Виктория Холт - Flaunting, Extravagant Queen

Thinking of poor Monsieur Léonard she ceased to worry about herself.

* * *

The mob had climbed over the gates; they were massed in the courtyard.

‘Come out, Louis!’ they cried. And added derisively: ‘Louis, we would see you. Louis le Désiré, come forth.’

Beyond the balcony Antoinette stood with Louis.

‘I must go onto the balcony to talk with them,’ said Louis.

‘You must not. You do not know what they will do.’

‘They are asking for me, and I am their King.’

‘You are not to blame for this trouble. Are you responsible for the bad harvest?’

‘A King is always responsible.’ He muttered almost mechanically: ‘I feel as though the whole universe has fallen on my shoulders.’

As he stepped onto the balcony a roar went up from the crowd.

‘Louis!’ they cried. ‘What do you there, Louis? What have you eaten this day, Louis? Bread … bread like this?’

Several of them were waving mouldy pieces of bread in their hands. Some of these were thrown at the balcony. One hit Louis on the cheek. He caught it as it fell.

‘Try it, Louis,’ they cried. ‘Eat it, Louis. Did you ever taste the like? That is the filth you ask your subjects to eat.’

He lifted his hand. ‘My good people …’ he began.

There was a derisive roar.

‘We want cheap bread. You promised us cheap bread …’

The shouts and cat-calls persisted, and it was impossible for him to make himself heard. Several times he raised his voice. They would not listen.

Antoinette called to him: ‘Come back, Louis. They will do you an injury. They are lashing themselves to fury against you.’

Wretchedly he stepped back into the room. His plump cheeks were shaking with emotion; his short-sighted eyes filled with tears.

* * *

The Prince de Beauvau had ridden out into the courtyard at the head of the guards. The crowd began throwing grain at him from the sacks they had pilfered.

‘If you will not retire in order,’ warned Beauvau, ‘I shall be forced to use arms. The King has commanded me not to do so except in self-defence, as he is eager that you should not be harmed.’

The answer was a handful of flour thrown in his face.

The Prince was desperate. He could see that the leaders of the mob were doing their best to rouse their followers to a frenzy.

‘If you will not let me speak,’ he shouted, ‘what can I do to help you?’

‘Come down from your horse, Monsieur le Prince!’ shouted the leader. ‘Come down and eat the mouldy bread you and your kind ask us to eat.’

‘Is the mouldy bread the same as that which you carried in Saint-Germain?’ shouted the Prince.

‘All over France Frenchmen are eating mouldy bread,’ he was answered.

‘It is not the bread sold in the shops,’ he cried. ‘That is good bread.’

The leaders of the mob were really angry now. They cried: ‘To hell with the Bourbons! To hell with those who live on the fat of the land while good citizens starve!’

Beauvau lost his head. He was terrified. He remembered what he had heard of the damage men like these had inflicted on Villers-Cotterets. In his imagination he saw the château in flames, the King and Queen murdered before his eyes.

He held up his hand. ‘One word. If you have justice on your side, listen to me. If you are truly rioting because bread is dear and not because you are enemies of your King, listen to me!’

‘Come!’ cried the leader. ‘Shall we listen to these Princes? Come, my friends. Forward! Into the château!’

‘Let’s hear him first,’ growled a voice in the crowd; and others took up the cry.

Beauvau had one thought in his head – to drive the mob from Versailles and save the King and Queen; and seeing only one way to do this he acted boldly. ‘At what price do you want bread to be fixed?’ he roared.

‘At two sous!’ answered the ringleaders, believing this to be impossible.

Beauvau shouted: ‘Right! Two sous it shall be.’

There was silence in the courtyard. The mob began to murmur, ‘Bread at two sous!’ There was no longer any excuse for a riot.

Someone shouted: ‘To the bakers! Come! Let us demand our two-sou bread.’

In a few minutes the courtyard was cleared.

The riot at Versailles was over.

* * *

But that was not the end of the Guerre des Farines.

Turgot came hurrying from Paris. His worst fears had been realised. The rioting there had been more violent than anywhere else.

Beauvau had averted disaster at Versailles, but it was impossible for the bakers to sell their bread at two sous, and that promise would have to be revoked. The price of bread would have to stand, for the time being, at that high price which had given the rioters their reason for rioting.

But Turgot had even more disturbing news. It had been necessary to arrest some of the rioters in Paris, and it had been discovered that many of those dressed as women had been in truth men; they had been by no means the poorer class who had good reason to complain and who could not be expected to understand the difficulties which beset the King and his new ministers. Instead they had been men of some means. Two had been confined in the Châtelet, and they had turned out to be Jean Desportes who was a master wig-maker, and Jean Lesguille who was a gauze-worker. These two had been arrested while they were pillaging one of the raided shops, and they had been proved to be men well fed, with money in their pockets, who could quite easily afford to buy bread. As for Lenoir, the chief of the Paris police, instead of quelling the riots he had helped to stimulate them.

‘It would appear,’ said Turgot, ‘that the rising was by no means a riot of the people, which had come about because the price of bread was so high that they were starving. These riots have been organised with great care.’

