Enchantée(129)

This morning Camille had been up at sunrise, pouring cream in a dish for Fant?me, checking the weather. The sky was the faint blue of washed silk. No clouds, only a gentle wind.

It would be very fine.

In the corner of her dressing room stood a japanned wardrobe, lacquered black and red. The door hung slightly open. In darkness shone the cloth-of-gold dress. Yesterday Sophie had neatly mended the tear Séguin’s dagger had made and now it was nearly invisible. Camille gently brought a handful of its fabric to her lips. She kissed it, but felt only the weakest trembling of emotion along the woven roses enmeshed in its silk.

“Thank you,” she said.

In response, the silk rustled, a sigh of longing traveling through the cloth in her hand, faint memories of the blazing candles’ heat in the Hall of Mirrors, a dewed velvet lawn, Lazare’s face when he saw that Camille lived. She waited for more, but the dress had once again fallen silent.

The clock on the mantelpiece struck eight. “Madame!” the maid called from the hall.

Downstairs, she found Lazare waiting under the archway leading to the dining room. He had on the same suit he’d worn when she’d first seen him, his hair tied back with a black ribbon. After everything they had been through, he was even more beautiful to her than he had been that day.

He bowed deeply, taking her hand. He laughed when he saw her fingers. “You’re covered in ink.”

“You think I do everything by magic?”

Gently, Lazare straightened them out and kissed them.

My heart.

He nodded toward the dining room. “Is this it?”

“It is! Voilà—my printing shop,” she said. “Do you like it?”

Under a magnificent chandelier and between pairs of crystal sconces on the walls stood a small printing press. Containers of ink, type, and cases covered the long dining table that ran the length of the room. Piles of paper teetered at angles. She’d spent long hours printing the pamphlets for today.

“I do,” he said. “Tremendously.” He rubbed his jaw. “You must be the first noblewoman to have a press in her dining room.”

“Suitable for these strange times, don’t you think?” she said as she hefted two twine-tied bundles of pamphlets off the floor. She handed one to Lazare.

“Rosier’s translation is good?” he asked, reading the top sheet.

“I’m sure it is. He limited himself to the second paragraph.”

“Let’s hope there are some readers in the crowd,” he said, tucking the bundle under his arm. “Shall we go?”

Camille felt she might rise on the wings of her own happiness. “I don’t think I can wait any longer.”





70


An enormous crowd had gathered, from apprentices and milliners to university students from the Sorbonne—even nobles and wealthy merchants. Children waved tiny flags with balloons on them. Friends had promised to come from Versailles to celebrate the occasion, and Camille was eager to be together again. At the front of the crowd played a marching band, their horns tipped to the sky, the snare drum quick and merry.

Behind the band, the balloon was tethered to a small platform, its gondola draped in tricolor bunting. Its silk shifted slowly in the wind, revealing new letters that spelled out its name: Heart’s Desire.

It was happening.

Despite everything, it was happening.

As Camille and Lazare descended from the carriage, Rosier came running. “The hero and heroine!” he exclaimed. “Since last I saw you together, you two fought a magnificent duel! And won!”

She smiled. “Lazare was magnificent, at least. I merely did what I could.”

“That’s an understatement,” Lazare said.

“And who did you vanquish?”

Camille saw Lazare look toward the balloon as if he wanted to climb aboard and disappear.

“Only an evil magician,” Camille said, laughing. “A story for another time.”

“Aeronauts Defeat Magician?” Rosier suggested. “Sounds very promising. Come—I’ve got your costumes here.” Leading them through the edge of the crowd, he took Camille and Lazare to a makeshift screen, behind which Rosier had laid out on chairs a costume for the king, and another for the queen. Lazare picked up the light blue sash. “I can’t wear this. Only the king wears the cordon bleu.”

“Don’t be an aristocratic stickler, Lazare. Those people”—Rosier gestured emphatically toward the crowd—“want to see something impressive. You wish to fly over the Alps—they have paid handsomely for their tickets and wish to feel joy! Be elevated by wonder! The spectacle! Et cetera, et cetera. You can’t deny them that, after everything that’s happened in Paris. They need it. And you’re the one who must deliver it.”

While they argued, Camille lifted up the gown Rosier had laid out for her. It was very much like something the queen would have worn—a gown à la Polonaise in dusky pink with a narrow yellow stripe. Next to it, on a pole, hung a white wig, trimmed with ribbons and plumes. Camille shuddered. It looked like a head on a spike.

She took a deep breath. In all this madness, with the fear that had spread across the countryside, the attacks on noblemen believed to be hoarding grain, the king’s mercenaries in the streets of Paris, what was the purpose of a balloon? What good could it possibly do?