Marie Antoinette and the Downfall of RoyaltyImbert de Saint-Amand
History
Marie Antoinette and the Downfall of Royalty
Imbert de Saint-Amand
France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799; Marie Antoinette, Queen, consort of Louis XVI, King of France, 1755-1793
People were constantly saying that the Faubourg Saint-Antoine was
getting ready to march against the palace. Marie Antoinette was so
badly guarded, and it was so easy to force an entrance to her apartment
on the ground-floor, opposite the garden, that Madame de Tourzel, her
children's governess, begged her to sleep in the Dauphin's room on the
first floor. The Queen was averse to this step, as she was {260}
unwilling to have any one suspect her uneasiness. But Madame de
Tourzel having shown her that it would be easy to keep the secret of
this change by using the Dauphin's private staircase, she ended by
accepting the proposal so long as the trouble should last. She was so
thoughtful of all those in her service that it cost her much to
incommode them in the least. Finally, she consented to use the bed of
the governess, and a pallet was laid for the latter every evening.
Mademoiselle Pauline de Tourzel slept on a sofa in an adjoining closet.
As no one in the house suspected that the Queen might have changed her
apartment for the night, Madame de Tourzel and her daughter took
precautionary measures. When the Queen had gone to bed, they rose, and
after making sure that the doors were locked, they shot the inside
bolts. "The closet I occupied served as a passage for the royal family
when they went to supper," says Mademoiselle de Tourzel, afterwards
Madame de Béarn, in her _Souvenirs de Quarante Ans_; "I went to bed
early; sometimes I pretended to be asleep when the Princes were passing
through, and I saw them approach my sofa, one after another; I heard
their expressions of kindness and good will toward me, and noticed what
care they took not to disturb my slumber."
Poor Marie Antoinette! Could one believe that a Queen of France would
be reduced to keeping a little dog in her bedroom to warn her of the
least noise in her apartment? The Dauphin, delighted to {261} have his
mother sleep so near him, used to run to her as soon as he awoke, and
clasping her in his little arms would say the most affectionate things.
This was the only moment of the day that brought her any consolation.
By the end of July, both the Queen and her children were obliged to
give up walking in the garden. She had gone out to take the air with
her daughter in the Dauphin's small parterre at the extreme end of the
Tuileries, close to the Place Louis XV. Some federates grossly
insulted her. Four Swiss officers made their way through the crowd,
and placing the Queen and the young Princess between them, brought them
back to the palace. When she reached her apartments, Marie Antoinette
thanked her defenders in the most affecting terms, but she never went
out again.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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