Spirit of Lost Angels (26 page)

Dear Madam Wollstonecraft,

I was overjoyed to receive your reply.

I imagine you heard we patriots won our first revolutionary victory when the Bastille fell? As terrible as it was for me to witness the death and destruction, I know we must continue to fight, to be part of the women’s voice of Paris.

Of course, this also inspires me to write more deeply on our female fate, and I am happy to report the plays of the Scarlet Enchantress continue to be successful, despite these turbulent times.

To refer to your comment, I too felt sorrow for the Queen, at the death of the Dauphin.

However, contrary to popular belief, I believe Marie Antoinette did grieve deeply for her daughter, Sophie-Beatrix. Whatever mistakes she has made as Queen of France, she is a bereaved mother. I cannot forget that.

In your wish to keep abreast of our political situation, I inform you our King has capitulated and even wears the tricolour cockade now: blue and red for the colours of Paris, and white for the Crown. The Assembly has drafted a Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen, which spells freedom from oppression, arbitrary arrest, the presumption of innocence in criminal proceedings, freedom of religion and opinion, and the equality of all before the law. Access to the judicial system is to be free. Judges no longer purchase their functions but are now appointed based on merit, and commoners are no longer barred from any profession.

As wonderful as all this sounds, Madam Wollstonecraft, women appear to have been excluded as far as equality goes. Still we have no voice. Still we work for less than half a man’s wage. Still we cannot vote. Still we are inferior!

I had the great pleasure recently, of reading your book —
Mary, A Fiction
. I so admire your heroine’s strong opinions, her independence and capability to define femininity and marriage for herself.

I hope this letter finds you well, and I look forward to your reply.

With the honour to be your friend,

Rubie Charpentier

***

After the fall of the Bastille, I no longer had reason to fear the Marquis or his wife, or any other noble. The
ancien régime
was finished, the privileges of our feudal society abolished, and it seemed we were embarking on a new era of happiness and liberty.

As odd as it felt to stand again under the coach porch on the rue du Bac, I was quite unperturbed, knowing the Marquis was no longer even in Paris. I toyed with a loose red curl, realising I did not need my disguise now. Perhaps I would keep it though, proud as I was to be known as the Scarlet Enchantress.

A maid opened the door and the minute I stepped inside, I sensed everything was different. Only a scatter of servants remained; none wore livery and the Marquis de Barberon’s coat of arms had been erased from every surface. There was no cloying scent of the Marquise’s floral perfume and the air seemed to resonate with an odd, quiet emptiness.

Claudine’s kitchen, however, was the same gleaming haven I recalled. Roux was asleep on a cushion in his favourite chair.

‘
Dieu merci
you are safe, my child.’ Claudine’s sturdy hands gripped my shoulders. ‘I was so afraid for you and Aurore. We heard hundreds were killed and maimed at the Bastille.’

Claudine pushed the scowling, tail-swishing Roux from the chair, and I sat as she started brewing tea. Roux immediately jumped onto my lap and curled up again.

‘Still the best mouser in Paris?’ I said, stroking the orange fur. ‘You said in your message the Marquis and his wife have gone?’

Claudine nodded. ‘Fled to some family estate in the country. The servants could have gone too, but what would I want with a new place at my age? Marie went, but she’s young.’ She sat opposite me. ‘Oh I know everybody is jumping with joy, embracing strangers in the street, young girls wreathed in orange blossom in thanksgiving for the Bastille’s fall, but what of an old woman, Victoire? Can I call you Victoire again?’

‘Yes, well …. yes, but what do you mean, what of you?’

‘The house is to be rented to new people,’ she said with a sigh, ‘and I have no idea what will become of me; of those left inside it.’

I laid a hand on my friend’s arm. ‘I’ll never see you without food or shelter. How could I forget all you did for an impoverished scullery maid?’

