Marie Antoinette (part four): The Escape Plan

Vulgar History Podcast

Marie Antoinette (part four): The Escape Plan 

September 26, 2025

Ann: Hello, and welcome to Vulgar History, a feminist women’s history comedy podcast. My name is Ann Foster, and this is part four of our Marie Antoinette series, and I have a special guest. The previous Marie Antoinette episodes, just me talking; but this one, I have a special guest, and it will become apparent why, soon. Special guest, can you introduce yourself?

Allison: Hi, it’s me, special guest, Allison Epstein, who shows up on episodes where Ann has a wild story she wants to talk about. 

Ann: I was going to say. So, Allison Epstein for people… You know, there’s probably some people who just started listening just with Marie Antoinette, they may not even know what sorts of episodes you’ve come on. So, it’s like when Allison is here… 

Aee: They don’t know that I’m a harbinger of the most unhinged bullshit you’ve ever heard in your life. Yes. 

Ann: Yeah. Well, this was a part of a story where, when I was reading it… I was reading so, you know, shoutout to all my references, but especially for this chapter, Marie Antoinette: The Journey by Antonia Fraser. It’s such a good biography. I recommend this to anybody who wants to learn about this. But these chapters, I was just like sitting there, I was just like, can’t put down this book. And I was just being like, “What?! What?” Like, not throwing the book across the room, but basically because I’m just like, “No! What?” And then afterwards, I was looking up, oh, what happened to this guy? Did this guy get guillotined? What happened to this guy? It’s just, like, people come and go just for this chapter, and it’s like, I need the back and forth of an Allison Epstein episode just to share the story. 

Allison: I’m here to react loudly and in awe and disbelief at any time. I have done no preparation, so I am just here to enjoy myself as Ann tells me a story. 

Ann: Yeah, yeah. I think the last few times you’ve been on the podcast, you’ve been telling me stories; you were here for the Marquis de Lafayette episode. He shows up in this episode. 

Allison: My boy!

Ann: Lafayette, doing his best. 

Allison: Oh, he’s trying. 

Ann: He’s always trying. And then also, you were here for the episode that was like, who were the leaders of the French Revolution? Their energy is here, certainly if they aren’t in person. But you know, we started this whole journey of season seven, How Do You Solve a Problem Like Marie Antoinette? And I knew nothing about this time period, and now, I am so full of facts I’m like, fact-checking other people. Actually, you sent me a text today and I was just like, “Actually, Allison, that’s not true.” 

Allison: [laughs] I was thinking. I sent Ann a joke about the topic of this episode, and like, she probably knows more about whatever I just said than I do. 

Ann: I was like, “Mmm, yeah, actually…” I know as much as I’m ever going to know about this, and I’m excited to share this story. So, I just want to shout out the other references I had. Marie Antoinette: The Journey by Antonio Fraser, a classic of the genre of Marie Antoinette biographies. Also, a lot of great information from Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution by Caroline Weber, that’s where we get our hat information. There will be hats. And Marie Antoinette: Teen Queen to Guillotine by Melanie Burrows is another useful book that I’ve been looking at. 

So, previously on this sequence of episodes… You know, we’re recording this before these episodes have actually come out. But Allison, I’ll just let you know what you, here’s what you missed on Glee. So, the Estates General, that happened last time. I learned and we spoke on this podcast a lot about French tax law. Thrilling, thrilling for everybody. Anyway, there’s the Estates General, and so they met, and then the Third Estate was like, “What if we become the new, the National Assembly and are in charge of the country now? And what if we marched to Versailles with the Market Ladies? And what if we force the royal family to come move to Paris?” featuring various heads on various pikes. 

Allison: Beautiful. 

Ann: Which I will say, in the Marie Antoinette movie by Sofia Coppola (which we will be having an episode about at a later date), there was a sequence where there was the mob, and I was excited to see the mob. They’re all sort of off-screen, but you could see the pikes. [Allison laughs] No heads on pikes, but I’m like, “Those pikes are going to have some heads on. I know this story.” 

Allison: They came prepared. 

Ann: So, the royal family is forced at Versailles to go to Paris. And actually, I don’t know if you know this, I don’t know what anyone knows at this point, I know so many facts. [Allison laughs] It was during the march to Versailles where Marie Antoinette and her family were all being marched along alongside, like, the heads of their personal bodyguards on pikes being shoved at them. 

Allison: Cute. 

Ann: And you know the whole sans-culottes situation, the people wearing the loose, wide-legged pants? Anyway, Marie Antoinette, one of them was like trying to shake the pike at her, and she was just like, “Get away from me, you sans-coulottes.” So, in fact, she is the one who coined the term. 

Allison: She’s such an icon all the time. I didn’t know that. 

Ann: She is the one who said, “Get away from me, you sans-coulottes.” And in the way that often, you know, with insults, it’s like, “Well, we’re going to own that. We’re going to be proud to be sans-coulottes. We’re going to call ourselves that now. Thanks, Marie Antoinette.” [Allison laughs] So, she can’t stop influencing. 

This time, here’s our episode. I’m not going to say the name of the actual famous event that is in this, because a lot of people probably don’t know that famous event. But after the fact, we’ll say what it’s called to people who know the story. So, they’ve been moved to Paris, and part of the reason why the royal family was moved to Paris was just that everything is chaos. I just want to emphasize — and you know, Allison, and everyone knows at this point — no one’s really in charge here. 

Allison: Yeah. This is a lot of flailing with pikes and feelings, I think, at this point. 

Ann: Yeah. They’re just kind of like, “Let’s just take the royal family to Paris because then they’ll be close to us, the people, their subjects and their kingdom. Let’s just move them to Paris.” Like, okay. 

I actually recently rewatched the opening ceremonies of the Paris Olympics. 

Allison: Oh gosh. [laughs] 

Ann: Because I was like, I watched them when they came on and I was just like, “This is the most amazing fucked up French thing I’ve ever seen.” 

Allison: Your favourite kind of culture is an amazing fucked up French thing. 

Ann: It is. I was like, but I remember there’s lots of palaces, and now that I’ve read the history, I wanted to see what all this stuff looks like, and everything’s really close together, I learned. Like, the Louvre and the distance from the Louvre to the Arc de Triomphe, like, there’s a part where they’re running with a torch, and I’m like, “Oh, that’s just next to that. Oh!” Anyway. Once you’re in Paris, I feel like all these palaces are close to each other. So, the Tuileries Palace is where they’re taken to, which is like, the way that I was reading about it, it sounded sort of like a gross, abandoned, I don’t know, swamp palace, but it actually is really nice. 

Allison: I was going to say, it’s pretty nice. 

Ann: Yeah. It’s just no one had lived there for a while, so there wasn’t really a lot of furniture. It was totally nice, fine, beautiful, huge palace. 

Allison: This is not Mary Queen of Scots’ swamp castle. 

Ann: No, actually Versailles is the swamp castle because that was actually built in a swamp. 

Anyway, so they’re in Tuileries, which is like the French royal family’s palace in Paris. It had not been used in about 50 years, other than a few rooms, so they arrived, shall we say, unexpectedly. There was not time to, like, do a deep clean, there was not furniture or anything, but furniture was quickly moved in from Versailles, which is pretty close, including Marie Antoinette — did you know this about her? — she really liked gadgets. She really liked furniture with cranks and knobs. She would like a sit-stand station, I think. She just liked mechanical furniture. 

Allison: Oh! A doodad and a what’s it. I love that for her. 

Ann: Yeah! So, one of the things that was moved was her favourite mechanical dressing table. 

Allison: What about it was mechanical? [both laugh] Did it play music? 

Ann: I think there’s just, kind of like, bits of, you know, there’s a lid and then the lid opens and then the thing pops out of there, and it’s like, oh, here’s your toiletries! It’s kind of like the oldey times, not steampunk, but just like mechanical furniture version of Cher’s closet from Clueless is kind of what I imagine, just some sort of… 

Allison: I’m hearing you, and I know you’re probably right, but I’m picturing the opera-singing wardrobe from Beauty and the Beast, and you can’t stop me. That’s what this is. 

Ann: That’s perfect. It’s perfect. Yeah, it’s a dressing table/opera singer. 

Anyway. So, she got her favourite mechanical dressing table. You know what? Keep this in mind. Her interest in doodads and what’s its does come up with the main thrust of our episode. So much foreshadowing. I just don’t want people to know what’s coming who don’t know what’s coming. Anyway, other new furniture was commissioned because, like, the royal family was moved to Paris, but at this point it’s not like, “Let’s get rid of the royals!” Like, they were living very similarly to how they were living in Versailles; they still had their income, they had their allowance, they were able to buy new stuff. So, new furniture was commissioned. 

There’s some characters who we talked about in the last episode… To recap for people who heard, and for Allison who didn’t hear that. Léonard, Léo was her hairdresser, Monsieur Léonard. 

Allison: I love a hairdresser who’s plot-relevant. That’s excellent. 

Ann: Oh, he does a lot in this episode, actually. So, Léonard was, he started in theatre hair and costuming, and Marie Antoinette went to the theatre, and she’s like, “You know who I want to do my hair? The guy who’s doing Lady Gaga’s outfits. [Allison laughs] Hire me, get me Chappell Roan’s stylist,” and then she hired and that’s how she found him. So, that’s Léonard. His business partner is Rose Bertin, who maybe you’ve heard of, she was Marie Antoinette’s, like, dress costumer lady. When we’re talking about the poufs and the hats, that’s a Léo/Rose Bertin co-production because Léo does the hair, Rose does the structure, the like, rotating carousel animals, the two of them together. That’s the glam squad. 

Allison: Gotcha. The hair gadgets, if you will. 

Ann: Yes! And what’s notable about them, also, in the context of everything that’s unprecedented about Marie Antoinette and her life, is that usually when somebody is the royal family’s hairdresser, the royal family’s dressmaker, they were not allowed to have other clients. Like, all you do is— But Marie Antoinette was like, “No. Keep your regular clients because that’ll keep me on trend. If you’re only serving me, then you won’t know the latest cool things happening.” So, Rose and Léo were making bank off of this whole situation because it’s like, they had their shop. It’s like, “Oh, do you want to come by and like get your hair done by the woman who like does Kate Middleton’s blowouts?” Like, yeah, people are going to go to that hairdresser. 

So, again, Tuileries is like… Versailles is such a thing. We’ve talked in depth on this podcast before about it, but you know, there was, like, whatever, every day, 75 people in Marie Antoinette’s room helping her get dressed. In Tuileries, there’s Rose and Léo, which is substantially less people, but still, to you and me, that’s still a pretty glamorous situation. And because of the absence of a lot of the other people, because Marie Antoinette’s besties, Princesse Lamballe and the Duchess of Polignac, had fled, basically. So, in terms of who’s her confidante, like, it’s Léo. Her hairdresser becomes her bestie and they become even more close. But also, he’s not seen suspiciously when he’s spending time with her because he’s the hairdresser. 

Yeah, and in terms of just things… This is an example, an extreme example, of kind of when things are, it’s hard for people to change their habits. It’s hard for people to change— Like, a guy just came by my house today who was like, “Hey, do you want to change your internet provider?” And I was just like, yeah, this is going to save me money, but just like, I can’t… that takes too much. 

Allison: You want me to call somebody? No. 

Ann: This is too much energy for me to conceptualize changing internet providers. Like, I can’t. So, in terms of French society, like, eventually at the end of the French Revolution, lots has changed. But for now, it’s like the royal family is now in Tuileries, not in Versailles, which is a change, but everything else is kind of still the same. Like, three days after they showed up in the Tuileries Palace, they hosted— And by they, I mean… Oh, sorry, Marie Antoinette’s husband, you might know as Louis XVI. On this podcast, we call him Berry because, before he was the Dauphin, he was the Duke of Berry. 

Allison: Oh! I didn’t know that. 

Ann: And he and all his brothers, they always just call each other… His brothers are Provence and Artois, like everyone’s just called by their title, and he’s just a Berry to me. [Allison laughs] Oh, Berry. Berry. So, Marie Antoinette and her husband, Berry, hosted a diplomatic reception three days after they were, like, marched with heads on pikes to the Tuileries Palace. 

Allison: Just stay in this room. It’s the only one with furniture. But other than that, we’re going to carry on. 

Ann: Pretty much. It’s just kind of like, things are just going on as per usual. There were some visiting English dignitaries, and just imagine them being like, “Hello? We were told there’s a change of address for this formal reception. Why won’t you let us leave this one room? We are the visiting English dignitaries. Hi!” So, one of them noted Marie Antoinette looked pale, and her eyes were always filled with tears, just so you know her state of mind. 

Allison: She’s had a hard week. 

Ann: She’s had a hard week, and her son died, like, a month ago, of spinal tuberculosis, by the way. Tuberculosis of the spine. 

Allison: Yikes! 

Ann: Yeah. So, it’s interesting. Like, some of the people are writing about like, “Oh, this is how Marie Antoinette looked.” I think it was the opening of the Estates General, one of the people— No, you know who was there? Gouverneur Morris, actually. 

Allison: Notorious American horn dog, Gouverneur Morris. [laughs]

Ann: [laughs] America’s number one, peg-legged, horny founding father. Gouverneur Morris was there, and he’s like, “Oh, Marie Antoinette, she wasn’t smiling. She looked so stuck up.” It’s like, my man, her son died three days ago, and you forced her out of mourning to attend this. Anyway, people are like, “Oh, what’s wrong with her?” And I talked about, in the earlier episodes, Marie Antoinette also has a resting bitch face. A lot of people hated her, but she just does have a resting bitch face. And so, it’s like, “Why isn’t she smiling?” Like, well, she just was marched from Versailles with a decapitated head of her guard thrust in her face. 

Allison: And also, she doesn’t owe you a smile, bitch. Calm down. 

Ann: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So, when these visiting dignitaries were there— Oh, actually, no. I’m confusing some historical changes in the movie from what happened in history. So, the Duchess of Polignac, she did flee after the Women’s March. Princess Lamballe is still on the scene; she’s there hanging out, she’s there supporting Marie Antoinette. So, Princess Lamballe is her other bestie, she’s the blonde one. There’s the three of them; Lamballe is blonde and Polignac has dark hair, and Marie Antoinette, I don’t know if you know, curly red hair. 

Allison: There you go. Like all the best people. 

Ann: See, you have one of each. They are the Powerpuff Girls. [Allison laughs] We talked about that in a previous episode. 

Allison: I’m getting a sneak preview from the past. It’s kind of fun. 

Ann: Yeah. Yeah. So, Lamballe is still there, and she hosted a soirée because her job is she’s the superintendent of the household, and she’s like, “Well, I guess I’ll be superintendent of this abandoned Beauty and the Beast palace.” So, she hosted a soiree for the English dignitaries, and Marie Antoinette attended the soirée until she noticed— This is going to be a recurring thing, and I’m curious to know how much you know about England’s past decapitated king, Charles I. I don’t know how much you know about him, but you know he existed. 

Allison: I know he existed, and I know he was decapitated, and that’s sort of the extent of it. 

Ann: That’s most of what he did. That’s most of what he did. He was the father of my problematic fave, Charles II. 

Allison: Captain Hook. Hot, sexy King of England. 

Ann: Hot, sexy Captain Hook, yeah. So, not him. His dad. So, England’s Charles I, was forced out of being king and was executed, and then Oliver Cromwell took over briefly. And then Charles II came back, sexy Captain Hook took over again. But one of the people at the English diplomatic reception was wearing a ring containing a lock of hair from Oliver Cromwell. 

Allison: Uhhh… Why?

Ann: English listeners, explain yourselves to me. Do you all have this ring? I don’t know. Anyway, so one of them had this ring of Oliver Cromwell’s hair, and that kind of made Marie Antoinette freak out because of the connotations of a king being beheaded, and that just kind of got her spiralling, and then she just had to leave the reception. She couldn’t stay. 

Allison: I mean, there’s no way you’re accidentally wearing your Oliver Cromwell hair ring to a Marie Antoinette reception. Like, you don’t do that. “Oh, I forgot to take this off. I wear it everywhere.” I think that was on purpose. 

