planned down to the last detail and we must not slip up. The most difficult part would be to get out of Paris. That was the danger spot. Axel himself was going to take the part of coachman and would drive the berlin. Everything depended, he said, on our putting as great a distance between ourselves and Paris before our escape was noticed.

Provence, who was to escape with us, pointed out that the berlin was so magnificent that it might attract attention, but Axel reminded him that we had to travel many miles in it. It would be an uncomfortable journey and the Queen could not endure hours in a badly sprung vehicle.

Provence shrugged his shoulders and said that he would provide his own conveyance for himself and his wife, and decided on one of the shabbiest carriages that he could find.

Meanwhile Louis made a stipulation. Axel naturally wished to drive us to the frontier, but the King said he should do so only to the first halt, which would be Bondy.

Axel was dismayed. This was his plan. He was in charge; and how could he be if he were to leave us at Bondy! But Louis for once was stubborn. I wondered whether he was comparing himself with Axel and realizing why I could love this man as I never could himself. I could not believe Louis was jealous; I knew that he loved me in his way, but it was an affection without pa.s.sion. Yet he was adamant and would not allow Axel to come beyond Bondy; so there was nothing we could do but accept his decision. The sixth of June was the day which we settled on to begin our escape.

I was absorbed in my preparations. Madame Campan was with me; she knew of the plan, for I could trust her absolutely. I told her that when I arrived at Montmedy, I should not want to appear as a governess but as a Queen and how could I take all I would need with me? Madame Campan must make the preparations for me. She must order chemises and gowns. She must also buy for my son and daughter. She had a son of her own, who could act as model for the Dauphin, I told her.

I knew Madame Campan would carry out these commands although from her expression she was against my ordering clothes.

She was always frank and said: "Madame, the Queen of France will find gowns and linen wherever she goes. This buying may well attract attention, which is what we wish to avoid."

I was lighthearted and growing as careless as I used to be, so I smiled at her. But she was disturbed.

I told her about the berlin, which I couldn't help boasting of because Axel had designed it. "It is painted green and yellow," I said, "and upholstered in white Utrecht velvet."

"Madame," she answered, "such a vehicle will never pa.s.s unnoticed." She added with that touch of asperity which she did not hide even from me that the berlin would be very different from the carriage in which Monsieur and Madame traveled.

"Oh, very different," I agreed. Theirs had not been designed by Axel.

I was to realize later how firmly planted in our minds were those rules of etiquette at which I had laughed so much when I had first come to France. We could not even attempt to escape except in the royal manner, even though what we must disguise was our royalty. There were to be six of us in the berlin - myself, the King, the children, Elisabeth, and Madame de Tourzel. This was a large number and would slow down the speed, but we must all be together and naturally Madame de Tourzel as Madame de Korff must be with us. I had never dressed myself, so I must have two ladies-in-waiting, who were to follow the berlin in a cabriolet. Then of course we must have outriders and lackeys so that the party was brought up to more than a dozen; and of course Axel and his coachman would be with us. Our clothes packed in new cases had to be carried too; which would make the berlin very c.u.mbersome and cut down speed even more.

But it was such a wonderful vehicle. It filled me with pleasure merely to look at it. Axel had thought of everything; there was even a silver dinner service, a canteen to contain bottles of wine, a cupboard, and even two pots de chambre in tanned leather.

It was too much to hope that our plan would go through without hitches, and there were hitches in plenty.

The first came through the wardrobe woman, Madame Rochereuil. I had become suspicious of her son after we were turned back to the Tuileries when we had planned to go to Saint-Cloud for I had learned that she had a lover, Gouvion, who was a fierce revolutionary and had in fact arranged that she should have the post in my household that she might spy on me. She had warned Gouvion of our intention to go to Saint-Cloud at Easter and in consequence the Orleanists had had time to inflame the mob and prevent our going.

How I longed to rid myself of that woman, but of course we were in truth prisoners and unable to choose those whom we wished to serve us.

I told Axel that we could not go on the sixth, for the woman had seen me packing and may even have overheard the date mentioned. If we attempted to leave then, we should most certainly find ourselves stopped. What we must do was go on with our preparations, let the woman think we were leaving on the sixth, and then stay at the Tuileries as though it were all a mistake. When we had lulled her suspicions, we could leave swiftly, without her having an inkling we were going.

Axel saw the reason in this but was dismayed, for he said the longer we delayed the more dangerous it was becoming, but we fixed a secret date for the nineteenth, which was long enough to allow Madame Rochereuil to become convinced that she had been mistaken.

This was the first setback but, we all agreed, inevitable.

As the nineteenth came nearer the tension was almost unbearable. How grateful I was for Louis' calm; he at least had no difficulty in showing a placid face to all. I tried to too, but I dared not look at Elisabeth for fear I should betray by a look that there was a secret between us. We had not of course told the children.

The nineteenth was almost upon us. All was ready.

It became very clear that something had leaked out because an article by Marat appeared in L'Ami du Peuple, in which he expressed his suspicions that there was a plot afoot.

"The idea is to remove the King forcibly to the Low Countries on the pretext that his cause is that of the Kings of Europe. Are you imbeciles that you take no steps to prevent the flight of the royal family? Parisians, fools that you are, I am weary of saying to you over and over again that you should have the King and the Dauphin in safekeeping; that you should lock up the Austrian woman, her brother-in-law, and the rest of the family. The loss of one day might be disastrous to the nation, might dig the graves of three million Frenchmen."

