Unfortunately, the Gestapo doesn’t even try to respect the jurisdiction of French police anymore.
Another day passes. Another day without word. Finally, the baroness comes down from her room with a suitcase, and announces, “I’m going to Clermont-Ferrand.”
Anna darts in front of her mother and tries to block her path. “What can you do there, Maman? We don’t even know why Papa was arrested. You’re only going to put yourself in danger too!”
“I’m not going to let your father be disappeared,” she says, kissing Anna’s cheek with surprising tenderness. “I’m so sorry, my darling. I thought our family did enough in the last war. In this war, all I wanted was to keep quiet, but look where it’s gotten us.”
“Don’t be crazy.” Anna looks to me, desperate. “Tell her she’s lucky the Germans didn’t arrest her too. She might not get so lucky this time.”
Anna’s right, but I don’t argue with the baroness. I think she knows her money and title aren’t going to protect her. For the first time in a long time, I think she’s remembered exactly who she is and knows exactly what she’s doing. I think she’s going to try to save her husband, because she loves him.
And maybe even because we’re all living in the house of a woman who did the same.
PART
FOUR
FIFTY-FOUR
ADRIENNE
Paris
March 1795
It was an impossible plan, but I was determined to see it through. “I need an American passport,” I said to James Monroe. “If you would be so kind as to provide me with one.”
“You are optimistic to think it will be honored; the name Lafayette is known throughout the world . . .”
This was a sticking point, for even in my darkest moments, I had clung to my husband’s name. I had even made myself content to die for that name. I did not wish to deny it now or ever. Yet I remembered that when my husband made his own daring escape from France at the age of nineteen, he too went in disguise.
Few people would suspect me if I traveled now as Mrs. Motier, a simple housewife of Hartford, Connecticut.
As I explained my plans, Monroe pinched the bridge of his nose. “My dear lady, I cannot believe Lafayette would wish me to give his wife the means with which to throw herself back into danger.”
“Yet I sincerely believe, sir, that unless your president intervenes, I am the only one both willing and able to save him.”
That I did not know precisely how was of secondary concern.
The cruelties visited upon my family whilst I myself was at the foot of the scaffold would poison the rest of my days, but they had killed my illusions too. There was nowhere safe in this world; death was always waiting. My husband and my children were the most precious consolation left to me. Thus, having secured a loan and the necessary papers from Monroe, I made the long journey by foot to Chavaniac to buy it back.
The roof now leaked in ten places, the Italian plaster was chipped, but still the place was a shelter for Aunt Charlotte and my girls, both of whom came running to embrace me. That they never thought to see me alive again was attested to by their sobs as I stroked their backs, kissed their hair, and inhaled the scent of them as if they were babes again.
At nearly eighteen, tall, auburn-haired Anastasie was now the same age I was when I gave birth to her. Though Virginie, at twelve, was not yet a woman grown, she had lost all traces of childish fancy. Both girls—whose survival had been assured by the kindness and courage of our villagers during my imprisonment—declared, “We will go wherever you go, Maman.”
Thus, when the leaves turned in September, we traveled like peasants, with only a single satchel of belongings among us. Then, under cover of darkness, my daughters and I slipped quietly aboard an American ship with our papers and left France. Oh, the twisted pangs of relief and grief at leaving my country for the first time, and possibly forever. Yet as the dark water opened a chasm between my past and my future, I was filled with a single-minded purpose: to rescue the man I loved.
* * *
—
Our ship’s captain carried us without incident to Hamburg. It was rumored my aunt Madame de Tessé was now living there. Weary from travel, the girls and I found our way to an inn, but no sooner had we set down our bag than did my venerable old aunt come rushing into the establishment, throwing her arms around us. “Oh, my sweet girls!”
I startled to see my sister in her wake. Mon Dieu, Pauline. The grief on her face told me she knew everything about the guillotining of our mother, grandmother, and sister. I was at once assaulted by love and lashed by guilt and regret. I sank down to the floor in sobs. Pauline did the same, clasping me, both of us wailing for our murdered family.