by A L Berridge
It was all quiet when we got home. The footmen went to get the gate opened, and for a moment the street was clear, nothing but the two of us and the huddled shape of Jean bent over his brazier. Charlot was talking to Guillot, I remember the murmur of their voices and the clink of lanterns being lifted to light us inside. A horse snorted, and across the street I saw the black shape of a closed carriage, but there were tall shadows next to it, men huddled together and starting to move. Among them glinted suddenly a long orange streak, and it took me a second to realize the fire of our brazier was reflecting off the blade of a sword.
I jumped as something bumped my leg, and there was one of the dogs with Guillot holding its lead. Another panted and strained at the leash, claws scrabbling on the wet flags.
‘Come inside, Chevalier,’ said Charlot gently. ‘It’s cold.’
The gate closed behind us with a reassuringly solid bang. I wasn’t sure I’d really seen anything, I might have just imagined it, but it was good to know Charlot had thought of everything. At least nobody could get André in here.
Anne du Pré
Extract from her diary, dated 11 October 1640
I worked myself into the most foolish state this evening. I heard Bouchard’s voice in Florian’s apartments as I retired to my chamber, and the thought of what they might be discussing filled me with terror. I resolved that if I could not elope with André then I would enter a convent and be done.
When Florian came I backed away as if from an enemy and said ‘I won’t marry Bouchard, brother, I will die first.’
He jerked his head. ‘There’s no need to be like that, we only want your good.’
‘You don’t,’ I said, and felt the tears coming before I could stop them. ‘How can it be my good not to marry André?’
Florian put his arms about me quickly so as not to see me cry. He said ‘It’s only that you don’t know him very well, that’s all. We’d like you to see more of him before we decide.’
The relief was so wonderful I could scarcely believe it. I said just ‘Oh, Florian!’
‘Silly,’ he said, pressing my head back into the thinness of his chest. ‘Now, we go to the Cardinal’s gala on Saturday, don’t we? To celebrate the birth of Philippe d’Orléans? How would it be if you write and invite the Rolands to join us?’
I stared at his shirt-front. ‘You think perhaps Father …?’
‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘But it would be better if the two of you had some time alone.’
To see André alone! I said ‘How could we do that in a party?’
He knocked my head gently against his chest. ‘I know the Luxembourg. They’re still working on the hedges of the labyrinth, and there’s a temporary gardeners’ hut nearby. Suppose you and André were to meet there?’
I said ‘I can’t wander off alone with André. Father would never allow it.’
His beard tickled my forehead as he smiled. ‘He will this time, Anne. I guarantee it.’
Jacques Gilbert
I’ve got no excuses, I know what I did. But it did look safe, I mean André was escorted everywhere, it never occurred to anyone that the person they should have watched was me.
It was all because of the betrothal. André was still simmering with frustration, and the minute he heard the Comte was up to visitors again he insisted on seeing him to get his support. I wasn’t going, of course, I mean the servants didn’t know who I was yet, it would have looked odd for André to take his aide to see the Comte. I wasn’t ready yet anyway, I wouldn’t have wanted to be an embarrassment. I did understand.
I still felt flat when I saw the carriage trundling out of the porte-cochère with a load of grooms surrounding it like guard dogs. I thought about André marrying Anne and being happy, and that was good, of course, it’s what I wanted for him, but I did just wonder a bit where it left me. I wandered round the house with servants bowing and going out of rooms as soon as I went into them, and it felt like I was looking for something without knowing what.
So I went out. I didn’t think it mattered, I wasn’t needed anywhere, and sort of wanted to be somewhere I might be. I walked out into the Rue du Roi de Sicile, turned right towards the maze of streets we’d come in by, and set off towards Le Pomme d’Or where it all began.
Bernadette Fournier
When Louis said one of the strangers wished to see me you can imagine what I assumed. As I entered the room the gold coin seemed to burn inside my dress to brand me for what I was.