Roux lifted his head for me to tickle under his chin. ‘Speaking of food, I don’t know what to make of these rumours of the King and Queen withholding bread from us, to crush our spirit of revolt,’ I said. ‘There’s talk of a women’s army marching to Versailles.’

Claudine filled two teacups with the fragrant, steaming liquid. ‘I imagine you and Aurore will be marching with them?’

‘Aurore certainly,’ I said. ‘But the savagery sickens me. You know how my parents suffered at the hands of a violent, soulless system. This callous use of force sits uneasily in my mind.’

I slid the teacup towards me. ‘And as much as that boils my blood, and makes me want to fight against it, I cannot condone such barbarous cruelty.’

‘I understand, my child, your nature is not one of violence.’

‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘I didn’t come to talk about that. I’ve come for another reason — something important.’

As Claudine blew on her tea, I told her about seeing Rubie at the Bastille celebration, and how I’d tried to follow her, and lost her in the crowd. ‘I’m sure it was her. She had my face … she wore the angel pendant. She was wearing a red dress.’

Claudine frowned. ‘A red dr — ?’

‘Oh I know that doesn’t mean anything. It’s just that I have always imagined her in a red dress … her name, perhaps. But it
was
Rubie, I know it!’

‘But of all the children in Paris, my child, all the orphan
 
—’

‘They called her Rubie, Claudine. I know it was my daughter.’ The hot tea scalded my lips.

‘You and Aurore must have been exhausted. You’d not slept or eaten. You were probably seeing things that weren’t there. The mind plays trick
 
—’

‘My mind was quite clear. I know what I saw.’ I sipped my tea.

‘I went back to the church where I left her basket. I met the priest there — the brother of our priest from Lucie. He told me they took Rubie, like all abandoned babies, to the foundling hospital at L’Hôpital Général de la Salpêtrière! You can imagine the shock when I discovered my Rubie had been in such a terrible place.’ The cup shook as I put it back on the saucer. ‘I’ve seen the orphanage nurseries there. I know how those wretched infants are neglected, so many of them simply left to die.’

‘Did you discover what happened to Rubie?’

‘I knew I wouldn’t find out anything about her at la Salpêtrière, they’ll have destroyed all the records. Besides, even though the prisons were opened and the prisoners freed after the Bastille fell, and I have all but erased those dreaded underground dungeons
from my mind, I don’t want to revisit what memories I have the misfortune to hang onto.’ I scratched Roux’s head.

‘Ah yes, I understand,’ Claudine said. ‘The mysterious asylum escape.’

I waved an arm. ‘Nothing too mysterious really — I managed to flee that Hell with another prisoner I was lucky enough to befriend — a generous woman who left me funds to keep me more than comfortable. That’s why I can help you, and Aurore. There are enough livres for all of us. So, now you know everything.’

Claudine refilled my cup. ‘Well I am relieved to learn you’re not some man’s mistress, being paid for your services.’

‘I told you I had no lover, Claudine.’

‘I thought you might be keeping it from me. You’ve been secretive about so much. So, yes, now I know everything, but you know nothing of Rubie, and for that I’m sorry for you, my child.’

‘Oh I can imagine what happened to her,’ I said. ‘A
nourrice
from the orphanage nursery told me they keep the babies a week, then send them out to wet-nurses.’

‘Ah yes, I have heard of this plight of our foundlings,’ Claudine said. ‘It is a sad thing, Victoire, but most of those babies never survive the journey.’

‘But Rubie did! I saw her. She’s alive, here in Paris. And I’m going to find her.’ I finished my second cup of tea. ‘After all, doesn’t anything, and everything, seem possible in this new era of happiness and liberty?’

***

On that October morning, three months after the fall of the Bastille, an uneasy calm hung over the streets of Paris.
It was as if the prison storming had been only the first small wave of discontent, and that some great seism was gathering force, ready to break apart and swamp the entire country.

I had not found Rubie. The words of all the people I spoke to echoed in my head like one continuous drumbeat.

