by Perrat, Liza
I sincerely hope our correspondence continues. Please keep me abreast of the progress of your enchanting works, as well as the political and social situation in your country.
I hope to visit France in the near future, and would be delighted to make your acquaintance.
I have the honour to be,
Mary Wollstonecraft
As I folded her letter, my mind drifted back to the villagers of Lucie huddled around Armand’s warm hearth, listening to my papa tell us of the terrible omens surrounding Marie Antoinette. I envied my young self — my blithe insouciance of the foreboding in my father’s fireside tales.
40
July 12, 1789 hailed so bright and sunny, I could never have imagined the torrent of darkness and death that would rain down over the following days.
The gardens and café terraces of the Palais-Royal were more crowded than usual, as Aurore and I sat amidst people eating ice cream, buying bouquets of flowers and watching magic lantern shows.
The sun burned down on us and, through a magnifying glass directing its noon rays onto gunpowder, the little cannon fired. Men flipped the lids of their watches to check they read midday precisely, as a man leapt onto a nearby table.
‘Last winter was the worst we have known,’ he said. ‘The harvest was disastrous. The Seine froze. The peasants, the city people, have nothing to eat. Are we going to sit by and let the monarchy starve us to death?’
He waved his fist, his next words drowned in the thunder of applause and cries of, ‘Non!’
I recalled the cold, hungry winters of my childhood and I hoped the famine had not hit the people of Lucie-sur-Vionne hard.
‘The Estates-General meeting achieved nothing!’ the speaker said.
‘Hang all the tax farmers!’ a man cried. ‘How dare they tax food so, in this time of famine?’
‘The Farmers-General wall is but a noose around the neck of our starving city!’
The raucous discussion continued as a stream of freshly printed pamphlets was passed from hand to hand.
‘How many more can they print?’ I said, as we skimmed through the pages propounding the ideas of a new declaration of rights, new conceptions of national sovereignty and France’s need of a constitution. ‘Every hour seems to produce another one.’
‘About ninety new ones last week I heard,’ Aurore said. ‘The more the better!’
‘And isn’t it amazing that while the press teems with the most lawless and rebellious articles,’ I said, ‘the Court takes no steps at all to restrain this extreme licentiousness of publication?’
A young man with a yellowish complexion and long curly hair sprang onto a table in front of the Café du Foy.
‘I return from Versailles,’ he cried. ‘The King has displayed his treachery in sacking the reformer, Necker. This dismissal is the Saint Bartholomew’s tocsin of the patriots!’
A hush fell over the crowd, all eyes drawn to the speaker.
‘Who is this man?’ Aurore said.
‘Camille Desmoulins, I believe,’ I said. ‘A lawyer living in poverty but passionate about the political changes with the summoning of the Estates-General.’
‘The regiments of the French army — twenty thousand Swiss and German mercenaries — with which the King has surrounded Paris,’ the young man continued, ‘will come from the Champs-de-Mars this very night to crush the city and slit our throats!’
A collective gasp rose from the grounds of the Palais-Royal. Drinks were spilled, tempers flared and the sun blazed down on us like some great, inflamed wound.
‘Do we simply allow these Germans on horseback to herd us like pigs in a pen, then massacre us en masse? We have but one thing left to do. Fight!’
Camille Desmoulins seized a leafy twig from a chestnut tree and, fastening it to his hat, chanted, ‘Aux armes! Aux armes! Let us all take a green cockade, the colour of hope!’
‘To arms, to arms!’ everybody shouted, as Camille Desmoulins leapt from the table into the embracing arms of people growing hoarse from shrieking and cursing.
‘Here, Rubie,’ Aurore said, ripping a branch off, along with the hundreds of others, and thrusting it at me.
‘Pikes to be had. Get your pike!’ someone shouted, and a crack of musket fire startled me.
A drum began to beat a hard, hollow note, filling me with expectation, and trepidation. Revolutionary ideals shouted from a café seemed suddenly tame compared with the harsh reality of what we were about to start.
