“Emilie!” Voltaire pulled himself away, looking around with wild eyes. “You promised!”
“No I didn’t,” she teased with a wag of her finger. “You said you would force me to listen only if I misbehaved.” She darted in quickly to peck his lips again. “So I did!”
He shook his head and took her arm to continue their stroll. “God forbid if all those prigs at Versailles ever really knew what a devious brain was under that stylish new hat,” he said, “or body under your dress, for that matter.” He reached up as if he were about to pinch her breast, but she spun away.
“I’m serious about Versailles,” he called after her as she pirouetted down the walk. “I wish you spent less time there.”
“It’s my job to look out for my husband’s interests!” She danced back toward him. “Strange as that may sound to the man in his bed.”
“Maybe you stay at Versaille, to avoid seeing me. You know I’m too common to be allowed through the king’s door.”
“And I wish you would not ruin everything by pouting about what can’t be helped. At least for now.” She took his arm with a faraway smile. “And that you would turn your mind to more serious things. Understanding how the world is made, not just writing plays about dead kings. Imagine what you and I could accomplish then!”
1765
A DAY OR two later, Julie announced that she had a family matter to attend to in Paris and would have to cut short their time at the château. Pretending to be heartbroken, the girls packed their things and said their good-byes. When their coach passed the stables and outer courtyard of Vaux-le-Vicomte, Delphine sighed with relief. “Mon Dieu, I’m glad that’s over.”
“I’ll miss Paul-Vincent’s microscope,” Lili said, thinking that in time she might miss Paul-Vincent himself. It was unfortunate that one part of their time together had come to overshadow all the rest, but at least there was hope that not every male was either stuffy or vicious.
Maman patted Lili’s knee. “Perhaps we should consider getting you a microscope of your own,” she said. “But I’m not going to give you anything I’ll have to drag you away from, when there’s important business this fall.”
Lili groaned. She had assured Maman that once they returned to Paris she would put her full effort into making a success of her presentation at court. Not quite sixteen, she and Delphine were still young for the rite of passage that would announce their marriageability, but given the problems at Vaux-le-Vicomte, Julie had concluded that securing a good offer of marriage might be best for both of them. She would insist on a long engagement as one of the terms of betrothal, to keep Lili and Delphine at home awhile longer, but with them spoken for, they each would now have a man—and his entire family—with an interest in keeping her safe from the likes of Jacques-Mars Courville.
Delphine’s spirits had been raised considerably by such prospects, and once they were on the road back to Paris, she could not stop talking. New dresses for balls and candlelit banquets at Versailles, followed by marriage to an adoring and complacent husband in an elegant house to redecorate and maintain to her own liking—it was all she had ever hoped for, except perhaps the little daughters she was already dressing up like dolls and teaching to dance and play the piano. The wonder of it seemed to have pushed the ugliness of what happened at Vaux-le-Vicomte from her mind, and after an hour of chatter, she had exhausted herself into a contented sleep on Maman’s shoulder.
“You’ve been very quiet,” Maman said, looking across at Lili. “Although it would have been hard to get a word in between all those ball gowns and piano lessons.”
“I wish I could have her dreams,” Lili said. “It would be much simpler.”
“Hers haven’t come true yet,” she said. “I hope they do.” She stroked Delphine’s cheek. “But what are yours?”
“My dreams?” Lili leaned back, as if the question were too heavy to catch. “I don’t have any.”
“Of course you do.” Maman’s eyes crinkled. “I mean, besides owning a microscope.”
Lili let out a deep breath. “I know so much more about what I don’t want than what I do.”
“Well, then, what don’t you want? That’s a start.”
“I don’t want anyone to decide my life but me. And I don’t want to have to give up what interests me because someone says I should care about something else instead.”
