Read Online Annette Vallon: A Novel of the French Revolution by James Tipton - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: James Tipton
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imagine Papa, shedding his cloak in the vestibule, hastening to join us. I could hear his deep voice as he entered the room.
I could see us all rushing up to him.
I sat there on an oriental bough, with a golden bird behind me, and allowed myself the luxury of imagining, for a moment, that our world had not changed, not changed at all.
BOOK II
1791–1792
The Foreigner
The harpsichord music chimed pleasantly through the drone of voices. I sat sipping Monsieur Dubourg’s felicitous Poire William and enjoying its warmth when I accidentally caught the eye of a young man in dark green silk stockings. He asked if he could sit down, and I was angry that now I would not be alone with the music and the taste of the wine. A servant came by. “What are you drinking?” asked green stockings.
“Eau-de-vie.”
“You’re too young to drink that by yourself.” He requested one.
“Enjoying the fête?”
“Very much so.”
“It’s good to see so many elegantly dressed ladies in these republican times. What are you called?”
“Mademoiselle Annette Vallon.”
“I am Monsieur Letour of Bordeaux. My father owns a grand vineyard in the Médoc, and I’m the personal guest of the vicomte and vicomtesse de Fresne d ’Aguesseau. Perhaps you’ve heard of them?”
I nodded. The vicomtesse had snubbed my mother once because, though my father’s family was old and respected in the Loire region, it had no title. Then, as if to make up for a rudeness that, after all, wasn’t intentional but just a reflex of her class, the vicomtesse said to Maman, “What a lovely coiffure,” and to me, “What nice amber ringlets.”
“Are you from Orléans?” Monsieur Letour asked.
“From Blois.”
“I visited the grand château there on my tour. It is an amazing montage, this wing of one century, that wing two centuries before, old Catherine de Medici’s room with secret panels hiding shelves where she kept poisons.”
“I never really liked her.”
“But she was better than her son Henri III.”
I could hear the oboes stepping lightly over the buzz of voices. It had been months since I had talked at a fête to a strange and eager young man. It can be very tedious. Monsieur Letour from Bordeaux continued to tell me about the history of my city. “I was in the actual room on the second floor where Henri III murdered the duc de Guise, who ruled Paris. Do you believe in phantoms?”
“It depends.”
“I think I heard the ghost of Henri telling his mother, ‘I alone rule France! The King of Paris is dead!’ Do you know what I heard her phantom answer?”
I remembered the line that every schoolchild in Blois knows. “I forget,” I said.
“She said, ‘I hope that you have not now become the King of Nothing!’ Isn’t that clever? ‘The King of Nothing’!”
“Perhaps that could be said about our present king, shut away, as he is, in the Tuileries.”
I had willfully committed an indiscretion, and Monsieur Letour regarded me as if trying to assess if I were a revolutionary in a blue satin gown with a lawn kerchief and sleeve ruffles. I was bored with acting as if nothing had changed, as if the King were still hunting happily on the vast grounds of Versailles. Monsieur Letour finally decided to overlook my bad manners. I was just a woman, after all.
“The King of Nothing,” he went on, “then killed the duke’s brother, just to make sure, I guess, then burned both bodies and let the Loire take the ashes. He thought of everything.”
“I like that the windows aren’t symmetrical,” I said.
“What windows?” asked my guest.
“Of the château.”
“Oh, they are horrible.”
“They were made to harmonize with what was inside. No one cared about symmetry,” I said.
“That wouldn’t happen now,” said the man from Bordeaux, “though the vicomte and vicomtesse both say contemporary architecture—”
Then from the door I heard a familiar voice calling, “Annette! Annette!”
“Pardon me. It’s my
I could see us all rushing up to him.
I sat there on an oriental bough, with a golden bird behind me, and allowed myself the luxury of imagining, for a moment, that our world had not changed, not changed at all.
BOOK II
1791–1792
The Foreigner
The harpsichord music chimed pleasantly through the drone of voices. I sat sipping Monsieur Dubourg’s felicitous Poire William and enjoying its warmth when I accidentally caught the eye of a young man in dark green silk stockings. He asked if he could sit down, and I was angry that now I would not be alone with the music and the taste of the wine. A servant came by. “What are you drinking?” asked green stockings.
“Eau-de-vie.”
“You’re too young to drink that by yourself.” He requested one.
“Enjoying the fête?”
“Very much so.”
“It’s good to see so many elegantly dressed ladies in these republican times. What are you called?”
“Mademoiselle Annette Vallon.”
“I am Monsieur Letour of Bordeaux. My father owns a grand vineyard in the Médoc, and I’m the personal guest of the vicomte and vicomtesse de Fresne d ’Aguesseau. Perhaps you’ve heard of them?”
I nodded. The vicomtesse had snubbed my mother once because, though my father’s family was old and respected in the Loire region, it had no title. Then, as if to make up for a rudeness that, after all, wasn’t intentional but just a reflex of her class, the vicomtesse said to Maman, “What a lovely coiffure,” and to me, “What nice amber ringlets.”
“Are you from Orléans?” Monsieur Letour asked.
“From Blois.”
“I visited the grand château there on my tour. It is an amazing montage, this wing of one century, that wing two centuries before, old Catherine de Medici’s room with secret panels hiding shelves where she kept poisons.”
“I never really liked her.”
“But she was better than her son Henri III.”
I could hear the oboes stepping lightly over the buzz of voices. It had been months since I had talked at a fête to a strange and eager young man. It can be very tedious. Monsieur Letour from Bordeaux continued to tell me about the history of my city. “I was in the actual room on the second floor where Henri III murdered the duc de Guise, who ruled Paris. Do you believe in phantoms?”
“It depends.”
“I think I heard the ghost of Henri telling his mother, ‘I alone rule France! The King of Paris is dead!’ Do you know what I heard her phantom answer?”
I remembered the line that every schoolchild in Blois knows. “I forget,” I said.
“She said, ‘I hope that you have not now become the King of Nothing!’ Isn’t that clever? ‘The King of Nothing’!”
“Perhaps that could be said about our present king, shut away, as he is, in the Tuileries.”
I had willfully committed an indiscretion, and Monsieur Letour regarded me as if trying to assess if I were a revolutionary in a blue satin gown with a lawn kerchief and sleeve ruffles. I was bored with acting as if nothing had changed, as if the King were still hunting happily on the vast grounds of Versailles. Monsieur Letour finally decided to overlook my bad manners. I was just a woman, after all.
“The King of Nothing,” he went on, “then killed the duke’s brother, just to make sure, I guess, then burned both bodies and let the Loire take the ashes. He thought of everything.”
“I like that the windows aren’t symmetrical,” I said.
“What windows?” asked my guest.
“Of the château.”
“Oh, they are horrible.”
“They were made to harmonize with what was inside. No one cared about symmetry,” I said.
“That wouldn’t happen now,” said the man from Bordeaux, “though the vicomte and vicomtesse both say contemporary architecture—”
Then from the door I heard a familiar voice calling, “Annette! Annette!”
“Pardon me. It’s my
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