The Queen`s Confession

The Tragic October

The Petit Trianon had been my refuge in the past. It now became my escape from the horrors of reality. In past years in that little paradise I had shut myself away, refusing to take heed of the lessons my mother thrust at me, never listening to the warnings of Mercy and Vermond. Now I would go there and try and forget the rumbling of disaster. I would try to recapture that dream world which I had endeavoured to make years ago and in which I still believed that I could have been happy had I achieved it. It was not that I asked a great deal. I told myself that I did not really care for the extravagance, the fine clothes, the diamonds. Had not Rose Benin been at my elbow to urge me to extravagant follies, had not the Court jewellers been so insistent, I should never have thought of buying their goods. No, what I longed for was a happy home with children to care for above all, children and a husband whom I could love. I loved Louis, in my way; perhaps I should say I had a great affection for him. But just as he was not fitted for the re1e of King, he was not fitted for that of husband.

The kindest, most self-effacing man in the world, his weaknesses were so obvious to me; even when he granted my wishes, I might have respected him more if he had not. He was a man of whom one could be fond but could not entirely respect. He lacked that strength which every woman asks of a man. His people asked it too, and he failed co give it to them as he failed to give it to me.

Am I excusing myself for those fevered weeks at the Trianon those waiting weeks between that fateful fourteenth of July and the tragic October day which more than any other was a turning-point in our lives?

Perhaps I am, but even now, remembering soberly with my life behind me and death so close, looking over my shoulder, I believe I should have acted in exactly the same way.

I loved the Trianon more than any place in the world; and the world was crashing about my shoulders I was soon to lose the Trianon . my children . my life. So I snatched at that brief idyll. I must fulfill my life. I felt the urgency, the passionate need, as I never had before.

Axel had left Versailles previously because he had feared the consequences if he stayed at Court; he told me how he had longed to stay, but that he knew his name was even then being coupled with mine and he knew what harm could befall me if he stayed.

And now? It was different now. The entire picture had changed. I needed him now.

I needed every friend I could find; and he assured me that never in my life would I find a friend such as he was.

“You risk your life staying here,” I told him.

“My life is at your service,” he answered.

“To be risked and lost if need be.”

I wept in his arms and said I could not allow it.

He answered that I could not prevent it. I could command him to go but he would not listen. He had come to stay close to me, closer even than danger.

He had mingled with the people; he had read what was circulated about me; he had hard threats against me which he did not repeat to me but which had decided him that he must remain at my side.

And while I urged him to go, I longed for him to stay, and our passion was too strong to be resisted.

The Trianon was the perfect setting for lovers, and there we could meet unobserved.

I do not think I could ever have deceived my husband. I was not the kind of woman who could have pretended to love him and to have a secret lover. Louis knew of my relationship with Axel de Fersen; he understood full well that my feelings for the Swedish Count were such as I had felt for no one else. There had been scandals about other men, Luzan, Coigny, Anois . and many others, but they had been meaningless. Axel de Fersen was different. He had known that long ago.

There had been a time when papers had been written about myself and Axel and these had been shown to the King. I remembered how distressed I had been at the time.

He had guessed then my feelings for Axel, but I had shown him clearly that I would never take him as my lover while I had been bearing my husband’s children, the Enfants de France. I was well aware of that duty.

Louis understood. In his kindly way he made me see that he understood, that he appreciated my actions, while he knew that I had been unable to prevent my feelings. Axel went away and I had more children. Louis could never make up to me for all the humiliation of those first years of marriage.

Now there was no physical relationship between us. That had stopped after the birth of Sophie Beatrix. We had believed then that we had our four children—two boys and two girls. How were we to know that we were to lose two of them and that perhaps it would have been better if we had never given the children to France? Neither of us was a slave of sexual passion. But my love for Axel was different from everything that had ever gone before. Our physical union was an outward manifestation of a spiritual bond. It would never have happened but for the fevered atmosphere about us, the sense of living from day to day, from hour to hour because we could not know what the next would bring.

And Louis wished it to be so. That kind man, that tender man, wanted me to live as fully as I could during those terrible days.

So I existed between the love of these two men, with my children never far from my side. Perhaps I was wrong; perhaps I was foolish; but I had often been so and it seemed to me then the only way I could live through these fearful days.

August came—overpoweringly hot. And I seemed to be leading two lives—one in the empty palace of Versailles, alive only with echoes of the past and forebodings of the terrifying future, and another at the Trianon, my happy home, an escape to another world, where my rosy-cheeked respectable tenants lived on in their Hameau, so different from those terrifying people who carried sticks and cudgels and cried out for bread and blood.

