Don’t tell me that black troops can’t stand and fight. They were sensational, nothing less, and from time to time we would see the old woman, white hair flying, rushing here and there to encourage her men until, at last, I had to order a bayonet charge against her fortified plantation house, but in doing so, I gave firm orders: ‘Don’t kill the old woman.’ They had no choice, for she came at them with two pistols, and they cut her down.
Grandmère Lanzerac became the patron saint of the French during the four-year occupation by the British, and her name was revered by Paul and Eugénie as they grew up.
They were a handsome pair of children: Paul with blond hair, bright open face and freckles; Eugénie with dark hair, a beautiful face and a willowy figure that resembled a wisp of marsh grass when she was twelve, the bending of a young tree when she became fourteen. They went through the normal periods of intense association when Paul walked the flowering verandas with Eugénie, sharing secrets and impossible dreams. Then there were months when they drew apart, heading in separate directions, but always they moved back together, for they recognized an affiliation that would never dissolve. They could not know whether it might blossom into normal love experiences, and as for even considering marriage, that would have been ridiculous to think about at their ages.
They were trapped in ambiguities and they knew it, and the cause was the final creole* of their trio, a delightful olive-skinned mulatto girl named Solange Vauclain, daughter of an immigrant from France who had been hired as a plantation manager and had married one of the slave girls. Solange lived with her parents on what was now one of the larger sugar plantations, east of town, and it was, Solange told her friends in Point-à-Pitre, ‘really a garden of flowers,’ for all the spaces not utilized for sugar were crowded by a wealth of the varied flowers which made Guadeloupe a wonderland. Birds-of-paradise that looked like golden canoes at sunset, flaming anthuriums, delicate hibiscus and a magnificent red plant that would later be named bougainvillea. Over all, arched stately coconut palms, hundreds of them, as if they were huge green flowers, and about the plantation buildings grew the mysterious crotons which could show any of six or seven different colors. But the one Solange chose as her own was the red ginger, shaped almost like a human heart. ‘That’s the flower of Guadeloupe,’ she told her friends, ‘big and bold and brash. You won’t find it on Martinique. Down there they like roses and lilies.’
Although Solange felt wonderfully at home among her flowers, she often visited her mother’s black relatives in Point-à-Pitre, taking them gifts of ginger flowers, and since she was the same age as Eugénie, it was inevitable that in this small town the two girls would become friends. Indeed, Solange became so intimate a confidante that she was more like a sister than a friend, sharing with Eugénie whispers and speculations about this boy or that or the goings-on of the young widow near the port.
But the presence of Paul Lanzerac in the house opposite soon made him the focus of their conversation, and it would have been difficult to determine which girl had the greater interest in him, for as Solange confided: ‘When I grow up, I hope I meet someone like Paul,’ and in the hot tropic nights when they shared a bedroom she sometimes whispered strange confessions: ‘Eugénie, I do believe that Paul loves each of us … in different ways,’ and when Eugénie wanted to pursue this striking analysis, dark-eyed Solange said only: ‘Oh, you know.’ Had Paul been asked, he would have confessed that he liked Eugénie, because they had shared so many experiences while growing up, but that he loved Solange in a different and more compelling way.
Once, when Eugénie had gone into the country to stay for two days with Solange, the mulatto girl cried in a burst of sisterly confidence: ‘Oh, Eugénie, whichever of us marries Paul, let’s all be friends, forever and ever,’ and Eugénie drew back, studied her friend, and asked: ‘Has he been kissing you?’ and Solange said: ‘Yes, and I love him so desperately.’
Then all things changed, for the time had come for Paul to return to France for the serious education which he would require if he were to occupy his rightful place in the French system. Before he departed in 1788, at the age of seventeen, he spent a couple of long days with the two girls, then fifteen, sharing with them his hopes and the possibilities he foresaw when he would return three years later: ‘I don’t intend to be an apothecary, like my father.’
