Confessions of Marie Antoinette (27 page)

Among the legislators, there is dissension and inconsistency. The Assembly has renamed itself. As of October it is no longer the National, but the Constituent Assembly. And that dreadful, supercilious little deputy from Arras, the lawyer Robespierre, appears to be on the rise. He harbors an implacable and inexplicable abhorrence for my husband, which will make it all the more difficult for us to persuade the moderate voices in the Assembly to seek common ground. I have never seen such a demagogue as Robespierre, a horrid man who inveighs against the monarchy and the nobility even as he still dresses like an aristocrat, in silk breeches, vest, and coat—always ink-black—and blindingly white hose. Even the comte d’Artois in his day was not nearly so vain in his tailoring.

Republicanism, of which Robespierre is a staunch proponent, has become the watchword. But in their view France cannot become a republic unless the monarchy is demolished, stone by stone—which is how we live now from week to week—until it is eventually abolished. And if that woeful day arrives—what will become of the monarchs?

The few aristocrats who remain in the Assembly are no longer our advocates. Now that their titles and feudal privileges have been
abolished, there is no reason for them to support the monarchy, for the king has no authority to grant them the offices and perquisites that for centuries were the nobility’s bread and butter. They blame the Constitution for robbing them; and rather than sympathize with the moderates, those who have not abstained from voting altogether have, incomprehensibly, taken up the cudgels of the more radical elements of the Assembly, making common cause with the Jacobins. Their marriage of inconvenience has allowed another radical faction, the Girondins, who are fundamentally opposed to
any
form of monarchy, to gain ascendance in the Assembly, making it even more of a challenge for Barnave and his adherents to retain enough support for a constitutional monarchy.

Louis is more morose than ever. He spends hours in his library. His prayer book is never far from his hand and he is rereading the life of Charles I of England, a monarch whose unhappy fate he has always sought to avoid. It is why he is such a conciliator. He would rather cede a mile of ground or a measure of power than forfeit the love of his “good people” whom he genuinely cares about as if they were his children.

Since our ignominious return from Varennes we have not been permitted to say Mass in the palace chapel because it lies too far from our apartments. Does the Assembly think that one day on our way to prayer we will make a dash for it down the lengthy corridors that separate the vast wings of the Tuileries? Instead, a corner of the Gallery of Diana, decorated with a few vases of flowers, has been transformed into a makeshift place of worship, with a temporary wooden altar that bears an ebony crucifix. If God is everywhere then He will hear our prayers just as well here as He would have done a hundred yards away. But some nights I lie abed and wonder if He hears me at all through the thunder of revolutionary rhetoric that is transforming France into a nation of savages.

As we approach Christmas, the autumn air becomes more bracing. When we are permitted to open the windows an inch or two—never wide enough that we might consider flight—I welcome the chill. The stench of the palace is unbearable. No one cleans the floors or the carpets. Our minders have yet to discover the benefits of regular bathing. The soldiers never change their uniforms, which are rank with perspiration. Most of our chamber women and what pass for footmen stink, their breath as rotten as their teeth.

I cannot say whether Axel has recognized the folly of his accusations against me, if he continues to believe that Barnave is my lover and that I have bewitched him into becoming a secret royalist. Count von Fersen is jealous. I know that he alone wants to be my champion. I know, too, that he continues to work secretly with King Gustavus to liberate France’s royal family and to restore the monarchy and that he desperately wishes to return to Paris to discuss matters of the utmost importance concerning their latest plan. But it is too dangerous now, even for such an intrepid soldier, for this most consummate of diplomats.

On December 7, I urge him not to try to visit me, reminding him of the bounty on his head should he be caught anywhere near the capital.

My longing to see you has never abated for an instant, but it is absolutely out of the question for you to attempt to see us. Your coming would risk our happiness, for I despair to think what may befall you, should there be the slightest mishap. Not only is the exterior of the palace heavily guarded and the Tuilieries Gardens turned into an armed camp, but we remain watched around the clock.

At least some of our sentries are more sympathetic than others. Saint-Prix, one of the old actors at the Comédie-Française—remember
him?—is the sentinel on duty in the corridor that divides the ground floor in two and which leads from my apartments to the king’s, upstairs. He has facilitated many a meeting between Louis and me; and as he is fond of whistling to himself at all hours of the day, has devised a system of codes: certain melodies indicate who is coming along the passage and whether it is dangerous to enter it, as well as when it is safe once again. Monsieur Collot, the chief of the battalion of the Garde Nationale responsible for guarding my apartments, is also no ogre. But these are two men I name out of thousands who would cut you down with their bayonets, or worse, just as they did to poor Monsieur de Malden upon our return from Varennes. He lay near death for weeks, and it is one of God’s miracles that he survived the horrific pummeling he received merely for being one of our
escorts
on that ill-starred journey. Can you imagine what your fate would be, were you to be found here?

Silhouetted in the amber glow of a guttering candle, I seal the envelope, as a breeze wafts across my shoulders, threatening to extinguish the flame. Even as my quill warns my beloved to stay away, my heart trembles with both fear and anticipation that he will nonetheless arrive unexpectedly.

