Finding Emilie (9 page)

“‘The Evil Queen lined all the children up,’ the man said. ‘If the girls couldn’t curtsey perfectly and the boys didn’t bow just right, they would be turned into stone with her magic wand. My little girl didn’t keep her back upright enough, and now look at her!’

“Just then a few apples fell from a tree behind Meadowlark, and she looked up. A boy sat in the branches. ‘Why aren’t you a rock?’ she asked.

“‘I told her I had a stomachache and couldn’t bow properly until later,’ the boy said. ‘She said she would come back and turn me into stone this afternoon. That’s why I’m hiding.’

“‘Well, hiding doesn’t help if she’s not here,’ Meadowlark said. ‘You’d better come down and practice bowing if you know what’s good for you,’ Meadowlark said.

“‘Why bother?’ the boy answered. ‘Even if I were perfect, she’d turn me into stone anyway. She does it for fun and no one has the power to stop her.’”

Lili had come to the end of what she had written and closed her notebook with a clap. “What’s going to happen now?” Delphine’s eyes were wide.

“The Evil Queen is going to come back, and Meadowlark and Tom—that’s the boy’s name—are going to escape on Comète.”

Delphine wiggled out of her seat. “I wouldn’t let the Evil Queen turn me into stone. I would curtsey so perfectly she couldn’t bear to harm me.” She went to the center of the room and bit her lip as she concentrated on dropping her back exactly as she had been taught at dancing lessons. “Just like that.”

Lili watched as she did it again. “Well,” she said, “what would it be like to be the only one not turned to stone?”

Delphine thought for a moment as she continued to curtsey. “I wouldn’t be alone for long. I would be so nice and kind that the Evil Queen would change her ways and set the others free.”

“I suppose,” Lili said. “But I don’t think Meadowlark curtseys that well, and she’s the one who’s got to save everyone. I’m going to have her come back with Tom and steal the Evil Queen’s wand and turn her into stone and rescue the children. Do you like it?”

Delphine lost her balance on her fourth curtsey and had to take a quick step to avoid banging against a side table. “Oops,” she said, collapsing into a chair. “I guess maybe a wand really is better.”

JULIE SET OFF
with Lili the following morning in Hôtel Bercy’s double-seated sedan chair, carried by four servants in livery. She would leave Lili at Hôtel Lomont before continuing on to the home of one of her friends, then return to cut short Lili’s torment by whisking her home for dinner at midday.

Lili splayed her fingers in front of her as if she were counting something in her head. “I’m twelve years old,” she said. “And I’ve been going to Baronne Lomont’s since I was six. Once a week for six years, minus the weeks I was at the abbey, I must have visited her more than two hundred times.”

“You seem oddly cheerful about it,” Julie said, giving Lili a quizzical look.

Lili grinned. “Meadowlark has to defeat the Evil Queen in my new story, and Delphine gave me an idea. I’m going to disappoint Baronne Lomont by giving her nothing to criticize—even though she’ll probably find something anyway.” She thought for a moment. “I’ve always thought visiting her was like going into battle, but now I think if I curtsey well enough and manage myself just so, maybe she’ll leave me alone. And that’s what I really want. To be able to be myself—at least inside me where no one else sees—with-out having to spend all my time thinking about how I’m supposed to be.”

“You are a very wise girl, ma chérie.” Julie patted Lili’s knee. “When you don’t shock her anymore, just watch how quickly she’ll lose interest. But still, being gracious to people you don’t enjoy is one
of the most important things you can learn.” She winked. “Besides sipping consommé without making any noise.”

Julie’s face grew solemn, and she turned to look out the window of the coach. “Things are changing, Lili. When Baronne Lomont was young, a girl’s independence of mind was seen as an affront. It’s too late for someone her age to change, but people coming along now see things a little differently. At least some do.”

She turned back toward Lili. “Monsieur Rousseau says that the restraints put on children deform their natural character, and they grow up being comfortable only in a society that’s been deformed to match. He says we’re suffering the consequences of that now, and I think he’s probably right.”

