Peggy felt like vomiting. For all his patina of British courtliness, the man could be incredibly vulgar. Then came a worse thought—could Fleury have gossiped to Carter about her kiss?
Excusing herself with as much dignity as she could muster, Peggy fled the room. She and Fleury had arranged to take a stroll together that afternoon. She needed to think how to tell him—without bursting into tears—that she soon would be leaving.
The air was cool and salty as she and Fleury wandered along streets overlooking the three-mile-wide harbor and the French fleet’s thirty-plus ships that bobbed up and down, anchored in it. Peggy had come to be quite fond of the seaside city, the smell of the ocean winds, the push-pull of the tides. It was so unlike the mountains and forests of upstate New York. The waves carried such a sense of freedom as they crashed onshore and then rushed back out to the Atlantic—uncontainable.
She had also relished conversations with the inhabitants. They seemed so open to divergent ideas and philosophies. Rhode Island had been established specifically for religious freedom, breaking off from the more stringent tenets of Massachusetts Puritanism. As a result the city included Quakers, Presbyterians, Anabaptists, Moravians, and Jews. It was a refreshing change from Albany’s Dutch Reformed Church strictness. She’d been pleased also by Fleury’s liberal response to the religious diversity, especially considering his native land was devoutly Catholic and often persecuted Protestant dissenters. America and her philosophical freedoms were taking hold in him, clearly.
For several minutes now, Fleury and Peggy had walked in silence. Perhaps unsure of his English, the marquis rarely initiated conversation. As he requested, she stuck primarily to English, so he could practice using the language.
Peggy tried to reassure herself that it wasn’t disinterest that kept him quiet, since he always answered her questions enthusiastically—mixing French with English. With enough prodding, she had learned he came from a fairly remote southern area of France called Saint-Hippolyte-le-Graveyron. Following family tradition, he had joined the infantry when he was nineteen years old, and eight years later he sailed to America to offer his services to the Revolution. At first Congress didn’t want to commission him or the other French officers who arrived in 1776. So Fleury volunteered. Washington quickly recognized the worth of his experience and promoted Fleury to be a captain with the engineers. Before Stony Point, he had been wounded twice, at Brandywine and during the horrifying siege of Fort Mifflin, where he took command after all his superior officers were wounded or killed.
But so much about Fleury remained a mystery. And now Peggy had so little time to find out more.
He was staring out to the ocean in the growing twilight.
“Do you miss France?” she asked.
“Hmm. Yes et no. Life is a struggle there. We are of noble blood, but is difficile to find security of money. Our lands are rocky for farming. I do not have title enough to find employment in King Louis’s court. So I join the army, like my father and his father. I not see my home pour . . . mmm . . . ten years.” He smiled at her, wistful.
Tell me you want to show it to me someday, she thought. Say you have found happiness here, in America. That you will never leave its shores. But all Peggy could manage was, “Do you like America?”
“Mais bien sûr! The country is beautiful. And the women . . .” He pressed his fingers together and kissed them, popping them apart as if throwing the caress into the air in that odd French exclamation of something being perfect.
Silence again.
How Peggy wished Lafayette were still in Newport. He had been recalled almost immediately to Washington’s headquarters after the dinner party at Angelica’s. Fleury had hinted that his friend’s youth and enthusiasms had grated on Rochambeau, that French officers were jealous of the twenty-three-year-old’s rank as general. Peggy searched her memory of Lafayette’s suggestion in Morristown of arranging a romance between her and Fleury for a hint of what to say next to keep their conversation going.
“Oh!” She blushed as her audible exclamation made Fleury look at her quizzically. Lafayette had said Fleury would be impressed with a woman being interested in his inventions. “There is something I would love to know more of.” Peggy hesitated. “But I know it is probably a guarded secret. May I still ask?”
He nodded.
Even though nothing was nearby but seagulls, she lowered her voice, so no one would overhear information about his engineering marvel. “Is it true you were hoping to design self-propelled boats that could blow up British ships? Is such a thing feasible?”
Fleury frowned.
