Disclaimer: The characters of Le Chevalier D'Eon do not belong to me. Appearances by original characters and tweaking of historical facts.

Chapter 52 – Three's a Crowd

"Why did Natalia want three horses?" D'Eon asked. "She wants to go riding with their majesties…" Robbie replied as he saddled a roan gelding.

"Her Majesty too?" D'Eon restrained an overly-active stallion.

"Yes, they get along like a house afire. The queen calls Natalia her dear little sister now. They'd be breakfasting with His Majesty after the morning prayers in the chapel," Robbie replied.

"How did you get hold of this information, not from Her Majesty's ladies I hope?" D'Eon asked. "Sir Willie told me," Robbie blurted out. "Willie? Is Sir William here?" D'Eon glanced about in alarm. The last thing they needed was for the English knight to be caught spying about France. Technically, France and England were now at war.

"Nice horses, I assume they are for their majesties?" William's voice boomed out as if on cue. The Englishman loped out from behind an oak tree. There was no telling how long he had been there. He paused to stroke the nose of one of the horses.

"What are you doing here?" D'Eon hissed. "I'm a guest, advisor to the people's court. The English did have far more experience with a jury system than you Frenchmen. As for exposing me as a spy, I would like to remind you that Robbie Englishman here will probably suffer as much as I will," William tipped his hat slightly with his cane. "I do not hold with King George's policies in the colonies and I regret that as a loyal subject I have failed to convince him to reconsider them… thus I have chosen voluntary exile." He patted Robbie firmly on the shoulder in a show of paternal affection.

"You are lodge-master of a lodge of English poets…" D'Eon started. He did not believe Sir William's presence in Versailles was coincidental. "Ah. I have been engaged by Her Majesty to translate the Bard of Avon's plays to French. Here comes the most royal lady…" William made an extravagant bow worthy of an Elizabethan courtier.

"Uncle, what lovely horses you have chosen," Natalia greeted D'Eon warmly with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. She stared at Sir William with a mixture of trepidation and bemusement. She did not choose to display any familiarity towards the man. The royal couple were closing in on the paddock with their attendants in tow.

The king was slightly out of breath. Indeed, it would be good if the king could lose weight and get more exercise. The queen fanned herself uncertainly as she gazed on the horses. "Perhaps we would need more steeds for our attendants…" she announced mildly. There was a nervous twitter of uncertainty among the attendants. A good many of them were not horsemen or women.

"Well, I suppose we could ask for a small contingent of mounted guards. It would be a pity of we scare the birds off… Captain Etienne? Could you get a few of your men?" Natalia smiled sweetly. "Would it be alright if Uncle D'Eon joins us as well?"


An hour later, they were plodding along at a steady pace through the royal park. "Look, a deer…" Auguste smiled and pointed out the doe to his queen. Natalia had fallen back a little to ride beside her uncle. A knot of three mounted guardsmen followed them for a while, but were swiftly forced to turn back due to a broken saddle-girth, a lame horse and a lost horseshoe. Only Etienne and D'Eon now provided the minimal security. D'Eon prayed that there were no boars or wolves in the vicinity.

Robbie had trotted ahead to clear the way of any danger, so the lad claimed. Looking at the royal couple before them, D'Eon was reminded of the time he and Anna had gone riding. It was an excursion put forward by his sister. Inexplicably, Anna's steed had disappeared shortly after they stopped for the picnic luncheon and he had been forced to ride back with her perched behind him with her arms round his waist. Lia had been most amused by his predicament when they failed to find Anna's horse. One simply could not allow a girl to ride with one like that, even if they were betrothed.

"Surely you can't expect her to walk back, and she can't ride with me because my horse is starting to go lame…" Lia had said. Anna's horse had turned up riderless at the Rocheforts' an hour earlier, sending poor Sir Rochefort into a frenzy of worry. Now he wondered if Natalia was following in her mother's footsteps and getting their majesties to become closer. Etienne hovered nearby. His horse was a tame but elderly nag and the strain of the ride was starting to show. Soon he would fall behind, unable to keep up… D'Eon readied to spur on his horse.

"No, let them be," Natalia shook her head and touched his elbow.

