Mistress of the Revolution: A Novel

by Delors, Catherine

  The trepidation with which I prepared to meet my mother chased all other thoughts from my mind. My brother took me to the main drawing room, where she sat in a tapestry chair. Portraits of ancestors in military or court dress hung on the walls. I curtseyed to Madame de Castel, who gave me her hand to kiss. I was surprised to see that I looked nothing like her. She seemed small and delicate, her hair still black with a few silver threads. She had a thin nose, a strong jaw and piercing dark eyes. Her mouth was a straight line without lips, which did not appear to be often distorted by a smile. She stared at me and turned to my brother:

  “I had not expected her to be so bony. Do you think she will grow much taller? And that mass of red hair!”

  I had not expected a warm welcome from a parent who had expressed no wish to see me during the first eleven years of my life, but was still mortified by her greeting. The Marquis too seemed embarrassed. He tried to reconcile the truth and my feelings.

  “At her age, Madam,” he said, “many girls show little promise, but in later years improve considerably. I am sure Gabrielle will become very pretty.”

  My mother, looking at me, shook her head and sighed. “I had an apartment prepared for you, child. You must be impatient to see it.”

  I followed a maid to a long, narrow room on the second floor, furnished with a little white bed, an armoire and a large table covered with patterns and pieces of cut fabric not yet sewn together. The sole decoration was the portrait of a gentleman in regimentals, resembling the Marquis except for a rather mischievous smile. He was, the maid informed me, Colonel de Montserrat, a younger brother of my late father. I would sleep alone for the first time in my life in this strange room. I recalled the warmth of Mamé Labro’s bed, which I had shared for many years, and even began to regret the sullen companionship of the convent dormitory.

  I looked out the window. Once I became tired of the view of the meadows and woods behind the château, I sat on the bed. I took out my book, for I had but one, and read for the hundredth time my favourite stories. That volume, the fairy tales of Perrault, was my most treasured possession, a gift from my brother the Marquis when I was still with Mamé Labro. I could not read then and neither could anyone in the Labro cottage. Yet I had slowly turned the pages, fascinated by the magic of printed words. Their complexity had seemed so daunting that I had been unable to imagine a little person like myself ever mastering such a skill. Also, my brother had told me that the book was written in French, a language barely known to me at the time.

  When I was little, the Marquis would sit me on his lap during his Sunday visits to Mamé’s cottage and translate the stories into the Roman language while I tenderly and reverently caressed the velvet of his coat. He always departed too quickly, frightening the chickens in the courtyard, and left the Labro household in the middle of their deep bows and curtseys. I watched the dust the hooves of his horse had raised in the dirt lane long after he was gone. I returned to the book to make up my own stories, looking at the pictures for inspiration.

  In my strange new bedroom at Fontfreyde, my old friends the princesses, fairies, and cats with enchanted boots brought me their usual comfort. My brother interrupted my reading to take me around the château, a maze of hallways, half-flights of stairs, towers, turrets and parlours, most of which were no longer occupied. In the kitchen, the cook, Joséphine, assisted by a scullery girl, was peeling carrots. They curtseyed to us and Joséphine greeted me in the Roman language, which in itself cheered me. That room had a bright fire burning deep in the vast hearth, within which one could sit on benches located on either side, an arrangement called cantou in the Roman language. Hams hung in the upper reaches of the cavernous space. A yellow cat, her eyes closed, her legs stretched, was nursing a kitten almost as large as herself and purring on the brightly coloured pillows on one of the cantou benches. Copper kettles on the table were gleaming orange in the light of the fire.

  Finally my brother took me to the stables. They were vast enough to accommodate many more than the three horses I found there. My brother’s fine bay stallion nickered at us. Two draft horses shifted in their stalls to look at us with curiosity. One of them, by the name of Jewel, black with a white blaze, stood seventeen hands tall, huge even by equine standards.

  “He is not yet nine years old and still growing,” said my brother, “which is very inconvenient since he will no longer match his companion in harness.”

