4
Paris: An Apprenticeship in Calculation
Picture a cavern of opulence, the likes of which James Lindsay has never seen. A high ceiling, cornices and sculpted architraves, columns, shot-silk walls, mirrors, drapes, a cacophony of colour, and people, dozens of them, milling in a cloying fug of parfum. The chatter all but drowns out a quintet of musicians so that from the strings, only the low notes survive as rhythmic scraping, and the piano just manages a sonorous toll.
James Lindsay is here to be shown off by Mr Dillon, the Paris envoy of James Francis Edward Stuart, as the latest ‘hero romantique’ of usurped King James III’s struggle to regain his throne. M’sieur Lindsay is tall, pale, young, with a luxuriant mane of dark, autumn-red hair that flows to his shoulders like a cavalier of the previous age – no need for a powdered wig here – and his muted, soldierly attire stands out amidst all the lace and fripperies of every other man present. M’sieur Lindsay even has wounds on display; a rather vulgar mutilation to his left hand, but fascinating, nonetheless.
James does not really want to be here, but the man who pays his bills, a fellow exiled Scot called Mr Crawford, has told James he has to attend these salons, especially if ‘that man Dillon’ asks him.
‘It is the only way you are going to be recognised in Paris, and thus gain some suitable employ,’ Mr Crawford has advised James – some weeks ago, not long after ensconcing him in spartan lodgings close to his own offices on the less than salubrious Rue de Quincampoix. ‘Because,’ Mr Crawford assured him, ‘I am buggered if I am going to continue subsidising you any longer than I have to, out of my master’s dwindling purse, in this city of extravagance.’
Dillon and James sip punch, or rather, James sips. Dillon is more enthusiastic, being far more familiar with how such events unfold.
This is the Paris of the new King Louis XV, newly past his majority at the age of thirteen, and his bottom barely warm on the throne. In the corridors of power however, the levers remain in the hands of the regent, the Duc de Orléans. As far as the aristocracy is concerned, it is still an age of indulgence and the pursuit of any new thing. The fate of the Stuart claim to the throne of Great Britain, and France’s attitude to it, is of little concern at this new court. Not so for Mr Dillon. He works for the pretender’s chief of staff, and his job is to keep France thinking about the pretender’s claim, and to reverse the froideur of recent years.
France, originally a staunch supporter, has been persuaded to cease military aid to the Stuarts by the prospect of better relations with the existing incumbents on the British throne. They have banished the Stuart court in exile from France. So Mr Dillion is now alone in Paris, and having to work hard for his stipend. And he thinks that throwing another tragic Scots émigré onto the scales of aristocratic opinion – especially a good looking one like James, who can actually speak French – won’t do the cause any harm.
‘So you’ve memorised the list of everybody you’ve to talk to?’ Dillon is whispering in James’ ear in his sing-song Irish brogue; not all Jacobites are Scots, far from it. The powder from Dillon’s wig makes James want to sneeze. ‘We need to get round as many as possible before the gaming begins. Remember. On no account are you to sit down to cards. There is no money for a stake, and even less than no money for you to lose.’
James has, in recent weeks, come to see that Dillon has been handed an impossible task here in Paris, with very little financial support from the Stuart court, now in Rome, and thwarted at every turn by incessant spying and active interference by the Whigs in London. Still, Mr Dillon remains diligent in the pursuit of his mission. Yet James finds he cannot like him. A blinkered, dogged little man, with a wig too big for his head and who looks like an imposter in borrowed finery. Always doing the same thing; and every time expecting a different, better outcome.
Which is why James isn’t listening – he is looking at the women instead. While it is true he hasn’t warmed to being paraded for the cause, in a role at which he knows he is a charlatan, the presence of women at these salons has been the ultimate compensation.
James, the boy who grew up not knowing his mother, with no close female relatives, has never encountered creatures like them. James’ only previous exposure to womankind on a grand scale has been the buttoned-up city societies of Glasgow and Edinburgh. On entering salons here for the first time, he stood speechless as an idiot farm boy before the sea of décolletage, the vast expanses of naked alabaster skin, the cascades of perfumed curls and the delighted trills of laughter.
These days, however, he has mastered all the juices that rise, and although this is by far the most fashionable, and ostentatious salon Dillon has brought him to, he finds he can control his deep, deep fascination sufficiently so as not too appear too gauche. He is concentrating on a small clique of women, a little older than he, who are noticing him also, and whispering behind fans.
Suddenly, at his elbow, he is aware of a shorter figure – a gaunt, pinch-featured, pale man in expensive silk brocade and fashionable stock. The face is framed in a full wig which, with the
