The de Guilleris-Helio, Hippolyte, and Charite-with Don Rubio
Monaster, and their cousin Jean-Marie, were 'at home' to receive guests. To the casual passerby who took note of their guests' arrival nothing could seem more innocent. First came Monsieur Henri Maurepas, the prim and eminently respectable banker, a man known in New Orleans as the de Guilleris' parents' factotum and financial advisor who stood in loco parentis to keep the youngsters reined in whilst their elders, the dashingly handsome Hilaire and the beauteous Marie pursued rounds of country pleasures on their up-country plantations.
Their other two guests-Capitaines Lanxade and Balfa-might have drawn more attention as they arrived; more envy than anthing else for those two old rogues and their tales of derring-do were always welcome in French Creole parlours.
Nothing could seem more innocent-cafe au lait, sweets, and fresh-baked biscuits, bright laughter and vicarious thrills. Though, inside the grand upper-storey appartement on the Rue Dauphine, everyone sat stiffly upright in expectation, or slumped in boredom as Henri Maurepas droned on through his dry financial summary.
'… results in a profit to the Reunion Enterprise of four hundred fifty thousand Spanish dollars,' Maurepas fussily related. Monsieur Maurepas was one of those gotch-gutted minikins, what crude Americans would call 'shad- bellied,' though a fine satin waist-coat and a gold watch chain tautly spanned that 'appliance.' The balding Maurepas patted his shiny pate and fiddled with his little oval spectacles, awarding them a wee smile as he summed up his report. 'The bank has deducted its tenth part, as your agent. A twentieth part goes to Monsieur Bistineau to cover those bribes he paid the Spanish authorities at the Cabildo to land untaxed goods. Another forty- five thousand dollars, I shifted into the Revolutionary Fund, for purchase of weapons, shot, and powder to arm new recruits. Less a further ten percent each due Capitaines Lanxade and Balfa, and shares to reward their sailors, ah… that leaves ten percent to be divided equally between you young people, as the principals, that is to say… nine thousand silver dollars each.' He ended with a short, seated bow to every person present. 'Which shares are now deposited in your accounts, to draw upon as you wish.'
If he thought he'd made them happy, then he was wrong. Rubio Monaster went poutily red-faced; penniless Jean-Marie Rancour, whose family had fled bloody Saint-Domingue with nothing, went pale and gaping in disappointment. As for the doughty pirate capitaines…
'You cheese-paring bougre!' Boudreaux Balfa erupted, leaping to his feet. 'You an' dat Bistineau salaud, too, him! He gets dem goods for nothin, den sells 'em dear, an' bribin' de Spanish he done did all de time, by damn! Normal bid 'ness wit' Bistineau. Eh, merde!
'We can't go back to our crew with promises or bank slips. We need to take them their shares, in coin… now!' Capt. Jerome Lanxade demanded, rising with his left hand on the hilt of his smallsword and with a wee creak from his own 'appliance,' that bone-stayed corset that kept his own boudins from resembling the banker's. 'They will not wait for their money. They signed on for a quick payout, with nothing up front but wine, rum, and rations, and had to provide their own hammocks and sea kits! They're waiting aboard Le Revenant where we hid her for their money… and I tell you, banker, they will not wait long! They have no trust in lubberly accounts, they want silver and gold!'
'But, Capitaine… that much specie in one batch will weigh so much, my bank does not hold reserves that-!' Maurepas tried to demur.
'Your bank, m 'sieur, and you yourself, entered into our scheme with assurances to us that you did so from pure patriotic fervour. Do you now wish to see everything fall apart because you refused to take risks?' Helio de Guilleri accusingly spat, still slumped upon a table edge by one arm. 'This is for Louisiana 's freedom. For France!'
'After what the gallant French people did to throw off the despotism of King Louis and the ancien regime' Charite de Guilleri chid him from her seat at the other side of the table. She sat erect and prim, hands clasped together in her lap as she would at Mass with her family. 'After the example even the bumpkinish Americans showed us when they wrote their Declaration of Independence, m 'sieur Maurepas… that they 'pledged their property, their lives, and their sacred honour' to oust the perfidious Anglais? Freeing Louisiana from Spanish tyranny and declaring ourselves part of Republican France is just as noble a cause. Shame, m'sieur Maurepas, for shame!'
'Mademoiselle, I would do anything for our coming revolution, but a successful revolution must have a sound financial footing, and I cannot assure you that foundation without being somewhat circumspect,' M. Maurepas insisted, dabbing at his face with a handkerchief, ready to polish the lenses of his spectacles of the irritation-fog that his skin had generated. 'Money is power, young people… as powerful as massed artillery, for it buys the guns, the shot and powder, it clothes and feeds the brave-'
'Pays their damned wages,' Capitaine Lanxade nastily growled.
'Keep de ship dat make money afloat, an' ready to fight, money.' Balfa gruffly added. He had sat back down and was now squashed into a hairy hog-pile of muscles, his arms crossed over his chest. 'An' not enough money, by Gar! Forty percent for de men, dat's only… uh, one hundred eighty t'ousand dollar, only four t'ousand dollar apiece, and dey can drink dat up in a week! Mebbe the bank only take five percent, and dat revolution fund go short dis time, mebbe so, hem?'
'But we agreed upon a-' Maurepas said in a scandalised gasp.
'Two hundred and forty thousand silver dollars to be shared by our hands,' Lanxade proposed, stroking his mustachios and twirling a tip as if the matter was settled. 'That's fairer. That will be over five thousand dollars per sailor,' he loosely guessed.
'Perhaps m'sieur Maurepas, in the pure revolutionary spirit,' Charite sweetly and calmly suggested, 'might reduce his bank's share to seven and a half percent… just this once? And perhaps our wise advisor will also speak to m'sieur Bistineau about reducing his firm's upfront cut as well, since he will make such an outsized profit from our goods, which cost him nothing but his complicity? If you take pains to point that out to him, m 'sieur, I am sure he will act in the patriotic spirit.'
'But…' Maurepas spluttered.
'And we still have the prize ship to sell,' Charite continued in her sweetest parlour manner, the epitome of a soft-spoken and well-bred Creole lady, 'which might reap another fifty thousand dollars or so? If not here, then at
Havana, Veracruz, Tampico, or Cartagena. I think our capitaines are right, m 'sieur Maurepas. If our crew is not well rewarded, they will melt away, and we'll lose the means to earn future profits. No more money for the Revolutionary Fund… and no hope of freeing ourselves of Spanish rule… until those despicable Anglo-Saxon Americains take all the Southwest from them.'
'Then where would we be?' Don Rubio grimly added, always eager to second
