All errors are mine and mine alone.
June 10th
Two days after the feline-esque sorcière entered the Bastille, the young dauphin of France, Louis-Joseph, a sweet, precious boy and the Queen's final hope for redemption, succumbed to the wasting sickness. On June 7th, clad in black, the Austrian queen, with twitching lips and eyes red and raw from her pain, struggled to hold back her floodwater tears at her long train of mourners. Her ladies and courtiers surrounded her in this enclosed world of black silk and ribbons against gilded gold panelling and shadows cast by shuttered windows. If one could enter the mind of the queen at that moment, they'd shut the shutters to the world itself.
Among the citizens, particularly those of the deputies belonging to the Third Estate, the reaction was different. No sympathy – or if there was, it was as mute as a dead boy's cheers – was extended. Parisians bemoaned the closed theatres and lack of entertainment and fantasy. Deputies who did not appreciate discreetness saw it as yet another excuse for the Queen to avoid pestering her husband on tax reform. Versailles had been emptied of most of its staff to ease its money troubles, with only a few stragglers left behind to attend their grief-stricken monarch.
"His son is much less ill than the state," a deputy had said. "Our Austrian Queen dresses in black for a dead child, but dances in her own frivolity when it comes to France bleeding from the mouth." Thomas was inclined to agree, but it was no source of amusement to anyone to have a child die from the wasting sickness. It emptied homes, burning its way through one family member to the next, with the survivor watching their loved ones clutch to white linen sheets dappled from their coughing blood.
He had wondered how he had not managed to catch it, given how many corpses he buried when he worked at Cimitière des Innocents before it was decommissioned in 1786, or gathering bodies from the Cours de Miracles. He had sliced fat from bloated corpses, sending it off to chemists for soap; he'd dug up trinkets and brooches and hidden notes from the seams of waistcoats and shoes, scraping off dried blood and humours all. He'd dumped lye on mounds of putrefying flesh, and been bit from every mosquito in Versailles' mock marshes, waiting for the fevers to bloom across his forehead.
Yes, Thomas le fossoyeur (gravedigger) was lucky, but he did not like to play his tarot cards very often. At his middle age of 51, he surpassed most Parisians in age and experience. Those who did not take their own lives after the harsh winters whipped through their bones succumbed to a variety of illnesses, not in the least the entrenched poverty that could be found a street away. In his garde française uniform, really the only nice set of clothing he owned, he was accosted daily for news on the queen and the guards at the palace. It usually took one look at the frayed threads, the missing buttons, holey breeches, boots nipped from vermin, and the splayed, unkempt epaulettes for them to conclude that he must have been one of the thousands released from service, per Louis XVI's budget cuts.
In reality, it had been years since he had ever stepped foot on any terrace in Versailles. He'd been released from service 15 or so years ago, and had only been given a guard position at the Bastille thanks to the intervention of one of the Lorraine nobles, whom he'd earned a good friendship with. It was not enough to earn the title of a courtier (and truth be told, he didn't want the baggage such a title held nowadays) but it paid for his father's lodgings and it earned him a good set of eyes and ears in the political realm.
Those ears of his suddenly became valuable, because after leaving his night shift on the 2nd a mob of women approached him on his way to Les Invalides. A curious bunch, not exactly bothersome, from varying walks of life who left him in varying degrees of discomfort. Seamstresses from Porte Saint-Antoine, furniture makers from Faubourg Saint-Antoine, learned women from Place de Grève, and a few curios collectors from Saint-Denis all huddled around him, following him like the Queen's bridal procession. Instead of offering congratulations – or, on later dates, condolences for a dead dauphin - they were all asking him about the mysterious new prisoner at the Bastille.