We met at dusk. I would wander out to the Temple of Love—so aptly named; and there we would sit and dream and talk and, although we would not mention this, each time we wondered whether this was the last we should lie in each other’s arms.

The guards had deserted. I awoke one morning in Versailles to find that there were none to defend us.

On August 4th the King was obliged to give his consent to the abolition of feudalism; and to agree to his statue being set up on the site of the Bastille to be inscribed: “To the Restorer of Liberty to France.” This has never been erected and never will be now. Louis declared that while he was ready to give up all his own rights he was not prepared to give up those of others. Then there were cries that the King should be brought from Versailles to Paris and we wondered what this would mean.

A few weeks later La Fayette was drawing up a Declaration of the Rights of Man in the American style; this was the beginning of that decree which was to end all hereditary titles and declare all men equal.

La Fayette was, I believed, at times a little disturbed by the violence of the mob and sought to keep them in order, but there were occasions when he found this an impossibility; yet I believe that during the month st of August and September he did prevent them forcibly removing the King to the Louvre.

Mercy came to see me. How grave he was these days. And how avidly I listened to every word he uttered. He told me that he believed it was folly for the King to stay at Versailles. Axel was telling me this too, every time we met. He wanted us to escape. He assured me that we were living in perpetual danger.

“On the eastern frontier at Metz,* said Mercy, ‘the Mar quis de Bouille has twenty-five to thirty thousand men. They are loyalists whom he has taught to despise the canaille. They would fight for their King and their Queen. The King should be persuaded to leave for Metz without delay.”

I told Mercy that I agreed with this, and . others . had warded me of the need.

Mercy looked at me severely. He knew whom I meant by others. He, who had observed me so closely all the time I had been in France, first for my mother and then for my brother though never so assiduously for the latter as the former must know of my love for Axel. I looked at him defiantly; if he had dared to criticise me I should have reminded him that I was well aware of his own liaison of long standing with Mademoiselle Rosalie Levasseur. But he did not reproach me. Perhaps he too understood my need at this time; perhaps he felt that in my own interests it was good to have a friend so close that I could rely on completely.

He said: “I am glad that you have wise friends.”

And I knew what he meant.

But I still could not persuade Louis to leave. He could not run away, he said. No matter how his people behaved towards him he must always do his duty to them.

We were very unsure of La Fayette’s attitude towards us. He had sent National Guards to be on duty at the palace, and Mercy told me that he no doubt had had information of our efforts to persuade the King to escape to Metz.

In September the Regiment de Flandre came to Versailles and the officers of this regiment and those of the Body Guards decided to show their friendship for each other by dining together; and in view of the feelings of the day some of the sous-officiers and the soldiers were invited to join.

Louis offered them the theatre at Versailles for the occasion; tables were set upon the stage and members of the diminishing Court were invited to occupy the boxes.

I was afraid that the banquet would end in some disaster, which I was now expecting from all quarters, and I decided that Madame Campan should go, for I could always rely on her to give me a faithful account of what had happened.

Some of the Council had said that it would be good for the King and myself to be present, but I was against this, for I was so unpopular that I was afraid my appearance would be the sign for violence of some sort.

“Madame Campan,” I said, “I have been advised to attend this dinner but I feel it would be unwise to do so. I wish you to occupy one of the boxes and report to me what happens.”

She said she would take her niece and give me an accurate account of everything.

My husband went off hunting. It was astonishing how in the face of everything that happened he persisted in behaving as though life was going on normally. I sat in my children’s nursery, for I never liked to be far from them when danger seemed a little closer than usual.

It was while I was there that one of my women came to me and told me that the soldiers were behaving in a most loyal manner, and that the Due de Villeroi who was captain of the first company of guards, had invited all present to drink four toasts to the King, the Queen, the Dauphin and the Royal Family; and that this had been done, and although someone had proposed the toast of the Nation, link attention had been paid to this.

While she was talking to me, my husband returned from the hunt and I asked my woman to tell the King what she had told me.

“It might be well if we showed ourselves,” I said.

“If we do not, they will think we are afraid, and perhaps that would be worse than anything.”

He agreed with me, for in all our troubles I never saw Louis show the slightest fear for his own safety. I sent for Madame de Tourzel and asked her to bring the two children to me.

The Dauphin was very excited.

We are going to see the soldiers,” I told him.

Nothing could have pleased him more; he was all ready to see the soldiers. He thought Moufflet would like to see them; but I told him Moufflet could not come on this occasion.

We went to the theatre and showed Ourselves in the railed-in box which faced the stage. There was a hushed silence and then the cheering broke out.