‘A doctor?’ Solange asked, flushed with excitement at such serious talk, and he said: ‘No. I respect my father’s life … his neat shop … and I’d be proud to be a doctor …’
‘What then?’ Solange pressed, and he looked away from her and spoke to Eugénie: ‘Like what we talked about. In government, a lawyer maybe, an officer who’s sent from island to island.’
‘But you will be coming back?’ Solange asked, and he replied enthusiastically: ‘Oh yes! This is my home, forever. My Grandmère Lanzerac died defending this island. I could not live anywhere else.’
Then Solange, her beautiful dark face aglow, said almost sorrowfully: ‘But you’ll have been in Paris …’
‘Oh no!’ he corrected. ‘I won’t even see Paris,’ and she cried in astonishment: ‘Not see Paris!’ Then he explained that his ship would land him in Bordeaux in southern France, and from that port he would travel by various rural conveniences straight across to the extreme eastern border: ‘I’ll be going to the little town where the Lanzeracs had started, Barcelonnette, near the Italian border. Mountains and rushing streams. Some of my uncles live there.’ When Solange asked: ‘But why would anyone travel across an ocean to find a little mountain town?’ he said: ‘Because my father says it’s the best part of France. It’s the border, where you have to fight to live.’ He reminded them: ‘That fighting old woman who held off the British to save this island, she was from Barcelonnette,’ and it was clear to the girls that he expected to conduct himself in her glorious tradition, a true-blue Frenchman fighting for France.
If a bright young man from any of the French colonies wished to revitalize his love for his homeland in the tense year of 1788, there could have been few places more appropriate for him to visit than the remote town of Barcelonnette. It was set among mountains and so close to the Italian border that a sense of defending the frontier affected all who lived or visited there; there was also a strong appreciation of the colonies because numerous sons of the town, unable to see much future in the limited opportunities it provided, had emigrated to the New World to find their fortunes there. Decades ago Paul’s branch of the prolific Lanzerac family had sent three brothers to the Caribbean—one to Mexico, one to Cuba and the youngest to Guadeloupe—and all had done so well that they could send their sons, or at least the firstborn, back to Barcelonnette for an education. And there, among the quiet mountains, these young fellows met with their uncles and grandfathers and cousins to learn from them the timeless glories of French culture.
It had been arranged that Paul would spend his stay of three years in the household of an Uncle Méderic, who had not left home, and be educated in the school headed by another relative, Père Emile, who had stayed in Barcelonnette to become its priest and its respected scholar.
Paul had been in the care of these two fine men only a few weeks when he realized that in coming to his ancestral homeland, he had escalated to a whole new level of learning and understanding. Coincidentally, in early January of 1789 the French government sent a notice to the six hundred and fifteen districts that comprised the nation, advising them that since a rare and powerful event was about to take place, a convocation of the Etats-Generals—nobles, clergy and third estate or commoners—each district was to send to Paris a traditional cahiers de doléances, or notebook of grievances. So just as Paul was settling down to his studies he found two members of his family engaged in composing the grievances of Barcelonnette: Père Emile was contributing to the clergy’s report, Uncle Méderic was in charge of the commoners’, and as Paul watched these two thoughtful men at work summarizing the views of France, he imbibed from them an appreciation of what
made France most distinguished among nations.
Uncle Méderic was the more thoughtful, for he saw France as a radiant beacon whose destiny it was to enlighten the rest of Europe and the world. As he prepared to draft his final version he told members of his family: ‘The Etats-Generals last met forty years ago. This is a rare opportunity to express our opinions to the king,’ and he made it clear that his list of grievances would be brief: ‘There’s nothing wrong with France. Radicals from cities like Lyons and Nantes will complain about everything. More voting privileges. More aid to the poor. A stronger police. But what are the facts? This is a noble country and with just a little attention it will remain that way,’ and in that spirit his list was short: ‘We must have more troops along the border to protect ourselves from Italian smugglers; there should be better mail service with Paris; and the bridge on the way to Marseilles should be widened to accommodate our carts.’ Then, to let Paris know what his district thought about government in general, he wrote a fervid passage which would be widely quoted then and in later generations when scholars wondered how, on the very eve of a revolution, this obviously literate little town could state:
If Louis XII, if Henry IV are still today the idols of Frenchmen because of their good deeds, Louis XVI the Beneficent is the god of loyal Frenchmen; history will propose him as the model of kings in all countries and in all centuries. No changes of any kind are necessary.
