“That is quite enough of such topics! What about the younger daughter?”
“Charlotte Adélaide de Crépy was scarred by the smallpox, though she goes to great lengths to hide it with wigs, patches, and so forth. Marrying her off was more of a challenge; but that of course makes it a more interesting story.”
“Good! Let’s have it, then! For it seems that Monsieur le comte and Mademoiselle la comtesse will never finish.”
“You have obviously heard of the de Lavardacs. You may know that they are a sort of cadet branch of the Bourbons. If you have had the misfortune of seeing any of their portraits you will have guessed that they have undergone quite a bit of Hapsburg adulteration over the centuries. You see, many of their lands are in the south, and they make tactical marriages across the Pyrenees. Through all of the troubles with the Guises, they were stolidly loyal to the Bourbons.”
“They switched religion whenever the King did, then!” exclaimed Lieutenant Bart, trying to muster a small witticism of his own. But it only drew a glare from Rossignol.
“To the de Lavardacs it is not such an amusing topic, for they suffered diverse assassinations and other reversals. As you know far better than I, they have developed a family association with the French Navy, which is passed on from father to son by survivance. The current Duke, Louis-François de Lavardac, duc d’Arcachon, like his father before him, is Grand Admiral of France. He held that position during the time that Colbert expanded the French Navy from a tiny flotilla of worm-eaten relics to the immense force it is today.”
“Seven score Ships of the Line,” Bart proclaimed, “and God knows how many frigates and galleys.”
“The Duke profited commensurately, both in material wealth and in influence. His son and heir is, of course, Étienne de Lavardac d’Arcachon.”
It was not necessary for Rossignol to add what Bart, along with everyone else, already believed: He is the one who got Eliza pregnant.
“I have only seen Étienne from a distance,” said Bart, “but I gather he is a good bit younger than his half-brother.” He gestured to a recent painting that depicted the owners of this house, the marquis and the marquise d’Ozoir.
“The Duke was but a stripling when he begat this fellow off a woman in the household. Her surname was Eauze. The bastard was raised under the name of Claude Eauze. He went off to India for a while to seek his fortune, and later made enough money in the slave trade that he was able—with a loan from his father—to buy a noble title in 1674 when they went on sale to finance the Dutch war. Thus he became the Marquis d’Ozoir, which I take to be a play on words, as his name, to that point, had been Eauze. Only a year before buying this title, he married none other than Charlotte Adélaide de Crépy: the younger sister of the duchesse d’Oyonnax.”
“You’d think he could have found someone of higher rank,” said Bart.
“By all means!” said Rossignol. “But there is something at work you have forgotten to take into account.”
“And what is that, monsieur?”
“He actually loves her.”
“Mon Dieu, I had no idea!”
“Or, barring that, he knows that they form an effective and stable partnership, and is too cunning to do anything that might queer it. They have a daughter. Our friend tutored her for a while, last year.”
“That must have been before the King woke up one morning and remembered that she was a countess.”
“Let us hope,” Rossignol, “that she will still be one, when d’Avaux is finished.”
“IT IS A PITY,” Eliza began, “that Irishmen broke into your house, and stole your papers and sold them on the open market. What an embarrassment it must be for you that everyone knows that your personal correspondence, and drafts of treaties written in your hand, are being bartered for drinks by scullery-maids in Dunkerque gin-houses.”
“What! I was not informed of this!” D’Avaux turned red so fast it was if a cup of blood had been hurled in his face.
“You have been on a boat for a fortnight, how could you be informed? I am informing you now, monsieur.”
“I was led to believe that those papers had come into your possession, mademoiselle, and it is you I shall hold responsible for them!”
“What you have been led to believe does not matter,” said Eliza, “only what is. And so let me tell you what is. The thieves who stole your papers sent them to Dunkerque, it is true. Perhaps they even entertained a phant’sy that I would buy them. I refused to lower myself to such a dishonorable transaction.”
“Then perhaps you will explain to me, mademoiselle, why you have some of those very papers on your lap at this moment!”
