French Passion (20 page)

After a long silence he said, very thickly, “So he is. My God, how can I spare you?” He set down his goblet, coming behind me, flexing his hands, and in the mirror I could see the reflection. Large hands with muscular tendons. “What thoughts are going through your head as you watch these hands?”

I didn't answer.

“They're about to inflict great pain on you, is that what you think? But I gave you my word never again to beat you. These hands can kill, you think? After all, you're my whore, and as a whore, these hands could destroy you, and nobody would accuse me. But I won't kill you.”

He leaned down, breathing brandy over me. “Tonight,” he said, “you're leaving this house.”

“Is that my punishment, Comte?”

He bowed. “Yes. In part.”

“But I've wanted to leave … always.…”

I faltered. This wallpaper bedroom turned my words to a lie. That was the armchair where he'd sat gripping my hands while CoCo was being born, by that window he'd held me when I mourned her. We'd shared that uncurtained bed a thousand times, we'd smiled across that little table over how many cups of breakfast chocolate? Water flooded my eyes.

“You were saying, my dear?”

I blinked away the tears. “Comte, I've cared for you, deeply. And if CoCo had lived, tonight never would have happened. With all my heart I've wished you her father. I care for you in many ways. I respect you—everybody does. I admire your wit and intelligence. I … enjoy you.… But you're right. After this evening, it's impossible for me to stay in your house.”

“Then we agree,” he said. “Excellent. I've made other arrangements for you.”

He flung open my armoire, fumbling through clothes, jerking my blue woolen cape from its hook.

“Tonight?”

“You just agreed.”

“Where?”

“A little surprise I've readied.”

Wherever he was taking me was bad. Very bad.

“I'll say goodbye to Aunt Thérèse and Izette. Write a few words for Jean-Pierre.”

“You'll do none of those,” he said, placing the cloak on my shoulders.

I fumbled in my jewel box for my opals. “Comte, everything I own is yours, except this. It's been in the d'Epinay family for generations. Please give it to Aunt Thérèse?” I held out the luminous web of stones.

He hit my hand. The slap rang, the necklace fell, muffled by the Aubusson rug.

His face twisted with such agony that I reached out to him. He stepped back unsteadily.

“My apologies,” he said. “I hit you as one hits a child. No more. And you are a child, my dear. A foolish, generous child. You give on impulse, as children do. You give to your aunt, your brother, you risk your life for cripples and servants. Why couldn't you have learned caution? Why?” He paused. “You've been happy here, you say. You even … care … for me. And you have clothes, tutors, jewels, parties, anything you wish. Then, just because some renegade poet smiles at you, you throw your life away. To give him a few hours' pleasure, you throw your life away. My dear, you've behaved like a willful child.” He opened the door. “Come.”

I couldn't move. Not knowing where he was taking me terrified me. Fear rooted me to the spot.

Don't go, I ordered myself. Do anything else. Run. Once you ran from him, and escaped. Now you know Paris, have friends in Paris. Besides, he's very drunk. Yes, run.

Swiftly I pushed by him, racing along the corridor. I held up my embroidered green skirt to take steps two at a time. His feet thundered after me. I was almost to the brightly lit hall when one of my shoes skidded. Frantic, I attempted to balance myself. He reached me. Grasping my arms, he twisted them behind me. Cruel. I cried out. The cloak had slipped, and I could feel his breath on my bared neck. I struggled desperately. He pressed his lips against my nape. “Never again,” he whispered. “Oh my dearest, sweetest love, can you imagine how much I hurt?”

I stopped struggling. He must have known restraint was unnecessary, yet he pinioned my hands still more tightly as he bent to retrieve my cloak. Our steps echoed across the hall.

A carriage waited. It wasn't one of his elaborate equipages. No. This was a dingy, hired berlin with mud-streaked carriage lanterns. Two thin nags drooped their tired heads between the shafts.

The driver, perched in front, wore a shapeless hat pulled low, and a long muffler wound up to his mouth. I recognized the muffler, for I'd knitted it myself.

The driver was Old Lucien.

The Comte opened the door, pushing me in ahead of him. He gave no directions. The berlin's hood prevented me from seeing where we went.