Ann: “Couldn’t help notice there’s a lock of hair in your ring. Is that your wife’s? Is that your child’s?” “Oh, no, actually, it’s…”

Allison: Oliver Cromwell, everyone’s favourite regicidal maniac. 

Ann: From like, what? 100 years ago. 

Allison: Do you want to hear about his genocides? It’s really fun. Jeez, wow. 

Ann: Yeah. But side note, re: England’s King Charles I. So, Berry, AKA Louis XVI, was very interested in English history. He has various hyperfixations; he is a person on the spectrum, Berry. He likes forging locks; he likes woodworking; he likes going hunting and tracking how many things he killed; and he likes learning about England’s King Charles I. 

Allison: I like him so much more than I did before you said those four things.

Ann: He’s a sympathetic character. Anyway, so he was really interested in English history, and he had always been really taken by the saga of Charles I versus Cromwell and how Charles I behaved through that. Bear that in mind, listeners, for this and future episodes. 

So yeah, everything kind of went back. Things kind of continued, I guess, in this kind of weird status quo, which, to them, would be like, “This is so different than usual. Instead of 150 people watching me have dinner, there’s only 75.” Where, to me, it’s just like, considering how different it’s going to get, this is like not that different. 

So, Berry had two younger brothers. His next younger brother, Provence. His main character trait is being fat, Provence, and having a lot of sex with his wife. 

Allison: Good for him. 

Ann: Yeah. Oh no, that was a whole contentious thing where, like, they were having children, Marie Antoinette and Berry not having children because they didn’t know how sex worked for seven years. 

Allison: Right. 

Ann: So, Provence and his wife came by for their usual dinners. The National Assembly, who were in charge at this point, like, the trajectory of them just being like, “Let’s have the Estates General to pass some tax laws. Wait, the Third Estate is going rogue? Oh, you’re making…” 

Allison: “They’re in the tennis court. What the fuck do we do now?” 

Ann: [laughs] “Oh, now you’re in charge of the country?” So, anyway, so they provided Berry with an allowance, he still had funds from his estates. So, they still had two public dinners every week, like the whole Versailles thing of just people come and watch the royal family eat, which is bananas! Because we’re in the early stages of what will retroactively be called the French Revolution. So, you’ve just got, like, Market Ladies coming into Tuileries Palace to watch Marie Antoinette having supper. The Market Ladies? Like, the people who formerly were carrying heads on pikes are just being there like, “Mmm, what are they having? Oh, strawberries. Interesting.” 

Allison: Did they have to, like, check the pikes at the door? 

Ann: [laughs] Pop the heads off the pikes.

Allison: Put that in the closet. I’ll give you a ticket. 

Ann: Pikes are allowed, heads are not. 

Allison: You know what? That’s really just good manners. 

Ann: Yeah. Or you put the head on because then the pikes are less dangerous, less pointy. 

Allison: The head has to wear a hat, I think, is the deal. 

Ann: They kept taking, in this in this story… I forget if it’s in the story, it’s in various of these stories. Various people with various pikes would stop at hairdressers and get the hairdressers to, like, style the hair of the heads. 

Allison: No! Really? 

Ann: Yeah! This happened in the Women’s March for sure, and then that happened with Princess Lamballe after she was killed, which we talked about in a previous episode. Like, just cutting off heads and then having the hair styled was just, like, it’s very French to me. 

Allison: Yeah. Also, can you imagine being that poor hairdresser? Oh my god. Jesus. 

Ann: I don’t know. Do you set certain rates for, like, decapitated heads? Is that more or less than you charge for an intact person? I don’t know. 

Allison: I mean, for me, I’m charging double. But that’s just me. 

Ann: I would charge double. But you know what? Actually, the people asking you to do that are probably going to murder you if you don’t do it, so I might do it discounted. 

Allison: I mean, I’m going to do it, but I would appreciate a really nice tip. Yeah. 

Ann: [laughs] Please. Your tip is a cockade, Allison. 

Allison: That’s right. Would you like some palazzo pants? It’s very comfy. 

Ann: Sans-culottes only. 

So, they’re having these dinners, the family is at this point… And this is like, maybe you can clarify this to me. Honestly, preparing some of these episodes, I went back to look at the episode you and I did about Marquis de Lafayette because I was like, “How did the National Guard get invented? [both laugh] And why is he in charge of it again?” 

Allison: Oh, I’m sure he asked himself that every single day. 

Ann: Yeah. I think what I recall, to listeners, from last week’s episode, the Storming of the Bastille, there was, like, 50,000 people or something, and they’re like, “We need some to be in charge. Lafayette!” And he’s like, “Well, I believe in theoretically the concept of a constitutional monarchy. So, I also have been under philosophical reason.” But then they were like, “We’re storming the Bastille, and if you don’t come with us, we’ll kill you!” And he’s like, “Well, okay. I guess I’ll come and be in charge of you.” 

Anyway, the National Guard at this point was guarding the family, so they’re not against the royal family, you know? They’re not in prison; they’re just staying in a different palace at this point. 

Allison: Right. American listeners will be familiar with the idea of the National Guard being in your nation’s capital, protecting your leaders these days. 

Ann: Yeah! 

Allison: You know? It’s like that. 

Ann: It’s like that. So, altogether, there were about 700 people living at the Tuileries between the royal family, their entourage, various National Guards who, I guess, live there, maybe with their families. So, Versailles was, I forget, like, 2,000, and that’s 700 people. So, it’s still like a lot of people. They’re running a similar household. 

There’s a person in this story and in previous episodes who you’re familiar with as Philippe… What’s his real name? The Duke of Orléans, later Philippe Egalité. You know who I mean? 

Allison: I do know who you mean. 

Ann: On this podcast, we call him Ryan Phillippe from Cruel Intentions. 

Allison: [laughs] Excellent. Wonderful. 

Ann: So, Ryan Phillippe from Cruel Intentions, who is stealthily a villain in many episodes because he’s always like, “Oh, hello, fellow chums. I, too, am a working person. Do you see my plain clothes I am wearing?” 

Allison: “Hear my name? Philippe, just a normal guy. Don’t worry about me.” 

Ann: Yeah. I think at the opening of the Estates General, instead of people saying like “Long live the King and Queen,” they’re like, “Long live Ryan Phillippe!” People love him because he has… So, in Paris, he has his, like, I call it, Lafufu Versailles. [Allison laughs] It’s like, he has his fake Versailles that he runs, where he’s kind of like “Totally not the king. But don’t you want me to be the king? I could be the king. I’m in the line of succession.” So, we call that his mall. 

Allison: His mall! 

Ann: Ryan Phillippe’s mall, because there’s an opera there, there’s like, Rose Bertin, her store is there, I think that’s where Léo does his hair. Their bestseller in the mall, at this point, still, I think, is Jeanne de la Motte’s memoirs about, like… 

Allison: As it should be. 

Ann: Yeah. That’s the bestseller. So, Marie Antoinette used to spend a lot of time at the mall, but then she stopped because everyone started hating her more. Anyway. So, at this point, at the Tuileries, you know who comes to visit is Ryan Phillippe from Cruel Intentions, where it’s just like, I don’t know if they know how much he is personally financing the anti-Marie Antoinette pamphlets. Like, every anti-Marie Antoinette pamphlet is being funded by, we call them Hater Nation. There’s Ryan Phillippe from Cruel Intentions, who is Berry’s cousin, who wants to be king instead of him and would be king if Berry, his sons, and brothers all died. 

Allison: So, there’s a few steps. 

Ann: Ryan Phillippe is kind of like, merghhh, sort of towards the end of the line of succession, but he’s in line of succession. So, what he really wanted earlier on, Ryan Phillippe is to like, usurp the throne and become what someone, perhaps him, later does become, the citizen king. He’s just kind of like, “I’m like the king, but I’m not like other kings. I’m a cool king.” So, he was funding these anti-Marie Antoinette pamphlets just to try to ruin her reputation, so it’s easier to usurp them. He was also, at one point, disguising himself as a peasant lady running around spreading rumours about Marie Antoinette. 

Allison: Oh, that makes me so happy. 

Ann: There’s a lot of shenanigans coming from Ryan Phillippe. Other major members of Hater Nation, the Aunts, the Aunties, played in the movie by Molly Shannon and that woman who played Moaning Myrtle. Perfect casting, honestly. But the Aunts, such bitches. Like, on a scale of like people who I’ve called a cunt on this podcast… 

Allison: [laughs] There’s Queen Charlotte and there’s Martha Washington. There’s the Aunts. 

Ann: The Aunts are coming in hot. They just are the worst. They were tricking Marie Antoinette. From the minute she got there, they just were trying to get rid of her. So, they hate her. Madame du Barry was part of Hater Nation, but now she’s been sent away. But her allies are still kind of there, doing Hater Nation. But the third main prong of Hater Nation is, I mentioned before, Berry’s brother, Provence, whose hobbies are being fat and fucking his wife. So, he secretly— Because he actually will be next king, because he’s the next oldest brother. 

Allison: Do they have any surviving children at this point? 

Ann: Who? 

Allison: Marie Antoinette and Berry? 

Ann: Yeah, at this point, they have three. They have three children at this point. 

Allison: So, these people are still just wilding, hoping lots of stuff is going to happen. 

Ann: Yeah. They’re counting on the death of numerous adults and also young babies to make them be kings. 

Allison: A cool thing to do. 

Ann: Yeah. A modern parallel might be England’s Prince Andrew. It’s like, yes, Prince Andrew is in the line of succession. But like, William, all his children, Harry, all his children… Like, there’s a lot of people that… Yeah. 

Allison: Yeah, okay. 

Ann: But it’s like, maybe it’s possible. 

Anyway. So, Ryan Phillippe came by for a visit at Tuileries and Marie Antoinette was just like, “Oh, hello.” She knows at this point that he’s a member of Hater Nation, and he’s, like, directly funding the mobs that hate her. But she’s like, “Oh yes, hello.” Actually, shortly after this, though, he decided to go hang out in England with his best friend, Prinny, who was…

Allison: You could have just said that, Ann. [both chuckle] I would have known everything there is to know.

Ann: So, the two of them… So, to listeners who may not know, you know, I try to be considerate of people who maybe this is the first episode you’ve heard. Caroline of Brunswick is a person I wrote a book about. Her husband was George IV, who at this point was the Prince of Wales, and because he was the worst, his nickname was Prinny, which is short for Prince, but actually is longer. It’s actually an extra syllable. [Allison laughs] 

Anyway, so Prinny was just like, “Aw, I wish I could be king.” And then Ryan Phillippe came over like, “Aw, I wish I could be king.” And they’re both just like, “Murrr, we wish we could be king. Let’s just fuck some whooores and, like, whatever. Here’s some opium. Let’s hang out.” Anyway, Ryan Phillippe is gone for the moment. Listeners, he’s not gone for good. Anyway— Oh! I just want to mention. So, just like, noted cunt, Queen Charlotte, even she was just like, “Oh, this Ryan Phillippe guy suuuuucks.” 

Allison: And she loved Prinny, so you know, he must have really sucked. 

Ann: Yeah. So, Queen Charlotte noted in her, I don’t know if it’s her diary or whatever, but she recorded, “Ryan Phillippe was never actually received in a public capacity by the royal family.” Like, he and Prinny hung out at the gentleman’s club or whatever, but he was never formally received because that would be, like, her favouring him over the actual king of actual France. 

Anyway, so they’re at Tuileries. What’s the vibe? The vibe is like, “Okay, okay. I could get used to this.” Marie Antoinette was happy she got to spend time with her children in a way that she didn’t at Versailles, because they don’t have teachers anymore, so she kind of was with them a lot. She had, I’m trying to think… No, she has two children. I’m so sorry. She had four; one died as a baby, one died of spinal tuberculosis, so she has one son and one daughter. Her son, the Dauphin, at this point, he’s six years old or so, and someone asked him, like, “Do you prefer living in Versailles or living in the Tuileries? And he’s like, actually, I prefer the Tuileries because I get to see my parents all the time.” And that’s kind of sweet. 

Allison: Aww! That is sweet. 

Ann: And she was like, we’ve talked about this in previous episodes, just so you know, because, again, Allison has not had a chance to do these episodes yet, because we’re recording this in advance. But Marie Antoinette, all she ever wanted was to be a mother. When she was a teenager, she loved basically babysitting, like, hanging out with her little siblings. When she got to Versailles, she loved hanging out with the kids of other people. She only ever… She was that sort of person; she’s very maternal. So, she got to hang out with her kids, and that actually was nice for her, that she actually got to be more involved in their education in a way she hadn’t been allowed to in Versailles. And at this point, she’d been Queen for long enough that she knew how to be calm and pleasant and in public. So, she put on a good show. But in private, she wrote letters to her confidantes saying that she was constantly in a state of agitation. Like, yes, understandably, because every night, the mob is outside just being like, “Murder them!” 

Allison: Yeah! Agitation is fair. 

Ann: Yeah. Because that’s the thing, also, I kind of gleaned from the Olympics Opening Ceremonies, is how the palaces are so close to just the street. Like, Versailles was so isolated; you could go there, but it took a while to get there. But you could just be having a night out with your pals, drink a little too much and just go by the Tuileries and just start throwing rocks at Marie Antoinette’s window. Like, it was right there. 

So, basically, everyone settled into this kind of weird pretending like everything’s fine sort of vibe, which again, not at all like contemporary life. Everyone’s just kind of like, “Let’s just pretend like everything’s fine and maybe everything will be fine.” And here we go. So, at one point, the mayor of Paris, there was this official presentation. He presented Marie Antoinette, Berry, and the Dauphin with medals that said basically, “We live in Paris now and everything is totally fine. Don’t worry about it.” 

Allison: [laughs] Like giving them the key to the city. 

Ann: Except you can’t use this key to leave the city. [laughs]

Allison: No, no, no key to stay inside the city. 

Ann: The key to the city, but it locks from the outside. 

So, at this point, the National Assembly… So, this is like, the Estates General was just like, I hate… Members of the Patreon will know, we recently did an episode about the movie The Madness of King George, where there are these scenes in Parliament where it’s all just men just being like, “I, sir, [grumbles] and I concur [grumbles]” So, like, the National Assembly is working on a new constitution and it has been months and months and months because they’re like, “Oh, [grumbles] we need to put this in.” Like nightmare to me. Nightmare to me, just these guys. But they were so moved by the American Constitution, which I think also was probably written in a very long time period by a bunch of men being like, “[grumbles] I say [grumbles].”  So, the National Assembly is working on this stuff. At one point, Berry pops in to give a speech. 

Allison: A wild choice, man. 

Ann: Yeah. And in his speech, he describes his role as being “the head of the revolution.” 

Allison: Huh! Sure. 

Ann: He’s like, “Well, if my country’s in a revolution and I’m the king, I guess I’m the head of the revolution. Tally Ho and onwards, my friends.” 

Allison: That is real Tally Ho energy. [laughs]

Ann: Yeah… yeah. The thing with Berry, I mentioned, he likes building locks, he likes hunting and recording how many things he hunts. 

Allison: He likes not reading the room real well. 

Ann: Yeah. From a young age, people would be like, “Eugh, you’re weird! Like, you do this stuff strange.” And he writes in his diary like “I’m working on doing these things less weirdly so that people will be kinder to me.” He tried so hard, Berry, is the thing. And the thing that he’s most dedicated to is just, like, being the king, and he knows how important that is, and wanting to be the father of the nation. Anyway, he also doesn’t have any good ministers around him anymore because… various reasons. He needed a really good minister with him. He needed someone who knew what they were doing (foreshadowing for this whole episode), and he doesn’t have that. So, royals in every other country were like, “What is he doing? Did he just side with the anti-monarchist revolution?” So, this is making royals in other countries not want to help him. 

Allison: Yeah. I mean, in his defence, he was left unsupervised. What was he supposed to do? No one was giving advice. 

Ann: He’s also not good at making decisions. So, the decision that he always winds up making is just the one that is the least amount of effort for him to make, kind of. 

