The Peasant and the Prince

by Harriet Martineau

In the next place, it is clear that the king should have separated from his family on the road. His best chance was to go with one other gentleman, and to travel as private gentlemen are in the habit of doing. While he went by one road to one country, the queen and princess should have gone by another road, under the escort of one or two of the many gentlemen who were devotedly attached to their cause. The children might, with their governess, have gone, under the charge of another gentleman, to Brussels, to the arms of their aunt (their mother’s sister), who held her court there.

In the third place, they should have taken the smallest quantity of luggage they could travel with without exciting suspicion, carrying on their persons money and jewels, with which to buy what they wanted when they were safe. They should have travelled in light carriages, and have made sure, by employing drivers and couriers who knew the respective roads, of encountering no difficulty about meeting the relays of horses, and of exciting no particular observation at the post-houses. These are the arrangements which ordinary people, accustomed to business, would have made. We shall see how the queen chose that the affair should be managed.

During the month of March (before the attempt to go to Saint Cloud), the queen began her preparations for her escape to another kingdom. Madame Campan (in whom she had perfect trust, and with good reason) was in attendance upon her during that month. The queen employed her in buying and getting made an immense quantity of clothes. Madame Campan remonstrated with her upon this, saying that the queen of France would always be able to obtain linen and gowns wherever she went: but the queen was obstinate. Though it was necessary for Madame Campan to go out almost disguised to procure these things,—though she was obliged, for the sake of avoiding suspicion, to order six petticoats at one shop, and six at another, and to buy one gown in one street, and two in another,—and though this great load of things would be sure to attract notice, however they might be sent off, nothing could satisfy the queen but having with her a complete and splendid wardrobe for herself and the children; and this, after she and the king had a hundred times wondered how it came to be told in the newspapers that so many horses were kept saddled in their stables, and that such and such persons had paid them visits by the back-door. After having suffered for months from spies, the queen would not agree to the simple plan of doing nothing which spies might not see, and tell all Paris, if they chose. As it was, it was well-known when Madame Campan went out, where she went, and what about, from the very day her shopping began.

Madame Campan endeavoured to use more disguise by getting her own little boy measured for the clothes which were intended for the Dauphin; and by asking her sister to have the Princess Royal’s wardrobe made ready as if for her daughter. But these poor expedients were seen through, as might have been expected. How much easier and safer it would have been to have no ordering and making at all.

These clothes were not all to go by the same coach which conveyed the family. Most of them were sent in a trunk to one of the queen’s women, who was now at Arras, from whence she was to proceed to Brussels with these clothes, to meet her mistress. Of course, the sending off of this trunk was observed.

All this was not so foolish as what followed. The queen had a very large, expensive, and remarkable toilet-case, called a nécessaire, which contained everything wanted for the toilet, from her rarest essences and perfumes down to soap and combs. It was of fine workmanship, and had much expensive material and ornament about it. In short, it was fit for a splendid royal palace, and no other place. The queen consulted Madame Campan about how she should get this nécessaire away. Madame Campan entreated her not to think of taking it, saying that if it was moved from its place, on any pretence, it would be enough to excite the suspicions of all the spies about the court. The poor queen, however, seemed to think that she could no more do without her nécessaire than go without shoes to her feet. The nécessaire, she declared, she must have; and she hit upon a device which she thought very clever for deceiving any spies, but which deceived nobody, though Madame Campan herself hoped it might afford a chance of doing so. The queen agreed with the ambassador from Vienna (who was in her confidence), that he should come to her, while her hair was dressing, and, in the presence of all her attendants, request her to order a nécessaire precisely like her own, for her sister at Brussels, who wished to have exactly such an one. The ambassador did as he was desired; and the queen turned to Madame Campan, and requested her to have a nécessaire made by the pattern of the one before her. If the plan had succeeded, here was an expense of 500 pounds incurred, at the time when money was most particularly wanted, and great hazard run; and all because the queen could not be satisfied with such a dressing-case as other ladies use. Any of her friends could have supplied her with such an one as she was setting off.

The nécessaire was ordered in the middle of April. A month after, the queen inquired whether it would soon be done. The cabinet-maker said it could not be finished in less than six weeks more. The queen declared to Madame Campan that she could not wait for it; and that, as the order had been given in the presence of all her attendants, nobody would suspect anything if her own nécessaire was emptied and cleaned, and sent off to Brussels; and she gave positive orders that this should be done. Madame Campan ordered the wardrobe-woman, whose proper business it was, to have this order executed, as the archduchess could not wait so long as it would take to finish the new nécessaire; and she particularly desired that no perfume should be left hanging about any of the drawers which might be disagreeable to the archduchess.

One evening in May, the queen called Madame Campan to help her to wrap up in cotton, and pack, her jewels, which she sent, by the hands of a person she could trust, to Brussels. They sat in a little room by themselves, with the door locked, till seven o’clock, when the queen had to go to cards. She told Madame Campan that there was no occasion to put by the diamonds; they would be quite safe, as there was a sentinel under the window, and she herself should keep the key in her pocket. She appointed Madame Campan to be there early the next morning, to finish the packing; till which time the jewels lay on the sofa, some in cotton, and some without.

The same wardrobe-woman, Madame R—, who was ordered to empty the nécessaire, was clever about her business, and had been engaged in it for many years, and all the year round; so that the queen, without having much to do with her, had become accustomed to see her, liked her way of discharging her business, and did not dream of distrusting her. Madame Campan did, however. She knew that this lady, having grown rich in her office, gave parties, consisting chiefly of persons of politics opposed to the court,—several members of the Assembly of those politics being often there,—and one of Lafayette’s staff, Monsieur Gouvion, being a lover of Madame R—’s. This lady was indeed not to be trusted. On the 21st of this month of May, she went and made a declaration before the mayor, that she had no doubt the royal family were planning an escape. She told the whole story of the nécessaire, saying that everybody knew the queen was too fond of her own nécessaire to think of parting with it, when another might be had for a little waiting; and that the queen had often been heard to say how useful this article would be to her in travelling. Madame R— went on to declare that the queen had been engaged in packing her diamonds in the evening of such a day,—those diamonds having been seen by her lying about, half wrapped in cotton, on the sofa of such a room; and that Madame Campan had helped the queen, and, of course, knew all about it. It was plain that this woman had a key of the little room, and that she must have been in it, either in the evening while the queen was at cards, or very early the next morning.

The queen confided to Madame Campan a letter-case full of very valuable papers, which was immediately put into the hands of some faithful persons in the city. This proceeding also did not escape the quick eyes of Madame R—. She declared before the mayor that she saw a letter-case upon a chair, which had never been seen there before: that she observed the queen say something about it in a low voice to Madame Campan, after which it disappeared. The mayor took these depositions, as in duty bound: but he let them lie, not wishing to injure the royal family. So the queen went on, more hopeful every day, and not in the least suspecting that her scheme was seen through from beginning to end.