“Any carpet?” Abigail Adams sniffed. “He doesn’t suggest a price?”
“Or a color?” Angelica Church bubbled with laughter. “Oh, men!”
Hoping to draw Miss Jefferson into the conversation, I mentioned, “My husband also wants a copy of the Declaration of Independence in his study.”
That document was very dear to me. I could never think of my lost little angel, Henriette, without remembering Gilbert reading those words to her. Words which had soothed her tears and enlightened my soul.
Patsy Jefferson, whose father was the primary drafter of that famous document, turned pink with pride at the mention. I wondered if she understood how sacred it was.
I believed that even as a Protestant girl, she could.
Here in France, Protestants were no longer burned as heretics, but they suffered what my husband called a civil death. French Protestants could not avail themselves of the law or even be decently buried. Their marriages were not recognized, and their children were deemed bastards. They were even barred from the pursuit of certain vocations. I wondered how I had lived so long without comprehending the horror of this, for such religious persecution stained my faith and turned people away from salvation. And the more fervently I believed in God, the more I abhorred coercion in his name.
This was on my mind when saying farewell to Benjamin Franklin, whose long service, age, and gout merited reprieve. With fond remembrances, he entrusted to me a signet ring by which we should remember him. I took the ring, promising to treasure it, then kissed his cheek. “What good fortune it has been to have you as a friend, sir. All those years, when my husband was across the sea, you were a comfort and a conspirator.”
“Oh, I remember, my dear. Your unwavering faith renewed my own, reminding me that rebellion against tyranny is obedience to God.”
As my eyes began to mist, he said, “Now, madame, I must go home, because guests, like fish, begin to stink after three days, and I have been here eight years!”
I laughed. “You are no stinking fish, and are always welcome back.”
Yet it would be the last time I ever saw him.
* * *
—
Even after the departure of Dr. Franklin in 1785, I was kept busy as la femme Lafayette. My husband was still very much on the rise. He had returned from his visit to Mount Vernon with a gift of dueling pistols from George Washington and a renewed sense of personal mission and public importance.
But with Gilbert so often gone to consult with the king’s ministers at Versailles, people in Paris wishing to recruit my husband’s influence often appealed to me. The marquis de Condorcet had me read treatises on how to improve the nation’s economy with free trade and a new tax structure. In 1786, his betrothed, Sophie de Grouchy, persuaded me to visit prisons to bear witness to the instruments of torture and the poor prisoners left to rot. And witnessing these abuses, I encouraged Lafayette to lend his name and reputation to the cause of judicial reform.
It was both wearying and exhilarating to be the wife of such an important man. If at times it went to my head, how much more dangerous might that be for my children? To keep my son away from fawners disguised as friends, I arranged for seven-year-old Georges to stay most days with his tutor. He was not the only boy for whom I arranged an education. There were also the two young men my husband brought home from America. One a young Protestant, the other an Oneida Indian. We took them both as wards, arranging for both an education. Then there were the black workers on the plantations, who must have an education to defend themselves and to support themselves as free men. I tended to these details on behalf of my husband, and now, as Gilbert and I walked the shops of the Palais-Royal, newly opened to the public, he asked one favor more. “You must go in my place, dear heart, to see the unveiling of my bust at the H?tel de Ville . . .”
Looking up from a display of cravats, I cried, “But it is such a great honor!” In fact, it was an honor reserved for dead legends and living monarchs. However, Mr. Jefferson had prevailed upon the king to allow his home state of Virginia to gift us with this bust in honor of my husband’s good service, and the king agreed to allow it. “Why would you wish to be absent from its unveiling?”
Gilbert’s cheeks reddened. “Jefferson jests that I have a canine appetite for public laudits, but there are limits to my vanity.”
This tiny bit of humility made me want to kiss him, but we were in public, so I held a black taffeta cravat against his throat, imagining how handsome he would look in it. “I know you are kept busy enough with your own affairs,” Gilbert continued. “Not to mention all my business. Yet I beg you to go to this ceremony for me. I cannot applaud my own face in marble . . .”