Marie Antoinette (50 page)

Other possibilities were Valenciennes, slightly north-west of Paris, which was originally favoured by the King but subsequently rejected for being too close to the Austrian Netherlands; and Besançon in the south, close to the Swiss border. The idea of leaving France via the Ardennes and then crossing back to a ’strong city” was also rejected because even the briefest departure might give an unfortunate impression of flight. If the choice, then, was to be Montmédy, what route should be followed to reach it? It was not exactly a light journey, 180-odd miles from Paris through terrain where anybody’s loyalty, whether soldier or citizen, might turn out to be doubtful. The obvious way was to go via Meaux and Rheims, and on to Montmédy itself: a straightforward route and the one favoured by the Marquis de Bouillé and Count Fersen, both experienced campaigners.

Suddenly the King asserted himself. He feared being recognized in and around Rheims, which was one of the few areas of France where he was known, thanks to the coronation ceremony there sixteen years ago. So the route chosen was to the south: Châlons-sur-Marne, then Sainte-Menehould, before turning north, through a small place called Varennes on the river Aire, on to Dun, crossing the Meuse, to Stenay and so to Montmédy. This involved using a minor road after Sainte-Menehould and in Bouillé’s view was just as dangerous. But the habit of obedience was too strong in the Marquis to allow him to disagree further with his sovereign. This was the way it was to be.

Mid-month, Bouillé assured Fersen that the road from Sainte-Menehould to Stenay would be guarded by loyal troops. Fersen actually questioned the security of such a display. Might it not be better, more of a subterfuge, if the small party travelled unattended by any kind of military presence? Fersen’s logic, however, was not accepted by Bouillé; as with his deference to the King over the route, Bouillé’s habit of protecting the King was deeply ingrained.

It now became a matter of personnel—and personalities, as ever in any risky enterprise—both in the military command and in the composition of the berlin party. Those in the know in January 1791, according to Marie Antoinette, had originally been limited to the Baron de Breteuil (now abroad), the Marquis de Bouillé and the Marquis de Bombelles, who had close connections to Breteuil. Then there was the Baron François de Goguelat, ADC to Bouillé and “Monsieur Gog” to the Queen, who used him as an emissary to Fersen. He was, said Marie Antoinette, “a man of action, rather zealous but devoted.” Now, however, it was a question of extending the network. A key role was to be played by the young Duc de Choiseul, Colonel of the Royal Dragoons, a relation of Louis XV’s minister.

The character of Choiseul was already the subject of criticism in the early stages of planning. At thirty-one Choiseul was young and “immature” for his command. Although fervent for the royal cause—he had honourably stayed with his regiment instead of emigrating—Choiseul was not a good organizer. “Inclined to be chaotic,” said Fersen to Bouillé, worried that Choiseul might commit some indiscretion. Nevertheless Choiseul had some useful attributes. He might be rash but he was both grand and rich and he could therefore pay for the necessary relays of horses along the way. So the values of the court were in a sense allowed to permeate strategy.

These values also affected the composition of the coach party. Originally it had been expected that Madame Elisabeth would join in the separate escape of the Comte de Provence and his wife. (In order to travel conveniently, Provence, obese as he might be, had taken up riding again.) But in accordance with her own fixed principle not to leave her brother, Madame Elisabeth was now to be a member of the main party. This meant that five people were already designated for the berlin, with, theoretically, room for one more. At this point protocol and duty dictated, at least to the Marquise de Tourzel, that she should be that one. Had she not given her word never to leave the Dauphin’s side? As a result of which she slept in his room every night, or, on that first dreadful night back at the Tuileries, had sat sleepless on his bed as a guardian. In spite of her health—the Marquise suffered badly from renal colic—she would not desert him now in his hour of danger. And that was that.

