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Purity – Part 03

The manor had a young maid named Roxy. A wild woman with long black hair and blue eyes, she seemed to harbor feelings for Antoine. I saw her crying and pleading with Antoine on more than one occasion. Antoine, however, only cared about his niece; he was unaffected by Roxy’s advances. Roxy grew increasingly desperate. She would comb Vivienne’s hair so roughly that the girl would yelp.

Soon the glamorous nights of the nobility and the surreptitious tension in the Count’s home came to an end. The last day of the ancien regime arrived like the bursting of a steadily-expanding ball. The French Revolution had begun.

When the Third Estate’s demands for reform were ignored, the people’s dissatisfaction finally reached its peak. With beacons lighting up the night, they stormed the Bastille prison to seize arms and ammunition, and ruthlessly slaughtered the mayor of Paris. The people roared with victory in a sea of human blood and guts.

One after another, the voiceless broke into the residences of the nobility and began to rob, massacre, and arrest them. Count de Jaricot, an influential aristocrat who mocked the masses’ ignorance, was no exception. He was quickly stabbed with countless bayonets and toppled on the luxurious carpet like a blooming red flower. Extravagant furnishings were destroyed and stolen, and the ‘Two Roses of Count de Jaricot’ were imprisoned in crude cells.

The last thing I saw was Vivienne, falling to the floor with a shriek as she witnessed her father’s death, and Antoine’s face twisted in horror as he caught her in his arms. Vivienne was dainty and thin, but the steel she wore made her so heavy that it looked like she would crash to the floor at any moment. Vivienne was dragged away by muscled revolutionaries, and I never saw her again.

At the manor’s front door, Roxy was whimpering like a beast.

Roxy was a revolutionary. She was a woman, with no education nor wealth; in other words, a commoner. But she was a very intelligent girl. She would sometimes talk passionately to me, an uneducated woman, about what the Legislative Assembly was, the necessity of republicanism, and the revolution for a new world. But at the same time Roxy was hopelessly in love with a beautiful young nobleman.

She was screaming at the sight of Antoine being taken away, but the next day, with a slightly brighter face, she spoke to me.

“Have you decided where you’re going?” she had asked.

We, people who lived in a nobleman’s house, had lost our jobs that night and were rendered homeless after the revolution.

I shrugged. “I’m heading back home in the suburbs. Do some laundry work while I search for another job. What about you?”

“I’m going to work for the revolutionary government. We’re going our separate ways, but hopefully we’ll see each other again.”

I was surprised that Roxy liked me. Maybe it was because I was the only one who didn’t speak bitterly about her love for someone of a different status. It wasn’t out of kindness or sympathy, but simply because I was a spectator in everything.

“We will,” I replied. “Paris is a small city.”

“Yeah.” Roxy brushed back her dark hair and smiled. “I’ll be stationed at the prison, watching the jailed nobles.”

“What?” I stared at her face in horror.

“I want to see the dispirited faces of the people who worked us like slaves.”

“Please don’t be cruel to Vivienne. The poor little thing. She’s from a wealthy family, sure, but that ridiculous hunk of steel had tied her down for so long. She can’t even fall in love, let alone run.”

“I don’t care about Vivienne. I’m talking about Antoine. I applied for the men’s prison.”

Roxy chuckled.

---

The revolutionary government held trials, determined charges, and began executing aristocrats who had exploited the people in the square. It was apparently done for show to allay people’s dissatisfaction that their lives were not getting any better despite the revolution. Every morning, nobles were dragged out of prison and executed by guillotine.

I lived in fear in the suburbs, taking care of my younger siblings. I wondered when those roses would be executed. Then, one day in late summer, I learned that Antoine de Jaricot and his niece Vivienne had been sentenced to death.

Their execution was near. I was so upset that I left my family behind and wandered aimlessly through the streets of Paris.

To a small square surrounded by brick buildings. A broken fountain. Children running around. A well with dying vines. The smell of iron on the wind. Paris was stained with blood.

A woman with dangling dark hair came running from the darkness of dusk. It was Roxy. Her eyes were bloodshot. She let out a shriek when she saw me.

“Roxy?”

“Ah, perfect timing! Do you know where Count de Jaricot’s desk is?”

“Wh-What are you talking about?”

“I went to his house, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. That night, some furniture was destroyed, and some were stolen. The desk was very valuable, so someone must have taken it and sold it. I have to find it.”

“Calm down. If the desk was sold, I doubt it’s still in France. Too many luxurious furnishings are being sold, but no one in this country has the money to buy them. I think all the expensive stuff has been taken out of the country and sold secretly. Austria, Spain, maybe England. Anyway, it’s not in France anymore. I’m sure of it.”

