French Passion

by Briskin, Jacqueline;

  I held my hands at the sides of my forehead to deaden the pain behind my eyes.

  The pockmarked priest hastily mumbled, “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.…”

  A man was opening the low gate to the graveyard, and I watched him. Elderly, short, handsomely dressed in dark wool, almost like a lawyer, yet I could tell by his bearing this was no bourgeois. He took off his hat, coming toward me.

  It took a full minute before I realized it was the Comte. He’s in England, I thought dully. I’m imagining him.

  But it was he. He stood next to me. A large raven stalked up the mounded wet dirt of the huge grave. I shuddered. The Comte bent for a pebble, throwing it at the bird. Evil glossy black wings rustled overhead.

  “… Pray for us now and at the hour of our death. Amen,” came the thin, rustling response. And the services were over. Pairs of mourners drifted away. Touching my arm in farewell, Izette started in the direction of the house.

  I stood there long after the others had left, not crying, hardly blinking. A few large drops of rain fell. The Comte took my elbow, leading me to his carriage. He sat facing me. Neither of us had spoken.

  As the carriage jolted forward, I said, “The King’s business is concluded?”

  “No. Your aunt wrote of CoCo’s illness. The letter was delayed, but as soon as it arrived, I set out, changing horses at every post.”

  “Thank you,” I said tonelessly. “You shouldn’t have come to the funeral. You risked the infection.”

  “I wish I could have been here all along, my dear. And as for this, it wasn’t necessary for her to go into a pauper’s grave.”

  “Victims of the smallpox have to.”

  “That law doesn’t apply to the nobility,” he said. “Your brother should’ve arranged a proper burial.”

  “Jean-Pierre’s on active duty.”

  “Doubtless very active,” the Comte replied smoothly.

  I sighed. What did any of this matter?

  Home, I went up to my room, and the Comte followed, shutting the door after us. I stared out the window at the rain. Coming down in gray lines, it veiled nearby houses.

  “Would it help,” he asked, “if I tell you she was dear to me, too?”

  I continued to watch the rain. After a long time I said, “You never played with her.”

  “My dear, men like myself don’t romp about on floors. Still, I always brought her some small thing.”

  “Yes.” One of the reasons CoCo had reached up to him was for the little dolls or toys or bits of bright ribbon emerging from black satin pockets.

  “She was so like you. Brave, gay, pretty. But you don’t have that temper. In her worst tantrums she was dearest to me. ‘Go on,’ I’d think. ‘Bravo, keep at it. You have to be mine.’”

  The words weren’t somber, yet there was no banter in his tone, only grief. And this grief pierced through my numbness. At least I’d known my daughter was my own.

  “I’m truly sorry about that, Comte,” I said, resting my gloved hands on the window ledge. “God is very cruel.”

  The Comte came up behind me. “Sometimes, yes.”

  “It’s my fault.”

  “No.”

  “I burned every scrap of clothing, I washed so much, and I kept away from her for two weeks. I was careful, so careful.” My voice rose. “I just wasn’t careful enough.”

  He turned me around, holding my tearless face to his wool collar. “None of us knows how it travels,” he said. “She easily could’ve been infected without you. Or your servants.”

  “Yes. Servants. I’ve been thinking. I interfered with life, and CoCo was punished. You warned me, didn’t you, Comte?”

  “Hush.”

  “Do you know what I’m going to be? Frivolous, no more. I’m going to be as all the other women like me are.”

  “Cry, my dearest, cry.”

  “Oh, God! If only I could!” I pressed my body closer to his. “I’m going to have Monsieur Sancerre make me more gowns. Oh, I’m going to have such fun. I’ll have a box at the Opéra-Comique and the Comédie-Française. A tutor’ll teach me to paint watercolors. I’ll have a dancing master show me the newest dances, every one of them. I’ll play cards. I’ll play and play and play.”

  The Comte stroked my hair, letting me talk. In my guilty grief it seemed to me that the worst punishment I could inflict upon myself was eternal pleasure.

