Le Mariage Normand
Chapter 1
I gazed up at the four or five bars of the cell through which a sparse and ill-begotten light came into the prison, a light that fell from the rooftops, leapt over the rats, and crawled over the ditches of the alley. Four or five bars. Could it be the fourth day of the month, or the fifth? I did not remember how many days I had been kept here, how many times I had been shifted from one cell to the next, or why. I did not understand the words of the Breton peasants that guarded my cell or that of the solitors from the Languedoc that spoke to one another in their broken Occitan; I could only guess that they argued amongst themselves the best means of mounting my defense, or at least giving the impression to the courts that they were attempting to defend me.
The suit that I had worn to the session of the National Assembly was stained now, as I had worn it in the prison for weeks innumerable, changing back into it when the rags the prison had given me had disintegrated into black and orange threads like so many ashes. It was the sixth, I decided. The sixth of November 1792. I laughed to myself. How many of us sham nobles and bourgeoisie sat in our cells writing our memoirs or words of undying affection for loved ones on the rare scraps of paper tossed into our cells, remembering the better days of our lives when the world was filled with beauty? It was a world that we had dedicated ourselves to destroying for no better reason than that we were bored and vain, and little thinking that we would ourselves be flung down from the parapet when the castle fell.
And so I, Gaspard de Villeneuf, delegate to the Estates General of France from the third estate of Champagne, sat in my cell and remembered the better years of my life, when I was young and lovely and the world was mine to do with as I wished, being a young gentleman of means in Paris. I imagined these days with my eyes opened; when I closed my eyes, the stench and the squalor and scratching of the rats in the alley were even more palpable than they were with my eyes opened, so I dared not close them.
I turned to the sound of boots against the stone floor and watched as several guards appeared outside of my cell and stood there, waiting for someone else to arrive. A man dressed in velvet breeches and white stalking, but without powdered wig soon appeared among the guards, peering down at me in the corner of the cell contemptuously. The man sighed and said: "You have been sentenced to death, Monsieur. For agitating discontent among the peasants of Champagne and secretly encouraging the royal family to flee from Paris."
"I did no such thing," I lied. "I am a supporter of the Revolution. Everyone knows this. There is no reason for any doubt."
"But there are doubts, Monsieur," said the lawyer. "The doubts were enough to ensure your conviction. It was not necessary for you to be present at the trial as this particular sentence is perfectly commonplace. I do not know when you shall go to the guillotine, but it shall be sometime this week, I suppose."
"And how many hundreds of others shall you kill on this day?"
The man shrugged and made to walk away, but decided against it, at that moment, and said: "The sentencing affects only you, Monsieur. Your wife and children are to be spared. I would not, however, attempt to rally your friends to free your family. Anything you do at this point shall only harm them. Better not to try."
"I understand," I said.
I laughed again. I never thought I would ever marry, but I did, in 1784, but only after Edouard married, as a fickle act of retaliation. My father was pleased, even Edouard said that he was pleased, but I knew that he was not. How could a soul as sensitive as Edouard's be pleased that I was tying my own fate to someone that was not him? And so here I was, in my last days of life, remembering the person that I used to be, in times that were free and easy for members of my class; remembering when I first met Edouard, in a time when the Revolution was very near, but seemed impossibly distant.
"You should get married," said a woman's voice.
I lay in bed with my eyes closed; I rubbed them in the process of waking myself after I heard the woman's words. "Who should get married?"
"You should," said the woman. "I said: 'You should get married'!"
"What?" I asked. "Who are you?" I sat up in the bed.
Madame de Rougemont placed her hands on her hips in frustration and, facing her, I saw that she had applied makeup to her nipples to make them very pink and youthful and thus appealling to a young man like me. I knew very well who she was.
"Go back to sleep," said Madame.
"But I am up now," I said. "You woke me. I was only jesting, Madame. I know who you are. I do not, however, know where I am. Where am I?"
Madame de Rougement took a few steps toward the bed on which I lay. She said: "Don't you remember? I asked you to escort me from the Duchess of Chartres's dinner. You refused at first; you were very drunk, but you agreed when my husband told you to do it. We came to my private residence on the Ile de la Cite and... here you are! I think I escorted you rather than the other way around. Indeed, you have slept until two in the afternoon."
"Is it two?" I asked. "I always wake at two in the afternoon. I must not have been very drunk."