It was the servant of the two, but dressed so like a gentleman as to frighten me with his magnificence. He thanked me for my care of their horses and asked after my health, and I curtsied and thanked him, and waited for him to say what I knew he must.
He looked up at the rafters and down at the floor, but could not seem to say a word.
I wished it over with. ‘There is something you wish to say, Monsieur?’
‘Yes,’ he said at once, seizing on my words as if they would help him. ‘Yes.’ At last he looked at me directly, but there was no accusation in his eyes. ‘I ought to have brought you something, oughtn’t I?’
I was confused. ‘Something?’
He nodded vehemently. ‘I thought about flowers. I passed a stall, they had beautiful roses, pink and orange. Only then I thought … I thought …’
I took pity on him. ‘What would a girl like me do with flowers?’
‘Yes,’ he agreed, and smiled anxiously.
I could not help but smile back, but then I heard Madame shouting at Louis in the yard and remembered who and what I was, and what the world was too.
I said abruptly ‘Why do you come here, Monsieur?’
His smile faded. ‘I wanted to see you.’
Oh, you did not know him then, you do not know what he was, but listen, this was Jacques Gilbert. He was tall and straight and handsome, and the scar on his cheek made him so much a man as to take my breath away. He wore fine clothes and carried a sword, he should have been strutting like a very peacock, but he stood and looked at me with a face as red as sunset and fumbled his hat round and round in his hands.
I took the coin from my dress and held it out. ‘There, Monsieur, that is what I am.’
He looked as if he did not understand what it was. Then his eyes lifted again and this time it was I who flushed. ‘You only took one?’
His mistrust scalded me. ‘You may search me if you like, that is all I took.’
He shook his head in distress. ‘That’s not what I mean.’
I thrust the coin at him. ‘Take it, Monsieur, it is yours or your master’s.’
‘He’d want you to keep it. So do I.’
I flung it to the floor at his feet. ‘I do not need your charity.’
He did not move. ‘It’s not charity.’
I thought I understood. ‘As you wish, Monsieur. I have a little room upstairs, we can go there if you want.’
He stepped back as if I had struck him. I thought ‘Good, that is good, now he will go away and never come back.’
But he did not go. We stood facing each other, he and I, with a coin worth six livres on the floor between us and neither willing to pick it up.
At length he said ‘I’m sorry, I’m doing this so badly.’ He put on his hat and gave a smile so tentative my heart moved. ‘Can you forgive me?’
Me, Monsieur, girl at Le Pomme d’Or. I said ‘Perhaps.’
His hand stole down from his hat, and I saw hope brightening his face. He took a step forward, stopped as his foot met the coin, then stooped and picked it up. I watched warily as he wiped it on his breeches then held it out to me.
I said ‘You might need it yourself, Monsieur.’
‘Jacques,’ he said. ‘I’m just Jacques.’
I opened my hand and he placed the coin gently on my palm. ‘I will keep it for you then, Jacques. Come back when you need it.’
He smiled such a wicked smile. ‘Maybe I’ll need it tomorrow.’
A sound behind alerted me to the entrance of Madam
e. At once I slipped the coin into my dress, but Madame’s eyes turned into little hard stones of suspicion, and I guessed she had caught the glint of gold.
My poor Jacques was as shy of her as I was. He bowed, bade her good day, and almost backed from the room in his haste to be gone. I followed him to the door and watched him down the road, cramming down his hat against the rain, but walking with exaggerated carelessness as if he knew I was looking.
But I was not the only one who watched. A figure sheltering in a doorway turned to look after him, and my head returned abruptly into cold sense, for it was one of M. Fontrailles’ gentlemen, the plump one with the monstrous valet. He strolled across towards me and said curtly ‘I wish a word with your mistress.’
I left him with Madame, but noticed how quietly they spoke together, and when I next passed the door they both glanced up, then looked away.
