The Queen's Dollmaker (28 page)

“Come. Your promises matter nothing to me now.” He pushed her toward the entry of the forbidding building, as the driver blended back into the crowded street to pick up Jean-Philippe’s mysterious guest. To gain control of Claudette’s struggling, Jean-Philippe grabbed her from behind, wrapped an arm under her breasts, and began dragging her to the entrance. At the doorway, he rapped imperiously. A viewing slot was pulled aside, and a single eye appraised the visitors. The sound of bolts being pulled back reached them, and the door opened into the dark, yawning mouth of La Force prison.

“I have another traitor for you, Lieutenant Napier. Believe it or not, this citizeness masterminded the jewel smuggling for the Capets. Send a message to Robespierre. He might be interested in interrogating Citizeness Laurent himself.”

A man emerged from the shadows. Of average height and weight, he had stringy brown hair and a pockmarked face. His loose shirt and striped trousers were dirty and marked him as one of the sans cullotte radicals. He looked at Claudette. “Quite a tasty little morsel, this traitor is, Citizen Renaud. The usual uniform for her?” His breath was sour against her face.

Napier snapped his fingers, his eyes never leaving Claudette’s face. Another prison worker, a middle-aged woman, came scurrying up carrying clothing. Napier threw it at Claudette. Grinning to show a gaping hole where his two front teeth once were, he turned his attention back to Jean-Philippe.

“Shall I escort her down myself?” His arousal was almost palpable, and Claudette wondered how many young women had become his victims in this place.

“No, I shall conclude her journey myself. A key, please?”

From a large ring hooked to his trousers, Napier extracted an iron key. “As you wish, Citizen.” Napier looked regretfully at Claudette as Jean-Philippe led her down the hallway, into the bowels of the prison. Calling after them, he said, “Perhaps later, Citizeness, we shall have the pleasure of getting to know one another.” Claudette could hear his chuckling in her head after they passed out of earshot.

The hallway was made of stone. Moisture oozed from various spots, making the air chilly and damp, and creating long streaks of green and rust on the walls. Iron lanterns that hung from the walls offered only enough light for them to make their way in without stumbling. They proceeded about a hundred feet, then Jean-Philippe turned her to the left, down an intersecting hallway. She began to hear noises, the bleatings and pleadings of miserably incarcerated people. Now she was to become one of them. The hallway was lined on both sides with cells at various intervals. Some cells had solid doors, with only a sliding opening for food at the bottom, whereas others were no more than large cages with iron bars. The walls of each cell were the same cold, dank stone of the hallway, preventing prisoners from seeing each other, especially since no cell was directly across from another. The wailing of prisoners was louder now, as they were in the middle of the row of cells. Was she to be deposited here?

Jean-Philippe continued to guide her down the hallway. An old crone in an iron-barred cage reached a claw out to grab Claudette’s skirt. “Eh, mademoiselle, would you be my daughter come to get me?” Claudette wrenched herself away. Farther down, she saw a young man sitting on the floor of his cell, his eyes weeping yellow and green pus from an infection that was being allowed to fester. All along the hallway, prisoners called out, either leeringly or begging for help. Claudette’s head was filled with their piteous cries, and she attempted to run to escape the noise somehow. Jean-Philippe, however, kept a tight grip on her elbow.

“This way.” He led her to the right, down another hallway. Did this cursed place ever end? She noticed, however, that this group of cells was far less populated than on the previous hallway. As if reading her thoughts, Jean-Philiipe said, “Better here, is it not? I selected the luxury suite especially for you.”

He stopped in front of a nondescript cell, inserted the key in the lock and pulled the iron-barred door open. He pushed Claudette inside, and slammed the gate shut. Claudette stood numbly, staring at her new surroundings. She could see why it was a luxury suite. There was actually a washbasin in the room. Would it ever actually be filled with fresh water? She doubted it. A chamber pot stood in the corner. Would it ever be emptied? A straw mattress lay on an iron cot, approximately six inches off the ground. Perhaps this would save her from being gnawed on too much by rats. The thin sheet on top of it would certainly not protect her from the cold of this place. How cold would it be at nightfall? How would she even know when it was nightfall? The only other articles in the cell were a rickety chair and table. Having seen the other cells, though, their only furnishings straw pallets, Claudette knew that this was, indeed, the luxury suite.

