Annette Vallon: A Novel of the French Revolution (38 page)

Therefore, in your best interests as well as that of your family,
we have chosen the traditional solution—that of putting the child
out to nurse with a fine, caring mother whom you can visit regularly.

When any hint of scandal is blown over, you even may be able to
return the baby to your bosom and say, perhaps, that the husband
was a patriot killed in the wars, but for now we believe it the most
prudent approach to let the baby live with this kind woman, who will
care for her as her own, for she recently lost the infant that God gave
her. We also thought it best if you did not know—at least until the
baby is secure in its new surroundings—of the address of this noble
woman. But rest assured, we will let you know in a short time.

Pity your mother, too, for this difficult decision which she has
made. It is a cruel world, and we all must pay the consequences of
our actions as is our due. I have faith that you will see, sometime in
the future, the prudence of this choice, and will, if you are unable
to forgive, at least understand, why this course was taken. Have
courage, my dear. We are born to suffer. Resignation is the wisest
path.

With unreserved affection for you and for Angelique, who must witness this,

your Maman.

I sat on the bottom stair and wept. As in a dream I felt Claudette on one side, Angelique on the other, lead me to a couch. I felt a hot cup of Claudette’s tisane put in my hand. I smelled its mixture of mint and hibiscus. I took a sip and felt its warmth flow into a body I did not own. No one tried to say anything to me. I finally slept late that night and had a dream of children drowning in the river and of myself fighting to save them, and of little hands slipping away under the cold, dark water. When I awoke I was convinced that I would not let my baby be taken from me; somehow, as I had tried to do in the dream, I would fight to save her. But unlike the dream, I would succeed. I was living without my husband. I could not also live without my child.

My plan was simple, as usual. Claudette, Angelique, and I would visit the churches in Orléans, ask the curates if we could see the baptism registry—no baby, even in these secular times, went unbaptized, for some old “superstitions” died hard, and the new government approved of meticulous records of its populace, by any means. We would also see if any of these babies had recently died in this cold winter, leaving a mother still able to nurse. (It would have been impractical to have taken an infant all the way to Blois, and Maman did mention that I would be able to visit her, so she must be in Orléans, I reasoned.) We would say we were looking for an illegitimate child of an unfortunate woman in our family whom we couldn’t name, and we wanted to let the mother know she wasn’t deserted by her family and that we would help provide for her. In case these curates needed encouragement, we piled together coins we had brought with us from Blois—not the new, worthless
assignat
paper money—Angelique put it all in her purse. It would have to do.

My mind was clear now, not clouded by any trace of emotion except the drive to succeed in my enterprise. Angelique said I frightened her a little. I said I hoped I frightened the curates into complying, the pseudo mother into submitting. We walked first to the ancient Saint-Pierre-le-Puellier; the curate was amenable but his information was less forthcoming. Then, with Monsieur Dubourg now concerned for me—his wife, having allegiance to my mother, would not side with me, even though she herself was distraught with the loss of the first infant ever in her house—he loaned us the use of his carriage and of his groom, Alain, with the instructions that he also be our chaperone. Alain drove us to Saint-Donatien, then across the rue Royale to Notre-Dame-de-Recouvrance. At these two churches the curates informed us that a constitutional priest from Blois had been there, just several days ago, asking the same question. It must be a very important family, he said. That priest must have been sent by Maman and Vergez to find a likely nursing mother. We were on the right path.

I felt a little like a medieval pilgrim, visiting all the holy shrines of the city. We had not had to use any of our savings, but all these mothers, their names written faithfully in the ledgers, had been fortunate and not lost an infant in the last week or so. We thought we would have better luck at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, with its larger registry, but I had a feeling Vergez, if he had a choice, would prefer a mother of the classes who baptized their children in the local church of an old quarter. She would be less likely to mix with society. The Dubourgs and I had used the cathedral for Caroline, and I also didn’t want to be recognized. So we entered the little church of Notre-Dame-de-Miracles. There we found that one Catherine Mora had lost a child last week. The visiting priest had also noticed her name. She lived just a short distance away.

We passed down a street of brick and half-timbered houses. On our right was an archway to a square. Angelique said softly, Isn’t that the house where Joan of Arc stayed? Papa told me that once, she said.

