The Queen`s Confession

“I find it hard to bear when the people are against us,” he said.

Then I thought of that moment when we had known we were King and Queen of France and how we had both cried out that we were too young, and I forgot the Trianon;

I forgot everything but the need to stand beside him, to support him, to will him to be strong. I took his hand and he pressed my fingers.

There is no time to be lost,” he said.

“Action, prompt action, is necessary.” Then the old look of self-doubt was in his face.

“The right action,” he added.

The Princes of Beauvau and de Poix were in the chateau and he sent for them poor substitutes for Maurepas and Turgot. He briefly explained the situation. He said: “I will send a message to Turgot, and then we shall have to act.”

I knew he was praying silently that the ac don he took would be the right one. And I prayed with him.

He sat down and wrote to Turgot:

Versailles is attacked. You can count on my firmness. I have ordered the guards to the market place. I am pleased with the precautions you have taken in Paris, but it is what could happen there that alarms me most. You are right to arrest the people of whom you speak, but when you have them remember I wish there to be no haste and many questions. I have just given orders what shall be done here, and for the markets and mills of the neighbourhood. ” I stayed with him, and I was gratified that that seemed to please him.

“What alarms me is,” he said, ‘that this should appear to be an organised riot. It is not the people. The situation is not as bad as that. There is nothing that we could not set co rights given time. But this is organised planned the people are being incited against us. Why? “

I thought of how the people had cheered me when I first went to Paris and Monsieur de Brissac had said two hundred thousand people had fallen in love with me; I thought of the people cheering us in the Bois de Boulogne.

“The people love us, Louis,” I said.

“We may have our enemies, but they are not the people.”

He nodded, and again I realised by the way he looked at me that he was glad I was there.

That was a terrible day. I could eat nothing; I felt faint and slightly sick. The waiting was terrible, and when I heard the sounds of shouting approaching the chateau I was almost relieved.

That was my first glimpse of an angry mob. There they were in the grounds of the chateau unkempt, in rags, bran dishing sticks and howling abuse. I stood a little way back from the window watching.

Someone threw something; I could see it on the balcony. It looked like mouldy bread.

Louis said he would speak to them, and bravely he stepped on to the balcony. There was a moment’s silence, and he cried: “My good people . But his voice was drowned in their shouting. He turned to me and I saw the tears in his eyes.

“You tried. You did your best,” I assured him, but I could not comfort him. He was sad and depressed, but he was like a different man from the Louis I had known before. There was a resolution about him. I knew that he would not be afraid whatever happened, and that he had one purpose; to bring cheap bread to his people.

I saw the guards come into the courtyard led by the Prince de Beauvau.

No sooner had he appeared than the mob turned on him; they threw flour at him the precious flour needed for bread and he was covered in it from head to foot.

“We shall march on the chateau,” cried a voice in the crowd.

The Prince cried: “What do you want the price of bread to be?”

“Two sous,” was the answer. “Then two sous shall it be,” said the Prince. There was a wild shout of triumph and the people turned from the chateau to rush to the bakers demanding bread at two sous. Thus ended the riots at Versailles; but several of those who had been arrested turned out to be not starving peasants at all but men of substance—one of them was Artois’s chief cellarer; and some of the sour bread of which the people had complained was picked up and turned out to be bread mixed with ashes. This was very disturbing indeed. Louis wrote at once to Turgot:

We are peaceful now. The riot was beginning to be violent but the troops calmed them. The Prince de Beauvau asked them why they had come to Versailles and they replied that they had no bread. I have decided not to go out today, not through fear but so that all may be calm and settle down. Monsieur de Beauvau tells me that a foolish compromise was made which was to let them have bread at two sous.

There was no other thing to do, he says, but let them have it at this or its present price. The bargain is made now but precautions should be made to prevent their believing they can make laws. Give me your advice on this Turgot returned at once to Versailles.

“Our consciences are clear,” he told the King; ‘but the current price of bread must be restored or there will be disaster. ” In spite of Turgot’s precautions there were riots in Paris;

the Chief of Police Lenoir was dilatory; it may have been that’ he did not wish to show himself against the rioters.

This was all very alarming—Lenoir refusing to do his duty, and more bread being found which had been turned mouldy by a special process.

Turgot acted promptly and dismissed Lenoir, replacing him by a man named Albert who was a supporter of his and immediately went into action. Arrests were made and order was restored; the entire Parlement was summoned to Versailles, where the King received them.

“I must stop this dangerous brigandage,” he said.

“It could quickly become rebellion. I am determined that neither my good town of Paris nor my kingdom shall suffer. I rely on your fidelity and submission when I am determined to take measures which ensure that during my reign I shall not have to take them again.”

He was determined, as he had told me, before receiving the Parlement, that order should be brought back to his kingdom, and that the real culprits of this rising should be discovered and dealt with.

But the riots in Paris continued; and once again those who were arrested proved to be not poor people in need of bread but men and women with money in their pockets.

Louis was very distressed.

“This is a plot,” he told me, a plot against us. That is what disturbs me so. “

“But you are behaving like a true King, Louis. I have heard it said again and again. They tell me that the manner in which you spoke to the Parlement has won everyone’s admiration.”

“I always find it easier to talk to fifty men than to one,” he said with his shy smile.

I cried: “You will discover who made this plot, and then all will be well. I think the French are happy to understand that they have a strong King whom they can trust.”

He was delighted and murmured: “You jump to conclusions. It is not all over yet.”

Nor was it. As he and I passed out of his room we saw a nonce pinned on the door. I read it and gasped. It said:

“If the price of bread does not go down and the Ministry is not changed, we will set fire to the four corners of the Chateau of Versailles.”

I stared at it in horror. I looked at my husband, who had turned pale.

“Louis,” I whispered, it is as though they hate us. “

It is not the people! ” he cried.

“I will not believe it is the people !’ But he was shaken. And so was I. It was like a cold wind blowing through the palace.

Albert reported that he had made many arrests. A wig maker and a gauze-maker had been caught stealing and it was decided to make an example of them. They were hanged on two gallows eighteen feet high so that they could be an example to the rioters.

Louis was distressed.

“I wish they could find the ringleaders,” he said again and again. I do not wish the people who have only been led away to be punished. ” If he could he would have pardoned those two men, but Turgot insisted that there must be an example, and certainly the hanging of these two men sobered the people. The rioting died down; the insurrection ” La Guerre des Farines’ was over.

It was clear that some organisation, some secret band of men, was using the grain shortage to build a