Mistress of the Revolution (9 page)

After what seemed like a few hours, the door was unlocked and my brother appeared. He told me that he would allow me, on my last day at Fontfreyde, to have breakfast in the dining parlour. Before we left the cellar, he reached for my hand. I turned away. My heart felt empty and cold. Nobody, not even my mother, spoke over breakfast. I did not look up from my porridge.

The Marquise took me to my old bedroom. She ordered me to disrobe and step into a round copper tub filled with water. She would not allow me to squat or kneel in it, but insisted that I stand, legs apart, while the maids washed me with sponges. Until then I could not remember having been naked in front of anyone. My mother herself, Joséphine had once told me, always bathed clad in a flannel robe that covered her to her neck.

“How becoming of you,” said the Marquise, “to give yourself these little airs of modesty, after what you have done. Your husband will teach you to be less of a prude tonight.”

One of the maids pierced my ears with a sewing needle while pressing a cork behind the lobes. I sensed the pain but did not wince. I was trying to no longer feel what was done to me.

“Remember, girl,” said my mother, “you must rise to greet your master when you see him approach the bed. I hope that you will not disgrace us by being undutiful.”

I stepped into the skirts of my pink gown as I had done on the morning of the Thiézac pilgrimage, but now a tiny bouquet of orange blossoms was nestled between my breasts. I wore the Baron’s ruby earrings. They put me in mind, when I looked at my reflection in the mirror, of droplets of blood running down my neck.

I am looking at my eight-year-old granddaughter, whom Aimée insisted on naming Gabriella, much against my wishes. I do not believe it to be an auspicious choice. She is a most endearing child. Her cheeks, round as apples, beg for kisses. She is holding a doll out to me, along with remnants of lilac silk, demanding with the gentle tyranny of children that I make a dress for it matching her own. One thing always gives me a slight shock whenever I look at her: her resemblance to my late husband. Yet it should come as no surprise. The Baron de Peyre was after all her grandfather, but I have never grown accustomed to finding his features in her lovely face. She even has his manners, the same way of holding her head slightly to the side and knitting her brows when she is cross. Like him, she never seems to experience self-doubt. The past has ways of thrusting itself upon us, of reminding us of what we least wish to remember.

I was married in the church of Lavigerie, decorated with white roses for the occasion, on a cold and sunny day, the 15th of September of the year 1784. The ringing of the bells, deafening, shook the air. My brother handed my mother and me out of the carriage. He led me to the altar, holding me firmly by the hand as if afraid that I would run away. My sister Madeleine, her husband, the Count de Chavagnac, Monsieur de Laubrac, the Baron’s cousin and heir, among many other family members and friends were in attendance. So were my brother’s vassals. The Baron was waiting for me in the chancel in a crimson suit, embroidered with gold, and white silk stockings instead of his usual hunting clothes and leather boots.

I said and did all that was required of me, concentrating on the rituals themselves, trying very hard not to think of what they entailed. Facing the Baron, my eyes downcast, I recited the words that would bind me to him until death: “I, Marie Gabrielle, agree before God of my own free will to take thee, Donatien, for my husband.”

He took my right hand in his, around which the priest wrapped his stole while reciting the nuptial benediction. Father Delmas blessed a gold coin and a ring, wide and plain. The Baron placed it first on the thumb of my left hand, then on my index, then on my middle finger while reciting “in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost.” He said “Amen” when he reached the fourth finger, where he left it. He presented me with the coin, which I received with both hands. We both knelt at the foot of the altar. The white nuptial pall was raised over our heads as we received the Church’s blessing upon our union.

Through the Mass that followed, I knelt, rose and sat, taking my cues from the congregation without knowing what I was doing. I felt that I had taken leave of my own body and was watching the ceremony from a few paces away. In his sermon, Father Delmas spoke of the meaning of the ring presented to me, which was an
annulus fidei
, a reminder of the faith I had pledged to my husband. The gold coin recalled the price paid in the old days by the groom for the purchase of the bride. It signified the transfer of my custody from my guardian to my husband and was a token of the obedience I now owed the Baron. The wrapping of the stole around our clasped hands meant that we were irrevocably united before God.

After the ceremony, my husband handed me into his carriage. It was the first time we were alone. He lowered the blinds and threw himself upon me. The numbness I had felt in church dissipated in an instant. I resisted. He quieted.

“It is all right, dearest,” he said. “You may tease me all you want. I have not much longer to wait now.”

