Daughters of the Storm (31 page)

Inside the royal apartments in the Tuileries the king conferred repeatedly with his officials and paced up and down. The queen, who had just returned from handing out food and drink to their supporters, stood talking to her friend, the Princesse de Lamballe, whose beautiful, vapid face registered an unusual determination. Madame Élisabeth hovered nervously in between. Héloïse sat in a corner of the room, ready to leap up and pack if the order should come.

At 4 a.m. Louis presented his latest report, conscious of a growing exasperation. Surely the king must take action? But as he reported to him on the numbers of the defenders – nine hundred Swiss Guards, two thousand National Guardsmen and his own regimental detachment – Louis knew in his heart that his king would never fight. Surreptitiously, he searched out Héloïse and was rewarded by a faint but reassuring smile.

Finally, after a rapid conversation conducted with the advisers, it was decided that the royal family would do nothing until daybreak. Summoning up his powers of persuasion, Louis argued forcefully against this decision.

‘You must escape, Sire. We cannot undertake to protect you. We will do what we can, but I must tell you that we will be severely outnumbered.' In desperation, Louis dropped to one knee. ‘With all my heart, Sire, I beg you to listen and to ensure the safety of your family.'

Louis XVI blinked down at him.

‘You must remember, Monsieur le Capitaine d'Épinon, the last time we endeavoured to escape. If you can forget what happened at Varennes, I cannot. I will not be responsible for a second episode. Besides, I cannot abandon my people.'

Out of the corner of his eye, Louis saw the queen shrug in a hopeless fashion. She had spent most of the afternoon trying to persuade her husband to address his troops and inspire their support. But without much success. He rose to his feet and turned towards her.

‘Madame la Reine, you have heard what I have said. I can only repeat, you and His Majesty are under threat. Please take this last chance.'

The haughty blue eyes stared back at him, and Louis was reminded of a time not so long ago in Versailles when he had watched Marie-Antoinette, attired in a white gown sewn with sapphires, open a ball. Then those blue eyes had sparkled and the lips had uttered charming witticisms, and the queen had danced without a seeming care in the world. The contrast between that brilliant vision and this tired, strained woman, endlessly clicking her diamond rings round her fingers, was both shocking and painful.

‘Monsieur,' she said, ‘this is a conflict of forces. We have come to the point where we will know which is going to prevail – the king, the constitution or the rebels. For myself, I would rather be nailed to the walls of the palace than seek protection from those who have behaved badly towards us, and it would be unthinkable to leave our loyal nobles and our gallant Swiss to die alone.'

Before Louis could answer, Monsieur Roderer, the Attorney-General, interposed himself between Louis and the queen.

‘Madame, in my opinion it is necessary for you to place yourself under the protection of the National Assembly. By staying here you are endangering the lives of your husband and your children. I will myself go and inform the members of this move, if you will permit me.'

The queen, no longer able to control her tears, looked at the king, who shrugged in a bewildered way. Louis bowed his head.

‘I will consider the matter a little longer,' said Louis XVI.

‘Then, Sire, I must accept your wishes,' Louis replied. He paused. ‘Sire, perhaps you should show yourself to your troops as a sign of your loyalty.'

To this the king did assent, and a flurry of courtiers and ministers descended into the gardens where the National Guardsmen had assembled.

Keeping a wary eye on the rooftops, and straining for every sound, Louis preceded the king down the staircase. The first fingers of dawn were already whitening the sky. It was, Louis saw, that perfect moment, a moment of breathless hush when the world, poised between the concealing dark and the clamour of daybreak, gathers its forces, and even the birds sit silent at their roosts. Like a thick blanket, the heat wrapped the city in its hot breath. Chased by the sun, a few wisps of mist drifted up from the river and dissolved into nothing. Within seconds the moment passed and the shafts of sunlight darkened into brazen yellow. A city smell rose into the air, a mixture of wood smoke, latrines, decaying vegetables and the dry-dust taste of summer. He breathed deeply, hoping to still the little jumping beats of his heart and master the tension in his stomach. Who knew, this might be his last day on earth.