Jacques Gilbert
No one asked where I’d been. André never even noticed I was wet with rain, he was too busy bubbling with excitement at a letter from Anne. It didn’t sound much to me, she was only suggesting we join her family for Richelieu’s party, but André was waving the letter around like a flag.
‘Don’t you see?’ he said. ‘The Baron wants us there, and that’s got to mean something. The Comte’s going to ask him about the betrothal on Monday, and he’s going to say yes, I know he is, he’s going to say yes.’
I don’t remember ever seeing him as happy as he was that evening. He came bursting into my room while I was dressing for dinner, sprawled on my bed and talked about Anne, stroking his foot up and down the bedpost like he’d already got her in his arms and no one was getting her out of them. It irritated me a bit at the time, but I feel bad about it now. I think of him lying there saying ‘We’re going to live here, of course, I’m not going anywhere without my brother,’ I think of that now and it hurts. He hadn’t had much in his life for himself, not really, nobody could grudge him this one little moment of happiness. It didn’t occur to either of us that it might be all there was ever going to be.
Bernadette Fournier
I knew my danger. I knew the gentlemen feared M. de Roland, and could not imagine they would welcome the sight of his companion in the very house, or indeed his giving me money.
Yet I did not run. I had the protection of my master, and was confident both of the authority of M. Fontrailles and the strength of my own innocence. So I held my nerve and continued my duties just as usual, but I observed how long Madame was closeted with Monsieur when he came home, I noted that a servant of Bouchard’s called on them a long time in the evening, I watched and I listened, and my unease grew.
When I went to bed that night I pulled the ladder up after me and quietly closed the trap. Then I sewed my golden écu safely inside my dress, removed my shoes, and laid myself on the bed to wait.
My bedroom faced the courtyard so the sounds from the road were muffled, but as I lay with my ears open I heard even the late carriages rattle by in the Rue de Braque, splashing up water from the puddles as they passed. When Louis shut the courtyard gate the crash of the bolts seemed loud as a gunshot. I listened for the familiar bang of the side door as he came in to bed, then the squeak of hinges as the kitchen door closed. After that should be silence, for so it always was, but this night there were still faint voices from the public room and I knew Madame and Monsieur were waiting up.
I wondered what for.
I do not know how much longer it was before I heard horses, but if I had dozed I woke in an instant. I climbed quietly from the bed, found my cloak in the dark and fastened it round my shoulders. Below me I heard the front door open and close, and again the murmur of voices. Then the stairs began to creak. I crept to the trap, and watched its edges begin to shimmer with faint light as someone carried a candle from below.
I pressed my head to the crack and heard Monsieur whisper ‘The ladder’s gone.’
Another voice murmured, then Madame said ‘But not here, he promised, not here.’
A reassuring mumble, and then Monsieur spoke again. I caught only the one word, but it was enough to make me start back at once from the trap. The word was ‘window’.
I dared not risk shoes. I gripped the windowsill and lowered myself until my arms would stretch no more, then dropped quickly to the stable roof below. My bare feet made only the softest thump below the drumming of the rain, but the bolts of the side door were already rattling and I had time only to swing myself over the side of the roof, drop hard to the cobbles and conceal myself behind the trough before the door opened and a man walked out. Monsieur was with him, and I saw him point towards my window before going to unbolt the courtyard gate.
The man looked up at the window, shook his shoulders and walked towards the stable. I saw him quite clearly as he passed, a stocky creature with a face scarred by smallpox, a man I was certain I had never seen before. He patted the stable wall as if puzzling over the climb, then pulled open the door and used it to scramble his way up. His mind and eyes were fully engaged with the effort and Monsieur had returned to the house, so I waited no longer but ran silently for the unbolted courtyard gate.
But it was opening of itself, it pushed in towards me, and revealed a gentleman entering behind it. I should have remembered I had heard more than one horse, but my mind was too full and now it was too late, for he seized my wrist and called to his companion who was now scaling the ivy ‘Here she is, you fool, she’s right here!’
