Mistress of the Revolution (21 page)

I had never traveled by public coach before and soon understood the drawbacks of that mode of transportation for a young woman without a male escort. Aimée, rocked by the movement of the carriage, fell fast asleep against me. An ill-favoured fellow with large yellow teeth was seated across from me and tried on several occasions to start a conversation. He was not discouraged by my lack of response. I put an end to such attempts by pretending to doze off while keeping an eye on him. He looked like a thief. I had left all of my jewellery in Paris with the Duchess but did not want to be robbed of the money I had taken for the expenses of my journey. That night at the inn, I avoided the common room and ordered dinner brought to the apartment I shared with Aimée.

The next day, the man renewed his questions. I answered that I was joining my sister in a convent. This silenced him at last. The rest of my fellow travelers seemed harmless enough and, whether because of my youth, the presence of my little girl or the modesty of my dress, no one else harassed me. Madame de Montserrat’s carriage was waiting for us in Nantes to take us to Noirvaux, where we arrived late in the afternoon of the fourth day. I was sore and tired, but happy to have left Paris and my worries behind.

Noirvaux Abbey was an imposing stone building situated twenty miles from the boundaries of the city of Nantes. We must have been expected, for the doors swung open before the coachman had time to ring the bell. We alighted in a courtyard and were greeted by a lay sister who invited us to follow her to the Lady Abbess’s apartments. I was very affected at the idea of meeting my sister at last and grasped Aimée’s hand.

We were shown into a study. A lady, around thirty years of age, rose from behind her desk. I had never seen a face so much like my own. It was a perfect oval, the beauty of which was enhanced by the severity of the white wimple and black veil. She wore the insignia of her rank as an Abbess, a ring adorned with a large amethyst and a gold pectoral cross on a purple ribbon. She smiled and opened her arms in a gesture of welcome.

“Gabrielle, dearest,” she said, “at last.”

I knelt, seized her hand and brought her ring to my lips. “It is an honour to meet you, Madam.”

She raised me to kiss me on the cheek. “I am your sister. I hope that you will call me
Hélène
when we are alone.”

Her black habit had caught the attention of Aimée, who was staring at her with some apprehension.

“So this is my niece,” she added, smiling. “God has blessed you with a lovely little girl. I cannot look at her without being reminded of Christ’s words:
Let the little children come to me
.”

Hélène caressed Aimée’s cheek and seemed lost in her thoughts for a moment.

“We will have some time by ourselves later,” she added, “but now you should meet our community. Everyone is gathered in the refectory, and impatient to welcome both of you.”

Our arrival in the refectory caused a commotion. A group of novices, recognizable by their white veils and youthful appearance, cried aloud with excitement. One look from Hélène silenced them. Nuns in black veils, their hands crossed on their chests, waited more sedately to be introduced to us. Lay sisters in grey habits were disposing refreshments on the tables. The nuns, all noblewomen, were called
Madame
and kept their family name. The lay sisters, who were commoners, were called
Sister
, followed by their religious name. They performed all menial tasks in the convent and several attended Hélène as maids.

Altogether the community comprised thirty nuns, ten novices and over a hundred lay sisters. In addition, Noirvaux housed two dozen ladies who stayed as boarders. A few, who had settled there permanently, had a religious vocation although their married status did not allow them to take holy orders. Most boarders were officers’ wives. Under the military regulations of the time, they were not allowed to follow their husbands to their garrisons. The gentlemen temporarily locked their wives in the convent to keep them from any opportunity to stray. From these ladies’ conversation, it was easy to discern that they lacked any kind of religious leanings. They missed the amusements of the world and looked forward to the time when it would please their husbands to put an end to their reclusion.

Nuns, novices and boarders alike feted us and admired Aimée’s beauty and sweetness. After half an hour of that bustle, Hélène took us to her private rooms, which were vast and as well appointed as any lady’s apartment in a château. There we were served hot chocolate by a lay sister. I had been at first intimidated by Hélène’s beauty and the dignity of her countenance, but her look of kindness soon reassured me. She spoke of and asked about Mother, the Marquis, Madeleine, Fontfreyde and the servants, in particular poor disfigured Antoinette. All seemed to belong to an ancient past for her. It felt no less distant for me, although I had left Fontfreyde only three years earlier. Tears came to my eyes. Hélène put an end to the conversation and took me to my cell, the name given to the nuns’ apartments in convents.

