Bon Marche
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Family Trees
Prologue
Book One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Book Two
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Book Three
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Epilogue
Copyright
His America!
Charles lay in the hay, contemplating his first move as an American. His name, he thought, was too French; he’d have to change it. There was no reason to keep the name Dupree; he wasn’t even certain it was his name.
Pushing himself to his feet, Charles announced: “Good afternoon, sir. My name is Charles Dewey.”
He laughed heartily.
The new American swung open the door of the barn, to be instantly warmed by the bright sun of the October morning. He was glad for that. His thin uniform gave him little protection from the cold.
Now, once more, he walked westward.…
Prologue
AMONG all the numerous varieties of domestic animals which a benevolent Providence has created for the use of man, the blood horse stands preeminent, without a compeer in the animal kingdom.
In beauty he is without a rival—a coat as fine as the finest satin; his eye, in repose, as mild and gentle as a lamb; under excitement as bright as the eagle and as bold as the lion, denoting the energy of his nature; his skin as thin and elastic as the fawn; his form as perfect and well placed as beautifully defined muscles can make it.
This is his exterior, or that which is visible to the human eye. But there is an interior, or invisible, structure which contributes more perhaps to his powers than even his perfect exterior formation. His large heart and capacious lungs give him the wind of a high-bred hound; his large blood vessels and soft, thin skin enable him to throw off the excess heat that must be generated by great and rapid exertion; his muscles firm and beautifully defined with bone of ivory texture—all combine to give him strength, endurance, action, and beauty far exceeding all of the equine race.
The uninstructed in horseology may ask, “What do you mean by a blood horse, or thoroughbred?” I mean the horse which traces back, with certainty, through a long line of distinguished ancestry to the beautiful and game little creatures which were imported into England from the deserts of Arabia about the middle of the sixteenth century. How they came there, or by what means they had been brought to the degree of perfection they possessed at that early period, I am not able to answer. From that time to the present, the best talent of intelligent breeders has been zealously and energetically employed throughout the world, aided, too, by all the leading governments, except our own, to develop and improve this noble animal. They have not failed.
By attention to his comfort, with a liberal supply of proper food from infancy to maturity, his size has been enlarged, consequently his strength and speed increased; though beautiful when brought from his native desert, he is now magnificent. He has been made so nearly perfect that breeders of the present period are puzzled to know what further improvement can be anticipated.
To form an idea of the wonderful power of the blood horse, we will suppose his weight to be nine hundred pounds, this being about the weight of the racehorse. By the strength of his muscle he carries this weight together with his rider, one hundred pounds more, making one thousand pounds, not on a downgrade, but on a horizontal line, a mile in one minute and forty-three seconds, almost equaling the power of what we know of steam. Of all animated nature the feathered tribe alone can equal his speed. If we imagine a feathered monster of equal weight, I doubt whether he could surpass him in his flight.
The uninformed may see him only as a beautiful creature, imagining that he is bred for a race alone and being fit for nothing else, believing he has no other value than occasionally to contribute to the amusement of the public on the racecourse.
This is an egregious error!
The racecourse is only the school to educate and prepare him to exhibit his wonderful powers in competition with the best of the royal family—a field the plebeian dare not enter, no scrub ever having won a prize with thoroughbred competitors. Ten drops of plebeian blood in one thousand would endanger his success.
The racecourse is, therefore, a necessity, for through its instrumentality the blood horse has been brought to his present high degree of perfection. Human judgment is often in error, but on no subject more frequently than in the opinions we form on the relative power and value of the horse. It is as easy to judge the powers and qualities of man by the eye, and all will admit the fallibility of such judgment.
No, my friends, we can only judge correctly the intellectual and moral worth of our great men when we view them on the world’s stage in competition with distinguished competitors. Without a theater the world could never have known those distinguished delineators of human character whose names now fill many an honored page in history. The same is true of the blooded horse. The racecourse is his stage, his theater.
I am aware of the prejudices existing against the racecourse by religionists, generally on account of its immoral tendency. That these prejudices are not altogether groundless, I admit; but that the immoralities of a well-regulated racecourse are greatly magnified by those who know the least of their operations, I am perfectly satisfied; that it may be still further improved, I earnestly desire.
For more than sixty years I have been a breeder of the blood horse, and an active participator in his education and development, and can affirm that vice and immorality do not necessarily attach to racing and, as before remarked, the racecourse is a necessity, for without it the breeder could not know the superior horses and the best strains to propagate, and without this knowledge his improvement would cease and deterioration begin.
