The Cat and the King (15 page)

“Why can't I just write him a letter?”

“You can. But you must hand it to him yourself.”

“He makes me feel like a naughty schoolboy!”

“In many ways, sir, you
are
like a naughty schoolboy.”

“Saint-Simon, I take a great deal from you!”

“Because you know it's for your own good.”

At last the letter was written, and Orléans stood with it at the king's dinner, shifting it awkwardly from hand to hand, as he and I watched that solitary royal eater at the spread table. When the king at last looked our way, I had actually to push my friend forward.

“Give me that letter, nephew,” the king said gruffly. “I think I know what it contains. I shall give it my due consideration.”

Afterwards, in the great gallery, Orléans and I embraced each other happily while everyone stared.

M
ADAME LA
D
UCHESSE
, though a widow, still occupied her great suite in the south wing. It was just like her to have persuaded the king, her father, not to make her vacate it for her son, the new due de Bourbon. She turned to the usher who had opened the door for me.

“I shall receive nobody until I give you further word. Pray be seated, Monsieur de Saint-Simon.” And now she served me with the fine silver platter of her total attention.

“We have so much in common, my dear duke,” she began in that high, sad tone that she adopted when she wanted her hearer to think that, whatever her reputation for charm, for sophistication, for worldly wisdom, she was basically a disillusioned, faintly weary woman who knew what the real values were. “We have shared the tiny bit of gold to be found under the meretricious glitter of the court. Ah, yes, my friend, you and I have known good quality. I sometimes wonder how you can put up with all the tawdriness that my sister considers ‘royal tone' at the Palais-royal. And, to be quite frank, how I can put up with some of the nonsense that goes on at Meudon.”

“Is there so much nonsense at Meudon?” I demanded, moving at once to the offensive. “I thought it was all so serious there.”

“You mean that the Choin is training to be as great a prude as my ‘stepmother'? Well, there might be something in that. But, poor dear, she has none of Madame de Maintenon's brains. Take it from me, if my brother ever reigns in this land, she will play a very small role.”

“If she takes a certain sister-in-law's advice.”

“And she will, duke, she will. I have put her where she is, and she is very grateful for it. I may be in a position to put other people in other places.
If
I can count on their gratitude.”

I always had to admire the way Madame la Duchesse made use of the appearance of candor. She seemed to be placing herself with a fine courage, or even with a certain splendid indifference, entirely in your hands. But I knew perfectly well that if I should ever report her remarks back to Mademoiselle Choin, how quickly and effectively she would repudiate them! I could almost hear her ringing denial to the dauphin's indignant spouse: “Is it likely, my dear, that if I were inclined to spread such abysmal stories about you, I should take them to the one man who would be bound to betray me? Don't you know that Saint-Simon is Orléans' minion? Or would be if that were not the sole vice that my brother-in-law eschews?” Yes,
that
was how she would talk!

“Well, that will be very agreeable for those of your friends who are possessed of ambition,” I replied, returning to her hint of promotion. “Unfortunately for me, I have none. I am perfectly content with my humble role at court.”

“But does Gabrielle share this new love of obscurity? Where did I get the idea that she would not take it amiss to be appointed lady of honor to a daughter of France?”

“There are only two such. Gabrielle is too young for Madame, and the duchesse de Bourgogne has her lady already.”

Madame la Duchesse allowed her stare to become searching. “The due de Berry may marry.”

“I should think that Gabrielle might find his spouse too young.”

“She would need training the more.”

“It would be an exhausting post. My wife has many domestic duties.”

Madame la Duchesse must have now realized that the Orléans had already offered us the post. She would have to try another lure.

“You and I don't have to beat about the bush. We both know that Orléans is in Madame de Maintenon's bad books because of that tactless little toast in Spain. If he would really like to get back in her graces, he could hardly do better than make a friend of me.”

“I was under the impression that he had done just that.”

