The Rivals of Versailles: A Novel (The Mistresses of Versailles Trilogy) (3 page)

From Madeleine Poisson

Rue des Bons Enfants, Paris

September 2, 1738

Dearest Daughter,

Norman will send the carriage for you and it will be in Honfleur by next Thursday. The coachman brings a box of candied chestnuts that you must present to Claudine’s mother. Do not be remiss in thanking them once again for their hospitality, and of course insist that we would be honored to host Claudine in Paris (though the news that she is now betrothed to her uncle makes that possibility rather remote).

While you may be flattered that both her brothers have declared themselves to you and are threatening tears and more over your departure, you must not encourage them. We have higher hopes for you than a petty provincial family (and I am sure their parents have higher hopes for their sons than you). Assure the boys that if they write, their letters will be returned still sealed.

Your brother, Abel, was fitted for his first wig last week! It was a very proud moment for myself and Uncle Norman—he is growing so fast. Abel, I mean of course, not Norman. He leaves for school next month, but you will be back in time to say goodbye. Try to bring him a shell from Honfleur that he may add to his collection.

I must finish up; the candle is about to snuffle and Sylvie has already gone to bed. I wish you safe travels.

With much love,

Mama

Chapter Four

T
here are private meetings and strangers visit the house. I catch whispers, fragments:

“She is already nineteen and to look at her is to fall in love.”

“You’ve been in contact with Montmartel; what does he say?”

“De la Portaille’s cousin is a fine man and astoundingly rich, but he’s almost seventy.”

The most important event of my life is being discussed: my marriage. When I think of my future husband my thoughts turn, as they often do, to the king. My mother bought us a copy of the king’s latest portrait and his face is so handsome I feel like crying when I look at it. My husband must be a Court noble who will bring me to Versailles, where the king will fall in love with me. And I with him.

But of course the choice is not mine.

Then I learn my husband is to be Uncle Norman’s nephew Charles, a young man only a few years older than me. As our wedding present, Norman is giving us land and a château, enough for the title of count.

“And so you will be a countess, dearest! And such a beautiful name for the estate: Étiolles, almost like Étoiles—
stars,
” says my mother.

I meet Charles; he is sulky and his father comes with him to register his disapproval. But by the end of our meeting Charles is enchanted with me and cannot stop declaring his eagerness for the match. Even his father is mollified: Norman has no children of his own and Charles will be his sole heir. We will have 40,000
livres
a year, a great sum and large enough to keep us in all the gowns, instruments, and books I desire.

After the meeting I retire to my chamber and stare blankly at the ceiling. Mama comes in and kisses me on the head.

“You made a conquest today, my dearest.”

I bite my tongue. A conquest—he’s just a boy. And an insignificant one at that.

“He’s not very handsome,” I say finally. Charles is barely taller than I am and his small, fine features remind me of a rat. When he said goodbye he gave an awkward bow and stumbled over his words:
Mill we tweet again
. I think of my favorite portrait of the king—his curved mouth, the dark eyes and the kind elegance of his gaze. Charles has no position at Versailles and probably never will.

“Now, Reinette, since when does beauty in a man matter? You will be married, dearest. An important first step in your life, and one that we hope will lead to greater things.”

“He stepped on my skirt when he bowed goodbye,” I continue. “And what was that awful orange coat he was wearing? It looked at least a decade old.”

Mama softens and takes me in her arms. “We could not work miracles, even though you are known throughout Paris as the most desirable and accomplished of young women. We wish for a dazzling match for you, but we must also face reality.”

“He stutters. Couldn’t even say one sentence correctly.”

“Enough, Reinette! We must all do things we do not wish,” she says crossly. A hard look passes over her face; I wonder what past hurt she is considering. Mama keeps her pain bottled up inside her and always says sorrow is never to be shared.

“
Oui, Mama
n,
” I say in defeat and hold my smile until she leaves, when I burst into tears.

After the wedding Charles and I move to Uncle Norman’s house on the rue Saint-Honoré, just around the corner from my mother’s house. Our private life is not very satisfactory; I am not
sure that we have accomplished all that we are supposed to, for there is some impatience on his part and I cannot bear to assist in any way. Besides, fumbling and stickiness outside is infinitely preferable to being probed and parted by heavy fingers, or worse, it would be like searching for meat inside a crawfish tail.

When he sleeps—he insists on sleeping in my chamber—I listen to him snore and think how strange it is, this thing that men and women do together. Mama and Uncle Norman have done what I do now. Or at least what we are trying to do now. How extraordinary. And this is what I will do with the king, when I become his mistress. It will be different with the king, of course; more like the mating of angels described by the poets. It must be.

From Madame de Tencin

Rue Quincampoix, Paris

June 15, 1741

My dear Comtesse d’Étiolles,

Let me be the first to congratulate you on your marriage. Your husband is a man of fine family, and your accomplishments are known far and wide. The singer Jelyotte, a good friend of mine, cannot stop boasting of your talents.

I would be honored if you would attend one of my little gatherings. Nothing grand, but a place of good wit and conversation, fine manners and bold discourse. If I may be so blunt, my salon boasts a more refined yet varied selection of society than the salon of Madame Dupin; the goal of
my
salon is to drive away the boredom, not encourage it.

You may attend alone. Your uncle, though I love him dearly, is no asset to a gathering of wit and conversation, and your husband occupies that sad place where desire to sparkle outstrips talent, and it would be best if he stayed there.

