Flaunting, Extravagant Queen

Chapter XI THE OCTOBER DAYS

The people were demanding the recall of Necker, and at same time declaring that if the King did not come to Paris they would go in a body to Versailles, destroy the Palace, drive away the courtiers and bring the King to his Capital that they might ‘take good care of him’.

There was consternation at Versailles. Artois had heard that his name was on a list of those who were to be executed. The King embraced him. ‘You must make immediate preparations to leave,’ he said.

The Polignacs and their friends had been the butt of lampoons and pamphlets for years. They too were near the top of the list.

‘I would not detain you here,’ said Antoinette. ‘It is too dangerous. You should get out of France with all speed.’

She went to the King and stood trembling before him. She was amazed at the calm of Louis. Was it courage, she wondered, or was it that it was as impossible to arouse him to fear as it was to ardour?

‘I shall go to Paris,’ he said.

Antoinette, looking at him, thought of all the years they had been together, all the kindness of this man, all the indulgences she had received from him. She thought of how his children loved him, and threw herself into his arms and implored him not to go to Paris.

‘Do you know that they have said that if I do not go to them they will come here?’

‘Do not go,’ said Antoinette. ‘They intend to kill you as they killed de Launay.’

‘They will remember that I am their King and they are my children.’

Antoinette shook her head; she could not speak; the lump in her throat was choking her.

He heard Mass and took the sacrament, made his will and set out for his Capital.

Antoinette watched him from the balcony of his apartments.

‘Good-bye, Louis,’ she said. ‘Good-bye, my poor dear King and husband.’

She did not see the King in his carriage; she waved automatically. She could not shut out of her mind the thought of the bloody head of the Governor of the Bastille, and she imagined another head on the pike those howling madmen carried – that of Louis.

The Princesse de Lamballe was beside her.

‘You too should be leaving us,’ said Antoinette. ‘Gabrielle will be gone this day. You too, dear Marie, should go with them.’

The Princesse shook her head.

‘I am afraid,’ said the Queen. ‘I am beginning to think that I never really knew fear until this moment.’

‘The King will be safe,’ said the Princesse. ‘The people love him. They will never forget that he is their King.’

‘I know not what will become of him. It may be that I shall never see him again. Oh, Marie … I think of my children … my poor children. I will go to them now; come with me.’

Madame de Tourzel was with the children. She was to be their gouvernante now that Gabrielle, who had held that post, was preparing to leave.

The children ran to her smiling. Thank God, she thought, they know nothing. Madame Royale, quiet, gentle and so pretty, would be a comfort to any mother. The little Dauphin gave her some anxiety. He was a charming little fellow, quite strong and healthy, but he had a certain nervous tendency which gave rise to fear bordering on hysteria. He would wake screaming if some strange noise upset him, and would tell grotesque stories of what had happened to him. He hated his lessons and loved to play the sort of games in which he could imagine himself older than he was. Most of all he delighted in being a soldier. He made speedy friends with all the Palace guards, and it was a pleasure to see their delight as the audacious little Dauphin strutted beside them. He was full of high spirits and the most affectionate of children. He adored Madame Royale, and could not bear to be separated from her; he loved his father dearly and with great respect; his mother he worshipped.

And what will become of these children? wondered Antoinette.

She was determined as she went to the royal nurseries that day, that she must place their welfare above everything else. Louis was the kindest of men, but he lacked imagination and he saw all men as himself. He did not believe in malice, and cruelty would have to be perpetrated right under his eyes for him to believe anyone capable of it. Those men and women who had stormed the Bastille, those who had cut off the head of de Launay and carried it dripping through the streets were in the eyes of the King poor misguided children.

‘Maman,’ cried the Dauphin, ‘what has happened? Why has Papa gone to Paris, and why is Madame de Polignac too busy to speak to us?’

‘The people have called your Papa to Paris, my darling,’ said the Queen.