Once in Cénac, the Baron led me to the courtyard behind the château, where a dinner had been set for the servants and peasants. The guests rose to cry
Viva la novio
, “Long live the bride.” We walked around the long tables to receive their compliments and best wishes. The Baron, grinning, slapped the men on the back and asked them in the Roman language how they liked their new lady. I hung my head, too embarrassed to say anything. At last, he bid everyone to have a good time and took me inside.

I attended an interminable feast in the château, this time for the noble guests. The Baron, in a jolly mood, ate, drank, laughed and talked a great deal. It would have been customary for the wedding dinner to take place at the bride’s house, but perhaps my husband did not trust my mother to have a decent meal at Fontfreyde. My imprisonment in the cellar had kept me unaware of the preparations for my own wedding.

I had met my husband only three times before, but had ample opportunity to observe him now. His loud voice was jarring to my ears, and his discourse was punctuated by many words I had never heard before, though I could guess their meaning. I sat, numb and mute, at the opposite end of a table, which had been dressed with great magnificence. All of the local nobility had been invited and the guests were in a joyful mood. My mother, in a new black silk dress trimmed with lace, was seated to the Baron’s right hand. She looked happier than I had ever seen her. I could only toy with the food on my plate without bringing it to my lips. My brother was not eating much either, and avoiding my eye. He had risen at the beginning of the dinner and toasted in a perfunctory manner the Baron and Baroness de Peyre. It had been odd to hear for the first time my new name and title. To me, the Baroness de Peyre was my husband’s late wife, Dorothée de La Feuillade, a faint ghost, unmourned four months after her death.

After a number of courses, I saw the Baron lean towards my mother and speak to her while looking at me. She smiled at him and gestured to me to follow her. She and Madeleine took me to my new apartment. When I saw the bed there, I threw my arms around my sister’s neck.

“Please,” I said, “do not leave me here. Take me home with you. I never want to see him again.”

My mother pursed her lips. “You see, Madeleine, what I have been suffering. Thank Heaven, we are rid of her at last. I wish the Baron much pleasure with this little bitch. Imagine her being only fifteen and already such a harpy! But then your sister Hélène, when she was thirteen—”

“Please, Madam,” interrupted Madeleine, “let us not speak of Hélène at this time. You may leave me with Gabrielle. I am sure she will listen to reason. She is only frightened, poor child.”

After the Marquise left, my sister, gently but in a manner that admitted of no opposition, unlaced my dress and corset. She knelt before me to remove my shoes, untie my garters and pull my stockings. When I was stripped to my chemise, she nudged me towards the bed. I clung to her.

“Gabrielle, you must be a good girl,” she said. “Are you afraid because you do not know what to expect? I will explain it all if you wish.”

“I do know about those things. That is precisely why I did not want to marry him.”

She ran her finger on my cheek. “It is wrong to entertain these thoughts now. You undertook before God new duties that you must now fulfill. Why fret over what cannot be avoided?” She smiled. “Besides, dearest, he cannot be so terrible. He seems very much in love with you. I have observed him: he cannot keep his eyes off you.”

“I have not noticed anything of the sort.”

“I would be surprised if you had,” she said, “for you hardly ever look at him. Your modesty is very commendable, but the time has come to be less shy with him.” She stroked my hair. “Let him do whatever he wants, and all will be fine.”

“But I do not want him to touch me.”

“These feelings are normal for a bride, Gabrielle. They will pass once the marriage is consummated and you realize that your fears were groundless. He is a mature man. He will be less rash and more patient than a younger husband.”

The Baron, in his dressing gown, his hair untied, appeared. At the same time, I heard drunken clamours in the hallway, followed by hammering at the door. Male voices demanded to see the bride and groom together in bed to toast them one last time. The Baron swore.

“You buggering jackasses,” he shouted when he opened the door, “you are frightening my little bride with your racket. Leave us alone.”

The guests reluctantly left, some of them trying to peek inside the room before being firmly pushed away by the Baron. Madeleine pressed my hand. I tried to cling to hers, but she kissed me on the forehead and abandoned me to my fate.

The Baron was now free to turn his attention to me. I forgot all about my mother’s lecture, Father Delmas’s sermon and my sister’s words of comfort. Instead of rising to meet my master, I remained in bed, my knees under my chin and my arms around my legs. He ordered me to remove my chemise. I stayed frozen. He seized me by the arm and, without a word, stripped me of it himself. I wrapped one of the sheets around my naked body. That too was torn away from me. I jumped from the bed in terror and without thinking ran for the door. He had no trouble catching me. I bit, I scratched, I fought him with all the energy I could muster. It was futile. He subdued me and carried me to bed, where he kept me pinned on my back, his knee planted in my stomach.

