Mistress of the Revolution (4 page)

By the age of fourteen, I had acquired the shape of a woman. Yet my mother said nothing about providing me with larger clothes or buying me a new corset, and I was too shy or proud to raise the subject. Such a request would no doubt have been greeted with derision at my vanity, or enquiries about how I thought my family could afford such an expense of finery. I could no longer lace my little girl’s corset and now wore on my bosom only my chemise and the bodice of my dress, while covering as much as I could with a kerchief. Even in my innocence, I knew that there was something wrong about my appearance.

One afternoon, my brother entered the room while I was sewing alone, seated on a bench in front of the fireplace in the drawing room. I curtseyed to him and returned to my work.

“Have you seen Mother?” he asked.

“She just went to the kitchen to give Joséphine her instructions for dinner, Sir.”

No matter was below our mother’s attention when it came to bullying her servants. My back was turned to my brother and my attention was fixed on the petticoat I was hemming for the Marquise. She had indicated in no uncertain terms that she wanted it finished that day. Nothing happened for a minute. Suddenly, the Marquis said in a tone I did not recognize, “Gabrielle, my love, your position is all wrong. Let me show you how to correct it.”

Before I understood what he was doing, I felt him standing behind the bench where I was seated, bending over my shoulder. In an instant, he had slipped both of his hands under my kerchief and caught my breasts. He was caressing them while pulling me towards him. In my astonishment and shock, I dared not resist, look up or say a word. Chills were running down my spine. My entire body was tingling in a manner I had never experienced before. The back of my head was now against him and I could feel him trembling. I closed my eyes and heard nothing but his breathing. How long this lasted I cannot say, maybe no more than a few moments. All of a sudden, he pushed me away and was gone without another word.

I wondered whether it had been a dream, so fast had it happened. I tidied my kerchief in a hurry, ran to my room and pressed myself against the closed door, shivering. I still felt the Marquis’s hands on my skin. I remembered Joséphine’s warnings when I had told her of my first curses. She had said that I had nothing to fear from my brother, and in fact he had not done any of the disgusting things she had mentioned. Yet I knew that what had happened was wrong. The memory of it tortured me.

Antoinette knocked at the door and informed me that I was wanted in the drawing room. There, my mother restored my spirits by slapping me. “What do you mean by leaving your work unfinished on the floor as soon as I turn my back? You are becoming lazier than ever, Gabrielle, and this is saying something. I will have to tell your brother about this.”

Fighting tears, I returned to my sewing with an indistinct apology. She expressed at length her disgust at my laziness, carelessness and ingratitude. At supper that night, I dared not meet my brother’s eye, nor did he address me. I dreaded that our mother would read our minds like a book and at any moment expose our shame.

“Gabrielle is surlier than usual tonight,” she remarked, shaking her head. “No wonder. She must be ashamed of having abandoned her work. You spoil her too much, my son. If you do not take the trouble to give her a serious correction, she will become wild.” She turned to me. “Remember, girl, sloth is one of the seven deadly sins. Have you not paid attention to Father Delmas’s sermon this morning? Heaven is my witness, I do my best to give you a solid religious education, and what good comes of it?”

After supper, time passed very slowly. I complained of a headache and asked her permission, which was denied, to retire before prayer time. I was haunted by the events of the day and could not sleep that night. Maybe I had done something wrong that had prompted my brother to act in such a manner. What could it be? Was he angry with me? Had I lost his good opinion forever? What if he sent me away?

In such a crisis, I dared not confide in anyone, not even in Joséphine. My brother was after all her lord and master as well as mine. It was also impossible to ask for Madeleine’s help. I had promised to show the Marquis all of my letters. In any event, I would have died of shame rather than describe what had happened.

The next morning, the Marquis found me alone again in the drawing room. This time I jumped to my feet as soon as I recognized his step.

“Would you like to go riding with me, Gabrielle?” he asked.

I coloured and made no answer.

“Come, little sister,” he said, “I mean you no harm.”

I was able to look at him for the first time since the day before, but only for a moment. I could not sustain his eye. He was holding out his hand to me. I took it. Yet when later he helped me into the saddle, as he had always done, it seemed to me, perhaps wrongly, that he was holding me a moment longer than needed. Things could never be the same between us. Suspicion, anticipation and dread crept into my mind at his most innocent move. I knew that he felt it too, and some kind of awkwardness came between us, where there had used to be complete confidence. We rode up the hill and into the woods, and, after some incoherent talk about indifferent things, he asked me to forgive him for what had happened.

“You need not fear its repetition,” he said. “However, in order to avoid further temptation, I believe that it would be expedient for both of us to marry.”