Louis wanted passionately to live, but he also knew that when the fighting began he would be in the thick of it. There was no question of that. Like Héloïse, he knew where his duty lay. At the thought of her he felt better.

The king emerged slowly from the palace and stood still, seemingly dazzled by the light. Dressed in a purple suit, his wig only half-powdered and flattened on one side, his sword bumping with every step, he walked like a man lost towards the troops on the terraces. But halfway there he appeared to change his mind, hesitated, and made his way back to the palace, to the accompanying jeers and shouts of a watching crowd which had gathered on the Terrasse des Feuillants. The king stopped in his tracks and shook his head from side to side, before disappearing from view.

The situation that Louis d'Épinon dreaded was beginning to happen – and the king was doing nothing to prevent it. In despair, he watched as one National Guardsman after another, infuriated by the king's lacklustre behaviour, broke ranks with the evident intention of joining the mob. Some of the gunners even swivelled their guns so their noses now pointed towards the palace, and not a few shook their fists at the retreating king.

Héloïse, watching from a window of the palace, clasped her pregnant belly with a protective gesture. It was as if the king had no will, no energy, no fight, to turn the tide that now ran against him. In his lethargy, she thought, tasting defeat on her tongue, was written their fate.

She made her way over to the queen and waited for permission to speak. Her Majesty was holding yet another conversation with a minister, but she interrupted it to listen to Héloïse.

‘If you please, Madame la Reine, I think it would be wise if I arranged for your trunks to be packed.'

Unusually for her, Marie-Antoinette's blue eyes flashed fear before she veiled them with weary lids.

‘As you please, Madame la Comtesse.'

And that was all.

Héloïse was glad of something to do. Inside the queen's bedchamber the maids scurried about dropping things and heaving clothes into one haphazard pile after another. Their fear was palpable the pallid faces told their own story. It required all Héloïse's energy to restore some sort of order and to quieten a girl sobbing loudly in a corner, and then she threw herself into a chair to snatch a few minutes' sleep.

By eight o'clock the shouts hailing from the direction of the Place du Carrousel could be heard quite clearly. Their noise interrupted Héloïse's confused dreams and woke her. She sat for a moment listening to the tolling of the tocsin, trying to clear her buzzing head. She rose and made her way to an apartment that overlooked the Place du Carrousel.

By now the remaining royalist troops on this side of the Tuileries had been withdrawn into the palace, leaving their cannon to shine in the sun. Héloïse could see them quite clearly unattended in the courtyard. On either side of her, muskets poked out of windows and caches, and the blue and white of the soldiers' uniforms appeared behind the casements. Héloïse clasped her hands tight and sent a prayer into the hot air.

‘Keep him, O Mary, Mother of God, keep him safe.'

She was, of course, praying for Louis.

It was time she returned to the queen. She hurried back through rooms filled with courtiers and messengers, and pushed her way through the crowd that had collected outside the king's apartments.

‘Gentlemen,' she cried out. ‘Let me through. I have orders to attend Her Majesty.'

At her entreaty a passage was cleared for her. Héloïse picked up her skirts and pushed open the door. The king was sitting at a table, his hands resting on his knees. The queen was standing in the middle of the room talking intently to Madame Élisabeth and some ministers. As she entered, the king looked up at his wife.

‘Let us go,' he said with a heavy sigh.

In utter despair, Héloïse dropped a curtsy in front of the queen. No one could be unaware of what this departure would mean. It was, she knew, too late for the royal family to escape and too late for the king to take charge. So they had to wait – king, queen and the courtiers and servants who would be left behind in the besieged palace – for the escort that would take the royal family away to an unknown future. Once they threw themselves on the mercy of the National Assembly, the Bourbons' power to order their fates would be lost. Sensing the atmosphere, the little dauphin tugged at his mother's hand in bewilderment while his sister stood pale and stiff beside him, a too-mature expression on her young face.

At last, the escort arrived. The king and queen made their farewells and walked slowly through the apartments towards the stairs. At the door the queen stopped.

‘We'll be back soon,' she said defiantly.

Then they were gone, leaving their shocked and frightened supporters to look after their own safety as best they could.

