Flaunting, Extravagant Queen

Chapter XIV ALLONS, ENFANTS DE LA PATRIE

Back to prison. Back to the gloom of the Tuileries. They had tried and they had failed; and because of that failure they had taken yet a further step along the road to destruction.

Antoinette thought of Axel – continually she thought of him. Had he escaped? He must have, or she would have heard by now. She had learned from the guards who had travelled with them that it was known what part he had played in the escape. A price was on his head. If he ever set foot in Paris again he would be running great risks.

Shall I ever see him again? she wondered. What will be the end of all this misery?

She could not resist writing to him.

‘Let me assure you; we are still alive. I have been terribly uneasy about you, and I am distressed because I know how you will suffer if you get no news of us. Do not return here on any pretext whatsoever. They know that you aided our escape, and we are watched night and day. I can only tell you that I love you. Do not be uneasy about me. I crave so much to know that you are well. Write to me in cipher. Let me know where I am to address my letters, for I cannot live without writing to you. Farewell, most loved and most loving of men.’ Letters? What poor consolation!

It was February in the Tuileries – eight weary months after the humiliating return to what could only be called captivity.

Life had been harder to bear than before the escape. There were guards in the Palace; they filled the gardens; they were determined not to let the King and Queen escape again.

Always the Queen’s mind was busy with plans for escape.

‘I have been foolish,’ she declared again and again to her dear friends, the Princesse de Lamballe and Madame Elisabeth. ‘When I might have learnt of state matters I danced and gambled. Now I find myself ignorant.’

‘You are learning quickly,’ said Elisabeth.

‘And bitterly, little sister.’

It was true. That September following the return, the King had been forced to accept the Constitution. This meant that not only was absolute monarchy finished but that the King was shorn of all power. Government was to be by an elected body of men.

Louis had held out as long as he could, but he realised that if he accepted the Constitution there would be no reason for continuing with the revolution. It was true that when he gave way there was a lull in the riots.

But the Jacobins were not pleased at this turn of events. Their great desire was to continue with the revolution and, knowing that the King would not agree that émigrés should be recalled to France and sentenced to death if they did not return, they began to agitate for this.

The law was passed that November, but Louis, thinking of his two émigré brothers, and knowing that they would not return refused to have the death penalty pronounced on them. He applied the veto; and soon the whole of Paris – inflamed by the Jacobins – was calling out against a King who dared veto the desires of the government. Monsieur Veto, they called the King; and of course Madame Veto was blamed for the King’s refusal to submit.

Meanwhile the émigrés, including Provence and Artois, talked of raising forces against the revolutionaries, and so angered the people of France. Antoinette cried out against them – for neither Provence nor Artois were in a position to help – and even Louis agreed that they were doing more harm than good to him and his family.

The Queen was now in despair. She was writing to Fersen and receiving letters from him. She was stunned by the behaviour of her husband who seemed unable to arouse himself from his lethargy. Again and again she thought how different their lives might have been if Louis had but possessed a little initiative, if he would only act, and could conquer the vacillation which seemed to beset him on every important occasion.

She wrote to her brother Leopold, who had succeeded Joseph, and implored his help. The countries of Europe, while not prepared to risk much on behalf of the King and Queen, were anxious that the monarchy should be preserved. They feared the rot might spread to them.

Leopold and Frederick of Prussia met and issued a call to other European nations to get together and save the French monarchy. Meanwhile Fersen was using all his powers to persuade his King, Gustavus, to come to the aid of the royal family.

The people in the streets were now saying that the Queen was sending secret messages to the foreign Princes imploring them to destroy the French. She was distraught. She knew for once that what was said of her was true.

‘Nothing but armed force can set things right again!’ she cried to Louis.

‘I do not wish for bloodshed,’ said the King.

‘I believe,’ she cried passionately, ‘that you would see your crown trampled in the dust – I believe you would go smiling to your death, if they bade you.’

‘My life is in their hands,’ said Louis. ‘I would be King through their love or not at all.’

She cried out in exasperated anger: ‘Yes, I see. I see it is this meekness of yours that is bringing us to ruin.’

Then she burst into tears and flung herself into his arms. Louis comforted her.