“I forgive you with all my heart. Indeed, Sir, I have nothing more precious than your friendship. I am so relieved not to have lost it. You should certainly marry if you deem it desirable, but I am very happy at Fontfreyde and in no hurry to change my situation. I am only fourteen.”

“I agree that it is a bad idea, in general, to make girls marry too young. True, the Church allows them to wed at twelve. Yet in most cases it is too early, if only because they are still unable to comprehend the scope of their new duties and not developed enough to safely bear children. With you, however, I have no such concerns. Your understanding is excellent and you are well formed for your age. I will be sorry to part with you, but you should prepare to the idea of marrying as soon as I receive an eligible offer.”

Tears were filling my eyes.

“There is no need for you to fret,” continued the Marquis. “Your lack of fortune will probably temper the eagerness of most suitors, though a man may be willing to take you without much.”

So my brother was ready to let a stranger take me away from Fontfreyde, from my family, from everyone and everything I knew, only to do unspeakable things to me. I was reminded of a wedding song in the Roman language:

The words evoked the harsh fate of a peasant girl, but they now seemed to apply to me too. I began to sob.

“Please, dearest,” said my brother, putting his hand on my shoulder, “do not make yourself unhappy. I would never give you to a man whom I would not think worthy of you. I will speak to Mother of what we can afford for your dowry.”

I dried my tears and hoped that the Marquis was right about the effect of my fortune on my prospective suitors. Later that day, my mother remarked that I looked like a harlot in my loose clothes. She ordered the carriage and took me to the corset maker in Vic. She did not say anything, however, of marriage or a dowry, nor did I feel any need to broach these subjects.

I soon noticed that young ladies of the neighbouring nobility, accompanied by their mothers, were invited to take tea with us. Dinners entailed too much expense and inconvenience in the Marquise’s opinion. After the visitors left, she would criticize the young women’s lack or excess of beauty, depending on the case, as well as their immodest attire and unbecoming manners. My brother listened in silence.

The year 1784 would bring many changes in my life. I would turn fifteen in July, which filled me with absurd vanity. Mamé Labro, who had always been as proud of me as if I had been her own, admired my tall figure, fair skin, “a true blonde complexion,” as she would say, and my hair. When I was little, she had devoted much time to comb, braid and dress it, much to my annoyance.

Mamé’s attentions must have attracted the jealousy of her sons. At the age of five, I had awakened one morning to find that one of my braids had been cut while I was asleep. I had been amused and almost wished that the rest of my hair had met with the same fate. Yet Mamé had cried in horror when she had discovered the damage. She had given all five of her sons, for none had come forward to confess to the crime, a flogging with a birch scourge, after which she had made them beg my forgiveness on their knees. My milk brother Jacques had partaken of this punishment. I had been certain of his innocence and pleaded his cause with tears in my eyes, but Mamé had not been moved. My hair had been dressed in a different manner to hide the disaster. The Marquis never suspected that anything was amiss.

Now I was beginning to see things in a different light. I liked my thick locks. Their natural waviness spared me curl papers, hot irons and other instruments used for the torture and beautification of young ladies. I was reaching the age when I found it agreeable to be praised for my looks.

Early during the same year, some legal matters arose involving the estate of Castel, in the neighbouring province of Limousin, from which my brother derived the best part of his income. He was compelled to attend to them himself, and was frequently absent from Fontfreyde for weeks on end. I took to riding by myself to Vic or into the mountains whenever I chose. My mother would scold me upon my return to Fontfreyde and I would go back to my sewing without offering any argument in my defense.

On a hot June day, I decided to visit Mamé Labro. Most years, the snows of winter would last into May in the high country, but that spring the weather had been uncommonly mild. The peasants were starting the hay harvest early. I had always loved the smell of cut grass and the circular movement of the men swinging their scythes in perfect cadence. I found the Labro cottage deserted and ran to the fields in search of its inhabitants. They were seated in the shade of a hedge, drinking from a wine bottle during a pause in their work. Sweat stuck their shirts to their chests. Mamé’s five sons rose and removed their hats as soon as they saw me. Jacques, sullen as usual, turned away while my nurse greeted me. I always kissed her more than the traditional three times, to feel the softness and firmness of her face under my lips.

“May I help you rake the hay?” I asked.

“Are you out of your senses, dear? What would Her Ladyship say if she heard of it?”

“But I used to do it when I was little.”

“Do you think I forgot? The matter with you is that you don’t understand the difference between now and then. Go to the river. It’ll refresh you. Now run.”

