Whatever the reason, the end result was a highly vulnerable composition to the berlin party: three adult royals who had spent most of their lives in a magnificent cocoon where ritual took the place of decision, a middle-aged woman in uncertain health and two children. As for Louis XVI, up until this point he had never even been involved at first hand in the question of the escape, having used a series of intermediaries; he was hardly prepared to act as leader in a crisis. The three male equerries were also comparatively junior and unused to command. It was important, under these circumstances, that nothing should go wrong.
The attitude of Mercy in Brussels and the Emperor in Austria did not become more encouraging throughout May and the early part of June, while the difficulties of raising money continued to bedevil the royal family’s preparations. Mercy bewailed the dangers of discovery—was it really the time for such a bold venture?—and Leopold continued to counsel prudence: “Calculate well the risks . . .” As late as 5 June, Leopold sent an indirect message that the royal family should stay in Paris and await rescue from outside. This provoked a horrified reaction from Marie Antoinette: “The glory of the escape must be ours . . .” But the Emperor did manage to embargo Artois from military action, telling him that he must obey his brother, while Louis XVI told the Duchesse de Polignac that he was being caused “a lot of disquiet” by Artois’ premature plans.35
The first date seriously put forward was 12 June, once a hostile chambermaid had finished her tour of duty. But that was the eve of the Feast of Pentecost and the King feared that there would be an inordinate amount of people in the streets. On that day the coiffeur Léonard went to the Tuileries at ten o’clock at night through a side door, and was admitted, armed with a note from the Queen, through the dark and deserted apartments. Then he was entrusted with the baton of a Marshal of France, to be given to the Marquis de Bouillé at Montmédy. He was also entrusted with the Queen’s personal casket of jewellery intended for Brussels, the Queen retaining only a set of pearls, some diamond drops and certain bijoux de fantaisie (coloured semi-precious stones) as well as the two diamond rings that she always wore. The Crown Jewels of France, being national property and liable to inspection, had already been handed over, to be inventoried by the National Assembly. Whit Sunday itself—13 June—was Marie Antoinette’s patronal feast of St. Antony, that day of celebration in her distant childhood. Now there were those in the Royal Chapel who sang, in Latin, “God protect the Nation!” as well as others who sang, “God save the King!”36
Discreet preparations made the next day included the stopping of the medicine with which the King had been purging himself since his spring illness, for the possible embarrassment it might cause him. Publicly, the King and Queen went to the opera, where payments for the royal box had been kept up through thick and thin. The new piece given, Candeille’s Castor et Pollux, was a revision of Rameau’s opera performed at their wedding twenty-one years earlier. Counsellor Blumendorf, left behind at the Austrian embassy, sent Mercy a coded message from the Queen that departure wasimminent; Mercy’s reaction was to advise Blumendorf to burn all compromising papers in his possession—and at the first hint of trouble, to lodge Mercy’s money and assignats (the new revolutionary currency) care of the banker Laborde.37
During the week that followed, a number of loyal servants of the monarch were given a tip-off for the sake of their own security. These included the Vicomte d’Agoult, one of the rejected candidates to accompany the berlin, who was now provided with an excuse to emigrate. Joseph Weber, the foster-brother, had a private letter from the Queen: “Take shelter, get out.” The Princesse de Tarante, Marie Antoinette’s beloved friend—“If anything happened to her I should never forgive myself”—was sent away, but the Princesse de Lamballe, judged to be in too close touch with her brother-in-law the Duc d’Orléans, was not warned in advance. Madame Campan, whose tour of duty stopped on 1 June, was told to go and take the waters, while hiding a portfolio of papers with the painter Anne Vallayer Coster, that member of the French Academy whom Marie Antoinette had patronized.38
The new date was 19 June. According to the Duc de Choiseul, who visited the Tuileries in disguise having had a meeting with Fersen, the King now objected to the fact that this was a Sunday and insisted on yet another day’s delay. Choiseul headed back to Metz. Finally it was to be Monday night, 20 June. “All is decided,” wrote the Queen to Mercy, still angry at not having heard from the Emperor about his troops advancing. “We go, Monday, at midnight, and nothing can alter that plan, we should expose those who are working for us in this enterprise to too much danger.”39