They held notes of appreciation in their hands and baskets full of goodies. One had weaved a riding habit done in ivory white for the witch to don on her pretty head. One had a kerchief full of candies of chocolates, caramel and small cakes glittering with gold sparkles, things the peasantry living a street away would riot at the sight of. Yet another had a tarot deck, talismans of quartz crystal, and other good-luck charms she believed would serve the stranger better than she did. There had been a brief fight over that among the learned women and the superstitious ones: how could they, in such a time of scientific adventure, cling to such pagan, irrational beliefs? The answer given was that even in an age of science, there was always the possibility of the unknown; of forces beyond mankind's control. Black magic and similar occult-like practices thrived in Paris like undead roaches, with treatises written on them as public as the pornography featuring the Queen and her duchesses.
It had gotten to the point in their ceaseless arguments where Thomas threw up his hands, heaved a dramatic sigh, and shouted, "Laissez-moi en dehors de tout ça! (Leave me out of this!)"
Woe to Thomas if he thought he would catch a moment of relief. One week later, the women were still there, although this time there was a face among them that he recognized: a huge, muscular, astute poissarde waiting for her daily mets hideux (horrible foodstuff) named Veronique. She would travel from Île Saint-Louis to the place d'Armes when the palace was operating, but with recent events – the death of the young dauphin, raging delegates from the Estates-General, food riots in all corners of the kingdom, bizarre crimes happening in the poorer section of the town – the supply and the demand dried up. Veronique had to return to her old haunt bordering the Seine, flitting from place to place to find steady employment.
She noticed Thomas first, beckoning him over with a large, scarred hand. In her youth, her hair had been a brilliant auburn. Hardship and a bad bloodline caused her hair to prematurely turn grey, though she tried to compensate with rouge powder and other dyes. Her face was relatively free of wrinkles, but she had hard lines around her mouth that gave her the appearance of a disapproving pug. Her nails were short and chipped, fingers calloused and hard from handling fillet knives. At 5'6 she was not much shorter than him, but she could easily wield a bayonet if the situation called for it: whereas others turned thin and sallow from poor nutrition, as a poissarde she was entitled to all the scrap her knife could find. No one questioned how a poissarde got so large, but the legends of howling fishwives, prepared to fight when their men fell in combat, was not lost in the public's memory. That was one of the reasons – her curt, audacious attitude being another – crowds would part when she walked by.
A set of brown eyes flecked with yellow and green looked him over. A dimple formed when she smiled. "You're doing well, citoyen."
"As are you, Veronique," Thomas nodded at her. He eyed the market stalls in front of him. They were closed for the afternoon, rickety stalls sagging on uneven ground. "It appears the regrat market disappeared along with the royal retinue. I'm not used to seeing this place empty."
Veronique snorted. Her nose rippled when she did that, like a child tickling the surface of a pond. "Oh, I know where they all went. To the Cour des Miracles, where that ghostly man is taking them for tribute. Le Roi des Thunes they call him. He's your reason why people pack up and leave during midday. I don't even see them fight over rations."
Thomas frowned. Individuals calling themselves kings in an age where royalist sympathies earned a knife in your back was...brazen. To have a reputation that emptied market stalls during the busiest days of the year, food shortages notwithstanding, was also startling to note. He had not heard of this man the month before, so that meant he was a recent addition; an ill wind blowing from the south with all the vapours in its breeze.
"Is that not asking for trouble?" Thomas asked, toying with a button. It fell off and skittered across the stones. "Why hasn't someone opened his throat for using that title?"
Veronique shrugged, her ruined Brunswick dress, once a royal blue, ruffling on her shoulders. "Je ne sais pas (I don't know). But the women I work with are getting anxious. We used to stay late into the morning hours, waiting for any leftover catch. When the first girl went missing we started to wonder if the whispers were true, that that ghostly man had his pickings. When the third came back with her legs missing below the knee, we decided to move back to Île Saint-Louis. Versailles might have been abandoned by royalty but look at the rot that cropped up." Veronique turned up her nose. "Écoeurant (Disgusting)."
