The French Mistress (14 page)

Madame must have realized she was at the center of this new Court scandal—she’d been there so many times before—and yet throughout the service and afterward, she concentrated on her daughter and no one else, laughing happily as if she’d no care in the world, or at least no furious, debauched husband with a male lover waiting for her at home. Hand in hand, she and Marie-Louise walked apart from the rest of us along the covered pathway from the chapel through the palace’s gardens.

The day was brisk and cold, the gray sky low and threatening snow. With their heads bent and their hoods tied tightly against the stiffening breeze, the other ladies hurried to return to the warmth of the fireplaces within the palace, their heels clicking across the paving stones and their silk skirts snapping like flags around their ankles. Only Marie-Louise’s governess remained at a respectful distance, ready to remove her charge the instant Madame tired of her.

I lingered behind as well, watching Madame and her daughter together. Perhaps because it was Christmas, perhaps because I still grieved for Sebastien, I was missing my own Maman sorely. Though they were too far ahead for their words to be clear to me, Marie-Louise was obviously telling some manner of fanciful story to Madame, flapping her arms like a bird’s wings. She made a crowing sound, and flung one spindly arm high toward the sky. The gold of her mother’s pearl cuff caught the watery sunlight, a bright glittering spot against the gray clouds. Then the cuff flew from the girl’s wrist, over the stone wall and the empty flower beds and into a pile of dry leaves.

Neither Madame nor her daughter noticed, nor did the governess, the three of them continuing on their way. I knew the value of the bracelet, in history as well as in the cost of the pearls and gold. The cuff was one of a pair that were among Madame’s most cherished possessions, having been crafted in Florence as a gift for her grandmother Marie de’Medici, nearly a hundred years before. In every sense they were irreplaceable, and further, I hated to think of the little princess being blamed for having caused such a loss.

Thus without a thought I bunched my skirts to one side and ran round the stone wall and down the steps into the garden, and to the dormant bed in which the bracelet lay buried. Swiftly I scooped away the dry, brittle leaves until I found the jewel, lying in the dirt like true buried treasure. With my prize in my hand, I hurried back to the covered walk, determined to return the bracelet to Madame before it was missed. I turned the corner to where they should have gone, and stopped in the shadow of a thick stone column.

Marie-Louise was gone, no doubt with her governess, who had also vanished. In the center of the walk, curiously framed by a pointed antique stone archway, stood Madame and, with her, the king. They stood very close to one another, with her gazing up to him, as lovers will. I remembered the whispers, how long ago there had been an intrigue between these two cousins, and to see how she swayed toward him now, her face full of longing, I would have believed it. My poor Madame! Was this the weightiest secret kept within her heart?

Unsure of what exactly I was witnessing, I remained where I was, not wishing to disturb them either by presenting myself or by retreating and catching their notice.

“What was it this time?” the king was asking, concern giving his voice an unexpected urgency. “What did Philippe demand of you?”

She shook her head, her dark curls brushing over her forehead. “He wanted me to apologize to the chevalier, and would not come down unless I did.”

“Not that,” Louis said. “What did he ask of you first?”

I saw her shoulders draw up beneath her cloak, and she bowed her head in shame. “He ordered me to welcome the chevalier to my bed, and take them each in turn in my mouth in the Italian fashion, and then embrace him as another husband.”

The king drew in his breath at that, and swore some manner of dark oath that I couldn’t hear.

“Forgive me,” Madame said unhappily, as if she were to blame for her husband’s perversions. “Oh, please, please, forgive me, I beg you.”

“This will never happen again, Henriette.” He rested his palm against her cheek. “You have our word.”

She slipped her hand over his, holding him there for another moment longer in gratitude, in regard.

“Thank you,” she whispered so softly that I saw her lips form the words rather than heard them. “Thank you.”

The king nodded, and said no more. Then he turned quickly away from her, and before I could move he was striding toward me.

“Your Majesty,” I said, sinking low in my curtsy, my bowed head hiding my guilty flush.