Perished … dead … deceased
.

I was almost convinced my daughter hadn’t survived her journey from the orphanage to the wet-nurse. Claudine was right, in the fug of my exhausted brain the night the Bastille burned, I had simply imagined Rubie.

Dawn was quiet and chilly, the little shops still shuttered, as Aurore and I joined my salon friends — Sophie, Olympe and Manon — and the rest of the women marching along the slop-damp cobbles to the low beat of a solitary drum.

When it came light, there were still no coaches or presentable souls about, besides a few clerks hurrying to their offices. All the gardeners though, mounted on their nags, baskets empty as they headed out of town, gaped at the communal stride of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of women.

‘Neither our mayor, Jean-Sylvian Bailly, nor General Lafayette can ensure we have bread!’ Olympe, our self-elected representative, proclaimed to the group who had gathered in front of the Hôtel de Ville. ‘They are withholding bread to crush our spirits!’ She flung an arm in the direction of a bakery shop, and its “No Bread” sign.

‘String them up from the streetlights!’ a woman shouted back.

‘Since the men of our city are unable to put bread on our tables,’ Olympe continued, ‘the women of Paris will march upon Versailles and demand bread.’

‘Let’s go and see the baker, and the baker’s wife!’ a woman shrieked.

A hail of cheers and applause smothered her words, children blew bugles and rang bells, and an even greater knot of women assembled in the Tuileries gardens.

The sky turned dark and cloudy as we marched along the Cours de la Reine with our makeshift weapons: pitchforks, broomsticks, pikes and swords. Six drummers headed our procession, alongside two women riding on cannons. We all boasted the tricolour cockade and carried leafy branches, as we had three months earlier when we took the Bastille.

‘Are we truly going to fire cannons on the palace?’ Aurore said.

‘Of course not,’ I said with a wry smile. ‘We have no powder. They’re only for effect.’

‘What a pity,’ she said. ‘How I would love to see the Austrian whore blown to bits!’

Aurore reminded me of that enraged lioness from
Les Barreaux de la Liberté
, back arched and tail swishing. ‘However can I calm this hate you carry inside?’ I said.

‘I’ll be calm the day I see the Queen’s head roll,’ Aurore said, striding out ahead as we approached the
Barrière des Bonshommes
tollhouse.

‘We certainly must fight for what is rightfully ours,’ Olympe said, ‘but like a woman, Aurore, who uses her head, and not like a man, who uses only his stiff cock!’

Laughter and giggles rose from the crowd as we marched on, through steadily falling rain.

Dusk fell and Sophie handed around hunks of cheese and cold meat, and that rain-drenched food seemed the best thing I’d tasted.

Flanked by friends, I couldn’t help feeling imbued with their energy and determination throughout that rainy day, but as we approached the royal palace, my foreboding grew.

‘If slander and malice could kill, blood would flow knee-high in this place,’ I said.

‘With no one spared the treachery and deception, least of all the King and Queen,’ Sophie said, as we plodded on, cold and drenched, down the broad alley leading to the palace.

‘Look, they’ve drawn the gates across the entrance,’ Manon said. ‘They must have had word we were coming.’

‘Good, let the Queen tremble in her golden nightgown,’ Aurore said. ‘Let her shit herself with fear!’

We all laughed — a shivery laugh — as we joined in the chant from the palace gardens: ‘
Du pain, du pain, du pain
,’
 
a monotonous drone against the cold drizzle.

A group of fifteen chosen women, Olympe amongst them, disappeared into the palace to appear before the King, to voice the grain-hoarding rumours.

When we heard nothing from inside, a band of women, more agitated than the rest, broke off from the crowd. Brandishing their clubs and meat-cleavers, and calling for the blood of the Austrian whore, they stormed into the palace.

‘We’ll fricassee her liver!’ a woman shouted.

‘I’ll make lace out of her bowels!’ Aurore shrieked, joining the angry mob.