The French Mistress (2 page)

Prologue

LONDON
June 1685

 

 

 

Y
ou have heard much wickedness spoken of me, haven’t you?

Don’t pretend otherwise, I beg you, for long ago I learned to see dissemblers for what they are. I know the truth, just as I know every word and breath of the hateful slanders that have been hurled at me. It is what comes of being a loyal daughter of France, here in this foreign land. I cannot change who I am, or what I have done. The English will always despise me, and that cannot be changed, either.

It was not always so, of course. Once, before I’d gone to Versailles and the great court of King Louis XIV, I was a girl like any other, shy and trembling, innocent of the power of my nascent beauty. But how then could I have guessed my future, or how my fate, my fortune, my very heart, would carry me across the cold gray water and into the land of my enemies? How could I have foreseen that I would come to love one king so that I might please another?

Fate, fortune, and games of the heart. None of it means anything now. All I can offer to you is the truth. The truth, as I swear to it by every star in Our Lady’s heaven.

Whether you will choose to believe my telling, or lap up the lies of others—ah, that will fall on your conscience alone. Mine, you see, is clear.

And so I will begin.

Chapter One

BRITTANY, NEAR BREST
October 1668

 

 

 

I
leaned a little farther from the window of my chamber, over the curling red ivy and the stone sill warmed by the late-autumn sun. All around me lay my family’s lands, the fields cropped close and brown after harvest, and beyond that, in the distance, the slip of silvery sea. For eighteen years, this had been the length and breadth of my world, but now, today, that would change.

I pushed the window more widely open to look down at the hired carriage that was to bear me away. A groom held the heads of the leading horses while two footmen hoisted the well-worn traveling trunks (once my mother’s, and now mine) with my belongings and lashed them onto the back. I could hear Papa in the hall, loudly delivering directions to the carriage’s driver while my father’s dogs yipped and yapped with excitement over so much commotion.

I laughed softly, unable to contain my delight. I had just passed my eighteenth birthday, and finally I’d have what I’d always wanted: within the hour, I would begin my journey to Paris, and take my place at the royal Court of Louis XIV.

“Louise, please, away from that window,” Maman said as she entered my chamber, clapping her hands briskly together to garner my attention. “If your father sees you displaying yourself like some ill-bred harlot, he’ll change his mind, and keep you here, as you’d deserve.”

“Yes, Maman,” I said, swiftly drawing myself back into the room and adding a small curtsy of contrition for good measure. I’d not risk anything to vex my parents now, not with my dream so near to my grasp. “As you say, Maman.”

Maman frowned, and traced a small circle in the air before me. “Turn about, turn about,” she ordered. “Let me see you.”

Dutifully I turned for her, letting her judge me this final time. In my opinion, there’d be little for her to fault. The petticoat and jacket for my journey had been newly made to Maman’s own exacting taste, a soft yet sturdy blue trimmed with burgundy velvet ribbons, and cut to show me as she wished me to be, modest and well-bred. Around my throat were the only jewels I owned, a strand of coral beads with a small gold crucifix, less for ornament than as protection against the wickedness and sin Maman was sure I’d encounter at Court. My thick dark hair was drawn back so tightly from my face that not a single wayward curl betrayed itself, the thick plaits pinned into a knot and hidden beneath a starched linen coif edged with a narrow band of lace.

I was proud of my appearance, and why shouldn’t I be? Everything proclaimed me to be exactly what I was, the elder daughter of the Comte de Keroualle and the granddaughter of the Marquis de Timeur. I was a sweet-faced virgin from Brittany, fresh as dew from my education under the holy sisters of the Convent of St. Ursula Lesneven, and as achingly innocent as I could be of the great world beyond my father’s lands.

Yet Maman’s face showed no pleasure in me, nor approval. It was often that way. Upon first meeting, most people remarked on my mother’s piety and saintly resignation long before they noticed her beauty, a most rare thing in a woman, and I seldom met her exacting standards.

“Where are your gloves, Louise?” she asked. “No lady would be without them.”

“They’re here, Maman,” I said, retrieving them from the top of the chest. “I haven’t put them on yet because the day is so warm.”