“As the saying goes, there is no honor among thieves. When these ruffians saw that I was adamant in my refusal to do business with them, they began to seek other buyers. The packet was broken up into small lots, which were offered for sale, on various channels. To add to the complexity of the matter, it seems that the thieves had a falling-out amongst themselves. I cannot follow the business, to tell you the truth. When it became evident that these papers were being scattered to the four winds, I began making efforts to purchase them, as available. The ones on my lap are all that I have been able to round up, so far.”
D’Avaux was at a loss for civil words, and could only shake his head and mutter to himself.
“You may be chagrined, monsieur, and ungrateful; but I am pleased that I have been able to repay some small part of my personal debt to you by recovering some of your papers—”
“And returning them to me?”
“As I am able,” Eliza answered with a shrug. “To recover them all does not happen in a single day, week, or month.”
“…”
“Now,” Eliza went on, “a minute ago, you were indulging in some speculations as to where I shall end up. Some of your ideas on this topic are quite fanciful—Barock, even. Some of them are distasteful to persons of breeding, and I shall pretend I did not hear them. I can see well enough that you have lost confidence in me, monsieur. I know that you must do as honor dictates. Go then to Versailles—for I cannot travel as fast as you, encumbered as I am with an infant and a household, and busy as I am with this project of recovering your papers. State your case to the King. Let him know that I am no noble, but a common wench who deserves no better treatment. He will be startled to learn these things, for he considers me to be a hereditary Countess. I am a dear friend of his sister-in-law and moreover have recently loaned him above a million livres tournois of my own money. But your persuasive powers are renowned—as you demonstrated during your posting in the Hague, where you so effectively reined in the ambitions of that poseur, William of Orange.”
This was truly a knee to the groin, and rendered d’Avaux speechless, not so much from pain as from a curious admixture of shock and awe.
Eliza continued, “You may induce the King to believe anything—particularly given that you have such strong evidence. What was it again? A journal?”
“Yes, mademoiselle—your journal.”
“Who is in possession of this book?”
“It is not a book, as you know perfectly well, but an embroidered pillowcase.” Here d’Avaux began to pinken again.
“A…pillowcase?”
“Yes.”
“In English they call it a sham, by the way. Tell me, are there any other bedlinens implicated in the scandal?”
“Not that I am aware of.”
“Curtains? Rugs? Tea-towels?”
“No, mademoiselle.”
“Who has possession of this…pillowcase?”
“You do, mademoiselle.”
“Such items are bulky and soon go out of fashion. Before I left the Hague, I sold most of my household goods and burned the rest—including all pillowcases.”
“But a copy was made, mademoiselle, by a clerk in the French Embassy in the Hague, and given to Monsieur Rossignol.”
“That clerk died of the smallpox,” Eliza told him—which was a lie that she had made up
on the spot, but it would take him a month to find this out.
“Ah, but Monsieur Rossignol is alive and well, and trusted implicitly by the King.”
“Does the King trust you, monsieur?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Monsieur Rossignol sent a copy of his report to the King but not to you. It made me curious. And what of the monk?”
“Which monk?”
“The Qwghlmian monk in Dublin to whom Monsieur Rossignol sent the plaintext to be translated.”
“You are most well-informed, mademoiselle.”
“I do not think that I am particularly well-or ill-informed, monsieur. I am simply trying to be of service to you.”
“In what way?”
“You have a difficult interview awaiting you at Versailles. You shall come before the King. In his treasury—which he watches with utmost care—he has a fortune in hard money, lately deposited by me. You will make him believe that I am a commoner and a traitor by describing a report you have never seen about a pillowcase that no longer exists, supposedly carrying an encrypted message in Qwghlmian, which no one reads except for some three-fingered monk in Ireland.”
“We shall see,” said d’Avaux. “My interview with Father Édouard de Gex will be a simple matter by comparison.”
“And how does Édouard de Gex enter into it?”
