Paris: The Novel (72 page)

Marie was impressed. They had scarcely arrived at the gate before a balding, middle-aged man came hurrying out to meet them. After briefly greeting Fox, he turned at once to her parents.

“Monsieur and Madame Blanchard? I am the private secretary of Monsieur Iffla, and he asks me to present you a thousand apologies. He had particularly hoped to meet you. But then this morning he had word that his niece was sick, and so he was obliged to go back into Paris to see her. But he hopes you will enjoy your visit here. I am to show you anything you wish.” He bowed and smiled. “Monsieur Iffla and his nieces are great admirers of the Joséphine department store,” he continued, “and it is a great honor to welcome you to the house of the Empress Joséphine who, I understand, inspired your choice of name for your store.”

“Monsieur Iffla is very kind,” said Jules, and one could see that he was flattered.

What a good man Fox was, thought Marie. What trouble he had taken to ensure a fitting reception, and to give her parents so much pleasure.

For if Jules Blanchard was rich, Monsieur Iffla’s wealth was on a completely different scale. Born in Bordeaux, of a Moroccan Jewish family, he had taken a Christian wife, and emerged from a career in banking and investment one of the richest men in France. Not only his wealth, but his magnificent acts of philanthropy had earned him the nickname Osiris—the Egyptian god, the Lord of Life.

And if it weren’t for Osiris, this charming national treasure of Malmaison would probably be in ruins.

It was a manor house, really, whose elegant proportions earned it the title of château. Or, since it lay not four miles west of the Bois de Boulogne, one might almost call it an intimate suburban palace.

It was a few years after the French Revolution when Joséphine de Beauharnais had bought the little estate after marrying the rising young general Napoléon. By the time he returned from his campaign in Italy, the young conqueror found that Joséphine had already spent far more than he could afford on improvements to the place. But in the end Joséphine’s extravagance had produced a delightful retreat, where she’d lived herself until her death. Since the days of Napoléon, the house had had several owners until it had been occupied and stripped by the military in the war of 1870, from which it had not recovered.

But now Osiris was taking the place in hand.

“It will still be years before we have entirely restored the place,” the secretary explained, “but Monsieur Iffla has a fine collection of Napoleonic objects which will find a natural home here. He is a great admirer of the emperor.”

“What does he admire in particular?” Marc inquired.

“Many things. But especially that Napoléon gave the Jews religious freedom.”

As they walked through the house, their guide pointed out the music room; the fine dining room in the Pompeian style; the council chamber, which had been decorated to look like the inside of a lavish military tent; and the library, which might have belonged to a Roman emperor. These were full of Napoleonic character. But Marie and her mother preferred the rich but charming room of Joséphine with its canopied bed.

“One must always remember,” their guide remarked to her, “that Joséphine became elegant, but she was also a little exotic. She was brought up amid plantation life in the Caribbean. That was perhaps what fascinated Napoléon: that she was different.”

“I have never traveled anywhere,” Marie remarked.

“You have plenty of time, mademoiselle,” he said kindly. “Plenty of time.”

One of the last rooms they visited was the Salon Doré—a salon that had once been beautifully gilded, but was now in a state of terrible disrepair.

“This was horribly damaged in the war,” the secretary remarked. The curtains had been torn to shreds, he explained, the furniture had had to be thrown out, even the gilt paneling had been smashed.

At one side of the room, on a table, were various items that had been salvaged. These included a rather nondescript chess set, which caught her father’s eye. He smiled.

“I have read that the emperor Napoléon was an indifferent chess player,” he remarked. “Too impatient. Perhaps Joséphine was better.”

“Papa took up chess recently,” Marie told them all. “But he doesn’t practice.”

“I’m so bad that no one wants to play with me,” her father said. “And Marie refuses to learn.”

She noticed Fox looking thoughtful.

“Do you play, Monsieur Fox?” she asked.

“Funnily enough, I’m in the same situation as your father,” he replied. “Perhaps we should play occasionally?” he suggested to Jules.

“My dear Fox,” her father replied, “this is a stroke of fortune. Why don’t you come around one evening? What about Thursday?” He glanced at his wife.

“I hope you will dine with us,” she said to the Englishman. “Just
en famille
. Then you two men can play chess afterward.”

Fox bowed.

“You’re very kind. I should be delighted,” he answered.

Marie gave him a smile. She liked the way he made her father happy.

The little park outside was delightful. Marie walked between Fox and her father, while her mother was accompanied by Marc and Hadley. Marie was quite content, but she quite often glanced at the American and wished that she, and not her mother, was beside him. Their guide, meanwhile, was explaining the challenge that the park presented.

“The empress Joséphine kept all kinds of exotic animals here. Ostriches, zebras, even a kangaroo. This we cannot replicate.” He smiled. “The original park was larger. The real question is, what can be done about the plants?”