I tried to pull away, I even brought his disgusting hand to my mouth and bit, but he simply grappled me round, then lifted me clear off my feet to sling me over his shoulder like a sack of grain. My fists beat helplessly against his back, but he only chuckled and held me tighter, while behind us I heard his lackey jump back to the stable roof.
Then my hand touched a wooden handle, and I knew what it was. They call it a main-gauche, Monsieur, the dagger gentlemen use when they fight, and it is carried on the back of the belt to be drawn with the left hand. I snatched it and stabbed as hard as I could into the man’s back, I punched it in as if it had been my fist, and then I wrenched it out.
He made a deep soft grunt, which did not sound much for so great a blow, but then his knees buckled and his grip slackened, he was folding to the ground and I was able to jump free. Behind came a cry and a crash as the other man jumped from the stable, and I ran at once out of the gate. Two horses waited, but I swerved past them, my feet slipping and sliding on the wet cobbles, and turned fast into the Rue de Braque.
I could not outrun the man, I must lose him and quickly. The road was paved and my feet ran more securely, but my hair was slapping wet across my eyes and I had much to do to keep the cloak from entangling my legs. The Rue de Braque is long and straight, Monsieur, it was death to remain on it, so I hastened down a side street, then again down another and into a little alley by the graveyard of the Chapelle de Mercy. I climbed its low wall, ran to crouch behind the tallest gravestone, and waited, cold and wet and trembling in the dark.
After a moment came hooves down the Rue de Braque, but they were slow and indecisive, and in a little while I heard the rider turn back. I allowed my breathing to slow, but dared not move yet. The man could not follow me down every street and byway in this whole great city, but he might perhaps guess I had hidden, and lie in wait for me to reveal myself.
I tried to think what I must do. The streets were dark and empty, but we had a night watch even in those days and I could not hope to escape through the gates. I had stabbed a man, perhaps killed him, and the evidence was plain upon me, for there was blood down my arm and on my dress. Not even a church would take me in, for the man I had injured was a gentleman. I would be handed over, I would be taken and hanged, there was nobody who would give sanctuary to such as me.
Then the idea came that there was perhaps one. I bathed my hands and arms in the wet grass of the graveyard, rearranged my cloak to hide the stains on my dress, and set out to find the Rue du Roi de Sicile.
The walk was
not far, but I dared not go openly for fear of the watch. From doorway to doorway I crept, ducking into side streets at the faintest sound of footsteps or voices. There were few people about, gentlemen spilling out of a cabaret, a pair of ruffians swaggering with clubs, a group of soldiers who cried ‘What’s your hurry, sweetheart?’ but I did not turn and they did not come after me. The darkness was my greatest protection, for my cloak was full and black, and the great high walls of the Marais are full of stone bornes and niches which provided cover for one small woman creeping like a mouse towards safety. Some of the grand hôtels had lanterns outside, and these I passed on the other side of the road. Some had servants about the doorways, and those I passed with head averted, but the sight gave me hope, for what I would do if I found the doors of the Hôtel de Roland both shut and unmanned I could not think.
They were shut indeed but a liveried servant stood outside warming his hands by the fire of a brazier. I approached boldly, dropped a curtsey, and said ‘Your pardon, Monsieur.’
He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, lass, I haven’t the cash.’
I said ‘You mistake me, Monsieur, I wish to come in. I need to see Jacques.’
You will laugh, but it was not until then that I realized I had no idea of his other name.
‘Lot of Jacques in Paris,’ said the porter. ‘Would a Jean do? You can call me Jacques if you like.’
I almost turned away, but then recollected there was one name I did know, and if there was a door in Paris it would open it was surely this one.
I said ‘Then the Chevalier de Roland, fellow. I need to see him now.’
His eyes widened, but he said ‘Of course you do, darling. Now be a good girl and try it on somewhere else.’
I sprang past him and banged on the gate with my fists, I shouted ‘Chevalier!’ as if certain he must know me. I cried ‘It’s me, Bernadette, let me in!’