Allison: Same. So, deeply relatable. [laughs]

Ann: No, exactly, exactly. Like, when they were at Versailles and they’re like, “Oh, did you know that the Market Ladies in the National Guard are coming, walking very slowly, and they’ll be here in eight hours. Should we flee?” And he’s like, “Should we flee? I don’t know. Should we flee? I don’t know.” And Marie Antoinette is, like, packing her stuff, she’s like, “Are we fleeing? Are we not fleeing?” And Berry’s like, “Mm, should we flee? I don’t know.” And then he’s like, “Well, I waited this long and we didn’t flee. So, I guess we’re staying.” [Allison laughs] Like, this is how a lot of events happened. If we’re keeping some sort of mental tally of like, how did the French Revolution happen? A big part of it is just Berry being like, “Urrrr, what should I do? If I wait long enough, I don’t have to decide because something will just happen. Great.” And in every circumstance, that’s what he does, which is not… I don’t know. You know, a different king, the same effect might have ultimately happened, but with him there, it’s so frustrating. 

Anyway, so meanwhile, so he’s just like, ”Okay, let’s just act like everything’s fine and maybe everything will be fine.” Behind the scenes, Marie Antoinette… So, in the previous episode, her Maria Theresa genes had activated, like a sleeper cell, like The Manchurian Candidate. Suddenly, any part of her mother’s DNA she had in her activated. And she’s like, “Oh. No one’s in charge? Then I’m going to be goddamn in charge. Let’s do this.” So, she was scheming nonstop how to get her family out of the situation because she understood in a fundamental way that Berry did not, that this was not going to end well. Like, this could not continue on indefinitely, and they were in danger. 

But she would never leave Berry, and she would never leave her children. So, as much as people like “Marie Antoinette, here’s one plan. Like, what if like you and the Dauphin escape just together? Disguise him as a girl. No one’s going to look at a woman and a girl.” And Marie Antoinette’s like, “No, I have to stay. I could never leave my husband. I have to bring my children. We have to move as a unit.” So, if we’re keeping a tally of how things are not going to go well, that’s part of the tally. But it’s like, I understand. She’s just like, “No, all of us together or nothing.” So, her plan was to get to someplace nearby where her Habsburg relatives were in power to… Which is like, how many brothers and sisters? 15? She has a sibling in every country who is the king and/or queen of that country. So, the plan is to go to those places, amass some troops and then return with those troops to take France over again is her, I think reasonable, understandable goal. 

So, her brother, at this point, is Joseph, the Holy Roman Emperor— Well, actually, side note. So, Joseph, the Holy Roman Emperor, played by noted pedophile, what’s his face from Ferris Bueller in the Amadeus movie? 

Allison: Yeah. 

Ann: Played in the Marie Antoinette movie by Danny Huston, brother of Angelica Huston. Anyway, so her brother, Joseph, had been the Holy Roman Emperor for a while, ever since Maria Theresa died, but he himself had just died. So, now the new Holy Roman Emperor was her other brother, Leopold, who she didn’t know as well, and who wasn’t as close to her, and so who probably wasn’t going to look out for her quite as much. So, it’s just kind of like, “Oh, is the Holy Roman Empire going to help out? How complicated is this going to be?” But honestly, that was not as big of an obstacle to her in escaping as Berry’s pathological inability to make a decision. 

But luckily, she had an actual useful person on her side, which is a character played in the movie by Jamie Dornan, sexy Swedish count, Axel von Fersen. 

Allison: What a sentence that was you just said to me. I love it. 

Ann: The hottest man alive. [Allison laughs] Swedish count Axel von Fersen, who was with a big Lafayette sort of energy, I don’t know how much you know about him. 

Allison: I’ve never heard his name before this moment. So, tell me everything. 

Ann: Okay, so we talked to him last time, but to recap for you and for everybody. He was in Sweden, and he’s just like, “I’m so moved by the American patriots’ fight, I want to go and fight for America.” He’s the Swedish Lafayette, but not married. He’s also really hot, and he has potentially been Marie Antoinette’s lover now for a hot minute.

Allison: Good for her. 

Ann: He’s one of the people allowed into Petite Trianon. So, he’s a hot Swedish count and he gets it. He has two brain cells firing and working and he’s, like, in this whole story, in this, I’m going to guess, two and a half hour long episode, he’s the only person who gets it. 

Allison: You’ve got to have one, and if it’s an incredibly hot Swedish count, then that’s all the better. 

Ann: It’s true. In the movie, he’s played by Jamie Dornan. But in real life, Alexander Skarsgård is who I’m picturing because he’s hot and Swedish and, I imagine, tall. 

Anyway, so the way that Lafayette was a wife guy to his wife, like, Axel von Fersen is so devoted to Marie Antoinette in a genuine way that she always needed in her life. She needed somebody who actually was her friend and was actually looking out for her, and he actually was. I think we need to put him on a watch for potential awards at the end of this episode for excellence in being a friend and potentially lover. Anyway, so he came to visit the Tuileries a lot. So often, in fact, the Lafayette threatened to have her divorce for adultery because Axel von Fersen was coming by so often. So, Axel von Fersen… Actually, side note, I just saw recently there’s going to be, I presume, a Swedish television show. I mean, I presume it’s Swedish. I know it’s going to be a television show called The Von Fersens, that’s about Axel von Fersen and his sister, who, I guess, is interesting, too. I don’t know. 

Allison: Mmm! Interesting. 

Ann: Anyways, Axel von Fersen wrote to his father. Here’s a quote from Axel: 

Nothing but a civil or foreign war can restore France and the royal authority. But how is that to be brought about with the king a prisoner in Paris? It was a false step to allow himself to be brought there; now it becomes necessary to get him out of it. Once out of Paris, the king ought to be able to give birth to a new order of things.

So, like, he and Marie Antoinette are just like, “We need to get the royal family out of here.” And Berry is like, “Look, they gave me a cockade! I’m a revolutionary now, too. [sing-song] Doo-doo-doo.” So, he’s not helping. But Marie Antoinette is the only person he listens to, so this is where she’s working. 

There’s also a guy named the Marquis de Favras. Don’t know who he was, but here’s what he did. He came up with a plan. Provence is Berry’s brother, who likes being fat, fucking his wife, also a member of Hater Nation. But Provence, he’s like… Except for the Aunts, no one is, like, all hater in this story. Provence is, like, he wants to be king, and he’s acting against Berry in some circumstances, but he also knows his life is in danger, so maybe we should escape. So, Provence was working with this guy, the Marquis de Favras, and they had a plan. They were like, “Okay, Berry is never going to actually leave because he hero worships Charles I of England, and he thinks it’s noble to stay. What we need to do is kidnap him.” [laughs] 

Allison: [laughs] Fantastic. 

Ann: Anyway, the plot was discovered, and the Marquis de Favras was executed. 

Allison: Oh! 

Ann: So sorry. And Provence was just kind of like, “Didn’t know about this plan. No one told me. [sing-song] Doo-doo-doo! I’m just going to go fuck my wife.” So, he was fine. Another man named Inisdal had a similar plot. Instead of just planning to kidnap Berry, he’s like, “I’m going to tell Berry, like, okay, we’re going to make it look like we’re kidnapping you. But we’re not really kidnapping you.” And Berry is like, “I will never consent to being kidnapped.” We all know people like this, or we’ve seen people like this in movies and stuff. This is where I just see Berry, and where he is on the neurodivergency spectrum is that he likes things, like, every single day, he did the same things in the same order. That’s how he’s most happy. There’s not a lot of nuance to his thinking. So, they’re like, “We’ll pretend we’re kidnapping you, but we’re not really kidnapping you.” And he’s like, “No, I would not consent to be kidnapped.” It’s like, “But we’re not kidnapping you.” 

But honestly, Berry could have taken off by himself if he wanted to. That first spring and summer that they were at Tuileries Palace, he was allowed to go out to do his favourite thing, horseback riding, go hunting. He was allowed out unaccompanied to go riding his horse through the fields. 

Allison: You could have ridden your horse all the way out of France, my guy! Just keep going. 

Ann: Yeah. But he never did. They didn’t even have to pretend to kidnap him. So, usually in June, the family went to escape the Paris heat, Marie Antoinette’s home in [phonetic] Saint-Clood. I thought it was called Saint-Cloud, but in the movie they said [phonetic] Saint-Clood. Anyway, their summer home. They were allowed to go to their summer home, and they probably could have also taken off from there, because in Saint-Cloud, which is even further from Paris, he was allowed to go five hours a day, Berry, by himself, horseback riding/hunting. 

Allison: Wow! Okay. 

Ann: Yeah. But he was like, “No, I’m just going to stay here.” In fact, Marie Antoinette had suggested, allegedly suggested to him a plan that he just ride off, and she and the children would come join him later. But he was like, “I can never leave my aunts.” 

Allison: And she’s like, “No! I wish you could leave your aunts.” 

Ann: Those fucking bitches. Like, really? So, now it’s just like, “Okay, we can only leave as, like, the von Trapp family, but all adults.” So, seven adults. 

Allison: Four bitchy aunts careening over the mountains. 

Ann: Then a governess for the children. Like, this is going to be… 

Allison: My hairdresser and my hair mechanic. 

Ann: I need to make my mechanical dressing table. Like, these things are all non-negotiable. [both laugh] I’m joking, but I’m not joking. 

Allison: But you’re not joking. 

Ann: So, it was coming up to the one-year anniversary of them being in Tuileries, and Paris was… It’s not the Terror or, as I call it, the Purge, but it’s kind of like the Purge: The Prequel, where the whole French Revolution, as we talked about in a previous episode, it was kind of like guys, lawyers telling speeches about like hypothetical, the rights of man and stuff. That part was kind of over, and now it’s kind of like the dirtbag murder era, where it’s just kind of heads on pikes, is not what was intended by the people who started this all. 

Allison: Yeah. Now it’s hot outside and we’re murdering people. That’s where we’re at. 

Ann: The hot hangryness. You and I talked about this the other day because it was so hot this summer, and that was making everybody just, like, sweaty, gross, angry. But also, they’re so hungry, they’re so hungry and also hot, and that’s just making everyone even more murdery, I think. 

Allison: I’m like, yeah, I would overthrow a king if it was 95 degrees outside and I haven’t had lunch. I get it. 

Ann: Yeah. No, exactly, exactly. So, it’s like, the hangryness is happening. So, in the first part, before it was the Purge: Prequel, one of the French Revolution leaders who we did not talk about was a guy called Mirabeau. Do you know anything about him? 

Allison: I know he has a bridge named after him. That’s the only fact I know about that man. [laughs] 

Ann: Nice for him. So, Mirabeau had been, like, a revolutionary leader. And then, by this time, a year in, he was like, “This is… I’m not fond of this Purge scenario.” And then he’s like, “Maybe I should help the royal family escape. The royal family are the only people powerful enough to make all this murdering stop. So, now I switch. I support the royal family.” So, he had a plan. His plan— This is a plan of a person who’s never actually met Berry. His plan was to get Berry to sneak off to Normandy. First of all, Berry never would. Secondly, once in Normandy, the plan was that Berry would deliver such moving speeches [Allison laughs] that it would inspire his loyal countrymen to rise up against the Paris mob. 

Allison: Yeah, okay. 

Ann: So, Berry has… We’ve seen him grow in a lovely way from the early, like, Marie Antoinette episode, part one, until now. There was one time where, I forget how long into the marriage, like, a year and a half, Marie Antoinette convinced him to come with her to a ball where he said, “Thank you for inviting me.” And everyone was like, “Oh my god, look at her influence on him. He said words in public,” and he’s now moved on to giving prepared speeches from a piece of paper. Like, when he went to the National Assembly to be like, “I am the head of the revolution.” He’s okay with a written-out speech, but like, he’s not a charismatic speaker, shall we say. 

So anyway, Mirabeau was like, “Yeah, this is my plan.” And so, he took the plan to Provence, and Provence was like, “That will never work because the linchpin of this is Berry doing anything, let alone motivating the countrymen.” Here’s a quote from Provence. He said, “The king’s weakness and indecision are beyond all description. To give you an idea of his character, imagine oiled ivory balls, which you vainly endeavour to hold together.” 

Allison: If my brother said that about me, I’d punch him in the nose. [both laugh] That’s fucking rude. 

Ann: The way that Berry is, he’d be like, “Mmm, you know what? Fair. And I’ll try to work on that. Thank you for that.” 

Allison: “Write that down in my notebook? Great. Be less like oiled ivory balls.” [laughs]

Ann: [laughs] Anyway, Mirabeau persisted. He knew that the only person who would maybe be able to persuade Berry to do this was Marie Antoinette, because Marie Antoinette was kind of the only person Berry trusted at this point, with his lack of ministers. But also, Berry and Marie Antoinette had a real trauma bond of having been, like, 14-year-old married people in Versailles who everybody hated. Like, they were so devoted to each other. Anyway, so Mirabeau was like, “Great. I just need to get Marie Antoinette on board with this plan.” Marie Antoinette hated Mirabeau because he was a leader of the French Revolution. 

Aae: You know, it is hard to suddenly say “I changed my mind about all that.” 

Ann: Yeah, he was one of the people who had helped convince the populace to march on Versailles. And the march to Versailles, just to reiterate to everybody, was… Yeah, they were going up there to just kind of like, ask for bread or whatever, but they also were going there to assassinate Marie Antoinette. Like, that was what a lot of people were going there to do. So, Marie Antoinette reasonably, correctly, held Mirabeau and Ryan Phillippe equally responsible for her almost being assassinated. So, Mirabeau was like… So, there’s a friend of a friend, so he tried to contact her to be like, “Let’s try to join forces to try and get Berry out of here.” She laughed when she was sent this proposal. 

Allison: [chuckles] Good for her. 

Ann: She said, “We shall scarcely be so unfortunate, I think, as to be driven to the painful extremity of having recourse to Mirabeau.” But it was coming up July, which is like, the one-year anniversary of the fall of the Bastille, and everybody was like, “I presume this will be celebrated with mass murder and perhaps…” 

Allison: As is tradition. 

Ann: One year of tradition. Now that the royal family is in Paris, probably they will be attacked. And so, Marie Antoinette was getting kind of desperate. She’s like, “Okay, I’ll meet with Mirabeau.” They met at Saint-Cloud and, like so many people when they actually met her, he was like, “Oh, you know what? She’s kind of chill and I like her.” Like, yeah. 

Allison: Yeah, she’s fine. 

Ann: Yeah. She has a resting bitch face, but actually, she’s nice. Anyway, Mirabeau later wrote to his nephew. “She’s very great, very noble and very unhappy. But I will save her.” 

Allison: [groans] Sorry. That came from my soul. [laughs]

Ann: No, exactly. She was like, “Okay, let’s go with Mirabeau’s escape plan,” and kind of it was like an open secret among the family. The children didn’t know about this because the children were blabbermouths and whatever. Berry’s sister was one of the people who was there as well, Madame Élisabeth, she’s like, late teens, early twenties at this point. She’s basically a nun but not a nun, is what she’s like. She was just really impatient for this all to end. She wrote to a friend in this kind of vague way, “I still have torpor in my legs. Still, I fancy the cure is at hand,” which is basically being like, “We are going to escape soon.” But Berry was like, “Great. Okay, so this is our plan. But could you detail your recommendations to me in writing, please?” 

Allison: No! No, don’t do that. 

Ann: So, Mirabeau was like, okay. So, he wrote it, but he wrote it in a frank and honest way, and Berry was used to things, being coached in a very like, “Okay, I know it’s hard for you to make decisions, and you’re a great king, and here’s what you should do.” But he was just like… Here’s a sample of what he wrote: 

Four enemies are approaching with rapid strides. Taxation, bankruptcy, the army, winter. We must prepare ourselves for events by directing them. Civil war is certain and perhaps necessary. 

So, this was just shocking to them. Marie Antoinette and Berry were just like, “Oh, yeah. Oh, that’s right. This guy is a dangerous radical, and we shouldn’t trust him.” And so, Marie Antoinette distanced herself from the proposal, and without her support, Berry, there’s zero chance he was going to do this at all. 

