One memorable night, I slowly waved away the attention of several gentleman but touched my right cheek with a closed fan to accept the attentions of the Duke of Dorset. How could I not, given that he was both an ambassador and the uncle of my bosom friends? Besides, every eye was upon him in his bejeweled amber raiment and it would have been churlish to refuse. Guiding me to the dance floor for a minuet, the duke leaned close to whisper, “You are a rare bloom in this garden of forward French flowers. Your simple manners, your enticing reserve, the radiance of your hair—I simply had to have you adorn my arm.”
I blushed again, uncertain as to whether this was the practiced flirtation of a diplomat or a rake. Either way I could not take seriously his sweet talk because he was a veritable uncle to me, as he was in fact to the Tufton sisters. “You flatter me overmuch, Your Grace.” To which he responded with vehement denials as he whisked me onto the dance floor.
“Fils de putes!” Marie cursed, after my dance with the duke was done. “Must you grab the attention of all the most eligible bachelors in France? Will you leave none for the rest of us? The men all stare at you for your height and that red hair. If I did not love you so much, Jeffy, I would rip it from your head.”
“I’m merely a freckled American curiosity!” It was true that in a ballroom, I attracted the notice of young men who might have overlooked me on the street. But I don’t think it was my height or red hair or even my dancing skills that drew them to me. I think it was because I held myself unattainable.
I’d already foolishly given my heart to a man who abandoned me. I wouldn’t make that mistake again. So I remained cordial but cool to the men who asked me to dance, and found myself flattered by admirers and overwhelmed by male attention, bewildered and intrigued.
My most ardent suitor, by far, was the young and energetic Armand Jules Marie Héracle, son of the Duke of Polignac, who, upon making my acquaintance, drew my hand up to kiss as if I were of rank to offer, and said, “Enchanté . . .”
The Polignacs were amongst the most powerful families at the court, and my suitor’s mother a great favorite of Queen Marie-Antoinette. The chevalier, who some afforded the courtesy title of prince, challenged me with an aristocratic bearing. “Do you care to test your American pionnière fortitude against my stamina?”
I accepted and we danced a lively cotillion that had me sweating at the back of the neck. When the dance master called the next dance, Polignac said, simply, “Again.”
“But that’s not permitted,” I replied, fanning my flaming cheeks, for we could not dance twice in succession without inviting scandal.
“Then the dance after that,” he said with a rakish smile. “I must best the Duke of Dorset, so give me the honor of every other dance, Mademoiselle.”
Polignac was brash and pleasant to look at in his sea-green coat with its embroidered gold lapels. Papa would’ve been appalled by my deference to titled nobility—but I found myself quite unable to refuse the son of a duke. Before the night was through, I’d danced sixteen times, eight of them with him.
We caused a sensation, and I admit to feeling satisfaction at the brazenness of it, even when the ladies Tufton scolded, “Have you set your cap on a Polignac, Patsy?” and “If you aim to be a duchess, at least favor our uncle, so that we can all be family one day!”
Marie hushed the Tufton sisters with a violent whack of her lace fan. “Tais-toi!” Then she turned shrewd eyes on me. “Cher Jef is just in revolt against her papa. She has half the French court whispering Jefferson’s daughter will convert to the true faith. Now the other half will whisper that the daughter of equality’s champion aims to marry an aristocrat.”
Marie saw in my behavior some spark of hostility, some lack of care for Papa’s reputation, and I didn’t want to think it was true. “Marry an aristocrat?” No, I had no designs on marriage whatsoever, much less to Polignac or the Duke of Dorset. Besides, neither man was William Short. They were merely pretty distractions . . .
. . . and didn’t my father want me distracted?
THE START OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION was orchestrated in my father’s parlor. The leading reformers consulted Papa for every scrap of news of America. Our country’s independence served as proof men could throw off the chains of tyranny and rule themselves.
Though Polly and I always left the table before the men turned to port and tobacco and more heated political discussions, we heard enough to know that none of them, not Papa nor any of the idealists gathered at our hearth in those early days, feared it would come to armed rebellion.
The king had called for elections and summoned the Estates-General for the first time in more than a century and a half. It was taken as a clarion call to make a new government that gave a voice to the people. We were all excited. When the great day came, we were all awakened before dawn by the peal of bells and booming cannons that sent people into the streets in celebration.