Farewell, My Queen Read online

  “I have a great regard for you, Madam, because most of the time you are you, which is a rare and remarkable quality. When is a king a king? He is always King, of course. But in some situations he is more so than in others. Situations in which he is very much the king he was created to be. The king that no one else, standing in his place, could have been. In the case of our King Louis XVI—I realized this at once and confirmed my first opinion many times—his special moment is in the evening, before they undress him for his Couchee, when he empties his pockets and sets his knife on the bedside table. At that moment, in that gesture, he is tremendously royal.”

  I went and sat on a bench, close to the water. All the various craft had docked. Enough of that had lifted my spirits. I was no longer uneasy. I had a feeling of perfect calm and of an immense stretch of time lying before me.

  CHATTING AND EMBROIDERING WITH HONORINE

  (late in the day, before supper).

  At Versailles, even in dull weather, the sky clears as the day draws to a close, and is breathtakingly beautiful every time. It struck me so again that evening. I was sitting with my friend Honorine Aubert, First Chambermaid to Madame de La Tour du Pin. We were comfortably settled in a little room that was part of her mistress’s quarters; Madame de La Tour du Pin, a neighbor to the Princess de Hénin, resided in a large apartment above the Princes’ Gallery, high up in the buildings that formed the South Wing of the château. On one side, this apartment opened onto the rue de la Surintendance and, opposite, onto the terrace of the Orangerie. I especially liked being there, out of friendship for Honorine and also because from my room on the slope-roofed upper floor of that South Wing I could see the full glory of the heavens, but was cut off from any view of the château grounds or the city. To sit in that handsome apartment meant having a panoramic wholeness restored to me. Together we were completing a tapestry begun and then abandoned by Madame de La Tour du Pin. I have always liked embroidering. I was less skillful at it than Honorine, but as she was by nature slower moving than I, we went along at the same pace. Through the open window we heard sounds of music coming up from the apartments of the young Princess Marie-Thérèse. We were exchanging comments on how we had each spent our day. I told her that the Queen seemed to be in a more tranquil humor, one might almost say happy, despite the depth of her grief, and that it warmed my heart to see this change. Honorine was very glad. Needles held aloft, at our feet the reels of silk, we were progressively creating a wooded landscape, stitch by stitch. Chattering all the while, we were doing our best to achieve a gradation of greens.

  For amusement, I told her about my afternoon at the Menagerie, and the African women. “I don’t believe it,” she said. I beg pardon? She didn’t believe it? But I had seen them, in fact more than once. Heard them, too: they were cackling louder than a henhouse. “I don’t believe it, that’s all. There are no African women at Versailles. Or in Africa, for that matter, because Africa doesn’t exist. Travelers come back and say whatever crosses their mind. Who’s going to go and see if what they say is right?” When Honorine started playing the skeptic, it always put me in a temper. I became stiff and disapproving. Not for long, however, as there was an unexpected diversion: three timid knocks at the door. A man stuck his head in; could we tell him where to find the Queen, he had something to show her. “What might that be, pray?” we asked. He hesitated, then came all the way in so we could see his whole person. “This,” he said, “is what I should like to show her.” And he stood before us, very straight, feet slightly apart. We looked the fellow over. He would have been unremarkable, were it not for his attire: he was dressed like Harlequin, in a multicolored garment all of one piece. Only instead of lozenges, what he had was stripes, and the stripes were blue, white, and red. “I’m looking for the Queen,” he said again, “so I can model this design for her; I am proposing it as a national costume.”

  AN EVENING IN THE GRAND LODGINGS.

  The rest of the evening, which we spent in the Grand Lodgings, had been gay and cheerful. And the supper simply royal: we were served what was left over from the King’s Table. I remember that quail were featured, as was cod from Newfoundland. Toward nine o’clock, some priests had come to sit with us. They were not hungry, because they had just been at the feast given by Cardinal de Montmorency: this was the day when he had taken his oath of loyalty to the King. They described the desserts for us: more than a hundred kinds, not counting the preserved fruit, compotes, ices, and nougatines. Father Hérissé had brought along several bottles of quince ratafia liqueur and cherry wine that he insisted we try. Honorine and I, as neither of us was accustomed to alcoholic drink, couldn’t stop laughing at the least thing that was said, and we laughed even harder when the speaker was being serious. Thus, when the diners at our table talked about the latest decree issued by Louis XVI, forbidding gentlemen in the army to strike common soldiers with the flat of a sword, we gave a great guffaw, with our noses in our drinking glasses. I am a little ashamed when I think back over it, but that is how things were at the time. There may not have been any children at Versailles, but there was plenty of childlike heedlessness in the air, and that was the air I was breathing.

