Marie Antoinette (68 page)

It was a dramatic moment, as all contemporary accounts, however hostile, agreed. Marie Antoinette’s marble composure deserted her. “If I have not replied,” she said in a tone quite changed from the politely indifferent one she had been using, “it is because Nature itself refuses to respond to such a charge laid against a mother.” The court record noted that here the accused appeared to be deeply moved. “I appeal to all mothers who may be present,” she went on. A frisson went through the courtroom—a frisson of sympathy. As for the fickle market-women, some of them cried out in outrage that the proceedings ought to be stopped.

“Did I do well?” Marie Antoinette asked Chauveau-Lagarde in a low voice. He soothed her; she only had to be herself and she would always do well. But why the question? “Because I heard one woman say to her neighbour: ’See how arrogant she is.’” The Queen’s spirit in the face of such an intolerable slur was all too easily mistaken for disdain. And there was one juror, Doctor Souberbielle, who murmured scornfully: “A mother like you . . .”

The rest of the day and evening—the first two sessions lasted until 11 p.m. with a short break between them—produced less startling revelations. In fact very little in the way of tangible evidence was produced, with the Queen steadfastly refuting anything and everything that was put to her. Over Varennes, for example, she continued to deny the involvement of La Fayette, whose coincidental departure from the Tuileries after the King’s
coucher
was thought to be highly suspicious. She answered all the other detailed questions laconically. For example, one query concerned the escape: “How were you yourself dressed?” She replied: “In the same dress I wore at my return.”

There was one intriguing moment when the name of the man who had purchased “the famous carriage” was raised.

“It was a foreigner,” said Marie Antoinette.

“Of which nation?”

“Swedish.”

“Wasn’t it Fersen who lived in Paris . . . ?”

“Yes.”

Interestingly, no more was made of Fersen’s involvement in the escape, suggesting that his relationship to the
ci-devant
Queen had not reached a wide audience. The day ended with the examination of the two Richards and the gendarme Gilbert about the Carnation Plot, but once again no actual evidence was produced of Marie Antoinette’s intent to escape and once again she admitted nothing.

The second session began at eight o’clock the following morning before Rosalie could bring the Queen her breakfast. It was 15 October, the Feast of St. Teresa; a day of rejoicing in her childhood, it had been the name-day of her mother and in her adult life, that of her daughter. Now she was to spend her time in the courtroom, fasting until the late-afternoon break when Rosalie Lamorlière, aware that Marie Antoinette had had nothing to eat, brought in some of her special bouillon. Even then the maid’s gesture was only partially successful. On a whim a girlfriend of one of the gendarmes, who wanted to boast of having met the former Queen, decided to serve her herself; in transporting the bouillon, she managed to spill half of it.

The first witness was Charles Henri d’Estaing, once Governor of Touraine and a distinguished admiral who had spent much of his later life at Versailles. He was pressed on the question of another putative royal flight—that of 5 October 1789, which had been stopped by the National Guard. Actually he bore witness that the Queen had refused to go, saying “avec un grand caractère” (determination) that if the Parisians came to assassinate her, she would die at the feet of the King. Marie Antoinette interrupted at this point. It was true. They had wanted the Queen to go, on the grounds that she was the only one in danger, but she had given the response quoted by d’Estaing.

Then Simon was called, to confirm revelations made by Louis Charles: how the Commissioner Dangé had taken him in his arms and in the presence of his mother declared: “I wish you were King in place of your father.” Furthermore the boy had been treated as the King at table.

Finally, and more importantly, because for a moment it seemed that some documentary proof was about to be offered, the Queen was questioned about “the Polignac”: had she corresponded with her since her detention? “No.” Had she signed vouchers to enable her to draw on funds from the Civil List? “No.” It was Fouquier-Tinville’s turn to interrupt. Her denial was useless, for the vouchers signed by her would shortly be produced. Or rather, since they had been temporarily mislaid, evidence would shortly be heard from someone who had seen them.

This witness—François Tisset, who had gone through the Civil List papers after the sack of the Tuileries—deposed that he had seen the Queen’s signature for sums of 80,000 livres, as well as other papers relating to large sums signed by the King, payments for Favras, Bouillé and others. Marie Antoinette pounced. What date was on the documents? One was 10 August 1792 and Tisset could not remember the other one. She could hardly have dated anything 10 August, replied the Queen scornfully, since, following the attack on the palace, she had been at the National Assembly since eight o’clock that morning.

Some of the evidence produced was more pathetic than treacherous. A little packet was shown to Marie Antoinette which she had brought from the Temple to the Conciergerie: “Those are locks of hair of my children, the living and the dead, and of my husband.” A paper with figures written on it was to teach her son maths. Portraits were shown; one was of “Madame de Lamballe,” said Marie Antoinette. No one commented. Others proved to be of the Princesses (of Hesse) “with whom I was brought up in Vienna.” Over the expenses of the Petit Trianon—which, incidentally, she was accused of building as well as decorating although it had been built in the previous reign—the former Queen did at last give a little ground. “Perhaps more was spent than I would have wished.” Payments had mounted, little by little, and no one wished more than her to understand how it came about.

On one subject, however, Marie Antoinette was absolutely resolute. She had never met Jeanne Lamotte.

“You persist in denying that you knew her?”

“My intention is not to make a denial, but to tell the truth; that is what I persist in stating.”

When she sat for Kucharski’s pastel portrait in the Temple, had she used the opportunity to receive news of what was going on in the Convention? “No. He was simply a Polish painter who had lived in Paris for twenty years.” Other replies were equally staunch. As to Louis Capet’s allegations that La Fayette (and Bailly) had been involved in Varennes: “It is extremely easy to make a child of eight say anything you want,” replied Marie Antoinette significantly, no doubt having in mind the incestuous “revelations” of the previous day.