We rocked and clattered through invisible streets. Each turn of the wheel, each splash of a horse's hoof moved us closer to where? And what? I tried to guess our position by sounds. There were no other carriages, no horses, no dogs barking, no human voices. It was late, true, yet Paris lived by night. We moved as if through a city under the spell of some dread conjurer.

My fear for myself was coupled with fear for André. Twenty police after him, and they all blended into that one skull-white face of the tall, bony interrogator.

We traveled, it seemed, for hours. Yet we didn't stop at any barrier guardhouses, so we must still be within the city gates.

Then the sound of wheels and hooves resounded longer, a deeper echo, and I knew we were crossing an empty place, a square possibly. We ground to a halt. My teeth were jammed together. In the sudden quiet, horses panted, and nearby there was a faint, muffling sound that I couldn't quite place.

A man's voice called, “Who goes there?”

“A minister to good King Louis,” replied Old Lucien.

Footsteps. A man's voice, very close. “Papers?”

“Inside be the Comte de Créqui.”

“The Comte? In that old berlin?”

“It be him.”

“I don't believe it. Besides, I don't give a damn if it's Queen Marie Antoinette herself. Nobody gets by here without papers.”

The Comte opened the door.

A soldier of the French Guard raised his bayonet.

“Governor de Launay expects us,” the Comte said. The cool voice of aristocratic power. Unanswerable.

And in that moment, with the door open, I was able to see where I was. The flat muffling sound was water in a moat. Behind the moat stood high, awesome fortress walls and towers. The walls, I knew, were thirty feet thick and a hundred feet high, a vast and terrible pile of gray stones that appeared to have crushed all nearby that was human.

We were in front of one of the eight drawbridges of the most feared prison in France.

The Bastille.

The sentry lowered his bayonet, saying, “Proceed, sire.”

Our hired berlin rattled hollowly over the drawbridge. We entered the Bastille.

Inside, we were halted three times. Old Lucien would call, “This be the Comte de Créqui's coach.” Locks would grate, heavy doors would creak. We would move ahead, and the doors would clang shut behind us.

The fourth time we stopped, the shabby equipage shook as Old Lucien descended. He opened the door. The Comte got out. I pushed myself from worn leather. My bones seemed fused. The Comte, his face pale in the light of flambeaus, extended a hand to me, courteous as if we were entering the Opéra-Comique rather than the Bastille.

Taking his hand, I stepped from the berlin. Massive gray stones exuded a dank odor. Chill penetrated my wool cloak.

Old Lucien watched me with his toothless, sunken smile. “This be where all bad 'uns belong,” he said.

The Comte turned on the old man. “I'll have you broken on the wheel,” he said hoarsely.

Old Lucien clasped his gnarled hands, silent, beseeching. I looked at the Comte. His pallor was more deadly. In Roman times, I remembered him once telling me, bearers of bad news were inevitably put to death.

“Comte, don't,” I said.

“Don't what, my dear?”

It was difficult to stand. My fused bones were numb, and I was positive that at any moment I'd crash forward like a toppled toy soldier.

“Let him be,” I said. “He sees me for what I am. Otherwise, he's just an old fool. Harmless.”

The Comte, turning away, drew a deep, shuddering breath. “Again that poor, foolish generosity.”

His face still averted, he extended his arm toward me, I placed my hand on his, and formally we moved to the arched oak door that was set into the thick stone wall. Two French Guards, stationed in sentry boxes at either side of the door, continued to gaze at a fixed point: neither so much as glanced at us.

The Comte raised the iron knocker, let it fall.

Immediately the door opened. The turnkey wore a short blue cape with a hood that shadowed his face. A second turnkey stood nearby, and he, too, wore a blue hooded cape. In a theater this pair would have been high comedy. In the Bastille, though, their hidden features were sinister. We stepped over the wide threshold. One of the turnkeys shut the door behind us, a heavy, thick sound. Final as death.

I began to tremble. Hastily I took my hand from the Comte's, refusing to let him feel this palpable sign of my terror.

He held out a letter. Folded parchment sealed with a great crimson blob of wax from which dangled a crimson ribbon. A turnkey took it.

