The Queen's Confession Part 41

There was always needlework to be done, for Elisabeth and I had to mend our clothes.

But every day we had to endure humiliations, to be reminded that we were prisoners, that we were no different from anyone else now - in fact we were not so important, for our jailers were at least free men. We had friends, though. Turgy, one of our serving men, who had been with us at Versailles (he it was who had opened the door of the oeil de boeuf for me when the mob had been at my heels) was constantly keeping us informed of what was going on outside. Madame Clery used to stand outside the walls of the Temple and shout out the latest news so that we could know what was happening. I discovered that some of those guards who arrived full of hatred were won over when they saw us all together acting in such a manner as to belie all the gossip they heard. I used to show them cuttings of the children's hair and tell them at what age they had been when I had cut off all these locks. I had tied them with scented ribbon and I used to cry over them a little. I often saw some of those grim-faced men turn away more than a little moved.

But nothing remained static; and Louis had been right when he had said that they did not wish to a.s.sa.s.sinate him, but they had some other plan for removing him.

We heard that Louis was to be tried for treason.

The first move was to rob us of all cutting instruments - scissors, knives and even forks, although we were allowed forks for meals, but they were taken from us as soon as we had eaten. One evening Louis was told that he was to be removed from us.

This was a bitter blow. We had come to believe that we could endure anything as long as we were all together. We wept bitterly, but it was of no avail. Louis was taken from us.

Then followed the weeks of waiting. What was happening? I had little idea. All we knew was that the King was no longer merely a prisoner under observation; he was a doomed man.

All through those cold days I waited for news. Sometimes I would hear my husband walking up and down in his apartment, for he was imprisoned on the floor below the one in which we lived.

It was the 20th of January when a member of the Commune called on me and told me that I, with my children and sister-in-law, might visit my husband.

A terrible sense of foreboding filled me when I heard this, for I guessed what it meant.

They had sentenced my husband to death.

I cannot shut from my mind the picture of the room with its gla.s.s door. Four of the guards stood by the stove. The light of one oil lamp gave a feeble glow to the room, but as I entered holding the Dauphin by the hand the King rose from the rush-seated chair on which he was sitting and coming to me embraced me.

I clung to him mutely. What could words say now even if I could have uttered them?

I saw that Elisabeth was crying quietly and my daughter with her. The Dauphin broke into loud sobbing and I found that I could no longer hold back my tears.

Louis tried to calm us all. He himself showed little emotion; his great grief was to see our distress.

"It sometimes happens," he said, "that a King is asked to pay the penalty for the wrongdoings of his ancestors."

I cannot shut out the sight of him in his brown coat and white waistcoat, his hair lightly powdered, his expression almost apologetic. He was going and leaving us alone in this terrible world - that was his concern.

To try to calm our grief, he told of his trial, how he had been asked questions he had not been able to answer. He had never meant any harm to anyone, he had told them. He loved his people as a father loves his children.

He was deeply moved when he told us that among his judges had been his cousin Orleans.

"But for my cousin," he said, "I should not have been condemned to die. His was the casting vote." He was puzzled, unable to understand why the cousin who had been brought up close to him should suddenly hate him so much that he wanted him to die.

"I always hated him," I said. "I knew he was an enemy from the first."

But my husband laid his hand gently over mine and he was imploring me not to hate, to try to resign myself. He knew well my proud spirit, but there was one thing I had learned: if when my time came I could face death as courageously as he was facing his, I should be blessed.

Poor little Louis-Charles understood that his father was to die and he was giving way to a pa.s.sion of grief. "Why? Why?" he demanded angrily. "You are a good man, Papa. Who would want to kill you? I will kill them ... I will ..."

My husband took the boy between his knees and said seriously: "My son, promise me that you will never think of avenging my death."

My son's lips were set in the stubborn line I knew so well. But the King lifted him onto his knee and said: "Come now. I want you to lift your hand and swear that you will fulfill your father's last wish."

So the little boy lifted his hand and swore to love his father's murderers.

The time had come for the King to leave us. I clung to him and said: "We shall see you tomorrow?"

"At eight o'clock," said my husband quietly.

"At seven! Please let it be seven."

He nodded and bade me look to our daughter, who had fainted. My son ran to the guards and begged them to take him to the gentlemen of Paris so that he could ask them not to let his Papa die.

I could only lift him in my arms and try to comfort him and I threw myself onto my bed and lay there with a child on either side of me and Elisabeth kneeling by my bed in prayer.

All through the night I lay sleepless, shivering on my bed.

I was up in the early morning waiting for him; but he did not come.

Clery came to us.

"He feared it would distress you too much," he said.