The King was not often angry, but now a rage possessed him which was not less fierce because his lethargic nature was so rarely stirred in this way. He was filled with righteous indignation, for he realised that, while he wished to serve his country with all his heart and all the mind of which he was capable, there were enemies in his kingdom who, seeking to destroy him, would make France suffer as she had not suffered for two hundred years.

His righteous anger was so great that it swamped his embarrassment, and in that moment Louis was truly King. He dismissed Lenoir and called the Parlement to Versailles.

When it arrived it was to find a banquet awaiting it, and after the members of the Parlement, somewhat mellowed by good food and wine, were ready to listen to what the King had to say, Louis told them that he was determined to stop the dangerous brigandage which must soon degenerate into revolution. He wanted tribunals set up so that the real culprits might be discovered.

His speech was fluent, and it was as though a new man had taken the place of the old Louis.

‘You have heard my intentions,’ he declared. ‘I forbid you to make any remonstrances on the orders I have given or do anything to counter them. I rely on your fidelity and your submission at a moment when I have resolved to take measures which shall ensure that during my reign I shall never again be obliged to have recourse to them.’

Afterwards Turgot congratulated him, and there was wonder in this statesman’s eyes. Could this be the dull King who always seemed so awkward with his ministers and his courtiers? Could this be Poor Louis, as they had often called him, even as his grandfather had dubbed him Poor Berry?

‘The fact is,’ Louis confided to Turgot, ‘I feel more embarrassed with one man than with fifty. Moreover this I feel so strongly.’

He had need to feel strong when, on the door of his apartment, he found a notice which told him: ‘If the price of bread does not go down and the Ministry is not changed, we will set fire to the four corners of the château.’

On the walls of the château was written: ‘If the price does not go down we will exterminate the King and the whole race of Bourbons.’

The King was more distressed than ever for he knew that his enemies were within the Palace.

He wanted to talk of this with someone whom he could trust. He turned to the Queen, but could he trust her? She would mean no harm but she was too impulsive; she spoke without thinking. No, he could not speak to the Queen.

And thinking of her, he remembered those men whose blood was his blood, his own relations.

Antoinette could not grasp how deeply she had offended Orléans, Condé and Conti, when her brother had been visiting France. Antoinette could never put herself in the place of another. She saw the world through the eyes of Antoinette – a gay and lovely place where everyone should be kind to others and all should realise that nothing was of any great moment compared with enjoyment of the sunny hours.

And thinking thus, Louis remembered Conti, Conti, the most vindictive of them all, Conti who had held aloof from the Court, blaming his gout. Conti, whose house of L’Isle Adam was in Pontoise, that area in which, so it had been discovered, the riots had started.

Conti, the King knew, had speculated heavily in grain, and Turgot’s edict which was calculated to bring down prices – and which would have succeeded but for bad harvest and lack of transport – had been resented by him, Conti, who was hostile to Turgot, hostile to the Queen.

It was alarming. An enemy so close. An enemy in his family. And an enemy who could contemplate the destruction of the monarchy.

Louis trembled. He knew he must act with firmness.

The wig-maker and the gauze-worker were publicly hanged, and the sight of those two men on the gallows brought about a more serious mood among the rioters.

The example had been necessary. Those men who had been paid to begin the Guerre des Farines, and who, when arrested, had been found to have money in their purses, were glad to be released, and keep the peace.

The great turning-point of Louis’ life had come; but he did not know it, and he hesitated. His moment of firm determination was over.

Because of those hideous suspicions which had been aroused in his mind, he was afraid to continue with the enquiry. He was afraid to discover who might be behind this rehearsal for a revolution.

Louis was not the only one whose suspicions had fallen on his cousin. It was being whispered in knowledgeable circles that Conti was deeply involved in the disturbances. Louis was afraid, and he continued to waver.

To Turgot he wrote: ‘The suspicion is dreadful and it is difficult to know what line to take. But unhappily, those who have said this are not the only ones. I hope for the sake of my name that they are only calumniators.’

The riots had subsided with the punishment meted out to the wig-maker and gauze-worker.

Louis’ hour of boldness had passed. He took a definite turning on that day when thankfully he decided to let matters rest because he was afraid whom revelation might expose.

It was a June day, and the citizens of Rheims were eager to show the loyalty they bore towards their King and Queen. Forgotten were the recent riots. Here was pageantry, all that royalty meant to people whose lives were so drab that they rejoiced in those days when the kings and queens came close to them in their brilliant splendour.

On the previous night the Queen, with her brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, had ridden through the moonlit streets while the crowds had cried: ‘Long live the Queen! Long live the royal family!’

This was the day when Louis Seize was to be crowned King of France.

Antoinette was not with him. Louis was anxious to spare his country the expense of a double coronation; he was even anxious to spare the country the expense of his own traditional crowning.

‘I would rather,’ he declared, ‘hold my crown by my people’s love. There is no need for them to swear to serve me. Let them do so only while it is their will that they should.’

Louis in any case hated such ceremonies.

But his desire for privacy and avoidance of expense was overruled. The people wished for the ancient ceremony to be performed.

‘Soon,’ he had said, ‘we shall have further expense with Clothilde’s wedding. Then there will be the lying-in of Thérèse.’