“You are that Delphine,” Lili said. And I’m not any of those things. All of a sudden the intimacy in the room was so overwhelming that Lili wanted to blurt out all her fears, but before she could reply, Julie swept in. “Time to practice with you, Maman!” Delphine said, jumping up so quickly that her panniers caused the delicate chair to topple over.
“Oh dear,” Julie murmured, picking up the chair and setting it right again. “Fortunately, most furniture is built to stand up to our wardrobes. But girls, always be sure someone has your chair securely in hand when you stand up. And don’t look around to check. You must appear to expect to be attended to at all times.”
She went over to the stool. “Let’s see how you’re doing.” Then, noticing she was still holding a letter, she fluttered it in her hand. “Lili, remind me after we’ve finished that I need to discuss this with you. Baronne Lomont would like a private visit with you before you leave for Versailles.”
“Nothing she wants can be good,” Lili grumbled.
Julie held up her hand. “Not for more lessons,” she said. “But we both agree that you should not go to Versailles knowing as little as you do about your—your background. It’s time you knew what other people know. Or think they do.”
“Baronne Lomont?” Lili pictured the sitting room in the baroness’s home. Even though a fire would be lit, she shivered at the memory of how drafty and cold it always felt. “I’d rather hear it from you, Maman.”
“Baronne Lomont wishes to be the one to share this information.” Julie’s tone made appeal useless. “And that is appropriate, since she has a family connection.”
Lili’s eyes stung. “You and Delphine are my family,” she whispered too softly for them to hear.
Just then a sudden rain squall sent them all to the window to look out on the courtyard. A scullery maid was rushing back inside with a basket of vegetables. The man who had sold them to her was pushing his cart with no deliberate speed in the direction of the gate, shrugging off the rain as if resisting a soaking was pointless.
A gust of wind blew more wet leaves onto the cobblestones, and Julie shivered in response. “I feel cold just looking at him,” she said. “I hope it’s a better day than this for your visit tomorrow.” Lili felt Delphine’s hand cradle her waist from one side and Maman’s from the other. “Moi aussi,” she said, wishing that the thought of a visit to Hôtel Lomont didn’t require hope to make it bearable.
LILI WAS PLEASED
with what she saw as she glanced in the mirror that hung in the vestibule of Baronne Lomont’s home on the Île Saint-Louis. Under a jaunty hat, her hair was formed into several ringlets fixed with sugar water so they would dangle perfectly in front of one shoulder. Her face was lightly powdered, and her cheeks and lips were touched with rouge. Her cloak in dark blue wool moved with her in an attractive drape, its gold buttons secured by embroidered loops to protect against the chill of an early Parisian winter.
The servant did not lead her in the usual direction toward the parlor, but farther back into the house, to the study. Baronne Lomont sat alone by the fireplace, dressed for mass. “Come in, my dear,” she said, setting aside a letter resting in her lap. “We haven’t much time. I presume you were also informed we are going to Nôtre-Dame to offer special prayers for your presentation and that of Mademoiselle de Bercy?”
“Oui, madame,” Lili said, curtseying in the precise manner appropriate for greeting an older female relative of higher rank. Not too deep, not too long, with good eye contact afterward to show that the gesture had been a courtesy toward a family member one had the pleasure of seeing often, and wasn’t meant to suggest an inappropriate level of submission.
Lili sat down across from the baroness. It’s a lot to remember, but I did it right without thinking, she realized. Her mind whirled with the tiniest details of how the greeting might change if she were meeting someone else, and suddenly she felt a wave of tenderness toward the difficult old woman in front of her. All the long hours of cracking eggs, getting up and down from chairs, and enduring forced and pointless conversation—had it been as much of an ordeal for the baroness as it was for her, and was she equally glad it was over?
“Oui, madame, I am honored to go with you.” Lili’s eyes stung with unexpected tears. “And I want you to know how grateful I am for how well you have prepared me. I hope I have not been too difficult.”
And then, to Lili’s amazement, Baronne Lomont smiled. “You are either entirely sincere, in which case I thank you for your kind words, or you are a very skilled liar, in which case I have done my job well. But in any case, you have grown into a handsome young woman, and I believe you will acquit yourself well.”
