A Man in Uniform (4 page)

“Masson was trying to argue, very unconvincingly I might add, that friends and family matter more to him than politics,” Dubon
explained. “But we all know you are a careerist through and through, my friend.”

“Well, I don’t think that’s fair.”

Masson seemed hurt, and Dubon belatedly realized he had perhaps been tactless. Masson’s mother had come from an aristocratic line that could trace itself back centuries and she was always a high-strung character. His father, who simply called himself Baron Masson, was of humbler antecedents. He owed his title to a grandfather who had been useful to Napoléon, but the “de” in front of the surname was an addition his son had made only in recent years. The marriage between Masson’s parents had been a battlefield and Masson was in his final year at school when his mother, after several very public displays of jealous rage, took herself to bed with the laudanum bottle once and for all while his father sought solace in the arms of his longtime mistress. Nobody seemed to care much what happened to the adolescent Masson until Dubon’s parents took pity on him and allowed him to shelter in their less dramatic household. Masson had stayed with them for a full year during which he had slept in the room next to Dubon, who could hear him sometimes at night, crying himself to sleep like a little boy. After all the years that had intervened, Dubon still felt slightly protective toward him. A wife and children might have been a comfort to Masson, but he had gone into the diplomatic service directly after his graduation, traveled widely, and never married. Perhaps he did not want to repeat his parents’ mistake. Or had the families of prospective brides worried that Madame Masson’s notorious instability was a hereditary complaint?

“You have devoted yourself to the interests of the nation,” Dubon assured him. “You have had little time for anything else.”

“No, we don’t think of you as a family man, Baron,” Madame Fiteau piped in, “but if you were considering whether or not it might be time to marry, I know a very nice girl …”

“Ah, Madame. So thoughtful of you.”

At that moment a rather aggrieved-looking young woman moved toward them.

“But not this one,” Madame Fiteau added in a stage whisper. “Baron
de Masson, Madame Verry. Her husband shipped out to Hanoi last week so we are doing our very best to keep her cheerful.”

“Madame.” Masson bowed.

“My dear, you met Monsieur Dubon earlier, did you not? Dear Geneviève’s husband.”

“I believe I have the pleasure of the next dance,” Dubon said helpfully.

Madame Verry was a young military bride whom Madame Fiteau had taken under her wing in her husband’s absence, making sure all the men danced with her. Their collective efforts did not seem to be having much effect: Madame Verry grimaced at Dubon, rather like one whose shoes were hurting.

“The baron was just telling us he’s thinking of marriage,” Madame Fiteau continued, and Masson laughed.

“No really, Madame, you mistook me. My work continues to keep me busy. It would be no kind of life for a woman,” Masson replied.

“Nonetheless, you are not traveling so much these days.”

“Not so much.”

“But you are still keeping us safe from the Germans?”

“I do my best, Madame. They are, however, a formidable force.”

Dubon thought he detected a double irony here, as Masson, adopting the pose of one humbly accepting praise for keeping an entire nation secure, seemed to mock his own false modesty.

But if the man was anything less than sincere, Madame Fiteau did not notice, and she explained eagerly to Madame Verry, “The Baron de Masson is one of our great allies in government. The general always says you show a remarkable understanding of military affairs for a civilian, Baron.”

“He flatters me, Madame.”

“What we need is another war,” Madame Verry interrupted with vehemence.

“Another war, Madame?” Dubon asked, surprised.

“Yes, smash the Germans once and for all, pay them back for all the horrible things they have done.”

Her anger seemed out of place at a party and was embarrassing her
companions. Dubon could not think what to say, but Masson stepped in suavely.

“A decisive victory, you think? That is what is required?”

“Of course that is what is required. The government doesn’t give the army what it needs. I mean, the English, say what you will about the English, but at least they know who keeps them safe. They don’t stint their army or their navy. You wouldn’t catch them letting the troops wander about in ragged uniforms.”

Dubon wondered to himself if Lieutenant Verry—he assumed the man was only a lieutenant—was not too short of cash to have his uniforms made by a good tailor.

“Our politicians just don’t understand,” the lady continued. “All this talk about cutting the workweek. Nonsense put forward by the unions. The Socialists will ruin this country, just like they tried to in 1871. How are we ever going to win a war if men are afraid of a solid day’s work? And the government panders to them; those politicians and bureaucrats, they’d rather not work themselves.”

Masson raised an amused eyebrow for Dubon’s benefit, but Madame Verry appeared not to notice she had insulted the baron’s profession and sailed on.

“The army is not afraid of hard work—it can do the job—but it has to have the resources to do it.”

“You are entirely right, Madame. One can’t make something out of nothing,” Masson said smoothly. “And where did you say your husband is garrisoned? Ah yes, in Tongkin. Fascinating place.” He moved the conversation adroitly toward a discussion of the wondrous Orient until the music stopped and Dubon realized he must now take charge of the angry little Madame Verry.

He placed his arm around her and guided her confidently onto the dance floor. He thought nothing more tedious than women who attempted to maintain a serious conversation while dancing; he always found vague compliments and mild encouragement whispered in the lady’s ear were all that was required, but Madame Verry was not to be dissuaded from her tirade and kept it up around the dance floor.

“Oh, entirely, Madame,” Dubon shouted at her as he repositioned a gloved hand on her bony back and directed her away from a
particularly exuberant couple rounding them on the left. “The army was never properly supported during the last war; the mistake should not be repeated.”