“The day’s warmth should be as nothing to your modesty, Louise.” She sighed, as if my uncovered hands were the most grievous disappointment imaginable. Perhaps they were. She dressed herself with sober elegance, and if the dark colors and plain linen collars and full sleeves that she favored were no longer stylish, they were always immaculate, with never so much as a smudge, much like Maman herself.

“Is it any wonder,” she continued, “that I pray so much for the Blessed Mother to guide you where I have failed?”

“You’ve not failed, Maman.” At once I felt the familiar, dampening guilt that always plagued me where Maman was concerned. She was endlessly
good
, and I would never be good enough, and that truth was a sorry burden for any daughter to bear. “My sins come from my own weakness, not yours.”

She shook her head and sighed wearily at the trials of having such a daughter. “You must make the most of this opportunity, Louise. You have great beauty, a gift from the heavens. In Paris the gentlemen will gather to you like bees to the sweetest blossom. You must take care, and not be misled by idle gallantry or a handsome, laughing face. A sober gentleman of rank and honor, Louise. That is what you must choose for your husband. If only your father—”

“I know, Maman,” I said quickly, hoping to avoid once again hearing the misfortunes of our family. During the civil wars known as the Fronde, my father had supported the royal family and fought for the young King Louis, as was just and right, but with great sacrifices to his personal estate.

Once the king was restored to power, Papa had been too proud to join the other nobles in Paris clamoring for restitution in return for loyalty, and thus no lucrative appointments or gifts of gold had found their way to our distant château. To Papa’s endless regret, there had been barely enough money to provide my older brother, Sebastien, with an officer’s commission once he’d finished his schooling, and none left now to offer suitable dowries for me or my sister, nor even to admit us to a suitable convent as brides of Christ.

Instead I’d been made to understand that my future must be of my own construction. Though I would be paid one hundred and fifty livres a year for being a maid of honor—an amazing sum to me at that time!—that was as nothing for my future, and besides, it would soon be consumed by the staggering costs of living in Paris. Now I must not only beguile a wealthy, honorable gentleman into wedding me for my own sake alone, but also persuade him to share his gold with my parents and support them in their dotage, as any dutiful son would: a weighty responsibility indeed for my youthful shoulders.

“I know what is expected of me, Maman,” I said. “I know what—”

“You know, you know, you know,” Maman repeated in a dolor ous singsong. “Oh, Louise, if only you were truly as wise as you claim! Do you know the burden these fine new clothes of yours have placed upon your poor father? Do you know how we will be forced to dine on mutton and turnips so that you might shine before the gallants at the Louvre?”

“But I do know, Maman,” I said earnestly, though with the blind optimism of youth I doubted very much that our château’s cook would be expected to prepare turnips and mutton. “And I will be ever grateful to you and Papa for—”

“Not only to us, Louise,” Maman said, “but to His Grace the Duc de Beaufort as well. Without his beneficence toward you, there would be no journey for you today.”

“I have shown His Grace every gratitude, Maman,” I protested. The duc was an old friend of my father, a former comrade in arms from the Fronde. Because the duc was now the Grand Admiral of the Navy, he was often with the fleet in Brest, not far from our château, and thus a familiar guest in our home. “His Grace has told me so himself, and praised me for my pretty airs.”

“Please, Louise, more modesty, I beg you.” Maman clucked her tongue with dismay. “Recall that His Grace has shown you the rarest favor by recommending you for a place in Madame’s household.”

I nodded eagerly. Madame was the familiar name of Henriette-Anne, the duchesse d’Orleans, wed to Monsieur, the brother of King Louis himself. She was also sister to the English King Charles, with royal blood in her very veins. But what mattered to me, of course, was that this august lady was to become my mistress, and I her newest maid of honor.

“His Grace could see how much I wished to serve at Court,” I said, again with more pride in myself than was wise before my mother. “He told me my beauty would be a welcome ornament to the Court, and that I’d be happy with Madame.”

“Oh, my foolish, foolish daughter!” exclaimed Maman sorrowfully. “His Grace has been kind to you, yes, but he is also a man known for his shrewdness, and his understanding of politics. He is offering to bring you forward to Court not to please you, Louise, but to please others. If you find favor with those in power, then he means for you to remember him, and make sure he receives his share of that favor. It’s the way of Court, how it has always been. As you serve Madame, His Grace expects you to serve him, too.”

