76. Jackpot

To judge by their expressions, Bonnie's Grammy A and Richard de Clermont were both delighted and surprised to receive her call the next day: delighted, because they'd been expecting it, and surprised, because of the person sitting on her left.

"Booth!" Angela said, her smile broadening, her eyes bright. "I might've guessed you'd want in on this! How are you, old friend?"

"All the better for seeing you, Ange. You're looking the picture of health. Don't you ever age? You're making the rest of us look bad."

Angela chuckled. "And you're full of the usual blarney! Remind me, now: have you ever met Richard?"

"I haven't had that pleasure." Booth inclined his head in Richard's direction. "Enchanté, monsieur. I wanted to take this opportunity, first and foremost, to thank you for all the help you've given Bonnie, and to congratulate you, too, on your very successful inquiry. You'd make a top notch investigator."

Richard acknowledged the compliment with a nod, his face practically aglow. "That is high praise, indeed, coming from you, monsieur. I am flattered. But I must beg you to believe you owe me no thanks. Doing this bit of research for Bonnie has been a delight."

"Delight or not," Bonnie said, "you've put countless hours in, Richard, and I couldn't be more grateful! That death record you discovered! It's like the Holy Grail!"

"Well," he said modestly, "it was a real stroke of luck that Bérénice Trouville happened to die in the same arrondissement where she'd lived with the Lebruns…"

"And that she'd lived to such a ripe, old age," Angela put in.

"Yes, indeed! If she'd died even ten years earlier, there'd have been nothing to mark her passing except a fairly useless burial record, but since she died in 1803, we have the much more comprehensive civil record at our disposal with not only her birthplace but her parents' names…"

"Which proves beyond a doubt," Angela interrupted again, "that she and Madeleine's mother were, in fact, sisters, and, by extension, that Madeleine was her niece, the one she brought into the Lebrun household to work as a maid, and who later went on to pose for Antoine Lebrun."

"And, on top of that," Richard resumed, "if any further proof of the relationship were needed, you see that Madeleine was actually present to sign the death record as one of the two required witnesses."

"And she was living at the same address as her aunt," Booth observed, with a quick glance down at his copy of Richard's email. "Do I have that right? She didn't just come to stay with her aunt in her final days?"

Richard nodded in confirmation. "That is correct. The record clearly states she was residing — domiciliée — in the city. She'd made Paris her home."

"And we suspect," Angela said, jumping in again, "that aunt and niece may have been living together for as many as four years before Mme Trouville died."

"Really?" Bonnie asked. "What gives you that idea?"

At Angela's nod, Richard continued, "Well, as I pointed out in my notes, Madame died in the same arrondissement as her employer, Hervé Lebrun, but not at the same street address, which begs the questions of when and why she moved. Now, Lebrun passed away in 1799. It's possible that, on his death, his house and business had to be sold — to settle outstanding debts, for example — whereupon Madame would have found herself suddenly homeless. She was seventy-six in 1799, too old to find employment elsewhere and, perhaps, left with too small a pension to live on, or even with no pension at all."

"Meanwhile, in Picardy," Angela took up the story, "Madeleine's lover Eugène Blanchard had died the previous year, relieving her of any obligations she had toward him. Her husband was also dead, her children grown and past needing her, and, according to that novel based on the Blanchard family version of events, the baron's widow was making her life in the neighborhood a misery. The fiction character based on Madeleine was driven out of the county like a dog with its tail between its legs, but we think the real Madeleine received word of her aunt's predicament and left voluntarily to go to her aid."

"Thanks to Blanchard, she had money enough to support herself and her aunt in relative comfort, and might even have had the funds to purchase the house they were living in — you notice that Madeleine's occupation is given as 'propriétaire.' Of course, all of this is speculation. We have no way of knowing for certain when or why Madeleine moved back to Paris, but our theory fits all the available data."

"If you're right," Booth remarked, "it sounds to me like the move to Paris might've been permanent."

"That possibility occurred to me, as well," Richard admitted, "and, just to satisfy my curiosity, I had a quick look at the ten-year indexes of deaths for the third arrondissement for the years 1800 through 1840. There was no entry for her, which, obviously, doesn't mean she didn't die elsewhere in Paris. There were eleven other arrondissements, after all."

"And it could also be," Angela said, "that she died in the third, but was indexed under a different name. A husband's name," she clarified when Booth and Bonnie regarded her quizzically. "There wouldn't be anything wonderful in her marrying again. She was still youngish in 1803 — only forty-seven — and a woman of means, don't forget. That would've made her something of a matrimonial prize, even if she'd lost some of her beauty."

