“He is two days old,” she announced. “I arrived all the way from the village of Les Combes.”
The shoulders of her cloak were covered in fresh snowflakes as was her grey-blue open gown and petticoat. She carried herself like a gentlewoman although she moved more slowly than one should for her age, which I supposed to be about eighteen. Her belly was still plump from being with child. Monsieur Vivant rushed down the corridor towards us. He was freshly shaven, his hair tied at the back with a ribbon and he wore his waistcoat with the gold buttons done up just right. Taking the young woman’s hand, he kissed it and flashed a smile of the kind he saves to impress, and then continued to the library. She followed me into the drawing room where, by now, Armande was sitting in her armchair, Nathalie still tight to her chest.
“Madame Vivant,” the woman said as she drew closer. “You must help me. My husband worked as an instructor at our new school where he developed a fever and died the very next day. Struck dead with a wintry chill, he didn’t even see his newborn son. Villagers told me it was because he was teaching children to read and write, yet the old woman who sent me to you said that was nonsense.”
“What is your opinion Mademoiselle?” Armande looked at her intently, the point of one of her sky-blue shoes peeking out from beneath her petticoat.
“He was a good husband to me, that’s all I know.” The woman’s cheeks were shiny and red and she looked very tired, having walked a few hours in the snow.
“I’ve only just had my baby yet the milk hasn’t come as milk should.” She squatted on the floor. Her baby rested upon her lap. “I have no womanly way to feed him.” Her desperate eyes searched Armande’s face.
Nathalie finished nursing and was now fast asleep. I placed her in the basket with a flannel cover on top, and then began to bring the fire back to life.
“Besides the old woman, other villagers have spoken to me about your milk Madame Vivant. They say you have pots full with mother’s milk hanging on hooks in the kitchen for babies to drink.”
Her tired eyes lit up. Freckled nose shot up in the air. She imitated with bravado the gossiping women in her village, her voice soft, then high at times.
“With all that milk, the wet nurse will need to have more children to share in the abundance. Otherwise, the infants she suckles will be spoiled. They will believe that life is full of bounty and goodness instead of rot.” She swished her infant to and fro, reciting a witches’ charm to bring on the milk:
Hare’s milke and mare’s milk
An’ all the beas’ that bears milk
Come to me.
“Nicely done,” Armande said, clapping her hands. “Even so, you won’t draw out your milk by magic.” She smiled, her eyes sizing up the woman.
“No I suppose not,” Sophie replied. “Yet if it isn’t magic then what could it be? You have no child, though I heard about the accident that….” I shushed her.
My face grew hot. Armande never spoke to me about her baby who died. I added a small piece of wood with flat sides to the fire, and watched until it lit, then added another. The woman had no business discussing Armande’s past.
Sophie’s face grew overcast and she started to cry. “How can I be a mother when I have no milk?” She held her child out to Armande as if showing off a basketful of fresh picked strawberries.
Armande smoothed a loose curl by her face and raised her thin brows.
“If you don’t help me, my baby will starve. I fed him bread and water, which only made him sickly.”
Little Jacques came in whining that he was hungry, and I stuck a morsel of cheese in his open mouth to quiet him.
Sophie took off her bonnet and cloak, and draped it over the sofa. By this time she was sobbing, her nose dripping onto her gown and on the thin ruffle of one chemise cuff. Her freckled cheeks reddened. She grabbed Armande’s hand and brought it to the infant’s fevered head. The wet nurse gazed into the mother’s eyes.
“Watch.” Armande untied her bodice and brought the infant to her bosom. She propped up her right elbow with cushions.
The infant opened its eyes, squirmed, bobbing his head. Sophie crossed herself three times, raising her eyes in prayer. At first the baby pushed the nipple away. Then he made lazy tries to catch her nipple in his jowls, losing it over and over to become a mouth sucking air.
“If the baby becomes agitated, you need to comfort him and try again.” I thought how she was so good to these impatient women.
