The Bastille Spy

by C. S. Quinn

  ‘I heard things, of course,’ I say, watching the people. ‘The King and Queen were squandering money. The price of bread had risen ...’

  I’m trying to drag my eyes from the half-dead people, but I can’t.

  ‘Nothing prepares you for seeing it,’ says Jemmy philosophically, ‘and you never get used to it. I thought you nobles learned how not to look,’ he adds, his eyes sliding to my face.

  ‘Our farmers don’t look like that,’ I say, stung. I’m remembering the strong-limbed and cleanly dressed families who work our estate.

  Several bone-thin children have waded out into the shallows, staring mutely at the Esmerelda as we drift by. I pull back my hand, ready to hurl them my breakfast. To my surprise, Jemmy grabs my arm.

  ‘Don’t,’ he says.

  I turn to him, outraged.

  ‘They’re starving—’ I begin. But he cuts me off.

  ‘Throw it if you like,’ he says. ‘Watch those poor souls fight each other to death for it.’

  I hesitate. Jemmy’s hand is still holding me. I look at it pointedly and he draws it away. I curl the biscuit into my palm.

  ‘Why aren’t English ships sending food?’ I ask.

  ‘Because men like your pappy and grandpappy are too busy starving their own peasant folk,’ says Jemmy. He laughs at my angry expression. ‘Oh, I imagine you’re one of the good families, are ye? Do you swan around the little poor homes in your silks and give out candied nuts at Christmas? Believe me, Your Ladyship, all you fine people think the same.’

  I feel my face grow hot. He’s right and I never saw it that way before.

  Jemmy’s eyes drift back to the shore. ‘You mustn’t fret; it won’t last,’ he says. ‘I’ve seen it before, in the colonies.’ He narrows his eyes, looking at the peasants.

  ‘These people have nothing to lose,’ he says. ‘When they recognize it, their revenge will be terrible.’ He eyes the waters ahead.

  There’s a pause as we’re both lost in our thoughts.

  ‘Was New York like this?’ I ask, realizing Jemmy must have seen revolution in America.

  ‘No. It’s an exciting place,’ he says. ‘Brutal. Lawless, to be sure. A man can do very well there if he keeps his wits and a loaded pistol about him.’

  ‘Why didn’t you stay?’

  ‘I like the ocean. No rules at all.’ He grins. ‘Talking of which, we’re sailing into the heart of it. The place where they tax the bread and hold the money. Paris.’

  The vista is changing now. There are tall buildings coming into view. Muddy riverside has given over to cobblestones. Dawn sun is giving way to a morning summer heat.

  The houses are ornate with delicately wrought-iron balconies and washed in pastel hues. As we glide up the river I’m reminded why I like this city so much.

  ‘Pretty, ain’t she?’ says Jemmy. ‘You not arrived by boat before?’

  ‘Only by road.’

  We pass the Bastille, a glowering fortress on the horizon, and I see Jemmy’s expression change.

  ‘A thousand poor souls chained up underground without trial or justice, at the whim of a tyrant King.’ He removes his hat and crosses himself, watching the building with a dark look on his face.

  ‘That’s just talk, isn’t it?’ I say. ‘People manacled to the walls for thirty years. Ghosts of those tortured to death haunting the dungeons.’

  My eyes slide to his face to share the joke, but he isn’t smiling.

  ‘So what’s your plan?’ he asks, leaning back and biting at a hard ship’s biscuit. ‘Disguise yourself as a serving maid? Slip in unnoticed and find this lost cousin of yours?’

  I smile at his tone.

  ‘Grace may have been headed to the Salon des Princes.’

  Jemmy’s eyebrows rise at the mention of the infamous salon, but he says nothing.

  ‘I have a friend in Paris who can get me in,’ I add.

  Jemmy nods approvingly.

  ‘Then your plan is already better than the others.’ He rolls the biscuit in his hand. ‘What’s her name, this friend?’

  ‘Angelina Mazarin. She lives in Montmartre. The bad part of town,’ I say with a little smile, thinking of the little district with its heady mix of labourers, artists and good-time girls.