  The strong drink continued to circulate freely, and the merriment of the assembled company grew accordingly, though all was perfectly decent. Someone produced a fiddle, and we danced.

  At about eleven in the evening, I went back to the château, which stood a few yards away from the enormous structure of the Grand Lodgings. Darkness had already descended. I was holding Honorine’s arm. We had our quarters a few rooms apart. There was still coming-and-going in the underground passage linking the château to the kitchens of the Grand Lodgings. Earlier, in the château itself, the lantern men, armed with their pikes, had lit the torchères on the corridor walls. The flames were so familiar a sight that we no longer bothered to take notice. What did surprise us, on the other hand, was to see the windows still lit up along the Ministers’ Wing of the château.

  “Good heavens, is the new government already in session? Or still in session? At this hour of the night? The energy of His Lordship Baron de Breteuil is most impressive.”

  “If his capacity for work is on a par with his sense of rank, we are in good hands,” added someone who greatly admired the de Breteuil family.

  “I doubt whether at so late an hour the government is sitting; rather, it is settling in. The gentlemen are dividing the offices among themselves.”

  “But who are they, exactly? Have all posts now been filled?” asked my friend, somewhat sobered by the cold air. Living in the sphere of the de La Tour du Pin family, a very political family, she followed closely what went on at Court.

  I heard a list of names recited, which pleased me. I like lists. I like things that are numerous without necessarily requiring to be counted, things that fall naturally into ritual order.

  Names can also be recited like a lullaby, when eyes are closing in sleep. And that night, in spite of the excitement of a reading session, despite my long walk early in the day, and the Captain of the Menagerie, and the knitted Harlequin, the dancing, the quince ratafia, and the cherry wine, I had difficulty closing mine. Stretched out on the bed, I stared up at the somber sky. From the woods came the calls of nocturnal birds. The ululating hoot of the screech owl, that strange sound verging on a sob, gave me the shivers. And outside there was a continuous noise of carriages, horses, a hubbub of voices. This time, too, however, it was the names that finally prevailed:

  The Duke d’Argile

  Monsieur de Sainte Colombe

  Monsieur Desantelle, Intendant des Menus Plaisirs

  Countess Ossun, Mistress of the Robes

  The Duchess de Polignac, Governess of the Children of France

  The Ladies of the Bedchamber

  The Ladies-in-Waiting

  The Queen’s Trainbearer

  The Princess de Lamballe, Superintendent of the Queen’s Household

  The Duke de Penthièvre, Master of the Horse

&
nbsp; Count Vaudreuil, Master Falconer

  Count Hausonville, Master Wolfer

  Count Zizendorf, from the land of Greater Tartarie

  The Prince de Lambesc, Grand Equerry

  The First Equerry,

  The quarterly equerries, the equerries in ordinary,

  Equerry Cavalcadour

  The equerries, all of them . . .

  JULY 15, 1789

  DAY

  SOMEONE HAD DARED TO

  INTERRUPT THE KING’S SLUMBER.

  The news spread with the dawn of day, shattering news that left me dumbfounded: the King had been awakened in the middle of the night. How could that be? Access to the King was impossible at night. The gates were shut, watch was kept over entrances and main staircases. Who could have gotten past the first line of protection consisting of the guards stationed at the entrance to the Royal Courtyard, and then the second obstacle of the sentries in the Cour du Louvre? After that, how could any person make his way into the château? Or go all the way to the Grand Apartments and reach the actual door to the King’s Bedchamber? Bodyguards were on duty there. After the guards, there were the Lads of the Bedchamber, awake and watchful in the next room. And supposing that some unheard-of, supernatural being, some sylph or creature who walks through walls, had somehow got past all these obstacles, there remained the final obstacle, the presence of the trimestrial King’s First Valet, who slept right there at the foot of the King’s bed. And yet, against all plausibility, that is what people were saying: someone had awakened the King.

