Mistress of the Revolution (2 page)

“Mademoiselle, your cheeks are again smeared with ink,” said Sister Suzanne. “What will My Lord the Marquis think when he sees you like this? You are incorrigible. Remember, child, every time you misbehave, you pound the nails of the Good Saviour’s cross deeper into His flesh.”

I looked up. A drop of ink dripped from my quill and splattered on the shaky capital
H
that had given me so much trouble. I rose and held my hands straight in front of me for Sister Suzanne to hit them with her wooden rule. She ignored them and seized me by the arm to lead me out of the classroom.

“Go clean your face,” she said. “Mother Louise needs to see you.”

Never before had Sister Suzanne let pass an opportunity to use her rod on my fingers. I was also puzzled by her reference to my brother the Marquis. He visited only during the school holidays, which I spent at the convent. It was late October of the year 1780, and I did not expect any visit from him until Christmas.

I washed my face in the chilly water of the courtyard fountain and, my heart beating fast, went to the Mother Superior’s study. There my brother and guardian, Géraud de Montserrat, Marquis de Castel, waited for me. The Marquis, fifteen years my senior, was the embodiment of kindness, elegance and learning. Side curls framed his regular, well-defined features. His hair was powdered and tied by a black silk ribbon. I curtseyed to him. He took me in his arms and kissed me on both cheeks.

“My goodness, Gabrielle,” he said, stepping back to look at me, “you have grown much since the summer. You are almost a lady now.”

“Yes, My Lord,” said Mother Louise, “Mademoiselle de Montserrat is well in advance of her age in many regards. She has made great progress since joining us five years ago. She can now play the harpsichord, read, write and speak French. She knows the rudiments of dancing. She also has a pretty singing voice, the best in our choir, and Sister Béatrice will miss her. I can praise her to her face, for she has no vanity. It is a pity she cannot stay with us a few more years. She has yet much to learn. But of course you are the best judge of that and I understand that Her Ladyship cannot spare her any longer.”

So I was going to leave the convent! I was astonished: I was only eleven. The other girls would remain there until their marriage and many would wed in the chapel.

As was customary in all families of any means, I had been taken at birth to a wet nurse, Marie Labro, just outside the town of Vic-en-Carladez, in the province of Auvergne. Mamé Labro had five boys, the youngest of whom, Jacques, was my
frère de lait
, “milk brother,” meaning that we had been nursed together. I remained with my nurse until the age of six and shed many tears when my brother announced that I would be taken away from her, not to return to my family, but to become a boarder in the convent of the Benedictine nuns in Vic.

Upon my arrival there, I had the manners of a peasant and faced the contempt of the other schoolgirls, all young ladies of the local nobility and bourgeoisie. I could only speak
la lengo Romano
, the ancient idiom of those parts, and the twenty words of French known to Mamé Labro. The Roman tongue had been the language of poetry in the Middle Ages, but sadly it was no longer taught in schools. Although it was my first language, I never learned to read or write it. It can be harsh and guttural when spoken by men, but in females, in Mamé’s mouth in particular, its accents, soft and high-pitched, sounded like a song. I liked them better than the nasal tones of French.

After a month or so at the convent, I had become fluent in the more formal language, but the stigma of my country manners clung to me. Also, as Sister Suzanne liked to say, I shared with Judas, the betrayer of Our Lord Jesus-Christ, at least one characteristic: red hair.

I felt no regrets when my brother handed me into the carriage. I was on my way to the château of Fontfreyde, my birthplace, to meet my mother for the first time in eleven years. I remembered neither her nor my father, who had died when I was still in the care of Mamé Labro.

I asked my brother many questions, but was unable to gather much information beyond assurances that our mother would be delighted to make my acquaintance. We crossed the village of Lavigerie, located in the middle of the Marquis’s lands, and passed the gallows. I looked away from the grim wooden structure.

“You see, Gabrielle,” said my brother, “I keep my gallows in excellent repair. They serve as a reminder to my vassals that I have the right of high justice over my estates, though I am content to let the royal
Baillage
court in Vic punish the many scoundrels who infest my land. But we must never let others forget who we are, Gabrielle, or forget it ourselves.”

