The Queen`s Confession

Friends Leave Versailles

The Terror was upon us.

Artois, white-lipped, all his gaiety gone, came to the apartment where the King and I were together.

“They are murdering people all over Paris,” he said.

“I have just heard that my name is high on their list of vicms.”

I ran to him and threw my arms about him. There had been a coldness between us lately, but he was my brother-in-law; we had once been good friends and there were so many memories of shared follies from those days when neither of us allowed any cares to disturb us.

“You must go away I’ I cried. I had a horrible picture of his head on a pike as poor de Launay’s had been.

“Yes,” said the King calmly. He was the only one among us who was calm.

“You must make your preparations to leave.” ;

I wondered about myself. How high was I on the list? Surely at the top of it.

Then I thought of those dear friends of mine Gabrielle, who had been the subject of so much scandal; my dear Princesse de Lamballe.

I said: “And there will be others.”

Artois read my thoughts, as he used to in the old days.

“They are talking of the Polignacs,” he said.

I turned away. I went to my private chamber and I sent Madame Campan to bring Gabrielle to me.

She came startled; I took her into my arms and embraced her warmly.

“My dearest friend,” I said, ‘you will have to go away. “

“You are sending me away?”

I nodded, “While there is time.”

And you? “

“I must be with the King.”

“And you think …”

“I do not think, Gabrielle. I dare not.”

“I could not go. I would not leave you. There are the children.”

“Are you like these rebels, then? Do you too forget that I am still the Queen? You will go, Gabrielle, because I say you shall.”

“And leave you?”

“And leave me,” I said, turning away, ‘because that is my wish. “

“No, no!” she cried.

“You cannot ask me to go! We have shared so much we must stay together. You would be happier if I stayed than if I went.”

“Happy! I sometimes think I shall never be happy again. But I could find more comfort in thinking of you safe far from here rather than to live in fear that they would do to you what they have done to de Launay. So begin to prepare at once. Artois is going. Everyone who can must go … and perhaps in time it will be our turn.”

With that I ran out of the room, for I could bear no more.

I went back to the King. Messengers had come from Paris. The people were demanding the presence of the King there. If he did not come they would march to Versailles to fetch him. They wanted him in Paris; they wanted to take ‘good care’ of him.

If you go you may not return,” I said.

I shall come back,” he answered, as calmly as though he were about to set out for a day’s hunting.

The people demanded that his brothers accompany him. I trembled not only for my husband but for Artois. They said he was my lover; that was an old scandal, but the old scandals were resurrected now.

The coach was at the door and I accompanied Louis to it.

“God guard you,” I whispered; and he pressed my hand. His was firm. He was so sure that his people would do him no harm; but I could not share his optimism. I kept asking myself whether I should ever look on his face again.

I must occupy myself in some way. I dared not be alone to think. I kept visualising the mob breaking into the Bastille and de Launay’s head on the pike: but instead of the Bastille’s governor’s, I saw that of the King.

I would try to act normally. What should I do? My children were losing their governess. I must find a new one for them.

I thought a while and decided on Madame de Tourzel—a widow, a serious-minded woman, and she had what was becoming one of the most prized qualities, loyalty.

I told her that she would be appointed and she understood why. She would have known that in the streets they were burning effigies of Gabrielle with me, that they were circulating obscene pictures and verses about us.

Oh yes, Madame de Tourzel understood, and I wanted to tell her how I appreciated her for the calm manner in which she thanked me for the honour and swore to serve my children for as long as I should give her permission to do so.

I went to my apartments. I wanted to be alone. I was terribly afraid that I would show the anxiety I was feeling. What was happening to my husband in Paris? Had they gone so far that they would murder their King? What should I do? Should I prepare for flight with my children?

I would have clothes packed. I would order that the carriages should be equipped and ready.

I went to the children’s apartment. I must stay with them, for I was afraid of treachery.

My son brought the book of La Fontaine’s fables to me.

“Let’s have the one about the fox, Maman…. I saw a fox last night.

The soldier brought him in. “

I let my hand rest on his head.

“Not now, my darling.”

He looked puzzled.

“Where is Madame de Polignac?” he asked.

“She is in her apartments,” replied his sister.