I left the Labros and took the direction of the Cère River. I crossed a meadow, then a little wood, before reaching my favourite place, a pebble bank shaped like a half-moon. Upstream, a waterfall emptied into a shallow pool shaded by black cliffs. The darkness of the stone was broken by bursts of ferns and furry mosses growing from the rock faces. There, years earlier, I had caught trout by hand with Jacques.

I undressed to my corset and chemise, which I tied in a knot around my thighs. I gingerly waded into the river, careful not to slip on the green rounded stones of the bottom. The iciness of the water took my breath away. I let the chill penetrate deep into my legs until I could feel the marrow of my bones. Refreshed, I skipped the pebbles I had gathered on the bank and watched the ripples on the glassy surface of the river. I took water into the cup of my hand and let the droplets run down my neck and between my breasts. I shivered with pleasure. It was delicious to feel my skin tingle with cold on that hot day. I was absorbed by the happiness of the moment, lost to any noise but the song of the river.

After a while, I felt a prickling on the back of my neck. I turned around, still knee-deep in the water. A young man of colossal stature was watching me from the bank, smiling, his arms folded. He was dressed with informal elegance, in riding boots, deerskin breeches and a brown velvet waistcoat. His coat and hat were lying on the pebble bank next to my faded gown, moth-eaten stockings and worn-out shoes. His black hair was not powdered and tied like my brother’s, but fell straight on his shoulders. What was most noteworthy about the stranger, after his height, was the plainness of his face. The ridges of his jaw and eyebrows were more pronounced than in anyone I had seen before. His nose was long and curved, his skin swarthy, his cheekbones wide and prominent. I wondered how long he had been watching me and I felt colour rise into my cheeks. It was the first time I had seen an intruder in what I considered, now that Jacques shunned my company, my own private domain.

I recovered from my surprise and asked sharply in the Roman language: “Who are you? And what are you doing here?”

“Both pertinent questions, young lady, but I should be the one asking them. My eldest brother owns this land, and you are trespassing. Yet, as a token of my goodwill, I will tell you my name, which is Pierre-André Coffinhal. I came here to bathe in the river, as I like to do every fine day in the summer. However, since you have preceded me, it appears that I will have to forego this pleasure.”

He did not look much older than twenty, but his voice was oddly deep for someone so young. He had responded in the Roman language, addressing me in the familiar
thou
. That seemed to indicate that he had taken me for a peasant girl, which suited me very well.

“Are you related to Dr. Coffinhal?” I asked.

“Pierre is one of my brothers, and also my godfather, hence the similarity in our names. In fact, I too am Dr. Coffinhal, for I just completed my medical studies.”

I knew the other Dr. Coffinhal well. He lived in Vic, where he was the town physician. My mother fancied herself the prey of various ailments and often had him called to Fontfreyde. He knew how to listen to her. She had the highest opinion of him. He was soft-spoken and handsome, quite different from this brother and godson of his. Another Coffinhal, Jean-Baptiste, the eldest, was an attorney in Vic and handled legal matters for my family. I had seen him before in Fontfreyde and in town, although we could not have met as equals. I knew of still another brother, Joseph Coffinhal, who was a barrister in Paris and whom I had never met.

I now remembered Joséphine mentioning that the youngest son of the family had returned to the high country and was now helping his brother in his medical practice. I did not think it a good idea to tell this new Dr. Coffinhal my real name. My family would not be pleased to learn that a man of lower rank had seen me half-dressed in the river. I vowed to avoid either of the Coffinhals whenever they came to Fontfreyde.

“Please accept my apologies for my intrusion, Doctor,” I said. “I will leave the river to your sole enjoyment.”

“I was only teasing you. Your presence does not bother me, quite the contrary in fact. You have not told me your name.”

The first that came to mind was Gabrielle Labro.

“Are you related to the Labros who live nearby?” he asked.

“I am their daughter. Really, I must go. I was ready to leave when I saw you.”

“I know of your family. They are tenants of my brother, and very good people, from what I hear.”

He looked down with some curiosity at my clothes, which were lying at his feet. Mortified, I was impatient to leave. I waded towards the beach. The stranger walked to the edge of the water, offered me his hand to help me back to the bank and politely turned away while I dressed.

“Stay for a moment,” he said when I was done. “Your mother can spare you for a bit longer.”

We sat down a few feet from each other. He asked many questions about the Labros, which I had no trouble answering since I had known them since my infancy, and my life at the cottage. Lying so freely nevertheless made me uneasy. I wanted to put an end to our conversation.

“My mother will become worried if I do not return,” I said.

“I am sorry to have delayed you so. Please allow me to walk you back to the cottage. That will give me the opportunity to present my compliments to that excellent woman.” He frowned. “However, when I think of it, I suppose that your whole family will be out in the fields, taking advantage of this fine day to finish the hay harvest. How is it that you are not helping? How do you find the time to come here in this season?”

