April 23, 1792.
There is a curfew in Paris now. By ten the city is dark, silent but for the sound of the guards’ boots on the cobblestones and cats fighting in the alleyways. From somewhere, I hear a church bell ring out one note, a lovely, melancholy sound—and so rare now. Most church bells have been melted down for munitions.
April 25, 1792—Valenciennes
Dear Rose,
I have been assigned to General Biron’s staff. Only a fraction of the available troops have been assembled here for fear of risking the safety of the fortified towns. The result is that the war plans are to be executed with very small numbers. On learning this, I had a will made up. I am forwarding it on to you, sealed. It is not to be opened until such time as…
Your husband, Alexandre Beauharnais
May 2, 1792—Valenciennes
Dear Rose,
Forgive me for alarming you. And thank you for your prayers. If I’m to die of anything, it will likely be frustration. How am I to make soldiers of these farm boys? When they get hungry, bored or have a little fright they take up their muskets and head home.
Give the children my love. I keep your talisman with me always.
Your husband, Alexandre Beauharnais
May 4.
Alexandre has been in battle against the Austrians. His behaviour was praised in the Moniteur. Proudly, I showed the article to the children. We have attached a large map to the wall of the dining area where we trace his progress. As well, we are making a book of clippings from the journals, which is already thick, for the Moniteur publishes Alexandre’s patriotic articles daily.
May 17.
Alexandre sends letters which he instructs me to burn. The revolutionary armies are small, he confides—ill-equipped and untrained. Suspicion rules. The troops do not trust their officers, the officers do not trust their troops. One general was forced to call off a bayonet charge because his troops voted against it, another was murdered by his own men. By his own men. Grand Dieu.
Tuesday, June 19.
This evening I heard a commotion. I looked out: the streets were jammed with horses, carts filled with possessions. What had happened? I ran downstairs to Aimée’s suite.
“Oh, the King has everyone upset,” she sighed, stretching out on the chaise with remarkable calm. She was in her white fencing clothes, her sabre on the floor.
Her chambermaid appeared at the door, carrying a portmanteau. “I’ll be needing my pay.”
Aimée gave me a disgusted look. “They’re all in a panic, every last one of them.” Reluctantly she went to her writing desk.
“Others have left?” I asked.
The chambermaid cursed. “The Austrians march toward Paris and ourown King is going to open the gates wide to let the butchers in! Well—I won’t be here!”
Aimée offered the woman paper money but she insisted on coin.
“There goes another one,” Aimée sighed when the door slammed shut. “Let’s get out the brandy.”
June 21.
My chambermaid woke me this morning with excitement in her voice. “There was trouble last night.” Agathe handed me a bowl of hot chocolate. “The palace was invaded!”
“Invaded?”
“The people ran in, took over.” She wasn’t stuttering.
“Agathe, explain, please—”
Slowly I got the story. Yesterday’s feast-day festivities had turned to violence in the night. A mob of men and women had invaded the palace, demanding that the King bring in troops to protect Paris from the Austrians.
“Is the Queen safe?” I asked. “The children?”
Agathe looked at me suspiciously. I realized my mistake. One should never show sympathy for the royal family, especially not for the Queen.
June 28.
Agathe insists that the Queen is plotting to burn down the Assembly while all the deputies are in it, that muskets and gunpowder are stored in the basements of all the nunneries. And now Hortense will no longer eat bread. “I might die,” she said, for Agathe told her the priests plan to murder everyone by poisoning the holy bread.
“Mademoiselle Agathe told you that?”
Hortense looked at me with a horrified expression. “Maman—it is Citoyenne Agathe now, not Mademoiselle.”
My daughter, the revolutionary. Now she refuses to speak during meals. It’s the patriotic way.
Monday, July 2.
Aimée and I went to the Comédie-Italienne to see Unforeseen Events with Madame Dugazon playing the soubrette. Princess Amalia had offered us the use of her loge.
“The Queen is expected to be there,” Aimée said.
“I didn’t think the Queen went out to the theatre any more,” I said. She’d let all her loges go months ago, something people held against her.