“Vive Ie RoiVive la ReineV Yes, even Vive la Reine. My spirits lilted as they had not for a long time.

There in the theatre I felt that our cause was not hope less, that we had some friends and that I had allowed myself to be unduly alarmed by those people with the savage faces.

The tables had been set in the shape of a horseshoe and two hundred and ten places had been laid; and there sat those soldiers . those loyal soldiers whose cries of friend ship drowned the few dissenting voices.

They want us to go down to the stage,” said my husband, tears in his eyes; he was always deeply moved by his subjects displays of affection.

I picked up my son in my arms and carried him. I did not want him to be too far from me, and we went down on to the stage.

The Dauphin’s gaiety and delight charmed the soldiers and I stood him on the table while they drank his health. Then he wafted over the tables, being very careful not to tread on the glasses, and he told the men how he liked soldiers better than anything . better even than dogs; he thought he was going to be a soldier when he grew up.

They were enchanted. Who could help being? And there was lovely Mousseline, so happy because she believed that everything was coming right for us and the anxiety of the last months was over.

They began to sing one of the popular songs of the day by the musician Gretry—a good and loyal song:

‘0 Richard, 6 man Roi, Uunivers t’abandonne Sur la terre il nest done que moi Qui m’interesse a ta personnel It was wonderful to stand there, to see the triumph of my little son, the admiration these good men felt for my daughter; to see their loyalty to the King and their affection for me.

How I had missed it! I prayed then for another chance. Let everything be as it used to be and I would work with my husband for the good of the people of France.

That night I slept more peacefully than I had for a long time.

But in the morning I summoned Madame Campan and asked for her account of the affair.

She said she had been surprised when she saw us appear and she had been deeply moved by the singing of ‘0 Richard, 6 mm Roi’ and “Peut on affliger ce qu’on came?” which had followed it.

But,” I said, ‘you were not entirely happy?”

“Though many shouted for Your Majesties,” she told me, ‘there were some who did not; and there was one in the next box to that which I occupied with my niece who reproved us for shouting “Vive Ie Roi.” He said that American women would be contemptuous of us, screaming as we were for the life of one man. It was shocking, he said, to see handsome Frenchwomen brought up in such servile habits. To which, Madame, my niece replied that we had all lived close to the King and to do so was to love him, and he had better save his breath, for his disloyalty to a good King did not affect us one jot. “

I laughed.

“But was it not wonderful? They were so enthusiastic. They loved us and they wanted us to know it. We have seen so much of our enemies that we have forgotten our friends.”

She was less complacent than I; Dear Campan, she was always so much wiser.

The affair caused some consternation in Paris. The pamphleteers, fearing that more might wish to show their friendship, were feverishly printing their sheets. Marat and Desmoulins wrote of that evening as though it were an obscene orgy. They declared that we had all trampled the tricolour underfoot. Was it not time that someone slit the throat of the Austrian woman?

Bread had become more and more scarce in the capital. There was no flour to be had.

“They are hoarding the people’s flour at Versailles!”

was the cry which ‘was echoing through the streets of Paris.

The winter lay ahead—the cold and hungry winter—for October was with us.

It was the afternoon of the fifth of October, a dull day with an overcast sky and intermittent showers. I decided that I would go to the Trianon. Perhaps I would sketch a little. Perhaps Axel would come to see me. If we could be together for even a little while I would find the courage to go on. I now realised that the banquet had not been the wonderful turn of the tide which I had made myself believe. I knew of the riots that were continuing and becoming more and more violent every day. There was no end to the terrible tales of atrocities. We were less safe than we had been a week ago, for with every hour our danger increased.

Why would Louis not leave for Metz? Surely he could see it was the wise thing to do. At times I was sure he agreed, but always he would waver.

So I would go to Trianon and perhaps between the showers walk out to the Hameau. Perhaps I would drink a glass of milk fresh from my cows or sit in the Temple of Love and dream of Axel.

The Petit Trianon I Even on a grey day it was beautiful. I sat in the white and gold room and looked out on my gardens. Did I have a premonition then that I would never see it again?

I walked through the house; I touched the carved and gilded wooden panelling; I went to my bedroom which had been so entirely my own, and I remembered how when I entertained friends there and my husband came as a guest-for he always respected my desire for privacy—we had put the clock on an hour to make him leave earlier so that we could enjoy ourselves without restraint.

So many memories of the past. and the present.

I longed to hear Axel’s voice on this day—more, I told myself, than ever before. I wanted to see him walking across the garden to the house. But he did not come.