That evening, Aurore and I watched from our window as a great, marching army thudded along the cobblestones, the wind tugging away the smoke streaming from the burning barrières. In that instant, watching the striding mob, I wondered just how far my patriotism could stretch.
‘All this savagery,’ I said. ‘It is hard to bear.’
‘I thought you wanted to fight too?’ Aurore said.
‘Yes … yes I do, but this senseless brutality rips me apart.’
‘I don’t understand you, Rubie. I thought the flame burned inside you as fiercely as in me? This is all we’ve heard and talked about for so long. It’s happening now, and all you want to do is hide in our safe apartment?’
‘I do want to fight,’ I said. ‘I do, really, but I just … I don’t know.’
‘Well you can hide under your cosy bed if you want, but I’m going out there!’
Aurore banged the door shut and disappeared into the heaving mass of people on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré.
Darkness fell. Growls of thunder rivalled the crack of gunfire, the smash of breaking glass and the bark of orders. The heat did not abate until sometime during the night when the storm broke, veins of lightning illuminating the devastation of the city’s rampaging army.
I had always loved the summer storms of Lucie; the freedom of the wind sweeping away the suffocating air — the same air we’d been breathing all summer, but this storm terrified me.
I fell into my bed and in my restless slumber, I dreamed someone was stabbing Aurore with a bayonet. Torn and bleeding, she lay on the filthy ground, people trampling her in their frenzied march to destroy the city.
‘Don’t walk on her!’ I shouted. ‘Stop, you’ll kill her.’
Nobody took the slightest notice of me, and in their noisy wake I saw the crowd had crushed my little friend to death.
***
The following night I woke to Aurore shaking me, her black eyes aflame, her uncapped hair a dark tangle.
‘Come on, Rubie. Get up.’ She told me the storm had lasted all that previous night, and the next day, hammering on windows and doors like nothing in living memory.
As I slid from my bed and rubbed my eyes, I became aware of another kind of din hammering the city — the tocsin.
Largest bell in Paris, the tocsin’s urgent cadences warned of disasters, fires and any other emergencies. This time I knew, immediately, why it was ringing.
‘Hurry, Rubie. We are going to search for arms,’ Aurore said, preparing a snack of bread and cheese. ‘We need weapons to defend ourselves.’ She downed a beaker of ale and shovelled the food into her mouth.
Sweat prickled my brow. ‘Of course I want the same things as you, Aurore, but you know the bloodshed unsettles me so.’
‘Rubie, this is revolution. There has to be death and destruction!’
‘But surely there is a better way?’
Aurore shrugged. She took my arm and by the time we were on the street, it seemed every church bell in Paris had joined the tocsin, their incessant clanging beating with the same, frantic rhythm as my heart.
‘Stay close to me,’ Aurore said, gripping my hand as the force of the crowd snagged us, the din of the tocsin raising the hairs on the back of my neck. ‘Are you all right, Rubie?’
I nodded as we continued on, all walking together — the working class rabble of the faubourg Saint-Antoine, the lawyers and clerks, the brewers, drapers and tanners, the coachmen and prostitutes. Scoured by rumour and precarious unease, our numbers only swelled m
ore as night relinquished to dawn. I thought I caught a glimpse of Sophie, Manon and Olympe at some time, but the crowd was far too dense to reach them.
Empowered by the strength of our numbers, I felt my anguish fade for a brief moment, as we marched into the overcast morning of July 14th.
By six o’clock, our seething arms-hungry crowd had reached Les Invalides, and I was relieved when the French Guards peacefully seized the guns, pikes and sabres, and several pieces of cannon from the arsenal within the old veterans’ hospital. Nobody was hurt.
‘There is no ammunition!’ Aurore shouted, along with several others.
‘A la Bastille!’ people began chanting. ‘A la Bastille!’
Aurore’s eyes gleamed with that potent combination of resentment, patriotism and the desire for change, as the excited mob propelled us down the rue Saint-Antoine.
‘We want the Bastille!’