Not all the witnesses exhibited the same spirit. While Doctor Brunier denied that he had exhibited all the “servilities” of the
ancien régime
in treating the royal children,
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Commissioner Dangé was more cautious. After he had denied making that fatal royalist whisper into the ear of Louis Charles, he was asked his opinion of the accused. If she was guilty, he replied, she must be judged. Was she a patriot? No. Did she want there to be a Republic? No.

The fortieth witness was followed by a final cross-examination of the prisoner. It was now getting on for midnight. Yet further charges of subverting the royal bodyguards and congratulating the Marquis de Bouillé on the “massacre” at Nancy in 1790 were followed by a strange, almost nostalgic reference to her past. Since her marriage, had not Marie Antoinette conceived the project of reuniting (French) Lorraine and Austria? She had not.

“But you bear the name.”

“Because one has to bear the name of one’s country,” replied Marie Antoinette.

Accused once again of teaching her son royalist precepts and putting him at the head of the table, to be served as King, she answered that he had been at the bottom of the table and she had served him herself.

At the very last, she was asked if she had anything further to say in her defence. “Yesterday I did not know who the witnesses were to be,” answered Marie Antoinette. “I was ignorant of what they would say. Well, no one has articulated anything positive against me. I finish by observing that I was only the wife of Louis XVI and I had to conform to his wishes.” These were her last words to the court. Marie Antoinette, a woman in terrible health, had been in the courtroom something like sixteen hours, with only a few sips of bouillon to sustain her, having spent fifteen hours there the day before. Nevertheless these words focused on the real issue.

During the proceedings, it had been the constant harping on Marie Antoinette’s “evil ascendancy” over the “feeble character” of Louis Capet that more than anything else revealed the insubstantiality of the judicial case against her. The traditional image of female weakness, a queen consort, devoid of responsibility and thus presumably of guilt for state actions, had to be replaced by that of a viciously powerful and dominating Messalina. Naturally the Queen herself denied Louis’ feebleness: “I never knew him to have such a character.” But the prosecution, by insisting to the contrary, could transfer the culpability of the former King entirely to the former Queen, and since the King’s guilt had been proved in court, logically there was no need to prove that of the Queen further. The fact that nothing, as she herself said, had really been proved against her—there were charges of foreign correspondence and intrigues, but no evidence to support them—then became irrelevant.

Fouquier-Tinville now spoke at some length to a silent courtroom, followed by Chauveau-Lagarde. The prisoner was then taken out to an ante-room while the president of the Tribunal summed up for the jurors. Marie Antoinette was therefore not in a position to listen to Herman’s summation to the jurors. The key passage occurred halfway through. Her chief crimes were listed as follows: her secret agreements with foreign powers, including her brothers, émigré Princes and treacherous generals; her shipping of money abroad to help them; and lastly her conspiring with these powers against the security of the French state, both at home and abroad. “If verbal proof was required,” declared Herman, “then let the accused be paraded before the people of France; but if it was a question of material proof, that would be found among the papers seized from Louis Capet, listed already to the Convention.” These papers were, however, not produced.

Ignorant of what was being said, ignorant too of Hébert’s secret command to the Convention—“I must have the head of Antoinette”—the former Queen allowed herself to be buoyed up with the adrenalin that a bold performance, given against the odds, bestows. We have Chauveau-Lagarde’s word for it that she was convinced she would be ransomed and sent abroad because nothing had been proved against her. There were others present of the same opinion; Madame Bault heard someone say: “Marie Antoinette will get away with it; she answered like an angel. She will be deported.” None of these people had experience of revolutionary justice or what was in effect a show trial, with the verdict predetermined. When she was brought back, she was handed the verdict of the jury, and told to read it. She was found guilty on all counts. Fouquier-Tinville then asked for, and was granted, the death penalty.

Asked if she had anything to say Marie Antoinette simply shook her head. It showed true courage, according to Chauveau-Lagarde, not to admit for a moment the shock she felt. Her head—the forfeit head of Antoinette—was held majestically high in a final display of dignity (or disdain) as she passed the barriers where the people were. To the sympathetic, the former Queen appeared to be in some kind of trance, so that she no longer saw or heard anything to do with her surroundings. She had to be prevented from slipping in the yard on the way back to her cell. It was past four o’clock in the morning and bitterly cold.

Marie Antoinette was now officially allowed writing materials. She used them to address a “last letter” to Madame Elisabeth, heading it “October 16. 4:30 in the morning.”

“I have just been condemned to death, not to a shameful death, that can only be for criminals, but in order to rejoin your brother. Innocent like him, I hope to demonstrate the same firmness as he did at the end. I am calm, as people are whose conscience is clear. My deepest regret is at having to abandon our poor children; you know that I only lived on for them and for you, my good and tender sister.”

Believing (wrongly) that Marie Thérèse had been separated from her aunt, her mother dared do no more than send her blessing. There were instructions to both children to care for each other, and the elder in particular to look after the younger. As for Louis Charles: “Let my son never forget his father’s last words . . . never try to avenge our deaths.” Marie Antoinette then raised the anguishing matter of the boy’s allegations. “I know how much pain this child must have given you. Forgive him, my dear sister; think of his age and how easy it is to make a child say what one wants, even things he doesn’t understand.” It was the same point about Louis Charles’s impressionable nature that she had made to the incoming Governess, the Marquise de Tourzel, and again at her trial.