The Marquis by Laura Auricchio

Author:Laura Auricchio [Auricchio, Laura]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-385-35324-3
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2014-10-13T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 15

TRIUMPH

Lafayette emerged victorious from a night that could well have been his last, but the time for celebration was not yet at hand. A seasoned general, he quickly surveyed the available options, assessed strategies, and then picked his next battle. He would spend the week from October 7 to October 14 embroiled in a political struggle with his old nemesis the Duc d’Orléans, who, having burnished his populist credentials, now called himself Philippe Égalité.

No one was certain how the tumult of October 5 began—the question remains open to this day—but several theories pinned the blame on Orléans. According to Madame Campan, “Many people averred that they had recognized the duc d’Orléans at four-thirty in the morning … at the top of the marble staircase pointing the way to the guardroom that led to the queen’s bedchamber.” The self-styled prince of equality was said to have been wearing a “redingote” (the word derives from the French attempt to pronounce “riding coat”)—a style of jacket imported from Orléans’s beloved England—and an unstructured hat with a turned-down brim. The chapeau rabattu would have been doubly handy; not only was the style generally worn by commoners, but its drooping edges were useful for shielding one’s face from unwanted scrutiny. A pamphlet spelled out what Campan only implied—that Orléans had instigated the march on Versailles as part of a regicide plot that would have rendered him regent, if not king.

Lafayette might or might not have helped spread these rumors, but he was certainly happy to capitalize on them. Meeting with Orléans three times in a span of seven days, Lafayette succeeded in convincing the highborn Anglophile that London might prove a safer haven than Paris, and on Wednesday, October 14, Orléans appeared before the National Assembly to request a passport, claiming that he had been “charged by His Majesty with an important mission.” In a letter to his ally Mounier, Lafayette admitted to having no proof that Orléans was conspiring against the king. If he had any, he wrote, “I would have denounced him.” Yet Orléans did not call his bluff. Whether acting out of guilt or fear, or perhaps some combination of the two, the duke decamped for England on October 15.

Out of sight was, however, not out of mind. The possibility that Orléans might return to Paris weighed heavily on Lafayette, who enlisted the help of the Chevalier de la Luzerne—then serving as ambassador to London—to keep tabs on the duke’s movements. Lafayette also dispatched one of his former aides-de-camp to the British capital to tell Orléans “that it would suit neither you nor [Lafayette] for you to return to Paris before the end of the Revolution.” Indeed, if Orléans were to head for home, Lafayette would see him “as his enemy” and would challenge him to a duel on the morning after his arrival.

Even as Lafayette eased Orléans into exile, he choreographed an intricate political dance to stabilize the leadership of the nation and to ensure his own place in the power structure.

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