  On the floor where we lived, high up under the eaves, unable to believe it, we ran from room to room, knocking on doors and spreading the wild rumor. I ventured to suggest: indigestion, perhaps? Louis XVI was subject to terrible attacks that left him almost lifeless . . . I was roundly taken to task. The King had been awakened by someone. Someone who had something to tell him.

  A fine rain was falling. The paving stones were black and glistening. The small shops set up along the metal fences looked shabby. Walking into the kitchen of the Grand Lodgings, I was overwhelmed by a smell of wine and food and the unattractive remains of our previous night’s supper . . . Gradually, not immediately perceptible, a feeling of cold and nausea crept over me. The soup I was served had a sharp, sour taste. The bread that came with it had gone stale and was hard to swallow. We sat together again, much the same group as the night before, minus the priests. Honorine was not there either. She had gone down to Madame de La Tour du Pin’s apartment. I expected to learn more from her about the events of the previous night. So did the others. Our information bureau, that’s what Honorine was. She arrived at last, disheveled and unkempt. She was wrapped round in a greenish cape (that she had had from her mistress, a tall, rather thinnish, fair-haired woman, where Honorine was short, plump, and brunette). Every face turned in her direction. Well? Tell us. That outlandish business of waking the King in the middle of the night? Who was it? What did he have to tell? Actually in the King’s Bedchamber? Honorine, normally chatty, quick-tongued, and inclined to put on airs (her verbal agility, which made her so attractive, she owed to her lively Southern temperament; as to the air of superiority, that reflected the haughtiness of the Marquise de La Tour du Pin, who was very intelligent and used this natural gift to hold the rest of the human race in contempt), was being silent on this occasion. In a piteous voice, she confessed that she could not answer our questions. Yes, this morning there was much animated discussion between Monsieur and Madame de La Tour du Pin, but as was their frequent practice, and whether spontaneously or so as not to be understood by the servants, they spoke in English.

  “Mind you,” said Honorine, “one word I did hear several times was Bastille.”

  Not till midmorning, and after several people had arrived in great haste from Paris, did an assertion vouched for by a few individuals begin to gain general credence: it was said that the Duke de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, Grand Master of the Wardrobe, was the person who had wakened His Majesty at two o’clock in the morning. To tell him something concerning the Bastille. An escape? A fire? There was time enough for me to hear any number of stories and memories involving the citadel-prison (“The Bastille!” one old gentleman had exclaimed, “Why, my entire youth is bound up with it!”), before the incredible news broke: the people of Paris had seized the Bastille. I can hear to this day the sarcastic jibes, the outcries, the hoots of derision that greeted those words. Words uttered by whom, incidentally? From whose mouth did I hear them? I don’t remember now. Probably I paid them no heed, for I certainly put no faith in them whatsoever. I had seen the Bastille; no more was required to convince me that it was an impregnable fortress. Its huge bulk dominated the ill-famed Faubourg Saint-Antoine—a quarter that only ill-advised persons traversed, even in a carriage with locked doors and surrounded by armed manservants.

  There came a succession of messengers. We accosted them; we asked them whether this impossible thing could be true. Most of them doubted it, as did we. Some of them were quite positive: “The Bastille, seized by the common people? You’re not serious? It’s a lie, antiroyalist propaganda, invented by those who preach sedition.” If we persisted in our questioning, they would finally say that nothing special was taking place in the capital. I finally concluded that the Parisians were still stirred up by what had occurred on the previous Sunday, but that was all . . . And the deeply entrenched notion, a sort of basso sostenuto of the convictions I held at that time, a notion common to the greater part of the château’s residents at every level in the hierarchy, on every floor of the building, still reigned intact: there was no need for undue concern; we were going through a bad patch, to be sure, but not for the first time. This wind of rebellion was no worse than the one the King had confronted in the first year of his reign. Since he had subdued it successfully at the age of twenty, surely he would more easily emerge triumphant now, in the prime of his maturity.

  To remove any lingering doubts I might have on this score, I walked over to where the Ministry apartments were located. The activity there showed no signs of abating (had they been working the whole night?); on all sides, orders were being passed along, furniture was being moved. Desks, tables, armchairs, pedestal tables, went speeding past me as though self-propelled. It seemed to me that there was something very promising about this feverish haste to settle in. I did not catch sight of any government minister in person. Nothing surprising about that; I was told that they were meeting in consultation. From this point on, everything could be expected to return to normal very quickly, since the only discordant voice, that of Necker the Genevese, had been excluded.

