At no time would Selina be in harm’s way, and it was not to be an open ended assignment.
If, after a month, Renauld could not be ferreted from his hole, James and Selina would leave for home, with the gratitude of the British Government.
As they crossed to the northern aspect of the Cathedral, James smiled, utterly content for the first time in his life. He was fulfilled in a way he never thought possible just six months ago, and all because of this remarkable young woman by his side.
He never appreciated how jaded he had become until he experienced the uninhibited joy of making his bride happy. It seemed just the littlest things—a flower from the garden, an impromptu picnic, a moonlit stroll—brought delight to her and made her more beautiful to him every single day.
James wondered how he could ever have been so against marriage. It was joy to know that he would never be alone again.
Finally, at the entrance to the Cathedral, Selina stopped to sketch the two towers built with a magnificent symmetry, a testament to the artistry of the architect and the skill of the 12th century stone cutter.
After a moment, Selina stopped and put away her book.
“There are things missing,” she said, “in the niches. I would have thought statues would be there.” She pointed out the empty recesses.
“And look there,” she added, drawing James' attention to the ledge above the entrance. “The statues have been beheaded.”
“Comte Alexandre said the Assembly had nationalised the churches,” he said grimly. “It looks like that wasn't all.
“They’ve issued scrip, assignats, against the value of church property.”
“As currency?”
“I don’t think it meant that way to start with. I believe they were supposed to be bonds, but I know a number of people have paid a lot of money on them in speculation, and the way they’ve been traded in London, well, their value is going to collapse sooner rather than later.”
Selina nodded at James’ explanation.
“Which means the price of goods here is going to increase, putting further pressure on the government,” she said. “But why would the National Assembly allow people to vandalise the building? It would only serve to devalue its worth. It makes no sense...”
James and Selina walked into the cathedral, the sound of their footsteps echoing loudly in the deserted space. Candles that would have provided light in the rows and rows of chandeliers were long guttered and extinguished, their holders laying empty.
Pews were stacked untidily along one side of the nave, broken shards of pottery and glass scattered carelessly along the marble floor.
Light grey rectangular patches on the walls were ghostly impressions where icons had been hung, the art taken either by the faithful protecting the works or removed by revolutionaries to be stripped and sold for any value.
Metal plaques had been forcibly gouged from the walls; the scores in the wall marked the considerable effort of the looters. Bronze angels that had overlooked the aisle from their elevated pedestals on the nave were dismembered in the desperate acquisition for metal to sell as scrap, then to be smelted and turned into weaponry.
Selina clutched James’ hand, staring wide-eyed as she catalogued the destruction in her mind. Although she was not a Catholic, indeed her ancestors fled Catholic persecution, the desecration of any church sat uncomfortably with her. A glance told her that her husband felt the same way.
A row of pierced crosses which formed the decoration on the railing of the oak choir loft had been hacked away to destroy the visible symbol of the Christian faith. Despite each sharing an increasing sense of foreboding, they walked further into the gloomy desolation.
The destruction was even more pronounced as they approached the altar. Sacristy furniture that once housed the communion host had been ripped open, the thin layer of precious metal that had covered it now gone, along with the silver and gold communion cups.
The cross that would have dominated the altar was missing. Lying cracked and broken in a back corner of the apse lay a life-sized marble statue of Mary, cradling the battered body of Christ on her lap.
Selina looked at the rectangular plinth on which this statue once stood. On it was a phrase crudely daubed in paint:
Il n'ya pas de dieu mais la seule raison
“'There is no god but reason alone',” whispered Selina, quoting the graffiti.
“Go on, get out! There’s nothing more for you here,” a voice bellowed from behind in French.
James and Selina turned swiftly, James immediately on guard for a physical confrontation.
An old man, perhaps aged fifty she guessed, dressed in faded and tattered rags, was moving with surprising speed up the aisle towards them.
“We mean you no harm,” James called out in French.
“Get away from there! It is still a holy place, no matter what you barbarians do.”
They stepped away from the altar and met the man in the aisle.
“We mean no disrespect sir,” Selina pleaded. “It’s our first time in Paris and we wanted to see the Cathedral.”
“You’re not from here,” he stated, still eyeing them suspiciously.
“No monsieur, we’re English.”
“Anglais?”
All of a sudden the fight went out of the man. He stumbled sideways, bumping into a column before sliding down into a pew.
James looked at Selina with alarm. The old man was near to collapse. She rushed to the holy water stoup and wet her handkerchief in the small reservoir of water, then returned to where James and the man sat.
Taking the linen from her, James gently wiped the man’s brow and grey whiskered face.
“I am James Mitchell and this is my wife Selina.” James felt it judicious not to use his title.
The man nodded, signalling his recovery.
“I am Robert Baird, one of the deacons of Notre Dame.”
“What happened to the Cathedral?”
Baird laughed bitterly.
