“Gagnon!” The crowd shouted his name in chorus, and from among them, Dubois emerged, his face flush, his shirt stained. “C’est une célébration, mon ami!”
“How did you know?” Gagnon asked. “We’ve only just—”
“How did we know?” He bent first to Laurette, his face inches from hers, then stood tall again. “How did we know! All of France knows! And soon, all of the world!”
Another shout, and with it Laurette understood clearly that nobody here was celebrating the marriage of Émile Gagnon and the orphan Laurette.
“Vive la France! Vive la République!”
“No,” she whispered, the wine turning sour. “No, no more.” She found herself alone, Gagnon swept into the crowd of men, more shouts, more nonsensical talk. The room grew dark and insufferably hot. She dropped her cup, caring not that the wine spilled to the floor, on her bare feet. How could it be, after feeling blissfully complete only moments ago, that she could once again be left alone while men shouted praise to la République?
She groped her way through the crowd and was almost to the door when strong arms came around her, spun her, lifted her, and brought her down for her second kiss of the day.
“It has happened.” Strange how she could so clearly hear Gagnon’s whisper above the crowd.
“What has happened?”
“La Déclaration. Our rights, as men. As citizens. As equals. Laurette, do you know what this means?”
“War?” A supposition based on all she knew of Marcel and the scenes like this she’d so often witnessed.
“Non, ma Laurette. It is all we wanted, all we’ve asked for. La Déclaration will bring us peace.”
L’épisode 25
Renée
* * *
VERSAILLES
* * *
The draftiness of the house never works in concert with nature. When it is hot, the rooms are stuffy, and more than once a day I have to run outside to feel a breeze. When it is cold, the drafts make it impossible to get warm. Rain is different. If it persists, then a certain dankness makes itself known, as men and women bring it inside, their skirts damp and coats dripping. A sudden downpour, however, can be a surprise. The sound is hidden in the height and thickness of the ceiling, and many of the inner rooms have no windows.
Today, the rain is torrential, a steady stream from the sky, and it has brought the rabble of Paris into the halls of the palace. They’ve come for a royal audience and are at first disappointed. The king has been out hunting, and Her Majesty at the Petit Trianon, where she escapes more and more frequently without her usual assortment of companions. In earlier times, under ordinary circumstances, a disgruntled crowd would raise no alarm. After all, people came day and night to wander the halls, rarely with any expectation of being seen or heard. But these are not ordinary times, and this is not an ordinary crowd. On this day, Versailles is overrun with women. Poor, rain-soaked women driven by hunger and unsatisfied by platitudes.
The queen is sent for and returns, entering through a little-used door that allows her to bypass the Salle des États, where the women have gathered on the promise of an hour of the king’s ear. Armed guards flank her on all sides, Bertrand at the rear, capitalizing on his height to scan for threats. I know better than to distract him when he is thus engaged, and nothing in the queen’s demeanor makes me feel like I am invited to keep the family company. She is obviously angry, and by the words she spouts between the perfect cadence of their footsteps, it is clear her anger is directed at her guards.
“You stupid, stupid—” and then a word from her mother tongue that is clearly not a salute to their strength and loyalty. “Behaving as you did at that, that . . . farce. When will you learn these people are animals? Sauvages. Bêtes. They have no more sense of diplomacy than a rutting stag in spring, and nothing near the grandeur. Or usefulness.”
She is speaking of a banquet a few evenings ago, held in honor of new recruits brought in to replace the king’s depleted army. It was, at first, to be an affair for the soldiers alone, free of any royal presence so that the men could conduct themselves in a manner suited to their station: raucous, with bouts of challenge and good-natured violence. Since the death of Louis-Joseph and the fury of the rebellion, the king and queen have by and large abandoned any show of royal excess. On this night, however, they were compelled to make an appearance, to show acceptance of and appreciation for the men newly dedicated to the healthy defense of France. And so, the little royal family complied, dressed in simple yet elegant clothing, down to the velvet breeches of Louis-Charles in his first official outing as dauphin.
All had gone well, according to Bertrand’s whispered account in the wee hours of the morning when the queen was abed and his duty relieved. His words were saturated with wine, his face flush, his uniform disheveled—but he seemed, for the first since I’ve known him, completely at ease.
“Until—” and here he took on the manner of a boy facing chastisement—“the wine was flowing a little too freely, and . . . some—not me—got careless. And started shouting for death to the rebels and throwing those tricolor ribbons on the ground. Stomping them, calling for blood. Just what soldiers do. Bloviate, you know? Empty words. When we are alone.”
But someone saw, and someone told, and the next day the newspapers of Paris were filled with the gross exaggeration of the king and queen calling for the death of the rebellion—of the rebels themselves. Never mind that they were long abed before the first cockade hit the floor.
The queen still intersperses insults between the steps of her escort, and I catch Bertrand’s eye long enough to send up a sympathetic smile and a quickly blown kiss. He would never return the gesture under circumstances such as these, but I am rewarded with a brief twinkle of a blue eye that only I could ever notice.