I sat and waited, thinking of my husband, of our first meeting and what I knew now would be our last.

I did not know how time was pa.s.sing. I was numb with misery; and suddenly I heard the roll of drums; I heard the shouts of the people.

Underneath my window the sentry cried: "Long live the Republic."

And I knew that I was a widow.

CHAPTER 27.

"Veuille Dieu tout-puissant une tete si chere. J'aurais trop perdu si je la perds"

-Axel de Fersen "My dear Sophie, you have no doubt learned by now about the terrible disaster of the removal of the Queen to the Conciergerie and about the decree of that despicable Convention which delivers her to the Revolutionary Tribunal for judgment. Since I heard of this, I have no longer been alive, for it is not truly life to exist as I do and to suffer the pains I now endure. If I could but do something to bring about her liberation, I think the agony would be less, but I find it terrible that my only resource is to ask others to help her ... I would give my life to save her and cannot; and my greatest happiness would be to die for her in order to save her ..."

-Axel de Fersen to his sister Sophie "Non, jamais il n'y aura plus pour moi de beaux jours, mon bonheur est pa.s.se, et je suis cond.a.m.ne a d'eternels regrets et a trainer une vie triste et languissante."

-Fersen's Journal In the Anteroom THEY GAVE ME MOURNING CLOTHES; I had a black dress and petticoat, black silk gloves, two head scarves of black taffeta and a black cloak.

I looked at them with indifference. I told myself that it could not be long now until the end.

I never went down to the courtyard because I could not bear to go past those rooms which the King had occupied; but with Elisabeth and the children I went to the top of the tower for fresh air; there was a gallery there surrounded by a parapet and there we would walk during those winter afternoons.

Toulan, one of the guards, had brought to me a ring and a seal and a lock of Louis' hair. These had been confiscated by the Commune but Toulan had stolen them and brought them to me because he believed they would comfort me. Toulan! A man who had been at the storming of the Tuileries; who had determined on our destruction. He had been set in charge of us because of his fierce revolutionary views; because he was trustworthy and reliable. They had forgotten that he also had a heart I had seen the tears in his eyes; I had seen his admiration of our fort.i.tude. He was a brave man. There was another, too, named Lepitre, who had been won over to our side.

I still had Clery, the King's valet and Turgy, who had been in the kitchen of Versailles; he was a bold and brazen fellow and very brave, for he had managed by fabricating stories about his revolutionary zeal to become one of my guards.

I am thankful to these loyal people; it was they who gave me hope during those dark days. For the first weeks after Louis' death I would sit listless, thinking of the past full of remorse, accusing myself of a hundred follies.

I would talk to my friends sadly of the loss of the King. It was Toulan who said: "Madame, there is still a King of France."

This was true. My little boy was now Louis XVII. If I could get him out of this prison ... if I could join my friends ...

I was suddenly alive again. I had a purpose.

My little circle was delighted in the change in me. I realized that I was the center of that little circle, for Elisabeth was too pa.s.sive to be, the children too young. Toulan and Lepitre thought of all kinds of ways of smuggling news into me. Turgy, who served meals, would wrap notes round the corks of bottles so that it would appear that the paper had been put there to make them fit more securely; and although the Tisons would examine the bread to see if notes were in it and peer under the cover of dishes, they never discovered this ruse. Turgy sometimes would carry notes in his pockets and at an arranged signal one of us would lift them out as he brushed past us when serving us. From Madame Clery shouting the news outside our windows I learned that the whole of Europe was shocked by the execution of Louis; even in Philadelphia and Virginia murder was shuddered at. All very well to depose of a tyrannical Monarchy, but not ruthlessly to kill its figurehead, who could scarcely be entirely responsible.

Sensing the disapproval did nothing to make the Republic more lenient toward us; in fact it increased their severity.

But the thought that I had friends had given me a reason for living: Escape.

And when I heard that Axel was trying to rouse Mercy to action, that he had prevailed upon him to ask the Prince of Cobourg to send a regiment of picked men to march on Paris and pluck me from the Temple - wild as it was, rejected as it was - it put new heart in me. It was the plan of a lover rather than a strategist, just as the flight to Varennes had been. I saw now that it indicated a frantic desire for my safety which was too pa.s.sionate in its intensity to be practical. And I loved him all the more because of this.

One piece of news which was brought to me was that Jacques Armand had died at the battle of Jemappes. I thought sadly of the lovely little boy whom I had picked up on the road when I so longed for children. He had been my subst.i.tute until I had my own. He had never forgiven me for that ... and now, poor boy, he was dead.