While their shouts fuelled and thrilled me, they sent bolts of terror through me too, as I moved with the crowd, like some carousel abandoned to centrifugal force, towards the old fortress.
‘Surrender the prison!’ the people shouted, gathering before the Bastille as early daggers of sunlight sheared the dirty brown underbellies of clouds.
‘Remove the cannons!’
‘Release the gunpowder!’
‘Get the Governor to withdraw the cannons!’
Two men chosen to represent the mob entered the fortress to negotiate.
By mid-afternoon, when nothing had happened and people were pawing the ground like restless horses, the crowd hacked down the drawbridge chains and streamed, unimpeded, into the undefended outer courtyard.
I heard shouts from the roof. The panic rose in my chest.
‘They’re going to fire on us, quick run!’ I grabbed Aurore and tried to push our way back through the crowd, away from the prison, but we were trapped, unable to move any which way.
The garrison began firing. I shut my eyes and held my breath.
I expected, any second, the hot burn of a bullet would throw me to the ground. Flambeaux blazed, fanning the shrieks of terror and pain as more and more bloodied bodies crumpled around us. Clouds of gunpowder smoke burned my eyes, almost blinding me. I clutched Aurore’s dress, whimpering like a child as we crouched and cowered in what were the most terrifying moments of my life.
As much as I had yearned for things to change — for an improvement to the commoners’ lot — never had I wished for that change to wash in on such vast rivers of human blood.
It was over quickly. Our brave French Guards massacred the garrison and the Governor of the Bastille, de Launay surrendered, his face an ivory-pale mask of terror. The crowd tore and spat at de Launay in his grey frock-coat, clubbing and kicking him to the ground.
Faint with horror, my mouth dropped open as a man stepped forward and drove his bayonet into de Launay’s stomach. He withdrew the bayonet and the Governor staggered upright, only to stumble onto the point of another weapon.
Someone hammered at the back of his head with a lump of wood, another dragged him into the gutter. I glanced around wildly, helpless to stop the grisly attack. I grabbed Aurore’s arm again as a third man fired shots into the Governor’s smashed body, and when he finally stopped twitching, a wild-looking man flicked open his knife, strained the corpse’s head back, and began hacking at his throat. I turned from the gruesome scene, clutching my heaving belly.
I tried again to find a way through the crowd; away from the sickening butchery. It was impossible, and besides, I was certain Aurore would never agree to flee. Her eyes shining, she seemed bewitched, energised, by the bloodthirsty recklessness.
‘The Bastille, symbol of our intolerable regime, has fallen!’ the people shouted, parading the Governor’s head around on a pike.
Our revolution had received its baptism in blood, and I felt too shocked to cry; too stunned to feel anything. I did not even know what I should feel — joy, triumph, sadness? Perhaps a mixture of all of those.
‘We’ve beaten them, we’ve beaten them!’ Aurore cried, joining the throngs of people dancing, kissing, drinking wine and cheering, tears of mirth streaking the grimy sweat on their faces.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And whatever happens now, things will never be the same.’
***
More and more people massed around the burning fortress, smoke flapping into the grim sky like a hero’s flag. Whole families streamed onto the streets. They brought their children, their dogs, to see the fiery spectacle.
I watched Aurore, caught up in the dancing, chanting revellers, and still I could not entice her away from that bloody, triumphant scene. I was about to leave on my own when I heard, amidst the din, a voice calling.
‘Come, Rubie.’
I spun around, wondering whoever was addressing me. My eyes scanned the knot of unfamiliar faces, but besides Aurore, I knew nobody. I heard the voice again. ‘Rubie.’
Whoever would be calling me? Still I recognised no one, then I glimpsed the face of a young girl wearing a scarlet dress, and my hand flew across my mouth.
She was some distance away, but I could make out the cinnamon-coloured curls. My own ten-year old face. I could have sworn too, she was wearing a necklace — a small angel carving perhaps, threaded onto a strip of leather. I felt giddy, and held Aurore’s arm to stop myself fainting.
The girl had turned from me and was vanishing into the crowd. I started pushing people aside, stepping on feet, shoving my way through the throng.
