The French Mistress (51 page)

But I wasn’t sure what she resembled that day in the courtyard. Dressed in gentlemen’s clothes, even to boots and breeches, she shamelessly moved like a gentleman, her gestures bold as she tested her sword, laughing and swearing in a mixture of French, Italian, and English. As uninformed of dueling as I was, I quickly saw that her efforts were not near so expert as she’d boasted, but hacking slashes that only such a raging virago would claim.

Yet as I stood there in my long blue cloak and my usual pearls, my hands tucked inside my oversized sable muff, my feet near frozen in yellow satin slippers with the high red heels that marked my nobility—dressed like that, I felt like a tiny doll, precious and exquisite but carved of wood. The feeling only doubled when I saw the looks of undisguised admiration on the faces of Charles and James, and grew again when she came striding toward me, offering me the hilt of her sword.

“Here you are, Louise,” she said, for she’d already presumed familiarity based on our French duchies. “Have a try against me, or Mustapha, if you’d prefer.”

Horrified by such a suggestion, I looked to Mustapha, who bowed and beckoned me to join him.

“Thank you, madame, no,” I said politely, my hands clasped tight with dismay within my muff. “Dueling is not to my taste.”

Beside me I heard Charles turn his smothered laugh into a cough. I thought several unkind things about him.

“Then what is to your taste, Louise?” Hortense demanded. She loomed over me, steam rising from her doublet after her exertions. The “Roman Eagle,” that was what her admirers called her, and I could well understand it. “How do you amuse yourself ? Do you hunt? Hawk? Swim in the river?”

“I game, madame. I play loo,” I said, the only thing that came to my mind, and of course she seized upon it.

“Very well, then, Louise,” she said, clapping me on the back as she passed me by. “I’ll play you at loo, and I’ll teach you every cheat known on the Continent, so you’ll win every night. York, I’ve a thirst that will only be tamed by more of that excellent canary from dinner.”

Then striding off she went, down the gallery with James and Mustapha trotting happily after her. At least Charles didn’t, remaining with the Lady Mary and me, though I didn’t dare meet his gaze from fear of what I’d say.

“She’s a bold jade,” declared Lady Mary soundly, and I could have kissed her.

But Charles—Charles thought differently. “She’s no jade,” he said as he stared after her brazen departing figure. “She’s magnificent.”

And I knew my time of peace was done.

Over the next weeks, I learned as much as I could of the duchesse de Mazarin, striving to better fight this new rival. I learned that her husband was mad, enough excuse to take lovers wherever she pleased. I learned that in fact she had once nearly been betrothed to Charles when he’d been a prince without a kingdom in exile. And I learned soon, sadly, that those early flames of desire between Charles and the duchesse might burn still between them.

By the end of January, I was certain he was visiting the duchesse’s bed, for he was visiting mine far less. Now she was the one always at Charles’s side, daring him to join her in every wild escapade with a ferocious energy that drew Charles constantly to her.

How could I compete with a creature like this? She wasn’t like my other rivals; she wasn’t like any other lady. The more I tried to display the qualities that had once beguiled Charles—my grace, my soft voice, my voluptuously feminine body, my fashionable dress—the more stiff and formal I became in comparison. The splendid welcoming haven I’d always offered to Charles had become boring and dull, and was of little interest to him now. I, who had always chosen to ignore my rivals, now in turn was the one ignored. It was not a pleasing place to be.

I’d a brief respite in February, when the new treaty was finally completed and I’d again become indispensable to Charles. Signed in my rooms, this treaty was even more secret than the one signed long ago at Dover. Charles was delighted. It was not just the money (he’d receive £100,000 in exchange for his cooperation regarding the Dutch) or renewing Louis’s favor; I do believe he enjoyed acting on his own for the good of his country, without having to justify every step to a critical Parliament.

“You please me better than all my ministers combined, Fubs,” Charles had said as we’d dined together in my bedchamber after the signing. “No one suits me better than you. How could I swim in these rough waters without you to keep me afloat?”

Yet the next morning he was back with Hortense.

