The Secret of the Chateau

by Kathleen McGurl

  I looked around the room at my housemates. Personally I thought it was an excellent plan. We’d talked, back in England, about all the animals we’d like to have, and had already acquired Clarabel the goat and the kittens Flip and Flop. Borrowing a dog, to help out an old man, sounded perfect. Manda was smiling at me. Steve nodded and Phil raised his eyebrows. Gray, I noticed, had his eyes fixed firmly on Madame la Maire.

  ‘Actually,’ I said, ‘it sounds like an excellent plan. What sort of dog is it?’

  ‘He is a chien bâtard – I do not know the English word. About so big, with a friendly face.’ She held her hand about two feet from the floor.

  ‘A mongrel,’ Steve translated. ‘I like the sound of his friendly face. What’s his name?’

  ‘He is called Felix. He is very friendly. I will bring him to you?’

  ‘He sounds lovely. We’d love to have him. But no need for you to bring him. I can drive over and collect him.’

  ‘Or I could,’ said Gray. ‘Any time. Want me to come and get him later today? Whatever suits you.’

  ‘Why don’t you come tomorrow to meet him, and then if everything is good, take him then? I will need to talk to Monsieur Baudin of course, to be sure he is happy for Felix to live with you for now.’

  ‘Of course. Good idea.’ I felt ashamed I hadn’t thought she’d need to check with the owner. ‘Would you like me to visit Monsieur Baudin and talk to him about it?’

  She nodded. ‘I think that would be nice. I will write down the name of the hospital, and my address. I will telephone him at the hospital so he will expect you.’

  Before she left, we arranged that I would visit Monsieur Baudin that afternoon, and if he was happy, Gray and I would call at the mayor’s house in the morning to collect Felix and his belongings. Manda added dog food to the shopping list. Interesting but not surprising, I thought, that Gray was so keen to go to collect the dog.

  I was already planning a first walk with my new companion. I hoped Tom was right – that starting the research project plus going on more walks would help me settle better, the way the others had. It’d be good too to meet Felix’s owner and get to know another local person.

  As suggested by the mayor, I went that afternoon to the hospital to visit Monsieur Baudin about his dog. Phil came too. The hospital was not in the village – it was way down the valley, not too far from the large supermarket where we did our ‘big’ shops. We planned to call in there after visiting the hospital and stock up.

  Monsieur Baudin was in a geriatric ward, or whatever they call them these days. It was a bright, modern hospital with gleaming cream floor tiles and fresh paintwork. His bed was one of four in a bay, by a window that looked out onto well-maintained gardens where shrubs flowered around a pretty fountain. All in all, I thought, not a bad place to be.

  Madame la Maire had given us a note to take to Monsieur Baudin, to introduce ourselves, but she’d also promised to telephone him if she was able to. It seemed she had, as the nurses were expecting us and took us straight over to see him. He was sitting up in bed, a drip attached to one hand, wearing blue striped pyjamas that were neatly buttoned up. He had a mop of grey hair that looked like someone had tried to tame it but failed. He smiled broadly as we approached, and I felt my nervousness vanish in an instant.

  A young nurse was with us. ‘Monsieur does not speak the English good, so I will … what is the English word?’

  ‘Translate?’

  ‘Oui. Yes. Translate.’

  She turned to Monsieur Baudin and introduced us. I understood her well enough to realise she’d called us ‘the English people from the château, who will love your dog’.

  He smiled and nodded and put out a hand to shake ours – the English greeting! I was glad, it would have felt odd to bend over him in the bed to kiss his cheeks French-style.

  ‘Enchanté pour faire votre acquaintance,’ I said, using French that sounded oddly formal, but his smile broadened yet more as he seemed to appreciate my attempts to use his language. I warmed to him at once.

  ‘Voulez-vous prendre mon chien? Voulez-vous le soigner?’ He spoke slowly and clearly, and I was pleased to find I understood. Would we take the dog? Would we look after him?

  ‘Please tell him, we will look after his dog for as long as needed, until he is home from hospital.’

