Everything had to go right for entertaining la Marquess de Boildier. Louis had to make his baekoffe perfectly and if he was even slightly off form the baekoffe had to be sent back and made again from scratch while the Marquess waited for as long as she was willing to wait. She was known for abrading everyone from the masters to their servants to marching straight into the kitchen.
On the one hand, the Marquess was la grade dame among Paris grande dames, known for her social authority, generosity and politesse. To be graced by the Marquess de Boildier was to have every door of Parisian society open forever, to be out of her graces was to have to return to the provinces, where her reach was such where families she hated may not even be received in their towns of origin by lifelong friends. Families in her favor sat at the table of Kings and generals, and servants she noted for exemplary conduct were remunerated for years thereafter with monthly gratuities in the mail. But legends had grown round Madame la Marquess that if she thought one ingredient off in her meal she would march down to the kitchen and expunge her dish upon the executive chef's head.
We needn't have worried. La Marquess was so taken with the meal she repeated dipping her finger in the plates to savor the sauces of Louis's Baekoffe and the Tarte flambee. Louis will be overjoyed to learn he'd surmounted one of his greatest triumphs. She correctly guessed that the chef had been in Madame Bloch's service since her childhood in Strasbourg, and noted with an impressed gasp of Madame Bloch's lineage, which she'd traced back to the sixteenth century peaks of the Holy Roman Empire when her ancestor, Rabbi Yosel of Rosheim, was a chief advisor and financier to Emperors no less august than Maximilian I and Charles V. But if Madame Bloch could trace her lineage back to the high financiers of Charles V, the Marquess de Boildier, nee Capet, could trace her lineage all the way back to Hugh the Great, and legend had it that her mother's brother, Charles Carolingus, was the patrilineal heir of Charlemagne. To French society, the Blochs would always be Jews, but la Marquess de Boildier would always be France herself.
But even the Marquess de Boildier had bad investments, and even Madame la Marquess had a son... and though Guillaume had bedded his way through Paris, not even Madame la France herself had the bank account to support his gambling largesse, nor was there a suitable match to calm him, a lady beautiful and forgiving and intelligent and rich enough to love this boy who would always remain a boy. The only girl in Paris for Guillaume de Boildier was Rachel Bloch, and it took six years for Guillaume to come to his senses and propose to this unspoiled girl sage enough to forgive him everything and smart enough to keep track his every dalliance, pay his every debt, and manage his every estate. And if Rachel herself proved not smart enough, surely her eldest brother, the honourable Robert, was as cunning and patient as their estimable father.
All the more urgent was this matter because La Marquess felt personally responsible for the Bloch's societal humiliation. Madame la Marquess came within days of sealing the betrothal between There were twenty-million women in France with whom Guillaume's affairs would cause no scandal, but Guillaume had to run off with the Duchesse d'Orleans, which of course necessitated a duel, which of course ended with Guillaume killing the Duke d'Orleans, which of course resulted in the Duchesse's suicide. Any other woman in France would never be able to show her face again in polite society, but polite society was la Marquess, and no French noble would deign her unvenerable enough to withhold reservation of her rightful place.
But Madame la Marquess had not the heart to visit a son like this upon any family, even a Jewish one. The Bloch's gave no indication of wilting zeal to press the betrothal forward, but so soon after scandal, Guillaume could have no public wedding befitting a de Boildier. The Marquess considered a public ceremony empty theater, except it would keep society's eyes affixed upon Guillaume, who might then be prevailed upon somewhat to reform.
Certainly Guillaume was unready for any commitment resembling marriage, and therefore Rachel must be free to bless a more deserving family with her manifold charms. It was not long before la Marquess heard that she would marry into the Dreyfuses - another sensible family of Alsatian Jews. Those Hebrews could do much for France if only they were not so prudent in keeping to themselves. France would not be France without risk, and these Israelites seem to believe that the society of France will believe any family well intentioned that makes no display of itself.