And now Marie’s mother gently intervened.

“The empress had an orangerie with all kinds of rare plants, from around the world. And her rose garden changed the history of gardening.”

“My wife knows a great deal about gardens and plants,” Jules said proudly.

“Then you will know, madame, that the empress Joséphine’s huge collection of roses was wonderfully recorded by the artist Redouté.”

“And her lilies too,” Marie’s mother corrected. “I have several prints at Fontainebleau.” She looked about. “A garden takes much longer to build than a house. I think you’ll have to leave the rose garden until later.”

It was this little exchange that gave Marie the chance to bring the American into the conversation.

“What sort of gardens do you have in America, Monsieur Hadley?” she asked. “Are they anything like our European gardens?”

“Not as good, I have to say,” he answered easily. “The traditional garden of Colonial America is usually not large, but somewhat formal, with clipped box hedges, quite geometric. A modest version of what you find in some French châteaus, or old English gardens, I think. My parents have a
garden like that at their house in Connecticut.” He smiled. “Our houses are quite modest. My parents’ house is typical.” And he briefly described the pleasant white clapboard house his parents occupied, with its picket fence and quiet old trees.

“It sounds enchanting,” Marie said.

“It is. But it’s not at all French,” he said.

“Why so?”

“Because I have noticed that in Europe, people put walls around their houses if they can. They defend their privacy as if they lived in a little fortress. And the bigger houses are set up to suggest the social status and power of their owners. The big plantations in the South have some of that character, but up in the Northeast, our tradition is more democratic. There was never a lord of the manor. Equal citizens got together to elect their local officials. Our houses, big or small, have low fences. It’s all about being a good neighbor.”

“These are the ideals of the French Revolution,” Jules remarked.

“Tell me, sir, your house at Fontainebleau is a château?”

“Not at all. It’s in the town. But it has a very nice garden.”

“And what encloses the garden?”

Jules laughed.

“A high wall.”

“Perhaps Monsieur Hadley should see the garden,” suggested Marie, “to judge for himself.”

“We’ll arrange it sometime,” said her father.

“The truth is,” said Marc, “that most Frenchmen know only two things about America: Lafayette and Buffalo Bill. I think we should all come to America to visit you, Hadley.”

“You’d be more than welcome,” Hadley replied. “My parents would be glad to repay some of your hospitality. Come in the summer and we can all go up to the cottage in Maine.”

“A cottage,” said Marie. “That sounds even more charming. Does it have a thatched roof?”

“When Americans like Hadley speak of a summer cottage,” her brother explained, “they mean something different. I’ve seen a photograph of the Hadley summer cottage. It’s a huge shingle house on a rocky coastline, with the sea on one side and a lake on the other.”

“It’s a pretty nice place,” Hadley admitted. “The sun comes up over the sea and sets over the lake. It’s wild but comfortable.”

“Do you row on the lake?” Marie asked.

“I do.”

“He rowed for his university,” Marc told them. “You can see he’s built to be an oarsman.”

The conversation turned back to the delights of Malmaison after that. But on the way back, though she tried not to look at him, Marie to her surprise found herself imagining Hadley rowing across the wild American lake, his shirt open, and his thick mane of hair blowing in the wind.

One other member of the party was also lost in thought on the journey back, but his concerns were very different.

He was thinking that he now had four days to learn to play chess.

Fox’s first evening visit was a great success. Before the meal he chatted easily with Marie and her mother, and played with the puppy just as if he were a member of the family.

At dinner, he talked delightfully about his childhood in England and holidays up in the wilds of Scotland. The conversation turned serious for a little while when he and her father discussed the latest vicious quarrels in the newspapers over the Dreyfus case. But he then told a story of two brothers getting into a fight over Dreyfus and suing each other, which was so absurd that they were all in fits of laughter.

Afterward, he and her father had their game of chess. It was a close thing, they both agreed, but in the end Fox prevailed. This pleased her father even more than if he’d won.

“I want my revenge next week,” he demanded.

“I could manage Wednesday or Friday, but not Thursday,” Fox replied. “On Thursday I go to the opera.”

“Wednesday, then,” said Jules, with a quick glance at his wife.

“Dinner will be at eight,” she said with a smile.

Two days later Marie was amused to see her father reading a chess manual.

Marie went to see her aunt that weekend. Unlike the rest of her family, Aunt Éloïse chose to live in a quarter that was not fashionable. The apartment lay just south of the university Latin Quarter near the Luxembourg Gardens, but it was large and light, and the walls were hung
with paintings, mostly of the Barbizon school and the Impressionists that had followed it, all of which she’d bought herself over the years. She was delighted to see Marie and wanted to hear all her news.

“What of Monsieur de Cygne?” she asked.