America's First Daughter: A Novel(53)
The Polignacs were amongst the most powerful families at the court, and my suitor’s mother a great favorite of Queen Marie-Antoinette. The chevalier, who some afforded the courtesy title of prince, challenged me with an aristocratic bearing. “Do you care to test your American pionnière fortitude against my stamina?”
I accepted and we danced a lively cotillion that had me sweating at the back of the neck. When the dance master called the next dance, Polignac said, simply, “Again.”
“But that’s not permitted,” I replied, fanning my flaming cheeks, for we could not dance twice in succession without inviting scandal.
“Then the dance after that,” he said with a rakish smile. “I must best the Duke of Dorset, so give me the honor of every other dance, Mademoiselle.”
Polignac was brash and pleasant to look at in his sea-green coat with its embroidered gold lapels. Papa would’ve been appalled by my deference to titled nobility—but I found myself quite unable to refuse the son of a duke. Before the night was through, I’d danced sixteen times, eight of them with him.
We caused a sensation, and I admit to feeling satisfaction at the brazenness of it, even when the ladies Tufton scolded, “Have you set your cap on a Polignac, Patsy?” and “If you aim to be a duchess, at least favor our uncle, so that we can all be family one day!”
Marie hushed the Tufton sisters with a violent whack of her lace fan. “Tais-toi!” Then she turned shrewd eyes on me. “Cher Jef is just in revolt against her papa. She has half the French court whispering Jefferson’s daughter will convert to the true faith. Now the other half will whisper that the daughter of equality’s champion aims to marry an aristocrat.”
Marie saw in my behavior some spark of hostility, some lack of care for Papa’s reputation, and I didn’t want to think it was true. “Marry an aristocrat?” No, I had no designs on marriage whatsoever, much less to Polignac or the Duke of Dorset. Besides, neither man was William Short. They were merely pretty distractions . . .
. . . and didn’t my father want me distracted?
THE START OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION was orchestrated in my father’s parlor. The leading reformers consulted Papa for every scrap of news of America. Our country’s independence served as proof men could throw off the chains of tyranny and rule themselves.
Though Polly and I always left the table before the men turned to port and tobacco and more heated political discussions, we heard enough to know that none of them, not Papa nor any of the idealists gathered at our hearth in those early days, feared it would come to armed rebellion.
The king had called for elections and summoned the Estates-General for the first time in more than a century and a half. It was taken as a clarion call to make a new government that gave a voice to the people. We were all excited. When the great day came, we were all awakened before dawn by the peal of bells and booming cannons that sent people into the streets in celebration.
I helped Papa brush the shoulders of his best blue coat while Sally hastily mended the button on his red waistcoat. With white breeches and a dark blue felted hat, he was entirely bedecked in the colors of American and French patriots. Red, white, and blue.
I wanted nothing more than to go along with him to witness the debates from the gallery, but Papa wouldn’t have approved even if he had an extra ticket. However, I was able to see the pageantry of the procession in the carriage of the elderly Madame de Tessé, the woman Lafayette called his aunt.
Thousands crowded the streets, swarmed the rooftops of every building along the avenue, clapping and reciting the famous pamphlet, “What is the Third Estate? The whole people. What has it hitherto been in our form of government? Nothing. What does it want? To become Something.”
Swept up in the excitement, I hummed along with the flutes and trumpets. Soldiers marched in blue coats with gold epaulettes, wearing their proud ranks of insignia. The king marched beneath a canopy covered in fleurs-de-lis. The purple-robed bishops and red-robed cardinals chanted as they made their way to Versailles. The nobles strolled in rank, with gold sashes and feathered hats. Then came the sea of the Third Estate, representatives of the people, obliged to dress in stygian black and slouchy hats to denote their inferior rank.
That’s all I saw of the opening day. It was not, however, my last visit to Versailles. So many great personages couldn’t be gathered together in one place, even for such serious business, without evening entertainments.
At the next ball, I danced again with the Duke of Dorset and the Duke of Polignac’s son, sending a scandalized titter through the politicized crowd, and a ripple of sighs for our precise steps so elegantly made in white-heeled shoes.
My chevalier and I stopped only for refreshments near the sideboard table, dodging dripping wax from the candelabras overhead and taking glasses of sweet wine from silver trays. My friends joined us, musing over whether or not we could sneak into the covert card game some aristocratic ladies had arranged in a private room upstairs.
It was, of course, improper for women to play cards in public, or at all, but a certain duchess was an inveterate gambler. “Speaking of dazzling duchesses,” murmured my chevalier. “Please excuse me, ladies. The lovely Rosalie has arrived and I must pay my respects.”
I turned to give my suitor a wave of farewell, but Marie grabbed my arm and pinched it so hard I yelped. “Mon Dieu, Jeffy. Don’t look up!”