Not a man given to praise, on this occasion, through clenched teeth, Vauban had to acknowledge the Ducroix brothers’ good work. Armand then peered close to the final plan, turned stiff, and screeched at his brother: “Mais tu es idiot! What is this you’ve brought to the marquis’s table?”
Vauban did not know what was meant until Zeno humbly excused himself. “A thousand apologies, Marquis. I’ve committed a blunder: These prints are no more than exercise pieces by that execrable engineering cadet, Martí Zuviría.”
They moved swiftly on as though nothing had happened, leaving Vauban nonplussed but also angry, for he was sufficiently clever to realize that all this had been a ruse to make him change his mind about me.
That same night, Jeanne tackled him during dessert. She sent the servants out, and even her sister, Charlotte, so that it was just the two of them at far ends of the long table.
“I know what it is you seek!” cried Vauban, pointing a fork in her direction. “And the answer is no! I am a marshal of the realm, I have had the unhappy task of deciding the fate of the lives of many thousands of men. And now, when I send an uncouth youngster back to his home, I find everyone around conspiring against me. Not even on campaigns among generals have I found such opposition!”
“I would never oppose what my father decides on such a trivial issue,” said Jeanne. “There was something else I wanted to raise with you.”
“I don’t believe you. You’re bluffing, the lot of you! I’ll have you know I’d be within my rights sending him to a galley ship, should that be pleasing to me. How can I be expected to waste my time on an individual who sees fit to bite my guests on their behinds?” He finally stopped pointing the fork. “I never should have admitted him!”
“And I say,” Jeanne went on, unruffled, “that there is another issue I wish to raise with you.” Getting up from her seat, in all her gracefulness, she went over and sat upon the marquis’s knee. “Papa,” she continued, putting her arms about his neck, “it’s a good idea.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Me marrying Prosperus van Verboom.”
“What the—. . ”
Jeanne put a finger to his lips and, with her best smile, said: “He seeks my hand, and you know it. It is hardly the first time he’s happened by Bazoches. Shall I present his case to you?” She sighed. “My marriage is a farce. We weren’t unhappy to begin with, but now he’s lost his mind. This affliction will at least allow me to request an annulment of matrimony. With your contacts at the Vatican, it will be given within a year. Oh, Papa! Think of the opportunity. Verboom is one of the most gifted engineers around. Marry him and I will become a lady at court! I’ll be the luckiest woman in the world!”
Placing his hands on her hips, Vauban lifted his daughter from him. Then he leaped from his chair as though a demon had poked him with a trident. He began pacing up and down the dining hall, one hand on his back, the other gesticulating wildly. “Verboom’s soul is blacker than a dog’s! Hear me? The disease of power, money, and vainglory consumes him. Of course he desires the hand of a Vauban daughter! The day after I die, he’ll make off with my name, our home, our fortune, all my credit and glory. And my own daughter! That reprobate, that unprincipled mercenary, giving his life in service of all the devils!”
Jeanne showed her indignation, her chin held high, her eyes squinted and choleric. “In service of devils, you say?”
“Aye, I do!”
“A reprobate mercenary, a traitor to any decent cause. . ”
“Exactly! You have understood exactly.”
“A man who uses women like sacks of dung and, when he’s emptied them, throws them away at any bend in the road.”
Vauban applauded sourly. “Very good. I think you take my meaning.”
“A creature with a soul blacker than a dog’s, if dogs had souls.”
“Bravo!” exclaimed the marquis, clapping twice more, sarcastically, wearily.
Jeanne took a breath and, in a neutral tone, declared: “He holds you in the utmost esteem.”
“That carbuncle’s esteem matters nothing to me! I have only ever shown him a gentleman’s customary courtesy. Never have I had a shred of confidence in him, for he does not merit it and never shall have it.”
Jeanne cut short the marquis’s words like a scythe. “I mean Martí.”
The marquis, the marshal, the man, said nothing more. He straightaway saw the trap he, of his own accord, had fallen into.
“He adores you, and I can assure you, his reverence has nothing to do with the titles you hold but, rather, the things you have built.” She drew closer to her father, her chin held still higher, and with great calm added: “And you are going to do away with him for a bite on the behind to a black-souled reprobate.”
She turned on her heel and left the dining room.
Though the Ducroix twins would later reveal all of this to me, at the time it happened, I was sobbing, cursing, and pounding on the walls of my room, so I could have had no notion of what was going on three floors below. I did not sleep at all that night.
Logically, then, it was with spirits sagging that I came downstairs the next morning. I had packed my bags, not much of a job, for I owned next to nothing. Indeed, the coach stood waiting out on the parade ground. Though I forget which, either Armand or Zeno said to me: “Before you go, the marquis wishes to speak with you.”
Vauban ignored me when I came into his study. He had a book before him and was murmuring as though he had never progressed beyond reading out loud. The light of day came from the far side of him, through windows that covered almost the entire length of the wall. Not an elaborate tactic but effective: The light would dazzle the visitor, making him feel immediately inferior in the face of this august, luminous presence.
He looked up and, in a peevish voice, said: “Sit!”
I obeyed, naturally.
“Well? What plans have you made for the future?”
“Your Excellence, I am yet to make any,” was all I could think to say.
“Ah, but,” he said tartly, which surprised me, “did you ever even have any?”
His tone and my agonizing situation impelled me to blurt out: “I did, Your Excellence, yes! In recent times I have hoped to become an engineer, with all my heart. Though I suppose monsieur wasn’t aware.”
“Impertinent child!” he bellowed. “Or are the words you have just spoken not the very definition of impertinence? Answer!”
I broke down crying. I was only fifteen years old! There before me was Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban, marquis of Vauban, marshal of the realm, and goodness knows what else. A living myth, the man who had stormed sixty-eight fortresses, the great fortifier. All these things. And I was nothing but a boy, somewhere along the road toward becoming a man.
“You’re crying!” said Vauban.
I got to my feet.
“Since you have been kind enough to receive me, Your Excellence, in spite of my subordination, may I make one final appeal?”
He said nothing. I took his silence as a license to continue.
“Allow me to bid farewell to Jeanne.”
He took an eternity to answer. I had no notion what to do, pinned to the floor like some scarecrow.
“You and I are going to agree on something,” he said at last. “Given that you would be returning home in disgrace, I have an alternate proposaclass="underline" that you continue your engineering studies in the Royal Academy at Dijon. On my recommendation, naturally. In exchange, I ask only that you never come anywhere near Bazoches or my home again, much less my daughter. You will give the place a berth of thirty miles. Your studies, until they are completed, and all your academic costs will be paid by me. You will want for nothing. Accept.”