"You're setting them up…" D'Eon said. Natalia shrugged. "France needs a Dauphin. And the king and queen must not separate…"

"You love His Majesty…"

"Yes, but Auguste is still king of France in God's grace, for better or worse. And his queen is Marie," Natalia blinked as the queen seemed to teeter in her saddle, only for her husband to reach over to steady her. Why had the tears come? "Natalia?" D'Eon asked. "Just a touch of sun, uncle…" Natalia murmured absently before trotting over to join Etienne.


"Sir William," a voice called out from behind him as the Englishman toiled over Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. The knight did not even bother looking up from his manuscript. "de Mercy, what could I do for you or your masters?"

The Austrian ambassador stepped out from the shadows of the cavernous library. "It is about Natalia de Beaumont."

"The young lady who has both the king and queen of France round her little finger? Do not fret. She knows her place. Marie Antoinette will remain queen of France," William yawned and stretched his cramped limbs, spilling ink across the paper in the process.

"My master is fearful. They dine together, attend Mass together, ride together and some suggest they even share the same bed," de Mercy furtively glanced about before perching on a clerk's stool beside the Englishman.

"My advice to you and your masters will be the same as before, Leave them be. I am not inclined to use my powers as a poet to meddle in this matter. Do not force me to use them against you," Sir William warned. De Mercy bowed and took his leave. There was more than one way to deal with the problem. There was gossip his paid spy in Versailles had picked up about a mysterious visitor who was not seen but who was entertained on occasion by the Grande Mademoiselle in her chamber at night.

Once his visitor had gone, William rolled up his parchment. D'Eon's nephew was due to give a discussion on the rights of the citizens under the name Maximilien Robespierre and he was not going to miss that for anything. He wondered if D'Eon would accept the invitation he had extended to him.


"The king, queen and baroness are a threesome…" Camile jibed. "I suppose you've already heard that from Francois… Hey!" Milien lobbed his bread knife at the brunette, who deftly caught it between his finger and thumb. "I mean no disrespect to the Grande Mademoiselle of course, but even my liberal tastes find that a bit hard to swallow… She's just sixteen, isn't she? But she has charms enough to beat any trained courtesan… even the queen is charmed by her. Makes one wonder whether she grew up in a bordello. Mil, if you throw another knife or mug at me, I will be much obliged to challenge you to a duel."

"Camile, just drop it and pass me the list of jurors for Master Robespierre's leste majeste trial," Milien put down his tankard which he was about to toss at his drinking companion. It was likely that his master would have been released, if he had not inexplicably snapped when rumours came to his ears about the church wanting to beatify the late king, Louis XV. Screaming that the departed king was a murderer and a cuckoo's egg was not going to go down well. He had been beaten up by his fellow prisoners for his unseemly outburst and the warden had been obliged to hold him on charges of leste majeste.

"Will you be giving a discussion tonight, Mil?" the young assistant editor asked. "I have reserved a column in my paper for you. Voice of the Citizen, I'll call it…"

"Yes," Milien said. Francois was full of the gossip of the court, gleaned from his medical colleagues at the university or his wife. Of course, Annamarie was careful not to be too voluble, lest she lost her appointment at the imperial court. His sister's affair was getting worrisome. He glanced through the list and laughed. "Dr Roland? The man's a sheep." He frowned on closer inspection of the other names. The majority were Jean Paul's cronies and not inclined to be lenient on Master Robespierre. "Sir Rochefort and Sir de Beaumont… since when did they allow nobles on the jury?"

"Since the duke of Orleans made a special request to include the nobility in the people's court as well… but those two knights are nigh toothless as well. Rochefort's so ancient, it would be a miracle if he does not die during the course of the trial and de Beaumont's a milksop, worse than Dr Roland," Camile observed. "Madame Roland has her husband at her beck and call but de Beaumont, well, his niece or daughter has the final say in their household."

"Camile, will it be possible for me to get a seat in the jury?"

