Confessions of Marie Antoinette (17 page)

Axel and Louis discuss the third possible route of escape. This would take us through a number of small towns and villages, including Bondy, Châlons-sur-Marne, Clermont, and Varennes. “After the royal family reaches Châlons-sur-Marne, Sire, may I suggest that the coordination of the journey’s details be consigned to the marquis de Bouillé, or at the very least, that he remain fully informed of the plans, for his knowledge of the area is far greater than ours.”

Everything must be organized, not only with stealth, but with swiftness. Louis elects to leave the Tuileries just days from now, on June 19, between midnight and one
A.M
., after the last shift of guards has exchanged their posts with those who keep watch through the night.

Axel visits the Tuileries each day to keep us apprised of developments. I still cannot imagine how we will sneak past the six hundred armed men who are constantly on guard throughout the palace. “Two-thirds of them will not be on duty when you depart. You only have to evade two hundred,” he reminds me with a grin.

But how to deceive
them
? I am followed nearly everywhere I go within the confines of the Tuileries. Members of Lafayette’s bodyguard remain stationed as sentries outside the doors to each of the royal apartments.

“You escaped the mob of murderers at Versailles by ducking through a hidden door and down an internal corridor,” Axel ruminates, as he runs a hand through his thick brown hair. He no longer powders it, his sole concession to Revolutionary tastes. He paces my salon, tentatively patting the walls and examining every seam in the hand-painted paper for a clue. At length, he stands before an
ornate chest of drawers inlaid with Sèvres tiles and striated malachite. “Why would someone place this here?” he murmurs to himself. Axel taps the wall above the chest and turns back to face me with a dazzling smile. He extends his arm, motioning for me to join him, and I take his hand as he sweeps me into an embrace. “It’s hollow behind there,” he whispers triumphantly. I feel his heart beating wildly against mine and quickly bring my lips to his before we both turn to regard the wall.

Axel strips off his silk coat, tossing it on a chair. “We must move the chest aside,” he announces, still whispering. “On the parquet it will make a noise unless I place something soft beneath each of the legs.”

I have just the thing. I unlock a cabinet and bring him a stack of bound pamphlets.
Libelles
.

“You save these?” he asks incredulously. “If I were you, I would burn every single scurrilous, lying diatribe.”

“Such a conflagration would engulf all of Paris,” I sigh.

After moving the chest, Axel discovers a circular latch hidden inside the wall behind it. “Where does this lead?” he asks.

I shrug. “I’m not sure.” Nor am I certain whether it is wise to explore, for the pair of us could walk right into the bayonets of the Garde Nationale. But Axel is all for taking the risk. He lifts the latch and turns it as silently as possible, then pushes the door open ever so slightly. At the sound of a creak my heart skips two beats and I nearly jump out of my gown. “Oil?” he whispers.

All I have is lamp oil, spermaceti imported from America. But it will do. Axel oils the hinges with the frothy cuff of his sleeve and peers cautiously into the darkness. The hidden door opens onto a narrow internal corridor. We tiptoe along the hall and encounter another door. “What is behind here?” the count asks.

“It must be Madame de Ronchreuil’s room,” I reply, closing my
eyes and picturing the layout of the palace from the opposite side of this corridor.

“Is she to be trusted?”

“She is one of the few attendants the Assembly has permitted me to retain. But I think it is because she is not well known to the Revolution as one of my confidantes. Her mother was a friend of mine. When she grew ill, she asked me to take Anne-Sophie into my service so that the girl would have a future.” I scratch the door with the nail of my little finger. Moments later, a pretty blond woman opens the door and peers at us.

She drops into a curtsy and, on rising, beckons us into the room. There are vases of fresh flowers on every surface. Madame de Ronchreuil spends quite a bit of time in the Tuileries Gardens. “Come in,
Majesté
. Monsieur le comte,” she whispers, her expression confused. “What are you doing in there?”

“Following the trail of a mouse that skirted the edges of Her Majesty’s floorboards and dashed beneath a chest when we tried to trap him,” Axel lies. Anne-Sophie, given to giggles, and somewhat smitten, I have become aware, by what my childhood writing tutor Herr Mesmer would have called the comte’s
magnétisme animal
, forgets her curiosity in favor of hospitality.