With the belt of his nightgown he bound my hands and tied them to one of the bedposts. I begged for mercy, in vain. He was too busy pawing and kissing me to pay any heed to my pleas. I turned my head away to escape the smell of wine on his breath.

“I have not been mistaken in my choice,” he said. “You are still more beautiful than I expected. I cannot wait any longer, little dear.”

He slipped his shirt over his head, baring all. I whimpered in horror at the sight of his nakedness. He spread my thighs, knelt between them and lowered himself onto me. I tried to squirm from under him, but his weight, resting on my hips, was crushing me. He proceeded with the main assault, causing me such pain as to convince me that my entire body was tearing apart. My cries, far from giving him pause, seemed to make his lunges more furious. Sweat glued the black hair on his chest and stomach to his skin. I was smothered against his neck, thick as that of a bull. At last, when I thought that I could bear no more, he raised himself on his arms. After a final thrust, deeper and more violent than any before, he arched his back and let out a long roar.

He rolled over by my side, his eyes closed, with a look of exhausted contentment that let me hope that he had fallen asleep. This comfort was short-lived. Apparently refreshed by his rest, he spread my thighs again. I had abandoned any kind of struggle and let him do what he pleased. He examined at length the site of his victory, tender under his fingers like a raw wound.

“There is nothing I like better than this sight,” he said. “You just made me very happy, my pretty little bride, although you could have spared yourself some unpleasantness by obeying me from the start. No matter, you will learn fast enough.”

He untied me. In my naivete, I thought that the ordeal was over for the night. Before long I saw with horror that his inspection had rekindled his appetite. He had only freed me to shift my position at his pleasure. Once the essential point had been settled to his advantage, he knew that my compliance was assured. He resumed his attentions with undiminished vigour. I lost track of the number of times I had to go through the same agony, which he alternated with bouts of whipping, both, he said, as a punishment and a warning.

“You see, my dear,” he said during a lull, “brides are like young horses. Some of them are docile by nature. Others offer a spirited resistance when mounted for the first time. My late Dorothée belonged to the first kind. You obviously fall into the second. It does not bother me, far from it. The effort I put into taming a fine animal is amply rewarded by the satisfaction of finding it afterwards as eager to please as it was troublesome.”

I could not imagine how any female could bear that kind of treatment for an entire night. I had visions of myself reduced by the morning to shattered bones and bloody pulp, like a broken body on the wheel. At last, long after I had abandoned any hopes of seeing an end to my misery, he left me in peace and retired to his own apartment. I found my torn chemise on the floor and put it back on.

I was crying in my sleep when a maid drew the drapes and opened the shutters.

“My Lord requests Your Ladyship’s company at breakfast without delay,” she said.

I would discover that “without delay” was the byword at Cénac, where everyone understood that the Baron was not to be kept waiting. I was still shaken, sore all over, and wanted nothing more than to stay in bed a little longer. Moreover, after my initiation to nuptial bliss, I would have been content never to set eyes again upon my husband. Yet I understood from the maid’s alarmed look that it would be unwise not to make haste. I wanted to wash away the filth of the night, but that would have to wait. While the maid was helping me, I saw that I was covered with welts and bruises of various sizes and hoped that she did not notice them.

I joined the lord my master in the dining parlour, where he was eating breakfast with a hearty appetite. I curtseyed to him but could not bring myself to meet his eye. He seemed oblivious to the events of the night and rose to greet me in a good-humoured manner.

He hoped that I had slept well, and told me that, now that we were man and wife, we should settle a few things between ourselves about our future happiness.

“First, Madam,” he said, “I am as patient as the next man, but I do not like to be kept waiting at my own table. I will expect the pleasure of your company at seven o’clock without having to send for you. You are no longer at Fontfreyde, where you may have been allowed to spend the whole day in bed. In this house, you will follow my ways, which you cannot expect me to change for the sake of a child of fifteen. Is this understood?”

“Yes, Sir. Please forgive me. I did not know that you were expecting me, or I would have risen earlier. I promise that in the future I will be on time.”

“All right, but remember that I might show less indulgence next time. That is not all: we have other important matters to discuss. Some of your habits, frankly, I do not like. You probably know to what I refer. Your brother, for reasons I cannot fathom, has let you run wild all over the country. Although I do not blame you, for you were too young to know any better, I will have to put an end to that nonsense. First, you will be impatient to present me with an heir sooner rather than later, and all that horse riding would not do. Second, I will not have it said that I allow my wife to roam the countryside like a madwoman. There will be no need for you to ride. I do not want to see you within a hundred feet of the stables.”