Виктория Холт - Flaunting, Extravagant Queen

‘F … forged passports!’ stammered Lepître.

‘Well, there’s no need for you to look alarmed. We’re catching them, Citizen. We’re catching them.’ The woman leaned towards him. ‘They tell me they recognise these forged passports at a glance. Then … they drag ’em out of their fancy carriages … and it’s to the lanterne without delay. I’ll take another pinch of snuff, Citizen Lepître. Why … what’s wrong? You got the ague? You’re shaking so.’

He stood up; his fear seemed to form a haze about him so that he could not see her clearly.

She knows, he thought. She has found out.

‘I’ll be getting to my own quarters, Citizeness,’ he said. ‘I feel a little dizzy. This leg of mine has been paining me and I’ve had one or two of my sick turns lately.’

‘I should go to your bed, Citizen; and I’d stay there for a day or so.’

He spent the night pacing up and down his room. He brought the uniforms of the municipal councillors from the chest in which he had hidden them. He felt so terrified that he could scarcely stand. Sweat poured down his face; he lay on his bed trembling.

I can’t do it, he thought.

And in the morning he went to Jarjayes.

‘I suspect the woman Tison,’ he said, ‘and I cannot do it. I dare not.’

And without Lepître it was impossible to carry out the plan.

There was no hope, thought Antoinette. Everything that was begun failed to reach fruition.

‘We are doomed,’ she said to Elisabeth.

There was another plot, but this time she did not have high hopes. She knew that there were several royalists in the prison and these were constantly working for her escape. Toulan had been suspected of being too friendly with the Queen, for Madame Tison had reported that he visited the Queen’s cell frequently and had conversations with her; therefore Toulan was removed. Jarjayes, in view of Lepître’s fears, had thought it wise to leave Paris.

It seemed to the Queen that many of the battalion who had been set to guard her had royalist sympathies. The commander, Cortey, had let her know that he was working with friends to bring about her escape. There was the Baron de Batz, the hero of many fantastic adventures, who was plotting to save the family and proclaim the Dauphin as Louis Dix-sept.

It was a simple plan, as all these plans seemed before it was attempted to carry them out. The Queen, Madame Elisabeth and Madame Royale, dressed in the uniform of the soldiers, were to walk out of the prison with loyal members of the guard. The Dauphin was to be hidden under the heavy cloak of one of the officers, and they would all march together.

The day was fixed; the uniforms were ready; but they had reckoned without the spies with whom they were surrounded.

A word in the right quarter and, when the conspirators were ready to leave the prison, they found that one of their jailers, the uncouth Simon, was there to prevent them.

Antoinette could wish afterwards that there had been no attempt. Now she was more rigorously watched; she and Elisabeth were not allowed to do their embroidery. Madame Tison said that in her opinion all those stitches ‘meant something’. There was some code in the needlework by which they conveyed those thoughts which they dared not put into words.

Madame Tison denounced Toulan, so there was one faithful friend removed; she also declared her suspicions of Lepître and he was taken away.

Antoinette was coming to the conclusion that she would never escape. Moreover the Dauphin had come in crying from his play, having hurt himself by falling over the stick which he rode as a horse.

It was necessary to have a doctor to dress his wound; and, as he lay whimpering beside her, she forgot everything else but the need to soothe the boy’s pain.

Hébert said to Madame Tison: ‘What ails the boy Capet?’

‘Oh, Citizen, he fell over a stick. He’s hurt himself. The doctor has bandaged him. He said it was a bad wound … in a tender spot.’

She laughed and nudged him. We’re all equal now, she implied.

Hébert believed he was the equal of the Queen, but not that Madame Tison was equal to him; but he did not notice her crude manners then. He had an idea.

It was ten o’clock at night. The Dauphin was sleeping and there were traces of tears on his face, for his wound had had to be dressed and he had cried a little.

The Queen was sitting by his bed when the door was opened and six members of the municipaux came into the room.

She did not look at them, and as they stood awkwardly before her, one of them found his hand going to his hat; he had to restrain himself from taking it off.

‘We have come to take Louis Charles Capet to his new prison,’ said one of the men.

The Queen gave a sharp cry of alarm which brought Madame Elisabeth and Madame Royale running to her side.

‘I beg of you,’ said the Queen, ‘do not take my son from me.’

‘These are our orders,’ said the leader of the party. ‘He is to be put in the care of his new tutor, Citizen Simon.’

‘No!’ cried the Queen, thinking of the brutal cobbler. ‘Please … do anything … anything … but do not take my son away from me.’

Madame Royale stared at the men with imploring eyes; they would not look at her.

‘Wake him up,’ said one of the men, a stonemason. ‘Come on. We’re in a hurry. Either you do, or we will.’

‘He is not very well. He injured himself recently. Please let me keep him with me. He is not very old.’

One of the men came close to the bed. The Queen, with Madame Elisabeth and Madame Royale, barred his way.

Another of the party, a clerk, said: ‘We’re sorry. But we’re given orders and we have to obey them.’

The Dauphin had awakened, startled out of his sleep. ‘Maman, Maman, are you there? I had a dream …’

He sat up in bed and saw the men; a look of fear crossed his face.

‘Come on, Louis Charles Capet,’ said the stonemason. ‘You’re moving from here.’

The boy drew the clothes about him. ‘I … I shall stay with my mother,’ he said.

One of the men seized him. The Queen ran to his side.

‘I beg of you … I beg of you. Remember he is my son. You have taken his father … murdered his father … Is not that enough?’

The Dauphin tried to seize his mother’s hands, but he was snatched away.

‘Come on, let us get going,’ said the clerk.

The Queen ran after the men who carried her son; the other men held her back and pushed her not ungently into the arms of her daughter and sister-in-law.

The door shut. The Queen stood as though dazed, listening to the piteous screams of the Dauphin as they carried him away.

They kept the Dauphin in the Temple, in rooms below those occupied by his mother, Madame Elisabeth and Madame Royale. He was so near, yet so far away, for she was never allowed to see him.

Piteously she would demand news of him from all those who came into contact with her; but they had received stern orders not to discuss the boy with her.

She discovered that on some days he was taken into a courtyard which she could see from her barred window; and for hours she would stand there hoping to get a glimpse of him.

Elisabeth tried to comfort her, as did her daughter; but during those days there was no comfort which life could offer Antoinette.

Madame Tison, coming into her cell, would jeer at her. ‘This is a bit different from Versailles, eh? This is a bit different from that Trianon!’

But one day when Madame Tison jeered at her something in the dejected attitude of the Queen brought a catch to the woman’s voice which sounded odd and unlike her. Madame Tison turned angrily away, put a startled hand to her cheek and found a tear there.