Throughout the day itself Marie Antoinette was desperate to preserve an air of normalcy about her routine. The King gave one last interview to Fersen; they would meet next, if everything went according to plan, when the Count was dressed as a coachman on the box of the berlin. But if the rescue failed, Louis ordered Fersen to get out himself, to reach Brussels and try to organize something from there. The Queen also said farewell to Fersen—temporarily, it was to be hoped—but still she shed a few tears. At five o’clock she then took her children on a drive to the beautiful Tivoli gardens belonging to Monsieur Boutin, a financier, and made a display of walking in public with them. It was under cover of this expedition that Marie Thérèse, aged twelve and a half, was instructed by her mother not to be surprised by anything that might shortly happen to her. If she seemed upset, the girl was to tell the accompanying waiting-women that her mother had scolded her. The six-year-old Dauphin was thought to be too young to be let into the secret, and then there was his indiscreet tongue. As she returned to the Tuileries, the Queen instructed the National Guards to be ready to take them on a similar expedition the next day.40
The Dauphin went up to his apartments for his supper at eight-thirty, and the Marquise de Tourzel joined him in his room, as usual, at ten o’clock. The Provences arrived from the Luxembourg for a family supper that night as was customary. Everyone was in high spirits, Provence said later, and full of hope because they all expected to be meeting again in happier circumstances in four days’ time. Provence himself was riding out—thanks to his new lessons—disguised as an English merchant with one gentleman in attendance; the target in his case was Belgium where the Archduchess Marie Christine and the Archduke Albert had returned a few days previously. It was at this meal that the King confided to his brother for the first time the secret of his Montmédy destination; he ordered Provence to join him, via Belgium, at Longwy. Josephine de Provence, who knew nothing about any plans until this moment, was instructed to flee separately with one lady in attendance. All four, King, Queen, Provence and Josephine, embraced tenderly at the end of the evening.41
The adult royals at the Tuileries went up to bed just before eleven. The King was last seen by his two valets, the senior Lemoine and the boy Pierre Hubert, at twenty past the hour, when the heavy curtains of his great bed were formally drawn.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
DEPARTURE AT MIDNIGHT
“Departure at midnight from Paris . . . at Varennes-en-Argonne at eleven o’clock in the evening.”
Journal OF LOUIS XVI, 21 JUNE 1791
It was seven o’clock the following morning, Tuesday, 21 June, when Lemoine and Hubert went into the King’s bedroom as usual and drew back the curtains; Lemoine dealt with the bed and the boy Hubert with the windows. To Lemoine’s amazement, the royal bed was empty. Passing on to the Dauphin’s room, they found that to be empty too. When Hubert suggested anxiously that they should inform the Queen, Lemoine was taken aback and pointed out that it was not yet the designated hour to draw Her Majesty’s curtains . . . The mystery deepened when it was discovered that Madame Royale had asked to be left to sleep for an extra half-hour, while the maidservant of Madame Brunier reported that her mistress was not there either.1
At a quarter to eight, the ritual awakening of the Queen began. Here too there was an empty bed behind the curtains. Very soon the cry was all over Paris: “They’ve gone! They
’ve gone!” By eleven o’clock a huge and angry crowd was assembled outside the windows of the Tuileries, shouting insults of the grossest sort concerning the family who were no longer apparently in residence. The only portrait of the King that could be found was torn to shreds. It was La Fayette who summed up the situation when he rushed round to see his friend Thomas Paine: “The birds are flown!” The republican Paine merely replied, “Let them go,” but the National Assembly took the opposite line. It was now on full and furious alert. In Brussels, the news was broken to Count Mercy d’Argenteau by the arrival of a chest from the Queen containing a little red morocco box for “the sister” (Marie Christine), letters of exchange worth 600,000 or 700,000 livres and about 20,000 livres in cash. There was no note or letter.2 But there was no need; Mercy, who had opposed the escape up to the last minute with Cassandra-like warnings, knew that the die was cast.
