Emilie's Voice (14 page)

To chase away these confusing thoughts, Émilie sang. Before long the birds began to chime in. The gardens at Versailles were full of rare and exotic creatures that had been captured in other locations and then brought to the park to entertain the courtiers and the king with their gaudy plumage and their unearthly songs. There seemed to be quite a concentration of them, there in that carefully landscaped wilderness. Although they remained generally out of sight, it pleased Émilie that they blended their songs with hers, and when she tried to imitate them, they sometimes answered back. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, she thought, if I could tell that nightingale to go and sing a message to Monsieur Charpentier?

Émilie was quite lost in this fantasy, imagining that her spirit and that of her former teacher could meet somewhere in the air, and that they could sing together again, and trip over the clouds to arrive back in Paris, when François cleared his throat behind her. She jumped.

“I apologize, Mademoiselle,” he said with a bow, “but your presence is requested by the ladies. They would like you to sing them an air while they drink their tea.”

“Can’t one of the other singers do it for once?” Émilie asked, vexed at having to end her pleasant reverie.

“You know that there is no one who sings as you do. Now that they have heard you, only your voice will do.”

“I should be flattered, I know. But why is the king never there when I sing?”

“I don’t know. I think perhaps Madame de Maintenon wants to prepare a wonderful surprise for His Majesty, so that he will hear you for the first time in
Alceste.
”

“Why is everything so calculated here, so planned?” Émilie kicked her foot into the ground, sending a little clod of grass and dirt scattering over the wildflowers.

“I cannot say, Mademoiselle.”

“Cannot, or will not? François, who should I ask if I may go home for a visit?”

“You mean
whom.
” François thought for a moment or two. “I believe that Madame de Maintenon would be the person who would have it in her power to grant you that.”

“Do you think I can go to see her?”

François looked away from Émilie. “It can be difficult to arrange. As tutor to the king’s … children, she is much occupied. And when she is not attending to the education of others, or advising the king, she is generally at prayer.”

“Oh, never mind, François. If it’s so difficult … I’ll race you back to Latona!”

Before François could protest, Émilie lifted her skirts and started running toward the fountain. He chased after her, partly for fear of being admonished for not keeping a close eye on his charge, partly because he liked to run and seldom had any excuse to do so. Émilie’s silvery laugh faded into the distance as he did his best to catch up.

Thirteen

The morning of her birthday, September 18, Émilie awoke in a petulant mood. She had taken care during the previous weeks to mention to François that she was about to attain her sixteenth year and had dropped little hints to everyone—even St. Paul—whenever she got the chance. She had written of it in a letter to Charpentier, trying not to make it too obvious that she wanted him to acknowledge it in some special way. But all morning no one said a word, and no messenger brought her a crisply folded and wax-sealed letter with that telltale, elegant scrawl. She had her singing lesson just as usual and could barely bring herself to utter a sound, she was feeling so upset.

“Ah,
mon Dieu!
Where is your voice?” Lully strode up and down the room with his hands clasped behind his back and then stopped. “You are ill, perhaps?”

Émilie shook her head no, and sang again, trying to do better.

“That is more like it, Mademoiselle Émilie. There is no room for temperament here. You are too young, and too easily replaced.”

Lully’s comment was cruel, but Émilie knew it was true. She wanted to say, “And why don’t you replace me then?” But in her heart she knew that the idea of singing the role of Alceste had grown on her, and that she would have been very sorry to lose the opportunity now. So she sang with more effort, more feeling.

When the lesson was over, Émilie stayed and gazed out of the window at the remnants of a mist that gradually burned off in the brilliant sunlight. The gardens were deserted, so there was no one to watch. In the distance a thin wash of high clouds clung to the horizon.

“Ahem,”
said François. Émilie jumped before she realized it was just her friend. “I am here to escort you to Madame de Maintenon, who wishes to extend her felicitations on your sixteenth birthday.” At that, François held out a small parcel to her. It was wrapped in plain paper with a bit of silk cord holding it shut. The bright look on his face told Émilie that this was his gift, not Madame de Maintenon’s.

She opened the parcel, making no effort to hide her pleasure that François had indeed understood her hints. It contained a paintbrush and a few watercolors.

“Oh, thank you, François! For this, and—for arranging things!” exclaimed Émilie, embracing him. He patted her on the back and gently pushed her away.

“Now, we must go to Madame de Maintenon.”

