A Place of Greater Safety: A Novel

“How did you hear that?”

“There’s this grapevine. Claude knows this man called Charpentier, yes? Well, you can imagine, Claude’s thrilled.”

“You shouldn’t stand here,” he said. “Awful day. You’re getting wet.”

She had the distinct impression that he would like to bundle her into the carriage, and have done with her. “Sometimes I dream,” she said, “of living in a warm place. One where the sun shines every day. Italy would be nice. Then I think, no, stay at home and shiver a little. All this money that my father has set aside for my dowry, I don’t think I should let it slip through my fingers. It would be downright ungrateful to run away from it. We ought to be married here,” she waved a hand, “at a time of our own choosing. We could go to Italy afterwards, for a holiday. We’ll need a holiday after we’ve fought them and won. We could retain some elephants, and go across the Alps.”

“So you do mean to marry me then?”

“Oh yes.” She looked at him, astonished. How could it be that she had forgotten to let him know? When it was all she had been thinking about, for weeks? Perhaps she’d thought the grapevine would do that too. But the fact that it hadn’t … Could it be that he had put it to the back of his mind in some way? “Camille …” she said.

“Very well,” he said. “But if I’m to go bespeaking elephants, I can’t just do it on a promise. You’ll have to swear me a solemn oath. Say ‘By the bones of the Abbe Terray.’”

She giggled. “We’ve always taken the Abbe Terray very seriously.”

“That’s what I mean, a serious oath.”

“As you like. By the bones of the Abbe Terray, I swear I will marry you, whatever happens, whatever anyone says, and even if the sky falls in. I feel we should kiss but,” she extended her hand, “this is the most I can manage. Otherwise Theodore will get a crisis of conscience, and come over right away.”

“You might take your glove off,” he said. “It would be a start.”

She took her glove off, and gave him her hand. She thought he might kiss her fingertips, but in fact he took those fingertips, turned her hand over rather forcefully and held her palm for a second against his mouth. And just that; he didn’t kiss it; just held it there, still. She shivered. “You know a thing or two, don’t you?” she said.

By now, her carriage had arrived. The horses breathed patiently, shifted their feet; Theodore positioned his back to them, and scanned the street with deep interest. “Now, listen,” she said. “We come here because my mother has a tendresse for one of the clergy. She thinks him spiritually fine, elevated.”

Theodore turned now. He opened the door for her. She turned her back. “His name is Abbe Laudreville. He visits us as often as my mother needs to discuss her soul, which these days is at least three times a week. And he thinks my father a man of no sensibility at all. So write.” The door slammed, and she spoke to him from the window. “I imagine you have a way with elderly priests. You write the letters and he’ll bring them. Come to evening mass, and you’ll get replies.” Theodore gathered the reins. She bobbed her head in. “Piety to some purpose,” she muttered.

November: Camille at the Cafe du Foy, unable to get his words out fast enough. “My cousin de Viefville actually spoke to me in public, he was so anxious to tell someone what had happened. So: the King came in and slumped there half-asleep, as usual. The Keeper of the Seals spoke, and said that the Estates would be convoked, but not till ’92, which is a lifetime away—”

“I blame the Queen.”

“Shh.”

“And this led to some protest, and then there was discussion of the edicts that the King wants them to register. As they were approaching the vote, the Keeper of the Seals went up to the King and spoke to him privately, and the King just cut the discussion short, and said the edicts were to be registered. Just ordered it to be done.”

“But how can he—”

“Shh.”

Camille looked around at his audience. He was aware that a singular event had occurred once again: his stutter had vanished. “Then Orleans got up, and everyone turned around and stared, and he was absolutely white, de Viefville said. And the Duke said, ‘You can’t do that. It’s illegal.’ Then the King became flustered, and he shouted out, ‘It is legal, because I wish it.’”

Camille stopped. There was an immediate buzz—of protest, of simulated horror, of speculation. At once he felt that hideous urge to destroy his own case; he was enough of a lawyer, perhaps, or perhaps, he wondered, am I just too honest? “Listen, everyone, please—this is what de Viefville says the King said. But I’m not sure if one can believe it—isn’t it too pat? I mean, if people wanted to engineer a constitutional crisis, isn’t that just what they’d hope for him to say? Actually, perhaps—because he’s not a bad man, is he, the King … I think he probably didn’t say that at all, he probably made some feeble joke.”

D’Anton noted this: that Camille did not stutter, and that he talked to every person in the crowded room as if he were speaking only to them. But someone said, “Well, get on, then!”

“The edicts were registered. The King left. As soon as he was outside the door, the edicts were annuled and struck off the books. Two members of the Parlement are arrested on lettres de cachet. The Duke of Orleans is exiled to his estates at Villers-Cotterets. Oh—and I am invited to dine with my esteemed cousin de Viefville.”

Autumn passed. It’s like, Annette said, if the roof fell in, you would scrabble in the debris for what valuables were left; you wouldn’t sit down among the falling masonry saying “why, oh why?” The prospect of Camille, of what he was going to do to herself and her daughter, seemed too ghastly to resist. She accepted it as people become reconciled to the long course of an illness; at times, she desired death.

CHAPTER 5

A New Profession