And then, so throughout this whole thing, there’s been this guy on the scene, who is Ambassador Mercy, is his name, that’s Marie Antoinette’s mother’s ambassador from Austria. He’s been there this whole time, sort of like a surrogate father figure; helpful, gets it, useful to be around. 

Allison: One of, like, three people in this story. 

Ann: Yeah, yeah. But then he was recalled to Austria, so now the only person who gets it in all of Tuileries Palace is Axel von Fersen, sexy Swedish count. But also, with Mercy being gone, that meant that Marie Antoinette was more cut off from, like, more direct communication to and from Austria, which is not great at this point where she might want to escape to Austria. But happily, the anniversary of the Bastille came and went without too much murder, I would say probably just a normal amount of murder you have. 

Allison: Sure. 

Ann: There’s no mob violence, basically. There was a little church ceremony held. Ryan Phillippe came back from England to attend, along with his son, about whom more later… I’m making a dramatic look with Allison. [laughs] Anyway, so Marie Antoinette attended this event, and she was wearing, for the first time, I believe, a tri-couleur outfit. Like, when they started wearing the red, white and blue, she didn’t do that because she was just like, “I am not going to support this.” But now she’s like, “Yes, I too support the Revolution. Mm-hm.” 

Allison: For sure. 

Ann: Absolutely. Everything went nicely. The night ended with people yelling “Long live the king” at the Tuileries. They’re just like, “Oh, maybe the king’s okay.” 

And so, then there was some army stuff happened. So, there’s a place called Nancy. Is there a French way to say Nancy? [ph] Non-see? 

Allison: [ph] Non-see, probably. 

Ann: Anyway, so there was a mutiny happening in Nancy, which like, pro-Revolution people, were just being like, “Fuck being in the army.” But then this guy called Bouillé stopped the mutiny, and Marie Antoinette and Berry were like, “Oh, that guy seems cool. Bouillé, let’s keep him in mind,” and they do. So, remember that name. It looks like bouillon, but it’s Bouillé. 

Allison: [laughs] I will keep it in mind, that’s a wonderful name. 

Ann: Yeah. But this made. So, the fact that there was a revolutionary attempt by this army and that it was quashed by this military guy made the mob, the revolutionaries, think like, “Oh, wait, Berry might turn the army against us.” People are just like… 

Allison: Giving him way too much credit, I would say. 

Ann: Yes. Again, it’s like, the mob is really acting in a way that people would when they had no familiarity with how Berry operated whatsoever. But effectively, the timing of this happened… So, the family returned from the summer vacation in Saint-Cloud. It’s October, and they had less freedom than they did before because the mob was, like, more worried about them that they might… They’re always worried that Berry is going to enforce martial law, which is like, again, like you just said, it’s like, that assumes Berry would do anything, which is not what he does. 

So, at this point, oh my god, okay. The National Assembly announces this new rule that all members of the clergy had to pledge allegiance to France instead of to the Pope. Berry was like, “Eughhh, okay. Dear, the Pope, can you please be okay with this?” 

Allison: [laughs] The Pope, famously extremely chill about people taking liberties with Catholicism. 

Ann: Yeah, what I wrote was “The Pope was not okay with this.” What this meant was that, like… They’re called, I don’t know why, the people who follow the Pope were called Non-Juror priests. Juror, like a jury in a court. So, Non-Juror priests were following the Pope; priests that were pledging allegiance to France were called Juror priests. And this is very important to very Catholic people like Berry because Easter was coming up, and he was like, “But I can’t take communion from a Juror priest.” 

Allison: Heaven forbid you do that. 

Ann: Like Herman, my pills! This is not happening. 

Allison: Herman, my papacy! What are we doing? 

Ann: [laughs] But because he was the king, he had to publicly attend Easter mass and take communion. And so, he just started freaking out because he’s like, “These are the rules of how things work. I have to go to church on Easter, I have to take communion, and it has to be from a priest who is loyal to the Pope.” Again, like the nuance thing. He can’t handle anything not being the way that it’s supposed to be. 

Even more upset about this priest business were the Aunts, who were just like… these bitches. At this point in the Tuileries situation, the governess of the children was a woman called Madame Tourzel, who was cool and good and helpful and loyal. She had brought along her, like, 18-year-old daughter, Pauline Tourzel, because where else is she going to go? Both of them later wrote memoirs. So, like, spoiler, they survived. But they were all together, and so Marie Antoinette was like, “Okay, let’s all have supper together.” And the Aunts were like, “We can’t have supper with somebody who has not been officially presented at Versailles.” 

Allison: Where do you think you are? What year do you think it is? 

Ann: Like, okay, but Pauline needs to eat, and there’s one table in this castle with no furniture. So, the Aunts just, like, in terms of people who get it, like Berry tries to get it. The Aunts are just like, exactly, exactly, they’re living like it is 75 years ago. Anyway, so they were just like, “We cannot go and get Easter Mass held by a Juror priest. Fuck everybody. We’re running away to Rome.” 

Allison: [laughs] Oh, I love a dramatic flight to Rome to bitch to the Pope. I do love that. 

Ann: It’s like, you know where we’re going to take Easter Mass from? The goddamn Pope. And it’s like on the pantheon, or just a scale of like, who has common sense and who does not? The Aunts are on one end; everyone else is on the other end. And they’re like, “You know if you escape, that’s going to probably make people put the royal family in even more prison-like circumstances, because that’s proof that you want to escape.” 

Allison: You missed your chance six months ago when you could have just ridden off into the sunset. It is too late for that now. 

Ann: So, Marie Antoinette wrote to her brother, Leopold, the Holy Roman Emperor, “You know that my aunts are going. We do not believe that we can prevent them.” Like, these two old bitches, and it’s true, I think we all know people like this, just old bitches who just… whatever it is. It’s just like, “I’m not going to use how to use an ATM card. I will never use an ATM machine. I’m only going to go into the bank in person.” This is their vibe. Anyway. So, in fact, the Aunts took off. Their carriage was held up by the angry mob at first. 

Allison: [laughs] Sure. 

Ann: And I’m sure they were like “Mob? But you haven’t been presented at Versailles.” 

Allison: [laughs] “Do you have your mob license? I think not.” 

Ann: Eventually, that mob let them go, but like, midway along the journey to Rome (I’m not sure if they’re still in France or not), but they were held up for 11 days by other mob members who were like, “I feel like we probably shouldn’t let these royal people leave.” And so, the Aunts appealed to the National Assembly to enforce the rule that all citizens could travel as they pleased. Like, the Aunts are appealing to the National Assembly. It’s just a real, like, “I’m going to call the cops on this person for walking the dog” type, it’s a Karen energy. 

Allison: Yeah. But it’s like, if you have spent your whole life saying, “I hate these cops, they have no right to be cops.” And then as soon as something doesn’t go your way, you’re like, “Then I’m going to call the cops.” 

Ann: Yeah, exactly. So, they appealed to the National Assembly, and the National Assembly were like, merp, merp, merp, merp, merp. And after four hours, the National Assembly is like, “Fuck these bitches. Who cares? They’re old.” And so, they’re allowed to go to Rome to get their precious communion from a precious Juror priest. And this did, in fact, fuck everything up for everybody. But also Berry, at this point, got sick, probably tuberculosis. Everyone in this story gets either smallpox or tuberculosis, and everyone in his family has had tuberculosis. Anyway, he was at some points coughing up blood, which is tuberculosis. 

Allison: Not great, yeah. 

Ann: He was also emotionally not thriving. As I’ve described, a person who likes a really organized, regimented life that follows rules that he believes are true, and he’s the king in the middle of the French Revolution. 

Allison: Yeah. Unprecedented times: not his thing. Not his strong suit. 

Ann: No. Here’s a little quote from him. “How can I have these enemies when I have only ever desired the good of all?” 

Allison: That’s how I feel every day. How dare people hate me? I only want good for the world, please. 

Ann: Exactly. 

Allison: Every anecdote you tell me about him, I’m just like, this is my baby. This kid, I love him. [giggles]

Ann: I really… Truly, the Antonia Fraser biography really explained him in a way where I was like, “Oh, I get this guy.” What a terrible situation for anybody. But like, especially this guy. 

Allison: A real classic “would have been fine if not king.” 

Ann: Yeah. If he was just some sort of… He loved locks, if he was just a locksmith. 

Allison: The happiest locksmith in the world, never happier. 

Ann: So, Marie Antoinette, this whole every episode up until now, her whole life up until now, she’s, I don’t know, in her thirties-ish. She’d been in France when she was 14, and she had to give up all her Austrian stuff, and people were always being like, “She’s an Austrian spy! She’s an Austrian spy!” and she’d only ever supported France. She was like, “I love France. This is my country.” She’s now just like, “Fuck France.” 

Allison: Yeah, I get it. 

Ann: Yeah. She’s just like, “Fuck the French people who’ve always hated me. Fuck the émigrés, the French people who I thought were my friends, but they all just peaced out and left.” She’s like, “The only thing that matters is restoring the monarchy so my son, the Dauphin, won’t have to go through all this shit and he can grow up and be a good king. But otherwise, fuck you, France.”

She just wants to protect the crown of France, which happens to also be her son. And so, they had hired, remember, Bouillé, they’d hired him on. They’re like, “This guy gets it. Let’s get this guy on our team.” And he was like, “Okay, I have a suggestion, and that is, what if we escape not in a big group, but what if we escape small… Has anyone mentioned to you the idea that maybe escaping just Marie Antoinette and the Dauphin, perhaps, would be a good idea?” But Marie Antoinette had promised that she would never leave Berry’s side, and she would not waver on that. As much as he was struggling, if she wasn’t there, she knew that he would not be able to function at all. 

This is why she commissioned what is called a Berlin, but what I’m going to call a party bus, which I was just recently on holiday, I was in Toronto, and I saw this vehicle come turning around the corner, and I was just like, “What is that?” And it was like, a stretch Hummer limo. It was the longest, widest, dumbest looking thing I’ve ever seen. And I said to my friend I was with, I was like, “That’s like what Marie Antoinette was escaping in!” 

Allison: [laughs] You must be a joy on vacation to all of your friends and family. 

Ann: The world’s most conspicuous vehicle. So, she commissioned this Berlin. Technically, a Berlin is a vehicle that would be used if you had a large group of people who are taking a long trip. And olden times. It was called a Berlin de voyage. It ordinarily would seat six adults and had sort of like, a hot plate kitchen area, and also sort of on-board bathrooms. 

Allison: She’s escaping in an RV? 

Ann: Yeah. 

Allison: Yes! 

Ann: So, it’s like, you and your group can just take a long trip, but you don’t have to take out lots of stops. You’ve got your little hot plate, you’ve got your little toilets, like, you can just go. It’s like, if this is the amount of people we need to travel with, this is the vehicle that will fit all of them in. And nobody knew it was her who had commissioned this. Axel von Fersen got a friend of a friend to actually order it, saying like, “Oh yes, I’m a person who’s taking a trip to Russia. Don’t worry about it. I just need this party bus camper van, please, for this family trip to Russia.” But because it was a big vehicle and it was also a strong vehicle, it was slow. So, it’s not the thing you really want to go on… One might say perhaps it’s not the thing that the royal family wants to escape the mob in. 

Allison: Perhaps you want a vehicle that goes faster than the mob can walk, but your mileage may vary. 

Ann: Yeah. So, Marie Antoinette was just like, “Great.” So, she got her camper van accessories. She had a thing, a nécessaire, it’s called. It’s basically a very fancy mechanical picnic basket with little trays that move in and out. 

Allison: Yes! Yes! 

Ann: So, it’s like a portable version of her beloved dressing table. 

Allison: I love this. Also, this is putting me profoundly in mind of, like, the Barbie camper van I had when I was about seven or eight years old. 

Ann: I had the Barbie camper!

Allison: That’s exactly what’s going on. 

Ann: It’s exactly that. I, too had that. Yeah, exactly. 

So, how did this plan come about to travel in a party bus, stretch Hummer RV? So, the plan. Axel von Fersen is, like, a clutch person in this, obviously/also the only person in this with any common sense. But Marie Antoinette is up there as well at this point. She knows that, like, “I need to escape. The people I’m with won’t leave each other, so we need to escape. What’s a vehicle that fits six adults? Great. Party bus.” The plan depended on the goodwill of Marie Antoinette’s family and the Holy Roman Empire, the plan, initially, asterisk, was that they would take the party bus over to maybe Austria, and the whole plan, amass some troops, come back to France, take it all over. But they had to sort of wait because the whole thing with Joseph, the emperor, had died, it’s her new brother, Leopold, they had to stabilize the new monarchy and stuff. 

So, the conspirators are kind of the head honchos of this quasi-heist. Axel von Fersen, Bouillé is involved because he, like, is loyal to the royal family, and also seems to have common sense. He’s also the commander of the French fortress of Metz, which is a place they’re going to go to near the border of France and one of the other countries. Another guy who’s involved in planning is the Baron de Breteuil. He had fled with the Duchess of Polignac, Marie Antoinette’s friend, but he was not kind of discreetly representing Marie Antoinette’s best interests in the Holy Roman Empire. And then also, another conspirator, friendly face, Mercy, the ambassador who was Marie Antoinette’s kind of father figure, who is now in The Hague, and he is loyal to her and wants to help. 

So, the group was like, “We’re going to basically do what Mirabeau said, but we’re not going to explain it like Mirabeau did.” So, what they want to do is have the royal family retreat to a safe location where the king would, again, summon his loyal countrymen and raise an army. 

Allison: We’ll worry about that when we get there. 

Ann: TBD, how that part’s going to go. But then get, like, a bunch of loyal countrymen to use force to return Berry to be the king. So, Mirabeau’s plan had been to do this at Normandy, but they’re like, “No, let’s go instead to this town called Montmédy,” which is on the border with Germany and near Metz. Metz is where Bouillé has the fortress, so they’re this way from the border of Germany. So, in case Berry’s speech doesn’t inspire the countrymen, perhaps these forces could be augmented with, like, paid German soldiers from just across the border in Germany. 

Allison: Yeah, which is smart, instead of going to Normandy, where you can look out at the ocean and wish someone was coming to help you. 

Ann: We’ll call upon the lobsters, whatever army they had in The Little Mermaid, like, conch shells. 

Allison: Oh my gosh. Just little King Triton with his pike. He’s got three heads on his trident. [laughs]

Ann: [laughs] Fabulous hairstyling on all the heads. 

So, Berry was like, “This is a great plan. Can you get it to me in writing?” And they’re like, “We know that this is how you operate. So, yes.” So, Axel von Fersen, again, like, linchpin of everything, he wrote it all up, and he’s like, “If you do this, it’ll be a heroic feat of valour by a benevolent king, much like Charles I would have done had he been able to in England.” 

Allison: And that’s called knowing your audience. 

Ann: Exactly. So, he delivered this document to Berry. This is four months after Marie Antoinette had agreed, like, “Yes, let’s do this.” But they spent four months, I think, writing this document in such a way that Berry would actually agree to it. She ordered the party bus in December, and Berry got this document the subsequent March, is the amount of time that it took for them to just like, really get him used to this. 

Allison: That feels like trying to get a PowerPoint approved in a corporate job. You’re like, “I know what we have to do and it’s very straightforward, but it’s going to take three months to get everybody who needs to sign off on it to sign off on it. Give it time.” 

Ann: Exactly. Exactly. It’s like a relatable situation. And then, when we go back to my favourite topic and yours, Non-Juror priests, [Allison laughs] this actually helps out. 

So, remember, the Aunts had left to go to Rome. They’re just like, “Fuck you guys, we’re gone.” Berry was still stressing. They’re like, “How are we going to escape? The purge is happening.” And Berry’s like, “But where will I take communion publicly at Easter service with a Juror priest?” This is his spiral. And he’s like, “Well, what if I go and take communion at Saint-Cloud? Because there’s a Non-Juror priest working in that area.” So, he’s like, “Great, I’m going to go in a carriage and take a little trip to our summer home of Saint-Cloud.” But when word leaked out that he was leaving, especially in the wake of the Aunts having fled to Rome, people heard he was leaving, and so the mob, understandably, assumed that the royal family was trying to escape. 

