The Palace was quiet; now and then they heard the sound of the guards marching by. But in her little dressing-room they were safe.

She locked the door, shutting them in.

And that night she was alone with her lover, and they loved frantically, desperately, as though each feared that they might never love or meet again.


* * *

The next day she went to Louis. She whispered to him: ‘Fersen is here.’

‘Impossible!’

‘I thought so too. He has come disguised; he has plans.’

‘What plans could there be?’

‘You must see him. Come to my apartments at six this evening. Then it will be dark and there will be few people about. He cannot come to you, for fear of the guards.’

‘There is nothing he can do,’ said Louis.


* * *

Louis came to the apartment. Fersen was in the dressing-room, and Antoinette took the King to him there.

Fersen kissed the King’s hand and Louis confessed his amazement that he should have been able to get into the Palace.

‘I come with plans, Sire,’ said Fersen.

‘It will be a hundred times more difficult to escape now,’ said Louis; ‘and the last attempt failed.’

‘Sire, we learn by our mistakes. It was wrong to have travelled all together. We should have broken up the party and travelled more simply. I realise now the folly of the way we did it and yet, with a little luck then, we should have succeeded.’

‘I have misused my chance of escape,’ said the King. ‘It is no longer possible.’

He did not look at Antoinette. She was standing, pale and tense, her arms folded across her breast. Oh, God, she thought, Louis will be defeated because he accepts defeat.

She loved them both – so much and so differently. She wanted to run to Axel and beg him to take her in his arms, never to leave her, but she wanted to cradle Louis’ head in her arms and comfort him.

Fersen argued. It was at least worth an attempt. While the King was in Paris, while he accepted the new Constitution, it was difficult for the European countries to come to his aid. Once he was out of the country he could defy the Constitution; he could call loyal men to his aid, and he could fight for his throne.

Louis faced Fersen and said quickly: ‘I could never try to escape, and for this reason: I have given my word to the National Assembly that I will not do so again.’

‘But these men are your enemies.’

‘It matters not. I have given them my word.’

Fersen knew that he was defeated. Louis, who could never make up his mind as to what action he should take in most circumstances, was firmly resolved on this.

He had given his word.

The King said: ‘I will leave you now. Take care when you leave the Palace. Take care while you are in Paris. You risk your life to come here.’

Fersen bowed. ‘My pleasure is to serve Your Majesties.’

Louis nodded. But he understood.

He went away and left them together.


* * *

It was the last embrace; he held her as though he could never let her go.

She murmured: ‘If I could but die at this moment …’

‘Do not speak of dying,’ he said roughly.

Then he released her and turned away, only to turn back and take her in his arms once more.

But he must be gone. Every moment he spent in the Palace was a danger.

She would be expected to appear in the salon, to talk, to seem as usual, and all the time her thoughts would be with him. Where is he now? Is he safe?

What had become of her life which had once been so gay, when the newest hair-style arranged by Monsieur Léonard had provided such excitement in her life?

Why should there be such violent contrasts in the life of one woman?

‘You must not stay,’ she said. ‘You must go …’

‘One day,’ he said, ‘I’ll be back.’

She thought of the little Dauphin, who had said ‘One day.’ She thought of his dying in her arms.

‘Don’t say that,’ she said. ‘It frightens me. Whether we meet again or not I have this night to remember.’

‘For ever …’ he said.

She was alert. ‘I hear the sentry. He is coming this way. Oh, go quickly … now, or it will be too late. He may look in. He may decide to search the apartment. Oh, go … my love … go quickly.’

He kissed her hands. She pushed him from her. She longed to keep him, and yet a greater need demanded that she send him away.

He was gone. She stood at the door, watching his figure swallowed up in the darkness.

Then she returned to her apartments. She heard the sentry marching past her window; and she covered her face with her hands as though to hold in her emotions.


* * *

The uneasy months were passing. Summer had come. In the streets a new publication was being sold. It was La Vie Scandaleuse de Marie Antoinette. Madame de Lamotte had supplied a great deal of the material which went into this and other compilations.

The Assembly had brought forward a proposal that priests who refused to swear to be loyal to the Constitution should be expelled from France. Louis, who was a devout Catholic, declared he could never assent to such a law. In all other matters he had given way. He had even declared war on Austria at the command of the Assembly – Austria, the country whose aim was to restore his monarchy.

It was characteristic of Louis that he should choose his weakest moment to stand out against the Assembly.

Monsieur and Madame Veto had dared attempt to oppose the Assembly, had dared to try to stem the tide of revolution.

It was hot June and the people gathered in the streets; life at the Tuileries had been lived too peaceably since the King and Queen had been brought back to Paris after their ignoble flight. It was time they were taught a lesson, since they had not yet discovered that the Assembly would not allow them to raise their voices in protest against the people.

‘Ça ira!’ was the song the people were singing as they gathered in the squares.

‘A bas le veto!’ they shouted.

They marched to the Tuileries, carrying banners to which had been nailed the symbol of a pair of ragged breeches – the sign of the sans-culottes, the name given to the revolutionary bands who had roamed the streets in their ragged clothes demanding bread and the downfall of the monarchy. They massed in the Place du Carrousel and the narrow streets which intersected it; they streamed along the Terrasse des Feuillants; and forced an entrance into the Palace itself.

