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Lorsagne disembarks in Marseille while a good mother keeps watch
17th of August, 1784
Marseille, France
Lorsagne loved the human commotion of ports, and the Port of Marseille, Frances premiere military and merchant port with access to Frances inland waterways via the River Rhone was no exception.
Once she and her belongings reached shore and her feet were once again planted on solid land she handed off a letter to a young man eager for work instructing him to wait for a reply and showing him a small handful of coins that would be his once he returned. Counting the coins in her palm, the young man took off at a run; Lorsagne bargained he would return within the hour.
An hour standing on the docks in the heat of a late-summer Provence afternoon was bearable, so parasol in hand and surrounded by her small pile of chests accompanying her from Sorrentina, she watched as a great Spanish ship arriving from Cadiz disgorged the wealth of Spanish America: indigo from Guatemala, leather from Buenos Aires, copper from Peru and Mexico, wool, cocoa from Caracas, vanilla, gold, silver. A dozen barrels rolled off the ship as she watched, whisked away by scruffy porters who took their direction from burly lookouts. Smugglers, Lorsagne thought, and likely the wine was Spanish brought into France as contraband. As a vigneron in a place where the purity of wine was a reflection of both respect and pride in the soil that nourished the vines and brought forth new life with all its promise each year, Lorsagne could not help but hold the tainted Spanish wine in contempt. At the same time she understood the ease and the appeal of the deception; she told herself that if the making of wine held no profit, it would hold no interest for her.
Lorsagne was calculating the expenseand the potentialof the coming harvest when she saw the handsome calche approach. The youth she had sent to deliver her message was running along side the handsome two-seated open carriage with a falling hood. A pair of heavy muscled Arabians that pulled the vehicle came to a stop, standing nearly motionless with a seeming disdain for their surroundings. Magnificent creatures and they and the carriage drew stares of laborers, merchants and travelers alike. The armorial bearings on the carriage door confirmed the owners identity, and as she crossed the few steps to the waiting vehicle Lorsagne drew down her parasol, said a silent prayer of thanks for the breadth of her godfathers contacts, and handed the promised coins to the youth who had delivered her message.
The coachman arranged a small portable step to permit Lorsagne ease of access. Giving him her gloved hand she entered the low-riding vehicle easily, settling herself beside the carriages only other occupant. Her chests secured to the undercarriage, she and her companion left the dock, making their way through the ports crowded streets headed to the low hills surrounding the Bay of Marseille in the direction of a fortress and basilica built in the 13th and 16th centuries at the highest point of Marseille, a limestone peak known as "La Garde" rising to a height of more than 160 meters. The combined fort and basilica were visible from every point in Marseille. Standing proud, glowing in the reflected heat of terraced stone pathways and bathed in the hard brilliant sunlight of Provence the inhabitants of Marseille referred to the basilica as Notre Dame de la Garde: the good mother who watched over Frances gateway to the Mediterranean.
Like the Tarot reading for the newborn, Lorsagne took her destination as an omen. As she and her companion walked the length of the basilica to reach a small door towards the back, Lorsagne drew the hood of her traveling cloak over her head and entered the stone building unobserved.
Ooooo there seems to be a lot more to Mlle Lorsagne than one would think......
Letter sent from Fanny Burney to Lorsagne DeSade
1784, 15 August
My Dearest Lorsagne,
I was so surprised to find you gone from Sorrentina when I returned here late yesterday. At first I was distraught not to be able to seek you out for some much needed council. But now it occurs to me you are in France and may be able to do a bit of research for me. Please do not hesitate to tell me if I am asking to much but I would greatly appreciate your assistance.
There is a French soldier - I have mentioned him to you before. His name is M. Lt. Henri Badeau. I saw him recently in Marseilles where his regiment was taking some leave. By now, they are almost certainly on the move again, as Henri puts it, and I have no idea where they might have gone. I am aware, however, that you have...connections... with some ranking highly in the French military and wonder if you might be able to find out where the Lieutenant is now serving the King and in what capacity. I am sure that matters are precisely as he told me, that his tiny regiment is one that moves swiftly from place to place doing whatever tasks are required by His Majesty at any given moment. I am sure M. Lt. Badeu is surrounded at all times by other men of arms and is almost always preoccupied with his official duties. I am sure that the prickling I feel at the base of my neck whenever he tells me he will be unable to be contacted for some period of time is meaningless. It's only that my Father, who met the lieutenant briefly in Marseilles, experienced a prickling of his own when he encountered my soldier, and is not so ready to write it off as meaningless. It would give my fluttering heart some relief if you could verify that what the man has told me of his activities when I am not present to witness them firsthand is the truth.
Now, to change the topic. I have heard from the professore that Dr. Greymoon and his wife may indeed be adopting the child. I know that you have an interest in her and in what becomes of her. I do hope all will be well.
I also hope you are well and happy and accomplishing what you set out to accomplish on your journey. Please consider my request and hurry back to Sorrentina. You are much missed, my friend.
Ever Your Indebted Ally,
Fanny
How interesting... "tainted" Spanish wine. I agree it is not nearly as tolerable as some pressings, but "tainted" seems a bit extreme of an opinion.
Lorsagne's amanuensis is something of a twit and neglected to explain "tainted" in proper context. The French didn't invent "doctoring wine," Pliny and Chaucer both bemoaned the prevalence of doctored wines. The French wine brokers and Bordeaux negociants commonly "fiddled" with the product in the name of a) greed (passing off an inferior wine as one of higher quality and b) appealing to the tastes of different markets: sugar for the Dutch who wanted a sweeter wine and spiking wine destined for England with stronger Spanish wine and distilled spirits. As Thomas Jefferson learned in his study of French wines, the only way to be certain of getting a pure product was to buy directly from the chateaux. As he wrote a friend, "assure you that it is from them alone (chateaux) that genuine wine is to be got, and not from any wine merchant whatsoever."
After the disaster of the 1783 vintage as a result of the Laki volcanic eruption in Iceland, Lorsagne is pinning her hopes for the Haven's harvest of 1784. Her neighbors of Lafite, Haut-Brion, Latour and Margaux have established themselves as the top of the heap so to speak, and Lorsagne has ambitions to join their ranks. Whether she succeeds is an open question, but the production of fine wine is one of Lorsagne's dearest obsessions.