The rain had stopped and I took my sketching pad and walked out to the grotto, and I sat there not sketching but thinking. I looked over the grounds at the changing leaves. There were a few flowers left. The winter was very close. How beautiful! Those gentle hillocks, the pond, Cupid’s Temple, the meadows, die charming little houses of the Hameau my own little village which was so natural and yet was in fact the height of artificiality.

How I loved it!

There was no need to hurry. I would stay here until it was almost dark. Perhaps I would stay the night here. I could send for the children. How pleasant it would be . not to sleep in the palace, to pretend Versailles was miles away.

I heard the sound of footsteps. My heart leaped in anticipation. Could it be Axel who had come in the hope of finding me here? The thought drove away my morbid reflections and temporarily I was as lighthearted as that young woman who had once held her Sunday balls on the lawns here, who had milked her own ribbon-decorated cows into Sevres pails.

Then I saw not Axel but one of the pages from the palace. His hair was awry; he was hot and breathless but there was no mistaking his relief when he saw me, “Madame—Madame-‘ he cried.

“I have here a note from the Comte de Saint-Priest.” The Comte was one of those ministers resident at Versailles.

You have hurried,” I began, but he interrupted without ceremony, ” Monsieur de Saint-Priest says the matter is most urgent. Your Majesty must return at once to the Palace. “

I opened the note and read: “Return to the Palace immediately. The mob is marching on Versailles.”

I felt the horror grip me. I rose and picked up my hat.

“I will walk back through the woods at once,” I said.

“Monsieur de Saint-Priest commanded me to bring the carriage, Madame. Some of the mob may already be in Versailles. The danger is great.”

“Take me to the carriage I said.

In silence I rode back to the Palace.

No sooner had I arrived at the chateau than the King came back. He was mud-spattered from the hunt but as calm as ever.

The Comte de Saint-Priest was waiting impatiently.

He said: “There is little time. The women of Paris are marching. They are on the outskirts of Versailles.”

The Captain of the Guards came in and saluting the King asked what his orders were.

“Orders !’ cried Louis.

“For a crowd of women? You must be joking.”

Saint-Priest said: “Sire, these are no ordinary women. There may be men disguised as women amongst them. They come with weapons knives and cudgels. They are in an ugly mood.”

“We cannot use soldiers against women, my dear Comte,” said the King.

The Comte de Saint-Priest raised his eyebrows, and then I heard the clatter of boots on the staircase and into the room burst Axel. His eyes at once sought me and his relief was obvious.

He cried: “The mob is on the march. They’re … murderous. The Queen and the children must leave at once.”

Louis smiled at him as though he understood the concern of a lover.

“Monsieur de Saint-Priest wishes to discuss this matter,” he said.

“You should join us, my dear Comte.”

I could sense Axel’s impatience. After all, he had seen those women.

He knew their mood; he had heard their comments; he knew they were after blood my blood. He knew too that the march of the women was a clever ruse on the part of the revolutionaries. If men had come the soldiers would have fired on them, but the chivalrous King would never allow them to fire on women. The revolutionary leaders had planned this well. They had inflamed the women of Paris; they had held up bread supplies so that the scarcity seemed even worse than it was; they had circulated their pamphlets more assiduously than ever and they were more scurrilous against me. was the reason for the women’s march on Versailles; they wanted my head; they wanted to march back to Paris with the King and my children and myself. But it was to be my mutilated body carried in pieces by a mob of women as wild as savages with the blood-lust in their hearts.

I could read this in Axel’s face. I had never seen him so afraid before, and never did I see him afraid for his own safety only for mine.

Saint-Priest was aware of the relationship between Axel and myself, but his one idea was to preserve the Monarchy and he knew that Axel was a good friend, a reliable friend. He could be of service, and who more loyal than a lover?

Saint-Priest immediately called a conference of the loyal ministers who remained. Immediate action was needed, he said. The bridges of the Seine should be guarded by the Flanders regiment; Saint-Cloud and Neuilly should be held. The Queen and the Royal Family should be sent Rambouillet and the King with a strong force of Guards should ride out to meet the marchers. With a thousand horse and armed soldiers he could order the mob to retire, and if they refused there would be no alternative but to open fire.

“And if this did not succeed, if there were armed men and women in the mob, if fighting broke out asked the King.

“Then, Sire, at the head of the troops you would march to Rambouillet.

There you would make plans to join the forces at Metz. “

“Civil war?” asked the King.

“Preferable to revolution. Sire,” replied Axel.

“It means that the King would face danger,” I said.

“Madame,” answered Axel, ‘you are facing clanger at this moment.

