There’d been much fretting since Papa’s death just a few months earlier, but lately, it seemed to have worsened. Maman had come apart, the frayed edges of her nervous strain unraveling into outright panic, daily lamentations that we would surely follow Father’s fate. “He did not die from the Revolution. He did not face the guillotine,” our brother, Nicolas, would reassure Maman whenever she began her prophesying. Nicolas, seventeen years my senior and now our Clary patriarch, wore our family’s fatigue and fear in the grim set of his jaw, in the rutted lines, newly etched, that crossed his brow. But he never lost his mild, reassuring calm, never snapped at Maman the way I would have, had I been in his trying position. “No tribunals have denounced us, Mother.”
“Yet!” she’d answer, her cheeks mottled, her hands clenching and unclenching in a fitful rhythm.
A patient sigh from Nicolas. “Father’s was a natural death, Mother.”
“Natural death? Nothing natural about it,” Maman would groan in reply, repeating the fears she’d voiced so many times: “It was the worry that felled him. The fear of the guillotine did it, sure as any blade. He knew we were all at risk.” Whenever Maman began speaking like that, Julie would find my eyes with her own. Not a word, my sister’s gaze would command. Remain silent, and this shall pass.
“We’re far too wealthy,” Maman moaned every day, her complaint a statement that a few years prior would have sounded absurd to any listener. “We’ve managed to survive far too long—they shall come for us.”
I was young and naïve, a sheltered, coddled sixteen, but I knew enough to understand that Maman’s lamentations weren’t without reason; a madness stretched across our nation, a terror that pulled tighter than any hangman’s noose. It was a rotten time to be alive in France, a time of fear so thick you could smell it in the streets, you could see it in the faces of those who passed. They’d killed both our king and queen, beheaded them in Paris before an angry mob, an ignoble fate previously reserved only for vile criminals and traitors. Louis and Marie-Antoinette, God’s anointed vessels on earth—or so we’d always learned at the convent, before God himself had been banned from the nation, replaced by the Supreme Being—were now headless corpses tossed in the ground beneath a nameless grave, their rotting forms feeding the worms along with the petty thieves and other damned nobles. What had replaced them? The Committee, but more accurately, the Terror. We were to have no more nobility in France, no more of our ancient religion. Anyone who even whispered a kind word toward an aristocrat—or God—fell guilty under the new Law of Suspects.
So Maman held tighter to us these days, especially now that Papa was gone. My brother in particular; her eyes watched Nicolas with the ferocious love of a cornered she-wolf. She was convinced that the revolutionary tribunals—denied their justice on our rich papa by his sudden death—would enact their justice on his wealthy son and heir. We Clarys were of the haute bourgeoisie, the highest class of merchants. And though Papa had been born common, not of the noble class, his flourishing trade in silk and soap and coffee now belonged to Nicolas, and that made my brother one of the wealthiest citizens in the south of France. Wealthier by far than many of the aristocrats who had already lost their heads. This gave Maman much reason to fret and weep, and though Nicolas and Julie would try to console her, their efforts only seemed to further stoke her anxieties.
The best way that I, the youngest, found to navigate those trying days was to seek some small measure of refuge in my own solitude. I would hide, removing myself from their crying and cosseting, and so there I stood on that warm spring morning, my face upturned to the sunlight in our quiet gardens. I did not deny the Terror; I did not forget for one moment the fear that I knew reigned just outside our spacious family villa. I’d passed the city center and that dreaded new contraption—the guillotine—countless times when walking to the market or the seaside or to services at what used to be our church, now called our Temple of Reason. I’d smelled the sawdust that carpeted the ground around the executioner’s perch; I’d seen the tumbrels carrying the damned figures to the square—or, worse, their lifeless, headless corpses away from it. I didn’t deny the hell in which our countrymen and women were living. Even then, thinking of it, I shivered, my entire body trembling in spite of the warm morning sunlight.