Axel was frantic with anxiety. "It is too coincidental," he said.

"I know it is that Rochereuil woman," I cried. "She is aware of something, though I do not believe she is sure what."

"Yet we must leave on the nineteenth," insisted Axel. "We dare not wait longer."

It was the eighteenth and we were prepared to begin the escape next day. Then Madame de Tourzel came to me in some excitement and lowering her voice told me that Madame Rochereuil had asked leave of absence for the twentieth.

"I have ascertained," added Madame de Tourzel, "that she wishes to visit a sick friend. Gouvion is unwell, so it seems obvious whom she will visit."

"We must postpone our departure until the twentieth," I said, and I sent a messenger at once to Axel. He was disturbed at the postponement, for everyone involved throughout the journey had had their instructions; but we arranged that Leonard, the hairdresser, whom I knew I could trust, should take my jewels to Brussels and at the same time he could meet the cavalry on the road with a note explaining that we should be a day late.

This was settled; Leonard left with the jewels. And now we were breathlessly awaiting the twentieth.

The important day had arrived. The sun was s.h.i.+ning brilliantly and this seemed a good omen. There would be a few people in the city, I whispered to Elisabeth; they would be out in the country on such a day. Madame Rochereuil had gone off to visit her sick friend; and the day pa.s.sed very slowly so that I thought it would never end. But outwardly it appeared to be an ordinary day, which was as we wanted it.

At last it was suppertime; we lingered as usual, but naturally there was not the same ceremony as we had had to endure at Versailles. At least we could be thankful for this. I went to my bedroom and from there hurried to my daughter's on the first floor. The waiting woman, Madame Brunier, opened the door. I told her she must dress Madame Royale as quickly as possible and be prepared to slip out of the chateau with Madame Neuville, the Dauphin's waiting woman. A cabriolet was waiting for them at the Pont-Royal; they were to leave Paris at once and wait for us at Claye.

My daughter was old enough to guess what this meant. She did not ask questions. Poor child, she was being brought up in an odd world. She looked a little surprised at the simple dress we had made for her; it was cotton with little blue flowers on a gosling green background - pretty enough for the daughter of a Russian lady; scarcely a Princesse's gown.

I kissed her and held her against me for a few seconds. "My darling Mousseline," I whispered. "You will obey ... quickly."

And she nodded and said, "Yes, Maman," almost reproachfully, as though she was surprised I should ask.

Then to my son's room. He was already awake and gave a cry of delight when he saw me.

"Maman," he cried. "Where are we going?"

"We're going where there are a lot of soldiers."

"May I take my sword? Quick, bring me my sword, Madame. And my boots. I'm going to be a soldier."

He was dismayed when he saw what he was to wear: a girl's dress! "Oh ... is it a play, then?" he asked. "So we are going to be disguised." He began to laugh. He loved playacting. "And at night too," he added. "That is the best time for plays."

"Now, my little chou d'amour, you must be quiet and quick and do what you're told. Everything depends on that."

He nodded conspiratorially. "Trust chou d'amour, Maman."

"I do, my darling," I said kissing him.

It was a quarter to eleven. Axel had worked out times very carefully and we should be on our way. The plan was that the children with Madame de Tourzel should leave first. I had been against this, for I could not bear to think of the children's beginning the perilous journey without me, but Axel would be with them until I joined them and that had to be my consolation.

Madame de Tourzel picked up the Dauphin and, taking my daughter's hand, I led the way to the apartments of one of the gentlemen of the bedchamber who had left Paris only the day before; consequently his apartments were empty. I had the key to these apartments and we went in. From there we stepped into the Cour des Princes through a door which was unguarded. Waiting there was Axel. I scarcely recognized him in his coachman's uniform.

In the middle of the courtyard was the citadine which was to take them to the rendezvous in the Rue de l'Ech.e.l.le at the corner of the Place du Pet.i.t-Carrousel.

Axel lifted the Dauphin into the carriage; Marie Therese followed with Madame de Tourzel and Axel shut the door. He looked at me for a brief second and although he dared not speak, he was telling me that he would defend them with his life if need be. Then he leaped into the coachman's seat, cracked his whip, and the citadine moved off.

I felt sick with apprehension. What if my children should be recognized? What if my son in his excitement at the adventure should betray them? What if they should be attacked? Memories of faces I had seen in the mob kept coming into my mind; I kept thinking of those dirty bloodstained hands touching my darlings.

But Axel was there to defend them. His love for me would give him the strength of ten men and the cunning to outwit a mob of savages.

But I must not stand here in the Cour des Princes. If I were recognized, the whole plan would fail. I was courting disaster; I went quickly back into the palace through the empty apartments to the drawing room, where Provence and his wife were saying good-bye. I embraced them and wished them good fortune. He and his wife had never been friends to me, but misfortune had softened resentments. Provence was more of a realist than Louis. Perhaps had he been the King ... But who could say? Now, though, rivalry had gone. The only goal of us all was to preserve the Monarchy.

I heard them leave through those empty apartments. In their shabby carriage they left the Tuileries and were on their way.