Виктория Холт - Flaunting, Extravagant Queen

‘I feel it in the air,’ said the Queen. ‘They are gathering against us now … and this time there will be no respite.’

They did not go to bed at all that night. They started at the sound of the tocsin; they listened, alert to the distant sounds. And all the time they were waiting.

They knew that the guard was being corrupted; and without the guard they would be brutally murdered, with the revolutionaries in their present mood.

The morning came. Sleepless, his hair unpowdered, his cravat loose, Louis came into the Queen’s apartment.

‘Louis, what next?’ asked the Queen.

Louis shook his head. Antoinette thought: Even he is shaken at last.

Outside the window the guards were drawn up.

‘Louis,’ said Antoinette, ‘you should show yourself. You should review the troops. You should let them see that you are a leader.’

The King turned to the window and looked out. Then, as though in a dream, he left the Queen.

A few minutes later she saw him from the window – unkempt as he was – walking between the lines of the troops.

‘I have confidence in you,’ he was saying. ‘I know I can trust you.

Antoinette heard a jeering laugh from one of the men. She saw several of them break from their ranks and imitate the slow and somewhat ungainly walk of the King.

For what could they hope from such guards?

* * *

The Attorney-General of Paris came in haste to the Tuileries. He demanded to see the King, and was shown at once to the King’s chamber where Antoinette was with him.

‘The crowds are massing,’ he said, ‘for an attack on the Tuileries. It is necessary for you to leave at once.’

‘For where?’ asked Antoinette.

‘You will be safest in the manège. The Assembly is in session, and the mob will not attack you while you are there.’

‘We have troops to protect us,’ said Antoinette.

‘I fear not, Madame,’ said the Attorney-General. ‘All Paris is marching, and with Paris are the men of Marseilles. You dare not hesitate. You must think of the children of France.’

‘We will accompany you,’ said Louis.

Antoinette ran for her children and brought them to the King’s apartment.

‘We should leave at once,’ said the Attorney-General. ‘The faubourgs are on the march.’

Antoinette held the Dauphin’s hand very firmly in hers and, as they came through the gardens, the little boy kicked the leaves at his feet. He was laughing. There were too many alarms in his life for him to take them seriously any more. As long as he was with his mother and the dirty people did not try to suffocate him with their red caps, he was happy.

‘The leaves have fallen very early this year,’ said the King in a melancholy voice.

There were already crowds gathered outside the Palace. They saw the royal family through the railings, and shouts of derision went up.

The little party reached the Assembly Hall in safety, and the King cried to all those present: ‘Gentlemen, I come here to prevent a crime. I think I and my family cannot be safer than with you.’

The President’s reply was that the Assembly had sworn to protect the Constitution, and the King could count on its protection.

The royal family were then placed in the box where the reporters usually sat. It was small and the heat was intense. The family sat there, and those who had escaped with them crowded about the box.

Outside there was murder and bloodshed such as had never been seen before during the whole of the revolution. Houses were looted; men and women dragged into the streets and cruelly murdered. Shots were fired; voices shouted in exultation and screamed in horror. The faubourgs were in revolt; the smell of burning was in the air.

Murder, rapine, pillage stalked the streets of Paris on that day. It was a day to remember with that of the St Bartholomew two hundred years before.

The Tuileries was looted. The Queen’s apartments in particular were desecrated. The streets echoed with the terrible cry ‘A la lanterne!’

And all over Paris could be heard the triumphant song:‘Allons, enfants de la patrie …’

In the crowd which was raiding the Tuileries was a young man who did not join in; he stood a little apart. His attitude was cold and detached.

Another man, too old to share in the violence of his friends, came up and stood beside him. ‘Great days for France, Citizen,’ he said.

‘Great days,’ agreed the young man.

‘We are seeing the passing of an old regime which has lasted in France for many years.’

‘Old regimes must pass,’ said the young man. ‘There must be new ones.’

‘It is the way of life, and we must accept it.’

‘We need not accept,’ said the young man. ‘We can make our own world.’

‘Louis Capet has little hope of doing that.’

