That evening, we uncorked two bottles from our wine stores. Then, under a boundless October moon, Maryse joined her guitar with the jubilant violin and traverse flute issuing from nearby carriages, and, in time to Claudette’s beats of the tambourine, she sang and danced well into the night.
After the victory at Ulm, we stopped fearing that an officer of the Intendance might requisition our horses. Mack’s surrender had re-provisioned the Grand Armée with hundreds of excellent mounts; so many, in fact, that some animals—though certainly not those that had belonged to the Austrians—were sold among the women and Jews following behind the troops. Other, more exhausted horses, were sacrificed in order to provide fresh meat to the regimental field kitchens. Pooling some of our money, Maryse and I bought an enormous horse with an indifferent expression and flayed hindquarters that had served with the Cuirassiers. He was thin and his ulcers reeked, but Pierre had insisted on the convenience of having a mount that would allow him to be in better contact with the farmers and merchants traveling behind us, and we deemed his judgment a reasonable one. We named him Jeudi, for the day of the week we’d acquired him, and we tied the lead on his halter to the rear of my carriage. By the third or fourth day, I worked up the courage to ride him. I put the bit on him myself and moved the reins from one side to the other so that he could become accustomed to my hand. Then, with the help of Pierre, who had also loaned me his boots and a pair of breeches, I leaped up into the saddle and took him out onto the road. Immediately, I knew we had not wasted our money. Jeudi had been well trained and obeyed, with little resistance, the pressure of the reins and spurs. Even if his walk was a bit ponderous and his trot too pronounced for my weight, it turned out that my legs were long enough to squeeze him tightly about the flanks. I was soon awash in the joy of riding and I remembered the afternoons in Foix when I’d gone riding with Aunt Margot—both of us mounted astraddle, as men do—along the edge of the forest until we met up with the road to Toulouse, where we would turn and race at a dead-level gallop all the way back to the château. (How grateful I am for the six years of riding lessons she paid for! The old cripple Laguerre, a former Captain who had lost an arm at Valmy and who lived, much beloved, in the village, used to tell me almost daily: “A horse, at the proper moment, can be worth more than a castle, mademoiselle. I will stop accepting payment from your Aunt when I see you gallop all the way to the forest ranger’s cabin without using your hands, jump over the hedge and ford the river with the water up to your neck.” That old centaur was the best teacher I could ever have asked for. When had Laguerre died? Why had I not asked after him when I returned to Foix? Oh, the things one leaves undone!) As I rode happily across the expansive plain, alongside the slow-moving train of carts and wagons, a feeling of independence swelled within me, a self-confidence that I’d never known before. For the first time ever, I felt in charge of my own life. I felt like a woman. As I dismounted, a resolution sank into my brain with the decisiveness of a nail: I would go to see Robert.
“You’re mad,” Maryse said, when I told her of my intention.
“Yes,” I replied, laughing. “Mad with love. I want to see my man, I want to hug him and kiss him and speak to him of our wedding and tell him that I love him more than anything else in the world. I must see him, Maryse.”
“Don’t be a fool, Henriette. I wouldn’t be able to go with you. Even if we were to buy another horse, I wouldn’t know how to ride it. I’m a city girl, my dear. However,” she added, suspecting that my decision was irrevocable, “there is Pierre. Pierre could go with you. Claudette or Françoise could drive your carriage and—”
“I appreciate your good intentions, but no. I feel I must go alone. After all, Robert is my business.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying. Do you imagine that you can just trot calmly by an entire army division without anything happening to you? You’d do well to think of yourself as a jar of honey and of Lannes’ troops as flies. Here, in the rearguard, things aren’t so bad. But there, out in front of the provisions wagons, where the bugles sound at dawn, you’ll be under the dominion of war. It’s not by accident that the regulations prohibit women from visiting the troops.”
“I’ve thought of all that. I’ll pin up my hair and put on Pierre’s Cuirassier’s helmet. I’m sure he still has his white doublet among his things, as well as his blue dress livery. Françoise is an excellent seamstress and I know she could work miracles with all of that. What’s more, I’ll travel across the plain, bordering the road. From a distance, they’ll take me for a Cuirassier.”
“A Cuirassier! And where, may I ask, are your mustache, your saber and your cuirass? Did you forget them in Strasbourg, or at the encampment at Boulogne? Don’t you see that, sooner or later, you’ll have to travel on the road and mix in with the soldiers? For the love of God, Henriette, you’re not a child anymore!”
Claudette and Françoise, who had been listening to us while roasting a rabbit under a solitary oak tree, came over to join in the conversation. Neither of them approved of my little adventure, particularly Françoise who, because of a few ill-fated affairs in Tarbes, where she was from, now kept her distance from men. But over the course of dinner, once they saw that I was not going to budge, they gave up trying to talk me out of it and fell silent.
“The fact is, you’ll never pass as a Cuirassier,” said Maryse, chewing pensively on a rabbit foot.
“I’m as tall as a man,” I protested.
“It’s not only height that makes a man, my sweet. Oh, how well I know that to be true! A man is many things,” said Maryse.
“You could be an aide-de-camp, they are usually quite young,” ventured Claudette timidly.
“No, no,” interrupted Maryse. “Even the most inexperienced soldier knows what the different uniforms look like. Henriette would be noticed immediately. Some will think she’s an Austrian spy; others, that she’s a prostitute. It would not end well for her. We must think of a different disguise. Something improbable. The more improbable the better, in fact: a priest’s frock, a Jew’s topcoat, a Bavarian vest. The mustache won’t be a problem. I have them in all colors and sizes in my costume trunk. I even have beards for a Turk or a king. In Boulogne, we had the opportunity to perform parts from various operas, among them, The Caliph of Bagdad and Richard the Lionheart, both highly praised, I might add. I even managed to convince your beloved Robert,” she added, flashing me a coquettish smile, “to perform an inspired rendition of a passage from Grétry’s Blue Beard.”
“With or without a beard, in a cassock or a topcoat, she won’t fool anyone,” asserted Françoise, shaking her head in disapproval. “What would your Aunt think of all this!”
“If Aunt Margot were here in my place, she wouldn’t hesitate for even a second. In fact, she’d probably be in Robert’s arms at this very moment,” I replied blithely.
“Well, that’s enough arguing,” said Maryse. “May it be as God wills it. We’ll just keep thinking.”
In the end, it was Claudette who came up with the solution.
“We do have a Caliph’s outfit,” she murmured. “Wide-legged red pants, a green vest and a turban. Henriette could pass as a Mameluke. Their uniforms are very irregular. We also have a curved dagger and a scimitar.”
“I’ve never once seen a Mameluke on these roads,” said Françoise. “And anyway, I’ve heard that they have dark skin.”
“Claudette