The evening is falling, and the women refuse to leave. Refuse, as if one ever has a right to stake a claim in another’s home. The king has been summoned from his hunting and will face them alone, which, given our queen’s current humor, is a better choice than relying on her sisterhood to soothe them.
Their shrieks and shouts echo, as I imagine the banshees from Gagnon’s late winter–night tales. While other souls in the palace make their way to their own chambers and business, I have no business to attend to and no chamber worth retiring to at this hour of the evening. Following the noise, I come to the Salle des États, which looks like a demented market square in the wake of a hurricane. The women, dressed in their aprons and caps, stand facing their king, who paces the length of a raised platform at the front of the room.
“All that is in the royal storehouses is for you to take!” His voice, weak and tremulous, hits a pitch not much different than that of the enemies gathered before him. “Flour enough to make all the bread you need to feed yourselves and your children.”
“He thinks we want bread!”
“What use is bread without blood!”
While the shouted threats are frightening, my heart grows cold at the mutterings that never reach the king.
“Rip her head off, I will. Take her jewels right off the bloody stump.”
“Fancy her, mourning the death of one son when I’ve buried three just this summer. Seems the score should be evened up.”
“Limb from limb, I say. Send half of her back to that cursed place.”
All of this while the king shouts concessions over their heads. Sugar, he says. And hunting on the royal grounds, if they have the guns and ammunition to shoot clean. They laugh at this, claiming no need for guns when they have clubs and claws, brandishing all manner of knives and hatchets for good measure.
Suddenly, every word, every threat, every warning Bertrand has ever spoken comes to life. He saw this. He knew this night would happen, that the hatred of the people would leave the streets of Paris and make its home here.
I’ve been winding my way through the crowd and am about to make haste for the queen’s chambers to warn her of this imminent threat when something catches my
eye. At first, I can’t place the memory, only that I have seen something familiar. Something—then it is gone. From my sight, not my mind, and I stop in place and turn full circles, trying to find it again.
Not a face, though every woman here bears a countenance so streaked with mud as to hide any familiar feature, but a—
There, with her back turned. It is darkened from the rain, and I need to work my way to see the front again, but I’m certain it’s her.
“Laurette!”
The din is such that my shouts dissolve, but I persist, garnering a little more attention each time until she is within arm’s reach, and I touch the familiar green material of the vest, knowing when she turns around I will see my peacock-feather stitching. “Laurette?”
She turns, and for a moment I convince myself that this is her, ma cousine, my Laurette. But then, the face beneath the grime twists into a sneer, and she shoves me away.
I clutch at the vest. “Where did you get this?”
“What do you care?”
“I made it. For somebody. Not for you.”
She pushes me away again, harder, and I lose my grip. “It’s mine.”
“It can’t be.”
“Are you saying I stole this?” She cackles, catching the attention of the women around her. “Do you believe this? Here I am, wearing clothing I found in my own home. And she’s calling me a thief!”
“I’m not—”
“Who is she to call me a thief?” By now she’s not merely shouting rhetorical questions to the crowd. I’m surrounded by a dozen or more women who look just like her, only dressed in rags—the kind of rags that might have inspired pity at one time and would do so again if I didn’t feel their gaze like so many tiny daggers.
“Have you seen her before?”
“Do you know her?”
“Is she one of us?”
“She’s one of them.”
And I’m encircled, trapped. “Pardonnez. I’m nobody. Just a servant here. A seamstress, and I made that for my cousin. Back home, and I don’t know how it would be here. She would never—”
“Not good enough to be here.” She turns my words into a mocking insult and grabs my wrist, holding it out for display to her audience. “Because hands that stitch for Her Majesty could surely not stitch for the likes of me, eh?”
“Please.” I dare not try to take my hand away, lest she imagine further insult. “I just need to know what happened to the girl I made this for. How did you come to have it?”
She measures me, releases me, and lets fly a stream of spit at my feet. “I took up a room with a certain kind and generous friend, and found this stuffed under the mattress. It’s mine, juste et honnête. And just because you work for her doesn’t mean you have the authority to take it away.”
A woman behind me scoffs. “If we had our way, the queen herself wouldn’t have the power to take it.”
Yet another, “If I had my way, she would not have hands to take it. Chop ’em off I would, and take the jewels with me. Now that’s something to steal.”
They laugh again, sounding like a flock of grackles before a storm. So entertained by their imagined violence are they, I am able to slip away. I don’t know how to make sense of what I’ve seen. Laurette in Paris? Now gone from Paris? Without once trying to find me? For surely, if Marcel made it back to Mouton Blanc with my messages, she would know where to find me. How to find me. And did she come alone? With Marcel? With Gagnon? I know many of the people here are from the countryside, transplanted to the city looking for a means to survive. But Laurette? What would take her away from home?
By now evening has fallen and the king makes his final proclamation: that they all must go. All but one.
“Being but one man, I cannot negotiate with a hundred voices. Choose one of you to speak with me, and the rest—go back to your homes, assured that I will do all in my power to meet your needs.”