‘It is too much for you to bear,’ he said. ‘You must rest. You must let things take their course.’

‘Louis … Louis …’ she cried. ‘How can we know what to do? I ask Leopold to put himself at the head of the armies and lead them across our borders. I tell him the revolutionaries would be terrified if he did because of what they have done to us. Then I am afraid. If Leopold marched, what would become of us? They would put our heads under the knife. What can we do? What can we do?’

Louis could only shake his head. Of what use was Louis? She went to Esterhazy who was about to leave for Sweden.

She cried: ‘You are going to see someone who is a friend of us both. Tell him that although we are miles apart nothing can separate our hearts. It is a torment to have no news of those we love. Take this ring to him. I have always worn it. Now I would like him to wear it and think sometimes of me.’

There was an inscription on the ring; she read it for the last time: ‘Faintheart he who forsakes her.’

And no sooner had she sent the ring than she was afraid. Would he see in it a reproach? Would he come to her – he for whom the French were waiting?

She wrote to him immediately and despatched the letter by yet another messenger.

‘You must not attempt to come here. Your coming would ruin my happiness. I have a great longing to see you, do not doubt that, but you must not come here.’

He wrote to her. He thanked her for her gift. ‘I live only to serve you,’ he wrote.

She had received that letter on a cold day a week ago, and she re-read it and cherished it; and she thought of him, pleading her cause with Gustavus, begging Gustavus to act. But what cared Gustavus for Louis and Antoinette? He cared though for the preservation of the monarchy. He had said he did not care whether it was Louis the 16th, 17th or 18th who reigned in France. But the rabble should not be allowed to sweep away a throne.

I am foolish, she thought. My tragedy is that I learned what life was, too late. For so many years I thought it was made up of dancing and beautiful clothes, extravagant balls; then when it was too late I found that this was not so.

She smiled faintly, thinking of her beautiful Trianon. Ah, Trianon, shall I ever see you again?

It was easy to drift into dreams – and so pleasant; for only in dreams of the past was there happiness for her.

She heard a sound in her room suddenly. She did not move. She knew that someone had silently opened a door. She had heard the turning of a key. She was alone in her apartments, and her rooms were on the ground floor. She dared not move. All through the days and nights she was tense, waiting … never knowing who would come upon her suddenly.

And now … someone was in her room.

‘Antoinette.’ She did not look round. She dared not. She thought, Oh, God, I am dreaming. It cannot be.

‘Antoinette!’

He was coming towards her. It was a dream of course. She was delirious. In truth it could not have happened.

She turned and saw the familiar figure; the rough wig he wore, the all-concealing great-coat could not hide him from her.

She flew to him and threw herself into his arms. She let her fingers explore his face while the tears ran silently down her cheeks.

‘It is a dream, I know,’ she cried. ‘But, oh Holy Mother of God, let me go on dreaming.’

‘It is no dream,’ he said.

And he wiped the tears from her cheeks.

‘It is not truly you?’

‘But it is. I have come to you – all the way from Sweden.’

‘But why … why?’

‘To see you. To hold you thus. Does not the ring say “Faintheart he who forsakes her”?’

‘Oh, give me the ring, give me the ring. I should never have sent it. It has brought you here … to danger … to God knows what. Axel … my love … you are truly here. You are in this room, are you not? Oh, foolish one … foolish one to come and risk your life to see me.’

‘Of what use is life to me when I do not see you?’

‘Hold me tightly, Axel … for a little while. I wish to dream. I call you foolish … and foolish you are, to come here. But I am the greatest fool in the world because I have called you here, because I have brought to danger the one I love.’

‘It is well that, in danger, we should be together.’

‘At any moment you could be discovered. At any moment the guards may be at my window. They are all about us … Do you know there is a price on your head? There is nothing these beasts, this canaille, want more, than to find you. They know it was you who took us to Varennes … they know that if you had stayed with us … if you had not left us at Bondy … all would be well with us now, and ill with them. Axel … go … go quickly. But how did you come? But let us not stand here where any might see us; come into my little dressing-room. There we shall be safer. There is only Lamballe and Tourzel, and mayhap Elisabeth, who would see you. No other must, Axel. It is foolish to trust any … ’

She drew him into the dressing-room. She lifted her hands to take off the wig. She ran her fingers through his thick hair.