“Mademoiselle de Keroualle,” he said, lifting his hat to me. “Happy Christmas.”

“Happy Christmas to you as well, My Sire.” I rose slowly, my knees wobbling with nervousness beneath me. “Madame dropped her bracelet, and I found it.”

I held the pearl cuff out in my hand, and prayed that it would be proof enough that I’d reason for being there, and was not spying.

But the king was looking at me, not the bracelet. “How old are you, mademoiselle?”

“Nineteen, sir.” He was studying me closely, as if seeing me for the first time instead of the thousandth in Madame’s company.

“Nineteen?” he asked, doubtful.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” I said. “I swear to it by all that’s holy.”

He nodded, finally accepting, I suppose. Beneath the wide brim of his hat, his dark-eyed gaze flicked over me, missing nothing of my face and person. Yet he looked at me not with desire, the way he did with the Madame du Montespan and countless other women beyond her, but with purpose, as if deciding whether I would serve in some other manner.

It worried me, that scrutiny. Louis was not frivolous by nature, and seldom did or said things without reason. Where, I wondered, did I fit in his scheming? In all the time I’d been in Madame’s household, he’d never before regarded me like this. What plans could he possibly be making for me?

“You are changed, mademoiselle.” He nodded, leaving me to decide if he judged me changed to my improvement, or the reverse. “Her Highness needs you. Go to her.”

I curtsied again, and once he’d walked past me, I hurried to Madame, still standing where the king had left her.

“I found your bracelet, Madame,” I said, holding it before me.

“Thank you,” she murmured, slipping the cuff onto her wrist as if it had never been lost. She was looking past me to the departing figure of the king, and her pale face was wistful.

“Things will be different now, Louise,” she said softly, still looking after the king. “You’ll see. He gave me his word. Things will change.”

Though I nodded, I did not share her confidence. I’d been at Court long enough to have seen how the pledges of kings, while solemnly given, were not the most secure of promises.

I was wrong to doubt. Within the week, the Chevalier de Lorraine had been arrested and imprisoned on Louis’s orders. Enraged, Monsieur protested, and Louis answered by having the chevalier moved to solitary confinement in the grim Château d’If.

Monsieur retaliated by carrying Madame and her ladies away from Court to his most distant estate at Villers-Cotterets, as much an imprisonment for Madame in being so removed from the Court as the chevalier’s new residence was. Peevishly he informed Louis that he’d not permit her to return until the chevalier was released. Louis was not pleased to be crossed like this, and soon sent his own coach of state to bring us back to Paris.

The chevalier remained in prison.

And in March, the king announced that he would visit Flanders, and that the Queen, Monsieur, Madame, and a large portion of the Court would be accompanying him. Monsieur had no choice but to agree, and bring Madame with him.

The chevalier was at last released, but sent far away from France to Italy, where it was presumed (wrongly, as it later was known) he’d be too far away to cause his usual mischief.

All that spring we were in a frenzy of preparation. The official reason given for the Court’s journey was that His Majesty wished to view certain Flemish territories that had recently been acquired and added to his own. No one was fooled. This short journey was but a first step to another, one of far greater importance to all involved.

At last Madame was permitted to visit England, and I—I was going with her.

Chapter Seven

DUNKERQUE
May 1670

 

 

 

D
riven by the wind from the sea, the rain drummed against the carriage windows so hard that it sounded like small stones hurled by an angry hand. Closed inside the stuffy coach, we could still hear the lash of the driver’s whip as he tried to urge the horses to pull the wheels free of the sticky mud that held them fast, and the swearing soldiers striving to push us clear with pikes and their own shoulders. Finally the coach lurched forward, and the five other ladies and I were again jumbled and tossed against one another like coins in a pocket.

“Mother in heaven preserve us,” Madame muttered, her face pale and drawn as she braced herself anew against the cushions. Beside her Madame de Beaulieu, one of her ladies-in-waiting, began to dab at her forehead with a lace handkerchief soaked with restorative cologne, but irritably Madame waved her away.

