But the milk scent of the child pulled at something inside me, and I didn’t want to let her go. “Where will the Red Cross take her when they can take her?”
“To Paris,” Max said. “Probably hand her over to Clara Simon’s operation.”
I made the decision all at once. “Then don’t trouble the Red Cross! I’m an officer of ARCH now, so when I return to Paris, I’ll take her to Madame Simon myself. This way, even if I fail in my other ambition, at least I’ll have done something useful here.”
Max smiled wistfully, and said by way of farewell, “Madame, I cannot imagine you might fail at anything you set your mind to.”
It was a sentiment I took with me to meet Commandant Chambrun.
I couldn’t help but stare, for the resemblance to the man’s famous great-grandfather Lafayette was subtle but obvious in the forehead, the brows, and the regal nose. Rarely in my adult life have I been at a loss for words, but the emotions I felt in the man’s presence took me by surprise. Looking at his face was so much different from studying portraits of Lafayette. The blue blood of nobility and heroism that changed the world ran through his veins. Still, here I stood in my borrowed hat, wondering at my own audacity, acutely aware that I was nothing but a bastard brat. He was part of a family legacy I admired; would he think me presumptuous to want to become a part of it? Chambrun was an officer short on time and temper, having learned that a friend he’d come to visit at the hospital had perished in the night. “My friend had three children. What will they do now, orphans all three?”
I feared this was an inopportune time to discuss business, and despite having come all this way, I offered to postpone our talk in deference to his grief. But he waved this off. “There are millions dying—if we stopped to grieve, we should never stop.”
He motioned for me to speak, and I felt as if I ought to be quick about it. “Sir, I hope to make you understand that mine is an honorable offer for Chavaniac. I’ve started a charitable foundation, and among the sponsors are descendants of your great-grandfather’s friends and comrades in the Revolutionary War.”
“So I’ve heard,” replied the commandant.
As we walked the hospital hall, I said, “I’ve no intention of wresting away from your family their ancestral home. To the contrary, I invite you and all Lafayette’s descendants to be on the board of the foundation that will preserve it as a museum. Together, we can make a Mount Vernon of France . . .”
He stopped walking. “You mustn’t have visited Chavaniac before, madame, if you think it can be made into a genteel tourist destination. It is a forgotten castle in the remote wilds. It’s not like the old days, when such houses were fortresses to hold the king’s territories. When the tenants all paid rents to the lord and the lord provided from inherited wealth . . . It cannot be made profitable. The economy is nothing but cheese and cabbages and lace.”
Was he trying to discourage me, or excuse the family for having to let the place go? I wasn’t sure which, but I did know one thing. “This is a very dark hour for the world. I believe this forgotten castle can give us hope. Hope that in this war, humanistic ideals will prevail. Hope that after the war is done, there will never be another one.”
He snorted. “If history teaches us anything, madame, it is that there is always another war.”
“There has never been a war before like this one.”
“That is true, but does it matter?”
I realized I’d taken the wrong approach. In a world consumed by a struggle for survival, concerns about preserving history might seem trivial. I was talking about museums while this man was faced with the pressing and practical challenges of defending liberty in the present. As Lafayette would have done if he were alive now . . .
In an instant, it swirled together. My own desperate childhood. The wounded children I’d seen on the train platform at the start of the war. The orphaned son of Victor’s fallen friend. The baby Maxime rescued from a bombed-out village. The fact that we were standing in a hospital where men left behind orphans every day. And then I knew what should be done. “I’ll make Chavaniac into more than a tourist destination. Not just a collection of dusty old relics, but a living monument.” I had Chambrun’s attention now, and he waited for me to go on. Breathlessly, I did. “Why hold it only for the dead, when there are living to be cared for? The country is overrun with unfortunates with nowhere to go. Why not open the chateau as a sanctuary for displaced children and the orphans of French heroes like your poor perished friend?”