She wrote to her brother Leopold, who had succeeded Joseph, and implored his help. The countries of Europe, while not prepared to risk much on behalf of the King and Queen, were anxious that the monarchy should be preserved. They feared the rot might spread to them.
Leopold and Frederick of Prussia met and issued a call to other European nations to get together and save the French monarchy. Meanwhile Fersen was using all his powers to persuade his King, Gustavus, to come to the aid of the royal family.
The people in the streets were now saying that the Queen was sending secret messages to the foreign Princes imploring them to destroy the French. She was distraught. She knew for once that what was said of her was true.
‘Nothing but armed force can set things right again!’ she cried to Louis.
‘I do not wish for bloodshed,’ said the King.
‘I believe,’ she cried passionately, ‘that you would see your crown trampled in the dust – I believe you would go smiling to your death, if they bade you.’
‘My life is in their hands,’ said Louis. ‘I would be King through their love or not at all.’
She cried out in exasperated anger: ‘Yes, I see. I see it is this meekness of yours that is bringing us to ruin.’
Then she burst into tears and flung herself into his arms. Louis comforted her.
‘It is too much for you to bear,’ he said. ‘You must rest. You must let things take their course.’
‘Louis … Louis …’ she cried. ‘How can we know what to do? I ask Leopold to put himself at the head of the armies and lead them across our borders. I tell him the revolutionaries would be terrified if he did because of what they have done to us. Then I am afraid. If Leopold marched, what would become of us? They would put our heads under the knife. What can we do? What can we do?’
Louis could only shake his head. Of what use was Louis? She went to Esterhazy who was about to leave for Sweden.
She cried: ‘You are going to see someone who is a friend of us both. Tell him that although we are miles apart nothing can separate our hearts. It is a torment to have no news of those we love. Take this ring to him. I have always worn it. Now I would like him to wear it and think sometimes of me.’
There was an inscription on the ring; she read it for the last time: ‘Faintheart he who forsakes her.’
And no sooner had she sent the ring than she was afraid. Would he see in it a reproach? Would he come to her – he for whom the French were waiting?
She wrote to him immediately and despatched the letter by yet another messenger.
‘You must not attempt to come here. Your coming would ruin my happiness. I have a great longing to see you, do not doubt that, but you must not come here.’
He wrote to her. He thanked her for her gift. ‘I live only to serve you,’ he wrote.
She had received that letter on a cold day a week ago, and she re-read it and cherished it; and she thought of him, pleading her cause with Gustavus, begging Gustavus to act. But what cared Gustavus for Louis and Antoinette? He cared though for the preservation of the monarchy. He had said he did not care whether it was Louis the 16th, 17th or 18th who reigned in France. But the rabble should not be allowed to sweep away a throne.
I am foolish, she thought. My tragedy is that I learned what life was, too late. For so many years I thought it was made up of dancing and beautiful clothes, extravagant balls; then when it was too late I found that this was not so.
She smiled faintly, thinking of her beautiful Trianon. Ah, Trianon, shall I ever see you again?
It was easy to drift into dreams – and so pleasant; for only in dreams of the past was there happiness for her.
She heard a sound in her room suddenly. She did not move. She knew that someone had silently opened a door. She had heard the turning of a key. She was alone in her apartments, and her rooms were on the ground floor. She dared not move. All through the days and nights she was tense, waiting … never knowing who would come upon her suddenly.
And now … someone was in her room.
‘Antoinette.’ She did not look round. She dared not. She thought, Oh, God, I am dreaming. It cannot be.
‘Antoinette!’
He was coming towards her. It was a dream of course. She was delirious. In truth it could not have happened.
She turned and saw the familiar figure; the rough wig he wore, the all-concealing great-coat could not hide him from her.
She flew to him and threw herself into his arms. She let her fingers explore his face while the tears ran silently down her cheeks.
‘It is a dream, I know,’ she cried. ‘But, oh Holy Mother of God, let me go on dreaming.’
‘It is no dream,’ he said.
And he wiped the tears from her cheeks.
‘It is not truly you?’
‘But it is. I have come to you – all the way from Sweden.’
‘But why … why?’
‘To see you. To hold you thus. Does not the ring say “Faintheart he who forsakes her”?’
‘Oh, give me the ring, give me the ring. I should never have sent it. It has brought you here … to danger … to God knows what. Axel … my love … you are truly here. You are in this room, are you not? Oh, foolish one … foolish one to come and risk your life to see me.’
‘Of what use is life to me when I do not see you?’
‘Hold me tightly, Axel … for a little while. I wish to dream. I call you foolish … and foolish you are, to come here. But I am the greatest fool in the world because I have called you here, because I have brought to danger the one I love.’
‘It is well that, in danger, we should be together.’
‘At any moment you could be discovered. At any moment the guards may be at my window. They are all about us … Do you know there is a price on your head? There is nothing these beasts, this canaille, want more, than to find you. They know it was you who took us to Varennes … they know that if you had stayed with us … if you had not left us at Bondy … all would be well with us now, and ill with them. Axel … go … go quickly. But how did you come? But let us not stand here where any might see us; come into my little dressing-room. There we shall be safer. There is only Lamballe and Tourzel, and mayhap Elisabeth, who would see you. No other must, Axel. It is foolish to trust any … ’
She drew him into the dressing-room. She lifted her hands to take off the wig. She ran her fingers through his thick hair.
‘Let this minute go on and on …’ she said. ‘If it is a dream …’
‘It is not a dream.’
‘But how did you get here?’
‘I had the key. You remember I had it when I came to get the children on that night. I have kept it. I walked past the guards. There are so many who look as I do … rough wig … great-coat … I was not even challenged.’
‘And if you had been?’ she asked, breathless at the thought.
‘I have a good passport … forged, of course. I am supposed to be travelling to Lisbon on a mission from my King,’ he said.
‘That is my story. ’Tis true I am on a mission … It is this: I shall get you out of France and this time I shall do it thoroughly. I shall be with you the whole of the time. Nothing on earth will make me give up my part until you are safe across the frontier.’
‘Axel …’ she cried. ‘What heart you put into me! What you set out to do … you do.’
‘I have planned everything,’ he said. ‘I have come here to lay those plans before you and the King.’
The mention of Louis brought Antoinette back to reality.