Mistress of the Sun (24 page)

“He’s perfect for her.” The Marquis de Noirmoutiers was rich, well-born as well as comely.

“I know! I’ve been taking their notes back and forth, and—” Nicole turned to the door. “And speak of the Devil.”

Athénaïs stood in the door, waiting to be announced.

“She’s always so lovely,” Petite said. Athénaïs was wearing a russet gown of flowing silk, the neck cut daringly low. Her hair was parted in the center, her long blonde curls touching her bare shoulders.

“And look who’s behind her,” Nicole said. “The comely beau himself.”

“Are they betrothed?” Petite asked, noticing the way Athénaïs looked up into the young man’s eyes, the way she placed her hand on his.
Love:
she knew the signs well.

“Just tonight.” Nicole made a swooning gesture.

A
LL THE NEXT MORNING
Clorine lectured Petite about what a woman had to do to prevent “swelling of the stomach”: stick a sponge soaked in vinegar “up there,” or have the man put pig gut over his engine. “Or both,” Clorine said, “to be safe.”

Petite patiently listened to her maid’s lectures, not letting on that she already knew “all that.” From the beginning, she and Louis had been using a sponge soaked in vinegar (or brandy). As well, Louis had been informed by his doctor that conception could only happen if they spent at the same time, so he usually managed to hold back until Petite was ready to discharge. Common knowledge advised a woman not to clench her buttocks—but this Petite found impossible. Alternatively, lascivious movements were believed to scatter the man’s pleasure-fluid:
that
was much easier for Petite to manage.

“Don’t worry,” Petite told Clorine, relieved to see that her maid was finally putting on her cloak. Louis would arrive in a half-hour, and she planned to let down her hair, entwine it with ribbons. She opened a book of bucolic poetry and feigned to read it. She didn’t want to appear the harlot, but her thoughts were indeed inflamed. If only Clorine would leave!

“I’m going to church to pray for you,” Clorine informed her. “I’ll be back at five. I should imagine that will give you enough time,” she added with pointed disdain.

“Thank you,” Petite said, but thought,
Go! Go!

“Zut!” Clorine exclaimed, opening the door.

Petite looked up: it was a chandler with his wares.

“We have no need of candles,” Clorine informed the man curtly.

“May I speak to your mistress, Madame?”

Petite put her book down and stood.
Mercy
, Louis was early.

“Absolutely not,” Clorine said, laying a hand on his shoulder as he stepped into the room.

“Clorine, it’s
him
.”

Louis fell against the closed door, laughing.

“Uh-oh, Louis,” Petite said. “Catch her: she’s going to faint.”

“Nonsense,” Clorine said, but clasping the back of a wooden chair. “I’d curtsy, Your Majesty, but I don’t think I can manage.”

“You must be Madame Clorine,” Louis said kindly. “My dear Monsieur le Duc de Gautier has talked often of you.”

Clorine could not refrain from smiling.

“Are you sure you’re all right, Clorine?” Petite asked.

“Perfectly fine.” The maid pulled up her hood. “I’ll be leaving now.”

Louis opened the door and bowed her out, as if he were a footman.

Clorine paused at the door. “You look after my lady,” she said with a scolding air.

“I assure you,” he said in all seriousness, his hand to his heart as if making a vow.

H
ENRIETTE WAS LOSING
her sparkle. She didn’t like having a big belly, and she detested having to stay in bed. But most of all she was weary of her wretchedly cramped quarters in the Tuileries, and positively sullen-sick of being under the critical eye of the two queens. She and Philippe were supposed to have moved into the Palais Royale months earlier, but the work on it—predictably—continued to move slowly. After considerable yelling and a few fits, she had finally accomplished her mission: the Palais—
her
palace—was ready.

The January weather was chill, but sunny. The cobbles were not icy, and the move was accomplished more easily than Petite could have predicted. Hundreds of workers loaded hampers, furnishings and trunks onto wagons to travel the few blocks from the Tuileries to the Palais Royale, where hundreds more directed each of the seven hundred staff to their various chambers.

