enough. I clutch Madame Royale to my breast to shield her vision and shout through the window, “Get this sans-culotte away from me!” After one more swipe at the window with poor Lieutenant Deshuttes’s head, the laborer disappears into the crowd, laughing like a madman.
Their gruesome trophies newly embellished, the mob parades them upon the pikestaffs toward the vanguard of this hideous cavalcade and, accompanied by the sort of dancing one expects to see at a country fair, a new chant commences. “ Nous vous amenons le boulanger, la boulangère, et le petit mitron —We are bringing you the baker, the baker’s wife, and the little baker boy!”
Madame Royale stares glumly out the carriage window. “They do not even mention me .”
FOUR
The Tuileries
It is ten in the evening by the time our carriage rumbles up to the courtyard of the Tuileries Palace. In the coaches that have traveled behind us are six hundred and seventy exhausted and frightened attendants.
It is so dark that there are not enough torches to illuminate the vast façade. The château is little more than a ghostly shell. It has remained formally unoccupied by the court for 124 years, although for some time a small apartment has been kept furnished for me and a few of my attendants. If I stayed later than usual at a masquerade ball, we would retire to the cavernous Tuileries for the night.
I expect a footman to open the steps and hand me down from the coach. Instead, Count von Fersen and the comte de Saint-Priest are there to greet us. My eyes meet Axel’s, and our unspoken exchange, conveyed only through our eyes, is noticed by the Secrétaire d’État of the royal household. “You should go,” Saint-Priest murmurs to Axel. “There are too many people who know. And ifthey do not know, they suspect. And if they do not suspect, now is not the time to give them reason to do so.”
We have not been able to say a single thing. I extend my hand to Count von Fersen and he raises it to his lips, softly kissing my knuckles. I feel the heat of his mouth through my glove. “I will visit you,” he says quietly. “Tomorrow.” With a toss of his dark blue cloak about his broad shoulders he disappears into the night.
I look back toward the coach. The carriage bearing Madame de Tourzel, her daughter, and the princesse Élisabeth has arrived and the governess has been reunited with her charges. She smoothes the hair off their foreheads and asks them if they are tired.
Louis is conferring with Monsieur. They speak in low voices, inaudible to the mob that has waited through the brisk October night for our arrival. The king’s brother still looks less perturbed by our enforced déménagement than I believe he should be. My husband is approached by the mayor of Paris, the astronomer Jean-Sylvain Bailly, the selfsame delegate to the National Assembly who in June refused to allow the king to grieve for our firstborn son because he required his attention to the meeting of the three Estates General. The men exchange a few words, their faces masks of cordiality, and I hear Louis say, as much for the benefit of his audience of thousands of citizens, “It is always with pleasure that I find myself amidst the inhabitants of the good city of Paris.” If I were to utter those words I would be lying, but Louis really does love them. In his heart he believes the citizens are unhappy and misguided but can be swayed back to the right path when they are made to see that it is their sovereign, and not the Assembly, who cares about their needs and wants.
The royal family is escorted through the entry by armed guards. “Kings who become prisoners are not far from death,” I murmur under my breath to Madame Campan.
Torches and candles illuminate the grand entrance hall. Likemany French châteaux, the main building is a cavernous rectangle, but the Tuileries’ windows are smaller than most, so even on the brightest days, but most especially late at night, one gets the
Their gruesome trophies newly embellished, the mob parades them upon the pikestaffs toward the vanguard of this hideous cavalcade and, accompanied by the sort of dancing one expects to see at a country fair, a new chant commences. “ Nous vous amenons le boulanger, la boulangère, et le petit mitron —We are bringing you the baker, the baker’s wife, and the little baker boy!”
Madame Royale stares glumly out the carriage window. “They do not even mention me .”
FOUR
The Tuileries
It is ten in the evening by the time our carriage rumbles up to the courtyard of the Tuileries Palace. In the coaches that have traveled behind us are six hundred and seventy exhausted and frightened attendants.
It is so dark that there are not enough torches to illuminate the vast façade. The château is little more than a ghostly shell. It has remained formally unoccupied by the court for 124 years, although for some time a small apartment has been kept furnished for me and a few of my attendants. If I stayed later than usual at a masquerade ball, we would retire to the cavernous Tuileries for the night.
I expect a footman to open the steps and hand me down from the coach. Instead, Count von Fersen and the comte de Saint-Priest are there to greet us. My eyes meet Axel’s, and our unspoken exchange, conveyed only through our eyes, is noticed by the Secrétaire d’État of the royal household. “You should go,” Saint-Priest murmurs to Axel. “There are too many people who know. And ifthey do not know, they suspect. And if they do not suspect, now is not the time to give them reason to do so.”
We have not been able to say a single thing. I extend my hand to Count von Fersen and he raises it to his lips, softly kissing my knuckles. I feel the heat of his mouth through my glove. “I will visit you,” he says quietly. “Tomorrow.” With a toss of his dark blue cloak about his broad shoulders he disappears into the night.
I look back toward the coach. The carriage bearing Madame de Tourzel, her daughter, and the princesse Élisabeth has arrived and the governess has been reunited with her charges. She smoothes the hair off their foreheads and asks them if they are tired.
Louis is conferring with Monsieur. They speak in low voices, inaudible to the mob that has waited through the brisk October night for our arrival. The king’s brother still looks less perturbed by our enforced déménagement than I believe he should be. My husband is approached by the mayor of Paris, the astronomer Jean-Sylvain Bailly, the selfsame delegate to the National Assembly who in June refused to allow the king to grieve for our firstborn son because he required his attention to the meeting of the three Estates General. The men exchange a few words, their faces masks of cordiality, and I hear Louis say, as much for the benefit of his audience of thousands of citizens, “It is always with pleasure that I find myself amidst the inhabitants of the good city of Paris.” If I were to utter those words I would be lying, but Louis really does love them. In his heart he believes the citizens are unhappy and misguided but can be swayed back to the right path when they are made to see that it is their sovereign, and not the Assembly, who cares about their needs and wants.
The royal family is escorted through the entry by armed guards. “Kings who become prisoners are not far from death,” I murmur under my breath to Madame Campan.
Torches and candles illuminate the grand entrance hall. Likemany French châteaux, the main building is a cavernous rectangle, but the Tuileries’ windows are smaller than most, so even on the brightest days, but most especially late at night, one gets the
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