Dancing for the Marquis

By Edith M Ziegler

France, 1879. The Marquis de Rays dreams of a utopian colony on a remote tropical island in Oceania north of Australia. He has never been to this place—a rain-drenched wilderness shadowed by mountains. Undaunted, he gathers investors, and hundreds of hopeful European battlers set out for the new world.

In northern Italy, a young farmer, Matteo, convinces his wife, Rosa, that they should emigrate. Leaving him behind to sell their smallholding, she embarks with their baby on the Marquis' third expedition.

Matteo follows later, only to discover his family are gone, there is no arable land, malaria is rife, and the captain commanding the colony is mad. Will Matteo find his Rosa and baby Angelo among other refugees who have fled to Sydney? And if he does, how will they begin again?

The marquis, a historical character, destroyed the lives, hopes, and fortunes of many. In this compelling debut novel, survival and a fresh start may be the best his victims – the investors, adventurers and immigrants - can hope for.

Although the novel is set in the nineteenth century, it touches on issues that have resonance in the twenty-first century – financial fraud, a loss of trust in once revered individuals and venerated institutions, refugee policy, and the perennial dreams of 'economic' migrants seeking a better life. In her research for this novel, Ziegler spent time in Conegliano (Italy), Marseille, and Barcelona, absorbing the atmosphere and detail of these places. Her great strength as a novelist is her ability to flesh out historical facts and fragments into a fully developed world inhabited by knowable and relatable characters.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Mar 11, 2019
• ISBN: 9781925846645

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ONE

‘That could be interesting . . . very interesting indeed.’

It was a lacklustre morning towards the end of March 1879 and Roland LeBlanc was breakfasting at home in Marseille. Consistent with his usual routine, he was also perusing Gazette du Midi, one of the city’s daily newspapers. He preferred to read without interruption; the paper’s comprehensive coverage and analysis of important national issues deserved his fullest concentration. Veronique, his wife, always complied dutifully with his wishes and would pass him a roll or pour him a cup of coffee according to a mutually understood semaphore of facial expressions. Although his comment piqued her curiosity, she waited in silence to see whether he would be more forthcoming.

The item that had caught and held Roland’s attention was a prominent advertisement placed by a conservative Catholic discussion forum. After reading it several times, he was ready to share its subject matter. Still staring at the paper, he asked rhetorically, ‘What do you think of this, Veronique? At the April meeting of the Salon des Œuvres, the guest speaker will be a person who’s promoting an entirely new French colony in Oceania. It says here that the colony is to be founded on traditional values and principles embodying the true ethos of France itself.’

Veronique put down her cup and sighed, ‘Ah . . . La Patrie’. This was not so much a response as an encapsulation of wistful longing for intrinsic values that, like Roland, she believed were being lost or corrupted by the nation’s current political régime. She was particularly hostile to the recently elected president, Jules Grévy, who was very vocal about his desire to separate church and state. To Veronique, this was a reprehensible idea, and clearly anti-Catholic.

Although neither husband nor wife had yet turned thirty, they shared a deep and emotional attachment to the past (or their own selective notion of the past) and longed for its apparent certitude – so different from polarised contemporary France. When Roland read the notice, there was really no question as to whether or not he would go to the meeting – he made up his mind on the spot. The pale spring day began to glow with bright possibilities, and so when Veronique asked, ‘Do you plan to attend the Salon des Œuvres?’ he was surprised, and answered unequivocally.

‘Of course! Nothing could stop me.’ For the next ten days he was restlessly impatient.

Émile Sumien, Gazette du Midi’s pessimistic editor-in-chief, identified closely with the concerns of his readers. He knew they appreciated having their opinions reflected and thereby validated in the conservative newspapers to which they subscribed. He regularly filled the pages of the Gazette with doom-laden jeremiads, and examples of what he claimed as incontrovertible evidence of national decline. For months he’d been warning his readers that France was facing impending disaster.

‘Wherever one looks, one sees a deterioration in our society’s values. This is clearly attributable to the widespread lapse of religious observance and to the creeping godlessness of public policy.’ Sumien had a rogue’s gallery of culprits for the policy changes, and he would frequently mention the most egregious offenders.

