Their unpleasant laughter followed me onto Rue Maupin, the couturier center where Court ladies and wealthy bourgeois wives had come to have gowns and mantles and jupes designed for them, fitted for them. Their gilded coaches, blazoned with coats of arms, both real and spurious, were gone, and only a few discreetly drab equipages waited. Quite a few houses had been burned, and weeds straggled up through blackened foundations. At number eleven the windows had been boarded. Shutters swung, creaking eerily. I was glad Monsieur Sancerre wasn’t here to see the decay of the establishment he’d worked so hard to build. I hurried by.
There must be a way to save the Comte, I thought over and over, but the words were like a useless incantation to ward off the inevitable. My mind had become as sodden as my clothes.
Hearing the splash of hooves behind me, I edged closer to the tall buildings. A hired cabriolet moved briskly up Rue Maupin. The two-wheel vehicle was already taken, so I kept walking. The driver and passenger sped by. I glanced at them, absently noting the leather hood and leather lap cover, envying these in an equally remote manner.
With a loud grinding of brakes, the cabriolet splashed to a halt.
A familiar voice cried, “Manon! Manon! Is that really you?”
“Goujon!” I shouted, and was running toward the hack. “Oh, Goujon, of all the people in Paris to meet! What a lucky coincidence!”
He stepped down. “Name of God, you’re soaked through and shivering.” And without another word, he lifted me as easily as if I were a child over the wheel and into the seat between his and the driver’s. The two men solicitously wrapped the bearhide rug around my sopping skirt, then fastened down the protective leather apron.
Goujon was as I’d last seen him, in bourgeois clothing. In the past I would have thought this giant, his red beard trimmed, his red hair clubbed back, wearing a dish-shaped hat, snuff-colored breeches and cloak, unbuckled shoes, plain linen, an ordinary shopkeeper. In contrast with the poverty I’d seen today, he looked magnificent.
“I didn’t know you were in Paris,” he said. “Izette saw me just last week, and she never mentioned that you were here.”
“Izette doesn’t know, not yet. I arrived last evening.” Under the warm robe, I kicked off wet shoes, trying to warm my wet-stockinged feet against my calves. We were ready to move, so I said, “I’m staying at Hôtel des Anglais.”
He nodded over my head at the driver. “Hôtel des Anglais, Citizen.” The cab driver touched his whip to his horse, and we lurched forward. Goujon asked, “Why are you here?” Under his breath adding, “I asked you not to come back.”
“The Comte is in the Conciergerie.”
“The very place for him.” There was an edge of steel in that deep voice. But why not? Hadn’t Goujon helped found the Jacobin Club, which sought to overthrow the monarchy and all connected with it? “So it’s he who has brought you back?”
“No. In fact he ordered me not to come. But how could I stay away? I’m married—”
At this Goujon’s giant shoe kicked my leg. He glanced meaningfully at the driver, who was staring ahead at his horse’s drenched mane.
Goujon boomed, “You released prisoners of the Bastille are a breed apart. I remember as if it were yesterday you saving the idiot. Half dead from terror and deprivation, yet you braved the people’s anger to rescue a poor slobbering fool. Name of God! I never saw more courage even on a day famed for courage.” He gave another glance at the driver, and we began talking about what the unseasonally rain-swept July would do to any crops that might have been planted.
After he paid off the driver at Hôtel des Anglais, I took his arm, keeping him outside on the deserted street.
“I must save the Comte,” I said in a low voice. “Will you help me?” I had discounted all my husband had said about informing on any who took part in rescuing him. “Will you?”
“No,” Goujon said flatly. “It’s time he was punished for profiteering on bread.”
“The Comte never bought grain for himself.”
“Whom did he buy it for, then?”
“King Louis. The royal family always needed money. You know their extravagances. If the Comte hadn’t speculated on grain, someone else would have. Bread prices would have shot up anyway. And taxes would have been raised besides, to pay for the Queen’s jewels and the expenses of the Court at Versailles.” I paused. “However much you despise the Comte, he’s a brilliant financier and someone else would have done far more harm.”
“Monarchists are a foul bunch.”
