Confessions of Marie Antoinette (47 page)

The clatter of the wheels echoes off the stuccoed and brick façades of innumerable residences as we manuever through the narrow, dimly illuminated lanes. With tremendous solemnity we rattle past a lamppost just north of the Hôtel de Ville. The figure of a man, his hair barbered to a stubble, dangles from the lantern, a hempen noose about his throat. His shoes have been stolen and obscenities have been scrawled upon the dead man’s stockings, but his cravat remains oddly pristine. The poor soul, an aristocrat by his wardrobe, is slack-jawed, as if he is shocked to have been strung up like a ham. I shudder and look away. The carriage crosses the Pont Notre-Dame over the Seine onto the Île de la Cité and turns into the courtyard of the Conciergerie, a turreted fortress on the left bank of the river that ensconces Sainte-Chapelle, the glorious thirteenth-century chapel built by Louis IX. A member of the Garde Nationale opens the door to the coach and begrudgingly unfolds the steps. He does not extend a hand to help me descend and I must manage on my own with my spaniel and my few belongings.

The prison is ominously dark. Not even a torch burns outside the gates. The guards who had escorted me out of the Temple pound on the bolted wooden door with their musket butts, an incessant thundering that reverberates throughout the courtyard.

A familiar face answers their call. “
Est-ce
Louis Larivière?” I ask. Once, he was a pastry cook’s apprentice in the kitchen of le Petit Trianon. “Are you the turnkey?”

He nods, astonished to see the Queen of France standing before him, a frail, white-haired woman in black mourning clothes, her face as pale as moonlight, little resembling the curvaceous, bejeweled, exotically coiffed, and opulently gowned monarch for whom
he had filled pastel-hued macarons with flavored cream. Does this mean I will have a friend here? Or has Larivière become like Gamain, Louis’s former locksmithing tutor, who betrayed him to the Convention?

As I mount the stone steps of the prison, crossing the threshold from freedom to incarceration, from the possibility of life to the certainty of death, memory transports me into the past. A naïve archduchess of fourteen reaches the Île des Epis where she will forfeit everything she has heretofore known to become a Frenchwoman. With her are her two most prized possessions: the golden watch that once belonged to her father, Francis of Lorraine, and her beloved pug. Back then, she was permitted to retain the timepiece, but not her Mopshund, an
Austrian
dog.

The irony is not lost on me that when I was welcomed into the kingdom, my dog was taken away in those final moments before I stepped across the manufactured border between Austria and France; yet now that I am at the edge of another boundary, one that will undoubtedly lead to my ignominious exit from the country that welcomed me with open arms so long ago, they do not insist upon confiscating my four-legged companion.

I enter a vast medieval hall with rows of thick pillars and groin-vaulted ceilings of honey-colored stone, a cathedral of misery. The Hall of the Guards is populated with all manner of people awaiting admission, from street urchins to nonjuring nuns who managed to survive the September massacres only to find themselves in Heaven’s antechamber. Also among them are the dregs of humanity; the Conciergerie is renowned for housing the worst criminals in France. Dozens of guards are stationed throughout the hall, some alert and at attention, others smoking, joking, spitting. The men who have conveyed me to the Conciergerie escort me up a flight of stairs to a desk in front of an iron grille where a grumpy man in a dirty
bonnet rouge
sits behind an enormous ledger. He
raises an eyebrow when he sees me, exhaling a violet plume from his clay pipe. Although he knows it full well, the registrar demands my name.

“Look at me,” I reply quietly. I will never say the words “Citoyenne Antoinette Capet.” Who am I? Who do
I
believe myself to be? Marie Antoinette, the
ci-devant
queen of France? Maria Antonia of Austria and Lorraine?

I remove my handkerchief from my reticule and blot my brow. I am wet with anxiety and fear. It is hot in here despite the cool stone that surrounds me. The registrar inscribes my name in the next empty column of his ledger and neatly writes a number beside it: from this moment on, this Hapsburg daughter, this Bourbon wife and mother, will be known as Prisoner 280.

THIRTY

The Conciergerie

I am escorted to my cell by Madame Richard, the wife of the jailer, and Madame Larivière, the elderly mother of the prison’s governor. “It is not what you are accustomed to, of course,” says Madame Richard sympathetically, and I marvel that it might be possible to find friends in this horrid place. “But Rosalie and I have done our best to make your cell comfortable for you.” She indicates the exceptionally lovely dark-haired young woman scurrying to keep up with us, whom she introduces as Mademoiselle Lamorlière, her own maid.