“She is very busy.”

“Everybody is different today,” said my son. Then he brightened.

“Maman, come and I will show you my garden.”

“I think we will stay in today, my love. Yes … I will read to you after all.”

So I sat there reading, my ears strained for the sounds of a messenger with what dread tidings I dared not contemplate.

It was eleven o’clock when the King returned. I was sitting in my apartments in an agony of fear, waiting. He had walked back surrounded by the Deputies of the National Assembly and followed by a rabble of men and women who carried cudgels and shouted as they came.

I heard the cry: “Vive Ie Roil” and I felt my spirits lifted; then I ran down to greet him.

He looked very tired, but as calm as ever. His coat was stained, his cravat awry, and in his hat was the tricolour.

I was almost sobbing with relief and he was touched by emotion.

You should have been in bed,” he said.

“Why, you are worn out with waiting.”

As if we all found it as easy to sleep in face of such horror as he did!

But these people did not give us any peace. They were all crowding into the courtyards.

“The King!” they cried. And then: “The Queen! The Dauphin!”

I looked at my husband and he nodded. I turned to Madame Campan, who was constantly beside me during these terrible days.

“Go to the Duchesse de Polignac and tell her that I want my son to be brought here immediately.”

“And Your Majesty wishes Madame de Polignac to bring him?”

“No, no. Tell her not to come. These terrible people must not see her.”

Madame Campan brought my son to me.

The King took him on to the balcony and the people roared: “Vive Ie Roil Vive Ie Dauphin’.” And my little son lifted his hand and waved to them, which seemed to touch them.

“The Queen!” they shouted.

Madame Campan laid a hand on my arm. I saw the fear leap into her eyes. I knew she was wondering what they would do to me when I appeared.

But I must go out there on to the balcony. If I did not, they would storm the palace. They had cheered my husband and my son. They bore no malice at the moment towards them. But what of me?

I stepped on to the balcony. I was murmuring a prayer under my breath and I was thinking of my mother and all the warnings she had sent me, and I wondered if she was watching me in Heaven now. I had been guilty of great folly, but at least I would not disgrace her now. If I was to die I would do it as a Hapsburg, as she would expect me to.

I stood there, my head high, determined to show no fear. There was a silence which seemed to go on for a long time . and then someone called: “Vive la Reine.” The shouts were deafening. I felt dizzy, but I stood there smiling.

Down there the people were shouting for me, for the King and the Dauphin. It seemed that they no longer hated us. They loved us.

But I was not the fool I had once been. I knew that the people’s love one day was its hatred the next. Hosanna and crucify had not been far apart.

At length that interminable day was over and we sank exhausted into our beds. Louis was immediately asleep. But I lay wondering what new trials awaited us in the days ahead.

The next day the King told me what had happened in Paris. Refreshed after his sleep he gave no sign of the ordeal through which he had passed. I never knew a man who could face calamity with such indifference. It was almost as though Divine Providence had especially equipped him for the re1e he was to play.

When he had arrived in Paris, Bailly, the Mayor who had become President of the Third Estate, was waiting to receive him and offer him the keys of the city. This return to an old custom aroused Louis’s optimism, never far from the surface. Everything was going to be all right.

Bailly said: “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.”

The words were less comforting; the contrast between him and the King whom the French had always considered their greatest was insulting; but Louis showed no rancour, and calmly accepted the keys. I could well imagine his benign smiles on the menacing rabble which closed about his carriage. The fact that he would not appear to see their menaces would, I would well imagine, disconcert them.

Someone fired a shot at him in the Place Louis XV, but it missed him and killed a woman: and in the general tumult the incident was scarcely noticed.

At the Hotel de Ville, Louis descended from his carriage and men with pikes and swords made an avenue under which he passed.

There he made his way to the throne while shouting men and women crowded into the hall. I could picture the scene, which would have struck terror into any heart but his, yet he must see himself as the little father-sad because his children were behaving very badly, but ready to smile and forgive at the first sign of repentance.

There was no repentance. They were the masters now, and although his demeanour bewildered them they were determined not to forget it—and that he should not either.

He was asked if he accepted the appointment of Jean Sylvain Bailly as Mayor of Paris and Marie Joseph Gilbert Motier de La Fayette as Commander of the National Guard. He agreed that he did.

