The Wardrobe Mistress

by Meghan Masterson

  Chapter Six

  JULY 1789

  Léon calls at the house soon after my return from Versailles. Impatient to see him, I glance up from my book every few minutes to scan the street through the window. In anticipation, I wear a deep blue gown that brings out the hints of gold in my hair, making the chestnut color less drab. It’s an old dress, for cloth is dearly expensive these days, but I made it over after being inspired by some of the queen’s fine clothes. I’m certain Léon will approve of the blue-white-and-red-striped ribbon in my hair. Tricolor is exceedingly fashionable these days as a symbol of the exciting revolution.

  When I greet him at the door, the way Léon’s mouth lifts at the corners and his dark eyes gleam as rich and dark as chocolate, tells me that he does indeed approve of my appearance. My cheeks warm with faint rosiness.

  He greets my parents, and then we excuse ourselves to go for a walk outside. I try to minimize my excitement as we leave, to keep them from noticing, but it’s the first time Léon and I have been allowed to walk alone together, and delight bubbles through me. All of our previous visits were chaperoned until my parents got to know him.

  “I brought you something,” he says, taking my hand and pressing a small object into it. Part of it feels like a delicate chain, the metal warm from his palm. I open my fingers and smile in delight at the slender chain, though the small rock fastened to it puzzles me.

  “Is this a special sort of stone?”

  “Indeed. It’s from the Bastille.”

  I glance at him in astonishment, and inspect it more closely. A little bigger than my thumbnail, the stone has been filed into an oval shape. The file has left a white scratch across the back of the sandy-gray colored stone. How odd, to think of wearing part of a building around my neck. The stone is pretty, though, in a rustic way, and I predict it will be at the height of fashion in weeks to come. People have been carting away the stones of the Bastille as souvenirs of the historic event. Geneviève will envy my necklace. Holding it up to the light, I realize the chain is made of interlocking sections of gold and silver, each gleaming in the sun. It’s very pretty; the chain is my favorite part.

  “I made it myself,” says Léon. The shy tilt of his head and the tentative tone of his voice betray his worry over the reception of the gift. “I had to use scraps leftover from repairing pocket watches for the chain; that’s why it doesn’t quite match. I hope you don’t mind.” He hesitates. “While I was making it, I liked to think the gold and silver together are like the sun and the moon.”

  The idea brings a smile to my lips, and I trace my fingers over the stone and the softly glittering chain. “It means a lot to me that you fashioned it yourself, Léon.” I lift my braid away from my neck. “Will you help me fasten it?”

  His fingers brush across the nape of my neck as he fusses with the clasp. The light touch makes my heart quicken, and I turn to look at him over my shoulder. “Thank you for the gift.”

  “You’re welcome, Giselle.” His fingertips slide along the length of the chain, skimming across my throat. It feels very pleasant. For a second I can’t remember what I meant to say, and when I do recall, the words tumble too quickly out of my mouth.

  “I should have known you would manage to get a piece of history.” Léon is far too fervent of a revolutionary to miss this opportunity. Even though the fall of the Bastille is a blow to the king and queen, I can’t help feeling a frisson of excitement about it. I can hardly help it, now that I’m back home, away from the palace. The streets are full of optimism for the revolution, and it’s a little contagious. I feel like Léon and I hold a piece of the future. The Bastille was solid rock, something that should have been unshakable, and now here is a small piece of it, made into something new. This is what our country needs: the old, ineffective ways dismantled and remade into laws that better serve the whole population. I pray that the royal family will see it and aid the much-needed reforms before any further violence happens.

  “I was eager to,” he admits, dropping his hands. We resume walking, our sleeves close together. “Holding a piece of history is interesting. It’s a good thing I only wanted small pieces, because it was amazing how quickly the stones began to be carted away. The Bastille represented the ancien regime.” His lip curls around the words. “I daresay people are happy to see it pulled down. Now the stone will be used to build the future, and anyone can use it to remember the oppressiveness that wrought vital change.”