My new abode is minuscule, less than twelve feet square. “Who are those men?” I ask, upon seeing a pair of uniformed gendarmes seated in the cell playing backgammon. “Should you ask them to leave?”

Madame Richard emits a soft chuckle and fusses, embarrassed, with her white fichu. “Citoyen Gilbert and Citoyen Dufresne will remain here throughout the night. At daylight they will be relieved by another two National gendarmes.”

“In this tiny cell with me? How—where am I to dress?” I ask, shocked.

Madame Larivière points to a folding screen. “And I will patch your gown for you,” she whispers. “When you raised your arms I noticed how threadbare the fabric is beneath them. Your hem, too,” she adds. “It is all worn out. If you don’t mind it a little bit shorter, I can mend it.”

My eyes dim with grateful tears. I cannot believe these women are so kind to me, so solicitous. I had expected monsters and instead I have found sisters. “But the screen?” I ask. It cannot be taller than four feet high; it would barely come up to my chest, affording little in the way of modesty. “Why must they see my face and my—my
poitrine
when I dress and undress? What do they think I am going to conceal from them?” Another thought occurs to me as I notice a bucket placed in the corner. My jaw quivers with humiliation as I realize that these men will be able to watch me relieve myself. At present, they are otherwise occupied. Thisbe is investigating her new surroundings, nosing about the meager pieces of furniture—the guards’ table and chairs, a narrow camp bed, a three-legged stool with a splintered seat, a small rickety table beside the bed, and two empty chairs—and is attempting to convert the pair of gendarmes into friends by sheer dint of her engaging personality.

Glancing at the guards playing with the spaniel, “We will ask them not to peek,” says Madame Richard pragmatically, tucking a wayward blond tendril beneath her mobcap.

“And Madame Richard has instructed me to help you dress and undress,” Rosalie adds. “I will stand between the screen and the officers in order to protect your dignity.”

What choice do I have? Things could, in truth, be considerably worse.

The kindly Madame Larivière asks me to hand her my black
silk gown for repair, explaining that they will send to the Temple for additional garments. In the meantime I can wear my other mourning dress. I look about the cell for places to store my few possessions. I am so exhausted, physically and emotionally, that I am nearly asleep on my feet, wobbling on the cold and uneven brick floor. The gendarmes, who have paused from their game to stare at me, do not move; it is Rosalie who clasps my elbow to steady me.

“I will ask my husband to locate a bit of carpet,” Madame Larivière says. “At least it will make things warmer and a bit more comfortable. And first thing in the morning I will send him to buy an ell of black silk to mend your gown.”

The amusing thought of the white-haired turnkey shopping for fabric brings the first smile to my lips in days.

“Perhaps I should dispatch
my
husband,” suggests Madame Richard. Turning back to me she explains, “Before the Revolution, we were haberdashers.”

I empty the contents of my reticule onto the little bed. Someone has endeavored to make the cot more welcoming by covering it with a pretty blue counterpane and a pillow edged in Battenburg lace. “Do you think it might be possible to hang this where I can see it?” I ask, separating my father’s watch from the rest of my belongings. I scan the filthy walls for a hook. There is not even a mirror hanging in the cell. I don’t know how I will be able to make my toilette every day.

“Citoyen Gilbert.” At the sound of Madame Larivière’s voice, one of the gendarmes looks up. “Would you kindly locate a carpenter’s nail and hammer it into the wall”—she points to a perfect location and looks to me for confirmation—“here, by the bed?”

Gilbert immediately rises from his chair, as if he had been given an order he could not refuse by his own
grand-mère
. Within a half hour, Papa’s watch is suspended from a nail by its golden chain.

Only a few hours remain until daybreak and the women, my
three graces, encourage me to sleep. The tiny cell is naturally gloomy, but the candles are continually replaced so that I am never permitted to enjoy the solace of complete darkness. Tonight, however, I am too exhausted to mention it. Although the bed is barely big enough to accommodate me, the prisoners’ straw pallet has been improved with the addition of a pair of mattresses and a bolster. Rosalie unlaces me and helps me unpin my hair before I sink into a fitful slumber, my final thoughts, as ever, on my children.

