The Queen`s Confession (51 page)

The poissardes went before and around the carriage of Their Majesties crying, “We shall no longer want bread—we have the baker, the baker’s wife and the baker’s boy with us.” In the midst of this troop of cannibals the heads of two murdered bodyguards were carried on poles.

MADAME CAM PAN MEMOIRS

The Tragic October

The Petit Trianon had been my refuge in the past. It now became my escape from the horrors of reality. In past years in that little paradise I had shut myself away, refusing to take heed of the lessons my mother thrust at me, never listening to the warnings of Mercy and Vennond. Now I would go there and try and forget the rumbling of disaster. I would try to recapture that dream world which I had endeavoured to make years ago and in which I still believed that I could have been happy had I achieved it. It was not that I asked a great deal. I told myself that I did not really care for the

extravagance, the fine clothes, the diamonds. Had not Rose Benin been at my elbow to urge me to extravagant follies, had not the Court jewellers been so insistent, I should never have thought of buying their goods. No, what I longed for was a happy home with children to care for above all, children and a husband whom I could love. I loved Louis, in my way; perhaps I should say I had a great affection for him. But just as he was not fitted for the re1e of King, he was not fitted for that of husband.

The kindest, most self-effacing man in the world, his weaknesses were so obvious to me; even when he granted my wishes, I might have respected him more if he had not. He was a man of whom one could be fond but could not entirely respect. He lacked that strength which every woman asks of a man. His people asked it too, and he failed co give it to them as he failed to give it to me.

Am I excusing myself for those fevered weeks at the Trianon those waiting weeks between that fateful fourteenth of July and the tragic October day which more than any other was a turning-point in our lives?

Perhaps I am, but even now, remembering soberly wiA my life behind me and death so close, looking over my shoulder, I believe I should have acted in exactly the same way.

I loved the Trianon more than any place in the world;

and the world was crashing about my shoulders I was soon to lose the Trianon . my children . my life. So I snatched at that brief idyll. I must fulfill my life. I felt the urgency, the passionate need, as I never had before.

Axel had left Versailles previously because he had feared the consequences if he stayed at Court; he told me how he had longed to stay, but that he knew his name was even then being coupled with mine and he knew what harm could befall me if he stayed.

And now? It was different now. The entire picture had changed. I needed him now.

I.

needed every friend I could find; and he assured me that never in my life would I find a friend such as he was.

“You risk your life staying here,” I told him.

“My life is at your service,” he answered.

“To be risked and lost if need be.”

38i I wept in his arms and said I could not allow it.

He answered that I could not prevent it. I could command him to go but he would not listen. He had come to stay close to me, closer even than danger.

He had mingled with the people; he had read what was circulated about me; he had hard threats against me which he did not repeat to me but which had decided him that he must remain at my side.

And while I urged him to go, I longed for him to stay, and our passion was too strong to be resisted.

The Trianon was the perfect setting for lovers, and there we could meet unobserved.

I do not think I could ever have deceived my husband. I was not the kind of woman who could have pretended to love him and to have a secret lover. Louis knew of my relationship with Axel de Fersen; he understood full well that my feelings for the Swedish Count were such as I had felt for no one else. There had been scandals about other men, Luzan, Coigny, Anois . and many others, but they had been meaningless. Axel de Fersen was different. He had known that long ago.

There had been a time when papers had been written about myself and Axel and these had been shown to the King. I remembered how distressed I had been at the time.

He had guessed then my feelings for Axel, but I had shown him clearly that I would never take him as my lover while I had been bearing my husband’s children, the Enfants de France. I was well aware of that duty.

Louis understood. In his kindly way he made me see that he understood, that he appreciated my actions, while he knew that I had been unable to prevent my feelings. Axel went away and I had more children. Louis could never make up to me for all the humiliation of those first years of marriage.

Now there was no physical relationship between us. That had stopped after the birth of Sophie Beatrix. We had believed then that we had our four children—two boys and two girls. How were we to know that we

were to lose two 382 of them and that perhaps it would have been better if we had never given the children to France? Neither of us was a slave of sexual passion. But my love for Axel was different from everything that had ever gone before. Our physical union was an outward manifestation of a spiritual bond. It would never have happened but for the fevered atmosphere about us, the sense of living from day to day, from hour to hour because we could not know what the next would bring.

And Louis wished it to be so. That kind man, that tender man, wanted me to live as fully as I could during those terrible days.

So I existed between the love of these two men, with my children never far from my side. Perhaps I was wrong;

perhaps I was foolish; but I had often been so and it seemed to me then the only way I could live through these fearful days.

August came—overpoweringly hot. And I seemed to be leading two lives—one in the empty palace of Versailles, alive only with echoes of the past and forebodings of the terrifying future, and another at the Trianon, my happy home, an escape to another world, where my rosy-cheeked respectable tenants lived on in their Hameau, so different from those terrifying people who carried sticks and cudgels and cried out for bread and blood.

We met at dusk. I would wander out to the Temple of Love—so aptly named; and there we would sit and dream and talk and, although we would not mention this, each time we wondered whether this was the last we should lie in each other’s arms.

The guards had deserted. I awoke one morning in Versailles to find that there were none to defend us.

On August 4th the King was obliged to give his consent to the abolition of feudalism; and to agree to his statue being set up on the site of the Bastille to be inscribed: “To the Restorer of Liberty to France.” This has never been erected and never will be now. Louis declared that while he was ready to give up all his own rights he was not pre383

pared to give up those of others. Then there were cries that the King should be brought from Versailles to Paris and we wondered what this would mean.

A few weeks later La Fayette was drawing up a Declaration of the Rights of Man in the American style; this was the beginning of that decree which was to end all hereditary titles and declare all men equal.

