Grabbing her up and tapping Anastasie’s freckled nose, a delighted Gilbert asked, “What shall we bring back for you, ma chère, to celebrate the occasion of your fifth birthday?”
Anastasie replied, “I want a white warhorse like yours to ride into battle!”
“So I have an Amazon for a daughter.” Gilbert laughed and did not sound displeased. “You are not quite big enough for a warhorse yet. Perhaps a pony. I will discuss it with your mother once she has her fill of being the belle of the ball . . .”
I was hardly a belle, but since Gilbert’s return, he made me feel that way. The occasion on this night was to greet visiting Russian royalty. Our place at court was born of fame rather than rank. Lafayette had been promoted to field marshal and made a knight of the Order of Saint Louis. He looked dashing wearing the prestigious medal affixed to his coat by means of a red ribbon, yet, earlier in the day at prayer, Grand-mère had observed, “All this honor is overmuch for a young man your husband’s age. It will go to his head.”
I had given a good-humored laugh. “Grand-mère, I begin to think there is nothing whatsoever my husband could do to please you. First he brought too much disgrace. Now he brings too much glory.”
On her knees with her rosary, she said, “I do not deny Lafayette’s merit, but he is not the same boy you married, Adrienne.”
It was true. Gilbert had returned from the war with a relaxed confidence, a quicker wit, and a keen interest in finances. Not his own finances—which, at the age of twenty-four, he was still not considered old enough to administer without a manager—but rather our nation’s finances, which he helped bolster with trade in the new American nation.
Having spent several blissful months becoming reacquainted with this worldly new Gilbert, I protested, “I have found every change in him agreeable, and he has returned to me as good and lovable as before.”
“Good and lovable, yes,” Grand-mère agreed. “Which does little to insulate him against his enemies.”
Exasperated, I cried, “Enemies? He is the most beloved man in France!”
“Therein lies the trouble.” Grand-mère rapped her cane to emphasize every word. “The king should be the most beloved man in France. Only the king is ordained by God to rule over us, his person inviolable, with rules and traditions that hold the envy of others at bay.”
“Oh, Grand-mère.”
I thought she was hopelessly backward, but she was unchastened. “You young pups prattle on about equality, but heed a woman of experience. In the end, given the opportunity, every man will step upon every other man in a mad scramble to the top. Climb too high too quickly, and the same people who hoisted you up will tear you down. Jealousy, my dear, is the most wicked, and most certain, of human impulses.”
I gave little credit to this exchange, for what could be done about it, even if it were true? That night, I was introduced to foreign dignitaries out of precedence with my rank, and Aunt Claude complained that we were afforded privileges above our station; but that did not stop the queen from offering my husband a dance—another quadrille—which he performed with such grace as to blot out any memory of his earlier, youthful stumble. The ball also gave us opportunity to press our business. Which is why I conversed with the minister of trade. The American war was expensive for France because we were liberators, not conquerors.
Yet Gilbert believed preferential trade with the resource-rich United States would fill our coffers.
“France has the finest manufactured goods and foodstuffs in the world,” I told the trade minister, raising my glass. “After all, what sensible person would not prefer French wine—at least, if it could be bought without crushing regulations?”
I said this because the last time we visited Dr. Franklin, he had complained about both regulations and his painful case of gout. If American merchants can’t sell in French ports without being taxed into oblivion, they’ll sail into English ports and sell there after the war is done. Upon Franklin’s advice, my husband set aside his sword to do battle with a pen, composing a study he would entitle “Observations on Commerce Between France and the United States.”
Now Gilbert joined me where I had the trade minister cornered and told him all about it. “Oui, oui,” said the minister with a dismissive flourish of one hand. “We all know how Americans feel about taxes. They are so spoiled they made war over the price of tea.”
Gilbert bristled, and with a flap of my fan, I dared to opine, “Whereas in France we allow ourselves to be robbed with taxes on land, marriage, bridge crossings . . .” I had no business speaking this way—much less characterizing the king’s taxes as robbery—but I was drunk on happiness, champagne, and my husband’s love.