The length of the days t There is nothing I can do. I write a little but they are watchful and suspicious. There is always a guard sitting in the corner of my room. Sometimes there are two. I watch them playing cards. Madame Richard brought me books and I read a great deal. I have kept a little leather glove which my son used to wear when he was very small. It is one of my greatest treasures—in a locket I have a picture of Louis-Charles. I often kiss it when the guards are not looking.
The nights are so long. I am not allowed a lamp or even a candle. The changing of the guard always awakens me if I I am dozing. I sleep very little.
t Michonis came into my cell today. He dismissed the guards < for a few moments, saying he would guard me. With him i was a stranger who was looking at prisons. I asked the i usual questions about my family, and looking closer at the i stranger I recognised him as a colonel of the Grenadiers, a man of great loyalty and courage, the Chevalier de Rougeville. He saw that I recognised him, and with a quick gesture he threw something into the stove.
When he and Michonis had left I went to the stove and found a carnation. I was disappointed, and then examining it closer I discovered a thin paper among the petals. On it I read:
“I shall never forget you. If you have need of three or four hundred livres for those who surround you I will bring them next Friday.”
The note continued to tell me that he had a plan for my escape. Would I agree to this?
I felt my hopes rising. This I believed was another of Axel’s attempts. He would never tire of making them, I knew. The money would be. brought for me to bribe my guards . a means would be found for taking me out of the palace. And when I was out we would bring out my children and my sister-in-law, and we should join Axel. We would work to bring back the Monarchy to end this reign of Terror. I believed we could do it. People like the Richards, Rosalie, Michonis, upheld me in this belief. But how to smuggle out a note? I tore up the fragments of his and wrote:
*I depend on you. I will come. “
I must get the note to Rougeville. Rosalie would take it. But what if she were discovered? That would be a poor way to repay her for all she had done.
No, I would not involve her or Madame Richard, so I asked one of the guards, Gilbert, to give it to the stranger when he next came to the Conciergerie, which he would most certainly do. The stranger would reward him with four hundred louis.
Gilbert took the note, and then was terrified, so he showed it to Madame Richard. She was sympathetic but she did not wish to risk her head, so she showed it to Michonis. Both these people were good; they were sorry for me; but they were servants of the Republic. They did not wish to betray me, so Michonis advised Madame Richard to warn me of i the dangers of such actions to all of us.
Had Gilbert said nothing, all would have been well and it would have been just another attempt that failed. In any case it was too vague to have come to anything and I wondered afterwards how I could have been so foolish as to have hoped it could.
Gilbert told his superior officer, and as a result Michonis was dismissed and so were the Richards.
I now have new jailors. They are not unkind, but in view of what happened to the Richards they will run no risks.
I miss that kind woman; I miss little Fanfan.
And slowly the days and nights pass.
Soon they win bring me to stand my trial.
The time has come. This morning the door of my cell was opened and an usher and four gendarmes entered. They had come to conduct me to the old Grande Chambre which was now called the Hall of Liberty.
It is the seat of the Revolutionary Tribunal: the tapestries decorated with fleurs-delis which I had known, had been removed, and the picture of the Crucifixion replaced by another representing the Rights of Man. I was given a seat on a bench in front of Fouquier-Tinville, the Public Prosecutor. The room was dim for it was lighted only by two candles.
They asked me my name and I replied calmly: “Marie Antoinette of Lorraine of Austria.”
“Before the Revolution you carried on political relations with foreign powers and these were contrary to the interests of France from which you drew many advantages.”
“This is not true.”
You have squandered the finances of France, the fruit of H the people’s sweat, for your pleasure and intrigues. ” id ” No,” I said, but inwardly I felt sick. I thought of my extravagances: the Petit Trianon, Madame Benin’s bills, di Monsieur Leonard’s services. I was guilty … deeply o guilty.
“Since the Revolution you have never ceased to intrigue o with foreign powers and at home against liberty….” a “Since the Revolution I have forbidden myself any correspondence abroad and I have never meddled at home.” i But it was not true. I was lying. I had sent out my appeals to Axel. I had written to Bamave and Mercy.
Oh yes, they would prove me guilty, for I was guilty in their eyes.
“It was you who taught Louis Capet the art of profound dissimulation by which he so long deceived the good French people.”
I closed my eyes and shook my head.
“When you left Paris in June 1791 you opened the doors and made everyone leave. There is no doubt that it was you who ruled the actions of Louis Capet and persuaded him to flight.”
“I do not think that an open door proves that one is constantly ruling a person’s actions.”
“Never for one moment have you ceased wanting to destroy liberty. You wanted to reign at any price and reascend the throne over the bodies of patriots.”
“We had no need to reascend the throne. We were already there. We have never wished for anything but France’s happiness. As long as she was happy, as long as she is so, we shall always be satisfied.”
“Do you think a King necessary for a people’s happiness?”
“An individual cannot decide such matters.”
No doubt you regret that your son has lost a throne to which he might have mounted if the people, finally conscious of their rights, had not destroyed the throne? “
“I shall never regret anything for my son when his country is happy.”
The questions continued. They asked about the Trianon. Who had paid for the Trianon?
“There was a special fund for the Trianon. I hope that everything connected with it will be made public for I believe it to be greatly exaggerated.”
“It was at the Petit Trianon that you first met Madame de la Motte.”
“I never met her.”
“But did you not make her your scapegoat in the fraud of the Diamond Necklace?”
“I never met her.”
It was then I believed I was living in a nightmare . that I had died and gone to hell. I could not believe that I heard correct.
What were those monsters saying about my son? They were accusing us of incest. My own child! A boy of eight ! I could not believe it. This Hebert . this monster . this crude man of the streets was telling this court that I had taught my son immoral practices . that I had . But I cannot write it. It is too painful; too horrible too fantastically absurd!
My son had admitted it, they said. We had indulged in these practices he and I and Elisabeth . his saintly Aunt Elisabeth and I his mother!
I was staring ahead of me. I saw the boy playing in the yard . my boy who was in the hands of these wicked men. I saw the dirty red cap on his head; I heard the coarse words in his mouth; I heard him singing the “Ca ira’ in his childish voice.
They had forced this ‘confession’ from him. They had taught him what to say. They had ill treated him, made him agree to what he could not understand. He was eight years old and I was his mother. I loved him.
I had lost my lover and my husband—and my boy was my life. Yet they had taught him to say these things of me . and his aunt who had taught him to say his prayers.
I heard only snatches of the report. I heard them say that they had confronted him with his sister, with his aunt, and that naturally these two had denied the accusations. It I was natural, they said, that these people who were capable j i< of such unnatural actions should. _ ,j t His Aunt Elisabeth had called him a monster. I c Oh