“Oh, of all the Jesuits at Versailles, mademoiselle, he is the most influential, for he is the confessor of de Maintenon. Indeed, when anyone” (raising an eyebrow at Eliza) “misbehaves at Versailles, Madame de Maintenon complains of it to Father de Gex, who then goes to the confessor of the guilty party so that the next time she goes to confession she is made aware of the Queen’s displeasure. Yes, you may smirk at the idea, mademoiselle—many do—but it gives him great power. For when a courtier steps into the confessional and has his ears blistered by the priest, he has no way to know whether the criticism is really coming from the Queen, the King, or de Gex.”
“What will you confess to de Gex, then?” Eliza asked. “That you have had impure thoughts about the Countess de la Zeur?”
“It is not in a confessional where I shall meet him,” d’Avaux said, “but in a salon somewhere, and the topic of conversation will be: Where is this orphan boy to be raised? What is his Christian name, by the way?”
“I have been calling him Jean.”
“But his Christian name? He has been baptized, of course?”
“I have been very busy,” Eliza said. “He is to be baptized in a few days, here at the Church of St.-Eloi.”
“How many days exactly? Surely it is not such a demanding calculation for one of your talents.”
“Three days.”
“Father de Gex will be, I’m sure, suitably impressed by this display of piety. The christening is to be performed by a Jesuit, I presume?”
“Monsieur, I would not think of having it done by a Jansenist!”
“Excellent. I look forward to making the acquaintance of this little Christian when you bring him to Versailles.”
“Are you certain I’ll be welcome there, monsieur?”
“Pourquoi non? I only pray that I shall be.”
“Pourquoi non, monsieur?”
“Certain important papers of mine have gone missing from my office in Dublin.”
“Do you need them immediately?”
“No. But sooner or later—”
“It will certainly be later. Dublin is far away. The inquiry proceeds at a snail’s pace.” Which was Eliza’s way of saying he’d not get his precious papers back unless he gave a good report of her at Versailles.
“I am sorry to trouble you about such matters. To common people, such things are important! To us they are nothing.”
“Then let us let nothing come between us,” Eliza said.
AS BONAVENTURE ROSSIGNOL HAD FORESEEN, d’Avaux did not tarry by the sea-side, but was en route for Paris before cock-crow the next day.
Rossignol stayed for two more nights after that, then rose one morning and rode out of town with as little fuss as when he’d ridden into it. He must have met the carriage of the Marquis d’Ozoir around mid-morning, for it was just before the stroke of noon when Eliza—who was upstairs getting dressed for church—heard the stable-gates being thrown open, and went to the window to see four horses drawing a carriage into the yard.
The coat of arms painted on the door of that carriage matched the one on the gates. Or so she guessed. To verify as much would have required a magnifying-glass, a herald, and more time and patience than Eliza had just now. The arms of Charlotte-Adélaide were a quartering of those of de Gex and de Crépy, and to make the arms of d’Ozoir, these had been recursively quartered with those of the House of de Lavardac d’Arcachon—themselves a quartering of something that included a lot of fleurs-de-lis, with an arrangement of black heads in iron collars, slashed with a bend sinister to indicate bastardy. At any rate, what it all meant was that the lord of the manor was back. Just as he stepped down from his carriage, the bells in the old, alienated belfry down the street began to toll noon. Eliza was late for church, and that was an even worse thing than usual, because on this day the proceedings could not go forward until she and her baby arrived. She sent an aide down to explain matters, and to tender apologies, to the Marquis, and hustled out one door with her baby and her entourage just as Claude Eauze entered through another. Presently he did the chivalrous thing, viz. got his carriage turned round and sent it rattling down the street after her. But so close was one thing to another in Dunkerque that, by the time the carriage caught up with her, Eliza was already standing at the church’s door. She might have given it the slip altogether if she had gone in directly. But she had paused to look at the Église St.-Eloi, and to think.
