“My God!” said Madame Royale. “Could our luckless destiny be changing?”
“Or could the note be a trap?” said Madame Elisabeth.
“No, no,” said the Queen. “These characters have always spelled the presence of a friend—a mysterious but very brave and very faithful one.”
“Is it from the Knight?” asked Madame Royale.
“The man himself,” replied the Queen.
Madame Elisabeth joined her hands in an attitude of prayer.
“Let us each read the note again to ourselves,” the Queen went on, “so that if one of us forgets something, the others will remember.”
And the three of them scanned the note once more, but just as they had finished reading, they heard the door of their room creak on its hinges. The two princesses turned round: the Queen alone remained just as she was; but by an almost imperceptible movement she brought the tiny note to her hair and slipped it into her piled-up coiffure.
One of the municipal officers was at the door.
“What do you want, monsieur?” Madame Elisabeth and Madame Royale chorused.
“Hmmmn!” said the municipal officer. “It seems to me you’re staying up pretty late tonight.…”
“So,” said the Queen, turning round with her usual dignity, “is there a new decree of the Commune determining what time I go to bed?”
“No, citizeness,” said the officer, “but if necessary, they’ll make one.”
“In the meantime, monsieur,” said Marie Antoinette, “please respect, I won’t say a queen’s bedchamber, but that of a woman.”
“Really,” grumbled the officer, “these aristocrats always talk like they’re somebody.”
But just the same he was subjugated by the woman’s dignity, once bordering on arrogance in prosperity but now quiet and touching after three years of suffering, and he withdrew.
A moment later the lamp went out, and as usual the three women got undressed in the dark, using obscurity as a veil for their modesty.
The next day, at nine o’clock in the morning, screened by the curtains around her bed, the Queen reread the note of the day before so as not to depart from the least of its instructions. She then tore it up into almost invisible pieces and threw on her clothes behind the curtains of the bed and went to wake her sister before going in to her daughter in the adjoining room. A moment later she reemerged and called the municipal officers.
“What do you want, citizeness?” asked one of them, popping his head in the door, while the other didn’t even pause in scarfing his breakfast to answer the royal call.
“Monsieur,” said Marie Antoinette, “I’ve just come from my daughter’s room and the poor child truly is quite sick. Her legs are painfully swollen, for she takes too little exercise. As you know, monsieur, it is I who have condemned her to such inaction. I was authorized to go down into the garden whenever I liked; but as that meant going past the door of the room where my husband lived while he was still alive, the first time I went past his door my heart failed me; I didn’t have the strength to proceed, so I went back up and have restricted myself ever since to taking the air on the terrace. That promenade is no longer enough for my poor daughter’s health. So I beseech you, citizen municipal officer, to appeal to General Santerre in my name to reclaim the use of this liberty that was granted to me. I would be most grateful to you.”
The Queen had spoken so sweetly and at the same time with such dignity, she had so carefully avoided any qualification that might wound the republican prudery of her interlocutor, that the latter, who had presented himself to her with his head covered, as most of these men were in the habit of doing, gradually removed his red cap from its perch on top of his skull and, when she had finished, nodded to her and said:
“Don’t worry, madame, we’ll ask the citizen general for the permission you desire.”
He then withdrew and, as though to persuade himself that he was yielding to fairness and not to weakness, he muttered, “It is only right, when it all boils down to it, it is only right.”
“What’s right?” asked the other municipal officer.
“That the woman take her daughter out for a walk, since she’s sick.”
“So? … What does she want?”
“She wants to go down and walk around the garden for an hour.”
“Bah!” said the other officer. “Let her walk from the Temple to the place de la Révolution, that’s a decent walk.”
The Queen heard these words and went pale, but they were also galvanizing, and she drew fresh courage from them to tackle the momentous event that was gearing up.
The municipal officer finished his breakfast and went downstairs. For her part, the Queen asked to have her breakfast in her daughter’s room, which was granted. Madame Royale remained in bed to confirm the story about being ill, and Madame Elisabeth and the Queen stayed by her side.
At eleven o’clock, Santerre arrived. His arrival was, as usual, announced by the beating of drums in the neighboring fields and by the entrance of the new battalion and fresh municipal officers relieving the outgoing guard. When Santerre had reviewed both the outgoing battalion and the incoming battalion, when he had paraded his heavy horse with its squat legs around the Temple courtyard, he paused for a moment. This was the time when those who needed to speak to him delivered their claims, their denunciations, and their requests.
The municipal officer seized the moment to approach him.
“What do you want?” Santerre snapped.
“Citizen,” said the officer, “I’ve come to say to you on behalf of the Queen …”
“What’s that, the Queen?” asked Santerre.
“Ah, yes, golly,” said the officer, himself astonished that he’d gotten so carried away. “What am I saying? Am I mad? I’ve come to say to you on behalf of Madame Veto …”
“That’s better,” said Santerre. “If you put it like that, I know what you’re talking about. Well then, get on with it—what have you come to say to me?”
“I’ve come to say to you that the young Veto is sick, apparently, for lack of air and exercise.”
