Confessions of Marie Antoinette (39 page)

Madame Élisabeth and I have undertaken the education of Madame Royale. Owing to her aunt’s tutelage, Mousseline is already more proficient in mathematics than I ever was.

In the afternoons, even when the weather is inclement, we avail ourselves of the opportunity to stroll about the gardens
en famille
. One day, as a fine autumn mist falls, Louis Charles urges, “Give me a ride, Papa.”

“What did you forget to say?” I prompt.

“S’il vous plaît,”
he replies docilely, a blush suffusing his pretty cheeks.

The king—for my husband will always be the king to me—hoists our son onto his shoulders and prances like a horse around the beds of greenery as the gentle rain soaks their hatless heads. I insist that the pair of them change into dry clothes before we head in to supper.

At least the Commune has never stinted on the quality as well as the quantity of our comestibles. Thirteen servants minister to our needs, both at the main meal and for the evening repast. Unfortunately, as Louis is deprived of the ability to hunt or ride, he is gaining more weight, drowning his sorrows every afternoon in the three soup courses, four entrées, six roast meat dishes, and the four or five desserts that are served, in addition to the stewed and fresh fruits that are provided afterwards to cleanse the palate. He eats almost as much in the evenings, when nearly the same number of courses are provided.

As we have done every night after supper since our incarceration, the family gathers in the salon for games of backgammon or piquet while the children amuse themselves. Madame Élisabeth often sits by the fire, immersed in her devotional. On other occasions my
belle-soeur
, Mousseline, and I quietly ply our needles, while Louis reads and the dauphin sits on the carpet, contentedly playing with his toys, although his tiny leaden soldiers have been confiscated by the commissioners of the Commune.

On September 26, after the main meal, while the king is preparing
to descend into the courtyard, having promised our son for days that they would fly a kite together, a delegation from the National Convention arrives, led by the commissioners Daujon and Manuel, the Public Procurator. Their expressions are grim, although behind them I detect a note of triumph.

“I bear instructions to remove Citizen Capet to the Grosse Tour,” Daujon announces.

I feel as if someone has struck me in the chest with an ax.
“Non!”
I cry. “But why?” Madame Élisabeth drops her prayer book; it lands on the nearby tabletop with a dull
thump
. The children begin to bawl hysterically. Madame Royale throws her arms about her father’s neck and, turning back to the commissioners with a look of pure rage, screams, “Why must you take my papa? Why do you hate us so?” Clinging to his father’s coat and staining it with his tears, the dauphin cannot even summon any words.

“What does this mean, messieurs?” I breathe, suddenly sick and dizzy. What earthly reason would they have to separate us?

Daujon shrugs, reiterating that his orders are to escort Citoyen Capet into an apartment on the second floor of the large tower. Monsieur Manuel approaches my husband and with a violent tug, rips the
cordon rouge
from his breast. He dashes the red sash and the cross of the Order of Saint Louis to the floor. The gold and enamel medal skitters under an armchair.

“Was that necessary?” I demand, fighting to contain my tears. “Have you not humiliated the poor man enough?” And then, the rationale for Louis’s removal painfully dawning, “I know,” I add, “why you wish to isolate him. But if these are truly to be his final months, what do you—what does the Nation—gain by depriving him of the comforts of his family? Why must you take him from us? Allow us, I beg of you, by all that is holy, let my husband remain among those who love him.”

In that moment I am struck with the powerful realization that this may be only the second time in all our years of marriage that I have openly admitted my love for
mon mari
. By now my shoulders heave with sobs. I attempt reason with the commissioners. I beg. I will do anything to keep Louis with us. “Do not remove him from the sight of his children,” I plead. “Do not deprive them of their final weeks with their papa.”

Hearing a loud sniffle, I turn in the direction of the sound. Monsieur Goret, the municipal guard on duty today in our salon, is struggling to stifle his emotion. Goret has two children of his own whom he rarely sees; his duties at the Temple encompass the
plupart
of his days. I catch his eye and he averts his gaze. Perhaps a compassionate heart beats within his breast after all.

Will sympathy save us?

