In any case, my older sister had at last fulfilled my father’s long-awaited hope for a male heir, and, guzzling champagne to celebrate the birth of his new son, Marc said, “I wanted to name him after his uncle Gilbert, but to keep the duc d’Ayen from rage, he will be called Adrien.”
Cradling her infant son, Louise gave me a melting smile. “After you, my beloved sister, because you are nearly as courageous as your husband.”
There was no truth to this whatsoever, but I embraced her with a full heart anyway.
In the first letter I received from Gilbert, he asked, Can you forgive me?
He pleaded with me not to condemn him before hearing him, and I was so overjoyed simply to know he was alive that I softened. His anguish at the thought of losing both my love and my good opinion touched my heart. And to reassure me about the shot he’d taken in battle, he wrote, I came off lightly. The bullet touched neither bone nor nerve. This is only what I pompously style my wound, to give myself airs and render myself interesting.
Even so, the fright it put in me! He had scarcely begun to fight for the Americans and already had taken a bullet. Though I replied to him straightaway, my missives must have been captured by the British, for his next letter pleaded, I have received no news of you or the child, Adrienne. I cannot live in such a state of uncertainty. I entreat you, my dear heart, not to forget an unhappy man who pays dearly for the error he committed in parting from you . . . I love you and shall all my life.
I loved him too.
Despite everything, in my breast beat the heart he had entrusted to me when we wed. I understood why he had gone to America, why he had risked everything. Not only for his own prospects, but because he sincerely believed the prosperity of America will one day mean the prosperity of all mankind. She will become an asylum of virtue, tolerance, equality, and liberty . . .
I believed it too. If it could be proved possible in the New World, then it could be done the world over. Which is what I told my visitor, the American minister Dr. Franklin, when he came to the H?tel de Noailles to deliver felicitations on the birth of my child. Taking the beaver cap from his balding head, he said, “Please forgive the subterfuge in the matter of your husband’s leave-taking for our cause, madame. I’m told it couldn’t have been avoided, and personally, I have always been of the opinion that three can keep a secret only if two of them are dead.”
I should have laughed with the cagey old fellow. I should have granted forgiveness. Instead, I vented my frustration upon the poor man. “You lack faith, sir. For I too am dedicated to this cause, and if I had been entrusted with the secret, I would have taken it to the grave, if need be.”
The ruddy-cheeked old ambassador adjusted his spectacles and stared at me. “I begin to believe you would. Perhaps my young friend Lafayette underestimates what he has in you . . .”
My upset at how I had been deceived made me say, “As, perhaps, do you. I could have been of service, and I still could be.”
“Is that so?” Franklin asked, instead of reproaching me. He seemed deeply interested. “I always say men and women united are more likely to succeed in this world. Why, the machinations of a man, without a woman, would make him as useless as only half a pair of scissors!”
I explained that I knew American farmers were in rebellion against one of the great world powers and doubted they could win without French help. The king had to be persuaded to join the fight against the British, and in this cause my husband had enlisted me, bidding me to share his reports as I deemed politically wise. Gilbert gave me both the authority and ability to serve as his ambassador, and I intended to do so.
Franklin eyed me carefully. “Yet your august family, and your father in particular, seem to be of an opinion that the king of France will wish to remain neutral.”
My father had been an adept courtier under a different king, part of a different generation, whereas I had come of age under this king and queen. I wasn’t a child-bride anymore, shy and innocent of intrigues. I was nearly eighteen and a mother twice over, having passed four seasons at court. I knew what fired royal imaginations, and what pressures the king and queen submitted to in order to amuse their favorites. How they wished to be seen by the world. As an anointed king believing himself to rule with divine right, King Louis would hesitate to support a rebellion against another king, but it would not deter him if he thought he could both strike a rival and restore the honor and glory of France.
Thus, conspiring with Dr. Franklin, I engaged in my own defiant campaign, sending copies of Lafayette’s correspondence and reports directly to the queen. Marie Antoinette loved nothing so much as a good story, and from my letters, she would learn of both Lafayette’s tender affections as a husband and father and his bravery as a soldier. More, I knew the queen was not as silly as my father supposed. She would see these reports from America as valuable political intelligence too. I knew she would share these letters with the king.