It is the next day. The evening I arrived, Madame Rousset led me into her drawing room filled with vibrant draperies, carpets, and a hearth that warmed my cold cheeks. Then she proceeded to tell me how she met my father.
“You were four years old,” she recounted. “My husband and I were travelling through your charming village.” She tilted her head as though trying to nudge memories out. “My husband’s feet were swollen from the gout and he was in much pain. I’ve never forgotten how your father cared for my husband and let us stay there until his feet were better.” She raised one leg, tapped it with her hand and sighed. “Five long years now I’ve worn only black. It has been the perpetual state of my heart since his passing.” Her gown was meticulously cared for. Lace of the same colour atop the heavy silk of her skirt showed refined whimsy amidst the sorrow. Her story made me think of my father and how my longing to see him had grown more intense these past few months. It was extraordinary to me that in a few days we would be reunited at last. Then came the disapproving comments from her about my wet-nursing.
“I was struck by what you said in your letter about nursing another woman’s child.” Her head swayed back and forth as if the very thought sickened her. “It saddens me that a woman of your station should resort to such dreary ways of making a living not to mention open yourself to the possibility of contracting diseases of the nipple.”
“Oh, Madame Rousset it is not for money that I assist mothers with their infants.” The conversation fatigued me, yet I was content to sit at the fire and warm myself after the lengthy trip. “My father has provided for me sufficiently in that regard.”
As I mouthed these words, it occurred to me that my money was in actual fact running out. If I continued to live in a modest fashion, I could make it last no more than a few months.
“There is much poverty and disease in our village. If I can ease the suffering of one….”
“There is no harm acting from a sense of what is just and good Madame Vivant,” she interrupted. “But really, this is highly irregular for a woman of your education and breeding.”
Her superior tone angered me. I was exhausted, my nipples ached and my calves were seized up from the long ride in the post chaise.
“Madame Vivant, I had a wet nurse for my son. Why, it was intolerable to me to be tied down to a screaming, groping infant, and unable to circulate more freely in society. She was a plain woman from Nantes, didn’t read or write, but what did that matter as her profession did not require it?”
My body was sinking into the leather chair, the crackling sounds of the fire lulling me to sleep.
“What about remarrying? You’re a widow like me, aren’t you? You are handsome. A moneyed man with character and influence would go to great lengths to have you at his side with your education and refinement.”
Her eyes grew overcast. I could tell she thought of herself and her loss, rather than me when she said, “You must be very lonely without a husband.”
It was shortly after that I met Monsieur Paradis. A plump man with fish eyes, he sported no waistcoat and no shoes, only socks with holes that exposed chubby toes. His face was red and ruddy and his perruque sat crooked on his head. His complexion caused me to think that he was a gout sufferer and had a bilious temperament.
“Monsieur Paradis, there you are,” she said to him as he entered the drawing room. “I expect you’ve been waiting to meet Madame Vivant.” She looked at me. “I told him you were coming and he could hardly contain his rapture. He was at my salon this evening where I invite the brightest minds to partake in social and literary alchemy.”
I sent Madame Rousset a questioning look at which point she said, “Monsieur Paradis is director of the Bureau des Nourrices.”
The man approached me with an anxious half-grin then reached for my hand to kiss it. His lips were moist and he had a small mouth. I remember my neighbour Nadine telling me about the Bureau des Nourrices where women found babies to suckle.
“I heard some gossip about a wet nurse who had more milk than any woman should. I was told this woman had no child of her own and that her milk was as plentiful as the Lord’s loaves and fishes. At long last, I finally have the occasion to meet her.” He smiled, tugging nervously at his chemise.
“Are you a man of science Monsieur Paradis?” I was tired and irritated by the man’s tales about me. “For if you are, then why would you pay heed to the chatters of a few peasants.”
“A highly distinguished gentleman told me about the miracles occurring with certain infants in your village, infants who as you might gather, had tasted the sweet nectar of your bosom.”
What he said was astonishing. I wondered if he was not in fact jesting with me.
“I was just telling Madame Vivant that she should withdraw from such a thankless profession. I am pleased to hear that it is her intention to do so,” the old woman said with a look of victory.
“My word!” bellowed the man. “What would we do without the extraordinary milk of Madame Vivant? Two wet nurses living in the same mountainous region as yourself have spoken to me about you. They have taken it upon themselves to learn to read and write to impress virtuous and quick-witted thoughts upon the milk. It is not for me to judge from where others derive inspiration, as there is so little of it to be had these days. Everybody is far too serious and driven to melancholy at the slightest hint of a sad tale.”
Monsieur Paradis took a seat on the armchair by the fire. He then propped his legs onto a quilted stool. Madame Rousset and I sat on the blue plush sofa with gold cushions. I longed for her to cut short the visit and show me to my room so I could sleep.
“Of course, each of us sees what we wish depending on our particular hobbyhorse. Did Madame Rousset tell you she welcomes all manner of priest and poet to her salon every month to discuss the essential topics of the day? Each of her guests has a notion in his head, which propels him forward. Why just this evening I spoke for an hour with an English pastor on the new rotary steam engine that is now being used to power looms in factories and paper mills. James Watt, the man who invented it calculated the number of horses it would take to power each engine and so he came up with one horsepower as equal to 33,000 pounds per one foot over a period of one minute. You see, there I go again….” He pulled a gold watch from his vest pocket and turned to the door. “Almost three o’clock in the morning. I have to leave at once as my wife will have my head.”