“I . . . I . . .” Peggy decided to be truthful. She didn’t want the marquis to think her papa had divulged secret plans. “I know I shouldn’t have been eavesdropping. But I heard you describe a rocket boat to Papa. It sounded so interesting, I couldn’t help but listen. How do they work? They must be a marvel.”
“Paahh.” Fleury snorted. “They would have been! I had saltpeter and powder, but I never receive the flat-bottom boats I need. My plan was to fill a chest, a very strong one, with powder. The deck covered with bombs. The direction and velocity will be given to the boat by a strong rocket, like fireworks. A mast sank in the water, horizontal to the stern, bound in a sail, will support the boat and hinder the current to drive it out the wrong way. The head we arm with a strong spur of iron, so it will pierce the British ship and stick. We set the British fleet on fire when the powder blows up from sparks of the rocket—BOOM!”
Fleury waved his arms on boom, making Peggy jump.
“Oh! Non, non!” Fleury reflexively lowered his hands to her shoulders to apologize for frightening her: “Pardonnez-moi, je ne veux pas vous effrayer!”
He didn’t drop his hands. Peggy did not pull back. Slowly, his eyes traveled from her eyes to her lips.
Oh please, she thought. Prove to me you feel something of what I do. Peggy nodded ever so slightly, trembling, to give him permission.
Fleury leaned toward her, looked in her eyes again, and then cocked his chiseled face so their lips would meet perfectly, like pieces of a puzzle. Peggy closed her eyes, waiting for the touch of bliss.
CRRRACK!
Peggy and Fleury flinched and fell away from each other at the sound of musket fire. “Damn,” breathed Peggy as Fleury pushed her behind him and drew his sword.
“Arrêtez! Arrêtez!”
“This is my town, you stupid frog!” a surly voice shouted down by the water.
Peggy peeped out from behind Fleury to see a sentry squared off with a local fisherman.
“Identifiez-vous!” The French soldier challenged the man to identify himself.
“Let me about my business, or you and all your fancy-dress, wig-wearing fops will starve, ye will!”
CRRACK. The sentry fired another shot into the air as two more French guards came running. “Arrêtez-le! Peut-être que c’est un espion!”
Clearly the fisherman didn’t understand that the sentry suspected he could be a Tory spy. His response was to drop his basket of cod and pull out his short club that all boatmen carried to twist rope.
“Oh dear,” murmured Peggy. As the French soldiers lowered their muskets to aim at the fisherman’s chest and other boatmen jumped from their sloops to help their friend, Peggy grabbed Fleury’s hand. “Come on!”
This could turn into a brawl. She knew that the locals were increasingly annoyed by having to navigate around all the French vessels and the officers crowding their homes and streets—no matter how much they welcomed their presence.
As the men closed in on one another, weapons or fists ready, Peggy ran toward the wharf, pulling Fleury with her.
“Stop! Arrêtez!” she cried out.
The men all froze, surprised by her sudden appearance, her face red, her bonnet fallen, her hair disheveled from her dash down the hill to the waterside. They stayed squared off, at the ready.
“Good sirs, you misunderstand the French soldiers,” she said breathlessly to the fis
hermen. “The sentry simply asked, ‘Who is there?’ so that you could identify yourself to him. There are spies everywhere, you know that. The sentry’s challenge is simply to keep Newport safe.”
The men stuck their lower lips out and nodded, one snarling, “Why didn’t the jackass say so, then?”
Peggy turned to the French soldiers. She explained in their language that the boatmen fished the coast and would be coming in and out of the harbor every day.
The sentry insisted the fishermen still needed to answer his question. He had his orders, he told Peggy, straight from Count Rochambeau.
“But you must say it in English so the boatmen could understand.” She repeated herself in French, adding, “Dites, ‘Who is there?’”
“Ou is dair?” the Frenchman repeated.
She laughed. “Simple, non?”
The French sentinels nodded, repeating “Ou is dair?”
“Will this do, gentlemen?” she asked the Rhode Islanders.
They shrugged and grumbled about being interrupted in hauling up their catch, and stomped back to their boats.
