Flaunting, Extravagant Queen

Chapter XVII THE LAST RIDE

There was little comfort in the Conciergerie.

She was taken to a small room with barred windows recently vacated by an old General who had left that day in a tumbril for the Place de la Revolution.

Moisture trickled down the walls of the cell and it was impossible to keep the mattress dry.

The Conciergerie was known throughout Paris as the prison of doom. Few left it nowadays except for that last journey to the guillotine.

Hébert was inflaming the people against the Queen. It was time, he said, that she tried on Samson’s necktie. It was time the executioner should play ball with the she-wolf’s head. She should be chopped into mincemeat to pay for the blood she had on her conscience.

But the military commanders were not eager for the death of Antoinette. The war was going less satisfactorily, and it was felt that alive she could be used to bargain with the Austrian enemy.

Fersen was in despair when he heard of her removal to the Conciergerie, and at the root of his fear was his feeling of helplessness.

He wrote to his sister: ‘Since I have heard that the Queen is in the Conciergerie, I have no longer felt that I am alive, for it is not life to exist as I do and to suffer the pains which I now endure. If I could do something to bring about her release my agony would be less. It is terrible that all I can do is to go about imploring others to act. I would give my life to save her. My greatest happiness would be to die that she might live. I reproach myself for breathing this pure air while she is in that loathsome place. My life is poisoned, so that I veer from pain to wrath and from wrath back to pain.’

But Fersen was powerless. He could only mourn.

There was more kindness in the Conciergerie than there had been in the Temple. Was this because the place was known as the ‘ante-room of death’?

The jailer’s wife, Madame Richard, was a kindly woman. She was charmed by the Queen’s graciousness and did all she could for her comfort. She made her husband fit a piece of carpet over that part of the ceiling through which the water dripped onto the bed. And when Madame Richard’s little boy came into the cell, the Queen embraced him because he was as fair-haired as the Dauphin was, and of the same age.

‘You see, Madame Richard,’ she said, ‘he reminds me of my own son.’

Madame Richard turned away to hide her tears, and after that she asked the police commissioner, Michonis, who had been a lemonade-seller before the revolution and was now an inspector of prisoners, if he would discover and bring news of the Queen’s children. ‘For what harm can that do to the Republic?’ she asked. ‘And look what good it can do to a poor mother!’

So Michonis, who was a good-hearted man, brought little bits of news about Madame Elisabeth and Madame Royale. The Dauphin was well and not unhappy, he said. ‘These young children,’ he added, ‘they are resilient. They recover from griefs more quickly than we do.’

Then there was Rosalie, the young servant girl, who adored her mistress, and who cleaned the cell as she cleaned no others; she brought in a box so that the few clothes the Queen possessed might be folded carefully and kept as well as possible. Every morning she would scrape the mildew from the Queen’s shoes, for it would gather during the night in that damp cell.

The Queen had aged considerably. Her hair was white now; there were rheumatic pains in her legs so that some days she found it difficult to stand. She was suffering from haemorrhages which made her very weak.

These good people took it upon themselves to smuggle comforts into the cell – some warm blankets to keep out the damp, some new sheets, a new mourning cap. Madame Richard and Rosalie did little jobs for her when they could, such as washing and mending her clothes.

One day Michonis came to inspect her cell, and with him was a stranger, a man who, he explained, wished to see what the inside of a prison was like.

Antoinette looked at this man and believed she recognised him. He was carrying a nosegay such as was generally carried by visitors to prisons and such places where the foul air might provoke disease.

He threw this nosegay behind the Queen’s stove, and when he had gone the Queen picked it up and found a note inside it. On this was written: ‘I shall try to find some means of showing my zeal for your service.’

She remembered the man now. He was the Chevalier de Rougeville, and she guessed that he had been inspired in this by Fersen.

Thoughts of the man she loved gave her new hope. Fersen! He had seemed invincible. She had believed in the old days that he would save her and take her to happiness. She found that belief revived.

She must answer the note. How? She had no pens, but she had a scrap of paper, and she had a needle, for since she had come to the Conciergerie her good friends there had provided her with one.

She pricked out an answer. Now, how to get it to the Chevalier? She could ask Madame Richard or Rosalie to pass it on, but she remembered then what had happened to poor Toulan. No. If anything went wrong they would be the first to be suspected.

She dared not involve those who were so close to her and who were already suspected of being too friendly.

At length she decided to give it to Gilbert, one of the gendarmes who seemed a trustworthy fellow.

She could give him nothing, she said, but the gentleman to whom he delivered the note would reward him with 400 louis.

The gendarme was tempted – both by his desire for the money and his desire to help the Queen; but when heads were being severed in the Place de la Revolution every day it made a man wary.