The King was wavering. I knew what would happen. He would ride out there but he would never give permission for women to be fired on.

Saint-Priest’s excellent plan would founder because my husband would never stand firm.

I must be with him. I believed it was imperative that I remain at his side. Moreover, I did not wish him to face a danger which I did not share.

I turned to him and said: “I believe we should be together. You should leave with me and all the family now for Rambouillet.”

The King hesitated. Then he decided that he could not run away. He must face these people. And so we talked and Axel grew more and more alarmed and news was brought to us that the marchers were almost on the Palace. Some carried knives; they were shouting threats, they wanted my blood. They wanted to take the King to Paris.

“Sire,” said Saint-Priest, ‘if you let the people take you to Paris you have lost your crown. “

Necker, who was afraid of losing his popularity with the people, advised against the Rambouillet scheme. And Louis oscillated between the two—at one moment turning to Saim-Priest.

“Yes, yes, my dear Comte, you are right. We must do this …” and to Necker, “You are right. I must stand my ground.” And to me: “We must be together. We must not be separated.”

And meanwhile the decisive moments were ticking by. This I suspected was what Louis wished. He would not be forced to make the choice.

Circumstances should do it for him. This was how he had always been.

This was why we now teetered on the edge of revolution. I can see it so clearly now . all the steps which had led to our downfall, the many chances which fate had offered us, and at each one Louis had hesitated undl it was too late and the decision was no longer his.

Down in the courtyards the horses were pawing impatiently; the servant? were awaiting orders. They went on waiting. The rain was teeming down and the women of Paris put their skirts over their heads to protect them while they shouted obscene remarks to each other—and they were about the Queen.

They were in Versailles . cold, wet and angry—and intoxicated, for they’ had raided the wine shops on the way.

Behind the mob rode La Fayette and the National Guard. Whether he intended to curb them we were not sure. We were never sure of La Fayette, except that his actions were always too late to be effective and we suspected that he was not entirely enamoured of this revolution which he had done his best to bring about. He was imbued with American ideas and ideals. He doubtless visualised a speedy conflict and then a new nadon built on the remains of the old, in which liberty, equality and fraternity flourished. But he was not dealing with a band of colonists who fought for an ideal of freedom; his army was made up of agitators and prostitutes, men and women who were fed on envy, who demanded blood all the time not because they wished for freedom, not because they wished to build a new way of life—but because they wanted revenge. La Fayette was a man of honour. He must have realised this. He knew that he had aroused a fury of lust, greed, envy, sloth, coverousness, wrath and pride . all the seven deadliest sins. And I believe he was an uneasy man.

But the very fact that the National Guard was there with its commander showed that this was no ordinary assault. There was purpose behind it; and if the purpose of the women was to kill me, that of the Guards was to take the King to Paris.

Mist had fallen over the town; it seeped into the chateau; it hung in patches like grey ghosts. The marchers now surrounded us. I could hear their chanting: “Du pain. Du pain.”

Then I heard my name. They wanted the Queen. They wanted her head on a pike. They were going to fight over my body. They would make cockades of my entrails. They would tear out my heart and carry it to Paris.

They would slit my throat with their butchers’ knives; they would ram the mouldy bread they had been forced to eat down my throat and make me eat it before they strangled me.

I tried to think of my mother, who bad always told me that I must never be afraid of death. When it came I must welcome it for it was the end of all earthly sorrows. Oh my mother, I thought, how I rejoice that you did not live to see this day.

I thought of my children. They would surely not harm them. Oh God, what would become of us?

The King’s calmness was a help to us all. He refused to believe that his good people would harm any of us. They would not even harm me, for they would know how that would grieve him. And when they said they would send a deputation of women to par ky with him he declared himself very happy to receive them.

Five of the women were chosen to speak to the King and tell him of their grievances. This cheered us greatly, for it seemed a reasonable arrangement.

The women were brought to the King, and they chose for their spokeswoman Louison Chabry, a flower-girl of outstanding beauty, who certainly looked well nourished, so it was evident that all the people of Paris were not starving. I guessed her to be a bold creature, but brought face to face with the courteous manners of the King she was bewildered and tongue-tied. Even Louis, who was so unlike his grandfather, bad inherited a little of that aura which surrounded his ancestors, and bold Louison suddenly realised that she. was in the presence of royalty, and could only goggle with amazement and murmur: “Du pain. Sire.” Perhaps the march in the rain had been too much for her, perhaps she was overcome by excitement, but she fainted and would have fallen if the King had not caught her.

