The Spy's Souvenir Heart

Chapter 1

One

You have been denounced.

Four simple words, slipped under her front door. They were written in block letters, on rough cotton stock, folded unevenly.

Marguerite de Rouvroy’s morning cup of coffee fell from her numb hand and shattered, the shards of the fine porcelain scattering like dragon’s teeth across the parquet floor of the entrance hall.

No point in cleaning up now.

She knew this might happen; knew she should prepare an escape plan. But she’d gone round and round, wondering in these treacherous times, who would be willing to take her in? Who would she be willing to put at risk?

It was so much easier to concentrate on painting, creating worlds she controlled.

Women were finally allowed to submit their work to the Salon of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture at the Louvre.

And if hers was accepted? The doors that would open, the customers and students who’d walk through them!

The exhibition was in less than three months and her paintings were nearly complete. All that work, all that hope? Was it all for nothing? Her chest felt suddenly too tight.

How much time did she have before the guards from the Committee for Public Safety came to arrest her? An hour? Maybe less?

Marguerite swept a hand through her hair, scattering pins from her already-loose knot of curls, her mind running through the things she would need.

Then she turned from the door, picked up her skirts, raced from the entrance hall, up the stairs, and into the sitting room.

Dragging the shawl she used to cover errant paint stains off the sofa, she shook it out and spread it on the floor.

Hurrying down the hall to the bedroom, she threw open trunks and drawers, gathering fichus, stockings, garters, a skirt, a redingote.

She left everything open. Let the men coming to arrest her see she had nothing to hide.

Arms piled high with clothes, she raced back to the sitting room and flung them atop the shawl. They settled in a messy explosion of flowers, dots, and stripes—all in shades of red, white, and blue. The colors of the revolution.

She’d been among the noblewomen donating her jewels to the National Assembly in 1789.

She’d marched in the street, shoulder to shoulder with women of all classes singing the revolutionary anthem, It’ll be fine, and believed with her whole heart that the day of glory had arrived.

Fist in the air, she’d shouted for liberty, equality, fraternity, thinking they were more than just words.

Just two years ago, women had been granted the right to divorce, to inherit property, to submit their work to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture.

She’d dared to dream the Revolution would set her, an aristocrat’s daughter, free, too.

Told herself each incident of violence was an aberration. The last time. They were creating a new society, a new form of government, there was no blueprint. Mistakes would be made, but surely, cooler heads would prevail.

“Candles,” she reminded herself and headed for the kitchen. “Wherever I’m going, I’ll need good light.”

Throwing open the doors of a large cabinet, it occurred to her that if it hadn’t been so filled with dishware and pans it might have been the perfect place to hide.

Would it be better to try and hide than to flee?

One of the cabinet doors banged against the wall, and she jumped.

Took a breath to calm herself and stared at it.

Could she conceal herself behind the door?

If she did hide, how long would she have to stay concealed?

How long would it take for them to find her?

Would it make her look more guilty?

Why hadn’t she made a plan?

Her father had begged her to leave with him. But living under his roof, under his control, would have been like prison.

Now she was facing actual prison.

“Keep moving, Marguerite,” she told herself, pulling open the drawer where she stored snifters, flint, and candles. She grabbed four candles, and, clutching them tightly, ran back to the sitting room; rolled them in a white cap trimmed with red lace.

Would she die alone? Tied to a plank, arms tied behind her, the blade of the guillotine whistling down towards her exposed neck? No. She couldn’t think about that now. She surveyed the pile on the shawl. What else?

Money. Wherever she was going, she’d need money. She had prepared an emergency cache of coins and assignats. Stored it in a ginger jar on the mantelpiece.

She’d heard that money in prison spelled the difference between a filthy pile of straw and a bed.

But for how long?

“Stop thinking, Marguerite, just keep moving.” How many times had her husband told her that thinking was the preserve of men? That too much thinking, with her inferior woman’s brain, would lead to trouble?

Crossing the room, she snatched the jar off the white marble ledge, pulled out the sack of money, and tossed it on the pile; it sank among the skirts. Chewing at her lip, she studied the pile. It was getting too big. If she added anything more, she wouldn’t be able to shoulder it.

Still…

She glanced around the room, At the bright yellow walls and matching curtains, the long windows that flooded the space with light; a wave of homesickness sweeping over her as if she’d been gone for years.

Gerard had mocked her artistic aspirations.

Had balked at allowing her to take lessons, only relenting when he discovered the instructor and the other students were women.

After his death, she’d rolled up the carpets, set up her easels in front of them, spread her paints, charcoals, brushes, palettes and palette knives, jars of turpentine and linseed on the marquetry tables, heedless of the mess.

She’d spread bright shawls over the sofa and a few chairs to hide a growing collection of paint smears and coffee stains on the cream-colored silk brocade.

Stacked her canvases and portfolios against the walls, along with bolts of fabric that she used to drape behind her models.

Her three prize paintings were arrayed on easels in front of the windows.

Leaving them behind felt impossibly painful. Like cutting off a limb.

And then there were her precious books, stored in a slender vitrine bookcase set against the wall.

Behind its glass-paneled doors was an eccentric collection of novels, art books, sketchbooks, and pamphlets.

They weren’t all valuable; indeed, a true bibliophile might consider many of them trash.

Her favorite was a battered brown tome tucked at the end of the second shelf.

It was a treatise on art that she’d kept largely for the lines some scorned lover had scrawled in graphite pencil in the margin:

A woman, like a viper amongst the leaves, can hide her deadly designs behind face paint, powder, and petticoats, but not, I believe, with a brush on canvas. If ever the Devil leads me to love again, I shall demand of my lover, do not tell me of your heart, fair one, but show me your art.

Melodramatic and yet, somehow the words had called to her. What would it be like to be seen for what she created, rather than judged for how she looked, or for the family she’d been born or married into.

She’d been so close to finding out.

“Enough,” she said sharply. Hands on hips, she studied the pile of clothes.

Just enough room for her sketchbook if she took out a skirt.

But…where was it? She whirled around, scanning the room for the book with the green canvas cover.

It should be on the table next to the sofa, but it wasn’t.

She peered under the sofa to see if it had fallen on the floor.

Crawled over to the table to scan the area around it.

A knock at the front door made her jump, nearly striking her head on the table’s trim. It echoed up the stairs from the entrance hallway.

The knock was followed by a banging, which became a pounding. Loud and insistent.

Or was that her heart?