Silently cursing my hasty choice of a false identity and his inquisitiveness, I made no response. The young man grinned.

“Come,” he continued, “you must have a poor idea of my intelligence. Whoever you are, you are no peasant girl. Peasant girls do not wear silk dresses. And your hands, your wrists, and, may I add, your ankles, of which I had the good fortune to catch a glimpse, are far too delicate for farmwork. Your skin is also too fair for you to have spent much time out in the fields. But so far I do not know much about you, except that you are on my brother’s land without permission and a shameless liar. Will you please tell me your real name?”

“No.”

I was looking down at my feet. He sounded amused by the turn of our conversation, which he pursued, still addressing me familiarly, in French. He spoke it, like me, without any trace of Roman accent.

“Now,” he said, “I did observe, over the past few weeks, a young person with your rather peculiar colouring riding through the streets of Vic. I was told that you were Gabrielle de Montserrat, the youngest sister of the Marquis de Castel. By the way, that giant black horse of yours would do very well for me, but it is unsuitable for a lady. Of course
you
did not pay attention to me. Someone like me would have been beneath your notice.” He paused. “I hope this teaches you that it is useless to lie, and wrong too.”

He caught a loose ringlet on my nape and played with it, his fingertips brushing against the back of my neck, as if it had been the most natural of things.

“A lovely shade of red,” he said, “between the colour of dark gold and that of autumn leaves. It suits those grey eyes of yours to perfection.”

He had the insolence to address me as
thou
after admitting to knowing who I was. No one, except my brother, Mamé Labro and Joséphine, ever used the familiar form with me. It made me as angry as the liberties he was taking with my hair. I rose to run away from him and his bad manners. Before I had time to turn around, he seized me by the wrist and, without rising, made me sit down again.

“One moment, please,” he said. “Would it not be imprudent to turn away so rudely without taking any leave of me? Think that I might tell your brother about this little escapade of yours, of which I do not believe he knows, or would approve if he did. All I am asking in exchange for my silence is that you meet me again here in a few days. If you do, I will be mute as a tomb. You will find me more trustworthy than you yourself have been with me.”

There was no harm in agreeing to what he wanted since, in the meantime, I could always change my mind and breach a commitment so extorted. I promised to meet him three days later and, without looking back, ran straight to the cottage, where Jewel was waiting for me. I did not see anyone of the Labro household, nor did I wait for them to come home from the fields. Because of the hot, dry weather, they would be impatient to finish the hay harvest and would not return until after dark.

It is said in French that the night brings counsel. When I undressed at bedtime, I reflected upon the events of that afternoon. I would have been at a loss to describe the impressions the encounter had left on me. The young physician had been rude, but I found this rather reassuring. Joséphine had warned about men who spoke in too friendly a manner. Such was certainly not his case.

Moreover, my brother, if he learned of the meeting, would no doubt forbid any more unchaperoned rides to the river, or anywhere else for that matter. I was not sure that my new acquaintance would have carried out his threat, but I did not wish to take any chance of having my freedom curtailed on account of one incident, however innocent. I concluded that it would be prudent to keep my promise.

The next day, I felt no further hesitation and even began to look forward to that second meeting. The young man was certainly very plain, but his conversation had entertained me and I felt a thrill in meeting someone in secret.

I returned to the Cère River on the appointed day. I chose not to stop by the cottage. Mamé Labro might have become suspicious to see me so soon again. I saw a large, dappled grey horse in the wood and tied Jewel close by. The young physician was waiting for me on the little pebble bank. He greeted me in French with great politeness, this time calling me “Mademoiselle” and addressing me formally.

“Thank you for coming back here,” he said. “I dared not hope that you would join me today. I must also admit that I am ashamed of the threat I used. You realized of course that, no matter what, I would never have been so wicked as to tell anyone about our last meeting.”

“No indeed. How could I? I do not know you at all.”

“I had entertained the hope that perhaps you would come back for the pleasure of my company, but I was apparently too presumptuous.”

“I did not find your company very agreeable the other day. You were insolent, but not so much as to preclude the possibility of improvement.”

“Thank you, both for your candor and for this chance you are giving me to redeem myself. I will try to make a better impression this time.”

We walked along the river and shared our memories of it. He spoke about his own childhood. Like me, he had lost his father at an early age. His eldest brothers, Jean-Baptiste, the lawyer, and Pierre, the physician, of whom he spoke fondly, had replaced his late parent in every respect. Pierre-André had been away at school, first in Clermont, then in Paris, since the age of eleven. His mother had died the year before of a bilious fever.