Here the question arises whether we will permit this noble and most useful creature, which has been brought to his present degree of perfection by the efforts of breeders for
near two hundred years—and by the expenditure of as many millions of dollars—to retrograde into the coarse and clumsy brute he was prior to the introduction of the Arab, or to go on to improve and develop still higher and more useful qualities. For one, I advocate his preservation and at the same time call upon the moralist to unite with me in the effort to remove all objectionable features that may attach to the institution so necessary for his development.
Beauty, speed, action, durability, and the many admirable qualities I claim for this magnificent animal do not constitute his chief—nay, or his greatest—value. His mission is to improve his race. The pure and unadulterated blood which flows in his veins improves and gives additional value to ALL the horse family.
CHARLES DEWEY
Bon Marché, 1845
BOOK ONE
If there were no God there would be no blooded horse.
—Marshall Statler, 1781
1
SHIVERING in the early-morning chill, the cabin boy stood naked on the aft deck of the Ville de Paris, pouring buckets of water over his head. It was going to be a very special day for him, one warranting a bath.
The ship’s log placed the date as October 19, 1781. “Standing off Yorktown, Virginia,” it noted.
The night before, the lad had received the grudging permission of Comte François Joseph Paul de Grasse, Admiral of the Fleet, to be part of the flagship’s contingent at the formal surrender ceremonies. But it wasn’t the capitulation of Major General Sir Charles Cornwallis that occupied his thoughts now.
As he bathed, he contemplated the orders he had received from his guardian spirit.
Through all of his sixteen years the spirit had been with him, sustaining him. He had always been certain of that. There was a motto by which he lived: Aide-toi, le ciel t’aidera—“Help thyself, and heaven will help thee.” He had never been hesitant about helping himself.
His name was Charles Dupree. Or so he believed.
He had been a gamin—a street boy—surviving alone on the inhospitable thoroughfares of Paris. He couldn’t remember ever having been held to a mother’s breast, although there were faint shadows in his memory of a woman who might have been his mother. A father was not someone he knew, not even as a shadow. And he had never really lived anywhere—not in a house or a flat or even a room. Just finding a place to sleep had been a challenge every single night of what he could recall of his life before the navy.
On this morning, as the sun rising in the east dried him after his bath, Charles remembered his past. Vividly. It was important to him that he did—that he never forget.
His memories were his incentive.
II
MARIE sat huddled in the middle of the disheveled bed, drawing her bare feet up under her, watching with frightened eyes as the lad poked into the corners of her room with a heavy club.
“Do you see him, chéri?”
“No, not yet,” the boy answered, continuing his search.
The girl shuddered. “Oh, I hate them so!”
Suddenly the boy raised his club and brought it down with great force on something in the shadows. There was an animal squeak. When he turned to the girl, he was holding a huge rat by the tail, its ugly fangs clearly visible in its open mouth.
Marie screamed.
Grinning, the youngster went to the open fourth-floor window and tossed the dead rat into the street below.
The young woman giggled nervously. “My hero!” Her giggle turned into a full-throated laugh. “You should have seen Monsieur Farinet scoot when he saw that beast walking across the top of the commode.” She shrugged. “Ah, but it cost me money.”
“That’s too bad.”
The boy was only nine, but he knew of the trade of the prostitutes—les filles de joie. A host of them were quartered in the five-story brick pile of a tenement three or four twisted, dirt-strewn streets removed from the splendor of the Boulevard Saint-Germain. Tenements were jammed together in the narrow back streets, each one five to seven stories high, twenty-five rooms to a floor. Warrens for people. And rats, too. He had come to the woman’s rescue when she screamed out of the window of one of them.
Marie got out of the bed, stretching her slim limbs, loosening her corset, dropping it to the floor with a contented sigh. She stood naked for a moment, languidly arching her back, thrusting out her small, firm breasts as the boy stared. Retrieving a thin chemise de nuit from the back of a chair, she wriggled into it, half covering her nakedness.
“Now—how can I reward you, chéri?”
“Some food maybe—” the boy said hesitantly.
“In the pantry.” She pointed to a door. “Some bread and cheese.”
He went into the pantry, cut a thick slice from a block of molding cheese, and tore a chunk of bread from a long, hard loaf. When he returned to the bedroom, he nodded to her. “Merci, Marie.”
“You know my name?”
“Yes.”
“How’s that?”
“I saw you on the street many times. And I asked someone.”
