Read Online Confessions of Marie Antoinette by Juliet Grey - Free Book Online
Authors: Juliet Grey
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feeling of being trapped inside a large dovecote. The furniture, dating from the distant reigns of the Sun King and Louis XV, is outmoded and the furnishings are coated with dust.
“Maman, it’s very ugly here.” The dauphin’s words are blurted in a child’s burst of honest appraisal.
I chuckle in spite of myself. “The great Louis Quatorze lived here, mon petit , and he was very comfortable. We must not be more demanding than he.” We climb the stairs to my little apartment and pull the covers off the furniture, coughing from the clouds of dust. For the time being, we will stay here until apartments can be renovated for us. Madame de Tourzel and I tuck the children in with the linens we have brought from Versailles. The dauphin curls up on a daybed, aslumber within moments. There is nowhere for his gouvernante to lay her head, and so the marquise de Tourzel passes her first night in the Tuileries in a chair beside his bed, after first creating a makeshift barricade around the room with all the furniture she can find, as the chamber is open from all sides and none of the doors will shut.
Madame Royale lies down upon a sofa, her only admission of fear being her request to sleep with a doll named Lamballe that she had recently deemed herself “too old” to enjoy. Louis and I bed down together for the first time ever, as matrimonial beds are not comme il faut in France, each spouse maintaining separate sleeping quarters. Madame Campan tries to turn the locks but finds that none of them work properly, if at all. As I fret over our safety, my husband declares with tremendous equanimity that if every lock in this palace of thousands of rooms is in a similar state of decay or disrepair, he and his tutor Monsieur Gamain will have a project to last out his reign. With the prospect before him of indulging in afavorite hobby, the king is the only one of us to locate the crumbs of birdseed in this gilded cage.
Morning breaks and in the lemon-yellow light of day there is much to do. First, we must decide where to set up our permanent residence within the vast, labyrinthine palace. Monsieur and Madame, wishing to have nothing to do with the Tuileries, elect to move to the Palais du Luxembourg. Good riddance, I say. The immediate royal family, however, hasn’t the luxury of a further déménagement . We must make the best of our dark surroundings, for it is clear that we have no other option.
Louis chooses a suite of rooms on the first floor overlooking the Seine, and does not mind mounting the stairs to reach his appartements even though he has become tremendously rotund. When he becomes anxious, he eats even more than usual. We are determined to hold court as if nothing has changed. Our formal levers and couchers will continue. What is deeply unsettling, however, is that no matter where any of us goes, we are followed, shadowed by one or more of the Garde Nationale. They are not here to protect us, but rather to monitor our movements. “How are you managing?” a member of the Paris Commune deputation asks me, receiving a glare from his superior officer.
“I’ve seen everything, known everything, and forgotten everything,” I reply, my voice hollow.
However, to my utter astonishment, I have a most unlikely friend who tenders the royal family a remarkable offer. That afternoon I receive a letter from a man in yellow livery.
Votre Majesté ,
Two of your wounded gardes du corps managed to escape the awful carnage of the sixth and as soon as I saw who they were and in what dire condition, I opened the doors ofLouveciennes to give them sanctuary and to see that they received medical attention. I hope you will not reproach me for taking it upon myself to nurse them at my château as their families would have done, had they been near. My home is at your disposal, Madame. Everything I possess is due to the kindness and largesse of the royal family. If you recall, I once offered you my treasures, during the Assembly of the
“Maman, it’s very ugly here.” The dauphin’s words are blurted in a child’s burst of honest appraisal.
I chuckle in spite of myself. “The great Louis Quatorze lived here, mon petit , and he was very comfortable. We must not be more demanding than he.” We climb the stairs to my little apartment and pull the covers off the furniture, coughing from the clouds of dust. For the time being, we will stay here until apartments can be renovated for us. Madame de Tourzel and I tuck the children in with the linens we have brought from Versailles. The dauphin curls up on a daybed, aslumber within moments. There is nowhere for his gouvernante to lay her head, and so the marquise de Tourzel passes her first night in the Tuileries in a chair beside his bed, after first creating a makeshift barricade around the room with all the furniture she can find, as the chamber is open from all sides and none of the doors will shut.
Madame Royale lies down upon a sofa, her only admission of fear being her request to sleep with a doll named Lamballe that she had recently deemed herself “too old” to enjoy. Louis and I bed down together for the first time ever, as matrimonial beds are not comme il faut in France, each spouse maintaining separate sleeping quarters. Madame Campan tries to turn the locks but finds that none of them work properly, if at all. As I fret over our safety, my husband declares with tremendous equanimity that if every lock in this palace of thousands of rooms is in a similar state of decay or disrepair, he and his tutor Monsieur Gamain will have a project to last out his reign. With the prospect before him of indulging in afavorite hobby, the king is the only one of us to locate the crumbs of birdseed in this gilded cage.
Morning breaks and in the lemon-yellow light of day there is much to do. First, we must decide where to set up our permanent residence within the vast, labyrinthine palace. Monsieur and Madame, wishing to have nothing to do with the Tuileries, elect to move to the Palais du Luxembourg. Good riddance, I say. The immediate royal family, however, hasn’t the luxury of a further déménagement . We must make the best of our dark surroundings, for it is clear that we have no other option.
Louis chooses a suite of rooms on the first floor overlooking the Seine, and does not mind mounting the stairs to reach his appartements even though he has become tremendously rotund. When he becomes anxious, he eats even more than usual. We are determined to hold court as if nothing has changed. Our formal levers and couchers will continue. What is deeply unsettling, however, is that no matter where any of us goes, we are followed, shadowed by one or more of the Garde Nationale. They are not here to protect us, but rather to monitor our movements. “How are you managing?” a member of the Paris Commune deputation asks me, receiving a glare from his superior officer.
“I’ve seen everything, known everything, and forgotten everything,” I reply, my voice hollow.
However, to my utter astonishment, I have a most unlikely friend who tenders the royal family a remarkable offer. That afternoon I receive a letter from a man in yellow livery.
Votre Majesté ,
Two of your wounded gardes du corps managed to escape the awful carnage of the sixth and as soon as I saw who they were and in what dire condition, I opened the doors ofLouveciennes to give them sanctuary and to see that they received medical attention. I hope you will not reproach me for taking it upon myself to nurse them at my château as their families would have done, had they been near. My home is at your disposal, Madame. Everything I possess is due to the kindness and largesse of the royal family. If you recall, I once offered you my treasures, during the Assembly of the
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