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.King Gustavus won't keep me more than a few months."I was thinking of Mrs.Sullivan, not of the Swedish king, but I kept silent.Axel knew what was on my mind—as he often did."You're thinking of Eléanore, aren't you? She's a good friend, and I can assure you that she and Craufurd are your loyal supporters.""But do you love her?" I couldn't stop myself from blurting out the question."My dearest Antoinette, there are many different kinds of love.Please remember that you, and you alone, own my heart.You always have and always will.That hasn't changed, and it will not change."I understood what he meant by different kinds of love.Certainly the passionate love I felt for him was entirely unlike the tender affection I had for my husband.But understanding did not entirely remove the sting of jealousy I suffered for the other kind of love that Eléanore shared with Axel.Still, I looked into Axel's eyes and saw that I was deeply adored."Dearest Axel," I said."I can ask for no more than that."A few days later my Swede was gone, promising to return as soon as his responsibilities allowed.Ne sait quand reviendra.I don't know when hell come back.No.51: Your presence is demanded in ParisI PRAYED THE king would change his mind and decide that we too must leave, and quickly.He did not.Instead, we tried to continue some semblance of life as we had always known it.For almost twenty years, nearly every hour of my day had been conducted according to unbending rules of etiquette.I'd found it terribly tedious, but suddenly, as the rigid structure was crumbling all around me, I longed for some of that old dependability.I spent most of my time with my children: Louis-Charles, the new dauphin, was four and a half, and Marie-Thérèse—Mousseline—nearly eleven.With Madame Polignac gone, the children required a new governess to oversee their households and their education.I chose Madame Tourzel, a sensible and loyal woman.The children quickly came to love her and her daughter Pauline, though the governess herself was strict with them; Louis-Charles called her Madame Severe.They had their tutors and their daily lessons, and in a peculiar way their days seemed almost normal.But I was fearful for their lives, as well as for my own.I had heard that my husband's cousin the duc d'Orléans—now Philippe Égalité, the darling of the commoners—wished to see me dead; he was said to be making plans to assassinate me.Nearly as frightening was the rumor that I was to be arrested, charged with adultery (with Artois, with Yolande de Polignac, with anyone and everyone they could think of), and sent off to a convent after a severe whipping.But in spite of these threats I managed to get up every morning, go to Mass, and spend time with my children as the weeks passed.I kept most of my jewels in a box, ready to carry with me, and I advised Madame Tourzel, "Do as I have done, and be ready to leave at a moment's notice, if that becomes necessary—as I'm sure it will be."But the king refused to budge, still insisting that he didn't want to abandon his subjects."I'm the father of a large family," Louis told anyone who would listen."All Frenchmen are my children, even when they misbehave.They'll come to their senses eventually, and I must be here, waiting patiently, to lead them, as a father must."Even those who agreed that we should leave could not agree on where we should go.Metz, which Axel had recommended and where Artois had taken his family, was too far.Compiègne wasn't far enough.So we did nothing.***Axel returned from Sweden at the end of September and took a house in town rather than staying in his apartments at the chateau."This will allow me to summon aid, should your family require it," he explained.A week later, I understood.A mob composed mostly of women gathered at the Hotel de Ville in Paris, demanding bread.From there they began to march to Versailles, the mob growing bigger and more unruly as it went.Thousands upon thousands marched through the night, in pouring rain, along roads slippery with mud.They covered the twelve miles from Paris and reached the chateau around dawn, screaming not only for bread but for my entrails, which they promised to make into cockades.They called for "the baker and the baker's wife"—Louis and me—determined to bring us back to Paris.They wanted us to guarantee they would have the food we were deliberately withholding, perhaps to starve them to death, perhaps to enrich ourselves.Surely they were not all women who marched and shouted; at least some were men disguised as women.They easily overcame the royal guard and murdered two of our loyal soldiers, cut off their heads and mounted them on pikes before they stormed toward my bedroom, shouting my name.I was almost too terrified to move, but I threw a cloak over my sleeping shift and fled through a secret passageway to the king's apartments.Madame Tourzel was already there with my frightened children.The crowd filled the marble courtyard, screaming over and over for the baker and the baker's wife.I sat trembling while Louis paced."Listen to them!" he exclaimed [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]