Where the Light Falls(25)

“Of course I would come back and take up arms, if it came to that.” Jean-Luc nodded, looking once more at his manager, before turning to take off at a trot toward the bridge.



A nervous energy pulsed on the streets of the Left Bank as well, with people huddled on corners, eager to hear the latest news. Jean-Luc turned onto his street and entered his building, bounding up the stairs two at a time. “Marie?” He panted as he entered the garret apartment. It was empty. “Mathieu? Marie?” There was no sign of his family. Alarmed, he turned, climbing back down the stairs. The neighbors downstairs might have seen them.

Grocque’s tavern was a hive of activity, and he instantly spotted Marie on the far side. She stood near the hearth, speaking to a small group of women who clustered around her, nodding attentively to whatever it was that she was saying. “Marie?” he called out and she turned, looking distracted. She wore Mathieu in a makeshift sling across her chest so that her hands were free. Beside her, Madame Grocque was piling kindling onto one of the long tavern tables.

Marie waved him over and he crossed the room toward her. All throughout the space were neighborhood women, faces he recognized from the bakery and the butcher. “What is all this?” He kissed his wife on the cheek as she dismissed the small crowd around her and turned back to her task—ripping long strands of cloth into what appeared to be makeshift bandages.

“What does it look like, my love?” she asked, patting Mathieu with one hand as he began to fuss at her breast.

Nearby, women were stacking fire pokers and rolling pins and shovels on the long dining tables. Across the room, several women leaned over cauldrons filled with boiling water. An older woman with broad shoulders was disassembling chairs, as if she intended to use the legs as weapons.

“Excuse me, Citizeness St. Clair?” A young woman approached, holding an armful of firewood. “Where would you like this?”

“Over there, in the kindling pile,” Marie said, issuing the order with a comfortable authority. “Thank you.”

Jean-Luc looked around once more, slightly amazed. “It looks as if you intend to turn this tavern into some sort of headquarters or hospital?” he said, confused.

She eyed him, not at all frightened, as he had expected her to be. Simply busy. Determined. “We do.”

“But…what do you mean to do?” he asked, glancing once more around the busy room, the women who worked and chatted with an orderly purposefulness.

“Why, defend ourselves,” Marie said, her voice matter-of-fact. “If it comes to it.”

She saw the shock on his face, and she smiled. “This thing was started by women who had had enough. Women who picked up their fish-knives and fire pokers and marched all the way to Versailles to demand food for their families. You think that, if the fight comes to Paris, we plan to sit in our apartments while the men take to the walls?”

Jean-Luc’s mouth fell open. Then he glanced around the bustling room, heartened by this display, before looking back to his wife. “Well, Marie,” he said, leaning toward her, putting a hand on her arm. “I certainly am happy that you’re on our side.”





September 1792

All around André, French soldiers in companies and battalions of varying sizes were emerging from the woods. Their sergeants and officers shouted orders to maneuver them into neat, even columns, three lines deep. A flock of gray geese stood clustered between the two opposing forests, grazing among the tips of wheat as they had each summer day.

The field before André sloped gently downward from the left to the right. On the left was the hillcrest, where French soldiers had begun to line the ridge, their silhouettes barely visible against a shroud of cannon smoke. Slightly behind and to their left, the lone windmill of which Kellermann had spoken pierced the horizon, its wheel barely turning in the hot, breezeless morning. The hill sloped down to André’s right, and soldiers had begun to fill into that low-ground space.

The men had sensed a shift, André noted, seeing some begin to fidget and whisper, unable to suppress the nervous tension that stretched along the front line. Death could, and would, emerge from the distant tree line at any minute.

And yet, though the French waited, no Prussians or Austrians emerged. For a brief moment, André wondered if perhaps the alliance forces had lost their stomach for a fight. Perhaps the French would hold the ground at Valmy without firing a single shot.

But then André peered into the distance, wondering if his vision played a trick on him as he detected the glint of sunlight reflecting off something unnatural, a shimmering surface that did not belong in the forest copse opposite him—a rifle? A helmet? Fifty meters to his left, André saw three men on horseback making their way out in front of the French line. All three of them wore dark blue coats with scarlet piping and gold buttons, the plumes of their hats keeping time with their stallions’ steps. They checked their horses. It was the three French commanders.