I was visiting my family, taking breakfast with them, when first we heard of it. They were so changed, my family. My brothers were as plump as geese. My mother was clean and smiling. My ugly sister had had her ugly baby. We had settled into our new roles and were content—all but my father. He brooded. He sighed. He wanted to see the new plays being given in Paris. He wanted to write some himself.
If you go back to Paris, you go alone, my mother warned him. Why would we leave this place when here we are sheltered and fed?
Like rabbits meant for the pot, he grumbled.
The criers came as we were finishing our coffee. My father ran to buy a paper, then ran all the way back with it.
Listen! Listen, all of you! he shouted. We are free! All of France is free!
My uncle was nailing together a new marquee for our puppet stage. Free from what? he said.
From tyranny! The Assembly has written a document setting forth the rights of men. They call upon the king to accept it, my father said breathlessly. It says—my God, I almost cannot believe it—it says that all men have the right to liberty, property and security, and that none may be oppressed. It says that all men are equal!
Shhh! Will you have us arrested? Such talk is treason! my grandmother hissed.
Shhh, Mother, listen! my father said. Article One—Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Is that not astonishing? It means, René, that you and I have the same rights as the king!
What of women? my aunt asked. Have they made any rights for women?
Speak not of women, Lise! Women have nothing to do with it. The—Rights—of—Man, it says, does it not? my father said, pointing to the headline. And this, René, listen to this … Article Three—The principle of any sovereignty resides essentially in the Nation. No body, no individual can exert authority which does not emanate expressly from it.
What does that mean? my aunt asked.
That the king does not rule at God’s behest as we have always been told but by the will of the people. Stop that damned hammering, René! Listen to Article Eleven. It is the most astonishing of all—The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print with freedom.
He was much overcome. He looked at us each in turn with tears in his eyes. Why do you not rejoice? he asked. Why do you not weep with joy? Do you not understand? It means that we may perform without fear of the king’s censors. That we may write and play what we wish.
My uncle was oddly quiet. He had stopped hammering and was looking out of the window. His gaze was faraway and troubled, as if he saw something we could not.
Do you not understand, René? my father said, his voice full of emotion. It is the beginning of something, something extraordinary.
My uncle turned to him. Yes, Theo, it is, he said. It’s the beginning of the end.
* * *
I finish the entry and glance at the line for the archivist’s desk. There are still ten people ahead of me. The woman who was behind me is gone. I guess she gave up. It’s almost four o’clock. It’ll be my turn before too much longer, I hope.
I turn the page, thinking back to my class on the French Revolution, to the time line of events. The fall of the Bastille was just the warm-up act. It’s going to get ugly at Versailles. Really ugly. Really soon. And Alex is there, right in the middle of it.
30
29 April 1795
I’m going to hide, Alex! Louis-Charles shouted. Count to ten and find me!
He dashed out from under the table where we’d been eating chocolates we’d filched from his mother’s plate. I pulled my mask over my face and started to count.
It was midsummer’s eve. The queen and her circle were masquerading in the Obelisk grove with their children. She hoped it would please Louis-Charles. The queen was Titania. Handsome Count Fersen was Oberon. The king, tired from the day’s hunting, was abed. Music played. Lanterns glowed in the trees. There had been a supper, then ices and champagne. Afterward, all played hide-and-seek.
Louis-Charles wore a monkey mask. Mine was a bird, a sparrow. I finished counting and ran after him. I saw him crouched down by a rosebush, but pretended I did not. He dashed off and I bumbled after him, calling his name, picking up stones and looking under them, or shaking roses, hoping he’d fall out of one. All the while he giggled behind his hands and ran farther into the grove. It was dark in there. No lanterns were hung. I had only moonlight to see by.
Louis-Charles? I called, trailing after him. Come out now. We are too far from the others. We must go back.
But Louis-Charles made no answer.
I walked on, farther down the path. Statues glowed like ghosts in the moonlight. Leaves rustled in the night breeze. I passed a tiny pond, a thicket of white roses. And then I turned a corner and saw him—not Louis-Charles, but a man in a wolf’s mask, sitting on a bench.
Louis-Charles! I called, suddenly afraid. Louis-Charles, where are you?
What’s this? the man said. A little bird from the streets of Paris? A sparrow who no longer eats shit from the gutter, but chocolates from the queen’s own plate. How far you have flown, sparrow.
Louis-Charles! I shouted, backing away. Where are you?
Not here, I’m afraid, the man said.
Louis-Charles? Louis-Charles! I cried, my voice breaking.
It was quiet. So quiet I could hear nothing but the sound of my heart crashing in my chest. Then the man said, Come out now, Louis-Charles. We have played our trick.
Louis-Charles popped out from behind him. We fooled you, Alex! We fooled you! he cried, dancing all around me.
