“You can go to the Musée du Luxembourg to see Philippe—I mean Mademoiselle Seguette. Two of her paintings are there. And she’s always at the Salon. Mademoiselle Tranchevent is, too. And they’ll both be at the Cercle des Arts Libéraux next month,” I said.
“Ah, but not your aunt. At least not yet. I really love her use of color. I might buy that lovely nude she’s working on.”
“When I was growing up she never let anyone see her paintings. If it hadn’t been for the war and the desperate shape our plantation was in, I don’t think she ever would have painted for money.”
One of the waiters laid plates of truffles in front of us. Dr. Pozzi took a few bites, followed by a large sip of red wine. “Really? Well, that would have been a shame.”
I was too nervous to swallow a morsel. All possible motives Dr. Pozzi might have for this lunch flashed through my head—from simple companionship to seduction. I pretended to eat, cutting up my truffles and pushing them around the plate. By the time the salmon mayonnaise arrived, I had convinced myself he was in love with me. I held that feeling through the boeuf flamand and dessert—vanilla ice cream delivered in a single tall-stemmed bowl with two spoons planted in the soft mounds.
But by the time the meal was over and Dr. Pozzi had led me down the carpeted stairs—one hand on the polished wood railing, the other on the small of my back—I had lost all confidence in the love theory. He looked distracted; perhaps he was preoccupied by work. Worse, maybe he found me dull. We said little to each other during the cab ride home. I lied that I was meeting my mother at Bon Marché, so Dr. Pozzi dropped me off in front of the store and waved good-bye through the dirt-streaked window as the horses trotted off. I browsed in the glove compartment for thirty minutes, then took a cab home.
The next morning, the first post carried a letter from him. The maid brought it to my bedroom on my breakfast tray, and as soon as she closed the door behind her, I tore open the cream envelope. My heart was fluttering in my chest as I read:
Dear Mlle Avegno,
I enjoyed our lunch immensely. You have no idea how rare it is for me to talk of art and beauty, surrounded as I am all day by sick people. There is no one at the hospital who understands the true yearnings of my soul. Perhaps you would do me the honor of lunching with me at Bignon’s next Sunday, September 4, at one. We can continue our discussion of women painters. I’d like to hear your views on Madame Alix Enhault. She’s a particular favorite of mine.
Respectfully yours,
Samuel-Jean Pozzi
On the morning of September 4, I dressed carefully, donning my favorite day gown, a green silk dress with a scalloped hem. With Dr. Pozzi in mind, I sprayed my neck and the insides of my wrists with lilac scent. Though it was Sunday, Julie had gone to her atelier to work on a commissioned portrait she was struggling to complete. Mama expected me to go to church with her as usual. I told her I wanted to attend a concert at the Salle Pleyel, since two of my favorite Beethoven works were on the program.
She agreed to let me go, so I left the house at twelve-thirty and walked to the corner of rue Saint-Honoré to hail a cab. A crowd had gathered at the newspaper kiosk, and several men were running down the pavement waving their arms and shouting, “The empire has fallen!” I was thinking of my lunch with Dr. Pozzi and paid little heed to the troubling scene. A few moments later, a cab pulled to the corner and I directed the driver to rue des Italiens.
When I arrived at Bignon’s, the maître d’ rushed to greet me. His face was gray with distress. “Mademoiselle, haven’t you heard? The worst has happened! The Prussians have captured Louis-Napoléon, and the Empire has collapsed! Dr. Pozzi has gone to join his unit with the Service de Santé Militaire. He asked me to give you his apologies.”
I left the restaurant, dazed with disappointment. I was sorry for the Emperor, but felt worse for myself. All my life, I’ve needed to be in love and have someone in love with me. Even as a little girl, I had intense imaginary romances with characters in books—for years I was smitten with d’Artagnan in The Three Musketeers. But Dr. Pozzi was the first real man I had fancied myself in love with.
As I walked home, I wondered what he thought of me, or indeed if he thought of me at all. I was tormented by fears that he’d soon forget me, that our one rendezvous wasn’t enough to spark his passion, that when he returned from the war, he’d have no interest in an adolescent girl.