The rain had stopped, and I pulled off the sodden cape. This masculine game of politics always angered me. Monarchists, Revolutionaries, Jacobins, Girondists—each man was shunted into a pigeonhole where he could be admired or condemned.
“The Comte,” I said quietly, “did what he thought best for France.”
“Let his judges decide that.”
“He says he’ll go to the guillotine.”
“He’s right,” Goujon said.
“So the trial’s a farce.”
Goujon took my arm. He was using only a small part of his strength, still I had to grit my teeth in order not to cry out.
He said in that deceptively gentle voice, “The people rule now.”
“You must work with me! I can’t let him die, Goujon, on the boat to England, I lost his child.” My voice choked with misery as I remembered a fat man terrified by mountainous waves, a trunk sliding toward me.
“Did you suffer so much, little Manon?”
Goujon’s bearded face was uneasy, surprised. And then I knew that Goujon cared for me, not love as I considered it, yet he cared enough so that Izette’s remark, the great gawk’s in love with you, had validity. My eyelids flickered as I looked up at him. Always I’ve shrunk from using men who care for me. Yet the ship of my life was crashing on the lodestone rock, and Denis was the large sturdy raft that fate had sent me.
“You arranged for that mob.”
“The people wanted to view the chasm between them and the great nobility.”
“You meant them to terrify me.” My voice trembled. “André became The Incorruptible, the moderate voice you need in the Assembly. Revolutionaries rule the country. You have what you want … I lost my baby.…”
I began to cry. Goujon never had seen me weep. Tears weren’t difficult to manage. I was miserable, desperate. My tears had an astounding effect on Goujon. Small noises came from his thick throat, his huge, unbuckled shoes shuffled on wet paving.
After a minute he said, “All right. I’ll see what I can arrange. Tomorrow I’ll visit de Créqui.”
“No! No!” I cried, terror halting my sobs. “You mustn’t do that!”
“Name of God, if I can’t talk to him, how am I meant to get him out?”
“That … is … what we have to … manage.…” I said and began sobbing again.
“All right, all right, little one, if it means that much to you,” he said, resting one arm heavily over my shoulder until I controlled my tears, then leading me into the Hôtel des Anglais. In the warm public room Sir Robert waited anxiously. I introduced the two men and went up to my rooms to change my clothes and dry my hair. When I returned, the two of them, the florid English country gentleman and the huge Breton peasant, were amicably discussing farming over the wine mugs.
Yet after Goujon had left, and Sir Robert and I sat together in front of the blazing logs, the Englishman said, “There’s something not right about that fellow.”
“Goujon? He’s a very good friend.”
“He was muttering something about a rescue of the Comte de Créqui.”
“He’s promised to help us.”
“He shouldn’t have been let in on it, Comtesse.”
“But why?”
“He’s a Jacobin. None of that breed would help a minister of the King bolt from the Conciergerie.”
“I … well, once I did him a favor. He’s repaying me.”
“When he spoke of the rescue, he looked me too much in the eye
, if you follow my meaning.”
“Goujon’s in the Assembly. He can be a tremendous help. And we need all the help we can get.”
“Oh, dash it all. There’s nothing against him that I can pin down, but in my opinion the fellow’s playing a double game.”
I poured mulled wine from the pitcher. My visit to the Conciergerie and securing Goujon’s promise to help had left me in a state that can best be described as chaotic numbness. Not really listening to Sir Robert, I attributed his misgivings to Goujon’s undefinable emotions toward me.
Chapter Three
That evening I was in no mood to dress for supper. I yanked a comb through my hair. The rap at the door was an annoyance.
“Who is it?”
“Me, ma’am,” Izette’s voice said.
I ran across the room, tripping on the muddy shoes I’d kicked off, falling against the door to fling it open. We were in each other’s arms, hugging, pulling apart, hugging again. Seeing her wonderful broad smile, her dear pockmarked face was pure joy. Izette, the only woman friend I’d ever had. As we parted, there were tears in both our eyes.
“Goujon brung me,” she said, wiping her tears with her knuckles. She sniffled, then said in her most sensible tone, “And you’ve got to leave Paris right away. You’re an émigré. You ain’t safe here.”