  Jewel nibbled with infinite delicacy at my ears and dress. He lowered his giant head against my neck and breathed in noisily. That was the friendliest gesture I had encountered all day. I leaned against his cheek and kissed him. His coat was silky, his mane and tail long and wavy.

  I looked up at the Marquis. “Would you teach me to ride, Sir?”

  He laughed, a rare occurrence. “Jewel is too large for a lady’s horse, but he is gelded and sweet-tempered. I might give it some consideration if you behave like a good girl.”

  My first supper with my mother and brother was at seven o’clock, in the grand oak-paneled dining parlour. We sat at the fireplace end of a long table lit by two candles. An expanse that could have seated thirty remained in darkness. My brother recited the Benedicite before a meal of roast beef with chestnuts was served. He then spoke little while my mother regaled him with tales of the depravities of the servants and tenants. She said nothing to me; indeed she hardly acknowledged my presence.

  After dinner, we retired to the main drawing room, where my brother sat down with a worn leather treatise on hunting and my mother a volume of Christian Thoughts. I thought it prudent not to fetch my own book and was content to stare at my feet.

  “Do you know how to sew, child?” she asked.

  “Yes, Madam, I was taught in the convent.”

  “You might make yourself useful after all. The maids are a sad lot and never seem to finish anything. I wonder why we bother to keep them. There is a new chemise of mine that was started over a week ago. You will work on it. Do not try to fool me, girl. I want fine, even stitches.”

  She rang for one of the maids to fetch her workbasket. From that moment, I never lacked occupation at Fontfreyde.

  At nine o’clock, all the servants, men and women, entered the room and knelt, along with my brother and mother. She motioned to me to follow suit next to her. The Marquis led the prayers. I made the mistake of sitting on my heels when kneeling, but my mother turned towards me and slapped me on the side of the face. I was reminded of proper manners and corrected my position. At last everyone rose and it was time to retire.

  I did not sleep much that first night at Fontfreyde. The wood floor creaked as if someone had been walking in my room. Maybe it was the drac, the nasty little fiend that haunted every house, grand or small, in Auvergne and delighted in playing tricks on its inhabitants. The autumn wind shook the old place and filled it with uncanny noises. I thought I heard the racket of the chaço volanto, the flying hunt, with its howling hounds, ghost riders and horses at full gallop in midair.

  2

  My brother gave me the much-awaited riding lessons. Jewel lived up to his name and proved to be the sweetest of animals, although he did keep growing for another year or so. My brother taught me to ride sideways, like a lady. I soon gained confidence and made rapid progress. I also taught myself, when no one was looking, to ride astride. I would fill my pockets with apples and carrots stolen from Joséphine’s cellar and lead Jewel away from the château to practice.

  I envied the freedom afforded men, who could use both of their legs for balance without having to use the long whip required of a woman on a side saddle. I admired the daring displayed on horseback by my brother, who had been an officer in the Light Cavalry, and knew that I could not hope to match his skill without also riding astride.

  My audacity nearly cost me my riding privileges and much more. My mother learned of it and had me summoned to the drawing room. She was seething with anger, her mouth tighter than usual, and slapped me until my face stung.

  “Jus
t wait,” she said. “Your brother will know of this as soon as he returns from town. Stupid, willful, disobedient girl. All the expense, all the care lavished on your education, all will be for naught. You are no better than your sister Hélène. I will see to it that the Marquis gives you the correction you deserve.”

  I feared my brother’s anger far more than my mother’s slaps or any punishment. Even the deprivation of the pleasure of riding would have been nothing compared to the loss of his good opinion. I spent a dreadful afternoon in anticipation of his return.

  At last one of the maids told me that I was expected in the Marquis’s study. No criminal under examination shook more in front of his judge than I did that day. I stole one look at him. His expression was more severe than I had ever seen it. My sole comfort was that our mother was not there. I knelt before him in silence.

  “Mother tells me that you have been riding astride,” he said. “Is it true?”

  “Yes, Sir. She is very angry with me.”

