Days of Splendor, Days of Sorrow (18 page)

“Oh, yes, by all means, the fertile bird must protect her brood,” jested my brother-in-law. His own fertile bird was whiling away the evening hours with her sister and the vile coterie of former Barryistes, who now made Monsieur and Madame the center of their social circle. I knew that Stanislas, for all his wit, was not to be trusted when he’d one day compared my own bold fashions to those of a royal mistress rather than those of a queen. It had not been a compliment, accusing me—by dressing with regal splendor—of emulating the ostentatious du Barry when everyone knew I thought her nothing but a gaudy harlot. And then upon reflection, I realized—this was Monsieur’s intended insult!

But I knew it was a lie. I was as chaste as the day I was born and as true to my husband as Penelope to Ulysses despite being surrounded daily by a circle of ardent admirers. During every unoccupied minute my thoughts were overtaken by the
rien
in my bedchamber, the courtiers’ mockery, and my mother’s entreaties to manage
mon mari
. Yet, to stave off even a moment’s ennui I had become determined to dance nearly every night in the guise of a stranger until the soles of my slippers were nearly transparent, and to hazard the contents of my purse, or the jewels at my throat, if it would bring me a momentary thrill.

It was raining in Paris. My ladies squealed at the gentlemen to close the windows of the carriage because their silken cloaks were becoming splashed and their elaborate poufs were in danger of ruin. The unpaved
rues
had turned to mud striated with veinlike rivulets released into the streets from dozens of drainpipes.

The duc de Lauzun poked his head out of one of the windows. “It looks like we’re stuck; we may have to walk.”

He was met with a chorus of objections. “Not in these shoes!” Gabrielle exclaimed.

“How far are we from the Palais Royal?” I asked.

“A quarter of a mile or so, I should think,” Lauzun replied.

“Each of us can carry a lady on his back!” Artois proposed.

“Perhaps you young bucks can perform such feats, but I am an old stag,” the baron de Besenval chuckled.

“Then you will have to bear the lightest one!” concluded the duc de Guines.

And so we arrived at the Opéra ball that night, bedashed with rain and spattered with mud, my attendants and I each a jockey on her mount: I on Artois, as it did not seem seemly—unseemly as the whole notion was to begin with—for the queen to straddle a man who was not at the very least a relation; Gabrielle on Lauzun; Guéméné on the duc de Guines; and Lamballe, being most petite, struggling to stay on the broad, if somewhat stooped back of the complaining baron.

Oh, how we laughed! Our domino cloaks were drenched, but our dancing slippers were dry and that was all that mattered as we minced and twirled anonymously through minuets and gavottes and polonaises. I spied Dugazon, the popular actor, and saw through his disguise immediately, because he affected it so often. Yet it made me shudder, for he was garbed
en travestie
as a
poissarde
.

I had been dancing for upwards of an hour, and soaked with
perspiration, had found a place behind a pillar to discreetly daub a bit of orange blossom scent on my wrists, inside my elbows, behind my ears, and in the crevasse of my cleavage. All about me assignations were being arranged in hushed whispers; papers pressed into palms disappeared discreetly into pockets.
Bals masqués
were delicious occasions for such diversions because the parties traveled incognito. And yet, a fine lady might be identified from her expensive pouf, even as she trysted with a gentleman of a lower social order.

Having refreshed myself, I whirled about the marble column and made for the dance floor, my voluminous black hood and mask in place, when I came face-to-face with a trio of women. All were bejeweled and expensively gowned, but dresses could be rented and in the soft candlelight what passed for fine gems could have been merely glass. “If it isn’t the queen of France herself!” exclaimed one of the trinity, peering at me through her sequined mask.

“You have failed your duty as a good wife and are a disgrace to the kingdom,” spat one of her confederates, snapping open her ivory-handled fan. “Disporting yourself at masquerades till all hours with the king’s brother, while the king himself no doubt lies abed alone at Versailles.” She pressed a paper into my hand. I refused to accord her the satisfaction of glancing at it and shoved it into the pocket of my gown.

“I have seen common harlots behave with more dignity!” agreed the third woman. She was wearing a pouf embellished with countless blue butterflies, quite similar to one I had worn just two weeks earlier. Her voice sounded familiar, yet I could not place it. I could have heard it anywhere—in the halls of Versailles or in the shops of the Palais Royal. But it had a sinister edge to it that sent a shiver running along the length of my spine.

I could not wait to leave. But I would do so with my chin held high. These harpies would not witness my discomfort.

I called for my carriage, then threaded my way through the throng, grateful for a breath of cool night air. In the flicker of the link boys’ torches I read the pamphlet that had been so rudely thrust upon me. It was the most recent issue of the
Gazette de Paris
and although the watermark was unfamiliar, it would not have surprised me to learn that it had been printed within steps of where I stood, somewhere within the bowels of the duc d’Orléans’s Palais Royal. Louis’s cousin detested him, and his favorite way to undermine the sovereign was to malign his wife.

I read the paragraph that had been circled with a heavy hand.

The paper felt like it was burning my fingers. I blinked back tears, anxious to hide them from my companions. My hasty departure had already disappointed some of the party, particularly Artois, who had not wished to quit the ballroom so soon. It was barely one
A.M
.; the night was still in its infancy. That word … that thought … perhaps it was time for another discussion with Louis and Monsieur Lassone.