She met the lovely eyes of her daughter, and felt an urgent desire to confide in her. But no! She would not disturb the serenity of the sweet child. Let her remain happy for a little longer.

‘We may have to go to Paris soon,’ she said. ‘I am going to have clothes packed for us and carriages made ready. So do not be surprised if we leave soon.’

‘How soon?’ asked Madame Royale.

‘That I cannot say. But be ready.’

“Will the soldiers go with us?’ asked the Dauphin.

‘I do not know.’

‘I do hope so.’ The Dauphin held an imaginary musket on his shoulder and began marching about the apartment.

She left them, for she feared that if she stayed she would break down and tell them of her fears.

She had made up her mind: she would beg sanctuary for herself and the children from the National Assembly. She would ask that they might be with the King.

And all day long there were whispered rumours throughout the château. Had the mob taken the King prisoner? Was the King wrong to have delivered himself into their hands? Was it true that the stormers of the Bastille were already marching on Versailles?

Louis rode into Paris. He was astonishingly calm, and those who saw his carriage pass could have believed that he was setting out on some ordinary state occasion, and that his guards had been taken from him and replaced by the ragged army of men with guns and lances, scythes and pick-axes, dragging cannons with them; there were women too in that assembly; they danced and shouted and waved branches of trees which they had tied with ribbons.

When this strange procession entered Paris, Bailly, the new Mayor, was waiting to receive the King. In his hands he held the cushion and the traditional keys.

He said in loud clear tones which all could hear distinctly: ‘I bring Your Majesty the keys of your good city of Paris. These were the words which were spoken to Henri Quatre. He reconquered the people; here the people have reconquered their King.’

Louis showed no sign of annoyance that this contrast should have been drawn between himself and that King whom the people of France had always lauded as their greatest sovereign. He graciously accepted the keys and smiled benignly at the ugly crowd who insisted on keeping close to his carriage.

It was in the Place Louis XV that the shot was fired. It missed the King but killed a woman. No one took any notice of her as she fell, and in the tumult Louis was unaware of how narrowly he had escaped death.

They had come to the Hôtel de Ville and there they halted. The King alighted from his carriage and, under an archway of pikes and swords, he entered the building. The Mayor led the King to the throne, and the people crowded into the hall after him.

Louis took his place on the throne and that strange calm was still with him. It was as though he said: ‘Do what you will with me. I cannot hate you.’ He was like a benign father, scarcely saddened by the pranks of his children because he loved them so, and knew them to be only children – his children.

‘Do you accept, Sir, the appointment of Jean Sylvain Bailly as Mayor of Paris, and Marie Joseph Gilbert Motier de La Fayette as Commander of the National Guard?’

‘I do,’ said Louis.

He was then handed the blue, white and red cockade, which he accepted mildly, and, still in the mood of indulgent parent playing the children’s game, he then took off his hat and affixed thereon the tricolor.

The people all about him, unable to resist falling under the spell of that benevolent paternity, cried: ‘Vive le Roi!’

Then the Comte de Lally-Tollendal, who was a member of the Royalist Democrats, a party which sincerely wished for reform to be brought about in a constitutional manner, cried:

‘Citizens, are you satisfied? Here is your King. Rejoice in his presence and his benefits.’ He turned to the King. ‘There is not a man here, Sire, who is not ready to shed his blood for you. This generation of Frenchmen will not turn its back on fourteen centuries of fidelity. King, subjects, citizens, let us join our hearts, our wishes, our efforts, and display to the eyes of the universe the magnificent sight of its finest nation, free, happy, triumphant under a just, cherished and revered King, who, owing nothing to force, will owe everything to his virtues and his love.’

The applause broke out. Now there were tears in the King’s eyes. He said in a voice vibrant with emotion: ‘My people can always count on my love.’

The people were pressing close to him; they kissed his hand; they kissed his coat; and one woman from the market threw her arms about his neck; she declared that he was the saviour of his country; there was bloodshed and murder everywhere, but Louis, the little father, had appeared, and all was well.