  Jemmy hesitates. ‘You mean La Mazarin, the courtesan?’ he sounds surprised. I sometimes forget Angelina is famous, in her way. She’s one of a handful of select mistresses who wealthy men fight to have at their side.

  ‘You’ve met her,’ I deduce, reading his expression as Atherton has taught me to do. I’m fairly certain Jemmy has done more than just meet Angelina.

  ‘You could say that,’ he says, trying for breezy. ‘How well do you know her?’

  ‘As well as you do, I think,’ I say.

  Jemmy starts to laugh, then does a peculiar kind of double-take when he sees I’m serious.

  ‘You and La Mazarin?’ he says, voice caught in a perfect storm between hope and disbelief.

  ‘We were at finishing school together, outside Paris,’ I say, waving my hand to dismiss any sentiment he might be attaching to our relationship. ‘All girls. No boys. We were young and bored. It was innocent, nothing really.’

  I can see his eyes sliding back and forth, picturing.

  ‘The last I heard from her, she was a kept mistress to a bishop,’ I say.

  ‘You must be careful,’ says Jemmy. ‘The days of King-appointed clergy are numbered. In any case, La Mazarin might not be as welcoming as you hope,’ says Jemmy. ‘Paris nobles are low on charity nowadays. And I judge you have a week at best,’ he says, ‘before things get very dark. When they turn they will turn fast.’

  CHAPTER 24

  GRACE IS STANDING NERVOUSLY IN THE SUBTERRANEAN kitchen of the Salon des Princes. Her plan is to find a friendly woman, an intellectual. Such a person, she feels, will help her get back to England. But the footman who directed her here has vanished and she has been waiting for what seems like for ever.

  Grace had arrived at the grand gold gates and simply stared. She never realized that chateaus looked like this. You might pick up London and shake all the money from every rich pocket, yet still not afford this grandeur.

  Steeling her courage, Grace had stepped on to the sweep of manicured lawns. Despite the early hour, there were a great deal of people about. The dregs of a party, she had deduced. A surge of fatigue had made her sway.

  This isn’t the first time you’ve been hungry and tired, she had told herself sternly, stand up straight.

  That was when she’d seen the footman. He’d been serving roasted songbirds to a group of silk-clad girls in heavy make-up who were staring dreamily at the dawn. Grace had waited as the guests took them indifferently, with plump fingers, crunching on the small bones. One had pushed a tiny beaked head into the mouth of a lapdog, laughing encouragingly as the pink tongue investigated.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Grace had announced in her best French, when the footman was finished. ‘This is the Salon des Princes? Where women debate politics?’

  She might have said it wrong, because he had smirked, then eyed her rather simple muslin dress, tied under the bust with a ribbon. But to her relief, he’d replied: ‘Come with me,’ and beckoned her towards the house.

  Following obediently behind, Grace’s attention had fixed suddenly on something shocking. Barely concealed behind a sculpted hedge, a woman was rolling, almost naked, with two men, her petticoats torn and stockings fallen to her ankles.

  Grace had looked to the footman, but he hadn’t indicated anything unusual was taking place. Growing up near Bristol docks, Grace had seen her share of scandalous things, but never in silk and lace on a green lawn.

  Her eyes had settled on some half-dressed men and women making an untidy attempt to swap clothing, playing cards scattered at their feet.

  Grace had been seized with a sudden certainty that something was wrong. This was a dangerous place.

  That’s the dockside-girl talking, she had told herself. This is a fine ho
usehold, there is nothing to fear.

  Her stomach had growled loudly, causing the footman to turn.

  ‘You’re hungry?’ he had asked.

  She had nodded, shame-faced.

  ‘Come,’ he’d said, ‘I’ll take you inside. They waste enough food to feed the whole of Paris. We’ll find you something. You’ll be earning your keep soon enough.’

  Grace had been pondering this remark when the footman had placed a possessive hand on the small of her back.

  ‘We must write your name in the book,’ he’d said. ‘Madame Roland likes to know everyone who comes.’

  Grace waits now, in the vast kitchen where the footman deposited her. She has watched breakfast come and go; the hot rolls and chocolate were served fashionably late.