Petite carried her treasures herself: her father’s rosary wrapped around the statue of the Virgin and the wooden keepsake box. Her books (
Life
, by Saint Teresa,
Wisdom’s Watch upon the Hours
, a prayer book, three volumes of bucolic poetry, Ovid’s
Metamorphoses
) she had entrusted to Clorine to bring later with the rest of their meagre belongings.

Nicole met her at the top of the stairs. “We’re sharing a room.”

The stairwell was musty, with a hint of the sweet, sickening scent of a dead mouse.

“That’s…wonderful,” Petite said uncertainly, following Nicole down the narrow hall to their room, a chamber under the eaves. How would she manage to meet with Louis? Since Clorine had been let in on the secret, they had been meeting almost every afternoon.

“Both beds are uncomfortable,” Nicole said. Her maid, Annabelle, was on her knees scrubbing the tiles. “Take whichever one you want.”

Petite chose the bed next to the window, overlooking the stables. The bed curtains were musty; she would have Clorine set them out in the sun. She positioned the figure of the Virgin on a side table, arranging the rosary around her neck. Then she opened the keepsake box and took out the brittle tree branch (the three dry leaves still on it), the moth-eaten scarf she’d given Louis to dry his face during that fateful storm, and the blue jar of rainwater.

She peered back into the box. Tucked in with the packet of “passion powder” Nicole had given her, and Princess Marguerite’s
gold embroidered nose cloth (too scratchy to use), was a locket on a frayed lilac ribbon. She withdrew the locket and held it to the light. It was a simple brass piece such as a girl would wear, now tarnished and spotted. In packing for the move, she’d discovered it in the hidden drawer of her trunk. She’d forgotten all about it.

She pried it open: inside was a coil of white hair. She touched it: it was springy, coarse. Horsehair.

Mercy.
Petite sat down on the edge of her bed.

She had no recollection of putting it in the locket…and
then
she remembered: after her father’s funeral she’d gone to the barn to place cornflowers on the spot where her father died. Then she had sat for a time in the empty stall, praying for an answer, a sign.

“What do you think?” Nicole asked, interrupting her reverie. She held up a pink satin bodice and skirt, much frilled with lace and ribbons.

“It’s beautiful,” Petite said faintly, recalling that moment when she had seen the strand of hair caught in the metal bolt on the gate. He was real.

“It’s for the inaugural ball next week,” Nicole said, twirling.

Petite closed the locket and clasped it in her hands: she hadn’t imagined him. “Henriette is actually going ahead with the fete?” she asked distractedly.

“She plans to be carried in on a feathered litter, reclining like Cleopatra,” Nicole said, hanging the gown on a coat hook and standing back to admire it. “Very romantic.”

T
HE GRAND EVENT
came…and went. It wasn’t romantic in the least. Petite and the other maids of honor were required to sit beside Henriette all evening, watching from a podium as everyone else enjoyed themselves: Athénaïs dancing with her beloved, Lauzun entertaining every woman on the floor with his droll antics; la Grande Mademoiselle laughing with a group of ladies (“the spinster club”). Armand de Guiche and Philippe stopped by now and again to keep Henriette entertained, but Petite didn’t listen. Her courses had started, and there was no opportunity to dance, much less to even have a word with Louis. He made only a brief appearance with the Queen, in any case, so Petite was relieved when, at last, Henriette retired and she could return to her room. Hours later, she heard Nicole stumble in.

“You missed all the excitement,” Nicole said, waking her maid to prepare her for bed. “There was a fight on the stairs: Prince de Chalais slapped Monsieur de la Frette,” she said as Annabelle fumbled with her laces.

Petite heard a night watchman call out two of the clock. “Frette is often into scraps,” she said. The young galant was hotheaded.

“Particularly when in drink,” Nicole said, stepping out of her petticoats and slipping under the covers. Soon she was snoring.

Petite was woken the next morning by a knock at their door. She parted her bed curtains. Light was streaming in through a gap
in the shutters. The two maids were already up and folding their bedding.

“Get the door,” Petite heard Clorine command Annabelle, but Nicole’s maid turned a deaf ear.

