Ambition and Desire: The Dangerous Life of Josephine Bonaparte Read Online Free PDF

legislative assembly, elected by those deemed proper citizens—which meant about three quarters of the adult male population of France. “There is nothing to be done with this assembly, it is a gathering of scoundrels, madmen, and fools,” wrote Marie Antoinette. 5 But she had to give the impression of contentment with the new order. “The Revolution is ended!” the people cried. Fireworks and bonfires lit up the sky. A hot-air balloon floated over the Champ de Mars, billowing ribbons of red, white, and blue. The Champs-Élysées was strewn with illuminations from the Tuileries, and everybody was encouraged to celebrate.
    The crowds might have cheered the fireworks, but they were still angry. The salon aristocrats of Marie-Josèphe’s circle lived in a gildedbubble. The twenty theaters of Paris were full every night and the balls and receptions continued. They all genuinely believed that once the king’s power and spending were reduced, the people’s fury would be assuaged and life would return to normal. They expected to retain their privileges and see a large chunk of the money and luxury that once were the preserve of Versailles.
    On June 20, 1792, the anniversary of the flight to Varennes, the guards let a mob into the Tuileries gardens. They stormed into the king’s apartments with pikes and hatchets and threw a red cap on his head. For two hours, they danced and sang and forced him to drink the health of the country, while the queen clutched her children in terror. By the evening, order was restored, though all the doors had been broken, the furniture smashed, and the drapes torn down. The king and queen were like animals in a zoo, on display with no means of escape.
    Later in the summer of 1792, the jubilation had dispelled, and the borrowed money had run out. With the king and queen imprisoned, the people needed someone to blame for their poverty. They turned their attention to the aristocrats. The parading crowds shouted, “We will hang all the aristocrats.” Members of the Versailles court were arrested and imprisoned. Alexandre left Paris to serve in the army at Blois. Marie-Josèphe and her friends became very afraid and redoubled their efforts to appear ordinary and citizen-like.
    The government hoped that the imprisonment of the royal family might pacify the people. On August 9, the National Guard was sent to the Tuileries to take the king and his family to prison. They butchered the courtiers and five hundred Swiss Guards, along with hundreds from their own side who were mistaken for their enemies in the confusion. The gravel was left stained with blood and strewn with limbs. “What a lot of leaves!” was the king’s only comment as he left. The royal family was taken to the Tower of the Temple near the Bastille. “We shall never return,” said the Princesse de Lamballe, the fluffy blonde so hated by the populace.
    Still the people were not mollified. Within a month, angry Jacobin and sans-culottes mobs had set upon the prisons and killed many of the remaining courtiers, as well as hundreds of ordinary farmers, maids, shopkeepers, and children in what became known as the “SeptemberMassacres.” Marie-Josèphe hid with her children in their house, thankful that she had never attended court. She was near enough to the prisons to hear the screams as sixteen hundred men, women, and children were tried by ad hoc tribunals and either released or hacked to death. Crowds came to stare at the shiny new piece of killing equipment set up in front of the city hall. An afternoon with “Madame la Guillotine” became a popular entertainment as people gathered to watch, clutching “programmes” of those to be killed.
    They were hungry for blood. The queen’s darling, the Princesse de Lamballe, was put in front of a hastily assembled trial. When she refused to proclaim her hatred of the royal family, she was thrown to the crowds, raped, and killed. Her breasts were sliced off and the jubilant mob propped