As well as carping about national decay, Monsieur Sumien also liked to evoke in his readers a nostalgic craving for the lost golden age of the ancien régime, a glorious Gallic and monarchical era, when vigorous hordes of young men had allegedly gone forth to carry French influence to foreign shores. His message was unambiguous; since the founding of the Third Republic, French society had grown decadent, and its young men had become either self-gratifying hedonists or effete milksops.

Whenever he read the Gazette, Roland would find himself mur­muring in agreement with the editor-in-chief’s reactionary positions, his wisdom, and his vigorous defence of the Church. Veronique would hear her husband saying aloud, ‘Quite so . . . How true . . . He’s put his finger on the problem exactly . . . ’ and similar comments.

Roland was very pious and devout, and considered most political questions through the prism of his religious beliefs. Being tall, thin and rather angular, he called to mind the sort of reclusive ascetic that might inhabit a monastery on some remote holy mountain. In his daily activities, he was usually an efficient and pragmatic sort of person, but he could also be credulous and susceptible to prophecies and portents that gave him a focus for yearnings he was scarcely aware of possessing. He interpreted these portents as demands that should neither be ignored nor resisted. He was convinced that the Marian apparitions at Lourdes, at Pontain and at Pellevoisin – all within his own lifetime – had been divine warnings that France had recklessly ignored. Echoing Émile Sumien, Roland would say earnestly to those closest to him, ‘France will never be at peace with itself until it adopts a conservative moral order. Its citizens must commit to reinvigorating the Catholic faith at home and spreading it abroad.’ And his like-minded listeners would nod their heads in agreement. He never met anyone who might interrogate or question his perspectives.

On the evening of the meeting, Roland washed, trimmed his beard, brushed his dark hair, changed into a fresh white shirt, and slipped into his best black broadcloth frock-coat. He briefly checked his austere appearance in a mirror, then hurried downstairs to the street, where he hailed a cab to take him across town.

Roland’s destination was a building in Belsunce that was owned by the Jesuits. It was here, in a large room on the second floor, that the Salon des Œuvres held its meetings. Access to the building was from la rue Mission de France, a short narrow street that was not much more than a laneway. When Roland arrived, he joined a throng of men milling about impatiently in the restricted area. At eight o’clock a priest threw open a pair of narrow doors, and the waiting men pressed through and rushed up the stairs. The available seats were taken quickly, but more and more people kept arriving and, although they knew they would have to stand for the whole evening, this did not deter them. As the room filled it became very noisy with men talking loudly and excitedly. Roland acknowledged several people whom he knew, but he took the opportunity to admire the room’s famous murals by Dominique Magaud. Each of these portrayed some aspect of Catholicism’s contributions to civilization. One – rather aptly in view of the night’s proceedings – showed Christopher Columbus landing at San Salvador and thanking God for allowing him to be the carrier of His holy religion to the New World.

Presently the hubbub subsided; the proceedings were about to start. All heads turned as Léon Roubaud, who was the president of the Salon des Œuvres, a notary, and one of Marseille’s best known citizens, walked to the front of the room. He was followed by a tall, rather portly and altogether striking figure with a high forehead, aquiline nose and thick black hair. This was the guest speaker. After a few introductory remarks, Mâitre Roubaud introduced him as Charles Marie-Bonaventure du Breil, the Marquis de Rays.

Charles du Breil stepped up to the daïs, placed his notes on the lectern, and after glancing at these briefly, stood back, paused, gazed out at the eager faces, and broke the silence with the ringing and rallying tones of an orator.

‘Dearest children of Old France.’

These opening words elicited spontaneous and sustained applause. The marquis had achieved exactly the effect he’d intended. Roland was conscious that his pulse was racing. He could feel the skin under his sleeves prickling into gooseflesh and he was flushed with expectation. For the next three-quarters of an hour he sat enthralled, as the marquis electrified the room with his vision for a New France, a colony in Oceania. This imprecise geographic locality was apparently a vast swathe of the western Pacific whose countless realms and islands had not yet been formally claimed by any European power. These, the audience was expected to infer, were like loose change waiting to be scooped up and pocketed by someone like the marquis. He then stated imperiously,

‘The initial colonial settlement will be in New Ireland at a place shown on existing maps as Port Praslin, but which I have renamed Port Breton.’