‘Let this minute go on and on …’ she said. ‘If it is a dream …’

‘It is not a dream.’

‘But how did you get here?’

‘I had the key. You remember I had it when I came to get the children on that night. I have kept it. I walked past the guards. There are so many who look as I do … rough wig … great-coat … I was not even challenged.’

‘And if you had been?’ she asked, breathless at the thought.

‘I have a good passport … forged, of course. I am supposed to be travelling to Lisbon on a mission from my King,’ he said.

‘That is my story. ’Tis true I am on a mission … It is this: I shall get you out of France and this time I shall do it thoroughly. I shall be with you the whole of the time. Nothing on earth will make me give up my part until you are safe across the frontier.’

‘Axel …’ she cried. ‘What heart you put into me! What you set out to do … you do.’

‘I have planned everything,’ he said. ‘I have come here to lay those plans before you and the King.’

The mention of Louis brought Antoinette back to reality.

‘Louis will never go.’

‘We must persuade him.’

‘I fear we cannot. I have tried to persuade him. He has some idealistic notion that his place is with his people.’

‘A people who do not want him.’

‘He will not believe that.’

‘We must persuade him. I hear terrible stories. You have been safe so far. Do you think you will go on being safe? Your life is in danger. How I wish you were not a Queen. How I wish you were only my love. Then I would not listen to protests … I would take you with me … whether you were willing or not.’

She lay against him. ‘I like to hear you say that, Axel. It is fantastic, but it is beautiful. How I would love you to take me with you!’

Fersen said: ‘If the King should refuse …’

She answered quickly: ‘And the children?’

‘You and the children …’

She let herself contemplate such a solution for she was still living in her dream. He had come to her, her lover, and he talked of taking her and her beloved children out of this hell.

This was a magic night, a night in which it was possible to believe anything. It was as though she had conjured up his image out of her longings. On such a night anything, however fantastic, could be true.

The Palace was quiet; now and then they heard the sound of the guards marching by. But in her little dressing-room they were safe.

She locked the door, shutting them in.

And that night she was alone with her lover, and they loved frantically, desperately, as though each feared that they might never love or meet again.

The next day she went to Louis. She whispered to him: ‘Fersen is here.’

‘Impossible!’

‘I thought so too. He has come disguised; he has plans.’

‘What plans could there be?’

‘You must see him. Come to my apartments at six this evening. Then it will be dark and there will be few people about. He cannot come to you, for fear of the guards.’

‘There is nothing he can do,’ said Louis.

Louis came to the apartment. Fersen was in the dressing-room, and Antoinette took the King to him there.

Fersen kissed the King’s hand and Louis confessed his amazement that he should have been able to get into the Palace.

‘I come with plans, Sire,’ said Fersen.

‘It will be a hundred times more difficult to escape now,’ said Louis; ‘and the last attempt failed.’

‘Sire, we learn by our mistakes. It was wrong to have travelled all together. We should have broken up the party and travelled more simply. I realise now the folly of the way we did it and yet, with a little luck then, we should have succeeded.’

‘I have misused my chance of escape,’ said the King. ‘It is no longer possible.’

He did not look at Antoinette. She was standing, pale and tense, her arms folded across her breast. Oh, God, she thought, Louis will be defeated because he accepts defeat.

She loved them both – so much and so differently. She wanted to run to Axel and beg him to take her in his arms, never to leave her, but she wanted to cradle Louis’ head in her arms and comfort him.

Fersen argued. It was at least worth an attempt. While the King was in Paris, while he accepted the new Constitution, it was difficult for the European countries to come to his aid. Once he was out of the country he could defy the Constitution; he could call loyal men to his aid, and he could fight for his throne.

Louis faced Fersen and said quickly: ‘I could never try to escape, and for this reason: I have given my word to the National Assembly that I will not do so again.’

‘But these men are your enemies.’

‘It matters not. I have given them my word.’

Fersen knew that he was defeated. Louis, who could never make up his mind as to what action he should take in most circumstances, was firmly resolved on this.

He had given his word.

