Free Confessions of Marie Antoinette by Juliet Grey

about his eyes and noble brow in the early 1780s, but since then he has not known the depth of sorrows that I have. When you have lost a child, the world ceases to spin. When you have lost two, you must remind yourself that the reason you rise every morning is for the love of the pair who remain alive.
    Beneath the fine dusting of powder, Axel’s hair remains a warm shade of brown, whereas mine, I noticed last night, has an uncommon number of silver threads among the apricot. “How can I make your life more bearable?” the count asks me. His eyes, today the blue-gray-green of the sea, convey volumes that can never be committed to paper.
    I chuckle, wondering if such a thing is possible. Sighing heavily, I reply, “After the Parisians stormed the Bastille and the National Assembly demanded the king attend them in what I can only characterize as a command performance, the representatives of this new legislature hailed Louis as the ‘liberator of his people.’ ” I swipe my hand over my brow. My temples are throbbing. I look Axel directly in the eye and lower my voice to a whisper. “But who will liberate us ?”
    He reaches for my hands to reassure me, but stops when I clear my throat to warn him that we are being observed. “I will,” he says quietly and resolutely. “The king of Sweden is your greatest ally. Gustavus has commissioned me to be his eyes and ears in Paris and at the French court.” He leans forward, so close that I can feel his breath upon my face. It smells of cinnamon and clove. “Tell me, ma chère , have you ever written in cipher?”
    The following morning, the door to my bedchamber flies open unexpectedly. Madame Campan, who sleeps at the foot of my bed, and I clutch our nightgowns to our chests and expect the worst, but the breathless intruder is Madame Élisabeth. “There was just now a woman in my room,” she pants. “A poissarde ! I heard a stirring and I awoke to find her rummaging through my jewelry box. She was trying on an emerald bracelet.”
    “How did she get in?” asks Campan.
    “They climb right over the iron railings. The gall!” Madame Elisabeth’s face is flushed with fear. “I don’t know if she only wanted to pilfer something or if she intended me some harm.”
    “We can’t have market women—or any trespasser—entering our rooms at will,” I insist. “Where are the guards?” They are ubiquitous, except when we are in peril.
    Madame Élisabeth shrugs helplessly. She is so gentle, so pious, so self-sacrificing; no one is less deserving of any sort of injury. “They seem to believe, or perhaps they have been told, that their business is to prevent us from escaping, not to protect us from invaders.”
    During the next few days it becomes apparent that the royal family remains at the mercy of the people. From morn to nearly midnight they bring petitions and demand to be heard and we must present the appearance of the benevolent parents of France, ever willing to countenance the slightest whim of our children, nomatter how rebellious. I would not do the same with my chou d’amour and Mousseline, no matter how much I adore them. Although I am a fond and doting mother, if my son or daughter misbehaved there would be consequences.
    Determined to demonstrate to the market women of Paris who had once vowed to make cockades out of my entrails that I acknowledge their demands for reform, I request the royal dressmaker Madame Éloffe to construct 150 ribbon cockades in the revolutionaries’ tricolore stripe of red, white, and blue. At one livre apiece they are larger and far more costly and elaborate than the poissardes ’ makeshift rosettes. It is such a simple thing, and it is the province of kings to show forgiveness. The cocardes are distributed and the women are delighted. But I know too well that their appreciation is as brief as the lifespan of a butterfly. I have not really purchased their loyalty. I have only bought 150 livres’ worth of time.

FIVE
    Red