La Fayette was, I believed, at times a little disturbed by the violence of the mob and sought to keep them in order, but there were occasions when he found this an impossibility;

yet I believe that during the month st of August and September he did prevent them forcibly removing the King to the Louvre.

Mercy came to see me. How grave he was these days. And how avidly I listened to every word he uttered. He told me that he believed it was folly for the King to stay at Versailles. Axel was telling me this too, every time we met. He wanted us to escape. He assured me that we were living in perpetual danger.

“On the eastern frontier at Metz,* said Mercy, ‘the Mar quis de Bouille has twenty-five to thirty thousand men. They are loyalists whom he has taught to despise the canaille. They would fight for their King and their Queen. The King should be persuaded to leave for Metz without delay.”

I told Mercy that I agreed with this, and . others . had warded me of the need.

Mercy looked at me severely. He knew whom I meant by others. He, who had observed me so closely all the time I had been in France, first for my mother and then for my brother though never so assiduously for the latter as the former must know of my love for Axel. I looked at him defiantly; if he had dared to criticise me I should have reminded him that I was well aware of his own liaison of long standing with Mademoiselle Rosalie Levasseur. But he did not reproach me. Perhaps he too understood my need at this time; perhaps he felt that in my own interests it was good to have a friend so close that I could rely on completely.

He said: “I am glad that you have wise friends.”

And I knew what he meant.

But I still could not persuade Louis to leave. He could not run away, he said. No matter how his people behaved towards him he must always do his duty to them.

We were very unsure of La Fayette’s attitude towards us. He had sent National Guards to be on duty at the palace, and Mercy told me that he no doubt had had information of our efforts to persuade the King to escape to Metz.

In September the Regiment de Flandre came to Versailles and the officers of this regiment and those of the Body Guards decided to show their friendship for each other by dining together; and in view of the feelings of the day some of the sous-officiers and the soldiers were invited to join.

Louis offered them the theatre at Versailles for the occasion; tables were set upon the stage and members of the diminishing Court were invited to occupy the boxes.

I was afraid that the banquet would end in some disaster, which I was now expecting from all quarters, and I decided that Madame Campan should go, for I could always rely on her to give me a faithful account of what had happened.

Some of the Council had said that it would be good for the King and myself to be present, but I was against this, for I was so unpopular that I was afraid my appearance would be the sign for violence of some sort.

“Madame Campan,” I said, “I have been advised to attend this dinner but I feel it would be unwise to do so. I wish you to occupy one of the boxes and report to me what happens.”

She said she would take her niece and give me an accurate account of everything.

My husband went off hunting. It was astonishing how in the face of everything that happened he persisted in behaving as though life was going on normally. I sat in my children’s nursery, for I never liked to be far from them when danger seemed a little closer than usual.

It was while I was there that one of my women came to me and told me that the soldiers were behaving in a most

loyal manner, and that the Due de Villeroi who was captain of the first company of guards, had invited all present to drink four toasts to the King, the Queen, the Dauphin and the Royal Family; and that this had been done, and although someone had proposed the toast of the Nation, link attention had been paid to this.

While she was talking to me, my husband returned from the hunt and I asked my woman to tell the King what she had told me.

“It might be well if we showed ourselves,” I said.

“If we do not, they will think we are afraid, and perhaps that would be worse than anything.”

He agreed with me, for in all our troubles I never saw Louis show the slightest fear for his own safety. I sent for Madame de Tourzel and asked her to bring the two children to me.

The Dauphin was very excited.

We are going to see the soldiers,” I told him.

Nothing could have pleased him more; he was all ready to see the soldiers. He thought Moufflet would like to see them; but I told him Moufflet could not come on this occasion.

We went to the theatre and showed Ourselves in the railed-in box which faced the stage. There was a hushed silence and then the cheering broke out.

“Vive Ie RoiVive la ReineV Yes, even Vive la Reine. My spirits lilted as they had not for a long time.

There in the theatre I felt that our cause was not hope less, that we had some friends and that I had allowed myself to be unduly alarmed by those people with the savage faces.

The tables had been set in the shape of a horseshoe and two hundred and ten places had been laid; and there sat those soldiers . those loyal soldiers whose cries of friend ship drowned the few dissenting voices.

They want us to go down to the stage,” said my husband, tears in his eyes; he was always deeply moved by his subjects displays of affection.

I picked up my son in my arms and carried him. I did not want him to be too far from me, and we went down on to the stage.

The Dauphin’s gaiety and delight charmed the soldiers and I stood him on the table while they drank his health. Then he wafted over the tables, being very careful not to tread on the glasses, and he told the men how he liked soldiers better than anything . better even than dogs; he thought he was going to be a soldier when he grew up.

They were enchanted. Who could help being? And there was lovely Mousseline, so happy because she believed that everything was coming right for us and the anxiety of the last months was over.

They began to sing one of the popular songs of the day by the musician Gretry—a good and loyal song:

‘0 Richard, 6 man Roi, Uunivers t’abandonne Sur la terre il nest done que moi Qui m’interesse a ta personnel It was wonderful to stand there, to see the triumph of my little son, the admiration these good men felt for my daughter; to see their loyalty to the King and their affection for me.

How I had missed it! I prayed then for another chance. Let everything be as it used to be and I would work with my husband for the good of the people of France.

That night I skpt more peacefully than I had for a long time.

But in the morning I summoned Madame Campan and asked for her account of the affair.

She said she had been surprised when she saw us appear and she had been deeply moved by the singing of ‘0 Richard, 6 mm Roi’ and “Peut on affliger ce qu’on came?” which had followed it.