“If natural, then why are our heads always swiveling toward the next woman like a dog spying a rabbit?”
“Because we don’t catch the rabbit, Ethan, or, if we do, we scarcely know what to do with it.”
“On the contrary.”
“Marriage saves us from confusion and heartbreak.”
“Yet your wife is five thousand miles away, in Philadelphia.”
“And I take comfort knowing she is there, waiting.”
I counted myself astoundingly lucky, then. I’d snatched an emerald, yes, but what was the real jewel from Tripoli? My wife beside me. We walked arm in arm under rose arbors, ate sugared ices, swayed to accordion bands playing on brilliantly lit stages, and watched up to three hundred people at a time wheeling to the new German waltz. The crowd thinned when the more complicated quadrille and mazurka were danced, but gaiety had returned to Paris.
There was also quiet anxiety, because the newspapers were full of tension with England. Rumor contended that Napoleon had ordered work on an invasion fleet of barges to cross the Channel. Once the boats were ready, war would return, predictions went.
“Ethan, if we tarry much longer, we may be trapped in Paris,” Astiza warned as we crossed the new pedestrian Bridge of the Arts at the Louvre, an iron novelty that was one of several bridges Napoleon had ordered to unite both banks of the city. “Britain will blockade, and France may arrest any aliens.”
She was not just beautiful (the antiquity-inspired fashion of high waist, puffed sleeves, and a vale of decolletage enhanced her Greek Egyptian sultriness to a bewitching degree) but practical as well. She thought ahead, a novel quality, and despite Napoleon’s prejudices, was probably closer to his habits than I was.
She also gave me a wifely elbow when my eye lingered too long on other consular beauties, some of them with breasts in mere gauze. Unfortunately, that happy fashion was being discouraged by a more conservative, militarist ethic that began with Bonaparte himself. The Corsican was proving stern, announcing that the primary purpose of women was not to display their charms but make future soldiers. Given male instincts, I thought the two went hand in hand, but I think he wanted sex, like everything else, bent to efficient purpose.
For myself, I saw fashion as one of life’s pleasures and necessities, its display as articulate as bright conversation. Astiza and I made quite the dashing couple, given that I’d copied the incroyable dandies with the long boot, tight coat, carefully wrinkled shirt, and stylish top hat, a precisely calculated mix of elegance and disorder to mirror the turmoil of our times. We were a couple at the height of fashion, and I enjoyed being glanced at. It was mostly bought on credit, but once I sold the emerald my debts would be erased.
“The British are already leaving the city,” Astiza went on as we strolled. Harry would run ahead and then come back to announce he was exhausted, and then run ahead again. “There are rumors Napoleon wants to invade England.”
“Since he’s ordered the building of boats, it’s more than a rumor.” I paused to watch the traffic on the Seine. Paris was a pleasing spectacle on a sunny March day. The polluted river glittered, its banks skirted with bright arcades and singsonging merchants. Palaces and church towers punctuated bright blue sky like exclamation points. Napoleon’s rule had brought stability and reinvestment. “But I’m supposed to wait for Monroe and finish the purchase of Louisiana. Even if war breaks out, we’re neutral as Americans.” I knew she didn’t think of herself as American yet, but I intended she become one.
“Two dueling navies, and Ethan Gage, the hero of Acre and Mortefontaine?” she responded. “You’ve managed to make enemies on all sides. We’ve a son to think about. Let’s take ship for New York or Philadelphia, settle before Nelson or Napoleon strikes, and you can seek an appointment from Jefferson. You’ve got a family now, Ethan.”
Indeed I did, a revelation no matter how many times I remembered it. “But we still have to sell the emerald. We’ll get a far better price here than in the United States, but I don’t want to have to worry about coin until negotiations are concluded. Let’s wait until the proper moment.”
“The proper moment is now. The first consul is not content without a war.”