He waited while those in the room, who had no knowledge of the region and had never heard of New Ireland, digested this information, and continued, ‘I have created my colony for religious and patriotic motives.’ As if to explain these motives, he changed the tenor of his voice, tossed his head and asked in a gathering crescendo, ‘Why is Europe beset by divisions? Why are there always clouds on the horizon? Why are there perpetual conflicts in the depths of our being? Are these feelings not foreign to our innermost understanding of being Catholic and French? Alas, poor Fatherland, what has become of thy glory? Eldest daughter of the Church, wherefore is thy crown?’

These rhetorical questions needed no answers. There was further applause, and members of the audience smiled at each other open-mouthed, as if to say, ‘Where has this man been? Why haven’t we heard from him before?’ ‘We’re in the presence of a visionary.’

The person sitting beside Roland nudged his elbow. ‘Isn’t he marvellous?’

Roland, who generally bristled if touched by a stranger, nodded and smiled cordially in full agreement.

Many of those in the audience believed the greatness and power of a nation could be measured by its colonial possessions, but Charles du Breil was proposing a private endeavour conducted without reference to any sovereign government. His receptive listeners did not question this. They could only see a man who spoke with authority and élan, and was thoroughly convincing when he argued that France needed to be restored to its true Christian and Royalist character.

When he avowed, ‘New France will offer a fresh start, a providential renewal guided by the Creed and the Cross,’ they were more than willing to trust him wholeheartedly.

The regal, moustachioed aristocrat upon whom all eyes were fixed was attired in the crisply pressed uniform of a major general. Across his chest was a wide, striped moiré silk sash to which was pinned a jewelled star – an order of some sort – and Roland assumed the marquis must have fought in the late war with Prussia. On this evening he might have been the Last Knight of Europe, a chivalric hero urging his followers to a patriotic crusade, or a righteous warrior announcing a path to the Promised Land.

Had Roland been endowed with even a modicum of scepticism, he might have recognised a costumed performance of theatrical artifice and histrionic flair. He did not discern that the strength of the speech lay in the marquis’ innate understanding that he was reflecting and amplifying the anxieties of his audience and offering a persuasive solution for their relief. He was engaging emotion rather than logic, and each person in the room heard an individual message.

The marquis moved on to practical matters. ‘My colony has extensive capital requirements, and you can obtain a stake in its development by purchasing vouchers representing land. The price per hectare is now five francs but will rise to ten francs in May.’ He inserted this persuasive note to encourage urgency, but did not explain why or on what basis the price per hectare was calculated. Instead he insisted, ‘There are fortunes to be made by discerning investors in this unique undertaking.’

While members of the audience silently reckoned up their options for future wealth or engaged in pipedreams about tropical islands, the marquis went on speaking.

‘The special character of the Work will make it necessary for me to retain sole control. I cannot afford to see it ruined by the pestilential procedures of a normal industrial or commercial organization.’ This statement went unheard or unheeded by those in the room.

Charles du Breil ended his powerful address with a challenging flourish. ‘To the Work, gentlemen! Let it begin, and may God be with us!’

His soaring confidence was richly inspirational to those who had long been seeking answers as to why France had lost its way and was in decline. They rose for an ovation. Everyone stamped their feet or thumped the wooden floor with walking sticks. They roared with approval and clapped and cheered. The sound was deafening, the approval sustained, and even the prosaic questions that followed much later – on topography, vegetation, soils, crops, and so on – could not diminish its lingering effect. Roland made a mental note to pick up one of the information leaflets that had been stacked on tables prior to the talk.

Being a natural actor, instinctively conscious of his timing, Charles du Breil did not think it was the right moment to disclose that he had neither been to New Ireland nor to any of the island groups of the Pacific collectively referred to as Oceania. Yet on this night of triumph amongst eager supporters, he did not consider he was lying, but that he was speaking the truth – or something that was true enough, because it ought to be true. His colonial obsession had allowed him to create a reality of his own in which facts were improvised to serve his objectives. His audience was the mirror he needed to reflect and thus confirm his fictional contentions. He expected its members to identify with his exalted self-image and with his overstated plans. He challenged them to have faith that his stories were real, and for the most part that’s exactly what they did.

