French Passion

by Briskin, Jacqueline;

  “That horrible old man,” I whispered, and began to cry weakly.

  André wiped my eyes before he went on with his story. He’d ached with unanswered questions. But—the police were after him. He had pledged himself to complete the peasants’ lists of grievances. He couldn’t remain in Paris to ferret out the truth.

  That bleak winter starving bands pillaged the countryside. Police suppression grew.

  King Louis, weak as a King, decent as a man, hoping someone could find a panacea for the country’s woes, had called an Estates-General. André had been voted by Orléans as that city’s deputy of the Third Estate. On May 4 the King and Queen had led a procession through Versailles to the Hôtel des Menus Plaisir, where the Estates-General would meet. The representatives of the nobility wore varicolored gold-laced silken capes, and from their hats waved large white plumes. The clergy were bright in scarlet or violet. Both these Estates were part of the Court, familiar to the throne. The Third Estate, strangers, elected to wear simple, virile dark coats, plain white neck bands, to each carry a candle.

  When the Assembly wasn’t convening, André would ride to Paris to track down my friends. Each had embellished the same story. I’d eloped with a new lover. After all, he heard over and over, Manon d’Epinay was lovely, a flirt, impulsive, and what could be more natural for her than to elope?

  A sense of despairing belief had crept over him.

  What really convinced André that I’d left France was tangential evidence. The Comte de Créqui had ceased to act as the King’s Minister of Finance. André had known that only some intense and personal misery could cause a man so steeped in noblesse oblige to abdicate his duties. “The Comte no longer advising the King—and in a time of crisis—was my final proof you’d run off with a man, leaving him, leaving me.” André paused bitterly. “I believed the worst of you, the best of him.”

  I lifted my head from the pillow. “Don’t blame yourself, André. I told you the Comte discovered the truth about us that same night—Old Lucien again. And he, the Comte, needed to punish me, whatever the cost. He couldn’t help himself. He realized a lettre de cachet would hurt him as much as me, but he couldn’t help himself. He’s icy brilliant about everything. Except me. He loses all control about me. Go on.”

  After the liberation of the Bastille, when Izette came to him at the grainery with the truth, he’d wanted to die with remorse. An illiterate laundress guessing the truth, while he, loving me, had been taken in! After rescuing me from the carter, André had carried me back to the Inn of St. Antoine, pledging never to leave me until I was completely recovered. “I resigned from the Assembly,” he said. “All the other delegates from the Third Estate, though, came here to the inn, pleading. I’m in the center, a moderate, and men from both sides, Monarchists and Extremists alike, said without men like myself there was no hope of setting the country to rights. They needed me to work on the Declaration of the Rights of Man.”

  “How angry I’d have been if you’d turned into a nurse.” I managed a smile. In my weakened condition our conversation had worn me out. Holding his hand to my cheek, I drowsed.

  The month that I recuperated, André worked on the Declaration of the Rights of Man. I knew which of the articles sprang from his living heart.

  Men are born and remain free and equal in rights.…

  Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures nobody else.…

  All citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law, are equally eligible for all the dignities and all public positions, occupations, according to their abilities.…

  The free communications of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious rights of man.…

  “What was that last one?” Izette was asking.

  I blinked.

  “What?” I asked in bewilderment.

  How was I sitting here on the window seat, sun warm on my face? It was two weeks after my fever had lifted, and I was able to move around. But an instant ago I’d been in bed, wearing my night shift. And here I was in the sitting room, dressed in—I glanced down—lemon-colored piqué. A simple and charming frock I’d never seen before. Izette, who’d just been combing my hair, was sweating a little as she wielded her fluting iron. Monsieur Sancerre permitted her to bring home gowns to press. But how in less than a second had she started the fire and heated her irons? How had I dressed and come in here in the blink of an eye?

  “Go on,” she said. “Keep reading. Ain’t it wonderful the way Égalité can string words together? Poetry, them pamphlets of his.”