As to the King’s intentions in this flight, these were made quite clear by the declaration that he left behind him, dated 20 June and signed as customary with the simple name “Louis.”3 This extensive document rehearsed the events of recent years including the King’s reasons for remaining in France after the violence of October 1789. He could certainly have departed, but preferred not to evoke civil war. Instead he had then taken up residence at the Tuileries as requested, and surrendered his own bodyguards, a painful loss. All these sacrifices had been made in vain; under the new order, the King was deliberately sidelined, stripped of the right to agree or refuse constitutional measures. In these circumstances, “What remains to the King except the empty sham of royalty?”
A recital of the affronts that Louis had endured followed, prominent among them being the 1789 plan to take the King and his son away to Paris “and shut the Queen up in a convent.” Then there were the efforts to stop Mesdames Tantes going abroad, and his own experience of being barred from travel to Saint Cloud when the National Guard sided with the mob; he had been condemned in consequence to hear “the Mass of the new curé” at Saint-Germain at Easter. Was it surprising that the King should now seek to recover his liberty, putting himself and his family in safety? Louis ended by addressing all “Frenchmen and above all Parisians” and reminding them that the King would always be “your father, your best friend.” How happy he would be to return to a proper constitution, which he could accept of his own free will, one in which “our ancient religion” was respected! A postscript forbade the King’s ministers to sign any order in his name, until they had received his latest instructions.
While this declaration was being read and while the crowd howled outside the Tuileries, a respectable party of travellers were trundling happily through the roads of north-western France. It consisted of Monsieur Durand, a valet; Madame Rochet, a waiting-woman; Rosalie, a children’s nurse; Aglä ié, a girl of about twelve; and her little sister, Amélie, around six years old. Also present was the Baronne de Korff, a middle-aged woman who was the owner of the coach.
To the casual observer, these people were dressed appropriately enough for their degree; for example, the waiting-woman and the nurse wore plain dark clothes, mantles and big shady hats, while the girls were in simple cotton dresses and bonnets.4 It was only a closer inspection, perhaps by one who was familiar with the scene at Versailles in the old days, that would reveal the characteristic features of Louis XVI, the heavy face, strongly marked eyebrows and beaked nose, seen for example on the new paper currency, the assignats, followed by those of Marie Antoinette, Madame Elisabeth, Marie Thérèse, Louis Charles in girl’s clothing—and the Marquise de Tourzel. Also disguised as servants were the Comte de Valory, Monsieur de Moustier and Monsieur de Malden. All had been appointed three days earlier when the Queen graciously enquired what their first names were, since she would have to address them as such in their menial capacity. The answers turned out to be François, Melchior and Saint-Jean respectively.5
Everything so far had really gone very smoothly, given that the actual escape from the well-guarded Tuileries had always been the danger point. At the last poste (posting-station) before Châlons-sur-Marne, the Queen observed to Valory: “François”—as he had become—“it seems to me that things are going well and if we were going to be stopped, it would have been before now.”*80 Believing himself safe, even the taciturn King opened up a little to the Marquise de Tourzel. How happy he was to be free of all the bitter experiences of Paris! He told her jovially: “Now that I have my backside in the saddle [cul sur la selle] I intend to be quite a different person from the one you have known up until now.”6
It was true that the exact schedule of departure had not been kept. But some delays were to be anticipated, were they not, in such a delicate operation and would surely be factored into the equation by those at the other end. Actually the escape of the royal children went like clockwork. The Marquise de Tourzel awakened Louis Charles at ten-thirty. Increasingly militaristic in his play and loving to dress up as a knight in specially made miniature armour, the little boy on awakening was convinced that he was going to command a regiment. He began to shout: “Quick, quick! Give me my sabre and boots and let’s be on our way.” Imagining that he was his hero Henri IV, Louis Charles was somewhat put out now to be dressed in the girl’s clothing prepared by Pauline de Tourzel but he still believed that he must be taking part in some kind of play. His sister, however, thought that the sleepy Louis Charles, with his long fair hair, made a very pretty little girl.7
Marie Thérèse described herself later as having been bewildered, in spite of her mother’s warning. Nevertheless a procession of adults on foot (the children were carried) now filed unchecked out of the Tuileries. They used the ground-floor apartments of the departed Duc de Villequier as an exit, since they were not guarded. The party included the two waiting-women, Madame Brunier and Madame de Neuville, who were to go ahead. The Royal Governess and her charges, escorted by Malden, easily reached a plain carriage waiting in a side courtyard on the north side of the Tuileries, known as the Petit Carrousel. This courtyard beyond the Cour des Suisses connected to the outside world by the rue de l’Échelle, leading to the rue de Rivoli; a passageway went back to the Grand Carrousel. Here they found Fersen, sitting on the box in coachman’s garb, whistling and smoking tobacco for the sake of verisimilitude.8
A wait was expected at this point; the Dauphin snuggled down on the floor beneath the Marquise de Tourzel’s skirts and went to sleep. In order to avoid suspicion by remaining stationary for so long, Fersen took the carriage for a drive round the nearby streets. Further enlivenment was provided by the sight of La Fayette’s carriage, passing into the Tuileries on the way to the King’s official coucher. After “a long hour” had passed, according to Marie Thérèse, a woman was seen lurking in the shadows of the Petit Carrousel. It was Madame Elisabeth. Stepping hastily into the carriage, she trod on Louis Charles but he bravely stifled his cries.