The King said: ‘I will leave you now. Take care when you leave the Palace. Take care while you are in Paris. You risk your life to come here.’

Fersen bowed. ‘My pleasure is to serve Your Majesties.’

Louis nodded. But he understood.

He went away and left them together.

It was the last embrace; he held her as though he could never let her go.

She murmured: ‘If I could but die at this moment …’

‘Do not speak of dying,’ he said roughly.

Then he released her and turned away, only to turn back and take her in his arms once more.

But he must be gone. Every moment he spent in the Palace was a danger.

She would be expected to appear in the salon, to talk, to seem as usual, and all the time her thoughts would be with him. Where is he now? Is he safe?

What had become of her life which had once been so gay, when the newest hair-style arranged by Monsieur Léonard had provided such excitement in her life?

Why should there be such violent contrasts in the life of one woman?

‘You must not stay,’ she said. ‘You must go …’

‘One day,’ he said, ‘I’ll be back.’

She thought of the little Dauphin, who had said ‘One day.’ She thought of his dying in her arms.

‘Don’t say that,’ she said. ‘It frightens me. Whether we meet again or not I have this night to remember.’

‘For ever …’ he said.

She was alert. ‘I hear the sentry. He is coming this way. Oh, go quickly … now, or it will be too late. He may look in. He may decide to search the apartment. Oh, go … my love … go quickly.’

He kissed her hands. She pushed him from her. She longed to keep him, and yet a greater need demanded that she send him away.

He was gone. She stood at the door, watching his figure swallowed up in the darkness.

Then she returned to her apartments. She heard the sentry marching past her window; and she covered her face with her hands as though to hold in her emotions.

The uneasy months were passing. Summer had come. In the streets a new publication was being sold. It was La Vie Scandaleuse de Marie Antoinette. Madame de Lamotte had supplied a great deal of the material which went into this and other compilations.

The Assembly had brought forward a proposal that priests who refused to swear to be loyal to the Constitution should be expelled from France. Louis, who was a devout Catholic, declared he could never assent to such a law. In all other matters he had given way. He had even declared war on Austria at the command of the Assembly – Austria, the country whose aim was to restore his monarchy.

It was characteristic of Louis that he should choose his weakest moment to stand out against the Assembly.

Monsieur and Madame Veto had dared attempt to oppose the Assembly, had dared to try to stem the tide of revolution.

It was hot June and the people gathered in the streets; life at the Tuileries had been lived too peaceably since the King and Queen had been brought back to Paris after their ignoble flight. It was time they were taught a lesson, since they had not yet discovered that the Assembly would not allow them to raise their voices in protest against the people.

‘Ça ira!’ was the song the people were singing as they gathered in the squares.

‘A bas le veto!’ they shouted.

They marched to the Tuileries, carrying banners to which had been nailed the symbol of a pair of ragged breeches – the sign of the sans-culottes, the name given to the revolutionary bands who had roamed the streets in their ragged clothes demanding bread and the downfall of the monarchy. They massed in the Place du Carrousel and the narrow streets which intersected it; they streamed along the Terrasse des Feuillants; and forced an entrance into the Palace itself.

Louis heard them. He said calmly: ‘My people wish to see me. They must not be disappointed.’

‘Do not be afraid, Sire,’ said a member of the National Guard. ‘Remember, Sire, they have always loved you.’

Louis took the man’s hand and placed it on his heart. ‘Feel if it beats more quickly than usual,’ he said.

And the soldier was amazed, for the King’s heart-beats were quite steady.

Elisabeth was with him. There was one fear in Louis’ mind. ‘Do not let them find the Queen,’ he whispered.

Antoinette had hurried to her husband’s apartments but was told to keep away.

‘I will be with my husband,’ she said.

‘It is unwise, Madame. Your presence will inflame the people against him. Wait here in the Council chamber, while the King talks to them.’

She had the children with her; at such moments Antoinette had little fear for herself because all her alarm was for them.

Into the King’s apartments the mob had burst. They paused and looked at Louis and Elisabeth who stood side by side, outwardly calm.

Many of them had never seen the royal family before, and they immediately mistook Elisabeth for Antoinette.

‘The Austrian woman!’ they cried.