This was true. People repeat what they’re successful at, and Napoleon had made himself with generalship. For all his trumpeting of peace, he was forever listening for the roll of the drums. I suspected this next war would dwarf all that had come before.
So I looked at her fondly and decided to indulge. Worry made her look vulnerable, uncommon for Astiza, with a beauty that stirred my heart. “Very well. I’ve lent the negotiators what wisdom I can. Let’s sell the stone and retire to the everlasting peace we both deserve.”
Chapter 5
Josephine Bonaparte’s favorite jeweler was Marie-Etienne Nitot, a man who had apprenticed to the great Auber, jeweler to Marie Antoinette. His success demonstrates anew that revolution disrupts everything but the desire for luxury. Nitot coupled his mentor’s artistry with a salesman’s flair, and after the queen lost her head he’d quickly built a clientele among the new elite of France. Gossip said the jeweler met Bonaparte when grasping the bridle of Napoleon’s skittish horse on an avenue of Paris, preventing a fall, and that he’d cultivated the relationship ever since. The handsome craftsman opened a smart shop called Chaumet at 12 Place Vendome, near the clockmaker Breguet, and both did a bustling business. The plunder of Napoleon’s early victories had fueled a mania for bright baubles displaying France’s new pride and power.
The necklaces and rings on display were clustered near Chaumet’s bright windows. For an appraisal of my emerald, Nitot took us to the rear of his establishment, locking the workshop door for privacy and carefully washing his hands in a basin, a delicacy few surgeons would bother with.
Gray light filtered from a skylight gridded with iron bars to discourage thieves. Lamps lent a honeyed glow. There were banks of drawers that no doubt held treasures, and a workbench with vises, clamps, and jeweler tools, bright bits of silver and gold glittering like fairy dust. Thick ledger books held records of trades and treasures from all over the world.
I could almost smell my coming coin.
“Monsieur Gage, I’m so honored to have your business,” Nitot began. “A man of dash and daring, and rumored to have recently returned from a secret mission against the pirates for Bonaparte.” I couldn’t help puffing. “And your beautiful wife, so exotic, so regal! I beg you, madame, to allow us to grace your lovely neck.”
“We’re here to sell a jewel, not buy one, Monsieur Nitot,” she replied. “I have a young son we had to leave in the care of a nursemaid in our apartment, and I’m eager to have our business concluded and get back to my boy.” She had a mother’s instinct to stay close to her young.
“Yes, but how wonderful to sell and buy, no?” Nitot went on. “It’s merely a suggestion inspired by your radiance. Just as a great picture deserves an inspiring frame, so does jewelry demand exquisite complexion. And yours, of amber and olive, alabaster and silk! Your neck, your ears, your wrists, your ankles! You are your husband’s ornament, and the world begs to decorate you!”
I’d had quite enough of this, since the compliments seemed a little forward, and potentially expensive to boot. No wonder this rascal was doing so well; he had the persuasive instincts of the devil. But I was no mere brigadier looking for a way to hang martial plunder on a consort. I was a savant of sorts, an electrician and a Franklin man, determined to finance a contemplative life with a rock stolen from a pasha. So I kept my emotions in check. “We need an appraisal, not a commentary on my wife.”
“Of course, of course. I’m just so vulnerable to beauty! I lay at its mercy, a poor artisan, helpless at my desire to bring splendor to the world. My apologies, monsieur, at being at all presumptive. I am here only to assist.”
I was partially annoyed because Astiza had actually suggested she stay home to watch little Harry, and now I wished I’d let her.
“Why do you need me to sell a jewel?” she’d asked in our hotel.
Because this was the first time in my life I could anticipate real wealth, and I wanted to show off by letting my bride watch me impress a jaded jeweler. Now I was foolishly jealous that Nitot’s attention was on her, and not on my cleverness for getting the stone in the first place.
“I’m just a man who’s prompt about business,” I told him. I was nervous, because the simple job of hawking