Breaking her out of her reverie, Jean-Philippe told her, “It is time to change into your uniform.”

She had forgotten the cloth bundle in her hand. She shook it out and held it up to the dim light at the front of the cell. It was a simple shift of muslin. The dress was filthy and smelled of an unwashed body. What had happened to the last woman who wore this dress? she wondered.

“What are you waiting for? Get into your uniform.”

“I will change into it when I am in private.”

“You will change into it now, or I will come in and change you myself.”

Biting her lip at this further humiliation, Claudette began loosening the torn, lace-fringed blouse at the top of her once-beautiful dress. Grimly she thought that the prison gown was probably not much filthier than her own clothes had become. She turned away from Jean-Philippe to at least provide herself with some sort of modesty.

“No, Claudette, you will face me as you change.”

She turned around. “Can you not leave me with a little bit of dignity, Jean-Philippe? I am an innocent woman being imprisoned on some trumped-up charge. You have been taking advantage of me since we left England. Please, leave me be.”

“Take your clothes off.”

This was even more degrading than his attack on her in the coach, since she was at least not exposed completely to him during his groping. What if that horrible Napier were to come down while she was changing?

“Immediately, Claudette. You know that I am a bit temperamental when I do not get my way.”

Helpless, Claudette continued removing her clothes. She bent down and unbuttoned her fashionable kid boots and removed them. She then slowly unrolled her stockings, one at a time, delicately, as though she must save them in case she might be able to escape her desperate situation. She unbuttoned her gown overlay and let it fall to the ground. The lavender color was now just a dingy gray. She finished untying the blouse, and pushed that off her shoulders, as well. She untied the underlying brown skirt, and let it drop to the ground. She stood shivering in her shift. She looked with distaste at the prison gown awaiting her on the chair.

“I do not have all day. My guest will be waiting for me at my home. Finish changing.”

“Your whore, perhaps?”

He laughed. “Indeed. I need to hurry home so she does not become too impatient waiting for me. The minx has scratched me before when I have angered her.”

Claudette was appalled. What manner of man had he become?

“Claudette, I shall not ask again.”

Slowly, she lifted her chemise over her head and tossed it to the chair, quickly grabbing at the prison garb and slipping it over her head, thinking she would change back into at least her chemise when Jean-Philippe had gone.

“Give me your clothes, Claudette.” She looked at him in horror. “You did not think you would be allowed to keep them, did you? Hand them to me.”

Shaking, she gathered up the garments, still warm from her body, and wordlessly crossed the cell to hand them to him. Jean-Philippe put the clothing up to his face and inhaled deeply. He then tucked them under his arm and turned to go. After a couple of steps, he turned back and said, “Enjoy your new home, Claudette. You won’t live to enjoy it much longer.”

Hevington, Kent, August 10, 1792
. William slouched moodily in front of a blazing fire, drumming his fingers on one heavily carved arm of the chair. Why had Claudette not written to him since arriving in France? It was most unusual. And she had been damned secretive running off like that.

A manservant entered the room to offer him the latest newspapers and a decanter of port. William growled his acceptance of both, and the servant scurried out quickly, not used to his master in such an ill-tempered state.

William put aside the
London Times
, and quickly plunged into
L’Ami du Peuple
, The Friend of the People. He had picked up this wretched daily paper as a means of staying informed on the radical perspective of the rapidly disintegrating state of affairs in France. As always, Marat was naming his own “enemies of the people.” Jean-Paul Marat, as vitriolic an editor as could be found, was perpetually condemning people and reporting their alleged disloyalties. The paper could only be termed a rag, but it provided fascinating insights into revolutionary thought. William scanned the typical deleterious headlines about France’s woes, searching for any royal social commentaries that might mention Claudette’s name. Nothing. Drat it all, she had been in Paris nearly two weeks and not a single mention of her. His eye roved over other articles. What was this? The king and queen had been removed to the Temple. Had Claudette seen them before this happened? Things were becoming exceedingly dangerous in Paris. Was Claudette safe?

He crumpled the paper angrily and threw it in the fire with a grunt. Eyeing the port decanter, he whisked it off its tray and smashed it into the fireplace as well. He felt no comfort.