The carriage pulled up in front of an austere gray building untouched by the morning sun yet to penetrate the densely packed buildings of the Île Saint-Louis. “We’re here,” Maman said, pulling Lili to her in a quick embrace. “I love you, ma petite,” she said. “Now go wield your new sword.”

1764

“
CORPUS OMNE PERSEVERARE
in statu suo quiescendi vel movendi uniformiter in directum.” Fourteen-year-old Lili traced her fingers over the words as her tutor, Louis Nohant, looked on. Firelight danced off the glass of the book cabinets in the wood-paneled library of Hôtel Bercy on the dreary winter afternoon. “I can’t understand this,” she said. “The Latin is so—odd.”

Delphine put down her pencil on the rail of the portable easel she had moved near the fireplace. “Lili! I can’t draw you with your mouth all grumpy like that!”

Lili looked across the room at her. “Sorry,” she said. “I forgot you were sketching, with this Newton driving me so crazy.”

“Well, why do you care so much?” Delphine whined. “It makes
me cross when you get so involved neither of you wants to say anything to me.”

Lili put her finger in the fold of Newton’s Principia. “I just want answers, that’s all. Don’t you think we ought to care about how things really are?”

“If you mean the ‘we’ that’s somebody else, yes. But if it’s the kind of ‘we’ that means I have to go over there and study physics rather than sketch or play the piano, that’s different.”

Monsieur Nohant, a thin and nervous young man of twenty-two, rapped his knuckles on the desk. “Mademoiselle de Bercy,” he said with an officiousness negated by the pimples on his chin. “You are free to stay, but not to disturb us.” When he turned his back, Delphine stuck out her tongue and Lili suppressed a giggle. “I can explain, Mademoiselle du Châtelet,” he said. “Newton’s first law says that every object will remain in its current, uniform state of motion unless an external force is applied to it.”

“Well, why didn’t he just say that?” Lili demanded. She rolled her pencil across the table. “And look—it doesn’t even seem to be true. The pencil is obviously going to stop moving at some point.” It fell off the table onto the intricately patterned Savonnerie carpet, and Lili heard Delphine snicker.

“But you see, the table is creating friction,” the tutor said. “If the pencil were moving through space unimpeded, it would never stop. And if it weren’t moving, it would never start unless something hit it.”

“All right,” Lili said. “I can understand that, but—” She ran her finger across the next line. “Nisi quatenus a viribus impressis cogitur statum illum mutare? Latin is hard enough without someone so strange writing it.” She pushed the book toward him. “You translate!”

Monsieur Nohant’s eyes flitted. “I’m afraid I can’t explain better than I have.”

“Well, why not?” Lili had grown exasperated with this new tutor, who seemed to know little more than she did.

The door to the library opened and Julie entered. Both girls stood up. “Bonjour, Maman!” they chirped.

“Bonjour, mes chéries,” she said, coming over to give each of them a light caress on the shoulder. “My goodness,” she said, looking at Delphine’s sketch. “That’s a very good likeness!” She looked more closely. “But why did you erase Lili’s mouth?” Delphine shot an annoyed glance at Lili as Maman came over to her.

“What’s wrong,” she asked, seeing Lili’s knit brow.

“I can’t understand this!” Lili’s voice was husky with frustration.

The tutor shifted his feet. “I’m not able to explain it using the Latin,” he said.

Julie picked up the book. “This is—” She looked at Lili. “You’re already reading Newton?”

“Oui, Maman. And I really want to understand, but I can’t seem to manage.” Maman’s eyes were oddly bright against her suddenly pale cheeks. “What?” Lili asked. “Did I do something wrong?”

“I said nothing to her,” the tutor insisted.

Lili looked back and forth between the two of them. “What are you talking about?” she demanded. “Said nothing about what?”

Julie de Bercy looked away, her lips disappearing into a thin line as she pondered what to say. “I think it’s best if you leave us for the day,” she said to the tutor. “And you too, for a little while, ma chérie,” she said to Delphine. “I need some time with Lili alone.”

“
WHAT DO YOU
know about your mother?” Julie asked when the others had left.