The King called his doctor and the girl was revived. Then he talked to her of her troubles, and all she could do was look at him with round eyes of wonder and murmur: Yes, Sire. No, Sire. “

If only they had all been as easy to handle as Louison I He told her that he regarded himself as the little father of his people and that his one desire was to make them happy and see them well fed. Clearly she believed him and was ready to change her revolutionary ideas and become a loyal subject without more ado. And when she left, Louis kissed her with fervour. It was the first time I ever saw him kiss a woman with relish. He even joked and said that the kiss made it well worth the trouble. Well worth the trouble ! I thought. Of having a howling mob at our gates? Of losing the crown?

There were times when I believed his lethargy was a physical disability. Could any normal man be so calm in the face of such unprecedented disaster?

Louison returned to her friends. How her account of her interview was received no one can imagine. Meanwhile night was falling and the women took off their skirts—as they said, to dry them—and mingled with the soldiers who were supposed to be guarding the chateau.

The uneasy day had passed into uneasy night.

Saint-Priest and Axel wanted immediate action. As they saw it, it was folly to stay.

Louis began to see that we should leave for Rambouillet-not only myself and the children but himself and the rest of the family.

He took my hand and said: “You are right that we should not be parted.

We will go together. “

I hurried into the children’s apartments.

“We are leaving in half an hour,” I told Madame de Tourzel.

“Get the children ready But even as I spoke, one of the King’s servants came to tell me that the escape was now impossible, for the crowds were in the stables and they would not allow the carriages to leave.

I could have wept. Once more we had hesitated and lost.

I told Madame de Tourzel not to disturb the children and I went back to my husband’s apartments. Axel was beside me. He could no longer restrain himself; he gripped my band and said: “You must give me an order that I may take horses from the stables. I may need them to defend you.”

I shook my head.

“You must not risk your life for me,” I told him.

“For what else Tor the King,” I suggested. And I added, trying to soothe the anguish he showed so dearly he was feeling: “I am not afraid. My mother taught me not to fear death. If it has come for me I will accept it with fortitude, I believe.”

He turned away. He was determined to save me. But how could one man’s love save me from those howling men and women who were bent on my destruction?

La Fayette arrived at Versailles about midnight, and stationing his men in the Place dAmes he came to the Palace to see the King.

He entered in a theatrical way. I often wondered whether Monsieur de La Fayette saw himself as the hero of the Revolution who would bring about the reforms he believed the country needed with the niirmnimi of violence. He made a grandiloquent speech about serving the King and bringing his own head to save that of His Majesty, whereupon Louis replied that the General must never doubt that he was always pleased to see him and his good people of Paris. He begged the General would tell them this.

The General asked that those guards who had deserted their posts and gone to the National Guard a few weeks before should be allowed to resume their old dudes. It would be a gesture of trust.

What were gestures of trust with those people down there? Yet I believed that both Louis and La Fayette believed in it.

The King took my hand and kissed it.

You are exhausted. It has been a tiring day. Go to bed and get some sleep now. Our good Monsieur de La Fayette will see that all is well.”

La Fayette bowed.

“Your Majesties need have no anxiety,” he said.

“The people have promised that they will remain calm throughout the night.”

I went to my bedchamber and sank on to my bed. It was true. The events of this day had left me exhausted.

I was awakened just before dawn by unfamiliar sounds. I started’ up in bed and peered into the darkness. I heard the voices again—coarse, crude voices. Whence did they come? I rang the bell and one of my women came in. She must have been near—which surprised me, for I had told them not to sleep in my room but to go to their own beds.

“Whose voices are those?” I asked.

“The women of Paris, Madame. They are wandering about on the terrace.

There is nothing to fear. Monsieur de La Fayette has given his word.”

I nodded and went back to sleep. It seemed a short while afterwards when I was awakened by the same woman and another standing by my bedside. The room seemed full of shouting voices.

“Madame—quickly I You must dress! They are invading the chateau! They are close….”

I leaped out of bed. Madame Thiebaut, Madame Campan’s sister, was there. She was thrusting shoes on my feet and trying to wrap a robe about me. Then I heard the voices close:

“This way. We’ll get her. This is her apartment. I’ll cut her heart out myself.”

“No—no, that honour’s for me.”

“Cone quickly,” cried Madame Thiebaut.

“There is no time to dress.

They are almost upon us. “

“The King’s apartment …” I stammered.

“The children They were dragging me through the narrow corridor to wards the Oeil de Boeuf. The door was locked. It was the first time I had ever known it locked and I was seized with a violent horror because I knew from the nearness of voices that the intruders were already in my bedroom.

Madame Thiebaut was banging on the door.