“Thank you, my lord,” he whispered.

The turnkeys stationed themselves on either side of me. I, shaking harder, feared for my ability to walk. They'll have to drag me through the halls of the Bastille, I thought, and for some reason this vignette, the hooded pair dragging my cloaked figure over the stone floor, struck me as funny. My lips formed a smile. Ahead of them I walked toward a lit door. Reaching it, I turned. The Comte hadn't moved. His shoulders quaked, and he held one hand over his forehead, covering his eyes.

Yet another door shut behind me. The room was furnished with two candle stands, several chairs in the heavy old style, a tapestry screen. A long table.

Behind this table sat a registrar in the blue-hooded cape. (A long time later I would learn that the Bastille was manned by veterans of the French Guard and this was their uniform.)

“Name?” he whispered.

“Manon d'Epinay.”

“Ma-ano-on d'E-ep-i-nay,” he repeated in that same whisper, his head drawing deeper into his hood like a turtle's as he laboriously scratched into a huge leatherbound volume.

“Let's see. Three of the morning of September 10, 1788.” Again the whisper. He wrote slowly. Handing me his plume, he turned the huge book toward me. The page was almost filled. “Sign here.”

I wrote my name, he sanded it.

“Possessions?” he whispered.

By now I accepted the whispers, like the shading hoods, as another aspect of anonymity. Nothing in this fortress was permitted to remain human, individual.

“Just the clothes I'm wearing.”

“No jewelry? Money?”

“None.”

“Empty your pockets.”

I'd forgotten my tiny oval box with the braided lock of CoCo's fine, pale hair, Jean-Pierre's brown, and Aunt Thérèse's white.

“The box is gold. Take it,” I said. “I'll keep the hair.”

“You won't. Prisoners aren't allowed property.”

“Of what am I accused?” I wondered that I'd never asked myself the question. “When will the trial be held?”

The two turnkeys who had brought me in were lounging near the door. Now they straightened, watching.

The registrar asked, “Don't you know how you're here?”

I shook my head.

“See this?” He pointed to the great blob of crimson wax on the letter. “It's the King's seal.” He shook open parchment, pointing. “And this is the signature of one of King Louis' secretaries. This is a
lettre de cachet
.”

I took a deep, trembling breath.

“Then you understand? With this letter you have been imprisoned without committing a crime. The letter's dated July 28, 1788. Six weeks ago.”

The morning after Alexine had brought André to my house! Is that why the Comte had wooed me so persistently? To protect me from his own fury?

The whisper continued, “… no crime, so there is no need for a trial.”

“How long will I be here?” I cried.

He shrugged. “You're simply here.”

“You don't know?”

“Sometimes there have been releases. But let's say you belong in the Bastille.”

I belong to you
, I'd told the Comte.

“But my aunt and my brother don't know where I am!”

“Mmm. Let's see the terms of your imprisonment.” He held the
lettre de cachet
near the candle. “Due care and consideration,” he read, then fell silent. I tried, unsuccessfully, to make out his expression. Finally he said, “I'm sorry, mademoiselle, you're in Secret.”

“In secret?”

“In Secret means as it says. No visitors. No paper. No letters. No conversation with other prisoners. No talk with the turnkey.”

If any other man came near you, it would kill me, and I would punish you until you'd wish you were dead, too
, the Comte had told me.

“Ah, here's something better, especially for a beautiful girl like you.” He paused before he read, “No torture.”

“Oh, such generosity!”

I began to laugh. Hysterical peals rang louder and louder, disturbing the tomb silence. The turnkeys appeared ready for outbursts. Quickly a gag was placed in my mouth, and my hands were manacled behind my back.

Like this, I was led through a dark maze of stone. One escort held a torch, the other prodded me. The chain dangling between my wrists clinked. At one turn I stumbled, the chain rang on cobbles, but the turnkey stopped me from falling. In a narrow ell we stopped. A ring of keys was produced to unlock a low door. The door closed behind us. We climbed curling, steep steps. Twenty-five I counted. Reaching the top, the turnkey stuck his torch in a wall holder. We were in front of a barred door.