The Queen's Dollmaker Read Online Free PDF Page A

his parents. She descended a small set of steps into the park, and was taken aback by how the area had grown in population since she had left it that morning. It was as though all of Paris had moved into a square city block. She asked passersby randomly, “ Pardon, do you know the whereabouts of the Renaud family?” No one seemed able, or willing, to help her. Finally, someone directed her to the local commissariat, located three blocks away. She asked a policeman sitting at a desk near the door of the station, “Please, I am trying to find friends. Can you help me?”
    The policeman, tall, lanky, and with an air of utter boredom, responded, “Name?”
    With relief, Claudette gushed, “Renaud. Charles and Michelle Renaud, and their son, Jean-Philippe.”
    “Relation to you?”
    Swallowing, Claudette uttered words that she had never voiced before outside of her beloved’s presence. “Jean-Philippe is my betrothed.”
    He yawned in indifference to the pleadings of a dirty, bedraggled young girl. He picked up a grimy stack of papers and began casually looking through them. The longer she waited, the more a sense of dread came over her. The silence in the room created a deafening pounding in her ears. He looked up. “Sorry, mademoiselle, we have no listing for such a family. Try the docks. Many families have left Paris that way.” Dismissively he added, “If we see him, we’ll tell him you were here.”
    Before giving in to the desire to break down in tears, Claudette turned and marched out of the commissariat. Far from the overnight soaking rain that had finally put out the fire, the day was now unseasonably hot. Pushing a fallen, disheveled lock of golden curl away from her face, she moved on to the docks.
    The dock on the River Seine was again teeming with wandering subjects of the realm. How would she ever find Jean-Philippe’s whereabouts here? Approaching a man in a captain’s uniform, she once again inquired as to information regarding the Renaud family. The man’s uniform was ill-fitting on his thin frame, and his brown eyes were large and luminous in his gaunt face.
    “No such family passing through here. Are you without family, mademoiselle?” He spoke awkward French; clearly he was English.
    Bending her head to hide the lip she was chewing, she whispered, “Yes, monsieur, I am.”
    He put a hand under her chin and said, “There, there, I cannot bear to see such a beautiful young lady in distress. My name is Simon Briggs, and I can help you. Do you see that group of young ladies such as yourself over there?” He pointed to a cluster of chattering young women, all seemingly from various stations of life. “They have answered my notice for domestic help over in England. Fancy ladies over there need hardworking girls as governesses, house servants, and so on. Just think, you could be nanny to an important family.”
    “But I’m the daughter of a dollmaker. What do I know about such things?”
    “You will learn. There’s plenty of training. Once we get to London, that is. Why don’t you join the fortunate ones over there? We’ll be putting up in an hour or so, and then we’ll be having a big meal. You’re hungry, aren’t you?”
    She was famished. But to get on a ship headed to such a far-off land just for a meal seemed absurd.
    Briggs saw her indecision. He said gently, “Mademoiselle, are you by any chance a victim of yesterday’s fire? Hmm, I thought so. Many of the women boarding today are in your same predicament. Surely you will find a friend here.”
    Was this a perfect opportunity for her? Her home and family were gone, and Jean-Philippe was nowhere to be found. Both her stomach and her purse were achingly empty.
    Claudette made her choice. She numbly walked toward the other waiting passengers, still stunned that her warm, sheltered life had been so abruptly destroyed.

3
    Versailles. The marriage between the fifteen-year-old Dauphin Louis and fourteen-year-old Marie Antoinette was