Although Madame de Maintenon was a constant, looming presence, Émilie had only ever seen her with other people in the room. She knew that the lady kept an eye on her through François, and she had some inkling that it was Madame de Maintenon who, through St. Paul, had worked to bring her to Versailles. But it still mystified her why this important and severe lady might have an interest in someone as insignificant as herself. Unlike the Marquise de Montespan, she did not seem to have any particular sensitivity to music or to enjoy the sound of Émilie’s voice. She usually left the room when Émilie sang at the ladies’ card parties.

And yet here Émilie was being granted a private interview. It was quite an honor. The gossip Émilie heard as she circulated around the card tables was that even if her beauty did not equal that of Madame de Montespan, and even if the king still went to Madame de Montespan, his official favorite, in the afternoon for a private “conversation,” it was Madame de Maintenon to whom the king really listened. So Émilie, determined not to squander her opportunity to be granted a visit home, prepared her request as she went, trying to think of the most deferential way possible to broach the subject. She thought perhaps of intimating that her father was ill and she needed to see him. Something told her that she would need more than just homesickness as an excuse to be allowed to make the trip.

The memory of her interview with Madame de Montespan was still fresh in her mind, so Émilie prepared herself for even more grandeur in the apartments of the incoming favorite as she followed François through the inner corridors of the château.

But nothing at Versailles was ever as one expected. By the standards of the court, Madame de Maintenon led an austere life. There was little furniture within the small suite of rooms she inhabited. An ornate crucifix was the only ornament that interrupted the surface of her barren white walls. In the center of her sitting room, attired in simple black, the widow Scarron stood out more imposingly by far than if she had chosen to bedeck herself in a rainbow of jewels and silks. Although Madame de Maintenon had a reputation for piety and good works, this cold setting made her seem rather sinister. Émilie could not help seeing her as a spider at the center of an invisible web, waiting for her prey to enter and not moving a muscle. Her two attendant footmen, instead of blending into a rich background, stood out against the white walls like flies she had already stunned and wrapped in silk to be enjoyed at a later time.

“Mademoiselle Émilie Jolicoeur, the king sends you his felicitations on the attainment of your sixteenth year.”

Émilie curtseyed deeply and rose. How could the king have known it was her birthday? And why would he care? She was so taken aback that she failed to notice that Madame de Maintenon did not invite her to be seated.

“In a few weeks, you will take part in a very important state occasion. Monsieur de St. Paul informs me that you progress satisfactorily in your rehearsals for the role of Alceste. The king has commanded the performance, and I am pleased to hear that you undertake it with an air of seriousness and decorum. But your role on the stage is only one part of the service I shall ask you to render to the Crown.”

She paused. Émilie thought that what she had said sounded like a well-rehearsed speech. Her face, which most people described as handsome rather than beautiful, was serene and unmoving. Her eyes and her hair were dark, her skin of a pale olive cast. Even the light that smoldered in her brown eyes seemed to be carefully controlled. She moved with dignity rather than grace, and if the occasion did not require it, did not move at all. Her entire essence was the very opposite of the graceful mobility of the Marquise de Montespan.

“Later on the evening of your performance, I have reason to believe that the king will confer upon you a great honor, one that you would never deserve were it not for your peculiarly beautiful voice—a gift you owe to God alone.”

If her voice was so beautiful, Émilie thought, why did Madame de Maintenon never stay to listen to her? Émilie did not take her eyes off the widow Scarron, who walked slowly around the room, looking at the spines of the books on her shelves as if seeking inspiration there for what to say next. Her black gown sucked in the light that poured through her windows so that she became a focal point of negative space.

“Today your father has been granted a pension to be the official luthier of the king—” Émilie’s gasp of pleasure interrupted Madame de Maintenon’s recital for only a moment. “But there is a much more important task ahead for you. For what I am about to say I demand the utmost discretion on your part. Should you be tempted to make capital of the knowledge you will receive, I might remind you that favors can as easily be taken away as granted.”

Émilie lowered her eyes and bowed her head.

“The king has hitherto been under the sway of principles that are less than godly. Those who would ingratiate themselves to him have done so by seeking to supply his every pleasure. These people are the enemies of his salvation.”

Émilie waited for her to continue, waited for her opportunity to bring up her request to visit her family.

“On the evening of your performance as Alceste, there will be a grand feast and ball. After this, you will be summoned to the king’s bedchamber. He will have eased his troubled mind—a mind much occupied by matters of state and by the necessity to lead his armies against his enemies—by becoming enflamed with wine, and this will cause him to desire the pleasure of amusement with the leading lady of the ensemble who performed for him that afternoon. In a mere man, this would be a weakness—regrettable, but of no great moment. In a monarch, it is something with much more serious implications.”