“There’s been pressure on her to make an appearance.”
Our loge was directly across from the one the royal family was to use. There was applause when Her Majesty entered, accompanied by her children—the Dauphin, a sweet-faced boy of about seven, and Madame Royale, almost a young woman now. The King’s sister Madame Elizabeth and another woman, the children’s governess, I guessed, were also with her.
Throughout the performance I watched the Queen’s face. It was hard to believe she was only in her thirties, she looked so very aged. The Dauphin, a charming child dressed in the regimentals of the nation, sat on her lap. Now and again the Queen kissed the top of his head. He kept gazing up at her face—he seemed perplexed by her tears.
In the third act, the soubrette and the valet sang a duet. In it Madame Dugazon exclaimed: “Ah! Comme j’aime ma maîtresse!” looking directly at the Queen. Three men in pantaloons jumped up on the stage and threatened the singer.
The Queen’s guard hurried the Queen and her entourage out of the theatre. It was, of course, impossible to continue the performance after that.
Thursday, July 19.
The Austrians have cut off supplies to Paris—we are entirely without. We whisper—not of gossip, but of grain: where it might be found. (Those who know stay silent.) Every day there are riots for food.
Santerre, Commander of the National Guards, has proposed that all dogs and cats be disposed of, arguing that the food they eat would be better directed toward people.
“What about pain bénit?” Agathe argued. Every Sunday, thousands of loaves of bread are blessed by the priests and left uneaten. “And what about hair loaded with flour powder? What about that!” My timid maid is timid no longer.
July 22, Sunday.
The warning cannon on the Pont-Neuf has been firing every hour. An hour ago a man on horseback, an official caller, yelled out in the street, “La patrie en danger! La patrie en danger!”
The Austrians are coming. …
The streets are clogged with carriages. Everyone is trying to get out of Paris, but it is impossible—the gates have been closed! Nobody is allowed in; no one allowed out. We are trapped.
August 8.
I have not slept for a week. It’s so hot Agathe claims she saw the river boiling. Each day I try to get passes to get out of Paris, but have been unable. The gates are still closed!
August 10.
Last night masses of people were in the streets. The children were sent home from school this morning. Then, at around nine this evening, just as Frédéric, the Princess, Aimée and I prepared to sit to supper together, the tocsins began to ring.
Frédéric was intent on going to see what was happening. Aimée, Princess Amalia and I tried to dissuade him, but he insisted. Aimée offered him her sabre.
“No—it would look too aristocratic,” Frédéric said, taking a meat cleaver instead.
It was almost two in the morning when he returned. The tocsins were still ringing. There was talk of a demonstration at the Palace at daybreak.
“Another demonstration?” I asked.
“Who is calling it?” the princess asked.
“The Commune.” Frédéric’s cheeks were pink. Vats of wine had been set in the street in front of the section house.
“For what purpose?” I feared the Commune.*
“To arrest the King.”
Arrest the King?
I took a seat. I could not comprehend. Arrest the King? But the King was the law.
The tocsins began ringing again at dawn. I went to the window, pulled back the drapes. A group of men, ruffians, were in the street, two carrying pikes. One was wearing the blue tunic of a dockman of Marseille. He saw me at the window and screamed, “Death to the aristocrats!”
I backed away from view. From far away I could hear the faint sound of a musket being fired, followed by grapeshot.
Somewhere, a battle had begun.
Later that evening.
The Commune has taken over. Hundreds have been killed, hundreds more arrested.
“We’ve got to get out,” I whispered to Aimée. “Get the children out.” But how? Who could we trust?
“I’ve heard that there’s a place by the Allée des Invalides, near the Boulevard, where the wall is low. Maybe we could get over there.”
“Climb over?” We would have to run through fields in the dark. Eugène and Lucie might be able to, but Hortense …?
No matter how we think it through, it’s too dangerous. So we’re staying, preparing for the worst.
* Decapitation, formerly the privilege of the aristocratic class, was made available to all social classes by means of the guillotine. It was created by Dr. Guillotin, who died of grief over the abuse to which his humanitarian invention had been put.