Yet again poor Rachel avoided a scandalous marriage by a centime when her fiance's uncle was arraigned on charges of treason and espionage, and was mercifully permitted escape of betrothal. At twenty-five, she may not now seem as marriageable as once she was, but she still seemed beautiful, witty, modest, pure, and most importantly, relatively fascinating to Guillaume, who was still looking at her across the dinner table as though she were Helen of Troy.
The Marquess had absolutely been to soirees at Maison Bloch, and even dined as a guest of honor at their formidable table, but in all this time, never had she dined intimately with the family. What she saw was both charming and perhaps a little troubling. It turns out that this family, seeming so perfectly reserved to outward appearance, was a family like any other family; but the lack of control in front of a guest to whom they should have the good taste to show deference was disquieting. Bernard, the younger son, accounted by many of her friends a brilliant young doctor, did not keep his more radical opinions to himself, launching into his thoughts on Napoleon, 1848, the Rights of Man, and justifying it all with vociferous praise of her great-grandfather, the Comte Mirabeau, for whose actions the Marquess blamed for the entire French Revolution.
But what was equally troubling was that Robert, the Baron's elder son, did not have the sense to ignore Bernard's lack of discretion. With every new mention of Bonapartism, Robert's entreaties upon Bernard to change the subject grew more agitated, which prompted the Baroness in turn to angrily upbraid both her sons for discord in front of their guests.
Rachel, however, had the good taste to say nothing except for a few demure answers in response to questions from Guillaume. And the Baron had the sense to work Bernard's agitations into an extraordinary toast about the possibilities of progress, in which he recounted all the recent generations of his family - the great-great-grandfather who left the Jewish schools in Rouen to fight in the Revolution and lost his head in The Great Terror, then a great-grandfather who fought in the Italian campaign and established a factory during Napoleon's consulship that built Bonaparte's most crucial armaments, and his grandfather who created a firm out of the factory that established one of France's largest banks and diversified into railroads and textiles, and his father who financed Emperor Napoleon III, and he who established the deed to so many mines in West Africa and Indochina. And the Baron tied it all together by demonstrating the ultimate sign that progress is real: a de Boildier can love a Bloch, and a Bloch can marry a de Boildier.
Such an admirable man and inspirational optimist this Baron Bloch. Were he truly one of us he could stand for Prime Minister. Never had the Marquess heard anyone use their own family history to demonstrate as Baron Bloch did how much France has progressed. When Baron Bloch declared that 'The Age of Revolution is over,' for a moment, the Marquess really believed him.
But even directly after such a wonderful peroration Bernard could not let his extremism go, and had the social lunacy to not only bring up 1871 but also the Dreyfus Affair. And yet this zenith of the occasion's contentiousness was precisely the opening the Marquess had been hoping for all evening. The Marquess turned Bernard's irresponsibility to everyone's advantage.
All of Paris knew that Rachel was betrothed to a Dreyfus, but all of Paris had to pretend that they did not know, and that the Blochs had not been spoken of in the most withering terms along with the Dreyfuses and excluded from many soirees, and the Blochs too had to pretend they had no idea of their exclusion or their defamation. This was the moment the Marquess had rehearsed in her mind for five years. She knew exactly what to say, what Guillaume would say, and what Rachel would say.
Marquess: Well, what about Rachel, wasn't she briefly engaged to Monsieur Dreyfus's nephew.
Guillaume: MAMAN!
Marquess: It does no good to pretend your fiancee doesn't know very well the most famous celebrity in France.
Guillaume: She doesn't want to speak of it!
Marquess: Have you even asked her?
Guillaume: Why would I?
Marquess: Well I wouldn't have to ask had you treated her well seven years ago!
Guillaume: Rachel you don't have to answer anything Maman demands.
Rachel: I don't mind.
Marquess: What is the Dreyfus family like?
Rachel: They're like us. They love France, they wish France loved them.
Marquess: They do my dear. Everyone who matters loves you.
To Madame's delight, the exchange went exactly as she had conceived for all these years. Rachel was blessed, the engagement was blessed, the Blochs were blessed, Guillaume was blessed, and France was blessed to welcome new families this brilliant and unpolished into her highest echelon.
No comments:
Post a Comment