They had no answer. So puzzled were their expressions that, for a moment, I hoped they might be dissuaded from their business. Then the one with the long mustache snarled, “He can ask that of the jury in Brioude.” With that, they dragged him out of the church.
They’re going to kill him, I thought. Oh, Merciful God, please save your faithful servant!
By nightfall, the village women came to me in tears.
“They are drowning priests in Lyon by the hundreds!”
“—priests thrown into prison or deported to be worked to death.”
“All Catholics will be next.”
I felt sick to the marrow of my bones at our terror and helplessness. We needed our faith now more than ever, but Mass was forbidden in the church, which was now guarded and chained shut.
What would Lafayette wish me to do? What would God ask of me? The answer came to me clear as glass. I invited the religious women of the village into the castle as if for tea, then took them into the dark passage through which I had once sent Georges to safety. It let out by a beautiful stream with a spectacular view of what my children and I called our charming mountains. There we knelt in prayer, and though I was not ordained, I led our little congregation, reading to them the prayers of the Mass.
This was right. There must still be goodness in the world . . .
That night I learned that though the jury had acquitted the curé, they wouldn’t release him, because they feared officials in Brioude would punish them for showing clemency. This was without law or decency. The priest had hurt no one—he was merely of a different faith than those in power. For that, he must die?
I staggered outside and got only as far as the garden before sinking down in the dirt, near to where my husband’s swords of honor were buried. There, I held my head in my hands in helpless despair. My husband was in prison. My father had, once again, fled to Switzerland, leaving Maman behind. My brother-in-law was gone to America. George Washington was indifferent to us, and the king was dead.
Not one man in my life could fight this wickedness and injustice. There was no cavalry riding to the rescue; no one to set things right. There was only me. What would Lafayette do in my place? What would he have me do? In the madness of the moment, I imagined that I heard the white towers of Chavaniac call to me.
Cur non?
Had I taken leave of my senses? Gilbert had once told me the ancients believed in a genius loci. A protective, guiding spirit of a place. He dismissed it as fable, and I dismissed it as heresy, but I couldn’t deny the feeling now welling in my breast.
Cur non?
The motto of the Lafayettes. Why not? Why not me? Why not now? Why not here? No one else could answer the call to protect this place and the principles it enshrined. In all of France, there might be no other true temple to liberty. And it had no other defender.
Only me, only here, only now.
“You are mad to even think of going to Brioude.” Aunt Charlotte clutched my hand. “You are under house arrest!”
“Minister Roland gave me permission to travel within the department,” I told her, though I did not add that Roland warned it would be perilous to travel anywhere in France with my husband’s name.
Aunt Charlotte warned, “You will draw dangerous attention to yourself and the family.”
That was true. I dreaded it. Perhaps I would not do it if I were not la femme Lafayette. “No one else will argue for the poor curé. If I don’t go, it is as good as signing his death warrant.”
“You may be signing yours!”
This was true, but I went anyway. In Brioude, I found townspeople pleading with the curé to take what they called a meaningless oath. If he renounced his religious beliefs, they could let him live. In the meantime, a message was sent to higher-ups. No one wanted to do the right thing upon their own authority. Fortunately, I knew the young man who was to carry this message to Le Puy, and had educated his sister in our weaving school.
“Sir,” I pleaded. “I only ask that you delay your departure. Just long enough for me to speak to the authorities.” I’d taken only enough coin with me to pay for my lodging and meals, but I gave it to the messenger. “These are hungry times, young man. You will want a good meal before you travel. Bread and wine. If you should feel sleepy with a full belly after so long, who could blame you for resting?”
It would buy me crucial hours; long enough, I hoped, to argue for the curé’s life. I was known in Brioude, where I sought out each official. And to each one, I said, “I have taken from its place of honor at Chavaniac this document. It is the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Words as sacred to me as the Bible. Words that inspired patriots to tear down the Bastille. This document declares we are born equal and free. That we have the right to liberty, property, security, and to resist oppression. It guarantees religious freedom.”