Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette (P.S.) (49 page)

Of the three estates, the nobility has lost its power, and now the clergy is losing its power as well. There remains only the populace, all-powerful, and their leaders who are full of cruelty and defiance for its own sake. Like adolescent boys, they want all the power for themselves and if it is exercised in an arbitrary, unlawful manner, then they are all the more assured that their control is absolute. It is time to leave.

In August, we hear that the Marquis de Bouillé has put down a disturbance in the northwest, at Nancy, and we rejoice in the idea that the rule of law can still dominate. The marquis is a great friend of Count von Fersen, who has spoken to me many times about the possibility that we should leave Paris. Bouillé might well be the general to make that possible, as he is a person of courage, and his German regiment has great confidence in him. They consider him to be attended by good luck. At Saint-Cloud, we celebrate.

In Paris, however, we hear that demonstrators congregate outside the Tuileries, and we fear that they may march out to Saint-Cloud, for they know that the Marquis de Bouillé is our loyal advocate—a royalist who favors the adoption of a constitution. Some of our advisors, including Mirabeau, feel that civil war will result in the bloodletting necessary to purge the country of revolution. Even the King’s sister Elisabeth thinks so.

The King and I agree that it would be madness to provoke civil war.

Yet I can feel the mounting anger of the populace against us. People like Mirabeau and Bouillé would support the monarchy while giving the people more voice through a constitution created in a lawful manner. Because we have been so brought up, the King and I feel it is our Christian duty to maintain the power of the throne, insomuch as that is possible, given the thirst of the French for a new kind of liberty. The divine right of kings to rule should not be abridged by mere men. And yet compromise is surely a practical necessity.

N
O SOONER DO WE
return to the Tuileries at the end of October than Edmund Burke publishes in England his treatise
Reflections on the Revolution in France.
Soon there is a French translation, and people become resentful of the sympathetic portrait he offers of myself.

For me, there is solace (as well as danger) in what he has written. How fondly he describes me as the Dauphine and brings to mind again those glory days when the people could not express enough love for me: “And surely never lighted on this orb, which she barely seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon…glittering like the morning star, full of life, and splendor, and joy.”

The tears fill my eyes, and I savor his description, hardly wanting to read on. Yes, as a young person I came to France full of life and warmth and innocence. The joy of life touched me every moment. And what could have preserved that mood? It was like a soap bubble too fragile and tremulous to last, even had it been protected.
Ah, but it was beautiful.

I read on in Burke’s book: “Little did I dream that I should have lived to see disaster fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone.”

No, not quite. There is still one sword that will always leap to my defense, and he is a man who protects and nourishes my spirit, not only my person. He has established a secret code with his friend Bouillé so that they can communicate about the state of the nation and about their plans—for escape?—that need to be made.

18 April 1791

It is Holy Week again, and we are prepared to go to Saint-Cloud for the week. My spirits rise on wings of happiness—a week in the country away from this dreadful city, where the carriages splash my skirts on purpose if I am recognized while going for a walk.

All during Mass, I think of nothing but our imminent departure to Saint-Cloud. We are into the carriage, and I cannot repress a smile so wide that my family laughs to look at me.

Yet, there is some problem. The King looks out the coach window and says that the men of the National Guard have taken hold of the horses. We have been given permission for this trip; we have gone to Saint-Cloud—the estate isn’t far from Paris—and returned in the past, but these men will not allow us to go forward.

Finally the King thrusts his head out the window and says, “It is astonishing that, having given liberty to the nation, I should not be free myself.”

Lafayette, as the commander of the troops, cannot make them obey. He is humiliated and offers the King the use of force.

We are detained for some two hours, and many threats and vile curses are said in the hearing of the children. Worst of all, someone shouts, “If there is a single shot fired, the next will be for this fat pig in the coach and he will be torn into shreds.”

At that point, I ask the King to abandon the attempt to go to Saint-Cloud.

He replies, “If we yield, then we must realize that we are going back to what can only be called prison, for after this outrage there can be no other name for the palace.”

Thus, we return to the Tuileries.