  Cooks are now preparing for the evening meal, forcing meat through sieves, adding champagne to sauces. Cauldrons bubble, spits turn, sweating boys race to and from the icehouse and the orangery.

  Grace watches it all happen through a screen of copper pans, which hang seemingly everywhere. Lack of food is making her light-headed, but she has not been brought up to ask for things, especially not food. That is begging. She chews a fingernail, wondering how much longer she can stand here without fainting from hunger.

  Manners. She reminds herself, thinking of Godwin.

  Suddenly the familiar footman appears. Grace lets out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding.

  ‘This way,’ he says. ‘The servants’ table.’

  He leads her to the far side of the sweltering kitchen, past three cavernous fires. There is a table groaning with leftovers: half-eaten cakes, torn bread, scraps of ham and beef.

  ‘Here,’ he says, ‘take what you will. I’ll come back for you nearer the time.’

  Grace sits, taking in the vast selection with round eyes. She lifts a piece of cake and takes a cautious bite. Next she chews a crust, swallows a mouthful of meat, tastes some cheese. She finds she can’t stop.

  In the buttery air, Grace eats and eats.

  CHAPTER 25

  AS WE FLOAT TOWARDS THE HEART OF PARIS, AN UGLY noise rifts the sky.

  Jemmy points to where the river narrows. There are sets of steps, like in London, for ships to dock. Beyond that is a great high stone gateway, carved and official-looking. It’s the height of two men and broad, with a crowd of people all around it.

  ‘The Barrière du Trône,’ says Jemmy, ‘where they tax goods coming into Paris. Popular with both sailors and farmers,’ he adds, in an ironic tone, ‘as you might imagine. We’ll drop you there.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I say, wondering how I might repay the risk he’s taken for me. ‘I’ll write to Lord Pole,’ I promise. ‘Tell him I stowed away. You’re not to blame.’

  ‘So long as I’m useful to men in high places, I’ve no fear,’ says Jemmy. ‘And I’ve still a time to be useful yet ...’ His words drift off. Jemmy is frowning. He holds up a hand.

  ‘I don’t like the look of those steps.’

  Now we’re sailing nearer, we can see the crowd at the customs gate are unruly. A rising cloud of dust comes from fast-moving feet.

  ‘Something’s not right,’ Jemmy says, narrowing his eyes to the view ahead. ‘Take us to the shallower waters over there,’ he instructs his helmsmen. ‘Arm the men’, he shouts to Bailey.

  He takes my hand and leads me to the other side of the ship.

  I’m taking in the full scene: people are destroying the customs gate, screaming shouts of protest against taxes and the price of bread. Any attempt to guard the structure has completely fallen apart. Men have climbed the brick entry and are chipping away at it with hammers and chisels.

  This is no unplanned attack, I realize, watching their methodical labours and their workmanlike tools. Those are stonemasons. They strike steadily, marking blocks of stone, hammering and letting pieces fall in an explosion of dust to great cheers. But the protestors have attracted a rough crowd of troublemakers, pillaging the docks.

  I have a sudden prescience that Jemmy’s horrors will begin even sooner than predicted.

  ‘Best we land you on the south side,’ he decides. ‘There looks to be a skirmish. More protests about the tax on bread, I shouldn’t wonder.’

  But even from here it looks like more than a skirmish. I’d call it a war. Men are attacking, flailing, punching. Guards are firing weapons into the crowd. The boom of gunfire and ugly shouts float on the breeze.

  We drop anchor across-river and Jemmy helps me board a small boat, which his men lower with ropes into the water.

  ‘The tide will rest you up over there,’ he says, pointing to a grassy bank with a few cows. ‘You can cross the bridge by foot and avoid whatever’s happening at the gate. Be careful,’ he says, with sudden feeling. ‘Paris ... It’s no longer safe to be out of doors. Get inside before dusk.’

  I nod my thanks and set my oars.

  ‘I’ll be here at dusk two days from now,’ he says. ‘I’ve an order to fulfil. If you’re here, I’ll take you.’

  I catch the subtext. He won’t wait if I don’t arrive before sunset.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say, pulling back and rowing away from the ship.

  He tips his tricorn hat but he doesn’t wave. A blast booms all around.