Thomas shook his head slowly. Muggings and murder were common in the poorer side of Versailles. There was no commerce in the town; all the wealth and employment was for the court's benefit. With Louis XVI's budget cuts and the nobility preferring privacy over public affairs, the town, after decades of ballooning to 70,000 people, began to shrink. The one thing that did not was murder, and if this brute was harassing women as far away as the Île de la Cité, it was more than just a cause for concern.
It was a disaster that could not and would not be solved, not by royal edict or the roar of ten thousand guns.
"But that does not explain why you are in the Île de la Cité and not Les Invalides," she said, changing the subject. Veronique had, at that point, linked an arm with his and was leading him away from the small group of stragglers waiting for news on his charge. It'd become a common occurrence, and the crowd had gone from three or four inquisitive salon women to two dozen mobbing him for a celebrity's personal affairs. He was thankful for the break she offered him. Veronique walked with him to one of the bridges leading to the mainland, knowing that there was enough ambient noise to ensure privacy there.
In the distance the Notre Dame cathedral stood against the June sun, the heat dry and parching against its coloured rose windows and smooth stone edifice. Rain had been scarce in the past few summers, leaving things dusty and light, as if they'd all blow away with the slightest breath. Veronique would walk with Thomas to the riverfront to discuss business with him, knowing that the stench of the river would drive away more sensitive noses – and ears. It'd become second nature to her to know his moods, and he respected her for that. A wife without a ring, a partner without a contract. True fraternity.
Veronique also knew her way around the city, having lived on the streets half of her life. The islands, the countryside, and the richest districts were imprinted on her mind like the cuts on her hands from slippery blades. Through several alleyways and shortcuts, past bakeries, workshops, and a glass maker's business, Thomas' curious entourage became lost in the Parisian throng. Alone at the stone bridge blocking the river, Veronique turned to him. The sun highlighted the red tints of her hair, a scuffed copper too poor to appraise.
A little quirk tickled at the edge of her mouth. "So. La Sorcière de la Bastille. I suspect she's more than the rumours entail? She's been nothing but a sting on the imagination."
Veronique was fond of using fanciful words she'd overheard courtiers and well-to-do people use. She liked to think it made her more articulate. To Thomas it just seemed she was trying too hard to appear well-bred. But he did admire her astuteness, her to-the-point opinions, and that was a reason why he felt guilty over this conversation.
Thomas sighed. He wore no tricorne or helmet, but felt like he should to protect his head from pounding questions. His scalp itched from the heat and from the uncomfortable situation he was put in. It'd been easier to brush away strangers' concerns, mainly because they had no business knowing and he had the authority to push them away. Veronique was too mutinous for that, preferring to stick the proverbial knife under the chin to get what she wanted, polite society little more than the fish entrails she cleaned out from under her nails to her.
He watched her and the people who milled behind them: baskets of bread on their backs, horses plowing through mucked streets lined with straw in the gutters, some well-off couple heading to the opera, the woman hiking up her skirts so the filth would not stain her fine peach coloured dress. A shriek as a mop of manure ended up on her white shoes.
A breath came out from his nose, slow, heavy. "Elle est jeune, belle, à ma surprise. Mais maigre. (She is young, beautiful, to my surprise. But thin.) I couldn't believe it when I saw her. She looked absolutely out of place there."
Veronique raised her brows. The crinkle in her forehead matched the lines in her mouth: deep, rippling, expressive. "She's not one of royal bastards shoved away...is she? Being so young and untouched?"
Thomas shook his head. He eyed a lone cloud, wispy and long and it snaked across the sky. More days of heat and dryness would follow, no doubt. The spires of the cathedral cast shadows across the ground, waxing and waning with the sun's movement. He thought he saw a shadow move across the roof near the coloured glass, bouncing like a dandelion's seed in a breeze. His eyes flicked back to the fishwife.
"Non, she never struck me as being remotely royal or highborn. She couldn't even be a governesses' daughter, but having anyone vouch for you in the Bastille means someone had livres to throw about."
