Page 30 of Deja Who
FOURTEEN
Clinic notes:Leah Nazir, Chart #3262
Date:4/1/2002
INS:Chloe Hammen, ID# 14932
My name is Louise Élisabeth de Croÿ.
Louise Élisabeth de Croÿ was the governess for Marie Antoinette’s children. She saw the revolution coming from the nursery where she taught her soon-to-be-exiled-and-then-beheaded students about the divine right of kings. (And probably some math, too. She did not teach How to Survive a Revolution.) She watched it all come down, and when her charges were dead or exiled, she faded into the background to work on her memoirs. She outlived her students by decades.
So: survivor’s guilt? Yes. She had always backed the Bourbon family; her favorite ring hadLord, save the king, the dauphin, andhis sisterengraved on it, which is rather awful when you consider the Lord pretty much blew that one off.
She should never have gotten the job. The opening came about when the current governess had to flee following the fall of the Bastille; Élisabeth was delighted with her promotion to such a prestigious position, which would prove to be the ultimate mixed blessing.
In addition to educating the royal children, the queen charged Élisabeth specifically with tackling the dauphin’s fear of loud noises. Thefils de francewas especially afraid of the barking from all the Versailles dogs.
(Notwhat he should have been afraid of, by the way. But orders were orders. In fact, Louis XVII of France died in a dark room, “barricaded like the cage of a wild animal,” having not spoken a single word for seven months. In other words, the child died a dog’s death.)
As Élisabeth worked to teach the three Rs (reading, wRiting, revolution) she was ringside for the destruction of the Ancient Régime, moving with the royal family from the Palace of Versailles (after a torqued-off mob of starving women stormed the place) to the Tuileries Palace. Even though society was literally disintegrating around her, Élisabeth refused to abandon her post, ask for paid sick time, or even negotiate for combat pay. She had cause to regret this after accompanying the royals on a dangerous, disastrous escape attempt to flee Paris and form a counterrevolution.
The king of France was a noted ditherer. He was also in extreme denial, to wit: “Aw, only a few peasants are mad. Most of them love me! I’m pretty much a man of the people.” (I am paraphrasing.)
All that to say this complicated Élisabeth’s life, which was already pretty hectic, what with not losing her mind from being afraid all the time and teaching a little boy not to fear dogs. But her loyalty never broke; it never even trembled.
The monarchy was abolished in 1792 and everyone—including Élisabeth—was imprisoned. Louis XVI lost his head the following January; Marie Antoinette lost hers nine months later. The dauphin would be dead within two years; a dog’s death.
Élisabeth survived it all, which was her curse. Devastated by the royal family’s executions, she would live decades longer, and would for the rest of her long life regret she had not done more when she wasn’t confronted by men trying to convince her they were the dead dauphin. Although Charles X made her a duchess after the Bourbon restoration, the dead were still dead.
She had held the job for three years.
