The Blue Rose

by Kate Forsyth

  Viviane had to know what was happening. She could not bear to be confined within the duke’s palace any longer.

  She knew it was stupid. The streets were dangerous, unpredictable.

  Yet it was more like a festival than a riot. People were dancing along, arm-in-arm, waving wine bottles and slurring the words to old marching songs:

  Three young drummers were coming back from war.

  Three young drummers were coming back from war.

  And ri, and ran, rap-at-ap-lan,

  Were coming back from war.

  ‘We’re off to the Bastille!’ a woman shouted to Viviane. ‘To get us some gunpowder.’

  ‘We’re going to join the National Guard,’ another said, laughing.

  ‘Drink!’ another cried, shoving a bottle in her face. ‘To the Third Estate!’

  Viviane drank obediently, and almost choked on the roughness of the wine.

  ‘Why are the cockades now blue and red?’ Viviane dared to ask, instinctively mimicking the woman’s Parisian accent. ‘Yesterday they were green.’

  The woman spat on the ground. ‘Green is the colour of the Comte d’Artois, the king’s brother and our enemy. It was he who persuaded the king to sack Monsieur Necker! He plots with the queen to grind us down into the dirt. No, we are free Parisians! Red and blue are our colours.’

  ‘Red for blood,’ a wild-eyed woman slurred, ‘and blue for freedom!’

  ‘To the Bastille!’ someone shouted.

  The shout was taken up by a hundred voices. ‘To the Bastille!’

  They began to sing again. Viviane sang with them. Soon the crowd marched into the forecourt before the Bastille. It stood dark and silent, its drawbridge raised, cannon pointing their dark muzzles towards the crowd. Viviane felt a sudden qualm. She had better return, she thought, before anyone realised she was gone.

  But one of the women slung a heavy arm across her shoulders. ‘Down with the Bastille!’ she screamed, took a long swig of wine, then passed the bottle to Viviane.

  Viviane drank deeply, laughing a little as the women all began to sing again. She felt alive, as she had not done for months. She was like a starling in a vast swirling murmuration, moving as if with a single mind, the moment sharpened by the presence of the silently hovering hawk.

  It was well after noon, and the sun beat down from a cloudless sky. Carts filled with burning straw and dung were drawn up near the gatehouse, to hide the movements of the attackers. As the heat intensified, so did the anger of the crowd. ‘Give us the Bastille!’ they screamed.

  Some men had climbed onto the roof of a nearby shop, then scrambled onto the gatehouse. They sawed away at the chains holding up the drawbridge. Suddenly the chains snapped. The drawbridge crashed down. People trapped beneath screamed in pain, but the crowd surged forward, over the bridge and into the fortress.

  A sudden loud explosion of cannon fire. Then the rumble of muskets.

  ‘They dare shoot at us?’ one of the women cried. ‘We’re unarmed!’

  Caught up in the rage of the moment, she ran forward, brandishing her rolling-pin.

  For a while, all was chaos. Smoke rolled across the courtyard, making Viviane cough. Then a great roar resounded.

  A white handkerchief waved from one of the tower windows.

  Moments later, a gate swung open. A man, his face contorted with rage, rushed forward and slashed with his sword at the guard opening the gate. The guard’s hand was chopped off. Blood sprayed out. With a howl, the hand was impaled on a pike and paraded high, still holding the heavy iron key.

  Cold rushed over her. Viviane swayed. People hurried past. Pushing and shoving. Shouting and screaming. She groped her way free. Her stomach roiled. She reached a wall, leant against it, retched. When her stomach was empty, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and stumbled away.

  Viviane remembered her father’s rapier, hissing down. David’s cry of pain. His maimed hand, running with blood. His severed finger, still encircled with gold.

  Somehow she got herself back to the duke’s townhouse.

  She had left the garden door unfastened. She crept through and locked it behind her, standing with her back pressed against it, her breast heaving. It was hard to catch a breath.

  The mood of the crowd had changed so quickly. One moment Viviane had been singing with the other women, the next guns were firing and swords slashing.