  “So am I. I cannot tell you how disappointed I am in you. It must never happen again, Gabrielle, do you hear me?”

  “It will not. I would never think of disobeying you, Sir.”

  “I am not so sure. What I do not like about your conduct is that you hid it from me.”

  “I did not think it worth mentioning, Sir. If I had thought that it would anger you so, I would never have done it.”

  “I have an excellent reason, which you are too young to understand, to forbid any riding astride, especially on such a large animal as Jewel. Let me say only that it might later do you a great disservice with the man you will marry. Do you promise that you will never do it again?”

  “I do.”

  “And do you promise never again to conceal anything from me, even if you believe it to be a trivial matter?”

  “I do, Sir. It pains me so to have caused you one moment of uneasiness. You have always been so good to me. I terribly feel my own ingratitude. I would welcome any punishment if you would but forgive me.”

  “Mother has asked me to flog you and deprive you of riding, but I will do neither. I will be content with your promise. Do not cry, dear.” He raised me to my feet and took me in his arms. “I love you too much, little sister, not to forgive you. I know that you were only thoughtless and did not mean any harm.”

  I had gone from utter misery to the most complete happiness I had known in my eleven years. I sobbed on his shoulder while he held me. I never wanted that moment to end.

  I liked my new life at Fontfreyde better than my mother’s first words of welcome had led me to expect. The Marquise hardly received anyone, except for my brother’s few friends and my eldest sister Madeleine, the Countess de Chavagnac, a handsome, dark-haired woman of about thirty. Madeleine’s husband, a sallow, unpleasant man, seldom accompanied her. She had two boys, a few years younger than me, both away at school in Clermont. My other sister, Hélène, whom I had yet to meet, was the Abbess of the Convent of Noirvaux, hundreds of miles away.

  I often found refuge in the kitchen, where I was assured of Joséphine’s welcome. She tried to teach me to cook, but my fingers were cursed.

  “Go sit on one of the benches in the cantou,” she said, “and entertain me with your silly talk. You’re the only young, cheerful thing in this old place. You may lick the platters clean after I’m done, but don’t touch anything until then. You couldn’t boil an egg if you tried. No matter. You’ll marry a great lord someday, and you’ll be too fine a lady to even know the way to the kitchen in your own house.”

  I also gained the confidence of the maids, who, when my mother had her back turned, felt free to treat me like their little doll. They were all good souls, elderly and kind. One of them, Antoinette, had been disfigured by smallpox, which had ploughed her face and robbed her of one eye. I had caught the dreaded disease myself when I was in the care of Mamé Labro, but my only memento of it was a tiny round scar on my left temple. At first, I had recoiled from Antoinette, frightened by the dark hollow of her empty orbit, but soon became fonder of her than of the other maids. She sewed for me, hiding from my mother, a doll made of rags, the only one I ever owned.

  The maids told me the many tales of the high country, such as the story of the Beast of Gévaudan, which, twenty years earlier, had devoured hundreds of children and shepherdesses. The mayhem lasted until a monstrous brute, the likes of which had never been seen, was shot by a gamekeeper, Chastang, at the end of a nightlong hunt in the forest.

  “The Beast recognized Chastang,” said Antoinette, looking at me with her only eye. “The man was a wolf runner, a witch who had made a pact with those brutes. He could turn into one at will. Then he would lead them to devour Christians.”

  “And his master, the Count de Morangis, was no better,” added Guillemine, another maid, breathless with excitement. “The Bishop accused him from the pulpit of celebrating black masses on the naked body of his youngest sister.”

  I winced in horror at the idea of a man seeing his sister nude. “Black masses?” I asked.

  “A black mass, Mademoiselle,” said Guillemine, “is the most wicked blasphemy, a mockery of the Holy Mass. It’s a ceremony where an infant is bled to death over a woman lying naked on an altar. And the Count de Morangis forced his sister to take part in such a thing!”

  I saw drops of blood falling on the white skin of the young lady; I heard the cries of the child. It was still worse than picturing the mangled remains of the little shepherdesses killed by the Beast. My stomach lurched.

