Daughters of the Storm (4 page)

Summoned by a reluctant king to help him make some sense of the financial crisis that threatened to swamp the country, the representatives were hastily billeted on the inhabitants of the town, bringing with them a flavour of provincial France and a medley of strange accents. Crowding into the already packed corridors of the great palace of Versailles, many of them felt ill at ease and resentful but they debated and plotted with the fervour of those who considered themselves men of the hour. Many of them could ill afford the time spent away from their land and homes, and longed for the comfort of familiar food and surroundings, but all of them, increasingly bitter at their political impotence, considered they had a duty to perform. And no amount of well-calculated snubs from their ecclesiastical or aristocratic superiors was going to deflect them from the business of making the voice of the Third Estate heard.

‘We are given hope,' declaimed Mirabeau, the fiery, ugly, eloquent noble who had crossed the floor to join the Third Estate. ‘We are given hope that we are beginning the history of man.'

And in the days of political confusion that followed when the Estates-General was reborn in the guise of the National Assembly, and during the years after when France erupted, many of them remembered those words...

Mirabeau's words filtered through Paris's network of streets, inflaming emotions already at fever pitch. In the dens and drinking houses, men held forth on the horrifying price of corn and the ever-present threat of a foreign army invading the capital. They harangued each other over the antics of the spendthrift bitch of a queen, the corruptions of the ministers, the sufferings of the people, and every so often they went on the rampage, to the terror of their neighbours.

In the most fashionable area of the city, crowds gathered regularly in the gardens of the Palais Royal where they fanned out between the trees and fountains. A pot-pourri of gossip and rabble-rousing invective providing huge entertainment. Audiences were often thickest in the cafés and this was true when a young lawyer held forth on the night of July 13th, 1789, from a table at the Café Toy. There was no trace in his speech of his customary painful stammer as he called to the people to take their destiny into their own hands.

‘To the Bastille,' he cried. ‘Patriots take action.'

The crowd cheered and yelled its approval. The orator tossed his long, curly hair out of his eyes and his yellowish complexion took on a pink flush of excitement. Desmoulins reached beneath his coat and, with a dramatic flourish, drew out two pistols.

‘I will never fall alive into the hands of the police,' he thundered. ‘They are watching us, citizens.
Aux armes, mes amis.'

Desmoulins adjusted the green cockade in his hat – emblem of hope and liberty. Cheering him to the echo, his inflamed audience spilled into the street. Within a few hours the assault on the Bastille had begun.

Chapter 2

Marie-Victoire rubbed her sweating forehead with her free arm. The other held a length of lace that she was ironing clamped on to a bench. Beside her a growing pile of freshly pressed nightgowns and undergarments was stacked on a table. A larger bundle lay as yet unpressed in the basket at her feet.

She sighed. It would take an hour or more, at least, to finish her work and she was hot and tired, and longed to escape and walk in the fields before throwing herself on to her attic bed. The heat in the kitchens was bad today. The heat was bad anyway, spreading like a thick covering through the rooms which were normally so cool and dim, and sent tempers soaring and food to spoil. Through the door she could see the maids heaving pans and dishes around the big kitchen, and hear Claude's petulant tones as he laboured to create yet another new dish to please his masters.

She lifted the flat-iron off the board and tested it with a wetted finger. It was too cold. Crossing over to the great range, she removed the second flat-iron that was heating, replaced the first and returned to her task. How efficient she was, she thought, for she knew had a real talent for this kind of work and did it with artistry and grace. Anything that came under Marie-Victoire's deft fingers underwent a sea-change: crumpled bits of linen turned into shirts, lace took on a new life and the most complicated pleats and goffered edges fell into place. Mademoiselle Héloïse, the youngest de Guinot, often remarked on this gift and encouraged Marie-Victoire to try her hand at dress-making, and she was proving an apt pupil. Madame Cécile, Héloïse's married sister, had declared that only Marie-Victoire might attend to her clothes whenever she resided at La Joyeuse. As a consequence, Marie-Victoire was kept busy through the daylight hours and often well into the night, for their demands were heavy. But she was thankful to have such a role to fulfil. It gave her purpose which she needed. It was a way of getting over the grief for her mother, Marie, who had died the previous year, leaving her quite alone.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a familiar figure sidling through the kitchen towards the drying room.