The King prepared for his journey back to Versailles. How different was the journey back. In his hat the King wore the tricolor.

‘Long live the King! Long live the little father!’ shouted the crowds. And those who had called ‘Murder him!’ now cried ‘Honour him!’

It was eleven o’clock when, surrounded by the shouting multitude, his carriage drove into the Cour Royal.

Antoinette heard it; she ran down the great staircase and threw herself into the King’s arms.

He was back. He was safe. There was then a little respite.

She looked into his face, saw the marks of fatigue under his eyes, the stains on his clothes, his twisted cravat – and the tricolor in his hat.

She was frightened then. But the King was smiling blandly.

‘Not a drop of blood has been shed,’ he cried triumphantly. ‘I swear that it never will be.’

In the courtyard the carriages were waiting. Those who had been the intimate friends of the Queen would soon be leaving Versailles and making their way with all haste to the frontier – Artois and his family, Condé, Conti, Esterhazy, Vaudreuil, Lauzun, the Abbé de Vermond, all those who had been the companions of her carefree days in the Trianon. The Polignacs were ready to leave. They would be the first to go. They knew that if ever the rabble marched to Versailles theirs would be the first heads to be placed on pikes.

They remembered de Launay, the Governor of the Bastille who had lost his head. There were terrible tales coming from Paris. Foulon, a former Minister of Finance, had met a violent death. The people hated him because they blamed him for the taxes he had imposed, and it had been whispered that he had once made the inhuman statement that if the people were hungry they should eat hay. They hung him upon a street lamp and stuffed his mouth with hay, before they cut off his head and paraded with it through the streets. The same fate was meted out to Foulon’s son-in-law, Berthier de Sauvigny.

The mob was determined to deal savage deaths to those it hated.

So the Polignacs must go. Antoinette was anxious on their account. ‘I shall know no peace until they have left,’ she said. ‘I shall not be happy until I know that Gabrielle has crossed the frontier.’

She sent 500 louis to her friend with a tender note: ‘Adieu, my dearest friend. What a sad word is good-bye, but I have to say it. Here is the order for the horses. I have only strength left to send you my love. I will not try to put into words the sorrow I feel at being separated from you. We are surrounded by misfortune and hardship and ill-starred people. Since all are deserting us, I am in truth happy to think that those in whom I am chiefly interested have had to depart. You may be sure however that adversity has not lessened my strength and courage. These I shall never lose. My troubles are teaching me prudence.’

When Gabrielle had left, disguised as a servant, the Queen sat alone in her apartment and, although she covered her face with her hands, she did not weep. Now that great sorrow, great foreboding was upon her, she did not weep so easily as she had in the carefree days.

Gabrielle was thinking of the Queen as the berline carried her and her relations towards the Swiss frontier. Poor Antoinette, to remain in that place of terror. Gabrielle shivered. She had been fond of the Queen. She would have been content to be her simple little friend if there had not been so many making their constant demands upon her.

‘The King and Queen should be with us,’ she said suddenly. ‘They are foolish to stay there. They should escape while they can.’

No one answered her. The Polignacs had no time to think of the Queen. They were nearing the Swiss frontier. There they would be safe. But until they passed that frontier they could think of nothing but their own safety.

At the town of Sens, while the horses were being changed, their coach was surrounded by a mob. Gabrielle drew back into her seat as unkempt heads were thrust into the carriage. She trembled and waited for disaster.

‘You come from Paris?’ asked one of the intruders. ‘Then tell us, are those wicked Polignacs still at Court?’

Gabrielle tried to speak, but she found she could not do so. The Abbé Balivière, who was travelling with them, said quickly: ‘The Polignacs! Those evil leeches! I could swear they are not at Court now. I heard the Queen had rid herself of them.’

‘That is well,’ said the man. He turned to the crowd. ‘The Polignacs have left Court,’ he cried.

‘We’ll search every coach till we find them!’ shouted someone. ‘Then … off with their heads!’

