Spirit of Lost Angels (27 page)

‘No, don’t go inside, it’s too dangerous.’ I tried to clutch onto Aurore’s sleeve, but she shrugged my hand off and I could do nothing to stop her belligerent determination.

Musket fire rang out from within. I jumped, a hand over my breast.

‘Please, let Aurore be safe. Let them all be safe.’

‘She’ll be all right. Aurore’s a fighter,’ Sophie said, swiping a hand across her brow and streaking it with dirt. Her dress clinging to her drenched skin, she looked a very different Sophie to the one who received her friends from a milk bath.

We heard more shots, and reeled back in a great human tide as the bloodied bodies of several women were thrown out into the courtyard.

I gagged on my meagre stomach contents, as we picked our way through them, searching the lifeless faces.

‘None of them is Aurore or Olympe,’ Manon said. ‘They’re not here. They must still be inside.’

‘I’d so hoped this could be peaceful,’ I said. ‘That we could voice our concerns in serenity.’

‘Serenity?’ Manon shook her head. ‘No, Rubie, the women are too angry, and starving.’

Everybody joined in the chant for the King to show himself, ‘
Le Roi, le Roi
!’

The King appeared on the balcony and smiled down on the crowd in the palace courtyard. He promised bread to his loyal subjects, and there rose a cheer of, ‘
Vive le Roi!
’

‘How absurd,’ I said, ‘that we cheer when some of us have already fallen.’

‘
La Reine au balcon, la Reine au balcon
!’

The Queen stepped onto the balcony in her night-robe. I tried not to smile with the irony as I recalled my childhood dream of meeting a real princess. Marie Antoinette’s face a chalky mask, as if frozen in terror of her people’s hatred, I was certain the poorest peasant girl wouldn’t dream of being this princess.

We all knew Marie Antoinette loathed the Marquis de Lafayette, regarding him as a symbol of the revolution, but the General stood by her side — a liberal aristocrat with the unenviable position of reconciling the mob and the Queen.

‘Shoot the whore!’ a woman cried. People pointed muskets and pikes at her.

For minutes, the air was taut with nervous tension and an expectant kind of silence.

Lafayette remained still, though obviously aware he would be forced to shield the Queen if the people started firing. Then in a dramatic, unprecedented gesture, he turned, took her hand, bowed low and kissed her fingertips.

‘
Vive
Lafayette!’ the crowd shouted.

For no other reason than perhaps impressed by her bravery in the face of a hated crowd, everyone rose in a collective roar, ‘
Vive la Reine
!’

Marie Antoinette seemed to fall against Lafayette with relief, before a bodyguard ushered her back inside.

The King agreed to move the royal family from Versailles to Paris, and most of the women began the long trudge home to inform the Parisians of the King’s promises of bread.

‘Where’s Aurore?’ I said. ‘And Olympe? We can’t go home until we find them.’

‘They’ll be here somewhere,’ Sophie said, as we hurried about the palace gardens, calling their names.

‘They can’t have gone far,’ Manon said. ‘This is where all the action was.’

Each of us ran in a different direction, our search becoming easier as more and more women left, marching back along the wide alley, chanting, ‘Here we have them — the baker, the baker’s wife and the baker’s little apprentice.’

‘Perhaps they’re still inside?’ I said, feeling my panic unfurl again.

We still had not found Aurore and Olympe by the time the last soggy footsteps of the women faded, along with the words of their new song:

To Versailles, like graggarts,

We dragged our cannon.

Although we were only women,

We wanted to show a courage beyond reproach.

We made men of spirit see that just like them, we weren’t afraid;

Guns and musketoons across our shoulders…

I hope we can meet up one day.

We found Olympe, her dress torn and splattered with blood, thankfully not her own.

‘I lost Aurore in the stampede to get to the Queen,’ she said.

‘It’s dark now, and we’re exhausted,’ Sophie said. ‘We should bed down here in the corner of a stable for a few hours. We have a long walk home.’

‘I will hire a coach to get us home,’ I said. ‘One long march is enough for me.’

Olympe nodded. ‘Yes, but still, we have more chance of finding Aurore in daylight.’

Even as I wanted to keep searching, I knew they were right. We would never find her in this gloom, and as we huddled together on some straw in our damp clothes, the dull ache tore at every part of my body.

Where ever could she be, my little friend? My breaths came fast and shallow, as I dropped into a listless slumber, hoping Aurore had found a dry spot in which to sleep.

***

A strange quiet reigned over the palace of Versailles when I woke. It seemed that great pitiless sprawl had been abandoned, leaving only a straggle of ragged women and the ghosts of kings long gone.

I stepped over the sleeping figures of my friends, and left the stable to find a place to relieve myself. I ducked into the thick of a row of bushes and, as I lifted my dress, I saw her.

