Revolution (16 page)

Do you not understand, René? my father said, his voice full of emotion. It is the beginning of something, something extraordinary.

My uncle turned to him. Yes, Theo, it is, he said. It’s the beginning of the end.

* * *

I finish the entry and glance at the line for the archivist’s desk. There are still ten people ahead of me. The woman who was behind me is gone. I guess she gave up. It’s almost four o’clock. It’ll be my turn before too much longer, I hope.

I turn the page, thinking back to my class on the French Revolution, to the time line of events. The fall of the Bastille was just the warm-up act. It’s going to get ugly at Versailles. Really ugly. Really soon. And Alex is there, right in the middle of it.

30

29 April 1795

I’m going to hide, Alex! Louis-Charles shouted. Count to ten and find me!

He dashed out from under the table where we’d been eating chocolates we’d filched from his mother’s plate. I pulled my mask over my face and started to count.

It was midsummer’s eve. The queen and her circle were masquerading in the Obelisk grove with their children. She hoped it would please Louis-Charles. The queen was Titania. Handsome Count Fersen was Oberon. The king, tired from the day’s hunting, was abed. Music played. Lanterns glowed in the trees. There had been a supper, then ices and champagne. Afterward, all played hide-and-seek.

Louis-Charles wore a monkey mask. Mine was a bird, a sparrow. I finished counting and ran after him. I saw him crouched down by a rosebush, but pretended I did not. He dashed off and I bumbled after him, calling his name, picking up stones and looking under them, or shaking roses, hoping he’d fall out of one. All the while he giggled behind his hands and ran farther into the grove. It was dark in there. No lanterns were hung. I had only moonlight to see by.

Louis-Charles? I called, trailing after him. Come out now. We are too far from the others. We must go back.

But Louis-Charles made no answer.

I walked on, farther down the path. Statues glowed like ghosts in the moonlight. Leaves rustled in the night breeze. I passed a tiny pond, a thicket of white roses. And then I turned a corner and saw him—not Louis-Charles, but a man in a wolf’s mask, sitting on a bench.

Louis-Charles! I called, suddenly afraid. Louis-Charles, where are you?

What’s this? the man said. A little bird from the streets of Paris? A sparrow who no longer eats shit from the gutter, but chocolates from the queen’s own plate. How far you have flown, sparrow.

Louis-Charles! I shouted, backing away. Where are you?

Not here, I’m afraid, the man said.

Louis-Charles? Louis-Charles! I cried, my voice breaking.

It was quiet. So quiet I could hear nothing but the sound of my heart crashing in my chest. Then the man said, Come out now, Louis-Charles. We have played our trick.

Louis-Charles popped out from behind him. We fooled you, Alex! We fooled you! he cried, dancing all around me.

I grabbed him and pulled him close, the fear still strong inside me. All I could think was, What if I’d lost the boy? He was my charge. What if he’d been carried off? The king would have me flayed alive.

Who are you? I demanded of the man.

He raised his mask. His eyes, darker than midnight, met mine. Philippe, Duc d’Orléans, he said.

The Duc d’Orléans. Cousin to the king. And I’d spoken to him as if to a kitchen boy.

Quickly I curtseyed, eyes on the ground. I beg your pardon, my lord, I stammered. He granted it, and then I said we must get back or the queen would worry. We bade him goodnight. We had not gone five steps before Louis-Charles cried, My mask!

I turned around. Orléans was holding it. He made me come close to get it. He smiled as I took it, but the smile did not touch his eyes. Quick as a viper, he grabbed my wrist and pulled me to him. You play a dangerous game, player, he said quietly. Be careful. Not all are so easily played.

He released me. I backed away, then turned and grabbed Louis-Charles’ hand.

Never was I so afraid. What had he meant? Did he know my mind? And that I was only using the child? Would he tell the queen?

I chided myself for my foolishness. No man could see inside another. Only God and the devil could do that. The duke was only scolding me for allowing the dauphin to wander so far in our game of hide-and-seek.

Louis-Charles skipped and chattered as we walked back to the party. He recounted how well he’d fooled me and crowed at his own cleverness. I laughed and played along and told him I thought gypsies had carried him off, but all the while, one thing chivvied me.

The biggest trick of all is how well your cousin Orléans hid himself during the party, I said. I did not see a wolf’s face at supper. Not once.

Oh, he was not invited, Louis-Charles said. He never is. Mama does not like him. I hear her talking to Aunt Elizabeth about him. She says he plays the rebel, but wishes to be king. I do not think him so bad.

I looked back then, expecting to see him sitting there, Orléans, still and silent, moonlight glinting off his rings.

But the bench was empty.

The wolf was gone.

30 April 1795

Autumn came. The leaves fell, the skies turned gray, and wary nobles, like swans in a fairy tale, took wing. They’d been spat upon in the streets. They’d had shit thrown at their carriages and rocks pitched through their windows. They’d seen what the king could not.

