The Women of Chateau Lafayette by Stephanie Dray

Author:Stephanie Dray [Stephanie Dray]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2021-03-30T00:00:00+00:00

THIRTY-ONE

ADRIENNE

Paris

July 15, 1789

“We need a leader, Madame de Lafayette.”

Having been roused from my bed, I now stood in the Hôtel de Ville with the city’s elders, who cloistered around my husband’s bust—the one I helped dedicate years ago. Then, as now, I was asked to stand in Lafayette’s place. To answer in his name.

The king had refused to accept my husband’s declaration of rights and set foreign mercenaries against Paris. And now the citizenry was in rebellion and had dismantled the ancient fortress of the Bastille stone by stone. For the first time in my life, I had awakened to a Paris sky no longer dominated by the eight fortress towers that had for so long reminded us of the king’s absolute power. And I thought it an important lesson that though it takes many hands to build a prison, many hands can also take one apart . . .

But righteous fury was swiftly becoming disordered anarchy. Frightened and angry people, egged on by Philippe’s mischief-makers, had a wax head of the duc d’Orléans and were proclaiming him the new and rightful king. Was there no crisis Philippe would not try to turn to his advantage?

If my husband were here in Paris, he would put a stop to it. But he was still at Versailles. And now the city’s leaders were looking to me. “The people need a commander, Madame la marquise. Your husband turned citizens into soldiers in America; can he do it here? We have elected him in absentia to be commander of the new National Guard, but we cannot calm the people unless they know he will accept the appointment. You must tell us, if he can get to Paris, will Lafayette defend a sovereign people and restore public order?”

I put a hand to my mouth. I understood what was being asked. They wished to know if my husband would lead a new nation. They wished to know if he would be France’s George Washington. Yet they posed the question, by necessity, to me. And for Lafayette’s honor, whatever answer I gave must be true. I trembled at the responsibility. This was a mantle not easily taken up, and much harder to set down again. Still, everything Gilbert and I had done had led us to this point. And if I only quieted my own breath, I could hear the truth of his heart as my blood thrummed through it.

Resolving to uphold my husband’s principles—and my own—I said, “He will accept.”

I said this with a certainty only God could have granted me.

Oh, the joy I felt when, not long after, my husband led a procession of deputies into Paris! I clung to him in gratitude when he took me into his strong embrace. We strode together into the Hôtel de Ville, where he took command of the National Guard as I had pledged he would, and there he swore on his sword of honor—the one given to him by Dr. Franklin—that he would die to defend the liberty of the French nation.

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