  TWO

  The Bastille

  1788

  Chapter One

  I stood in front of the pier mirror, momentarily veiled by the gown that Izette was lowering over my head, then the sheer white batiste skirt floated gracefully over my petticoats. There were no pannier hoops. Izette stood behind me, fastening the bodice, which had no ribbons, no ruffles, no fichu, nothing to distract from the deep swathe that revealed my breasts. Simplicity was very chic this summer.

  Izette fastened my opal necklace, stepped back, examined me with her chin resting on a finger.

  In the year since she’d had the smallpox, her scars had turned to an ugly gray, and the pits remained as deep. Any small vanity she might once have possessed was gone. She’d learned to be a skilled lady’s maid. My looks were her pride. She smoothed one of my blond-silver hairs back into the artless cascade that had taken her a full hour to produce with the curling tongs.

  “You’ll outshine them all,” she said at last. Her tone was factual, not complimentary.

  And, looking in my mirror, I saw radiance. Not a soul this Friday night would guess how long Izette and I had spent achieving the radiance. Nobody would see the creams and lotions, and nobody would realize the glitter in my eyes came from belladonna drops. Nobody would know that under this glow was a woman dead to joy and sadness. As an addict needs his drug, I needed excitement to bring me to life.

  Izette handed me my nosegay. White skirts adrift around me, I floated downstairs. In the hall, diamond patterns of polished dark wood reflected a half-hundred candle flames. Our first guests would arrive soon. The house clattered and buzzed with last-minute preparations.

  The chef bawled curses. From the music salon came a cacophony of instruments being tuned and the trills of an Opéra-Comique soprano. Two porters carried a gilt settee. Footmen in the scarlet de Créqui livery bore heavy silver platters toward the dining salon. The scullery wench hastily mopped at water spilled from a vase overflowing with ferns and summer roses. The wine steward cuddled bottles of old vintage.

  My Friday Nights were most elaborate.

  And I was the foremost salonnière of the demimonde. Pamphleteers spewed gossip, the writers hinting at orgies in my house. In truth, though, my salon, while far more extravagant and widely attended than before, remained essentially the same. Aristocrats still brought their mistresses. Unattached roués, old and young, still preened before pretty young actresses—while legally classified as prostitutes, actresses were quite choosy. Jean-Pierre’s fellow officers gambled at my card tables. Philosophers continued to read their latest works. Salon revolutionaries kept up their discussions of the Rights of Man. Bonds were floated as the wealthy dipped into their enameled snuffboxes.

  The only new and scandalous matter was the expense of a single Friday.

  Someone knocked at the front door. The footmen weren’t yet stationed to announce guests, and since I was passing, I opened the door.

  There stood my couturier, handsome, excited.

  “Monsieur Sancerre,” I said. “How nice.”

  He made his overelegant bow. “Here, permit me,” he said, adjusting the sheer white of my sleeve a tenth of an inch. “Perfection,” he sighed. “You’re the loveliest thing alive.”

  “How kind to come early to tell me that.” I laughed, tapping him with my ivory fan.

  “I’m here to beg your indulgence for the Baronne Alexine.”

  Alexine was no baronne. She was a beautiful, chronically faithless courtesan. Her featherheaded wit made me laugh and forget. Therefore she was my boon companion.

&n
bsp; “But why didn’t Alexine—the Baronne—ask her own favor?”

  “She wishes to bring a guest.”

  Mystified, I said, “She knows me well enough to bring anyone she chooses.”

  “This is a … very unusual personage.”

  The pretty idiot, I decided, must have some prince of the blood in tow, and wanted to enhance her conquest with speculation. It worked. I was intrigued. “Who is it?” I demanded.

  The too-handsome face twitched, and Monsieur Sancerre held a finger to his lips as a footman bore a huge candelabrum by us. I could feel the heat of the flames. We both watched him carry his burden into the main salon.

  “Monsieur Sancerre,” I hissed, “you are to stop tantalizing me!”

  “She should never have asked this of you.”

  “Tell!”

  “The Comte will disapprove.”

  “You’re trying to drive me mad!” I cried with a laugh. Since CoCo’s death, my laughter rang false in my own ears.

  “The Baronne Alexine begs your indulgence.” Monsieur Sancerre executed another bow. “She wishes to bring her dear friend, Égalité.”