While it is true that Marie Antoinette had counted on the Marquise in her secret plotting of early February, that was before Madame Elisabeth planned to travel in the berlin. At that point the Queen believed that the remaining space would be allotted to some responsible senior courtier, such as the Duc de Villequier or the Duc de Brissac, both in their mid-fifties, both accustomed to decision-making, both trusted by the King. The two Ducs had, however, recently emigrated, the King fearing reprisals upon them following the debacle of Easter Monday, although “ce bon” Brissac was lofty enough about facing peril. He had done what he had done, he said, for the sake of the King’s ancestors—and his own.

There was no further attempt to insert a man of this calibre into the heart of the party, although it would certainly not have been physically impossible, given that two out of the designated six were children, one of them very small. For example, the Comte de Damas had expected that Vicomte d’Agoult, another loyal servant who had been accredited to him as an ADC by the King the previous autumn, would be fitted in. Instead, two equerries were to ride outside as bodyguards, along with a courier, the Comte de Valory. Two waiting-women, Madame Brunier for Madame Royale and Madame de Neuville for the Dauphin, were to follow in a light carriage. (Madame Thibault, for the Queen, had a separate passport to Tournai, from where she intended to join her mistress.) Count Fersen, who was to drive the berlin on the very first stage of its journey getting out of Paris, was to separate from the royal party after that was accomplished.

Fersen had originally expected to go the whole way to Montmédy, seeking permission from King Gustav to wear a Swedish uniform for the occasion, since his own French uniform was not with him, and he dared not order another one. But Louis XVI banned it. There has been some speculation as to his reason: did Louis XVI choose this moment for an uncharacteristic outburst of jealousy? It seems an unlikely development at this stage, given that Fersen was allowed to perform the risky task of driving out of Paris, with all the possibilities of discovery that that entailed. Perhaps it was snobbery, those court values again. The Duc de Lévis said afterwards that the role of coachman should have gone to “a grand French seigneur.” The most probable explanation lies in the fact that Fersen was a foreigner, for all his French military command, and everything was being done to avoid any foreign taint touching the King’s escape when he arrived at Montmédy.

Whatever the reason, the end result was a highly vulnerable composition to the berlin party: three adult royals who had spent most of their lives in a magnificent cocoon where ritual took the place of decision, a middle-aged woman in uncertain health and two children. As for Louis XVI, up until this point he had never even been involved at first hand in the question of the escape, having used a series of intermediaries; he was hardly prepared to act as leader in a crisis. The three male equerries were also comparatively junior and unused to command. It was important, under these circumstances, that nothing should go wrong.

The attitude of Mercy in Brussels and the Emperor in Austria did not become more encouraging throughout May and the early part of June, while the difficulties of raising money continued to bedevil the royal family’s preparations. Mercy bewailed the dangers of discovery—was it really the time for such a bold venture?—and Leopold continued to counsel prudence: “Calculate well the risks . . .” As late as 5 June, Leopold sent an indirect message that the royal family should stay in Paris and await rescue from outside. This provoked a horrified reaction from Marie Antoinette: “The glory of the escape must be
ours
. . .” But the Emperor did manage to embargo Artois from military action, telling him that he must obey his brother, while Louis XVI told the Duchesse de Polignac that he was being caused “a lot of disquiet” by Artois’ premature plans.

The first date seriously put forward was 12 June, once a hostile chambermaid had finished her tour of duty. But that was the eve of the Feast of Pentecost and the King feared that there would be an inordinate amount of people in the streets. On that day the coiffeur Léonard went to the Tuileries at ten o’clock at night through a side door, and was admitted, armed with a note from the Queen, through the dark and deserted apartments. Then he was entrusted with the baton of a Marshal of France, to be given to the Marquis de Bouillé at Montmédy. He was also entrusted with the Queen’s personal casket of jewellery intended for Brussels, the Queen retaining only a set of pearls, some diamond drops and certain
bijoux de fantaisie
(coloured semi-precious stones) as well as the two diamond rings that she always wore. The Crown Jewels of France, being national property and liable to inspection, had already been handed over, to be inventoried by the National Assembly. Whit Sunday itself—13 June—was Marie Antoinette’s patronal feast of St. Antony, that day of celebration in her distant childhood. Now there were those in the Royal Chapel who sang, in Latin, “God protect the Nation!” as well as others who sang, “God save the King!”