He guided my hand to his lips a second time, bowing to Madame Rousset and myself.
“Pray do visit me, Madame Vivant, at the Bureau des Nourrices,” he whispered in my ear. “I’ve a handsome proposition for you that I believe you will find most agreeable.” He then turned and was out the door. At long last, my cue to retire for the night.
March 6, 1786
At the Bureau des Nourrices women huddled on the steps, reaching into the circle, prodding, pushing and burrowing into the warm bodies of other wet nurses to escape the crisp morning air. They wore bonnets, shawls, their skirts thick and heavy. Many held babies in their beefy arms, rocking the bundles, others with infants hanging from their breasts. These little ones sucked nipples, deep red as raspberries, pressing up against the milky bosoms of their wet nurses. Most of the women came from the country, as mothers sent their babies there for the superior quality of the air and for the abundance of fresh cream, eggs, fruits and vegetables. Amidst the lunar formation that quivered and danced was the buzz of chatter, a chorus of voices singing at different ranges: everything from bellowing to cackling to screeching to whispering. They touched hands, shoulders, breasts, faces and backs. Muffled slightly by the talk were the sounds of infants crying.
I was totally captivated by the women, yet at the same time it seemed impossible to me that, like them, I was also a wet nurse. I wanted desperately to speak to them, be among them, and so, drawing closer to a woman on the outside, I tapped her on the shoulder and said, “
What are you doing here?”
Her voice was clear, her grey-blue eyes shining. “I came from Toulouse to find a baby to care for because they say women are paid a fair price.” She brushed a strand of brown hair from her cheek. “The doctor will make sure I’ve no diseases. You must be eating good before they let you nurse.”
A woman who heard us talking broke from the circle and came over. She looked to be about fifteen years old, had blonde hair, long, delicate fingers and a doll’s nose. Her hair was combed perfectly over her ears as though her mother had combed it for her.
“What about you? Are you a wet nurse?” I asked.
“Yes, but some women shouldn’t be wet nurses, as they’ve not enough milk. They say they do because they need the wage. They are not soft and gentle. They don’t eat lettuce and eggs.” She coughed a lot and spoke in a low voice as though her throat was made of sand. “I’m being checked for diseases of the nipple. My mother pushed me to nurse. I even helped suckle my own sister. After that, I took on another for pay. I have a child of my own, yet the father ran off when he saw my fat belly. Having my child at thirteen and being a wet nurse made the family a little money for all the trouble I caused.”
A horse carriage stopped in front of the building. The door opened and Monsieur Paradis, the man I met the night before at Madame Rousset’s, stepped out. Like Moses parting the red sea, he approached the steps and the women scattered. A few moments later they took up their chatter once more, the door opened, and the human circle formed a thick line that pushed through the narrow entrance. I tagged on to the last of them, chasing the echo of voices and shrill laughter down the corridor. Entering a room I saw several women standing while a few rushed over to sit on the remaining chairs.
Two plump women, one with curly red hair, the other with shimmering black hair, crouched in a corner murmuring and pointing to another who was seated, fingers sifting through her long hair. The woman’s brow was tense with wrinkles, and, from time to time, she shook her head. Her skin was grey in colour and bones protruded from her face, legs and back, which I saw as she hunched over. She emitted a dull moan, and, as I approached she looked at me through a web of thick strands; however, it was not her eyes, but rather holes in the earth that stared back at me.
“How to live?” Her voice was like the faint noise a tree makes when it creaks in the wind. “I shall shrivel away to a pea. I have waited four days and still no nursling in sight. I’ve gone on only bread, water and bad fruit and they expect me to wait some more.” My heart went out to her.
I asked the two who tittered away in the corner why this poor woman wasn’t given a chance to nurse when she was clearly so helpless. The raven-haired one said she was no more a wet nurse than her grandmother. She added that it was her own fault for having diseases of the milk and for letting a baby die. The one with the curly hair told me there were three orphans to every wet nurse so there wasn’t much a doctor could do to stop women suckling for pay.
“They will probably send her to the Maison de la Couche, as there are thousands of abandoned infants to choose from there,” she said. “Only the poor and sickly wet nurses suckle these ones, as the pay by the royal government is very poor for orphans.”
I naively asked them why there were so many motherless children hoping the women might share their stories with me.
“Mothers haven’t the means to care for them. Many women work in the city alongside their husbands. They’ve already enough mouths to feed and little time to spend with babies that do them no good in the end if they die,” said the dark-haired woman.
Death called out to children as colic, congestions, scurvy, chilblains, coughs, lice, and ringworm. It lurked behind every step the child took and every day the child breathed. The sickly woman crossed her legs, arranging her cotton skirt, much too light for the weather. A few women sat on the floor between those with chairs. Some women left that morning to visit the Maison de la Couche as it was thought there would be more than one orphan for them to take home. Others stayed on with the prospect of having a healthy child from a good merchant-class family that would allow them nine livres a month or more.