“I’ll get it,” Petite said, pulling her comforter with her. Unbolting the door, she was taken aback to see Athénaïs before her, wrapped in furs, her face paint streaked. “What’s happened?” she whispered, ushering her in out of the cold.

“What hour is it?” Nicole asked groggily, sticking her head out of her bed curtains.

“There’s been a duel,” Athénaïs told them in a low voice, sitting down in the chair beside Nicole’s narrow bed. The hem of her ball gown was edged with mud.

Mon Dieu
—a duel. Duels had been outlawed and were punishable by death. Petite glanced back at the maids. They were arguing over how to fold up the bedding and appeared not to have heard.

“Because of that fight on the stairs?” Nicole asked.

Athénaïs nodded. “There were eight of them. They met out on some field in Chaillot. The Marquis de Noirmoutiers was one.” At the mention of her fiancé’s name, Athénaïs’s voice quavered.

“Was anyone hurt?” Petite asked fearfully.

“They all were—but the Marquis d’Antin was killed.” One of Athénaïs’s eyes began to twitch.

“The kid with the big ears?” Nicole put her hands over her mouth.

“He was stabbed—I was there. I saw it. I saw him die.”

Oh no.
“What about the Marquis de Noirmoutiers?” Petite asked, reaching for her rosary.

“He’s—” Athénaïs took a shaky breath. “He’s wounded in one leg…badly.” She looked at Petite and then Nicole. “He needs help,” she whispered. “He needs a doctor who won’t talk. I thought you might know of someone. He needs to get out of the country, and quickly.”

“Of course,” Nicole said—but tentatively. She glanced uneasily at Petite.

“I’ll stand outside,” Petite offered, understanding Nicole’s discomfort. Athénaïs’s fiancé would have to flee the country, hide from the law—from
Louis.
She slipped out the door, wrapped in her comforter.

She felt like an exile, shivering in the dark corridor. Soon, the door creaked open and Athénaïs appeared.

“You’ll not say a word?” She pressed a ring into Petite’s hand.

“I don’t need that, Athénaïs,” Petite said, handing the gem back. “You can trust me.”

“Forgive me. I’m not myself.” Athénaïs bit down on her knuckle, a high little cry escaping. “Everything’s ruined.”

“I’m so sorry,” Petite said, wishing she could comfort the Marquise, so elegant and regal—and yet so broken.

T
HE DUEL WAS
all anyone could talk of at Henriette’s salon the next evening.

“Frette was drunk when he came down the stairs,” Yeyette said.

“I heard him yell at the Prince de Chalais to get out of his way,” Claude-Marie said.

“Frette’s rude,” Henriette said weakly, reclined on her daybed with her little dog Mimi curled up beside her.

“So of course the Prince slapped him,” Yeyette concluded.

Then blows had ensued. Athénaïs’s fiancé and others had joined Prince de Chalais, and others had joined Frette, and soon there were a dozen. The melee was stopped, but later, outside, a duel had been called.

“It’s tragic.” Petite was careful not to say too much.

Court was awash with gossip that week. All that Petite could discern with any certainty was that eight young men had gathered at dawn in an isolated field behind a monastery in the faubourg Saint-Germain, and that the Marquis d’Antin had been killed by the Chevalier d’Omale’s sword. They had all been wounded, Athénaïs’s fiancé the most seriously. After hiding Antin’s body in some bushes, they had fled the country—some to England and some to Spain, it was whispered.

“They’ll be tried anyway—
in absentia
,” Yeyette said.

“Condemned to death: the law is clear.”

“They’ll never return,” Henriette said sadly, stroking Mimi’s long ears.

“That’s punishment enough.”

“Their poor families!” Claude-Marie exclaimed.

“The law is too harsh. They’re
boys
.”

“Yet duels must be stopped,” the Duchesse de Navailles said.

“But to ruin so many lives?”

“His Majesty will pardon them, surely,” Nicole said, joining the group.

“Surely,” Petite echoed, but without conviction.

Everyone hushed when Louis entered. He looked about the room solemnly.

