19th June 1791
This morning, El announced that she has received legal papers from Princess Lamballe.
‘Luisa has put the premises in my name and bequeathed me an endowment in her will. I will never have to leave rue de Tournon,’ El said, but rather than looking pleased, she was frowning.
‘But this is wonderful.’ I clapped my hands. ‘Why are you not happy?’
El looked up at me. ‘I fear, as I have done for months, that she and our Queen are about to do something very foolish.’
‘Do you mean they will flee?’ I whispered, though there was no one else in the room but us two and the animals.
She nodded. ‘Since Easter, when they were prevented from going to Saint-Cloud to say mass, the Queen has felt trapped. She is desperate to go, and that fop Axel von Fersen has persuaded her that it’s possible.’
‘But you have been telling her to flee all along?’
‘That was over eighteen months ago. It is too late now. If they get caught, they will destroy themselves.’
‘What if they escape? Bring troops to invade France?’ I was furious at the thought of the King’s betrayal of his people. Would he have us all killed by foreigners to retrieve his divine right of kingship?
‘They will not succeed,’ El said. ‘The cards have told me so.’
25th June 1791
This day must be recorded. El’s prediction, of course, came true, and there is more. I am in a state of great turmoil.
These are the details of the King’s betrayal as I know them so far.
Late on Monday night, the King, Queen, Madame de Tourzel, her daughter Pauline, the Dauphin Louis Charles and his sister, Marie-Thérèse, escaped the Tuileries Palace in disguise and fled Paris in a large black and yellow Berlin carriage. The plan was orchestrated by the Queen and her lover Axel von Fersen. But the royal family were recognised and detained in the town of Varennes, just thirty miles from the border. Today, they were returned to Paris, after five days upon the road. The National Guard surrounded the carriage to protect them from the furious peasants en route and the revolutionary crowds in the towns.
El could not bear to watch the spectacle, but I wanted to see with my own eyes what might happen. Thousands upon thousands went to witness the royal family’s shame; the streets were jammed, and people were climbing onto roofs and up trees to watch the procession.
Everyone in Paris feels betrayed by the King, who wished to abandon them to foreign troops. Everyone blames the influence Marie Antoinette has on him.
The crowd was heaving with hostility, filling the gardens and the Place du Carrousel. Hitching up my skirt, I climbed up onto a low-roofed building overlooking the entranceway to the palace. Instead of baying for the Queen’s blood, as I had witnessed during the women’s march in 1789, the crowd watching the big black and yellow carriage rattling through the heat and dust was completely silent.
On my way to the Tuileries Palace, I had read signs scribed upon the walls:
Whoever applauds the King will be flogged;
whoever insults him will be hanged.
None spoke as the carriage came to a halt outside the Tuileries, though no man took off his hat. We watched in silent judgement, and I caught a glimpse of Marie Antoinette through the window of the carriage. She buried her face in Louis Charles’s golden curls, as the child clung to his mother in fear. It was hard not to feel compassion for her, but then I remembered the mothers cradling their dying children on the streets of Paris, all because she had emptied the state’s coffers for her own pleasures. Still, it was not the little boy’s fault. I am always on the side of children.
The King got out of the carriage first and stumbled up the steps of the palace, while still none said a word nor made a movement. But when Marie Antoinette stepped out, with Louis Charles in her arms, three men broke through the ranks of the National Guard, hurling abuse at her. Quickly, a deputy prised the child from her arms, as another picked her up and carried her towards the palace. But she was writhing in his arms, calling out for Louis Charles, terrified he had been taken away to be murdered. As if we would hurt a child.
The other members of the royal party got out of the carriage, Madame de Tourzel and Pauline dusty and tearful as they led the Princess Royale up the steps and into the palace. I wondered where Princess Lamballe was, whether she had escaped by travelling through her own means out of France.
The crowd began to disperse, and the silence was broken. All around me I heard talk of republicanism, and the thought of it thrilled me. If France followed America by banishing their monarchy, one of the oldest and grandest in all of Europe, this could only help our small nation gain its own republic.
I crossed Pont Neuf and walked towards rue de Tournon, stopping for a glass of lemonade on my way. The sun was in my eyes as I approached our street, but I noticed a figure on its corner. Tall and lean, he had a hat upon his head, but when he took it off, his fair hair gleamed bright like a beacon. He called to me, my Irish name – Caitlin.
Reilly is back.
I have not told El.