“Is that the nation’s fault? The nation gave her the right to walk in the garden; she turned it down, so that’s the end of that!”
“But that’s just it; she’s sorry now and she wants to know if you’ll let her come down.”
“No worries. You hear that, the rest of you?” said Santerre, addressing the entire battalion. “The Widow Capet wants to come down and have a walk in the garden. She is allowed to, thanks to the nation; you just make sure she doesn’t jump over the walls and run away. For if that happens, you’ll all get the chop.”
An outburst of Homeric laughter greeted this little joke of the citizen general’s. “Don’t say you weren’t warned,” said Santerre. “So long. I’m off to the Commune. It looks like Barbaroux’s2 caught up with Roland in the suicide stakes; they need to be issued a passport for the next world.”
This was the news that had put the citizen general in such a good mood. Santerre galloped away. The outgoing battalion followed close behind, and finally the previous shift’s municipal officers made way for the newcomers who had received Santerre’s instructions regarding the Queen.
One of these went to see Marie Antoinette to tell her the general had granted her request.
“Oh!” she thought, gazing at the sky through her window. “Will your anger rest, Lord, are you tired of bearing down on us with your terrible might?”
“Thank you, monsieur,” she said to the municipal officer with the same stunning smile that was the finish of Barnave and had made so many men lose their heads. “Thank you!”
Then she turned to her little dog, who was leaping at her as he stood on his two hind legs, for he understood from his mistress’s expression that something extraordinary was going on.
“Let’s go, Black,” she said, “we’re going for a walk.”
The little dog began to yap and dance about; he cast a grateful look at the muni
cipal officer, no doubt knowing that it was from this human source that the news that made his mistress so happy came; he crawled over to him groveling and wagging his long silky tail and even took the risk of licking him.
This man, who might well have remained unmoved by the Queen’s entreaties, was quite overcome by the caresses of the dog.
“If only for this little fellow, citizeness Capet, you should have gone out more often,” he said. “Humanity demands that we take care of all creatures.”
“What time are we to go out, monsieur?” asked the Queen. “Don’t you think the heat of the middle of the day will do us good?”
“You can please yourself,” said the officer. “There is no specific recommendation on this point. But if you want to go out at midday, that’s when we change shifts, so there’ll be less of a bustle in the tower.”
“Well then, let it be midday,” said the Queen, pressing her hand to her heart to stop it from beating so hard.
She examined this man, who didn’t seem as hard as his colleagues and who might well be about to lose his life in the struggle the conspirators were contemplating for deigning to accede to the Queen’s wishes.
But just when a certain compassion was about to weaken the woman’s heart, the soul of the Queen took over. She thought of the tenth of August and of the bodies of her friends strewn over the carpets of her palace; she thought of the second of September and the head of the Princesse Lamballe looming up on a pike3 in front of the palace windows; she thought of the twenty-first of January and her husband dying on the scaffold to the sound of a drumroll that drowned out his voice; finally, she thought of her son, that poor little boy whose cries of pain she had more than once heard coming from his room without being able to help him—and her heart hardened.
“Alas!” she murmured. “Calamity is like the blood of the ancient Hydras: it is blood and bone fueling fresh new calamities.”
26
BLACK
The municipal officer left to call his colleagues and read the outgoing officers’ report. The Queen remained alone with her sister and her daughter. All three looked at one another. Madame Royale threw herself into the Queen’s arms and held her tight. Madame Elisabeth went to her sister and gave her her hand.
“Let us pray to God,” said the Queen. “But let’s do it quietly so no one suspects we are praying.”
There are fatal periods in history in which prayer, the natural hymn God has planted firmly in mankind’s heart, becomes suspect in the eyes of men, for prayer is an act of hope or gratitude. Now, in the eyes of her guardians, hope or gratitude were a cause for concern, since the Queen could only hope for one thing—escape—and since the Queen could only thank God for one thing—giving her the means to achieve it.
This unspoken prayer finished, all three sat without saying a word. Eleven o’clock sounded, then midday. As soon as the last stroke rang out in all its bronze reverberations, a clatter of arms began to fill the spiral staircase, rising as far as the Queen.
“That’s the sentry being relieved,” she said. “They’ll shortly come and get us.”
She saw her sister and her daughter blanch.
“Courage!” she said, herself looking perfectly ashen.
“It’s midday!” someone cried below. “Bring down the prisoners.”
“Here we are, messieurs,” said the Queen, who, with a feeling almost of regret, cast a final farewell glance over the blackened walls and the furniture that, if on the crude side, was at least nice and simple—companions of her captivity.
The first wicket opened: it gave onto the corridor. The corridor was dark, and in the darkness the three captives could hide their emotion. Black ran ahead, but when they reached the second wicket, which was the door Marie Antoinette dreaded, she tried to avert her gaze; but the faithful animal nuzzled the door studs with its muzzle and gave a few plaintive yaps before letting out a painful and prolonged howl. The Queen staggered past without having the strength to call her dog back, groping for the support of the wall.