‘Rubie, Rubie, wait. Wait! Don’t leave me again!’ I thought I would burst with desire, with hope, and with the fear I wouldn’t reach her.
Like the river in a summer drought, the girl receded from me, further and further. Then she was gone.
41
Dear Madam Wollstonecraft,
I was overjoyed to receive your reply.
I imagine you heard we patriots won our first revolutionary victory when the Bastille fell? As terrible as it was for me to witness the death and destruction, I know we must continue to fight, to be part of the women’s voice of Paris.
Of course, this also inspires me to write more deeply on our female fate, and I am happy to report the plays of the Scarlet Enchantress continue to be successful, despite these turbulent times.
To refer to your comment, I too felt sorrow for the Queen, at the death of the Dauphin.
However, contrary to popular belief, I believe Marie Antoinette did grieve deeply for her daughter, Sophie-Beatrix. Whatever mistakes she has made as Queen of France, she is a bereaved mother. I cannot forget that.
In your wish to keep abreast of our political situation, I inform you our King has capitulated and even wears the tricolour cockade now: blue and red for the colours of Paris, and white for the Crown. The Assembly has drafted a Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen, which spells freedom from oppression, arbitrary arrest, the presumption of innocence in criminal proceedings, freedom of religion and opinion, and the equality of all before the law. Access to the judicial system is to be free. Judges no longer purchase their functions but are now appointed based on merit, and commoners are no longer barred from any profession.
As wonderful as all this sounds, Madam Wollstonecraft, women appear to have been excluded as far as equality goes. Still we have no voice. Still we work for less than half a man’s wage. Still we cannot vote. Still we are inferior!
I had the great pleasure recently, of reading your book — Mary, A Fiction. I so admire your heroine’s strong opinions, her independence and capability to define femininity and marriage for herself.
I hope this letter finds you well, and I look forward to your reply.
With the honour to be your friend,
Rubie Charpentier
***
After the fall of the Bastille, I no longer had reason to fear the Marquis or his wife, or any other noble. The ancien régime was finished, the privileges of our feudal society abolished, and it seemed we were embarking on a new era of happiness and
liberty.
As odd as it felt to stand again under the coach porch on the rue du Bac, I was quite unperturbed, knowing the Marquis was no longer even in Paris. I toyed with a loose red curl, realising I did not need my disguise now. Perhaps I would keep it though, proud as I was to be known as the Scarlet Enchantress.
A maid opened the door and the minute I stepped inside, I sensed everything was different. Only a scatter of servants remained; none wore livery and the Marquis de Barberon’s coat of arms had been erased from every surface. There was no cloying scent of the Marquise’s floral perfume and the air seemed to resonate with an odd, quiet emptiness.
Claudine’s kitchen, however, was the same gleaming haven I recalled. Roux was asleep on a cushion in his favourite chair.
‘Dieu merci you are safe, my child.’ Claudine’s sturdy hands gripped my shoulders. ‘I was so afraid for you and Aurore. We heard hundreds were killed and maimed at the Bastille.’
Claudine pushed the scowling, tail-swishing Roux from the chair, and I sat as she started brewing tea. Roux immediately jumped onto my lap and curled up again.
‘Still the best mouser in Paris?’ I said, stroking the orange fur. ‘You said in your message the Marquis and his wife have gone?’
Claudine nodded. ‘Fled to some family estate in the country. The servants could have gone too, but what would I want with a new place at my age? Marie went, but she’s young.’ She sat opposite me. ‘Oh I know everybody is jumping with joy, embracing strangers in the street, young girls wreathed in orange blossom in thanksgiving for the Bastille’s fall, but what of an old woman, Victoire? Can I call you Victoire again?’
‘Yes, well …. yes, but what do you mean, what of you?’
‘The house is to be rented to new people,’ she said with a sigh, ‘and I have no idea what will become of me; of those left inside it.’
I laid a hand on my friend’s arm. ‘I’ll never see you without food or shelter. How could I forget all you did for an impoverished scullery maid?’