They respond to his pronouncement with jeers, several in the crowd wondering if he is a man at all. Contrarily, given all their bravado, few seem willing to take on the honor. In a final sorting, one steel-eyed woman steps forward, and the rest disperse as the king’s guards herd them like sheep into the main hall and toward the courtyard. Then out to the front steps.
I follow, hoping against hope that perhaps—somewhere—Laurette is here. If nothing else, I want one more conversation with the woman in the vest. If I can get her alone, away from the need to posture in front of her friends, perhaps she could tell me where . . .
But she’s gone. I’ve lost track of her in the wave of women.
Late into the night, an uneasy peace falls on the palace. I’ve taken myself to the sewing room but cannot bear the oppressive solitude. Feeling restless and useless, I follow the muffled voices to the door leading to the queen’s apartments and open it just wide enough to make the conversation clear, even if the speakers remain out of sight. There are half a dozen at least, their backs to me so I see nothing but suits and wigs and bits and pieces of Her Majesty, divided like a triptych behind them.
“All the grain stores in the city?” she says. “He’ll open all of them?”
“So he said, madame.” The dog in Her Majesty’s lap emits a low growl when she is proffered a sheet of paper. “Which the woman demanded in writing.”
“Pfft. Demanded. I’ll bet my crown the slut can’t read her own name.”
“That may be, madame.” Now I recognize the voice—the same adviser who denied the queen an afternoon sledding with her son on his last New Year. “But His Majesty bids you sign it as well. A gesture of good faith.”
“Good faith.” There is a rustling as she takes the paper, then the angry scratching of a quill. “Faith in what, tell?”
He seems to know better than to answer, only hands the document to a page and dispatches him to the king, who awaits in his office. “And now,” he says, with a far less submissive air, “let me ask you again to consider moving yourself and the children into the king’s quarters. It would be safer for everybody and less of a strain on your guard staff if you consolidated the family for the night.”
The detail who escorted the queen to her room stand at attention in a semicircle around her, two men facing each door. Bertrand faces the one I’m peering through, and I learn that I am not as invisible as I would like. He’s looking directly at me, all hint of humor gone. I should close the door, but instead I open it a pinch wider.
“I’ll not have fishwives and banshees dictate my habits,” the queen says disdainfully. “The children are asleep—and a time we had of it getting them so. They’re frightened enough without being dragged out of one bed for another. My mind is clear on this. Now go.”
I know she’s rankled him, but he speaks no more, and soon the queen is left to relative solitude—just her and twelve brave, beating hearts encased in the men who guard her.
The hours tick by, and nothing seems more unlikely than sleep. The queen is abed with her children, Bertrand and his men at attention, and I tucked away on a sofa. I’ve closed my eyes off and on, attempting rest. In between the bouts of darkness I see Bertrand watching, and we make silent promises to each other.
This will be our last night.
Come dawn, come tomorrow, we leave.
And dawn is fast approaching.
At first I think the sound is nothing more than an echo of all the grumbling we heard throughout the night, but something is different. It’s sharper, familiar. Close.
I sit up on the sofa and listen.
The voice—the woman wearing Laurette’s vest. Her screeching tone is unmistakable. The last I heard it, she was laughing, though she’s not laughing now. The hairs on my arms rise up at the sound, because I remember, too, why she was laughing. The macabre jokes. The threats. The bloody fantasies of—
“Mon Dieu!”
Bertrand and his men are already at full alert, and I follow him and six others he’s ordered into the queen’s bedchamber, where a lantern burns low. She sits straight up i
n her bed, blanket clutched to her breast, children beside her.
“Madame,” says Bertrand, “you must—”
“I hear them,” she says, her voice eerily calm.
“Madame,” I say, “there’s no time! Quickly, to the king’s chamber!” Without waiting for any kind of permission, I shake Louis-Charles awake. Marie-Thérèse is already clutching her mother’s sleeve.
“They’ll find me,” the queen says. “They’ll follow me straight there and kill him—”
“Nobody’s killing anybody,” Bertrand says. He picks Louis-Charles up and hands him to one of the soldiers before parting the panel that hides the door to the hidden passage straight to the king’s chamber. “Go, and be quick! Run.” They leave, two running ahead of the queen and Marie-Thérèse, three behind, one carrying the sleepy boy. I’m left standing, closing the panel, aligning it with the others to hide its existence.
“What are you doing, Renée? Follow them!”
“I’m not leaving you. Nobody wants—”
An explosion of violence on the other side of the door calls to him. In a single voice the guards shout, “Halt! In the name of the king!”
To which the women chorus, “After tonight there’ll be no king. Nor queen neither, once we’ve had our way!”
“Stay here,” Bertrand commands me. “Do you understand?”
Obedience is my reply. I’m frozen—not in fear, but in contemplation. Calculation. By sheer volume, I know that the women outnumber the remaining guards, and their intent is clear. They want the queen. Her flesh, her blood, her life. If they know she isn’t here . . .
The Seamstress Page 29