Goret approaches the commissioners, engaging them in a hushed and furtive conversation. Finally, Commissioner Daujon turns to us, saying abruptly, “Meals only. Louis Capet may join his family for breakfast, dinner, and supper—providing that everyone speaks only in French and in a clear, loud voice.”

I curtsy to him—the Queen of France bending her knee to an officer of the Paris Commune!—and murmur my thanks, adding, “Please, messieurs, see that my husband is well looked after.” I worry about the state of Louis’s mind without the affection of his family about him. “Will he at least be permitted his books?” I ask.

Commissioner Manuel nods. “Citoyen Capet may read to his heart’s content,” Manuel replies. “But paper and writing implements are henceforth forbidden to him.”

Louis and I exchange a forlorn look. I think about the hunting journals he has kept since I’ve known him, the sting of some of the notations he has made over the years—including the one word,
rien
, that he wrote with reference to our wedding day, when nothing
indeed occurred in the matrimonial bed that night. Now he will not even be allowed to record the day’s events—an endless string of “nothings” because the Commune has prohibited him, not only from riding, but from leaving the confines of the Temple.

Clasping my hands in his, Louis says, “Don’t cry, madame. I will see you at supper tonight.” He forces a feeble chuckle. “Think of it as if we were at Versailles, where I spent the day in my apartments tending to the business of the kingdom.”

How foolish and young I was then, so eager to be rid of Louis, the bore who cared only about locks and masonry and history and hunting and had so little interest in my own pleasures! How I delighted in the time away from him! He has always been a good man, but once I thought it a chore to suffer his presence for several hours at a time. Now, I would give anything to remain in the same room.

“What is it like up there, Papa, all by yourself?” the dauphin asks his father that evening, as we linger over our meal. Every minute together has become a gift. Never have we chewed more slowly.

“I did not see them take our good Cléry away,” Louis mutters, more to himself than to answer our son. He shakes his head. “The shutters are sealed closed. The only light I receive comes from the transom above the windows.”

“Then you did not see Monsieur Cléry return, brother.” It pleases Madame Élisabeth to give him the good news. “After questioning him for several hours, the Commune determined that he was ignorant of whatever they suspected him of doing—or knowing—and so they permitted him to rejoin our service.”

Outside the Temple, although Louis is denied the view, the nights grow longer as the leaves turn. The season of dying approaches.

At the end of October Commissioner Daujon informs me that
we are to be reunited with Citizen Capet. My breath catches as I anticipate Louis’s return to our cozy apartment in the small tower. But Daujon quickly disabuses me of this hope. The rest of the
famille
Capet is to join Louis in the large tower. What does it mean? To allow us to live as a family again, yet deprived of the opportunity to see the sun and the stars?

The dauphin is to sleep in his father’s bedchamber from now on. Madame Royale and her aunt must share mine, a boudoir tastefully decorated with blue and green furnishings that are pleasing to the eye and soothing to the soul. My new rooms lie directly upstairs from Louis’s quarters, four stories above the cobblestone courtyard. Wicket gates have been installed at a dozen intervals along the winding tower staircase, forcing me to stoop each time I pass through one of the barriers. And on every landing, sturdy oaken doors are reinforced with iron bars and bolts, and heavy chains must be unlocked, one by one, before we can progress to the next landing.

Immediately upon my arrival at the apartment in the large tower, I close the charming white cotton curtains; I do not wish to be reminded of the permanently shuttered windows.

Once again the disgraced royal family settles into a routine. Fastidious about punctuality even in our strained circumstances, Louis rises at seven every morning and prays for an hour before breakfast. Often he is joined by Madame Élisabeth, who has chosen since girlhood to dedicate her life to her brother. No husband could have been the recipient of so much fidelity and devotion.

At eight o’clock, Louis and the dauphin join the rest of us for breakfast in my apartments and then my husband returns downstairs with our son to resume the boy’s tutelage. At least we are still permitted to stroll about the Temple gardens, which we do as a family at eleven every morning. It breaks my heart the first time Louis Charles asks his Papa if he will fly a kite with him as they
used to do. I catch Louis’s eye. How do you tell your little boy that there will be no more kites from now on because Maman and Papa have been deprived of paper and string?

