Ribbons of Scarlet Read online

  “Mademoiselle, I would attempt it if only for the reward of your dimpled smile,” Lafayette replied, taking a gulp from his wineglass. “But you’d be sorry for the result. Give me a battle to win with a sword, and I’ll fight. Give me a battle that must be won with a pen . . . and I flop like a fish in mud.” I deflated with disappointment until he gestured with his glass. “My esteemed friend Condorcet, though, has great powers of argumentation. I hope you won’t think me presumptuous to have asked him to take up his quill in support of your case . . .”

  The beak-nosed Marquis de Condorcet, who’d said not a single word to anyone through dinner, made a sound somewhat like a grunt.

  I couldn’t tell if that meant he’d agreed to help us or not. Or whether or not we should wish him to.

  Uncle Charles said we needed the support of a man in the political sphere—not the academic one. But if Lafayette thought Condorcet might be of assistance, then I wished to encourage it. I flashed my most winning smile. “If the Marquis de Condorcet were to acknowledge the merits of our cause, and write in support of the condemned prisoners, he, too, would have my deepest gratitude.”

  “I wouldn’t do it for your gratitude,” Condorcet said so sharply his words might have cut. “I’d only take up my pen in this matter to demonstrate the need for a jury-based system of justice.”

  I startled at his curtness.

  And Uncle Charles—who was not so liberal a magistrate as to be entirely easy with the idea that legal decisions should be left up to a jury of uneducated, ordinary persons—looked like he’d bitten a lemon. I could see he was thinking it might actually be worse to be defended by an eccentric like Condorcet than to be left twisting at the mercy of the Paris Parlement. But with the lives of the prisoners in the balance, it was worth the risk.

  “Trial by jury I’ve seen in America,” Lafayette was saying. “It better reflects public opinion, but there are those who argue a jury is not wiser or more merciful than a judge . . .”

  Madame de Sainte-Amaranthe chuckled.

  But Condorcet said, “I can prove otherwise, sir. Mathematically.”

  “Mathematically?” I asked, with a chuckle of my own.

  Condorcet’s frosty expression told me he was not making a jest. “Yes, mademoiselle. Mathematically. I’ve published an essay on the application of analysis to the probability of majority decisions. A jury theorem, if you will . . .”

  Then, with clipped gestures, Condorcet explained what he called the social arithmetic by which he could prove that the more reasonably informed people vote on a decision, the more likely they are to reach the correct answer.

  It was not, of course, the most stimulating discourse for a dinner party. Or so I gathered from the glazed expression of his listeners. When Condorcet took paper from Lafayette’s mahogany secrétaire to scratch out equations, people fled the room. But I remained, watching over his shoulder, impressed by his statistical defense for democratic decisions.

  “I’m sorry for laughing,” I said when he was finished. “I’d no idea mathematics could be applied this way.”

  Condorcet straightened, stiffly, and tugged his waistcoat. “You’re not the first to laugh at me, and I doubt you’ll be the last.”

  I hadn’t laughed at him, and his prickliness bordered on rude. I would’ve taken offense but for the fact that he’d explained his work to me rather than assuming, as most men of his stature might, that I couldn’t understand. That emboldened me to ask, “Is there not an exception to your formulation? What if the jurors are all uneducated, or unenlightened and ill-informed?”

  He lifted an appreciative brow at my question. “In that case, the math would lead to the opposite conclusion, where the ideal jury is one.”

  “Like a judge,” I said, enjoying our intellectual discussion in spite of his curtness.

  “Or a king,” he replied. “But we’re not savages in France. Only give a free secular education to all the people and we can govern ourselves.”

  Reflexively, I glanced over my shoulder, wary that anyone should overhear talk that sounded seditious if not treasonous. Fortunately, everyone had bolted for the wine trays and no one was paying us the slightest attention. Feeling as if we now shared some manner of confidence, I asked, almost in a whisper, “You favor a free education for all people?”

  Condorcet nodded. “From serfs to noblemen.”

  “And women?”