  “Did you see the riot?” I ask. Privately, I marvel at his passion for reform, that he can switch from romance to politics so quickly, and with equal fervency for both, but after witnessing the fear at Versailles that the storming of the Bastille had provoked, curiosity grips me and I want to hear more. Léon and I had entirely different experiences of the two events, and I’m desperate to hear his account of them. It feels like a story out of one of my father’s history books, and yet it truly happened. “Tell me everything, Léon.”

  “I arrived when it was nearly over.” He sounds disappointed. “I would have liked to have witnessed more—historians will speak of that day for years, you know. The attack on the Bastille was truly history in the making.”

  “Of course, but wasn’t it dangerous? Were you frightened?”

  He shrugs carelessly. “It was a dangerous place to be.… I suppose it was for the best that I missed most of the action. The worst of the fighting was over when I got there, but the sound of gunfire continued to pepper the air, and people were still shouting and rioting. Children were there, even, running forward every time the round of fire ended, to pick up bullets. They seemed utterly fearless.” Léon hesitates, and I think the sight must have been rather more disturbing than he wants to let on.

  I put my hand gently on his sleeve. “I read an account of the fall of the Bastille in the paper. I brought the clipping if you want to read it.”

  We pause on the side of the road and read it together. Nothing in the account is new to us, but it is fascinating anyway, for such an act of revolution and violence is shocking. Only seven prisoners were housed in the Bastille at the time. Once the mob penetrated the outer courtyard of the fortress, a previously unheard-of feat, the artillery fire began, resulting in death and many injuries. The assault from the guards did not deter the mob that had located a cannon and advanced from various directions. The governor of the Bastille, a man called de Launay, was killed, his head impaled upon a pike.

  “That was the worst part,” confides Léon. At some point in our conversation, he has given up pretending to be worldly and untouched by the event, and speaks candidly. I like him more for it. “I dreamed about it later, remembering. Blood trickled down the pike, making horrid wet tendrils around the wood. His eyes stared, too, wide with the fear and pain he felt at the end, but so empty. It was a terrible sight, but it grew worse when someone pried them out and tossed them away. I left, then. I’d been staying near the back anyway, just like we did during the riot at the Réveillon wallpaper factory.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t venture any closer.”

  “I went back later for the stone. The bodies had already been collected, and someone came for de Launay’s head as well. His family, I expect.”

  “It’s a pity so many people had to die.” I touch the stone resting against my chest. The chain is long enough that I can hide it under my dress, which is probably a good thing, though I shall never dare wear it to Versailles.

  “Yes,” agrees Léon. “It would have been better if the Bastille guards had stepped aside. But I think the riot achieved what it was meant to. No one can deny it was a rallying point for the revolution. It gave people courage, and it united them. Perhaps the king will take the plight of his people more seriously now.”

  “He recalled Necker to his post as Director-General of the Finances,” I say. “That is a start.”

  “Wisely. The king made a mistake dismissing him.”

  I mimic Léon’s rather stuffy, knowing tone. “Yes, he was very popular.”

/>   His eyes light up, glimmering with amusement even before his mouth quirks. “Are you mocking me, Giselle?”

  “A little.”

  “Well, that is very unkind of you.” Laughing, he pokes gently at my waist, tickling me.

  I shriek with laughter and sprint away from him, my blue skirt flying around my legs. Léon catches me easily, reaching for my hand with his. His face glows with merriment, and with his dark hair mussed from the wind, he looks carefree again. I feel that way myself. The push for societal change might be spiraling into something powerful and unpredictable, sometimes frightening, but today the sun shines and Léon and I have the whole afternoon to spend together.

  He bends close to me, and just when I think he will kiss me, he pauses. His expression shifts, intensity overtaking the lightheartedness.

  “Do you want to kiss me?” I whisper, remembering the day in my uncle’s parlor when Léon told me of his desire to.