“Prisoners of the Bastille lead charmed lives, and I’m safer than you—that is if you call me ma’am once again. I’ll denounce you, Citizeness.”
At this the quick gamine smile split her face. “You!” she said. “What’s this Goujon’s been telling me? You’ve come to rescue the Comte with some puffed-up English milord who’s in love with you.”
“Sir Robert. You’ll see. He’s a great, nice grown-up boy, slaying dragons to rescue a maiden in distress. Or in this case, to rescue the ex-maiden’s husband.”
Dusk came through open windows, and in this bleached light Izette examined me. “Why do you want the Comte loose?” she asked, her gaze never leaving me.
“I … I feel a great deal for him. And remember, I wrote to you about the miscarriage. I want to have other babies.”
“A shame women have to put up with a husband to have ’em,” Izette said grumpily. “If we get him free, you’ll leave?”
I have to, I thought. André mustn’t know of my presence. “Paris is very desolate now,” I said.
She nodded, accepting this. “How’s Captain d’Epinay?” she asked.
I sighed. “As well as can be expected.” I had left Jean-Pierre a note explaining my hasty departure, and a leather pouch with most of my carefully hoarded gold sovereigns. “He’s not confined to bed anymore, but his chest is weak.” I sighed again.
Izette patted my arm in sympathy: she, too, had worried over an ailing brother.
Another knock at the door. “Sir Robert requests,” a lackey shouted, “that you join Deputy Goujon and him in his rooms for supper.”
A square table had been set in front of the fireplace, and Sir Robert explained that the four of us would sup here rather than in the public room so we could be free to “talk.” We said little as the leather-aproned lackey helped Sir Robert’s man, stout and gravely attentive, serve us a transplanted English meal. Great bowls of brown soup, a heap of small unidentifiable birds, some over-fried sole, a saddle of mutton surrounded by sodden vegetables, a sweetly heavy suet pudding. The savory, oysters wrapped in bacon, came last, and was the best of the meal. I felt ashamed that, in this country of shortages, I enjoyed only this course. The leather-aproned lackey piled a tray with dishes, and kicked the door shut behind him.
Sir Robert, holding his fingers to his lips, moved to the door, flinging it open. He looked up and down the corridor. His florid cheeks shone. He was as exhilarated as a schoolboy on a prank.
Sir Robert, Goujon, Izette, and I gathered around the fire, discussing in conspiratorial quiet how to rescue the Comte. Like most plans of escape, ours were insubstantial enough to fall apart at the first probe of reality. The fire burned down. Sir Robert’s man put on more logs. The stout man, speaking no French, couldn’t follow our conversation, and soon his snores came from the shadows.
It was Izette who finally said, “Ain’t the easiest thing to rescue the Comte once he’s out of the Conciergerie?”
“Out?” I asked. “What do you mean?”
“When he’s in the tumbrel,” she replied. Her voice was sober. And I knew Izette well enough to realize she’d already privately picked at this idea until it made sense.
“On his way to the guillotine?” Sir Robert asked. “I say, isn’t that drawing it to a hairline?”
“It is,” she admitted. “But the Conciergerie is got a million armed guards.”
“They parade everywhere in twos,” I interjected. “But, Izette, the tumbrels are guarded.”
“Yes, but that’s only twelve soldiers,” she replied. “Mind you, I ain’t saying this is sure fire. Still, a bigwig aristocrat like the Comte de Créqui draws huge crowds. And in a crowd you can always manage a disturbance.” She turned to Goujon for confirmation.
Firelight cast shadows on his beard, flames glittered in his eyes. He nodded.
“I got a lot of friends in my club,” she said, pausing to explain to Sir Robert. “Us women has our own discussion club, just like the men’s got. We could manage a disturbance alone. But Goujon here’s got experience organizing crowds.”
That he does, I thought, visualizing the sea of bloodred caps beyond the Comte’s iron palings.
Goujon asked, “What’s your plan?”
