“Apologies are not necessary, Anne-Marie. Not between us.” Then, somewhat lamely, “I’m sorry about what happened to your husband.”
She acknowledged that with a brief nod. “He did his duty,” she said, four words that Richard suspected encapsulated quite well her husband’s adult life.
“You have children, Captain Jones tells me.”
Her countenance brightened considerably. “Yes, Richard, I do. Come, I shall introduce them to you.” She walked the few steps to the foot of a grand stairway and called upstairs, clapping her hands. “Adélaide! Françoise! Venez en bas, s’il vous plaît!”
There was a patter of feet followed by a moment of silence before two little girls dressed similarly in purple damask dresses and black slippers descended the stairs, one behind the other, in a decorous manner that no doubt had required many lessons. When they reached the bottom, they stood side by side and swept him graceful curtseys, their heads demurely bowed.
“Bonjour, monsieur,” they said together. “You were welcome to her house,” added the older one, whom Richard guessed was close in age to Will, in English.
Anne-Marie smiled at her daughter’s word usage. “We’re working on Adélaide’s English,” she said.
Richard smiled at the pretty young girl who, like her sister, was blessed with her mother’s physical attributes, in miniature. Adélaide de Launay was a pleasing image of what Anne-Marie must have looked like at that age. In reply, he extended his left leg and bowed in courtly fashion, his right hand over his heart.
“Bonjour, mes enfants. Cela me fait plaisir de faire votre connaissance.” He straightened and pointed to himself. “J’ai une fille aussi. Elle s’appelle Diana et elle est très belle, comme vous. Et j’ai deux fils: Will et Jamie.”
Françoise giggled, and her older sister shot her a searing look of disapproval. The giggling ceased abruptly.
“That will be all, children, thank you,” their mother said in French.
They bobbed another curtsey before marching back upstairs to what Adélaide had announced was a game of skittles. When they heard a distant door close shut, Richard said: “They’re lovely, Anne-Marie. They would make any parent proud.”
“Yes, Richard, they would.” She led him away from the stairway toward the parlor. Once they were inside, she closed the twin doors. “I am very proud of them, which is why I am so fearful for them. Children like Adélaide and Françoise are no longer admired in Paris. Their breeding is slandered and denounced as something shameful and wicked. Because of that, I won’t let them out of my sight. I fear what might happen if I did.”
“Surely the revolutionaries wouldn’t harm children?”
Anne-Marie faced him. “Not today, perhaps, but tomorrow, yes. The worst is still to come. We have seen nothing yet. These so-called revolutionaries mean to destroy everyone and everything of noble heritage. A child’s innocence means nothing. Age and gender mean nothing. If you are of noble blood, you are guilty as charged and condemned to prison or death. It is only a matter of time before the slaughter begins. My husband warned me of this, and he was right. It is why so many nobles have left France.”
“Why haven’t you left?”
She gave him a rueful smile. “If you had known my husband, Richard, you would not ask such a question. He was twenty years my senior and very stubborn. I cannot imagine him running from anything, least of all his birthright. And of course I could not leave France without him.”
“But now . . . now you are free to go. You have nothing to hold you here.”
“Ah, but I do. I have my two children to hold me here. And I have Gertrud. How could I possibly slip past the guards outside with the three of them in tow? And where would I go?”
“To America, with me,” Richard said.
Her eyebrows shot up. “Richard, you cannot be serious!”
“I have never been more serious, Anne-Marie. My schooner is anchored in Lorient. There’s plenty of room on board. You and Gertrud and your daughters can have my cabin. It’s hardly the accommodations you’re used to, but I promise you there will be no militiamen lurking outside your door.”
She shook her head. “Richard, that is impossible. It is simply not possible! My dear love, for years I have prayed that I would see you again. Today, God has answered my prayers. You have answered them. It means everything to me that you wanted to come here. But I cannot ask you to put your family’s welfare at risk for the sake of mine. That is too much to ask of anyone.”