“You do not know? It is no longer a place to worship the living God, maker of heaven and earth. It is now a temple to ‘reason’,” he spat.
He saw the confusion on the young couple’s face.
“Culte de la Raison,” he explained impatiently, angrily even. “God does not exist, only reason.
“They’ve exchanged the worship of God for the worship of man’s cleverness. Truth and knowledge are not God’s to reveal, they say, but they are objects to be worshipped in their own right.
“But who is to say what is true? Who is to say what is rational?
“These cultists claim they are beyond superstition but they have exchanged one religion for another. Did you know they hold fetes to venerate ‘reason’ and she is always a barely dressed woman draped in Greek robes?
“Without self-control they drink and fornicate in the street all for the glory of ‘reason’.”
Selina surveyed the terrible damage that had been done to the magnificent building and wondered how such a thing could be considered reasonable.
Baird coughed. His chest sounded heavy and wet. He was not a well man.
He gathered himself together, and whispered, “Pour Satan lui-même se déguise en ange de lumière.”
For Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.
Realization spread across James’s face at the mention of the word Lumière.
“Have you heard of Club des Lumières?” he asked.
“There are many clubs these days,” the man shrugged. “Almost all of these groups want the end of Louis and the monarchy. ‘In those days Israel had no king; all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes…’”
Baird fitfully coughed.
“If we wanted to find Club des Lumières, where would we go?” James pressed.
“How should I know?” yelled Baird abruptly. “Get out of here, you pagans! Go find your bacchanal somewhere else, those sans-culottes revolutionaries on the streets will be eager enough to tell you.
”
James and Selina glanced at one another and stood to leave. James reached into his pocket then pressed several louis d’or coins in the old man’s hand. He looked at them almost blankly.
“Que Dieu vous bénisse et vous garde en sécurité,” Selina whispered to him.
May God bless and keep you safe.
They left the man seated on the bench.
As the English couple disappeared into the sunshine, Deacon Robert Baird of Notre Dame de Paris started quietly sobbing.
Chapter Thirty-One
Selina luxuriated in the hot bath that had been prepared for her. She had already washed and rinsed her hair which now lay dark and damp around her pale shoulders. Through heavy lids she watched her husband undress, her artist’s eye paying attention to the play of light across his flesh as he removed his shirt and then his breeches with an unhurried grace.
She would sketch him nude one day, Selina decided, his form the equal of the marble statues of King David or Adonis that she had seen on her visit to the Louvre with Lady Elizabeth.
The stir of air caused by his movement caused Selina’s nipples to blush and pucker, adding to her growing desire. Her observation of him had not gone unnoticed either. This time her cheeks blushed.
Selina slid forward to allow James to join her bath. He settled himself behind her. The tickle from the hair on his legs as they slid either side of hers stirred her more, and she let out a soft sigh of contentment.
She passed her cloth back to him and he washed himself, before drawing it up and down and across her back before it ventured down her left side and along her stomach. Encouraged by the stroke of his hand across her breasts, she leaned back against him, close enough for him to lightly kiss her ear and nape.
“You were quiet this afternoon,” he murmured softly.
Selina nodded. Yes, she had been.
The destruction of Notre-Dame’s interior and the encounter with the Deacon had upset her more than she had realised.
Before James, Selina would have said nothing about her distress, withdrawing within as not to concern others. She’d grown quite good at it over the years, masking her emotions not only from her family, but also her father’s servants who relied on her for direction.
But now she wasn’t alone. She was one half of a whole and James knew her. She was still learning to rely on his strength.
Knowing he was still waiting for her response, Selina turned her head to press her cheek against his chest, distilling her thoughts.
“I’ve read Edmund Burke and I understand the need for political reform, especially in France which doesn’t have a House of Commons and a House of Lords as we do,” she began.
Behind her, James smiled. Somehow it seemed perfectly normal to be discussing politics with his wife in the bath.
“There is much we can improve on even back home,” Selina continued. “A greater representation in government, the denouncement and abolition of slavery, but why the senseless destruction of churches, the...” She searched for the right word. “dechristianisation of public life?
“ ‘Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement’,” James quoted from Burke.
“But the American Revolutionaries didn’t ban religion,” Selina rejoined. “And as Burke also said, ‘All other nations have begun the fabric of a new government, or the reformation of an old, by establishing originally or by enforcing with greater exactness some rites or other of religion.’
“France has not restored or reformed but abandoned Christianity completely.”
James ran his hands down Selina’s arms before sliding over her breasts to embrace her more closely to his chest.
“I agree, sweetheart. This experiment with atheism under the guise of rationalism will end in bloodshed and death before the decade is out,” James predicted.
“The author Thomas Paine says ‘his mind is his own church’, but if man is his own god, he has only his limited perspective and understanding. There is nothing stopping him from becoming entirely self-serving at the expense of his fellow man.
“The new adherents of Enlightenment believe that science and knowledge is an end in itself, but it’s not. They aren’t guiding principles. They’re just facts that can be just as easily be pressed in the service of evil as good.”