“Nothing but the little you’ve told me,” Lili replied. She thought for a moment. “I’ve always sensed I wasn’t supposed to ask. There were a few girls at the convent whose mothers were dead, but since they never mentioned them, I thought maybe there was something improper about bringing it up.”

Julie took a deep breath as she settled back onto the couch. “I was with your mother more than anyone else in her last days. I
helped her into bed when she felt her first pains with you. I knew she was gone even before your father did.” She shut her eyes to gather her thoughts. The clock ticked and a carriage went by on the Place Royale while Lili waited for her to continue.

Suddenly Julie stood up. “This is the best way to show you who your mother was.” She walked over to the desk to pick up the Principia. “It’s not just you who has trouble with this Latin. No one here could comprehend what Newton was saying until Emilie translated it into French.”

“My mother translated the Principia?”

Julie put the book back on the desk. “Yes. And it was more than the language that was the problem. I can’t comprehend it even in French, but I’ve been told it’s rewritten, not just translated, and that Emilie’s commentary is what allows people like your tutor to understand Newton at all. That, and her own mathematical calculations where Newton hadn’t provided them.”

“Why didn’t Monsieur Nohant tell me this?” Lili demanded.

“When he first started as your tutor, I told him that when you began to study physics, he was not to mention your mother. It might be hard for you to understand, but I felt it was for your own good.” Julie sat down next to her. “Your mother was a very complicated person. And controversial, I must add. She had trouble limiting herself to people’s expectations, and you’ve seen for yourself what that can be like, haven’t you?” She smiled and patted Lili’s knee.

“Everyone felt it was better for you to assume there was nothing special about her until you were old enough to understand. Don’t blame Monsieur Nohant for obeying me, although I suppose he’ll be relieved that from now on he can consult the version of Newton he actually comprehends. And you probably will be too, from what I’ve heard.”

She got up again and went to a small, locked cabinet. She opened it and withdrew a book. “I have been so looking forward to this day,” she said, handing it to Lili.

“Principes Mathématiques,” Lili read, tracing her fingers over her
mother’s name on the title page. “But this was just published a few years ago, when I was ten!”

“She finished the last details in the few days after you were born, before she suddenly took ill. It took time for people to pay attention to her work. Most weren’t ready for her ideas—those who could understand them. And the salonnières made good entertainment of ridiculing her because her brilliance made them nervous.”

Julie sat down again and watched Lili leaf through the pages. “People who know the truth see your mother’s great spirit, but she has her detractors. Some people say it must have been the men around her who did the difficult science and mathematics, but I saw her doing the calculations. Make no mistake of it, ma chérie. This”—Julie ran her finger over random lines of text—“this is your mother’s work.”

“‘All objects remain in a uniform state of motion,’” Lili read in French. My mother was different too. “Until something changes,” she whispered, wondering whether something just had.

E
MILIE DU CHÂTELET
pulled aside the curtain of her carriage and brought her face so close to the window that her nose almost touched the glass. A few men were trickling out of the Café Gradot to attend to afternoon business before a night at the theater, but she knew Pierre-Louis du Maupertuis would not be among the first to leave. It pained him, she thought with a touch of scorn, to tear himself away from the adoration of the scientists, mathematicians, and hangers-on who convened each day in a back room of the café. Honestly, couldn’t they see that even though he held the mathematics chair at the Academy of Sciences, he needed to consult his students to explain what were supposed to be his own ideas?

What irked her most was not Maupertuis’s pretension, but that she was left to wait for him outside, since as a woman, she was forbidden by law from setting foot inside. Once, she had suggested to one of her friends that he offer a serving girl a bribe if she would lend out her uniform, since maids were the only exception to the law against women being present. The Marquis du Châtelet was a tolerant man, but he would not have taken kindly to such a breach of rank by his wife. Still, the hilarity of a scene in which a serving wench cleared the table while discussing mathematics with members of the academy was so delightful, Emilie had considered incurring what would at worst be a mild chastisement. Instead, she settled for showing up in men’s clothing, and though everyone had been most amused by a disguise that was revealed the first time she laughed, that kind of thing could
only be done once. The café owner didn’t need problems with the police, who were always looking for new examples of how easy it was to disappear forever into the prison at the Bastille.