Confessions of Marie Antoinette (14 page)

“Tell me why this is so different from Trianon or Versailles?” I murmur to Louis as we stroll amid so many other women clad in gossamer white.

“Regardez, ma chère,”
he replies, remarking upon their smiles and shining eyes. “Because they are all so filled with hope and happiness.”

All I see is hypocrisy.

TEN

Safety Is Merely an Illusion

Back in my bedchamber at Saint-Cloud, my slumber is interrupted one August morning when a movement at my window sash causes me to bolt upright. “Campan!” I shriek. In an instant Henriette, who sleeps in a cot beside my bed, is wide awake.

“Run!” she shouts. But where does one run when a man, his features concealed by a thick scarf, is leaping toward you wielding an unsheathed knife, and your door is locked to prevent intruders from the corridors?

My fingers fumble with the bolt. I pound upon the thick panels of the door, crying
“Au secours!”
shouting for help and praying that the guard outside my chamber has not deserted his post. I jump back as I hear a thud on the opposite side of the room and the sound of shattering porcelain. In an effort to disarm him, Madame Campan has hurled a vase at our intruder.

My bodyguard, with another at his side, sabers aloft, crashes through the door to find the queen and her lady-in-waiting at either end of the counterpane using it the way a swordsman might
wield his cape to parry the advancing blows of his attacker. Within moments my assailant is lying facedown on the carpet, his arms pinned behind him, the guard’s boot heel placed squarely in the small of his back. Wordlessly the man is whisked out of my bedchamber, his cries for mercy muffled by his disguise.

My heart is beating so rapidly that I cannot catch my breath. The princesse de Lamballe comes running with a glass of orange flower water sweetened with sugar, which she knows will soothe my nerves. My first thoughts are for the king and our children. Has anyone tried to harm them, too? But when an interrogation reveals that I was the sole target of the assassin’s blade, I ask that the entire event be concealed from Madame Royale and the dauphin so as not to alarm them. The danger has passed. I have no wish to cause them nightmares. And when I remember that the dauphin has on occasion asked permission to pass the night with his maman—like his late grand-aunt Sophie, he is terrified of thunderstorms—I am gladder than ever that I refused his request.

When Louis learns that the attacker came in from the gardens, he convenes a committee to discuss how to best ensure the security of the royal family without, if possible, altering the public’s privilege of promenading about the palace grounds. Axel—who visits the château only after dark—is present, as are Lafayette and Mirabeau. More guards? But an increased presence of armed men is no guarantee of their loyalty to the crown, Count von Fersen argues.

Axel is, unfortunately, prescient. A few weeks after the apprehension in my bedchamber of the would-be murderer, an Italian named Rotondo who was a known Orléaniste, I begin to share a few morsels of my supper with Odin, the Swedish elkhound who was the count’s gift to me six summers earlier, feeding the dog bits of roasted chicken from my plate before I partake of the meal. Moments later, Odin begins to whine and chase his tail in circles. He tosses his head back spasmodically as if to bite something on the
back of his own neck. Something is very wrong. I push my plate away and try to comfort my pet. The count, who is dining with us, also rushes to Odin’s aid. The dog emits sounds I have never before heard and slinks off to his bed in the corner of the salon, placing his muzzle between his paws. His eyes are glassy and his expression is the most woeful thing I have ever seen. I try to hold him and stroke his thick neck, but he jumps, panicking at my touch. “Is there some sort of emetic we can give him?” I ask. What does one feed a sick dog? Then the drooling begins, and soon Odin’s legs can no longer hold him. The seizures are violent.

“Come away,
ma chère
,” Louis gently urges. But I will not leave. Trembling, I remain on the floor, my ivory striped skirts puddled about me, embracing my dog, my lover’s gift to me, my tears bathing Odin’s gray and white coat until his strange whimpering and erratic breathing cease.

Hours later, when it is over, Axel helps me to my feet. My face is puffy and my eyes are swollen from weeping. I, too, am now a murderer.

“You couldn’t have known,” he soothes, stroking my hair and dabbing my tears with his handkerchief.

By midnight, a cook’s apprentice has been arrested for poisoning the queen’s supper. Everything on my plate, including the
petits-pois
, was deadly, liberally laced with strychnine.

