The Pearl Brooch

by Logan, Katherine Lowry

  Holy Mary, Mother of God…

  The weight of a man’s foot on her back squashed her, pressing her face into the mattress, which smelled of sweat and body odor. Before she could even try to take a breath, he removed his foot and his powerful hands flipped her over, twisting her painfully and leaving her totally immobilized.

  Another man appeared carrying a flaming branch. His muscular body strained the seams of his dirty black coat. He yelled, “De Launay! Open the gate or we’ll burn your daughter.” The makeshift torch was mere inches from the stuffing poking out of the torn mattress ticking.

  …pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.

  “Burn her. Burn her. Burn her,” the bloodthirsty crowd chanted.

  Pain lessened as air once again filled her lungs, but panic threatened to override every bit of her training. Her eyes never left the torch. If he dropped it, she wouldn’t go up in flames all at once, since everything she wore was flame-retardant, but she could be badly burned.

  She kept her eyes on the fire. The man’s arm held steady above the mattress. If he let go, she’d roll toward the man who just kicked her, lift her skirts, and take out his legs with an explosive kick that would probably doom her, but she would not go quietly into the night. Not her. She’d take someone with her. And the man who kicked her was at the top of her list of candidates, followed by the jerk who slapped her.

  A prison official ran to the edge of the roof to see what was happening. The earsplitting crack of a gun discharged behind her, and the man tumbled off the roof, landing only a few feet away, the cracking of his bones echoing the gunshot.

  Nauseated, she was unable to pull her eyes away from the murdered man. This was madness, but staying calm was still her best defense.

  Minute by minute, though, it was becoming increasingly more difficult to hold onto calm or sanity. The caustic smoke from the discharged weapon stuck in her throat and made her cough.

  A man in tan breeches scrambled through the throng of rioters, yelling, “Stop this. It’s disgusting.”

  He yanked the torch away from the man and doused it in a nearby barrel, where it sizzled and went out. Then he threw it on the ground. “We’re not murderers.” He looked down at Sophia, his eyes wide with anger.

  She lay there preparing emotionally for a last fight. Her head was spinning, her chest was throbbing, and she was scared, for sure, but hopeful. Hope scared her most of all. If she lost it, she’d have nothing. In a wobbly voice, she said, “I’m not his daughter.”

  “Tais-toi,” he said sharply, before squatting to pick her up as easily as deadlifting dumbbells. Then he whirled on the mob and roared. “We are not murderers.”

  The rioters instantly showered him with a volley of threats and insults. “Put her down or we’ll burn you both.”

  They continued to shout and sneer, but they didn’t attack him. Sophia curled into his arms, tucking in her skirts and making herself as small a target as possible while he wove his way through the crowd. The weight of her pockets assured her that her assets were still safe deep inside her skirt.

  A man with a pitchfork pointed the tines at her rescuer, who shoved the peasant aside. “There’s been enough killing. She’s not de Launay’s daughter.”

  No one else opposed her rescuer. He plowed through the crowd, passing the dead and wounded sprawled in the courtyard. Sickened, she looked away, but the images of their mutilated bodies were already seared on her brain. Ten years from now she’d still be able to sketch the scene exactly as it looked right then.

  She hid her face in the cloth of her rescuer’s dark blue jacket and mumbled the incantation.

  “What’d you say?”

  “It’s a Gaelic saying about love.” She glanced up at his dark eyes and wispy, curly hair. Despite the scar on his cheek, he had an open, trusting face. “I can walk now.”

  “Are you sure? They were rough with you.”

  She nodded. “I’m sure.”

  He gently set her on her feet, but she leaned against him for a moment until she got her balance. Her gut hurt, her back hurt, but nothing was broken, thank God.

  “We have a way to go,” he said.

  She made a snap judgement while keeping a wary eye on the street. His appearance and kindness warranted her trust. “Where are we going?” If it was away from the Bastille, she didn’t really care.

  He glanced over his shoulder. “No one is following us, so I’ll take you to my shop. You can clean up there, and then I’ll see you safely home.”