The presence of Mayor Bailly as well as La Fayette at his coucher meant that the King had to be careful not to hurry matters. But when he did eventually slip out past the guards, escorted by the Comte de Valory, he did so easily enough thanks to a ruse. These guards had become accustomed to seeing the Chevalier de Coigny, who bore a remarkable physical resemblance to the King, leaving at roughly the same hour through the same exit for the last fortnight. Once arrived at the Petit Carrousel, the King boasted of his self-possession, which had even enabled him to bend down and casually fasten the loose buckle on his shoe.
The only person missing at this point was Marie Antoinette. She had decided to leave after the King so that her absence, if discovered, should not prejudice his own escape. She therefore had to await the end of the long-drawn-out coucher and La Fayette’s departure. Minutes later when she did arrive—at most, fifteen—the King, in a rare gesture of public emotion, took his wife in his arms and embraced her, saying over and over again: “How happy I am to see you!” It was not so much the duration of the delay as the sheer adrenalin produced by the danger of the situation that caused the
King’s outburst. Malden, once more acting as escort, may have got muddled among the courtyards, but even so, it is clear from the various accounts that the Queen arrived shortly after the King.*819 The delay that had crept into the schedule so far was due to the inexorable ritual of court and coucher.
It was after one-thirty in the morning by the time Fersen, as coachman, reached the berlin waiting outside the city barrier at the Porte Saint-Martin. Out of caution,*82 he did not take the more direct public route but looped round, and this again caused a certain delay in the projected timings. At the first poste they reached, at Bondy, Fersen surrendered his role as coachman according to the King’s previous decision, and left the royal party.
On rolled the berlin, keeping up a good steady pace which has been estimated at between six and seven miles an hour. After Meaux, La Ferté-sous-Jouarre was reached, then Montmirail, Étoges and Chaintrix, with Châlons-sur-Marne about thirteen miles away. There were few stops, except briefly for fresh air for the children, and once for the King, since the berlin contained all the necessary amenities. At one point the King looked at his watch and observed with some complacency: “La Fayette is now in real trouble.”10 It was around two o’clock. The royal party was expected to make contact with the Duc de Choiseul and forty officers at an inconspicuous poste at Pont de Somme-Vesle, fourteen miles beyond Châlons, between two-thirty and four-thirty. Clearly the original schedule had been over-optimistic but unlike La Fayette, the royal family did not expect to be in real trouble as a result.
It was now that the party encountered its first bit of bad luck. One horse after another stumbled and fell, causing a break in the harness, which then had to be mended. This was not an unexpected feature of travel at the time but it did mean that the berlin was now over two hours behind its projected schedule. At this point the Duc de Choiseul, having waited for about two hours at the Somme-Vesle poste, lost his head. He had zeal—he would have died for the King—but he lacked the kind of calm resourcefulness that was needed in this situation. Choiseul, on his own initiative, decided that the whole mission had been aborted.11