So lost was I in this mournful vision that I barely noticed the chaos around me. Everywhere people were running and screaming. The street signs in the rue 10-Décembre had been smashed and replaced with boards on which RUE 4-SEPTEMBRE had been scrawled in black paint. I reached the Tuileries just as a scruffy mob was hoisting the tricolor above the Pavillon de l’Horloge, shouting “Long live the Republic!”
Our household, like most in Paris, had expected a quick victory over the Prussians. Louis-Napoléon’s goal was to thwart Otto von Bismarck. War fever had been building for some time as Bismarck worked to unite the German states, thereby giving Prussia an edge over France in the European balance of power. After a dispute over the succession to the Spanish throne, France declared war. The Emperor, however, not only was ill and in agony from kidney stones, but also was badly prepared. He had half the number of soldiers he thought he had. What’s more, the French troops were poorly trained compared to the Prussians. When Louis-Napoléon reached the battlefield at Sedan, he found his army hopelessly outnumbered. After several hours of fighting, he surrendered.
Soon afterward in Paris, a group of radical deputies of the Corps Législatif used the defeat as an incitement to overthrow the Emperor. Standing on the balcony of the Hôtel de Ville, where the revolutionary governments of 1789 and 1848 had been established, the radicals formally declared the death of the Empire and the birth of the Republic. A cabinet was hastily assembled, and a popular general, Louis Trochu, was pronounced president.
Over the next weeks, Parisian life as we had known it ground to a halt. The trains stopped running; the mail wasn’t delivered; newspapers ceased publishing; shops and theaters closed. Though the Prussians had yet to invade the city, there was rioting in the streets, and our driver was afraid to take the carriage out. Cabs were impossible to find, so we ended up staying home all day, only venturing out for an occasional errand or walk.
The weeks and months wore on, and the days passed in a blur of boredom reminiscent of the languid summers at Parlange. Since Julie had no way of getting to her studio on the other side of the city, she set up her easel and paints in her bedroom, and I passed the time reading and playing the piano.
Our ennui was exacerbated by the freezing weather. Coal supplies across the city ran out, and for warmth we were forced to burn old books. Frost glazed the windows, and the walls felt like sheets of ice.
On January 5, the Prussians began to shell Paris from forts surrounding the city. During dinner, an explosion ripped the air and shook the house. Several wineglasses tumbled, spilling rivers of liquid across the white tablecloth. Mama burst into tears. “I can’t go through another war,” she cried.
“I know,” said Julie. “All my courage is gone, too. We used it up in Louisiana.”
I ran to the top floor, where the maids slept, and stuck my head out one of the dormer windows. A dozen shells flew past in the smoky, black sky. One struck a roof across the street and burned a large hole in it.
After that, the maids refused to sleep in the garret and moved into the basement. None of us got much sleep for the next few nights, as cannons boomed twenty-four hours a day. Eventually we grew accustomed to the noise. Other deprivations were harder to bear.
Food was scarce. The boucheries sold only horse meat and, for a while, the remains of the exotic animals in the Jardin des Plantes. Pollux, the adorable baby elephant who was the zoo’s star attraction, was the last to be shot and butchered. After that, a few markets offered dead rats for a pittance. We ate no meat at all.
Most of the Prussian shells landed across the Seine on the Left
Bank, too far to harm us. Still, we heard their thundering, and Mama’s nerves were frayed. She couldn’t sleep or eat and suffered from excruciating headaches.
A week before Christmas, the mail service resumed, and letters arrived that were dated months before. One, postmarked September 10 from Charles, contained the tragic news of Grandmère’s death. She had suffered a heart attack in her sleep after spending the day balancing Parlange’s books. Grandmère had always seemed indestructible; it was hard to imagine the world without her. Every day for the next two weeks, Mama, Julie, and I lit candles in her honor. We all cried a lot, but Mama was inconsolable to the point of madness, her grief exacerbated by guilt over her strained relationship with her mother. She took to her bed and refused to get up, even to wash.
