I nodded grimly, remembering my duty to make my husband conform to the mold of a Noailles, however impossible that might be.
* * *
—
My husband received the news of his royal post with as little pleasure as I expected. “I have my own ambitions,” Gilbert said. “That is all I have.”
“You have me, and I am all yours.” I meant this with the deepest sincerity, even though my next words would prove I still also belonged to the Noailles. “To refuse would give offense to the king. Also to my father and grandfather. It would shame the family.”
“Would it shame you, as well?”
I wanted to say no. To say that I only wanted us to be happy. Yet no more than my father could I allow the queen’s laughter to destroy us.
At my silence, Gilbert buried his head in his hands. “Adrienne, can you not understand that I want to be a soldier like my father and his father before him, going back to the days of Joan of Arc? I am a Lafayette. I am meant to fight for something—not to empty another man’s chamber pot!”
“You are proud, I know—”
“Pride does not deter me. Were the king’s brother old or infirm, I could serve him in mercy and humility, but he is capable of pissing without my help.”
Never had my husband been vulgar in my presence before, and I bit my lip. “We have no choice.”
Gilbert shook his head. “There is always a choice.”
This time, I thought he was wrong. And I dismissed this quarrel from my mind until the night of the masquerade ball, just before Lent. Hoping to cheer my husband, I chose for him a wolf mask so he could disguise himself as the Beast of Gévaudan.
“I am too tall, and my hair too red, for anyone to be fooled,” he complained. Nevertheless, he agreed to wear the mask, because I was to go as Le Petit Chaperon Rouge, the girl in the red hood. Thus, under falling rose petals, to the accompaniment of chamber music, I returned to Versailles, standing by my wolf.
We all pretended to be strangers for the sake of fun, but the king’s brother was too rotund for us not to know him behind his harlequin’s mask. To amuse the crowd, he quoted lines from a play, boasting of a perfect ability to memorize books. That’s when, from behind his mask, Gilbert said, “I have always thought memory to be a fool’s intellect. Better to discuss new ideas than recite old ones.”
Panic lodged in my throat, and everyone in the nearby crowd tittered. Thankfully, masquerades were called the world upside down, and impudence was forgiven—nay, even expected. If the king’s brother were a better man, he would have let this pass. Alas, he came upon us the next morning, jowls red with offense. “Lafayette, perhaps you remember insulting a man last night on the subject of his wit; I assume you do not know who that man was.”
“That man stands before me,” Gilbert replied, placid as ice.
The offer of royal appointment was abruptly withdrawn, which meant Lafayette had not refused; he had been rejected. He had preserved my family’s reputation while ruining his own. There was now no place for Gilbert at court; no future for him but as a soldier. And my infuriated father sent him directly back to his military garrison at Metz.
My only solace was that Lafayette had left with me some part of himself. I waited until I was certain, then sent a letter. And his reply was everything I could have hoped . . .
My dear heart, your unexpected news gives me joy. This little creature will be our creature—proof that we love each other more than ever. Let us reunite at the coronation; I am told you will go. And I would go to hell itself to embrace you. I love you madly.
I treasured this letter, counting down the days until the king’s coronation, which was the talk of France and our breakfast table, where Grand-mère demanded to know, “Who are these upstarts? These so-called reformers telling the king to cut expenses. Do they mistake him for some bourgeois shopkeeper who must balance his books?”
My father stabbed at his omelette. “Perhaps if our new queen was not losing so much money gambling, we could afford to do things properly.”
As it happened, things were all done with the greatest pomp and circumstance, according to tradition, at Rheims, and my family was glad of this. I was gladder to see Gilbert again, and to be embraced by him under the colorful stained glass of the cathedral, and to feel him caress my belly, where our love had borne fruit. And to hear him say, “You have become more beautiful.”
Perhaps not wishing me to become vain, Aunt Claude said, “Adrienne and the whole city have been made more beautiful for the coronation.”