The Comte d’Artois, the king’s handsome, laughing brother, swung Louis-Charles high in the air before he kissed him goodbye, and promised he’d bring him an entire cavalry of tin soldiers when he returned.

The Duchesse de Polignac, the boy’s beloved governess, blinked back tears as she hugged him. It’s only for a little while, my darling, she told him. I’ll be back again soon. In the spring when the cherry trees bloom. I promise you.

We climbed a tree and watched their carriages roll away until only a cloud of dust remained.

The fifth of October, 1789, dawned rainy. No dust rose that day. Had it, the king might’ve been warned. He might’ve had time to think. To decide. To pile his family into a fast carriage and go. But there was only mud. Churned up by the feet of women and soldiers from Paris. They came armed with pikes and knives, with hunger and rage. They came for the king and queen.

A rider came ahead of them. I saw him. I was in the queen’s apartments, amusing Louis-Charles. Suddenly, there came the sound of shouting from outside. A man stumbled through the Marble Courtyard and up the queen’s stairs, trailing mud and courtiers. He scraped a bow, and in a ragged voice said, I come from Paris, Majesty. There was a riot this morning at city hall. The market women marched there to demand bread. When the mayor said he had none, they ransacked the building. Took arms and powder. The Paris guard was called out but refused to fire on them. One woman shouted that they must go to Versailles to ask the king for bread. The cry went up and they set off. Lafayette estimates them at six thousand.

We have the Flanders regiment here, and our own bodyguard, the queen said. They will easily fend off a crowd of women.

The man shook his head. The Paris guard marches with them, he said.

But Lafayette is their general! the queen said. Why did he not stop them?

He tried, but the guard is some fifteen thousand strong. Had he refused to go with them, they would’ve deserted him. Or murdered him. He leads them still. Barely.

The queen turned white. The king, she said. Where is the king?

Hunting, madam, came the reply.

Find him quickly! Before the mob does! she cried.

The king’s bodyguard was dispatched. They found him and rushed him back inside the palace. The gates were locked. His counsel was assembled. He must accept the the Rights of Man, his ministers said, and the decrees of August. No, he must flee immediately. No, he must do neither and stand his ground.

The king himself wished only to send the queen to safety with their children, but she would not leave him. And so he stayed and doomed them all.

The market women arrived in the evening, tired, cold, and wet, only to find the palace gates locked against them. The king spoke with some of them. He told them how sorry he was for their troubles and promised that grain would be got to Paris immediately. He ordered that food and wine be brought for them, which gentled them some.

But at midnight, the Paris guard arrived, and they were not so easily mollified. Clashes broke out in the courtyard between them and the king’s bodyguard. I was not abed, for I was too worried to sleep, but was up talking with Barère, captain of the dauphin’s guard, and I saw the skirmishing from a window. One of the king’s footmen, a man who was friends with the captain, came just before daybreak to tell us that Lafayette, on behalf of his soldiers and the market women, had read the king a list of demands.

One—he must dismiss his royal bodyguard and allow the Paris guard to protect him, Two—he must ensure food supplies for the city, and Three—he must leave Versailles and live in Paris. The king agreed to the first two, but said he must think about the third. Then he retired to his chambers while Lafayette rode to an inn in town, hopeful of finding a bed there.

I was told by Barère to return to my bed, but I did not. Out beyond the palace gates, torches burned brightly. I could not see the marchers in the darkness but I could hear them. The sound of oaths and curses, of shouts and drunken laughter, carried up to our windows. They were tired from their long march. Why did they not sleep?

I was much disquieted by them, so I left the palace, climbed over the iron fence—it is easily done at the place where it meets the west wall of the courtyard—and walked where they sat huddled by fires, hoping to hear their words and know their minds. They said later, the leaders of the revolution, that those who marched were the honest wives of Paris. I tell you that some were and many were not. There were streetwalkers and pickpockets mixed in. There were men, too—pimps, thieves, and touts. I knew them from the Palais-Royal.

And there was one more—one who went easily among them in a plain gray coat, a tricorn pulled low on his brow. He wore a scarf over the lower half of his face like a highwayman and talked not of bread and liberty but of devilry and murder. He moved to and fro, handing out coins, urging the marchers to their feet, bidding them pick up their pikes and staves. He glanced my way once and his eyes, darker than midnight, made my blood run cold. Moments later, he handed a purse through the fence to a pair of guards standing on the other side of it. Too late, I realized what he was doing—bribing them to open the gates. I shouted for help, but my voice was drowned out by the roaring of the mob.

Kill her! a woman screamed as she ran through the gates. Kill the queen! Tear out her heart!

Kill them all! shouted another.

I was nearly witless with fear. I ran through the gates, across the courtyard, and into the palace. Many of the mob were ahead of me. Others were right on my heels. Luckily, they thought me one of them. They ran up the queen’s staircase, but I, having recovered my wits, skirted round it and dashed down a narrow hallway to the dauphin’s chambers. Rifles were raised and pointed at me as I entered but the captain knew me and halted his men.