And yet, I suppose I knew how powerless I stood against it all—how futile it would be for me, a young girl, to imagine myself of use in a time when even kings and queens were rendered powerless. I knew that Maman and Nicolas and even Julie had a far better chance of steering events in our favor, of keeping our family safe. I’d gleaned long ago that the best thing I could do for all of us was to stay out of the way and not add to Maman’s list of lamentations. So that’s what I did, there in the sanctuary of our villa’s walled gardens, where somehow all seemed to remain quiet, undisturbed, and unsullied.
When I looked to the ground, I noticed the nest for the first time. It had rained the night before—hard, wrathful rain, the sort of storm that would have shaken this nest loose from the nearby juniper. I crouched low. There, beside the felled nest, I saw the shattered eggs, the shards of their shells a speckled blue, more perfect than our clear southern sky.
I leaned closer, my heart pierced not only by the shattered eggs, but by the perfectly whole nest right beside them, now empty. The nest had somehow survived the storm and the fall from the juniper, because the cozy space remained intact. I studied it, noting each twig woven with such care, a safe bowl from which to nurture and welcome and draw forth new life. A task of painstaking anticipation and preparation. Hope. The irrefutable fact of love. And then beside it, the shattered eggs, the worms already writhing all around, feeding off the wreckage of the lives no longer encased within. Where were the parent birds? Where would their love go now?
Perhaps one or two eggs remained, having survived the fall intact, I thought. I could find them and bring them indoors, where Cook would help me keep them warm and protected. Preserve those fragile little lives. My mind was bent toward that purpose, my hands scouring through damp earth, when Julie found me.
“Goodness, what is it now?” I heard her voice. “Head in the sky, hands in the dirt. Really, Desiree, must you always act like such a child, and today of all days?”
I turned, caught unaware both by Julie’s sudden appearance and by the sting of her words. I sat back on my haunches, blinking up at my sister. “What is today?”
Julie ignored my question, waving a dismissive hand. “Inside. Maman wishes to see you.”
My eyebrows lifted, a mild protest: Couldn’t Julie cover for me, as she so often did? Couldn’t she simply offer some excuse, saying she hadn’t found me?
But Julie had no patience. “Desiree, now. You didn’t hear any of that? Maman so upset? Are you really so oblivious to the world around you?” Her tone, the clear sharpness of it, served its purpose, and I rose at once, patting down my rumpled skirts, trying my best to shake the dirt from my lap.
“What’s today?” I asked once more, but the question landed at my sister’s back, for she had already turned and was hurrying toward the house.
Inside, the drapes were drawn against the bright sun, and a cool, eerie hush pulled tight over the large, empty rooms as Julie marched me through to the drawing room. There, in a plush armchair of upholstered cranberry satin, Maman sat, her legs propped on an ottoman, her entire frame drooping and lethargic. Even the features of her face sagged, weighted down with worry. There was no sign of Nicolas; he’d probably grown frustrated and excused himself.
“Desiree, my girl.” Maman extended a hand, beckoning me toward her. That was unusual—it was Nicolas or Julie on whom Maman leaned, but rarely me. I edged closer, my steps hesitant as she took my hand in her tight grip. “My darling girl, perhaps you alone might be our salvation.”
It sounded maudlin, even for Maman. I shifted on my feet, remaining silent.
“Our family needs you, m
y girl.”
I turned from our mother to Julie. “Needs me…what for?”
“You must go to town,” Maman said, and I was certain that my face revealed my shock.
“To town?” It was the exact opposite of what Maman had told us on every other day. You are to avoid town. You are to avoid La Place. You are to stay away from the guillotine, avoid the crowds.
“Yes,” Maman said now, massaging a slow circle on her temple. “To the Hôtel de Ville.”
“To the town hall…but why?” I turned to Julie, confused.
Mother began to weep, and Julie stepped forward, her voice hushed. “It’s Nicolas,” my sister explained. “He’s…he’s been arrested.”
Mother’s chest heaved with a loud sob. I stared at my sister, my eyes widening. “Nicolas—arrested?”
