LOUIS: Could you hand me the scissors, dearest?
ANTOINETTE: Just a moment. She surveys her work critically, tries to snip the thread, and throws the scissors on the floor. I give up! I hate these things! You couldn't cut butter with them, let alone someone's throat.
LOUIS: Dearest… He reaches across the table to touch her hand.
ANTOINETTE: I'm sorry. Ignore me. It's just that I'm freezing to death. You'd think they could at least keep the fires going.
SERIOUS ONE: When you get upset like that you get spots all over your face.
ANTOINETTE: Thank you.
She sighs and returns to her sewing; Louis retrieves the scissors from the floor and, with an expression of deep concentration, begins cutting a large piece of paper into smaller pieces.
For a while there is only the sound of snipping and coughing, and then other sounds, muffled at first but growing louder and louder, rattling chains, plodding footsteps, sliding bolts, keys turning in locks; the candles gutter as a heavy oak door bangs open, stage left. Enter the Tisons, the elderly couple hired to "look after" the royal family, each wearing a long white apron and a red Jacobin hat. As Citizeness Tison removes the Dauphin's soup bowl, Citizen Tison stands directly in front of Antoinette, blowing smoke in her face.
Antoinette stares fixedly at her work and keeps on sewing.
LOUIS: Excuse me. I don't think the boy was finished yet.
CITIZENESS TISON: He doesn't think the boy was finished. She spits in the bowl and hands it back to the Dauphin. A thousand pardons.
LOUIS: Please. He's just a little boy. He hasn't been well.
DAUPHIN: It's all right, Papa. He covers his mouth to stifle a cough. I had plenty, really I did.
CITIZENESS TISON: Papa — that's a good one. She elbows her husband.
CITIZEN TISON: Will there be anything else?
He and his wife make their exit without waiting for an answer, slamming the door behind them. Once again there is the sound of turning keys, sliding bolts, rattling chains, plodding footsteps, fainter and fainter.
The Dauphin breaks into uncontrollable coughing; Louis puts his head in his hands.
ANTOINETTE: I can't take it anymore.
SERIOUS ONE: It's not like we have a choice.
LOUIS: Shhh. Shhh. He rouses himself and hands the Dauphin a blank map of Europe, with a pile of cut-out countries. We must at least try to be kind to one another.
SERIOUS ONE: But I'm only telling the truth.
LOUIS: Shhh.
He kisses the top of his daughter's head. The candles flicker; the Dauphin, still coughing, removes the top cut-out from the pile and squints at it.
ANTOINETTE: You have it upside down, darling. Here, let me…
DAUPHIN: I know that. He turns the cut-out around. I knew that all along. It's England.
LOUIS: The Kingdom of Great Britain…
DAUPHIN: That's right. He sets it in place. And this one's France. The Kingdom of France. And this is Prussia. And here comes (walking his fingers across the map) the Duke of Brunswick. Leading the armies of the Holy Roman Empire! Coming to save us!
ANTOINETTE: Oh yes. The Duke of Brunswick. Except don't you have him going in the wrong direction? Shouldn't he be headed away from France? And, come to think of it, shouldn't that be the Republic of France? And shouldn't he be running?
Louis rises stiffly from his chair and makes his way around the table to stand behind Antoinette, gently rubbing her neck and shoulders.
ANTOINETTE: The Duke of Brunswick. The Duke of Brunswick is lower than mud.
LOUIS: It isn't as if he didn't try to help us.
DAUPHIN: The Duke of Brunswick is lower than slime!
LOUIS: Of course I suppose we'll never really know the whole story of what happened at Valmy.
ANTOINETTE: Trying to help us! Everyone knows he threw the battle. He was our last best hope and he sold us out.
LOUIS: We don't know that. His men were sick; they didn't have enough to eat. The weather was bad.
ANTOINETTE: I do.
DAUPHIN: The Duke of Brunswick is lower than shit!
SERIOUS ONE: Make him stop, Papa. He's driving me crazy.
LOUIS, smiling: I'd like to see the person who could do that, sweetheart.
And then. And then they took him away.
And then they cut off his head.
When I tried to sleep, my ear on the pillow would fill with the noise of my blood pumping through me like voices going on and on:
Antoinette.
Your face follows me wherever I go.
And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpillar, and the palmerworm, my great army, which I sent among you.
My sister. You are my sister, Antoinette. My dearest friend and companion.
If I could save you by my blood it would be my soul's greatest happiness.
It was January 21,1793.
Excuse me. I mean the second day of Pluviôse, Year One, because of course they had to change everything. Even epiphany cakes weren't to be called Cakes of the Kings anymore but Marat Cakes.
Even the cakes.
Obedient to its name, the second day of Pluviose was cold and wet. Rain was beating on the windowpanes, drenching the citizens of Paris as they danced their ecstatic way to the guillotine with their pikes and their red hats and their drums. We sat huddled together in the Temple, unnaturally alert, as if all we had to do was listen hard enough and we could hear the sound of his feet on the steps, the sound of his breathing. He was wearing a brown overcoat and a tricorn hat with a red, white, and blue cockade. No wedding ring, having handed it over to me earlier. "I die innocent," he said. "I pardon those who have brought on my death and I pray to God—" but already the blade was falling, his lungs taking in their last gulp of air. For a moment everything was perfectly still, followed by the sound of cheering, of cannon. The Serious One fainted.
Louis the Last, they called him. And then, after, Louis the Shortened.
In his will he asked me to help our children regard the grandeur of this world, "should they be fated to encounter it," as a dangerous and transitory advantage. Help them fix their eyes instead on the lasting glory of Eternity, he implored.
The grandeur of this world. The glory of Eternity. As if the Widow Capet had any choice in the matter.
I was given black clothes to wear, whereas a Queen's mourning dress is always white. It made no difference; I never went out. I just stayed in my room and sewed, getting thinner and thinner. Like a magpie, some people said, but I thought I was more like a needle.
Outside, it was the rage for women to tie red ribbons around their necks, à la victime, and for men to shave their throats. Making fashion out of fear, I guess, the idea being that if you got there first, Death would have to look elsewhere.
Meanwhile yet one more escape plan was under way, involving yet more costumes, forged passports, a boat to Normandy, etc. etc. My little boy would be hidden in a basket of dirty laundry, the ever-watchful Tisons dispatched with drugged snuff. Of course it came to nothing, but since I expected nothing I wasn't disappointed.