Well, Peggy thought, not as important a diplomatic moment as Martha Washington had hoped, but a fistfight, or worse, averted at least. She smiled with some pride and turned to Fleury.
He was beaming. “Extraordinaire, mademoiselle. You could translate to General Rochambeau when he meets His Excellency, General Washington. I would be honored, like a knight, to have on my arm such a woman.”
“Oh, they have Alexander Hamilton for translating,” she demurred. But her heart thrilled to hear Fleury say he felt ennobled by being with her. She hoped he knew what he implied by the English words he was choosing—that he felt admiration, perhaps even love, for her.
Peggy took a deep breath. “Marquis, I must tell you something.”
“And I must tell you something.” His voice was warm and he took a step closer. “Mais . . . ladies first.”
Peggy hesitated. “You, sir.” She gestured for him to speak.
But he refused, insisting on polite formality.
Carefully watching what his reaction would be, she said, “My parents have sent for me. Both are ill. I must return to Albany.”
Fleury stiffened.
“But,” Peggy rushed on, “I will travel to Hartford first with my brother-in-law, who goes to facilitate the meeting and to procure supplies for your army. Is there any chance you might . . .” She trailed off, realizing that no matter how daring she might be in revealing her feelings to him, she had no right to push Fleury to request Rochambeau include him in a conference with Washington. Fleury had experienced the same kind of envy Lafayette had from the other French officers. Given his prior service in America, he entered Rochambeau’s forces as a major—receiving a rank many men who had been with the Saintonge Regiment for years had hoped for and were denied by his elevation. She knew from her father’s hurtful experiences with Congress that Fleury being chosen as one of a handful of French envoys to Washington could cause even more grousing about him.
Peggy sighed. Men and rank; it created such discord among them. “What were you going to say?” she asked.
Fleury hesitated, then shook his head. “I will ask to ride in the escort to Hartford. And so, I protect you on the road.” He took her hand and threaded it through his arm. “I will tell what I wish to say when we arrive—before you are taken from me.”
Fifteen
Early Autumn
Alexander Hamilton to Eliza Schuyler
Liberty Pole, New Jersey, September 3, 1780
The little song you sent me I have read over and over. It is very pretty and contains precisely those sentiments I would wish . . . You seem by sympathy to have anticipated [my] inquiries . . . and to have answered them all by this little song . . . [B]e assured My angel it is not a diffidence of my betsey’s heart, but of a female heart, that dictated the questions. . . . Some of your sex possess every requisite to please delight, and inspire esteem friendship and affection; but there are too few of this description. . . . [A]nd though I am satisfied . . . that you are one of the exceptions, I cannot forbear having moments when I feel a disposition to make a more perfect discovery of your temper, and character. . . .
When your sister returns home, I shall try to get her in my interest and make her tell me of all your flirtations. Have you heard any thing more of what I hinted to you about Fleury? When she returns, give my love to her and tell her, I expected, she would have outstripped you in the Hymenial line.
Adieu My love
A. Hamilton
IT TOOK TWO DAYS TO TRAVEL THE SIXTY MILES from Newport to Hartford, Connecticut. Those precious forty-eight hours had been deliciously frustrating, with Fleury riding far behind Peggy’s carriage, on duty and in protective alertness. The French admiral de Ternay was ill, so Rochambeau rode with him in a carriage as well, rather than on horseback. The two vehicles jolted along side by side. The weather was mild enough that the canopies were down so the Frenchmen could enjoy the splashes of orange, gold, and red leaves that signaled the coming of autumn. It also released the smell of onions, eaten to relieve the symptoms of scurvy, that hung around de Ternay. With the carriages open Carter could regale his employers with stories and Angelica amuse them with her winsome chatter.
Peggy, on the other hand, kept looking wistfully back to Fleury. He would smile but otherwise could not acknowledge her gaze, being in such close proximity to his commanding general. Each time she squirmed and turned, Angelica elbowed her in the ribs. By the time they reached their overnight stop, her side was quite bruised.
All day, from Newport to Coventry to Voluntown to Canterbury to Scotland to Windham and finally to Andover, she had itched to say something, anything to him. But even when one of Rochambeau’s carriage wheels broke on the rutted road and they stalled unmoving for more than an hour, she was thwarted. Because he spoke enough English, Fleury was sent off to find help.
