For Love of Country (27 page)

Richard shrugged, and instantly regretted it as pain knifed through his arm. “I sail with good men, Captain.”

Mercier shook his head repeatedly as he busied himself rearranging the papers on his lap. “You will appreciate, Captain Cutler, that my report on this subject will be met with some skepticism by my superiors. At the very least, they will think my brain has become addled with too much wine. And who could blame them, after hearing such an account?” He gave Richard a weak smile.

Richard smiled back.

“Well, Captain Cutler, I suppose that must do. Now, what is next for you? Once you have fully recovered.”

“I must see to repairs of my schooner.”

“Yes, of course. Those repairs will take time—and money.”

“I have funds to pay for repairs. Can you recommend a good shipwright in Toulon?” When Mercier nodded, Richard continued, “I will remain here until my ship is almost ready to sail, then I will travel to Paris while my men remain with the ship. “My crew
will
be allowed to remain here, Captain, until the repairs are made?” Again Mercier nodded. “Thank you. Once I reach Paris, I will visit Captain John Paul Jones. You know of him, I trust?”

Mercier held up the palms of his hands in French fashion, as if to say, “Who in France has not?”

“Captain Jones will be leading a delegation to Barbary,” Richard said. He saw no point in being secretive about Jones' mission. It seemed to be common knowledge in several parts of the world. “I have information that may prove useful to him.”

“Yes. It is what I read in a dispatch from your consul, Mr. Jefferson, when he requested permission for you to use our medical facilities here. I had wondered if you still planned to travel to Paris.”

“I do. After what happened in Algiers, nothing is more important to me.”

“I understand, Captain. But I feel I must warn you . . .” Mercier paused.

“Warn me about what, monsieur?”

Mercier removed his eyeglasses and began wiping them with a handkerchief drawn from an inner pocket of his uniform dress coat. Richard
waited in silence for the man to collect, assess, and finally articulate his thoughts.

“You are aware of . . . the difficulties we are having in France?”

Richard understood generally what Mercier meant, though he had little specific knowledge. Even before leaving home he had read in the Boston newspapers about the unrest in France and the disastrous state of the French economy. It was caused in no small part by excessive spending on the French military, specifically the French Royal Navy, by the government of King Louis XVI, who hoped to avenge the loss of French prestige and overseas possessions following the Seven Years' War against England. France's hatred for England had been the basis of the military alliance between France and America during the Revolutionary War.

Hunger and unemployment in France had been exacerbated by severe droughts in the south and bizarre summer hailstorms in the north that had all but destroyed the harvest for 1788. The price of bread had soared, and the government's efforts to stimulate the economy and get things back on an even keel had been badly bungled. Famine had gripped the nation with such severity that food riots had broken out in many cities. Peasants who could no longer afford to buy bread demanded relief from well-to-do landlords who continued to demand rents and other vestiges of feudal privilege. Those dressed in rags and barely able to scrounge together a few sous resented paying high rents to a landlord who spent the money on snuff to clear his nostrils and perfume to scent his powdered wig.

When the gathering storm finally broke and angry mobs began sacking Bordeaux and other French cities, shock waves of disbelief reverberated all the way across Spain to Gibraltar. Jeremy Hardcastle had informed Richard during his visit there that French citizens fueled by hate and desperation were breaking into bakeries and seizing shopkeepers accused of price-fixing or hoarding bread, lynching them on the spot or bludgeoning them to death in a fury of lawless retribution that enlarged to include local officials and tax collectors guilty only of doing their jobs. King Louis had pleaded for calm, promising reforms in a bankrupt system that had failed nearly everyone. He vowed to convene the États Généraux, a government body encompassing the three estates of the French societal pyramid that had not sat since 1614, during the reign of the Sun King, Louis XIV. The king's promises and the respect he still commanded among his subjects succeeded in restoring a semblance
of order. But it was a tenuous truce at best, with dark whispers of insurrection continuing to threaten France like a fire-arrow of destruction aimed from the vast underbelly of the third estate, up through the heart and soul of French culture—the chevaliers of the second estate and the clergy of the first—all the way to the very tip of the pyramid: the court of Versailles where King Louis resided with his despised Austrian-born queen, Marie Antoinette.

