I raise my chin. “I am here on Robespierre’s request,” I repeat. “I brought this as a warning,” I lie. Saint Denis was beheaded with a sword on Montmartre. He was the only saint I could plausibly bring. Although he is holding his head in his hands, like his image outside the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, he will give Madame Elisabeth comfort. “I am here to serve the Convention,” I tell him.
“Not to convey a message, or warn her of an uprising?”
“My uncle is a captain of the National Guard.”
“And Lafayette was their commander. That means nothing, Citizeness.”
The guard watches me, and I return his stare. I don’t know what they want from me. I have a pass with the words
“You may go,” he says at last. Then adds threateningly, “My men will be watching.”
Four soldiers escort me into the Temple, and I follow them through the halls. Unlike the Tuileries, this is not a palace. It is a fortress built by the Knights Templars with cold, damp walls and rising turrets. Somewhere, far beneath my feet, the victims of the Inquisition were once imprisoned. Now this is where the royal family must live.
We reach a wooden door, and the guard pushes it open. “A guest!” he shouts, and inside the chamber a woman with white hair and a black taffeta gown rises to greet me.
“Thank you, Thomas,” she says kindly, but the soldier warns her that I shall not be staying long. The door is left open, and the queen takes my hands. “Mademoiselle Grosholtz.” After so many years, she still remembers me. “Or is it Madame now?”
I think of Henri and swallow my hurt. “No, still Mademoiselle.”
She guides me to a chair, and it feels very much like I am walking through a dream. Her children are sitting before the fireplace, reading books from the vast library spread along the walls. They look up at me, and while the boy smiles, the girl watches me with open suspicion. There is a small dog warming itself by the fire. I think of Madame Elisabeth’s little greyhounds. There is no sign of them here, and I wonder if they have been sent away.
“Marie-Therese, would you go and find your aunt? She will be very glad to see Mademoiselle Grosholtz.”
“Just Marie,” I correct her.
The princesse stands. “I don’t see why Louis can’t do it.”
The queen smiles self-consciously at me before turning to her daughter. “Because you are the one I asked.”
She doesn’t argue further. She stalks through the door, and I think to myself, What an unfortunate child. How is it fair to heap such losses on a child? The moment Madame Elisabeth appears I stand, but we do not embrace, since the guards are watching. She looks me over. “Marie, how did you come here?”
Unlike the queen, who has aged into an old woman, Madame Elisabeth is still in the full bloom of youth. But her eyes tell the truth. We sit across from each other near the fire, and the queen takes a chair next to her sister- in-law. The guard is lost in conversation with his friend.
“I begged a pass from Robespierre,” I say quietly. “I told him we were old friends and that if anyone could learn of an escape plan in the making, it would be me.”
“A spy?” Madame Elisabeth whispers.
“How clever,” the queen says. “And do you know, that’s what these men believe. We are imprisoned in a Templar fortress and they think that hordes of men are rushing to save us. If that were the case, wouldn’t someone have saved my husband?”
A deep heaviness settles over the room.
“That is what I came to tell you, Madame. Your husband met with an easy death.”
Madame Elisabeth stifles a sob.
“There was no pain,” I promise them. “No suffering.”
Both the dauphin—who is now Louis XVII—and Madame Royale are listening intently. The queen’s gaze is hollow. She is a shadow of herself. Pale and thin with sunken eyes. Around her neck, she wears her husband’s wedding ring on a simple ribbon. It is likely the only jewel she has left in the world. They have taken everything from her. “Do you know what they plan for us?” she whispers in German.
I look over my shoulder. But the guard has obviously heard enough weeping in this room to no longer be concerned by it.
“Life in a convent,” I mouth wordlessly. I have heard this news from Robespierre.
“And my children?”
Both of them are watching me. Louis-Charles, who looks like an angel, and Marie-Therese, whose future is uncertain. “I’m sorry. I don’t know.” I reach into my basket and take out the miniature of Saint Denis. I give it to Madame Elisabeth, and she puts a hand to her heart.
“Oh,
Marie-Therese rises from the fireside. “Won’t you get in trouble for bringing that?” she asks curiously.
I meet Madame Royale’s narrowed eyes. “It is a miniature of a saint.”
“No one else brings gifts.” She watches me with a strange expression.
Madame Elisabeth reaches forward to take my hands. “You have no idea what this means to me. Please, will you pray for us?” she asks.
I am taken aback by the princesse’s request. What good will my prayers do? My brothers are dead, just like her brother. The National Guard murdered Yachin for nothing more than a square of silk. And Henri is gone. If God is listening, it is not to me.
JANUARY
31, 1793
—CATHERINE THE GREAT
EVERY COUNTRY ON EARTH HAS TURNED AGAINST US. ENGLAND, Russia, Holland, Austria. When their monarchs hear of King Louis’s murder, they unite in their horror and condemnation.
Empress Catherine the Great has declared mourning for all of Russia, and in England the prime minister, William Pitt, has called the king’s death “the foulest and most atrocious deed which the history of the world” has ever seen. I can find nothing in the papers to indicate what America’s President Washington believes. Perhaps he is neutral. But whatever he feels, we have made more enemies than we can fight.
On the first of February, the Convention declares war on both England and the Dutch Republic. Curtius says this is a preemptive strike, that England would declare war on us anyway. But I think it is pride. The hulking figure of Georges Danton stands before the Convention and swears that the limits of France will someday reach “the ocean, the Rhine, the Alps, and the Pyrenees.” When I ask my uncle what he thinks of this, he closes his eyes and shakes his head.
I imagine Wolfgang and Henri reading this news, and I wonder what will happen to them now. What will happen to us all? Their letters have stopped. Nothing arrives in or leaves from Paris except for soldiers. At night, the patrols go from house to house, searching for weapons, powder, illegal flour. Anyone caught hoarding is sent to prison. Then on the fifth of October, to cheer the populace, we are given a new calendar. From this day forward, no one is to celebrate the Catholic festivals or use the calendar that dates from Christ’s birth. “We are a nation of thinkers,” Danton declares, “and as such, we shall celebrate the glorious rationalism that has brought us to such liberty.”
Not a single journalist in all of Paris dares to point out that our new liberty has imprisoned us within the city.
