He looked at the two girls sitting there beside him in the box, so prim and proper now in their voluminous skirts and black lace mantillas perched atop mountains of carefully piled curls, and decided that the radiant look on their faces made the boredom of the evening worthwhile.
He almost chuckled aloud as he recalled once more the way Monique had looked when she had made her entrance earlier that evening in her makeshift chemise, wanting so desperately to be “classic”, as she had phrased it. What an adorable little doll she was, with her huge gray eyes and pale spun-gold hair! Part of her charm was that she didn’t seem to realize how truly beautiful she was, or how devastatingly provocative just the sight of her could be. His desire for her was a constant knot embedded in his loins. He knew it shouldn’t be that way, but what good did it do to deny its existence, when that knot continued to grow with each passing day? Neither her contempt for him nor his common sense could melt it.
He looked at her doll-like profile as she sat there caught up in the spectacle. She seemed completely enthralled by the performance, the earlier skirmish completely forgotten now. There were so many things she didn’t know… a whole world of concepts and sensations yet to be explored. How he wished he could be the one to take that little hand and lead her through those new experiences… sharing them with her… awakening her to the warm, sensuous woman he sensed she could be!
The night was warm and sticky, and the small, narrow hall, though decorated lavishly enough, was poorly ventilated. As he dabbed at his forehead with his monogrammed handkerchief he wondered why the citizens of New Orleans persisted in using wood for their buildings instead of the bricks and tile recommended by the authorities, especially after the disastrous experiences the city had already had with fires. What a firetrap the theater was!
Although the play had been billed as Molière’s Tartuffe, it bore little resemblance to any performance Vidal had ever seen of that work. It soon became a hodgepodge of sudden quotations from Voltaire, Locke, and Rousseau to generous rounds of applause and shouted interjections of “Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood!” from the more demonstrative spectators. The audience was obviously as anti-Spanish as the actors.
Miguel never ceased to marvel at the laxity of the authorities there in the colony. Why did they permit such open expressions of hostility and downright treason to go unchecked? How was it possible that the words of the most radical philosophers of the day could be spouted publicly from the officially recognized theater of the town, while in Spain and the rest of its colonies they were forbidden by both the Crown and the Church as being too “dangerous and inflammatory” even to read in the privacy of one’s own home, much less express aloud?
He remembered how he himself had wrestled with his conscience when he had finally succumbed to reading some of the works of those popular French leaders of the Enlightenment while he had been traveling around Europe. It had been hard for him at first to ignore the years of strict upbringing in his native land, where such books could only be circulated clandestinely, since they were on the ever-growing list of hundreds of similar works banned by the Inquisition. Even now he didn’t dare admit to anyone that he had delved into such prohibited literature for fear he might be thought a heretic or a traitor. For one never really knew. The powerful tentacles of La Suprema stretched out even to the remotest corners of the world. No one was too far away from the all-knowing eyes and ears of the Holy Tribunal. Once its interest was aroused, it could be relentless and pursue a prospective victim for a lifetime, even beyond the grave.
In his opinion, such zealous persecution was absurd. It was ridiculous to try to control a man’s thoughts. What was in his heart would always win out in the end, no matter how suppressed he might momentarily be.
Miguel was soon roused from his musings. The mood of the audience was becoming restless. The boisterous slogans and ready applause that greeted every florid speech made against “tyranny” and in praise of “freedom and democracy” seemed to inspire the actors to even greater heights of oratory, and more and more they deliberately added impromptu lines.
Of course, Vidal’s two intensely French cousins were also among those who were being swept along on the emotional current of the moment, and once Monique even let the cry of “Liberté!” escape from her lips as she joined heartily in the applause of an especially moving speech, but her guardian had quickly put a restraining hand on her arm and motioned with a discreet finger to his lips that she should be quiet.
The atmosphere, however, was beginning to be so rowdy that Vidal considered walking out on the performance. He hated to cut short his wards’ first theatrical experience, but he could see the emotionally charged atmosphere was already beginning to affect his impressionable little cousins, especially Monique, who obviously was being increasingly carried away by the inflammatory speeches. Most certainly she didn’t need anything else to make her more rebellious than she already was!
He bent toward her, hat in hand, and whispered that they had best be leaving, but she turned an elated, shining face breathlessly to him and protested vehemently.
Suddenly one of the actors, completely out of character now, took a step forward to the edge of the stage and, his face ruddy in the glow of the blazing candles of the footlights, extended his arms dramatically toward the audience and boomed out in his most resonant tones the first lines of the new French anthem:
“Allons, enfants de la patrie!
Le jour de gloire est arrivé!”
A thunderous response greeted the declamation. With cries of “Liberty, Equality, and Brotherhood” many of the young men in the audience rose instinctively to their feet.
A small voice off somewhere below began to intone “La Marseillaise”, picking up the words of the song from where the actor had left off reciting it. Soon others were joining in.
“Contre nous de la tyrannie
L’entendaré ranglant est levé!”
Like wildfire, the impromptu song spread across the hall, sweeping along with it everyone in its path.