“I regret that your country is suffering, Captain,” Richard said, with a sincerity he truly felt. “France was a loyal ally of my country during the war. We could not have won our independence without your help.”

Mercier bowed. “France was pleased and proud to help, monsieur.” He gazed beyond Richard, his eyes misting with pride as if he were recalling an earlier age when the power and prestige of La Belle France had stirred the hearts of all Frenchmen, from the lowliest of the low to the grandest of nobles fêting one another in their magnificent
châteaux.

He snapped to when Richard asked, “Is it safe to travel to Paris these days, Captain?”

“What? Oh. You are asking me if it is safe to travel to Paris?”

“Yes.”

“The journey itself is safe, I should think. The danger is what may await you once you arrive there. Whatever is coming, it will begin and it will end in Paris. You are an American. Your country is much admired by my people, rich and poor alike. Ironic, is it not, that France fought for America's independence and now finds herself threatened by what America achieved. Those who would limit the powers of the monarchy, or abolish it altogether, call themselves ‘patriots,' as you Americans did during your revolution. The marquis de Lafayette, a nobleman of ancient blood, is leading the call for reform in France, seeming to care nothing for his own class and privileged status.” He smiled without humor, a man who had far more than privileged status to lose if
l'ancien régime
collapsed.

Under the circumstances, Richard thought it best not to mention that he was well acquainted with the marquis de Lafayette. He had served under him at the Battle of Yorktown, and his parents had met the Frenchman at a reception held at the Anchor Inn in Hingham when Lafayette traveled there during the war to confer with Brigadier General Benjamin Lincoln, Washington's second in command.

“Excuse me, Captain Cutler,” Mercier said, rising from his chair. “I have kept you longer than I promised. I must take my leave. But first I
must add that you needn't worry about the safety of your schooner or her cargo. The quays are patrolled night and day, and I have ordered a detail of marines to stand watch over her. Before I go, is there anything I might do for you? Or have sent to you?”

“Just the repairs to my schooner,” Richard reminded him. “And I would be obliged, Captain, if you could have pen and paper sent to me. I have many letters to write.”

“Of course. I will see to your requests immediately. Adieu, Captain Cutler. I have enjoyed our conversation and I wish you good luck.” He offered a salute.

“
Bonne chance à vous aussi,
” Richard said, saluting in turn. “
Et, capitaine
?” he added as Mercier was about to make his exit. Mercier glanced back. “
Vive la France!
”

Mercier held Richard's gaze. “
Vive le roi!
” he said softly, passionately, before turning and disappearing through the folds of the curtains.

 

THE WEEKS ROLLED ONWARD. Though the calendar indicated that spring was approaching, the weather claimed otherwise. The winter of 1789 was the coldest in memory, the chill of Christmas descending to outright frigid conditions in January that heaped misery upon misery on the hapless French peasantry. Unable to procure food and firewood to keep themselves alive, many families died in their sleep, huddled together in scraps of clothing and blankets. Nor did winter's wrath spare the southern provinces. Throughout Provence, delicate grapevines and more sturdy olive trees remained encased in tombs of ice until the warming rays of April finally released them from the death grip—too late; the produce on which so many people relied had been destroyed.

In Toulon, windows of buildings designed to welcome in, not shut out, the soothing breezes of the Mediterranean remained shuttered for weeks on end. If one looked down toward the harbor and the massive La Bagne prison at the base of the mountains on the eastern shore, one could only imagine the suffering of the French radicals and other accused enemies of the state shivering inside in the cold while awaiting transport to some distant penal colony from which they would never return.