The Port Breton envisaged by the marquis had grown lushly in his mind from a seed planted several years before when he’d read the journals of several French navigators. None of these had spent more than a few days at the proposed site and none had deemed it suitable for an agricultural colony. It was, however, not entirely without attraction.

Louis-Antoine Bougainville, the famed French explorer who had visited (and named) Port Praslin in 1768, had described a spectacle not far from the shore. This was a gorgeous cascade framed by majestic trees and lush foliage that spilled its waters from a great height in a silvery torrent. So enchanted was Bougainville that he had written in his journal, ‘The greatest painter would struggle in vain to produce in the palaces of kings what Nature has cast here in this uninhabited spot . . .’

The allure of this romantic and potent image had filled and fired Charles du Breil’s dreaming. Fate, he was convinced, was inexorably guiding him to Port Praslin as the site for his settlement. Perhaps he had seen it with his own eyes.

By the time Roland got home it was late, and Veronique had gone to bed though she was still awake. She could see her husband was in a preoccupied state of excitement and in no mood to retire, so she propped herself up on her smooth white linen pillows and asked him for a full report on the evening.

‘I really wish you could have been there and heard the marquis speak – especially about the magnificent concept he has for his colony and its future.’

‘What sort of a man is he?’ Veronique was genuinely curious.

Roland didn’t answer immediately, as if he were searching for words of sufficient adequacy. Eventually he stammered, ‘persuasive

. . . majestic . . . there’s no other way of saying it. He has a commanding presence and he exudes a real aura of authority. His voice is deep and resonant . . . quite magnetic . . . but it was his ideas that held everyone in thrall.’

As he spoke, Roland walked distractedly around the room clasping and unclasping his hands. He then exclaimed, ‘He has a boldness and confidence that could well make him the saviour of France.’ On this portentous evening Roland had seen an agent of deliverance, a messiah; he was completely awestruck.

‘Were there many there?’

‘The room was packed out – and with people just like us.’ To Roland it was self-evident that ‘people just like us’ should be running France. Roland was excessively trusting of people he thus identified, and when dealing with them for any purpose, was inclined to suspend his customary caution.

The LeBlancs were members of Marseille’s relatively small bourgeoisie. Gérard LeBlanc, Roland’s widowed father, was the proprietor of a large and successful printery, L’imprimerie de LeBlanc et fil. Roland was ‘le fil,’ and it was not long since his father had placed him in charge of all the clerks and cashiers who kept the ledgers, estimated revenue, issued invoices and recorded the payments received. Some of these men had been employed for many years and knew a great deal about the business – far more than Roland did. Nevertheless, he felt obligated to prove his father’s trust, and he didn’t hesitate to exert his authority when he deemed this necessary.

From time to time the elder LeBlanc would say to his son, ‘One day this printery will be entirely yours and its success or failure will depend on you. Now you may be very good with figures but you must prepare for ownership by becoming familiar with all aspects of the firm’s operation.’ He would then recite a litany of prudential necessities – the need to accrue funds to replace aging presses and other plant, to maintain a reserve for unforeseen expenditures, to stay abreast of competitor initiatives, and to keep a weather eye on changes in the business environment. His father would always finish his advice by warning, ‘A family company will only ever be successful if those running it are qualified and experienced. You must be ready at all times because nobody can predict the future.’ To Gérard LeBlanc these homilies were a parental obligation, but he had great respect for his son, his conscientious diligence, his thoroughness, and the quality of his work.

Every time his father held forth, Roland would be politely attentive, though he judged he had long since absorbed his father’s teaching. For several years, he had set aside some of his earnings and his portion of the annual profit so that, if required, he would be able to make his own investment in the printery at the appropriate time.

Canny about their business, a necessity in the fast-changing economic climate, the LeBlancs were otherwise unworldly and incurious. Father and son were sober, honest, and industrious, and each lived in a manner that was comfortable – neither meagre nor lavish. They were people of high principle and ethical conviction, and sought to do good in the world as required by their faith. They disapproved of idle recreation, and did not share their fellow citizens’ zest for opera or the shows performed at the Théâtre de l’Alcazar and similar places. Although they were not consciously anti-social, only close family members were ever invited to their home for a meal – usually a pot roast. Parties, balls and elegant soirées were diversions for different sorts of people altogether.