We eat dinner every day at two o’clock and then sit down to cards and other pastimes. Louis is teaching the dauphin how to play chess. I overhear him explaining to our son that “when your opponent corners your king, placing him in an untenable position from which he has no legal move that will not result in his capture, the game is—” As he realizes what he has just said, he halts, mid-sentence. I turn away, overcome.

Madame Élisabeth gives a little gasp. She is mending a tear in her own gown, and bites off the thread with her teeth after securing it. Her shears were taken from her as were my embroidery scissors. We are to own nothing sharp anymore. Even our tables are set without knives. Forks are permitted only during the repast; they are spirited away by the servants before the compotes are served at the end of the meal.

Louis takes a two-hour nap precisely at four. We allow him his undisturbed slumber, but when he wakes, he insists that the dauphin return for his additional lessons. Father and son pore over books and maps and mathematical problems until supper. At nine
P.M
. Louis Charles is tucked into his bed with a glass of warm milk and many kisses, while his papa retires with a book.

One evening, with a look of suspicion in his small dark eyes, Monsieur Goret asks me what I am doing. “You are not supposed to have paper, Citoyenne Capet,” he warns.

“I-I had this from before—when we were still in the Tour de César,” I reply, folding the little packets closed. “I would never use this for any other purpose, monsieur—I give you my word. See?” I show him what the little papers contain. “This dark curl, this is my daughter’s. And this one,” I add, showing Goret the other packet,
“this light brown lock is the dau—my son’s.” I bury my nose in each of the papers, inhaling the comforting scents. “I take them out of my jewelry case and look at them every day. I have so little nowadays in the way of comforts,” I implore. “Please do not take them from me.”

Reluctantly, he relents. “
Merci
, monsieur,” I murmur gratefully. I mean it.

But the autumn days will only grow darker and more bleak. Even through the shuttered windows of the Grosse Tour we can hear the boys in the
rues
below crying the
nouvelles
. “Robespierre declares, ‘The king must die so the Nation can live!’ ” they shout on the third of December.

In the past month the French forces have routed the allies; they have even entered Brussels, and the National Convention has announced its support for any nation wishing to regain its liberty. It is a war cry against monarchs across the continent. But they have already taken away my husband’s throne. Why must they demand his life as well?

We hold our breath. Perhaps the lawyer from Arras is only posturing. But the insults and deprivations escalate. On December 7, Louis appears at breakfast with stubble on his cheeks and chin. He resembles a peasant. “They have taken away my razor—and even my shaving soap,” he says incredulously. “They believe that it contains poison.”

“In that case you would only be poisoning yourself,” I reply. “Does the Commune think you will fling lather at our guards? Or wrestle them to the ground and play at being a barber?”

Later in the day, Monsieur Goret demands Louis’s tinderbox. Surely he doesn’t suspect the king will strike a flint and burn down the Temple? From now on, someone else will have to be summoned to relight his candles if they gutter and burn out. Goret
extends his hand. “Your toothpick, too, Citoyen Capet.” His cheeks are as red as his guardsman’s
gilet
. From Goret’s doleful expression, I sense that he would not make such a petty demand, were he not under strict orders from his superiors.

The Commune is intentionally stripping every vestige of dignity from the benevolent soul who was once the most powerful man in the land. Louis will no longer be able to groom his beard except in the unlikely event that some munificent lackey in the employ of the Commune assumes this tonsorial responsibility, nor can he keep his teeth adequately clean. The quickest way to debase a man is to deprive him of his ability to attend to his personal hygiene. Soon Louis will resemble the vagabonds who sleep beneath the bridges that span the Seine.

Four days later, escorted by armed and uniformed soldiers, to the accompaniment of ominous drumrolls, Mayor Pétion arrives with a delegation from the Commune. Without preamble, Commissioner Manuel states, “By order of the National Convention Louis Charles Capet, the
ci-devant
dauphin of France, is to be moved from the apartments of Citizen Capet to those of his mother.” Louis, Madame Élisabeth, and I exchange anxious glances.