He showed the note to Madame Richard, who was terrified and asked Michonis’ advice.

It was one thing to have sympathy for the Queen; it was another to work against the Republic.

Michonis took the paper from Madame Richard and told her to say no more about it.

But the gendarme could not forget it. He mentioned it to his superior officer, with the result that an inquiry was immediately set in motion.

Michonis was terrified. He knew that the note would be demanded of him, and he dared not destroy it. In a brave attempt to save the Queen he added more pinpricks to it, so that it did not make sense.

He was brought before the tribunal and produced the note.

The Queen, when questioned, determined to save Madame Richard and Michonis. She did not tell them that Michonis had brought the Chevalier into her cell.

But after this the Commune determined to take greater care of their prisoner and to bring her to speedy trial. Michonis was dismissed from his post; the Richards were imprisoned; the Queen had a new jailer and was removed to a smaller room. But the new jailer and his wife were as sympathetic as the Richards had been, and they brought comforts into her cell. They brought her books and, for the first time in her life, she found great pleasure in reading; thus only could she cut herself off from the unendurable present and live in a world of her imagination. She found pleasure in the adventures of Captain Cook; she could imagine herself on voyages of exploration, and thus passed the long days and nights.

And on the 12th October 1793 she was summoned to the council chamber to face her trial.

In the Temple the Dauphin was sitting on a chair by the table. His feet did not quite reach the floor.

With him were three men: Chaumette, the syndic, Hébert and Simon. They had brought his sister, Madame Royale, into the room.

She flew to him and embraced him, and as the Dauphin returned her embrace, he saw a look of disgust pass over her face. That was because he was not clean. He felt uneasy.

The men began to ask Madame Royale questions; they concerned herself and her brother. What games had they played when they had been together? Did her brother ever handle her improperly?

Madame Royale did not even know what they meant. She and her brother had always been good friends, she said.

They they began to ask questions about her mother. Madame Royale did not understand exactly what they meant, but she had an inkling and, as she listened to them, a slow flush crept up over her face.

‘These are lies,’ she said.

‘Your brother says they are not lies.’

‘They are lies … all lies!’ cried Madame Royale.

‘Take her away,’ said Hébert, ‘and bring in the aunt.’

It was easier to explain to Madame Elisabeth. She listened to the infamous story, first with incredulity then with horror.

‘This is preposterous. It is impossible.’

‘We have the word of this boy.’

‘I cannot believe it.’

Hébert turned to the Dauphin and said: ‘Did these things happen between you and your mother?’

‘Yes,’ said the Dauphin defiantly, ‘they did.’

‘And was your aunt present, and did she see these things happen ?’

‘Yes,’ said the boy.

‘Did you lie between your mother and your aunt, and did they urge you to do these things, and did they laugh together?’

‘Yes, they did.’

Madame Elisabeth was so pale that she appeared as though she would faint.

She turned to the boy: ‘You … you monster!’ she cried.

The Dauphin’s face crumpled. He began to whimper.

‘Take the woman away!’ commanded Hébert quickly.

She came before the judges. No one would have recognised her as the gay and lovely young Queen who had danced in the ballroom at Versailles or on the grass of the Trianon. The daylight hurt her eyes and she could not bear to open them wide; she could scarcely walk; she was pale from haemorrhage and her joints were stiff with rheumatism; there were lines of deep sorrow carved on her face.

She stood before these men, knowing that her trial would be farcical; they had determined to find her guilty of all the charges they were bringing against her.

‘What is your name?’ they demanded.

‘Marie Antoinette of Lorraine and Austria, widow of Louis Capet, sometime King of the French.’

‘Your age?’

‘I am thirty-eight years of age.’

‘It was you who taught Louis Capet the art of that profound dissimulation wherewith he deceived the good people of France.’

‘It is true that the people have been deceived,’ she answered calmly, ‘but not by my husband nor by myself.’

‘By whom then?’

‘By those who had an interest in deceiving the people; but it was not in our interest to deceive them.’

‘Who do you suggest deceived the people of France?’

‘How should I know? My interest was to enlighten the people, not to deceive them. The happiness of France is what I desire beyond all things.’

‘Do you think kings are necessary for the happiness of a people ?’

‘That is a matter which no individual can decide.’

‘You regret that your son has lost a throne?’

‘I regret it not, should his loss be the gain of his country.’

The courtroom was full. All those who had been able to, had crowded into it. In the gallery many women had gathered; some of them were women from the market; they sat knitting, but that they did without looking, for their eyes were on the Queen. They had come, vindictive and angry, to see a woman whom they had long hated brought to justice; and now they looked at her, this woman in the black dress with the shawl about her shoulders; there was a mourning cap on her head, and they were reminded that she was a widow grieving for a husband recently taken from her. It was not so easy to believe all those stories they had heard about her, now that they were in her presence.