Madame de Rougement leaned over me and kissed me on my forehead. Her full bosom hung over my face and mouth and I licked and kissed her nipples. She laughed and I hugged her, pulling her beside me in bed. "One more time?" I asked.
"No," replied Madame. "My husband shall be missing me. I must return to the Hotel de Rougemont."
I shrugged. "Monsieur knows that you are here with me. He shan't be missing you. You shall arrive whenever you like."
"I must go, Gaspard," Madame said, getting up from the bed. "My husband and I have an agreement that we always go in together to see the children in the nursery at four in the afternoon, regardless of where we spent the night. You shall have to meet my children one day. You have never met them, have you? They are very beautiful children."
"As beautiful as you, Madame?"
"More beautiful."
Madame de Rougement dressed and left the residence after that and I fell back into slumber. I was not awoken again until hours later, once again by words spoken to me in my half-dreaming, half-awake state.
"Get up," said a voice, which I instantly recognized as belonging to my father. "Get up and get dressed. I need you."
"Why would you ever need me, Monsieur? How did you know where I was?"
"I always know where you are," said my father. My eyes were opened at this point and I was surprised to find that my father's face was not one of displeasure, but indeed of elation, though his voice did not evince any particular happiness. I figured that he would be displeased that I was clearly no longer attending the lectures at the university but instead continued to hop from the bed of one lonely femme aristocratique to the next. This week it was Madame de Rougement, last week it was Madame Pelletier, and next week I hoped it would be one of the young ladies de Clermont, who I hoped to deflower before their respective marriages. In fact, I was arrogant enough to believe that I could deflower both young women before they married in the autumn.
"Well, what need could you possibly have of me?" I sat on the edge of the bed, dressing myself. I looked about the room for my shoes and saber.
My father found my saber and placed it on the bed. Then he found my shoes. The whole time, he spoke to me: "I found someone suitable for your sister. Can't you see that I am very pleased? I could not have hoped for things to go as well as they seem to be inclined to do! Gaspard, our futures our made! Well, your future. And your sister's. I have just received a letter from Madame de la Motte de Valange and she, much to my surprise, has declared herself in favor of the marriage of her brother to our Adelaide. I was very surprised that she replied so quickly as I only met the lady once. You remember her, don't you, Gaspard?"
I remembered her. She was one of the pretty young women from the country that young men like me loved to encounter in Paris. They were shy and coquettish, but beasts from Hell in the bedroom. They had rosy cheeks and fragrant curls and they loved the deceit of a secret dalliance that they hid from their husbands, who were universally bald, fat, and very rich. I had not had the opportunity to bed Madame de la Motte de Valange, but I knew that it was only a matter of time. "Yes, Monsieur, I remember her."
"She and her brother, the Comte de Longueville, are extremely close. They had been orphaned as young children and were raised in the country by an old aunt. You know this type of family without me having to tell you anything. The only type that would marry us, Gaspard. Very ancient and rich in land, but strapped for cash. I could not hope for a better marriage for your sister."
Adelaide was fifteen and my parents had devoted the last five years of all of our lives to finding a suitable husband for her. My father, a member of the Parlement of Paris and one of the richest men in France, knew that he would find a husband for Adelaide in time, but he was very particular that the young man come from a very old family, but one that was also very poor, so that they might be dependent on him. This was the sort of man my father was.
"Well, how much do we have to pay for this young gentleman, Monsieur?"
My father laughed. "Eight hundred thousand livres."
"Eight hundred thousand livres?" I cried. "Good God, Father, what boy could be worth so much?"
"I would pay even more if I had to," said Father. "I have been saving for your sister's marriage since she was born and I could not have invented anyone better than Edouard de Longueville, if I tried."
"That is his name?"
"Yes," Father replied. "He lives in the Longueville chateau in Normandy, but I shall make sure that he and Adelaide settle here in Paris once they are married. As he is of an ancient family, Adelaide, when she becomes countess, will be presented to the King at Versailles. The young man's godfather is the Prince de Conde, so princes of the blood shall certainly be in attendance at the wedding. God favors us, Gaspard. Things could not have occurred in any better way than this. The Neuburgs shall soon be forgotten."