  No-one had noticed she was gone. Viviane made it safely to her room. She rang for hot water. When at last it came, she washed herself free of the smoke and the grime and splatters of blood. She dressed herself in her nightgown and crawled into bed.

  But it was impossible to sleep.

  Outside, the mob paraded the streets of Paris, the severed heads of the city mayor and the governor of the Bastille hoisted high on pikes.

  14

  The Great Fear

  15 July – 1 October 1789

  Flames leapt high. The château windows glared orange. Smoke choked her. Heat like a brass cymbal.

  Maugan, the mole-catcher, reaching out for her. Dead moles, pale hands dangling.

  A storm is coming … heads shall roll …

  Dice rattling. Falling to the ground. Trying to catch them. Cloven hooves under the filthy tattered cloak.

  Screaming. Screaming with all her might.

  Soundless.

  Orange flames leaping to devour her …

  Viviane woke with a wild cry.

  Damp sheets wrapped about her throat, strangling her. It was hot. The air smelled of smoke. The light striking in through a crack in her curtains had a strange copper tint. A low ominous rumble from the city beyond her windows. Viviane tore the sheets away from her neck and lay, panting, heart thudding painfully.

  It was just a dream, she told herself.

  But yesterday was not a dream. The fall of the Bastille was not a dream.

  Her head ached, and her limbs throbbed. Her mouth tasted foul. The rough wine and the smell of gunpowder and the blood. Sickness rose in her throat again.

  After a long time, Viviane managed to get up. She put on an old gown she could fasten herself, and went to put on her shoes. The ribbons were missing. She had used them yesterday, to fashion herself a blue rosette. She could not find the rosette now. It must have been torn from her hair. Viviane found some other ribbons and laced her shoes. Her feet were sore and blistered. Her hands trembled.

  Viviane went slowly through the vast echoing house. The servants would not meet her gaze. Outside, the streets surged with people, drunk and rowdy. She tried to settle to read or sew, but her nerves quivered with every shout or scream.

  Then a boy came with a message from her father.

  Her husband was dead. Killed by the mob as he tried to leave Paris.

  She was a widow.

  Viviane remembered her nightmare. Fire flaring orange from the windows of the tower. An omen of death for the lord of the château.

  Her stomach twisted. She did not know if it was horror or relief.

  The next few days were taken up with ordering mourning clothes and discussing matters of business with her husband’s lawyer. Viviane was her husband’s heir, but the Duc de Savageaux had been deep in debt and the lawyer felt it expedient to sell all his properties and repay the money owed. Viviane was left with nothing but the château at Belisima-sur-le-lac, which had been her dowry and remained hers under Breton law.

  The duke’s body was to be buried in his family crypt in Paris. Viviane was not permitted to go, of course. She sat with her stepmother and great-aunt in the hot gloomy drawing-room, draped in black, listening to the monotonous ticking of the ormolu clock on the mantelpiece. Madame de Ravoisier fanned herself vigorously, her round face red as a plum.

  ‘How very boring for you,’ Clothilde said. ‘A whole year in mourning clothes.’

  Viviane gave a little shrug.

  ‘You must be sorry now you did not make more of an effort to win his affections. Why, he’d still be alive and you’d not be a
dowager.’

  Viviane stared at her in amazement. ‘How is it my fault? I was not the one who dragged him out of his coach and stabbed him to death.’

  ‘If you had begged him not to go …’

  ‘He still would have gone,’ Viviane said wearily. ‘He believed no-one would dare touch him.’

  ‘And no-one should have dared! He was the Duc de Savageaux,’ Madame de Ravoisier cried.

  ‘And yet he bled to death like any other man.’

  Clothilde raised her thickly pencilled brows. ‘How heartless.’

  Viviane shrugged. ‘I do not mean to be. It’s a lesson for us all, though, isn’t it? If we are pricked, we all bleed.’ Thinking of Shakespeare made her think of David, and a tremor rocked her. She clenched her hands, trying to steady herself. If only you had not died, Davy bach, she thought. If only I had fled with you when I could.

  ‘Well, you hated Monsieur le Duc and now he is dead,’ Clothilde pointed out.