She stood up. “Come with me. I have something to show you.” On the far wall hung an ornately framed painting of a man and two boys. In riding habits, they stood in front of a magnificent horse held
by an equerry dressed in the expensive livery of a noble household. “Do you know who they are?”
“Non, Baroness.”
“It is your grandfather, and the two boys are your father, Florent-Claude, and my late husband, Édouard-Marie. I’m sure you appreciate that they are from one of the oldest noble families in Lorraine. Two families, to be precise—the Lomont branch of the Châtelets.”
“Oui, Baroness. Madame de Bercy has told me that much.”
“Your father was one of the king’s Musketeers and his grandfather was one of Louis Quatorze’s most trusted generals. At the end of his career, the Marquis du Châtelet was in service to the deposed King of Poland, now Duke Stanislas, of Lorraine—you are named in honor of him—and you should hear nothing but praise for your father at court, since he has earned the admiration of all who know him.”
“Oui, madame.” But why, if he were such a great man, had Baronne Lomont and Maman acted as if there were nothing to say about him? What is she telling me now that I couldn’t have known long ago?
“Your father was part of the noblesse de robe, as you know, not the noblesse d’épée,” the baroness went on. “You do understand the distinction, do you not?”
“Oui, madame. Some families are noble by ancient bloodlines, and they are called the nobility of the sword. But the king can bestow a title of noble of the robe on whomever he wishes, as a reward for service—”
“Or a large contribution to the king’s private treasury,” the baroness sniffed in scorn. “You’re sure to meet the countess of this or the marquis of that, and just remember that in some cases the title means very little.” Baronne Lomont arched her eyebrows to reinforce her point. “You must be aware of everyone’s lineage, since there is proper etiquette for each relationship. And you must be aware that many people are a mix of both types of nobility, and it can be quite
complex to sort out who, like our family, are closer in status to the noblesse d’épée than they are to poseurs who bought just yesterday the same titles we have had for generations.”
“Oui, madame.”
“Your maternal grandmother was Gabrielle-Anne de Froullay, who married Louis-Nicholas le Tonnelier, Baron de Breteuil. Gabrielle-Anne was of higher rank than her husband, despite his title, since she was noblesse d’épée.”
The baroness turned away from the painting toward Lili. “It was considered a good match, since it brought together his money and her social standing. My marriage accomplished the same. Like my family, many of the sword have seen their fortunes decline, and their hopes now lie in forging bonds with the noblesse de robe. It’s these newer families who control much of the wealth in France now, I regret to say. A noble of the sword will never earn money from any kind of trade or profession, and that practice has played a role in our impoverishment in this new France everyone speaks so highly of.”
She sniffed to show her contempt. “Any noble of the sword who accepts pay for his efforts will suffer the disgrace of losing his tax exemption and be treated socially as no better than a well-dressed laborer. But I assume you know all this.”
“No, Baronne. But I suppose I could have guessed as much, from the lack of occupation I’ve observed.” Lili winced. Do you always have to be so sarcastic? she chided herself.
“Quite,” the baroness replied. “As a result of your connection to the Breteuils, you are noblesse d’épée, but of lesser standing, since it is only from one grandparent,” Baronne Lomont went on. “I believe you should be able to see how important this makes a good marriage for you. It would be quite tragic for your children if you were to marry someone situated no better than you, when there are good opportunities to improve your social standing.”
Baronne Lomont had by now moved away from the painting and had gone to sit at a small desk. After taking a ring of keys from a pouch dangling from her waist and laying it on the desk, she motioned
to Lili to sit on a nearby fauteuil. “In fact, Mademoiselle de Bercy outranks you, for her mother comes from two excellent families of the sword, although, I’m sorry to say, they are both impoverished and rural. Monsieur de Bercy was of the robe, and he supplied the fortune, down to the last coin, in exchange for the privilege of marriage to someone of madame’s standing.”
She looked at Lili. “I suppose you are wondering why you are only hearing these things about the de Bercy family now. You have been kept uninformed about much of it because madame did not wish rank to be a means by which you settled the quarrels that would be inevitable between girls raised together. I believe she also disapproves of the system as a whole and tries to minimize its effects in her home.”
She searched Lili’s face. “You are clearly troubled.”