Louis heard them. He said calmly: ‘My people wish to see me. They must not be disappointed.’

‘Do not be afraid, Sire,’ said a member of the National Guard. ‘Remember, Sire, they have always loved you.’

Louis took the man’s hand and placed it on his heart. ‘Feel if it beats more quickly than usual,’ he said.

And the soldier was amazed, for the King’s heart-beats were quite steady.

Elisabeth was with him. There was one fear in Louis’ mind. ‘Do not let them find the Queen,’ he whispered.

Antoinette had hurried to her husband’s apartments but was told to keep away.

‘I will be with my husband,’ she said.

‘It is unwise, Madame. Your presence will inflame the people against him. Wait here in the Council chamber, while the King talks to them.’

She had the children with her; at such moments Antoinette had little fear for herself because all her alarm was for them.

Into the King’s apartments the mob had burst. They paused and looked at Louis and Elisabeth who stood side by side, outwardly calm.

Many of them had never seen the royal family before, and they immediately mistook Elisabeth for Antoinette.

‘The Austrian woman!’ they cried.

Elisabeth had one thought. She believed they had come to murder Antoinette, and she stepped forward crying: ‘Yes. I am the Austrian woman. You have come to kill me. Do so quickly … and go.’

One of the guards said: ‘It is not the Queen. It is Madame Elisabeth.’

The mob fell back. They had turned their attention to Louis, and two of the guards escorted Elisabeth from the room.

Once again that complete calm of the King baffled them. If he had shown one sign of fear, one sign of haughty rancour, they would have fallen upon him and done him to bloody death. But the benign calm puzzled them. They stood back a little. They could only growl: ‘A bas le veto!’

One or two of the guards had placed themselves beside Louis. ‘Citizens,’ one cried, ‘recognise the King. Respect him. The law demands it. We shall die rather than let any harm befall him.’

A butcher stepped forward. ‘Listen to us, Louis Capet,’ he cried. ‘You are a traitor. You have deceived us. Take care! We are tired of being your playthings.’

‘Down with the veto,’ shouted the crowd.

‘My people,’ said Louis, ‘I cannot discuss the veto with you.’

‘You shall! You shall!’ cried the crowd, and one or two men advanced threateningly.

Louis did not flinch. He stood on a stool and addressed them. ‘My people, I shall do what the Constitution demands of me, but I cannot discuss the veto with you.’

One of the men pushed forward his pike on which he had stuck the red Phrygian cap which was the symbol of liberty. Louis, with one of those inspired gestures which came to him naturally at such times of danger, took the cap and placed it on his head.

They stared at him. Someone cried: ‘Long live the King!’ The hard faces relaxed. Louis had once more saved his life.


* * *

The mob had broken into the Council chamber in their search for the Queen.

They found her there. She was standing erect behind the table. Madame Royale was beside her; and on the table sat the Dauphin. Antoinette had turned his face towards herself so that he should not see the mob. Several ladies stood with her, including the Princesse de Lamballe and Madame de Tourzel.

A group of loyal guards stood about the table.

There was a shriek of delight. ‘The Austrian woman!’ Here she was at last. The woman of a hundred fabulous stories, the woman who had lived the most scandalous life of any woman in the world – according to the rumours rife all over the country. Antoinette – l’Autrichienne.

And there she stood, pale, handsome, looking beyond them as though they did not exist, showing no twitch of lips or eyes which might have betrayed the slightest nervousness.

It was the demeanour of the royal family which baffled the crowds whenever they met it. The sight of her standing there, the children beside her, must make the most sanguinary revolutionary pause. Madame Royale, so pretty, so charming, so gentle, so clearly adored this woman of a thousand evil rumours. The little boy – their own Dauphin – was clinging to her for protection.

But they must not forget that she was Antoinette.

They shouted insults and obscenities. Several of them held miniature gallows made of wood, from which dangled rag dolls. Cards were attached to these on which was written in red letters ‘Antoinette à la lanterne!’

A tricolor rosette was thrown at her. The Queen looked at it disdainfully as it fell on the table. ‘Take it,’ someone screamed.

‘Oh, take it, Mama, please,’ whispered Madame Royale; and to soothe her daughter, Antoinette placed it in her hair.

‘A cap of liberty for the Dauphin!’ cried another.

‘No,’ said the Queen.

‘Madame, it is unwise to refuse,’ murmured one of the guards; and a woman stepped up and crammed the cap onto the Dauphin’s head.

He began to cry, for the cap stank horribly, and it had slipped down over his face.

Fortunately one of the revolutionaries, seeing that the little boy was in danger of suffocation advanced and removed the cap.

Red-faced and gasping, the little boy flung himself into his mother’s arms.

Meanwhile the crowds filled the room, wrecking the furnishings, shouting insults, only kept from attacking the Queen by the fixed bayonets of the guards.

The heat of that day was intense; and the stench of the sweating bodies nauseated Antoinette. For three hours she was stared at and threatened; and every moment of that period was pregnant with danger.

A woman forced her way to the table and, disregarding the soldiers’ bayonets, began to repeat some of the hideous stories she had heard of the Queen; she called the Dauphin and his sister bastards; she knew she was safe because, if the guards so much as touched her or any one of the mob, the crowd would tear them to pieces.