  Yes. In my hand was André’s pamphlet on the Rights of Man. Two folded sheets of poor paper.

  “Izette … wasn’t I just in bed?”

  “You been sitting there an hour or more, talking to me while I work, reading to me.”

  “I—I don’t remember getting here.”

  She gave me a long, searching look, set her fluting iron on the fire next to the box iron, and came to touch her roughened palm to my forehead. “Cool as a cucumber,” she sighed. “I was wrong.”

  “Wrong? What about?”

  “When you was delirious, I never knew where your mind was. And after you got well, you’d fall quiet and after a long time start up a whole new conversation.”

  “I’ve been having blank spells, you mean?”

  She nodded. “But always they came on when you got fevered. So I decided the fever done it.”

  “The last thing I remember is being in bed, in my night shift. This frock—where’d I get this pretty morning frock?”

  “Monsieur Sancerre. He sent it this morning, a get-well present. He made it for a titled lady who emigrated to England. Don’t you remember? You wrote a note, thanking him.”

  Sure enough, on the table were paper and inkstand.

  “And I thought I was all well.” Shivering a little in the warm sun, I slipped my hand into hers. She squeezed for comfort.

  “You are,” she said. “You’re right as can be. But just the same, I’ll warn Goujon and Égalité to watch out.”

  “No,” I said sharply. “You’re to tell nobody.”

  Especially André, I thought. André, keeping peace between various factions of the Assembly, was drained. His eyes were set on dark shadows, and sometimes his shoulders slumped with weariness. He must use what remaining energy he had to write his pamphlets and poetry. I couldn’t become a burden.

  I repeated, “You’re not to tell anyone. Especially not André.”

  Her pock-scarred features drew into lines of protest.

  Forestalling her arguments, I said, “Izette, this is the only time it’s happened without a fever. It won’t happen again.”

  “But say it does. They got to be forewarned.”

  “André has enough to worry about. He doesn’t need my silly problems. If it happens, I’ll tell you. Please, Izette?” My voice trembled with anxiety.

  She went back to the table, touching the iron with a licked finger. I heard the sizzle. Then she said, “I won’t tell. But you promise to tell me—if’n you blank out again?”

  “I promise.”

  That same day, as twilight began to fall, Goujon visited.

  Though Goujon came of Brittany peasant stock, his family was well-to-do. They’d sent him to university in Paris. He was well read, intelligent. He could have worked his way up to become a lawyer or a merchant. Instead, he’d settled in this poor section, St. Antoine. Despite his calm manner, that deep, gentle voice, Goujon was a founder of the Extremist Jacobin Club. The Jacobin Club’s aim was to end the monarchy. It was whispered, though Goujon never said the words, that the Jacobins had vowed to end the reign of King Louis by whatever means necessary. Goujon, to identify himself with the people, continued to braid back his hair and to wear a farmer’s loose clothing, which emphasized his enormous chest and long, thick legs. His great head with its flaming beard, his huge hands, everything about him was cast on a grand scale. I’d noted the lustful glances he gave the buxom cashier downstairs in the wineshop, noted
that the plump woman responded with frank intimacy. Goujon’s sexual desires doubtless were consummated in a manner befitting his bull-like size.

  Izette was carefully folding the pressed garments in a wicker trunk. She took advantage of the time visitors stayed with me to return clothing to Monsieur Sancerre and get more work.

  “Goujon,” she asked, “them folk you know what came out of Secret, did any of them get forgetful?”

  I glared, angry at this betrayal. With a gesture she soothed me.

  “Should I be on the watch for spells?” she asked.

  “Long solitude can bring on mental failures. And in Manon’s case, she has the head injury, too.”

  I had become very thin. The dusk chill seeped through to my very bones, and I hugged the big shawl to me, trying not to think of that brutal, fat carter. What would have happened if André hadn’t chanced along to rescue me?

  Goujon was asking, “Manon, have you any such problems?”