While I engage my attendant in a discussion of the various blooms that freshen the aroma of her small chamber, Axel is glancing about the room. A large framed mirror hangs over a door. “What does that portal lead to?” he asks mildly.

“Oh, that goes to the
appartement
of the duc de Villequier,” Anne-Sophie replies. “But it is not occupied anymore. Monsieur le duc emigrated at the beginning of June.”

I would have to procure the key to it. No sentries were ever stationed at the front door to the duc’s rooms. If the royal family were to trace the steps Axel and I had just taken, we could manage
to descend a flight of stairs that would lead us to the courtyard at an hour of the night when, just according to our plan, many people would be coming and going from the palace.

“Must find that mouse!” Axel finally says, giving us a reason to quit Madame de Ronchreuil’s room. “You must be doubly certain of her loyalty,” he warns me, once we have returned safely to my salon. “And then, either she must be taken into your confidence or you should find a pretext to send her elsewhere on the night of the nineteenth.”

I agree to undertake the coordination of our escape within the palace. For some reason, my mind is filled with reminiscences of happier days spent in my little theater at the Petit Trianon. Madame Campan’s father had been our prompter. Yet he also made sure that everyone was in the proper costume, holding the requisite stage properties, and standing in the wings on the appropriate side of the stage, ready to make their entrances at the proper moment. Could his loyal daughter ably assist me in this most perilous of productions? Perhaps if I focus my mind upon the specific movements of all the players, I will not be too overcome by fear or timidity to accomplish what we must at all costs.

Axel favors me with a look of pure admiration. “Do you know what Mirabeau once said to me? About you?”

I cross the salon and take his hand, turning it over and pressing my lips to his palm. “
Non
. I cannot imagine. What did he say? And why to you?”

“To whom else could he confide that ‘The king has only one man with him—his wife!’ ”

THIRTEEN

Delay

Two boxes and two men are before me, cast in shadow by the candle glow flickering in my salon. I rest my fingers lightly upon the case covered in green cardan leather tooled with my cipher in gold and instruct the comte de Mercy to see that it is conveyed to my favorite sister, the Queen of Naples. “These are Hapsburg jewels,” I explain to the ambassador. “If anything should happen to me, Charlotte should have them.” I wear a brave mask, but the act of divesting myself of such treasures is overwhelming because I do so in anticipation of some mishap. A lump rises in my throat. I wonder, too, after we depart, whether I will ever see Mercy again. All these years I have accepted his presence in my life, both politically and personally, as something permanent. Now I feel what it must be like to stand barefooted upon the sand.

My
friseur
Léonard Hautier looks at me expectantly. “You know I will rely upon your services after we reach Montmédy,” I remind him. Léonard has been dressing my hair since 1774, a
month after my ascension. Pointing to the red leather box: “This is the jewelry that I will require once we reach our destination. I am entrusting you to ride on ahead of our carriage, taking it with you.” Swallowing hard, I add, “As we intend to travel incognito, we cannot be observed at any of the checkpoints with such valuables in our possession. It would arouse suspicion.”

Léonard begins to sob, clearly overcome by the responsibility. He whips a handkerchief out of the turned-back cuff of his yellow moiré coat before he stains the silk with his tears. Sinking to his knees, he clasps my hands in his, kissing my knuckles. “I am beholden to you,
Majesté
. I cannot find the words to express my gratitude for the honor you are bestowing upon me.” His hands flutter nervously about his breast and I must convince myself that I have made the right decision.

“Well, you are the only one who knows how to do most of the clasps,” I feebly jest.

I hear a scratching at the door leading to the inside staircase that links my husband’s apartment with mine. Madame Campan opens it to admit the king, followed by Count von Fersen.

“The comte has purchased a carriage,” Louis announces, “in his own name, of course,” then regales me with the details of the heavy traveling berline, the sort of conveyance designed to comfortably transport a large party for a great distance. “This could take us all the way to Saint Petersburg, if need be!” my husband exclaims. “And with not one, but two iron cooking stoves, one of which will heat meat, and a canteen that will hold a greater number of bottles and a cupboard to store food, it will eliminate the necessity of our disembarking at every coaching station when the horses are changed.” Axel mentions the luxuries that he knows are certain to delight me: the clothes press and the silver dinner service, and—for the dauphin, especially, who always needs to
“faire pipi,”
or more, the minute we embark anywhere, a close-stool. Then Louis rhapsodizes
about the elements that have always intrigued
him:
the method in which the carriage has been constructed, with additional features to strengthen it for the rigors of our flight—washers, bolts, rivets, buckles, and axle-nuts, clamps for something called swingle bars, and iron-fitted forks designed to steady the berline on vertiginous mountain roads.