Completely transported now, Monique suddenly jumped to her feet and joined that exhilarating wave of patriotism, her high, lilting voice singing enthusiastically along with the others as the theater literally reverberated to the rafters.
“Aux armes, citoyens!”
Vidal rose angrily and tugged impatiently on Monique’s arm, ordering her to behave herself, his voice barely audible above the din. “Come, Monica… Celeste… we must leave.”
But Monique only turned wide, glazed eyes toward him, her flushed cheeks streaming with tears of emotion, as she stubbornly held her ground and continued to sing ecstatically along with her “fellow Frenchmen”.
“Marchons! Marchons! …”
The occupants in the neighboring loge had long since abandoned the theater, and Vidal, sensing a riot in the making, decided that he should get his wards out of there, too, as quickly as possible.
Literally dragging Monique along with him, even while she continued to sing fervently at the top of her voice, he made his way out of the box and down the stairs to the exit.
Although the song died from her lips as the warm, humid night air hit her face, Monique still had a lightheaded feeling, as though she had drunk too much wine. Even as they turned off St. Peter Street into Rue Royale, they could hear the singing and shouting emanating from the brightly lit second-story theater.
Ironically enough, as they walked along that street behind the Plaza de Armas, they were just passing the calabozo, which, flanked by the arsenal, stood directly behind the guardhouse on the square, to the left of the cathedral.
“This is where those fools are going to end up!” he grumbled while he dragged his highly elated wards along with him. It was too early for the carriage he had ordered to be waiting for them, so he decided to walk back home.
Like an ominous giant crouching in the shadows ready to spring, the two-story calaboose lay far back from the street behind the massive brick wall that surrounded it, a huge blo
b barely glimpsed in the moonlight behind the ponderous wrought-iron gateway.
Vidal was doubly glad he had decided to abandon the theater when he had, for at the final notes of that extemporaneous rendition of the “Marseillaise”, someone could be heard enthusiastically beginning a chorus of the offensive “Ça ira”, that song of many verses, set to the air of “La Carmagnole”, which the French revolutionists and their sympathizers especially liked to sing to taunt the royalists.
“Ça ira… Ça ira,
les aristocrates à la lanterne …”
Now they were asking for trouble, thought Vidal. The guard will soon put an end to that boisterous performance, for they were going too far. The Baron de Carondelet was a proud man, and much as he might want to be lenient with the colonists, he was not to be provoked lightly. He could hardly overlook it when they were calling him a “suckling pig”… a clever play on words with the governor’s name when pronounced exaggeratedly in French. Even from a block away, Vidal could catch the innuendo when they sang the words.
His rebellious young wards, however, still filled with the emotion of what for them had been an uplifting moment of pure, unadulterated patriotism, walked along reluctantly beside him. Although Celeste wasn’t resisting him as Monique was, he nevertheless had to pull the girl along with him, too, for it was more than she could do to keep up with his long, angry stride. Even the usually docile Celeste, it seemed, had been moved by the demonstration, and although she hadn’t participated in the vocal part of it, she, too, had obviously been quite impressed by it all.
“Oh, Cousin Miguel, wasn’t it exciting?” she exclaimed breathlessly. “I had no idea a performance in a real theater was going to be like that!”
“Nor did I!” mumbled her guardian with open annoyance. It was evident, however, that the young girl hadn’t caught many of the more delicate aspects of what had happened.
“Oh, I hope you’ll take us again soon. What a pity we couldn’t stay to see how it ended!”
“I know very well how this particular performance will end!” snapped Vidal. “The gendarmes will see to that!”
“But it was all so thrilling! I’ve never seen anything like it before in my life!”
Monique, who had been completely caught up in her own exhilarating thoughts, suddenly called out to her sister from the other side of Miguel’s formidable figure as he dragged the two of them along, one on each side of him.
“You see, Celeste, I told you, I told you!” she exclaimed, her voice still tremulous from the recent excitement.
“Oh, yes, it’s just the way you said!” agreed Celeste. “It was all exactly like the leaflets, even down to the same words!”
Vidal came to an abrupt halt and stood there on the wooden banquette looking down with sudden curiosity at the deceivingly innocent faces of the two little radicals staring back at him in the light of the rising moon.
“Leaflets?” he echoed suspiciously, still holding firmly on to their arms. “What leaflets?”
With a startled gasp, Celeste put her hand belatedly to her lips. “Mon Dieu!” she exclaimed in dismay as Monique shot her an accusing glance.
“Answer me,” insisted Vidal. “What leaflets? Has someone been giving you Jacobin propaganda?”
“Only… only some printed circulars that were thrown around the city a few weeks ago…” stammered Celeste.
But Vidal suspected there was more to it than that. For a moment he stood there trying to fathom the wide-eyed, confused little countenances looking up so fearfully at him. Then he continued down the Rue Roy ale once more, but at a slightly slower pace, while his suddenly abashed cousins walked in silence beside him. They were passing by the grounds behind the cathedral now, and most of the huts were already dark and silent, although a few had candles flickering like restless fireflies in their tiny cloth-covered windows.
Miguel resolved to investigate the matter further once they got back home. God help him! Here he was with two hotheaded little rebels on his hands! Something had to be done before his young wards got themselves into more trouble than they bargained for!