Fully dressed now, I gazed at my father as he said these last words. My father was very particular about the origins of the Villeneufs: my family. We had originally come from Alsace, where we had been called the Neuburgs and in which place we had been the largest distillers of beer. My grandfather had come to Paris as a young man and been educated at the university, after which he began a significant career as a civil servant. Our family was ennobled when my father was twenty, but we were noblesse de robe and rather looked down upon by the old nobility, except when they wanted to marry into us and restore their own fortunes with our wealth. My father had superceded his own father and, after serving many years as the secretary to the President of the Parlement of Toulose, was granted a seat in the Parlement of Paris, where he had remained for more than twenty years. Now in his sixties, my father could focus his attentions on the marriage of his children. His primary goal in life was for each of us to marry into the old nobility and have places at Court.
"I don't understand, Monsieur," I said finally. "You have your aristocrat. What do you need me for?"
"Certainly you shall travel with Adelaide to Normandy so that she may meet the young man."
"Is it necessary that she meet him before the wedding?"
"For me it isn't," my father replied, "but Madame de la Motte de Valange was very particular that her brother must approve of the bride before he would agree to marry her."
"Send a portrait."
"He must meet Adelaide in person."
"Then it isn't settled?" I asked, stepping into my shoes. "The count may not like Adelaide. Have you thought about that?"
"Don't be silly," my father said, dismissing my worries. "Adelaide is one of the great beauties of Paris. Everyone that sees her approves of her. He has only to meet her and the matter is settled. I plan to send you with my secretary, Monsieur Boulanger. Boulanger shall carry the marriage contract so all you need to do is be winning and polite and the whole matter shall be carried off with ease. Can you do it?"
"Be winning? Father, I am always winning. I still don't understand why you need me. Send Adelaide with Boulanger."
"There is no reason for you not to go, Gaspard. The young man is nineteen, so he is only a couple of years younger than you, and I have every reason to believe that the two of you shall hit it off. He shall be your future brother-in-law and, with his connections, your future is assured. It is about time that you begin to think about that sort of thing. You are very fortunate that you have had me to arrange all of that for you so far. What about when I am dead? You shall need men like the Comte de Longueville to help you."
I sighed and shook my head. My father was obsessed with becoming an aristocrat, but I wanted nothing to do with them really. I did not see that the world needed them. The peasants labored for the lord's benefit and were kept in perpetual poverty so that the duke, marquis, and count could live in their chateau on the hill, and for what reason? Of course, it did not occur to me that my family, with its prodigious wealth, was as egregious as the aristocrat and served even less of a purpose, being attached to nothing but movable capital, but that was how I believed then. Before I met Edouard.
Thus it was that I gave in to my father's request and agreed to accompany my sister Adelaide de Villeneuf to Normandy to meet her prospective husband, Comte Edouard de Longueville, a young man of only nineteen years. We made the journey in two carriages, my sister refusing to share a carriage with Monsieur Boulanger, forcing the man to make the trip with all of my sister's luggage, while she and I sat comfortably in our own carriage. I spent most of the journey observing the pleasant hills that rolled away from Paris northward, to Normandy, while my sister spent the entire time chatting.
"Why didn't he send a portrait?" she asked.
"He must be very ugly," she proclaimed.
"Certainly, I must be too pretty for him."
"Father pays the ogre to marry me!"
"How unfortunate!"
"Why couldn't I be born a man?"
"I would be a better man than you, Gaspard, because I am better at fencing and would win all of my duels."
"The young lord must be very plain and ill-mannered if he lives so far from Paris, like a peasant."
"Why could not Father tell him to come to us, since we have all the money that he wants?"
"Do you think I should marry him even if he is ugly, Gaspard?"
"What if he commands that I always live in the country with him and his cows?"
"Do you suppose that he has ever been to Paris, as every other civilized person in the world has?"
"Why couldn't I be born a man? Did I ask that already?"
"You did, Adelaide," I said, with a sigh. "Please stop talking as you really are not saying anything. I believe that we are almost there."
"How would you know? You've never been this far from Paris before. I wonder if Monsieur Boulanger rummages through all of my things?"
"Poor Monsieur Boulanger. You are very spoilt, Adelaide, and I shall be very surprised if the young gentleman does not reject you straight away as soon as you open your impertinent little mouth."