Delphine turned her head and murmured in her sleep, and Julie shifted her shoulder to cradle her again. “Things aren’t as dire as they sound,” she said, leaning toward Lili as much as she could without disturbing her daughter. “When you were born, I fought Baronne Lomont to bring you to live with me right away. She was quite cruel in pointing out I was still a bride, and carrying a child who would need my full attention. And she was right. By giving in, I gained time alone with my baby to learn how to be a mother, and then in the end I got you too when I was ready. And you got someone who, despite her—well, difficulties—can be counted on to be loyal to you, even if you don’t always appreciate her idea of how to show it.”
She paused, but when there was no reply she continued in a voice so soft it seemed she was speaking as much to herself as to Lili. “You go one direction and see a fork in the road. You look back, and see all the other forks in your past, and you’ll wonder if you’ve made mistakes or are about to make another, and the answer is maybe so. Almost certainly you will make mistakes, at least some of the time. But the best we can do is listen to our hearts, and our minds …” She thought for a moment before looking back at Lili. “And to our conscience and our duty. We just keep choosing—and hope we’ll be satisfied with the results in the end, though we may have let ourselves in for unpleasantness along the way by not letting others make our choices for us.”
Lili thought for a moment. “Choosing doesn’t seem like something I’ve gotten to do much of yet. When does it start?”
“Some of the biggest things you don’t choose. You do have to marry, for example.” She gave Lili a wicked smile. “Unless of course you want to go be a nun at the Abbaye de Panthémont.”
“Maman, you are horrid!” Lili giggled.
“Well,” Julie said. “Count that as choice number one. And now the next fork in that road will be to marry the right person.” She turned her head downward toward Delphine. “She needs a wealthy and kind man, and not much more in the way of particulars, but you are going to require an accomplice to have the life you want. And that, my darling Lili, will require a search worthy of the daughter of the woman who bore you.”
She looked at the valise on Lili’s side of the coach. “Hand me my bag, s’il te plaît.”
Julie fingered her way through the bag, eventually pulling out a book covered in delicate Florentine paper. “The duchess left it in my room as a welcoming present, and I knew right away I wanted to give it to you.”
Lili leafed through the blank pages, looking up only when she noticed the silence. Julie was staring at her. “I think it’s time Mead-owlark comes to the rescue,” she said. “It seems there’s a girl named Lili who could use her help.”
* * *
“An old woman and a girl of about sixteen came out of a French farmhouse and started walking with Meadowlark and Tom, who had ridden Comète down from the stars. ‘The stars are a spilled handful of salt,’ the old woman said. ‘There’s a wildflower for every kind thought.’
“‘What kind of talk is that?’ Meadowlark asked the girl. ‘Doesn’t she know anything?’
“‘I’m afraid not,’ the girl said, bursting into tears.
“‘Well, it’s nice of you to cry for her, if she’s as stupid as she sounds.’
“The old woman gave Tom a pinch on the cheek. ‘Obedience paves roads,’ she said with a toothless grin.
“‘I’m not crying for her,’ the girl said. ‘The same thing is going to happen to me today. That’s where we’re headed. I have to go get my brains scrambled.’”
Lili gave a furtive glance through her lashes at the gentleman seate
d in the study at Hôtel Bercy. He was stroking his chin, and she saw a bemused crinkle at the corner of his eyes. With relief, she went back to her story, not glancing up again until she got to the end.
“Meadowlark saw her boots coming into view, which always happened first when her invisibility was wearing off. ‘We need to go before they see us,’ she told Tom. She gave the secret whistle and Comète appeared just down the road.
“As they ran and jumped on his back, Tom said, ‘I think Earth is the strangest planet we’ve visited.’
“‘I do too,’ said Meadowlark, as they galloped into the blue sky, showering stars behind them.”
Lili closed her notebook and looked up. “It’s rather silly, Monsieur Diderot,” she said. “I don’t know why Maman wanted me to read it to you.”
“Not at all!” Denis Diderot said. “Satire is quite the rage, in England particularly. As long as it’s in a story, one can mock nearly everything without bringing the police to the door.”