But the berline was allowed to go on; and thus the Polignacs, who had done so much to enhance the Queen’s unpopularity, passed safely across the border, leaving Antoinette behind to bear the results of her unfortunate friendships.

Gloom hung over Versailles. There was silence in the Galerie des Glaces and the Salon de la Paix. There were no more balls, no banquets during those terrible weeks of July and August. Each morning the King and Queen with their children heard Mass; then they would spend long hours closeted with the ministers, all desperately seeking some solution to the alarming situation.

One by one the courtiers were deserting and, as their carriages drove out of Versailles, fresh and more terrifying news arrived each day.

There was revolt in the country towns and villages, where peasants were rising against the Seigneurs. Châteaux were pillaged; carriages making their way across the country were suspect and stopped by howling mobs, who might decide that the occupants were fleeing aristocrats; sometimes they imprisoned them; at others they killed them on the spot. No one any longer paid taxes. In the big towns, houses and shops were closed; their occupants had secretly left the country. Many of those who had served the rich were unemployed and starving in the streets. The country revolts meant that no grain was coming to Paris. Crowds massed daily outside the shuttered bakers’ shops, demanding bread.

In the meantime the leaders of the revolution never ceased to work upon the people, inflaming them to greater activity. Desmoulins wrote in those newspapers which continued to appear. Men and women walked about the streets, flourishing the Patriote Français and discussing the latest light which was being thrown on the callousness of the aristocrats, and the wrongs endured by the people.

Paris had acquired a new sport. Massing in the streets, marching in a body to the house of some ill-fated man of whose behaviour in the past they had read in the articles of Marat or Desmoulins in the Patriote Français or the Courier de Paris et de Versailles. They would haul him from his house, lead him to the Place de Grève, shouting insults and threats, almost tearing him to pieces before they hung him on a lamp-post, then sliced off his head and paraded with it through the streets.

It was said that the English were planning to attack France now that the revolution had brought her low; defences were put up in the Channel ports. And who, it was asked, had escaped to England? Who was giving information to this enemy of France? The aristocrats. The émigrés. Then to the lamp-post with a few more.

Those terrifying days in Versailles would never be forgotten. There were few left now to comfort the Queen. There was her good friend the Princesse de Lamballe who refused to leave her, and there was Madame de Tourzel who refused to leave the children.

‘What will the end be?’ the Queen often asked herself. For the first time in her life she was concerned for the future, and for the first time she was truly afraid.

One day the Princesse came to her and said: ‘There is someone to see Your Majesty. He has just arrived at Versailles. He craved audience and, knowing that you would not wish to wait, I have brought him here to you.’

The Queen lifted her eyes and stared at the door where he was standing. He had changed. He was no longer debonair, no longer the handsome young man he had been at their first meeting.

She could not stop the cry of pleasure which rose to her lips as he strode across the room to her. He took both her hands and covered them with kisses.

‘Axel,’ she said, ‘you should not have come. You should not have come.’

He lifted his head and she knew in that moment the depth of his love for her and, in spite of the threatening gloom about her, in spite of all that had happened and which she feared was yet to come, she was conscious of a happiness such as she had never before experienced.

She sought to control her emotions.

‘This is not the time to arrive in Versailles,’ she cried. ‘Do you not know what is happening here? Everybody is leaving us.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘And that is precisely why I have come.’

What peace there was in the Trianon. There it was possible to believe that cruelty and violence were far away; there was the ideal village she had built, where she could wear her muslin dresses, her shady hats; there she could escape for long hours at a time – escape to forgetfulness.

Only her intimates were with her, only those whom she could trust. Now, she often thought, I know whom I can trust, because all those whom I could not have long deserted me.

Fersen came to Trianon. Each day he called. They would walk together in the French and English gardens, by the lake and the stream; they would sit in the boudoir like two cosy happy people. They shut out the world. It was the only way to escape.