"But it is a pretty little mouth, isn't it, brother?" And Adelaide leant over and kissed me on the cheek. Do not worry yourself over trifles, dear reader, we siblings were not of the Julio-Claudian variety, up to every sort of vice. My sister Adelaide was only very playful, as rich young girls whose only care was what color dress to wear often are.
Adelaide fanned herself impatiently. The summer of 1770 was exceedingly hot in the lands outside of Paris and this soon became another subject of complaint for my sister. How someone so pretty could find such frequent cause for ire and dissatisfaction was beyond my capacity for understanding. Soon, we reached the outskirts of the town, where the chateau of the future groom lay. The town of Longueville-le-Richard lay on a hill, at the northern extremity of which lay the castle. The castle, however, was not reached through town, but by skirting the town to the west and ascending an adjacent hill. From this hill, one crossed into the forecourt of the castle though a drawbridge. The outer gate of the castle consisted of two round towers of late Medieval construction. Going under this gate, one entered the first court of the castle. At the far end of this court stood another gate, consisting of a further two towers, one of which was almost entirely crumbled. Passing under the second gate one entered the main castle courtyard where we discovered a fine white building of Renaissance construction, which formed a stark contrast to the harsh gray ashlar of the remainder of the fortress.
Passing into the main court, our carriages came to a halt before the main double doors into the house, where we were met by a dozen crisp servants and by a young man who I presumed must be the master of the house himself. Boulanger was first out of his carriage and was greeted with a nod by the young man by the door. Adelaide and I soon stepped out of our carriage, helped out by a valet from the house, and within moments found ourselves standing before a lofty young man dressed in somber black jacket, waistcoat, and breeches.
"Is that him?" Adelaide whispered to me as she stepped out of the carriage.
I did not answer but found myself staring at the young man. He was exceedingly tall and was not wearing a wig, revealing his own dark brown hair, tied in the back by a very small black bow. His eyes were blue-gray and set deep within a narrow face. Overall, in spite of his occasional smile, the young man had a very stern expression although his eyes gave the impression of kindness. Longueville carried himself with a certain degree of rigidity, which frightened Adelaide at first, but sharpened our impression of him as an aristocrat, in contrast to our comfortable and easy bourgeois languor.
"Mademoiselle," said the young man, bowing and taking, then kissing, the hand of Adelaide. "Very happy that you consented to come to Longueville and I am honored to received you."
"Yes, thank you, Monsieur," said Adelaide.
I bowed to the young man and then he bowed to me. He greeted me with a smile and then indicated that the three of us, Boulanger included, should follow him into the main house of the castle.
"A neighbor of mine, M. de Rosier, shall share dinner with us, if you shall permit it," he said, as we ascended the steps into the house. "I must apologize for the simple way in which life passes here in the country. I fear that you shall be soon bored."
"I am not easily bored, Monsieur," I said, unable to pull my gaze away from him. "I cannot speak for Adelaide."
"I hope that, in spite of the boredom, you shall stay a long while: as young as you like?"
"Yes, Monsieur," I said. "My father sends his regards as well, Monsieur."
I had difficulty discerning how Adelaide herself perceived the young man, but she made it clear that the journey tired her and that she wished only to retire to her quarters. Longueville escorted us to the quarters allocated for my sister and I, which consisted of three adjacent rooms in a wide tower of the castle: two bedrooms and an adjacent sitting room. He said that one of the maids of the castle would serve as a personal lady's maid to Adelaide, and I would also have my own valet, as I had left Pierre in Paris.
Adelaide slept through the night and I sat up reading a tome that I had brought with me for the trip. It consisted of a series of erotic stories written in the form of letters from an aristocratic lady to her lover, who was an equerry of her husband. I bought it in one of the shops of the Palais Royal and I felt it essential to read it, as I knew that all of the aristocrats in my circle would be speaking of it once summer was over and life returned to normal in the autumn. Neither my sister nor I turned up for dinner and poor Monsieur Rosier had to be sent away and asked to return the following evening.
We both ate breakfast in our rooms. Adelaide, of course, complained when we met later of the poor quality of the bed in which she had slept and the old fashioned furniture and wallpaper of our rooms. From our tower, we spied the garden on the eastern aspect of the castle and decided to venture their and explore it once we were full dressed.