  The nurse translated, but to my horror Monsieur Baudin shook his head. He said something in French, speaking too fast for me to follow.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked the nurse.

  ‘He says, if Felix … is the dog name?’

  I nodded.

  ‘… if Felix like you, then he want you to keep Felix.’

  Monsieur Baudin said something more, his rheumy eyes fixed on me as he spoke. The nurse translated once more: ‘He says when he come out of hospital he will not be in his house. He will be in a … small apartment, for the old people …’

  ‘Sheltered accommodation,’ I said, and she nodded.

  ‘He cannot have a dog there. So you must keep Felix.’

  I smiled and nodded at the old man. ‘Nous serons heureux de garder Felix.’ I hoped that meant we’d be happy to keep Felix. It must have been close enough, for he visibly relaxed and smiled and reached out a hand to mine.

  ‘Il a trouvé un bon foyer.’

  Yes, I hoped he’d found a good home with us. I realised I’d not yet met the dog. All depended on Felix and I getting on well together.

  We spent a few more minutes with Monsieur Baudin, talking about the dog’s needs and habits, until the nurse began checking her watch. Then it was time to say goodbye, and now I had no hesitation in leaning over to kiss his cheek, and he squeezed my hand with a surprisingly strong grip. I told him I’d make arrangements with the mayor to fetch Felix the next day, and Phil and I left the hospital feeling excited.

  ‘You know, I’ve always wanted a dog,’ I said, as we drove to the supermarket. Top of our shopping list was dog food – Monsieur Baudin had told us Felix’s favourite brands.

  ‘Really? Why didn’t you say?’

  I shrugged. ‘We were always so busy. Work, the kids, then looking after Mum … I suppose it felt as though there wasn’t really enough room in my life to take one on. But here’ – I gestured to the mountains behind us – ‘there seems to be more space. Around us, but also in our lives, to do more. Be more.’ As I said it, I realised I meant it. Was I beginning to settle down at last?

  Phil put an arm around my shoulders and squeezed. ‘I know what you mean. Who’d have thought I’d take up gardening and get myself a goat?’

  Chapter 16

  Catherine, 1791

  ‘What news from Paris?’ Catherine asked Pierre as he read his correspondence over breakfast one morning. She did not usually ask for news. She was aware that Pierre tried to keep the worst from her. It was all too depressing, and she feared too much talk of the Revolution could bring on another heart attack. Pierre’s health had steadily improved as the year wore on, and now, in summer, he was almost back to himself again. Not so the health of the country. The King and Queen had been confined to the Tuileries Palace for nearly two years now, and the possibility of returning to the old ways, the ancien régime, seemed more remote than ever, although Catherine had not given up hope. While Paris was still gripped in revolutionary fever, the rest of the country went on as it always had, more or less. Certainly very little had changed here in St Michel-sur-Verais.

  Pierre sighed as he put down the letter he was reading and looked at her. ‘Not good. It seems our dear monarchs engineered an escape attempt. They had amassed loyal forces on the Austrian border and planned a counter-revolution to restore themselves to power.’

  Catherine gasped. ‘An escape! And have they got away? I do hope so, for they have done nothing wrong.’

  But her husband shook his head sadly. ‘No, my dear. It seems it has failed. They were in disguise, as bourgeoisie, but travelled in a conspicuously large carriage pulled by six horses. They spoke to people en route
and were recognised. Word was sent ahead, and they were arrested at Varennes, not far from where they were due to meet the commander of their forces.’

  Catherine’s heart sank, and she covered her mouth with her hand. ‘Oh no. The poor dear Queen. So near and yet … what will happen to them now?’

  ‘They have been returned to the Tuileries, with less freedom than before.’ Pierre stood up and paced about the room. ‘Had they been successful, they might have been able to garner support and overthrow the reactionaries in Paris. There would have been civil war, but it may have resulted in a restoration of the King’s authority, as he wanted, with perhaps a few concessions to ensure the people didn’t rise up again. But now …’ He slammed the coffee cup he’d been drinking from down onto the table. ‘Now all is lost. I fear the worst, now.’