“Lovers, my dear duke, are not necessarily friends. Oh, you needn't purse your lips like that! We don't have to pretend that
you
don't know all about me. Everyone is aware that Orléans is always boasting about what he's an ass enough to consider his conquests. But if he would spend less time making love—if that's the word for what he does—and more making friends... well, there might be things I could do for him.”

“You could make Madame de Maintenon
like
him?”

“That's a tall order, I admit,” she replied, with a frank laugh. “But I think I could convince her that what he said about her in Spain was simply what he says about
all
our sex. Madame de Maintenon has always had a bit of a weakness for me. She cares about unity in the royal family, and if I told her I could bring it about... well, who knows what I might not accomplish?”

I considered this coolly. Did Madame la Duchesse think me such a fool as to renounce the Berry marriage for a few useless good words put in with an old woman who was an implacable enemy of Orléans? No. She was covering a threat, and she expected me to see it. But I played dumb.

“I'm sorry, but I fear that the due d'Orléans has fallen into such low esteem with Madame de Maintenon that even your amiable offices would not suffice to pull him out.”

Madame la Duchesse at this threw me a harder look. “Very well, Monsieur de Saint-Simon. Let me put it this way. Your friend Orléans has made some very grave enemies at court. He may wake up some day to find that one of them has become his sovereign. Are you aware that there are people in the dauphin's immediate entourage who go so far as to label Orléans' conduct in Spain treason? And who believe that he should stand trial for it?”

“I am so aware, ma'am. But the charges at the very worst amount to no more than that he permitted himself to listen to certain grandees who asked him to consider the Spanish crown if Philippe V should abdicate. There is no treason to the king of France in discussing, while in Spain, a question of the Spanish succession.”

“Even when the king of France has crowned the king of Spain? Even when they are grandfather and grandson?”

“That, ma'am, must be deemed in law a mere coincidence. And surely Monseigneur, should he become our sovereign, would not strain the law more than his own father has done!”

I had her there. She would have to unsheathe her sword.
If
she had one.

“Monseigneur, if ever called to the throne, will be, I am confident, a very great king. But he is no better a prince than a father, sir. His devotion to his three sons, and in particular to the youngest, is touching to see. He will naturally be intensely interested in the character of the bride selected for the duc de Berry. Particularly as Berry himself, however charming and handsome a youth, is of a singular naïveté.”

“Naïve in what respect?”

“Naïve in taking for purest gold what may have a sizable quantity of alloy. For seeing as innocent and virginal, for example, a princess who may have considerably more experience than he imagines.” Here Madame la Duchesse paused menacingly. “Experience, indeed, of what I fear may be an appalling nature.”

“To what do you allude, ma'am?”

“I think I shall leave that to you to find out,” she said finally. “It should not be difficult.” She raised her voice now to tell her usher that she would receive.

I was perplexed. Obviously, Madame la Duchesse knew something about Mademoiselle de Valois that I didn't but that she was convinced I did. I took my departure and went to our apartment, where I found Gabrielle dressing for mass. When I gave her my account of the interview she regarded my image curiously in her mirror.

“Don't you know what it is?” she asked.

“Why should I not tell you if I did?” I asked, with some pique.

“Because you were shocked. Or because you were afraid to shock me.”

“Is it so bad then?”

“Pretty bad.” She paused and fixed her gaze again on my reflection. “Madame la Duchesse is referring to the rumor that the due d'Orléans and Mademoiselle de Valois are lovers.”

“Orléans! With his own daughter! That
child!
Oh, come, Gabrielle, even Versailles can't be so obscene!”

“Can't it? You should know better. There's nothing people won't say.”

“But can any of them really believe it?”

“Of course they can really believe it. Once a thing's said, it's bound to be believed.”

I hesitated. “Surely
you
don't believe it?”

There was a pause, during which Gabrielle looked down at her brushes and combs. They were ancient pieces, of heavy silver, with gorgons' heads and warriors, which had belonged to my father's mother. Gabrielle's delay made the air in our chamber seem heavy, as with some malign incense. “I don't go in for belief or disbelief,” she said at last. “I simply make a point of noting what is said.”