Allison: Because they were. 

Ann: They were! But at this point, Berry was just really hyperfixated on, like, having a Pope-based priest give him public communion for Easter. That’s his biggest concern at the moment. Anyway, so the mob converged on his carriage that he was trying to take to go take communion. Lafayette on the scene. 

Allison: The most tired man in France. 

Ann: The head of the National Guard, which still perplexes me because the National Guard is peasant mob pike folk, and Lafayette is, like, professional army guy. Anyway, despite Lafayette’s best efforts, the National Guardsmen assigned to protect the monarch sided with the crowd. So, Lafayette was in charge of the National Guard, and the National Guard sided with the mob.

Allison: And he’s like, “All right, I give up. It’s only one of me.” 

Ann: Lafayette is just like “This was a lot… This would never happen under George Washington.” 

Allison: Except it absolutely did. Just once… I’m sure he would have been like, “I’d like to be in charge of an army that is an army. I think one time that would be cool.” 

Ann: Yeah, an army that actually does what they say and doesn’t blackmail me into leading Market Ladies on marches or whatever. [Allison laughs] Anyway, so the mob just, like, refused to open the gates to let the carriage pass. Standoff ensues. The soldiers insulted the king, saying he should be deposed, Ryan Phillippe should be king instead of you. It took two and a quarter hours. Here’s a quote. “After two hours of vain attempts and useless efforts by Lafayette [Allison laughs] Berry ordered the carriage to be turned around.” 

Allison: I think vain attempts and useless efforts by Lafayette could have been his memoir for the four-year period he’s in France right now. 

Ann: Yeah, but also took two hours for Berry to be like, “Oh, wow. Maybe…”

Allison: “Maybe I should turn around.” 

Ann: “Maybe staying here isn’t a good idea.” 

Allison: I mean, for him, two hours seems pretty quick. 

Ann: Yeah, true. Maybe Lafayette was like, “Please, please. I want to go to bed.” 

Allison: Please turn this car around.

Ann: Anyway. This whole situation made Berry clue into the fact that, like, “Oh, maybe the royal family should escape,” and then he signed off on the party bus plan, after this situation. 

So, part of the plan, this is… God, I don’t even know how long this episode is going to be. Enjoy everybody, because we’re just getting to really the meat of it all. So, party bus plan. Part of the plan is that they’re going to travel with his, like, fancy king robes, their crowns, their fancy outfits, all of her glam and her jewels, because they’re going to leave in disguise as, I’ll tell you who in a minute, because they all have fake disguisey names. 

Allison: Yes! 

Ann: But what they’re going to do is when they arrive in triumph amongst their adoring subjects so Berry can give these motivational speeches, they will emerge from the party bus in full drag. 

Allison: Listeners cannot see me nodding violently for the dramatic costume change in the party bus, which I’m thrilled to hear about. [laughs]

Ann: Right. It’s like when you hear about people who are going to the Oscars and, like, to not wrinkle the dresses, these women are lying horizontally in various vans. Yeah. So, the party bus is not— Well, I’ll tell you who is in the party bus, but it fits six adults, and now they’re bringing like his coronation robes or whatever, like, crowns. 

Allison: Four adults and a giant pile of crown jewels. 

Ann: Well, Marie Antoinette has her nécessaire. 

Allison: Two adults. [speaks unintelligibly through laughter] basket.

Ann: It’s a bit of a clown car situation, yes. 

So, the whole plan, like, originally Mirabeau and everybody was like, “We’re going to get you to the Holy Roman Empire and then you can amass troops there.” But what the plan is now is they’re not going to leave France itself. They’re just going to get to the outer reaches of France, remember, near the border with Germany? And he will emerge after this outfit change, looking amazing, being like, “I’m your king. Raise up your pikes on my side now. Let’s take France back over again.” So, they’re staying within France. 

This is, I think, astute in a way. Berry didn’t want to be seen as fleeing France because he thought if he fled, he would not be welcome back. He wanted to show, “No, France is more than just Paris. Like, there’s other parts of France, and I’m the king of France, and I’m not going to leave France.” This is important to him. This is where I remind you that he spent a lot of his life hyper-fixating on Charles I, and what does it mean to be a noble king of a country? 

So, there’s various troops who are going to be kind of in various places just waiting for the party bus to roll up so they can support them. So, Leopold, Holy Roman Emperor, was going to send some of his German troops up near Metz, this place that’s near the border. There’s, like, plans on top of plans on top of plans. A lot of these plans are being made by like military guys who I think know what they’re doing, so I think this is a good part. At one point, I was like, should I get Allison to make a tally sheet of, like, things that go wrong, or things that go right? 

Allison: [laughs] Which will be a shorter list. 

Ann: Yeah. So, basically, the Leopold is going to send some German troops near Metz, and they’re going to just be there, ultimately to help Marie Antoinette. But the excuse was that this gives an excuse for Bouillé to assemble his French troops because they’d be like, “Oh, it looks like there’s some German troops assembling. Better assemble some French troops to defend France.” 

Allison: That’s actually pretty smart. 

Ann: Yeah, exactly. I think that’s a pretty okay… Because otherwise it’s like, “Why are the French troops assembling…?”

Allison: “… on the German border…” 

Ann: “… as though waiting for something to happen.” So, they had to clear all this, like, part of what takes long planning things in the 1700s is how long it takes to get messages back and forth from various places. They also have to do it all in secrecy, and like, I’m sure ciphers are involved. So, they had to get these letters to Leopold because Marie Antoinette’s brother, who doesn’t really know her and doesn’t care for her as much as her previous emperor brother or her mother would have, Leopold was like, “Mmm, it costs money to move troops, so who’s going to pay for these troops?” It’s like, dude, it’s your sister/the French monarchy. He’s like, “Yes, but he’s going to pay for this?” So, who pays for this is Axel von Fersen, his mistress, Eleanore, and her sugar daddy. 

Allison: I love them. [laughs] This is my ot3. I’m in for this. 

Ann: Yeah, this is a triad that’s going to financially support everything. 

So, Berry signed off on the plan in March. It took until the first week of June to get the funding together to pay for the troops. 

Allison: So far, six months since the bus was ordered. 

Ann: Yeah. Good thing she ordered it early. Well, because they had to, like, I think, build it [laughs] because perhaps a bus to these specifications did not already exist, I’m not sure. Anyway, and then Bouillé refused to act until Leopold’s soldiers were deployed, which makes sense because he’s like, “I’m not going to marshal my French troops until the German troops are there to look like a threat. Otherwise, this looks dumb. I just put down…” if you remember Bouillé’s whole thing was he put down a near mutiny. He’s like, people are not cool with troops just doing rando things. 

Meanwhile, just for some context for you, a person who knows about these things, Mirabeau died. He died being like, “I failed her,” and then the National Assembly elected a leader whose name was… Robespierre! 

Allison: Ahhh, there he is. [laughs] 

Ann: The purge is, like, ever so close. 

Allison: Inching up. 

Ann: Inching up. So, this is the climate. Meanwhile, in Ryan Phillippe’s mall, effigies of the Pope were being burned because of the whole Juror priest, Non-Juror priest things, people took that seriously. And I’m sure people could look at our timeline and just be like, “Why are people taking this so seriously?” But people took cockades, like, how much flour you have for your bread, and Juror priests, they took that more seriously than I can truly comprehend. 

Allison: Honestly, you could sum up probably 50 percent of world history conflict into people having strong feelings about communion and making it someone else’s problem. Like, that is one of the most contentious things that’s ever happened, ever. 

Ann: True. Yeah, yeah. So, just everything was kind of, like, they had to wait for all these things to get into place for the escape plan to happen. But then also, Paris is just kind of like, the purge countdown clock is activated. [Allison laughs] Like, if you’re going to escape, basically, now or literally never. 

So, Marie Antoinette wrote in a letter to her friend, Mercy, “Our situation here is frightful in a way that those who do not have to endure it cannot hope to understand.” Yeah… I’m sure. She believed… And part of this, too, I keep thinking and comparing things nowadays to then-a-days, and it’s not actually that different, really. But one thing that is different is that she and Berry, and a lot of people, thought that the people outside of Paris supported the royal family to an extent that they did not. But they had no way of knowing what people outside of Paris were thinking. Now, like, even with algorithms and people only see a certain point of view, it’s like, we know that people have different thoughts in different parts of countries. Like, we can do polls; we can look at who’s watching what YouTube videos; we know what people are thinking. But they were just, like, truly believed that when they got to the French countryside, it would be no problem at all for people to be on their side. 

Allison: Right, yeah. Feudalism will last a long time out there. It’ll be fine.

Ann: It’s similar to how, when they called the Estates General, they were like, “What if we have five times as many Third Estate, because you know who’s going to support the royal family? The everyday people!”

Allison: “Mmm! Yeah, okay!” 

Ann: Who, historically, always supported us because feudalism. 

So, in terms of things that are not great about this plan, like, I get why they are staying in France, because they want to not be seen as deserting France. But also, so much of it is predicated on an assumption that people in France are going to innately support the royal family, which is just like, not necessarily. 

Allison: Have you seen the mobs? 

Ann: The mob. Yeah, yeah. Marie Antoinette believed that Berry, we all have to believe in something, live in hope. But she’s just like, “Yes, this outfit change, rolling up in the party bus with our crowns on, we’re going to draw all the people to us who hate…” And not everyone in Paris is on board with a purge mob, you know? She’s like, “I think there’s more people anti-purge than pro-purge purge, and if we can get those people all together, we will take the country back. This is our hope. This is our plan.” But then also, anyone who’s gone on a road trip could understand that there was a lot of argument about the route. 

Allison: Sure. 

Ann: Part of the route was, like, to get from place A to place B, the quickest way would be to dip out of France and then back into France, but Berry was hardline. He’s like, “I will not leave France.” So, they’re like, “Okay, so we’ll take this long, more circuitous route that’s longer and more treacherous and has less paved roads so we can stay technically in France.” And Berry’s like, “Yes. Yes.”

Allison: “That’s what I want to hear.” 

Ann: “This is what matters to me.” So, having him be the King in the situation, versus people like Axel von Fersen, Bouillé, like, people who’ve been on military trips through these areas and know what the good routes are, it’s like. But… They… We have to listen to Berry’s plan, who, the only places Berry has ever travelled is… So, he was born in Versailles, and then he had his coronation in Reims, and then he’s been to Paris to, like, go to the opera. That is his cosmopolitan world life travelling experience. 

Allison: And I’m sure he travels like a normal person when he does that. 

Ann: And I’m sure he made his own plans and chose the roads, obviously. 

Allison: Yeah. And he drove. Yeah. 

Ann: So, anyway. In my notes, I say, “Bouillé and Axel von Fersen, experienced soldiers and travellers, suggested going on a direct route.” 

Allison: [laughs softly] People with more than one brain cell suggested going on a direct route. 

Ann: One of Berry’s other concerns, besides not wanting to leave France and come back into France, was he was worried that if they went to Reims, one of three cities he’s ever been to, that’s where his coronation was, 16 years ago, and he was like, “People might recognize me.” It’s like, dude… 

Allison: You’re the king of France! 

Ann: You’re on the currency. 

Allison: You’re on the money. 

Ann: Like, look up, do an image search. He is a wildly distinctive-looking person. 

Allison: He’s going to be travelling in a giant bus full of crowns. [laughs] Who are they going to think he is? 

Ann: Yeah. So, you might think, like, “Well, Berry, what if when you get to Reims, what if you just stay in the party bus and don’t lean your head out like a dog on the highway?” 

Allison: “Heyyy! It’s me!” 

Ann: But we’re going to learn he’s not able to not do that. 

Anyway, part of the route that they had to do because of Berry’s strongly-held beliefs included this weird unpaved road into a town called Varennes. I’m just saying that significantly, wiggling my eyebrows. [Allison laughs] Berry was also worried that, understandably, there’s a lot of cooks in the kitchen in this plan, and parts of the plan are good, and parts of the plan are not good. So, I don’t want to cast aspersions on every single thing that Berry said. He wanted to have small parties of soldiers along the road just in case they’re needed to, like, protect and guard the party bus, which I think makes sense to someone who’s been almost assassinated constantly for, like, two years. But also, that makes the whole thing even less subtle and more possible that someone’s going to notice soldiers lurking along a route. [Allison laughs] 

Anyway, crucial to the enterprise was who was going to go where, who got a seat in the party bus, which soldiers were going to be where. Now, this was exciting to me. When I was watching the Marie Antoinette movie — which again, we’re going to discuss on a later episode, I think it’s like next week or two weeks or something on Patreon, stay tuned — anyway, in the Sofia Coppola movie, there’s a guy in the movie called Choiseul. I was looking at the character list to be like, “Which of my friends are in this movie? Which characters?” I’m like, “Choiseul?” But this is not the one from the movie. Choiseul in the movie is, like, Louis XV’s right-hand man, helper guy. This guy is Choiseul, his son. So, the Duc de Choiseul was chosen. He is the colonel of the Royal Dragoons, and I don’t know what dragoons are, but I love that word. 

Allison: I love a royal dragoon. Absolutely. 

Ann: They always have good outfits, too. They have, like, feathers in their hat. 

Allison: They do. They usually have epaulettes and hats. It’s good. 

Ann: So, this Choiseul was a nepo baby, basically. He was related, perhaps not the son, he was related in some way to Choiseul from the movie Marie Antoinette by Sofia Coppola. He was young, enthusiastic; he had proven loyalty to the king because he was rich, but stayed in France instead of fleeing, so like, that bodes well. He was, I want to emphasize, rich because they needed money. And Axel von Fursten, experienced military person, was like, “Choiseul is inclined to be chaotic.” 

Allison: [laughs] That’s a fabulous description of a human being. 

Ann: You could describe me that way as well. 

Allison: You could. 

Ann: And that’s why you don’t put me in a clutch position in the royal family’s escape. 

Allison: I think you would have done a better job, though. 

Ann: I would have, but we’ll wait and see how Choiseul does. [Allison laughs] 

Crucially, so when you’re going on a long trip on a party bus, or any sort of carriage, if you’re going on a long trip in olden times, the same horses can’t take you all the way. Like, you ride your horse to a certain place, and then there’s a spot where you, like, switch up your horses, and then you go to the next place, and you switch up your horses. And like, if it’s sort of a place a lot of people go, then you can just casually show up and there’s horses to switch and you pay somebody. If you’re going to a smaller place, like Varennes, down a random dirt road through the woods, you need to prearrange to have horses there because there’s not usually just horses there. But someone had to pay for these horses, and Choiseul was rich, so that’s what he was going to do. 

So, in the party bus, who gets a seat in the party bus? At least the Aunts are gone. Like, they would just fuck everything up even more. 

Allison: That would be such an unpleasant road trip. 

Ann: Oh god. Honestly, like, it sucks the way they left, and they made everything worse, but I’m glad they’re not in this story anymore because I hate them. So much. 

Party bus, six adults can fit in it, right? So, we’ve got Marie Antoinette, we’ve got Berry, their two children; the daughter Marie-Thérèse is 12 or so, and then the dauphin is, like, 6. So, it’s like, two smallish kids. Berry’s sister, Madame Élisabeth, who’s like a nun, but not a nun, she’s also an adult, she had sworn to never leave her brother’s side, so she was coming. 

Allison: There’s a lot of that in this story. [laughs] 

Ann: Yeah. Berry inspires a lot of loyalty, which is sweet. But I think Madame Élisabeth is somebody who initially they thought… Because his brother, Provence, was going to leave also, but he was just going to leave one guy and one servant, like the way that you can escape properly, and then his wife is going to leave one lady and one lady servant. And Provence, I mentioned before, I just want to mention, he is fat. I mention that because he had not been able to ride a horse because of his size, but he had, like… It took so long to get this plan together. He just started horseback riding and training and, like, losing weight, and so he was able to do it. So, I just wanted to mention that. 

Allison: Good for him. 