And each moment of every day was precious because it must be lived as though it were their last. For who could be sure that it would not be?

And there, in those terrifying August days the Queen seemed to lead two lives: one of horror and foreboding in Versailles, one of love and passion in the Trianon.

She would cry in her lover’s arms and beg him to make her happy, beg him to shut out the hideous world.

‘It must be, it must be,’ she cried. ‘For how could I endure my life unless I had this love?’

Sometimes she would think how ironical was life. She loved this man who seemed to her all that a man should be. He was strong, he was resourceful. His was a quiet dignity, which was born of great courage.

And in this fairy palace, with its model village clustered about it, with its air of complete unreality, Antoinette could shut herself away, and for a few brief hours forget all else but love; and so she found the courage to live through the anxious days.

The King was aware of what was happening.

They did not speak of it, but he knew. He would regard her sadly, for he understood. He had failed as lover; he knew that. His nature was such that, apart from that disability of the first years of his marriage, he must always be cold. He was fond of the Queen as he was fond of his children; he was the kindest and most tolerant of men.

His failing was that he was perhaps too kind, too tolerant. He was always able to see every side of every problem; thus he could rarely make up his mind how to act effectively, and his hesitation cost him dearly. He lacked the fire of men like Mirabeau, Desmoulins, Marat, Robespierre.

The Queen had a lover, and this Swedish nobleman, who was every inch a hero, was giving the Queen the courage she so desperately needed during these days of terror.

So the King was silently sad and never forced himself upon her.

When he saw the cruel pamphlets directed against her, when he heard the threats and libels, when he realised how she had been chosen for a scapegoat, he said to himself: ‘How could I make her life more burdensome by reproaching her?’

There were so many problems for Louis to face during those weeks, so he stood aside and allowed the Swedish Count to comfort Antoinette.

On the first of October a new regiment arrived at Versailles and, in accordance with the old tradition, a banquet was given by the regiment already garrisoned in the château.

It was agreed that the banquet should be given in the Palace theatre. This was a grand occasion such as those of the old days. The King and Queen with their children were present, and when they appeared the Guards – every man among them – rose and cheered them until they were hoarse. The band played some of the old songs which rang with fervour and loyalty to the crown. The cheers were ecstatic, for the Guards wished their sovereigns to know that they were loyal.

They had all arrived wearing the white cockade – the pledge of loyalty.

It was possible during that day, to believe that there had been no riots, no fall of the Bastille, no revolution.

That night and the next day the atmosphere of Versailles seemed to have lightened.

It was as though the laughter of the guests and the shouts of loyal men lived on.

In the streets of Paris the banquet was discussed. Crowds gathered at the Place de Grève and outside the Palais de Justice. In the gardens of the Palais Royal the agitators were at work.

‘Citizens, while you starve there is plenty at Versailles. These pigs of aristocrats sit at their tables which sag under the weight of so much food. You wait in vain outside the bakers’ shops for bread. Shall you stand aside and touch your caps and cry: “So be it!” No, Citizens. You are not made of ice; you are made of proud flesh, and good red blood flows in your veins. Have done with this injustice. Come, Citizens. Arm yourselves and then … to Versailles!’

So they marched through the city, brandishing knives and broken bottles. They passed through the poorest streets calling to the men and women: ‘Come! Join us. We go to Versailles. To the lantern with Madame Déficit! There is one head we shall bring back to Paris. The hair will be dressed three feet from the forehead, Citizens, and the neck adorned with a diamond necklace which will keep you all in bread for a year. To the lantern with the Austrian strumpet! To the lantern with the foreign whore!’

And so they marched out of Paris, rioting and stealing from the shops as they went. At their head marched the ‘women’ – big broad figures, all wearing dirty mob caps as the best means of disguising their masculine features.

La Fayette, commanding officer of the National Guard, was afraid of the rabble when he saw them in their present mood.

He, the hero of the American war, tried to reason with them.