  “I fear crowds—and the mob. But you know that,” I evaded. “A lot of people nowadays fear crowds and the mob.”

  And then Fido was shuffling in to carry Izette’s laundry basket.

  After they left, Goujon continued to gaze thoughtfully at me. Did he guess I’d lied by evasion? His scrutiny embarrassed me. I held up two fingers, blowing him a kiss, a flirtatious kiss out of my old life.

  To my surprise, he reddened. He’s quite in love with you, the big gawk, Izette once had said. Ridiculous, I told myself. Denis Goujon is the last man alive to harbor an unsatisfied, unvoiced love. I got up to pour sour wine from the pitcher, a full mug for him, a sip for me.

  By mid-September I was well enough for Izette to return to her bed under the counter in Monsieur Sancerre’s gown shop. I could attend to my own needs. I’d had only two more blank spells. The innkeeper insisted I keep my rooms free of charge. Because I—one of the seven released Bastille prisoners—lived overhead, his wineshop had become the most celebrated and prosperous in the St. Antoine district.

  The night Izette left, we had a small party celebrating my return to health. Goujon came with a huge pitcher of red wine.

  At the last moment Jean-Pierre surprised me. He came in on the Versailles post. André had told him I planned a small gathering—André and Jean-Pierre enjoyed an offhand friendship, the only kind possible between an idealistic Assembly deputy who favored a republic and a rearguard Monarchist: they met spasmodically in a Versailles café. Needless to say, André hadn’t risked the tenuous strands of this friendship by revealing himself as the highwayman who’d taken my “honor.” The ten-mile journey from Versailles was dangerous for an officer lacking the protection of his regiment, so Jean-Pierre, taking off the gold-laced Royal Guard uniform he wore so proudly, had put on sober clothes and a black traveling coat.

  We’d eaten. All that remained on the plates were well-gnawed chicken bones. Food was even more scarce, but the landlord had managed a tough old hen, a round loaf of white bread. The carrots and steamed onions were rather tasteless, the tax on salt having risen alarmingly. We’d finished the box of sweetmeats Jean-Pierre had brought. The wedge of Brie cheese provided by André had been divided into tiny bites.

  We were sipping the last drops of Goujon’s wine.

  The fire crackled, and I basked in the warmth. I was with André, my brother, my friends. As usual, the talk had turned to the problems of the country. One always ended up discussing the problems of the country. This could mean anything from how people amused themselves in the long lines outside shops to the shortage of grain, from those bands of anarchists roving the countryside to the sometimes humorous jobs that noble émigrés were forced to take.

  Jean-Pierre sipped the last of his wine, saying in his musical voice, “When they’re safely back in France, how the émigrés will laugh about turning seamstress or tutor! And what jokes they’ll have to endure.”

  “So, Goujon said, “you believe they’ll return?”

  “What else?” Jean-Pierre asked, smiling.

  “Where will they live?” Goujon asked.

  “Why, in their own homes, of course,” Jean-Pierre replied.

  “In great châteaux, then,” Goujon said, “tended by squadrons of servants?”

  Jean-Pierre shrugged assent.

  “Who will support them?” Goujon asked.

  “Oh, you’re worrying about the finances!” Jean-Pierre cried airily. “Haven’t you heard? The King has all that settled. His plan is to let the peasants pay their taxes by installment.”

  Goujon’s homespun blouse was reddened by the fire as he leaned toward my brother. “In Picardy they’re eating grass. In Cambrai women put earth in soup to thicken it. Does that sound like there’s tax money?”

  Jean-Pierre gave his winning smile. “Don’t ask me the whys and wherefores, Monsieur Goujon. Those, thank God, are the King’s problems. I’m just a simple soldier, repeating what I hear.”

  André said with quiet intensity, “The problems belong to France.”

  “The Court lives no differently today,” Goujon said. “The people will have to remind Louis there’s a country beyond the grounds of his palaces.”

  “The King’s soldiers are ready for mobs,” Jean-Pierre retorted.