I spoke to Elisabeth of the sadness of this and she tried to comfort me, pointing out the different life he had had because of what I had done for him; but I only replied: "I used him, Elisabeth. I used him as a toy with which to amuse myself for a while. One cannot use people in that way. I see it now. There is so much I see now that I did not see then. But one thing I believe, Elisabeth. No woman ever paid more highly for her follies than I have done. If I am given another chance ..."

"You will be," she told me in her placid way. But I was not sure. I lacked her faith.

Each evening the illuminateur came to light the lamps. I welcomed his coming because he had two little boys and I had always loved children. They were rather dirty, their clothes stained by the oil used in the lamps, for they helped their father. The illuminateur never looked in my direction.

There were so many like him who were afraid of appearing royalist. This dreadful Revolution was not called the Terror for nothing. Countless numbers of its supporters went in terror of their lives, never knowing when the great monster they had created would snap at them.

Sometimes the children would look wistfully at the food on the table and I liked to give them some of it. This they ate greedily; and I would find their eyes under their floppy hats regarding me intently. I wondered what tales they had heard of the Queen.

Madame Tison would come hustling in, frowning at them, searching them, looking to see whether I had given them some message to take out.

The visits of the illuminateur were one of the pleasant interludes of the day because of the children.

Toulan spoke to the lamplighter and asked him whether the boys were learning the trade. The lamplighter nodded.

Toulan saw the boys regarding me with awe. "At what are you looking?" he demanded. "The woman? No need to blush, boy. We're all equal now."

The illuminateur gave his agreement by spitting on the floor.

I was accustomed to this; I wondered whether Toulan had scented something suspicious in the illuminateur's att.i.tude and that was why he had mentioned we were all equal.

We all had to be very careful.

I was disappointed when the illuminateur came alone. I sat, my eyes on my book.

"Your Majesty ..."

I started. The illuminateur was filling the lamp in a not very skillful way and I realized that it was not the same man who had come with the children.

"I'm Jarjayes, Madame. General Jarjayes."

"Why yes ..."

"Toulan bribed the illuminateur and got him the worse for drink in a tavern. I am in touch with the Comte de Fersen ..."

At the mention of that name I could have fainted with happiness.

"The Comte is determined to free you. He has sent a message to say he will not rest until you are free."

"I knew he would do this ... I knew ..."

"We have to plan carefully. But, Madame, be ready. Toulan is our good friend. Lepitre too ... but we must be sure of him."

I saw Madame Tison hovering in the doorway and I tried to convey by my expression that we were spied on.

The General went away; and I felt a wild hope surging within me.

Axel had not forgotten me. He had not given up hope.

From Toulan I heard how the plan was progressing. He was to smuggle clothes into the prison which, when they put them on, would make the Dauphin and his sister look like the lamplighter's boys. Elisabeth and I were to be disguised as munic.i.p.al councilors. It would not be difficult to obtain the hats, cloaks, and boots, and of course the tricolor sashes which would be required.

The Tisons who were never far from us would be our great difficulty. We could never escape while they were watching over us.

But Toulan was a man of imagination. "We will drug them," he said.

They had a fondness for Spanish tobacco. Why should not Toulan present them with some? It would be heavily drugged and make them unconscious for several hours. When they were under its influence, we would hastily dress in our clothes and pa.s.s out of the prison in the company of Toulan. It was a bold but not impossible plan.

"I should need a pa.s.sport," I told him; but he had thought of that.

Lepitre could provide it.

By the time the flight was discovered, we could all be in England.

We were all ready, waiting.

But Lepitre was not a brave man. Perhaps it was too much to ask of him. He had prepared the pa.s.sport, but a chance remark of Madame Tison's made him wonder whether she knew that something was brewing.

Lepitre could not bring himself to go on with it. It was too risky, he said. We must make another plan in which I alone should escape.

This I would not do. I would not consent to be parted from the children and Elisabeth.

I wrote to Jarjayes: "We have had a beautiful dream and that is all. But we have gained much in finding again on this new occasion a further proof of your wholehearted devotion to me. My trust in you is limitless. You will always find I have some courage, but the interests of my son are my sole care, and whatsoever happiness I may be able to win, I can never consent to leave him. I could do nothing without my children and the failure of any such idea is something I do not even regret."

I sent him my husband's ring and lock of hair that he might take them to the Comtes de Provence or Artois, for I feared they would be taken from me; and I had a wax impression made of a ring Axel had given me on which was inscribed: "All leads me to thee".

I sent this impression to Jarjayes with a note which said: "I wish you to give this wax impression to one you know of, who came to see me from Brussels last year. Tell him at the same time that the device has never been more true."