I returned to cutting the duck leg in front of me.
If anything, it’s quite the opposite, she said to me. She is so odd, she said. It is, in fact, she who is always copying the fashions of his mistresses, copying the women she has lost to, as if she can win by imitating them. She is the spy of the crinolines. She is always befriending them.
And then she paused and raised her glass. All of them except me, she said. Her eyes glittered, as if she had won a prize of great worth.
During the time of the liaison between the Emperor and the Comtesse, the Empress had been recovering from the birth of the Prince; she sickened and took to bed for much of the year. If the Emperor understood this as a comment on his affair, he had responded by continuing it.
You’re in no danger, she said. In fact, if you are already known to him, I would say you are meant to be a taunt to me, full of tales of what I can never have that you, my muette, cannot ever tell me. It is their revenge on me to bring you, I’m sure. For I am not allowed at Compiègne.
As I listened, she began to tell me of who would be at Compiègne, as well as the story of her banishment, but I could not quite hear it. I raised the fork to my mouth and paused to look at the delicate meat, pink at the center, before setting it in my mouth. I was careful not to betray any change in my expression as the thought came to me.
She was indifferent as to whether my errand for her resulted in my arrest or death.
The dinner finished soon after that. She called for paper, a pen, and ink.
I want you to copy out an address several times until you can do it from memory, she said. It is not this address, as it would immediately place you under suspicion.
I sat and did as she asked, writing it out, writing it out, writing it out with a terrible effort to keep my hand steady. 7 Place Vend?me, 7 Place Vend?me, again and again.
Very good, she said. Now then, I would like you to record what she wears during the series, a much greater task, as she will be changing approximately four to five times a day. You will post the list to this address from town. During this period, I will pay you a raise, to be collectively paid on your return. Are we agreed?
Oui, I wrote in script under the repeated addresses.
§
When the door to the carriage opened and I was again back at the Bois de Boulogne, I forced myself to walk back slowly to the Tuileries and calmly greet the guards as I did so. They waved me in, smiling; I nodded, opening my packages for them to check, and they passed me through as usual. No one feared me. I walked up my familiar passageways, and as I did, I felt it, like a faint movement of air, even a wind, at my neck.
I waited until I could wait no longer, and then I ran the last part, and once in my room again, I bolted the door, fell on my bed, and pulled out my purse.
Away from her, the fullness of what seemed to be her madness came into view. She was bound up in an obsession with the Empress, who, it seemed, was perhaps likewise obsessed with her. To be caught between them was to be ruined, and that was where I was.
I set the coin the Comtesse always gave me next to the others. At the bottom of the purse, the napoléon I had first received from her glowed. I took it out and rubbed it for luck.
I knelt then and prayed for guidance, the coin still in my hand, and when I was done, I knew my purpose.
This coin, it had been joined by another, and another, and with this next task, perhaps a flood. This had been the first in a trail of coin I hoped I might someday lay down, leading to a world without the Tuileries, without the Empress. Without the Comtesse.
This work was not my ruin, then, but providence, a test that, if I passed, would provide a way for me to finally go to my mother’s family in Lucerne. Seeing her that first day in Paris now seemed like a sign from God that she would put me back on my path. And so I blessed the day I’d been brought to her and counted the coins until I was calm.
Four
THE DAYS OF preparations leading up to Compiègne passed very slowly. For weeks, in addition to keeping up with the Empress’s daily schedule, we also set ourselves to the business of packing the Empress for the retreat: a month of furs, shoes, hats, crinolines, costumes, robes de chambre, tea gowns, evening gowns.
In the dark of the morning on the day of our departure, we found a special breakfast of café au lait and a piece of toasted bread with butter and cinnamon on it floating in the coffee. This was a rich surprise and lent the work of overseeing the final details of the packing of the trunks the feeling of both a holiday and a conspiracy; I and the other grisettes conducted it in an unusual, even solemn, silence.