Discreet preparations made the next day included the stopping of the medicine with which the King had been purging himself since his spring illness, for the possible embarrassment it might cause him. Publicly, the King and Queen went to the opera, where payments for the royal box had been kept up through thick and thin. The new piece given, Candeille’s
Castor et Pollux
, was a revision of Rameau’s opera performed at their wedding twenty-one years earlier. Counsellor Blumendorf, left behind at the Austrian embassy, sent Mercy a coded message from the Queen that departure wasimminent; Mercy’s reaction was to advise Blumendorf to burn all compromising papers in his possession—and at the first hint of trouble, to lodge Mercy’s money and
assignats
(the new revolutionary currency) care of the banker Laborde.

During the week that followed, a number of loyal servants of the monarch were given a tip-off for the sake of their own security. These included the Vicomte d’Agoult, one of the rejected candidates to accompany the berlin, who was now provided with an excuse to emigrate. Joseph Weber, the foster-brother, had a private letter from the Queen: “Take shelter, get out.” The Princesse de Tarante, Marie Antoinette’s beloved friend—“If anything happened to her I should never forgive myself”—was sent away, but the Princesse de Lamballe, judged to be in too close touch with her brother-in-law the Duc d’Orléans, was not warned in advance. Madame Campan, whose tour of duty stopped on 1 June, was told to go and take the waters, while hiding a portfolio of papers with the painter Anne Vallayer Coster, that member of the French Academy whom Marie Antoinette had patronized.

The new date was 19 June. According to the Duc de Choiseul, who visited the Tuileries in disguise having had a meeting with Fersen, the King now objected to the fact that this was a Sunday and insisted on yet another day’s delay. Choiseul headed back to Metz. Finally it was to be Monday night, 20 June. “All is decided,” wrote the Queen to Mercy, still angry at not having heard from the Emperor about his troops advancing. “We go, Monday, at midnight, and nothing can alter that plan, we should expose those who are working for us in this enterprise to too much danger.”

Throughout the day itself Marie Antoinette was desperate to preserve an air of normalcy about her routine. The King gave one last interview to Fersen; they would meet next, if everything went according to plan, when the Count was dressed as a coachman on the box of the berlin. But if the rescue failed, Louis ordered Fersen to get out himself, to reach Brussels and try to organize something from there. The Queen also said farewell to Fersen—temporarily, it was to be hoped—but still she shed a few tears. At five o’clock she then took her children on a drive to the beautiful Tivoli gardens belonging to Monsieur Boutin, a financier, and made a display of walking in public with them. It was under cover of this expedition that Marie Thérèse, aged twelve and a half, was instructed by her mother not to be surprised by anything that might shortly happen to her. If she seemed upset, the girl was to tell the accompanying waiting-women that her mother had scolded her. The six-year-old Dauphin was thought to be too young to be let into the secret, and then there was his indiscreet tongue. As she returned to the Tuileries, the Queen instructed the National Guards to be ready to take them on a similar expedition the next day.

The Dauphin went up to his apartments for his supper at eight-thirty, and the Marquise de Tourzel joined him in his room, as usual, at ten o’clock. The Provences arrived from the Luxembourg for a family supper that night as was customary. Everyone was in high spirits, Provence said later, and full of hope because they all expected to be meeting again in happier circumstances in four days’ time. Provence himself was riding out—thanks to his new lessons—disguised as an English merchant with one gentleman in attendance; the target in his case was Belgium where the Archduchess Marie Christine and the Archduke Albert had returned a few days previously. It was at this meal that the King confided to his brother for the first time the secret of his Montmédy destination; he ordered Provence to join him, via Belgium, at Longwy. Josephine de Provence, who knew nothing about any plans until this moment, was instructed to flee separately with one lady in attendance. All four, King, Queen, Provence and Josephine, embraced tenderly at the end of the evening.