  “Thank you for what you did. You took a terrible risk. They could have turned on you.” She lifted her skirts above her ankles and sidestepped a nasty-looking stream of dirty water mixed with offal running down the middle of the street. Her nose twitched from the distinctive smell of hops from the breweries as well as the sickening stench from the tanneries.

  “What they are doing is wrong,” he said. “They’re good people, but desperate. That’s not who they are. They’re hungry and angry, so they’ll do things they wouldn’t normally do.”

  “Then we should hurry in case they change their minds and come after us to finish what they started.”

  The Bastille was behind them now. The din of the angry voices subsided, but the cannon and musket fire rattled the windows in the buildings they passed. On her left the flying buttresses of the apse of Notre-Dame Cathedral were visible. So they were walking toward the Louvre, which was where she wanted to go.

  They turned into a rabbit warren of narrow medieval streets and a maze of shadowy alleys she wouldn’t dare walk through at night, or even unaccompanied during the day. It was a place where criminals escaped through back passages and secret openings. The odors were both sweet and sour—sweet from the flower stalls lining the banks and sour from the sewers that dumped filth and disease into the Seine.

  She stayed close to her courageous rescuer, sensing a gentle, quiet spirit resided in his soul. “Has there ever been a city with as many intricate passageways and blind alleys as Paris?”

  “There’s no other city like Paris,” he said. “Its hundreds of streets are narrow, crowded, and full of stalls where Parisians hawk their wares. This street is usually so crowded a carriage can’t get through.”

  They were north of the cathedral now. Dangling shop signs extended out over the street. If she didn’t watch where she was going, she could easily hit her head. A bookstore advertised copies of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne. Above the shops, upper floors were built out over the streets, blocking the sunlight.

  “The streets are so dark,” she said.

  “Only the first floor is taxed, so homes have larger upper floors. And it’s better to stay very alert. Garbage and chamber pots are emptied directly into the streets.”

  “So we have to watch our feet to keep from stepping in human excrement while looking up to dodge flying garbage and the contents of chamber pots.”

  “And don’t forget the animals roaming the streets, especially the wild boars.”

  Next to the bookstore was a glovemaker’s shop, the door slightly ajar. A heavily pregnant woman leaned against a counter speaking to a customer. On the other side of the street was a dressmaker’s shop where a seamstress was cutting fabric laid out on a table, a small child standing on a stool watching her. A jeweler’s swinging sign creaked in the breeze. Under it, a man sat behind a worktable with a loupe held up to his eye.

  Should she stop and trade a pearl or two? No, not yet. She didn’t want her escort to know she carried valuables in her pockets.

  “Why aren’t these people out protesting? Can’t they hear the screaming and gunshots?”

  “They don’t want to get involved,” the man said.

  “But you did.”

  “Politics is a curse I can’t avoid.” He stopped in front of a door painted a grayish-green with a handle covered with grimy fingerprints.

  The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. There was no dangling shop sign
.

  He had a kind face and even kinder eyes, but still… Would he bother to rescue her only to lure her to another kind of horror? If she kept her wits, she could handle a one-on-one unwanted encounter. The pleasant aromas—fresh-baked bread and coffee—wafting out into the street from a nearby shop also softened her unease.

  He unlocked the door and pushed it open for her to enter. The space was filled with light from two large windows and the acrid smell of paint. She had entered an eighteenth-century atelier. Her alerted senses relaxed, as did the tightness in her neck and shoulders.

  She moved slowly through his studio, her skirts swishing as she glided along one side and then the other. Ancient, styled urns, plaster models of female nudes, and swathes of fabric in varied, intense shades of green and blue cluttered the room.

  Then she turned to a large painting resting on an easel, and what she saw there nearly overwhelmed her. It was the six-by-eight-foot Portrait of Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier and His Wife.

  As Sophia approached the portrait, her heart thumped wildly. She’d seen the painting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It was considered one of the most important portraits of the eighteenth century. The subject, Monsieur Lavoisier, was known as the founder of chemistry. It was brilliant.

  She looked at her host, her jaw dropped. “You’re Jacques-Louis David.”

