Виктория Холт - Flaunting, Extravagant Queen

But there was no help coming from Austria.

Orléans had returned to Paris, and La Fayette was afraid to raise the matter of his exile, for fresh demonstrations were now occurring in the Palais Royal.

Moreover that criminal and jewel-thief, Madame de Lamotte, was now established in the Place Vendôme, and libel after libel poured out from her pen. There was a new story of the necklace – Madame de Lamotte’s version. No story was too vile to be attached to the Queen.

* * *

There was one man who was keeping the revolution at bay. This was Mirabeau. He was now using his considerable gifts to the limit and was serving both the National Assembly and the monarchy, deftly keeping the balance between them, working with his tremendous powers to weld the two together.

The King had offered to give him promissory notes to the value of a million livres, to be paid when Mirabeau had brought about that which he had set out to do. This was to bring the revolution to an end and place the King firmly on the throne. Mirabeau’s debts would be settled, and he would be left affluent. He was determined to earn the money and at the same time win for himself fame with posterity.

He could do it; he knew he could do it; he firmly believed that he held the fate of France in his hands.

Brilliantly he played his game. Eloquently he spoke in the National Assembly; he was working for the new constitution; and at the same time he intended to save the King and Queen. He was a master of words and rhetoric. He could sway the assembly, he could persuade the King.

Such brilliance was certain to bring him enemies. He was threatened with the cry ‘Mirabeau à la lanterne!’ But he snapped his fingers. Marat accused him of working with the enemy. He snapped his fingers at Marat.

His plan was to stop the violence of the revolution with greater violence, and he said to the King: ‘Four enemies are marching upon us: taxation, bankruptcy, the army and winter. We could prepare to tackle these enemies by guiding them. Civil war is not certain, but it might be expedient.’

He was like a giant possessed. Civil war! Law and order armed to fight the murderous mob!

The King was horrified. Was Mirabeau suggesting that he should fight against his dear people!

‘Oh, excellent but weak King!’ mourned Mirabeau. ‘Most unfortunate of Queens! Your vacillation has swept you into a terrible abyss. If you renounce my advice, or if it should fail, a funeral pall will cover this realm; but should I escape the general shipwreck, I shall be able to say to myself with pride: I exposed myself to danger in the hope of saving them, but they did not want to be saved.’

Realising the danger which threatened the King and Queen in Paris, he consulted with Fersen, for he saw that the Swede’s plan to get them out of Paris was a good one.

Rouen would be useless now; they must go farther towards the frontier, where the Marquis de Bouillé was near Metz with his loyal troops.

Fersen made the journey to Metz and returned with the news that the King and Queen should leave Paris without delay, for Bouillé was not so sure of the loyalty of his troops as he had once been and he feared that disaffection was spreading.

Still the King hesitated.

‘Then,’ cried Mirabeau, ‘must Your Majesty come out of retirement. You must show yourself in the streets. The people do not hate you. Have you not seen that, though they shout against you, when you appear they call you their little father? They have always had an affection for you. Are you not Papa Louis? But you shut yourself away, while your enemies spread evil tales concerning you.’

Fersen was terrified of the Queen’s appearing in the streets, but Mirabeau was impatient.

This was not the time to hesitate. It seemed to him that nobody but himself realised all that was at stake.

He, Mirabeau, could save France; he, Mirabeau, would be remembered in the generations to come as the man who had averted the destruction of the monarchy; the man who had saved his country from anarchy.

It was Mirabeau who had stood beside Orléans and helped to raise the storm; it should be Mirabeau who cried: ‘Be still!’ and for whom the rising tide of bloodshed should be called to halt.

But he could get no help. The King would not countenance a civil war; he would not show himself to his people; he would not escape.

So Mirabeau continued deftly to keep his balance. He swayed the Assembly and he worked for the monarchy.

‘Mirabeau is shaping the affairs of France,’ said Marat, said Danton, said Robespierre; and said Orléans.

And one day, when his servant went to call Mirabeau, he found that his master was dead.

Mirabeau had suffered from many ailments, which were largely due to the life he had led. Was it the colic which had carried him off, or that kidney trouble which had afflicted him?

‘Death from natural causes,’ was the verdict.

But many people believed that the Orléans faction had determined to put an end to the man who had once been their friend and was now working to destroy all that they hoped for.

There were many in the streets to whisper of Mirabeau’s sudden death: ‘Oh, a little something in his wine. He lived dangerously, this Mirabeau. He thought he was the greatest man in France. Then death came, silent and swift.’

In the Tuileries fear descended. The King and the Queen now realised how much they had depended on Mirabeau.

The death of Mirabeau greatly increased the danger to the royal family. In the Palais Royal men and women were demanding action. This was at the instigation of the Jacobins – members of that Club des Jacobins which the Club Breton had become. Club Breton had been the first of the revolutionary clubs, and many of its members were Freemasons or members of secret societies. It consisted mainly of partisans of Orléans – who was very much under the influence of Freemasonry – and the name of the club had been changed when it set up its Paris headquarters in the convent situated in the rue Saint-Honoré, for the headquarters of the convent which they had taken over was in the rue Saint-Jacques.

