* * *
—
“We need to do something,” I was saying to Emily Sloane, my eyes on the giant funnels pouring a steady stream of smoke overhead.
The war had been our only topic of conversation since our frantic rush to board a vessel leaving France. And as we sailed toward New York’s harbor now, our thoughts were still with those we had left behind in the conflict. “If America won’t send soldiers to help, we can at least send money. We’ll need some manner of charitable foundation.”
Miss Sloane delighted me by agreeing enthusiastically.
“And we’ll need gentlemen on the board, or no one will take us seriously,” I said, removing my gloves as we sat down for coffee together in the stylishly appointed café. It was strictly for passengers traveling first class, and its velvet curtains, wood paneling, and opulent decor—supplied by W. & J. Sloane—gave the impression of a fine hotel. “We’ll also need to give our charity a romantic, patriotic name.”
“I don’t see what could possibly be romantic about war.”
“Most people can’t,” I said. “War is a grim business Americans would like to stay out of, if Wilson’s declaration of neutrality is any indication of the public mood. To get them to care, we must appeal to the emotions. Love, hate, patriotism . . .”
I took her notebook and wrote: The Lafayette Fund.
Miss Sloane stared uncomprehendingly. “Lafayette? The revolutionary hero?”
“Precisely.” I explained, “In the most powerful social circles, the Founding Fathers are revered more than Christ. You can’t swing a beaded handbag in Mrs. Astor’s grand ballroom without hitting a Daughter of the American Revolution, primed to opine in worshipful ecstasy about Washington, Adams, or Jefferson. They’ll open their wallets for the far more romantic figure of Lafayette, French foe of tyrants and kings . . .”
FIVE
ADRIENNE
Paris
May 1774
The king was dead.
And with him went the world as we knew it. Smallpox had carried away the sovereign who signed my wedding contract, and now the king’s grandson, the dauphin, was to ascend the throne at only nineteen.
Overnight, the position of favor my family took for granted was at risk. Presiding over a family conclave the following week, my father paced. “Already the old king’s mistress has been exiled. We might be next; I blame the dauphine—”
“The new queen,” Maman corrected.
“Marie Antoinette is a child!” His shout boomed down the gallery of priceless paintings. Never would he dare speak thus at Versailles, but the H?tel de Noailles on the Rue Saint-Honoré was a gilded world unto itself, populated by an army of liveried servants beholden to our family. “She banishes the former favorites with no respect for the old order. She wants to change everything. Clothes, jewels, etiquette, courtiers . . .”
Change was not something my father approved unless it benefited the Noailles, and, as we were soon to learn, the new regime did not. The new queen wanted to be surrounded with her own ladies, not those of her predecessor, which left my influential great-aunt—Anne Claude Louise d’Arpajon, the comtesse de Noailles—out in the cold.
Aunt Claude returned from Versailles distraught, weeping into her kerchief, having resigned after being reduced in rank because the new royals prized youth. They had inherited the keys to the kingdom and did not wish to be constrained by or lectured to by my grandfather’s generation; they wished to break free. It was an impulse I understood. Even as a married woman, I still remained under my mother’s watchful eye—and not long after my wedding, my family secured a promotion for Lafayette as a captain of the dragoons and sent him to Metz for training.
Without Gilbert I was restless, and yearned for a life outside the walls of the H?tel de Noailles. As it happened, the current royal crisis was to give me that opportunity. “If the new king and queen want youth,” my father announced, “we shall oblige. Adrienne, you are to be presented at Versailles.”
I inched to the edge of my gilded seat, torn between fear and excitement. To be presented at court meant new adult occasions—possibly a ball. There would be mature responsibilities too, and I was eager to play my part. Indeed, it was the part I had been raised to play by my devoted mother and a bevy of interesting female relations.
By way of social instruction, my freethinking aunt, Madame de Tessé, would always quiz my sisters and me on philosophy and current events and reward correct answers with chocolates. For religious instruction, my addled but devout grand-mère—who had such a habit of stealing holy relics that we knew from the youngest age to watch her in any church—gifted us with plumed pens with which she told us we must write the Virgin Mary.