Aurore lay on her side as if she’d rolled, and come to rest against a large stone. Her sodden, grime-streaked dress was entwined about her muscular acrobat’s limbs, her arms flung to one side as if she were reaching out to an applauding audience. My cries strangled me as I stared at the dark puddle of blood framing her charcoal-coloured curls in a macabre halo.

The pain in my breast knocked me to the ground, and the blood in my veins seemed to set to stone. Unable to wrench my eyes from Aurore’s lifeless gaze, I lay on the ground clutching my dress and howling like a wolf that had lost her cub.

My dear Jeanne,

As you can see, I do not bother with the disguise of any coded names. The
Cabinet Noir
exists no more. Besides, since Aurore’s death at the hands of the palace bodyguards, I am too tired and saddened by everything to worry.

My tempestuous wildcat is gone, and a quiet emptiness and sadness shrouds the apartment.

Aurore’s murder, coupled with our revolutionary battles, and my desperate failure to find Rubie, who most likely met the infant death of countless foundlings, has siphoned the zeal from me.

They are still calling me the Scarlet Enchantress, but my plume hovers above the blank page, my mind a void. I can barely muster the force to nourish and drag myself through the day, let alone pen scintillating dialogue. I fear, as another winter sets in,
la mélancolie
has struck me again.

My fond acquaintance, Monsieur Jefferson, returned to America in September. I have neither the spirit nor the vigour for my salon friends right now. I feel like an old woman of forty-seven rather than twenty-seven.

So, in an effort to combat this profound sadness and solitude, I have decided to leave Paris and return to Lucie.

With the news that the Queen was conspiring with the local nobility to massacre the peasants and break the power of the Third Estate, I am anxious for the well-being of my village. It will also lift my spirits to see my brother again. I feel it is a lifetime since I saw my brother, and even though she has been in caring hands, I ache to see my Madeleine again.

While the opening of Paris prisons and the release of the prisoners has rendered me free, and no longer fearful of return to the asylum, I am concerned the entire underworld of Paris — prisoners, beggars,
thieves and murderers — has all made south. People say that during this past summer, these thugs were crouching in the forests, biding their time to seize crops, slaughter beasts and burn every deed proving the existence of a family’s feudal rights.

It is as if the initial triumphs of our revolutionary battles have warped minds; swelled them into flaming wounds, and this underworld can think of nothing beyond recklessly looting and pillaging everything in its path.

We heard in some villages, they put all the women and children in the church, the tocsin to be sounded in the case of attack. Personally, I could think of nothing more likely to cause panic and fear than being shut inside a church with the incessant clanging from the belfry above my head.

What happened in Paris will happen throughout the country. My place is no longer here, Jeanne, I must return to Lucie and continue our revolutionary battle from there.

Of course, I have thought about the traitor, Léon Bruyère who interned me in la Salpêtrière. However, I will not be obliged to return to
L’Auberge des Anges
, or speak to him again. Apparently all Church property is to be passed to the nation, so I shall simply acquire some small abode in which to reside. Besides, why should that man stop me from returning to my village?

Certainly, I remain bound by the chains of my sadness, but I am free at least, to be, once more, Victoire Charpentier. I think, along with the country air, reclaiming Madeleine and assuring myself Lucie was spared from these brigands, will be a great comfort and give me inspiration to pen further scripts.

Since anti-aristocracy satire is, thankfully, a thing of the past, I shall now put my mind to evoking the plight of women — a subject that remains close to my heart.

Forever your loyal friend,

Victoire Charpentier

***

‘The diligence leaves tomorrow,’ I said to Claudine. ‘I’ve written to Grégoire, telling him of my return.’

‘Your brother will be pleased to see you after such an absence,’ Claudine said, as she crossed to the stove to brew tea.

I threw her a rueful smile. ‘And to learn his sister is no asylum madwoman.’

‘Of course I’ll miss you, but I understand why you must leave. Everything has taken its toll — the search for Rubie, Aurore’s death, this violent revolution. You are whey-faced and drawn, my child. Once you return to Lucie you’ll perhaps find the gladness inside you again.’

‘Yes, this fear of rogue bands sweeping the countryside may well have been born on rumour’s breath,’ I said, ‘and spread by all our fears, yet I must reassure myself.’

‘I’ll miss you too,’ I said, as Claudine sat opposite me.

She shrugged me off with a wave of a pudgy arm. ‘Do not worry for me. The new people here — a successful banker and his wife — are pleasant and happy to keep me on, as well as my …’ Claudine bent to pat Roux, weaving between her ankles and rubbing his cheek against her leg. ‘My new beau.’

‘Your beau?’