I grabbed him and pulled him close, the fear still strong inside me. All I could think was, What if I’d lost the boy? He was my charge. What if he’d been carried off? The king would have me flayed alive.
Who are you? I demanded of the man.
He raised his mask. His eyes, darker than midnight, met mine. Philippe, Duc d’Orléans, he said.
The Duc d’Orléans. Cousin to the king. And I’d spoken to him as if to a kitchen boy.
Quickly I curtseyed, eyes on the ground. I beg your pardon, my lord, I stammered. He granted it, and then I said we must get back or the queen would worry. We bade him goodnight. We had not gone five steps before Louis-Charles cried, My mask!
I turned around. Orléans was holding it. He made me come close to get it. He smiled as I took it, but the smile did not touch his eyes. Quick as a viper, he grabbed my wrist and pulled me to him. You play a dangerous game, player, he said quietly. Be careful. Not all are so easily played.
He released me. I backed away, then turned and grabbed Louis-Charles’ hand.
Never was I so afraid. What had he meant? Did he know my mind? And that I was only using the child? Would he tell the queen?
I chided myself for my foolishness. No man could see inside another. Only God and the devil could do that. The duke was only scolding me for allowing the dauphin to wander so far in our game of hide-and-seek.
Louis-Charles skipped and chattered as we walked back to the party. He recounted how well he’d fooled me and crowed at his own cleverness. I laughed and played along and told him I thought gypsies had carried him off, but all the while, one thing chivvied me.
The biggest trick of all is how well your cousin Orléans hid himself during the party, I said. I did not see a wolf’s face at supper. Not once.
Oh, he was not invited, Louis-Charles said. He never is. Mama does not like him. I hear her talking to Aunt Elizabeth about him. She says he plays the rebel, but wishes to be king. I do not think him so bad.
I looked back then, expecting to see him sitting there, Orléans, still and silent, moonlight glinting off his rings.
But the bench was empty.
The wolf was gone.
30 April 1795
Autumn came. The leaves fell, the skies turned gray, and wary nobles, like swans in a fairy tale, took wing. They’d been spat upon in the streets.
They’d had shit thrown at their carriages and rocks pitched through their windows. They’d seen what the king could not.
The Comte d’Artois, the king’s handsome, laughing brother, swung Louis-Charles high in the air before he kissed him goodbye, and promised he’d bring him an entire cavalry of tin soldiers when he returned.
The Duchesse de Polignac, the boy’s beloved governess, blinked back tears as she hugged him. It’s only for a little while, my darling, she told him. I’ll be back again soon. In the spring when the cherry trees bloom. I promise you.
We climbed a tree and watched their carriages roll away until only a cloud of dust remained.
The fifth of October, 1789, dawned rainy. No dust rose that day. Had it, the king might’ve been warned. He might’ve had time to think. To decide. To pile his family into a fast carriage and go. But there was only mud. Churned up by the feet of women and soldiers from Paris. They came armed with pikes and knives, with hunger and rage. They came for the king and queen.
A rider came ahead of them. I saw him. I was in the queen’s apartments, amusing Louis-Charles. Suddenly, there came the sound of shouting from outside. A man stumbled through the Marble Courtyard and up the queen’s stairs, trailing mud and courtiers. He scraped a bow, and in a ragged voice said, I come from Paris, Majesty. There was a riot this morning at city hall. The market women marched there to demand bread. When the mayor said he had none, they ransacked the building. Took arms and powder. The Paris guard was called out but refused to fire on them. One woman shouted that they must go to Versailles to ask the king for bread. The cry went up and they set off. Lafayette estimates them at six thousand.
We have the Flanders regiment here, and our own bodyguard, the queen said. They will easily fend off a crowd of women.
The man shook his head. The Paris guard marches with them, he said.
But Lafayette is their general! the queen said. Why did he not stop them?
He tried, but the guard is some fifteen thousand strong. Had he refused to go with them, they would’ve deserted him. Or murdered him. He leads them still. Barely.
The queen turned white. The king, she said. Where is the king?
Hunting, madam, came the reply.
Find him quickly! Before the mob does! she cried.
The king’s bodyguard was dispatched. They found him and rushed him back inside the palace. The gates were locked. His counsel was assembled. He must accept the the Rights of Man, his ministers said, and the decrees of August. No, he must flee immediately. No, he must do neither and stand his ground.
The king himself wished only to send the queen to safety with their children, but she would not leave him. And so he stayed and doomed them all.
The market women arrived in the evening, tired, cold, and wet, only to find the palace gates locked against them. The king spoke with some of them. He told them how sorry he was for their troubles and promised that grain would be got to Paris immediately. He ordered that food and wine be brought for them, which gentled them some.