This conversation—or rather, lecture—did not so far present any opportunity for Émilie to make her request to be permitted to visit her parents. But that was not the only disquieting element of her encounter with the widow Scarron. The lady appeared to have some purpose in mind, and that purpose had something to do with Émilie’s being ushered to the king’s bedchamber in the middle of the night. This, thought Émilie, was precisely what Madame de Montespan had warned her about.

“I beg your pardon, Madame,” said Émilie, “but why would
I
be asked to attend the king in his bedchamber?”

Émilie’s question stopped Madame de Maintenon in her tracks. “Surely you cannot be unaware of such things? You are old enough, I think, to understand the ways of the world.” For the first time since Émilie entered, the widow Scarron looked her full in the face. She did not say anything for a few moments but stared hard, as though by doing so she could pierce through Émilie’s skin. “I see that you have remained an innocent. That is a rare accomplishment in such a place as this, and I congratulate you on it. However, that fact changes nothing.”

Émilie wished that François had remained in the room so that she could ask him later what it all meant. Her head was aching with confusion about where she fit in to the elaborate mosaic that was called the court. She thought she was just a hired entertainer, the latest novelty who was fed and clothed in exchange for being constantly available to help the courtiers while away the long hours of attendance upon the king and queen. But here was the person whom everyone acknowledged would soon be the most powerful woman in the realm telling her that she was there for some other reason. Worse still, it appeared to be a reason that had been foretold by the other powerful lady in the court, one who was the avowed enemy of Madame de Maintenon. So she was to answer the king’s summons to his bedchamber late at night after the performance of
Alceste.
What next?

“You must go to the king’s apartments as though you intend to oblige him in his every desire.” Madame de Maintenon approached Émilie until she was so close that Émilie could feel the warmth of the lady’s breath on her ear. “But, God willing, you will not be required to make the ultimate sacrifice of your virtue. I cannot tell you more at the moment, but you must trust that events will occur that will turn the king’s attention away from you, and in doing so, away from all such earthly temptations.”

Madame de Maintenon took a step away from her and said, “Tell me, do you know your rosary?”

The question, spoken in a normal tone of voice and therefore quite loud compared to the near whisper of her previous sentence, caught Émilie off guard. She squeaked out an affirmative reply.

“Let us say it together. Come, kneel by me.” Madame de Maintenon took Émilie’s arm and drew her toward the prie-dieu. Her grip was strong, like the claw of an eagle.

“Hail, Mary, full of grace …”

Émilie’s knees hurt by the time they finished. To her surprise, immediately after they ended their litany, Madame de Maintenon fastened an exquisite string of large pearls around her neck.

“Pearls are for purity,” she said.

“Please, Madame,” Émilie groped for words. “There is something I would much rather have than pearls.”

Madame de Maintenon stood back and lowered her eyelids just a little, hardly enough to be described as narrowing her eyes at Émilie.

“I would like, please, to be able to bring the news of his pension to my father in person.”

The widow Scarron let out her breath as if she had been holding it while Émilie spoke. “I’m afraid that is impossible at the moment. You simply cannot be spared from court. And although your filial affection does you credit, you must understand that you have left that world behind.”

Émilie lowered her eyes and curtseyed. She wanted to ask Madame de Maintenon if she had any family living that no one would allow her to visit, but she already knew that the lady was an orphan as well as a widow. Émilie could not think of another question that might hurt her; she wished she could yank off the pearls she had just been given and throw them in the widow Scarron’s face.

As soon as the door to Madame de Maintenon’s apartments closed behind her, Émilie stormed off to her room. When she arrived, she slammed the door and locked it, then picked up the book of essays she was trying to read and hurled it across the room. It made a mark on the wall. She paced back and forth, chewing on her fingernails and muttering to herself.

“Why me? What do they want from me?” She stopped suddenly and sat down at her desk, took a sheet of paper and dipped her quill into the ink pot. Instead of writing anything, she scribbled on the sheet, tearing through it and leaving ink spots on the wood beneath. The wish to destroy something was so strong that she thought of ripping her beautiful gown to shreds. But she knew she would get in trouble. Instead, she bit the sides of her thumbs until they bled, and pounded on the surface of the desk until her fists were bruised.
“I hate you!”
she screamed, and then burst into tears.