Père Emile did not actually draft the clergy’s list of grievances, but since he did contribute heavily to it, Paul gleaned an insight into the priests’ thinking:
As long as France adheres to the teachings of the church and the guidance given by our king, the nation is on secure ground. The genius of France is to be rational in its scientific approach to problems of the military, industry and commerce, but to be spiritual in its interpretation of human life. If we can achieve this balance, and this committee is certain we can, we shall demonstrate to the world our superiority over the principles that govern less able nations like England. No major changes are required, but the bridge to Marseilles should be widened.
Paul found these solid assurances fortified by the instruction he was receiving from Père Emile and his three fellow teachers. Their école, as it was called, was an advanced school for fifteen-year-olds which offered instruction on the first-year level of a good university like Salamanca or Bologna: its students learned specific details as to how France achieved her greatness, and in one subject after another the supremacy of French thought and performance was extolled. While there was no specific class in literature, the teachers referred constantly to works by Racine, Corneille, Rabelais and especially Molière, whose work was judged to be the finest mix yet available of profound thought and comedy. One teacher did admit that Shakespeare of England had merit, especially in his sonnets, but that his plays were apt to be fustian. He also said grudgingly that the German author Goethe was worth studying, but that his Die Leiden des Jungen Werthers was far too sentimental for the taste of an educated gentleman. Dante was not dismissed, as Boccaccio was, but he was charged with being abstruse and unable to tell a tale properly.
In all fields it was the same: French kings were superb, French generals without parallel, French admirals the glory of the seas, and the French explorers of America among the bravest men of history, far superior to an Italian like Christopher Columbus who had merely sailed safe ships to islands which philosophers already knew existed.
In similar schools all over France such lessons were being hammered into the heads of young boys, who, conscripted into the army in a few years, would conquer most of Europe and march all the way to Moscow. Had Paul remained in Barcelonnette, this cradle of brave men, he would surely have become one of Napoleon’s better officers and disseminators of French values.
But he was to spend only three years on his mountain because on the fourteenth of July, in what the authors of the local Cahiers de Doléances had reported as a land without any need of change, the rabble in Paris, by storming Bastille prison, launched a wave of change that would prove shattering. However, Paul remained largely unaware of the convulsions that were beginning to wrack his beloved France, for he was engaged in a rather difficult battle of his own.
When young men like him returned to Barcelonnette for their education, every effort was made to find them a local wife, on the understandable grounds that women of the region were a known product and most desirable. No one sponsored this belief more strongly than Uncle Méderic, who paraded before his nephew one local beauty after another, and some of them were breathtaking, with flawless complexions produced by mountain air and the firm, steady characters which resulted from protected rural life. One girl in particular, named Brigitte, a distant cousin of sorts, since everyone in the district seemed to be interrelated, was especially charming. The daughter of a wealthy farmer, she was not only a mistress of household arts like cooking, sewing and cleanliness, but was also the possessor of a rich singing voice and a lively pair of heels when a fiddle began to play. Also, Uncle Méderic reminded his nephew, her father could be expected to provide a handsome dowry.
But Paul could not give her serious attention, for a strange malady now attacked him: he was homesick for the tropical splendor of Guadeloupe and the demonstrated charms of Eugénie Mornaix and Solange Vauclain. The simple fact was that Brigitte, by the wealth of her virtues, had reminded him that he was already in love, but with which of the two creole girls, he had not yet decided. When he thought of women in the abstract, it was Solange with her dark beauty who filled his heart, but when he applied himself seriously to the question ‘Which one?’ he found himself thinking always of Eugénie, and for three weeks he mooned about the hills of Barcelonnette so lost in dreams that his uncle saw that bold steps were required.