Julie nodded.
“Why?” I managed to ask, but I knew the question was foolish. Did one ever receive a proper answer to such a question these days? Why was my brother arrested? Why not? He was wealthy and he was alive in France during the Reign of Terror. He was the heir to a vast mercantile fortune. People were arrested every day for far less.
“It’s worse than I feared,” Maman said, blotting her face with a kerchief emblazoned with Papa’s initials. “Your father, he’s left us with more trouble than I knew.”
I looked from Maman to my sister, confused by this.
“Your papa…” Maman pushed back against her distress, swallowing before she continued: “He had petitioned the crown, several years ago. He’d sent in the funds for a generous gift, along with a request for ennoblement. We were to…to become…noble. Before it all…well, before all of this.” With that, Maman lost her last shred of fortitude, her face crumpling into her palms.
Julie stepped forward, pressing a hand on my shoulder, and I turned to my sister. “But I don’t understand what it is that I might do?” I asked, my mouth going dry. “What can I do?”
“Maman believes that you have the best chance of success,” Julie answered, her face softening as she took my hands in hers. “You are to go to the town hall and petition on behalf of Nicolas.”
The enormity—the very futility—of this task struck me as absurd, stunning me a moment before I asked: “Me?”
“Yes, you.” Julie nodded.
“You are to try first, my child.” Maman fixed her gaze on me. “You are young. Look at you—hard would be the heart of the man who didn’t presume you to be innocent.”
I crossed my arms. “I cannot do it, Maman. I’m not…” My words trailed off even as my mind spun.
Maman frowned, impatient. “What is it, girl? Out with it.”
“Only, it’s that…” I said what I’d always believed to be the truth: “I’m not smart, not like Julie. Send her instead.”
Maman raised her hands, swatting my words away. “Oh, what does wit have to do with anything, you foolish girl? You are beautiful, Desiree. More beautiful than Julie. You are to be sweet and soft and beseeching, do you hear? Look into their eyes in the same fearful way you now look at me—any man would leap to grant your wish.”
My thoughts writhed in a tangled knot. Never before had Maman spoken in this manner. She did not mean to compliment me, nor to insult Julie, of that I was certain. She was simply desperate to have her son back; I could feel that, could feel the coiled urgency of her fear. But how was it that she thought me capable of this monumental task?
I looked down at myself. It was true that I was young and lovely—I knew it from the looks that the men now heaped on me in the street. Something had changed, only recently. Before, their eyes would pass over me, unpausing; I was just another coddled, well-dressed girl, ambling innocently up the street in the authoritative presence of Julie or Maman or perhaps Cook or Nicolas. But now when they looked, their gazes lingered, returning again and staying affixed, captive. I was not blind to the way their eyes traced the soft and curving lines of my figure, resting on my waist or my décolletage with something akin to hunger. I knew, too, from the way my brother frowned when he studied my silhouette, muttering under his breath, “Papa had to leave us in the exact year that Desiree turned into a woman?”
It had startled me how swiftly my body had transformed in just these recent months. There had been the arrival of my monthly courses, and then the gowns of my girlhood no longer fit, my newly ample bosom overspilling the top of my corset, my arms and legs turning plump and soft. When I looked in the mirror, my dark eyes stared back from the glass with some newfound power, my brunette hair falling in glossy waves around a face both alluring and yet slightly startled by its own appeal. Was I more beautiful than Julie, the sister six years my senior? Perhaps, I conceded. Yes. She had the same brown hair and eyes, but her figure was sharper, with angular edges where mine was supple and round. Her face, though it resembled mine as only a sister’s could, was nevertheless longer and narrower, her features perhaps less pleasingly arranged.
And yet, I had no idea how to wield this newly acquired power, these potent but unfamiliar feminine charms. And certainly not in a task as monumental as the one set before me, the task of saving my brother’s life. I turned to my sister, willing her to see these thoughts of mine.