The garden lay immediately outside of the eastern gate of the main court of the castle and it was a formal garden in the French style, not a creation in the English fashion which would take hold in France in the next five or ten years. The garden was small and pleasant but, for me, its primary advantage was giving a view into the town of Longueville-le-Richard, where we saw the tumbling down houses of the peasants and artisans and spied into the windows where I watched the matrons baking bread or laundering the family clothes.
"He's very provincial," said Adelaide, stepping on a patch of pretty violet-blue flowers in the garden. "He dresses very plainly and he shall have to get all new clothes when he comes to Paris."
"His manner is very noble," I said. "He shall have no problems doing well at Versailles."
"He needs polishing," said Adelaide, "the poor country bumpkin. Can you imagine me married to him, Gaspard? Can you imagine it? I shall perish here in the country."
"We haven't even been here a full day, Adelaide."
"--with the chickens and the dairy cows and the peasants," my sister continued. "It is a fate worse than death!"
"Our father has said that he shall ensure that the two of you live in Paris. There is no need to languish here in squalor in the country."
"Yes, very squalid, and the young man the most squalid of all. Could my father not find a better match for me than that?"
"Certainly, he dresses very poorly."
"Very poorly," said Adelaide. "He is beyond help."
"Not beyond help, sister," I argued. "There cannot be very good tailors in the country. He only needs to find a decent one."
"Some are even beyond the help of the very best tailors," said Adelaide. "He is all blocky and stiff like a builder and he dresses all in black!"
Indeed, the young man's austere style suited him very well, giving him sort of an impetuous stoicism that was rather different than what was typically encountered in the higher classes in France. But Adelaide did not stop there: "He looks like a Protestant! Aren't Protestants illegal in France?"
"I don't know, Adelaide," I said. "I don't think so. I am rather certain that Father's Swiss banker must be a Protestant."
"Well there is no need that a Catholic should dress like one, is there?"
I shrugged, but turned completely around seconds later when I heard the sound of sudden footsteps behind us. "I hope you slept well," said Longueville, addressing the two of us.
"I did," I replied. "And Adelaide?"
"I slept poorly," she said.
"I am sorry to hear that," said the young man, looking particularly somber. "I fear it must have been a long journey from Paris."
"It was quite long," said Adelaide, "and only to arrive in this desert."
"Is it a desert?" asked Longueville, with a timid smile.
"Well, it's deserted, isn't it?"
"I suppose so. I hope that you shall be up to joining me for dinner."
"I suppose that I must," said Adelaide. "Don't you have something other than black to wear?"
The young man made no answer to that, but suggested that we return to the main house as Monsieur Boulanger was prepared to sit us down and discuss the details of the marriage contract. As we ascended the stairs that led from the garden to the eastern gate, I found myself impressed by the strong legs of Longueville, which I spied as I was walking directly behind him. I was finding him altogether different from what I had expected and my heart became enveloped in a flurry of excitement the nearer that he drew to me.
Soon, we found ourselves sitting around a table in a sitting room with Monsieur Boulanger. As my father had already told me, my sister was to bring an enormous dowry of 800,000 livres and would also be given a joint income with her husband of at least 80,000 livres. Monsieur Boulanger indicated that the funds from the dowry could be used to purchase a residence in Paris or one of the suburbs, but that the funds could not be alienated from the joint interests of the couple. Longueville listened to the entirety of the secretary's explanation of the contract with a stone-faced expression, but with evidence that he clearly understood what was being told to him. My sister spent the entire time gazing out of the window and, I imagined, contemplating some form of escape from the chateau of Longueville-le-Richard.
Later, at dinner, the mood was just as somber, which was not helped by Adelaide's absolute refusal to appear in any way pleasant to the rest of us at the table. The old neighbor, Monsieur Rosier, was not turned away this time, spending most of his time gazing suspiciously at my sister and I. His only comments during dinner were occasional words of admiration for the pea soup that we were served.
The silence after the meal was broken when Longueville asked: "I understand that you have another daughter in the family? I suppose that she must be as pretty as Adelaide."
"Yes, Monsieur," I said. "We have a sister called Charlotte. She is thirteen and my father already scours the country for a suitable marriage partner for her."
Adelaide scoffed. "I wonder if father shall also sell her for 800,000 livres."
"Adelaide!"
"It's alright," said Longueville. "The lot of woman in France isn't easy. It must be very difficult when a young woman realizes that she has no interest in the man that she is to marry."