I was exasperated by her calm. “You mean you don't really mind—it doesn't appall you—it doesn't make your blood run cold that a father as devoted as Orléans should actually seduce his fifteen-year-old child? I mean, the mere idea of it, Gabrielle! Of course, I shouldn't like even to sully my lips by denying it. Good God!”

I stopped. The words seemed to have choked me. Gabrielle was brushing her hair, having sent away her maid when I came in. The long, hard strokes and her intent gaze into the mirror seemed to imply that my protests were simply the kind of thing that a woman had to put up with in court, like the overcrowding in the receptions and the bad smell in the corridors. That incest in the royal family should be a fact or a rumor; that the idea of it should titillate some people and horrify others; these were simply aspects of a piece of news at the palace that it was Gabrielle's duty, or pastime, or perhaps even her pleasure, to sift and classify. Did it matter if it was true or not? Did not its existence in the minds of the courtiers give it a kind of truth, perhaps even an adequate truth?

“Look, my dear,” Gabrielle said at last, turning to me as with a desire to be reasonable. “Let us not get into a dispute about incest. I am perfectly willing to concede it is a mortal sin. That is a matter for God. The matter for us is what Madame la Duchesse is planning to do with this weapon. It seems obvious to me that what she was trying to tell you was that she will take it to the king if the Orléans do not at once withdraw from the Berry marriage.”

“You mean the king doesn't
know?
Isn't that kind of gossip relayed to him immediately?”

“Not necessarily. There are some things people are afraid to tell him. Remember the messengers of bad news who, in ancient days, were put to death. I, for one, should think twice before imparting to his majesty the unwelcome information that there was incest in his family. And that his only nephew is proposing a child of his, whom he has seduced, the king's granddaughter to boot, as the unsoiled bride of the king's grandson!”

“But I thought the king's police spies had to tell him everything!”

“Well, suppose they did. Would he believe them? What Madame la Duchesse will do is
prove
it to him.”

I gaped. “Prove it to him?”

“You know she has a way of making her stories stick. Even when her father doesn't trust her and knows that she has a motive for lying. The woman has an absolute genius for invention. And then, too, she will make the thing seem so real that, even if she isn't entirely believed, Mademoiselle de Valois will be hopelessly soiled in the king's eyes. It doesn't, after all, take much, and the child has a very lively personality for her age.”

“What can we do then?” I asked in despair.

“Fight fire with fire,” Gabrielle replied promptly. “Or, better yet, get to the king before Madame la Duchesse. Tell him about her affair with Monseigneur!”

Had I heard this before the Orléans story, I should have been shocked inded. But I was now too numb, hardened already to the royal world that Gabrielle was opening up to me.

“With her own brother?” I asked weakly.

“With her half-brother,” Gabrielle corrected me. “But it will be equally horrible to the king. They're equally his children, after all. And, unlike Orléans and the little Valois, it's more than a rumor. It's gospel truth!”

“What do you mean, Gabrielle, by gospel truth?” I asked gravely.

“I mean that I had it from the dowager princesse de Conti, who had it from Mademoiselle Choin herself. That poor creature is absolutely terrified of Madame la Duchesse, who tells her that the dauphin will repudiate her unless she acts as a cover to their intrigue. Of course, it's perfectly true that he's tired of the Choin, and that she owes her marriage entirely to Madame la Duchesse, who wanted to keep her brother from marrying a possible rival, so the Choin has no weapon to use. When Monseigneur goes to her bedroom, the wretched morganatic spouse must shiver in the closet while Madame la Duchesse, slipping in by a side door, wantons in the arms of her portly sibling!”

Gabrielle saw that I was now hypnotized and took full advantage of it. I had never heard her speak so cuttingly or, for that matter, so vividly.

“But the dauphin is a religious fanatic!” I protested. “He's even superstitious. How does he expect to save his immortal soul?”