*

The leaves had fallen early this year in the gardens. Released from the stifling palace rooms, the dauphin sank with a delighted whoop knee-deep into the rustling heaps between the lines of trees and kicked at them with childish abandon. One of the soldiers lifted him up on to his back, whereupon the queen gave a shriek, fearing that he had been kidnapped. Héloïse brought up the rear of the party, and kept her eyes focused on the queen's upright figure. A thousand hostile faces were directed on to them from the Terrasse des Feuillants, and she shivered, despite the sweat that was seeping down her back. The air was filled with the tramp of feet, marching to the insistent thuds of the drums and the snatches of the
Marseillaise.
The heat burned its way down into her lungs.

The king entered the Assembly first and, after some confusion, the queen followed him. Not one of the seated delegates made any move to greet them. The dauphin was placed on the secretary's table and Héloïse hastened to disentangle him from the ink and papers that were strewn all over the green baize. The door of the Assembly closed. The Tuileries was left to face the onslaught.

Now they came: surging down from the Rue St Honoré and the Rue du Carrousel, through the Rue de l'Échelle and the Rue St Nicaise; from the Pont Neuf and Pont Royal – a murderous tide that nothing could stop. Cabinet-makers and goldsmiths, servants, clerks and jewellers, water-carriers, glaziers, gauze-makers, locksmiths and carters, shopkeepers, craftsmen. On they swept, faces locked in hate and exultation; fierce, determined and single-minded.

His men grouped in battle order behind him, Louis stood under the peristyle of the Tuileries and watched while the revolutionaries battered at the gate of the Tuileries courtyard. He knew, with a sickening certainty, that it would not take very long for them to breach it.

As he suspected, within seconds the attackers had demolished the gates and were inside the courtyard. Surprised by their easy passage, those in the forefront paused, uncertain what to do next. One of the leaders, bolder than the rest, came running over to the Tuileries entrance and tried to persuade the Swiss Guards – without success – to come over to their side. During the ensuing scuffle a Swiss was cut by a sabre.

Louis clenched his teeth, took a deep breath and sang out the order.

‘Fire!'

It had begun.

Bullets whistled in a smoke-wreathed swathe and front line of the attackers took the brunt of the onslaught. Under the rain of lead, it straggled, swayed and opened to let the bodies of those hit fall to the ground. Then it closed again, this time to surge forward with renewed vigour. As they came closer, the blurred mass of faces became more distinct, and for Louis they became distastefully individual. Here was a young man who surely did not deserve to die, a woman who should be at home, a fanatic with his mouth stretched back over his teeth in a ghastly grin.... Their cries of
‘Trahison! Trahison! Mort aux traîtres!'
rose hoarse and distinct above the sound of their running feet and the guns.

Blinded and confused by the fire, the invaders hesitated for a vital few seconds and Louis took the opportunity to regroup his men in front of the palace entrance. He drew his sword. Out in front of the crowd a man called Fournier, nicknamed ‘the American', harangued the Parisians and then, with an oath, turned and cut his way through the doors. He yelled for them to come on. The mob poured after him.

Louis withdrew further under the entrance. Fournier ran up to the foot of the great staircase situated under the peristyle, seized the pikes of the two Swiss sentries and began to chase them up the stairs. The Swiss, waiting above, lowered their weapons into a fighting position.

‘Fire!' shouted someone from the first storey and let loose another hail of bullets. In return the Parisians replied with a volley of shot from the commandeered cannon and the courtyard was soon littered with dead and wounded who screamed in anguish while their comrades ran to take their place.

The battle raged on, its noise thundering into the streets, unnerving all who heard it. In the National Assembly across the Tuileries Gardens the king was jerked into action. Determined that no one should die in his defence he scrawled hastily on a scrap of paper: ‘The king orders the Swiss to lay down their arms at once, and to retire to their barracks.'

His message, brought by a sweating runner, was handed to the Swiss commander just as the first wave of invaders had been, miraculously, ejected from the palace. Immediately, in obedience to their king, the Swiss on the staircase shouldered their arms and began to march off in the direction of the Rue de l'Échelle, where they were leapt upon by the mob and torn to pieces.