It was happening.
Despite everything, it was happening.
As Camille and Lazare descended from the carriage, Rosier came running. “The hero and heroine!” he exclaimed. “Since last I saw you together, you two fought a magnificent duel! And won!”
She smiled. “Lazare was magnificent, at least. I merely did what I could.”
“That’s an understatement,” Lazare said.
“And who did you vanquish?”
Camille saw Lazare look toward the balloon as if he wanted to climb aboard and disappear.
“Only an evil magician,” Camille said, laughing. “A story for another time.”
“Aeronauts Defeat Magician?” Rosier suggested. “Sounds very promising. Come—I’ve got your costumes here.” Leading them through the edge of the crowd, he took Camille and Lazare to a makeshift screen, behind which Rosier had laid out on chairs a costume for the king, and another for the queen. Lazare picked up the light blue sash. “I can’t wear this. Only the king wears the cordon bleu.”
“Don’t be an aristocratic stickler, Lazare. Those people”—Rosier gestured emphatically toward the crowd—“want to see something impressive. You wish to fly over the Alps—they have paid handsomely for their tickets and wish to feel joy! Be elevated by wonder! The spectacle! Et cetera, et cetera. You can’t deny them that, after everything that’s happened in Paris. They need it. And you’re the one who must deliver it.”
While they argued, Camille lifted up the gown Rosier had laid out for her. It was very much like something the queen would have worn—a gown à la Polonaise in dusky pink with a narrow yellow stripe. Next to it, on a pole, hung a white wig, trimmed with ribbons and plumes. Camille shuddered. It looked like a head on a spike.
She took a deep breath. In all this madness, with the fear that had spread across the countryside, the attacks on noblemen believed to be hoarding grain, the king’s mercenaries in the streets of Paris, what was the purpose of a balloon? What good could it possibly do?
“It suits you, mademoiselle,” Rosier said.
Camille pressed the dress close: it would be a perfect fit. “Where did you find this? It’s beautiful.”
“At the Foire du Saint-Esprit, of course. Might even have been the queen’s, for all we know.”
Near the balloon, Armand was shouting for Rosier.
“Duty calls,” Rosier said, pulling out his watch. His eyebrows elevated practically to his hairline. “The launch is in seven minutes, mes amis! Please hurry, or I’ll have to start screaming.” He raced away, jostling a path through the crowd, leaving Lazare and Camille standing together behind the screen.
From the other side, they heard a low and steady roar. How many were there in the crowd? A hundred? A thousand?
“I can’t do this,” Camille and Lazare both said at once—and then burst out laughing.
“It’s ridiculous to pretend to be the king,” Lazare said, exasperated. “His Majesté would never, ever go up in a balloon. And the people don’t want to see the king in a balloon—not now. Not after the Bastille.”
“Perhaps they’d want him to sail away somewhere.” Camille smirked. “But we can’t do that. Sail away, I mean.”
“Can’t we?” Lazare asked hopefully. “Are you certain?”
“What about the pamphlets?” she said, though she was secretly pleased with his idea of sailing away together.
All around them, the people of Paris were congregating. On their way to their seats, tickets in hand, talking and laughing, they passed to one side or the other of the screen, like a river around a little island. They were here to see the balloon. Rosier was right about the power of the spectacle. But this spectacle couldn’t be two people dressed as the king and queen. It had to be the balloon and two ordinary citizens. The hope of it. The possibility.
Camille took a deep breath. “Let’s go.”
Halfway to the platform, by the ticket-taker’s tent, Sophie, Chandon, and Foudriard were waiting for them. Chandon and Foudriard embraced Lazare and then Camille, Chandon especially pulling her close. “When I dragged you into that card game, never did I expect you would save my life,” he said. “I am so grateful to you. More than I can say.” He kissed her on the cheek. “If there is anything you need, you will always tell me, non?”
“I will, dear friend,” Camille said. When she pulled back and saw how his handsome face was more like his own, less haggard, and how the lively color had returned to it, she thought she might cry with happiness.