She laughed, strangely flattered that he had made an effort to learn who she was. “Did you, now? And what’s your name?”
“Charles.”
“Well, Charles, why don’t you sit down and eat your food?”
He perched tentatively on the edge of a chair opposite her, hungrily wolfing the bread and cheese, keeping his eyes on the attractive young woman.
“Where do you live, Charles?”
“Out there,” inclining his head toward the open window.
“On the street?” Her face went sad. “Are you an orphan?”
The gamin thought for a moment. “I take care of myself,” he replied firmly.
“Chéri,” Marie said, smiling, “you might take care of yourself, but, dear God, you’re dirty!” She wrinkled up her nose. “And smelly! I’m going to give you a bath.”
Charles came quickly to his feet. “No, no!” He edged toward the door leading to the hallway.
Marie moved with alacrity to entrap the boy, dragging him to a corner where a large metal tub was propped against the wall. She stood it upright with one hand, keeping the other on his collar. Then she began to strip off his clothes. He struggled, but not hard enough to get away.
“Now, you stay right there,” she ordered, “until I get the water.”
Into the pantry she went, returning quickly with two buckets of water, pouring them into the tub.
“It’s cold, but it’ll get you clean. Get in.”
When he hesitated, she picked him up bodily and plunked him into the water. He was surprised by the strength of the girl.
Kneeling by the tub, Marie began to rub soap on his body. Splashing water over him, laughing gaily. She made a game of it, and he enjoyed it, especially when she touched him where no one else had ever touched him before. The whore scrubbed him clean, and, although he objected vehemently, she poured a few drops of cheap perfume into the water, splashing it over him again.
When it was over and Marie was drying him with a piece of sheeting, she was nearly as wet as the boy. But the intimacy of the bath had made them friends.
She watched him as he pulled on his dirty clothes, wishing that she could wash them, too, but knowing she had done as much as he would allow.
“Isn’t that better?”
“Yes,” Charles admitted.
“Can I call on you when I need a ratter again?”
“Sure.”
She kissed him on the lips. “Mon chéri,” she laughed. And Charles left her rooms.
The boy had another piece of information to file away in his mind. When he really needed food, he could always go back to Marie and kill another rat. It was bits of knowledge like that that kept him alive, that made him a survivor in the frantic hive that was the Paris of the mid-1770s.
He knew a lot of things: of the cafés that put out the best garbage, of the money-changers and goldsmiths at Pont au Change where he could run errands to earn a few coins, of the maisons de confia
nce where he could spend his money—when he had it—for food without getting cheated, of the alleyways and cellars where he could sleep without risking being murdered in the night for his shoes or his tattered coat.
And he kept one rule: he never begged. There were beggars everywhere on the streets. Charles thought them a pitiable lot. With no pride. Whatever else he might become, he promised himself, he wouldn’t be a beggar. He was better than that.
Most times he could read the mood of the city. It was a live thing, with its street singers and jugglers, its pickpockets, its vagabonds, its thieves, its grand ladies being transported in sedan chairs, its effete gentlemen in their colored knee breeches and stockings of white silk and long coats of velvet, its mountebanks, its rich, and its rabble. And the moods of Paris were as varied as its people, gay at times, but often cruel as well.
A popular public amusement was the administration of the stern justice of the city. The sight of a dishonest merchant locked in the pillory was entertainment for many. As was the flogging of thieves as they were trundled through the streets in crude carts. On occasion, there was the capital punishment of a murderer, a sorcerer, or even a blasphemer. The criminal was bound to a wheel, his arms and legs broken with a heavy iron bar, after which he was left to die on the wheel, without concern for his pain. The real punishment was the slowness of the death. Even more gory, a truly evil person, perhaps one found guilty of incest, would sometimes be drawn and quartered in full view of the delighted crowd. Charles watched these events, but failed to understand the general glee.
The punishments made Charles wary of the efficient municipal police. He kept clear of them, his careful study of their methods making him aware of what they planned to do before they did it. It was in mid-September, some two months after he had killed the rat for the prostitute Marie, that he saw something beginning. Something familiar. He rushed to Marie’s rooms.
Banging on her door: “Marie, it’s Charles!”
“Go away.” She wasn’t angry, merely occupied.
“Come now!” he insisted. “There’s a roundup!”
Most often the gendarmerie looked the other way at the activities of the whores, recognizing that they performed a necessary function in the teeming city. But on this day, following what must have been a highly placed complaint against a prostitute, the police were sweeping through the streets, gathering up as many of les filles publiques as they could find.