“I don’t recall you asking.” Richard glanced around the parlor, with its rich tapestries and elegantly appointed furniture. “Is there a way out of this building other than by the front door?”
“Richard . . .”
He clutched her shoulders, stared deep into her eyes. “Answer me, Anne-Marie. For the sake of your daughters, answer me.”
Her lower lip quivered. She shook her head. “No. Not from this one. Even the servants’ entrance is guarded. But from the building next to us, yes. It has a back door.”
“Who lives there?”
“No one does, now. The owner has left. Some say he is in prison.”
“Can you get over to it? And inside? Through a window, perhaps?”
She considered that. “I think so. There is a small iron crosswalk that connects the rooftops. I don’t know why it was put there. Bernard-René imagined that young lovers once used it to sneak across to each other. That, I believe, was the most romantic thing he ever said to me.”
“Then you can get into that building.”
“I can find a way, yes.”
“Can you leave by the back door? Without being seen?”
“Yes, I believe we can. They will not be guarding an empty house. The back door leads into a cul-de-sac. It’s very dirty in there, full of refuse and rats and . . . Richard, what are you thinking?”
Richard grimaced. A plan of sorts had formed in his mind. He had no way of knowing how realistic it was or whether it had a hair of a chance of succeeding, but he had no choice: he had to trust his instincts. He glanced down at his waistcoat watch: 3:18. He must leave at once and never return to the rue Saint-Antoine. His coming here a second time might arouse suspicion.
“Anne-Marie, do you remember the night we walked together down by the quays near the Île Saint-Louis?”
She smiled. “How could I forget that night?”
“Be there tomorrow night at 11:00. Dress your daughters in plain clothes. You and Gertrud do the same. Don’t carry much with you. And plan a circuitous route. Do not go directly there from here. Above all, do everything you can to make sure you are not followed. Do you understand?”
“Richard, I told you, you must not—”
He again gripped her shoulders, harder this time. “Do you understand , Anne-Marie?”
She nodded. Tears trickled from her eyes and ran down her cheeks. She brought her hand to the side of his face and caressed him, her touch as soft and gentle as a peacock’s feather.
“Richard . . . my dear . . . We will meet tomorrow at the quays at 11:00 . . . What then?”
“Let me worry about that. Just be there, Anne-Marie.”
Fourteen
Paris and Lorient, France, July 1789
THE TWO MILITIAMEN WERE waiting for him when Richard emerged from the de Launay residence. They had been joined by three others, and the group talked quietly among themselves as Richard walked by, satchel in hand, his gaze set rigidly ahead. One of them offered a remark to the others that triggered a spark of laughter, but it was a cruel laugh, void of any humor. Richard could feel their hostility toward him as he made his way up the rue Saint-Antoine.
His objective was the quays at the base of the rue Saint-Paul, in an area along the Right Bank known locally as the port des Célestins. It was a ten- or fifteen-minute walk, had he gone there directly. He decided instead to take his own advice and follow a more circuitous route, starting out along the rue de Fourcy before circling back down the rue de Figuier, across the rue Saint
-Paul, and on another hundred feet or so until he came upon a cozy, two-story café bustling with customers. The loud and boisterous chatter one would expect to find in such a place filled the air, and waiters wove around crowded tables, balancing trays overhead on one hand. Slipping inside, Richard felt immediate relief, and not just from the summer heat. This high-ceilinged, pleasantly cool establishment was one of the few places he had been in Paris that appeared halfway normal.
Finding no place to sit, he ordered a lemon water from a waiter, then sidestepped through clusters of customers to a mullioned window where he could observe passers-by on the street. He froze when he spotted someone he thought he recognized. He could not be certain; the man wore his tricorne hat low on his forehead, and the barrel of the musket that hung off his left shoulder partially obstructed Richard’s view. But he looked, in profile, very much like the tall, lanky militiaman who had first challenged him outside Anne-Marie’s residence. And he appeared to be searching for someone. When he paused in front of the coffeehouse to peer through a window, Richard stepped back into the crowd and waited. If the man came in, and if he turned out to be the militiaman from the rue Saint-Antoine, Richard decided to walk straight up to him and demand in a loud voice to know why he was being followed. Such an unexpected and bold approach in a public place, he had learned over the years, tended to fluster an adversary, and perhaps, in doing so, expose a weakness. But the man walked on.
