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Authors: Juliet Grey
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Notables. I offer them again, knowing how great your expenditures are. Permittez-moi, Majesté , to render what is Caesar’s unto Caesar.
Jeanne du Barry
I refold the note very slowly and place it in my pocket. My eyes grow moist with tears. We had once been rivals, oh so many years ago, when she was vain and jealous and I was stubborn and naïve. Twenty years ago I was certain we had nothing in common. Who then could have imagined that the comtesse du Barry would one day offer me her unswerving loyalty?
A half dozen of the guard, fully armed, are assigned to follow the king, even during his strolls in the Tuileries Gardens. They are in the employ of the National Assembly. What have they been instructed to do, should the king try to elude them? Will they draw their sabers or raise their muskets against their own sovereign? Would they fire?
The National Assembly have themselves become our wardens. Lafeyette tells us that next month they intend to move into the Tuileries’ disused riding school, the Salle du Manège, as it is the single most capacious space within the palace precincts. How fitting, I think, that these animals who see fit to govern France in our place will occupy a practice ground for horses! I hope the lingeringodor of manure haunts the hall, even after it is renovated to suit the needs of this fledgling legislative body.
Louis spends our first morning at the Tuileries meeting with deputies from the Assembly. Yet it would seem that the comte de Mirabeau—a mountain of a man whom I had thought more rational than the other revolutionaries, and who au fond is a monarchist—wishes to demonstrate his republican sensibilities and his weight in the new legislature by parading before the king all manner of human detritus. These delegates to the National Assembly are ragged and unwashed, their hair uncombed and unpowdered. Nearly every one of them is a sans-culotte , wearing pantalons of unhemmed slubbed textiles rather than knee breeches and hose. In a deliberate affront they keep their hats on in the presence of their sovereign, bloodred liberty bonnets modeled after the ancient Phrygian slave cap. Are these truly the men who represent the new government? Or is this a mockery, intended to demonstrate to my husband that any fool can rule France? I am disgusted, but Louis calmly listens to their petitions and entreaties even as they seek to strip him, bit by bit, of his monarchical rights.
Later that day I, too, am visited, or should I say confronted, by a deputation of sorts. In the company of my belle-soeur I am taking coffee on my balcony, still in my bonnet and negligée—the dressing gown I wear when I receive courtiers during my toilette. Below me, dozens of women have gathered. I can’t say if they are the same poissardes from Les Halles and prostitutes from the arcades of the Palais Royal who convened in the courtyard and garden throughout the night, singing and chanting, so as to deprive me of my slumber. Louis, on the other hand, told me he slept through the cacophony. I do not believe he has passed a fitful night in our nineteen years of marriage. The entry in his hunting journal for the frightful day of October 5 when our life was forever disturbed bythe arrival of the market women was a mere three words: Interrupted by events . Yet in the two decades I have known him I have learned that much lies beneath his laconic prose.
The market women ask how the king spent the night and his sister replies that he slept very well, merci . At this they seem pleased, but not fully satisfied. They demand to see the dauphin. Élisabeth and I exchange glances. Will these harridans terrify my son? He is frightened of loud noises.
Madame Élisabeth steps inside and returns with the dauphin, to the sound of exultant cheers from the women. How ironic, I think, that they wish to tear apart the monarchy and strip away the sovereign’s powers and yet they are genuinely ecstatic at the sight of his heir, the future
Jeanne du Barry
I refold the note very slowly and place it in my pocket. My eyes grow moist with tears. We had once been rivals, oh so many years ago, when she was vain and jealous and I was stubborn and naïve. Twenty years ago I was certain we had nothing in common. Who then could have imagined that the comtesse du Barry would one day offer me her unswerving loyalty?
A half dozen of the guard, fully armed, are assigned to follow the king, even during his strolls in the Tuileries Gardens. They are in the employ of the National Assembly. What have they been instructed to do, should the king try to elude them? Will they draw their sabers or raise their muskets against their own sovereign? Would they fire?
The National Assembly have themselves become our wardens. Lafeyette tells us that next month they intend to move into the Tuileries’ disused riding school, the Salle du Manège, as it is the single most capacious space within the palace precincts. How fitting, I think, that these animals who see fit to govern France in our place will occupy a practice ground for horses! I hope the lingeringodor of manure haunts the hall, even after it is renovated to suit the needs of this fledgling legislative body.
Louis spends our first morning at the Tuileries meeting with deputies from the Assembly. Yet it would seem that the comte de Mirabeau—a mountain of a man whom I had thought more rational than the other revolutionaries, and who au fond is a monarchist—wishes to demonstrate his republican sensibilities and his weight in the new legislature by parading before the king all manner of human detritus. These delegates to the National Assembly are ragged and unwashed, their hair uncombed and unpowdered. Nearly every one of them is a sans-culotte , wearing pantalons of unhemmed slubbed textiles rather than knee breeches and hose. In a deliberate affront they keep their hats on in the presence of their sovereign, bloodred liberty bonnets modeled after the ancient Phrygian slave cap. Are these truly the men who represent the new government? Or is this a mockery, intended to demonstrate to my husband that any fool can rule France? I am disgusted, but Louis calmly listens to their petitions and entreaties even as they seek to strip him, bit by bit, of his monarchical rights.
Later that day I, too, am visited, or should I say confronted, by a deputation of sorts. In the company of my belle-soeur I am taking coffee on my balcony, still in my bonnet and negligée—the dressing gown I wear when I receive courtiers during my toilette. Below me, dozens of women have gathered. I can’t say if they are the same poissardes from Les Halles and prostitutes from the arcades of the Palais Royal who convened in the courtyard and garden throughout the night, singing and chanting, so as to deprive me of my slumber. Louis, on the other hand, told me he slept through the cacophony. I do not believe he has passed a fitful night in our nineteen years of marriage. The entry in his hunting journal for the frightful day of October 5 when our life was forever disturbed bythe arrival of the market women was a mere three words: Interrupted by events . Yet in the two decades I have known him I have learned that much lies beneath his laconic prose.
The market women ask how the king spent the night and his sister replies that he slept very well, merci . At this they seem pleased, but not fully satisfied. They demand to see the dauphin. Élisabeth and I exchange glances. Will these harridans terrify my son? He is frightened of loud noises.
Madame Élisabeth steps inside and returns with the dauphin, to the sound of exultant cheers from the women. How ironic, I think, that they wish to tear apart the monarchy and strip away the sovereign’s powers and yet they are genuinely ecstatic at the sight of his heir, the future
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