‘What are you doing here?' she asked. ‘You should be with the horses.'

‘Looking for you, of course,' replied Jacques Maillard.

The odours of the stable brought in by Jacques warred with the clean, starchy smell of her ironing. Marie-Victoire . Jacques was becoming a nuisance and she wished he would leave her alone.

‘Go away.' She banged down the iron and wiped her wet hands on her apron. ‘I have too much to do. Mademoiselle Héloïse is expecting visitors from England and I want to have everything of Mademoiselle Héloïse's in order before they arrive.'

‘Come for a walk,' he said. ‘I want to ask you something.'

‘Can't you ask me here?'

She knew that look. Jacques' chin took on an obstinate set and his black eyes narrowed. Another bee had settled in his bonnet. Normally, she was content to listen to the outpourings – and Jacques was becoming increasingly vociferous in his views, for he nourished as sorts of strange ideas well above his station as a de Guinot stable-lad. But today she felt too tired and wished be alone in the peace of the evening.

‘Go away,' she said again. ‘Another time, Jacques.'

He frowned and made as if to speak, but then thought better of it. Marie-Victoire went on ironing.

‘How about this?' he said at last. ‘I've got some bread and sausage. We could eat it together.'

He held up a cloth-wrapped package. Marie-Victoire softened. Jacques looked so eager to please her and it was a small request.

‘All right,' she ran through her tasks in her head. ‘If I have time I'll come and fetch you from the stables. But I won't promise anything.'

Jacques dropped the frown. ‘Good,' he said. ‘Don't forget. I shall be waiting.'

A little troubled, she watched his tall, almost emaciated, form disappear out of the kitchen and wished that her mother was here. When, finally, she stacked the last chemise into the basket and went to lay the ironing on the racks to air, the evening was well advanced. The frenzy in the kitchen had reached a peak, for tonight the de Guinots were holding a card party to be followed by a late supper. Nothing too elaborate, for they were still in mourning for the marquis' mother, the Maréchale de Guinot, who had died a couple of months previously, but elaborate enough to keep Claude at a pitch of hysteria.

Marie-Victoire hovered at the kitchen door. Perhaps, after all, she could give Jacques the slip and pretend that she had gone straight to bed, or even that she had been required to attend the marquise. The idea was irresistible . With an ease of born of years of playing truant from her mother, she melted into the shadow thrown by the kitchen wing, skirted the yard and struck out towards the fields to the north of the château. It did not take long to to reach her favourite meadow, where she stood and leaned on the gate that led into the vineyard.

The air was warm and kind on the skin. Flies swarmed above a puddle but the peace was miraculous. Marie-Victoire felt her body soften and relax with relief. Rubbing the back of her neck where it ached, she hitched her skirts higher to enjoy the air playing around her ankles. Her head throbbed and she rested her elbows on the gate and pressed her fingers into the soft spot at her temples.

After a minute or two, she looked up. I shall miss this, she thought, and tried to imagine for the thousandth time what Paris would be like. It was so far away, twenty-five miles at least, an unknown place – full of noise, strange ways and... and wickedness? Still, she was lucky to get the opportunity to see it and she had better make the most of it.

Unlike Jacques, Marie-Victoire had no illusions as to her place. Even if she had, Marie would have quickly dunned them out of her. Marie-Victoire was expected to serve the de Guinots for life, thankful for employment and a roof over her head. And that was that. As such she was sure of a regular supply of cast-off clothes, a kind word now and then which Mademoiselle Héloïse, at least, would be sure to give her and a place on one of the estates if she got too old or too ill to work any longer. It sounded well enough and Marie-Victoire understood very well that her position was infinitely better than many she knew.

A hand slid round her waist and she jumped.

Thinking of me?' said a voice from behind.