He then took off his hat and standing bareheaded declared : “Upon you I throw myself. It is my wish that I and the nation should be one, and in full reliance on the affection and fidelity of my subjects I have given orders to the troops to remove from Paris and Versailles.”

There were cheers. He smiled benignly, refusing to believe that now he had given the rebels a free road to revolution.

When they gave him the tricolour to put into his hat he was not dismayed. How would his grandfather have reacted to such an insult?

Who would have dared offer it to Louis XIV? But my Louis mildly took it, removed his hat and stuck in the symbol of the people. He, the King, was one of them. And what could they do? Even at such a time they must have been just a little overawed by royalty.

They cheered him.

“Vive Ie Roi!’ they cried.

Fortunately there were some men present who while they wished for reforms loathed violence and realised that the country could only be saved from disaster if they were brought about in an orderly and constitutional manner. One of these was the Comte de LallyTollendal.

He cried: “Citizens, rejoice in your King’s presence and the benefits he will bestow.” And to my husband: “There is not a man here. Sire, who is not ready to shed his blood for you. King and citizens, let us show the world a free and just nation under a cherished King who, owing nothing to force, will owe everything to his virtue and his love.”

When I visualise this scene as Louis told it to me I believe even now that he could have saved France. His very courage demanded their respect; his good intentions were always present. If only he had been single-minded; if he had not seen every side; if he had pursued a straight course; if he had taken a decisive action. But then he would not have been Louis. :

Then he stood before that crowd and with tears of emotion in his eyes he cried: “My people can always count on my love.”

And so, surrounded by his cheering subjects, the tricolour in his hat, he came back to Versailles.

The next morning we talked. I had been awake all night making my plans. We could not stay here. I knew we were in danger.

I had sent Madame Campan to mingle with the crowds in the courtyard so that she might report to me what she had heard, and this had proved to be very revealing.

“It was easy to see, Madame,” she had said, ‘that many of the people in the mob were disguised. -They were not of the poor people, although their clothes might indicate that. Their manner of speaking betrayed them. “

“Did you speak to any?”

“Some spoke to me, Madame. There was one with a black lace veil over her face. She seized my arm quite roughly and said: ” I know you very well, Madame Campan. You should tell your Queen not to meddle with government any longer. Let her leave her husband and our good States General to arrange the happiness of the people”.”p>

I shivered. And I forced myself to say: “What else?”

“Then, Madame, a man dressed as a market-man approached me; he had his hat pulled low over his eyes; he seized my other arm and said: ” Yes, tell her over and over again that it will not be with these States as with the others, which brought no good to the people. Tell her that the nation is too enlightened in 1789 not to make something more of them and that there will not now be seen a deputy of Ac Tiers Etat making a speech with one knee on the ground.

Tell her this, do you hear me? “

“So that is what they are saying?”

Yes, Madame, and when you appeared on the balcony . they talked across me to each other, but it was really to me. “

“And they said?”

“The woman in the veil said: ” The Duchess is not with her. ” And the man answered: ” No, but she is still at Versailles. She is working underground, mole-like, but we shall know how to dig her out”.”

“And that was all, Madame Campan?”

“They moved away from me then, Madame, and I hurried into the palace.”

“I am glad you told me. Please never fail to talk to me of these things.”

“Madame, I should believe I had failed in my duty if I had not done so.”

I pressed her hand.

“At times like this,” I said with some emotion, ‘it is good to have friends. “

When I told the King what Madame Campan had heard he listened gravely.

“There will always be some to speak against us,” he said.

“Perhaps we should be more surprised when we discover people who speak for us,” I retorted bitterly.

“We must leave, Louis. It is no longer safe for us to stay.”

“How could we leave Versailles?”

“Easily. By slipping away with the children and those of our friends whom we trust.”

“Artois should have left by now. I saw the hostile looks directed towards him. There were cries against him and I heard one cry of: ” The King for ever, in spite of you and your opinions, Monseigneur. ” And my brother looked haughtily indifferent and they did not like that. I was afraid for him. Yes, Artois must go quickly.”

“Artois … and Gabrielle. They are not safe here. We are not safe here.”