I nodded. In an alley behind Joan’s old house was the address that Madame Mora had given. It was a
boucherie
. She must have married the butcher. I wondered if he were going to give us a hard time. We had come prepared to pay.

The ancient half-timbered houses here seemed to be leaning over us. Alain stopped the carriage right along one of the walls, so he would not block the entire alley. Women, children, and older men crowded around us. It must be a strange sight, I thought, a carriage stopping in their alley. It was a bit of a show for them. Alain pushed through foul-smelling people, and we followed in his wake into the small shop that smelled of fresh meat. Alain went back to stay with the carriage.

Now Angelique had a plan, to be used flexibly in whatever establishment we might need to look for Caroline. She said she and Claudette had rehearsed it early that morning, while I slept.

A trail of interested persons stayed near the door, and a big woman behind the counter stared at us. Her hair was cut in bangs straight across her forehead; her face was square and red, and when she wiped her hands on the dried blood on her apron and asked us what we ladies wanted, her voice was more intimidating than her looks.

“We hear this is an excellent
boucherie
for veal,” Claudette said.

“Yes, it is, what cut do you want?” the woman asked, as though she were accusing us of something.

Then Angelique screamed, threw her arms in the air, and fell, caught by Claudette. The catching was perfectly timed.

“Is there some place where she can lie down?” Claudette asked.

“This is serious. She is ill. She is having an attack.”

“I don’t want any attacks in my shop. This is a healthy
boucherie
. Get her out. I don’t want attacks in my shop.”

But Claudette had loosened Angelique’s blouse, and Angelique’s knees were up and her arms flailing and her tongue sticking out to one side. The people who had followed behind us were staring at her and blocking the door.

“Have mercy, Madame,” Claudette said. “She needs to lie with her knees and head up, without people staring at her, until it passes. It’s not good for your business to have her here on the floor either, and we cannot take her through all the people to the carriage. Do you have a room she can be in, just until it passes?”

“Take her in the back room and do not come out until it has left her. Over there.” She pointed.

I looked at Claudette, and we each took one of Angelique’s arms and dragged her, moaning and kicking, across the dirty floor. The citizens who had followed us continued to stare at her, and at her legs and petticoats as she kicked.

The
bouchère
lectured us as she walked beside us. “They used to say people like her were possessed. I say she is possessed by weak blood. I can tell she is upper bourgeoisie, or aristocrat. Look at those petticoats and underthings; who else could afford those? And she has no shame, showing them like that. Nothing like this has ever happened in my shop. Now I am like the parlor of a brothel, the way those people are staring at her. Pull her dress down. Put her there, on those sacks. Never come back in my shop, ever, and leave as soon as the spirits or whatever it is have left her. You know it is because you all have weak blood. You have intermarried and ruined yourselves. Your children, if you can have any, should marry strong people from the citizenry. That alone will save your kind.” With one last glance at Angelique, whose eyes were rolled back and whose tongue was still sticking out,
la femme de la boucherie
left and slammed the door behind her.

Angelique was lying on a pile of brown paper sacks and soiled aprons, streaked with dried blood. In the middle of the room stood a table, also stained, with a butcher knife lying on it. Carcasses of rabbits, chickens, and geese, their legs tied together, were hanging upside down from hooks in the ceiling and blankly staring at us. A half-skinned pig dangled from an enormous hook in the corner by a canvas bag full of ducks. A dark wing with a velvet strip of green protruded from the bag. Beside the pig carcass, an open door led to narrow stairs, winding upward. We heard the
bouchère
yelling at people in her shop to leave unless they were going to buy something.

“I’m going up those stairs,” I said.

“I’ll talk to the chickens,” Angelique said.

She sat up and brushed herself off, and Claudette and I went up the stairs. It was dark, and we had to turn three times, my shoulders brushing the narrow walls as I raced up. At the top there was a little kitchen on our left, and a sitting room just before us, with the shutters open and cold February light coming in. A small fire licked the grate.