I ask if there will be room to transport my collapsible breakfast table, a marvel of cabinetry, which, as various sprung wings open or fold inwards, functions as a work table and storage unit for my embroidery, as well as a
secrétaire
for my correspondence. And I have no intention of traveling without my walnut picnic basket that also functions as a dressing case, with its own silver basin, mirror, and miniature candlesticks to illuminate it. How else can I make my toilette each morning?

Axel assures me in the affirmative—although I may have to rest the basket upon my lap—but cautions that the more laden the berline, the slower it will move, and time will of course be of the essence, as will darkness, for we have chosen to travel on the second-shortest night of the year and we cannot depart until midnight.

“Do not forget your other news!” Louis reminds him. My husband is in higher spirits today than I have seen him in months. Perhaps it is the idea that safety lies but days away; the securing of the means of arriving at our sanctuary is now a reality.

Axel opens his diplomatic pouch and breaks the seal on an inner envelope. “A fellow countrywoman of mine, baronne de Korff, the widow of a Russian officer, has agreed to provide her own passports for your journey. One passport covers a family of four: herself, her husband, and two daughters; the other is for the servants.”

“But won’t she have need of them if she plans to emigrate?” I ask Axel. “Things are growing worse for our sympathizers by the day.”

“After you have safely reached Montmédy, she intends to report her passports stolen. The Assembly will replace them.”

I glance at Louis. “We should meet her to thank her for her generosity.”

Axel shakes his head. “I do not advise it. The less she is implicated in the plan of escape, the better it will be for all concerned. We must protect the baronne’s safety at all costs. In this way, if she is ever interrogated she can truthfully say that she has never met the royal family, nor had any contact with them whatsoever.”

I sense that there is more, for Count von Fersen averts his gaze from mine. Is this widow something special to him? I know that he has taken a house in Paris but I do not know what Axel does with his time when he is not here, although he visits me daily. I do not like to dwell on the possibility that there could be other women in his life. After all, I once described Axel to Monsieur Fargeon, my parfumier, as the most virile man I knew, and despite my feelings I have no right to expect that sort of fidelity from him when it cannot be mutual. If I permit my imagination to run away with itself, I will make myself ill. And I must not allow my energy to be distracted from the matter of our escape.

“If I divulge this secret, you must promise to let it die on your ears the moment you receive it,” Axel whispers.

My belly does a little flutter, as if a butterfly took wing from a blossom. But then, why would the count say such a thing in the presence of my husband?

“The baronne de Korff is one of the angels who is helping to financially subsidize your flight,” he informs us.

I exhale and feel the natural color return to my cheeks.

“You must convey our immense gratitude to the baronne,” Louis tells him, “as well as to our other saviors who wish to remain nameless for their own protection.” He leaves us to discuss further
particulars of our departure, having abrogated the lion’s share of the planning to me.

In truth, it is Axel whose efforts on our behalf have been extraordinary. He remains in constant contact with the marquis de Bouillé, to be certain that the route we intend to take will remain open, checking with each communication to ensure that there is still not a hair’s breadth of suspicion. And it is Axel who has secretly determined that three soldiers of the royal bodyguard, messieurs Monstrei, Valorg, and de Malden, remain totally loyal to the monarchy and are willing to aid in our flight, dressed as servants. He has also identified the nobles who will accompany us disguised as
estafettes
, mounted couriers. Louis is aware that Axel has received his sovereign’s commission to be his eyes and ears here in France, but Gustavus of Sweden, while our sworn ally, is not funding our escape. I doubt Louis realizes that Axel has personally mortgaged his own estates there, and has even borrowed money from his steward to finance our journey. How can I not take him at his word, when, with a gaze that would melt the snows of the Grossglockner, he assures me, “I live only to serve you”?