Finally, with several coaxes from Armande, the baby’s little mouth opened, took the nipple and latched on. Its chops were like the mouth of a sea creature. In one of her father’s natural history books were pictures of creatures slimy and long, sucking the water with their lips of jelly. All at once, Sophie lost her mask of worry.
“Tickle the baby’s lower lip with your nipple,” said Armande. “Caress its cheek if it turns its head. Bring the baby close to you so his nose touches your breast.”
He drank peacefully, eyes closed. His hands were crumpled bits of leaf and veins in his head and neck pulsed. Slowly the baby came to life as he fed on her precious milk.
“Céleste, pray make Sophie some tea to warm herself as she shakes from the cold.”
I came back with a blanket to find our visitor squatting down to look at her child feeding. After Sophie had the blanket I added water to heat the kettle. The infant’s sleepy head rested on Armande’s bosom like a king after a nightlong feast. His mouth was a dewy rosebud and his lids fluttered peacefully.
“Sit, sit,” I said, bringing Sophie to the dish of tea I prepared. Her arms and legs trembled.
Jacques kept going to the fire, and I would pick him up and move him away from it. All the while, Sophie didn’t budge from Armande’s side rather she teetered on her tiptoes as if a mischievous spirit got hold of her.
“My child needs your milk,” she said again, the blanket over her shoulders.
“Your milk will come, just wait and see,” Armande said. “Put the nipple in the centre of his mouth above his tongue otherwise the baby can’t suck.”
“I’ve tried, but he won’t even take it. An old woman in my village made me sniff, eat, and rub all kinds of runny, foul oils and leaves on my skin and I’m none the better for it.”
“When was this?”
“Two days ago, right after my baby was born.” Sophie finally plunked herself down and took a sip of tea.
“In time this will help. Remember, mothering teaches patience and listening. You must learn to listen to your infant.”
Sophie sprung to her feet, almost knocking the tea from the table.
“Listen!” she exclaimed. “Je suis désolée Madame Vivant. I don’t mean to be difficult.” Her freckled nose pointed in the air again. “These are babies we’re talking about. All they do is cry and fuss and soil their cots. Please tell me if I’m mistaken in this. What is there to listen to?”
She planted herself on the dormeuse, folding her arms across her chest. After the baby was full of milk, the wet nurse rocked him in her arms.
“He will tell you what he wants if only you listen.” Armande caressed his cheeks and forehead. “See how he tells me he likes my gentle touches? His limbs are still, no wrinkles on his brow.”
The baby’s eyes opened as she held him up. He turned his tiny, wrinkled head to see who was there.
“You’re so good with him. You see how he takes to you.”
No truer words were ever spoken.
“Your emotions are all in a stir due to the loss of your husband and this has influenced the flow of milk coming in. Promise me you’ll keep trying until the milk comes. Unlike what most believe about it, the first milk is the best.”
The wet nurse looked squarely at the woman who nodded, forcing a smile.
“I will try, Madame Vivant,” she said. Her eyes were tired. “You are gentle and wise, so natural
ly I shall do as you say.” Sophie then scooped up her baby in her arms and quit the drawing room.
In the early afternoon I went about my chores in the house, stacking wood by the fires and mending. I was in the throes of darning one of Monsieur Vivant’s socks when Armande came into the drawing room, a look of concern on her face.
“My father is most unsettled,” she said. “He has locked himself in his library.”
“What is it?” I had the highest regard for Monsieur Vivant. To me he had a big heart and a sharp mind filled with scientific facts and whole passages from books.
“He has just learned that Auguste, his dear friend was captured in Bordeaux during a hunger riot last month,” she said. “He was in the city on business and had no part in what was going on, yet they imprisoned him. My father fears he is to blame for his friend’s misfortune.” She drew nearer to me and placed a warm hand on my shoulder. “Céleste could you please speak to him? I have tried but he is inconsolable.”