‘Oh, it's you,' said Marie-Victoire, repressing a sigh. ‘You gave me a start.'

‘I meant to,' Jacques sounded sour. ‘I have been watching you for some time. Why did you not come as you promised?'

Marie-Victoire shrugged at Jacques's tone. She had heard it often and knew it was best to ignore it.

‘Because...,' she said flatly.

Definitely, Jacques was in one of his moods and she was too weary to humour him. Wooing him into good humour was one of the things he seemed to crave of her. Sometimes I feel I know him so well, she thought, and yet increasingly I don't understand him at all. In fact, there are times when he almost frightens me.

She waited for the usual invective and resolved to keep her temper.

The son of the chief groom at La Joyeuse, Jacques had known Marie-Victoire all his life and from the beginning had claimed her for his own property. As grubby children, they had played in the fields and claimed the stables as their private territory. Neither of them had paid much attention to the others of their age because they had found each other's company more than sufficient, and there were often pitched battles between them and hostile gangs.

‘Who cares about them?' Jacques would say, scrubbing his bloodied fists into his eyes. ‘They are sheep.' And he would be even angrier if the more moderate Marie-Victoire showed signs of conciliation.

As he grew older, he became more vehement. He had never liked La Joyeuse or the de Guinots, whom he saw as enemies to be fought with lies and guile. ‘Why not? They have everything we do not. And they want our lives. Every last bit of us to suck dry.' Over the years, Jacques must have spent hours describing to Marie-Victoire how he would escape.

‘We're different,' he told her – which made her giggle because they weren't different. ‘We're going to do something with our lives. I am going to take you away from here.' Then he would gesture at the moon, the sun, the road, in the direction of Paris. Or whatever. ‘We shall not be lackeys for ever.'

Sensibly, Marie-Victoire would point out that they needed money to go and neither of them possessed more than a couple of sous. Nor were they likely to do so. Even so, she admired his courage in saying these things, and sympathised with the hunger for independence.

It was for Jacques' sake that she taught herself to read. And her own, of course. Huddled against the stable wall where no one could bother her. In winter the lanterns swung on iron brackets and the light danced over the puzzling printed letters, and in summer the sun's rays warmed her face and made her sleepy. She learned quicker than Jacques who was too impatient to be a good pupil, and it was Marie-Victoire who guided his hand down the text, listened to his halting syllables and urged him to try just one more time. Jacques was better at arguing, though, which Marie-Victoire had to concede, if reluctantly. Once Jacques got hold of an idea – however wild – it got hold of him and talked nonstop, leaving her to despair of ever being able to make him understand her point of view. Baffled, she would throw a handful of hay over him, or chase him round the yard, which invariably ended with Marie-Victoire being caught and tickled.

Strangely enough, Jacques was the only one who had understood what she had felt when Marie died. No one else at La Joyeuse had bothered much; they were too busy with their own concerns to waste time on the bereft girl. But Jacques, who had grown up without parents – his mother had died in childbirth and his father had been both indifferent and neglectful – had gone out of his way to let Marie-Victoire know that he mourned her too. For that she was grateful and she tried to remember it at all times, particularly as she was growing uneasy about Jacques.

Lately, Jacques had changed. Always greedy for her time, he now demanded that she spend every free moment with him. He stared at her in a way that she didn't understand and had come to hate. If she told him to stop his narrow shoulders hunched defensively. Sometimes he came so close that his breath played on her skin. His cunning, unshaven face began to invade her dreams, and she woke sweating and anxious.

‘What were you thinking of?' Jacques asked.

‘Nothing much.'

‘Liar,' he said. ‘I can see it on your face. What was it? Tell me.'

‘It was nothing,' she said again.

‘Tell me. I demand it.'

Marie-Victoire sighed.

‘Of Paris if you must know.'

Jacques drew out the knife he always wore in his belt and began to whittle at a twig. The blade scraped against the green wood and he peeled back the bark to reveal the pulpy core that lay underneath. Marie-Victoire snatched the knife from him and pointed it playfully at his breast.