Speculation grew that she’d soon replace me as the favorite mistress. Some claimed she already had. In the summer, when Charles offered her lodgings in the palace, in the old rooms once held by Lady Cleveland, the tongues wagged even faster.

One evening Mrs. Gwyn trailed through the Court clad in deepest black mourning. When asked who she grieved for, she wept and wailed in mockery of me, and when pressed further, her answer made me wish to cry in earnest.

“Who do I mourn?” she replied. “Why, I’m showing my respect t’ the duchess o’ Portsmouth herself, who is newly dead to the king and the Court.”

Through de Ruvigny, Louis expressed his deep concern. He’d invested much trust and money in me. Didn’t I realize that the Dutch would feel their position strengthened if they believed my influence over Charles was fading? Why didn’t I fight harder?

Yet how could I fight when there was no true battle? In his ever-charming way, Charles had never attempted to sever our ties, nor could I claim the indignation of a jealous wife. Mistresses exist to offer comfort, not strife, and besides, screaming rages and hurled porcelain had never been my manner. All I could do was continue as I had. I was beautiful, gracious, and obliging, smiling blithely before the Court while I wept alone in my bed. And each night before I slept, I’d added a new prayer: that for the sake of her soul, Hortense would be shown the depth of her sinful neglect of her marriage, and return dutifully to her husband in Rome as soon as she possibly could.

The rest of the world continued as well. Louis pursued his relentless war with the Dutch, finally realizing a series of great victories that had proved devastating to the United Provinces. Feelings against the French ran so strong now that I never dared go about London on my own, from fear that my coach would be attacked.

I heard Mrs. Gwyn herself tell (and tell, and tell, and tell) how she’d been stopped by such a mob who’d mistaken her carriage for mine. Angrily they’d held her horses and cursed her as a foul French slut. But being no better than the lowest-bred mongrel herself, she knew exactly how to address such a crowd. She leaned from the carriage’s window as if she were back upon her stage, tossed her mop of ginger curls, and called out in her dreadful screeching voice.

“Pray, good people, be civil,” she’d cried, her hands held high for peace. “As you can see, I am the
Protestant
whore!”

For that, they’d cheered her, and hurried her on her way with a brace of roaring apprentices as escort. It made for an amusing tale for her, I suppose; I found it only chilling, knowing I’d never have escaped so lightly.

Thus matters went through the summer of 1677, when my prayers were answered, though not perhaps in a way that was best for Hortense’s eternal soul. His Royal Highness the Prince of Monaco appeared in London in June. He was handsome and dashing and young, and his seduction of the duchesse took less time than it takes me now to write it. Perhaps Charles would have indulged Hortense and looked aside if she’d been discreet, but that was not her nature. She conducted her intrigue with the prince exactly as she’d dueled: boldly and badly. Disgusted and unwilling to play the fool, Charles curtly withdrew his support. Hortense shrugged with unconcern, and swiftly decamped after the prince. As easily as that, Charles was once again mine.

“I’m glad that you’re here, sir,” I said softly, soon after as we lay together in my bed like the finest of old times. “I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you, too, Fubs,” he said with a contented sigh, settling his arms more comfortably around my waist. “For a great many reasons, but most of all, I think, I missed the peace you bring me.”

“Indeed, sir,” I said, glad the dark hid my smile. “I should imagine you did.”

“What was that, Louise?” he asked, teasing. “Did I hear a hint of a reproach?”

“It was an observation, sir, not a reproach,” I said firmly. “If you wish to be flayed for your sins, then I can recommend my confessor.”

He laughed. “Likely I deserve that,” he said. “I behaved like an ass over that woman.”

“No, sir,” I said, laughing with him. “You behaved like a man.”

“Well, then, a foolish excuse for a man.” He pulled me up to kiss me, a splendid sort of apology. “But I’ve a great question to put to you, Louise, one of monumental importance. I’m considering shaving away my mustache.”

“You are!” I exclaimed, astonished.

“I am,” he said, lightly stroking his fingers over his upper lip as he considered the mustache’s fate. “Do you think I should?”

“Why do you wish to do so, sir?” I asked, curious. “Is it because Louis wears one as well?”

“Not exactly,” he said. “I rather thought I might look younger without it.”