  He glanced up in surprise. Perhaps he’d not considered the possibility before. Few men would have. “Why not? You’d seem to be an excellent example of how education may benefit the female sex.”

  I tilted my head again, unsure of whether or not I’d just been complimented. What a very strange man, I thought as our conversation concluded, never realizing the degree to which Condorcet might change the world, and my life in particular.

  MY FATHER DECLARED that it was time for our family to leave Paris and return to our estate at Villette for the summer. This would—not coincidentally, I thought—prevent my continued involvement in my uncle’s case. So I was thrilled when, before my parents could whisk me away, we received an invitation to call upon Condorcet at the Hôtel des Monnaies, the palace on the Left Bank where he oversaw coin makers and clerks.

  Uncle Charles and I arrived precisely at the appointed hour and the liveried servants showed us up the impressive double staircase to Condorcet’s office. At his desk, which was cluttered with papers and books, Condorcet came directly to the point. “If I’m to take a public position on this case, I’ll need to know everything about your condemned peasants.”

  I noticed that Condorcet neither questioned my presence as my uncle’s secretary nor seemed vexed by it. So I told myself not to be vexed by the fact that he didn’t offer refreshments or even a seat. Had the man been raised in a barn?

  My uncle and I took seats anyway, and while he reviewed the legal matters, I supplied the information that one of the condemned men had a young son—a youth of perhaps nine years of age—now living on the streets. “He’ll be made an orphan if his father is executed,” I said. “Then who could it surprise if the poor boy should turn to crime?”

  Condorcet didn’t look up from whatever he was writing. “A boy with an education wouldn’t need to turn to crime. Education is our liberation.”

  Be that as it may, the boy was too poor to afford an education, so I directed the conversation back to a pattern of recent judicial abuses, which included blameless persons being tortured in front of their children. After this discussion, my uncle rose to fetch some documents he’d left in a satchel with the steward, and I found myself momentarily alone with Condorcet. “Surely you wish to help remedy these crimes against the innocent,” I said.

  “It isn’t the innocence of the condemned that make them crimes,” Condorcet replied. “I saw a man burned alive for vandalizing a crucifix. He was assuredly guilty. But it is cruel to subject another person to torture and death. You cannot undo such a punishment if the judgment was in error. More importantly, death is an immoral punishment, unworthy of us.”

  Condorcet wasn’t the first to make this argument, of course. Several reformist lawyers of the time believed the death penalty should be abolished—prominent amongst them, a young associate of my uncle’s named Maximilien Robespierre.

  But at the time, Condorcet was a far more prominent man. “Have you decided to help us, then?” I asked, hopefully.

  Condorcet rubbed his chin. “There’s an argument to be made that with the nation’s finances in shambles, my time is better spent persuading the royals to rein in expenses and reform our tax system, which burdens the poor for the benefit of the rich.”

  Maman would’ve scolded me for arguing with a man of his stature, but I never could stifle my natural predilection for debate. “That is an important matter, but less urgent than the impending torture and death of three men.”

  Condorcet leaned back in his chair. “If I’m asked to weigh the fate of three individuals versus twenty-eight million French subjects .
. .”

  “That’s a cold calculation, sir,” I argued. “Moreover, I believe it’s a miscalculation. Because our case only requires persuading the courts to show clemency and reason. Whereas in the case of the twenty-eight million French subjects, you must persuade the nobles and the clergy to voluntarily surrender their ancient privileges. It seems to me that the likelihood—”

  “The likelihood is that, if I take up your case, I may actually accomplish something for a change?”

  I pressed my lips together. “I beg your pardon if I’ve given offense. My mother says that I have an unfortunate habit of frankness.”

  I thought I saw him smile, ever so slightly. “Something we have in common.”

  This emboldened me to say, “Then perhaps you won’t mind my frankness in confessing that all this talking has made me quite thirsty.”

  Condorcet stared. Blinked. Then remembered his manners. “I am terribly absentminded. I should’ve called for tea . . .”