The room she showed me was comfortable and inviting. The bed was hung with immaculate white curtains. A large cross, made of dark wood, was the sole ornament on the whitewashed walls. A cot had been prepared for Aimée, who began to smile shyly at Hélène. In her thoughtfulness, my sister had ordered a harpsichord brought to the room. She let us settle in and returned half an hour later to take us to supper in the refectory. We attended the Office of Complin in the Abbey Church before retiring for the night.

The next day, I joined the rest of the community in its usual activities of worship, prayer, meals and entertainment, of which music composed a great part. I found the monotony of convent life soothing. The choir of female voices during the divine offices was truly beautiful and reminded me of my childhood in the Benedictine Convent in Vic.

Hélène would spend most of her days in her study, attending to both the spiritual direction and the secular business of the Abbey. Its landed property comprised more than fifty parishes, over which it had the right of high justice. It had its own jail, judges and gallows. Hélène told me that its court was then investigating a robbery on the highway to Nantes, during which one of the Abbey’s vassals had been severely injured.

The rank of Abbess of Noirvaux also entailed social engagements. Once or twice a week, Hélène gave entertainments, which I attended, in her private dining parlour. The company comprised ladies and gentlemen of the local nobility, as well as those nuns and boarders whom Hélène had invited. Most evenings, however, after we took our meal at her table in the refectory, I followed Hélène to her drawing room. Once we were alone, she would remove her wimple and veil, revealing her short hair. It was indeed very like mine in waviness and colour, only a shade darker.

During those quiet evenings I felt free to tell her of things I had not revealed to anyone. I spoke of my past sorrows, of our brother, of my late husband, even of Pierre-André, without omitting anything, however painful to recall or confess. I also told her of the choices now open to me. She listened and did not speak much herself. I had expected her to give me advice, but she would only ask a few questions about what I felt or thought. She did not try to force her opinion on me, as so many had done before.

“Dearest,” she said at last one night, “I have been praying for guidance with regard to you. Taking orders is entering into a mystical union with Christ. It is an atrocious sin to do so without a true vocation, a trespass much worse than marrying without love. It would be to God that you would risk being unfaithful. Last month, I discovered that one of our novices had been sent here solely because she was in love with a penniless cousin. I summoned her father here and explained to him why I would have to dismiss the young lady. He finally agreed to the marriage.” Her eyes became stern. “Convents are not convenient repositories for women whom their families wish to discard or punish, but hallowed places where God calls His own. To think or act otherwise is blasphemy.”

“What of my other choices?”

“You may have to balance between sins of very different gravity. Contrary to what you believe, incest does not flow only from fully consummated carnal acts, but also from incomplete, tentative touchings. Yes, Gabrielle, what Géraud did when you were fourteen was sufficient to make him guilty of that crime.”

I looked at her in amazement.

“Now,” she added, “if you were to beg him to take you back, as you are thinking of doing, would you not deliberately expose him, and yourself, to a repetition of the mortal sin he has already committed?”

We remained silent for a long time.

“Gabrielle,” Hélène said at last, “what I am going to say I have not revealed to anyone, except under the seal of confession. Apart from Géraud and me, only Mother and Madeleine know of it. This took place when you were still an infant. Géraud was sixteen and I thirteen. I worshiped him. He loved me too.” She paused. “You can guess what happened. It lasted an entire summer, while Géraud was on holiday at Fontfreyde. We were seeing each other in secret, in a sort of bedroom in the attic. One night, Father heard a noise and surprised us. You do not remember him, Gabrielle, but he had a fierce temper. He gave Géraud such a thrashing that he left him for dead. I could no longer be married. Think of the scandal if it had been discovered that not only was I disgraced, but that my own brother was the author of my shame! Géraud left immediately. Father purchased for him an ensign’s commission in the Light Cavalry. I was crushed by the discovery of our secret and, truth be told, I pined for Géraud. As soon as it was ascertained that I was not with child, I was sent to Noirvaux as a novice.”