‘What’s the matter with you, boy? Can’t you see that Brigitte has her cap set for you? Let me tell you, a catch like that doesn’t wander across a young man’s path more than once.’ The first two or three of these assaults achieved no results, for Paul ignored them, but when his uncle asked bluntly: ‘Are you afraid of women?’ he started to reveal his secret: ‘I’m in love with a girl back on the island.’
‘What kind of girl?’ and from the manner in which his nephew fumbled with this question, Méderic concluded that the boy was lying. The truth was, Paul didn’t know what to say. Finally he blurted out: ‘Eugénie Mornaix,’ whereupon his uncle hit him with a barrage of penetrating questions which so confused Paul that in offering one answer he let slip, by accident, the name Solange.
‘And who’s she?’
‘Another girl, just as pretty as Eugénie.’
‘Can’t make up your mind? You’re in trouble if you’re caught in that trap. Tell me, is either of them as pretty as Brigitte?’
‘They’re different. Eugénie is smaller and very sharp of mind. Solange is taller and darker … very beautiful.’
‘Darker? What do you mean?’ and in his fumbling reply Paul revealed that Solange had had a slave mother.
There was silence in the farmhouse, then Uncle Méderic stroked his chin and pointed to a timber darkened by the smoke of centuries: ‘You mean her mother was as dark as that?’ and when Paul nodded, his uncle began asking a long series of questions about slaves on the islands, and Paul told him that many of the Frenchmen married women imported from Africa, ‘very beautiful women whose children are as bright as you or me.’ Indeed, he told illustrative stories with such skill that on subsequent evenings Uncle Méderic called in other members of his family to hear the young man’s report on life in Guadeloupe, and gradually the French attitude on the relations between races manifested itself.
Père Emile said: ‘We’re all God’s children,’ and a cousin agreed: ‘We have never seen slaves in Barcelonnette, but I’m sure once they’ve been baptized …’ and the priest agreed.
But Uncle Méderic, still championing the cause of Brigitte, made a judicial observation: ‘If a man was going to live his life in the islands, I suppose
a black woman would be acceptable, but if he was under consideration for a job in France … well, a black wife …’
‘She’s not black!’ Paul said defensively. ‘She’s … In Point-à-Pitre you can see girls of every color, and some of them are truly beautiful. The men, too.’ And he was goaded into revealing something which he had up to now kept from everyone. Going to his room, he returned holding in his hand a small sheet of white paper, perhaps seven inches square, onto which had been carefully glued a silhouette which an island artist had skillfully snipped with tiny scissors. It was of Solange from the waist up, and although it was almost the standard silhouette which the artist made of any pretty girl, it had for Paul a very real evocation of his beautiful island friend.
‘See,’ he said shyly, ‘she’s very pretty,’ but an aunt, holding the paper close to her eyes, pointed out: ‘She is black,’ and Père Emile explained that all silhouettes were cut from black paper and pasted onto white: ‘Gives the required clean outline.’
As that particular discussion dragged to a conclusion, no one offered the argument that would have been made in nearby England, that Paul was a white man and therefore the possessor of blood too precious to be melded with black. Not one Frenchman hammered at him: ‘But such a marriage would be unthinkable. You’d be ostracized from the best society, and your friends and their wives would cut you dead.’ Even Uncle Méderic, who had pointed out the disadvantages a man might suffer if he brought his black wife to Paris, retreated: ‘Come to think of it, there was that fellow on the road to Marseilles. Brought back a wife he’d met in Turkey or Algeria. Remarkably dark, but no one seemed to care. If this Solange is as attractive as you say, and you’re to make your home in the islands …’ And in the days that followed he stopped pressing the charms of Brigitte, but he did repeat the warning he had once issued: ‘Seriously, my son, any man who’s in love with two girls at the same time and in the same town …’ He pressed his hands against his head: ‘Trouble, trouble.’