The purpose of the Jacobins was to press on with the revolution.

Soon after the death of Mirabeau, the King and Queen, feeling the need of a change, decided that they would go to Saint-Cloud for Easter. Their plans soon became known to the Jacobins, as one of the Queen’s women, Madame Rochereuil, had a lover, a member of the Club, and he had assured her that the way in which she must serve her country – or herself be suspected of treachery – was to spy on the Queen.

So Madame Rochereuil lost no time in telling her lover of the intended visit to Saint-Cloud.

There was to be no secret about this visit; the carriages would arrive in the courtyard and the King and Queen would get into them; people would see them leave, and perhaps shout after them as they had when they had left for Saint-Cloud last year: ‘Bon voyage, Papa!’

But the fact was that the Jacobins had intended to prevent the King’s and Queen’s departure last summer, and they had only failed to do so because they had insufficient time to organise a riot.

Now, thanks to the work of Madame Rochereuil, they were warned in time of the royal intentions; and Danton arranged that the rioters should be mustered in good time, made drunk, reminded of their wrongs, and incited to revolution that they might give as good a performance as they did in October.

So on the day of the departure the Jacobins were busy. Laclos, disguised as a jockey, harangued the crowds. ‘Citizens,’ he cried, ‘the King is running away from you. He will join Artois and the émigrés; he will plot against you and bring armies to conquer you. Citizens, will you allow the King to escape?’

The carriages were waiting. The King, the Queen and the royal children with their attendants and servants, came out and took their seats. But the rabble surrounded them.

‘You shall not pass,’ they cried.

And again Antoinette saw those leering drunken faces near her own, again she was forced to listen to the obscenities and insults.

La Fayette rode up with his soldiers and demanded that the mob stand clear and the carriages be allowed to drive on.

But what cared the mob for La Fayette? They jeered at him; they flung mud at him; they took the horses from the carriages and demanded that the King and Queen, with their family, return to the Tuileries.

* * *

Antoinette said: ‘We are truly prisoners now. They have determined that we shall not leave the Tuileries.’

Even Louis was abashed, and there was a worried frown on his brow.

Antoinette went to him and put her arm through his. ‘Louis, we cannot go on like this. I cannot endure this life.’

He looked at her sadly and shook his head.

‘I think perhaps,’ he said, ‘that you are right. I think perhaps there is nothing we can do while we remain their prisoners.’

Fersen begged an audience. He had come from Saint-Cloud where he had hoped to meet the Queen; but news had reached him of the mob’s decision not to let them leave the Tuileries.

‘Your Majesty must see,’ he cried passionately to Louis, ‘that this state of affairs must not go on.’

Louis looked at his wife’s lover; and in that moment he felt a glimmer of understanding as to why Antoinette loved this man; he saw in Fersen all that he himself was not, and in a sudden moment of clarity – which was gone almost as soon as it came to him – he realised that his indecision had brought him to this pass, that there had been moments in the dangerous road he was travelling when he might have said, ‘Halt. I will take my stand here’; when he might have turned and taken the offensive. Who could say that, had he been blessed with the boldness of this man, with the boldness of Mirabeau, his position might not have been different from what it was today, and France not the tortured nation she was fast becoming.

‘You are right,’ said Louis.

‘Your Majesty will consider my plans for your escape?’

The King nodded.

* * *

Now there was great activity in the Tuileries – secret activity. They missed the brilliant Mirabeau, but they were certain they could do without him.

Fersen planned like a lover, worked like a lover. He lived for one purpose – to remove Antoinette from danger. He needed money and he must procure it in such a way that it would not be noticed, so he provided it himself by mortgaging his estates. He was already in correspondence with several foreign countries; he had General Bouillé on his side, for it was General Bouillé with whom Mirabeau had planned the royal escape. Bouillé was still prepared to help, although he warned Fersen that every week’s delay was dangerous, as each day the cavalry under his command was being indoctrinated with revolutionary ideas.

Fersen knew full well that if one little hitch occurred in his plans, if one of the numerous letters he was constantly writing went astray, it would be ‘Fersen à la lanterns’, and hideous death would await him. The thought imbued him with a reckless courage.

Fersen was truly in love.

Every day he was at the Tuileries and, in order not to attract too much attention, he often came disguised. Each evening he would join the King and Queen, and in hushed voices they would discuss the plans for the escape.

He would look at the Queen with glowing eyes.

‘I have ordered a berline to be built,’ he said. ‘It is a comfortable vehicle … very wide, and the springs are good. I have seen to that myself, so that Your Majesties will travel in the utmost comfort.’

They listened eagerly. It sounded miraculous.

‘The passport I have had forged is made out in the name of Madame de Korff – a Russian lady. Madame de Tourzel, who of course must travel with the children, will be Madame de Korff. Her Majesty the Queen will be the governess, and His Majesty the King, the lackey; there will be three women servants. Madame Elisabeth will of course be one of these.’

‘And there will be room for all these in the berline?’

‘Indeed yes,’ said Fersen. ‘There was never such a berline as this which is being built for the flight, but it will be necessary for Your Majesty to send some of your clothes and jewels in advance.’