“Resume your diversions,” he said, stone-faced and drawn.

What was he feeling?
Petite wondered. He’d grown up with these eight young men, hunted and gambled with them. One or two of them had been members of Les Endormis, party to boyish pranks and mischief. Petite signaled to Louis with her fan, but he didn’t notice.

“I must see His Majesty,” she whispered to Gautier under her breath. Louis’s trusted attendant had finally managed to secure a room in the Louvre at a discreet distance from the queens.

“Four of the clock, tomorrow afternoon.”

E
VEN WITH A
fire blazing it was too cold to undress. Louis and Petite shivered under the fur covers fully clothed. “This weather,” Louis said. He seemed drained of energy.

The winter had been brutal. There had been stories of starvation in the south, of peasants living on cabbage stalks and roots. It was whispered that seventeen thousand families had perished in Burgundy, some eating human flesh in order to survive.

“I’m sorry, my love—I just can’t,” he said, chagrined by his want of passion.

“I understand,” Petite said, trying not to sound disappointed. Soon would begin the season of want, the forty days of Lent in which they would be abstaining. “Just hold me.” She sensed he needed refuge, comfort. He’d been working hard: on financial reform, on providing food for the starving. Halls of the Louvre had been turned into storehouses for grain for the poor. In the courtyard of the Tuileries, bread was baked in huge ovens, and thousands of loaves given away every day.

And on top of all this, the tragedy of the duel. The eight young men—all from fine families—would be tried and condemned. They had found the means to flee (such was their privilege), but upon sentence of death they would never be able to set foot in the country again.

“It must be hard, Louis. They were your compatriots.”

“The law must be upheld,” he said. He clenched one fist, opening and closing his fingers.

“I know,” Petite said. He was remote in a way she’d not seen before—this was King Louis, the man behind a mask. She put her hand on his arm, but he shook free.

O
N
M
ARDI
G
RAS
, Petite was wakened by Clorine, dressed in one of Petite’s gowns and fake pearls.

“You look beautiful,” Petite said—although in truth the ensemble looked grotesque on Clorine’s stocky form. “I should be serving
you,” she added, dipping into the earthen cup of bread dunked in wine. On this, the last carnival day before Lent, everything was supposed to be topsy-turvy. On this day, everyone went mad.

“I’ll finish hemming your costume this afternoon,” Clorine said.

Petite planned to go to the masquerade ball as Pierrot in a white tunic and pantaloons with red edging. A red velvet mask would complete the disguise.

“His Majesty sent the mask over yesterday—rimmed with little diamonds.
Real
diamonds, I think,” Clorine added, rolling her eyes.

“That, I doubt,” Petite said with a smile. It had taken time for Clorine to be at ease with her liaison with the King—time, the persuasive intercession of Gautier, as well as a long consultation with the King’s confessor—but having at last resigned herself to the relationship, she’d taken on the roles of guardian, parent as well as spiritual adviser: plying Louis for favors, lecturing Petite on caution and insisting on rigorous prayers. After each visit, it was Clorine who insisted that Petite wash her privates with vinegar and then pray on her knees before the wood figure of the Virgin. (Petite might be a fallen woman in this world, but Clorine was resolved to do everything she could to ensure that she would not be damned in the next.)

“Listen.” Clorine went to the window. A man outside was calling out the route of the fattened ox: the procession would reach the gates of the Louvre between two and three of the clock.

F
ROM THE
P
ALACE
balconies, members of the Court gathered to watch the parade of butchers—their wives and daughters laughably adorned in noble dress—followed by Druids leading the ox garlanded with flowers and mounted by a child dressed as Cupid. In former times, the bull would have been slaughtered right there, its blood flowing onto the courtyard cobbles. Now, in their more civilized times, the animal would be led to the slaughterhouse to be butchered and eaten by courtiers at the Mardi Gras ball later that night.

Bonbons were thrown onto the cobbles. The courtiers laughed as men, women and children in rags frantically scrambled to get them. Someone opened a bag of flour onto the crowd below and a great shout went up, followed by mirth.