– Then let us partake of some wine, or should we overly
concern ourselves with the peasants whose feet
grow mouldy with the mashing of it?

Hector trailed off when he noticed
a flare of irritation sweep Joseph’s face.

– My life has been truly serendipitous. I am of a rare breed
for whom society opened their doors
even as they despised my people

– Am I not your people too?

– Of course you are.

– Would that human nature was simple, Joseph

– Oui, la nature humaine

– My friend, you are one of the people, yet you supped with kings, sir
With that charming dead queen of ours, Marie Antoinette

Hector ran a finger across his neck,
rolled his eyes –

– La guillotine. Urrrggghhhh!

– In spite of the fact that I dined with kings, sir
Oh, when are you ever going to grow up, Hector!

–This is far too complicated for a simple chap like myself
I will write about the bon vivant I know and love
The man who skated over the lake at Versailles reciting Racine
who was adjudged the best swordsman in Europe
who at the age of twenty-one swam the Seine with one arm
tied behind his back

You were the first black colonel in the French Army
You were prodigious: concertos, symphonies, string quartets
How you once played your violin with a gem-encrusted whip
How women swooned and succumbed …

– Nonsense! The gossip is greatly exaggerated
I never had more than two hundred lovers
I was most offended that my sobriquet was Don Juan
Could I have been so prolific, if my mind was on my cock?
Hector, be warned, you must not make me out salacious

– You will be portrayed as most sagacious, dear sir

– Nor must you omit how my invitation from Louis XVI
to direct the Opera was blocked by its leading singers
Our honour and the delicacy of conscience prevents
us from being subjected to orders from a mulatto
Gloss over neither the good nor the bad
but present the facts

– Surely such things were rare occurrences?

– I never dwelled on them
One day a fellow shouted Moricaud! on the Rue de Bac
I rubbed his face in the filthy gutter
There, now you are as black as I am. Noir comme les noirs!

Joseph roared long and hard
to Hector’s spittle-filled giggles.

Like percussive accompaniment,
they made quite an orchestral spectacle.

– It will be a fine book, Joseph.

– Let us then toast the forthcoming bestseller
The Amazing Athletic & Artistic Accomplishments
of Joseph Boulogne, Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges
and His Astonishing Adventures in Many Posh Boudoirs

Joseph raised his glass, but, before the drink
touched either of their lips, he added,

– And His Thoughts Emotions & Conclusions on the Terrible
Evils of the Trade in Slaves & the Inhuman Conditions
under which They Suffer, as Perpetrated in the French Dominions
as Witnessed by Himself

Then his eyes swung over to mine
and I felt the power of a great seducer
capable of spinning others into the vortex
of his own pain or passion.

– And you, my friend from another age
have been privy to my private conversation
Sadly, Hector died of gout a few weeks after our meeting