But at midnight, the Paris guard arrived, and they were not so easily mollified. Clashes broke out in the courtyard between them and the king’s bodyguard. I was not abed, for I was too worried to sleep, but was up talking with Barère, captain of the dauphin’s guard, and I saw the skirmishing from a window. One of the king’s footmen, a man who was friends with the captain, came just before daybreak to tell us that Lafayette, on behalf of his soldiers and the market women, had read the king a list of demands.
One—he must dismiss his royal bodyguard and allow the Paris guard to protect him, Two—he must ensure food supplies for the city, and Three—he must leave Versailles and live in Paris. The king agreed to the first two, but said he must think about the third. Then he retired to his chambers while Lafayette rode to an inn in town, hopeful of finding a bed there.
I was told by Barère to return to my bed, but I did not. Out beyond the palace gates, torches burned brightly. I could not see the marchers in the darkness but I could hear them. The sound of oaths and curses, of shouts and drunken laughter, carried up to our windows. They were tired from their long march. Why did they not sleep?
I was much disquieted by them, so I left the palace, climbed over the iron fence—it is easily done at the place where it meets the west wall of the courtyard—and walked where they sat huddled by fires, hoping to hear their words and know their minds. They said later, the leaders of the revolution, that those who marched were the honest wives of Paris. I tell you that some were and many were not. There were streetwalkers and pickpockets mixed in. There were men, too—pimps, thieves, and touts. I knew them from the Palais-Royal.
And there was one more—one who went easily among them in a plain gray coat, a tricorn pulled low on his brow. He wore a scarf over the lower half of his face like a highwayman and talked not of bread and liberty but of devilry and murder. He moved to and fro, handing out coins, urging the marchers to their feet, bidding them pick up their pikes and staves. He glanced my way once and his eyes, darker than midnight, made my blood run cold. Moments later, he handed a purse through the fence to a pair of guards standing on the other side of it. Too late, I realized what he was doing—bribing them to open the gates. I shouted for help, but my voice was drowned out by the roaring of the mob.
Kill her! a woman screamed as she ran through the gates. Kill the queen! Tear out her heart!
Kill them all! shouted another.
I was nearly witless with fear. I ran through the gates, across the courtyard, and into the palace. Many of the mob were ahead of me. Others were right on my heels. Luckily, they thought me one of them. They ran up the queen’s staircase, but I, having recovered my wits, skirted round it and dashed down a narrow hallway to the dauphin’s chambers. Rifles were raised and pointed at me as I entered but the captain knew me and halted his men.
They are inside the palace! I shouted at him.
He grabbed me cruelly. Where?
The queen’s staircase. Hurry!
He ran into the dauphin’s bedroom and threw back the bedcovers. Louis-Charles woke with a fright. He jumped out of his bed and crawled under it. The captain tried to pull him out, but he howled and kicked and would not come. From the floor above came the sound of screams and rifle shot.
Get him out! the captain shouted at me.
I knelt by the bed. Louis-Charles, come out, I said. You must come out now.
I won’t! Tell the guard to go away!
He’s not a guard, he’s a field marshal, I said, trying to make a game of it. England is at our borders. We must fall back.
Louis-Charles popped his head out at that. Knave! he shouted. A prince of France never retreats!
We do so only by the king’s command, my general, I said. We are outnumbered here, but reinforcements await us at Harfleur.
More shots. Then screaming.
Damn you! There is no time for this! the captain yelled.
I crouched down, playing the horse. Louis-Charles scrambled out from under his bed and leaped upon my back. I grabbed a candlestick from his night table and handed it to him.
Company, fall back! he shouted, waving the candle like a sword.
We bolted from the room, with guards ahead and behind. Up a servants’ staircase we ran, into the Hall of Mirrors. I heard more gunfire. The sound of glass smashing. I glanced out a window and saw a guard shot, another stabbed. A head stuck on a pike was being paraded about while screeching women danced a rigadoon around it.
The captain stopped at a mirrored panel and pounded upon it. I thought him mad until I saw the hinges. Your Majesty! he shouted. It’s Captain Barère! I bring the dauphin. Majesty, please open the door! He pounded again, but got no answer. We must try another way. Hurry! he barked, urging us on to the far end of the hall.
When we got there, he sent three of his men ahead through the exit. They returned immediately. It’s no good, one said. They’re in the staterooms.
We tried to go back the way we came, but cries and shout
s carried up from the other end of the hall. We were trapped. Gilt nymphs gazed blindly at us as we wheeled and turned. Painted gods looked down upon us, unmoved. Our image was reflected a thousand times in the mirrors—a dozen guards and a girl in britches, commanded, it seemed, by a small boy with a candle.
The captain ordered his men into formation. They knelt in rows on either side of us and raised their rifles. What chance had we? A few of the horde would fall with the first round, and when the guards reloaded the rest would be upon us.
Louis-Charles was no longer shouting orders. He had dropped his candlestick. I’m frightened, Alex, he whispered in my ear, his arms tight around my neck. I no longer wish to play this game.