I didn’t know how I could help Monsieur Vivant.
“I’ve left a tray of food outside the door as he hasn’t eaten all day,” she said. “Perhaps if you bring it in to him….” She smiled at me and instantly my heart warmed, which gave me strength to do what she asked.
I went to the library and picked up the tray of food, then rapped lightly on the door. From the other side I heard Monsieur Vivant talking away to himself. After several knocks he finally opened the door to me. Although he wasn’t cheerful in the least, the room was lit with the blaze of a warm fire which was inviting. I set the food on the table, and then all at once he opened his heart to me.
“Auguste’s poor dear wife wrote to tell me that he has been charged with treason.” His light brown hair speckled with grey was tousled. He wore no waistcoat, and his shirttails peeked from the top of his tan-coloured breeches. “Oh, my child, I have been the worst friend in the world to him.” His breathing was laboured. “I gave him a book I wrote to take with him on his travels, which might have caused his arrest—merely a saucy tale of a scheming courtier and his unfaithful mistress. Yet because of that book the authorities might have suspected he conspired against the King. Any little thing will stir them these days.”
“Do you really believe that you are to blame for his capture?” He was a learned man and had read many books, and yet he was talking nonsense.
“Most of the pamphlets I write or books I am having printed abroad are as harmful as a Sunday stroll in the Bois de Boulogne.” He sat in an upholstered chair by the fire, his fingers nervously rubbing the arms. “Those in Versailles find ways to feast their eyes on all manner of erotic tales without fear of being reprimanded. The Duc de Praslin was found with six bales of forbidden books while it was rumoured that the King’s youngest brother Artois was protecting hawkers. An aristocrat can hire private colporteurs to procure any erotic tidbit under the sun, while I cannot even qualify for simple tolerances from the King.”
He stood up to get the bowl of chicken and barley soup, sat back down, and then dipped a crust of bread into the warm liquid as he drank up. Perched on the edge of the chair, my body soon settled into the warmth of his arm, and—as we watched the fire sputter and burn—I thought of how helpless I was to alter the destiny of a bookseller in the year 1789.
King’s Letter
MONSIEUR VIVANT TOOK TO HIS LIBRARY again after hearing that his friend, imprisoned over a week ago for treason, was now dead. I was about to rap on the partly open door to console him when I heard him speaking in hushed tones about a wholly different matter.
“I received this letter two days ago and am too frightened to open it,” he said.
“What is it?” Armande replied.
“A lettre de cachet addressed to me. Observe the royal seal.”
“Why haven’t you opened it? What do you think it could be?” Her voice quivered.
“It is an order for me to present myself to the authorities in Bordeaux where they will surely hang me just like poor dear Auguste.”
“Open it, father,” Armande insisted. There was rustling of paper and chairs scraping across the floor.
“What does it say?”
“I don’t believe it,” he gasped. “It’s not what I expected at all.”
“Tell me father,” Armande pleaded.
“He summons you to Versailles….” His words trailed off.
“What do you mean?”
“His son the Dauphin is sick with consumption. It’s right here,” he raised his voice.
I thought they might open the door at any moment and so I quit the scene, my heart pounding throughout my body as I ran down the corridor.
Later that afternoon, seeing the letter on her desk in the drawing room, I knew there was no mistaking what I had heard. I hesitated a moment and then picked it up. The paper was of the finest quality. Like silk. I could not help myself and so touched it to my lips. The broken cachet or seal was the colour of blood. My first thought was that in my peasant’s hands I held a letter signed by the King of France—the highest authority in the land. But what about Armande’s safety should she go?
All of France knew the Dauphin was a weak child. Of course the boy had stopped nursing years before, but his father was desperately searching for an elixir to save his son’s life. Now at the age of seven, his back was bent like Apollo’s bow and he was in bed with fevers.Wet nurses were as common in France as mice in a root cellar. Rosy-cheeked peasants whose milk was healthy as the fresh country air they breathed. Yet somehow even the King and Queen, and perhaps all of Versailles, knew Armande was different.