“Open open for God’s sake!

For the Queen’s sake . , open! “

I heard the shouts.

“She’s fooled us. She’s gone. Where is she? We’ll find her.”

“Oh God,” I prayed.

“Help me to be brave. This is the moment. This is death horrible death.”

I was hammering on the door and suddenly it was opened and we fell into the Oett de Boeuf. The page who had opened it locked it again and we sped across to the King’s apartments. I was sobbing with terror.

Death I could face, but not violent, obscene death at the hands of those savages.

“The King!” I cried.

“He is going to your bedchamber to find you,” I was told.

“But they are there!”

“He has gone by means of the secret corridor under the Oeil de Boeuf.”

It was the secret way he had come when people used to watch his visits to my bedchamber and snigger over them. How fortunate that I had had that secret way made!

But what would happen to him? Would he be safe? They were crying for my blood, not his.

“The children …” I began. And then Madame de Tour-zei came in leading them, hastily snatched from their beds, robes over their sleeping clothes.

They ran to me and I embraced them; I held them to me as though I would never let them go. Then the King came in calm, almost unhurried.

“They are in your bedroom,” he said, ‘despoiling the room. “

I had a horrible vision of them slashing the bed which was still warm, pulling down the hangings, snatching up my treasures.

I thought strangely enough of the little clock which my son so loved and which played a tune.

I beard the tinkling sound quite clearly.

“II pleut, il pleut berg ere Presse tes blancs moutons …”

Listen,” I said.

“What is that?”

It was the sound of blows on the door of the Oeil de Boeuf.

We waited. I think even Louis believed then that our last hour had come.

Then . the blows ceased. One of the pages came running in to tell us that the Guards were driving the mob out of the chateau.

I sat down and covered my face with my hands.

My son was pulling at my skirt.

“Maman, what are they all doing?”

I just held him against me. I could not speak. My daughter took her brother’s hand and said: “You must not worry Maman now.”

“Why?” he wanted to know.

“Because there are so many things to think of I thought: They will kill my son. He smiled at me and whispered: ” It’s all right, Maman, Moufflet is here. “

“Then,” I whispered back, ‘it is all right. “

He nodded.

In the Cour Royale and the Cour de Marbre they were shouting for Orleans. I shivered. How deeply was the Due d’Orieans involved in this?

Elisabeth had taken the Dauphin on to her knee; I felt comforted to have Elisabeth with us.

“Maman,” said my son, “Chou d’Amour is hungry I kissed him.

“In a little while you shall eat.”

He nodded.

“Moufflet too,” he reminded me, and we all smiled.

The crowds outside the chateau were shouting for the King.

“The King on the balcony I looked at Louis. He stepped out. They must admire him, surely. He showed not a vestige of fear. They were not to know that he felt none.

La Fayette had arrived to the apartment. He was clearly amazed that the mob had broken into the Palace. He had had their word.

I was not surprised that he was nicknamed General Morphee; he would have been fast asleep in his bed while the assassins were breaking into the chateau.

Provence arrived with the Due d’Orieans, both well-shaven and powdered. Provence looked cold as usual and Orleans sly. Madame Campan told me afterwards that there were many who swore they had seen him disguised among the rioters in the early morning and that he was the one who had shown the mob the way to my apartments.

La Fayette made his way to the balcony.

“The King,” roared the crowd.

La Fayette, bowing, presented the King. The General lifted his hand and told them that the King had now consented to the Declaration of the Rights of Man. Much had been achieved and now he knew they would wish to go home. He, the Commander of the National Guard,”re quested them to.

Did he expect them to obey him? He could not have been such a fool. He was a man playing a part the part of hero of the hour.

Of course the crowd did not move. They were going to have what they had come for.

Then a voice shouted: “The Queen. The Queen on the balcony.”

The cry was taken up. Now it was a deafening roar.

No,” said the King. You must not …”

Axel was there. He made a step towards me but I ordered him with my eyes to keep away. He must not betray our love before all these people. That could only add to our troubles.

I stepped towards the balcony.

My daughter began to cry and I said: “It’s all right, darling. Don’t be frightened, little Mousseline. The people only want to see me.”

It was Axel who thrust my daughter’s hand in mine and, lifting my son, put him in my arms.

No! “I cried.

But he was pushing me on to the balcony. He believed the people would not harm the children.

There was silence as I stood there. Then they cried:

“No children. Send the children back.”

I was sure then that they were going to kill me. I turned and handed the Dauphin to Madame de Tourzel. My daughter tried to cling to my robe but I pushed her back.