‘Louis Capet could have done it,’ said the young man. He paused and then went on: ‘What imbeciles! How could they allow that canaille to enter? They should have swept away four or five hundred of them with cannons and the rest would still be running.’

‘You are not in the riots, Citizen. You are not fighting for liberty. I see you are not a Frenchman.’

‘I am from Corsica,’ said the young man.

‘Ah, it is for that reason that you remain cold.’

‘Adieu,’ said the young man. ‘I’ll be on my way.’

The old man looked after him. A strong face, a strange young man. Was it true, what he said?

Meanwhile Napoleone di Buonaparte turned his back on the riots and contemplated the power of arms appropriately used.

* * *

The family was homeless now. The Tuileries was unfit for human habitation.

Where should they go now?

It was decided that the Temple, that medieval palace which had once sheltered the Knights Templar, should be their home.

Antoinette cried out in protest when she heard. She had always hated the place. But it was not for her to protest. She must be grateful that a shelter was provided for her, grateful that she and her family were alive to need it.

The rioting had died down, and carriages were brought to the Assembly Hall. The postilions no longer wore the royal livery and their hats were decorated with the tricolor.

The carriage made a slow journey from the Assembly Hall to the Temple, the crowds shouting after it as it crawled along.

And so they came to the new home – ancient and gloomy, a more fearful prison than that of the Tuileries.

Those who had been set to guard the King and Queen found it impossible to dislike them.

The Queen’s aloofness, her determination to show no fear, aroused their respect. As for Louis, how could they call this man a tyrant when he was so gentle?

In the Temple they saw him accept the life of an ordinary man. He never complained; he ate heartily, took his exercise in the grounds, and was often seen walking in the courtyard with the Dauphin, the little boy’s hand in his.

Watching the King and his son together they saw how human was this man, how indulgent, how unselfish. He would abandon himself to the Dauphin’s game, and when he taught the boy how to fly his kite, it would seem that the most important task possible was the maintenance of that kite. They would measure the distance with their steps in the courtyards, and the Dauphin’s shrill voice could be heard consulting with his father.

It was impossible for ordinary human beings to hate this man or see him as a tyrant, except when they were intoxicated by wine or the words of violent revolutionaries.

When they first arrived at the Temple certain alterations had been allowed to be made in the place for their comfort. Four rooms were made into the King’s suite and another four were refurnished for the use of the Queen, Madame Elisabeth, Madame Royale and the Dauphin.

But although the Assembly had saved the lives of the royal family they wished them to understand that Court life, as they had once known it at Versailles, was over. They accordingly removed the Princesse de Lamballe and Madame de Tourzel to another prison. The royal family must live simply.

Antoinette had been greatly saddened at parting with these two. Marie de Lamballe had been her great friend for so long that it seemed an unnecessary hardship to do without her now.

‘It would seem,’ said Antoinette, on bidding farewell to her friend, ‘that they look about them and say “What would hurt her deeply?” And they do that. There are times when I am terrified … terrified of the future.’

She had had a strand of her hair put into a ring, and the inscription engraved on it: ‘A tress whitened by misfortune.’

‘Keep it, dearest Marie,’ she said, ‘in memory of me.’

Now they must live simply, as humble people, the King adapted himself with ease; so did Madame Elisabeth. She had always wanted the quiet life and had often thought of going into a nunnery. Life at the Temple, she told Antoinette, could not be unlike life at a convent.

‘All about a convent there is peace,’ said Antoinette. ‘All about the Temple there is terror.’

She gave herself up to her children – playing with them, teaching them. Sometimes, when they laughed at their play, she would laugh with them; but always she was straining her ears for those sounds in the streets which could grow to a roar; always she was waiting for the next terrifying ordeal.

* * *

Jacques Rene Hébert, Deputy Public Prosecutor of the Commune, was in charge of the Temple. He was the worst kind of revolutionary leader, inspired by no feelings but greed and envy. An unscrupulous criminal, he had been poor when the revolution began and had seen in it, as had so many, a means of profit and glory. Now he was a man of power. He had established his own newspaper Père Duchesne; and in this he vilified the monarchy.