by Perrat, Liza
No matter how long Père Joffroy had rung the church bell, the angels didn’t come and chase away the witches and their storm clouds. The priest must have felt bad about not doing his job properly because he’d lent us a small parish room to live in until Papa and Grégoire could rebuild the cottage. Père Joffroy also let my mother use a patch of his garden to grow her herbs and vegetables.
But this church room was damp, with no hearth, no windows and not a stick of furniture. It was a sad place; as miserable as Maman when Grégoire or I spoke of Félicité and Félix.
‘Come now, Victoire, or we’ll be late,’ Maman said, wrapping her cloak around her shoulders. ‘And lift your hood, the wind is harsh.’
For as far back as I could remember, when the first frosts announced the season of long nights, and icy north winds brought the pink snow clouds, the villagers would gather around the great hearth of Monsieur Armand Bruyère.
Winter was long, dark and unfriendly, but I was glad the season of hard field work was over for another year. With Papa gone half the year, there was only Maman, Grégoire and I left in Lucie, and my brother and I were often alone when Maman went to birth a baby, to heal a sickness with her magic potions, or to make an angel.
Grégoire went to open the door for us to leave for Monsieur Bruyère’s, but it opened on its own, and my father stood there, stamping the cold from his feet, a smile lighting his sun-darkened face.
‘Papa!’ I threw myself into his strong arms and felt I would burst with the excitement of having him home.
Papa gripped my shoulders. ‘Look at you, ma fille, lovelier every year.’
‘Yes, our Victoire is eight now,’ Maman said. ‘Another one to pay the salt tax for, but Dieu merci you’ve come back to us safely, Emile.’
‘I can read and write now, Papa,’ I said. ‘Well, nearly. Maman’s teaching Grégoire and me. She says it is the only way to rise out of poverty.’
I was not certain exactly how knowing the letters would get us out of poverty, but I kept learning, and hoping the answer would come to me.
‘Your maman’s a wise woman,’ Papa said.
He turned to my brother and patted Grégoire on the back. ‘I hope you’ve been working the wood, my son? You will have eleven summers next year — ready to be a carpenter on your own.’
‘Well … yes,’ Grégoire said. ‘But you promised I could journey with you next time, n’est-ce pas?’
‘Oh no!’ I said. ‘Who’ll throw snowballs with me in winter, and jump off the hay stacks in summer?’ Of course, I didn’t mention playing in the river or spying on the witch-woman in her hut in the woods.
‘Think of the exciting stories I’ll bring home,’ Grégoire said. ‘Just like Papa.’
‘Quickly, come and warm yourself and tell us everything, Emile,’ Maman said. ‘Did you find work? Were your earnings good?’ She ladled a bowl of soup out for my father, who sat on one of the two chairs Grégoire had made.
‘What’s it like to be a traveller?’ my brother asked.
‘I’d imagined exotic places, exciting people, but mostly I saw misery,’ Papa said with a sigh. ‘A journeyman leaves his village, his family, in the coldest month, tramping across the country with only the bare necessities on his back. Work is rare, not only for knife-grinders, but for every traveller — the wine and corn broker, the quack doctor, the hair-harvester collecting for wigs.’
Papa ran a rough hand through his hair, which I noticed had grown silvery threads. ‘But is it not only hard for the journeyman. I have seen men and women at the plough with no shoes or stockings, children with swollen bellies and people as thin and ragged as scarecrows.’ He drank the last of the soup.
‘People here complain about bread prices, taxes and lazy nobles,’ he went on. ‘But in Lucie, a mason might earn forty sous a day, a labourer twenty, the silk-weaving women about half that. At least we can survive here, which is not so for many others.’
‘But we still don’t have the money to rebuild the cottage?’ my mother said.
‘I don’t care how many francs you got,’ I said. ‘I am just glad you’re back, so you can come to Monsieur Bruyère’s with us. You’ll come, won’t you?’
‘Of course,’ Papa said, with a wink. ‘And I have such a story to tell you all.’