“Oh, sir,” I said, oddly touched. “Have your barber shave away the mustache if that pleases you, but you needn’t do so to look younger. No one would judge you to be old, sir. You’re in your prime.”

“I’m forty-seven, Fubs,” he said mournfully. “That is old by anyone’s book.”

“Not mine, sir,” I said. “You’ll always be young to me.”

“My own dear life,” he said softly. “Then pray oblige me, and prove it.”

 

 

As cynical as I might have become by the necessities of my life, I still cherished a romantic notion or two. One of them was that a marriage was doubly blessed when the persons to be wed were in love.

Sadly, in November 1677, I was witness to a grievous example to the contrary, the wedding of the Lady Mary to William of Orange. While this match had much to recommend it from an English point of view—the eldest Protestant princess wed to a Protestant prince, and nary a French Catholic about it—Louis did not wish it, for obvious reasons, and I was likewise against it, but for sentimental ones. I watched the willowy, beautiful girl sob through the ceremony, her heart broken at the sight of her dispassionate, ugly groom, and I wept in sympathy with her. Worse still was how William carried her back to Holland immediately afterward, like more plunder of his unending wars.

Louis was so angry with Charles that he immediately stopped all payments between them, but Charles thought the whole affair a masterful stroke of diplomacy. So did Danby. Parliament and London rejoiced, and the ill-suited couple was honored with gun salutes and bonfires in the streets. Three days later, the celebrations were halted by the birth of a son to James and Mary Beatrice, a son whom James was determined to raise as a Catholic heir to the throne.

The Protestant celebrations needn’t have stopped. Within the month, the poor little babe had died of smallpox, following so many other unfortunate royal children to his grave.

No one was in much of a humor for the merriment of the Christmas season as 1677 drew to its end. But every royal Court is expected to maintain a certain degree of celebration, ceremony, and excess, and ours was no different.

Thus one evening in early December, I sat at my dressing table and prepared to attend a supper and a ball that the queen was giving that evening to mark the beginning of Advent. My hair had already been dressed and I’d likewise rubbed my cheeks rosy with Spanish paper and lined my eyes with henna, and added one tiny black patch in the shape of a star just above the corner of my mouth.

“Here are the two pairs of earrings for your choosing, Your Grace,” Bette said, a leather case in each hand. Such a pleasing decision to be made between different settings of diamonds and pearls, and I smiled as I began to turn toward the cases in Bette’s hands. But as I did, my view of Bette and my dressing table seemed to skew wildly to one side, so wildly that I grabbed at the edge of the table to catch myself from falling with it.

“Your Grace!” Bette exclaimed, seizing me by the arm. “Is something amiss, Your Grace? Are you unwell?”

What was unwell was her voice, far away and echoing, as if she weren’t standing directly before me. I tried to open my lips to tell her so, but the words seemed stuck in my throat and refused to dislodge as I felt myself slip from the bench and gently, gently to the floor, my silk skirts
shush
ing in a whisper around me.

I heard nothing more after that.

It was only because others told me that I know I was ill for the next five weeks, delirious with fever one day and sunk deep into unconsciousness the next. With gratifying haste, Charles had rushed to my bedside, and had himself overseen the physicians who tended me with bleeding and purges. They declared it was a “distemperous fever” that ravaged me until my very life was in despair, and the physicians gave way to priests.

All that I knew for myself was that when I finally awoke, Charles’s face was the first that I saw. As weak and poorly as I was, I smiled.

“Fubs,” he said, and I vow I saw tears in his eyes, “you’re awake.”

“Yes, sir,” I whispered, my voice raspy from disuse.

“Hush now, and save yourself,” he said. “You’re not clear of danger yet.”

“You’re here, sir,” I said. “I shall be fine.”

He tried to smile. “I refused to let you go, you know. I even prayed for you.”

“As an Anglican, sir, or a Catholic?”

He paused too long, taking that moment to glance thoughtfully at the Catholic crucifix that had been hung over my bed to protect me in my illness.

“I prayed,” he said finally, “in the manner that would, God willing, keep you here in this life with me. And as you still are, my prayers were answered.”