Richard waited a quarter-hour before paying the waiter and leaving the café. Once outside, he retraced his steps to the rue Saint-Paul, where he turned a sharp left and made his way down to the river.
The port des Célestins was a major docking area along the banks of the Seine, across from the Île Saint-Louis in mid-river and upstream from the neighboring Île de la Cité. It had changed little during the last decade, Richard mused as he scanned the sturdy wooden quays and the equally sturdy thick-planked river barges nestled up to them. Everywhere were watermen, as hardy and ageless as the barges from which they were offloading the wheat, vegetables, fruits, and other commodities on which Paris and countless other riverside communities depended. Threats of social upheaval and insurrection did not seem to concern these men. They had serious work to do. Without the goods they transported, meager as these might be in this year of withered crops, Paris would starve.
Richard walked slowly along the hundred-foot quay, studying the barge captains as he went. It was almost 5:30, and a long and hot workday was, for most of them, drawing to a close. Nevertheless, Richard’s attention and admiration were drawn by the degree to which these men joined in with their small crews to put everything shipshape on board and ashore, including faking out in Flemish coils the excess ropes by the bollards. Their chores might be tedious and dirty compared with those performed aboard a merchant brig, and their vessels might not have the graceful lines of a frigate or a sloop-of-war, but these watermen went about their business with a pride and purpose as keen and briny as any sailor on the open sea.
Richard had already decided on the sort of individual he would approach: a barge captain seasoned enough in the ways of the world not to be easily swayed by new political ideology yet enterprising enough to be enticed by the prospect of easy money. That captain also needed to command a barge large enough to accommodate four passengers yet small enough for two men to handle going downstream.
Finally he made his choice, having taken the measure of a grizzled, powerful man of perhaps fifty years whose craggy face reflected much about the quality of his life, yet who chatted amicably with his threeman crew and with other barge captains. He was of medium height with a chest-length russet beard and bulging forearms, and his eyes had a perpetual squint, as though he had spent the better part of a lifetime peering into a sun-sparkling sea. And he walked with a sailor’s roll, further suggesting he had spent time on a heaving deck.
Richard trailed after him, keeping his distance. When they were out of earshot of anyone else, he approached cautiously from behind. “Pardonnez-moi, capitaine,” he said respectfully. “Un moment, s’il vous plaît.”
The man turned around. “Oui? Qu’est-ce que vous voulez, monsieur ?” His tone was neutral, inquisitive, giving Richard hope.
“I am an American, sir,” he declared in French, “a sea captain, like yourself. My schooner lies at anchor in Lorient. I am hoping I might hire your barge for several hours tomorrow night.”
“Hire my barge? For tomorrow night? That is a most unusual request, monsieur.”
“Yes, Captain, it is,” Richard had to confess.
“Where do you wish to go?”
“To Le Bois, across from Auteuil.” It was a place near Passy and the Bois de Boulogne where he and Anne-Marie had often strolled together arm-in-arm, along with countless other lovers similarly enchanted by those magnificent acres of woods, greens, ponds, and intimate pathways.
“Auteuil?” The man laughed. “Monsieur, you could walk there from here had you a mind to. Or you could hire a private carriage.”
“I could, sir, but I would prefer to go by water.”
“Why?” Suspicion had entered his voice. “And why at night?”
“I prefer not to answer that now, Captain. Tomorrow night I will reveal everything to you, I promise.” Richard held firm, hoping for the Frenchman’s complicity if not his trust. When the captain offered no immediate reply, Richard drew a Spanish piece of eight from a trouser pocket and squeezed it into the man’s leathery hand. “That’s for listening to me. I’ll give you ten more of these if you are here tomorrow night. Twenty more when we reach the quay across from Auteuil.”