Elisabeth had one thought. She believed they had come to murder Antoinette, and she stepped forward crying: ‘Yes. I am the Austrian woman. You have come to kill me. Do so quickly … and go.’

One of the guards said: ‘It is not the Queen. It is Madame Elisabeth.’

The mob fell back. They had turned their attention to Louis, and two of the guards escorted Elisabeth from the room.

Once again that complete calm of the King baffled them. If he had shown one sign of fear, one sign of haughty rancour, they would have fallen upon him and done him to bloody death. But the benign calm puzzled them. They stood back a little. They could only growl: ‘A bas le veto!’

One or two of the guards had placed themselves beside Louis. ‘Citizens,’ one cried, ‘recognise the King. Respect him. The law demands it. We shall die rather than let any harm befall him.’

A butcher stepped forward. ‘Listen to us, Louis Capet,’ he cried. ‘You are a traitor. You have deceived us. Take care! We are tired of being your playthings.’

‘Down with the veto,’ shouted the crowd.

‘My people,’ said Louis, ‘I cannot discuss the veto with you.’

‘You shall! You shall!’ cried the crowd, and one or two men advanced threateningly.

Louis did not flinch. He stood on a stool and addressed them. ‘My people, I shall do what the Constitution demands of me, but I cannot discuss the veto with you.’

One of the men pushed forward his pike on which he had stuck the red Phrygian cap which was the symbol of liberty. Louis, with one of those inspired gestures which came to him naturally at such times of danger, took the cap and placed it on his head.

They stared at him. Someone cried: ‘Long live the King!’ The hard faces relaxed. Louis had once more saved his life.

The mob had broken into the Council chamber in their search for the Queen.

They found her there. She was standing erect behind the table. Madame Royale was beside her; and on the table sat the Dauphin. Antoinette had turned his face towards herself so that he should not see the mob. Several ladies stood with her, including the Princesse de Lamballe and Madame de Tourzel.

A group of loyal guards stood about the table.

There was a shriek of delight. ‘The Austrian woman!’ Here she was at last. The woman of a hundred fabulous stories, the woman who had lived the most scandalous life of any woman in the world – according to the rumours rife all over the country. Antoinette – l’Autrichienne.

And there she stood, pale, handsome, looking beyond them as though they did not exist, showing no twitch of lips or eyes which might have betrayed the slightest nervousness.

It was the demeanour of the royal family which baffled the crowds whenever they met it. The sight of her standing there, the children beside her, must make the most sanguinary revolutionary pause. Madame Royale, so pretty, so charming, so gentle, so clearly adored this woman of a thousand evil rumours. The little boy – their own Dauphin – was clinging to her for protection.

But they must not forget that she was Antoinette.

They shouted insults and obscenities. Several of them held miniature gallows made of wood, from which dangled rag dolls. Cards were attached to these on which was written in red letters ‘Antoinette à la lanterne!’

A tricolor rosette was thrown at her. The Queen looked at it disdainfully as it fell on the table. ‘Take it,’ someone screamed.

‘Oh, take it, Mama, please,’ whispered Madame Royale; and to soothe her daughter, Antoinette placed it in her hair.

‘A cap of liberty for the Dauphin!’ cried another.

‘No,’ said the Queen.

‘Madame, it is unwise to refuse,’ murmured one of the guards; and a woman stepped up and crammed the cap onto the Dauphin’s head.

He began to cry, for the cap stank horribly, and it had slipped down over his face.

Fortunately one of the revolutionaries, seeing that the little boy was in danger of suffocation advanced and removed the cap.

Red-faced and gasping, the little boy flung himself into his mother’s arms.

Meanwhile the crowds filled the room, wrecking the furnishings, shouting insults, only kept from attacking the Queen by the fixed bayonets of the guards.

The heat of that day was intense; and the stench of the sweating bodies nauseated Antoinette. For three hours she was stared at and threatened; and every moment of that period was pregnant with danger.

A woman forced her way to the table and, disregarding the soldiers’ bayonets, began to repeat some of the hideous stories she had heard of the Queen; she called the Dauphin and his sister bastards; she knew she was safe because, if the guards so much as touched her or any one of the mob, the crowd would tear them to pieces.

