Louisiana History Collection - Part 1 (64 page)

“As opposed to being inhuman, savage, in fact?”

He looked at her, his eyes dark. “You are so—”

“What?” she asked in constricted tones.

He could not tell her, for she would not understand. He was not sure he did himself. She looked like an angel, talked like a courtesan, and used the logic of a law clerk. She cooked, she cleaned, she handled a boat like a
voyageur
and could lift half again her own weight, yet she had the most gentle hands he had ever known. Moreover, if he closed his eyes and listened to nothing more than the clear cadences of her voice, he would swear he was hearing a princess of royal blood. She was an enigma, was Cyrene Nolté one that intrigued him, even entranced him. And that would not do.

“You are so damnably reasonable,” he answered in haste, “and right, of course.”

Cyrene leaned her elbows on her knees and propped her chin in her hands. After a moment she said, “Is it true that you were at court?”

“Yes, for a time.”

“Tell me about it.”

“What do you want to know?”

“What was it like? What kind of man is the king? Is La Pompadour as beautiful as they say, and as cultured? Did you enjoy it?”

“Court is boring ceremony and decorum, but exciting for all that because there is the smell of power in every room. The king, like most monarchs, is totally self-centered, but he’s a man of some ability, if he could be brought to use it. La Pompadour is a lovely creature with exquisite taste in furniture and clothing, but poor judgment in men. As for enjoying being there, sometimes yes, sometimes no. It is not a place in which I would choose to spend all my life.”

The candor of his comments could be taken as a compliment or it could indicate how negligible he considered her. Cyrene frowned. “This is treason, m’sieur, is it not? I thought one was obliged to be dazzled?”

“Treason is trafficking with the English, not scorning the glories of Versailles.”

“I thought we had been done with the English these four months, since this treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle everyone is discussing.”

‘There may be peace in Europe, but not here.”

“Do you take time to consider what is happening in the colony? I had not expected it.”

He met her clear gaze, his own wry. “I am not such a court fop that I don’t know your problems here.”

“Apparently not, but I assure you there are many who have not the slightest idea or the least concern when they arrive.”

The major problem was the struggle for this vast new continent, though that struggle created a host of minor annoyances, such as constant warfare with the Indians. For years, the English, spreading westward from the Carolinas, had been arming and inciting the Chickasaws, portions of the Choctaw, and other minor southern tribes against the French. The French government, with great enthusiasm, retaliated in kind. During the previous autumn, the most famous of the Choctaw renegades in the pay of the English, Red Shoe, had been assassinated by his own tribesmen in an effort to settle the conflict. It had not helped.

There had been many casualties, most recently among the farmers of the German coast, the hard-working people of Aryan stock brought over by John Law, who kept New Orleans supplied with vegetables. New Orleans had also lost its dancing master, the much-lamented M’sieur Babi, in a skirmish with the savages. Still, the greatest effect of the difficulties was on trade.

Trading with the English was forbidden by letters patent of the king, and the practice was considered treason. On the other hand, due to the parsimony of the crown and the corruption of the French supply system, the goods sent to the colony were not only inferior to English goods but less than adequate in amount as well. There were times when the French in Louisiane would have been naked and starving without the traffic with the English. In addition, the Indians had learned discrimination. They preferred the red and blue limbourg cloth and the iron pots and clasp knives of the British, though French faïence wares and brandy found greater favor.

But if English goods were what the Indians wanted, then English goods they must have, for the furs harvested by the savages were far and away the most valuable commodity in the colony. The Indian allies of the French were sworn to kill any English traders who came among them, but the only thing that kept a wily French trader from passing out English goods was the difficulty in getting to English ships, ships prevented from ascending the Mississippi River. Louisiane indigo was far superior to that raised anywhere else in the world and was in great demand in England. If he could reach the English ships, a man could barter a few casks of the precious blue powder for goods that, when exchanged for pelts, could establish the base for a fortune or supply a family for a year. Such Frenchmen called themselves traders. A more accurate name for them would be smugglers. The Bretons were of that independent and intrepid breed.

Trading with the English under the circumstances was, of course, treason. The attempts to stop it were zealous, primarily because the post commandants usually enjoyed exclusive trading concessions for their areas, concessions obtained through favoritism or graft paid to the governor or his lady. But the soldiers sent to do the job were usually so undisciplined or incompetent that eluding them was hardly sport. Born and bred in the New World, living most of their lives in the wilderness, the Bretons could take advantage of knowledge and skills undreamed of by the raw recruits, things they had taught Cyrene as a matter of survival when she went with them on their ventures.

“I am enough of the fop, however,” René said, recapturing her attention, “to wish for my razor and a change of clothes, if there should be someone who might go to my lodging to fetch them. Or, failing that, I could send a note to Madame Vaudreuil asking that she arrange it.”

“There should be no difficulty. I can do it myself.”