  “The King’s soldiers—” Goujon emphasized soldiers; the ranks were of the Third Estate, while officers had to prove by yellowing genealogical papers that all four grandparents were of noble blood—“will side with their families.”

  “They’ll turn against their officers,” Izette said.

  And at this the complacent warmth of food and rich red wine left us. It was as if someone had opened the windows to let in a cold night draft. If one of the men had spoken, it would have been different. A continuation of a philosophical discussion, however heated. Izette’s sensible contralto, a woman’s voice, meant this was fact, well known, a truism spoken in St. Antoine, maybe in all Paris.

  “Izette, Izette, you’re being silly,” Jean-Pierre said, his charming voice too loud. He was trying to regain the warm atmosphere. “My men are completely loyal.”

  I was terrified for him. “Jean-Pierre, when the Bastille fell,” I said, “the soldiers didn’t fire on the people, they turned on their officers.”

  “An isolated incident.” Jean-Pierre smiled.

  Goujon said, “Do you know that one-quarter of all taxes collected go to support the royal family, and another half to support the great nobles? The country’s bankrupt. We can’t afford leeches. Or the regiments to guard them.” The words reverberated through his huge peasant body. “The ranks will rise up against their officers, the oppressor class.”

  “No,” I cried out, reaching to my brother. “No!”

  Jean-Pierre managed a laugh. “Little sister, stop worrying. You’re hearing the routine speech of the Jacobin Club. Believe me, other than the Jacobins, everybody else in this country loves King Louis. The soldiers will die fighting for him and the royal family.”

  André stared into his empty glass. “I want equality as much as you, Goujon, you know that. Yet at the same time, like Jean-Pierre, I can’t think of France without a King and Queen. There must be a way we can have both, with no blood spilled.”

  “Égalité”—Goujon, like everybody else, called André by the name he’d chosen—“only a man like you could manage it. A man of incorruptible honesty, looked up to—”

  “Oh, come on!” André interrupted.

  Goujon went on, “Why be embarrassed by the truth? Who else can keep the country on an even keel?”

  “Anyone in the Assembly who chooses,” André replied.

  “You’re the only deputy with no scandal smearing him.”

  My face burned. I was remembering the scandal that had smeared me. The Comte de Créqui’s extravagant whore. The talk of orgies at my house. The little pamphlets, the libelles, with their obscene illustrations of sexual perversions at my salon. Odd, in this new life, how my past trailed me like a muddied train.

  I sat back, listening to the tal
k. Goujon advocating uprisings. Jean-Pierre, his delicate features flushed, vowing the Royal Guard would defend the royal family to the death. André moderating. Goujon was right. André was able to step between warring factions, show them the path best for the country.

  “We’re upsetting Manon,” André said, squeezing my hand. “We shouldn’t talk like this in front of her, not yet.”

  “I’m all right,” I said, but my voice was weak.

  And Jean-Pierre changed the subject completely. “Manon, this week we had a performance in the palace opera house. Herr Mozart’s newest opera, Magic Flute.”

  I swallowed. “It’s been ages since I heard you sing, Jean-Pierre.”

  So my brother obliged, standing to sing in his excellent tenor a lighthearted tune about a boy called Papageno who was in love with a girl called Papagena.

  André held my hand. We were on the settle together, and after a minute his arm encircled my shoulders, and I leaned into his warmth. We hadn’t yet made love. My illness had precluded physical love. His kisses had been sweet, innocently free of the carnal. Now, a warmth came over me, and I forgot the problems beyond this room, forgot my frivolous past; I closed my eyes and there was nothing except a voice singing of happiness, the warmth of André’s hard body, and my driving need to be alone with André.

  Soon Goujon left. Izette, pulling her shawl over her head, went to spend her first night back in Monsieur Sancerre’s. And Jean-Pierre, since the Paris–Versailles post no longer traveled by night, had only to stroll down the slanting corridor to his room.