I turned instantly to Longueville in hopes of discerning his meaning. Had he heard us speaking in the garden earlier? "Young girls can be very foolish and petulant," I said. "Sometimes they do not know what they want or pretend not to be interested when they are."
"You aren't talking about me, are you, Gaspard?"
"One must keep in mind that Adelaide is only fifteen," I continued. "We cannot hope to expect much from her."
"You should talk, you knave!" cried Adelaide. "How many married ladies did you bed this week, Gaspard? And do the husbands know of it?"
Longueville cleared his throat. "Your sister, is she blond like Adelaide? I must say that this color of hair suits you, mademoiselle. Monsieur Rosier, what is your opinion on pretty blond Frenchwomen?"
"I have never been fond of blonds," said Monsieur Rosier, whom I figured had decided to be especially cantankerous today, though we had never met him before. "These blond women look like German peasants, not fine young noble French ladies!"
"What about me, Monsieur?" I asked, turning to the heavily powdered face of the fossilized Monsieur Rosier. "I am blond, do you object to me as well?"
"Yes," said Monsieur.
I laughed, finding the scenario particularly amusing as we were, in fact, Neuburgs from Alsace. Though we may be exceedinly wealthy, and though my sister wore the most expensive Parisian fashions and had her hair arranged by the best hairdressers from Versailles, I never forgot that we were the great-grandchildren of beer distillers outside of Strasbourg. It was odd. In all the years that I knew Edouard de Longueville, he never said a word about my family's humble origins or even hinted that he was aware of them, a particular kindness in this era. My sister was foolish and never appreciated this mercy, but I always remembered it as I eventually realized it to be very characteristic of Edouard.
"Certainly, every warm-blooded man loves a blond, at least once," said Longueville. "You must have loved one once, Monsieur Rosier?"
"Yes. My wife was blond."
"Was she a peasant?" I asked of the gentleman, a widower, with my head set at a rakish angle.
"No," Monsieur Rosier replied. "But she might as well have been with her manners!"
I laughed, though Adelaide and Longueville remained silent. "That settles it, then," said Longueville in his calm and even tenor. It was a voice unlike any that I had heard before: strong yet vulnerable. "If we are all done with dinner, I suggest that we retire for the night. You may stay as long as you wish," he said, turning to me, "but I would not be offended if the two of you desired to leave Longueville sometime in the next day or two."
"I think we shall have to," said Adelaide, smoothing the folds of her dress. "Mother must be missing me."
"Adelaide, please be quiet," I said. "I hope that we have not offended you, Monsieur?"
"No, not at all," and with that, our young host took his leave of us. I gaez at him quizically as he walked away from the table.
I spent much of the late evening pacing my bedchamber, wondering how I would go about salvaging the situation. It made no difference to me if the handsome young aristocrat married my sister, indeed, the manner in which my feelings were settling at present left me inclined to think that perhaps it would be better if the young man did not burden himself with our Adelaide, but my father would be furious if somehow I allowed this advantageous marriage to be taken away from our family under my watch. The de Longuevilles were of extraction chevaleresque and possessed the honneurs de la cour. My father had to possess this young man, whatever the cost, and it would be nothing less than a calamity if the young man escaped. After an hour or more of pacing, I thus decided that it would be expedient to find Longueville and ensure that he was not inclined to dismiss the marriage because of my sister's impertinence.
I had a vague notion of where Longueville's rooms were. The entry hall had a staircase at its rear that lead to a mezzanine floor in the back of the castle and I suspected that was where our host's rooms were. The castle was entirely put to sleep, but I hoped that I would find the young man awake.
Finding Longueville's bedchamber, I knocked on the door several times. After more than a minute with no answer, I took a great liberty and pushed opene the door. I fond Longueville sitting on the edge of his tall canopy bed, fully dressed and awake. The room was lit by the light of a single candle.
"What are you doing here?" asked Longueville, without looking at me.
"I knocked, but you did not answer, Monsieur," and I walked over to the bed and sat on it, beside Longueville. "I am finding that I am fond of the country and I have no intention of leaving tomorrow, or even the day after that. I would like to stay longer, if you would have me, Monsieur, and I know that Adelaide shall come around."
"I beg to differ, Monsieur de Villeneuf," said Longueville. "I think it best if you both go, both you and your sister, as soon as possible."