  ‘The worst?’

  ‘The end of the monarchy. Oh, foolish, foolish Louis! Why travel in such a huge coach? Why not employ more secrecy? My correspondent says the Queen believed they were still loved by the common people outside of Paris. She was travelling in the guise of a governess to her own children, and yet she handed out silver plate as a thank-you to some helpful person. Silver plate! Has she no sense? Of course they were recognised. Stupid, stupid people!’

  Catherine was astonished to hear him speak so strongly, so vehemently against their beloved King and Queen, and in front of her, too. But it did sound as though their escape attempt had been ill-judged and poorly executed. And what now? Would this mean the end of the monarchy as Pierre seemed to think? ‘Perhaps they will try again, and do better,’ she began, but Pierre cut her off.

  ‘No, they will not get another chance. Their guard has been increased, and the people of Paris are now turning even more against Louis. There is open talk of abolishing the monarchy and setting up a republic. Louis’s only hope now is foreign intervention.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘War with Austria. Humiliating French defeats would perhaps turn the people against the Revolution and back to wanting restoration of the old ways.’

  ‘But how can Louis engineer war, while he is under guard? And how can he even want war where French soldiers are to be defeated?’ It seemed like a far-fetched scheme, wanting your own armies to lose, in an attempt to destabilise the government.

  Pierre shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I suppose he is able to correspond with loyal generals, and maybe the Queen is writing to her brother, the Austrian emperor. I would expect their mail is censored but perhaps they have some way of getting letters out safely. There are still some in Paris who are loyal, and some of those presumably work at the Tuileries as guards. But it is not good news. And not good for us, my dear. We may need to think about going into exile. Many of the nobility have already done so.’

  ‘Leave France?’ Catherine was aghast. How could she leave the country of her birth, the only country she had ever known? ‘But, we cannot!’

  ‘Ssh, my sweet. It may not come to that. I hope it won’t. But we must be prepared.’

  That word – prepared. Like their flight to Provence after the attack on Versailles. He’d prepared that beforehand, and it had paid off. But surely leaving France would never be necessary?

  If it was, it may be as well that they had no babies to bring with them. Tragic though little Louis’s death had been, if they did have to move quickly it would be easier to do so if there was only herself and Pierre to think about. The Queen’s escape attempt was presumably made so much more difficult by the presence of her children.

  Père Debroux visited them weekly in the château now, to allow them to celebrate Mass. He was no longer allowed to perform Mass at the church in the village, as he had not taken the oath of allegiance. There was no new priest, and the church had been boarded up. Catherine had heard that it had been looted – silver candlesticks and artwork taken. She occasionally walked to the church to visit the cemetery behind it, and pay her respects at little Louis’s grave, and had noticed some of the stained-glass windows were broken. What was becoming of her country?

  Père Debroux had agreed to visit the more wealthy of his old parishioners in their homes, for communion and to collect a small stipend from each. He lived now in a small cottage on Pierre’s estate, high in the hills. It would do for the summer, Catherine thought, but how the priest would manage in the winter she did not know. She resolved to speak to Pierre, and perhaps offer him room here at the château when the weather turned. She hoped that doing so would not put them in any danger.

  One Sunday when the priest arrived, he seemed distracted, more worried even than usual. He administered communion rather more hurriedly than usual, but afterwards still accepted their usual offer of hospitality – to eat dinner with them and share a bottle of wine from Pierre’s well-stocked cellar.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, as they sat down to eat. ‘It means a lot. I am increasingly struggling to make ends meet. All my rights have been taken away, as I won’t swear that damned oath.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘It is a sorry state of affairs when a man must choose between God and his country. But for me there is no choice. I will always put my allegiance to God above everything else.’

  ‘The Pope agrees with you,’ Pierre said.

