Céleste had not given up her quest for Lionel. He had responded to her efforts to make him jealous before and she planned to try again. She invited Prince Jean to take her to Le Havre, a port and seaside resort on the French coast. He, too, overcame his humiliation at his previous dismissal and agreed. Céleste was craftily honest in telling Jean of her split with Lionel, but she made it clear as before that she was still in love with the count. Jean didn’t seem to care, as long as he could be with her.
Leaving Paris gave her a useful excuse to write to Lionel.
Mr dear Lionel,
The reasons for our separation were so good [appropriate] that you saw I was resigned to it. However, one must not require of human nature what it cannot achieve! I think of you more than ever! Thanks to your good care, I have regained my health. I have reclaimed Jean’s friendship. I shall be here for a few days. If you were to have something to tell me, you could write to me. Keep me in your thoughts.
Céleste.
Céleste was a good gambler on life, and in this case she was betting on Lionel finding it impossible to forget her and difficult to find a replacement. Céleste had just turned twenty-three, yet her knowledge of men and their behaviour was that of a woman twice her age. At the back of her mind also lingered the cold and tactically efficient thought that Lionel would fall so far in life that he would land at her level, putting them on an equal footing.
In February 1848, it seemed likely that King Louis-Philippe I, who was seventy-four, would be deposed and replaced by a provisional reformist government.
Louis-Philippe’s reign—the July Monarchy—had been dominated by many former Napoleonic officials and by the wealthy elite, including Lionel and his father the marquis. The main cause of the unrest and demand for reform was that only one per cent of the population had the right to vote, and only those who owned land could decide who ruled and how.
Reforms by the new government—the so-called Second Republic—meant that the largesse of bankers, money lenders and others dried up. This diminished Lionel’s attempts to court a wealthy woman. He was forced to stave off bankruptcy and an embarrassing state of insolvency by selling off what he could from the estate.
Not surprisingly, the plain-looking young countess who was thrust in front of Lionel by his family was not impressed by this denuding of the estate’s superficial extravagances. She refused his rather desperate hand in marriage. Yet still, Lionel did not appear frantic. His only sign of anxiety was over Céleste’s letter indicating she was back in a relationship with Prince Jean. Lionel regarded him as foppish. But young Jean, unlike Lionel now, seemed to have endless resources with which to shower gifts on Céleste. This bothered Lionel, and he wanted to see if his relationship with her could be renewed. He was still in search of a marriageable benefactor, but the absence of his vibrant, wilful, independent, at times feisty lover made him yearn for her. As he told friends, her ‘Celestial pull’ always attracted him. This was in spite of his family, especially his overbearing and interfering eldest brother and his countess sister, who were horrified at his obsession with Céleste, whom they regarded as a common circus performer with a doubtful past.
Céleste was frightened by the mood in the Paris streets in early 1848. She was no different from most women of the period, discouraged from an interest in politics, which was considered part of the man’s world. When walking with Frisette, she became concerned at people congregating in the streets as if ready to do mischief and worse.
‘I don’t like this,’ Céleste said. ‘It reminds me of the trouble in Lyon when I was a child.’
When the two women reached the boulevards, where crowds were bigger, there were whispers, then cries of, ‘Reform!’
‘What reform?’ Céleste asked a group of people milling on the sidewalk. They shrugged without answering, except for one young man who said, ‘Everything! There must be change! It’s progress!’
‘Don’t like this,’ Céleste whispered to Frisette. ‘I think there will be bloodletting . . .’
In front of the Café de France on the Boulevard de Bonne-Nouvelle, they bumped into a group of about fifty young men. Some of them recognised the former Hippodrome performers and called their names, saying, ‘Hooray for reform and beautiful women!’
The cry did not seem connected, yet delighted the two women, who had no interest at all in change. A crowd built and surged around them, like a tornado in search of an epicentre. Céleste became anxious and pushed Frisette towards a friend’s house nearby. She let them in and opened the window. The rush and jostle of people again reminded Céleste of Lyon. It continued until around 6 p.m., when many in the crowd headed home.
‘Everyone must dine,’ Céleste noted in an endearingly French observation, ‘even those who wage war.’
Frisette suggested that they, too, have dinner. They parted at 10 p.m. Céleste heard an explosion when she reached Rue Le Peletier. A man warned her not to go to her home at Place de la Madeleine because the reformers had fired on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The main culprit in the eyes of the rebels was Foreign Affairs Minister François Guizot. He had resigned in the days before (on 22 February) but now the mob wanted some measure of revenge beyond his departure. They attacked the ministry.
Céleste took a different route and began to worry about Lionel. She knew that a revolution would not be kind to the nobility, which might be forced to go into hiding, leaving their possessions and their estates to the rampaging lawless. She wished that Lionel was with her so she could help him. As if to heighten the sense of danger, she noticed that a local pharmacy on Rue de Caumartin had been turned into a temporary first-aid post. Once she reached home, Céleste wrote a panicky letter to Lionel, mentioning everything she had witnessed and warning him not to come to Paris.