Ann: Yeah. So, Madame Élisabeth, they thought maybe she could leave with someone else, but she’s like, “I will not leave my brother’s side.” So, this leaves one spot left if you’re counting in the six-person party bus. And this one spot went to the loyal governess Madame de Tourzel, who had sworn to never leave the Dauphin’s side. 

What the party bus was missing was anyone with common sense, [Allison laughs] travel experience, decisiveness. Before Madame Élisabeth decided that she had to be in the bus, too, the sixth spot was going to be held for a senior courtier who Berry could trust to make decisions, but then she came in and that was that. They had, along with them, two equerries and a courier, so the courier would be like, would ride with them and then go ahead to the next spot to make sure the horses were there and to communicate, like, “Hey, they’re coming,” and whatever. Three waiting women would follow in a smaller carriage. I picture the waiting women in, like, one of those trailers that you have behind a camper van. [Allison laughs] 

Axel von Fersen would drive the party bus for the first, crucial part of the journey, like, getting out of Paris, because that’s kind of… 

Allison: That’s the hard part. 

Ann: Yeah. That’s kind of the most fraught part. You need somebody who’s, like, experienced that sort of stuff. But he would separate once they got outside of Paris. He wanted to drive the whole way because he was loyal to Marie Antoinette, and he knew he was useful and, if only he had… But Berry didn’t— He forbade it, not because he was allegedly Marie Antoinette’s lover, but because he was Swedish and Berry didn’t want any taint of foreigners on this whole thing. He wanted to be like, “I’m the French king. I’m staying in France. I’m travelling with French people,” This was important to him. 

Allison: Okay. 

Ann: Finally, they received a letter from Leopold saying like, “Okay, I’ve ordered… I paid for the troops they’re going to amass in this place where you need to have the troops to be.” 

Allison: Finally! 

Ann: So, the date of their departure was set for the evening of June 12th, but there was a church thing happening, it was the eve of Pentecost so there would be more than usual amounts of people on the street. So, they’re like, “Let’s not go when the mob…” 

Allison: “Everyone’s outside talking about their favourite priests. Give it a minute.” 

Ann: On that day, I want to say. So, Léo. Remember Léo the hairdresser? 

Allison: Yes. 

Ann: He wrote a book— I mean, spoiler. He survives all of this. He wrote a book that’s called The Recollections of Léonard. 

Allison: Yes! [laughs] Get it! 

Ann: Like, the memoir of Marie Antoinette’s hairdresser. I just love…

Allison: Honestly, the story of Marie Antoinette’s hairdresser is a historical fiction novel that would sell a million copies today. 

Ann: I’m so happy Léo is in the Sofia Coppola movie, by the way. When he was there, I was just like, “Oh! It’s my guy.” 

At this point, because he was allowed in and out of Tuileries because he’s the hairdresser and whatever, he’s part of the plan now as well, just so you know. So, he snuck into the Tuileries at one point, and he was given a baton of a marshal of France, which he was entrusted to give to Bouillé once he met up in that place. He was also entrusted with a bunch of Marie Antoinette’s jewels, which she wanted him to take ahead to Brussels so that they would be there for when she arrived. Publicly, Marie Antoinette and Berry continued on as per usual; they attended the opera, they had their dinners. They didn’t tell any, obviously, they didn’t tell anybody what they were doing. 

Allison: “We’re escaping tomorrow. Don’t come for dinner.” 

Ann: Over, like, the week leading up to it, they told some trusted servants, “Maybe you might want to go take a little holiday. Oh, you look a little sick. Maybe you should go take the waters in a city that is not here.” Casual things. She did not warn her best friend, the Princess de Lamballe, not because she didn’t trust her, but because Princess de Lamballe was the sister-in-law of Ryan Phillippe, and she was just like, “I can’t risk Ryan Phillippe finding out about this.” 

So, they set a new date, June 19th, but Berry was like, “We can’t do that. That’s a Sunday. You know you can’t travel on a party bus on a Sunday. That’s one of my rules of life.” So, they’re like, okay. So, the date was set to the next day, Monday, June 20th. We’re getting to the most exciting part. They’re leaving under the cover of darkness. During the day, they’re all just acting as normal as possible. Marie Antoinette took her children out for a walk in a public garden so everyone saw it, and afterwards, she told the guards like, “This was nice. Can you bring me here tomorrow to walk the children here again? A day that I will be here.”

Allison: Said that loudly, projecting.

Ann: “And so will they.” Everyone had supper, and they went to bed as per usual. Provence, at this point, he took off in disguise as an English merchant. 

Allison: I want to know how deep the backstories rolled for these guys. [laughs]

Ann: I’m really excited when we get to the pseudonyms. So, I said everything was as per usual, they went to bed. But like, part of the king going to bed, as it was in Versailles, it’s like, a million people came over to watch him do it, and then they tuck him behind these curtains, and it’s a party. Also, I do want to mention that one of the ways they were able to escape from the building is there was a series of secret passageways linking all the royal family’s rooms. They were able to use, you know, like, you cut through… You can’t even tell there’s a door. They had secretly just arranged so that they knew where all the hideaways, all the passageways were. I feel like Axel van Fursen figured this out for them. 

Ann: He probably made them. He’s like, “We’re going to need secret passageways in a year and a half. Nobody come in the West Wing.” 

Ann: Yeah. Yeah. So, I’m going to tell this in a bit reverse order, but to add suspense. So, everyone went to bed. In the morning, servants went to go wake up Marie Antoinette and Berry, and they found they were not there. [Allison gasps dramatically] But Berry had left a note explaining…

Allison: Of course he did! 

Ann: Saying, “Dear people of France,” is what it said. It was like, “It is I, the father of the kingdom.” And he was basically saying like, “Here’s why I did everything I did. Here’s why I came to Paris. Here’s where I said I supported the revolutionaries. I had no choice. I don’t really believe that.” And he closed off the letter by saying, “I will always be father and best friend to all Frenchmen. This letter was read out loud, and everybody freaked out, obviously.” So, as people were discovering that they were gone, in the morning, the party bus occupants were already on the road. 

These are their pseudonyms. Madame de Tourzel, the governess, took the lead role of Madame Korff, a Russian baroness. 

Allison: YES! [both laugh] I’m already so enthusiastic. None of this is necessary. 

Ann: Madame Élisabeth was Madame Korff’s highborn companion, Madame Rocher. The Dauphin was disguised as a little girl, and his sister was also there, and I don’t know why it says “Marie- Thérèse was wearing calico. I guess that was like…

Allison: Okay. 

Ann: They were playing the baroness’s children, Amélie and [strong, comedic French accent] [ph] Agla-ee-ay. [Allison laughs] Agläié. It’s a name with so many accents on it, Allison. 

Allison: Oh, I can only imagine how many accents. Also, are they not Russian? 

Ann: What shall we call these children? It’s like you ask the children, “What do you want to be called?” “I’ll be called Spider-Man.” [Allison laughs] So, these are the little children, Amélie and Agläié. Marie-Antoinette, her face and hair hidden under a drab hat and wearing a severe black cape, was Rosalie, the governess. 

Allison: Fabulous, fabulous, fabulous. 

Ann: And Berry, in a wig and plain brown coat, was the Baroness’s manservant, Monsieur Durand. 

Allison: That’s giving like Mitt Romney’s fake French pseudonym from, like, 2011. I love this. I love this. 

Ann: It’s reminding me of Anthony Weiner, “Carlos Danger.” 

Allison: Yeah, yeah. Mitt Romney was Pierre Delecto, which is the most Flight to Varennes thing ever. 

Ann: Pierre Delecto, yeah. So, their escape was, it was modelled on the Duchess of Polignac, who, like, after the Women’s March had escaped, and they had escaped successfully under cover of darkness with assumed identities. And so, they were kind of just being like, “That worked for her, let’s do that too!” But also, when you had, like, six months to plan this thing, you’re like, “Here’s my backstory.” 

Allison: “I was a Russian countess.” 

Ann: “I never knew my father. [Allison bursts into laughter] And then one day…” Like, what do you have to do except just make up more details? 

Okay, so now I’m going to backtrack. How did they get out? So, at 10:30 p.m., Tourzel, the governess, woke up the Dauphin. And remember, they hadn’t told the kids they were doing this because especially the Dauphin, he’s like, 6. 

Allison: Right, right, right. You can’t tell the kid you’re going to Disney World. He’s going to tell everybody. You’ve got to get him up and go. 

Ann: Yeah, exactly. But she knew that the Dauphin— And this is kind of cute. It’s like, you know this is the son of Berry, this guy really likes soldiers and, like, army things. It’s like, “Hey, guess what? Here’s our mission, little guy. I can’t tell you details, but you’re an important soldier, and this is our soldier mission.” And he’s like, “I got it.” She’s like, “You need to put on this girl’s clothing. Your name is now Agläié.” [Allison laughs] 

Allison: 10-4. 

Ann: Yeah, got it. So, the governess and the kids went through this unguarded, ground-floor door, which is, like, someone was staying in this apartment, but now they’re not staying in this apartment anymore, and so no one’s guarding it. Axel von Fersen was waiting outside, this is under cover of darkness and after bedtime. So, Axel von Fersen is waiting in this unmarked carriage; he’s not in the party bus yet. They’re going to drive to a second location to change to the party bus. 

Allison: Well, it would be wild if the party bus pulled up outside the Tuileries. Just like, had it’s flashing lights on. [laughs]

Ann: I was picturing the flashing lights as well. Just like, unz, unz, unz. 

Allison: Yeah. He’s playing Lady Gaga top volume. 

Ann: Exactly. So, he was waiting. He had been driving around the block a few times to not look suspicious waiting. And actually, as he was driving in and out of Tuileries, he passed by Lafayette’s carriage as it entered Tuileries because Lafayette was coming to attend the King’s going to bed, night-night party. 

Allison: He was just like, “Merrr. Don’t look at me.” 

Ann: Totally just a Baron von Korff driving my carriage. 

Allison: He starts, like, reclining his seat all the way back. 

Ann: [makes drawn-out beep sound] So, Elizabeth came out as well. Berry couldn’t get out until they finished his like, bedtime ritual because he’s in his bed, they pull the curtains around his bed, everyone’s having a party in his bedroom. There’s not a secret door behind his bed, so he has to wait for all the people to leave. But then he had a clever ruse, and I like this for him. There was a guy who kind of looked like him who visited the palace regularly, called the Chevalier de Coigny, and he usually left around this time of night. So, Berry just pretended that it was him. 

Allison: Oh! Good for him! 

Ann: “I’m the Chevalier de Coigny. Don’t worry about me. My hobbies include not lock-making and other things.” 

Allison: [laughs] He puts on his Chevalier hat, and then as soon as he gets into the bus, he puts on his man servant hat. 

Ann: And he was very proud of himself. He said at one point, like his shoe came unbuckled and he stopped and buckled the shoe, and he’s like, “And nobody suspected it was me!” Marie Antoinette waited until everyone else was there first because she if she wasn’t able to get— She’s like, maybe they could all go, and she could leave, and that would give them some time if she wasn’t able to get it. 

So, they left at 1:30 a.m. This is already behind schedule for the record because the bedtime party took longer— They know exactly how long the bedtime party takes. I don’t know why they didn’t— Anyway, why am I talking like this is a good plan? It is not a good plan. Berry told Axel von Fersen, like, they got to the outskirts of Paris, Axel von Fersen got them out there, they switched to the party bus, and Berry told him, “Whatever may happen to me, I shall never forget what you have done.” So, Axel von Fersen and Marie Antoinette made their farewell in code because if they’re not sexually lovers, they’re certainly extremely close friends, and they had a secret language. So, they had this farewell, and then he rode off into the night. I think he’s going… We’re going to see him again, Axel von Fersen. He’s going ahead to meet them in Brussels or something. 

So, the party bus continued on. Because they had, like, a hot plate, they have the onboard toilets, they didn’t really have to stop, just at some points they did, so the children could get fresh air and also had to switch and change horses at various places, but that was all arranged for them. Everything’s going amazing. At one stop, Berry got out of the carriage and made an effort to engage with his subjects, like, “Hello. Hello, other French peasants. Don’t you like the king? Isn’t he nice and knows about locks?” What he’s actually— No, what it said was, “He was talking to the passersby about crops.” 

Allison: Of course he was. “Lovely weather we’re having. Very good for the soybeans. I am a peasant.” [chuckles]

Ann: The coachman intervened, imploring him to stay hidden. 

Allison: [laughs] “Sire! Get in the bus!” 

Ann: The completely inconspicuous party camper van. And Berry was surprised and said, “I do not think that is necessary any longer. My journey seems to me now to be safe from all accidents.” Like, he really thought that as soon as he’s outside of Paris, everybody loves him and it’s fine. That’s not true. 

So, at around 2:00 a.m., they’ve been on the road for a half hour, the horses stumbled and fell, requiring the broken harness to be mended, which is just, like, a thing that happens when you’re travelling in a carriage in olden times. At this point, they were two hours behind schedule because they left late because of, like, Lafayette came for the bedtime party and the bedtime party went long, and they couldn’t leave until after that. Here’s what I wrote. “They were behind schedule. But in fairness, this was olden times. So, come on.” One would think you would have some wiggle room. 

Allison: No one’s, like, tracking the GPS. “You are supposed to be here in five minutes.” 

Ann: And yet someone is psychologically tracking the GPS, and that is Choiseul. So, Choiseul is further along the route, and he lost his mind. He had been waiting for two hours with his dragoons. 

Allison: Honestly, I would be panicking, too. I was like, “They got caught. They’re dead. I’m dead. Everyone’s dead.” 

Ann: Yeah. Yeah. He’d been waiting for two hours with his dragoons, like, as one of the groups of soldiers along the road to protect them. But he was like, “It’s been two hours. Clearly, the mission has been aborted. They’ve been caught. They didn’t get away.” So, he was supposed to wait for Marie Antoinette’s courier to ride up to be like, ”Hey, here’s how it’s going.” But he just decided to call it a day. He’s just like, what did he say? “He proned to chaos.” [Allison laughs] It’s like this is not the guy you have at like meeting point A. 

Allison: No, this is the guy you give a four-hour window on either side. 

Ann: Yeah. He was just waiting, and he’s like, “You know what? It’s been two hours. They’re clearly not coming. Peace out.” So, he had another assistant or companion there with him, and so the companion went ahead to tell the soldiers on the next step on the route, like, “Hey, guess what? The plan’s not happening. They didn’t escape.” 

Allison: No! 

Ann: At this point, interestingly, also with Choiseul was Léo, the hairdresser. Léo the hairdresser was like, “Okay, plan is off. I guess I’ll just go to Brussels with Marie Antoinette’s casket of jewels and let them know, like, she didn’t make it out. But here’s her jewels,” I guess. But Léo, again, I’m sure there are so many hairdressers who would be great in this situation; Léo, not one of them. He handed over the treasure chest of jewels to a soldier, and the soldier was found the next day, murdered and empty-handed. 

Allison: Yeah, surprise, buddy! That’s the most robbable thing you could do. 

Ann: Yeah. So, at this point, the whole plan has fallen apart, but the party bus doesn’t know that yet. They’re just going through, Berry’s like, “Hello, fellow farmers.” 

Allison: “Have you heard about the Russian countess I’m driving with [Ann chuckles] and her whimsically named children?” 

Ann: Agläié. So, they reached a city called Chaintrix, which is about 90 miles east of Paris. At this point, it’s 2:30 in the afternoon, so it’s been like 12 hours of party bus going. Some people say like, “Oh my god, how could they have stopped the party bus to stop and have a picnic or whatever?” It’s like, well, it’s a 12-hour trip, and do you want to be in a party bus for 12 hours with two little kids and, like, porta-potties on board? That was the least of their problems, frankly, as to why this plan is not a good plan. I would propose why this plan is not a good plan is that they refuse to leave France. 

Allison: Or they didn’t leave a year and a half ago, and it would have been so easy. 

Ann: When they could have just left on horses. There’s a lot of things wrong with this plan. Stopping to take a picnic lunch is not one of those things. Maybe it’s one of those things, but… 

Allison: It’s not the number one of those things. 