From now on, the preparation of my food is carefully overseen by one of my own trusted attendants. Insisting that one can never be too careful, Madame Campan herself changes the contents of the powdered sugar in the bowl that is maintained in my room for
eau sucrée;
these days I am more often in need of the sweetened orange flower water than ever. Still, I think she is being overly cautious, if not wasteful, and heaven knows I have been criticized enough for profligacy. The scare is over, the culprit caught and imprisoned. “Henriette, they will not employ poison against me again.
They will use calumny,” I say bitterly, “which is much more effective for killing people, and it is by that they will make me die.”

Never was there a viler creature, a more venomous serpent than the one within the bosom of the Bourbons, that prince of the blood the duc d’Orléans. He is Grand Master of the Freemasons, an arcane society that my favorite sister Charlotte, Queen Maria Carolina of Naples has cautioned me about. The Freemasons seem to be hand-in-glove with the Illuminati, a breeding ground for revolutionary intelligentsia who intend to overthrow monarchies and create God-knows-what. Charlotte has pledged to destroy their vipers’ nests wherever she can find them in her own kingdom. “Sister, they are lodged within your own realm as well. Beat them now, with a mighty stick, before it is too late,” she warns.

We depart Saint-Cloud in October and move back to the Tuileries. In November, during one of his clandestine visits to the palace, the comte de Mirabeau brings more bad news concerning the duc d’Orléans and a nemesis from my past. The comtesse de Lamotte-Valois had returned from London. She’d been hiding in the English capital ever since someone had aided her escape from the Salpêtrière prison, where she’d been incarcerated for masterminding the plot to convince the former Grand Almoner of France, Cardinal de Rohan, to purchase a diamond necklace worth nearly two million livres. The comtesse had won the cardinal’s trust by assuring him that not only was she an intimate of mine, but that I secretly coveted the extravagant bauble.

“Upon her arrival in Paris she was immediately offered sanctuary by Orléans,” Mirabeau informs us. “The duc has established her in a magnificently appointed home on the Place Vendôme.”

“He intends the insult to be known!” I exclaimed. “The more this malevolent woman, this criminal, is cosseted, the more I am made to appear the fool!”

“No one is more indignant than I at this news,” Mirabeau assures
me. “They mean to demand a new trial for Madame de Lamotte-Valois, in which, you can be certain, every slander she leveled against Your Majesty more than four years ago, and some new ones besides, will be spewed like invectives before a tribunal of magistrates who, this time will not even make a
pretense
of impartiality.”

How well I recall the lies this horrid woman has told about me. Not only did she manage to convince
tout le monde
that I was both covetous and covert, when in fact I knew nothing about the entire transaction, but that she and I were lovers. A new edition of her memoirs has just been published across the Channel, in which the erstwhile comtesse has the gall to write,
The Queen turned her eyes on what she called my “outstanding attractions,” then her soft lips, her kisses following her greedy, hungry glances over my quivering body—what a welcome substitute I made, she laughed, for the lumpish repulsive body of the “Prime Minister,”—her mocking name for the King
. A copy of this repugnant screed had been sent to me anonymously, wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine. I opened it in error, mistaking it for a gift from my dear duchesse de Polignac.

I had never met the comtesse de Lamotte-Valois and still have not done so to this day, nor would I ever wish to set eyes upon her.
“Calumny,”
I remind Madame Campan. “They will murder me with calumny.”

“Never! I will tear you from your executioners or die in the attempt!” Mirabeau vows, his pockmarked face growing red with vitriol.

Yet every week seems to bring a fresh danger. Like a giant bellows, the Fête de la Fédération fanned the flames of Revolution into a bonfire. No sooner had they been uttered, than the cheers for the royal family that rainy day in mid-July died on our subjects’ lips. A new world order is beginning to replace everything we have
known and revered, instigated by the increasingly radical demagogues of the National Assembly. The State is rife with anti-clericalism. The clergy are painted as greedy, superstitious, and corrupted representatives of an ancient system of order, bent on suffocating rationality and reform.