Chapter Eleven
There was quite a tempest in the Chausson household for the next few days. The aftermath of the theatrical outing had begun with a complete search of the girls’ room. Amid a flood of tears and protests, Mlle. Baudier, on Vidal’s orders, had gone methodically through every nook and corner of that frilly little bedchamber until her search finally had come to an end underneath Monique’s four-poster bed.
Then, while his two wards had stood by squirming helplessly as they watched his mounting fury, their guardian read over the half-dozen throw-sheets that had been unearthed from below a pile of dog-eared volumes by Voltaire and Rousseau and a Dufoe novel rated as “scandalous” by the shocked Mlle. Baudier.
Vidal’s voice fluctuated from a hasty mumble to indignant exclamations whenever he came to parts of the leaflets that especially enraged him.
” ‘Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood… The Freemen of France to their brothers in Louisiana… second year of the French Republic,” read Vidal. “The moment has arrived when despotism must disappear from the earth. France, having obtained her freedom… is not satisfied with successes by which she alone would profit, but declares to all nations that she is ready to give her powerful assistance to those that may be disposed to follow her virtuous example…”
” ‘Frenchmen of Louisiana, you still love your mother country; such a feeling is innate in your hearts. The French nation, knowing your sentiments, and indignant at seeing you the victims of the tyrants by whom you have been so long oppressed, can and will avenge your wrongs…’ “
“By all the saints! What rubbish!” Vidal began to pace the room angrily as he continued. “The hour has struck, Frenchmen of Louisiana. Hasten to profit by the great lesson you have received. Now is the time to cease being the slaves of a government to which you were shamefully sold…’ ” He looked up, angrier than ever.
“I notice they say nothing about the French government that did the ‘shameful selling’! But I might add that Louisiana was not sold, but rather given to Spain in payment for its having lost part of its own colonies while helping out France as its ally, no less!”
He read on, his anger increasing by the minute. ” ‘The Spanish despotism has surpassed in atrocity and stupidity all the other despotisms that have ever been known. Has not barbarism always been the companion of that government, which has rendered the Spanish name execrable and horrible in the whole continent of America? Is it not that nation who, under the hypocritical mask of religion, ordered or permitted the sacrifice of more than twenty millions of men?…’ “
“Qué barbaridad! As if France has been so lily-white! What about that bloodbath that’s been going on there with the guillotine for years now under the hypocritical name of justice?” he asked indignantly. Then he continued, his voice dropping again to a mumble for a few more paragraphs, while his wards nervously waited in dread for his next outburst.
” ‘…all that you possess depends on the caprice of a viceroy, who is always unjust, avaricious, and vindictive.’ That’s not true! To the contrary, I daresay the baron has been a better, more conscientious governor than most of those you had while under French rule. Most certainly he’s been incredibly patient with these rebels around town! You people here in the Louisiana colony don’t realize how much more freedom you enjoy than any place in Europe or even the other Spanish colonies here in America.”
” ‘… know ye that your brethren, who have attacked with success the Spanish government in Europe, will in a short time present themselves on your coast with naval forces; that the republicans of the western portion of the United States are ready to come down the Ohio and Mississippi in company with a considerable number of French republicans and to rush to your assistance under the banners of France and liberty…’ “
“God in heaven! But this is treasonous—inciting open rebellion!” he exclaimed in amazement as his dark, flas
hing eyes raced ahead over the paragraphs that followed. Suddenly his voice rose again.
” ‘… it will be in your power to unite voluntarily with France and your neighbors—the United States —forming with these two republics an alliance to our mutual political and commercial interest.’ Aha! Now we come to the grano—the real motives behind all of this high-sounding poppycock!”
” ‘Your country will derive the greatest advantages from so auspicious a revolution…’ Of course, and so will France and the United States! Those French Jacobins of Philadelphia, who are behind all this propaganda, don’t give a fig for you people here in Louisiana. What they want is to get control of the Mississippi River and the whole valley with it.” He read on rapidly now to the fiery conclusion.
” ‘Gather up your courage, Frenchmen of Louisiana. Away with pusillanimity… Ça ira… Ça ira!’ “
Vidal let out a roar. “Vaya! So this is where you’ve been getting all those foolish ideas of yours, little cousins! Do you realize this is treasonous material? Foolish children! You could be arrested for hoarding inflammatory propaganda like this. Leaflets like these are being sent into the colony by secret agents of the French Jacobins in Philadelphia who are trying to incite rebellion here to serve their own ends. Where on earth did you get such literature?”
But despite what Monique termed an “Inquisition” by her irate guardian, she steadfastly refused to say how she had come by her private cache of rebellious material. Although Vidal was fairly positive that it had been given to her by Maurice Foucher, he couldn’t get her to admit it.
“Frankly, I’m at a loss to know what to do about your granddaughters, especially Monique,” he confessed later to Grandmother Chausson. “Given a little time, I could probably handle Celeste, but Monica is another story. She seems so dead set against me. No matter what I say or do, she takes offense to it or goes deliberately contrary to my wishes, even to her own detriment, just to spite me.”
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