Meanwhile, Louis has endeavored to effect a rapprochement with his cousin, the duc d’Orléans. Despite the latter’s republican sensibilities, he
is
a prince of the blood. In September, the king extended an olive branch to the duc by appointing him a naval admiral. Philippe welcomed the assignment, informing the comte de Molleville, Minister of Marine, that it would provide him the opportunity to demonstrate to His Majesty how maligned he has been by accusations of disloyalty to the crown.

After decades of enmity, the cousins appeared, finally, to be reconciled.
But at a banquet given in my apartments in January, several of the guests, unaware of the understanding that had at long last been effected, shout in horror when Orléans appears at the table, insinuating that he might have poisoned the food. The accusation is enough to shatter the fragile détente between the pair of noble kinsmen, and Philippe d’Orléans storms out of the Tuileries in a red-faced rage, insulted and infuriated.

Louis and I are incensed by the courtiers’ ignorant outcry, and the troublemakers are given a dressing-down; but the damage is done. After such an attack upon his character, I worry we may have forfeited our last hope of obtaining the support of the most influential man in Paris.

My fears bear fruit even sooner than we could have anticipated; within days of the debacle at the palace the duc changes his name to Philippe Égalité—a chilling emphasis of his final breach with the crown and his support for the Revolution.

NINETEEN

Resté Là

F
EBRUARY
13, 1792

I am seated at my escritoire scribbling a desperate letter to my brother Leopold as the sky behind me darkens. Owing to the vast amount of correspondence I engage in nowadays my handwriting has become so much worse. I hope he will be able to distinguish the words so that it may be deciphered. The clock on the black marble mantel chimes once to mark the quarter hour and I pause, mid-sentence, to glance at its golden hands. Five-fifteen.

I am nearly startled out of my chair by a key turning in the lock. My pulse races and I search for a place to hide the letter to the Austrian emperor, blowing on the ink and hastily sanding it, hoping that it will dry sufficiently enough not to smudge before I slide it beneath the blotting paper.

A hooded figure enters the room and my stomach seizes. A voice, muffled by the hood, says, “I have come to hear Your Majesty’s confession.”

Only priests who have sworn the oath to uphold the Constitution are permitted access to us now. If we do not wish to confess to these clerics who have become puppets of the Revolution, then we can choose to remain unabsolved of our sins. In any event, I would never tell my secrets to a tool of Robespierre.

“You may go the way you entered. I have nothing to say to you,” I reply, endeavoring to remain calm. “And how did you come by a key to my chamber? Were you given it by one of the guards?”

The priest turns the lock. I am his prisoner now. “The watch has gone to supper,
Majesté
. And you gave me this key yourself. In happier times.” He slides the hood away from his face and removes the cotton wadding from the hollows of his cheeks. The gray-blond wig that curls about the ears he leaves upon his head.

“Axel!” I breathe. And in the next moment, I gasp, “Don’t look at me!” for he has not seen me since we parted at Bondy. Only eight months have passed, but in them I have become an old woman. I am thirty-six, although one who didn’t know me might think the digits were reversed, for my eyes are hollow sockets, swollen from sleepless nights and red-rimmed from too many tears. My bosom, which measured forty-four inches after I had my children, has shrunk to almost nothing. And my hair is whiter than if I had powdered it for fashion’s sake. I am no longer a beauty, if ever he thought me one. I long to rush into Axel’s arms, to remain in his embrace, but I am rooted to the spot, terrified of stepping into the light of the candles that illuminate the chamber’s perimeter, disbelieving that we are truly alone and undisturbed, and that it is really Count von Fersen who stands before me.

Finally, he strides across the room and clasps me to him. My senses, so dulled by heartbreak and melancholia, are instantly alive once more with recognition. The sensation of his body against mine, the once-familiar scent of his skin! I am dizzy with memories
—mon Dieu!
Axel wears the toilet water I had commissioned
expressly for him so many years ago. Pressed against him, my cheek to his chest, I have never felt so petite. He tilts my chin with his fingers and our lips meet wetly, as hot tears bathe my face. “You shouldn’t have come,” I murmur, even though I am thinking
Thank God you are here!

“I had to,” Axel whispers. “For one thing, I could not bear the passing of another week without seeing you. For another, the plot I wish to discuss with you and the king is too sensitive to communicate by any means other than face-to-face.”

I cannot fathom how he managed to cross the border into France without arousing suspicion: He tells me that he traveled under a false passport issued in the name of his orderly’s servant, wearing a brown wig and several layers of clothing that made him appear shorter and stouter. “The lackey’s disguise is safely hidden within the home of a friend,” Axel assures me. And it was there that he was given a
curé
’s black soutane and skullcap. He perfectly resembles any one of the clerics who swore in 1790 to uphold the Constitution. “Should our meeting be interrupted, address me as abbé Benoit. I will immediately launch into a contentious political and theological discourse with you that will so bore and confound any guardsman, he will scarcely wish to remain.”

I am amazed at the courage it took him to enter the kingdom, knowing that he might instantly be put to death, were his disguise detected. I cannot stop gazing at him with an expression as full of love as it is of sorrow. Suddenly, Axel, too, is overcome with emotion. “I reproach myself every day for bidding you farewell and leaving you to such a fate,” he exclaims. I touch my finger to his lips to remind him to keep his voice low. Momentarily chastened, he begs me to relate every moment of the disastrous journey, sparing no detail. He is even interested in what repasts we enjoyed, and when we took them, especially because he was the one who provisioned the berline with my comfort in mind.