These pornographic drawings both entertained and outraged the mob. Royalists and traditionalists barked that my husband was the king’s jailer. Radicals and reformers snarled that my husband was the king’s apologist. Our abolitionist friend Brissot believed my husband too hard on the mob; our relations believed him too soft. And rising politicians like Maximilien Robespierre demanded inquiries . . .
It was endless and exhausting.
Caught between scoundrels on both sides, Lafayette complained, “In America I saw attacks on George Washington too. Admittedly, none so vile. Yet I must endure with as much grace as possible these slings and arrows to my reputation, so long as everyone keeps faith with the new French government.”
These words were no sooner out of his mouth than young Jean-Louis Romeuf, my husband’s aide-de-camp, marched into the parlor to announce, “The king is missing!”
“What can you mean, missing?” Lafayette snapped. “I just saw him last night near midnight.”
“He’s gone, sir,” reported Romeuf. “The entire royal family. We’ve searched the Tuileries Palace from courtyard to rooftop; they aren’t there.”
My husband’s face went white to the tip of his nose. And I sputtered, “The duc d’Orléans should be brought in for questioning.”
If our old enemy had designs on the throne, was it too far-fetched to think that he had kidnapped or murdered the royals with the help of British agents? The same thing must have occurred to my husband, who ordered, “Put out the word that the king has been abducted. We must prevent the kidnappers from harming him or removing him from the city.”
Only once his officers scattered in different directions did my husband reveal to me that he did not truly believe the king had been abducted. Rather, he believed the king had run off to raise an army against us. My husband had a well-deserved reputation for keeping his wits about him in a crisis, but his hands now shook as he buttoned his coat with its military braids, his expression torn between disillusionment and dishonor. “To think King Louis gave his oath upon a field with hundreds of thousands of witnesses . . .”
It was Lafayette’s responsibility to defend the king from the people. But it was also his responsibility to defend the people from the king. My heart ached to see the fear in his eyes that he had failed at one duty or the other—and would be blamed for both.
Crowds were already gathering outside, shouting that my husband must have helped his lover, the queen, escape to Austria to lead a counterrevolution. “Traitors pay with their heads!”
With the alarm of the tocsin bells ringing, I tried to keep calm, sending our girls upstairs and advising my husband that he needed to go before the National Assembly at once. But to do it, he had to fight his way out of our house. I watched him go, the crowd kicking and punching some of his officers. My heart was in my throat as I wondered if I dared to follow. He might need my support, perhaps even my witness as to his whereabouts last evening. I had determined to join him when a bruised and battered aide-de-camp stumbled into my toilette, carrying news—a statement by the king himself.
I read the missive, so startled by its contents that I accidentally knocked little bottles of perfumes and pots of cosmetics from my dressing table. I read it again. A statement by the king denouncing the constitution. King Louis groused that the Tuileries Palace was not as comfortable as Versailles. He bemoaned the privileges he had lost. He expressed fury that he should be accountable for his expenditures, even to the nation who paid for them.
This sounded like the king—his cadence and word choice. Still, I did not want to believe that he would write such a thing unless a pistol had been pressed to his temple. Surely he knew this would embolden his enemies and mortify his friends. Few but the most staunch royalist left in the country would defend such a petulant manifesto!
Meanwhile, the people raged outside. What competent commander lets an entire royal family disappear into the night? Lafayette is either a traitor or unfit to lead!
And I began to fear that if my husband did not find the king and drag him back, we would all be torn to pieces.
Thank God for young Romeuf. The king had been recognized on the road by an ordinary citizen who compared his profile to the portrait of the king on an assignat in his pocket. Led by Romeuf, my husband’s forces fetched the royal family and escorted their caravan back to Paris—an ignominious return filled with shame for all of us.
Badly shaken by the king’s betrayal, Lafayette received the king outside the Tuileries Palace with the words, “Your Majesty, I have always said that if you made me choose between you and the people, I would choose the people . . .”