  Égalité!

  I dropped my bouquet in surprise. Égalité, the most famed writer in Paris, went only by this one name. Égalité was a complete mystery. Everybody read and quoted his impassioned revolutionary verse, yet nobody had seen him. Rumors multiplied. I’d heard, variously, that he was a peasant who’d taught himself to read, that he came from the new country of the United States of America, that he was a bourgeois, a baker, a student. The illegitimate son of Louis XV. The legitimate son of a secret morganatic marriage of Louis XV. I’d heard Égalité was imprisoned in the Bastille and his writings were smuggled out by a sympathetic jailor. I’d heard Égalité was a priest, a pirate, a highwayman.

  The dressmaker bent, retrieved my bouquet. His round eyes shone with pleasure at the surprise he’d caused. Then he turned grave. Ours was a real friendship. From that terrible night I’d run to him, I’d cared deeply for this kindly effeminate man. And he’d cared about me.

  “Égalité, the famous firebrand,” he said quietly. “And if you’ll listen to me, you’ll forget the Baronne Alexine’s request.”

  “But why? It’s so exciting!”

  “Refuse. The Comte de Créqui is adviser to the King. Receiving Égalité in your house will mock his position.”

  The warning glanced off me. Introducing Égalité was precisely the kind of sensation that I needed to make me a living woman—even if only for an hour.

  “Please tell Alexine—the Baronne—that I shall be delighted to welcome her and her friend,” I said.

  The couturier argued briefly, but I didn’t listen.

  As the door closed, Jean-Pierre came downstairs. He wore a silver satin dress coat and his blue satin knee breeches were patterned with silver fleur-de-lys. For a moment I watched him, admiringly, then I noticed his expression.

  “Jean-Pierre, what is it?” I asked as he reached the bottom step.

  He coughed into his lace handkerchief.

  “You’re not well!” His frequent illnesses drew me from my benumbed state into terror.

  “It’s nothing,” he said. “Nothing.”

  For several minutes we went back and forth, but at last I pried his difficulty from him.

  “I’m short a hundred francs. A matter of honor.”

  A gambling debt, he meant. With my new need for frenetic excitement, I understood him, and didn’t bother to nag.

  “I’ll speak to the Comte,” I said. “Jean-Pierre, guess who’s coming here tonight?”

  “The Pope.”

  We chuckled.

  “Far more famous,” I said. “Égalité.”

  “Égalité?” Jean-Pierre’s musical voice deepened as he intoned, “‘If I at once the whole world could see, with free land and the people free, then to the moment might I say, linger a while, so fair thou art.’”

  Égalité’s most famous lines. Jean-Pierre, though intensely loyal to the King and Queen, admired the poems of Égalité enough to learn them by heart. Égalité was all the rage among us young people.

  “Alexine’s bringing him,” I said.

  “What a coup!” Jean-Pierre said. “The mystery man revealed in our house.”

  The beautifully repaneled rooms, opening one on the other, smelled of perfumed flesh and silks and satins, exquisite foods, smoking candles, a haunting and lovely odor. The women’s soft white shoulders and bosoms rose from their colorful gowns, and there was a glint of diamonds at breasts, throats, and delicate earlobes. Men bowed elegantly, kissing my hand, and I coquetted, flashing smiles at them. In the past year there had been many flirtations, for though I’d remained faithful to the Comte, a dalliance rescued me, however briefly, from my indifference. The party spilled through long windows into the summer night.

  And still the Comte’s footman continued to sound a cane on the floor, announcing guests. The Duc de Maine with Mademoiselle de Laventer. The Baron de Beaufort—the Baron, handsome and young, had begged me to leave the Comte for him. Cardinal Rohan. Three of Jean-Pierre’s fellow officers in the Royal Guard—one of these, Colonel Revers, kissed my hand with meaning, for he’d asked me to marry him. Monsieur Sancerre arrived with his splendidly attired new apprentice. Beaumarchais came alone, as befitted the most famous playwright in France.

  I listened for Alexine’s name, and her famous poet.