  He smiled and bowed. “I’m honored you’ve heard of me.”

  “Not only heard of you, but I’ve seen several of your paintings. You’re a brilliant painter, a premier artist, with a preference for the kind of strong light and shade used by followers of Caravaggio.”

  He poured water from a pitcher into a basin and handed it to her along with a linen towel. “You can wash away the dirt.”

  She saw her reflection and gasped. “Oh, my. I’m quite a sight.” She removed the wig and shook out her natural hair. “If I devote a day to repairing this, I might be able to wear it again.”

  “I know a wigmaker who would repair it for you, and he wouldn’t charge as much if I tell him I’m painting you.”

  In her planning, she’d considered the possibility Jacques-Louis David might be in Paris, but doubted her tight schedule would give her time to visit his atelier. “You want to paint me? Now I’m honored.” She dipped a corner of the towel into the cool water and patted it against her mouth, cheeks, and forehead. “Of course I will sit for you. How could I not?”

  Jacques-Louis David was not only one of the foremost painters of his time, but he was also an active politician. His intervention on her behalf made sense now.

  She turned back to the painting.

  “What do you think of it?” he asked.

  “You’re asking my opinion? Well, the dominant colors—red, black, blue, and white enhance the painting.” She pointed her finger at Monsieur Lavoisier. “The black suit he’s wearing takes on a luster from the whites and reds surrounding it, and the instruments here,” she pointed again, “have a shimmering quality. The flask has the brilliance of the finest glass…” Then she pointed at the test tubes on the table. “They have a flat, dense look of thick glass. It’s brilliant. Each instrument has its own distinct texture, and reflections play off their surfaces with a marvelous lightness.”

  He circled his hand, a signal to continue. She wasn’t intentionally stroking his ego. He was extraordinarily talented, but if he wanted praise, after what he had done for her at the Bastille, he deserved all the heartfelt flattery she could dole out.

  “You expressed your respect and affection for the Lavoisiers through an air of”—she lifted her hands in praise—“superior simplicity. This painting will be adored for centuries. You’ve created a masterpiece. But why isn’t it on public display?”

  “I finished it in December, but it wasn’t permitted a public display at the Paris Salon for fear that an image of Lavoisier might provoke anti-aristocratic aggression from viewers.” Jacques reached for her hands and studied them closely, rubbing his thumb over the callus on her middle finger. “Only a painter could see what you’ve described.”

  “I paint. But you, Monsieur David, are the master painter.”

  “You know my name, but what is yours? I know you’re not de Launay’s daughter.”

  “Sophia Orsini.”

  A look of surprise and delight blossomed over his features. “Orsini? I’ve heard of your family, Madonna. A very powerful one in Rome.”

  Leonardo had often called her Madonna as did Lukas, a polite form of address for a woman in Italian-speaking areas. “I’m in the Gravina line.” In her time, the last existing line of Orsinis. “I’ve been in Florence studying painting, but I’m from America.”

  He picked up a few strands of her hair and held them in a beam of sunlight. “Your hair has the earthy, sun-brushed hue of wheat, and reminds me of the bounties of harvest time. I would paint you just as you are now.”

  He found a green ribbon and tied it around her hair, letting the curls drape over her shoulder. “I spent several years in Tuscany, and what I remember most is the sun beating down on cobblestones and reflecting off the faded yellow, blue, and green buildings, breezes rustling through the olive trees. The air rich and fragrant. Hills thickly covered with forests disappearing into the blue, hazy sky. Then, far off in the distance, are mountaintops sprinkled with snow.”

  She’d finished washing her face while he painted an extraordinary word picture, bringing Tuscany very much alive. “It takes a painter and a poet to see what you’ve described.”

  “To achieve their goal, masterpieces must charm but also penetrate the soul, and make a deep impression on the part of the mind that’s close to reality… The artist must have studied all motives of mankind, and he must know nature thoroughly. In short, he must be a philosopher.”

  She wasn’t a philosopher, but she was looking at one.

  “How did you get involved in the events of the day?”