‘Wait, my good people,’ he cried. ‘You demand justice, and you are right to demand justice, but this is not the way in which to enforce it …’

The leaders of the mob laughed at him. They were out for plunder; they were out for blood, and they would not look too kindly on any – hero of the American war, head of the National Assembly or not – who tried to detain them.

‘A bas La Fayette!’ cried some.

But there were many who were not ready to see La Fayette’s head on a lamp-post. They shouted: ‘A Versailles!’

‘My friends …’ began La Fayette.

He was interrupted by a cry: ‘All good patriots march to Versailles this day.’

On marched the rabble.

And behind them, sick at heart, shamed and undignified, rode La Fayette with 20,000 men behind him.

It was a pleasant afternoon. The leaves were turning russet and gold.

‘How can I endure this château on such a day?’ said Antoinette to the Princesse. ‘I feel I must go out. I am going to walk over to Trianon.’

‘When shall we leave?’ asked the Princesse.

‘I wish to go alone. I shall merely take a footman to carry what I require. I want to be alone, Marie.’

The Princesse nodded. The Trianon was full of memories – memories of recent joys to overshadow those extravagantly splendid days of the past.

‘It may be that I will sketch awhile, or perhaps I will read. It is too pleasant a day to stay within walls.’

How lovely was the Trianon that day. She remembered how she had enjoyed seeing the little Dauphin – the Dauphin she had lost – playing there in the pleasant meadows of her perfect village.

She thought: Perhaps Axel will come to see me here. Marie will tell him where I am. We could walk together out to Cupid’s Temple and make each other believe that we are the only people in the world.

She sat on the terrace in front of her house, the sketch-book held idly in her hand as she looked out over the tree-lined meadow. The autumn wind ruffled the fichu at her bodice and her hair beneath her white hat.

And as she sat there she saw a page running towards her. He was clearly agitated.

She rose and went to meet him, and she saw as she came near to him that he carried a letter.

He cried breathlessly: ‘Your Majesty! Monsieur le Comte de Saint-Priest sent this letter. He begs you to read it at once.’

She opened it and read: ‘Return without delay. The mob is marching on Versailles.’

‘The carriage is waiting, Your Majesty,’ said the page.

‘I will walk back through the woods,’ she answered.

The young page shook his head. ‘Madame, I was commanded to beg you to take the carriage. It may be that some of the mob have already reached the woods. Madame, you are in acute danger.’

She smiled. ‘Come,’ she said. ‘We will take the carriage.’

She turned for one fleeting instant to look at the charming village she had created. Then she hurried after the page.

At Versailles there was confusion.

The King’s ministers were all about him, arguing, putting forward plans which were hastily discussed, discarded and discussed again.

‘Your Majesty should put himself at the head of his dragoons and march out to meet the rebels,’ said one.

The King was loth to do that. ‘These are my people,’ he said. ‘How could I take up arms against them?’

Another cried: ‘There is but one thing to do. Take the Queen and the royal children, say to Rambouillet. From a safe place it would be possible to treat with the leaders of the revolution. It is hopeless to parley with the mob.’

Horses and carriages were brought into the courtyard, but the King prevaricated. He could not make up his mind, and the minutes of indecision grew while the rioters drew nearer to Versailles.

Then in the courtyard was the sound of galloping hoofs.

A man leaped from his horse, threw the reins to a startled groom and strode into the Palace.

Antoinette felt immense relief when she saw him.

He cried: ‘The mob is marching on Versailles.’

‘We know it,’ he was told.

Fersen could only look at Antoinette, and his fears for her safety were apparent to them all. But he was there; he would remain near to her; he was there to defend her with his life against the bloodthirsty mob.

Now the rabble was in the Cour Royal, and the violent shouting echoed through the corridors of the château.

Fersen had insisted that the Queen shut herself away with her children in her apartments. To everyone’s surprise the Swedish nobleman had seemed to take charge with a firmness which the ministers had failed to show.

