the uncomfortable feeling that he'd just dodged a broadside and that his wife, despite this new distraction, was still swabbing out, reloading, and just waiting 'til the range was shorter to fire off another!
Meanwhile, in the former offices of the Committee for General Security, just outside the eastern wall of the Tuileries, along the Quai Galerie du Louvre, Mlle. Charitй de Guilleri was paying a call upon the head of the National Police, Joseph Fouchй. It was not one that could be called a social visit, nor was it one done casually, for Fouchй was a very clever, coldblooded man; he had to be, to have survived from the earliest days of the Revolution, one of the last of the 'old stagers' so steeped in the blood of discovered or denounced aristos, Royalists, and reactionaries. He'd created bloodbaths at Nevers and Lyon, had threaded a wary way through the denunciations and deaths of Marat, Danton, Robespierre, Saint-Just, and the other Jacobins, and had prospered.
'Mademoiselle de Guilleri, ma chйrie' Fouchй gravelled as she was at last let into his offices. He stayed seated, though, intent on the papers on his desk, scanning fresh denunciations of suspected plotters who still hoped to supplant the First Consul, undo the Revolution, and return royal rule to France. Joseph Fouchй was an ill-featured man, rather short and stocky, some might say rotund due to his barrel chest. He cared little for fashion or the proper fit of his clothes, and still wore his shirt collars open, with a loose stock tied more like a sailor's kerchief. He was also completely bald, and shaved what little stubble or fluff remained.
'What can I do for you, citoyenne?' Fouchй asked, reverting to the form of address created more than a decade before at the start of the Revolution; unlike some newly risen arrivistes, Fouchй was a dedicated common man of the Republic.
'The British captain I thought I shot, do you recall, citoyen?' Charitй baldly began, knowing that coquetry and idle niceties before business were wasted on Fouchй, and would irritate him further than she dared. She took a deep breath, waiting.
'Ouais?' Fouchй said with a leery grunt, intent again upon his paperwork. He'd always been unimpressed and dubious of the little self-made heroine's tale, thinking Charitй a foolish dabbler, too full of herself, and too ready to push herself and her 'cause' forward.
'I was mistaken,' Charitй meekly declared. 'The air-rifle… my shot was, perhaps, too weak to kill him, as I dearly wished. I met… I met his wife today, citoyen, here in Paris, and she spoke as if he is still alive, this very moment! He spied on us once, in New Orleans. Who is to say he is not here to spy on us again, you see?'
'You suspect he is here in Paris, to spy on us, citoyenne?' the policeman responded, setting aside a document and folding meaty hands atop his desk. He seemed amused, and a touch irritated, by Charitй's assertion. 'Would it not make more sense for this fellow… what is his name?'
'Alain Lewrie, Citoyen Fouchй,' Charitй said, un-nerved by the man's chary tone and expression. 'An Anglais naval captain.'
Fouchй made a pencilled note on a fresh sheet of paper, then looked up again with a scowl on his face. 'Would it not make sense he… this Alain Lew… however you say it… spies in our seaports, our navy yards, than Paris, citoyenne? Perhaps you mis-heard what the Anglaise said. You've seen him yourself?'
'Non, citoyen… I have not seen him myself,' Charitй rejoined, bristling a little to be patronised or dismissed. 'But I speak very good Anglais, from dealings with the barbarous Amйricains in New Orleans, and I know perfectly what Madame Lewrie said. In anger, you see? Surprised by confrontation with another woman whom she suspects was once her husband's mistress, n'est-ce pas?'
Charitй de Guilleri explained the circumstances in ' La Contessa ' Phoebe Aretino's parfumerie, how icy and angry Madame Lewrie had become upon her introduction… and how flustered Mlle. Aretino had become in turn at the mention of Alan Lewrie's name!
'I quote, citoyen… 'I will extend your regards to my husband, but do not expect them to be returned,' ' Charitй told him. 'Lewrie is alive, Citoyen Fouchй, and most likely travelling with his wife, here in Paris. I thought the presence of an Anglais officer who put aside his uniform to spy on us in Louisiana should be brought to your attention, lest he do so again against us.'
'These other people rescued by this Leew… whatever,' Fouchй asked, scowling more deeply. 'Do you remember their names?'
'Madame Lewrie alluded to many royalistes escaping Toulon on 'her husband's ship,' she said, citoyen, though the only one she gave name to was a Vicomtesse Maubeuge… her former… ward, I believe Madame Lewrie said,' Charitй easily recalled.
'Citoyenne Phoebe Aretino… hmm,' Fouchй said with a grunt of displeasure. 'Corsican, oui. Of noble birth? Non. A common putain in Toulon, as I recall. There is a dossier,' Fouchй said with an idle wave of one hand. 'An avid supporter of the Revolution in Toulon had no reason to flee. Service the invaders' officers, for they were the only ones with money at the time, but… did Citoyenne Aretino deny any of the accusations?'
'No, citoyen,' Charitй told him, shifting uncomfortably on her hard chair. She'd come to warn the authorities and to get vengeance on the bastard who'd slaughtered her kin and ruined her plans for revolt, but… Charitй hadn't planned on sending anyone else to prison-or the guillotine! 'She seemed very upset by the confrontation, but… after, she… I asked her, not in so many words, n'est-ce pas? Mada-… Citoyenne Aretino seemed… wistful. La tristesse? A woman can see the look of a former lover who is still fond… '
'Womanly intuition,' Fouchй sarcastically said with a sneer.
'In this instance, oui, citoyen, I am sure she was once Lewrie's mistress, or lover,' Charitй could firmly state. 'But so many years ago, surely… '
'You have given me some things to look into, citoyenne' Fouchй told her, making more pencilled notes.
'I failed the Revolution, Citoyen Fouchй,' Charitй declared with a clever bit of frankness, and a becoming sniff into a handkerchief drawn from her left dress sleeve. 'I truly did believe that I killed him with my shot. I am ashamed to confess my failure, one that puts you to extra work.'
Fouchй tilted his shiny head to one side and peered at her for a long moment, unsure whether to laugh out loud at her pretensions as a patriot, and her theatricality. 'I will look into this… Lewrie person's presence in Paris, citoyenne,' he said at last. 'I thank you for your honesty and your alacrity in bringing this matter before me. Perhaps it is nothing, yet… for the safety of the Republic, and the First Consul, enquiries must be made. Is that all, Citoyenne de Guilleri?'
'It is, citoyen Fouchй, merci et au revoir' Charitй said with a sense of relief as she rose from her chair and escaped from the foul spider's immediate grasp… though not his web, for it spanned all of France. In the heady early days, the French newspapers that reached New Orleans had limned Fouchй in her pantheon of heroes with men such as Marat, Danton, Robespierre, Saint-Just, and the other brilliant lions of the Jacobins, people she wished to emulate. It was only once she got to Paris and met some of those rare, surviving revolutionaries that Charitй had had the scales torn from her eyes. Joseph Fouchй was an ice-hearted executioner, plain and simple, and no coquetry, no beauty or grace, no flattery could make an impression upon him.
She would love it if Fouchй found cause to arrest Lewrie as a spy, to hunt him down, fetch him into court in chains, and put his head on the block, ready to be shorn and tumbled into the basket at last.
Yet Charitй already rued her coming to Fouchй if Mlle. Phoebe Aretino was swept up as a reactionary, a secret royaliste traitor to the Revolution, perhaps even now in league with her former lover, the
