While in Paris drawing rooms Dr. Franklin told tales of my husband forcing Hessians into retreat, I regaled all the queen’s ladies with tales of Lafayette’s bravery and chivalry—a kindhearted husband, a fearless fighter, a father who was apart from his children for the betterment of mankind. And before winter, one could not walk down any snowy street without hearing fiery young men arguing with their patriarchs.
“Let me join Lafayette—”
“—why should he get all the glory?”
“I am pledging my sword tomorrow!”
The tide was turning, and I rejoiced to play a part. As barefooted American patriots left a bloody trail in the snow on their way to a place called Valley Forge, I wished to do more. I raised funds for these poor American peasant soldiers who needed boots and shoes and weapons with which to defend themselves. But then, just as triumph was in sight, out of the blue, my duties as a mother came before my duties as a wife.
* * *
—
What ailment made my little angels burn with fever? The physicians couldn’t say. Then the illness struck my sister Louise’s baby boy. Though we had nurses to help tend our children, we both took turns rocking the babies, our hearts rending with every cry. Then, in the end, clutching each other, soaking each other’s hair with tears, both of us were caught in the maw of shared grief when my sweet Henriette and my nephew and namesake both perished within breaths of each other.
I was holding my daughter’s fingers as they lost their grip on this world, a moment that loosened my hold on it too . . . Twenty-two months. That’s all the life Henriette lived. Never again would I feel the weight of her on my chest. Never again would I hear her childish babble or even her sleepless cries. Never again would Gilbert hold her and read to her about the rights of mankind. And never before had I felt such desolation.
The day we buried our children, Louise appealed to God, her eyes on the sky. Mine locked on the direction of the sea. As the graveside wind bit my cheeks, I swallowed my sobs. “I envy him. Monsieur de Lafayette does not know his daughter is gone from this earth. In whatever military encampment he is now, he can still dream of Henriette growing tall, coming out into society, feasting at her wedding . . .”
It would be months before he would hear his daughter was dead—if he would hear at all. An unwelcome bitterness crept into my heart. Knowing me as only a sister could, Louise pressed her rosary beads into my hand. “Turn to God, Adrienne. Pray for strength and rejoice that our children are cherubs in heaven now.”
I neither prayed nor rejoiced. I had believed that I was doing God’s work in helping Gilbert—in helping the Americans. Now, with this terrible loss, I wondered if God were punishing me for defying my father. Or perhaps he was punishing Gilbert for defying the king.
Had we been idealistic fools? Consumed with grief and doubt, I passed weeks without leaving my rooms. When, in December of 1777, King Louis formally recognized the independence of the American colonies and offered a treaty, it should have been cause for happy celebration. Alas, I couldn’t remember why I should care.
“Adrienne,” Maman said, stroking my hair. “You must rouse yourself from your bed. The world is looking to you as an example.”
Absurd. Why should anyone in France, much less the world, look to me? What was the point of this American war if it kept a young father from his daughter’s funeral—or if it should leave me a widow? I had indulged the same vanity at court that I despised, proud of myself merely because my husband was a sensation.
God punishes pride, I thought. That is what was taught in church. That he tested us and took things from us . . .
Trying to put my surviving daughter into my arms, Maman said, “You have Anastasie to think of. She’s too little to know how great her misfortune is in losing her older sister, but she suffers without a mother’s love!”
I did not wish to hold rosy-cheeked Anastasie, knowing I might lose her too. I nearly thrust her away. But she was the sort of child who simply expects to be loved, and insists upon loving in return. She reached for me with chubby little hands, cooing with affection when I finally took her. Even as an infant, Anastasie simply knew—like her father—how to conquer my heart.
It was Anastasie—a gift from God—who saved me from the grief, proving that even in the midst of the greatest trials and misfortune, we are still capable of joy. I would never worship a God who visited cruelty upon his children, in this world or the next. It became, as Gilbert would say, one of my amiable heresies that God did not deal in cruelty. Love, connection, goodness, comfort against loss . . . these things were God. And there was for me no love so sweetly intimate or comforting as that between a mother and child.