“But there’s a key in it! Monsieur Antoine told me so!”

“…A key?”

Roxy broke down crying.

According to her, she got the job at the prison because she actually wanted to rescue Antoine. What she said to me back then was just her trying to stay strong. Once a visionary, she had grown tired of the men’s struggle for power and a life of poverty that remained unchanged even after the collapse of the ancien regime. But Antoine refused to escape from prison in fear of Roxy getting arrested. Yes. Antoine was a powerless but kind young man.

When Roxy told Antoine about his execution, he said, “Please help Vivienne if you can. The key to that stupid chastity belt should be in the Count’s desk.”

Antoine had known about it for a long time, but he was too afraid of the Count’s power to set Vivienne free.

“That steel weight is a cage that confines a helpless young woman—a cage of family, of parents, of society. I want to free Vivienne at least, and hopefully it will be enough as atonement.”

Roxy agreed to Antoine’s request and left to look for the desk.

“Cage,” Roxy mumbled. “I’ve been working since I was seven. Not once did I ever think about freedom, about being a man or a woman. Nobles think about odd things, huh?”

“Yeah.”

I remembered Antoine leaning against the Count’s prized desk, pondering something. Did he know all along that the key was hidden there somewhere? Was he now regretting not taking it sooner and setting Vivienne free?

“But I can’t find the key,” Roxy murmured dejectedly. “I tried to sneak over to Vivienne, but she wouldn’t escape. She said she would die with her uncle. Poor Vivienne. She’s only fifteen years old and in prison with that heavy body. She never knew a father’s love. Not even her mother’s. I should have been gentler with her hair. I shouldn’t have hated her so much.”

“It’s too late for regrets.”

Roxy chuckled. “But the thought of her dying with Monsieur Antoine fills me with jealousy and hate. I’m not really sure how I feel about her.”

Roxy left, her shoulders sagged. I watched her powerless figure for a while. A dark-haired commoner who harbored feelings of unrequited love. How would she live in this new Paris, transformed overnight as if it were a different world altogether, a Paris for workers that smelled of blood all day?

---

The next morning, the execution of the two roses took place as scheduled.

The people gathered in the square were in a frenzy, screaming about revolution, about taking back power, shouting abuses at Antoine as he was transported in a crude, roofless wagon. Antoine, who had been so beautiful, was emaciated and transformed into a different person. Vivienne was brought in next. Her hair had turned white, probably from exhaustion, and she was unsteady on her feet. Their eyes seemed to meet, but only for a moment. Urged to move, Antoine staggered to the block. The guillotine glinted in the morning sun as it fell towards the ground, severing Antoine’s head from his body in a flash.

Next was Vivienne. She stumbled to the block. The guillotine fell once more, and the head of the beautiful lady was quickly separated from her body.

The crowd went wild as the executioner lifted the bloody head, clutching the white hair, once golden, in his rough hands.

Vivienne’s eyes were closed. Though the tears clouded my vision, I could see her calm face even from a distance, which provided me some sort of solace. Silently I prayed for Vivienne and her uncle, that they would be together in heaven.

A fat, middle-aged woman started shouting curses and kicked Vivienne’s thin body without mercy. She grabbed Vivienne’s pale arms and dragged her to a corner of the square, laughing. I averted my gaze from the cruel sight. The tears, too, prevented me from seeing anything.

---

As noon approached, the people dispersed, leaving the grim guillotine and the bloodstained cobblestones behind. The square was quiet.

As I was about to leave, an old woman with gray hair came into the square, weaving against the crowd. Slowly. Wearing tattered clothes, she limped toward the guillotine. Her trembling hands were holding something. I looked closely.

It was a single white rose.

The old woman offered it before the guillotine, then limped away again. It was comforting knowing that there was someone who mourned for the once-beautiful roses. I wanted to chase after the old woman and ask her who she was, but before I knew it, she had already disappeared.

I still don’t know who that old woman was. I haven’t seen Roxy since then, too.

I am writing this memoir in the year 1811. About twenty years have passed since the French Revolution. A lot of things have happened in this country since then. A reign of terror began, and we lived in silence, careful not to say anything unnecessary. There is no need to talk about the long-awaited arrival of Napoleon, the hero of the people, and the many tragic wars that followed.

I can’t rid my mind of the image of the young lady who fell into her lover’s arms, carrying a steel weight, on the night of the Revolution, or the gleaming guillotine that morning. The female fighter Roxy, and the ordinary old woman who left a white rose and walked away. Yes, this is the story of us ordinary women, one of history’s mysteries that will forever remain unsolved.

I am old. I have been a spectator of history for a long time, and I would like to end this memoir here. I pray to God that one day there will be a new world without strife, that a true revolution will take place.