  My peace of mind was further strengthened by another certainty: the conviction, widely held in the château, that the whole affair was a fabrication invented by the journalists. Nothing was happening, or almost nothing, but they had their pages to fill. And meanwhile, what did the King think? How had he reacted, always supposing such a thing could really have happened, to Monsieur de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt’s intrusion into his sleep? Had the Grand Master of the Wardrobe parted the alcove curtains himself, or had he, at least on that one point, respected Court etiquette? In which case the trimestrial King’s First Valet would have been the one to open the curtains . . . And what about the Guards of the Royal Bedchamber; where was their captain now? I didn’t know what to think about any of it. No one around me had the smallest piece of definite information to contribute. Monsieur de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt himself was nowhere to be seen. And did our new government have an opinion? “The government is settling in,” someone said. “It cannot do everything at once.” The same individual stated his own opinion: “There is no such thing as the people, it’s just an abstraction. What I propose, and we have here a very concrete proposal, is that the populace, I mean the entire populace, be placed under arrest and locked up in the Bastille.” There was no immediate support for his proposal; at last a more conciliatory person suggested: “Or we could lock up just the leaders . . . ”

 
Strangely, for in general she was the chief topic of conversation, no one made any reference to the Queen. But I carried with me her smile of the previous day, the image of her smooth, radiant face bowed over her Wardrobe Book, as I moved from one group to another. I was curious, of course, but not alarmed. A rumor, however extraordinary it might be, did not constitute an event.

  THE KING AND HIS BROTHERS

  GO TO THE TENNIS COURT

  (eleven o’clock in the morning).

  THE QUEEN ON THE BALCONY.

  Something that did, beyond a doubt, constitute an unprecedented event was the little group of men who suddenly emerged to the right of me. They were coming out of the Petit Théâtre, called the Hubert Robert Theater, that had been fitted out at the Queen’s wishes, halfway along the unfinished wing of the building, and the little group walked out to find themselves in among the Swiss Guards keeping watch at the entrance to the theater. Honorine had joined me. We were inside the Royal Courtyard, leaning against its fence.

  The group—but surely I was dreaming—consisted of the King and his two brothers, the Count de Provence and the Count d’Artois. They had no guard, no escort, none of the usual trappings. All three were making their way out of the château on foot, trying to pass unnoticed. A few gentlemen were around them but there was no resemblance to a cortege; it was more like a group of friends. Honorine climbed up onto the fence’s supporting wall for a clearer view. “The King does not have his plumed hat,” she informed me. He was wearing a velvet one, broad-brimmed but unassuming. It was a truly surprising sight to see the three brothers walking along together, over uneven paving stones that were slippery with the damp. At eleven o’clock in the morning! which could by no stretch of the imagination be called a promenade hour. And moreover, they were walking not toward the grounds but toward the town! Only the King appeared to forge ahead; the Count de Provence and the Count d’Artois were more reluctant. The King, tall and of sturdy build, was treading heavily, with that uncouth rolling gait of his and the impression he always conveyed of doing whatever it was against his will. For the Count de Provence, the walk was not just drudgery, it was torture: Monsieur was dragging himself along. Short, obese, with swollen lower limbs, he had trouble moving. Ill-natured folk called the Count de Provence “His Heaviness,” and even without being mean, one had to admit that the nickname was apt, just as “Her Heaviness” aptly described their married sister Clotilde, living in Italy. Straw and manure were customarily scattered on the paving stones so the horses would not slip. Monsieur, whose shoes sparkled with their buckles of precious stones, contemplated this arrangement with distaste. Probably he had never encountered it before. The same was true of the wretched soldiers’ huts on the Place d’Armes. As for the Count d’Artois, who was slender, stately, fascinating to look at, his displeasure was not so obvious, for his slightest gesture was always a study in elegance. At first, it was apparent that he did not want to set forward, but once they were outside the château and he made up his mind, he had to hold himself back to avoid taking the lead in this strange delegation. We followed them, Honorine and I. We soon found ourselves mingling with townsfolk of Versailles; they were as astonished as we to recognize in these simple pedestrians the King and his brothers, and they began to walk along beside them. Women were laughing and conversing with one another from their windows. Their small children went and stood boldly in the path of the King and the Counts till their mothers called them to come away. Everyone was very curious to know where the trio were going.