This meant that the Marquis could sentence anyone to death, or to any lesser penalty, for crimes committed within his jurisdiction. I recalled the day when Mamé Labro had taken me, along with her sons, to watch a hanging in the main square of Vic. I must have been five. A thief, whose crime had been to pick a merchant’s pocket at the Michael-mas cattle fair, had climbed the rungs of a ladder backwards. The noose tight around his neck, he had been pushed to his death. For long minutes he had grimaced and thrashed in agony. Finally the executioner had seized the wretch’s legs and pulled sharply to break his neck. Then his accomplice, stripped to his waist, bound to a post of the gallows, had been flogged, then branded on the shoulder with a hot iron. That second thief had been sentenced to two years of hard labour. Mamé had pointed to the mounted constables who were waiting to take him away once the first part of his punishment was over. The sight of the execution, she had assured us, would teach us right from wrong. It would show us what happened to the wicked in this world and give us a hint of what awaited them in the next. She had insisted that I keep my eyes open and not turn away.

Though my milk brother Jacques had held my hand for comfort, that display of cruelty had horrified me. The body of the dead man had been taken down and hung again, this time out of town, from the gallows at the pass of Curebourse, whence it could be seen decaying from miles around. I had been unable to turn my eyes in that direction for weeks, until Jacques had assured me that nothing remained of the corpse and that it was safe to look.

I was relieved to hear that my brother had chosen not to exercise his prerogatives. A man of his kindness could not have anything to do with the gruesome business of justice.

We were soon in sight of the château of Fontfreyde. My brother explained that the current building had replaced the old fortress that had controlled the valley of the Goul River and made our family powerful long before the time of the Crusades. The château, in the traditional style of the high country, had walls of dark stone cemented in white mortar. The steep roofs, designed for the snows of winter, were made of a different kind of stone, resembling the scales of a giant fish. The twin flights of a monumental exterior staircase, decorated with urns and busts, graced the front of the building.

The château was situated in a low spot, in the middle of green meadows, for it rains a great deal in those parts. Oak and birch woods, which had turned gold at the time of my arrival, covered the surrounding mountains. Such was my birthplace and ancestral home, seat of the noble and ancient family of Montserrat. My true name, which I alone remember nowadays, is Marie Gabrielle Aliénor de Montserrat de Castel, or, as most people called me then, Gabrielle de Montserrat.

The trepidation with which I prepared to meet my mother chased all other thoughts from my mind. My brother took me to the main drawing room, where she sat in a tapestry chair. Portraits of ancestors in military or court dress hung on the walls. I curtseyed to Madame de Castel, who gave me her hand to kiss. I was surprised to see that I looked nothing like her. She seemed small and delicate, her hair still black with a few silver threads. She had a thin nose, a strong jaw and piercing dark eyes. Her mouth was a straight line without lips, which did not appear to be often distorted by a smile. She stared at me and turned to my brother:

“I had not expected her to be so bony. Do you think she will grow much taller? And that mass of red hair!”

I had not expected a warm welcome from a parent who had expressed no wish to see me during the first eleven years of my life, but was still mortified by her greeting. The Marquis too seemed embarrassed. He tried to reconcile the truth and my feelings.

“At her age, Madam,” he said, “many girls show little promise, but in later years improve considerably. I am sure Gabrielle will become very pretty.”

My mother, looking at me, shook her head and sighed. “I had an apartment prepared for you, child. You must be impatient to see it.”

I followed a maid to a long, narrow room on the second floor, furnished with a little white bed, an armoire and a large table covered with patterns and pieces of cut fabric not yet sewn together. The sole decoration was the portrait of a gentleman in regimentals, resembling the Marquis except for a rather mischievous smile. He was, the maid informed me, Colonel de Montserrat, a younger brother of my late father. I would sleep alone for the first time in my life in this strange room. I recalled the warmth of Mamé Labro’s bed, which I had shared for many years, and even began to regret the sullen companionship of the convent dormitory.

