THE FRENCH CHILD

Afterwards no one could remember exactly how Rosalie Gerard developed her obsession about being French. Rosalie’s grandmother, Marion, who lived with the family, put it down to her persistent habit of using the computer at five o’clock in the morning when no one was awake to stop her. An intense, dark-haired child with a lively blonde elder sister, Rosalie had quickly learned how to research French history to her heart’s delight - and without interruption. Gradually Rosalie became convinced that she had been French in some earlier life, addressing Marion hopefully as ‘Grand’mère’ and even Lucy Gerard as ‘Maman’ until her sister protested. Mum was surely Mum, France or no France.

Then Rosalie started getting ill. Marion of course blamed it all on the Internet of which she had a profound suspicion; ‘Who knows what she is getting into her poor little head? The French can be so - well, racy.’

Lucy Gerard combated her mother-in-law’s accusations against the Internet quite vigorously - ‘Darling Marion, it’s the way things are these days. And Rosalie is interested in French history, not porn.’ But she admitted to Rosalie’s father that these periodic high fevers worried her. When Roger Gerard realised that the problem could not be dealt with by a wise nod of agreement - his day job was generally designated as ‘management’ - he pronounced at supper:

‘Let’s book a family holiday in France. Rosalie can look forward to that. And she can work out the sights of Paris for us, use the Net all she likes, arrange a little historical tour with all the necessary info.’ He ignored the sulky faces of Rosalie’s sister in favour of his younger daughter’s radiant, almost too radiant, smile.

But there was another bout of fever, and this one was the worst yet.
‘She’s not really with us at all,’ said Lucy Gerard desperately to the doctor. ‘So far away...’

‘She’s not really with us at all,’ said Madame Richard to Rosalie Lamorlière. ‘So far away... She hasn’t spoken since she arrived last night in the small hours.’ ‘Couldn’t I see her? Perhaps I could take the morning bouillon to her.’

‘Why not, my child. You can hardly be a danger to the State, at your age, can you? You’ll find that she doesn’t even turn her head when you enter, just sits there in her shabby dress - imagine the clothes she once had! - and of course there will be two gendarmes there. Be polite to them, they’re not bad fellows. For gendarmes.’

It was the use of the word gendarmes that told Rosalie that she, like Madame Richard, was speaking French easily and naturally. And she could understand every word Madame Richard said. In fact why not? After the first perception of slightly dreamy oddness, Rosalie felt everything to be perfectly normal. She was a French child and looking down at her little cotton dress, her cotton stockings and wooden shoes, she felt no surprise. Rosalie picked up the bowl of bouillon, that universal panacea for distress. ‘Madame Richard, how shall I address her?’

The jailer’s wife hesitated. ‘You much show respect, naturally, to an older woman. At the same time, although you are only a child, you are a French child, a good French child of the Revolution, a citizeness even if a young one. It’s complicated.’ Madame Richard’s voice trailed away. ‘Take the soup, Rosalie, and - you’ll think of something.’ But Madame Richard called after her: ‘The gendarmes have to be there all the time. Even when she makes her toilette. So no “Your Majesty” and absolutely no curtsy. Remember. Or you could be in trouble and so could my husband and so could I.’

However, when Rosalie was allowed to enter the small cell of the Conciergerie prison, she found herself curtsying instinctively. Fortunately the gendarmes, lying back on their wooden chairs and smoking their pipes with the strong tobacco Rosalie hated, did not notice. One of them simply gestured in the direction of the woman with the sad face and the white hair under her cap, whose worn black dress had a dusty ragged hem. Her shoes, slippers which might once have been dark red, were worn and muddy. The woman wore no jewels except a couple of diamond rings which she was twisting in her fingers. When she noticed the curtsy, she gave a very slight shake of her head.

‘Widow Capet! Visitor for you,’ one of the gendarmes called out loudly from out of the clouds of smoke: he did not move. Smoking in a bedroom? Or anyway a room with a bed in it. Rosalie felt again that curious twinge of unreality, things not quite right, even as she stepped forward with her covered bowl.

Come forward, ma petite,’ said the prisoner, advancing her hand. ‘What do they call you?’

‘Rosalie, Rosalie Lamorlière. I’m a maid here in the Conciergerie prison, I help Madame Richard.’

‘A very small maid,’ murmured the prisoner. ‘How old are you?’ ‘I’m only ten but my parents are dead.

‘My daughter is fourteen and a big girl but I have a son of eight.’ Then the prisoner stopped herself as though the topic was too painful. Instead, she began to talk to Rosalie about the book she was reading, it described the adventures of Captain Cook in his travels around the world.

‘I can’t read, I’ve never learned,’ said Rosalie; she felt another twinge of unreality as she said the words: she couldn’t read. In any case the prisoner promised to read aloud to her in the future.

The next few weeks in the Conciergerie passed quite quietly from the point of view of Rosalie, in spite of the gross heat of the prison even in late summer, and the stink of the various cells. From Madame Richard, she had come to understand that her prisoner was the woman who had once been the Queen of France, but of course France did not have Queens any more, nor Kings, and a good thing too, naturally. even if some of the local shopkeepers kept a soft spot in their heart for the Queen, or rather the Widow Capet as she now had to be called since her husband Louis Capet had been put to death for his crimes. Madame Richard and Rosalie, going shopping together, would find a special peach being produced from under the counter ‘pour la Reine’.