***
We hastened from the gloomy Saint Antoine’s parish room, our breath escaping in steamy puffs. The November sun was a pale lemon ball sitting on the ridge of the Mont du Lyonnais as if it couldn’t decide whether to stay or go. An owl’s hoot rang across the fields and the wind crept beneath my cloak. I tried to shake off the fingers of cold clutching me, my teeth chattering in time to our clogs clunking across the cobblestones of la place de l’Eglise.
I bent my head against the gusts snapping at my cheeks, skipping to catch up with my father’s long strides. I took his hand. ‘Why do you tell your tales to the villagers, Papa?’
‘Because, Victoire, most of the peasants here have not the slightest notion of the outside world. They yearn for tales from beyond.’
‘Where is beyond?’
‘Outside of Lucie,’ Papa said. ‘Before the village gates are locked at night, the people simply move from field to street. Never any further. They know only what they need to survive from one season to the next, and their minds conjure up mysterious lands and curious people, who they imagine as dangerous barbarians.’
My mother drew her cloak around herself and leaned close to my father, taking his arm. ‘If it weren’t for storytellers like your papa,’ she said, ‘learning things from fellow travellers and pilgrims, we might never hear of Charlemagne or Jeanne d’Arc, or even of the word “France”.’
‘Or those ancient people who named Lucie-sur-Vionne,’ I said. ‘Who were they again?’
‘The mighty and rich Romans,’ Grégoire said. ‘The soldier, Lucius.’
‘Is Monsieur Bruyère rich, Papa?’ I said.
‘Well, yes, the man is quite well off, for a peasant.’ He waved an arm across Monsieur Bruyère’s domain. ‘He owns his farm and the land, unlike most of us who must lease our land from the noble lord.’
‘And he hires peasants like us as day labourers,’ Maman said. ‘So we may have wood for our fires and food for our bellies.’
‘And he has crops and scores of animals,’ Grégoire said, as we reached the woods, which protected us a little from the wind. ‘He makes wine too, and his wheat is used for all the village bread.’
That sounded like a lot of things to own. As we hurried through the scarlet, orange and yellow mass, I vowed I would concentrate harder on my letters so one day I too might own so many things.
***
‘I bring news of the fireworks,’ my father announced as the men slapped him on the back and Monsieur Bruyère poured wine into beakers.
The adults lined the bench seats: Monsieur Bruyère, Papa and Maman, the silk-weaver women and their husbands, the clog-maker and the blacksmith with their wives, and the baker on his own because his wife was dead birthing the last baby.
Grégoire and I settled, cross-legged with the other children, while Monsieur Bruyère’s wife nursed her latest baby.
I rubbed my hands, holding them close to the flames. I loved being at Monsieur Bruyère’s hearth. It was a happy and safe place, as if the old stones were wrapping strong arms around me, protecting me from all the terrible things — lightning, fire and death. I imagined angels in the candlelight shadows of the stone walls, batting their fragile wings hard, to keep away the evil witches.
Léon Bruyère, Monsieur Armand Bruyère’s oldest son, came to sit beside me. Léon was fourteen and often swam with Grégoire and me at our secret spot on the Vionne River.
‘What is this fireworks story, Emile?’ the clog-maker asked, as the men pushed aside their card game. They spoke no more of the moon, of hunting, or of the news picked up at the last fair. The women ceased chatting, but the sewing women kept on with their lavender packets, and the knitters’ needles went on clic
king as the stockings grew longer, falling from their laps.
‘The fireworks display to celebrate the marriage of our future rulers, Marie Antoinette and Louis-Auguste,’ Papa said, placing one clogged foot before the other — a true orator’s pose, Maman said. ‘But it turned into a disaster. Another omen, the people say, hanging over this foreign alliance!’
Papa waved his fist and raised his voice against the gales that shrieked outside. ‘The omens that began at Marie Antoinette’s birth, when an astrologer proclaimed she would meet a terrible end.’
Maman had always read the stories to us, and even though the words of Les Fables de Jean de la Fontaine still seemed like magic, Papa’s travelling tales were more exciting. Maybe because his stories were real and his voice was like the sound of a flute.
‘Why does this foreign girl marry our future king?’ the baker said.