Richard saw a different view as he walked slowly alongside the quays of Toulon early one morning in May: a cloudless sky and glints of sunshine reflecting off
Falcon
's newly rigged shrouds. She was tied to a dock nearby, a tiny vessel compared with the mammoth ships anchored out in the harbor: an array of battle cruisers the likes of which Richard
had not witnessed since the summer of '74, when he and his brother Will had sailed past the British naval base at Spithead.
Falcon
had only recently come out of dry dock, her repairs delayed by the weather and the turmoil sweeping France—and thus extending by several months the time granted her crew to remain in Toulon. But her repairs were nearing completion; Richard had been informed just yesterday that she should be ready for sea trials within a fortnight. As he slowed his step still more to keep pace with Agreen limping along beside him, the thought again occurred to him that whatever else might be said about the French, they knew how to build and repair ships.
Falcon
had never looked better. He said as much to Agreen.

“Careful, matey,” Agreen groused. “Ben Hallowell would have you flogged for speakin' such heresy,” referring to the shipwright in Boston who had designed and built
Falcon.
“He'd set up a grate on the Common and invite all your rich friends up from Hingham t' come watch you get yours.”

A glint shone in Richard's eye when he asked, “Do you think Lizzy would be there?”

“Damn right she'd be there. She'd be first in line, given what-all you've made me put up with ever since I signed on with your outfit. And I haven't even told her the bad things. I don't want her angrier at you than she already is.” He shook his head. “Mark my words, matey, mark them well: if by some miracle we ever do get back t' Boston, I have half a mind t' quit your employ.”

Richard squeezed Agreen's shoulder, gently. “That's okay, Agee. I'd miss you, but I'd understand. If you'd just do me the courtesy of leaving me the half of your mind that still works, I'd settle for that.”

“What the hell kind of sense does
that
make? Jesus, Richard.” Agreen lifted his face to the sun and ran his fingers through his unkempt reddish blond hair, pulling it back to expose as much of his face and neck as possible to the remedial heat. “Damn, that feels good,” he sighed. “For a while there I thought I'd never feel this warm again.”

“You and the rest of France,” Richard commiserated.

They watched together as a team of workmen on
Falcon
's deck heaved on ropes, using the leverage provided by her capstan to crank up a refurbished foretopsail yard to a second team of four perched high in the shrouds, ready to receive the spar and secure it into place. Elsewhere along the quays that stretched for a good quarter-mile in front of the medieval city that King Louis XIV had decreed would serve as his primary naval base, a host of shipwrights and carpenters and pursers
and other petty officers toiled under the critical eye of white-uniformed officers.

Richard noticed Agreen leaning heavily against his cane for support. “Let's sit over there,” he suggested, indicating a stone bench set well back from the quays, almost against the city walls. The tide was coming in, bringing with it the noisome flotsam and sewage from the great ships anchored out in the harbor. Away from the quays the stench was less offensive.

Agreen sat down with a sigh and stretched his injured leg out before him.

“How's it coming?” Richard asked. He glanced again at the newspaper he had been carrying before putting it aside. It reported, on page three, that in February the American Electoral College had elected George Washington as its first president. John Adams had received the second largest number of votes—a mere handful compared with Washington's count—and thus would serve as vice president. The oath of office was scheduled to be taken some time in late April in New York—which meant that today, as he was reading the old newspaper, a new president and a new Constitution had taken the helm in America.

“Right smartly,” Agreen replied as he massaged the kneecap. “It does me good t' walk on it. Give me another week or two and I'll be dancing a jig. Have you given more thought t' my goin' with you t' Paris?”

Richard nodded heavily. They had covered this ground before, both in the hospital and more recently in the modestly priced
auberge
where they had found lodging in the heart of the medieval quarter of the city, near the grain market on the Place Puget. “My decision stands, Agee. Lamont needs your help sailing
Falcon
to Lorient. We have only sixteen men left as crew, and four of them can't do much. That leaves twelve able-bodied seamen. Besides, you've been to Lorient. You know the harbor and the town.” When silence greeted his words, he added, from the heart, “You know my preferences here, Agee. And you know how much Captain Jones was looking forward to seeing you. I hated to tell him that you would not be coming with me. But
Falcon
and the men need you more than I.”