I looked out the window. Once I became tired of the view of the meadows and woods behind the château, I sat on the bed. I took out my book, for I had but one, and read for the hundredth time my favourite stories. That volume, the fairy tales of Perrault, was my most treasured possession, a gift from my brother the Marquis when I was still with Mamé Labro. I could not read then and neither could anyone in the Labro cottage. Yet I had slowly turned the pages, fascinated by the magic of printed words. Their complexity had seemed so daunting that I had been unable to imagine a little person like myself ever mastering such a skill. Also, my brother had told me that the book was written in French, a language barely known to me at the time.

When I was little, the Marquis would sit me on his lap during his Sunday visits to Mamé’s cottage and translate the stories into the Roman language while I tenderly and reverently caressed the velvet of his coat. He always departed too quickly, frightening the chickens in the courtyard, and left the Labro household in the middle of their deep bows and curtseys. I watched the dust the hooves of his horse had raised in the dirt lane long after he was gone. I returned to the book to make up my own stories, looking at the pictures for inspiration.

In my strange new bedroom at Fontfreyde, my old friends the princesses, fairies, and cats with enchanted boots brought me their usual comfort. My brother interrupted my reading to take me around the château, a maze of hallways, half-flights of stairs, towers, turrets and parlours, most of which were no longer occupied. In the kitchen, the cook, Joséphine, assisted by a scullery girl, was peeling carrots. They curtseyed to us and Joséphine greeted me in the Roman language, which in itself cheered me. That room had a bright fire burning deep in the vast hearth, within which one could sit on benches located on either side, an arrangement called
cantou
in the Roman language. Hams hung in the upper reaches of the cavernous space. A yellow cat, her eyes closed, her legs stretched, was nursing a kitten almost as large as herself and purring on the brightly coloured pillows on one of the
cantou
benches. Copper kettles on the table were gleaming orange in the light of the fire.

Finally my brother took me to the stables. They were vast enough to accommodate many more than the three horses I found there. My brother’s fine bay stallion nickered at us. Two draft horses shifted in their stalls to look at us with curiosity. One of them, by the name of Jewel, black with a white blaze, stood seventeen hands tall, huge even by equine standards.

“He is not yet nine years old and still growing,” said my brother, “which is very inconvenient since he will no longer match his companion in harness.”

Jewel nibbled with infinite delicacy at my ears and dress. He lowered his giant head against my neck and breathed in noisily. That was the friendliest gesture I had encountered all day. I leaned against his cheek and kissed him. His coat was silky, his mane and tail long and wavy.

I looked up at the Marquis. “Would you teach me to ride, Sir?”

He laughed, a rare occurrence. “Jewel is too large for a lady’s horse, but he is gelded and sweet-tempered. I might give it some consideration if you behave like a good girl.”

My first supper with my mother and brother was at seven o’clock, in the grand oak-paneled dining parlour. We sat at the fireplace end of a long table lit by two candles. An expanse that could have seated thirty remained in darkness. My brother recited the
Benedicite
before a meal of roast beef with chestnuts was served. He then spoke little while my mother regaled him with tales of the depravities of the servants and tenants. She said nothing to me; indeed she hardly acknowledged my presence.

After dinner, we retired to the main drawing room, where my brother sat down with a worn leather treatise on hunting and my mother a volume of
Christian Thoughts
. I thought it prudent not to fetch my own book and was content to stare at my feet.

“Do you know how to sew, child?” she asked.

“Yes, Madam, I was taught in the convent.”

“You might make yourself useful after all. The maids are a sad lot and never seem to finish anything. I wonder why we bother to keep them. There is a new chemise of mine that was started over a week ago. You will work on it. Do not try to fool me, girl. I want fine, even stitches.”

She rang for one of the maids to fetch her workbasket. From that moment, I never lacked occupation at Fontfreyde.

At nine o’clock, all the servants, men and women, entered the room and knelt, along with my brother and mother. She motioned to me to follow suit next to her. The Marquis led the prayers. I made the mistake of sitting on my heels when kneeling, but my mother turned towards me and slapped me on the side of the face. I was reminded of proper manners and corrected my position. At last everyone rose and it was time to retire.