‘Ah, you never thought an old thing like me would get myself a man, eh, my child? He was
le majordome
at another defunct noble home further along the rue du Bac. Now he is the butler here.’ She winked. ‘You would do well too, Victoire, to find someone to stop this sadness that keeps haunting you.’

I smiled as she poured our tea. ‘I’m glad for you. You deserve the happiness of a good man.’

I slid the daily newspaper from my bag. ‘I want to show you something before I leave.’ I smoothed the newspaper out on the table.

‘In October, a
Second Memoir Justificatif de la Comtesse de Valois de la Motte
,’ I read, ‘much more barbed and venomous than her first, was rushed to the printers. Another direct attack on the Queen by Jeanne de Valois, it has stirred the mobs to a new frenzy. Some say of the countess: “Madame de la Motte’s voice alone brought on the horrors of July 14
^th
and the storming of Versailles in October, with the slaughter of troops by the Women’s Army
”.’

I sipped my tea. ‘And here is a quote from the countess: “From the moment of my arrival in London, my only thought was to publish my justification. I too would have preferred to spare the honour of the Queen, and I tried to warn her Majesty that I was in possession of certain letters incriminating her and exculpating me. All I asked in return was restitution of property rightfully mine, seized to enrich the King’s coffers. I never really considered the French court would capitulate, and besides, my main goal was public vindication. So, to this purpose, I eagerly took up my pen, denying my body nourishment and sleep until my memoirs should be ready for publication. Five thousand copies in French have now come off the press and three thousand more in English”.’

I refolded the newspaper. ‘It seems the readers of England and France can’t get enough of the countess’s memoirs.’

Claudine drank her tea, her eyes narrowing in the wise look I knew so well.

‘Ah, I begin to understand, my child. This countess was a prisoner at la Salpêtrière
n’est-ce pas
? One of the few who succeeded in fleeing the asylum prison, along with her personal maid?’

‘Didn’t I promise to tell you everything once it was safe?’ I said, kissing my friend goodbye.

With promises to write, I left Claudine, sliding a healthy sum of cash beside her kettle.

***

Beads of November rain, so fine they were barely visible, wet my face as I stepped up into the diligence.

The horses clomped off and I took a last look at bleak, wet Paris. Despite our revolutionary jubilation, something had vanished from the streets.

For one thing, there were fewer coaches, the thoroughfares bare of all but trading vehicles. Most of the bright cafés and small shops had boarded windows, with “To Sell” or “To Let” signs, and while many people still walked about, there were fewer loiterers, and most seemed intent on their business. The elaborate coaches and the magnificently dressed folk who’d ridden in them had clothed the capital in the kind of enchanted, fairy tale glitter I’d only dreamed of in books of fables. Now it looked just gloomy. With their martial air, the National Guard patrolling the streets did nothing to improve this drabness. At least they were protection against thieves.

The rain fell steadily, coursing in muddy channels down the street as we passed the Palais-Royal. Perhaps it was the absence of the Duke of Orléans and his household, who were in London, or that trade was slow, but the palace wore a forlorn, abandoned appearance.

The windows were shuttered, the paving full of puddles, the grand gates closed, with only the side gates open to admit people to the gardens and arcades. A circus after the circus is over.

As the diligence rumbled away from the
barrière
tollhouse, I left Paris with the odd feeling I would never return.

I ignored my fellow passengers, staring at the naked trees lining the streets, their limbs hanging at strange angles, and dotting the fields like scarecrows, as we rode away from the city. I felt as desolate and bare as those autumn trees.

Across a field, some sort of raptor was perched atop a dead tree, still and patient. I watched the mighty bird glide down onto an unseen carcass — a magical show against the silken backdrop of rain.

I turned from the window and caught the leer of a fat man in a dark suit, seated beside me. He leaned closer to speak, his rank smell catching in my nostrils.

‘Going all the way to Lyon, madame?’ he said.

I straightened my back and gave him a small nod, regretting this price I had to pay for travelling without a male escort. I glanced across at the woman opposite me, and envied her, journeying with her husband.

‘I hope none of those brigands are hanging about to steal our valuables,’ the dark-suited man said, a little further on, as the diligence stopped at the bottom of a hill. ‘All sorts of whisperings of bandits robbing and raping everything along the road,’ he went on, as we all descended and began walking up the slope, to save the horses’ energy.

‘Perhaps madame would care to walk alongside me,’ he said, his buckteeth giving him the comic air of a piglet. ‘For protection against such thugs?’

I was tempted, as I thought of the diamonds sewn into the hem of my dress.

‘Thank you, but no,’ I said, and at each night stopover, I avoided lingering in the common room of the inn, ordering dinner to be brought to my room. I also knew the spies, thugs and thieves of Paris travelled in many guises.