Read Online Annette Vallon: A Novel of the French Revolution by James Tipton - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: James Tipton
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Blois. Grégoire had secured his title by taking an oath that his first priority of allegiance was to the republican constitution and not to his religion, an oath any self-respecting priest would not take and which would, in the near future, cause much strife throughout France. Vergez said he planned to please Grégoire in a case involving a priest who would not take the new oath, though Vergez loathed Grégoire for being a revolutionary.
My stepfather was also planning to ask the bishop to recommend him, Vergez, to a seat on the new trade tribunal. My mother seemed untroubled by this hypocrisy.
I opened the Romance of the Rose :
I bathed my face in clear water,
The bottom paved with shining stones
and Maman took that moment to enumerate to me the young men I’d meet in the coming season in Orléans. I reflected, not for the first or last time, that when you are reading, others think they can disturb you because you are not doing anything.
So I asked, in my own non sequitur, had she noticed that we were traveling the same route, north along the river, that Joan of Arc’s troops had taken in 1429 to end the siege of Orléans? She didn’t seem interested in my historical allusion. His own speech finished, Vergez was asleep, his head against the velvet.
I peeked out the heavy curtains at the endless brown and white, stubbly wintry fields and bare poplars that marched up long narrow roads to isolated farms and searched out the two towers of Sainte-Croix Cathedral that would signal that we were approaching Orléans.
Finally we arrived, driving down the rue Royale. After the long hours of empty road the street was suddenly crowded with carts and carriages, its shops lit in the wintry dusk, and men and women hurrying home in their long coats with high collars or in billowing capes. I was impatient to get out of the carriage.
Slowed at times to a standstill by the traffic, we finally turned left on the rue de Bourgogne, which led to the old porte through which Joan had entered to the cheers of the people. We stopped in front of a large stone house with two lanterns lit outside, and the Dubourgs’ footman rushed out to greet us. Soon we were in the lit vestibule, enfolded by the embraces of the Dubourgs and of the Vincents, who had journeyed in their own carriage.
Monsieur Dubourg, small and portly, with a powdered and curled wig, bent over my hand and smiled with real affection. His tall, thin wife, with a heaped-up coiffure that made her still taller, loomed above him and lowered herself, giraffe-like, to bestow on me two kisses and a lavender scent, and the words that I still looked as young and pretty as ever. Twenty-two and unmarried, I wasn’t sure if this was a compliment. She was my mother’s best friend, and they disappeared into the front salon, already lost in low and urgent gossip.
Monsieur Dubourg took my arm and led me into another room, firelit, with a couch embroidered with Chinese-style boughs. I took my perch on a branch with Marie and Gérard on either side, and Monsieur Dubourg offered me a glass of eau-de-vie. Angelique had arrived at chez Dubourg to start the round of fêtes a week early, and now she and Etienne entered together with delight at our reunion.
The Christmas season had arrived, and the first dance would be here, tomorrow night, in chez Dubourg’s small but elegant ballroom, walls festooned with ribbons and gilded flowers, as real as if they were alive.
Etienne pulled a small box, tied in saffron silk ribbon, from his pocket and insisted that I open it straightaway. It was a watch on a gold chain, and inside it I beheld a painted miniature of a sorrel horse—the likeness of La Rouge. My brother laughed. “I thought you would rather look at a portrait of your horse than of me,” he said.
“La Rouge does have smaller ears.”
“So you like my longer hair,” he said, and I stood up and kissed him on both cheeks. It was good, after all, to be together again. One could almost
My stepfather was also planning to ask the bishop to recommend him, Vergez, to a seat on the new trade tribunal. My mother seemed untroubled by this hypocrisy.
I opened the Romance of the Rose :
I bathed my face in clear water,
The bottom paved with shining stones
and Maman took that moment to enumerate to me the young men I’d meet in the coming season in Orléans. I reflected, not for the first or last time, that when you are reading, others think they can disturb you because you are not doing anything.
So I asked, in my own non sequitur, had she noticed that we were traveling the same route, north along the river, that Joan of Arc’s troops had taken in 1429 to end the siege of Orléans? She didn’t seem interested in my historical allusion. His own speech finished, Vergez was asleep, his head against the velvet.
I peeked out the heavy curtains at the endless brown and white, stubbly wintry fields and bare poplars that marched up long narrow roads to isolated farms and searched out the two towers of Sainte-Croix Cathedral that would signal that we were approaching Orléans.
Finally we arrived, driving down the rue Royale. After the long hours of empty road the street was suddenly crowded with carts and carriages, its shops lit in the wintry dusk, and men and women hurrying home in their long coats with high collars or in billowing capes. I was impatient to get out of the carriage.
Slowed at times to a standstill by the traffic, we finally turned left on the rue de Bourgogne, which led to the old porte through which Joan had entered to the cheers of the people. We stopped in front of a large stone house with two lanterns lit outside, and the Dubourgs’ footman rushed out to greet us. Soon we were in the lit vestibule, enfolded by the embraces of the Dubourgs and of the Vincents, who had journeyed in their own carriage.
Monsieur Dubourg, small and portly, with a powdered and curled wig, bent over my hand and smiled with real affection. His tall, thin wife, with a heaped-up coiffure that made her still taller, loomed above him and lowered herself, giraffe-like, to bestow on me two kisses and a lavender scent, and the words that I still looked as young and pretty as ever. Twenty-two and unmarried, I wasn’t sure if this was a compliment. She was my mother’s best friend, and they disappeared into the front salon, already lost in low and urgent gossip.
Monsieur Dubourg took my arm and led me into another room, firelit, with a couch embroidered with Chinese-style boughs. I took my perch on a branch with Marie and Gérard on either side, and Monsieur Dubourg offered me a glass of eau-de-vie. Angelique had arrived at chez Dubourg to start the round of fêtes a week early, and now she and Etienne entered together with delight at our reunion.
The Christmas season had arrived, and the first dance would be here, tomorrow night, in chez Dubourg’s small but elegant ballroom, walls festooned with ribbons and gilded flowers, as real as if they were alive.
Etienne pulled a small box, tied in saffron silk ribbon, from his pocket and insisted that I open it straightaway. It was a watch on a gold chain, and inside it I beheld a painted miniature of a sorrel horse—the likeness of La Rouge. My brother laughed. “I thought you would rather look at a portrait of your horse than of me,” he said.
“La Rouge does have smaller ears.”
“So you like my longer hair,” he said, and I stood up and kissed him on both cheeks. It was good, after all, to be together again. One could almost
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