The King was insistent that he himself should speak to his people. Louis was amazing in that moment; he was quite calm, even bland; he appeared to have complete faith in the goodness of all. He was sure that when he explained certain matters they would understand; then all would be well.

Word was passed among the mob that the King would be willing to receive a deputation from the women of Paris and listen to their grievances. There was that in the King of France, that benevolent calm, that firm belief that his subjects were his dear children, that almost always when they were in his presence they must feel his estimation of them to have some truth in it. And they who had come armed with knives and broken bottles agreed to the deputation being sent. They chose little Louise Chabry, a flower-seller, to talk to the King, because she was young, innocent and pretty. Louise was nervous but, urged on by the mob, she dared do nothing else but obey, so accompanied by a few of the more presentable women – those who were truly women and not men dressed in women’s clothes – was taken to the King’s audience chamber.

Louis, seeing the nervousness of this young and pretty girl, told her gently she must not be afraid of him.

Louise, overcome by the splendour of her surroundings and the kindly graciousness of the King, fell on her knees and mumbled apologies for disturbing the King’s peace.

She found it difficult to speak, and one of the others, less susceptible – but only slightly less – told the King that the people of Paris were starving, and it was for this reason that they were marching on Versailles.

Louis declared that the suffering of his people was his suffering, and he was going to give orders that bread must be found somewhere and sent to Paris without delay.

The deputation, uncertain what to do now, for they had expected haughty arrogance and had found charming civility, declared themselves satisfied and honoured. As for little Louise, she fainted at the feet of the King, so overcome was she by the presence of royalty.

‘Bring my smelling salts,’ cried Louis to one of his attendants. ‘And bring wine. The young lady must be revived.’

The wondering deputation then saw the King himself kneel by little Louise and hold the smelling salts to her nose. Then he himself held the glass of wine to her lips.

‘Come, my dear,’ he said, ‘all this excitement has been too much for you.’

And Louise, opening her eyes, looked into the benign face of her sovereign and wept for all the harsh things she had said of this man.

Those of the deputation who watched said: ‘But how could we hate such a good man? He is indeed the father of us all.’

The deputation returned to the mob. The King had promised to do something for Paris. The King was kind.

The mob murmured, but night was beginning to fall and it was raining, so they decided to find shelter in some of the houses and shops close by, in the Place d’Armes, in the barracks and the hall of Menus Plaisirs.

They muttered to one another: ‘The King has bewitched our deputation. What now?’

The leaders had deliberately selected the deputation for its innocence. They had not wanted it to consist of blood-thirsty men dressed as women, or foreigners hired to kill and loot, or those of the south who had marched north determined to bring revolution to Paris. The deputation did not represent the mob.

Now they reminded each other that they had determined to bring the King to Paris. And this they would do. They had determined to have the Queen’s head on a lanterne. Why should they be prevented by a gullible deputation’s impression of a tyrant?

Meanwhile in the château the conference continued.

Fersen cried to the Queen: ‘You must leave at once. I have horses ready. I have planned a route we can take. You … the children … and a few of the ladies. I will take you across the frontier into safety.’

The Queen looked at him; his eyes were alight with purpose. How could she help comparing him with the indecisive Louis? She had never loved Fersen so much as she did in that moment; she had never wanted anything so much as to ride with him away from Versailles, out of France, to some peaceful place where she might never again feel the menace of the mob.

But she shook her head. ‘I am the Queen,’ she said; ‘and where the King is, there must the Queen stay.’

The lovers looked at each other and loved each other for what they were. They knew that death was in the air that night; and they were glad that they had given each other such joy.

La Fayette had arrived at the château with his men. The King received him with relief, for La Fayette was a nobleman who possessed some loyalty for the King, yet was respected by the mob.

La Fayette posted his men about the château and went to find a bed in the Hôtel de Noailles.

A fine rain was falling and it was cold. The smoke from a bonfire which had been made in the Place d’Armes choked him and he could smell the roasted flesh of a horse which the mob had killed and were eating. He could hear the sound of drunken singing, and he knew that those terrifying hordes had been looting the wine shops on the road to Versailles.