"So, one way or another," Bonnie said, "I take it that tracking down a death — or marriage — record for Madeleine would be anything but simple."

"I'm afraid so," Richard agreed. "Our best real hope of knowing how her story ends is if she remained a widow and eventually died in Picardy. I made a start this morning on searching the department of Oise death records — fortunately, they've all been digitized and are available on-line — but I haven't turned up anything so far."

"Richard," Booth said slowly, his brows knit in a thoughtful frown, "I wonder… How hard would it be to find Antoine Lebrun's death record?"

"Lebrun's?" Richard, surprised, looked blank for a moment, but he mastered his confusion and smiled. "Well, as to that, it would be, as you Americans like to say, a piece of cake. The man was a noted historical figure. It would be child's play to discover when and where he died. Why do you ask?"

"Oh," Booth said, vaguely, "It's just a hunch. I think it might be worth a look."

Angela's mouth quirked up in half a smile. "One of your famous 'gut feelings,' Booth?"

He shook his head. "Actually, Ange, it was something you said just now. About Madeleine being married for her money."

She regarded him doubtfully. "I said that?"

"Maybe not in so many words, but you implied that her fortune would've been a major factor in attracting a husband, and that rang a bell."

"Go on."

"Richard, another question for you, first: I see on Mme Trouville's record that she's listed as the widow of…" He referred to the email again. "Octave Trouville, deceased. Is that kind of information — marital status, I mean — generally included on all death records?"

"Beginning in 1792, yes. It was required no less than the person's age, occupation and place of birth."

"So, I can assume Lebrun's wife's name will appear on his death record, even if she predeceased him?"

"Yes," Richard said even as Angela burst out, "Lebrun was married?"

"Didn't you know? According to a Lebrun biographer, he tied the knot late in life, and for a very particular reason." He swiveled in his seat to face Bonnie. "Think about it, Bonbon. What'd that Doucette fellow have to say on the subject?"

Bonnie cast her mind back. "He described Lebrun as being in a bad way, financially, after the Revolution. His regular patrons had been guillotined, his painting style had gone out of fashion; he was finding it hard to earn a living, so he married some well-to-do woman for her… Oh!" Bonnie's jaw dropped suddenly and her eyes flew wide as she stared into her grandfather's. "Gramps, you aren't suggesting…"

"You think Lebrun married Madeleine?" Angela said, between astonishment and disbelief. "What're the chances!"

"Not good," Booth conceded, "But not zero, either, and that's my point. It's a possibility that fits the facts, and, lucky for us, it should be easy enough to confirm or rule out. That is, Richard, if you're willing to do the search? I wouldn't want to presume."

"Yes! Yes, of course!" A new light shone in Richard's eyes, and he seemed almost to tremble with eagerness. "I can have an answer for you in, at most, a few days. Mon Dieu," he said, turning an awestruck look on Angela, "Only imagine if it were true! What a story!"

"Yes, well," Angela said crisply, "Let's not get ahead of ourselves, and, in any case, the story we have is already sufficient for Bonnie's purpose. Isn't that right, chérie? All you needed was proof that Madeleine was part of the Lebrun household in the mid-1770s and could have posed for La Coupe d'amour."

"Yes, exactly. My theory that she's at the heart of Lebrun's decision to change his original composition depends on it."

"And, if you'll forgive the question, sweetie, now that you have that proof, what's next? With the Lebrun symposium only two weeks away, it must surely be too late for you to propose presenting your findings there."

Bonnie grimaced unhappily. "You're right about that, Grams. The program's been set for a couple of weeks, and the list of speakers along with summaries of our talks has already been published on-line, so it's not likely the organizers will be open to letting me switch topics. I will ask, though, Grams. It may be a futile effort, but I feel strongly that Madeleine's role in possibly shaping the course of Lebrun's life and art is too important not to share. She might be the key to understanding not only the evolution of La Coupe d'amour, but the strange career path he chose to embark on afterward. Their relationship to each other and to Blanchard has much broader implications for Lebrun scholarship that a simple catalogue of the technical similarities and differences of two of his paintings. I'll try to make the committee see that."

There was more than a hint of loving pride in Angela's smile. "Well, you have your work cut out for you, sweetie, but I will say I admire your spirit."

"Chutzpah is more like it, but it's like you always told us, Grammy: you don't ask, you don't get. Chances are they'll say no…"

"But you won't know 'til you try," Angela finished with an approving nod. "We'll keep our fingers crossed for you, sweetie. Good luck!"