girls’. Yours would be the final one. Would you be willing?”
Some strong emotion passed over Odette’s face and then, like a storm cloud, was gone. “I’ll tell you everything.”
* * *
Instead of sending the pamphlets with Daumier, she went to see Lasalle herself. The bookseller and his friends—the priest and the butcher—were drinking wine and laughing when he rose to greet her.
“More of your exclusives, très bien!” Taking them from her, he placed them reverently on a table. Glancing at the title, he said, “We could sell a hundred more of these, you know. Everyone who wasn’t there wants to know what happened.”
“If I did, they wouldn’t be exclusives, would they?”
“Touché!” Lasalle acknowledged. “Is there something you’re looking for?”
“There is … do you have any engravings about the women’s march?”
“Bien sûr!” He took her to a table covered with sheets of densely printed paper: newspapers and pamphlets and posters; slim, cheaply bound books that could be read and discarded as you would a newspaper; engravings in stark black-and-white. A few were about the march. In one engraving, the women marched with shovels and scythes over their shoulders. In another the women—along with what were clearly supposed to be men in women’s clothes—streamed into Versailles. And there was Odette: a young woman standing on the back of a horse, her arms flung out to embrace the crowd, giving a speech. Powerful and certain. A figure for the revolution.
Sifting through the engravings, she eventually discovered a drawing of the scene at the gates: the press of people, the boy’s crumpled body, the effigies on their poles. And there—magicians painted with tears, their hands black with soot. Suddenly light-headed, she steadied herself on the table. She didn’t know what was worse, that people wanted magicians dead—or that she hadn’t been brave enough write about it.
“Sickens the stomach, does it not?” Lasalle said pleasantly. “Anything else?”
She picked up the engraving that showed Odette on the horse. “I’ll take this.”
“That’s a fine one—such power in that girl!”
“If it was a girl,” the butcher said. “Many were men dressed as women. Can’t imagine a girl on a horse like that.”
If Camille could have scorched them with her glare, she would have. “As it happens, I know her. Her story will be the next one I write.”
“Pardon, madame!” said the butcher. “It is just that there are so many rumors, one never knows what is true or not these days—”
“How much do I owe you for the print?” she asked Lasalle.
“It’s on the house. Bring me the story of that girl on the horse and I will sell every copy of it.”
Odette had told the truth about the effigies, and Camille had been shown to be the liar. Then why couldn’t Camille shake the feeling Odette was keeping a secret?
THE LOST GIRLS SPEAK
THE REVOLUTIONARY
I STARTED LIFE AS THE DAUGHTER OF A RICH MAN
I remember the unending food, the servants, the feeling of SAFETY, that nothing could ever be too much or too difficult. Until it was, on the day my father left.
My mother wept for she could not live without him. He was a man of many moods, some of them dark, that we had both suffered under. But now? She called him her rock, her savior, and he was gone! Though I did my best to comfort her, she could not stop weeping.
Two weeks later, I woke to an empty house. My mother had gone to join him and left me behind. She took everything, even her last year’s dresses, but she left me. I was worth less to her than her clothes.
As long as I could, I lived in the costly apartment, but soon I was pushed into the streets. There I saw how the people of Paris lived: some like kings, like my father, and some like rats, like me. A flame sparked inside of me to speak out against injustice.
I spoke on the street corners. I spoke in the parks and at the Palais-Royal. At first people laughed to hear a little girl with such a big voice, but then they listened and threw coins in my cap. One person who heard me was a girl who said I needed a home. A new family.
Did I DARE to trust again? Was there someone there who would CARE?
There was.
They did.
Poor girls with little of their own were the ones who saved me.
They gave me the strength to stand.
Now I stand and speak for all of those who are left behind.