Marie-Therese, Child of Terror: The Fate of Marie Antoinette's Daughter by Nagel Susan

Author:Nagel, Susan [Nagel, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Tags: ebook, book
ISBN: 9781596918641
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2010-11-30T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter XV

The Birth of a Strategist

On January 21, 1797, the fourth anniversary of the death of King Louis XVI, Louis XVIII wrote to his niece stating that he had met with the Abbé Edgeworth, the priest who had been with her late father at the scaffold. Louis XVIII, who rarely missed a public relations opportunity, asked Marie-Thérèse if she would write the priest a letter of gratitude for publication, and backdate it to the day she crossed the border. Marie-Thérèse, who had publicly declared that she was on earth to obey her King, privately declined to do so, claiming sweetly that she was too young for such a letter to have any import. She also begged her uncle to forgive her ‘resistance to your wish’, claiming that she did not want to call attention to herself for fear of irritating the Emperor. Louis wrote a second time; and, once more, she refused him. She was extremely uncomfortable using her parents’ tragedy in such a fraudulent way, and was angry that her uncle had asked her to do this. She enquired whether her father had left any secret instructions for her with the Abbé. He had not. Her uncle then referred to his own sad days in exile. She thanked him for confiding in her, and reciprocated by telling him of her own experiences:

since the 10th of August 1792 until the month of August, 1795, I had known of nothing concerning my family, of politics, we only knew of the injuries that overwhelmed us. You have no idea of the harshness of our prison. Those who have not seen it with their own eyes could not have imagined it. I, who greatly suffered, could hardly believe it. My mother, ignorant of the existence of my brother, who lived below her. My aunt and I ignorant of the transport of my mother to the Conciergerie and after that her death. In vain I demanded to know why we were separated. They closed the doors without answering me. My brother died in the room beneath mine; they kept me in ignorance …

I swear that during that time I had begun to lose all hope, and I feared that I would spend all my life imprisoned. Having lived alone in my room for a whole year, I had the time to reflect, and I could only imagine the worst about my parents, but as the unhappy love to delude themselves, there were moments when I had hope.

Although Louis had previously thought of his niece mostly as his political ally, he felt genuine compassion as a result of her words and was impressed by her grace and kindness. The Duc d’Angoulême too seemed more enthusiastic as the tone of his letters changed from pleasant to ardent. On January 3, 1797, d’Angoulême wrote that on reading her letter of December 26 he had his

lips pressed to the lines which your hands had traced … and I wonder how long I will be separated from she who

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