The mob were restive. They were cold and hungry; they were tired of waiting. It was five o’clock in the morning when pandemonium broke out.

‘What are we doing here?’ they demanded. ‘We have come to kill the Austrian and take the King to Paris.’

‘What are we waiting for?’ cried one of the men, lifting his skirts above his knees so that for a moment his great boots were visible. ‘Come … to the château! To the Austrian woman! Are we going to let the traitor Antoinette live?’

In a body they marched through the Place d’Armes, the crowd growing in numbers as they marched. They came to the gate of the château which was manned by the National Guards.

‘Let us through. Let us through,’ they cried.

One of the Guards protested, and an axe was raised in a strong masculine arm.

Now they had their mascot, their emblem; now they were happy. They had the head of one of the Guards to carry before them on a pike. They had seen blood flow; and they longed to see more. But royal blood this time, the blood of the woman they had reviled for years because she was a foreigner, because she was rich and beautiful and because they envied her riches and her beauty.

They broke into the Palace; they climbed the escalier de marbre, killing two Swiss guards who barred their way; they battered through to the Queen’s ante-room.

They shouted as they went: ‘Give us Antoinette. We want the head of that traitor. Give us the Austrian bitch and we’ll tear her to pieces. We want to take the King back to Paris. And we want the head of Antoinette.’

Now they had more heads to adorn their pikes. They looked at them with satisfaction. But there was that other head which they desired most of all, and on that morning of the 6th October, the canaille – the prostitutes, the hirelings, the seekers after power – were determined to have it.

Madame de Tourzel and the Princesse de Lamballe were standing at the Queen’s bedside.

‘Wake … wake …’ they cried. ‘The mob is at your door.’

Antoinette started up. She had only an hour before fallen into a deep sleep. She stared about her as though she were still in a nightmare.

‘Quick … quick! There is not a moment to lose. I can hear them hammering on the door.’

Antoinette was out of bed, a shawl about her shoulders, her shoes in her hand; and with her two friends beside her she ran through the Oeil-de-Boeuf and the chambre de Louis XIV to the rooms of her husband.

To her horror she found that the door of that room was locked. She hammered on the door in desperation. What agony she lived through then! Now she could hear the drunken shouts coming nearer; she heard them screaming her name. ‘Death … death to Antoinette! Death to the Austrian! Death … death … We’ll have her head on a pike … to show Paris. Death to Antoinette!’

‘Oh God,’ she cried, ‘let me escape them. Let me die, but not this way … not in their filthy hands. Oh, God, help me.’

‘Open! Open!’ she screamed. ‘For the love of God!’

But help was long in coming. The King and his attendants had not heard the noise in her wing of the château. The door had been barred that night, as all doors had been barred, and the mob was coming nearer.

She owed her life that night to the cupidity of the mob, who, even for the sake of Antoinette’s head, could not resist plundering the rich rooms through which they passed.

And at length a slow-footed servant heard the hammering on the door, heard her screams, and carefully the door was opened.

Louis who, sleeping soundly as he always did, had heard nothing until this moment and had believed that after he had talked to the deputation of women all would be well, was now hurrying to her side.

The door was again barred and bolted; Louis put his arm about her; and into the courtyard rode La Fayette with his soldiers.

La Fayette – nicknamed Général Morphée – who was never on the spot when needed, saw now the disaster which had taken place, saw his murdered guards and realised that he should have foreseen what would happen; and as he forced his way through the mad mob and saw the rich tapestries and gold and silver ornaments which they carried, he knew that it was not he and his soldiers who had saved the life of the Queen – and perhaps of the King.

With him came Orléans and Provence, and for these two the mob made way respectfully. They were conducted to the King’s apartments where the Queen sat erect, her children on either side of her.

It was now clear to everybody – even to the King – that there could be no parleying with the mob.

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.