She went to bed but could not sleep, even with a dose of digitalis. Marie was up and too nervous to retire. It seemed that the street was alive at 4 a.m. Then there was a knock at the door. The insistent banging seemed familiar. Céleste urged the concierge to open the door. It was Lionel. He had come from his estate the previous afternoon only to run into the Paris mayhem.
‘Why are you here now?’ Céleste asked. ‘It’s dangerous!’
‘I’m going to join the National Guard,’ he said. ‘Someone must protect the king and the government.’
The two slept together until 7 a.m. when Lionel disappeared to join the first legion of the National Guard. He was immediately involved in the fighting as the reformers attempted to burn down the Guard’s post at Madeleine. He arrived back at Céleste’s place at 5 p.m. exhausted and aware that this fresh revolution was well underway.
‘There’s no hope for the king or the government,’ he declared. ‘You’re not safe here. You must return to the castle tomorrow.’
Any resolve about resisting him evaporated, but this time Céleste felt their affinity was stronger and his attitude needier than before. On the trip back she was relieved when the train reached the halfway point.
‘So what are your marriage plans?’ she asked him.
‘I’ve been rejected,’ he said matter-of-factly.
‘Surely this isn’t the end of your family’s search for a match for you?’
He smiled carelessly but did not answer. There was no sign of the more usual temper tantrums.
‘I couldn’t rise to his level,’ she wrote in her diary, ‘and he blamed me for having to come down to mine. And yet out of affection for him, I had changed.’
She felt she was doing all she could to accommodate his world.
Once at the chateau, Lionel was more open with her about his financial woes. They wandered a field close to the chateau, talking.
‘Only one room has not been diminished by the need to sell things off,’ he said despondently, ‘and as you can see, most of the place is in disrepair.’
‘I haven’t seen any farmers,’ Céleste observed.
‘They’re leaving because they can’t pay the rent. It’s all a terrible downward spiral. My creditors are becoming more demanding by the week. I’m borrowing 60,000 francs at a rate of twenty per cent. But the money is scarce because of the revolution.’ Lionel pointed to the northern farm sheds a kilometre away. ‘The most depressing thing is the Belgian farmers. My father brought them here decades ago. Their families have been here for generations, but disease has forced them to leave.’
‘The Fever?’
Lionel nodded. ‘Farm hands are falling ill. They can’t afford to buy enough food—nutrition—to fight it. They’re slowing up and being struck down. I’ve given money to some of them, but it’s not changing things.’ He paused and sighed. ‘It’s very sad that this means my best land lies vacant. Worse, I’m presiding over the demise of this wonderful estate after twelve generations. It’s all very depressing.’
King Louis-Philippe I and his family fled to sanctuary in England at the invitation of Queen Victoria as the threat of voting reform (in the form of ‘The Chartists’) and even revolution reached the United Kingdom. The upheaval in France spread. Uprisings occurred in the provinces. Noblemen’s property, ever the symbol of inequality in Europe, became the target for attack. Chateaus in Berry were under siege, and some owners and their families were murdered. Lionel’s property remained unscathed. He was universally liked in the region, yet she begged him not to go out. He ignored her for there was still much supervising to do, even in this period of decline and inevitable ruin.
One morning she became most nervous on seeing forty men approaching across the fields. She rushed inside to warn Lionel, who was in the study with Martin.
‘They’re waving guns and rifles!’ she cried. ‘Quick, we must hide in the basement.’
Céleste scurried to the cellar, thinking Lionel would follow. She heard shots and shouts for several minutes. When the noise subsided, she cautiously ventured out to find Lionel calmly smoking a cigar.
‘What’s happened?’
He pointed to the garden where the men had congregated and were drinking wine that Lionel had given them. A peasant, clearly the leader of the pack, wandered over to the terrace in front of the chateau.
‘Stay calm,’ he told her, ‘everything will be alright. Listen to what I have to say to them.’
Lionel approached the leader of the band of peasants, who removed his hat.
‘Do you think we could plant a tree of freedom, squire,’ the leader inquired politely. ‘We only want to have some fun and drink a toast to your health. If this offends you, we won’t do it.’
‘On the contrary,’ Lionel said, remaining his relaxed, unruffled self, ‘I would be honoured. But please don’t plant it in my garden. Anywhere else in the fields will be fine.’
Céleste was proud of the affection and respect the locals had for Lionel, but was unsure how long it would last.
Céleste’s hurried departure from Paris left her with bills to pay and Marie was sending a letter a day to remind her. She asked Lionel for 200 francs to return to Paris. After much pocket-smacking and fiddling in wallets and in drawers he declared he did not have the cash and that he would have to borrow it for her. In that embarrassing moment Céleste realised she had more money than him.