"Alors, (so) someone wanted to put her away, but didn't want her to have a ruined hair on her pretty head." Veronique pursed her lips, skin flaking from dryness. A tongue ran over her bottom lip as if to answer that complaint. She bunched her brow again, thinking. "You don't think a Lorraine had something to do with this, do you?"
Thomas thought about it. When the witch had mentioned 'Arracourt', he had figured she was referring to Lorraine nobility, yet she never mentioned any connection to that family. If she had been, public opinion would have condemned her, going as far as to publish her family history down to the great-great-great bastard thrice removed if they wanted to be thorough. There had been none of that.
Thomas did not conceive of asking de Launay about who had sent the witch to the Bastille. It was above his station and beneath de Launay to answer. Since the public could not provide answers for him, he was left as ignorant as the crowds currently enchanted – and frightened - by her.
"That's the thing," Thomas said after a while. "She mentioned working for a Madame d'Arracourt, and that region is in Lorraine. Yet I've never heard or seen a noble use that name before." His nose twitched. He wasn't sure if he needed to sneeze or rub his nose from nervousness or the stench. "It's possible she concocted the whole story in order to fool me, to gain my trust. If she did..."
"Attente, attente! (Wait, wait!)" Veronique snapped her fingers. "I do know that name." Her eyes went bright with recognition, green and gold flecks swimming around her irises. "There is a young woman, roughly around her age, that attends business at the Hôtel de Ville with that name. She must be no older than this witch of yours!"
Thomas' mouth opened, then closed, in the span of a second. When he frowned, every muscle appeared to cave in around his mouth and chin, giving him the look of a Norse cave troll. It was not an attractive sight, but it accurately reflected his thoughts.
"She's working with revolutionaries?" The last part came out in a whisper. While the bustle behind them may be sympathetic to the causes of revolt, Thomas did not want to be stampeded in a fit of defiance. There were those in Paris who still held royalist sympathies; they, too, watched their neighbours for the shuffling of papers, for the patriotic songs sung through dance and drink. Thomas would rather not sing arm-in-arm with his fellow guardsmen just yet.
Veronique shook her head. "No, not just them. I swear I've seen men like Paul Barras with her. She comes in an unmarked coach - a bunch of jumping logs, really – and she'll stay there for the whole afternoon. A very serious looking thing. Strong jaw. Stronger than yours, I might add." Veronique gave a wry grin at Thomas' wince. "But she usually comes on Wednesdays, out from the countryside or wherever. Wears a hood."
"How did you see her face if she wears a hood all the time?" Thomas asked. "You didn't tear it off her head, did you?"
Veronique chuckled. "Non, mon cheri, I didn't touch a single hair. She arrived one day with another blond – a Beauharnais, I think – and oh, the talking-to she gave him! You should have seen him sputter! I thought he was going to snap his cane in two, that's how tightly he was holding it. She did not wear a hood that day, and I could see her face – young, fine enough, but with a jaw that tended to wag, like a dog's jaw. Blonde hair, some brown in it. I couldn't see her eyes, so I cannot tell you what colour they were."
"She must be important enough to wrangle with a Beauharnais and Barras," Thomas said. "They usually only speak to women in salons, and Barras has a penchant for widows." He paused. "Wasn't Beauharnais engaged to a woman from Martinique? What's he doing with an unmarried woman while being married?"
"I think this one has quite the reputation. Maybe one as big as theirs, maybe bigger. Paul Barras was nothing until he declared his loyalty towards the Estates General," Veronique said. "Now he walks with a young woman as if she were holding him by a leash. Non, let me fix that: Beauharnais, that proud man, was the one being dragged by a leash. Can you imagine? I can't."
Thomas watched the river below, its ugly sludge carrying whatever disease and detritus beneath its surface. Maybe, at one point, it had been a clean, shining river, safe to bathe in and swim in when the summers burned hot. That brown sludge, thicker from the tanneries' waste, reminded him of his grave digging work. The difference there was that bodies, after a time, returned to the earth and enriched the soil. Or, if the bodies were to be cremated, glistening white skulls could be placed on racks beneath the catacombs being erected beneath the city. There was a cleanliness involved in preparing those for the afterlife, if there was one. Your fingers turned black, but their bones bleached white. Le blanc et noir.