To our right was an open door into a dark, shuttered room. I blindly rushed into it, hitting my leg on a table. Now I could make out a crib in the corner and, I thought, some color there in the dim room. I ran around a bed and leaned over the crib and caught my breath. The pink cap as if glowed out of the shadows of the room. I snatched her into my arms. I was crying and kissing her and talking to the waking Caroline as we quickly pattered down the narrow stairs. I had no plan but holding her tight.

Then we were in the small back room of the
boucherie
, with the audience of dead animals, and Angelique brightly coming up to me and kissing me, delighted by the success of her scheme. Claudette murmured, “I’ll look for a back way out.”

“No,” I said, “I want to talk with that woman.”

“Don’t do that,
chérie
,” said Angelique, “it will accomplish nothing; let us leave, now.”

“That would be wrong,” I said. “I don’t want to do to her what Maman and Vergez did to me.”

“She will not listen to you,” Angelique said.

But I was out of the room and into the shop. Before I could say anything the woman saw me and screamed, “What are you doing with my baby?”

She lunged at me and tried to seize Caroline, but my arms were locked. The woman pulled at my arms with her strong hands and screamed, “You deceiving aristocrats! You think everything is yours for the taking. I show you mercy, and you pay me back by stealing my baby because you cannot have any.” Her strong arms wrung at me, and I do not know how I kept my arms bound around Caroline.

“
Au secours!
Help!” the woman shouted in Caroline’s little shell ears.

“They are stealing my baby!”

Caroline began to wail, and people rushed back in from outside the shop. “Arrest the aristocrats!” one shouted; “The kidnappers!”

“Make your own children,” one yelled in my face as she joined Madame Mora in trying to pry my arms apart.

“She is mine!” I was shouting back, but no one attended to me in the tumult. Someone tore at my clothes. I did not think I could keep my arms together any longer. Caroline was screaming, now, and I saw Alain’s large, frowning face at the door of the shop. He was pushing aside the mob to get to us.

“Give her to me,” Madame Mora yelled, “Give me back my baby. She’s mine.”

“She’s mine,” I screamed through my tears. Caroline was slipping away from my grasp, red-faced and choking from her sobs. Then Claudette was behind Madame Mora, holding the butcher knife from the back room at the woman’s throat. All was suddenly quiet except for the wailing of Caroline.

“Now you will listen to me,” I said, “since you will not listen any other way. It is I who should say, ‘Give me back my baby,’ for you know she is not yours. How much is Monsieur Vergez paying you?

How much?”

“It is a lie.”

“How much?”

Caroline’s screams had called milk from my breasts, and I could see, just above her red-stained apron, tied high on her waist, the woman’s cotton blouse was damp in the same place.

“I need to nurse my baby; may I sit down?” I said.

The mistress of the
boucherie
looked at me hard with the big knife under her big chin, which did not tremble, and she waved at the people in the shop, “Everyone out. I will talk with this deceiver. I do not need you; out.”

They left slowly, muttering and sullen, and Claudette withdrew the knife. I nodded to Alain, and he left too, but stood guard outside.

“I need to nurse her,” I said and was unbuttoning my blouse.

“I can do it,” Madame Boucher said, and again tried to grab at Caroline’s little pleated linen dress, but I quickly put Caroline to my breast. The woman’s red hands rested on her tiny head a moment, and when the woman looked at me again, her eyes were wet. I sat on the sawdust floor, leaned my back against the wall, and continued nursing.

“She is mine, too,” the woman said, standing above me. She had suddenly become gentle in her bigness, and her voice had changed also. I liked her now and felt sorry for her as she loomed above me like a ship. “Her name is Marie-Louise,” the woman continued. “It is a beautiful name. I bore her and birthed her and then one morning she did not wake up. I screamed at her, then at God to help us, but she did not wake, and God did not seem to hear. They say now God is just an idea, but I was not raised that way. A priest had pity on me, and through him, God supplied me with a new child, before my breasts dried up. The priest said she was the illegitimate child of an aristocrat who was putting it out to nurse and who would pay me for my pains of keeping her. It was only fair and moral. I would give Marie-Louise a good home. You cannot keep her; she would cause you scandal. It is your pay for having an illegitimate child. A payment of the decadent aristocracy to the citizenry.”