But it did not.
“I went myself at midnight to the palace gates. My most loyal officers tried to stop me, grasping my hands and uniform to keep me from what they presumed would be certain execution. I went inside anyway, passing royal courtiers on the stairs who hissed that I was a Cromwell. As if I had come to murder them.”
Cromwell, the English regicide! Shocked at the insult and the danger my husband had exposed himself to—with the angry mob on one side and the resentful royals on the other—I said, “Cromwell would never have had the courage to go alone into the palace.”
“Just what I said,” Gilbert replied, with a joyless smile. “I explained myself to the king—who allowed me to add my own men to his defense. With the mob quieted, I put my head on a pillow at three in the morning. An hour later, all hell was unleashed . . . the women had stormed the gates. A few wanted the queen’s head. To quiet them, I had to take Marie Antoinette out onto the balcony, kiss her hand, and give her a Revolutionary cockade.”
The tricolor, he meant. That symbol that was my husband’s gift and my nation’s unifying talisman. To give it to the queen was quick thinking and gallantry besides; my husband’s trademark. Still, I felt faint to imagine Marie Antoinette’s fear in such a moment. “But I do not understand why the king and queen are here in Paris.”
“The mob demanded it. I managed that we returned with our lives, but only by a hair.” My husband now was in a hot rage. “This is Philippe, again! I recognized his henchmen sprinkled amidst the women, egging them on. Every time the honest fishwives would see reason, his agitators would rile them again. And Philippe himself was seen breaking into the palace and giving direction to the mob, to the queen’s rooms. There must be consequences.”
I was present on the day my husband’s guardsmen dragged Philippe to our home. He arrived, sweaty with resentment, and when I started to go, he called, “No, stay, madame. I want your husband to admit he is uncouth enough to summon the duc d’Orléans, a prince of the blood.”
“Do you not proclaim yourself to be a man of the people now?” Gilbert asked coolly. “I did not think you would stand upon protocol of rank.”
Philippe lifted his chin. “What do you want, General Redhead?”
“To warn that Paris is no longer safe for you.”
Philippe laughed. “I am safer in Paris than you.”
More than fifteen years of enmity between the two men had finally brought them to this reckoning, and I saw murder in my husband’s eyes. “Understand, sir, that you are not safe anywhere I am.”
Philippe stopped laughing. “You are threatening me.”
Lafayette’s expression was cold, like frigid mountain air. “My wife tells me you have friends in England. Visit them.”
Philippe was not accustomed to taking orders. “Or what?”
In answer, Lafayette put his hand upon the pommel of his sword. The one carved with his great deeds in America. And I realized there might very well be bloodshed in my parlor. Philippe must have realized it too. He glanced at me, but I kept my eyes hard.
For once in his life, Philippe gauged us properly. “I will apply for a passport.”
My husband nodded. “It will be granted.”
Infuriated, Philippe turned to go, but before he had taken two steps, Lafayette called after him. “Philippe, if you return before the end of the Revolution, I will challenge you to a duel the same morning you arrive, and I will shoot you dead.”
* * *
—
“How strange that you curtsy before me,” said Marie Antoinette, petting her little spaniel from her place of repose in the Tuileries Palace. “Since Lafayette is now the so-called King of Paris, you must be queen here . . .”
The mischief in the city had abated since Philippe’s banishment. The newspapers ran for pages in praise of my husband’s management of the crisis and his stewardship of a new democratic nation. With a renewed sense of hope, I took it upon myself to pay respects at my queen’s levee. I still harbored much affection for Marie Antoinette, but I supposed I could not have been surprised by the cold reception. “Who has been telling you such things, Your Majesty? My husband is about the business of finding men to fill important posts in the new government—not putting himself at the head of it.”
“Then perhaps he should not have led a mob to Versailles.”
“It was against his will.”
She laughed. “Only you could possibly believe it, when here I sit, languishing in his jail!”