“And you, madame? Will you return to court?” Foudriard asked.
“I’m not certain. Suddenly I have an estate to oversee and a house in town to put in order. I suppose it will depend on what happens next.” As she said this, she became acutely aware of Lazare next to her.
Foudriard bowed. “Whatever you do, it will be admirable, madame. The courage you showed at the duel is exactly what I hope for from my officers.”
Camille blushed. “You’re too kind, as always. And you two? Will you stay at court?”
“Lazare!” Rosier called.
“Excuse me,” Lazare said and took off through the crowd to where Rosier stood waving.
“The only thing that kept me there was my chevalier, and Séguin’s threat to take him from me.” Chandon exhaled. “Now we’ll go to my parents’ place in the country to rest and drink cider.”
“Not for long, though,” Foudriard cautioned. “The Marquis de Lafayette has just been appointed the commander-in-chief of the new National Guard. Officers will be much in demand in Paris and elsewhere.”
“What’s happening, Foudriard?” Camille asked.
“Unrest in the countryside, I’m afraid.”
“And Aurélie? Has anyone heard from her?”
“Guilleux sent a letter,” Chandon said soothingly. “They arrived safely.”
“I don’t know how long this peace will last.” Foudriard sounded worried. “The discontent began last year, as grain prices went up, and now that the reforms the peasants hoped for haven’t happened, they’re marching against the nobles and refusing to pay their taxes. I don’t blame them.”
“Again, wishing me bankrupt!” Chandon exclaimed. “Perhaps I will have to join the revolutionaries.”
“And why not?” Camille teased.
“If they could protect me from blood-sucking magicians, I might consider it.”
The Vicomte de Séguin was gone, but there were thousands of aristocrats like him. Possibly they were magicians, but more than that, they were people who believed in the old ways, the hierarchies and the taxes, the muzzled press and the class system and the rules. If there was any hope for France, the system would have to be taken down, piece by piece.
And magic would be gone with it.
On the night the Bastille fell, Camille had sensed it: the river of history had bent its course. That life at court carried on, for the most part oblivious, meant that the change would be that much more abrupt. Perhaps even a kind of war if the people were not listened to.
Tears pooled in Camille’s eyes. “Adieu, Chandon.”
“How could you say such a dreadful thing?” Chandon squeezed her hand tight. “You must say instead, ‘À bientôt.’ For we will see each other very soon again.”
“Of course you’re right,” she said, kissing him on the cheek. “See you soon.”
Knuckling away tears, he gave Camille a little push toward the platform where Lazare stood, next to the balloon. It tugged at its tethers, its silken shell shimmering in the wind. “That gorgeous boy is waiting for you.”
* * *
As she made her way along the edge of the rope that cordoned off the crowd from the platform, Rosier and Lazare came running up alongside. “Mademoiselle!” Rosier exclaimed. “What are you wearing? This is not the plan!”
“Rosier,” Camille said, “remember at the salon, when Lafayette asked, ‘What good is a balloon?’”
“Yes.”
He gave an impatient sigh. “And? I imagine you’re going to say the purpose of a balloon is not to make money. Which we just did, by the way, lots and lots of it. You’ll get your balloon adventure over the Alps, Lazare.”
Lazare shook his head in disbelief and embraced Rosier. “I don’t know how you do it, you madman, but you’re incredible.” He turned to Camille. “What is the purpose, then?”
“The purpose is to fly. That’s it! Don’t you see? It’s about hope. If we go up, dressed like ourselves, bedraggled and human, then we give people hope. Everyone longs for freedom. To fly and to rise. We can show them it’s possible.”
“She’s right,” said Lazare. “We go as ourselves. No more pretending, n’est-ce pas, Camille?” His eyes were very serious.
“Never again.”
Together they entered the balloon’s chariot and—after doing a final check of the fire, the ballast, and the newly repaired release valve—Armand closed the wicker door behind them. “Bonne chance, mademoiselle,” he said without a trace of irony. “The sky stands open.”