I stared at Hélène in silence.

“I learned through Madeleine,” she continued, “that Géraud did well in the army. By the age of eighteen, he was promoted to the rank of Captain, but he was never allowed to return to Fontfreyde as long as the old Marquis lived. Father died two years later and of course Mother welcomed Géraud back. He has always been her favourite child.” She reached for my hand. “Madeleine wrote me that Géraud had taken you from the Benedictine Convent. She said that you resembled me, that Géraud and you were riding all over the country together. I shuddered when I thought of his motives.”

“But I always thought he had taken me from the convent because he could no longer afford to keep me there.”

“He may not be rich, but his circumstances are more than comfortable. No, Gabrielle, it could not be the true reason. I spent sleepless nights praying for him, and for you. I represented to Madeleine the glaring imprudence of such a situation, which put you, at the age of eleven, daily at his mercy. I even pleaded to be allowed to receive you here, although Noirvaux is not a teaching institution and I do not usually accept children as boarders. Mother would not hear of it. She has always blamed me for seducing Géraud.”

I put my hand to my mouth in horror. “Oh, Hélène, what about that night I spent with him, when we were waking the Baron? Do you think he took advantage of me, next to my husband’s dead body?”

“Only Géraud can answer these questions. Please do not torment yourself, Gabrielle. The laudanum made you unconscious. God granted you the grace of innocence regardless of what Géraud may have done that night.”

“Do you believe that this…thing, if indeed it happened, is what prompted the Marquis to want to send me to Noirvaux?”

Hélène shook her head sadly. “The same thought has occurred to me, Gabrielle. Even if Géraud were innocent of that crime, he may have followed his better instincts by refusing to take you back after your widowhood. He may have tried to protect you and to resist further temptation by sending you away. Géraud is a good man, though a flawed one. A poor sinner, like all of us. Should I tell you this, dearest Gabrielle? I still love him more than anyone else on earth. I want God in His mercy to grant him forgiveness and to receive him among the blessed. I pray daily for Géraud to repent as I have repented myself. Do not fool yourself, Gabrielle. By returning to Fontfreyde, you would throw yourself into the abyss, this time with full knowledge of what you would be doing, and drag him along.”

Tears filled my eyes.

“Now, dearest,” Hélène continued, “compare that evil to becoming the mistress of a man totally unrelated to you.
That
would be a violation only of the virtue of chastity, especially where neither party is guilty of adultery or an accessory to it. It bears no common measure to the enormity of the crime of incest.” She sighed. “Of course, Gabrielle, I have been praying for you to receive God’s call. There is nothing I wish more than to receive you here as a novice.”

“I have been praying too, but God has not heard me.”

“God hears all prayers. In His infinite wisdom, He has not seen fit to answer yours. You must be patient, Gabrielle. It will happen in due time. Tomorrow Mademoiselle de Vaucourt will take the veil. Perhaps you will receive a sign during the ceremony.”

The next day the bells rang as for a wedding. Mademoiselle de Vaucourt had relinquished her novice’s black habit and white veil. She was dressed in all the finery of a bride. Whether such attire was meant to remind her of the world she was giving up forever, or of her marriage to Christ, I am not learned enough to say. Regardless of the reason, I was struck by the contrast between her ornate wedding gown and the severe clothing of the nuns. The service took place as usual, with a lengthy sermon from Father Marceau, the confessor of the community. At last the time came. I could not help observing that the novice was trembling as she knelt at the foot of the altar. Her mother was sobbing in the front row outside the barred gate separating the chancel from that part of the Abbey Church open to the public. Mademoiselle de Vaucourt declared before the congregation that she was acting of her own free will and pronounced her vows of chastity, poverty and obedience. She left for a few minutes and reappeared to prostrate herself before the altar. She was again wearing her religious habit. But now her veil was black. She had become a nun.