Ann: It’s long. If we’ve got a list of 200 things, that’s like, towards the bottom. Anyway, so it’s 2:30 in the afternoon, the exact time that Axel von Fersen had told Bouillé that they would be about 35 miles away from there, where Bouillé and his soldiers were waiting to escort them. Berry, again, got out of the carriage to mingle with the townspeople and was recognized. It wasn’t necessarily by somebody looking at a coin in their hand, looking at his face, looking at the coin. [Allison laughs] It might have been. 

Allison: It was basically that. 

Ann: But to his credit, rather than being… You know, it wasn’t an angry mob attacking him like they would have in Paris. Instead, people were like, “Oh my God, it’s the king. This is so great! Isn’t this cool? The king’s in our town! This is exciting.” 

Allison: He’s like, “I told you they love me!” 

Ann: Yeah. So, he’s feeling confident in the plan. At this point, he got back into the party bus, and he said to Marie Antoinette, “Monsieur de Lafayette at this moment does not know what to do with himself. Ha-ha-ha!” Untrue. Meanwhile, back in Paris. 

Allison: Meanwhile, Monsieur de Lafayette. 

Ann: Meanwhile, Monsieur de Lafayette mobilized a squadron of people, of couriers. He made a proclamation, and then he sent the proclamation with these couriers to distribute it all around all of France, that said: 

The King, having been removed by the enemies of the Revolution, the bearer is instructed to impart the fact to all good citizens who are commanded in the name of their endangered country to take him out of their hands and to bring him back to the keeping of the National Assembly. This order extends to all the royal family.

So basically, couriers just, like, moved a lot more quickly than the party bus because it’s a guy on a horse, to all corners of the kingdom just to be like, “Be on alert. The royal family has escaped.” 

Allison: “Have you seen this king? Let me know.” 

Ann: Yeah. [laughs] Have you seen this king? There’s not a reward, but the reward is we won’t kill you. So, messengers and fast horses carry this all around and then also members of the National Assembly. So, this is like the National Guard. Lafayette is sending these couriers. The National Assembly, the like, merp merp merp, politician guys, also sent emissaries to track down the king. And word, like Chaintrix, you know, he stopped to be like, “Hello, fellow peasants.” Word travelled there into nearby villages, like, “Oh my God, the king is nearby!” And around the same time, there was a report that a sighting of German soldiers were loitering suspiciously. [Allison laughs] And so, the people of the countryside did not need a proclamation from Lafayette to understand these phenomena were related. But it was feared, Axel von Fersen, when he had been like, “We need to maybe not have soldiers everywhere,” was like the foreign troops, people are going to think that this is the wave, like the first wave of an invasion. The Germans are coming to invade to take over France. They’re coming here to overthrow the Revolution.” 

So, by the time the royal family rolled into the next stop, Chalons, the mood of the local population had darkened because, I guess they got in the couriers or, like, word had spread. So, they arrived, they pulled up in the party bus and Berry’s like, “Hey! Bonjour!” People are just kind of like, whispering and looking at them, and kind of not greeting them very happily. So, the royal family was like, “Let’s speed things up on the party bus a little bit.” They are now eight hours behind schedule, which again, I think the schedule really should have had more wiggle room to it in this day and age. And no, like, did no one know the speed of a party bus? 

Allison: Yeah. And like, they couldn’t have taken a six-hour picnic, something else was… 

Ann: Yeah. So, this is at the point where they got to the meeting spot where Choiseul was supposed to have been and he was long gone. The troops were all asleep in beds or had left or whatever. 

Allison: Or had been murdered with a casket full of jewels. 

Ann: Various things. So, the party bus was just like, “Wait, where’s everybody? What’s going on?” And they weren’t sure what they… [laughs] They were just like, “What do we do? The soldiers aren’t here.” And there was not a decision maker in the party bus. So, they just did it Berry style. They’re like, “Well, I guess we just keep going. I guess we just make no decision and just carry on.” 

Allison: I mean, I don’t know what else they would have done, though. Like, you can’t turn around and go back. 

Ann: Exactly. Like, send a courier? To where and to who? I don’t know. After they’d been travelling for 18 hours, they reached a place called Ste. Menehould, where 40 of Choiseul’s dragoons were there, but they’d taken the saddles of their horses, and they were sleeping. [both laugh and groan] When the commander of these dragoons, not Choiseul, but somebody else, realized the royals were passing, they were like, “Oh shit!” But they kept their distance to avoid suspicion because they’re like, “If we, soldiers, start running after them, that’ll bring attention to them, and we don’t want attention to them.” At this point, Berry was literally hanging his head out of the party bus like a dog on the highway. [Allison laughs] You know in Moulin Rouge, when he’s like, [sings, Allison joins in] “Everything’s going so well!” 

Allison: Of course. [laughs]

Ann: That’s Berry’s vibe. 

So, at this point along the highway, this slow-moving party bus with Berry sticking his head out, he was recognized by a local revolutionary named Drouet. Drouet claimed that he recognized Berry from a coin he had in his pocket with Berry’s face on it. But perhaps it was just like, “Oh, look! A party bus.” 

Allison: “Oh, look! A party bus. Oh, look! The King?” 

Ann: “Oh, look! Dragoons lurking nearby. Oh, look! A message from Lafayette that the king is on the run” Anyway, so he left, and Drouet was like, “Mmm, I’m pretty sure that was a king, don’t know what to do about it.” But he went to whoever’s in charge of the municipality, and that person was like, “Maybe you should go and chase after the party bus, Drouet,” and he’s like, “On it, for sure.” There’s a plaque at this part where it’s like, “This is where a patriot called Drouet saw the king.” You could go on some sort of really interesting road trip following the route of the party bus, probably. 

Allison: Oh my gosh, you could take such a good picnic. [Ann laughs] But you would have to get five of your closest friends and you would all have to get assumed identities. 

Ann: And you have to get, like, some sort of fancy picnic basket with mechanical levers as well. 

Allison: Oh, that’s non-negotiable. 

Ann: Yeah, exactly, exactly. So, you, me, Lana, two others. 

Allison: Perfect. 

Ann: So, anyway. The party bus kept going. [Allison laughs] In its wake, just like so many people chasing the party bus is just like [sing-song] “Doo-doo-doo!” 

Allison: The mob is gaining pikes as it goes. 

Ann: The next stop was at Clermont, like they’re switching out the horses at Clermont. And Léo, the hairdresser, had already come — this was before he gave the jewels and the guy with the jewels was murdered — but Léo had come and gone to tell the local dragoons, like, the plan is off. So, these soldiers, also asleep. Drouet and his companion came in like after the party bus, and some people were like, “Hey, Drouet, I heard somebody on the party bus say as they swapped their horses, ‘Take the road to Varennes.’” So, this is where I’m going to reveal to everybody that this whole situation is known to history as the flight to Varennes, that is the name of all of this. So, just so you know, we’re getting to the climax of this slow-motion disaster. 

Allison: This is the slowest car chase in history. [laughs] It’s like the Fast and the Furious, but it’s not fast and it’s not furious. 

Ann: The slow and the gentle, I don’t know. The ponderous and the lackadaisical. 

Allison: [laughs] The ponderous and the chaotic, I think works. 

Ann: It was around 11:00 p.m. that they reached Varennes, which is a town of, like, 100 people, which is a place where when it was on their route, they’re like, “Okay, well, you have to go down this dirt path. It’s like not even a road, and there’s not usually horses there to switch out. So, I’ll have to call ahead to, like, get the horses there and call ahead. I mean, say in words because there’s not phones. 

Anyway, so they arrived at Varennes at 11:00 p.m., which, I don’t know if they’re still eight hours behind, but they were not supposed to arrive there at 11:00 p.m., they were supposed to arrive there in daytime. They were in urgent need of fresh horses and they had prearranged to pick up the horses here but nobody on the party bus knew where the horses were because what part of the town are the horses even kept in? And it’s nighttime and it’s the middle of the woods. And do you know who is supposed to have passed on word about where the horses were so that they would know? 

Allison: Who was it? 

Ann: Oh, it was Choiseul. Your clutch guy, because remember he was in charge of paying for the horses. 

Allison: Yeah, because he was so good at every single responsibility he had at this job. 

Ann: Yeah, it’s not at all like he’s the single reason why it all fell apart. 

Allison: [mutters] Jesus. 

Ann: We’ll get to Choiseul later, but when I finished reading this part of the book, I was just like, “Let me just quickly look on a Wikipedia and just be like, and when was he guillotined? Because I need some schadenfreude.” [Allison laughs] 

Anyway, so the party bus inhabitants wandered around looking for their horses. Eventually, they were going door-to-door knocking. 

Allison: “Excuse me. Are you a horse?” [laughs]

Ann: [laughs] “It is I, Madame Korff, a Baroness from Russia.” 

Allison: [poor Russian accent] “Excuse me, I am the Russian Countess. I am looking for the horses.” I don’t know what accent that was. 

Ann: Probably better than theirs. Meanwhile, so they’re going door-to-door, knocking, looking for horses. Meanwhile, on the other side of town, two soldiers were waiting with the horses, [Allison laughs] along with a troop of German soldiers also waiting. But it’s dark, right? There’s not street lights, it’s olden times. 

Allison: They’re in the woods! 

Ann: But also, the army guys in the woods are also lost in the woods, they don’t know how to get out of the woods. So, Drouet, this revolutionary guy, who, at this point, he’s giving me a Javert feeling of just intent, obsessive, not stopping-ness. So, he reached Varennes and he rang the tocsin. The tocsin, it’s the alarm bell a small village has to be, like, something is happening. So, that woke up everybody, and in this town of 100 people, they have some amount of National Guards, I don’t know, like, two. So, the people woke up and they set up a barricade. 

Allison: Yes! 

Ann: Trademark Les Mis. 

Allison: On the one road in town. 

Ann: They did! That’s what they did. [both laugh] They upended a cart and piled boxes. 

Allison: And now the entire road is closed. 

Ann: Now nobody can get into Varennes because they’re like, “This way, nobody can get into help the royal family because we Les Mis-ed…” 

Allison: We Les Mis-ed the only street we have. 

Ann: Yeah. So, the troops were stuck in the woods, and now they couldn’t get in. Drouet and his new squad set up an ambush for the party bus, which was going to come down the main street at some point, when the party bus drove right into the ambush. And so, these guys, the National Guardsmen, surrounded the bus screaming, I don’t know, “Heads on pikes!” vibes for sure. Who could help them now, Allison? Who could help them now? 

Allison: Who could help them? 

Ann: Well, the mayor was not in town. So, you know, who was in charge of the town this night? 

Allison: Who was in charge of the town? 

Ann: The local grocer, Monsieur Sauce. 

Allison: [laughs] No! 

Ann: Oui. 

Allison: [laughing] The way you paused, I thought it was going to be someone I could guess, and not in a million years would I have said anything half as good as that. 

Ann: So, the grocer, Monsieur Sauce, in charge of Varennes this night. 

Allison: Oh, I’m going to wake up in the middle of the night in, like, eight hours, still laughing about Monsieur Sauce. Thank you for that. 

Ann: Well, wait to see what Monsieur Sauce does. So, Monsieur Sauce was just like, “Okay, I’m in charge for the night. I’m not sure what to do. We’ve got this missive from Lafayette.” So, Monsieur Sauce is like, “Just come into my house,” I assume Chez Sauce, [Allison laughs] to keep them safe while he waited for instructions from Paris on what to do. So, just in Sauce’s house. 

Allison: “Come into my living room. Can I offer you a baguette and some cheese?” 

Ann: “Perhaps with some sauce.” Maybe he’s who invented sauce, the concept. So, Chez Sauce is now, it’s the middle of the night, it’s like midnight. And Sauce, I’m going to keep calling it Chez Sauce, like Sauce’s Grocery— What’s it called? Bodega. 

Allison: [laughing] Sauce’s Bodega! 

Ann: The peasants of the town, the like, 100 citizens, I guess 99 because Sauce is the 100th person. 

Allison: Right, right, right. He’s busy. He’s on duty. 

Ann: Everybody else surrounded the house and is described as “hissing.” The mob was hissing around Chez Sauce and just being like, a mob and just being like, “The royal family’s in there,” and like whatever. So, Marie Antoinette and Berry were just kind of like, “I hope that any of the soldiers, like, throughout France, are going to show up now to save us,” but they can’t because of the barricades.

Allison: There’s a cart in the road. 

Ann: You know who arrived? This is someone who you actually will recognize the name of, is, shockingly, Choiseul. 

Allison: Really? 

Ann: He somehow eventually arrived with his dragoons. 

Aae: He’s like, “Surely I haven’t missed anything.”,

Ann: “Dragoons, could you move those boxes off that road?” “Oh, no one thought of that. Thanks, Choiseul.” So, he came in, and he was allowed to see Berry for some reason. He offered him his sword because, as King, Berry could take charge of the dragoons. But Berry was like, “No, thanks. That’s not appropriate.” 

Allison: It is far too late for that, my guy. 

Ann: Yeah. Berry did give a little speech, perhaps a speech he’d been preparing to get the citizens on his side. Anyway, he said, “I will not leave France, and after I leave and get an army, I’ll come back to Varennes because I will remember you fondly for how you supported me.” 

Allison: All these people hissing at him from the windows. 

Ann: [laughs] Hissing peasants.

Allison: I’m imagining it’s like Sinners when the vampires are all around the tavern or something.

Ann: I’m picturing it’s like Sinners crossed with like the people from the opening song of Beauty and the Beast. No! It’s like the Gaston mob! It’s the Gaston mob. 

Allison: It is the Gaston mob. Someone needs six eggs, and they’re pissed. [laughs] 

Ann: That’s who, Monsieur Sauce is the grocer. 

Allison: There goes Monsieur Sauce with his tray, like always. 

Ann: Put him in that song, honestly. So, early in the morning, everyone’s just like—

Allison: No! No! No! “He really is a funny girl, Choiseul.” It’s right there. [laughs]

Ann: [laughs] So, Lafayette’s men arrive early in the morning, two of them, with orders demanding the return of the king to Paris. Because remember, Sauce has just been waiting to be like, “I’m going to wait for instructions. I’m a grocer, and this is above my pay grade. I said I could be temporary mayor for one night, and this happens?” 

Allison: I want him to get some kind of award this season. I don’t care what kind of award it is. 

Ann: Sauce is just like, yeah. 

Allison: I love him. 

Ann: If you’d had Sauce instead of Choiseul, I think everything would have gone differently because Sauce can handle his shit. 

Allison: He can. He’s like, “I’m a grocer. However, now I am a jailer of the king, and I will do exactly what I have to do.” 

Ann: Yeah, yeah. So, Lafayette’s men arrive, and they’re like, “Okay. I understand the king of France is here. Return the king to Paris.” And Berry is just, like, this is the most upset I’ve ever seen him be. He’s like, “There is no longer a king of France!” It took him this point to realize that. So, they had this document being like, these are the orders saying that we have to return you. Marie Antoinette took the orders, threw them on the ground, stomped on them, I assume, and she said, “What audacity! What cruelty! Subjects having the temerity to pretend to give orders to their king and the daughter of the Caesars.” [Allison exclaims] Remember her family’s descended from the Caesars? Her mom, like the Habsburgs, I think. Anyway, she says, “I will not allow my children to be defiled by such a preposterous document.” 

Allison: Yes! Beautiful. 

Ann: It is a beautiful quote, a beautiful quote. But the mob, [laughs] they move from hissing to chanting, apparently. They’re saying, “We will drag them by the feet to the carriage.” 

Allison: Okay. Specific. 

Ann: Yeah. So, their last hope, they’re just kind of killing time, they’re just waiting, like, maybe Bouillé is going to come here and find us because Bouillé was waiting, god knows, wherever he was. And eventually, word had gotten to him and so, he tried to get to Varennes, but he was so far away, like, he was just too far away to get there. Berry was trying to stall, but eventually they were forced back into the party bus to go back to Paris. Choiseul, at this point, he helped Berry back into the party bus by, I don’t know, just like, helping him step up or whatever. 