After taking a few more steps, the Queen’s legs failed her and she was forced to stop. Her sister and her daughter rushed over to her and, for a moment, the three women remained standing, still as statues in a sorrowful group study, the mother with her forehead propped against the head of Madame Royale.
Little Black ran and joined them.
“Well then,” cried the same voice. “Is she coming down or isn’t she?”
“We’re coming,” said the municipal officer, who had remained stationary out of respect for a suffering so great in its simplicity.
“Let’s go!” said the Queen.
With that, she descended the remaining stairs.
When the prisoners had reached the bottom of the spiral staircase, opposite the last door, under which the sun flung broad bands of golden light, there was a drumroll to summon the guard; it was followed by an intense silence provoked by curiosity, and then the heavy door creaked slowly open on stiff hinges.
A woman was sitting on the ground, or rather sprawling in the corner created by the post adjoining the door. It was Mother Tison, whom the Queen had not laid eyes on for twenty-four hours, though several times that morning and the night before she had wondered with amazement where Mother Tison could be.
The Queen could already see the daylight, the trees, the garden, and beyond the barrier that enclosed the garden her avid eye scanned for the little canteen hut where her friends no doubt awaited her; then, at the sound of her footsteps, Mother Tison yanked her hands away from her face and the Queen saw a pale and broken mask beneath hair that had gone grey overnight.
The change was so great that the Queen stopped in her tracks, aghast.
With that slowness people acquire when they’ve lost their minds, the woman knelt before the door, blocking Marie Antoinette’s path.
“What do you want, good woman?” asked the Queen.
“He said you had to forgive me.”
“Who is that?” asked the Queen.
“The man in the coat,” replied Mother Tison.
The Queen looked at Madame Elisabeth and at her daughter in amazement.
“Come on, move,” said the municipal officer. “Let the Widow Capet past; she’s got permission to take a walk in the garden.”
“I’m well aware of that,” said the old woman. “That’s why I came here to wait. Since they wouldn’t let me go up and I’m supposed to ask her pardon, I had to wait for her, didn’t I?”
“Why wouldn’t they let you come up?” the Queen asked.
Mother Tison began to laugh.
“Because they reckon I’m mad!” she said.
The Queen looked at the poor woman and saw in her deranged eyes that unmistakably weird gleam, that vague glint, that indicates that the mind has fled.
“Oh, my God!” she said. “Poor woman! What’s happened to you?”
“What’s happened to me is … So you don’t know?” asked the woman. “Yes, you do.… You know all right, since it’s because of you that she’s been condemned.…”
“Who?”
“Héloïse.”
“Your daughter?”
“Yes, who else! … My poor daughter!”
“Condemned … But by whom? How? Why?”
“Because she’s the one who sold the bouquet.…”
“What bouquet?”
“The bouquet of carnations … but she isn’t a flower girl,” Mother Tison mused as though sifting through her memories, trying to recall something. “So how could she sell that bouquet?”
The Queen shivered. An invisible thread connected this scene to her present predicament; she knew she must not waste time in a pointless exchange.
“My good woman,” she said, “please let me pass; you can tell me all about it later.”
“No, right now; you have to forgive me. I have to help you escape so he’ll save my daughter.”
The Queen turned a deathly white.
“My God!” she murmured, raising her eyes
to the skies before turning toward the municipal officer.
“Monsieur,” she said, “please be so good as to remove this woman; you can see she is mad.”
“All right, all right, let’s go,” said the officer. “Move it.”
But Mother Tison clung to the wall.
“No!” she shrieked. “She has to forgive me so he’ll save my daughter.”
“But who are you talking about?”
“The man in the coat.”
“My sister,” whispered Madame Elisabeth, “offer her a few words of consolation.”
“Oh, gladly!” said the Queen. “Indeed, I believe that would be the quickest way.”
Turning to the madwoman, she said: “Good woman, what do you want? Tell me.”
“I want you to forgive me for making you suffer all the insults I’ve heaped on you and for the denunciations I’ve made; and I want you, when you see the man in the coat, to order him to save my daughter, since he does anything you ask.”
“I don’t know who you mean by the man in the coat,” the Queen replied, “but if all that’s needed to salve your conscience is to obtain my forgiveness for the offenses you believe you have committed against me—oh! from the bottom of my heart, poor woman! I forgive you most sincerely; and may those I’ve trespassed against similarly forgive me!”
“Oh!” cried Mother Tison in an inexpressible note of joy. “So he’ll save my daughter, since you’ve pardoned me. Your hand, madame, your hand.”
The Queen was bewildered and, without understanding a word, held out her hand, which Mother Tison grabbed fervently and to which she frantically applied her lips.
At that moment, the hoarse voice of a town crier was heard in the rue du Temple.
“Here,” the man cried, “is the judgment and arrest of the girl Héloïse Tison, condemning her to death for the crime of conspiracy!”
Scarcely had these words struck the ears of Mother Tison when her face disintegrated; she shot up onto one knee and spread her arms wide so that the Queen could not get past.