The amount he was offering, Richard suspected, was about what a river-barge captain could expect to earn in three or four months, perhaps considerably more now that the French economy was on the brink of collapse. Still the Frenchman did not respond. He scratched the back of his neck with his left hand as he stared down at the thick silver coin in his right.
“Please, Captain,” Richard pressed. “This matter is of great personal importance to me. That is why I am prepared to pay so much.”
The captain slowly raised his eyes. “At what time tomorrow night, monsieur?”
“Eleven o’clock,” Richard told him. “And, Captain, bring no one with you. I will help steer the barge downriver.”
The Frenchman pocketed the coin. “À demain, monsieur,” he said, and moved off down the quai des Célestins.
WHEN RICHARD RETURNED to the American consulate, he was informed by le maître that His Excellency the consul was in conference with the Neapolitan ambassador and could not be disturbed. Richard asked that Mr. Jefferson be advised that Richard wished to see him immediately after the ambassador departed, and the servant bowed his assent.
In his room on the third floor Richard paced back and forth, working through a possible sequence of events that depended on outcomes linked together by little more than a hope and a prayer. Step one: would Anne-Marie do as he had urged? Would she be able to? He realized that he was putting her at grave risk; any attempt to flee France would have dire consequences should the attempt fail. But, he rationalized, by her own admission, she and her daughters were doomed did she decide to stay put and do nothing. Step two: would the barge captain be at the quay? If not, what then? He could not bring Anne-Marie and her daughters here to the consulate. Such an act would violate American neutrality in French internal affairs. Jefferson would not, could not, offer them sanctuary. Then . . . what? He had no answer. And there were other links involved, each of which had to work independently yet cohesively with the others if the overall plan had any chance of succeeding.
That plan, at this moment, seemed hopeless, outlandish, utterly without merit. Worst of all, it provided no safety net, nothing to fall back on save for Richard’s deep-seated conviction that if all else failed, he could somehow tap into the prestige and influence of his friend the marquis de Lafayette. Yet that, he had to concede when he judged things squarely, was the weakest link of all. Even if Lafayette sh
ould want to intervene on his behalf, more than likely he could not, else he too might suffer the consequences. Could Richard ask his friend and former commanding officer to compromise the vital authority on which so many people, noble and commoner alike, depended? A sickening dread began to take hold of him, a gut-wrenching fear that in going to Anne-Marie he had opened up a Pandora’s box that could wind up putting not only her and her daughters in jeopardy, but everyone else he held dear in Paris.
Still, there was no turning back. The wheels were in motion. Nor, he realized, would he turn back under any conditions, and he forced himself to ask why. Was it simply to save the life of a woman he had once cherished and the lives of two children as innocent of wrong-doing as was his brother Caleb? Or was something else involved, something darker and more primeval, a dormant beast, perhaps, stirred to life when she had pressed her body against his, a body he had once held—so young, warm, and eager—lovingly in his arms? An image sprang to mind of Katherine standing on the Hingham docks, her graceful form gradually receding in the distance as she held up Diana for him to see one last time before waving her final good-bye to him. He shook his head, casting out the demons of deceit and betrayal.
The somber fingers of dusk were probing their way through the dank streets of Paris when Richard was informed by a liveried servant that the consul would receive him in his study. He found Jefferson seated at his desk, pouring out a glass of vin ordinaire. A second glass was already filled, its rich crimson essence accentuated by the glow of two candles set nearby in gold sconces.
“Good evening, Mr. Cutler,” Jefferson greeted him. “Please, have a seat. That glass is for you. How fared your day?”
“Well, thank you, sir.” Richard sat down, gratefully accepted the glass.
“I am pleased to hear it. How did you find Captain Jones?”
“Better than I expected,” Richard replied. “He had some interesting insights to offer, and he was most pleased to receive my report on Algiers. At his suggestion, I brought back the maps I showed him so that you can take them back to America.”
For Love of Country Page 26
