Confessions of Marie Antoinette (50 page)

Two men are seated behind a long table, the candlelight sculpting their faces with ghoulish shadow. I recognize one of them by his jutting chin and low forehead—the Public Prosecutor, Antoine Quentin Fouquier-Tinville. With exaggerated politeness he introduces his confederate, Nicolas Hermann, the examining magistrate. Like a pair of crows, both men are garbed entirely in black. Around each of their necks hangs a medal inscribed with the ominous words
La Loi
—The Law. They wear the round hats that are fashionable now, their brims turned up jauntily at the front, and embellished at the side of the crown with the fluffy black egret plumes I once used to adorn my riding
chapeaux
.

Fouquier-Tinville bids me take a seat on a hard bench opposite the table. In the shadows a stenographer sits with his quill poised. Regardless of what I say, I am condemned; before the Revolutionary Tribunal there is no appeal.

Citoyen Hermann commences the interrogation, explaining that our meeting is simply a preliminary hearing, meaning, I suppose, that this is merely the beginning of what we all know is a preposterous charade designed to be a sop to those who believe that the former Queen of France should at least have a trial before she is judged guilty of all the crimes against the Nation for which she stands accused.

Hermann begins by demanding whether I coerced Citizen
Louis Capet to affix his veto, despite the protests of the Minister of Justice, Antoine Duranton.

“Duranton was not yet the Minister of Justice,” I reply calmly. “And in any event, my husband never needed anyone to persuade him to do his duty. Besides, these matters were decided in Council. As I expect you know, monsieur, queens of France are merely consorts to the monarch; as such, I was never a member of the Council and was never a party, nor even in the room, when such decisions were taken.”

He does not like my answer. But I have no other. Citoyen Hermann changes the subject, certain that he will entrap me in a response that will condemn me.

“Before the Revolution, you had a relationship with the king of Hungary and Bohemia,” he states.

I assume he refers to Joseph II, or perhaps Leopold. “Are you suggesting that it is unusual for a sister to be related to her older brother?”

Monsieur Hermann goes on to accuse me of ruining the nation’s finances “in a terrible way” by sending wagonloads of gold to my brother. “You, Citoyenne Capet, have dissipated for your personal pleasures the fruits of the people of France, the sweat of their labors, in collusion with the ministers of state, sending millions to the emperor—funds to be used against the very people who have nourished you.” Again I deny his charges. It is clear that he has believed a fiction perpetrated for years by my detractors.

“You were the maleficent one who taught Louis Capet that profound art of dissimulation which for so long he used to deceive the good people of France.”

“It is true, monsieur, that for years the ‘good people’ of France were deceived—cruelly deceived—but not by my husband, nor by myself.”

Citoyen Hermann leans forward, steepling his tapered fingers. His shadow looms upon the wall. “By whom, then?”

“By those with an interest in deceiving them. It was not in our interest to deceive them.”

“Who then, in your opinion, are the persons who intended to deceive the people?”

I will not allow him to trick me by mentioning any of the architects of the Revolution or even its early blue-blooded adherents, such as the king’s own deep-pocketed cousin the duc d’Orléans, who fooled the people only temporarily by changing his name to Philippe Égalité, for he may all too soon suffer the same fate as I. “I do not know, monsieur. Our own interest has always been to enlighten the people, not to mislead them.”

My interrogator is becoming more exasperated by the minute. Growing red in the face, he raises his voice. “Never—never for a moment, Citoyenne Capet, did you and your husband desist from your plan to destroy the liberty of the French people. It was your aim to reign at any price, even if it meant you had to step over the battered, bloodied, and bruised bodies of dead patriots to reascend the throne!”

“We had no need to reascend the throne. We were already there,” I reply, correcting his facts. “And we never desired anything but France’s happiness.”

“If this were true, citoyenne, you would not have incited your brother to make war upon France.”

This time, the examining magistrate has utterly reversed the facts to suit his line of questioning. I gently remind him that it was France who had declared war upon Austria.

“But were you not interested in the military successes of France’s enemies?” Citoyen Hermann has the relentless determination of a dog who fears that someone will confiscate his bone.

“I am interested in the success of the nation to which my son belongs.”

“And what nation is that?” Hermann sneers.

“Isn’t he French?” I ask rhetorically.

“I suppose you regret that your son has lost a throne that he would have mounted had not the people, awakening at long last to their rights of liberty, destroyed his opportunity.”

“I shall never regret my son’s loss of anything, if his loss proves to be his country’s gain.”

“Do you believe kings are necessary for the happiness of the people, citoyenne?”

“It is not for me to say. An individual cannot decide such a question.”

Irked because he has not been able to trick me into making an incriminating statement, the examining magistrate continues to barrage me with questions, commingling fact with fiction by accusing me of “instigating Louis Capet’s treason in June of 1791. It was you, citoyenne, who advised and encouraged—perhaps even persecuted—him into attempting to leave France.”

For an educated man, his knowledge of geography is appalling—unless his intent is to perpetuate revolutionary propaganda. Montmédy, which had been our final destination, is of course within the nation’s borders. “It was never the king’s intention to leave France,” I reply truthfully.

Hermann’s frustration is written on his face.

