Chapter VI
AUGUST TENTH, 1792
Lisle and his mother had finished their déjeuner in the great dining room of the Paris house. The tall, gilded clock in the entrance hall had just struck twelve. All through the meal the cannons in the Carrousel, the inner court of the Tuileries palace, less than a mile away, had thundered outside. The glass chandelier above the table had shaken until its chains, jangling together, made a sound like music in the dim, vast room. The amber-colored velvet curtains at the windows were drawn closely together and the room was lighted by four candles in gold candlesticks on the table.
Lisle piled his nutshells in a heap on his plate. He had something to tell his mother and he did not know how to go about it. There was a dish of fruit on the table, as well as a carved bowl full of nuts and a carafe of wine and one of water, and even a bowl of flowers, a few red roses which Henri had picked that morning from the vine by the coach house. The comtesse leaned forward and picked one from the white bowl and held it to her face. Then she said what she had been thinking all through the meal:
“Nothing would matter if only you had gone with the others, Lisle. Why did I let you stay!”
“Because you knew that I would not go!” Lisle answered.
She looked at him and he returned her look steadily.
“I’m not a child any longer. I’m fifteen and a half and the head of the house,” he went on. “I’ve stayed to see Paris now. I want to see what happens.”
The comtesse put both hands over her eyes and sat that way for a moment. It was as though she would shut out all the confusion and worry of the past weeks and months, especially of the last two days.
Within twenty-four hours five of the men servants had left without a word. Some of them left because they were frightened, for it was beginning to be thought not so good a thing to be a servant in a great house. It was not the loss of her servants that mattered so much. It was the fact that they were her enemies, and that, with the exception of those who had gone to Pigeon Valley, there was only one remaining whom she could trust—and that was Henri, one of the footmen.