French Passion (46 page)

“‘I cannot know what the future will bring, but with all my heart I hope that you will be a strong man, able, brave, and good enough to understand what it is I am trying to say.

“‘Fight, my André, as I could not, against the many wrongs.

May God bless you.

Jeanine de Tinville'”

Chapter Eleven

I heard only André's intensely spoken words, saw only his erect, handsome body; as far as I was concerned, there were but André and me in the Grand Chamber. To me alone, he told the secret of his parents.

Therefore, weeping, I did not yet consider the effect of his mother's letter on the court.

Too many emotions were coursing through me, and these all concerned André, born of a dissolute King and the quiet little girl who sat together in hidden green gardens. Stop being a romantic, I ordered myself. As much as it was possible for the King to love, Louis had loved the girl. But Jeanine de Tinville, that quiet, saintly child, never wanted the profane form of love, and the perversions she found in the Parc aux Cerfs shamed her to her soul. In André warred his mother's poetic, idealistic blood and the profligate royalty of his father.

As I gazed through tears at André, so many pieces of the puzzle were falling into place. André's selfless battle to end the old evils. His undeniable look of breeding. André and the Comte arguing in an exquisite, miniature-lined study, the Comte prodding André with hints at his birth. There was the Comte's veiled amusement at André's background. The Comte's final order that I never again see André. André, doubtless because of his mother's deep shame at the manner of his conception, had chosen never to reveal his identity. The Comte was one of the few who knew his secret.

Explained, too, was André's bitter struggle to save the king, and his tears at the death sentence. Louis XVI, many years older than André, was André's nephew.

Looking back at the clues, I knew I was a fool not to have guessed. Why, the very ring next to my heart,
L
and
J
interwoven, could have told me.

I had become conscious of the stirrings in the courtroom. Men sighed. Women wept. Next to me, Izette's sobs were loud, bringing back the memory of a painted child's words on a frozen December night:
Some men, they likes a young girl, they thinks there's less chance of getting a disease
. Below, the Revolutionary ladies were sobbing in one another's arms. Even the jurors had averted their woolen red hats and were furtively wiping their sleeves across their eyes. A thin voice above me piped, “Free Égalité!” And a bass boomed, “His mother was befouled by old Capet. Let him go!”

Had the trial ended at this moment, André would have been acquitted.

The public prosecutor, squaring those overbroad shoulders, declaimed, “Many horrors were perpetrated by your father. Did your mother die?”

“That day.”

“What happened to you?”

“I was sent back to Normandy with a bag of gold coins, enough money to make my grandparents' lives comfortable. They raised me.”

“Did you ever see the tyrant, your father?”

“Just before my seventh birthday, a courtier came in a large carriage to take me to Versailles. There, a raddled, stout, bored old man stared at me, then I was returned home.”

“Did you hate your father?”

“I didn't know he was that. My grandparents had said the King was granting audiences to children of the provinces, and I'd been selected from Normany. When I was eleven, my mother's letter was given to me. And after that, I tried not to hate my father. But yes, I've hated.”

“Most assuredly, Prisoner, your father bore only love toward you.”

“I can't say what he felt for me. I saw him only that once.”

The public prosecutor beckoned, an assistant scurried forward with two documents sealed with great blobs of red from which dangled official ribbons.

“Have you seen these before?”

André was silent.

“Answer the question,” ordered the President of the Tribunal.

“I've seen papers with the royal seal,” André said.

“On what occasion?” asked the public prosecutor.

“In 1774, shortly after the death of the … of my father. The same courtier who'd taken me to Versailles brought me my mother's letter as well as two officially sealed documents.”

One was handed to André. “This?”

André scanned it. “Yes,” he said.

“Tell the court the essence.”

“I'm ennobled with the title of Due de la Concorde.”

“That is abundant proof of fatherly—and kingly—love,” insinuated the public prosecutor. He handed André the second paper, this time with a low, mocking obeisance that drew guffaws.

