"NO ONE RECOGNIZED THE ROYAL COUPLE, BUT EVERYONE RECOGNIZED THE YELLOW LIVERIES OF THE PRINCE DE CONDÉ..."
Twelve pages later:
"...THE DETESTED EMIGRÉ LEADER OF A COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY ARMY, AND LORD OF NUMEROUS LANDS IN THE REGION."
-- The King Takes Flight (French ed.), by Timothy Tackett, 2004, pp. 101. et 89.
Those facts are mentioned in passing, without comment. In an broader account of the Revolution written later, the writer leaves them out.
-- Anatomie de la Terreur ("The Coming of the Terror in the French Revolution"), 2015
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The Evasion of Louis XVI (please scroll down) |
The movie skips the liveries because historians do.
- 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 (Marie-Antoinette's "Friend," who had organized and largely financed the flight). A year later, when the royalist writer René Chateaubriand and his brother tried to cross the frontier to join the émigré army disguised as wine merchants, the problem they encountered came from a sleepwalking valet, not from 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 their heading for the frontier.
- Since Louis and Marie-Antoinette did not intend to leave the country they should have been safer yet, on condition of taking different routes and blending into the environment by their vehicles and clothing. The main danger was slipping out of Paris.
Yet they travelled together — Louis, Marie-Antoinette, the Dauphin, the princess, their governess, Louis's sister, two chambermaids in a second coach and three guards: 11 travellers.
Why add to the spectacle by having the main, colossal coach be painted in vibrant color combinations, green and black or yellow and red ? (Prints on the last page show the two versions.)
- Why 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, offered to ride alongside it. Passionately in love with Marie-Antoinette, he would have given his life for the royal family.
- Why include Marie-Antoinette's hairdresser, Monsieur Léonard (who took another route with no problem)?
In the provincial town the queen would need her own coiffeur. But he could have arrived next day.
- As for the guards, why have three when one sufficed to ride ahead and have relays prepare fresh horses? Why choose subordinates who had been trained to follow orders but not to take initiatives, who did not know the route, and who had never fought when battle-hardened veterans had been proposed? Why weren't they armed?
The King
[...] had asked Monsieur d'Agoult, aide-major of the royal Guards, to give him three to carry letters to the princes, his brothers ; and ignoring their real destination, he [d'Agoult] gave them the first three 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, which 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
.- Why the escort? Since Louis wrote the commander to cancel it if he felt that it destabilized the population, he did not think it necessary for protection.
- Why were several hundred horsemen staggered along the towns after Chalons to progressively join the cortège as it passed by?
-- Madame de Tourzel, p. 612 n.87
- Didn't their striking uniforms make the horsemen yet more obvious, so more frightening?
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Historians say that they are stumped. This is how two accounts begin: "The trip to Varennes was a miracle of recklessness," "An incomprehensible Odyssey."
-- Michelet, and the chapter heading of Varennes, the Death of Royalty by Mona Ozouf, 2005 (in French).
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My two cents:
The flight linked the king's escape with the Old Regime's return. That message was directed both to the émigrés clustered at the frontier and to the population which, thought Louis, remained attached to centuries-old ways determined by God.
* His bubble came from his upbringing, his entourage and his ignorance of France. He left the world of the court only once, by a visit to Brittany where the cordial reception reinforced his belief in the regime's popularity.
Concerning the émigrés, the king's arriving disguised as a commoner and, worse still, as a subordinate, would impress them in the worse possible way. Would restoring a king who so defied the social hierarchy bring back their domination? He had to emphasize tradition.
In that light one understands:
- The family voyage in a coach spectacular enough to evoke the splendor of kings.
- Including the governess. The official nature of her position meant that she could not be separated from the children without her consent. She says in her memoirs that she would have ceded her place in the coach asked, but such a change would have seemed a transgression, which the context did not permit.
- Excluding Ferson. Custom demanded that a high-ranking Frenchman alone could accompany the king on a mission of such importance, and Ferson was Swedish.
- Having Monsieur Léonard arrive at the same time. Famous for creations associated with the court (the drawing above is an example), his presence would indicate that the restored society would not change.
As for the population, belief in its loyalty...
- Explains the escort:
- The French and German horsemen would join the march group by group, swelling it to a cortege like those that traditionally accompanied royal displacements. Marie-Antoinette remembered her reception at Chalons when, aged 14, she arrived from Austria in a carriage led by eight white horses. The town had built an arch of triumph in her honor and people broken the countryside's monotony to cheer as she passed by.
- The troops would precede, surround or follow the coach, their uniforms making the procession spectacular.
- And the guards with their liveries*: Perched on top of the coach or galloping beside it, they announced the return of the centuries-old society to a population thought loyal to it. Then from the top would wave to the cheering crowd.
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