Papa’s eyes flitted across the people. ‘The Austrian empress, Marie Thérèse, arranged for her princess daughter to marry our Dauphin to cement the new alliance with France.’
I had only seen pictures of princesses, but one day I hoped to meet a real one, and touch her beautiful gown and watch her servants waving pretty fans across her powdered face.
Papa told us what he’d heard of the royal wedding. ‘Marie Antoinette received the magnificent jewels of a French dauphine, worth two million livres.’
Two million! I could never imagine so much money.
‘Oh là là,’ the blacksmith’s wife said, as backsides shuffled about on the wooden benches.
‘Then,’ Papa went on, ‘this terrible fireworks tragedy. Several of us had found carpentry work in the attic of a Parisian mansion. From the roof, we had a grand view of la place Louis XV. So many people filled the roads, the coaches could barely advance — all of them going to the grand fireworks honouring the Dauphin’s wedding.’
He took a breath and exchanged his orator’s pose foot.
‘And the noise! Carriages, the pushing crowd trying to reach la place Louis XV, the cries of coachmen stopping to light lanterns.’
I tried to imagine so many people together. Perhaps like at Midsummer feast, Carnival, or harvest time.
Papa gazed upwards. ‘The first stars were twinkling, the lights of Paris shimmering on the waters of the Seine, and, with a muffled explosion, the display began.’
His eyes rested on me and my heart swelled. We may not have the francs to rebuild our cottage, and sometimes there wasn’t enough food to fill our bellies, but how proud I was of my storytelling papa, who knew far more than the others of Lucie.
‘But the trouble soon started,’ he went on. ‘A rocket rose into the air, tipped over, nose-dived and exploded on the pyrotechnician’s bastion. This bastion split and fire and smoke spewed out!’ My father flung his arms about, as always when he got to the exciting part.
‘The magnificent colonnade they’d built before the King’s statue became a huge inferno,’ he said. ‘In all that smoke, the people became confused, then the whole thing collapsed and those falling into the ditches shrieked like wounded animals.’
Everyone made sympathetic, clicking sounds and Papa took a gulp of wine and rested his beaker on Monsieur Bruyère’s great long table.
‘The pump wagons came to put the fire out but the noise panicked the horses and they bolted, trampling everyone in their path. Then the thugs came out of the faubourgs brandishing swords, and attacked the terrified people and stole their belongings. So many fell into the Seine, trying to avoid being crushed.’
He spread his arms and shrugged. ‘But to descend into the crowd would be to get sucked into it all. I could do nothing but listen to their screams as the coaches ran down and crushed them.’ He tapped his nose. ‘My nostrils were clogged with the terrible mustiness of fire, damp and blood.’
I did not quite understand why the people gasped and shook their head, but it must be something awful, so I gasped and shook my head too.
‘And there, in the middle of the square, that bronze king crowned in smoke looked down upon them all with a scoffing, careless air,’ Papa went on. ‘Most of the dead, naturally, belonged to the humblest classes.’
We all looked at each other and, behind me, my mother squeezed my shoulder. I knew we belonged to the humblest class, even Monsieur Armand Bruyère who owned his land, his crops and all those animals.
‘As always, it is unjust that only the strongest and richest survive,’ Monsieur Bruyère said.
‘Hear, hear!’ a silk-weaver woman cried, raising her beaker.
Everybody else raised their beakers and cried, ‘hear, hear.’
‘When I awoke the next day,’ Papa said, ‘a grim mist, like some shapeless bloodstain, covered Paris, and when news of the disaster reached Versailles, it cast a terrible shadow over the wedding of the young Dauphin and Dauphine.’
‘A bad omen surely,’ the blacksmith said.
Everybody nodded, and outside, the wind howled around the farmhouse like something in pain, and desperate to get inside.
3
It was early in the autumn of 1772 when Léon Bruyère tapped on the church room door. I was practising my letters, and supposed he’d come to tell us another journeyman was passing through Lucie with more tragic tales of the thousands dead from the famine.