“Satire, monsieur?”
“Exactement. An amusing story that exposes the foolishness of society.”
“I didn’t mean to expose anything,” Lili protested. “Meadowlark is just a girl strange things happen to.” A burst of noise from the conversation in the salon made them both turn around, as the door to the study opened and Julie came in.
“Well, Monsieur Diderot,” she said. “What do you think of this Meadowlark that strange things happen to?” She came over to where Lili was seated and gave her shoulder an affectionate pat. “And my Lili?”
“A budding philosophe,” he said. “You should be most proud.”
Lili took another furtive glance at one of the most famous men in France. He looked to be about fifty, with a wig pushed back just enough to reveal a balding head. His straight but overly large nose hovered over a mouth that seemed too fleshy for its dainty size.
“If she were not so young, and it were not still so potentially dangerous, I would ask your permission to have her try her hand at writing for my poor Encyclopédie.” His voice boomed, as if exuberance alone could offset the impression made by his eyes that he was in a battle with the world and the world was winning. “She has extraordinary wit for one her age—”
“And her sex, Monsieur Diderot.” Maman held up her hand with a smile to soften the fact she was interrupting such an esteemed guest. “Let’s not forget to state the obvious.”
“Yes,” he said, turning back to Lili. “I have not forgotten the obvious. She is a most lovely young woman. Has she been presented to the queen?”
“Not yet,” Julie said. “We’re hoping for an opportunity when she returns from Lorraine some time next month.”
Diderot watched Lili’s face droop. “An experience I can see you are anticipating with great pleasure.”
“Yes, sir,” Lili murmured, feeling how the air grew heavy around her whenever she thought of it.
Julie broke the silence that ensued. “Lili is not only a wonderful writer. She is also quite talented at math and science.” She paused. “Just like her mother.”
Lili looked up in surprise. Maman rarely brought up her mother at all, and even then only when they were alone. And now, here she was, treating the subject as if it were as ordinary as the cake crumbs on her plate.
“Quite,” Diderot said. “Tell me, Mademoiselle du Châtelet—are you like your mother in excelling at everything?”
“No,” Lili shrugged. “I certainly don’t excel at curtseys.”
The great man’s booming laugh filled the room. “Well,” he said, “if you have one place to fall short, I definitely recommend something as insignificant as that.”
Lili didn’t hear. What did he know about her mother? She was too timid to ask. Julie had made it clear that it was better for Lili not to listen to others, since they were likely to share gossip, not facts. “I will never lie to you,” she had reassured her. “You will know the whole truth in time.” Lili adored Maman too much to cross her, but at times like this—
“So tell me, mademoiselle,” Diderot’s voice brought her back to the conversation in the room. “What do you think are the greatest books ever written?”
“Newton’s Principia,” Lili said, without pausing to think. “Buffon’s Natural History. The works of Rousseau and Montesquieu—and of course Voltaire.” Suddenly shy, Lili looked down. “And your Encyclopédie.”
Diderot laughed. “A very politic answer, I must say!”
“But it’s true. I’m working my way through it little by little. Maman has a subscription, so we have all the volumes.”
“I know. Madame de Bercy has been most generous—and brave. Apparently it’s fine for the Encyclopédie to describe the workings of a plough, but the workings of the church are another matter. I am, in fact, quite pleased that we have managed to offend almost everyone—king, minister, cardinal, bishop …” He looked at Julie with a wicked grin. “And a rival salonnière or two of Madame de Bercy.”
Diderot leaned in toward Lili with the air of a conspirator. “I was waiting to see if you would include the Bible.”
Startled, Lili looked up at Maman to see if she had made a mistake. “Say what you think,” Julie said. “There are no official opinions in this house.”
“I think—” Lili hesitated. Even though she was long out of the convent, it still unnerved her to say some things out loud. “I don’t think the Bible or the church should be relied upon as a source for what is true about the world.” She thought for a moment. “Stories can be good to help us figure some things out or decide what we ought to do, but there’s a different kind of information the Bible doesn’t tell us anything about. How the world really works, I mean.”
