I cannot now recall how I came to be invited on Bastille Day
to La Fete des Pompiers on Bastille Day in Paris; tables were set in street
and red wine mingled with garlic fumes in the air. When festivities
reached midpoint, an intoxicated guest who had been eyeing me
leaned forward and in a snarl asked me my name. I nervously replied:
“ Marie Antoinette” and he proclaimed in fury for all to hear:
“ A Royalist amongst us, the very whore, to the Guillotine with her!”
A drunken orgy gave lease to a blood lust that apparently the
Revolution had not assuaged! He got a band of his confreres
to pursue me in the streets but I was all of fifteen and fleet as
as a gazelle, left him and his hounds in the dust! Or rather
in the cobblestone streets of St. Germain- de- Pres.
This will be funny later I told myself as I fled, I had a good
thought then, to change my name in the next country, to avoid
plebeian wrath in the future but in my heart of hearts
I should confess, I remained secretly a royalist.
Antonia Baranov
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