The house was quite impressive—fifty rooms! Replete with gardens and servants, far across the river from the city’s turmoil. There was an extra plum in the pudding, too, for just next door to their new residence lived the woman whom Dr. Franklin had once described to Abigail as “a true Frenchwoman, free of all pretension…the best person in the world.” Her name was Mme Helvetius.

It did seem to Abigail, despite the lady’s heralded modesty, that Mme Helvetius had a few gifts and accomplishments of her own to boast of. Among these she was still considered, at nearly age sixty, to be among the most beautiful women in France. It was said that the poet Fontenelle, on his hundredth birthday, had sighed, “Mme Helvetius makes one long to be eighty again.”

Abigail had learned, too, that the lady’s late husband was a famous philosophe who’d planned to found a club of distinguished dignitaries and scientists. Upon his death, his widow, Mme Helvetius, had drawn upon her own fortune to fund the club’s creation: “The Lodge of Nine Sisters” it was called, referring to muses of the arts and sciences. As its official founder, Mme Helvetius was the only woman admitted to the Lodge’s private meetings. Though these were by invitation only, they were far from secret, for the club boasted among its early members Lafayette, Voltaire and Dr. Franklin: the doctor had tapped its financial connections for monies needed to ensure the success of the American Revolution.

Her new neighbor here in Auteuil must be a great lady indeed, thought Abigail as she dressed to depart for her day at Le Valentinois—Abigail couldn’t wait to meet her. But hadn’t Dr. Franklin said that Mme Helvetius’s club always met on a Tuesday?

So Abigail might make her acquaintance, even tonight.

9:00 a.m.
Bois de Boulogne

John Adams truly loathed Anne-Catherine de Ligniville-Autricourt, Mme Helvetius. Like his attitude toward most French aristocracy, he’d despised her nearly from the day they’d first met.

Cantering on his gray gelding through the Bois de Boulogne, as he did each morning, Adams thought of this woman who had wreaked so much damage, over all these years upon the American mission to France. Naturally, he couldn’t share these feelings with Abigail—though he’d never kept secrets from his dear spouse before. But La Helvetius, like so many of these useless upper-class women, had captivated the great Dr. Franklin with her so-called “gaiety and charm.” The doctor was besotted with all things French.

Adams knew he must exercise caution in his dealings here on the continent. He’d been recalled once by Congress, from a previous mission, due to complaints by the French minister, Vergennes, about his comportment in diplomatic circles. But Adams had always suspected it was Franklin himself who’d gotten him recalled. For the doctor, who’d lived much of his life abroad and had soaked up the sins of each land, could no longer abide Yankee honesty and directness.

Adams could only pray that, if not he, then at least Thomas Jefferson would be able to talk some sense into the good doctor, regarding the critical treaties that they three were to forge with England and France. And there was something more.