After New Year’s, Pierre Gautreau moved into the spare bedroom on the third floor to help Julie and me take care of Mama. We hadn’t seen much of Pierre in the months before the Empire fell. He had been in South America on business and had returned to Paris only after learning of Louis-Napoléon’s surrender. He said he came back because he was worried about us, though I’m sure he also was concerned about his house, his collection of japonaiseries, and his investments. But to be fair to Pierre, he was devoted to Mama. She seemed to brighten up with him around. They spent hours discussing plans to turn one of our parlors into a winter garden with Oriental trees and plants.
Soon after Pierre moved in, the provisional French government, the Third Republic, signed an armistice with the Prussians. Many Frenchmen regarded it as a humiliating peace. Claiming they wanted to save France from both the Prussians and the capitulators, a group of National Guard dissidents formed a rival government, calling themselves by an old name popularized during the Revolution of 1789, the Commune of Paris.
The loosely organized Communards—their ranks included song-writers, brothel owners, shopkeepers, journalists, carpenters, and soldiers—embarked on a reign of terror as devastating as the Prussian bombs. They set fire to government buildings, confiscated the property of aristocrats, looted abandoned homes, murdered suspected government sympathizers, and erected barricades to stop the legitimate army.
Many of the bourgeoisie had fled to their country homes at the start of the fighting. But by the time we thought of leaving, the city exits were blocked. The fighting escalated throughout the spring. Thousands of soldiers and Communards died, as well as innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire of Frenchmen fighting Frenchmen.
Thanks to a greenhouse garden and a chicken coop in our stable that provided a daily supply of eggs, we had more food than most of our friends. We had guests for dinner nearly every night. Sophie Tranchevent and Filomena Seguette came several times; and one night, Julie invited Carolus-Duran.
As the maids brought in steaming platters of omelettes and potatoes, our driver, an elderly man named Antoine, burst into the dining room with horrific news he had just heard from a neighbor’s coachman: the Communards had set fire to the home of Duc de la Palletière on the boulevard Malesherbes. The duke, his wife, and their three children were found burned to death in their parlor.
“I wish we had left Paris when we had the chance,” said Mama. Ever ready to cry or faint, she clutched a handkerchief in one hand and held a bottle of smelling salts to her nose with the other.
“I wouldn’t worry, dear,” said Pierre. “The Communards are only interested in destroying the property of French aristocrats. They will not touch the home of three lovely American women.”
“Haven’t you heard of accidents, Pierre? If they’re aiming at the hôtel of the Vicomte Varlet across the street, they might just as well hit us!”
“I know, Madame. It’s terrible,” cried Carolus-Duran. “Our beautiful city and its treasures will be destroyed. The employees of the Louvre are extremely worried. They’ve taken some measures to save the greatest masterpieces, of course.” He leaned his bulk against the edge of the table and lowered his voice. “The Venus de Milo is hidden under a trapdoor in the basement at the Prefecture of Police, beneath a pile of old dossiers. Some of the Ingreses, Rembrandts, and Titians have been taken out of their frames, rolled up, and stashed in vaults around the city. Sam Pozzi has Delacroix’s Women of Algiers in the safe at Necker Hospital.”
At the mention of Dr. Pozzi’s name, my throat tightened. I hadn’t heard from him since his letter inviting me to lunch.
“How is Dr. Pozzi?” I asked, trying to make my voice sound as flat as possible.
“Still with the Santé Militaire,” answered Carolus-Duran. “For a while, he was following the army around. At Metz, he was knocked over by a horse that was lugging a wagonful of wounded men, and while he was on the ground, one of the wagon wheels rolled over his left leg. The wound was nothing serious, but he couldn’t get around too well, so his unit commander sent him back to Paris. For a couple of weeks, he was at the Gare de l’Est treating the wounded and sick who were evacuated from the provinces. Now he’s working at the ambulance in the Palais de l’Industrie.”
“Oh, yes,” said Julie. “Sophie Tranchevent and her sister have been going there every day.”
I knew that temporary hospitals had been set up throughout the city, in theaters, restaurants, and private homes. But I did not know that the Palais de l’Industrie, the immense exhibition hall where the city’s annual Fine Arts Salon was held, was being used for this purpose. The Palais was a fifteen-minute walk from our house.