There was a tread behind her. Gaston, striding into the cabin carrying a basket of fresh-cleaned fish, set it on the cook table. His voice was tight and his gaze shifted between the two of them as he said, “Do what?”

Cyrene repeated Lemonnier’s civil request. Knowing she would not be allowed to walk into the city alone, she added, “You will go with me, won’t you, Gaston?”

“Don’t be an idiot. You can’t go.”

“Not alone, but there should be nothing wrong if you went with me.”

“Nothing wrong? You want to visit the quarters of the most notorious libertine in Paris, stay long enough to bundle up his personal belongings, then walk out with them in your arms, and you see nothing wrong?”

“He won’t be there!” Cyrene exclaimed, rising to her feet in her irritation. “And I can hardly be contaminated by carrying his clothes.”

“That’s exactly what you will be. A virginal girl has no business handling a man’s personal belongings.”

“I wash your breeches all the time!”

“That’s different!”

“Explain to me how.”

“Papa and Uncle Pierre are chaperons.”

“I need a chaperon to wash your breeches?”

“You know what I mean!” Gaston shouted, his face hot under René Lemonnier’s interested and ironic gaze.

“Yes, I know,” Cyrene said, her eyes flashing. “Sometimes I think it would be better if I weren’t virginal! Then maybe I wouldn’t be treated like a prisoner.”

“Cyrene!”

“Is that so shocking? How would you like it if your every move was watched from morning till night? If you could not come and go without permission and a guard?”

“We are concerned for you, for your safety.”

“I don’t doubt that, but it comes at a hard price.”

“It can’t be helped, except by a husband.”

“What, another jailer? I’m not sure that’s a solution.”

“Then you must put up with it.”

“Must I?”

Gaston gave her a grin that was not without sympathy. “In the meantime, I’ll fetch the things required.”

Cyrene nodded, but in her mind there beat a simple and daring refrain.
Must I, indeed?

3

FROM THE TIME she was ten until her parents had left France, Cyrene had attended the convent of the Ursulines at Quimperle, an institution that dated back to 1652. There she had studied French, history, and the rudiments of science including sums; practical labors, such as the correct methods of cleaning, baking, preserving food, and gardening; and the social arts of music, dancing, and drawing. She had traveled to and from the convent with her mother, her grandfather, who was paying her expenses, and her governess. While she was there, she had been under the supervision not only of the nuns but also of her governess, who had stayed to look after her room and her toilette and to accompany her on excursions and holiday visits to her home.

There had never, in fact, been a time that Cyrene could remember when she had been entirely on her own, entirely unsupervised.

At the convent there had been girls who were envious of her for having her governess with her, a familiar companion, someone to see to her needs. But even then Cyrene had chafed at the restriction, at the constant admonitions that did not cease even in her bedchamber. She had been told that she was being readied for the time when she would have social position and the responsibility of managing her own household. There was mention of the dowry her grandfather would provide and the man of excellent family and fortune she would surely marry. She must learn deportment and a woman’s proper place in order to enjoy such benefits.

The result had been a stubborn sort of rebellion. She had joined a group of girls who had delighted in taking risks, such as stealing plums and apples from the convent orchard, passing notes to the village boys over the walls, or flirting demurely with the virile gentleman who came to teach them drawing. The discipline when the misdemeanors were discovered was stern; the older nuns deplored such habits in the strongest of terms. However, there had been one young nun, Sister Delores, who had understood the urge behind them; Cyrene still wrote to her from time to time. The reckless feeling of those days had never quite left her, though the chance of a fine dowry and a brilliant marriage had come to nothing when she and her parents had left France.

Cyrene did not bewail her lost prospects. There was a time when she would have welcomed a husband chosen for her, if he had been young and not bad-looking and respectably placed. This was no longer true. As she had told Gaston, a husband represented nothing more to her now than another restraint. She sometimes thought of balls and routs and masquerade parties, but since she had never tasted these pleasures, she was able to relinquish them without much distress. Her greatest wish was for freedom, the freedom to get on with her life, to get out and make a place for herself. She could do that, she knew, by trading.

She was no stranger to the occupation. Pierre had never considered her father a reliable chaperon, and so had always taken her with him on his trading expeditions. After the second trip, she had assumed an active part, often helping to choose the goods for which the men bartered and keeping an accounting of values and quantities so that the Bretons would not be cheated. Pierre and Jean had a voluminous knowledge of furs and prices and could do complicated sums in their heads, but in common with many men raised in the wilds of New France, they could read little and write less. In token of their respect for her knowledge and her services with her pen, Pierre had the year before given Cyrene a few pounds of indigo, which she had traded to the English for glass beads, combs, polished steel mirrors, and small iron pots. She had then traded these things to the Indian women in the Choctaw villages for worked leather garments, woven baskets, and a few small furs. Finally, she had then bartered the Indian goods in the market in town for a tidy profit, enough to buy twice as much indigo as Pierre had given her.