She favored the looks of this church. It was late-Gothic, and could have passed for old, but was in fact a new fabrique. The Spaniards had levelled the old one some decades past in a dispute as to the ownership of Flanders. All that remained of it was the belfry, and if its looks were any indication, the Spaniards had wrought a great improvement on the appearance of this town. The new one had a great rose window filled with a delicate tracery of stone, like the rosette on the belly of a lute, and Eliza always liked to stop and admire it when she passed by. Now, holding her baby to her bosom, she stopped to admire it one more time. At that moment a counter-factual vision entered her phant’sy, wherein Rossignol was by her side, and the two of them went in to be joined in marriage, and then walked down to the water and boarded ship and sailed off to Amsterdam or London to raise their baby in exile.
The dream was interrupted by the raucous vehement on-rush of the carriage of the Marquis d’Ozoir, which was about as fitting and about as welcome in this scene as musketry at a seduction. Lest she get trapped outside exchanging pleasantries with the Marquis, she hurried through the door.
The church’s vault was supported by several columns that were arranged around the altar in a semicircle, reminding Eliza of the bars of a giant birdcage: a birdcage into which she had been chased, not only by the banging and rattling carriage, but by divers other sudden and frightening onslaughts as well. She could fly no farther. She was caught. Best to flutter up onto her new perch, preen, and peer about. The Marquis slipped in alone, and took a seat in his family pew. She peered at him; he peered, discreetly, at her. Jean Bart watched them watching each other. They, and several servants and acquaintances who’d showed up, joined in the standings, sittings, kneelings, mumblings, and gestures of the Mass. Jean-Jacques turned out to be one of those infants who accepts the dunking, not with hysterical protests but with aghast curiosity; this made his godfather immensely proud, while giving his mother a vision of long rambunctious years ahead. The Jesuit crossed his forehead with oil and said that he was a priest and a prophet and that his name was Jean-Jacques: Jean after Jean Bart, who became his godfather, and Jacques after another man of Eliza’s acquaintance who was unable to attend the rite, being either dead, or crazy and chained to an
oar. No mention was made of the child’s natural father. Indeed very little notice was given to the mother; for the story being given out was that Jean-Jacques was an orphan rescued from some massacre in the Palatinate and only being looked after by Eliza.
Over joyous bonging from the belfry, the Marquis—who, she now remembered, was a tall man, physically impressive, and handsome in a disreputable way—insisted on a celebration at his place. The produce of local vines, orchards, and distilleries was made available to a small and select list of guests. Some hours later, Jean Bart could be seen making his way home, tacking down the street in the manner of a ship working to windward.
The comtesse de la Zeur and the Marquis d’Ozoir kept an eye on Bart from the same room where Eliza had had her audience with d’Avaux three days earlier. She and the Marquis got along very well, which, given his past association with the slave trade, rather made her flesh crawl. He took a sort of avuncular interest in Jean-Jacques, which perhaps stood to reason given that the two had been born in such similar circumstances.*
The conversation that took place after Jean Bart had gone home, and the servants had been sent away, would have been altogether different if these two had inherited their titles. As matters stood, however, there were no illusions between them, and they could converse freely and without pretense. Though to do so for a few minutes (Eliza decided) was to be reminded that inhibited and pretentious chatter was not always such a bad thing.
“You and I are alike,” the Marquis said. Which he meant as a compliment!
He continued, “We have our titles because we are useful to the King. If I were a legitimate son of the Lavardacs, I’d not be permitted to do anything with my life other than sit around Versailles waiting to die. Because I am a bastard, I have traveled to India, Africa, and the Baltic as far as Russia, and in all of these places I have engaged in trade. Trade! Yet no one thinks less of me for it.”
He went on to explain why, in his view, Eliza was useful to the King. It all had to do with finance, and her links to Amsterdam and London, which he described aptly. This was unusual in a French noble. The very few of them who actually comprehended what went on in a Bourse, and why it mattered, affected ignorance for fear of seeming common. To them Eliza made as much sense as the Oracle of Delphi. By contrast, the Marquis affected to understand more than he really did. To him Eliza was a petty commerçant. Or so ’twould seem from his next remark: “Fetch me some timber, if you please.”