I waited three days, sufficient time, I figured, for the dinner conversation to have faded in Mama’s mind; then, before breakfast on the fourth morning, I knocked on Mama’s door, praying that she wouldn’t connect Sam Pozzi to what I was about to ask.
“Come in!” Mama called. She was dressed in her white morning gown, writing letters at her desk.
“I’m going out of my mind, being cooped up in the house,” I said.
“I know. I am, too, dear. Go for a walk, if you must. Just stay in the neighborhood, please.”
“I’d like to help at the ambulance in the Palais, like Sophie Tranchevent. It’s only a short walk to the Champs-Elysées, and there’s no fighting in the area now.”
Mama rose from her chair and walked toward me. I expected a storm of protest. Instead, she put her arms around me and hugged me. “Oh, Mimi, I think it’s a wonderful idea for you to do something useful. Just make sure you’re back before dark.” Her pleasure at my interest in good works outweighed her worries about my safety.
An hour later, I was ready to leave. As soon as I opened the door, I heard the distant spluttering of gunfire. I took a deep breath, checked my pocket to make sure I had my billet de circulation, a street pass signed by the American ambassador, and stepped outside.
As I turned the corner onto the boulevard Saint-Honoré, a loud pack of Communards marched by. The men had fastened leaves to their peaked caps, and some of the women, coarse-looking creatures in stained, ripped dresses, carried branches. A few of them waved red flags and shouted, “The Commune forever!”
I crossed the rue de Rivoli to the Tuileries. The large gilt “N’s” on the towering wrought-iron gates had been covered in newspapers. The Napoleonic eagles had been ripped off; in their place hung two wreathes of immortelles.
At the place de la Concorde, the Communards had erected a huge barricade of barrels and cobblestones. Before it stood a line of cannon. I started to walk around the barricade, when a short, swarthy man in a threadbare National Guard uniform stepped in front of me. He held his rifle out to block my way. With one arm, he opened his coat, displaying a shiny badge. “I am an agent of the Commune’s Public Safety Committee,” he announced arrogantly. “Do you have a pass to be walking the streets?”
I fumbled in my pocket for my billet de circulation and held it out to him with a trembling hand.
The Communard glanced at it, then looked at me.
“Well, what do we have here? A pretty American redhead.” He brought his leering face close to mine, and I could smell his burgundy wine breath. “Perhap
s you’d like to help us build a barricade, Mademoiselle. Or maybe you don’t approve of the Commune?”
“I have no feelings about the Commune,” I said. “But I will ask the American ambassador, Mr. Washburne, how he feels, when I see him. I am on my way to his office now.” I gave the Communard my fiercest look.
His unshaven, deeply-lined face slackened. “Americans!” he grumbled. “You want to live in our city, but you don’t want to suffer with us.” He spat on the pavement. “Fine! Walk on!”
Heart thumping, cold beads of sweat sprouting on my forehead, I ran across the Champs-Elysées to the Palais de l’Industrie and dashed through its lofty arcade. Inside the cavernous entrance hall, medical orderlies in white smocks with red crosses embroidered on their sleeves carried stretchers with groaning patients. Sophie Tranchevent and a group of women, all dressed in plain black bombazine, were standing in a corner folding sheets. Dirty laundry was piled on the grand marble staircase. Shirts and stockings hung to dry on the railings.
The first exhibition hall on the left had been turned into a hospital ward with rows of cots lining the walls. Dr. Pozzi was at the far end, bent over a small boy. He noticed me as soon as I entered, and he rushed to greet me.
“Mademoiselle Avegno!” he cried. “How wonderful of you to help us.” His face looked leaner and his eyes darker than I had remembered them. He smelled of shaving soap and starched linen.
Though my heart was beating wildly against my chest, I tried to look nonchalant. “It’s good to see you again,” I said.
Dr. Pozzi’s eyes wandered over me, lingering on the swell of bosom peaking from the décolleté neckline of my gray satin bodice. He looked pleased. His expression changed, however, as he took in my fur-trimmed skirt, gray suede gloves, and black high heels.
“My dear, that’s a lovely costume,” he said. “But I’m afraid it won’t do for this kind of work. Ask one of the nurses to find an apron for you.”
“What would you like me to do?”
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