Veronique LeBlanc was a small, rather fragile woman who was also very devout. She had once thought she might have a nun’s vocation and had explored becoming an aspirant for a religious order, but after meeting Roland at her parish church, receiving encouragement from her parents and undergoing a contemplative retreat, she had become convinced that her true calling was to marry him and to be a wife and mother. Although she had found Roland’s looks agreeable and respected his intelligence and his values, her decision to marry him had been motivated by a sober calculation of affinity rather than deep emotion. The couple now had two children, three-year-old Mathilde, and Yves who was fourteen months old and had recently begun to walk. Both parents adored their children and assumed they would always be safeguards of marital content.

Despite her love for her children, Veronique’s youth was not really a time of discovery and delight; it was too heavily burdened with self-imposed responsibilities. Everything she did was in the nature of a supplication, a plea for approval. She regarded her duty to her husband and family as an extension of her duty to God. She strove to be humble, patient, and obedient to what she presumed might be God’s will, but she could never match up to the standards she set for herself. Her ceaseless struggle to be a dependable wife, a loving mother, and a competent household manager, often made her fretful, and drained from her the possibility of real joy.

At the meeting of the Salon des Œuvres the marquis had announced he was going to publish a monthly newspaper, La Nouvelle France, to report on everything to do with his colony and to keep his supporters informed. The paper would be produced in Marseille and distributed throughout France and beyond. As editor-in-chief he had chosen the entirely like-minded Émile Sumien.

Roland paid for an annual subscription to La Nouvelle France, and the first issue arrived in July. He and Veronique spread out the paper on their dining-room table and studied it with great care. Occupying about a third of the title page was an engraved vignette of Port Breton. It showed several sailing ships riding at anchor in a bay framed by palm trees. The image electrified them, and they chirped, ‘Oh, look, look! Isn’t the village charming? What an excellent harbour!’ Then, in case either had missed anything in the illustrated scene, they pointed out the details to each other, ‘Can you see the nuns in their white cornets?’ ‘Have you spotted the monk in his cassock? He’s evangelising native boys.’

The newspaper thrilled the couple; everything about it was entirely agreeable to them. Neither had ever travelled beyond the environs of Marseille, but both were avid consumers of missionary pamphlets that contained accounts of brave French priests taking the Gospel to the furthest corners of the globe, even at the peril of being martyred for their efforts. From these pamphlets, Veronique had learnt that the indigenous people of Oceania were primitive cannibals who could neither read nor write. They went about naked, daubed with red ochre and lime, and adorned themselves with plugs in their noses and straws through their septums.

At the bottom of the title page was a picture of a grass-roofed hut set in a jungle clearing. The caption read, ‘A native dwelling in New France.’ Veronique peered at the image and mused, ‘The missionaries are going to have a difficult time converting the savages.’ She then paused for a few moments and continued, ‘but of course it’s the difficulty that will make their efforts so laudable, and that’s why the marquis deserves our support.’

In fact, the marquis had emphasised this same point in the news­paper. ‘The most effective way of demonstrating confidence in my plans is to provide funding for their execution.’ There was an implied nexus between an investor’s level of funding and his belief in the Work.

Veronique found it much easier to romanticise and support foreign missions than to render aid to the poor who were closer at hand. Notwithstanding her piety, she was distinctly uncharitable when it came to the large numbers of Italian immigrants who had recently moved into Marseille to provide the labour for its industrial expansion. These had become susceptible to the campaigns of Leftist political activists, and to Veronique, this was ominous and subversive.

‘These foreigners shouldn’t be allowed to come here,’ she would grumble to Roland. ‘They’ve no respect for French culture and they’re undermining our way of life. They don’t even speak our language.’ Veronique was similarly distrustful of Jews, whose numbers in Marseille had also grown along with the economy. The city’s conservatives resented Jews for their business success and their republican sentiments.

