“It is like this everywhere in France,” said our agent. “Peasants are hurting for lack of bread. Under the circumstances, we can sell your grain for such a profit you may be able to recoup all your war expenses.”
Aghast, my husband said, “Now is not the time to sell grain. Now is the time to give it to these peasants!”
Then Gilbert peered at me cautiously, as if unsure of his footing. “Adrienne, you have worked so diligently with my accounting books; I fear to ruin your careful financial plans in one stroke. Yet I cannot rest when people who depend on me are suffering.”
“Nor can I,” I said, reassured of it by the cross I wore round my neck.
So we opened our granaries. The curé in the village rang a bell, alerting the local peasantry. And when they came to take sacks of wheat away, they shouted, “Vive Lafayette!”
The next morning we were awakened by songs at our gate, where our poor villagers knelt, begging to kiss the hem of my skirts in thanks, and offering token gifts in fealty. My eyes welled to understand that we held the very lives of these people in our hands. Gilbert was moved, but also unhappy. He hated nothing so much as to see anyone prostrate in the dirt. Hated more taking gifts from people who had nothing.
“Look,” he told me, an edge of anger in his voice as he showed me a basket of trinkets collected from the villagers. Little crucifixes carved from wood, bundles of herbs—the most humble gifts, but all they had to give. “I am shamed to take these things from them.”
“You dare not give insult by refusing,” I said. “Even starving people have pride.”
“They should have pride,” he said. “They should have their humanity. I did not risk my life and fortune helping colonists stand up against their king an ocean away only to see my own countrymen groveling in the dirt outside my gates. I would see all this—feudalism—changed.”
I agreed. Change should start here. For it was easy to think here, without the distractions of Paris and Versailles. Moreover, I could think of grander things. At Chavaniac, I could dream, and in those dreams I found the very core of myself, as if I had been boiled down to my essence. I was a woman of twenty-three, a wife who wanted love, and a mother who wished to raise a family, but also . . . I wanted a sacred mission. To take all the advantages with which I was born, and what talents God had given me, to dedicate to a more enlightened way of being. This castle might be an unpolished mirror of a bygone age, but glimpsed from the right angle, I saw a reflection of an age yet to come. One in which people did not live or die at the whim of nobles. One in which people could worship freely—live freely.
To begin with, I was glad to give our grain, but that would last only a season. I had a more permanent solution in mind. “Their crops failed, but they still have sheep. What if they could spin and weave? They could make lace to sell in the lean times.”
Gilbert rubbed the back of his neck. “You are suggesting a new way of life for them.”
“Why not?” I asked tartly, echoing the motto of the Lafayettes. “We could start a school for lace-making. I could petition for funds . . .”
Lafayette laughed, reaching to stroke my cheek. “You are burdened with motherhood and—”
“I already convinced the curé.”
My husband appraised me with new appreciation. “I begin to suspect the curé must be in love with you. As am I.”
Gilbert is still in love with me, I thought, heart filling with relief. Perhaps I could no longer be everything to him. Perhaps I could never again—without risk to my life—give my body with complete abandon. But we still had physical love between us, and our minds and hearts too.
* * *
—
I went every day with the peasants to the ancient stone church in the village. I made plans for some manner of hospital. I bought new spinning wheels. Lafayette started construction on new roads to the village, establishing a weekly market in the square. And our agent was particularly pleased that I applied for and received a grant of nearly six thousand livres for all these endeavors.
Gilbert was even more impressed. “The officials would never have given me the money,” he told his aunt. “It was accomplished by these letters of my wife that only she knows how to write. Adrienne does a great service to this countryside.”
I basked in his praise. I basked in his presence too. I felt happier at Chavaniac than I had ever felt anywhere. The children loved it just as much—especially Anastasie, who, at now almost six years of age, wanted to know stories about the castle dungeon. “Are there skeletons like in the Bastille?”