Veronique rested her arms on the stone wall, drumming her fingers. Her bonnet hung by a loose ribbon around her neck, her hair in an unkempt braid. It reminded Thomas of the witch's braid, long and black like an ink spill, shining and clean against her white chemise. He had not seen her in a few days. He wondered how she was, what she was doing to keep herself busy.
The poissarde put a hand on his shoulder, fingers toying with the frayed threads of his costume, a dark blue as ruined as her dress. They'd been pressed and fancy, once, too. "Be safe. There is talk on the street of a riot."
"There are talks of riots everywhere," Thomas said quietly. "And the soldiers come in and put them down. People bray for blood, but when they see it, they scream and caw and demand some more. All of it ends eventually."
Veronique shook her head, her plaited hair shaking like a horse's tail. "Not this time. The Pitié-Salpêtrière is being eyed, as is Les Invalides. I know your father is there."
"What for? All they're going to do is cause injury and anguish to a place full of people too weak to participate in their revolutionary brigade. They can't hope to recruit there."
Veronique looked around her, in the cracks and narrow lane ways, surveying every twitch of movement. She leaned towards Thomas' ear. "Poudre à canon (gunpowder). That's what they want. And your petite sorcière (little witch) is only giving them ideas."
Thomas found himself chuckling, a throaty rumble that would have been fatherly, had he not been so mellowed by life. "Petite...is not the word I'd use. Femme soldat (female soldier) is more appropriate."
"Ah...so she has cast a spell on you." Veronique smiled, a line of broken teeth marring an otherwise plain face. She usually smiled that big when she was entertained. She inclined her head. "She hasn't given you a name?"
"Non, no more than you have for our mystery woman from Lorraine."
"Tell you what. You get me a name for our petite sorcière, and I'll give you one for la femme mystérieuse (mystery woman).Tope-là? (It's a deal?)"
" Très bien." He shook her hand. "I'll see if I can get a name by the end of the week."
"Parfait! (Perfect!) I'll see you at the Rue de la Surintendance. Au revoir!"
They separated, Veronique crossing the bridge to return to the mainland, Thomas turning towards the Palais de la Cité. There was an artisan there he knew who could give him the sketch paper and charcoal he needed for a drawing he had been aching to do for the past week, not considering the general book of sketches he had been commissioned to do. He had almost forgotten it entirely if not for the image of black silk and white muslin searing through his brain like hot embers on tree sap. Yes, he had to sketch it; had to put it down for appreciation. The records could be falsified, could be contradicted but a sketch was harder to forge, harder to forget.
A sketch was a memory. A point and a place in time. Life for the mysterious, the elusive ones.
He wanted her memory imprinted and sealed, if not for his enjoyment, than for history's need for recollection.
He counted the livres in his hand, coin by coin, not noticing the long shadow following him since he and Veronique stood together next to the river. Neither had known there was someone listening in, hungry and keen for information. For their secrets. Thomas passed by a carriage, unmarked and plain in simple, clean wood, lost in his own artistic thoughts. The man who stepped inside it went unseen, mismatched eyes blazing with knowledge.
The man with mismatched eyes would pay to see that drawing. He would steal it before the artist was even done with the base lines if he had to. But it would be his...and the tide would be in his favour once more.
Notes:
- This chapter was inspired by the book, 'Versailles: Biography of a Palace' by Tony Spawford.
- 'His son is much less ill than the state' was an actual quote uttered at the time of Louis-Joseph's death.
- I tried looking up Arracourt, to see if it existed during this time. All I got was that it was really a small area near Lorraine.
- The regrat market was a market set up to re-sell food taken from noble households to re-sell at knock-down prices.