I have always been a creature of routine; without it, I can’t imagine how I will be able to endure the ignominy and deprivation of my new life. When I awaken, thanks to a wet-nosed nuzzle from Thisbe, and glance at Papa’s watch, it is seven in the morning. I sit up against the bolster and blink the sleep from my eyes. Two different gendarmes are sitting at the same table where Citoyens Dufresne and Gilbert had been a few hours ago. But these officers are not occupied with a pastime. It is clear they have been staring at me as if I were an exotic creature in a menagerie, waiting for me to do something unusual. I am afraid to get out of bed, but I must avail myself of the bucket. To my horror, the gendarmes do not look away. They continue to watch me, as if they expect my body to release a family of toads when I raise my skirt to relieve myself. Giving birth to Mousseline in front of the highest-ranking members of the French aristocracy was not as degrading as this.

Rosalie Lamorlière arrives with a tray of food. “I did not know whether you would prefer coffee or chocolate,
Maj—madame
,” she says, correcting her urge to address me as the queen in the presence of the gendarmes. “So I brought you a cup of each. Madame Richard didn’t think you would want to drink the same water that the other prisoners do—it comes from the Seine.” She makes a face. “Madame Richard sent to the Temple for your Ville d’Avray water.”

The breakfast tray also contains dry toast and a soft-boiled egg
sitting in a china cup. “You need to keep up your strength, madame,” Rosalie murmurs, leaning over me as she sets the tray upon the little table by the bed. “Madame Richard says you are as thin as a twig.” I am so moved by these expressions of generosity that my nose stings with tears and a lump of emotion rises in my throat. She makes a kissing sound designed to get Thisbe’s attention and scoops the spaniel into her arms. “While you eat your
petit déjeuner
, I will take her for a walk.”

My dog grows so quickly accustomed to her new surroundings that perhaps I could learn something from her, although her ability to withstand the putrid odors that pervade every corner of the Conciergerie, the fetid stenches of urine and excrement and hundreds of unwashed, terrified prisoners, as well as the acrid smoke from the gendarmes’ clay pipes, passes all comprehension. After Rosalie returns, I will ask her to mask the cell’s nauseating aromas by burning some juniper in a cachepot.

I eat slowly, trying to savor my meal. If I devour only half of it now, the other piece of toast will satisfy my hunger later. Who knows how long this generosity will last?

When Rosalie returns with Thisbe, I decline her offer to help me dress. “I am not your mistress. In addition to Madame Richard, I expect that you have many other people to look after.”

“But I wish to aid you, madame,” she insists, taking a length of white ribbon from her pocket. “Here. At least allow me to dress your hair with this. If you look pretty, perhaps—perhaps—it will make things seem easier.” Although I permit her to style my coiffure, I have no thoughts of vanity nowadays. Fear for my children occupies my mind instead. In mid-afternoon, when Madame Richard brings a tray for my dinner of bouillon, boiled vegetables, and roast duckling—did someone know that duck is my favorite dish?—as well as a pastry for dessert, I cannot be anything but truthful when she asks how I am faring.

“I miss my son and daughter,” I confide. “I can live without lavish palaces, without fine clothes, and certainly without opulent jewels, but I cannot live without my children. They are the air I breathe,” I add, looking about the dank cell. The only source of light filters in from the Cour des Femmes, the Women’s Courtyard, just beyond my walls. Reaching beneath my fichu I retrieve a locket that dangles from a chain I wear about my neck. I keep it hidden under my gown because I am afraid the jailers will confiscate it. I open the locket to show Madame Richard. “This is a miniature of my son, painted when he was dauphin. And this is a lock of his hair.”

Like any mother, she coos over the portrait, remarking what a handsome boy Louis Charles is. “One day I will introduce you to my son,” she replies. “I think you and Fanfan would like each other very much.” I nod appreciatively; I have never met a child I did not adore.

Citoyen Michonis arrives during my first afternoon in the Conciergerie; under his arm he carries a package wrapped in butcher’s paper. “I was able to take some things from the Temple for you,” he says. I unwrap the bundle to find a fresh petticoat, two pairs of black filoselle stockings, a clean change of linen, a few lace-trimmed chemises, three white lawn fichus, a cloak, and my other pair of
prunelle
shoes, plum-colored satin with a heel
à la Saint-Huberty
. These slippers I intend to save until the ones I am wearing have completely disintegrated. Owing to the dampness in the cell, it may not be very long indeed before I will need to discard them.