“I am the King, my dear. It is my duty to be with my people.”

“And your children?”

“The people expect the Dauphin to remain at Versailles.”

“I have seen murder in their faces; I have heard it in their voices.”

“It will be a matter for the Council to decide ” Then call the Council. There can be no delay. “

“I believe we should stay.”

I talked to him of the dangers which beset us and our children. We should not stay if we valued our lives. I had everything packed. My jewels particularly—they were worth a fortune.

“To where should we fly?”

“To Metz. I have thought of nothing else for days. We could go to Metz, and then there would be a civil war in which we should subdue these rebels.”

“It is for the Council to decide,” insisted Louis.

And the Council met and they talked through the day and night. I paced up and down my apartment. I had told my husband that we must leave.

There should be no delay. I had ordered my friends to leave as soon as it was dark, because I knew it was unsafe to stay. Unsafe for us, more than for them.

And Louis was listening to the Council. They would decide. But I had impressed on him the need for flight. He could not ignore my pleadings. He always longed to please me.

At length he came out of the council room. I ran to him and looked up into his face.

He smiled gently.

“The King,” he said, ‘must stay with his people. “

I turned angrily away, tears of frustration filling my eyes. But his mind was made up. Whatever else happened, he and I must stay, and so must our Dauphin.

Night had come. There were sounds of muffled activity in the courtyard—low voices; the impatient pawing of a horse’s hoof.

They were about to go—all those gay friends who had been the companions of my carefree days. I had been alarmed for the Abbe Vermond, who had aroused the anger of the people because he had lived close to me. I had told him that he must go back to Austria and not return to France undl things were happier.

He was an old man, the Abbe. He would have liked to tell me that he would never leave me. But the Terror was creeping closer and it was reflected in the faces of them all.

So be too would leave and make his way to Austria.

I had said my last farewell to them all, those of our family and household whom we had ordered to save them selves by leaving Versailles and Paris behind them.

Gabrielle and her family were among them. Dear Gabrielle, who was so loath to go, who had been my constant companion for so long, who had loved me wholeheartedly and had been my true friend: she had suffered with me on the death of my children; she had helped me nurse them, bad rejoiced in their childish triumphs, mourned their childish sorrows.

I could not bear to lose her. An impulse came to rush down to that courtyard to implore her not to leave me. But how could I bring her back to danger? I must not see her, not tempt her to remain, not tempt myself. I loved this woman. All I could do for her now was to pray that she might reach safety.

The tears were streaming down my cheeks. I picked up a paper and wrote to her.

“Goodbye, dearest of my friends. It is a dreadful and necessary word:

Goodbye. “

I laughed bitterly; I had blotted the lines as I always did. But although the handwriting was uneven and shaky, she would understand with what sincerity, what deep and abiding love, they had been written.

I sent a page down with the letter which he was to give to Madame de Polignac in the last seconds before she drove away.

Then I threw myself heavily upon my bed and turned my face away from the light.

I lay listening; and at length I heard the carriages leave. The great halls were filled with emptiness; silence in the Galerie des Glaces; deathly quiet in the Oeil de Boeuf; not a sound in the Salon de la Paix. In the mornings we heard Mass accompanied by a few of our attendants such as Madame Campan and Madame de Tourzel; no fetes, no cards, no banquets. Nothing but this dreary waiting for some thing more terrible than we could even imagine.

Every day, news brought to us of the jiots in Paris: and not only in Paris it was throughout the country. Mobs were raiding the chateaux, burning and looting; no one was working, and so no bread was brought into Paris. The bakers’ shops were shuttered and bands of hungry people collected outside and tore down the shutters, invading the shops, searching for bread, and when they could not find it setting fire to buildings and murdering any whom they considered their enemies.

The agitators were busy. Men like Desmoulins were still producing their news sheets inflaming the people with revolutionary ideas, urging them to revolt against the aristocracy. Copies of the Courrier de Paris et de Versailles and the Patriote Franfaise were smuggled in to us. We were dismayed and horrified to read what Marat was writing about us and our kind.

