Gently withdrawing her hands, the Baroness fingers away her tears. "Madame . . ." She takes a long, slow breath. "You have quite overwhelmed me. And you have given me the-the loveliest farewell gift I could imagine."

"Farewell?" I say.

"Yes," she answers, giving me a heavy nod. "It was a mistake, I fear, coming back to Paris. I did it to please Leblanc, and now that he's . . ." One last tear, fat and cumbersome, fingered away. "Well, in light of all that's passed, I believe I must cut my losses, as they say. Before I do any more harm."

"But where will you go?" asks the Duchess.

She laughs now, the Baroness. A strangely giddy sound, trailing from the long past.

"I've no idea," she says. "But women like me always manage. And with luck-with God's blessing-I might one day be able to forgive myself for what I've done. If such a thing can be conceived."

Concentrating her forces now, she rises in a single swift motion. Extends her hand to the Duchess.

"Permit me to thank you, Madame, for your abundant kindness. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you."

Under normal circumstances, such an affirmation would bring out all the Duchess's awkwardness. She is famously shy-suspicious of affection. The serenity that enfolds her now is the first sign that she has her own ideas about the future.

"No," she says. "It is I who ought to thank you, Madame. In advance. For I am about to ask of you a very great service. And I can think of no one better suited to carry it out."

CHAPTE R 4 9.

The Muslin Bag Leave i t to the Duchess to come up with America.

M any yea rs ago, at the height of the Terror, a noble family by the name of Lioncourt shipped out of Bordeaux, one step ahead of the men in red hats. Making their way across the Atlantic-first to Boston, then to the Hudson Valley-the Lioncourts were able, after many years of renting from a Dutch patroon, to acquire their own land. Forty-six acres of primeval glory.

Through all this, they remained faithful correspondents with the Duchess and, in their letters, are ever entreating her to visit. She has so far declined, but she has at last found someone to send in her stead.

"Oh, Doctor, can't you imagine how happy Charles would be in such a place? All that wilderness. Not a city for miles, and not a single French partisan. Never again will he have to concern himself with affairs of state. . . ."

"But what will he do there?" I protest. "How will he live?" "The living you may leave to me. As to what he will do . . ." Her

mouth lifts slightly at one corner. "Doesn't every manor require a gardener? Even in the New World?"

So i t is that, on a moonlit evening in late May, a curious party gathers at the Quai Malaquais. Three black-bundled men, of varying sizes, and two women in black lace. Nothing about this assembly would suggest that it includes two members of the royal family and the most famous policeman in the land. Or that something perfectly historic-the quietest of abdications-is in the process of unfolding.

Yes, in just a few minutes, an aged baroness and a man named Charles Rapskeller will step into a narrow f lat-bottomed dory, manned by servants of the Duchesse d 'Angouleme. They will be ferried upriver to Le Havre. From there, they will be placed on a three-masted barque to New York, with letters of introductions to all relevant figures.

For this journey, the Baroness has stripped herself down to essentials. A crop of thinning gray hair where her wig would otherwise be. A slack white face, unadorned with powder or rouge. And yet something of her old station clings to her even now. Mark the rigid spine she maintains as she walks down the steps to the landing. Note her smile, still dazzling, and the unaffected dignity with which she accepts the Duchess's hand.

"Madame," says the Baroness. "You may be certain I will watch over your brother. As if he were my own son."

"I know you will," answers the Duchess.

The Baroness is carefully handed down to the boatsmen . . . and now there's nothing to keep Charles from his new life. Nothing but Charles himself.

"Maybe I shouldn't go, Marie."

Stepping toward him now, she speaks in softly reasoning cadences, like a prioress.

"My dear, you wouldn't be safe here, you know that. If anyone were to learn who you are, you could never be happy or content again. And neither could I."

With a spasm of impatience now, she reaches into the folds of her cloak and draws out a bag of Indian muslin. About the size of a cabbage, lumpy and protuberant.

"There," she says, handing it to him with a grim satisfaction.

"But what is it?"

"Jewels."

Bracing the bag against his belly with his right arm, he uses his left hand to wheedle the drawstring apart. Even at nighttime, there is no mistaking the contents.

"But, Marie," he says, in a hush. "What am I to do with all these?"

"Sell them," she answers, simply. "Piece by piece, as needed."

With one stroke of her finger, she tightens the drawstring.

"There is enough here to keep you for life, Charles. As many gardens as you"-her eyes graze over the bandaged vacancy at the end of his arm-"as you wish."

Except for the slosh of the river against the landing, all is quiet, and all is dark-not even a single lighterman on the nearby barges. Which means that Charles' trembling registers as a vibration in our skin.

"I can't," he's saying. "I don't have a right to all this."

"Who has more right than you?" retorts the Duchess. "And what use do I have for jewelry? Ask anyone, I'm the least fashionable woman in France. Baubles are wasted on me. You will get far more use out of them than I ever should."

"But you could come with us! " he cries, springing up on his toes. "We could all cross the ocean together. We could even bring Hector. Wouldn't that be splendid?"