He took my hand and said: “You are right that we should not be parted.
We will go together. “
I hurried into the children’s apartments.
“We are leaving in half an hour,” I told Madame de Tourzel.
“Get the children ready But even as I spoke, one of the King’s servants came to tell me that the escape was now impossible, for the crowds were in the stables and they would not allow the carriages to leave.
I could have wept. Once more we had hesitated and lost.
I told Madame de Tourzel not to disturb the children and I went back to my husband’s apartments. Axel was beside me. He could no longer restrain himself; he gripped my band and said: “You must give me an order that I may take horses from the stables. I may need them to defend you.”
I shook my head.
“You must not risk your life for me,” I told him.
“For what else Tor the King,” I suggested. And I added, trying to soothe the anguish he showed so dearly he was feeling: “I am not afraid. My mother taught me not to fear death. If it has come for me I will accept it with fortitude, I believe.”
He turned away. He was determined to save me. But how could one man’s love save me from those howling men and women who were bent on my destruction?
La Fayette arrived at Versailles about midnight, and stationing his men in the Place dAmes he came to the Palace to see the King.
He entered in a theatrical way. I often wondered whether Monsieur de La Fayette saw himself as the hero of the Revolution who would bring about the reforms he believed the country needed with the niirmnimi of violence. He made a grandiloquent speech about serving the King and bringing his own head to save that of His Majesty, whereupon Louis replied that the General must never doubt that he was always pleased to see him and his good people of Paris. He begged the General would tell them this.
The General asked that those guards who had deserted their posts and gone to the National Guard a few weeks before should be allowed to resume their old dudes. It would be a gesture of trust.
What were gestures of trust with those people down there? Yet I believed that both Louis and La Fayette believed in it.
The King took my hand and kissed it.
You are exhausted. It has been a tiring day. Go to bed and get some sleep now. Our good Monsieur de La Fayette will see that all is well.”
La Fayette bowed.
“Your Majesties need have no anxiety,” he said.
“The people have promised that they will remain calm throughout the night.”
I went to my bedchamber and sank on to my bed. It was true. The events of this day had left me exhausted.
I was awakened just before dawn by unfamiliar sounds. I started’ up in bed and peered into the darkness. I heard the voices again—coarse, crude voices. Whence did they come? I rang the bell and one of my women came in. She must have been near—which surprised me, for I had told them not to sleep in my room but to go to their own beds.
“Whose voices are those?” I asked.
“The women of Paris, Madame. They are wandering about on the terrace.
There is nothing to fear. Monsieur de La Fayette has given his word.”
I nodded and went back to sleep. It seemed a short while afterwards when I was awakened by the same woman and another standing by my bedside. The room seemed full of shouting voices.
“Madame—quickly I You must dress! They are invading the chateau! They are close….”
I leaped out of bed. Madame Thiebaut, Madame Campan’s sister, was there. She was thrusting shoes on my feet and trying to wrap a robe about me. Then I heard the voices close:
“This way. We’ll get her. This is her apartment. I’ll cut her heart out myself.”
“No—no, that honour’s for me.”
“Cone quickly,” cried Madame Thiebaut.
“There is no time to dress.
They are almost upon us. “
“The King’s apartment …” I stammered.
“The children They were dragging me through the narrow corridor to wards the Oeil de Boeuf. The door was locked. It was the first time I had ever known it locked and I was seized with a violent horror because I knew from the nearness of voices that the intruders were already in my bedroom.
Madame Thiebaut was banging on the door.
“Open open for God’s sake!
For the Queen’s sake . , open! “
I heard the shouts.
“She’s fooled us. She’s gone. Where is she? We’ll find her.”
“Oh God,” I prayed.
“Help me to be brave. This is the moment. This is death horrible death.”
I was hammering on the door and suddenly it was opened and we fell into the Oett de Boeuf. The page who had opened it locked it again and we sped across to the King’s apartments. I was sobbing with terror.
Death I could face, but not violent, obscene death at the hands of those savages.
“The King!” I cried.
“He is going to your bedchamber to find you,” I was told.
“But they are there!”
“He has gone by means of the secret corridor under the Oeil de Boeuf.”
It was the secret way he had come when people used to watch his visits to my bedchamber and snigger over them. How fortunate that I had had that secret way made!
But what would happen to him? Would he be safe? They were crying for my blood, not his.
“The children …” I began. And then Madame de Tour-zei came in leading them, hastily snatched from their beds, robes over their sleeping clothes.
They ran to me and I embraced them; I held them to me as though I would never let them go. Then the King came in calm, almost unhurried.
“They are in your bedroom,” he said, ‘despoiling the room. “
I had a horrible vision of them slashing the bed which was still warm, pulling down the hangings, snatching up my treasures.
I thought strangely enough of the little clock which my son so loved and which played a tune.
I beard the tinkling sound quite clearly.
“II pleut, il pleut berg ere Presse tes blancs moutons …”
Listen,” I said.
“What is that?”
It was the sound of blows on the door of the Oeil de Boeuf.
We waited. I think even Louis believed then that our last hour had come.
Then . the blows ceased. One of the pages came running in to tell us that the Guards were driving the mob out of the chateau.
I sat down and covered my face with my hands.
My son was pulling at my skirt.
“Maman, what are they all doing?”
I just held him against me. I could not speak. My daughter took her brother’s hand and said: “You must not worry Maman now.”
“Why?” he wanted to know.
“Because there are so many things to think of I thought: They will kill my son. He smiled at me and whispered: ” It’s all right, Maman, Moufflet is here. “
“Then,” I whispered back, ‘it is all right. “