Izette said, “When you goes up Rue St. Honoré, there’s a courtyard to a burned house. The whole place didn’t burn to the ground, so the worst damage don’t show from the street. But one wing’s gone, and there’s a path through the foundations. A wagon could wait there. Us women could pretend we wants to get at the Comte, shrieking and pushing at him. One of us can stop the horse in its traces, others can swarm over the tumbrel. One of us’ll throw a shawl over the Comte and spirit him into the courtyard. We’ll cover him with straw or some-such. Drive him to where he can change to lackey’s clothes.”
“But what if …” My voice shook. “What if he refuses to go?”
The others turned to stare at me.
And tensely I told them what I’d held back. “The Comte says he’s fought and worked for France, and he won’t leave it. He says—he says he’ll denounce anyone who tries to help him leave.”
Sir Robert’s lips pulled together as if he’d been deprived of a much-anticipated sport. Izette gazed at me with disbelief. Goujon pulled at the knuckles of his huge hands. The cracks resounded in the quiet room.
It was Goujon who spoke first. “So that’s why you didn’t let me visit de Créqui. Well, this puts an end to the matter.”
“I can’t let him die,” I whispered, dangerously close to tears. “I just can’t. There must be a way.” My palms reached out beseechingly.
Firelight etched Izette’s pitted complexion. After a long moment she took one of my outstretched hands. Comfortingly. “It don’t have to be the end,” she said. “One of the club members is wife to a guard at the Conciergerie. She helps in the prison kitchen. As I remembers the Comte, he’s one to buy wine. She could slip something in his.”
Sir Robert nodded. “Drug him, yes.”
“Just enough, not too much. I never seen the guillotine at work, but I knows a lot who has. They say some folk go to the scaffold looking drug-dosed.”
“This guard’s wife,” I asked, “will she do it?”
“She’s a good friend.” Izette smiled that brief, face-splitting grin. “But there ain’t no harm in making it worth her while.”
Sir Robert leaned forward, eager again. “I’ll arrange the … arrumph … wherewithal. And the wagon, too, leave to me. I’ll arrange the hire. And we don’t need to let a carter in on our plans. I’ll drive the wagon—I’ve driven enough wains during harvest at Foxwarren.”
We sat by the dying fire, Sir Robert, Izet
te, and I, adding to and refining her plan. The trial being a week from tomorrow, Friday, Izette told us the Comte would go to the guillotine Saturday week: in almost every case execution was set for within twenty-four hours. So we needed to have our plan letter perfect as soon as possible.
Goujon said little. I stared at him. He’d never been talkative. Yet something about this silence turned in my vitals, like a cold snake. Sir Robert had said he didn’t trust Goujon. That’s because they both cared for me, I told myself.
Goujon must have sensed my eyes on him. He looked at me. “Don’t worry, little Manon,” he said. “All will work out for the best.”
His smile was deeply gentle. I told myself not to look for demons where none existed.
At length Goujon yawned mightily. “It’s very late,” he said.
He left. Izette slipped across the dimly lit hall to my rooms—she had agreed to spend the night.
I stood at Sir Robert’s door, barely hearing his hearty affirmations of our rescue plan. During the rush of working out details, my mind had been alert. Now, all at once, a blow seemed to descend on my head. Weak, I rested against the door jamb.
“What is it, Manon?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
“No, you’re sad,” he replied. “And when you’re sad, you’re almost too lovely.”
“You promised not to say such things.” The words came automatically to my lips.
“Jove, I can’t help myself. That lost, sad expression of yours makes a man yearn to take you in his arms—a man feels he might die if he doesn’t take you in his arms.” He coughed awkwardly. “To comfort you, of course.”
“I’m tired. Tomorrow things will seem brighter.” And I took a step toward my rooms.
“Stay a minute,” he said, taking my hand. “I’ve got to get this out. It’s been on my mind since we left London, but I’ve never found the right time or the right words.” He inhaled loudly. “Comtesse, I go hot inside whenever I think about spouting that filth at you. How can you ever forgive me?”
“I’ve forgotten,” I said truthfully. “England seems another world. Safe. Sane.” A spasm of unhappiness passed through me.
French Passion Page 29