  My diaphanous white gown floating among my guests, I kept promising a surprise. “Ah, you’ll never guess,” I teased. “You’ll have to wait.”

  The musicale ended. Musicians retired behind a screen to play soft, lighthearted tunes, a background for enjoying the supper buffet.

  It was after ten when the footman rapped his cane on the wooden floor.

  “Baronne Alexine. Égalité.”

  A sudden hush fell on the rooms. Everyone turned. Then a murmur of voices began, and a path was made for me to move forward to greet my newly arrived guests.

  At the low step into the hall I stopped. A heavy shock ran through me. My salon faded. Alexine’s pretty, empty voice grew far away, a buzzing bee.

  I was conscious only of him.

  His unadorned gray silk coat was buttoned with plain jet, and his breeches were the same austere gray silk. His unpowdered hair was clubbed back, his ruffled shirt lacked lace. Even so simply dressed, he was by far the most handsome man present.

  He was looking at the magnificently attired guests, the vista of paneled rooms, the distant white linen-covered tables filled with food and wine. His eyes were shadowed, and his well-defined lips set, as if in pain.

  He no longer wore a drenched cape, muddy boots. But the expression of brooding sadness for the world was the same.

  Égalité was André.

  Chapter Two

  “Manon,” I heard Alexine say, “may I present Égalité, who is very, very naughty, and refuses to tell even me his true name. Égalité, this is my dearest friend, Mademoiselle d’Epinay.”

  He bowed, paling slightly. “Mademoiselle.”

  “Monsieur,” I replied, unable to give him my hand to kiss. I was clutching my nosegay. When CoCo had taken her first steps, she’d held with both hands onto a kerchief, imagining the scrap of linen kept her from falling. I grasped tissue-wrapped flower stems to keep me erect.

  There must have been pleasantries. Then Alexine was taking André’s arm, propelling him, her triumph, into the main salon. I sank onto the gilt settee.

  They crowded around André, the young men who loved to hear themselves talk of the Rights of Man, the pretty women who gave their bodies for money or whim, the bored young nobles desirous of entertainment. Jean-Pierre, who didn’t remember André as a highwayman, introduced everyone to the celebrated and mysterious poet.

  The Comte and his clique of elderly aristocrats kept aloof, examining André through lorgnons.

  André. From the first, in his mud-spattered, drenched cloak, I’d recognized him as of gentle birth. It
had been in his eyes, his bearing, as well as his accent. Now I stared at him, trying to comprehend this intangible breeding. André held his tall body easily, with none of the Comte’s stiff hauteur. His expression was sympathetic, not proud. Yet he was far more distinguished than the officers and young noblemen crowding around him. André, the poet with no background, no family, the man from nowhere, my highwayman, a revolutionary poet, simply dressed, yet with undeniable authority. He might be a king’s son in disguise. The incognito heir to an empire.

  As I watched, that icicle in my heart began to melt.

  This terrified me. For I was remembering that to love means to open oneself to torment.

  I went into the dining salon, pretending to be making sure the buffet had been properly replenished. Pâtés trembled in jelly. Chafing dishes gave off spicy aromas. Sending the Comte’s footmen for more almond pudding and another silver platter of salmon, I rearranged black grapes in the epergne.

  “I’ve been looking all over for you,” André said behind me.

  Black grapes fell. My hand arched up, as if in pain, from the thick white linen tablecloth.

  “What is it?” André asked. “Are you all right?”

  I nodded.

  “Can we talk?” he asked. “Without interruption?”

  “Outside,” I said. My voice caught. I cleared my throat, repeating in a normal voice, “Outside.”

  “Good,” he said. He handed me my nosegay, careful not to touch me.

  We stepped through a long window onto the gravel walk. Odors of a summer night surrounding us, we strolled away from the house. Flambeaus had been set behind the trees, their light turning branches the black-green of an underwater grotto. My filmy skirt brushed André’s shoe. I stepped away.

  Finally he spoke. “You’re wearing the opals.”

  “Yes—but you should’ve kept them.”

  “It was the only way I could tell you that what we’d done was important to me.” He paused. “Manon, tonight I didn’t mean to startle you.”