“Let us go that way,” she responded and was rewarded with a quick grin, which made her happier than she’d imagined a grin from Armand ever could. Rosier shot up a flare—the crowd gasped—and his helpers unwound the lines from the long stakes plunged into the earth.
Standing by the brazier, Camille held Lazare’s hand. She didn’t ever want to let it go. The events of the last weeks dimmed in the face of the vast crowd, some standing, some sitting, all of them cheering. “How strong they are, all of them here, gathered to see this. I can’t believe it! All for your balloon.”
“Our balloon.”
Camille watched him watching them. As emotions played across his face, tears pooled in his eyes. He didn’t try to brush them away.
“Have you become sentimental, Lazare?”
“Not at all, ma belle,” he said, pulling her close. “Imagine how I’ll be when we sail over the Alps.”
Rosier released another flare, and Camille startled, ducking her head against Lazare’s shoulder.
“Here we go!”
Slowly, serenely, the balloon rose, higher and higher until the lines flapped loose and she was no longer tethered to the earth. The crowd gasped, waving their flags. Tearing at the twine around the pamphlets, Camille grabbed a handful and tossed them overboard. As they fluttered and swooped to earth, hundreds of hands shot up to catch them.
“Which is your favorite part?” she asked Lazare as the balloon steadily rose.
“From the Americans’ Declaration of Independence? You don’t already know?” Lazare teased.
She wanted to hear the words from his lips. “Tell me.”
“‘The pursuit of happiness.’” He drew Camille toward him. “Which I intend to pursue.”
“Oh? How?”
“Our world is changing. I don’t know what’s going to happen today, or tomorrow, or the day after that, but whatever it is, Camille, I want to go through it with you.”
Everything inside her rose up to meet him—everything, everything, everything. She reached up to gently trace the scar from the duel, then let her fingers linger in the tender place under his jaw where his pulse beat.
“Mon Dieu,” he said, low in her ear, “in all my dreams, I never imagined this.” And then, with the wind spinning around them, they kissed.
Slowly, she eased her hands around the back of his neck. His arms slid down her back to her waist, bringing her closer. And then, his mouth against hers, she gave herself up to the kiss.
The heat and desire and wanting of the kiss at the opera was still there. But that had been a changeling kiss, a turned coin that could at any time twist back to what it was, a bent nail or dented button. But this? This was true gold, a solid gleaming certainty.
Below, the crowd roared.
When they broke apart, laughing, their arms around each other’s waists, Camille caught sight of Chandon and Foudriard, Sophie and Rosier, standing together. The wind caught Sophie’s hair and shook it out as if it were a banner made of cloth-of-gold. She waved, blowing kisses. There were roses in her cheeks.
Her friends’ faces soon became indistinguishable, the crowd no bigger than her palm. Hands clasped, Camille and Lazare watched as the city of Paris, its cobbled streets and tiled roofs, its squares and vineyards and mansions, drifted beneath them. At the ruined fortress of the Bastille, people carted off bricks for souvenirs. At the Tuileries, swarming members of the staff prepared for the king’s visit. And through all this chaos and glory snaked the Seine, the sun glittering silver and gold on her waters as she wound her way into the future.
Glossary of French Terms
Aidez-moi—Help me
Absolument parfait—Absolutely perfect
Adieu/Adieux (pl)—Farewell, goodbye
Affair d’honneur—Affair of honor
Allez/Allons-y—Let’s go
Alors—Well, then
Ancien régime—Ancient regime, the time before the French Revolution
Après vous—After you
Arrétez—Stop
Attendez—Wait
Bien—Good
Bonne chance—Good luck
Bonjour—Hello
Bravo/brava—Good; word of praise, often for performers (Italian; masculine/feminine)
Ça, alors—My goodness!
Cache-cache—Literally, “hide-hide”; the game of hide and seek
Calme-toi—Calm down
Ça depend—It depends
Ça suffit—That’s enough
Ça va—Literally, “It goes”; used to ask how things are going
C’est parfait—It’s perfect
C’est rien—It’s nothing
C’est vrai—That’s true
Chapeau/chapeaux (pl)—Hat
Château—Palace
Chat méchant!—Naughty cat!