Armande had just finished nursing Nathalie and brought her into the drawing room so I could get her to sleep. I began rocking the baby in hopes she would soon tire.
“The King wants me to nurse the Dauphin back to health,” she said. Her eyes were distant and her corsage was partly undone from nursing.
“Will you go to Versailles?” My heart followed my words.
“How can I journey to Versailles when my conscience tells me that my duty is to those in my village? Does the King in his royal palace mull over the hardships of women here? He is more concerned with an innocent man like Auguste.” She began to pace in front of the fire.
Above the hearth was a painting of a country scene, willow trees and river, two boys fishing knee high in water. A carpet covered the wide plank floors. The design was of orange and yellow autumn leaves.
“Perhaps, as my father believes, it all started from a harmless book.”
I did not understand Armande’s meaning until she told me of her first trip to Paris with her father, when she was six.
“We were in a church.” She stopped pacing and stood by the fire. “My father was picking up a special package from a gentleman.” Her chestnut eyes met my gaze.
“Did you know the man?” I asked, still rocking Nathalie to sleep.
“I came to know him later on.” She gathered her hair at her shoulder and gave it a twist. “Monsieur Taranne. He towered over me, wore a yellow scarf and had a spindly nose and wide shoulders. The gentleman produced a small package, which my father quickly hid beneath his cloak. It was all very mysterious.”
“What was the package?”
“A banned book, a series of stories that poked fun at the King. I remember that on leaving the church, my father bought me a bouquet of roses from one of the women on the boulevard. I stuck my nose into them, my senses filling instantly with their sweet aroma. Then, all at once, a boy reached out from a passing coach and pulled a flower from my bouquet, which sent the rest tumbling to the ground. When the pretty things were torn from my grasp, my eyes caught sight of children scattered in the streets like ants. Non-stop shiver of skin, heads split by the pain of hunger, bodies clutching ribs, broken, cut apart by pleurisy. As it sped away, my father looked after the gilded coach drawn by elegant horses in the finest trappings. His face
suddenly turned overcast. ‘How is it that the lord and lady and their handsome son can lie voluptuously in their coach while others line the streets with no shelter or food to eat? A time will come when people will become conscious of the tyrannies of kings and nobles. Then these despots will tremble before them.’”
She gazed into the blazing fire, a dark curl cascading over her brow. “It was a moment I will never forget. The uprisings happening in Paris and other cities around the country fill me with hope, yet still the future is uncertain.” Her brow tightened.
“But how can you disobey the King’s orders?” I asked her thinking how the King was appointed by almighty God to carry out his wishes.
“My father taught me to be brave and not recoil from speaking up against injustice and in favour of truth. My place is here, not in Versailles.”
Monsieur Vivant came into the drawing room and sat on the sofa, his arms folded across his thin frame.
“Didn’t you teach me that father?”
“Yes, my darling,” he said. “Endeavour always to be brave.” He had a scruffy face and sad eyes. “That’s why we have to leave the village for Paris.”
“What do you mean father?”
“The King addressed the letter to me,” he said.
Armande met his gaze, her cheeks burning bright red. “I’m not leaving our home,” she told him. “The King is like a spoiled child. His lettres de cachet are tantrums he takes to get his own way. These letters go against the parlement and have ruined the lives of far too many innocents.”
Nathalie was finally asleep. I placed her in a basket with a flannel cover on top and began my daily lesson, which I missed doing that morning. Armande told me to get into the habit of reading well and understanding all the good in the mother tongue. For over two years I had taken her guidance to heart and practiced every day without fail. It was hard to concentrate though given their fiery discussion.
“I agree wholeheartedly and commend you on your steadfastness not to play by his rules, which are capricious at best.”
Milk Fever Page 2