  His smile causes my heart to lurch, and I want to press my own lips against it.

  “Yes. More than anything. But I also want to know you want me to. I want us to kiss each other.”

  I do not answer with words, and instead close the small distance between us and kiss him first. He likes that response better anyway, I think, because now his arms have gone around me and his mouth slants over mine, heating me all through as I kiss him back.

  “Vive l’amour,” someone shouts jovially behind us, clapping hard.

  Léon and I withdraw from our embrace, breathless and grinning over the attention we unwittingly attracted.

  “Shall we walk past the remains of the Bastille?” Léon suggests. “We seem to have been walking in that direction.”

  “Yes, I want to see it. It’s about an hour walk to the rue Saint-Antoine, and then an hour back. It’ll give us lots of time to talk.”

  “Excellent plan. I like spending time with you, Giselle.”

  “I like being with you, too. I suppose you know that now.”

  He surprises me by kissing my cheek, a quick soft caress that blossoms inside of me even more than our earlier more passionate embrace.

  I smile at him, feeling shy and excited at the same time, my cheeks warm. He takes my hand, twining my fingers with his, and we continue to walk down the street, heading for the demolition site of the Bastille.

  “Do you ever see Necker at court?” asks Léon curiously. “I imagine he must be relieved to be recalled to his post.”

  “I hardly see anyone important,” I admit. “I did see him once, though, from a distance. He was heading to the Estates-General. I heard later that he gave a very boring speech that day, a long recitation of finances, instead of the political reform people wanted to hear.”

  “I suppose numbers are important too, if a little drier.” Léon sounds only half-convinced; like most people, I think he is swept up in the urgency of the need for change, looking for grandiose ideas and not minute fiscal detail. I feel the same, most of the time, until I remember my uncle’s chastisements to always watch for the little things.

  “The queen is responsible for his recall, you know.” I drop my voice to a confiding tone, leaning closer to Léon’s shoulder. “I see that surprises you,” I say, noticing his eyes widen and his angular brows twitch.

  “It does. Everyone says she dislikes him greatly. Is that true, do you know?”

  “Probably, but I don’t know for certain. I think she must have known it needed to be done.”

  “It did. He is extremely popular now,” agrees Léon. “When he was first dismissed, I was at Café du Foy—you know, the coffeehouse by the Palais-Royal—and everyone was talking about what an outrage it was. Camille Desmoulins was there too. I haven’t met him, but others told me who he was. He couldn’t be missed—he leapt onto a table and made a fervent speech, urging us to take up arms and wear the tricolor cockades. He had a large one pinned to his lapel, and he took it off to wave it like a banner during his speech.”

  “Desmoulins the journalist?” I ask.

  “Yes. He’s an ardent revolutionary.” Léon looks like he’ll say more, but then his attention is caught by the scuffle happening across the street from us. A group of people, all decked out with tricolor rosettes, surround a nervous-looking woman in a gray dress, a black cockade pinned to the white fichu tied around her shoulders. Though all the rosettes are sewn in a similar shape, the somber dark color of hers contrasts with their bright patriotic ones.

  “Take off that black rosette,” demands one member of the revolutionary group, a woman carrying a basket heaped with knotted tricolor ribbons. “Remove that horrid Hapsburg emblem at once and wear a proper tricolor one.” She waves the bright red-white-and-blue rosette in the woman’s face, thrusting it into her hand when she doesn’t take it.

  “Black is for the queen, one of the royal colors of Austria,” sneers a man with a drooping mustache and a tricolor band around his hat. “You ought never been seen with a black cockade again.”

  “It’s for mourning,” says the woman timidly. Her fingers clutch at her white shawl. “For the dauphin who died.”

  “If things don’t change, we’ll all be in mourning for many more people. Do you want to see them starve?” The revolutionary woman plucks the black rosette from the royalist lady’s fichu and tosses it to the man, who promptly throws it to the ground and grinds dust into it with his heel. The rest of the group cackles.