  Grinning, I said, “I imagine you can still do so.” And because there’d always been in my breast a desire to provoke, I added, “Maybe even some sweets. Perhaps puits d’amour . . .”

  Condorcet’s cheeks colored at the erotic name of the little treats—slang for a woman’s genitalia. And I decided Madame de Sainte-Amaranthe must have been making sport of me to imply that he was a libertine. He was red as a schoolboy as he mumbled, “There must be some sort of, um, pastry in the kitchen . . .”

  Clearly the man had been born in a barn. After calling for a servant, he looked so pained, I decided to rescue him. I noticed a version of Adam Smith’s work open on the table. “You’re reading The Theory of Moral Sentiments. I am an adherent.”

  He looked vaguely surprised. “I was under the impression all the ladies in France were adherents of Rousseau.”

  “Only the foolish ones. Rousseau seems to believe a woman’s only purpose is to torture men or cater to them.”

  “And you believe?”

  I didn’t know how safe it might be to confide my beliefs, so I only said, “I believe this is a bad translation of Smith’s work.”

  He stared with disconcerting directness. “Can you recommend a better one?”

  “Mine,” I said, recklessly. I’d started translating Smith’s work into French—an endeavor I believed might one day be a real achievement. But now I was embarrassed. “It isn’t finished. Mostly, I have notes with my own critique.”

  “I’d like to read your notes.”

  I flushed, torn between being flattered by his interest and fearful of his mockery. “You don’t find it strange that a lady should occupy herself in such a way?”

  He shook his head. “I know what it is, mademoiselle, to desire a different vocation than expected. I myself was nearly forced to be a soldier like my father.”

  I couldn’t imagine Condorcet as a soldier. The man of science didn’t look as if he’d harm an insect. “Well, you seem to have found a more suitable calling, sir . . .”

  “You can too.”

  My cheeks grew hotter, as I feared he might be mocking me after all. My uncle indulged my scholarship, but Condorcet seemed to be encouraging it. It made me curious to see just how far he would continue to do so. “Maman says it’s heresy to defy the divine order in which God has ordained women occupy themselves with domestic concerns.”

  “I believe neither in God nor a divine order,” Condorcet replied, leaning to me with what might almost be a smile. “Only a natural order. Thus, if men have natural rights simply because they’re capable of reason and morality, then I suppose women should have exactly the same rights.”

  My breath caught. It’s what I believed. But hearing it said aloud was a shocking sensation. Electric. Even Uncle Charles would never have gone so far. Which meant that Condorcet was, quite possibly, the most radical man I’d ever met.

  It was for that reason I agreed to send him my notes before I left Paris for the summer. And that is how our correspondence began . . .

  * * *

  Château Villette, Summer 1786

  My Dear C, my letter began, You said you’d like to read my additions to Smith’s work, so I’ve taken the liberty of sending them . . .

  Having been spirited away to our estate in Villette where we awaited my uncle’s visit, writing letters was a pleasant enough diversion from the boredom of country life. And when Condorcet’s surprising reply arrived, it was not only with praise for my intellectual efforts, but also an enclosure of a pamphlet of his own.

  One that lit a fire inside me like a spark to tinder.

  “Can you believe the boldness?” I cried.

  Having run from the house onto the wide drive in front of our manor to greet my uncle as he stepped out of the carriage, I read aloud one of my favorite lines from Condorcet’s pamphlet on behalf of our three prisoners.

  The people groan to be obliged to ask once more, not for a system of laws worthy of an enlightened people, but just for basic human rights . . .

  Condorcet championed a right for all accused to have the assistance of legal counsel and an ability to confront accusers. He called for an end to interrogations by torture. And he made an utter mockery out of any trial, such as the one in which our three prisoners were condemned, where the prejudices of witnesses were not questioned and unreliable testimony was given undeserved weight.

  No one was spared from the heat of his fiery words—not the Paris Parlement, not the king, and not even those who simply wished to look the other way. Condorcet’s pamphlet was stirring and brave and the news from Paris was that it had resulted in at least a temporary reprieve for the prisoners whilst the court reconsidered their case. Victory!