  As I’m trying to determine the direction of the threat I see Jemmy race to the prow and cup his hands to his mouth.

  ‘Row!’ comes his voice. ‘Row!’

  Confused, I tighten my grip on the oars and plunge them downwards. But before I can gain a hold, a volley of musket fire from the shore forces me to take cover. I duck clumsily, losing both oars to the river. And as I stagger to my feet, another wave hits, tumbling me back again. This time I fall more heavily, knocking my head on the little wooden seat.

  It’s probably a grenade, I hear myself thinking. Someone has dropped a grenade into the river. Keep down.

  I stay down for a long moment, as residual waves batter and rock my tiny boat. When the force has passed I risk sitting up. The first thing I see is that my oars are long gone. The second is that Jemmy’s ship is vacating. I see the tips of his sails beating a retreat around a bend in the river. Of course I wouldn’t want him to endanger his crew trying to rescue me, but I feel a shade of betrayal all the same.

  You can’t expect gallantry from a pirate.

  Whilst I’m considering this, I notice the explosion has turned my boat in the opposite direction and the tide is taking me away from the riverside I meant to bank at.

  I paddle with my hands, but it’s useless. I’m being pulled inextricably towards the shore and the chaos of the gates.

  CHAPTER 26

  ONCE AGAIN GRACE IS WAITING, THIS TIME IN A SUMPTUOUS upstairs drawing room of the Salon des Princes. It is finely decorated, with silk curtains framing the long windows and expensive deep-green wallpaper reaching to the high corniced ceiling. There are no other guests.

  Now it is dark outside. She can see through the glass that torches have been lit in the vast grounds. Wafts of cooked meat drift from somewhere. There’s a noise on the stairs, female voices. Grace’s heart lifts but her hope turns to confusion. Five young girls enter the bare room. Some are seventeen or so – almost the same age as Grace, but two of them can’t be older than twelve.

  All are extremely thin, but dressed in the kind of aspiring bright printed dresses Grace recognizes well. Not so long ago, she was one of these girls, attending penny-school, buying her calico from smuggler taverns, sewing modish patterns by candlelight until her eyes burned.

  The arrivals don’t look at her, but Grace is used to social exclusion. A table is brought in and set with elaborate pastries and patisserie. Grace notices the girls’ eyes grow big. She feels as though she is looking in a mirror, seeing herself five years ago.

  A man in fine clothing arrives. Not a low servant, Grace decides, but she can’t see him to be noble either. He wears no wig, leaving his greasy dark hair curling around his ears. Perhaps he is a butler who has inherited clothes from
a fond master.

  Grace has never felt so tired. Her mother used to speak of being bone tired and now she knows what it means.

  The man begins to talk in a voice so grating and high-pitched that Grace misses part of the meaning, wondering at the strangeness of it. Something about midnight.

  Grace works backwards, willing her mind to keep hold of the words.

  They will come at midnight.

  This must be it, decides Grace with relief. The house will hold its debates at twelve. She will listen carefully and try to identify a sympathetic ear.

  A traitorous voice whispers that something untoward is happening, but she drives it down. Grace lives with the daily memory of her London social blunders; Godwin masking his mortification. She won’t embarrass herself again in front of fine people. Best to stay silent.

  Exhaustion sweeps over her in a great wave. She forces her eyes wide open. Surely midnight cannot be too far away.

  She notices something else about the girls now. They don’t talk to her, but they don’t talk to one another, either. They stand, shuffling uncomfortably, chewing fingernails, biting lips.

  Now that she considers it, Grace realizes, they all look frightened.

  CHAPTER 27

  MY LANDING IN THE LITTLE ROWING BOAT NEAR THE customs gate was eventful. It cost me every gold ring to bribe my way past some drunken officials, but I gauged it more sensible than attracting attention to myself by killing them. I left as a dedicated pack of stone masons began work on the stone gate, chiselling away the images of monarchy.

  I made my way to Montmartre easily enough. But now I look at the half-timbered buildings and accept that I’m lost. I’ve been walking around for an hour and none of the streets are named. I can’t understand it. Even in this down-at-heel part of the town I’d thought there would be signs bearing the street names. But they seem to have gone.