Farewell, My Queen Black Moishe (short novels in english .txt) 📖

coach, which I left in the Cour du Louvre, has vanished into thin air. I absolutely must return home, and I am ill-equipped to do so unless I have this horse. I was to meet Baron de Breteuil, an old friend, a man whose punctuality . . . ”

The looming hulk exploded into action. The hand that the man in black was keeping out of sight under his cloak suddenly appeared wielding a club and delivered a blow. I heard a sickening sound. The courteous man had crumpled, his head smashed to a pulp.

I was, it turned out, very close to our appointed meeting place. When I arrived, my companions and two six-horse berlins were waiting. The Duchess de Polastron, the Marchioness de Poulpry, and the Marchioness de Lage de Volude had joined the group. The planned escape included them. There was the occasional renewed outburst of shouting to mark the recall of Necker. “Good,” someone said. “They are busy being enthusiastic, and they’ll be that much less vigilant.” Monsieur de Vaudreuil left us. He was to depart with the Count d’Artois, another man fleeing in the dead of night, as well as the Duke de Bourbon, the Princes de Condé and de Conti, the Castries, the Coignys, the Prince de Hénin, Count Grailly, and all the members of the government. I felt stiff and awkward in my aristocratic attire. I was unpleasantly thirsty; my mouth felt dry and bitter, my throat was like cardboard. I ventured to ask for something to drink. “Later,” answered Diane, and herded us into one of the carriages. She herself climbed up onto the driver’s seat, beside the coachman. I had seen him only from behind, but the word “maybe,” uttered in a kind of belch, dispelled any lingering doubt: it was Füchs. Gabrielle and her daughter sat on bracket seats. His Grace de Polignac and the priest ensconced themselves at the back, with packages on their knees and at their feet. I took the seat that was due to my station, according to the role I had been assigned to play. I settled in by a window. As the carriage began to move, I thought I could hear, during a momentary lull, between bursts of distant shouting over Necker, snatches of a litany being howled . . . Marie-Amélie, Marie-Anne, Marie-Caroline, Marie-Antoinette, my Queen . . . , the names came floating toward us, distorted, propelled by the raucous voice of Monsieur de Castelnaux, that pathetic voice compounded of love and madness.

His Grace de Polignac produced a pistol. “If I catch sight of that fellow, I shall shoot him dead.”

It was not till we had gone a considerable distance farther, all of us held silent and tense by the fear of pursuit, that we were overtaken by a horseman traveling at a gallop. The window was partly open. I was about to close it when, without even slackening his pace, the man threw a small roll of something. It sailed through the window, and I caught it in my hand. It was a message on a single sheet of paper with a gold ring around it. I slid the ring off and read:

“O most loving of friends, adieu. A dreadful word, adieu, but it cannot be helped. I have only strength enough to send you this kiss. Marie-Antoinette.”

I held the missive out to Gabrielle de Polignac, sitting very small in front of me. Her silent tears were flowing in a frighteningly steady stream, as though from some external wellspring that had gotten lodged inside her and that she would have to live with henceforth.

VIENNA, JANUARY 1811

I CAN REMEMBER OUR JOY as we crossed the Swiss border. We were saved. They were on the other side. They could no longer harm us. We all hugged and kissed. The German regiment that had escorted us for the last several hours went on its way. Its soldiers did not know why they had come to France. They likewise did not know why they were leaving again. A strange expedition, with no combat and no enemy . . . And what about me? Did I know what I was doing there? We had barely done with our hugging and our cries of joy when I began to see everything as from a great distance. I saw the exhausted horses trembling where they stood in a glow of sweat; our carriage, grotesquely overladen with baggage; and little people who had got down from it and were running excitedly back and forth. They were going from one to another, exchanging fervent embraces. From my remote vantage point, their movements looked incoherent and unintelligible. Füchs had not stirred from his seat: “Maybe”. . . Round about us were only meadows: very green, beautiful, lush. Indeed, just like the ones around the Menagerie, except for the silence and the empty space. The sky was gray, almost white. I had crossed the border, the one separating life from the void.

The Polignacs were using as a guide the instructions shown in their letters of exchange. The needle of their compass pointed steadily in one direction: money. The driving force of our era, as Diane often said. She liked the era that was just beginning at least as much as she did the previous one. Probably more, for the present era was following a vibrant course, and its horizons were vast. A world at war suited Diane’s temperament. To me, upheaval and void are synonymous, and killing is a bland ingredient for adding spice to life, so that those who use it must use more and more.

We crossed Switzerland, then sojourned in Italy—in Rome—because it was convenient. It was a floating kind of existence. We did not really alight in these chance sanctuaries. We set up improvised camps in disused palaces. With Diane in our midst and thanks to her genius for securing expedients, exile took on the appearance of a refinement