I was surprised that Longueville had heightened his formality all of a sudden. I was beginning to understand that my family's cause was hopeless. "Has something happened?" I asked. "Is there something the matter with the marriage contract? Whatever it is, Boulanger can certainly fix it. My father will agree to--"
"It has nothing to do with the contract," said Longueville. "Please, do not play the fool, Monsieur de Villeneuf. I heard you and your sister speaking before, in the garden. Poking fun at me. Don't pretend like none of that happened."
"That's just Adelaide and her Parisian ridicule. You are being particularly sensitive." As soon as I said these words, I winced. The young man was so strong in his carriage and in his words to others that it was easy to forget that the lord of the castle was only a lad of nineteen.
"Well, you do not know me," said Longueville. "We have only just met. Perhaps I have cause to be sensitive to the ridicule of others. I live here alone. My sister lives in Paris with her husband. We were orphans, raised here in the country. I am not ashamed to be a country gentleman."
"Nor should you be," I said. "I find your life admirable."
"There is your ridicule again."
"It wasn't ridicule, Monsieur. I really meant it."
"I don't think I can stomach your Adelaide."
"That makes two of us, Monsieur," I said. "I have known her all of her life and, though pretty, she has always been difficult. One quickly becomes used to her."
"Is there something particularly offensive about the way that I dress?" Longueville asked, looking down at his black velvet breeches and his white ruffled shirt. "I haven't been resident in the castle long and I lived at the college in Evreux before this. I suppose I dress too simply. They shall mock me in Paris."
"No one will mock you. This is all just Adelaide's way of showing that she doesn't want to obey father."
"Perhaps we should let her have her way, then."
"No," I said. "We shouldn't. In fact, I think you dress very well, modestly. What is objectionable about the modest country aristocrat? I would rather not see you in a garish red wig and face covered in powder. This manner of dress suits you. As I said, I admire you, Longueville."
"Don't call me that," he said. "Just say: 'Edouard'." He shrugged and looked away. "What is there to admire in me? I can't think of anything."
We sat beside one another on the bed with our shoulders touching. I began to feel very hot and I did not quite understand what it was about Edouard that made me feel like this when other men had not. Nay, no other being, not even a woman! No one had taken hold of me the way that Edouard had and I wanted nothing more than to hold him in my arms, to wake up to him. To see him lying beside me. He was beautiful to me, in his simplicity. His inability to accurately assess his own worth made him all the more precious. I leaned in to Edouard, as he gazed down at the floor, and I turned his face toward mine, gently, and kissed him.
"What is that?" said Edouard, leaping up from the bed. "What are you doing?"
"Nothing," I said, joining Edouard in standing. Had I misjudged the suitability of the moment? "I didn't do anything. Don't be angry."
But Edouard turned away and commanded me to leave.
"Don't be angry," I said again, but a brief glance he tossed toward me, a look full of rage, made it clear that I better leave as I was not wanted.
I returned to my chamber and crawled into bed, fully clothed; I did not sleep the night, but I lay in bed staring up at the coffered wood ceiling. We were all aesthetes, the men in my family, and I could with confidence date this particular ceiling to the early 1500s: the time of Francois I. In time, the night grew less dark and became morning: still, gray, and slow to awaken. As I kept my gaze fixed on the ceiling, I heard footsteps outside in the hall, sounds which suddenly came to a stop when they reached the door to my bedchamber. I imagined that it must be one of the castle servants, coming to help my sister and I pack our things for an immediate departure from the castle, but I found it strange as more than a minute passed without any knock on the door.
I sat up in bed and turned toward the door. Just when I was about to shout: "Is there someone there?" I heard the door slowly push open and I saw a tall, dark figure standing at the doorway. It was Edouard and he entered and closed the door behind him. He took hesitant steps toward the bed and I stood up to meet him. My heart pounded in my chest as Edouard grew closer to me until he was standing squarely before me. In an instant, he had taken me into his arms, placing his head on my shoulder. He hugged me tightly and I placed my arms around him, in turn. He felt warm and I could feel our hearts beating rapidly in tune to one another. I knew then that I would love him for the rest of our lives, however long that would be. He pulled away from our embrace and looked at me. His eyes pleaded with me: "Do you understand what this is?" His arms around me, Edouard pulled me into him; he kissed me.
[TO BE CONTINUED]
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