  Viviane did not speak. It was true.

  ‘Well, I suppose it is some consolation that you inherit this house, and the château in the Loire, and all the jewels …’

  ‘I don’t want them,’ Viviane said. She hesitated, then said, ‘Besides, you know all must be sold?’

  ‘Sold? But why?’ Madame de Ravoisier was horrified.

  ‘Monsieur le Duc was deep in debt.’

  Clothilde gave a shrill giggle. ‘Surely no-one expects you to pay them? They are tradesmen’s bills! I suppose the duke had debts of honour, of course. Most probably to my husband the marquis! Those should be paid, of course. And I suppose you do not much care if you need to sell this old place – nobody lives in this part of town anymore, anyway. But the château! It is very fine. One simply must have somewhere to retreat to in summer – court is intolerable then …’

  As Clothilde rattled on, Viviane stared at her in consternation. It seemed a dreadful thing that her stepmother thought that gambling debts owed to rich noblemen must be repaid, while money owed to poor, hard-working tradesmen was to be left outstanding.

  At last her father and the other male friends of the duke returned from the funeral. The Marquis was dressed in black silk, his face pale and drawn under his tall white wig. He gave her his condolences, his voice cracking in the first sign of emotion she had ever seen in him.

  ‘You shall return to Versailles with us now,’ he said.

  ‘May I not return to Belisima?’ she begged. ‘To … to mourn in private?’

  No,’ he answered shortly. ‘You will return to Versailles and do your best to make yourself known to the queen. You will need a position at court to support yourself.’

  ‘I have the income from Belisima,’ she replied, trying to hold herself firm.

  He regarded her coldly. ‘Do not start thinking yourself a rich widow, able to choose your own way. Life at Versailles is expensive. Your pitiful little estate in Bretagne will come nowhere near paying your costs.’

  ‘But if I am living at Belisima …’ She began to argue.

  ‘Do not think to defy me,’ he answered silkily. ‘You shall stay at Versailles, ingratiate yourself with the queen, and hope to win some other rich nobleman as your husband.’

  ‘But I don’t want to.’ Her voice shook.

  ‘Your wishes are of no consequence to me. You are of noble blood, you owe a duty to your name and your lineage, and to me, your father. Remember what I am prepared to do if you dare disobey me!’

  She could see no way free. The tiny rush of hope she had felt on news of her husband’s death was nothing but an illusion. Her shoulders slumped.

  ‘Yes, monsieur,’ she answered in a low voice.

  Viviane took very little with her. Only her clothes, and the miniature painting of her mother. David’s signet ring and the rose ring he had given her were hidden inside her bodice, as always.

  It was difficult to tell the servants they had been dismissed. Many had been in the Duc de Savageaux’s service for years. Viviane gave them as much money as she could, but it was not enough. Her maid Yvette cursed and spat at her. Viviane could only hope she had somewhere to go.

  As they left the stinking streets of Paris behind them, Viviane ventured to ask her father what had been happening in Versailles.

  ‘The rats are leaving the sinking ship,’ her father replied tersely. ‘The Comte d’Artois, the Polignacs, all have fled. Even your fat fool of a great-aunt has gone!’

  Viviane could scarcely believe it. Madame de Ravoisier hated to travel and hated foreign places. She must be frightened indeed to have fled France.

  ‘I tried to convince the king that he too should flee, but he cannot believe the people of France wish him harm,’ the marquis continued. ‘He came to Paris today, and let them lead him around like a tame bear on a chain, with that damned cockade in his hat. It was humiliating!’

  Viviane tried to imagine it. The king as a dancing bear, a ring in his nose, a silk rose in his hat. She had to choke back a hysterical giggle.

  The carriage rolled into Versailles as the church bells were ringing the eleventh hour. The king’s coach had led the way. As Viviane was being handed down, she saw the royal children rushing to meet their father.

  ‘I knew he would be safe!’ the dauphin crowed. ‘My father is so good no-one could hurt him.’

  Marie-Thérèse did not speak, just buried her face in her father’s waistcoat. The queen wept silently. As Louis went to her, Viviane saw that the king indeed wore a cockade in his hat. It was blue at its heart, rimmed with white, and then red. It gave her a little spurt of hope. White was the colour of the royal Bourbon family.