“Even so, she’ll surely leave here with an infant.” The curly haired woman motioned to the female creature propped up like a doll.
The other woman peeled back her shirt to reveal the slight bulge of her bosom. “I’ve lots of milk,” she said using all the force she could muster. She told me she was old and frail before her time, struck by an illness that left her bones bent out of shape.
I had some mutton that Madame Rousset packed away for me to eat. The woman’s holes-for-eyes gazed at the offering. I peered into the crevices of her face thinking that I saw in them a glimmer, a distant light. She took the mutton and, without removing it from the cloth, began to gnaw away at it. She kept up until the bone was meatless, wrapped the remains and tied it to her waistband, fluffing the cloth of her skirt. I went over to the woman with the curly hair and asked her if she was waiting for an infant to care for. She told me she had lots of milk so nursing two would suit her fine.
Then I asked her, “What about the infants?” “Do you like caring for them?”
“Do I like the babies I suckle?” She looked at me strangely. “Well, some of them I do. They are soft, smell good, and don’t cry much. Others are stinky; they cry all the time and have temperaments like imps.” When she laughed I saw that her front teeth were green. “Skin is soft, their smell different, one a scent of cinnamon, another of rose petals or sage, even gosling feathers.” She added that this difference in smell helps her know the child before all others and without seeing it by sight.
Monsieur Paradis came to the door just then and invited me into a small room decorated with a painting of two women, bathing nude by a river. There was a half-filled bookshelf and an examination table.
“Tell me Madame Vivant, you seemed surprised the other night when I told you of those who spoke to me of your wondrous milk?” His lids drooped and his complexion appeared ruddier in the daylight.
“Indeed I was,” I replied, pulling up a chair on the other side of an enormous oak desk while he sat behind it. “Simple folk have a way of letting their imaginations get the best of them and gentlefolk have a habit of repeating them just as children tell tales.”
“So you do as you wish to prove them wrong?” His eyes moved to my face, then darted to different points in the room.
“I am simply exercising my rights and helping those less fortunate than me,” I answered.
“Speaking of rights, I notice by our records that you have not been contacted by a meneur in your hamlet or by your local priest. The royal declaration states that the care of infants by wet nurses be regulated by governing bodies.”
“I am aware of the meneurs Monsieur Paradis. Yet the parents who come to me have heard about my wet-nursing through channels other than the Bureau des Nourrices. Adding to this, most of the time I have not accepted payment for my services.”
“Well, your case is highly irregular.” He cleared his throat and adjusted himself in his chair. “Nevertheless, specific guidelines have been put in place regarding wet-nursing. Tell me Madame Vivant, why we should change a system that has worked for hundreds of years simply because an educated woman decides to play by her own rules?”
“I am not asking you to alter the way you conduct your business Monsieur Paradis.”
He smiled knowingly, looking on me not as a man who just scolded a woman, rather as one from whom he was about to request a dance.
“Since you have told me that you are no different than other wet nurses and that your milk is also no different, I will try to convince myself of it. Although, the more I know you Madame, the more I grow certain that your milk is not merely the superstitions of some peasants.” His hands fidgeted with paper on his desk. “Come to Madame Rousset’s salon next month and we’ll converse on whatever topic you fancy, the hobbyho
rse of your choosing.” His tone changed and he said, “In truth, there’s another reason I asked you here.” He glanced at a letter on his desk. “I know a gentleman, a wealthy landowner who lives a day’s journey from Paris. He wrote me two weeks ago to see whether I was acquainted with a nurse he heard about, a certain Madame Vivant who was both learned and motherly. He thought perhaps you were made-up, un conte like the kind told by labourers in his fields. At the time I did not know you, however when Madame Rousset told me you would be coming to stay with her in Paris, I could not believe the incredible twist of fate. He heard about you through a wet nurse I sent him to care for his son.”
Shrill voices came and went on the other side of the door mixed with the sounds of chairs rumbling.
“He will pay you a healthy sum to nurse his infant. His son was sent away to nurse after the mother died tragically by falling into a vat of wine and drowning. The child did not fare well with the wet nurse and the poor boy soon became thin and weak. At a loss to save him, the nurse returned the infant to his father. Then there was the other woman sent by me, another dreadful failure. As you can imagine, the infant became sicklier still and the man is now beside himself with grief and worry, having no wife and a son who might not live to carry on his name. There would of course be a small stipend given to the Bureau for placing you, yet I assure you that your reward from him would be most generous.”
I didn’t need any time to consider his offer and so told him straight away that I couldn’t help him. “I have not seen my father in a long time and he is soon to return from Lyon,” I explained.
His face twisted into a knot. “How saddened I am to hear that Madame Vivant. However, I understand that you must proceed according to your own better judgment.”
In truth, I sensed my wet-nursing days ending as a desire rose within me to devote my time to teaching women the basics of reading and writing, and to compile the nursing notes in this diary into a much-needed book for new mothers. Perhaps those who read it might begin to trust more in their own instincts and less in what so-called reasoners said and thought on the subject.
Milk Fever Page 18