  “Bad luck,” she said. “I only just arrived in Paris for a visit. I hadn’t even arranged for lodging before I was caught up in the mob. If you hadn’t stepped forward, I’m afraid to think what would have happened to me.”

  “I don’t know what they would have done to you, Madonna, but I knew I couldn’t stand by and let it happen.”

  A man burst into the studio. “Jacques. Mon Dieu, you’re here. They’re taking de Launay to the Hôtel de Ville. They’re planning to kill him.” The man rushed to the back of the studio, opened a door, and disappeared. He returned almost instantly, strapping a sword belt and scabbard to his waist. “Hurry.”

  Jacques turned back to Sophia. “I must go. I’ll take you to the American ambassador. You’ll be safe there.”

  “We don’t have much time. I have a hackney waiting,” the man said.

  Sophia and Jacques followed the man outside and climbed into the carriage. “What happened?” Jacques asked. “Did you see the governor taken prisoner?”

  “When the Bastille was being ransacked, de Launay tried to blow up the gunpowder. If he’d succeeded, everyone inside and outside the Bastille would have been killed. Instead, they captured him. Second Lieutenant Elie and Pierre-Augustin Hulin are escorting de Launay to the Hôtel de Ville for the Revolutionary Committee to decide his fate. As bloodthirsty as the mob is, he might not make it there.”

  “They won’t kill the governor,” Jacques said.

  “They’re in a killing mood. One of the Bastille’s defending soldiers stopped de Launay from blowing up the powder, but the mob was so crazed they didn’t realize the soldier just saved their lives. They cut off his hands and hung him from a lamppost. If they get hold of de Launay, they’ll do the same or worse.”

  The man’s report churned her stomach. To keep from throwing up, she breathed deeply through her nose and exhaled through her mouth.

  The man gave Sophia a cursory look, making her stomach even worse, while he addressed Jacques. “I heard you rescued a woman from the Bastille.”

  “Word travels fast in Paris,” she said.
“I wasn’t in the Bastille. I mean, not as a prisoner. I was singled out. The mob believed I was de Launay’s daughter.”

  “I’ve seen the governor’s daughter.” The man peered over Jacques’s shoulder at her, the ghost of a smile on his face. “You couldn’t be mistaken for her. Jacques couldn’t even make her desirable on his canvas. But you, mademoiselle…your painting would be an immediate sensation at the Paris Salon.”

  “That’s very kind of you to say.” She held out her hand. “I’m Sophia Orsini.”

  He kissed the back of her fingers. “Léopold Watin at your service.”

  “Léopold’s an excellent varnish maker and color merchant,” Jacques said.

  “No offense,” she said, “but there’s no longer an emphasis on the craftsmanship aspect of painting since painters stopped making their own paints.”

  “None taken,” Watin said. “Although it isn’t the case with Jacques. He understands his materials and applies paint correctly.”

  “Because you’re always standing at my elbow, whispering in my ear,” Jacques said.

  Watin responded to Jacques’s comment in such excited French that she couldn’t follow what he was saying. Even when they talked more slowly, the noise from the carriages rattling over the cobblestones and vendors hawking their wares from wooden stalls made it difficult to hear the men’s conversation.

  She rested against the side of the enclosed carriage and gripped the door handle, her knuckles turning white. The river water was stirred by the air, and a breeze coming off the Seine carried the odor of gunpowder and the stink of the streets.

  She gave herself over to her thoughts. What could she have done differently? And why had the brooch brought her to Paris at such an explosive time? What happened to her at the Bastille came back in a flood of terrifying memories, and she had to breathe deeply to restore her inner calm. Without the benefit of her Tai Chi training, the outcome today might have been quite different.

  The carriage, caught in a tangle of traffic, rolled along slowly, squeezing past stalls encroaching into the narrow street, every one of them piled high with wares and produce. Watin stuck his head out the window. “We’re almost there, but a cart is stopped sideways and impeding the flow of traffic. We’ll have to walk the rest of the way.” He rapped on the wall of the carriage. “We’ll get out here.” The carriage lurched to a stop, and Watin alighted with a sprightly hop. Jacques followed, then helped her down.