The questions went on. They wanted to know how much money had been spent on the Trianon, how much money on jewels; how many times pictures of her had been painted.

‘Where did you get the money for Trianon? Who paid for all those fêtes and extravagances?’

‘There was a special fund for Trianon.’

‘It must have been a very big fund.’

‘We became involved in the expenditure by degrees. I have nothing to hide. I hope everything connected with the expenses of Trianon will be made public, for it has been vastly exaggerated.’

Her prosecutor then cried: ‘Was it not at Petit Trianon that you first made the acquaintance of a woman named de Lamotte?’

‘I never made the acquaintance of such a woman.’

‘But she was your scapegoat in the well-known and disgraceful affair of the Diamond Necklace.’

‘I do not understand how that could have been, since I have never met her.’

‘Do you persist in your denial that you know this woman?’

‘I am not persisting in a denial. I persist in saying I have never seen her, because that is the truth, and I shall continue to speak the truth.’

Hébert was then called as a witness.

He folded his hands together and turned his eyes upwards while he made the monstrous charge of incest against the Queen.

Everyone in the court was tense, and the silence which followed Hébert’s words was dramatic.

All eyes were on the Queen. She sat stiff and her face was drained of all colour. She did not protest; she did not move.

The women in the gallery had stopped knitting; they were deeply shocked; angry lights appeared in their eyes, and that anger was directed towards the man who had spoken, for they knew him for a liar. Instinct assured them that he lied. They could accuse the prisoner of extravagance, carelessness, pride – any folly – but not this.

Hébert grew uneasy. He sensed that something was wrong; he had expected shocked cries from the women, and abuse to be hurled at the prisoner. This silence unnerved him.

He stood uncertain for a moment; then he plunged on. ‘I … I … it is not my belief that this criminal conduct was indulged in for its own sake, but because the prisoner wished to weaken her son’s health, not only physically but mentally, that she might thus be enabled to dominate him and bend him to her will should he ever gain the throne.’

There was that silence again. The Queen still said nothing. Her expression betrayed nothing. It was uncanny.

One of the jurors said: ‘This matter must be clarified. The prisoner has made no comment on the accusation.’

Antoinette now rose to her feet; her hands fell to her side, and many saw that they were clenched tightly. She looked at Hébert with such disdain that he winced and cowered.

Then she spoke, and her words rang throughout the court with a note of innocence which was unmistakable even to the most insensitive: ‘If I have made no reply, it is because nature refuses to answer such a charge brought against a mother. I appeal in this matter to all the mothers present in court.’

The women in the gallery were with her. Motherhood had been insulted.

All those who were determined to bring the Queen to the scaffold were furious with Hébert.

It was necessary to bring the proceedings to a close for that day, as the sense of excitement in the court was ready to break into open revolt. The market-women had begun to whisper and shake their heads in shocked disapproval.

It was possible that had the trial continued then they would have demanded the liberation of the Queen, questioning whether, since she had been so basely slandered on one matter, she might have been on others?

The Queen was taken back to her cell.

Robespierre was furious with Hébert.

‘The fool! The idiot! To bring such a charge against her. One only has to look at her to know it is false. All those women … all those mothers can see in her face … can sense in her voice … her love for her son; and they know it for a mother’s love. Is it not enough that she should be Messalina? Must she also be Agrippina? This is a public triumph for Antoinette. For the love of the Republic bring the trial to an end to-morrow, and let this foolish matter be ignored as though it had never been brought up. Concentrate on her extravagance, the matter of the necklace … oh, yes … very particularly on the matter of the necklace. Concentrate on her extravagance and her desire to bring civil war to France. And when she next leaves the court let it be as a woman condemned to die.’

And the next day this was done.

When Antoinette returned to the Conciergerie she knew that there were but a few hours left to her.

In her cell she wrote to Elisabeth.

‘It is to you, dear sister, that I write for the last time. I have been sentenced to death, but not to shameful death, since this death is only shameful to criminals, whereas I shall rejoin your brother. I hope to be firm as he was in his last moments. My conscience is clear although I feel great grief because I must forsake my children. Through you, I send to them my blessing, in the hope that some day, when they are older, they will be with you once more and able to enjoy your tender care …

‘I have to speak to you of a matter which is extremely painful. I know how much my little boy has made you suffer. Forgive him, my dear sister; remember how young he is, and how easy it is to make a child say whatever one wants, to put words he does not understand into his mouth … I hope a day will come when he will grasp the full value of your kindness and of the affection you have shown to both my children … ’

She stopped and buried her face in her hands. She could not go on.

But after a while she picked up her pen and resolutely continued to write.

