Paris: The Novel

her father’s eye. He smiled.
    “I have read that the emperor Napoléon was an indifferent chess player,” he remarked. “Too impatient. Perhaps Joséphine was better.”
    “Papa took up chess recently,” Marie told them all. “But he doesn’t practice.”
    “I’m so bad that no one wants to play with me,” her father said. “And Marie refuses to learn.”
    She noticed Fox looking thoughtful.
    “Do you play, Monsieur Fox?” she asked.
    “Funnily enough, I’m in the same situation as your father,” he replied. “Perhaps we should play occasionally?” he suggested to Jules.
    “My dear Fox,” her father replied, “this is a stroke of fortune. Why don’t you come around one evening? What about Thursday?” He glanced at his wife.
    “I hope you will dine with us,” she said to the Englishman. “Just
en famille
. Then you two men can play chess afterward.”
    Fox bowed.
    “You’re very kind. I should be delighted,” he answered.
    Marie gave him a smile. She liked the way he made her father happy.

    The little park outside was delightful. Marie walked between Fox and her father, while her mother was accompanied by Marc and Hadley. Marie was quite content, but she quite often glanced at the American and wished that she, and not her mother, was beside him. Their guide, meanwhile, was explaining the challenge that the park presented.
    “The empress Joséphine kept all kinds of exotic animals here. Ostriches, zebras, even a kangaroo. This we cannot replicate.” He smiled. “The original park was larger. The real question is, what can be done about the plants?”
    And now Marie’s mother gently intervened.
    “The empress had an orangerie with all kinds of rare plants, from around the world. And her rose garden changed the history of gardening.”
    “My wife knows a great deal about gardens and plants,” Jules said proudly.
    “Then you will know, madame, that the empress Joséphine’s huge collection of roses was wonderfully recorded by the artist Redouté.”
    “And her lilies too,” Marie’s mother corrected. “I have several prints at Fontainebleau.” She looked about. “A garden takes much longer to build than a house. I think you’ll have to leave the rose garden until later.”
    It was this little exchange that gave Marie the chance to bring the American into the conversation.
    “What sort of gardens do you have in America, Monsieur Hadley?” she asked. “Are they anything like our European gardens?”
    “Not as good, I have to say,” he answered easily. “The traditional garden of Colonial America is usually not large, but somewhat formal, with clipped box hedges, quite geometric. A modest version of what you find in some French châteaus, or old English gardens, I think. My parents have agarden like that at their house in Connecticut.” He smiled. “Our houses are quite modest. My parents’ house is typical.” And he briefly described the pleasant white clapboard house his parents occupied, with its picket fence and quiet old trees.
    “It sounds enchanting,” Marie said.
    “It is. But it’s not at all French,” he said.
    “Why so?”
    “Because I have noticed that in Europe, people put walls around their houses if they can. They defend their privacy as if they lived in a little fortress. And the bigger houses are set up to suggest the social status and power of their owners. The big plantations in the South have some of that character, but up in the Northeast, our tradition is more democratic. There was never a lord of the manor. Equal citizens got together to elect their local officials. Our houses, big or small, have low fences. It’s all about being a good neighbor.”
    “These are the ideals of the French Revolution,” Jules remarked.
    “Tell me, sir, your house at Fontainebleau is a château?”
    “Not at all. It’s in the town. But it has a very nice garden.”
    “And what encloses the garden?”
    Jules laughed.
    “A high wall.”
    “Perhaps Monsieur Hadley should see the garden,” suggested Marie, “to judge for himself.”
    “We’ll arrange it sometime,” said her father.
    “The truth is,” said Marc, “that most Frenchmen know only two things about America: Lafayette and Buffalo Bill. I think we should all come to America to visit you, Hadley.”
    “You’d be more than welcome,” Hadley replied. “My parents would be glad to repay some of your hospitality. Come in the summer and we can all go up to the cottage in Maine.”
    “A