Veronique had a limited circle of friends and family. Her sheltered life meant that neither she nor any member of her family had ever knowingly met an Italian or a Jew, or indeed anyone foreign. Never­theless she was highly receptive to derogatory anecdotes about

unfamiliar outsiders whose very presence in Marseille represented social change. Veronique was troubled by such change. Her fragility seemed to require the anchor of certainty, and she wanted France to be closed and homogenous and thus, to her mind, safe, stable and harmonious. She had an instinctive respect for French institutions such as the Army and the Church, and for the representatives or agents of such institutions of whom she could believe nothing adverse. The marquis’ plans for Port Breton had given her a cause for real cheer. The colony might be remote, but it would serve as a beacon of piety, simple rectitude, and old values.

The young couple would often happily discuss how the proposed colony might advance.

‘There’ll need to be a community of settlers before any mission can thrive at Port Breton. A new country can’t flourish without a steady intake of suitable people.’ Veronique had specific ideas about the sorts of people who might be suitable.

Roland agreed. ‘That’s right. But we can’t go ourselves. What do we know of farming? Precisely nothing.’

‘Farmer Roland.’ Veronique smiled at the absurdity of the idea.

‘In any case we have too many responsibilities here in Marseille to leave.’ Roland was thinking of the family’s business. Although his father was in excellent health, if this ever changed, Roland would need to take charge.

Roland and Veronique agreed on most questions of consequence, but Roland had also married without much ardour. While he was fond of his wife, and found her blonde prettiness and grace rather charming, he had never really been in love with her. This did not trouble him unduly. Roland’s mother had died when he was six, and his two older sisters had married young and moved away from Marseille. He had thus grown up in a house without women, and with a preoccupied and undemonstrative father. As an only son, he had learnt early to rely on himself and to be emotionally self-sufficient. As a consequence, he tended to think of romantic love as sentimental. He had even sailed through adolescence without experiencing the heartburn of youthful infatuation. He had married Veronique because it was likely she would make an affectionate and steadfast partner.

Roland and Veronique were both naturally prudish and unadventurous in their intimacy. Their restraint was a product of their moral earnestness and rigid propriety as well as their suspicion of self-indulgence. To both of them, physical pleasure, if enjoyed merely for its own sake, was louche and dubious. Duty and responsibility invariably trumped amatory inclination and carnal desire. Neither ever said ‘I love you’ to the other, but assumed their marital harmony was in itself a testament to their affection.

Their religious devotions aside, the couple’s energies were, in Roland’s case, largely expended on the printery, and in Veronique’s, on their home and children. They did not often bother each other with matters that were exclusive to their own sphere. Apart from the allowance that Roland gave Veronique for household expenses, the family’s finances and their management were entirely matters for Roland. He was, however, so consumed by his zest for the marquis’ colony that not long after receiving the first issue of La Nouvelle France, he made a disclosure to Veronique. ‘I’ve decided to support the marquis by making an investment in Port Breton. What do you think?’

Veronique tried not to show she had been praying earnestly for this outcome. She beamed at her husband and exclaimed vigorously, ‘That’s wonderful! I’m so glad and so proud of you.’ The two relished a rare moment of shared fervour. Roland basked in the warmth of her approval and inferred she was awed by his decision. She did not question whether it was his to make – it was his manly prerogative as head of the household. Roland saw no reason to advise her that he was intending to pay for his stake with her dowry as well as a large portion of his carefully accumulated savings. Time enough for this when he was receiving handsome returns.

On a scorching day towards the end of July, Roland visited the office of Mâitre Léon Roubaud in la rue de la République. It was Mâitre Roubaud who had invited the marquis to Marseille to address the Salon des Œuvres after he had received circulars about the intended colony. He had thought the topic might be of particular interest to the inhabitants of a great maritime port. Charles du Breil later repaid his keenness by making the notary his agent for all land voucher sales and other business in southern France.

Roland’s first impression of Mâitre Roubaud’s office was its extraordinary messiness. Every surface was covered with heaps of unsorted papers, bundles of files and unopened letters. His desk was littered with empty bottles of ink, their sides blotched with dried out blue sediment, and jars of bedraggled goose quills that probably hadn’t been used for decades. The notary himself was a dishevelled gnome of a man with wisps of grey hair drifting from his uncombed head. Roland, who was meticulously neat, hoped his face did not reveal his disapproval. He was mildly shocked that the sleek marquis had chosen such an untidy muddler to