“Will you tell the Tribunal and the jury what this edict states.”

André scanned the paper. His head rose, proud. “It's a certificate of legitimization.”

“More than that, Sire.” The lisp penetrated. “The edict states that André, Duc de la Concorde, is legitimate offspring to Louis of France. And as such is heir to the throne if the male offspring of the said Louis's son, the defunct Dauphin, leaves no male heirs.”

The defunct Dauphin had left three sons. The oldest was Louis XVI, and his son, the little Dauphin, had been considered by many these past two weeks to be Louis XVII. Besides, Louis XVI's two younger brothers were alive, and they had sons. Even if France still had a throne, André was at best a remote heir. Yet this didn't halt the bloodthirsty howls.

The public prosecutor roared, “It would seem we sentenced the wrong man this January, You, Louis the Fifteenth's sole surviving legitimate son, should have been the tyrant King.”

To this bit of mad illogic, the gallery began to stamp and cry for blood. André's mouth moved, and I knew he was explaining that many were in line before him for the crown, had there been a crown. The pounding of wooden sabots drowned out his voice.

Izette shouted in my ear, “It's easy to see the mob ain't got no sense.”

She meant to comfort me, yet I was remembering that a few hours earlier I'd swayed this crowd. If only the trial had ended then.

When the gallery calmed, the public prosecutor leaned on the jury box, pretending to address the jury, but aiming his piercing tones at the back of the gallery.

“You see a man,” he declaimed, “who by his own testimony had far more than any other in France to gain by overthrowing Louis Capet, his nephew. Naturally he would work for the Revolution. Didn't he wish us patriots to do the job we did, end the reign of the tyrants? Now Louis Capet is dead. I say unto you that André Capet, our prisoner, is ready to embark on the second half of his campaign. He desires the end of the Republic. He will call on foreign armies to invade our land. He would be glad to see foreign troops devastate our fair land that he might crown himself King. He would not shed a tear that French blood ran in gutters—nay, he would take joy in this blood, for it would enable him to become King. I say to you, this André Capet must be stopped. Else foreign troops will be ravishing our women!”

This gabble of demogoguery was preposterous! Until this past half-hour, André had kept his royal identity a secret, and the truth had been pried from him with difficulty. There was a scar across his chest that proved he'd shed his blood for the Revolution. He had worked fearlessly to save Louis XVI. And no country would invade another to aid a man with so tenuous a claim to a toppled crown. But who in the gallery—or the Assembly downstairs—cared for reason?

From all over the great hall came cries of “Death!” “To the guillotine with André Capet!” “Death in the Place de La Révolution!” The Assembly rose as a man, shouting, “Death!” Hundreds of throats stretched out the word. “De-e-e-eath!”

Izette was pulling at my arm. Unnerved, I let her lead me up the steps of the gallery. In the tumult we were paid no attention.

He's going to die, I thought. Within twenty-four hours he'll be dead.

I stumbled a little on the risers, and Izette pulled at me. “Come on,” she said in my ear.

Just before we left the Grand Chamber, I turned. Far below, on the raised platform, bailiffs stood on either side of André. He was scanning the gallery. I raised my arm. I was to far away for him to see.

“Hurry up!” Izette hissed. “In one more minute they'll remember you defended him. They can't get at him, but they can get at you. They'll tear you apart.” She yanked me through the great carved door.

In the hall those who hadn't been able to find a seat in the Grand Chamber milled about. Izette shouldered us through the crowd. At the staircase four soldiers waited.

“Manon d'Epinay?” called the sergeant.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Come with us.”

“Are you arresting her?” Izette asked, pulling at the sergeant's arm.

He slapped her away.

“Why? What are the charges against the citizeness?”

At this the sergeant grasped his bayonet with his two hands, using it as a bar to force her from him. She was pushed against the wall. She shot me a glance of mute horror, then my escort marched me down the broad staircase.