“No more of that, I beg you.” She sighed restlessly, striving to find any position of comfort in the rocking coach. We’d already tied the shades over the windows to keep out even the dull daylight at her request, once she’d confessed that the brightness made her head ache.

We’d been happy enough to oblige, from concern for her. Madame had been ill since we’d left Paris three weeks ago, and before that, too, truth to tell. She’d have spells where she’d cough for an hour without end, bent double with distress, and the only thing I’d seen her eat or drink was milk and chicory water; she seemed unable to take any other food or wine without retching horribly. There were those who’d begun to whisper that Monsieur was somehow slowly poisoning her. We who were closest to her feared for her health, and begged her to send for a physician or surgeon. She’d steadfastly resisted, not wanting to provide even the slightest reason for her not to continue on this longed-for visit to England.

But even the weather seemed determined to conspire against her hopes. Instead of the bright spring to be expected in May, each morning greeted us with torrents of rain. The roads became nearly impassable with mud and water-filled ruts, and this despite the king having employed thousands of men for the three months beforehand to mend the roads along their route.

It didn’t help that we were such an enormous procession, as was expected for His Most Christian Majesty. In addition to the royal family, the king had also brought his two mistresses, Madame de la Vallière and Madame du Montespan. There were artists and historians to document the journey and musicians to make it more entertaining. The rest of the party included favored friends, attendants, assorted courtiers and diplomats, servants, and guards, and the horses, coaches, luggage, and wagons to support them. Finally, because Louis also wished to make this a display of his military power, we were accompanied by large numbers of soldiers, on foot and horse. When everyone was tallied together, we were nearly thirty thousand souls, and what would take a single horseman riding over a dry road a matter of hours took us days. As can be imagined, we were like an entire army invading the countryside, and our lodgings each night were crude and crowded. Even the greatest of ladies was expected to lie on her side and share a bed with as many others as could be contrived to squeeze beneath the coverlet with her.

In each village and town that the royal procession had passed through, we’d been forced to stop so that the local nobles and merchants could honor His Majesty with lavish banquets and tributes. These lasted hours at a time, and we all were expected to remain standing during the entire proceedings. Madame had been too weak to obey, and had fainted dead away several times, much to the displeasure of both the king and Monsieur. At one such dinner, Monsieur had cruelly told all the company how a fortune-teller had predicted he’d soon become a widower, and finally be freed of his inconvenient wife. No one had laughed, but that had not concerned Monsieur. Instead he had continued his usual jealous rants the entire journey, showering poor Madame with his criticism and scorn as surely as the rain had drummed upon our heads.

Yet at last, at least, that torment was done. Earlier in the day in the town of Lille, Madame’s party had separated from the king’s and turned north toward the coast. At the parting, the king had embraced Madame in a fond farewell; her husband had not. While Monsieur had granted her leave from him for a fortnight’s visit to her homeland, Louis had extended that to nearly a month, what surely must have stretched before Madame like a delicious eternity.

Her relief at having left Monsieur behind had been instantaneous. No matter how wretched the weather might be or how ill she might feel, everything was improved by having him gone from us. We were a much smaller party now, only two hundred or so, plus our armed escort and our servants, and we should have been able to make a swifter progress, if only the weather were more agreeable.

“Can you see where we are, Louise?” Madame asked of me, the youngest in our coach and therefore the one to perform such low tasks. “Any landmark to guide us?”

Crouching there between the seats, I hesitated with my hand on the leather shade. “If you please, Madame, I cannot do it without letting in the sunlight.”

“The rain light, you mean.” She turned toward me and smiled weakly. “You have my leave, my dear. I am feeling better, you see. To know that every moment brings me closer to England—how could I not improve?”

What I saw was the same drawn and pallid face that she had been showing us, and thus with great care I lifted only a corner of the leather shade to peek outside, and spare her the brightness.