Mistress of the Revolution by Catherine Delors

Author:Catherine Delors [Delors, Catherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Historical
ISBN: 9780525950547
Google: K1GUp3Bpg7cC
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2008-04-14T16:00:00+00:00

45

One night at the beginning of July, Villers came home from the National Assembly earlier than usual.

“Pack your things, Belle,” he said. “I am taking you and Aimée to Vaucelles tonight.”

“What is happening?”

“A German regiment has already set camp in the park of the Palace, and another has taken its quarters at the Orangerie there. The royal family is preparing to leave Versailles for a fortified city close to the Austrian border. You know what it means. The King will seek the help of Emperor Joseph, the Queen’s brother, while the Swiss and German regiments are going to attack Paris and the Assembly here in Versailles. The Count d’Artois, the King’s youngest brother, has publicly stated that all the Representatives of the Third Estate are going to be hanged. He is only saying aloud what the others are thinking.” Villers took me in his arms. “I have been selfish to keep you here so long, my love. I would never forgive myself if any harm befell you.”

Thus I spent those days of July 1789, which were to have such a bearing on the fate of France and Europe, in the safety of Vaucelles. Villers stayed with me the first night since there was no session of the Assembly on the morrow, which was a Sunday. He spent the following day teaching me how to load, aim and shoot a firearm, and insisted on leaving his best pair of pistols with me.

Villers left Vaucelles on the 13th to rejoin the Assembly. He had asked me, because he was leaving at dawn, not to rise to see him on his way. Yet I did. I kept him embraced a long time before letting him go. His eyes were red when he bid me good-bye. We did not speak much but parted with great regret and a sense of foreboding. So much had happened in the two months since the Estates General had convened and the future seemed very uncertain. All our grievances were forgotten in the sorrow of not knowing whether we would ever see each other again. He went on horseback to attract less attention than in a carriage. His plan was to reach Versailles through country roads without entering Paris, while trying to avoid the foreign troops massed to the south of the capital.

I spent that day in great anxiety and sent Lemoyne, one of the lackeys, to gather news in Paris. He had to turn around at the gates for no one was allowed to enter the city.

“I spoke to the guards at the Charenton Gate, Madam,” he said. “Crowds have attacked the prisons and freed all the French Guards jailed for mutiny. They won’t obey their Colonel anymore. The King’s ready to have all the members of the Assembly arrested in Versailles. They also say that all the noblemen who have joined the Third Estate are going to be beheaded for treason. That means My Lord too, doesn’t it?”

I thanked Lemoyne and gave him a silver écu of three francs for his pains.

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