Every day I would wake and wonder whether it would be my last. Each night when I lay down and tried to rest I wondered whether the mob would come that night, drag me from my bed and murder me in the most horrible manner it could contrive. In all these sheets my name was prominent. They did not hate the King. They despised him as a weakling ruled by me. I was die harpy, the greatest criminal in this fearful melodrama of revolution.

Foulon, one of the ministers of Finance, who had been generally hated for his callous attitude towards the people, was brutally murdered. He had once said that if the people were hungry they should eat hay. They found him at Viry, dragged him through the streets, stuffed his mouth with hay, hung him on the lanterne, and then cut off his head and paraded it through the streets.

His son-in-law Monsieur Berthier was treated in the same way at Compiegne.

I knew that the fate of these two men was due to the fact that Foulon had advised the Ring to make himself master of the Revolution before the Revolution mastered him.

It was terrible to contemplate the fate of men one had known. I trembled for my dear Gabrielle who was on her way to the frontier, for I heard that coaches and carriages were being stopped throughout the country, that their occupants were being dragged out and forced to give an account of their identity, and if they were proved aristocrats their throats were cut . or worse. What would happen to Gabrielle if she were discovered, for her name had been coupled so often with mine?

I dreamed of poor Monsieur Foulon and wondered how his remark about hay had been distorted. They were saying of me that when I had heard the people were demanding bread I had asked, “Why don’t they eat cake?” This was absurd. I had said no such thing.

Madame Sophie had remarked that the people would have to eat pastry crust if they could not get bread. Poor Sophie was always vague and a little odd; she loathed pastry crust; and when she was getting old and ill and near to death, she had made this remark, which was reported, and like so many others, put into my mouth. Nothing was too trivial to bring against me; and nothing too wild. I was, according to the people, capable of the utmost frivolity and folly, and yet I was represented as the clever scheming woman.

There was no fighting these libels. The people wanted to believe them.

So passed the days of that fearful hot summer. I was trying hard to act normally, to fight the fear which was so often with me.

I tried repeatedly to urge the King to Sight. I kept my jewels packed ready. I was certain that we should attempt to escape as our friends had done. I had heard no news of Gabrielle and Artois and I presumed they had reached safety, for if they had been murdered I should have known.

There were four people of whom I was growing fonder because I realised

that their friendship to me was real; and it is at such times that one understands and values such devotion. My dear simple Lamballe; my pious Elisabeth; my children’s devoted governess, Madame de Tourzel; and my practical and serious Madame Campan. I was constantly in their company. They risked death, even as I did, but I could not persuade them to leave me.

I think what helped me most was the practical manner in which Madame de Tourzel and Madame Campan went about their duties as though there had been no change in our fortunes.

I liked to talk to the former about the children and between us we could bring an atmosphere that was almost peaceful info the room.

I talked to the governess of my little anxieties about the Dauphin.

“I have seen him start at a sudden noise—the bark of a dog, for instance.”

“He is very sensitive, Madame.”

“He is a little violent when angry … and quick to anger.”

“Like all healthy children. But he is good-natured, Madame. And generous.”

“Bless him. When I gave him a present he asked for one for his sister.

He has a very generous heart. But I am a little worried about his habit of exaggerating. “

“The sign of a fertile imagination, Madame.”

“I don’t really think he has any notion of his position as Dauphin.

But perhaps that is as well. Our children learn all too quickly. “

We were silent. She must have been wondering as I was, how quickly he would learn what was happening about us.

A page was at the door.

A visitor to see me. My heart leaped and fluttered uncomfortably. How could I know who was without? How could I know when those people with the faces of bloodthirsty maniacs would be bursting upon me?

I did not ask the name of the visitor. I rose, composing myself.

He was at the door, and when I saw him the reversal of feeling was so overwhelming that I thought I should faint. He came into the room and took my hands; he kissed them. What did Madame de Tourzel think as she stood there? She bowed and, turning, left us together.

He was looking at me in silence as though he were reminding himself of every detail of my face.

I heard myself say foolishly: You . you have come.

He did not answer. Why should he? Was it not obvious that he had come?

Then I remembered the horrible cries of the mob, what they had done to friends of the Queen.

“It is not the time to come,” I said.

“There is great danger here.

Everyone is leaving. “

“That is why I have come,” answered Axel.