Allison: “Here you go, sir.” 

Ann: I’ll tell you, I have a Breakfast Club thing at the end of like, what happened to everybody? 

Allison: “Where are they now?” 

Ann: Choiseul did later write memoirs. He recalled feeling an inexpressible anguish “as if he was seeing King Charles I of England handed over to the executioners.” 

Allison: You know that Berry was just like, “Yessss!” 

Ann: “That’s the vibe I was going for!” Berry did later describe this escape attempt as one of the most virtuous acts of his life. Anyway, Marie Antoinette, I like this, she wrote or said later, “Evidently, we have been deceived as to the real state of public sentiment in France.” 

Allison: Yeah, girl. You have. 

Ann: Correct. You are not popular. So anyway, then it’s like, the world’s worst— Then they had to retread their whole party bus trip, but this time 10 times slower because… 

Allison: The walk of shame. 

Ann: The mob is walking with them, and they have to go at a walking pace. 

Allison: Jesus. That’s awful. 

Ann: And it’s like, Paris, or it’s France, in summer. What is it? June. So, it was unseasonably hot, even for France in June. The roads were so dusty. Everyone is just covered in sweat, and then the dirt came up, and then sticks to the sweat. So, everyone’s just like… They look like in Mad Max. They weren’t allowed to close the party bus windows, so their clothes, which they’ve been wearing now for three days or something, like, just imagine the gross, the sweat, the dirt. Horrific. So, it took them 22 hours, initially, to get from Paris to Varennes, and it took them four days to make their return trip.

Allison: Oof!

Ann: Because, yeah, again, people are walking next to them. People aren’t with scythes, muskets, pikes, pitchforks and sabres. As they passed various cities, people were lined up on the roads, heckling and throwing things at them. But it wasn’t a 24-hour thing. At night, they would go to sleep in inns, and sometimes, at at least two of the inns, the people there were like, “Do you want us to help you secretly escape?” But Marie Antoinette is like, “Not unless we can all go as a group.” Because the escape options they were presented with was, like, one person going down a flight of stairs. It’s like, “No, we are a party of six.” 

Allison: Hence the bus. 

Ann: So, the weather was the hottest days anyone had ever felt. This is a time of climate chaos. It’s like the weird— Whatever. There’s been, like we’ve talked about in various episodes, you know, there was a blizzard in August and, like, all this weird stuff. This is why the crops are so bad. So, a Scottish woman named Grace Dalrymple Elliott, who was in France for reasons we will discuss in a future episode, recorded it was the hottest weather that she had ever experienced. And the mob was getting meaner as they got closer to Paris. People were swearing and threatening them. This part, I think you’re going to enjoy. It’s not like a Sauce level, but it’s a good level. When they got to Paris, Lafayette had instructed everyone— Like, usually when the carriage with the royal family passed by, everyone had to take off their hats. But Lafayette had said like, “No, keep your hats on. I want this to be a hats-on procession of shame for the royal family.” 

Allison: [sings] Hats on procession of shame! 

Ann: But not everyone had a hat. What about the poor people? What about the poor people whose job was to, whatever, like, clean wheels of carriages with grease rags? Allison, they put the grease rags on their heads. 

Allison: Yeeees! [laughs]

Ann: So, everyone just had something on their heads. 

Allison: There’s a man just holding a fish on his head, he’s like, “This is all I had, but fuck you.” 

Ann: Piece of bread. So, everyone just put something, you had to put something on your head. I just like the grease rags on the heads; it’s a stunning image. Lafayette had also posted instructions, I don’t know where, but everyone seemingly understood the instructions, like, “Put something on your head, ideally a hat, grease rag, if that’s all there is. Maybe your hand.” But he’d also said, “Nobody should applaud the king, but also you shouldn’t insult the king.” It was like, “If anyone insults the king, you’ll be thrown in jail. And if you applaud the king, you’ll be executed.” So, everyone was just, like, heads covered, silent, which is really creepy. 

Allison: That’s actually really spooky. Eugh! 

Ann: Marie Antoinette, so all throughout her whole life, people noticed that she had this perfect posture, she had this way about her, just an aura of sort of, like, poise. So, even in this situation, covered in sweat and dust in the party bus, “Somehow her proud and noble air still made an impression on some of the people who saw her.” She still had this air of, like, queenliness around her, which is notable. 

So, they pulled up to Tuileries, 8:00 p.m. on day four of the worst road trip of all time. There was about 30,000 people walking with them, just mob types. Berry was so exhausted at this point, he could barely get out of the coach, out of the party bus. He had also, by this time… We know very well what he’s like at this point, but I think anyone could be like this. He had just shut down completely, emotionally, like, he wasn’t talking. He was just like… Yeah, he was not all there. 

Allison: Not doing well. Yeah. 

Ann: One of the deputies who was riding with him noted that “He was as unmoved and composed as if nothing unusual were happening. He acted as if he were returning from a hunting expedition.” Yeah, he was in enormous emotional distress and was dissociating, clearly. So, Marie Antoinette’s hair had recently, suddenly, turned white from stress. This is interesting. At this point, she cut off a lock of her hair to send to her friend Princess Lamballe, and Princess Lamballe got the hair and put it in a ring inscribed with a phrase, “Whitened by misfortune.” So, just a lot of people with a lot of hair in rings at this time. 

Allison: I was going to say, we started the story with a hair ring, and we’re ending it with a hair ring, too. I mean, it has been a ha-ring expedition. [Ann laughs] I’m sorry. 

Ann: No, thank you, thank you. That’s why you’re here. 

So, there were various servants on the party bus, in and around the party bus. And so, those people were taken to prison, mostly for their own protection, because the mob likes to rip people apart. 

Allison: Is mobbing.

Ann: Likes to rip people apart. 

Ann: The mob is just, like, at a high level of mobbing. Marie Antoinette had just enough strength left when they returned to Tuileries to write a single letter before she just collapsed in grief and exhaustion. The letter was to Axel von Fersen. She wrote, “I can tell you I love you, and I don’t even have time for that. I am well. Do not worry about me. Adieu, most loved and loving of men. I kiss you with all my heart.” That’s what she wrote. So, Berry, we said in a previous episode, when he was a young boy, or I guess a teen, his mother was like, “Maybe it’ll help you if you keep a diary of events and you can look back at what you did and how you behaved and maybe that can help you figure out how to behave in the same situation later.” But what he mostly did in his diary was he would just write down how many things he shot that day when he was hunting. So, it would be like “17 deer” or like “Rien” is the thing that he writes when he didn’t shoot anything. Like, the day of the Women’s March, he wrote “Rien,” famously, that’s all he recorded. What Berry wrote in his diary this day was, “Departure at midnight from Paris. Arrived and stopped in Varennes at 11 o’clock in the evening.” 

Allison: Technically correct. 

Ann: Factually true. And at the end of the year, at the end of every year, he always recorded the journeys he’d made that year, and for this year, he wrote “Five nights spent outside Paris in 1791.” 

Allison: Again, correct. 

Ann: Factually true. 

Okay, I just want to quickly Breakfast Club this, like, what happened to everybody? So, we’re leaving Marie Antoinette and her family back in Tuileries Palace. Next week, we’ll talk about what happens next to them. But everybody else… Axel von Fersen; he switched them into the party bus, said adieu and then headed off. He went to the Austrian Netherlands, and he rode hard through the night and got there super quickly, like you can when you’re one person on a horse. He didn’t hear that they had been captured until they were already on route back to Paris. His anguish was palpable. He wrote to his father, “All is lost, my dear father, I’m in despair.” 

Berry’s brother Provence and Provence’s wife, Josephine, had both escaped individually with one servant each and reached Belgium like you can when you escape individually with one servant each. Provence was now the most senior French royal not currently in house arrest, was one step closer to his goal of becoming King of France. And in fact, Bouillé met up with him in Belgium and said about Provence, “There wasn’t a trace of tears in those eyes as dry as his heart.” He seemed almost satisfied or pleased that he was, like, maybe one step closer to being king. 

Léo, hairstylist. So, Léo’s brother, Jean-François, had been with Choiseul as well. I assume that’s how— I don’t know, one brother’s a hairstylist, one is a soldier, and they were both there together. Anyway, the brother ended up being put in prison and guillotined for his part in the flight to Varennes. Léo fled to Luxembourg and Russia, and he didn’t return to France until 1814, so post-Napoleon. 

Allison: Rock on, man. 

Ann: He correctly peaced out for all of that. So, he returned when the monarchy was restored under a king who I’ll tell everybody who that is later. He wrote his memoirs, Recollections of Léonard. [laughs]

Allison: [laughs] Which also sounds like a perfume that he could sell too, doesn’t it? 

Ann: Recollections by Léonard. 

Allison: Exactly. 

Ann: You can find that pretty easily if you just like do an internet search, Recollections of Léonard. 

Choiseul, who I, and also Antonia Fraser, who wrote this biography, put kind of the linchpin of the failure of the plan, was him peacing out after two hours and telling everybody else the plan was off. 

Allison: Why would you tell everybody else the plan was off? They just shut up and got home. 

Ann: It’s still, it could have gone wrong in so many ways, but it went wrong in the ways it did because of him. Tragically, because I told you when I was reading the story, I was just like, “I need to look up Choiseul and feel satisfaction in how I’m sure he was guillotined.” He was not. He, of all the people to not be guillotined, this guy? He was put in prison, where he wrote his version of events where he said, “Totally wasn’t my fault. It was the fault of Bouillé, who was in charge of the troops that got lost in the forests around Varennes.” 

Allison: Girl, things went wrong so far before that. 

Ann: He was liberated from prison in 1792, which is one year later. Not sure why, but lots of things, weird things happen. And then he fled France to fight in the émigré army of Louis-Joseph de Bourbon, Prince de Condé, against the French Republic. Then he was captured, confined at Dunkirk, escaped, set sail for India, was shipwrecked on the French coast and condemned to death by the decree of the French Directory. But then Napoleon Bonaparte allowed him to return to France in 1801. 

Allison: [laughs] Not for a single second did I know what your next sentence was going to be. 

Ann: Well, it’s like, who would have thought that the fight to Varennes was like the least interesting thing that happened to this man? 

Allison: Yeah, when you said “shipwreck,” I was like, oh, fuck. I don’t know. 

Ann: Well, when I said “India,” I was like, wait, what? Anyway, he was allowed to return to France by Napoleon. And then when Napoleon fell in 1815, up until Napoleon’s empire ended in 1815, Choiseul just kind of, we don’t know what he was doing. He was minding his own business, which I think is a good choice for a chaotic person like this. Anyway, eventually, so then there was the restoration of the monarchy. He was called to the new House of Peers, and so he became whatever the French version of a lord is. Then, you and I have done various episodes about, like, all the weird government things that happened in France, where it’s like… 

Allison: The fucking nonsense of the 1820s, yeah. 

Ann: Anyway, during the revolution of 1830, Choiseul was nominated a member of the provisional government. He afterwards received the post of Aide de Camp to the king and governor of the Louvre Palace. He died in Paris eight years later. This guy lived a life. Choiseul.

Allison: Yeah! Wow.

Ann: Which, you know, I appreciate an interesting, twisty life story, but I also am mad that he fucked everything up. And he’s, like, the one person that didn’t get guillotined. The one person… Like, him and the Aunts, I would have been okay with them being torn apart by the mob. 

Allison: Can you imagine the Aunts getting guillotined and being like, “You haven’t polished the guillotine enough. It’s so dirty.” 

Ann: [laughs] “How dare you cut my hair? You haven’t been introduced in Versailles.” Oh god, those bitches. They lived a long life, too. 

Anyway, Allison, I just have some end-of-episode notes to say. But first, can you tell everybody about where they can find your excellent Substack and also your books you’ve written for people who don’t know these things about you? 

Allison: For sure. You can find my passion project, which is my Substack. I write an every-other-week newsletter called “Dirtbags Through the Ages,” which is a profile of a person from history who sucks and who I think is fun, told with a lot of swears and a lot of ‘90s pop culture references. 

Ann: And a lot of puns. 

Allison: And a lot of puns, I cannot help myself. So, you can find that on Substack. And then, you can find all of my other stuff at my website, which is AllisonEpstein.com. I also write books, and you can find those books there. My latest novel is called Fagin the Thief, and it came out in February. If you haven’t picked it up, I would love it if you thought about it. 

Ann: I want to mention, too, that your book, Fagin the Thief, has an excellent audiobook with a really good narrator voice. 

Allison: Yes. Excellent for listening. If somehow you’ve listened to two hours and twenty minutes of me and Ann and are like, “I would like to listen to more things.” 

Ann: That’s what I was thinking. People who’ve listened to all of this are probably like people who like listening, and I think your book is a good listen. 

Allison: Yes. It’s a great listen. 

Ann: I wanted to mention, also, Allison and I and our other friend, Lana Wood Johnson, we do a Patreon special podcast called the Vulgarpiece Theatre, where we talk about costume dramas. We recently covered The Madness of King George, and coming up soon, I will have news about when you can listen to our discussion of Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette movie, which features, I just want to remind you, because we’ve been through a lot in the last two hours. It does not feature this Choiseul, but it features his older relative, who was, like, the finance minister to King Louis XV or something. At first, I was like, “Choiseul is in the movie?” 

Allison: “That guy?!” 

Ann: Axel von Fersen is in the movie, though. 

Allison: Great. 

Ann: Looking very hunky. And I want to mention, I also wrote a book. It comes out in February. It’s called Rebel of the Regency: The Scandalous Saga of Caroline of Brunswick, Britain’s Uncrowned Queen, and you can get it preorder, you can preorder it if you’re in Canada or the United States, at basically any bookstore. You can get information about that at RebelOfTheRegency.com. If you do preorder it, then there’s a little form also at RebelOfTheRegency.com. You can fill out or if you send me a picture of your receipt, then you get some treats; you can get a Caroline of Brunswick paper doll, you can get a free membership to my Substack, and a free membership to my Patreon. Also, if you want to read the book, you can add it on Goodreads and Storygraph. And if you’re on NetGalley, you can request it from there. So, just like, that’s my book. It’s coming. I’m excited about it. And I’m just trying to think, is there any… Did Prinny come up at some point? It did!

Allison: He sure did. 

Ann: Because Prinny was friends with Ryan Phillippe. Yeah, I am astonished at how many overlaps there are between the Caroline of Brunswick book that I wrote, which takes place after the French Revolution and these French Revolution episodes. There’s a lot of people who, you know, people just bopping back and forth, England and France. 

Allison: Which seems like a bad time to be doing that. But what do I know? 

Ann: Yeah. Well, any time anyone went back to France, I’m just like, “Girl, no! No! Why would you? Stay in England!” Anyway, I think that’s all my updates, I have to say. Allison, thank you so much for this. Like you understand now, like why I had to share this story with you. 

Allison: Oh, you could not have told the story of Monsieur Sauce without me. Thank you. 

Ann: I mean, that’s what I think this whole sequence of events is known as a flight to Varennes, but I would call it the Saga of Monsieur Sauce. 

Allison: I would as well. 

Ann: Like, the most exciting night of Monsieur Sauce’s life. 

Allison: Monsieur Sauce’s Excellent Adventure. That’s what this is called now. [laughs]

Ann: That’s what I’ll call it on Patreon for sure. I’ll give it a more fancy title for real people. But for Patreon, Monsieur Sauce’s Excellent Adventure, featuring Allison Epstein. Thank you so much. 

Allison: Thank you! 

Vulgar History is researched, scripted, and hosted by Ann Foster, that’s me! Editor is Cristina Lumague. Theme music is by the Severn Duo. Transcripts of this podcast are available at VulgarHistory.com by Aveline Malek. You can get early, ad-free episodes of Vulgar History by becoming a paid member of our Patreon for as low as one dollar a month at Patreon.com/AnnFosterWwriter. Vulgar History merchandise is available at VulgarHistory.com/Store for Americans and for everyone else at VulgarHistory.Redbubble.com. Follow us on social media @VulgarHistoryPod and get in touch with me via email at VulgarHistoryPod@gmail.com. 

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