THIS MOVIE FOLLOWS THE STORY AS USUALLY TOLD, IGNORING THE LIVERIES THAT TRUMPET THE OLD REGIME'S RETURN
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L'Evasion de Louis XVI (please scroll down) |
This drawing fits the sources:
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Harald Wolff |
A recent historian mentions them at last: "No one recognized the royal couple but everyone recognized the yellow liveries of the prince of Condé..." who 12 pages later turns out to be "The detested émigré leader of a counter-revolutionary army, and lord of numerous lands in the region..."
-- Le Roi s'enfuit by Timothy Tackett, 2004, pp. 101 and 89.
On another page he states that the king had chosen the liveries himself: "Louis had personally called Moustier [one of the guards] on June 17 and asked him to find courrier outfits for him and his two companions: yellow coats, leather trousers and round hats."
P. 84
Those facts are mentioned in passing, with no comment. Other historians leave out the liveries entirely.
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Other apparent folies: Why...
- Didn't the royals take separate routes in ordinary vehicles, a method that would almost certainly have succeeded?
- The king's brother, travelling with an English passport and a single servant, left France the same day without incident, as did his wife and Axel von Fersen. When a year later the royalist writer René Chateaubriand and his brother tried to cross the frontier disguised as wine merchants, the problem they encountered came from a sleepwalking valet, not their disguises or passports. By the end of 1791 about 10,000 nobles had left the country, passing through Paris with no attempt to hide heading for the frontier.
-- Valet, Chateaubriand, Mémoires, ed. 1973; émigrés, 283-284 and Tackett, The Coming of the Terror in the French Revolution, pp. 128-129.
- The main difficulty was slipping out of the Tuileries palace, with its 2000 guards, servants and spies. That accomplished, the royals should have been even safer than the émigrés since they did not intend to cross the frontier. They had only to take different routes and blend into the environment by their vehicles and clothing.
Yet they travelled together — Louis, Marie-Antoinette, the Dauphin, the princess, their governess, Louis's sister, two chambermaids in a second coach and the three guards: 11 travellers, with a main coach that was not only colossal but painted in vibrant green and black or yellow and red. (Prints on the preceding page show the two versions.)
- Leave out men whose presence would have been invaluable? The Count d'Agoult, who knew the route, was ready to come in the main coach and Fersen, an experienced fighter, to ride alongside it. Passionately in love with Marie-Antoinette, he would have given his life for the royal family.
- Include Marie-Antoinette's hairdresser, Monsieur Léonard (who travelled by another route). In the provincial town the queen would need her own coiffeur, but he could have arrived next day.
- Bring three guards when one sufficed to ride ahead and have relays prepare fresh horses? Why choose subordinates who had been trained to follow orders but not take initiatives, who did not know the route and who had never fought when battle-hardened veterans had been proposed?
"The King
[...] had asked Monsieur d'Agoult, head of the royal Guards, to give him three to carry letters to the princes, his brothers; ignoring their real destination, he [d'Agoult] chose the first that happened to be on hand. It would be an injustice to doubt their courage and devotion;[...] but accustomed by their status to perfect obedience, and having never been commanders themselves, such an enterprise was beyond their powers. They did not dare take an initiative, would ask for orders from the king that they would execute even at the peril of their lives, but they lacked the audacity essential to the circumstance in which they found themselves."
-- Madame de Tourzel, pp. 257-258
.- Stagger 300 horsemen in striking uniforms along the last part of the route, terrifying the frontier population: "The king had chosen to bring to our fields the thieving, hungry, outrageous cavalry of hussars and plunderers to spoil the life of France and assure famine under the hooves of horses," wrote Michelet.
"Monsieur de Bouillé had placed the troops to protect the royal family in the following way: at Pont-de-Somme-Vesle, 40 hussards commanded by the Duke of Choiseul; at Sainte-Menehould, 40 dragoons commanded by Captain d'Andouins; at Clermont, 140 dragoons commanded by Count Damas. At Varennes, 60 hussards commanded by Mr. de Bouillé's son and at Dun, 100 hussars commanded by their chief, Mr. Deslon. »
-- Madame de Tourzel, p. 612 n.87
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The expedition is called "a miracle of recklessness," "an incomprehensible Odyssey."
-- "Recklessness," Michelet; "incomprehensible Odyssey," chapter heading of Varennes by Mona Ozouf, 2005. The view is uncontested.
But as an announcement of the Old Regime's return, such oddities were not only sensible, but indispensable. The king had to obtain the enthusiastic adhésion of the émigrés massed on the border, but since the route led through radicalized towns he would have to be disguised as a commoner. Worse, the need to travel as a family (please read on) obliged him to take on the role of a subordinate.*
*As the accountant of the supposed baroness, really the governess in disguise.
That would confront the émigrés' unshakeable belief in God-given hierarchy and suggest that he would bring back only an adulterated version of the Old Regime. The need to convince them that he would restore it in its entirety explains:
- Coming with the family in a spectacular coach and with a second carriage evoked the royal convoys that had taken place for centuries.
- Retaining the governess. Her official position meant that she could not be separated from the children without her consent. She would have ceded her place in the coach if asked, but such change would have implied more to follow.
- Excluding Fersen. Custom demanded that only a high-ranking Frenchman accompany the king on a mission of such importance, and he was Swedish.
- Inserting Monsieur Léonard. Famous for his court coiffures, his very presence would indicate immutability.
- Adding the escort: Having them join in group by group would add to the drama of the march, as it advanced to the applause of the population.
On reaching Montmédy the cortège would resemble the royal entries* that the surprised town would not have been able to prepare.
*As when Marie-Antoinette arrived in France to marry the Crown Prince, only 20 years before. (Châlons's arc of triumph, built for that occasion, is still the city's symbol.)
- The liveries:* By resembling those of the prince of Condé — the king's cousin, the lord of many of the lands through which the coach passed and commander of the émigré army — they broadcast the Old Regime's return.
*At the inquiry the guards stated that the choice was made by chance. But liveries identified nobles. That they, nobles themselves, not know the liveries of the king's cousin is impossible. But what else could they say?
Ensconced in their bubble* the royals believed that the rural population remained attached to a society thought determined by God, and would welcome its restoration.
*Louis had left the court only twice, when he went to Champagne for his coronation at Reims and to Normandy to view the new military port at Cherbourg (in 1786): The enthusiastic reception confirmed his belief in provincial popularity. As for Marie-Antoinette, she had gone to Paris many times but only for festivities.
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The plan: Still in the coach, the king would exchange his commoner dress for this magnificent costume, make a grandiose entry into Montmédy and proclaim to the awed residents and delighted émigrés that the Old Regime was back:
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The liveries are the key to the epic. They...
- Announced to all eastern France (news travelling from market to market) the return of the society the royals and émigrés thought wished by God.
- Contributed to the fury that made rescuing the king impossible.
- Directed hate of the lord toward a ruler who until then was thought paternal.
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Their choice and the other enigmas reveal an organization that was not only rational but indispensable, from the viewpoint of people enclosed in their outdated world.
They also show a modern myopia, which in ignoring what defies its assumptions is as intense.
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