The Queen leaned forward suddenly. ‘What have I done to you?’ she asked softly. ‘Have you ever seen me before? They have deceived you about me. I am the wife of your King, and the mother of your Dauphin. I am French as you are French. Tell me what wrong I have done you.’

‘You have caused misery to the nation,’ said the woman.

‘That is what you have been told. I would never consciously harm France. I was happy when the people loved me.’

The woman’s fierce expression collapsed suddenly.

She stared at Antoinette and burst into tears.

‘You see,’ said Antoinette, ‘when you come face to face with me you know these tales of me to be false.’

There was a short silence. Then the weeping woman dropped a curtsy before she was dragged back into the crowd.

‘She is drunk,’ they cried and the vilifying continued. ‘Antoinette à la lanterne!’ The Queen continued to stand. The Dauphin, his face hidden from the horror behind him, clutched at the lace of her bodice with hot and fearful hands.

But some fire had gone out of the mob. Their cries were less fierce. To see her there, so haughty, so very much the Queen, made it impossible for them to accept the lies which had been told of her.

And, after three hours of this terrifying ordeal, a shout went up that the Mayor of Paris had arrived with a detachment of the National Guard.

The crowd dispersed; and there was quiet in the pillaged Palace of the Tuileries.

She wrote that night to Fersen: ‘I am still alive, though it seems I am so by a miracle. The ordeal was terrible. But you must not be anxious about me. Have faith in my courage to live through these terrible days.’

The men of the south were marching into Paris. Ragged, unkempt, and fiercer than the men of the north, these were the men of Marseilles, and their aim was to depose the King and end the monarchy for ever.

Relentless, ruthless, as they marched they sang a song which had been composed by one of the officers, and which they had adopted as the hymn of the revolution.

Into the capital they came, welcomed by the Jacobins, cheered as they assembled in the Champs Elysées.

And on the lips of all was the hymn of revolution:‘Allons, enfants de la patrie,

Le jour de gloire est arrivé,

Contre nous, de la tyrannie,

Le couteau sanglant est levé …’

The terror of life at the Tuileries had increased. There were more spies in the household. Each night mobs gathered outside the Palace and shouted threats at those within.

Antoinette wrote often to her lover. Fersen was desperate; he travelled from Sweden to Brussels, spending long hours at the Courts doing all in his power to urge the monarchs of Europe to unite and go to the aid of Louis and Antoinette. The Duke of Brunswick, the commander of the Austrian and Prussian armies, was preparing to cross the frontier. Fersen, irritated by the delay of this old soldier who refused to be hurried, was terrified that the Queen would be murdered before help reached her. He urged Brunswick to issue a manifesto threatening Paris with destruction if the royal family came to any harm at its hands.

The people congregated in the Place du Carrousel, in the Palais Royal and the Champs Elysées – indeed any spot where they could gather to talk about the manifesto.

The hot weather continued and the tension increased. Elisabeth and the Princesse de Lamballe stayed with the Queen even during the night.

‘I feel it in the air,’ said the Queen. ‘They are gathering against us now … and this time there will be no respite.’

They did not go to bed at all that night. They started at the sound of the tocsin; they listened, alert to the distant sounds. And all the time they were waiting.

They knew that the guard was being corrupted; and without the guard they would be brutally murdered, with the revolutionaries in their present mood.

The morning came. Sleepless, his hair unpowdered, his cravat loose, Louis came into the Queen’s apartment.

‘Louis, what next?’ asked the Queen.

Louis shook his head. Antoinette thought: Even he is shaken at last.

Outside the window the guards were drawn up.

‘Louis,’ said Antoinette, ‘you should show yourself. You should review the troops. You should let them see that you are a leader.’

The King turned to the window and looked out. Then, as though in a dream, he left the Queen.

A few minutes later she saw him from the window – unkempt as he was – walking between the lines of the troops.

‘I have confidence in you,’ he was saying. ‘I know I can trust you.

Antoinette heard a jeering laugh from one of the men. She saw several of them break from their ranks and imitate the slow and somewhat ungainly walk of the King.

For what could they hope from such guards?