“I shall come with you,” Julie said, nodding. “I’ll walk with you to the Hôtel de Ville. You shall speak, you shall lead the petitioning when we are inside, but I shall be with you.”
“Good.” I sighed, feeling a slight slackening of the tightness in my shoulders. “Thank you.”
“And you will take this,” my mother added, pulling a bulging silk purse from the folds of her gown and passing it to Julie. “Whatever the price, it does not matter. If that’s not enough, you sign a bill of credit and you tell them that we shall deliver the rest. There is no limit, you understand? If the entirety of the Clary fortune must go to buying clerks and bribing guards, I do not care. Only bring me back my son.”
Julie nodded, taking the purse from Maman before returning to my side. “Ready?” she asked.
I wanted to say no, but then Maman looked from Julie to me and I saw in her expression that I had no other choice. At long last, it was time for me, Desiree, to step in and take a part in the steering of my family’s fragile fate.
* * *
Outside, the midday sun fell bright and hot, and we blinked beneath our bonnets as we exited our front gate, hands entwined. Our home was just steps from La Place Saint Michel, in one of the wealthiest quarters of the city and only a short walk from the Marseille town hall.
I’d known the streets of the Vieux Port, the old city center, my entire life, and yet the smells that pulsed throughout our town never failed to make their impact on a hot day. I rarely left the house at this time, the harshest hours of southern sunlight, the time for napping. I crinkled my nose against the onslaught of aromas as we wove through the crowds and the limestone buildings: fish and saltwater, horse dung, overripe fruits and vegetables spoiling on the tables of the outdoor vendors.
Just recently, other aromas had settled over our ancient port city as well; like so many others, our town now reeked of blood and sawdust. My stomach grew queasy as we approached the square, where the daily executions drew crowds of hundreds. I fixed my eyes straight ahead, away from the raised platform, away from the tall tower shape hulking under a cloth, its blade wiped clean after that morning’s spectacle.
Instead I turned my eyes out over the horizon, toward the shimmering expanse of aqua-blue Mediterranean, its surface strewn with cargo ships, passenger vessels, and small fishing craft. I blinked against the sunlight and saw the massive stone structure rising up out of the nearby island, the ancient Château d’If—built as a naval fortress centuries ago but now functioning as a revolutionary prison. I felt the bumps rise to my flesh in spite of the warm day and turned away from that squat, impenetrable structure, willing myself not to think of the miserable wretches clinging to li
fe on the other side of those thick stone walls.
Our port’s other distinguishing structure, the massive Notre Dame de la Garde basilica, rose up behind the city out of the seaside cliffs, like some hulking creature perched atop our rocky shoreline. No, I thought to myself, it’s no longer a basilica. It’s now a structure in the service of the State.
We had not heard the ringing of Notre Dame’s bells in years, not since a band of revolutionaries stormed the place and climbed its tower, seizing the ancient chimes and boiling them down to make bullets for the revolutionary army.
“Well now, citizeness.” A gruff-looking man, his leer revealing gaps where teeth had once been, whistled from the other side of the narrow, stinking street. “Lookin’ for something you can’t get in those fancy drawin’ rooms? I gotta blade for you right ’ere.” He made a lewd gesture toward his breeches and I stopped midstep, stunned by the fact that it was me to whom he spoke. Such brazen vulgarity in broad daylight. And how dare he insult a Clary lady in such a way?
“Ignore him.” Julie paused beside me, one hand clutching the money purse out of sight in the fabric of her skirts, the other hand squeezing my own. “Come. Now.” She picked up our pace, spitting the words under her breath: “Les cochons. Pigs taking over this city.”
We wove our way through the busy square, past the young girls in white linen bonnets who sold flowers; past the young men who milled around the square’s benches, their loose breeches styled in the practically required sans-culottes mode of the revolutionary patriot, pamphlets and books in their fists as they debated politics; past the tired mothers with dirty faces, their hands lifted and begging for a sou, babies suckling or sleeping on their exposed breasts.
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