With the heaviest heart, Louis has been compelled to sign a decree that forces all priests to swear an oath to the new Constitution. If they do not do so, they will face certain prosecution, and be forbidden to exercise their clerical functions. Rome of course disapproves of the Constitution, but the Pope’s opinion has no impact on the deputies of the Assembly. My husband is torn apart. In his heart he naturally concurs with His Holiness. Yet Louis cannot afford to stand by his scruples. It is just too dangerous.

The king’s maiden aunts, Mesdames Adélaïde and Victoire, horrified by the new decree, inform him that they no longer wish to remain in a country where they cannot practice their religion with complete freedom. On the 19th of February, 1791, the two surviving daughters of Louis XV steal away from their residence, the Château de Bellevue, in the unmarked carriage of a visiting friend. When their departure is discovered, there is an outcry in the National Assembly. Insidious propaganda published in the Revolutionary journals announces that the king’s aunts left with a large entourage and an even larger cache of money and gemstones, intending to use them as bribes for counterrevolutionary activities.

It is Mirabeau who comes to the Tuileries to tell us that the princesses have been arrested in Burgundy by a local unit of the Garde Nationale who at the behest of the Assembly intend to force their return to Paris.

I tremble at the comte’s account of the event. What must these two intrepid women have thought when the traces of their carriage were slashed by a mob, preventing them from traveling farther?
Surrounded by angry faces, and angrier fists pounding upon the doors of their coach, crying, “To the lamppost!” How they must have feared for their lives!

“You must help them,” Louis pleads. In his watery blue gaze is the reminder of the monthly retainer he pays Mirabeau for his loyalty. “What quarrel could the nation have with two aging women, who have lived retired from court life for years?” True, they were quite the
intrigantes
in their day, especially Madame Adélaïde, who had taken me under her wing when I was dauphine, a naïve fourteen-year-old who knew so little of the Bourbon ways, and had used me as the unwitting weapon to destroy her own enemies at court, including her father’s mistress, the comtesse du Barry. But the claws of these cats have been dulled by disuse. And with far greater enemies baying for our blood, I have long since forgiven Mesdames
tantes’
trespasses against me.

Louis pens a letter to the Assembly. He expresses his regret at the separation from his beloved aunts after enjoying the pleasure of their company for so many decades, but acknowledges that he has no right to deprive his relations of the same privilege afforded to even the humblest of France’s citizens—the freedom to travel.

The issue is hotly debated in the Salle du Manège, but Mirabeau finally prevails, appealing to the Assembly’s aspiration to be viewed as a wise and authoritative governmental body, rather than a convention of hotheads. “The rest of Europe will undoubtedly be greatly astonished on hearing that France’s National Assembly spent four hours deliberating the departure of two old ladies who preferred to hear Mass at Rome rather than at Paris,” he thunders. “Their promenading about the ruins of a former civilization does nothing to prevent our attaining the new civilization to which we aspire.”

After this display of convincing eloquence the Assembly believes it has won, when in fact the victory has gone to the monarchy.
Other royalists are beginning to quietly cross the borders, discreetly taking whatever they can carry. It is becoming popular to convert one’s wealth into jewels as well as currency. It would be rather indiscreet to transport such items as paintings, tapestries, and fine furniture into Italy, the Netherlands, and Austria. Some believe the émigrés are craven; others, wise. I must occupy myself with the tribulations of my own family. No sooner do we exhale with relief at the safe passage arranged for Mesdames
tantes
than a package arrives at the Tuileries, a gift for the dauphin. Not yet five years old and still learning to read, he hands me the box and asks me to tell him what is engraved on the lid.

“Dominoes,” I say curiously, and as I read the inscription aloud, my stomach turns.
“These stones, from the walls which enclosed the innocent victims of an arbitrary power, have been converted into a toy, to be presented to you, Monseigneur, as an homage of the people’s love, and to teach you the extent of their power.”

“What does that mean, Maman?” My son reaches for the box with eager, chubby hands.

Liars and propagandists! There were only seven prisoners in the Bastille when it was stormed, each one a genuine convict
. “It means,
mon chou d’amour
, that this is not a toy at all, but an insult. And we have better things to play with.” I suggest to Madame de Tourzel that we make a game instead out of one of the fables of Monsieur de La Fontaine. “We can each take a part and act out the story.”