James ended his observation by drawing the tip of his tongue down the curve of Selina’s ear. His hands moved freely across her breasts, stroking and fondling their silky smoothness. Her nipples became even more sensitive and she gasped in pleasure as his damp fingers circled them.
James felt himself harden; he’d aroused himself by the unrestrained pleasure he was bringing his wife. As Selina’s desire further stirred, she shifted against him, searching for satisfaction that only he could bring her.
Wordlessly he encouraged Selina to stand and he followed suit. The only sound was the dripping water from their bodies and the crackling of the blaze in the fireplace that replaced the warmth of the now tepid bath.
They quickly dried, but Selina’s hair was still damp. James led her by the fire where they sat upon the rug and he first combed the warm, nut brown strands with his fingers before obtaining an ivory comb from the dressing table.
As her hair dried, he kissed her languorously, drawing out each kiss from her lips for what seemed like an eternity before a new one began. Selina stretched herself full length across the rug, and yellow-orange fingers of light from the fire licked across her abdomen, inspiring him to do the same.
Selina stroked his hair and shoulders with her finger tips, raising goosebumps across his flesh. Provocatively he slid over her body so his face could meet hers.
He kissed her deeply as she held herself to him, sliding her legs up along the length of his, kneading his bottom with her heels, urging him to enter.
James did so slowly, inch by inch bringing pleasure, second by second bringing torment as he restrained himself from plunging into her heat. He lavished her neck and breasts with kisses as he unhurriedly thrust, nearly pulling out in full before returning with his full length.
Each stroke banked a fire of desire in her so achingly sweet and desperate for fulfilment.
Selina begged him faster with breathy moans and half words of encouragement, rocking her hips to prolong her pleasure on his momentary retreats.
Soon those moans became more urgent as her pleasure grew higher and higher before it cascaded through her whole being. She called his name over and over, fervently begging him to join her where utter pleasure eddied along every nerve.
He dove in after her, the peak of his release only a few seconds after hers.
James supported his weight on his arms as he remained in her; desire, love, passion renewed itself as he watched his wife surface from the bliss he had given her.
They scarcely needed say the words to express what they had shared, but they did anyway, renewing their vows of sacred love together.
* * *
Although Paris laboured under strict austerity, its fashion houses were still busy producing dresses and gowns for the aristocracy and the well-to-do of the rest of Europe, as well as those still well-heeled women who remained in France.
A soiree to introduce the Ambassador of Great Britain to the National Assembly was scheduled. Lord Gower had suggested that Lady Elizabeth should have a gown made by a Paris designer for the event, not because she especially needed to, but because it was thought diplomatic for the new ambassador's wife to be seen to support a local industry. She insisted Selina could not visit Paris without indulging herself in a locally produced gown also, and she suggested they visit the garment district of the 8th arrondissement, just off the Champs Elysees.
Lady Elizabeth, warming to her role as an ambassador's wife, made it clear to further flatter their new hosts' sense of egalitarianism by being seen to go to the dressmaker rather than having the dressmaker call on her.
But James was to attend a meeting with Lord Gower on the only morning available to them and he was un
willing to allow Selina to travel out into the city without him. Gower supported James' security concerns, so it was arranged that a particular garment maker would visit the ladies at the embassy.
In the south facing morning room, the furniture was rearranged to clear the centre of the room and allow the dressmaker and her two assistants space to show their wares. In one corner, a pair of screens were erected to enable the modelling of some sample outfits brought in a large travelling trunk.
Selina and Lady Elizabeth perused fabric swatches and fashion plates. It appeared that as philosophical fashion in France was harking back to the Greeks and Romans, so too was ladies' fashion.
Many of the fabrics were plain coloured cotton woven so thin it was almost transparent.
In the books, they saw square cut necklines, v-pointed corseted waists, and bustles in silks and satins giving way to scandalously low scoop necks. There were ribbons tied beneath to busts emphasise their shape while the bodice of these new fashion dresses lightly skirted the torso, the wearer free from restrictive corsets, to drape fluidly to just above the ankle.
Both English women were startled as a young woman stepped out from behind the screen and modelled the latest style for them.
“You can see all her legs!” Elizabeth exclaimed.
“Not to mention her breasts,” added Selina.
“But of course!” said the seamstress, dismissing their comments. “It is the latest style.
“You wet the dress like this...” She brushed a damp cloth across the décolleté and down the front of the dress.
“It reveals the natural silhouette, the magnificent form of la femme, and might I say that Mesdames would look glorious as such. You have outstanding figures!”
“Yes,” said Lady Elizabeth, “figures that our husbands would not be happy to see on display for everyone to look at.”
Selina noticed the model scowl almost imperceptibly and glance quickly to her co-worker who was watching from beside the screens. Believing herself to be unobserved, she mouthed two or three words silently. Selina made out one of them—“bourgeois”.
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