While they waited, children ran from their farm fields to touch the boots of the beautifully clad Frenchmen, sitting atop their horses. They scattered, cheering, as Fleury returned at the trot, so expert a horseman that he and his gelding appeared one magnificent creature. He had found a wheelwright.
For one beguiling moment Peggy and Fleury were near each other as he explained—with amusement—that the elderly wheelwright had refused to work through the night to repair any carriage, “not even for a hatful of guineas. Not even for the king of France. Then I told him it was to meet General Washington that we travel. Et voilà! He says it will be ready by five a.m. tomorrow.” He repeated himself in French to Rochambeau.
Rochambeau asked Fleury if Washington was truly that beloved by everyone.
“Ah oui, c’est vrai.” Fleury nodded. “Sa dignité, sa simplicité de manières, son dévouement à la campagne, son visage ouvert et son attitude de défi à l’encontre des Anglais gagnent le cœur de tous.”
In his native tongue, Fleury put it so beautifully, so poetically—Washington’s dignity, his simplicity of manners, his devotion to country, his open countenance and stubborn defiance of the British did indeed win the heart of most everyone. Why couldn’t Fleury serve as translator at the conference? Peggy pouted. Why did he have to return immediately to Newport?
Fleury explained there was a tavern nearby—the Sign of the Black Horse—where they could spend the night as the wheelwright worked. Peggy’s mood lifted with the thought that surely she and her Frenchman would be able to steal a few minutes together then. But crowded into one room with Carter plus Rochambeau’s aides-de-camp and son, Fleury was kept playing backgammon all evening. At midnight, Angelica closed and locked the door of the closet-sized bedroom she and Peggy shared. Fuming, Peggy vowed to find some way to pay back her brother-in-law for detaining Fleury all night.
Now she sat, swaying on the ferry, with Rochambeau’s party, crossing the Connecticut River to Hartford. She could see hordes of people on the other side, waving handkerchiefs and homemade flags of blue, white, and red v
ertical stripes to honor the French troops. How many more minutes did they have? She glanced to Fleury, who was shading his eyes against the water’s glare to look in amazement at the thousands of people.
The ferry docked with a bump and an explosion of huzzahs from people on shore. Awaiting them was the governor, Carter’s partner, Colonel Wadsworth, a dozen city leaders dressed in their finest embroidered vests and purple coats, plus the governor’s foot guard, still bedecked in the opulent red and gold-trimmed dress uniforms once given them by King George’s royal governor.
BOOM! Cannon fired.
BOOM-BOOM. Thirteen rounds in salute and celebration of the thirteen United States. Peggy’s heart jumped with each deafening round.
A fife-and-drum corps struck up “Yankee Doodle,” and before she really knew what was happening, Rochambeau and de Ternay were astride beautiful warhorses and parading toward the capitol, followed by the musicians, the guard, the city officials, and all the Frenchmen, including her Fleury.
Carter took the carriage reins and struggled to control their horses amid the happily pushing throng, cheering and clapping in time to the music. From every window, on every stoop of the city, people waved and called out and applauded. Peggy could see many of them were crying—that’s how starved Americans were for help in their fight. One would have to be dead to not thrill to the euphoria, the sense of hope in all those huzzahs.
From a distance, she could see George Washington standing on the steps of the courthouse, towering over everyone around him.
“There’s Hamilton.” Angelica cupped her mouth and raised her voice so Peggy could hear her. “See him there, beside His Excellency? He truly is Washington’s most trusted man, it seems. Eliza is a lucky girl.”
Peggy nodded. She also spotted Lafayette, along with Harrison, Meade, Tilghman, and that insufferable McHenry. Carter could not get them close enough to actually hear Washington greet Rochambeau—Hamilton leaning into His Excellency to translate the French general’s response, and Lafayette doing the same into his countryman’s ear. But there were many bows and solemn smiles that made it clear the diplomatic formalities were perfectly executed.
Hamilton and Peggy! Page 19