She struggles to a sitting position. “Why?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps he wants to borrow a bust. Or maybe he’s come about the citizens’ militia.”
My mother is on her feet and at her vanity at once, twisting her dark curls into a loose bun and dabbing her petite wrists with perfume. I hand her a gown, and while she ties her fichu, I fetch a lace bonnet from the wooden commode. “The one with the good trim,” she says. “Not that one. The blue.” She brushes her teeth and dabs
“Curtius says to bring coffee,” I tell her.
“Yes. And we’ll want sausages. Isn’t that what the marquis liked the last time he was here?”
I can’t remember these things like my mother. She can recall what she served at every salon, and which foods each of our guests preferred. “I’m not sure,” I admit.
“I’m certain it was sausage. But we’ll bring out the ham, just in case.”
When we enter the salon, the marquis and my uncle are deep in conversation. Neither looks pleased. “Ah.” Curtius stands. “Coffee and sausages.”
Lafayette rises, and his dress is impeccable. His green
“Is that really how we are to greet each other?” I ask, confirming what Curtius said this morning.
“Yes. From now on I am Citizen Lafayette.”
I hide my shock and step aside so that he can greet my mother. How can there be a world with no titles? What will men be? All equals? My mother and I take seats, and Curtius explains, “Lafayette has come with news.”
“A National Guard has been formed,” Lafayette says, “and I have had the honor of being named its Commander in Chief. We’ve enlisted eight hundred men to patrol every district in France, and they’re to pay for their own weapons and uniforms. This way, we know they are committed to duty. But now we’re searching for good men to act as captains of each district.”
My mother gasps. “And you want Curtius?”
Lafayette nods. “That is my hope.”
I look to my uncle, who trained as a doctor, not a soldier.
“It is a great honor,” he says hesitantly.
“One I am not offering to just anyone,” Lafayette adds. “A country is only as strong as its military, and only as moral as the men who serve in its ranks.”
Curtius takes his pipe from the table. He fills it with tobacco, then offers the wooden box to the marquis, who passes. He lights the bowl, and the three of us wait while Curtius thinks. “You understand I’m not a military man,” he says at last. “I would be useless on the field.”
Lafayette is undisturbed. “This will not be a battle like any soldier has ever known. This will be fought in the city, on the streets, and in the palaces. Good sense, not experience, is what matters now.”
“And it doesn’t disturb you that I am old?”
“General George Washington was forty-six when the Revolution in America began. I don’t think his age held him back.” He leans forward. His eyes are fixed on my uncle, and I know that whatever he is about to say, it will be something complimentary. “We are in the midst of our own revolution. Make no mistake, the events of these next few days will be recorded in history, and the men making those events will be remembered as heroes. Do your patriotic duty. There will be pay, but also rewards that go far beyond money. This nation needs men of upstanding character. It needs a captain like you.”
Curtius is going to say yes. I know because his eyes are wide with the promise of it all. He puts down his pipe. “How many men would I command?”
“Forty. And they’ll all be wearing the blue, white, and red.”
“I thought it was green.”
“That is the color of the king’s brother, the Comte d’Artois. I’ve proposed a tricolor.”
“Like America?”
“Exactly. So shall I send a man to fit you for your uniform?”
The sound of cannon fire has stopped, replaced with the voices of a growing mob. There is no knowing who is in charge anymore. The king? His soldiers? The National Assembly?
“Yes. I will do it,” my uncle replies.
JULY
14, 1789
THE CREATION OF THIS NEW NATIONAL GUARD HAS ENCOURAGED the butchers to open their shops and the milliners to begin accepting customers again. If we are lucky, the Salon may reopen tomorrow. We’ve lost six hundred sous over the past two days.
I smile at the tailor who arrived this morning with baskets of fabric. Lafayette sent him to turn my uncle into a captain, and while he’s here, he’s to make a costume for our new figure of Lafayette. We’ll be the first of anyone—painters, sculptors, even engravers—to display Lafayette as Commander in Chief of the National Guard.
I study the tailor. His shoes have silver buckles, and his waistcoat is embroidered. The man is ambitious. “Don’t let him overcharge us,” I say in German. “We’ll pay thirty livres for Lafayette’s uniform. Nothing more.”
“I can manage the finances,” Curtius replies. “Go with Henri. Take Yachin home while the city’s still quiet.”
Outside, in the late morning light, it’s as if nothing has changed. The vendors have returned to the streets, and the Boulevard smells of coffee and flowers. Yachin is on the steps, and Henri is showing him how to read a barometer. The people passing seem calm. “Shall we?” he asks as soon as he sees me.
As we begin to walk, I notice that Henri is carrying his pistol. When we reach the Jewish quartier, the streets become narrower and the buildings less imposing. There are broken windows and boarded-up homes. A man steps from the doorway of a printing shop in a National Guard uniform and blocks our path. “What is your business here, Citizen?”
The three of us stop, and Henri steps forward. “We are taking this boy home.”
The guardsman looks down his nose at Yachin. His face is dark, meaning he’s spent much of his life in the sun. He might be thirty or forty. It’s impossible to tell. “What’s your name?” he demands.
“Homberg,” Yachin replies. “Citizen Homberg.”
“Tell me, Citizen Homberg. Are you a good patriot?”
“Yes. My family—they are printers. They all—we all—believe in liberty.”
“Then how come you see fit to wear your Jew cap but not your colors?” The guardsman’s eyes shift to Henri, then to myself. None of us are wearing the tricolor cockade.
“We have just come from the Boulevard du Temple,” I say quickly. “The shops have been shut and there’s nowhere to purchase—”
“Do you think I bought this?” The guardsman points to his red and blue ribbon. “A true patriot finds a way.”
“Her uncle has been made captain of his district,” Henri says. “He’s being fitted now for his uniform. We are friends of Citizen Lafayette.”
The guardsman looks me over, and I wonder if he has the power to stop us. “I suggest,” he says strongly, “that when you return this boy to his parents, you find yourselves some cockades. Patriots wish to recognize other patriots in the streets.”
“Thank you,” says Henri. “We will take your advice.”
We walk quickly, in case the guardsman should think of something else. I whisper, “Could he have made problems for us?”
“He could have tried,” Henri says.