"What? But it wouldn't be unprejudiced, will it?" Camile looked up in alarm. "Does a list like this speak unprejudiced?" Milien asked acidly. "I suppose I could, for old time's sake, challenge Grenouille to a duel and shoot him in the leg or something… that should even up the odds a little," Camile shrugged. "I cannot guarantee that you will be nominated onto the list though."

"Shoot him in the nuts and half the girls in Paris will hold you dear to their hearts," Milien suggested. He better stop drinking. It would never do for him to show up drunk at the coffeehouse.


"Good of you to show up," Sir William shook Sir D'Eon's hand warmly when they entered the coffeehouse. Sir Rochefort greeted Sir William coolly. He never liked the English knight. Robbie was grinning with impish mischief, and that was before he had taken any coffee. D'Eon wondered if the boy had visited such establishments before while under William's tutelage back in London, or whether he had frequented such places in Paris. His doubts were laid to rest when Robbie accosted a serving girl and placed an arm around her waist. The pair slid over to a dim corner of the building.

"Leave him be," Sir Rochefort shrugged. "Our purpose is to find out who this Maximilien Robespierre is. Ah! There're Annamarie Tussad and her husband," Rochefort plucked at D'Eon's sleeve and pointed out the pair huddled in a corner between a fishwife and a carpenter. Francois was belligerently poking at a stale-looking cake while his wife was tucking a dead rat back into her powdered wig with a bone. D'Eon winced. Annamarie's odd tastes had not changed with age. He still remembered her poking at a skull in lye as a little girl.

"Normally, they would be in the company of the Duke of Orleans but he is away," Sir William said. "I didn't know you were acquainted with His Excellency," Sir Rochefort snorted.

"I happen to be acquainted with his physician. Ah, there's the sweet lady," William waved at Madame Roland as she walked into the salon with her little shadow, Charlotte. She bestowed an icy glare at the knights before joining the Tussads. They did not have long to wait before Camile Desmoulins ambled lazily to a sturdy round table which had been placed in the centre of the room. He placed a stack of his papers on the table top and started distributing it to his paying customers.

William bought a copy and passed it to D'Eon. "Voice of the Citizen… well, well… There are a few lines on the riot the other day and the detention of those some persons who had been arrested, and a length on the increase in taxes on top of a failed wheat harvest," the Englishman laughed. "Here comes our Maximilien Robespierre…"

Milien walked up to the table and clambered onto it to use as a platform to address his audience from. The pair of Cagliostro and Lorenza hovered behind him. He was dressed simply as a clerk would and wore his hair without a wig. He looked awfully like his sister.

"Natalia?" the French knight almost leapt to his feet but Sir William restrained him. "Is this young man the twin of our little Natalia? The likeness is amazing. He has as much fire in him as his sister," the Englishman remarked and stroked the sparse moustache a few days' lack of shaving had given him. Milien paid little heed to the noblemen in the corner. Most of the noble patrons had taken care to absent themselves from the coffeehouse tonight. It was the commoners who formed the bulk of his audience.

Milien had taken hold of his audience now. He was not inferior to his master. What he lacked for in his skill, he more than compensated for his passion. "The great lords of the land tax us heavily. Yet our fields are bare. They cared not that our pots are empty and our children unfed. What does the king say to this? What does the Church say? They care not for the common man!"

"Even if they did, it is only for the sake of our pretty daughters and sisters. Wouldn't you say so, Sir D'Eon?" Camile's eyes had caught sight of the blond knight and his companion. Milien spun around at his friend's outburst. The crowd had already been worked into a frenzy.

"D'Eon de Beaumont?" Milien blinked. He shoved Camile hard enough, apparently by accident, to knock him off his chair as he launched into a vehement tirade against the nobility. "Will we stand for this? Are we such sheep to be led to the slaughter while our fields are ravaged by those with no hearts?" Milien extorted. Camile was staggering to his feet and approaching the knights. Given the mood in the house, Sir Rochefort and D'Eon would easily be set upon. Robbie was disentangling himself from the wench he had sought out earlier. There was a glint of steel in his hand.

Author's Note:

Natalia, their Majesties are getting along famously and Sir William is back to meddle in the matters of D'Eon and his fellow Frenchmen. A jury of his peers will be judging poor Robin.

Possible brawl in the house?