Marie-Antoinette's Watch: Adultery, Larceny & Perpetual Motion

Chapter 11

Paris

On the eve of the summer equinox a fiacre rolled through the narrow cobbled streets of Paris. It was a dowdy carriage, unrecognizable and unassuming, with nothing about it that would attract special notice from the city's watchmen and lamplighters. It was big enough to hold seven people, and inside the carriage, according to papers accompanying its occupants, were the Russian Baroness de Korff, her servants - Madame Rocher, a governess; Rosalie, a companion; and Durand, a valet de chambre - and daughters Amelia and Aglae. One of the little girls slept soundly on the carriage floor, under the baroness's petticoats.

But nothing was as it appeared on this summer evening in 1791. The baroness was in fact Madame de Tourzel, the actual governess to the royal children whom Fersen, not trusting any of the queen's courtiers or employees, called that "wretched woman-of-the-bedchamber." The "governess" was the queen herself, Rosalie was her sister Elizabeth, and the butler, Durand, was Louis XVI. Only one of the children was a girl: twelve-year-old Marie Thérèse, daughter of the king and queen. The other, lying on the floor, was her brother, the six-year-old dauphin, Louis-Charles, who had asked, on being told of their late night mission, to be allowed to wear his "sabre and boots" but had been dressed up in girl's clothing instead. The carriage the royal family was travelling in did not belong to them, and none of their servants had been made aware of its existence. The palace prison that J.B. Gouvion, liaison to the Paris National Guard, said was so secure that "not even a mouse could escape from there" had just been breached.90

The coachman, who now pushed the horses along, had long before procured the coach and planned the daring journey. Now, weaving through the fetid byways of the darkened city, periodically checking his silver soldier's Breguet, he kept a wary eye on the empty streets. Axel von Fersen, dressed as a footman, with his face obscured by a wide-brimmed hat, snapped his whip to goad the animals onward.

Eventually, the carriage ducked through a gate at the city perimeter and came to a stop. Fersen left the party and returned momentarily with another longer carriage, a berline pulled by six horses, large enough to accommodate the entire family comfortably. Its slender iron wheels looked as if they would give them trouble over rough roads, but for passenger comfort the carriage couldn't be better. No expense had been spared in its construction, at least on the inside. The interior included "white taffeta [cushions], double curtains of taffeta and leather on all the windows, two cooking stoves of iron plate, [and] two chamber pots of varnished leather."91 All of these perks came from the pocket of Fersen, who also provisioned the carriage with "beef a la mode and cold veal together with a bag of small change for use at the posting-houses, a bottle of still champagne, and five bottles of water:"92 a feast for a king and his retinue, in exile, complete with tolls for the trip.

At Bondy, ten miles outside of Paris, Fersen said good-bye. He had wanted to continue to accompany the royal family, but the king had amiably but firmly refused, and now did so again. Later, some would suggest that the king had not wished to be chaperoned to safety by a man who was sleeping with his wife. Madame de Tourzel, the queen's handmaiden who was impersonating the Russian baroness, would write: "The king, in saying good-bye, expressed his gratitude in the most affectionate manner, saying he hoped to be able to do so other than in words, and that he expected to see him again soon."

Marie Thérèse later wrote of Fersen's leaving with a decided finality, noting "he bade my father goodnight, mounted his horse, and disappeared."93 Fersen was heading north toward Belgium.