“And, tell me—do you think if the Bible does not tell those kinds of truths, that we should question the existence of the God whose story it tells?” Diderot asked.
Lili squirmed. This was a bit like being examined by Baronne Lomont’s priest, except she was more confident Monsieur Diderot was not sniffing around for something to punish. “I think we should question everything, just as Descartes says. But God would still exist even if nothing had ever been written about him. Even if no one knew he was there.” She paused, pondering a new thought. “Isn’t that what it means to be God?”
Diderot slapped his thigh in approval. “Spoken with the same high spirit as her mother—or should I say both of them?” He took off his glasses to wipe them clean, and Lili looked away, uncertain what to think.
Julie got up and took Lili’s notebook from her lap. “I told Monsieur Diderot about Meadowlark,” she said, “and he said if your stories were as witty as I claimed, a newspaper might publish them.”
“Possibly the Gazette d’Amsterdam,” Diderot said. “To avoid the censors. And under a false name, of course.”
Publish? Lili thought of all the times when they were younger that Delphine had squeezed in next to her as they read each new adventure. It was difficult enough to feel close to Delphine anymore, as she whirled through each day, filling it with hours of determined practice of all the petty details she was sure would make the Queen of France, Marie Leszczynska, like her enough to make her one of her ladies-in-waiting. It was the best thing Delphine could do to ensure that her marriage prospects sunk no lower than a rich count or marquis, with quarters at Versailles, a beautiful town house in Paris, and at least one château in the country. But all of it added up to a vision of Delphine spinning away, out of reach forever.
Maman and Diderot were already discussing how to rearrange the letters in “Châtelet” to create a pseudonym, when Lili finally spoke. “Thank you for your offer, but I don’t think I want to,” she said, looking at Diderot to avoid seeing Maman’s reaction. “I’m not trying to be witty, and Meadowlark is private.”
Diderot sat back, rebuffed. “I’m sorry, monsieur,” Lili added. “You’ve done me a great honor. It’s just—”
Maman broke in. “There’s no need to explain, ma chérie,” she said in a voice that, to Lili’s
relief, offered no hint of anger or disapproval. “They are your stories to do with as you please.” She turned to Diderot. “The world will simply have to wait for Lili to be ready.” Although Lili always kept the notebook on the desk in her room, Julie made a show of enforcing her point by putting it in a drawer and turning the key.
Monsieur Diderot stood up. “Well then,” he said, “fame will have to wait.” He looked at Lili with a curious smile, before turning back to Julie to offer her his arm. “Shall we return to your guests?”
Lili followed behind, feeling as if Maman had opened a window and invited Meadowlark and Tom to fly off without her. But as she entered the salon, she felt her heart racing not so much in anger but with pride. I could have said yes. How would I feel right now if I had? She wasn’t sure, but it was a very good secret to have, one that toyed at the corners of her mouth as she stood just inside the salon and listened to the voices of some of the great men of France.
Though they noted Julie’s reappearance immediately, their heated debate resumed within a moment. “My dear Abbé Turgot,” a man in his twenties was saying. “Surely you can’t think that leaving everyone to fend for themselves—this laissez faire approach you write of—is enough protection for the poor soul who is being swindled by some merchant. Or for the merchant, come to think of it, cheated by his own suppliers.”
Anne-Robert Jacques Turgot had his back to Lili, but his voice was raised sufficiently to be heard. “Monsieur Leclerc, I must have a higher opinion of my fellow citizens than you, for if there’s one thing all but the dullest-witted can understand, it’s self-interest. The market always works in the public interest as long as it is left alone. Buyers look for the best price, and successful sellers will be the ones offering that price. Too high and customers go elsewhere. Swindlers find themselves out of business rather quickly, I imagine.”
Finding Emilie Page 12