Rosalie came into the cell.

She brought a bowl of soup with her.

The Queen was lying fully dressed on her bed.

‘It is seven o’clock, Madame,’ said the girl. ‘Will you not take a little soup?’

‘I am not hungry, Rosalie.’

‘Madame, you ate nothing yesterday. You will be so weak. To please me … ’

The Queen smiled. ‘You have been good to me, Rosalie,’ she said. She took the bowl and tried a spoonful; she looked apologetically at the girl, for she could manage no more.

Rosalie turned away because she was crying.

After a while she said: ‘Madame, there are orders that you should not wear black.’

‘Do they care then what I wear?’ She laughed. ‘They have always been interested in what I wore. Is this interest to continue then … right to the end?’

‘You are to wear your white dress, Madame.’

‘I will change. I need new linen.’

‘Has the haemorrhage been bad, Madame?’

The Queen nodded.

‘I have a clean chemise here now. I washed it.’

The gendarme, stationed at the door, advanced into the room as the Queen slipped behind her bed to change.

He stood watching her insolently.

‘Cannot I have this little bit of privacy?’ asked Antoinette.

Rosalie cried: ‘Stand back awhile.’

‘My orders are not to let the widow out of my sight,’ said the man.

Rosalie stood in front of him and lifted her blazing eyes to his face.

He was a little man, and Rosalie’s face was on a level with his. He was abashed by the scorn and contempt he saw there; even as Hébert had been made to feel by the women in the gallery of the court.

He did not attempt to advance, and so the Queen changed her clothes and put on the white dress.

She was praying when, an hour later, her cell was invaded by the judges, the executioner and a priest.

Her sentence was read again; then Henri Samson, the executioner, cut off her hair and tied her hands behind her back.

‘Is that necessary?’ she asked.

‘Those are my orders,’ said Samson.

The tocsins were ringing. The people were lining the streets. The troops were on guard, and many of the streets were barred to other traffic.

This was the day for which so many had longed. They would stand in safety and see the Queen ride by to her death.

It was a little past eleven o’clock when the tumbril drew up outside the gates of the Conciergerie. The Queen took her place in the rough cart; there was merely a bare board on which to sit, yet she, in her white cap with her ragged hair showing beneath it, sat as though this were the glass coach in which she had made her entry into France.

Samson stood behind her guarding her on her ride through the streets.

It must not be too quick, that ride. All the people of Paris wanted to see her during her last hour on Earth. In the crowd pamphlets were being sold: La Vie Scandaleuse de Marie Antoinette. Most of these had been composed by Jeanne de Lamotte.

Many had come out to shout their scorn at her; but it was not easy to do this, for the woman in the tumbril, sitting so erect, her hands tied behind her back, rode as though she were still a Queen.

As the tumbril passed the church of Saint-Roch, someone cried out: ‘Death to the wicked woman who tried to ruin France! Death to the Austrian whore!’ But no one took up the cry, and the Queen did not seem to hear it.

The tumbril had crossed the river and was rumbling along the rue Saint-Honoré. There a man raised his sword and shouted: ‘There she is, the infamous Antoinette. She’s finished at last, my friends.’ But no one responded.

Into the Place de la Révolution. Here the crowds were thickest. Two objects dominated the grim place; one the statue of the Goddess of Liberty, the Phrygian cap on her head, and the sword of justice in her hand; and the other that grim instrument of death – the guillotine.

Beside this last the tumbril had come to a halt. Antoinette stepped down almost eagerly.

She mounted the steps looking neither to right nor left; she showed no sign of fear. As Louis had done before her, she was ready and, it seemed, fearless.

For a moment she looked at the Tuileries and thought she saw instead the glorious Palace of Versailles, and herself coming there as a young girl to the shy husband who had seemed afraid of her. She thought of Trianon – her own beloved Petit Trianon – and of the days and nights she had spent there with Axel de Fersen. All so unimportant now – of such small significance; for this was the end. The end of sorrow; the end of pain.

The executioner and his men had seized her and forced her into a kneeling position, so that her throat was resting on the lower half of the circular hole; the board was fitted over her neck, imprisoning her.

She closed her eyes. ‘Farewell, my love,’ she murmured. ‘Try to find some happiness in this life, for you have long to live, I trust. Farewell, my little ones, and do not grieve, my dearest, for what you have done … I know they made you do it; and when you are old enough to understand, I want you to forget …’

‘Farewell, life … Farewell, France … Farewell …’

The great knife had descended.

Then the executioner lifted that bloody and once lovely head.

‘Long live the Republic!’ he cried; and those who had been unable to see because the press of people was so great knew that the moment had come. Marie Antoinette of Austria and Lorraine, widow of Louis, one time King of France, was dead.