  The woman in the gray gown pins the tricolor ribbon to her dress with shaking fingers and hurries away, head down and her cheeks flaming as bright as a sunburn.

  Shocked by the aggressiveness of the group handing out tricolor cockades, I turn to Léon. “That poor woman. She looks so frightened.”

  His mouth tightens, forming a grim line. “They could have just handed her a ribbon and let her continue on. It’s a better way to spread the revolutionary cause.”

  Voices rise again, and I tighten my fingers around Léon’s. “It isn’t over yet—look, that tall man is yelling at them about it.”

  “He wears a black rosette too,” notes Léon. “He must be feeling pretty defensive about it now.”

  “I would have just slipped away quietly, avoiding them completely.”

  The man may be wishing he had done so now, for the people with the tricolor cockades seem immune to all of his strongly worded rebukes, circling around him like vultures and jeering at his black cockade. Eventually one of the revolutionary women shoves at him, snatching at the black ribbons, and he steps back, pushing his hand against her shoulder to establish personal space again. The man with the mustache and tricolored hat shouts an obscenity, and his pale lumpy fist crashes into the other man’s jaw, triggering chaos in the street. People swarm closer to the fight, circling while their voices rise in harsh excitement and anger.

  Léon’s hand grips mine hard. “Let’s get out of here before this spins out of control. Soldiers will be along in a moment.”

  We run down the street, stopping only when the noise of the sudden brawl fades and the only sounds above our quickened breaths are the chirps of birds and the occasional calls of a man selling stones from the Bastille.

  “Perhaps I overreacted,” says Léon, pausing in the thin shade of a young tree.

  I shrug. “I don’t mind running.” It was rather fun, the two of us careening down the street, flying but anchored together by our held hands. “The way the crowd grew so quickly was unexpected.… I’m glad we aren’t there anymore.”

  “I worry about riots lately. In my last letter from my parents, they mentioned hardships the farmers outside of Toulouse are facing. It was a very poor harvest last year, and this one isn’t shaping up much better. Some families are apparently forced to eat wheat that has been wet and spoiled—it’s a terrible situation. And now this week we keep hearing rumors through the city of peasant riots in the south countryside; it’s happening at home, too.” His thin brows draw together, creasing his forehead with concern.

  “They aren’t landholders, right?” I squ
eeze his hand sympathetically. Everyone knows the peasants are revolting against the seigneurs, taking back tithes and grain. They’re too desperate not to. “I’m sure they’ll be fine. Artisan families like yours are probably the safest—not rich enough to be targeted, but not quite at the mercy of poverty, either.”

  He summons a small smile. “Are you saying it is better to be middle class?”

  “I think so.” Worry still lurks in the shadows under his eyes, so I reach up and gently touch his cheek, brushing a dark curl of hair behind his ear. “I’m sure your family is safe. We’ve had riots here, too, and we’re fine. They’re probably sitting at home in Toulouse right now, worrying just as much about you.”

  He straightens, his worries evidently assuaged in part by my words. “You’re right, Giselle. I’ll write them a letter tonight. I did last week, but it’s not too soon to send another.”

  “They’ll be happy to hear from you again.”

  Léon’s mouth quirks sheepishly. “I know I’m probably reacting strongly. But ever since I came here, I’ve been so thrilled with Paris, I never wanted to be back in Toulouse. This is the first time I’ve wished for less distance between the two cities.” He offers his arm to me for us to continue strolling, and his voice lowers to a confessional tone. “I did write to them last week, but it had been over a month before that. Maybe longer. I wanted to feel independent, living here in Paris, and I thought that it would help me achieve that if I distanced myself.”

  “Léon,” I chide him. “Your mother will thank me for telling you to write home more often. You came to a new city for your apprenticeship, and you’ve witnessed many revolutionary events already. I’d say that’s independence enough.”

  “I think my sister is more frustrated by the space of time between my letters.” He looks reflective. “My mother understands that boys grow up.”