“Oui, Baronne. It’s a great deal to take in all at once.”
“I shouldn’t be too concerned. At Versailles someone like you should err on the side of extreme deference, to avoid giving offense, and we will ensure that you make a match that will advance you appropriately when the time comes for you to marry. For now, just remember that at sixteen, for you it’s ‘deference, deference, deference,’ until you have sorted it all out.”
“Deference, Baronne. I shall remember that.”
Baronne Lomont gave her another long, quizzical look. “Now we must turn to the most difficult subject at hand, and that is your mother.”
My mother? Lili’s heart punched her ribs and for a moment she forgot to breathe.
Baronne Lomont reached for the keys again and opened a small drawer. She took out an object about the size of a small book and opened it to reveal twin picture frames trimmed with elaborate gold filigree.
“It’s rather a curiosity,” the baronness said. “Quite foreign in style. The marquis must have seen something like it in his travels and had one made as a present for your mother. It has symbols from both
family crests—the fleur-de-lys and the sparrow hawk—and it used to contain two small portraits, one of your mother and one of him.”
Lili held it in both hands. “There’s nothing now.”
“It wasn’t empty when I found it among your mother’s things at Lunéville after we buried her. This was on one side.” Baronne Lomont took a small, stiff card from a waxy wrapping and handed it to Lili. On it was a miniature painting of a woman with a high forehead, brown hair, and round, dark eyes. She was looking to one side, as if something just out of reach had caught her eye. “You look quite a bit like her,” the baroness said.
My mother. Lili held the card as if it might crumble in her hands. My mother.
“Your mother’s likeness was on the left when I found it, looking toward the portrait on the right,” the baroness said, “which was this one.” She took from the same wrapping an identically sized portrait of a small man with narrow eyes, hollow cheeks, and a sardonic curl at the corners of his mouth.
“This isn’t my father,” Lili said. “I’ve seen this man’s likeness in the front of his books. This is Voltaire. I’ve heard she knew him, but …”
The baroness sniffed with contempt. “Your mother took the marquis’s gift of affection and used it in this fashion, to keep the image of another man closer than her own husband.”
“I don’t understand!” Lili picked up the image of her mother and stared into it. Speak to me, she pleaded silently, but the eyes of the young woman revealed nothing.
“When you are at Versailles, you are almost certain to hear about the relationship between the two of them. And of course, since so many people at court grow bored when they have ground the latest gossip into dust, they may use your presence to resurrect what, I must warn you, was a scandal. Some people consider themselves quite the authority on it, in all its sordid and—I must say—largely fabricated details.” She retrieved the portraits and put them back in the wrapping.
Baronne Lomont sat back in her desk chair, watching Lili. “Madame la Marquise was extraordinarily gifted,” the baroness went on. “Too gifted, in my opinion, for her own good.”
Lili’s blood pounded. I want it back. I want to hold her again, even if it’s just a picture in my hand.
She stopped for a moment, waiting for Lili to reply. “Really, my dear,” she finally said. “You must remain part of conversations. You must always make some response if you are to make a favorable impression.”
“I know that she translated Newton,” Lili said, clearing her throat to recover her voice. “That she did it herself, and did not, as some have said, just serve as a scribe for the men around her.”
“I am not in a position to know such things,” the baroness said. “The difficulty was that she was never satisfied with the role to which nature destined her. To be sure, she spent countless hours at court seeing to the advancement of her husband’s interests, and her attention to her children was most admirable. A convent education for her daughter, who made a good marriage at your age, and a military career for the son who survived to adulthood. And that should have been enough for her.”
The baroness paused. “Look at me, Stanislas-Adélaïde.” Lili struggled to face her without trembling. “We are not to fill our days with frivolous things we wish to accomplish. One of the reasons Madame de Bercy and I withheld information from you is that when we saw you had your mother’s quick mind, we did not want you to be attracted to the kind of life she led. Beyond your duties as a wife and mother, it is your social role that must take up your attention. Of course you may have small edifying pursuits of your own—a charity perhaps, or a hobby. Sketching is quite appropriate, or learning to play a musical instrument. The harp is quite appealing, since it shows off the hands, and your fingers are nicely shaped.”