In my giddy enthusiasm, I’d realized none of this, nor had anyone bothered to explain it to me before now. Yet rather than turning me fearful or wary, the duc’s expectation of my success and his confidence in me made me bolder still.

“I’ll bring honor to him, Maman, and to you and Papa, too,” I declared. “You’ll see. Before long, everyone at Court will know me, even His Majesty himself.”

“Louise, it’s time.” My father had come for me himself, his weathered face impassive. “You can’t keep the horses waiting any longer.”

“Oh, Louise.” My mother’s eyes were bright with unexpected tears as she embraced me one last time, her lips cool as they brushed across my cheek. “Never forget your faith, daughter, and always place your soul in God’s hands. In time you will be charged with keeping your husband’s soul for the True Faith as well. To be a good wife, you must not falter.”

She marked me with the sign of the cross, and kissed me once again on my forehead. “May God in all His Glory guide you, Louise, and may the Holy Mother watch over you while I cannot.”

After waiting so long, it seemed the rest of my leave-taking was done too quickly, a jumble of fond wishes and promises, weeping servants and barking dogs. Before I’d quite realized it, I was on my way, my family and home gone from my sight.

I wrapped my cloak tightly around myself and closed my eyes, determined not to cry myself. I must be brave, I told myself fiercely. I must be serene in my thoughts and charming in my demeanor, and smile as if I’d no cares in the world. I was bound to make my fortune, just as my brother, Sebastien, had done. Just as he had taken an officer’s commission with the army to serve God, glory, and France, so now would I go to Court to claim glory of my own. I’d please the Duc de Beaufort with the influence he sought, and win the rich, solemn, titled husband my parents wished for me, and perhaps one for my younger sister as well.

And what did I wish for myself in that lonely, rocking carriage? What prize did I desire so dearly that I would trade the security of my home for its possession? I’d no thought then for titles or jewels or great houses. That came much later.

Ah, it almost shames me to speak of it now, my wish sounds such a simple, unformed longing, unworthy of the ripe opportunity presented to me.

I went to Court to find love, and be happy.

And by all the saints in heaven, how I wished I had.

Chapter Two

PARIS
October 1668

 

 

 

W
hen my carriage finally reached the city, the driver took care to take me by way of the rue Frementeau so that he might play the proper guide, and point his whip toward the king’s own palace, the Louvre
.
Though one wing was covered with a web of scaffolding—for even then, the king had a madness for building and refurbishing, never leaving any property in his possession to go untouched—I still stared with my country eyes wide at the sheer enormity of the Louvre, with row upon well-ordered row of gabled windows and towering brick chimneys.

While I would spend most of my days and evenings at the Louvre, as every good courtier did, my lodgings would be elsewhere. Slowly the driver inched the carriage along the crowded rue Saint-Honoré to the Place du Palais-Royal, and the residence of the duc d’Orleans, the king’s brother. Here was where I’d serve as a maid of honor to the duchesse d’Orleans, and I eagerly gazed out the window at my new residence.

The Palais-Royal was smaller than the Louvre, less imposing, and yet more elegant, even to my untutored eyes. While the front of the Louvre seemed straight and severe as a soldier at his post, as was to be expected from its beginnings as a fortress, the Palais-Royal seemed full of curves and swells and flourishes, as beguiling as any lady of fashion.

Later I was to learn how correct my first impressions were, and how true these two palaces were to the nature of the two royal brothers. But on that autumn afternoon, for me even the Palais-Royal seemed very large and daunting, and I felt woefully unprepared to conquer it on my own.

Now most young ladies in my circumstances would have had another to accompany them, a parent or other relative or friend to make their introductions and ease their path into this new world. But my parents were too poor (and, truth be told, too shy of the Court and its manners) to have joined me on such a costly journey. Likewise my sponsor, the Duc de Beaufort, was far away from Paris in the Mediterranean with the French fleet. Thus I was forced to make this first venture on my own, friendless and with no other support than that which I could muster within myself: a tiny comfort, indeed.