Then alone I stepped on to the balcony. There was buzzing in my head but perhaps it was the whispering below me. It seemed to take me minutes to make that one short step. It was as though time itself had stopped and the whole world was waiting for me to cross the threshold between life and death.

I was alone and defenceless facing those people who had come to Versailles to kill me. I had folded my hands across my gold-and-white striped robe into which I had been hastily put when I was aroused from my bed, my hair fell about my shoulders.

I beard a voice cry: Now, there she is. The Austrian Woman. Shoot her. “

I bowed my head as though to greet them; and the silence went on and on.

What happened in those seconds I do not know except that the French are the most emotional people in the world. They love and hate with more vehemence than others. All their feelings are intense, and the more so, perhaps, for being transient.

My apparent lack of fear, my extreme femininity perhaps, my cool indifference to death, touched them momentarily.

Someone shouted: “Vive la Heine’ And others took it up. I looked down on that sea of faces on those disreputable people with their knives and cudgels and their cruel faces. And I was not afraid.

I bowed once more and stepped into the room.

There I was received by a few seconds of bewildered silence. Then the King was embracing me with tears in his eyes and my children clinging to my skirts were crying with him.

But this was a momentary respite.

The crowd was shouting again: “To Paris. The King to Paris.”

The King said this matter must be discussed with the National Assembly. They should be invited to come to the Palace.

But the people outside were growing restive.

“To Paris,” they chanted.

“The King to Paris.”

Saint-Priest was gloomy. So was Axel.

“They will break into the chateau,” he said.

“It is clear. Monsieur de La Payette, that you have no power to restrain them,” La Fayette could not deny this.

“I must save further bloodshed,” said the King.

“I will go peaceably to Paris.” He turned to me and said quickly: “We must be together … all of us.”

Then he stepped on to the balcony and said: “My friends, I shall go to Paris with my wife and children. I shall mist what is most precious to me to the love of my good and faithful subjects.”

There were shouts of joy. The journey had been a success, the mission carried out.

La Fayette stepped from the balcony into the room.

“Madame,” he said gravely, ‘you must consider this. “

“I have considered,” I answered.

“I know that those people hate me. I know they are intent on murdering me. But if that is my fate I must accept it. My place is with my husband.”

It was one o’clock when we left Versailles. Yesterday’s rain had given place to sunshine and it was a lovely autumn day, but the weather could not lift our spirits.

In the carriage in which I rode with the King were my children and Madame de Tourzel, with the Comte and Comtesse de Provence and Elisabeth.

I shall never forget that drive, and although I was to experience greater humiliations, greater tragedies, it stands out in my mind. The smell of the people; their leering faces beside our carriage; the murderous looks which came my way; the long slow drive which took six hours. I could smell blood in the air. Some of these savages had murdered guards and carried their heads before us on pikes—a grim warning, I suppose, of what they would do with us. They had even forced a hairdresser to dress the hair on these heads; the poor man, revolted and nauseated, had been obliged to do so at the point of a knife.

Astride the cannon were drunken women who shrieked obscenities to each other. My name was mentioned often;

I was too sickened to care very much what they said of me. Some of the women, half-naked, for they had not bothered to replace their skirts, went arm in arm with the soldiers. They had robbed the royal granaries, and carriages had been loaded with sacks of flour which were well guarded by the soldiers. The poissardes danced about the carriage crying:

“We shall no longer lack bread. We are bringing the baker, the baker’s wife and the baker’s boy to Paris.”

My little son was whimpering: “I’m so hungry, Maman. Chou d’Amour has had no breakfast, no dinner….”

I comforted him as best I could.

And at last we came to Paris. Bailly the Mayor welcomed us by the light of torches.

“What a splendid day,” said the Mayor, ‘when Parisians are at last able to have His Majesty and his family in their city. “

“I hope,” replied Louis with dignity, ‘that my stay in Paris will bring peace, harmony and obedience to the laws. “

Tired out as we were we must drive to the Hotel de Ville.

There we sat on the throne where the Kings and Queens of France had sat before us. The King told Bailly that he should tell the people that it was always with pleasure and confidence that he found himself among the inhabitants of his good city of Paris.

Bailly when repeating this left out the word ‘confidence’ and I noticed this at once and reminded Bailly of his omission.

‘you hear, gentlemen,” said Bailly.

“This is even better than if my memory had not betrayed me.”

They were mocking us. They were pretending to treat us as King and Queen when we were merely their prisoners.

And then we were offered a brief respite. We were allowed to drive from the Hotel de Ville to the Tuileries—that gloomy, deserted palace which they had chosen for us.