T
WO DAYS HAVE PASSED,
and still my nerves are so unhinged that I can scarcely sleep at night. Just now the King shows me a sealed letter. He speaks quietly so that only I can hear. “At last,” he says, “I am writing to Count von Fersen to begin to implement the plans of which he has long spoken and often urged.”

This news fills me with hope. My eyes grow moist, as do the palms of my hands. Count von Fersen and the Marquis de Bouillé may have completed their plans for our removal from this dangerous city—and the King agrees to those plans.

20 June 1791

“Then we’re acting
in a play,” the little Dauphin says to me. He is surprised to be awakened so soon after he has gone to bed.

“There will be soldiers and fortifications when we get there,” I reply. “For now, allow yourself to be dressed as a girl and make no noise. No one must know we are leaving.”

“But I want to wear my armor, and my saber,” he replies and sticks out his lower lip.

“It is only the bravest of boys who dares to dress as a girl,” I explain. “It is a noble part that you are to play in our drama.”

I have not told the Dauphin that we are fleeing under the protection and plan of Count von Fersen.

“Is Papa going?” he suddenly asks anxiously.

“Of course. I would not leave without him. We will all meet in the big coach, the berlin. But we get in at separate times.”

My daughter whispers, “I remember our walk in the public gardens this afternoon, Mama. I remember you said not to be upset if strange things happen. But this dress? It’s goose-turd green.”

“It is to make you look ordinary, and when we get in the coach I will tell you both your pretend names, should anyone try to stop us. My pretend name will be Rosalie. I'll play the role of your nurse.”

“I said we were acting in a play,” my son replies.

“Now take my hands,” I tell my children. My son’s little six-year-old face is bright with adventure.

Like ghosts, we cross through the empty rooms of an abandoned apartment. We carry no lights, but the light coming in through the windows illumines our shadowy way. I see a figure, the outline of a coachman, standing close to a glass door. He appears to hear us coming, as he opens the door, and it is Count von Fersen, exactly as we have planned.

The Dauphin is amazed to see his noble friend dressed in coachman clothes, but Marie Thérèse says shyly, “I hoped that might be you.”

My Fersen takes my son’s hand and winks at him, while Madame de Tourzel guides my daughter forward. I watch the children enter the coach. Fersen climbs up and sits on the box, for he himself will be our driver. Like an ordinary coachman, he begins to whistle to pass the time.

Q
UICKLY
I
RETURN,
noiselessly gliding through the empty rooms till I rejoin the King, with the Comte and Comtesse de Provence. They are off to Brussels, but we shall stay in France, stopping at Montmédy, where a house has been engaged for us and we will live among a mass of loyal soldiers. Still, Montmédy is near the border, and foreign help or farther escape would surely be available there. After our customary supper together, the Comte and Comtesse de Provence leave for their home at the Luxembourg Palace, while we endure the long rituals of our
couchers.
The King will have to appear to take his time, as both Mayor Bailly and Lafayette will attend the ceremony of his bedding.

I shall make my exit from the Tuileries after the King; in the event that I am captured, he will have already made his escape. After I have been undressed, washed with a sponge, and dressed in my nightgown and nightcap, I lie quietly in my bed, listening to the night noises of the great palace. I imagine that perhaps now the King is putting on his black wig, now the green-brown overcoat that resembles the one worn by the Chevalier de Coigny, who for two weeks has visited the King, then left the premises through a particular door to the outside of the palace. To exit his room, the King is stepping into a large, mahogany wardrobe, in the back of which is a secret door, leading to a small staircase. He is careful to make no noise. Now he is on the ground floor, walking at the rear of the people who participated in his own
coucher.
But they suspect nothing. I pray God they suspect nothing. It is our hope that the King will be mistaken for the chevalier, for they are both large and portly and have beaked noses.

Now I arise and put on a gray dress and large hat with an impenetrable veil.

I expect to cross through the empty apartment, but! A guardsman stands before the front door of the apartment. I can hardly breathe, but I try to take my breaths quietly. I must wait and watch.

