Confessions of Marie Antoinette Read Online Free PDF Page B

weeping. She looks to Madame Thibaut for reassurance as she reminds me that there are thirty thousand troops and ten thousand brigands, with forty cannons mustered outside our gates. “Once upon a time they would have protected Your Majesty. Now the world has turned upside down and it is just the four of us,” she sobs, indicating Madame Thibaut and their maids. “ We are your only sauvegarde now. It would be wrong of us to desert you.”
    We compromise. I will not place their lives at risk by allowing them to sleep in my bedchamber. And so they drag four armchairs outside my door and prepare to spend the night in these fauteuils . The muffled sound of tattoos beaten on sodden drumskins reverberates from the Place d’Armes where the market women and soldiers are encamped, a hoarse, frightening call to protest that has lasted without surcease through the night. I do not think I will be able to sleep after all.
    I lie upon the featherbeds gazing at the underside of the pink and gold brocade canopy. With no comprehension of how much time has passed, suddenly I bolt upright, my eyes blinking open, my heart pounding. Below my windows, a commotion seems to be coming from the direction of the Orangerie. A single chime strikes and I look at the clock. Half past five. My feet bare, I rush to the bedroom doors, clutching the thin cambric of my night rail to my breast. Madame Thibaut jumps out of her chair, then swiftly rearranges her skirts and sinks into a curtsy.
    “Did you hear that?” I ask her. The other women are now wide awake.
    “Some of the marchers must have made their way to the parterres,”she answers. “With nowhere else to sleep, perhaps they sought refuge on the terraces.” The regiment of French Guards, so newly reinstated, had been assigned to patrol the gates and entrances to the parks. But are they to be trusted, despite the général ’s assurances? Had Lafayette been naïve, deceived, or an outright liar? “I think it is safe to go back to bed, Majesté ,” says Madame Thibaut. “In any case, the men of the gardes du corps are stationed in the hall. Try to sleep, madame,” she adds gently, closing the heavy wooden doors.
    As the clock strikes six I hear a fearful pounding. My ladies throw open the doors to my bedchamber. Their faces are drained of color. Madame Auguié is hysterical. “Rise, Your Majesty! They are coming up the marble staircase—hundreds of them—armed with pikes and muskets and broomsticks and knives. They are headed through the Galerie des Glaces, making straight for your bedchamber.” The two maids cry for help and frantically wave their arms to simultaneously stave off the stampede and summon the royal bodyguard.
    “It is as if someone has given them a map of the palace,” adds Madame Thibaut. “Otherwise, how would they know exactly where you sleep?”
    Fractured phrases reach our ears. “Kill! Kill!” “No quarter!” “… make a cocarde from her entrails!”
    “There is no time to dress, madame!” urges Madame Auguié. “ Vite, vite —you must make for His Majesty’s petits appartements .”
    They open the doors to my wardrobe and pull out the first petticoat they find, along with a wrapper or lévite , a loose-fitting dressing gown of pale yellow and cream striped silk. There is no time to search for stays. From a drawer I grab a pair of white stockings and a fichu but cannot stop to don them. Madame Thibaut pulls a black velvet hat with a white plume from the top shelf of the wardrobeand thrusts it in my other hand, while Madame Auguié shouts “Shoes!” and gives me the first pair of black satin heels she finds.
    The din of the approaching mob increases, their resounding footsteps augmented by guttural shouts, bloodcurdling screams, and the sounds of splintering wood, shattering glass and porcelain.
    I remind myself to keep my wits, though my bedroom threatens to become a blur of rose and gold. My hands are full of accessories and so I use my shoulder to