“I’ve invented something. As the germ of conception in my head it was the best and wildest and most elusive of my inventions. It’s a contraption half-crazed by a love of justice, a machine oiled by fierce hostility to those who would ride the human race as though it were a dumb beast. I’ve set it loose gyrating across the world. It spins through villages, hamlets, towns, grand cities. It’s a thing to be confronted every moment of every day by everyone who hears even its rumor: it will test most those who presume too glibly to believe in it. But I know it’s a flawed thing, and I know the flaw is of me. Just as the white ink of my loins has fired the inspiration that made it, so the same ink is scrawled across the order of its extinction. The signature is my own. I’ve written its name. I’ve called it America.”
~Thomas Jefferson, from Arc d’X by Steve Erickson
~~~
The Goddess Liberty…
Paris-Ile de la Cite, November 1787, scenes immediate to the Hotel Dieu
Flashback to L’Fiege’s apartments takes place-October 1787
Caroline…
~~~
The sounds of the Dieu, the mix of patients being tended--student physician assessing a swollen, dropsied foot; the whimpering of an infant; Dr. Beaulieu sounding-off once more, before explaining calmly to his resident, how to apply the cautery element to small vessels after an amputation—faded before the flood of memory. It was only in retrospect Caroline realized how deeply her accusations had rattled more than the American ambassador’s concern for mere diplomatic propriety.
Larger anxieties haunted Thomas Jefferson, rising from the dangerous ideas kindled by her libelous work, the reckless demonstration of her experiment, performed before the Amblsey’s gathered patrons.
Ducking beneath the slated overhang of the Hammer and Anvil, the Virginian towed her roughly along.Her elbow in his vice-like grip, Caroline was forced to skip every second or third step as Thomas Jefferson dragged her into an alley, branching off from a small piazza. In the flickering, feeble light cast from a street-lamp, the glower clouding his eyes sent a shudder down her spine.
Night cloaked the grime and slop of tenement streets, congested by a ramshackle scrambling of edifices.
Her spitting, seething utterances filled the dark, his driven pace undeterred by her futile back-peddling, pitting her slight weight against his lean-muscled bulk.
They crossed another plaza, heading down a winding set of byways, passing a series of shops boarded for the night.The momentum of his stride carried them around a corner, progressing onto a paved, narrow road lined by elegant appearing townhomes, only slowing at last, when they reached the threshold of a grilled entrance.
Thomas yanked the little Scotch doctress in front of him.
She managed to shake free of his grasp, whirling in a vengeful wrath.
“What the bloody hell is wrong with you?” she flared, furious, glaring up at him. They stood, facing each other like combatants in a duel.
That he would have the audacity bringing her back to L’Fiege’s residence, rooms rented for the sole purpose of indulging their demented passion.
“I don’t appreciate being used as an ornament to augment the strength of your experiments, Caroline.” Thomas was unrepentant, not intimidated by the heat in her voice. “You dare bring myself, Mr. Paine, the Marquise de Lafayette, into this inflated accusation against the Crown—“
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To Be Remembered as Time of Love Allow...
Historical Fiction...detailing the here-to-fore, unknown, and consequently, forbidden affair between Thomas Jefferson and a woman whilst serving as ambassador in Paris, from 1784-1789. This is an excerpt of a larger work...or an attempt anyway...Beta away--there's en...