  ‘Yes, and that makes me more certain that I am right. But it is hard for me to continue my work as a priest. I can no longer preach in public, or celebrate Mass apart from privately, as today. I am told that once a replacement for me has been secured, a priest who has sworn the oath despite the dictates of the Pope, then I will no longer be allowed to perform any priestly duties, even privately.’

  ‘How will they know?’ Catherine asked. ‘If you were to, say, visit us as friends, to dine with us, who would know if we quietly took communion with you while you were here?’

  ‘Your servants would know. We do not know who we can trust.’

  Catherine considered this. She’d assumed that Madame Bernard, Claudette, Henri and all the rest were loyal and faithful to her and Pierre, and therefore could be trusted. The thought that perhaps she was wrong, and they would tell the authorities if Père Debroux broke the new laws, was upsetting. ‘What would happen, if you were discovered?’

  ‘I do not know. But it is not a path I would like to tread. I will continue celebrating Mass with you for as long as it is safe to do so. After that, well, I have a cousin in Piedmont and I think I will cross the border to him. This country is not the one I knew and loved. The reforms … well, I had thought they were just and fair, but I fear now they are going too far. Where will it all end?’

  ‘Only God knows that,’ Catherine said quietly, and the priest nodded silently.

  It had been two months since little Louis’s death and Catherine was bored. On a fine summer’s day, she decided on a sudden whim to walk up to the little farm. Had the workmen finished building it, she wondered? She’d given no instructions. She assumed they would have completed it according to plan, as no one had told them not to. She and Pierre were hoping for another child, and so eventually the farm would be in use.

  She summoned Claudette to accompany her once more. A lady should not walk alone outside of the gardens of her home. Claudette could carry her parasol, holding it over her to keep the sun off, just as Marie Antoinette had always had a servant to perform this duty. They may be far from Versailles but when possible, Catherine liked to try to keep to the old ways.

  ‘Come, Claudette. The sunshine may not last for long, and I want to take a look at my little farm. I shall call it La Ferme de Louis, in memory of my poor dear son, who never had the chance to enjoy it.’ Catherine crammed on a bonnet and strode out of the door, with Claudette hurrying along behind.

  They walked along the track that led to the farm. It was a little overgrown in places. Catherine made a note to ask the workmen to cut the vegetation back, so that her skirts were not in danger of being snagged. The little bridge was still in place, though the stream it crossed had dried out.

  ‘Why is there no water running beneath here?’ Ca
therine said. It had looked so pretty in the spring, with the water burbling and splashing over the rocks.

  ‘Madame, it has been dry. I imagine it only flows after rain, or in the spring with meltwater from the snow.’

  ‘But I want it to flow all year round! It is the water supply for my little farm. I shall speak to the workmen.’

  Around the corner of the track the farm came into view. Catherine gasped to see that it was incomplete; in fact, the building work was no further on than it had been on that terrible day when Louis had become sick. The cottage was half-built, with no roof, and bushes growing up inside. The land that had been cleared to make space for the little paddocks had grown over with vegetation. The work would have to be done again, before any lambs or chickens could be kept there. Catherine was furious.

  ‘Why is this not complete? Do you know what has happened here, Claudette?’

  ‘No, Madame. I do not. I have not been up here since the last time I came with you, with little Louis, God rest his soul.’

  ‘Well then, do you know where we can find the workman who was here then? What is his name?’

  ‘Madame, his name is Jacques Valet. I believe he lives in the village, but I do not know where. Now, he is probably at work. I do not know where.’

  Catherine frowned. ‘I shall have to ask Pierre. Well, let us return to the château. I am not at all pleased.’ It was that man, Jacques Valet, who had looked at her in that obscene way, as though he was undressing her with his eyes, the last time she’d been here.

  That evening, Catherine told Pierre of the lack of progress on the farm.

  ‘Why has it not been completed? Dearest, did you perhaps set the man to work on something else? I know that with little Louis gone, there was no urgent need for it to be finished but I think if it was done, it would cheer me up. I would go daily to play with the little lambs and feed the chickens.’