Then he accuses me of entering into negotiations with foreign powers since the Revolution began. I steady my breath. “What proofs do you have?” I inquire calmly. Hermann’s mouth twitches and he casts a brief sideways glance at the Public Prosecutor. I resist the urge to exhale with relief. They have nothing. And in soberest truth, this is the only treasonable offense I have engaged in. The
rest of the charges are thoroughly invented. But that will not stop the Revolutionary Tribunal from convicting and sentencing me.

In all, the examining magistrate puts thirty-five questions to me during this preliminary hearing before demanding that I name an advocate to defend me at the impending trial. Perspiration beads upon my brow although the hall is cold. “I do not know anyone, messieurs,” I admit.

“Then the court will appoint an advocate to represent you,” the Public Prosecutor says. They are the first words Fouquier-Tinville has uttered in more than two hours.

The man chosen by the Revolutionary Tribunal is Claude Chauveau-Lagarde, already a distinguished lawyer from Chartres when he made his name by defending Marat’s murderess Charlotte Corday. Her fate, too, was a foregone conclusion.

I meet Chauveau-Lagarde for the first time when he visits my cell in the Conciergerie the next day, bearing Fouquier-Tinville’s eight-page indictment. My trial is scheduled to begin the following morning. I regard his earnest face, his large, intelligent brown eyes, and see a sacrificial lamb.

THIRTY-TWO

I Will Not Let Them Break Me

O
CTOBER
1793

“We don’t have much time,” Chauveau-Lagarde says. “I am sorry.”

I see him glancing about the cell at the pair of guards, at Madame Harel in her stained mobcap, scowling as ever. “Do not expect us to be permitted any privacy,” I tell him. He has the conscientious look of a man of genuine integrity who does not regard his commission from the Revolutionary Tribunal as a joke, but views it instead as a monumental challenge. Aware that the odds are insurmountable, he wishes nonetheless to build the best possible defense.

I study his face as he reads the indictment: Although Monsieur Chauveau-Lagarde is only a year younger than I am, time has been far kinder to him. “It is a matter of law that I read the indictment to you so that you may hear the charges in full,” my advocate tells me, as if it were not a matter of life and death, or more accurately, death. Untying the scroll, he begins, “ ‘An examination of the relevant
documents,’ ” and then enumerates a list of queens of France to whom the indictment compares me, from Messalina to the Medicis—never mind that the first was an infamous Roman and that the other notorious women on the list (Brunhilda the Visigoth, and the ruthlessly sadistic Frédégonde, a Merovingian Queen), predate the kingdoms of Austria and France as we know them. “Please, madame, it is the law; I must read the full indictment to you.” At my frustrated nod, he continues. “ ‘Like these queens whose names will forever be odious and who will never be removed from the pages of history, the Widow Capet, Marie Antoinette, has, ever since her arrival in France, been to the French people a curse and a bloodsucker.’ ”

This is the preamble to a formal document?

The indictment reiterates the subjects I was questioned about yesterday: my political relations with the “King of Bohemia and Hungary,” my brother Joseph, to whom I had allegedly sent millions; an “orgy” I had allegedly prompted when we entertained the Flemish regiment at Versailles shortly before the people stormed it in 1789; accusations that I have been responsible for the massacre of loyal patriots (they have corrupted the truth of everything!) and that I have betrayed France’s military plans to her enemies.

“I would be an inept attorney were I to allow you to be surprised during the interrogation,” Chauveau-Lagarde tells me, visibly uncomfortable, “but it pains me to know that the following charges will appall you. The accusation that follows is Jacques Hébert’s. It reads:
That the Widow Capet is so perverted that, forgetting she is a mother, and ignoring the boundaries of nature, she has practiced with her own son Louis Charles Capet those indecencies avowed by the latter, whose very name invoke a shudder.”

I scarcely dare to comprehend his meaning. Tangled as the verbiage is, can the vile Hébert be insinuating that I have physically violated my child? And that Louis Charles has confessed to it? My
eyes sting with tears. “Of course this is untrue! How can anyone believe such a heinous accusation?”

“You must be prepared to fully rebut it at trial,” Chauveau-Lagarde replies. “As well as the next charge in the indictment, which is no less ludicrous.” Adjusting his spectacles he reads,
“That the Widow Capet pushed the bounds of dissimulation and perfidy to such an extent as to compose, print, and distribute pamphlets and caricatures in which she herself was depicted in a lewd and undesirable manner, in order to lay a false scent that would persuade the foreign powers that the French were grossly maligning her character. Moreover, it is Citoyenne Capet who is the true author of the memoirs and pamphlets allegedly written by the comtesse de Lamotte-Valois revealing the former queen’s libidinous desires with persons of both sexes as well as the passionate Sapphic relationship between the queen and the comtesse.”

My hand flies to my mouth in horror. “That is an absurd fiction! Do they expect right-thinking men to swallow such nonsense?” But no sooner are the words out of my mouth than I have my answer. For so long the people have been willing to believe everything else: that I was solely responsible for bankrupting France, that I am sexually rapacious, that I controlled my husband’s every breath, that I channeled wagonloads of gold to the Austrian emperor, even that I suggested that the starving people eat cake instead of bread when a harvest had been poor—a comment that makes no sense no matter how one looks at it, nor would it be my nature to say something so insensitive.

Chauveau-Lagarde has been shaking his head as he reads the indictment, shocked at its vitriolic tone. Sadly, I am unsurprised. “They hate me, monsieur, with a passion I believe to be unequaled in history. I am like the Biblical scapegoat, condemned to die for every ill that has ever befallen the nation.”