Ah, like a good guardsman he knows that it is less tiring to walk than it is to stand in one place. He begins his pacing. I count the seconds to see how long his back is turned to the apartment door. I calculate the number of steps it will take me to cross the hall and slip into the door, which I pray God is yet unlocked. Three times I rehearse my exit in my mind, then go!

My hand is on the knob. I have made no sound. Unlocked. And I am inside. Never has that much-praised noiseless step been used to such advantage as now, without admirers, when I steal my way through the dusky rooms toward freedom.

Here is the glass door, and Monsieur de Malden, my escort, standing just beyond in the courtyard. But hold, there stands Lafayette, waiting for his own coach. It is clearly his face and sandy hair illumined by the torchlight.

Now he is inside his coach.

Now he rides past, and I step forward, leaning on the arm of my escort, for my legs are still weak with fright.

Only a short walk, and I see the carriage, and the King is opening wide his arms to me and saying over and over “How glad I am to see you!” In a wink, we are in the coach, all of us together, and with a crack of the whip, the carriage begins to move forward. The children’s faces shine with excitement and Elisabeth is radiant with hope.

Is it possible? Is it possible that we are actually going to escape this city of hate? We had all agreed beforehand that the most dangerous part of the journey was leaving the palace. And that has been accomplished! We are all here in our strange disguises, but it is us, inside, and we are rolling through Paris.

The King begins to tell me of the letter he has left behind in which he explains the necessity of our leaving the city. “Foremost are the events of 18 April, and the outrage perpetrated on my family when our progress to our estate of Saint-Cloud was prevented,” he recounts. “And I expressed my disgust that they would require the clergy to take an oath that reduces them to the status of civil servants, and my anger that the passage of Mesdames Tantes to Rome was delayed.” I can see that it has given the King a great deal of relief to enumerate and express clearly his frustration and criticism of the new regime.

After waiting patiently for his father to finish the account of his escape, the Dauphin asks where we are going now. I explain to him that first of all, we will find a second conveyance, the berlin of which I have spoken. “It’s most comfortable,” I say, “set on springs and upholstered in white velvet. The seats are covered with soft green morocco leather, and it has some surprises in it. When one of the cushions is removed, there is a commode built in for our convenience.”

Not once do I look out the window at Paris, which I half hope never to see again. I listen to the clatter of the horses’ hooves on the cobblestones and imagine the stops to come in our journey when we replace the horses. With every passing moment, I feel lighter and more confident that our plan will succeed. I feast as I gaze at the happy faces of my husband and my children, the Dauphin looking so much like a little girl with his long flaxen curls that I know anyone else would believe he was one.

We practice calling them Amélie and Aglaé, and they elbow each other and softly giggle. I am their governess, Madame Rochet, and the King is to be treated as a mere steward named Durand. He wears the hat of a lackey.

We have yet ahead of us to pass through the custom gate of Saint-Martin at the perimeter of the city. “It is two in the morning,” the King says, “they will be tired. We will encounter no protest.” I wish to feel reassured, but who can say what will happen next on this journey?

When we come to the gate, we find its keepers are eating and making merry. As my husband foresaw, they pay no attention to us. Thus, with a casual wave, we pass through. Only a little distance away, out of their sight, is the magnificent berlin, a little green house on yellow wheels. It amazes me to think that such a commodious structure can actually be pulled by horses, and for just a moment I wish that we had agreed to a fast, light vehicle such as good Bouillé advised.

The children are quite sleepy now, but they too are amazed by our conveyance. As we get in, the King says that there is a cooker within for reheating soup or sliced meat, and that if we raise the floor, which is double, then we shall have a table to eat on. Everything about the berlin is sparkling new, for it has only been delivered to Fersen’s residence in Paris on June 18. Again, he takes the reins, and we are off, with the horses trotting very rapidly. In his seat above as coachman, Fersen does not spare the whip.

T
HE NEXT STOP
is at the relay station, at Bondy, where we will change horses. It is also where Fersen will leave us, for the agreement is that he will ride horseback from this point to Brussels. He carries letters to Count Mercy, and money as well, and we hope to see Fersen himself again in two or three days. Fersen is an experienced campaigner, a man of decision and action, and we will part with him at Bondy, as the King has arranged, but I wish this plan of splitting up could be revised.