  “That’s why the Count’s vassals feared him like the plague,” continued Guillemine. “And they still do, because he’s alive and well, the fiend from hell.”

  Antoinette put her hand on my arm. “Of course, Mademoiselle Gabrielle,” she hastened to observe, “that was in Gévaudan, twelve leagues away. The nobility there is far less respectable than here in Carladez. No one would dare compare the Count de Morangis to My Lord the Marquis de Castel, who is so kind.”

  3

  I reached five feet six inches by the age of twelve. “Look at her!” my mother would complain to the Marquis. “No man in his right mind will want a giantess. Heaven help us, I cannot imagine what we are going to do with her.”

  My breasts and hips soon began to fill out. I stopped growing. Much to my embarrassment, a red down appeared between my thighs. In my bedroom I would stare at my new body, all astonishment at the changes a few months had worked. One night I felt the Colonel’s eye following me while I was undressing. I climbed on a chair to cover his portrait with a piece of fabric from the sewing table. I knew that I was being silly but still found it unnerving to disrobe before him. As I reached for the top of the gilded frame, I felt a trickle of warm liquid running down my legs. Horrified, I noticed that it was blood and would not stop. I stuck a remnant of fabric between my thighs. I was, no doubt, dying of some shameful disease. The catastrophe had stricken me because I had done something wrong that would soon be revealed to the entire world. Worse, my brother would learn of it.

  The next day Joséphine raised her eyebrow when she saw me. “What have you done now? You look so shamefaced that it must be pretty bad. Tell me, child, I won’t say a word to your mother.”

  I whispered my secret in her ear.

  She kissed me. “Poor little dear, I should’ve known your time had come. Don’t fret, it’s one of the curses, along with childbirth, set aside as a punishment for us females. It’ll come back every moon and won’t stop until you’re pregnant or become an old woman like me. Yes, from now on, you’ll be able to bear children, so you must be careful not to be alone with any man.”

  I gasped. “What about the Marquis? Should I stop riding with him? How can I tell him of such a thing?”

  “No, silly, I wasn’t talking about My Lord.” She shrugged. “He’s your brother, for Heaven’s sake. But be mindful of all other men. There’ll only be one thing on their minds, pretty as you are. You know what I mean?”

  I did not and looked at h
er blankly.

  She sighed. “All right. You’ve seen what happens when mares are brought here to be covered by My Lord’s stallion, haven’t you?”

  Puzzled, I nodded at her. Indeed, those proceedings took place in a paddock behind the château, under my bedroom window. My brother attended while grooms held the horses’ reins. The stallion, upon smelling the mare, threw his head backwards and curled his lips. He raised himself to his full height, his front legs whipping the air, and let out a chilling cry, almost a roar, before beginning his approaches. It was an impressive sight.

  “Good,” said Joséphine. “Then you must’ve observed the state of things under the stallion’s stomach. The private parts of a man look the same, only less large of course, when he wants to have his way with a girl. Beware of any scoundrel who’ll talk tender to you. When you least expect it, he’ll unbutton his breeches, and then he’ll raise your skirts and he’ll do to you what you’ve seen done to the mares.”

  My eyes shut tight, I was trying to banish from my mind the horrific visions evoked by Joséphine’s words. I had never considered the fact that men might behave or look like my brother’s horse.

  “If you let that happen,” Joséphine continued, “chances are you’ll bear a little bastard nine months later. And even if you weren’t with child, you’d still be disgraced. You see, when a girl lets a man meddle with her, it tears something in her nether parts. That’s called her maidenhead. It hurts when it rips, and it bleeds quite a bit. But that’s not what matters. What matters is that afterwards a girl never looks the same down there.”

  Joséphine, a dire look on her face, wagged her finger at me. “So even if you managed to hide your shame until your marriage, you wouldn’t be able to fool your husband on your wedding night. He’d be awfully angry and he’d lock you in a convent for the rest of your life. Think of it. All because of one lapse.” She paused. “Now you’ve been warned.”