  ‘Look at that loathsome thing,’ her father muttered. ‘Made in the colours of the d’Orléans family. I’d wager the duke had something to do with that. I heard the crowd shouting Vive le Roi d’Orléans as I rode through Paris this afternoon. He plots to overthrow the king and take the crown himself, though there’s half a dozen between him and the throne.’

  The next few days were uneasy. News came of riots in the countryside, uprisings in every town. The violence spread. Foulon de Doué, the man appointed by the king to replace Necker, had fled Paris after the storming of the Bastille. He was found by local peasants, and forced to walk back to the city barefoot. A bundle of hay was tied to his back, and the sweat pouring down his face was wiped away with nettles.

  He was hanged from a lamp-post in the Place de Grève, the square where the most notorious murderers, heretics and rebels were executed. The rope around his neck broke three times and so the mob hacked off his head, shoved his mouth full of straw – in retaliation for the rumour he had once said, ‘If the people are hungry, let them eat grass’ – and paraded his bloody remains around Paris on pikes. His son-in-law soon suffered the same rough justice.

  The palace of Versailles was eerily quiet.

  The queen stayed at the Petit Trianon with her children, and many courtiers left for Switzerland or Italy.

  Viviane had nothing to do. The men were all busy with the National Assembly, which met most days to discuss and debate and argue over the future of France. The king had recalled Monsieur Necker once more, at the insistence of the people, and he arrived back in Versailles to a rapturous reception in late July. He looked haggard after his long journey from Geneva, and told the king bluntly that he feared there was little he could do with unemployment and bread prices soaring.

  A kind of madness had swept the country. Gangs of brigands were thought to be hiding out in the forests, ready to rob and plunder and murder. Aristocrats were said to be hiding all the grain so that the peasants died of hunger. Monasteries were sacked, and the monks driven out into the countryside, their pantries and cellars emptied. A cloud of dust on the horizon caused one town to ring the alarm bells, the men all rushing out, armed with scythes and pitchforks, only to discover it was nothing but a herd of cows being driven along the road.

  One sultry-hot day, Viviane was carrying a basket of supplies out to the beggars who thronged about the p
alace gate when she heard a sudden joyous bark. She looked up and saw Luna streaking towards her, red ears flapping. She dropped her basket as the excited dog leapt up to wash Viviane’s face with her tongue.

  ‘Luna, oh, Luna! What are you doing here?’

  Then she saw Pierrick limping towards her, one arm in a makeshift sling, his head bound in bandages.

  She hurried towards him. ‘What is it? What has happened?’

  Then she saw his face, bruised and sombre, and her stomach sank like a stone.

  ‘Belisima?’

  He shook his head. ‘I’m so sorry, mamzelle. They burned it.’

  ‘But who? Why?’ She felt dazed, uncomprehending.

  ‘Why do the men of this world burn anything?’ he answered unhappily.

  Pierrick had been woken in the middle of the night, roused by something. A sound or a smell. Something wrong. Dressed only in his nightshirt, he ran out into the corridor. A taint of smoke, a glimmer of red light through the window. He raced out to the courtyard. Far above him, a window blazing with flames. A dark figure, dancing and gibbering and shouting nonsense.

  ‘Maugan,’ Vivienne said.

  Pierrick looked at her in surprise. ‘Yes. Though we only found that out later.’

  He had rung the alarm bells, roused the servants, organised chains of men passing buckets of water from the lake, but it was too late. Maugan was not alone. A whole gang of local peasants had joined him, robbing the château of its silver and gold, stealing the pigs and hens and cows, burning the estate documents in the banqueting hall.

  ‘There was nothing we could do. The fire spread too fast. He must have carried a torch with him, kindling every room he passed through. I’m so sorry, mamzelle.’

  ‘How much damage?’

  ‘It’s bad. I saved what I could, and locked the gates so no-one else could get in. I threw the key into the well. If it had been found on me, I’d have been beaten and the château utterly destroyed.’