With impatience, Mme Helvetius prodded the mule to go faster through the rolling hills and vineyards still drenched with dew, along the dusty, winding road from her banlieue of Auteuil, just outside Paris, to its neighboring suburb of Passy. When she noticed the mule eyeing a heavy bunch of grapes along the road, she tapped his rump firmly with her hand, muttered, "Obstine," under her breath, and jerked at the reins.
Although she might be anxious to reach her destination, Mme Helvetius couldn't help thinking about the strangeness of the message running unbidden through her mind like a long-forgotten melody. The oddity of it-so peculiar, like nothing she'd ever thought of. Whatever could it mean? There was only one person, she knew, who could decipher it. She must get to him-and quickly.
The mule was so slow, it seemed hours before Mme Helvetius at last spied the sun breaking over the eastern cliff. And there, high on its perch above the river Seine, lay her destination: Le Valentinois. Tucked like an ostentatious jewel into its lavish setting of gardens and follies, plashing fountains and octagonal pools, the famous chateau was a bastion of extravagance that would rival a pasha's palace.
Mme Helvetius felt the chill she felt whenever she came here, which was more often than she cared think of. Given the criti-cality of her mission, she was grateful she'd come in this attire, so she might eschew the carriage entrance and enter through the gardens where she wouldn't be recognized. For Le Valentinois, despite its opulence, was known as the nest of gunrunners, speculators, thieves and spies-a notorious circle formed and fed upon war and crisis, of the sort they'd just come through in Europe.
This circle was ruled by the most dangerous man of all: the chateau's wealthy, mysterious owner, Donatien le Ray de Chau-mont. Given the importance of her message, she prayed she was not walking with open eyes into a trap. At whatever cost, she must deliver the message in private, before the household was stirring. She must get the message to Franklin at once-here in his private wing of the chateau.
Only Dr. Franklin would know what they must do-what action the club must take when it met tonight-that is, once he had deciphered the message in that song.
8:00 a.m. Auteuil, France
One might be lonely in Paris, thought Abigail Adams with chagrin-but one could surely never be alone!
Wherever one tried to move, crowds of unwashed bodies closed in about one. The streets were a cesspool. No wonder the Parisians wore more lace around their necks than a Dutch table-cloth-within easy reach of their noses, to block the smell! Hadn't her dear Mr. Adams fallen deathly ill each time he'd crossed the waters here from America?
And the women! There were forty thousand of them licensed as whores (she blushed even to think the word) who'd been sanctioned to "ply their craft" within the very city gates.
And the boxes! A horror she'd gleaned from the churchwardens themselves: boxes set out on designated street corners for women to drop their unwanted children into. An improvement, they said, upon the "old days" of the philosopher Rousseau, when babies had been left on church steps to die of exposure-some frozen so hard, they had to scrape their little bodies off the stones. O, iniquity!
After just a few days in Paris, Abigail felt, before exposing them further to this rotten decadence, she should take herself off with her own two children, Nabby and Johnnie, for a steam cleaning at a thermal spa.
So thank heavens, Abigail sighed in relief, from now on they would not have to spend another moment in the sordid sink. Her dear Mr. Adams had secured them a place in the country, at Auteuil.
The house was quite impressive-fifty rooms! Replete with gardens and servants, far across the river from the city's turmoil. There was an extra plum in the pudding, too, for just next door to their new residence lived the woman whom Dr. Franklin had once described to Abigail as "a true Frenchwoman, free of all pretension…the best person in the world." Her name was Mme Helvetius.
It did seem to Abigail, despite the lady's heralded modesty, that Mme Helvetius had a few gifts and accomplishments of her own to boast of. Among these she was still considered, at nearly age sixty, to be among the most beautiful women in France. It was said that the poet Fontenelle, on his hundredth birthday, had sighed, "Mme Helvetius makes one long to be eighty again."
Abigail had learned, too, that the lady's late husband was a famous philosophe who'd planned to found a club of distinguished dignitaries and scientists. Upon his death, his widow, Mme Helvetius, had drawn upon her own fortune to fund the club's creation: "The Lodge of Nine Sisters" it was called, referring to muses of the arts and sciences. As its official founder, Mme Hel-vetius was the only woman admitted to the Lodge's private meetings. Though these were by invitation only, they were far from secret, for the club boasted among its early members Lafayette, Voltaire and Dr. Franklin: the doctor had tapped its financial connections for monies needed to ensure the success of the American Revolution.
Her new neighbor here in Auteuil must be a great lady indeed, thought Abigail as she dressed to depart for her day at Le Valenti-nois-Abigail couldn't wait to meet her. But hadn't Dr. Franklin said that Mme Helvetius's club always met on a Tuesday?
So Abigail might make her acquaintance, even tonight.
9:00 a.m.
Bois de Boulogne
John Adams truly loathed Anne-Catherine de Ligniville-Autri-court, Mme Helvetius. Like his attitude toward most French aristocracy, he'd despised her nearly from the day they'd first met.
Cantering on his gray gelding through the Bois de Boulogne, as he did each morning, Adams thought of this woman who had wreaked so much damage, over all these years upon the American mission to France. Naturally, he couldn't share these feelings with Abigail-though he'd never kept secrets from his dear spouse before. But La Helvetius, like so many of these useless upper-class women, had captivated the great Dr. Franklin with her so-called "gaiety and charm." The doctor was besotted with all things French.
Adams knew he must exercise caution in his dealings here on the continent. He'd been recalled once by Congress, from a previous mission, due to complaints by the French minister, Ver-gennes, about his comportment in diplomatic circles. But Adams had always suspected it was Franklin himself who'd gotten him recalled. For the doctor, who'd lived much of his life abroad and had soaked up the sins of each land, could no longer abide Yankee honesty and directness.
Adams could only pray that, if not he, then at least Thomas Jefferson would be able to talk some sense into the good doctor, regarding the critical treaties that they three were to forge with England and France. And there was something more.
There was a fly in the molasses when it came to this blighted French mission. Adams suspected it had been there for quite some time: there was a spy-perhaps even a double agent-working all this while in Passy, right under the nose of Benjamin Franklin. As God himself knew, that residence, Le Valentinois, was fraught with dire possibilities. Not only Chaumont, its arms-dealer owner, was suspect. But also Franklin's own twenty-two-year-old grandson who lived there, Temple Franklin, a youth whose father William (Ben's bastard son) was himself a Royalist exiled from America.
In John Adams's view, however-of the elitist aristocrats, Royalist sympathizers and nouveau riche the doctor always sucked into his orb in that retreat at Passy-the most dangerous of all was Mme Helvetius. And for very good reason.
The Sieure Helvetius, her late husband, had made his fortune by royal sinecure, hadn't he? He was one of the "Farmers General," those who'd been given exclusive rights, monopolies, one might say, over all sale and purchase of goods produced or imported by France. The same people who still held sway, today, over American trade with France and her dominions.