Comme ça—Like this/that
Comprenez?—Do you understand?
Désolé/Désolée—Sorry (masculine/feminine)
D’accord—Okay
Dépechez-vous—Hurry up
Dis-moi—Tell me
Dieu/Mon Dieu—God/My God
Éconte-moi—Listen to me
Enchanté/Enchantée—Enchanted, often used when meeting others for the first time (masculine/feminine)
Encore/Encore une fois—One more time
Entrez—Enter
Fantastique—Fantastic
Formidable—Wonderful
Galerie des Glaces—Hall of Mirrors
Grâce à Dieu—Thanks be to God
Hélas—Alas
Immédiatement—Immediately
Incroyable—Unbelievable, incredible
Je t’embrasse—I embrace you
La belle veuve—The beautiful widow
La chimère—Chimera; monster
Le dernier cri—Literally, “the last shout”; the latest thing
Le loup—The wolf
Le Roi Soleil—The Sun King
Les jeux sonts faits—The bets are placed
Ma belle—My beauty
Madame/Mesdames (pl)—Madam
Mademoiselle/Mesdemoiselles (pl)—Miss, misses
Ma fille/mes filles (pl)—My girl or my daughter/my girls or daughters
Mais c’est merveilleuse—But that’s marvelous
Maître—Master
Ma soeur—My sister
Merci—Thank you
Merde—Shit
Mon ami/mon amie/mes amis (pl)—My friend (masculine/feminine)
Mon ange—My angel
Mon chere/ma chère—My dear (masculine/feminine)
Mon coeur—My heart, my beloved
Mon Dieu—My God
Mon ètoile—My star
Monsieur/Messieurs (pl)—Mister or Sir
Monstres—Monsters
Mon trèsor—My treasure
Nécessaire—Literally, “a necessary”; a makeup box
Ne t’inquitè pas—Don’t worry
Non—No
Oh là là—Oh no! (what your friend might say if you dropped your phone in a Parisian puddle)
Oui—Yes
Paille maille—Pell mell (also known as pall mall), a forerunner to croquet
Pardieu—By God
Pas de tout—Not at all
Pas encore—Not yet
Peut-être—Perhaps
Pardonnez-moi—Excuse me
Quel dommage—What a pity
Quelle surprise—What a surprise
Sangfroid—Literally “cold blood”; composure in the face of difficulty
Sérieusement—Seriously
S’il vous plaît/ S’il te plait—Please; literally, if it pleases you (formal/informal)
Tais-toi—Shut up
Tant pis—Too bad
Tempus Fugit—Time Flies (Latin)
Une très petite—A very small
Venez—Come
Vingt-et-un—Twenty-one
Viens ici—Come here
Voilà/Et voilà—Here it is
Vous comprenez—You understand
Vous voyez—You see
Historical Note
This book began as a flickering daydream: a girl sitting at an old desk, writing a love letter with a quill pen. The ink she was using was made from her tears. When I zoomed out, I saw she was wearing an eighteenth-century dress, and when I zoomed out even further, I realized she was sitting in a room with walls filigreed in gold. Was she at the palace of Versailles? It certainly seemed that way. That girl eventually became Camille, and when I wrote this book, I wanted to make sure that the world of 1789 Paris and Versailles was as alive in it as it was to me that day.
Though Enchantée is a work of fantasy, it includes historical events and people. Sometimes the historical record tells us exactly what happened: Jean-Sylvain Bailly did climb up on a door that had been pulled off its hinges to speak to the National Assembly in an indoor tennis court. The Marquis de Lafayette did attend salons, but I’ve found no record of him ever talking about hot-air balloons, though other people, such as Benjamin Franklin, had a lot to say about them. Whenever I’ve invented lines for historical figures like Lafayette, I’ve tried to stay true to what we do know of them from the historical record, but in the end, it’s fiction.