abandoned. Hundreds of men are working on boarding up the windows. Tomorrow, the Palace of Versailles will be cast into darkness.
“After you,” Lafayette says when the doors have been opened. Men with empty chests stand ready behind us. We step inside, and I am struck at once by the silence. A hundred years of courtiers hurrying down these halls, and all that’s left are the scuffs on the marble floors where they ran to escape. For all of its laws and august traditions, it took only a mob to demolish nine hundred years of kingship.
“What we need is in the queen’s apartments,” Rose announces, her voice unsteady. We follow behind her and regard the damage done by the rampaging crowds. There are mirrors broken on every wall, tapestries torn as if their heavy threads were made of paper and not wool, and vases shattered into a thousand pieces, their fragments showered across the floors. Who will clean this? And what will become of all these possessions? Surely the National Assembly will want them, but they belong to the king. These are his lamps, his chairs, his commodes, all bought with the money he inherited from his grandfather, who inherited it from his father, Louis XIV.
We pass the grand staircase, and Lafayette stops to run his fingers over the pockmarked walls. I realize with shock that bullet holes have chipped the marble and scarred the paneling. Lafayette exhales angrily, and the guardsmen behind him shift uneasily on their feet. “I want this cleaned,” Lafayette says.
When we reach the queen’s apartments, even Lafayette hesitates before the door. No one has ever entered without permission. But there is no one to give us permission. No ushers, or guards, or even ladies-in-waiting. He pushes open the heavy wooden doors, and Leonard goes first.
“My God! Look at what they’ve done,” he exclaims.
The gilded walls have been torn apart, as if someone dragged a pitchfork across the paneling. The silk hangings, the mirrors, the chandeliers—everything is damaged or destroyed.
Leonard bends down to collect the broken pieces of a box and wipes a tear from his eye. “Why would they do this to her?”
Yet the bed is exactly as she left it. Rose draws back the curtains to reveal the queen’s robe and her forgotten slippers. She must have run barefoot to the king’s apartments in nothing but her nightgown.
“How did she escape?” I ask.
Rose walks to the corner of the room and reveals a hidden door to the left of the alcove. “If it weren’t for this,” she says somberly, “we’d be arranging her funeral.”
We are all silent. If I hold my breath, I am sure I can catch the faint laughter of women and the sharp wit of the courtiers who filled this chamber. I see Rose square her shoulders and set her jaw. “Find her jewelry box,” she commands. “Take anything that looks irreplaceable.”
But it all looks irreplaceable to me. The bust of soft paste porcelain, the commode veneered with tortoiseshell and horn, the pair of brass firedogs with elaborate designs. What do you choose when everything has its own history?
I gaze up at the paintings by Boucher and wonder if he could have ever imagined a time when his
THE GUARDSMEN HAVE left the chests of Madame Elisabeth’s things in the corner of our workshop, and since their arrival, half the neighborhood has been to see what’s inside. The tailor is fond of the princesse’s shoes, which I packed for their beauty, despite the fact that they were not on the list. Letters, journals, a leather box for paintbrushes—everything is here when Lafayette comes for the second time in three days. The royal family has settled into the Tuileries, and Rose and I have been summoned to deliver the possessions we’ve salvaged. He waits at the door of the Salon while I give Curtius my last-minute instructions.
“I think we turn the first room into a tableau of Great Patriots. The second room, perhaps something with the Jacobin Club.” That’s all they’re talking about in the Palais-Royal. Robespierre has joined, as well as Louis-Philippe, the teenage son of the Duc d’Orleans, who is now living abroad. “I don’t have any ideas for the third.”
“Something with the National Guard,” Curtius says.
I kiss my mother good-bye, and she makes me promise to return with details about everything—the king, the queen, and the condition of the Tuileries, which hasn’t been used since Louis XIV built his Palace of Versailles. Lafayette helps me into a carriage where Rose is already waiting. When he shuts the door and the horses take off, she exhales deeply. “They are barbarians. All of them!” She flicks opens her fan and begins to wave it compulsively.
For an October morning, it’s oppressively hot.
“She’s done her best! At all times, she’s only given her best.” Sweat has broken out on her upper lip, and she fans it away with sharp flicks. “She ruled the world of fashion. And there will never be anyone like her. Remember when fire burned through the Opera? We named her red dress
I’m not sure whom Rose feels sorriest for. Herself, because her creations will never be showcased on the world’s stage again, or the queen, who has lost the power to do so.
“There has always been power in fashion,” she continues. “Even
I pin it to my fichu. “Thank you,” I say, and Rose looks out the window. We’re approaching the Tuileries on the right bank of the Seine, and it’s difficult to imagine the royal family living in this abandoned place. It was built more than two hundred years ago by Catherine de’ Medici when her husband, King Henry II, died. “So what will you do now?” I ask.
“Cater to other women with fashion sense. And if they all leave Paris, then I shall close Le Grand Mogol and follow them to London. The queen has been the making of me, and I will never forget that. But if she’s too foolish to plan her escape, I am not.”
I think of Henri’s plea that we leave. Philip Astley is already gone, and many of the actors on the Boulevard du Temple have packed their chests and sailed across the Channel.
“Madame Elisabeth tells me it’s not her but the king.”
“Then she should have left without him,” Rose declares pitilessly. “She’s too loyal, and that’s what has brought us here.”
The carriages stop before the Tuileries Palace. Lafayette brings us to the entrance, and after a few words with the guards, we are taken inside. I had expected cobwebs and stone, yet fresh morning light falls through the windows and illuminates an exquisite scene. “Look at the floors and the paintings,” I say.
Rose makes a face. “It’s not Versailles.”
We are taken to the second floor, where there are courtiers hurrying about their business and workers moving heavy pieces of furniture. Somewhere in these halls my brothers are on patrol with the National Guard. “How many people are here?” Rose asks.
“About five hundred,” Lafayette replies.
It’s a drastic reduction in courtiers and staff, but perhaps now the people will see that the royal family is not spending their money dressing up their servants and attending soirees.
We reach Madame Elisabeth’s new salon, and a pair of ushers open the doors for me. “Mademoiselle Grosholtz,” one of the men announces, and it’s astounding to see how the customs of Versailles have been adapted for this place. The doors swing shut behind me, and Madame Elisabeth exclaims, “Marie!”
“Madame.” I sink into my lowest curtsy, but she takes my arms and pulls me up.
“You’ve come,” she says, and when I search her eyes, they are full of surprise. “I can’t believe you’ve come.” Six groomed greyhounds dance about her feet.
“Of course, Madame. And all of the items on your list were packed.”
“Thank you, Marie. You have no … you have no idea what it means.” She looks down at my basket, and her eyes fill with tears.
“Plus a few things that weren’t on the list,” I say.
She pulls back the silk covering and sees it is everything she’ll need to continue her modeling—wax, clay, plaster, glass eyes, a bag full of hair, and all the tools of the trade. When the guards at the entrance saw this, their