He certainly hoped the mistake would not be repeated. He didn’t blame the army for France’s defeat at Germany’s hands; he blamed it on Napoléon III’s failure as a diplomat and tactician, and the last thing the new republic needed was another such fiasco. He didn’t think it was worth clarifying his position to Madame Verry, however. She could hardly have been more than a babe in arms at the time of the war. As she opened her mouth again, he quickly interrupted her to point this out.

“But surely, Madame, you were not yet born …”

“No, but my father fought the Germans, and then he had to fight the Socialists to stop them from taking over his own country. Just imagine what Paris would be like today if those Communards hadn’t been defeated. It would be anarchy.”

“Ah yes. Just imagine.” Dubon winced at the thought of how she might react if she knew his past. He had not only defended the Communards as a lawyer. During the brief, heady days of the Commune, as a young student with radical sympathies, he had run messages for them too. The leaders allowed each separate ward in the city to weigh in on every decision; swift young messengers were in high demand. He had done his bit—more than his bit—he would have been jailed had he been caught, but he had successfully disappeared back into his parents’ house when the crackdown began. His involvement was his little secret; only a few old comrades knew, and Geneviève and Masson, of course, who tolerated his past. Well, perhaps
tolerate
was too generous a word: they were prepared to ignore it and keep his secret. He would pay a heavy social price if anyone in the Fiteaus’ circle identified him as a former Communard.

“If we are ever going to win back Alsace and Lorraine from the Germans …” Madame Verry continued.

“I couldn’t agree with you more,” Dubon repeated, as he wondered how long this particular dance would last.

As he guided Madame Verry down the room, he glanced back enviously at Masson, who had somehow succeeded in keeping his dance
card blank and was sitting with their host. General Fiteau, his large form overflowing the cane chair designed to hold the lithe figures of the debutantes, looked out at the dancers but did not seem to see them, as though distracted by whatever his companion had to say. Masson sat erect on the chair next to him and his trimmer physique with its square shoulders seemed to dominate the general’s. The baron had always been tall and he had filled out with age; the gangly young Masson was now quite an impressive specimen, Dubon realized with some surprise.

Masson angled his torso slightly toward the general, offering advice or urging his opinion on the man. How assiduously Masson courted the military set, Dubon noted. If the diplomat who had graced the salons of Berlin and St. Petersburg felt Madame Verry and her ilk were beneath him, he certainly did not show it. Masson now gestured toward a couple who floated by as though to make some point and the general nodded almost sadly in agreement.

As Dubon watched them, he caught a movement in the corner of his eye. At the far end of the room, the little door in the paneling of the salon had opened slightly and a head now peeked out. It was the pimply young Fiteau. He peered about anxiously as though seeking someone. He then turned his head over his shoulder, as though a person in the room behind him had spoken, and quickly withdrew behind the little door.

Finally, the music stopped and Dubon could release Madame Verry, bowing effusively. She was scooped up again by Madame Fiteau and a relieved Dubon sank into the background, happily remembering that he was unpartnered for the next dance. He looked around, pondering his next social move, and noticed one of his brothers-in-law entering the ballroom from the salon. It was Major Pierre de Ronchaud Valcourt, Geneviève’s older brother and eldest of her five siblings, resplendent in the blue tunic and red trousers of his regimental dress. He was a cavalry officer and held a position that kept him happily in Paris or in the provinces, drinking and card-playing with his colleagues when not exercising his horse. He had failed to inherit any of the military genius that had made his father so successful, but since the family had
also failed to inherit any of the land historically associated with the Valcourt name, he had decided to follow his father into the army to supplement his share of the family income. Not that he resented this, since he lacked the imagination to think of any other life and was perfectly content with the company of his fellow officers, his pretty wife, and his two rather silly daughters and their many friends.

“Dubon! Over here!” he croaked in a stage whisper as he tugged on the lawyer’s arm. He pulled Dubon toward him and then stepped behind him so that he was partly hidden from view. “Come and protect me from the captain. He’s off on one of his rants.”

And indeed, Captain Jean-Marie de Ronchaud Valcourt, the earnest younger brother whom Geneviève still affectionately called Jean-Jean, could be seen steaming across the salon in their direction, though he sailed by without a glance. His target, they realized, was General Fiteau, who was now standing with Masson but had also been joined by a lady, perhaps his partner for the next dance. They watched as Jean-Jean saluted his superior sharply before launching into a long preamble.

“He’s got some bee in his bonnet about the artillery,” the major explained, as he and Dubon eavesdropped tactfully from a distance. “Something about making the field guns quicker to reload if you could stop the recoil. He’s probably right. He usually is, but it’s beyond me.” Jean-Jean, a young captain in the artillery with a passion for his guns, had inherited his father’s professional understanding of war but lacked his tactical skills in dealing with the world beyond the battlefield. He was now clearly bothering his host.

“The recoil on the new 120 is ferocious, General,” they heard Jean-Jean say. “It just hasn’t lived up to our hopes. We are still wasting precious moments repositioning the guns and reloading them after we have fired. It’s really a question of the brakes. The right advances in hydraulics—”

The general cut him off: “We mustn’t bore the ladies with these technical matters, Captain. I’m sure what you say is right; you must take it to your superiors.”

“I have spoken to—”

“I owe the marquise this dance,” the general said decisively, turning to the lady and leading her away.

“What do you say, Dubon? Shall we rescue the boy?” the major inquired as they watched his brother now tagging after the general and the marquise.

“Captain,” the major bellowed. “We need you over here. You’ve got to settle a little dispute I’m having with dear Dubon.”

Jean-Jean turned toward the sound of his brother’s voice and, in response to some frantic waving from the major, beat a rather awkward retreat toward them.

“I was just explaining to the general that the point is the brakes—” he began, but his brother stopped him.