Destroyed by hail, the crop had been disastrous and Père Joffroy seemed in a constant state of fatigue as he hurried about the village performing the Last Rites, then burying those who had succumbed to the starvation. Of course, our bellies grumbled too, but Maman’s edible plants and flowers did stop us from starving.
But Léon had not come to tell us about a traveller.
‘It’s your father,’ he said, panting hard and looking from me to Grégoire. ‘I came across him out along the road.’ He waved an arm northward. ‘On his way home but he is feverish, so I left him resting in a hay shed along the roadside.’
A rush of heat, then ice cold, struck me. ‘Is he all right?’
‘It must be the hunger got to him,’ Léon said. ‘I’m going to get the cart, my father and I will carry your papa home. Where’s your mother?’
‘Out birthing a baby,’ I said, my voice tight.
‘We’re coming to help,’ Grégoire said.
***
‘We’re almost there.’ Léon waved towards the old stone shelter up ahead.
‘I hope Papa is all right,’ I said. ‘Nothing can happen to him.’
‘We’ll take care of your father,’ Monsieur Bruyère said. ‘Don’t fret, child.’
‘Look, there he is!’ I cried, pointing to a bent figure shuffling along the roadside on the crest of a small slope.
‘Your father is a proud man,’ Monsieur Bruyère said. ‘I’m not surprised he is trying to get home unaided.’
Puffs of dust, thrown up by the hooves of horses that came galloping over the hill, clouded our view. The coach appeared, and as it careened along the road towards us; towards my father, I could see its gilded decoration.
‘Get out of the way, Papa!’ Grégoire yelled, over and over.
‘No, Papa, no!’ I screamed.
‘Mon Dieu, mon Dieu. Move, run!’ Monsieur Bruyère shouted.
Papa must have been so weak and sick that he didn’t hear the hammering hooves behind him, or our frantic shouts before him. I don’t even think he realised we were there, so close to him.
My eyes widened in horror as the coach drew closer to my father. We kept waving our arms and shouting. Surely there must be some way to stop it?
My breath caught in my throat, strangling me so I could no longer breathe, as the horses ran down my father without even slowing.
Monsieur Bruyère swerved the cart sideways to avoid the coach thundering past us. I gripped my brother’s arm as I caught the unmoving gaze of the noble, from inside.
The cart came to a stop beside Papa’s bloodied, broken body. I was numb with shock, and the pain slicing through my breast — a thousand swords at once — was so great I was certain it would
kill me. My quivering legs could no longer hold me, and I sank to the ground.
‘No! No!’ I clutched at my brother’s legs, dug my nails into his flesh, and beat my fists against his calves.
***
Even before any of us spoke, I think Maman sensed something was very wrong.
She said nothing though, as Monsieur Bruyère told her of the accident. Her face a milk-white mask, her green eyes wide and staring somewhere beyond, her fingers groped about her neck for her angel pendant. She rubbed the old bone between her thumb and forefinger.
‘Death came instantly, Madame Charpentier,’ Monsieur Bruyère said. ‘Emile did not suffer.’
Still Maman did not flinch; the only movement was the angel pendant rising and falling with her shallow breaths. My mother’s tears came only when Grégoire told her the noble didn’t even stop; he hadn’t descended from his decorated carriage to check on the commoner he’d run down.
My tears came too, burning my cheeks, and I wept long and hard for my father; for the fascinating stories he conjured up to entertain me — tales of werewolves, of flying snakes with boils for eyes, and of green men who looked frightening but were harmless. I sobbed for his stories from the far-off coast — of mermen who broke fishermen’s nets and of horned men who stole young girls, because there were no horned women. I cried for the touch of his tender hand, which seasons of carpentry and knife-grinding had roughened and calloused.
***
‘Dieu n’existe plus!’ Maman cried, as we buried Papa beside Félicité and Félix.
The villagers gasped in horror. How could their healing woman, their midwife — whose skilled hands saved the lives of mothers and babies — no longer believe in God?
‘I will never again enter the church!’ Maman said.
‘Maman shouldn’t say such things,’ Grégoire hissed at me. ‘She only ignites the fires of rumour as if she herself were holding the blazing flambeau.’