The Attorney-General of Paris came in haste to the Tuileries. He demanded to see the King, and was shown at once to the King’s chamber where Antoinette was with him.

‘The crowds are massing,’ he said, ‘for an attack on the Tuileries. It is necessary for you to leave at once.’

‘For where?’ asked Antoinette.

‘You will be safest in the manège. The Assembly is in session, and the mob will not attack you while you are there.’

‘We have troops to protect us,’ said Antoinette.

‘I fear not, Madame,’ said the Attorney-General. ‘All Paris is marching, and with Paris are the men of Marseilles. You dare not hesitate. You must think of the children of France.’

‘We will accompany you,’ said Louis.

Antoinette ran for her children and brought them to the King’s apartment.

‘We should leave at once,’ said the Attorney-General. ‘The faubourgs are on the march.’

Antoinette held the Dauphin’s hand very firmly in hers and, as they came through the gardens, the little boy kicked the leaves at his feet. He was laughing. There were too many alarms in his life for him to take them seriously any more. As long as he was with his mother and the dirty people did not try to suffocate him with their red caps, he was happy.

‘The leaves have fallen very early this year,’ said the King in a melancholy voice.

There were already crowds gathered outside the Palace. They saw the royal family through the railings, and shouts of derision went up.

The little party reached the Assembly Hall in safety, and the King cried to all those present: ‘Gentlemen, I come here to prevent a crime. I think I and my family cannot be safer than with you.’

The President’s reply was that the Assembly had sworn to protect the Constitution, and the King could count on its protection.

The royal family were then placed in the box where the reporters usually sat. It was small and the heat was intense. The family sat there, and those who had escaped with them crowded about the box.

Outside there was murder and bloodshed such as had never been seen before during the whole of the revolution. Houses were looted; men and women dragged into the streets and cruelly murdered. Shots were fired; voices shouted in exultation and screamed in horror. The faubourgs were in revolt; the smell of burning was in the air.

Murder, rapine, pillage stalked the streets of Paris on that day. It was a day to remember with that of the St Bartholomew two hundred years before.

The Tuileries was looted. The Queen’s apartments in particular were desecrated. The streets echoed with the terrible cry ‘A la lanterne!’

And all over Paris could be heard the triumphant song:‘Allons, enfants de la patrie …’

In the crowd which was raiding the Tuileries was a young man who did not join in; he stood a little apart. His attitude was cold and detached.

Another man, too old to share in the violence of his friends, came up and stood beside him. ‘Great days for France, Citizen,’ he said.

‘Great days,’ agreed the young man.

‘We are seeing the passing of an old regime which has lasted in France for many years.’

‘Old regimes must pass,’ said the young man. ‘There must be new ones.’

‘It is the way of life, and we must accept it.’

‘We need not accept,’ said the young man. ‘We can make our own world.’

‘Louis Capet has little hope of doing that.’

‘Louis Capet could have done it,’ said the young man. He paused and then went on: ‘What imbeciles! How could they allow that canaille to enter? They should have swept away four or five hundred of them with cannons and the rest would still be running.’

‘You are not in the riots, Citizen. You are not fighting for liberty. I see you are not a Frenchman.’

‘I am from Corsica,’ said the young man.

‘Ah, it is for that reason that you remain cold.’

‘Adieu,’ said the young man. ‘I’ll be on my way.’

The old man looked after him. A strong face, a strange young man. Was it true, what he said?

Meanwhile Napoleone di Buonaparte turned his back on the riots and contemplated the power of arms appropriately used.

The family was homeless now. The Tuileries was unfit for human habitation.

Where should they go now?

It was decided that the Temple, that medieval palace which had once sheltered the Knights Templar, should be their home.

Antoinette cried out in protest when she heard. She had always hated the place. But it was not for her to protest. She must be grateful that a shelter was provided for her, grateful that she and her family were alive to need it.

The rioting had died down, and carriages were brought to the Assembly Hall. The postilions no longer wore the royal livery and their hats were decorated with the tricolor.

The carriage made a slow journey from the Assembly Hall to the Temple, the crowds shouting after it as it crawled along.

And so they came to the new home – ancient and gloomy, a more fearful prison than that of the Tuileries.