Safely back home, in my empty bed with its golden canopy I wept for the children I should have been kissing
bonne nuit
.

O
CTOBER
30, 1776

My, but we all looked so beautiful bathed in candlelight; the cerise-hued drapery of the Trianon’s card room made every punter appear more youthful. Even the craggy-faced baron de Besenval looked quite majestic as he surveyed his hand of cards, flexing his fingers so that his ruby signet ring would catch a shaft of light and blink at his partner, Gabrielle de Polignac. I was certain it was a signal and they were conspiring to cheat, for she was never terribly lucky at the gaming tables. How many times since the summer had I paid her debts for her? But wouldn’t any friend do as much for another if they could? At her elbow sat the table’s dealer, the comte de Vaudreuil, her adversary for the night, but only at lansquenet. I had not been alone in noticing the furtive glances, the subtle gestures, the barely suppressed sighs that passed between them. I was scarcely surprised to see that she had slid her foot out of her pink brocade slipper and was subtly
exploring the comte’s well muscled calf with her stockinged toe. Everyone at court was talking of their affair, and frankly, the gossip offered a welcome respite from the ridiculous lampoons that depicted
me
, ruffled silken petticoats raised to our derrières, as her Sapphic paramour.

The comte de Vaudreuil removed the ivory toothpick from his mouth, tugged at the spill of lace peeking out from the right cuff of his coat, then touched the large diamond pinning his frothy jabot in place before leaning carelessly over the table. I was certain at that moment he had deftly palmed the
portées—
a winning hand of cards he had already prepared by surreptitiously removing them from the deck as he dealt. He must have placed them in his sleeve. They were
all
cheating.

The air was heady with the scent of tuberose from the aromatic pastilles burning in a perforated cachepot to mask the pungent odors of perspiration. Chinese vases filled with lush arrangements of hothouse blooms—peonies, irises, and roses—were placed throughout the room. Rather than take a seat, as their hostess I continued to thread my way between the baize-covered tables, studying the painted faces of my intimates as they scrutinized their hands, feigning more, or less, than they held, their rouged mouths, shaped like cupid’s bows, made more prominently carmine in the golden light. With their coiffures elaborately powdered, and suited and gowned in fabrics that shimmered and clung like a second skin, they resembled exotic beasts of prey, their maws bloody from a fresh kill.

Silent though it was, as cards were dealt, drawn, and discarded, the room was alive with a language all its own—not merely the prearranged signs between partners, but a player’s “tells,” those tics that indicated he was bluffing. Opened or shut, ladies’ fans were drawn across the owners’ fingers or lips, or along her cheek, below her eyes, perhaps even in the cleft of her bosom,
every gesture a sentence pregnant with intent.
Not tonight; I have another engagement. Meet me later. Are you available? I must, regrettably, decline
.

Across the Petit Trianon’s card room, the princesse de Lamballe sat amid her own coterie. To my sorrow, her rivalry with the comtesse de Polignac had only increased with time, gaining momentum as each of them won adherents. The two factions displeased me; I was ignorant of neither their existence nor their combined efforts to influence me. With a crow of triumph the comte d’Artois, seated by her elbow, startled everyone in the room. All heads swiveled to regard him as, grinning at the dejected princesse de Guéméné, he swept up a pile of louis from the center of the table.

At another table, the talk had turned to serious matters. The duc de Guines was still lamenting his removal as ambassador to the court of St. James, for during the summer England’s American colonists had declared war on their fatherland in protest of King George’s high taxes.

“Perhaps it is because you would not be so welcome anymore at Whitehall,” opined his partner, the duc de Coigny. In the candlelight his eyes were as green as a cat’s. “I understand the revolutionaries have appealed to His Majesty for aid against the British.” He drew on his clay pipe, emitting a spiral of purple smoke into the thickly perfumed air.

I whirled on my heels, unwilling to believe what I’d heard. My cheeks grew warm and my breath quickened. Louder than I had intended, I demanded, “Do you mean,
messieurs
, that the king of France is entertaining the prospect of providing military aid to a discontented rabble that has overthrown their sovereign?”

The duc de Lauzun nodded. “Although it sounds like madness, there be method in’t,” he said, sounding as though he was quoting someone else.

“Madness indeed,” I agreed. “But I see no method. His Majesty
and I do not condone such a revolution, of course, and if we are seen to fund it—?”

The duc de Coigny exhaled another plume of smoke and cocked his head to regard me. “ ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend,’
bien sûr
.” He palmed de Guines’s discarded eight of hearts from the baize and slipped it into in his hand, fanning it out for a better view of his cards. “France has much to gain if her age-old adversary is forced to spend a fortune fighting a foreign war.”

“Well spoken,
mon ami
!” The murmur of voices gossiping and placing bids suddenly halted. With a scuffle of court heels, the gamesters pushed themselves back from the tables so they could rise to greet the king. He was dressed in one of his brown ratteen suits, barren of all adornment. Even his shoe buckles lacked diamanté embellishments. Monsieur Léonard, my physiognomist, looked far more glamorous when he came every morning to dress my hair, but then again, Léonard purchased the most dandified courtiers’ castoffs.