Now I begin to glance out the window, but I see only the black and melancholy night. The houses along the way are dark with sleep. Now the Dauphin is curled up on the floor of the berlin, sheltered under the ample skirts of Madame de Tourzel. Occasionally she and I exchange glances, sometimes of anxiety, sometimes of encouragement, but we do not speak.

At Bondy, the King and I get down from the coach to stretch our legs while the new horses are being harnessed. Fersen comes back to speak to us, and to my surprise, he all but begs the King to allow him to continue to be a part of our party and to drive us until we are safe. I think of his vast experience, his courage and decisiveness in the face of danger or of the unexpected, and I wish that the King would accommodate his request.

But the King does not hesitate. He insists that Fersen go to Brussels, but he speaks sincerely, with great gratitude to the count for all that he has done to save us. I add my own thanks to that of the King.

I drink in my friend with my eyes, praying we will meet again.

Fersen replies that it is his greatest happiness and privilege to serve us, but I can see the misery in his face. He is afraid—but only for us.

We bid Count von Fersen a hasty farewell. He rides his horse once around the carriage, then shouts out, “
Adieu
, Madame de Korff,” which is the name Madame de Tourzel has assumed. I listen hard for the sound of his retreating hoofbeats, but I hear only the turning of our own wheels. In my imagination, his brave voice rings out,
“Adieu!”

If we are captured, it is better for him, of course, that he not be in our company. If we are captured, it is better for us that he remain free so that he can continue to work on our behalf.

As we drive away, the King seems in better spirits than ever. I try to hide, then banish, my tears. Already, we have succeeded at so many crucial junctures. I am apprehensive about the time, as we are several hours behind schedule, due to the length of our
couchers
, but the King is not concerned. Now we are pulled by eight horses, instead of four, and our speed is improved. I believe that I will feel truly safe when we begin to meet the armed escorts along the way. Count von Fersen has arranged that we meet first a mounted escort commanded by the young Duc de Choiseul, the son of the man who arranged my marriage. But we are some two hours behind schedule. Close to Montmédy, our destination near the border, it is the Marquis de Bouillé who will take us under his strong wings.

The King says quietly but jubilantly to Elisabeth, Madame de Tourzel, and myself, “My joy at being clear of Paris, where I have drunk so deeply of the cup of bitterness, fills every fiber of my being. You can be sure, my dears, that once I feel my arse on a saddle again I shall be a different man from what you have seen of me recently.” Indeed, already, still in the confines of the berlin, I can see that he is changing. He spoke to Fersen with unusual and resolute firmness. But of what merit is firmness if it represents a wrong choice?

It has been a nightmare for me, these months during which my instinctual impulse to fly has been pitted against my loyalty to the King. But I will not think of those times: we move ever forward, and Paris recedes in the distance. Surely they have noted our absence; surely they have sent men on fast horses in pursuit. But how could they know our direction? Perhaps the riders explode from Paris down roads leading in all directions.

At this moment, one of the carriage horses stumbles and falls. The carriage rocks precariously, and it is clear another horse has fallen. When we come to a stop, we are told that the harness has broken.

It can be repaired, but it must be sewn back together. We travel with the tools to do this heavy leather work, but it takes time to mend the harness. I grow increasingly worried about the delay, but there is nothing to be done but to try to remain cheerful and hopeful. Full of trust, the children are asleep and remain quite unaware of our mishap. Trying to find some benefit in what is surely an unfortunate occurrence, the King and I stand beside the carriage to stretch our bodies. We do not speak, but each of us stares into the darkness. Gradually the sky begins to lighten, and each of us takes a few steps—pacing, really—back and forth along the side of the coach. Once, the King walks all the way around the carriage and horses. When he returns to my side he says, without looking at me, “All is well.”

As soon as a postilion appears before us, bows, and reports that we may resume our journey, the King and I hurriedly get back into the carriage. There are the faces of our children in their repose. My daughter’s head is thrown back, and she breathes with her mouth slightly open. I look at the thin edges of her teeth and wonder if one day she shall have to have wires put on them, as I did before I left Vienna.