Several nights later, William attended a soirée at the Earl of Pembroke’s London home. He had planned on sending his regrets, but his young cousin Arabella, who was currently visiting his parents and had already been making the social rounds in Kent, had pleaded very prettily to go in Claudette’s stead. Arabella had a fascination for Charles Durham, whose family had invested profitably in the East India Company, and that young man was to be in attendance at the party, so William acquiesced and escorted his relative to London.

It cheered him to find Giovanna Baccelli there. She had been the Earl of Pembroke’s paramour since her dismissal from Knole and the Duke of Dorset’s life almost three years earlier. The pair had moved to London from his Wiltshire estate, after Pembroke’s estranged but outraged wife insisted that she was moving back into the family home.

Giovanna was as lovely as ever, even if she seemed a little faded.

After dinner, as the group moved into the ballroom for dancing, William drew The Baccelli aside to a window in the earl’s study, and explained to her his concerns about Claudette’s recent trip to France.

“Giovanna, share with me your womanly intuition. Am I just being foolish about this?”

The earl’s mistress carefully considered William, furrowing her brow. She dropped her usual theatrical whispering to speak in low tones.

“You say she only left you a note before she departed? How very curious. Well, what I know of Signorina Laurent tells me that she would never do anything to betray you, if that’s what worries you.” Only a margin of relief showed in William’s face. “However, it is troubling that she would agree to go to France knowing how unsafe it has become.”

“She is very devoted to the queen there. Not only because she has custom with Her Majesty, but also because she believes the Bourbon royal family to be overly vilified and friendless. I suppose I am not surprised that she wanted to go, only that she would be so silent.”

Giovanna took one of his hands in both of her own. “Signore Greycliffe, it would be a tragedy for us both if we lost the little dollmaker. I believe you must investigate her whereabouts, to set both our minds at ease.”

William smiled for the first time that evening. “Yes, I must take action,” he said. He kissed The Baccelli’s hand, and returned to the ballroom to impatiently wait for Arabella to conclude an evening’s flirtation with Mr. Durham. Arabella chattered the entire way back to Hevington, but William didn’t hear a word. He left her in the care of his housekeeper, and vaulted up the stairs to his bedchamber to begin making plans.

Paris, August 13, 1792
. The royal family’s imprisonment within the walls of the Tuileries still did not satisfy the revolutionaries. The
assignats
were devaluing rapidly, with an accompanying rise in food prices. To multiply the country’s problems, hoarders were keeping grain from a good harvest off the market while merchants were exporting it for greater profits. Riots still occurred regularly.

The Assembly had become dominated by another group, the Girondists, who had been born out of the Jacobins. The Girondists—so named because many members were deputies from the Gironde department, which represented the provinces of Guyenne and Gascogne—tended to be idealists and dreamers, incapable of making realistic and achievable plans. Consequently, it was difficult for them to squarely face troublesome issues. Into their hands went the fate of the king and his family.

The Girondists’ unbelievable solution to the country’s problems was to seek another country to attack, believing that by spreading the new French method of achieving democracy, the French populace itself would be distracted from the country’s internal woes. Louis, with what little power he had left, vetoed every measure put to him that furthered this plan.

An ultimatum was sent to the Assembly that unless the king was deposed by August 9, the palace would be attacked and the monarchy overthrown by force. Supporters of the king gathered inside the Tuileries that day to repel any invasion. In the early morning hours of August 10, alarm bells from church steeples began to peal and rebellious subjects went on the march to the palace. Realizing that all hope was gone, Louis gathered up his family from their quarters and retreated to the National Assembly building, located on another part of the palace’s grounds.

From inside the Assembly, they heard shots being fired and the clash of pikes and other weaponry, accompanied by shouts and screams, as the mob broke through the National and Swiss Guards into the palace itself. The mob raged through the Tuileries, smashing windows and hurling furniture through the broken frames in their destructive fury.

Under pressure, the Assembly formally deposed Louis XVI, King of the French, and ordered the royal family to be housed in the grim and gloomy Temple, one-time headquarters of the Knights Templar. The Princesse de Lamballe and other close friends chose to accompany them.