Twilight was falling. I was led across dusky courtyards and along endless flame-lit corridors. We ascended narrow circular stairs. The sergeant opened a door. “Inside,” he ordered.

The door shut behind me. I heard orders for two soldiers to remain as guards.

I was in a small, reasonably comfortable room. A coal fire had been lit. The chairs were upholstered. The table, of that lovingly inlaid old marquetry, had been hacked with swords or knives, and one carved leg had been replaced with a slab of crude pine.

I had been up all the previous night, waiting outside the Palais de Justice, my stint on the witness stand had taken huge energy, the trial had drained my every emotion. Weariness hit me like a sudden blow. I sank into one of the tapestry chairs.

He'll be dead, I thought. In twenty-four hours André will be dead. I forgot his royal birth. He was the man I'd loved ever since a rainy night of my sixteenth year, and now he must die. In weary despair I could see his severed head being raised by Sanson, the executioner. I had no interest in why I'd been brought to this room, or who had given the order. What difference did it make?

Chapter Twelve

The doorknob turned.

Beyond the barred window, darkness was complete. I'd heard it was by night that the Tribunal judged in secret. Wondering if the sergeant had returned to conduct me to my trial, I started to my feet. I felt no fear. Strange, that I should feel nothing of fear, nothing except this weariness that dragged at my limbs, and a grief that tightened my chest.

Goujon came in, closing the door behind him. The two candles wavered. The coal fire flickered. In this uncertain light he seemed enormous. I'd seen this huge man, taller and bulkier than his fellow deputies, rising to shout
Death!

Yet when he spoke, his voice held that deep note of gentleness.

“I'm sorry I kept you waiting,” he said. “But there was a committee meeting after the trial.”

“Will André go to the Place de la Révolution tomorrow?”

“That depends.” He moved to sit on the chair next to mine, facing the fire.

“On what?”

“We'll come to that in a minute.” He stretched out his legs, resting his huge shoes on the fire dogs. “I had you escorted here for your safety. In another minute the crowd would have turned on you.”

Though there wasn't a hint of duplicity in his voice, or in his face either, I sensed I'd been brought here for reasons less obvious than my security.

“Izette said that, too,” I agreed.

“I warned you to leave France. You agreed you would. Name of God, Manon, how could you have gotten up like that?”

“I'd do it again.” For the first time in this conversation, a spark of life came into me. “And ask you to verify me, too.”

“I might have lied.”

“Yes, you might,” I agreed. “You knew about André, didn't you? Before this afternoon?”

“You yourself told me.”

“I? But—”

“Unknowingly,” he interrupted. “Remember that snowy day I came to your husband's palace? Before we got down to business, you said the Comte de Créqui knew something about Égalité's parents? Until then I'd put Égalité down as one of those who never talk of families. After, though, I sent my secretary to dig through the records. He has a keen nose, my secretary. He found the edicts.”

“So you were the one in the Assembly who denounced André?”

“A group of us,” he replied. “Stop looking at me like that, Manon. You and I are both country bred. You know as well as I that when one in the barnyard gets the fowl pox, a farmer can't let it spread through the flock.”

“André is a man. And he isn't ill!” I snapped. “He was your friend. You denounced him.”

“Égalité was my friend,” said Goujon. “The Due de la Concorde is not. I've never hid from anyone what I feel for royalty. Yes, I denounced the Due de la Concorde, as I would any of royal blood.”

It was that old frustration! “I've never understood how it's possible to think of people in groups!” I cried. “André kept his parentage from me, even. And if you'd left him alone, he would have taken his secret to the grave.”

“Nevertheless, Manon, he's divided in his loyalties. Think of the effort he spent trying to save his nephew.”

“He's never wished bloodshed. Never. But you, you've given yourself to hounding the royal family to death.”

“That is what a revolution's about.”

“Inhuman!” I burst out.

“Inhuman?” Calmly Goujon warmed his huge bluntfingered hands at the fire. “There were twenty-two million souls in France. Only the nobility, forty thousand of them, were considered the human beings.”