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told him I went to Versailles and fell in love with a soldier who was barely an aristo. Still, I couldn’t help myself. To make things worse, he slid me slowly off of my horse, our bodies meeting fully for just a moment as my feet found purchase on the ground.
    He didn’t let go of my hand. I allowed the electricity and heat to flow through it, addicted. I wanted to feel these things. I wanted to understand what they meant, even knowing that I would at some point have to give them up. Then I realized that we were gaping at each other while Jacqueline was setting up our picnic.
    “Goodness, I should have thought to bring a maid…you shouldn’t be doing that Jacqueline,” I said, removing my hand and reanimating back to the present. Bastien’s face fell briefly in disappointment before he turned to see that Jacqueline had basically set up the entire picnic on her own. He began to apologize when she put up a hand, kneeling on the red blanket while she finished spreading out our meal of cheese and cold meats and wine. The clouds overhead were beginning to look a little less friendly, but my desire to stay out with my friends was overriding common sense. Ok fine, my desire to stay out with Bastien was doing it…so what?
    “Don’t be silly, you two. I love doing this sort of thing—it reminds me of playing house as a child,” she smirked, looking at us knowingly. I chided myself for now giving them both the wrong impression, but said nothing. Instead the three of us sat down, and I listened in quiet fascination at the level of conversation Jacqueline and Bastien sank into. They could discuss anything with an educated opinion on the matter, whereas I was so limited that I was scared to offer an opinion.
    “But don’t you think it was wrong of the English to be so domineering? I mean, the Americans have been running on their own steam for so long, it was stupid of King George to think he could destroy them with his silly taxes,” Jacqueline said. The topic of the American Revolution had come up frequently in the past few years after the Americans had earned their independence…with generous help from France.
    “How can you say that, sister?” Bastien asked. “The lifestyle you choose to live goes against everything that country believes in.”
    “It does not!” she cried out, petulant. “America is founded on the principle that all people can work their way up, just like we did.”
    “We did not work our way up, Jacqueline. We were handed wealth by the king. Wealth that is now being siphoned because France gave all our money away to the American cause,” Bastien spat. I gazed at him, bewildered.
    “Are you not grateful for the change in status you were given? To be provided with a better life?” I asked, truly puzzled. Bastien cast fiery eyes at me, and I wanted to recoil under their fire. Or snuggle up to it. Whichever.
    “I am grateful that my sister is safe and provided for, yes. But I don’t think that investing in the wars of others and then inspiring our own people to rise up against the king is going to end well for France, do you?”
    “I…” I stalled. I didn’t know what I thought, because no one had taught me how. Bastien knew this, and, patient teacher that he was, he waited for me to come to my own answer. It would probably be the first time that had ever happened.
    “The people would not dare to rise up against the king. Surely we are safe behind the walls of Versailles. It’s too far for anyone to want to take it down. And it’s so pretty!” I exclaimed. My values were a little…shallow. Bastien frowned.
    “You really have no idea what’s happening outside these walls, do you?” he asked, incredulous. This made me defensive, yet again.
    “I certainly do. I know that we do what we can to help the less fortunate, but that they cannot help themselves. It is not our fault that we were born into rank and they into servitude. I’m sure that those who work hard have a good living for