  So why did my uncle look so weary? “The Paris Parlement might spare the prisoners,” he said. “But they’ve vented their rage upon me.”

  My uncle’s work was to be publicly burned. He was also stripped of his magistracy. After dedicating his entire life to the law, my uncle was discarded in disgrace. “To save men’s lives, I’d do it again,” Uncle Charles said bravely. But he took the retaliation hard.

  We all did. Even Maman, who confined her remarks to this single utterance: “Let’s count ourselves fortunate it hasn’t come to worse.”

  “I object to the idea we should think ourselves fortunate not to be imprisoned for seeking justice,” I said.

  I wasn’t the only one, as I learned when Condorcet called upon us late that summer. He came without an entourage, having made the day’s travel from Paris driving his own little chariot, and because he wasn’t expected, I was the only adult member of the family at home to receive him.

  “You came alone?” I asked, after explaining that my mother was delivering bread made from potato flour to the poor and that my father, brother, and uncle were hunting. “You’re lucky you weren’t set upon by highwaymen. We’d have sent a servant to escort you if you’d sent word ahead.”

  “I was uncertain I’d be received if I sent word ahead,” Condorcet admitted as we sat together outside in view of our fountain with its statue of an ancient sea god amidst the spray. With my nephews playing nearby under the supervision of their governess, it was the only place I might entertain a gentleman without suspicion or censure. He’d caught me out wearing only a white muslin gown with blue satin ribbon, and I smoothed the dress over my knees as we settled together upon a marble bench.

  “I’ve come to convey my apologies to your uncle,” he explained. “As I’ve been the cause of his ruin.”

  “My family doesn’t blame you.” After all, Condorcet had only done what we asked. And he’d done it brilliantly. I looked at this shabby absentminded man and wondered how he could write prose that made my heart thump. Condorcet’s pamphlet had been, perhaps, impolitic. But he’d been right.

  “Nevertheless . . .” Condorcet took from his coat a letter on very fine paper, and when he handed it to me, my silly heart thumped again in recognition of Lafayette’s seal. “An invitation from my young friend for your family to join him at
Versailles. It will be quite impossible, of course, to obtain a direct personal audience with the king. Still, there may be powerful people at court who will intervene on your uncle’s behalf.”

  I broke the wax seal and, inside the invitation, found an enclosure. Pressed between the folded page of a brief note, a trio of blue forget-me-nots.

  My compliments to the unforgettable Mademoiselle de Grouchy.

  It annoys me now to remember how, like a schoolgirl in the convent again, I traced the lines of my name where Lafayette had written it, smiling like an idiot. The soldier-hero was, once again, trying to help. But what did he mean by sending me dried flowers? It could be a mere token of friendship and respect. In spite of all good sense, I still wanted it to be more . . .

  “Thank you for delivering this invitation,” I said. “There’s cause for optimism, then, is there not? After all, Maman feared we’d all be thrown into the Bastille with the Marquis de Sade, and yet, we’re still free.”

  “As free as one can be in France,” Condorcet remarked, “where anyone can be jailed on a mere lettre de cachet.”

  “But in the Marquis de Sade’s case, they say he’s a deviant lunatic. The list of rapes and crimes he’s alleged to have committed is long . . .”

  “Perhaps he’s guilty and must be jailed, but how can we know without a trial? He might’ve been released but for the suspicion he’s committed sodomy with his manservant.”

  I gulped in surprise at Condorcet’s frank use of the word sodomy. “You think that’s an unjust reason to imprison a man?”

  “I don’t believe in crimes without victims. Whether suicide or consensual sodomy, it is no one else’s affair. But rape is a violation of the right every woman has to do with her own body as she pleases.”

  I’d never known anyone to defend sodomites before. Nor to claim a woman’s body was her own, though I’d always had an innate sense that I belonged to myself. Still, again, there was something exhilarating in hearing him say it, and I gave him a radiant smile.

  To which he bit his lip and looked away.