Marigolds
Paris, 1775
1.
This room is the universe. This bed the earth, the ceiling the sky. Somewhere in the plaster heavens above me are the clear brushstrokes that will flare like sunlight when I will them into being.
When I will them.
I watch Maurepas enter the room, framed by my knees. He is plump and old, like the others that come to us, ministers and directors, princes and counts. Smelling of cognac and roasted birdflesh, their doughy skin scored by silks and velvets cut for younger bodies. He strips now, this minister, and when the last piece of cloth is discarded he is just another old man.
All their power is stolen, Mémé says. Even that of kings: they steal their power, and as such it can be stolen back. Why should they have so much and we so little? Do we not come into the