Wednesday next; many ladies enjoy dressing in an informal style.

Please reassure me that you will attend, and do not doubt my sincerest regards.

Tencin

Chapter Five

A
t the Parisian salons all classes and ranks mingle—poets and peers, writers and dukes, beautiful women and young men with nothing more than their wit—and this raises the most important of questions: Why is a man inferior simply because he doesn’t have a title? Can one really say that the Marquis de Villemur, renowned for his stupidity, is a better man than Voltaire?

Now that I am married, I may attend these gatherings and seek the answer myself.

“You came! Wonderful. We must see this little gem that all of Paris is bubbling about,” says Madame de Tencin, running her closed fan over my cheek. She is an older woman with lively, darting eyes and a face as wrinkled as a roasted apple. A perfume burner sends wafts of lavender and geranium throughout the elegant room, papered with pastoral scenes for an enchanting effect.

“Yes, yes, this is the future and she is here,” she says, laughing rather hoarsely. “Younger, blonder, prettier. Three words to sum it up.”

“Ah, but, Madame, does she have the wit and the conversation? Youth and beauty are fleeting, but wit outlasts us all,” says the Chevalier de Rohan, coming to her side. They inspect me as one might a horse before purchase, Rohan stroking his sword handle in a slow, suggestive manner.

“Well, that we shall find out, shan’t we, my dear?” says Madame de Tencin.

I hide my nervousness as she takes my arm and leads me around, introducing me as the Comtesse d’Étiolles, niece of Monsieur le Normant’s, goddaughter of Montmartel. No mention is
made of my husband or Mama. I meet Cassini, the astronomer, and Crébillon, whose plays I love, and a young British woman, reputed to be his lover, who sits with a yellow finch perched on her silken shoulder. An ancient gnarled man, introduced as the Duc de Broglie, claps his hands in delight and inquires, lustfully, as to who is paying me gallantries.

“Why, no one, Monsieur. My husband is a wonderful man,” I answer.

Tencin snorts, a delicate puff of air. “That won’t last long, darling, let me assure you.”

“I shall be first in line once you decide to avail yourself of the joys of society,” declares the old duke gallantly, his eyes creeping down my bodice.

“Then you must wait behind the king,” I say, unsure, but then the words feel natural and right. “I shall not deceive my husband with any man, unless that man is the king.”

The assembled group twitters and snickers.

“Well said, well said,” says Madame de Tencin. “A pleasant way of handling admirers, which you’ll sorely need. But don’t forget, little fish, fidelity is far too bourgeois for this crowd.”

I clamber into Mama’s room, flushed. “Oh! How I wish you could have been there.”

“Dearest, you know how tired I am these days.” I do, but I only spoke kindly; Mama is not received in such places. She is of too low a birth, and is known to have had too many friends. Lovers.

“I met Cassini! And the Polish ambassador said my eyes were spring skies before a storm. Apparently he is a poet. Though very shortsighted.”

“And your gown?”

“Quite suitable. Well, no one commented on it. Madame de Tencin’s gown was very plain, just some cream linen, and one of the other ladies wore a
belt
around her waist.” I finger the bow at my throat and remember how Broglie said my voice was a nightin
gale’s, one that he would like to fall asleep to. I sit down on her bed and kick off my shoes. One of them lands in the ashy fireplace.

“You must be tired if you cannot scold me,” I say lightly, caressing her hair.

Mama doesn’t answer, so I burble on about the conversation, the entertainment, and the food. “A pyramid of cream meringues in different colors! I never would have thought, but the combination was exquisite and so pretty! I must tell Cook. And so many compliments! The Duc de Broglie said I was as pretty as a peach, and that he would like to be my first lover! And the Marquis de Merquin compared my hair to a . . . well, I mustn’t repeat that.”

I can’t stop myself; I feel alive and invigorated. To be at the center of ideas, expressions, writers, art! And attention.

Later when I am alone I think back to the nasty undercurrents I missed or ignored at the time: the grain of jealousy in Tencin’s voice when she admired me; the desperate, quavering voice of the Comte de Nangis, whom everyone ignored and pretended they couldn’t hear. The overly sweet inquiries about my mother. So many people, so much self-importance. The Chevalier de Rohan sniping that the Polish ambassador was just a staircase wit, someone who only remembered the right words when he had already left and was in the stairwell. What had they said about me behind my back?

Following my debut, scores of flowers and a fine painted fan arrive, along with several invitations. The next week I meet the great Voltaire. When he sees me he pretends to fall down in ecstasy, saying he has been struck with the gunpowder of love, for one must update Cupid’s arrow to our modern times. We are soon discussing what this new missile should be called. It is unanimously decided that Cupid now carries
the rifle of rapture
in his quiver.

Soon I know I am a success by the train of admirers I attract, as well as by what I hear. Some of the rumors make me laugh, but others are more cruel:

“So that’s the little bird reserving herself for Our Majesty? I’d say she was his type, she’s rather delicious really.”

“Any type is his type—look at those Mailly-Nesle trolls.”

“Beauty as well as substance; apparently she has brains, buried beneath the fluff.”

Despite the fashionable whirlwind my life has become, when I am alone my thoughts still yearn for the king. What I would give for one day at Versailles, one day at the center of his world. At the salons I meet members of the Court; among others the Duc de Duras and the Duc d’Ayen, both intimates of the king. They are courtiers who straddle both worlds, attending the Paris Opéra and mixing with commoners in the salons, then returning to their gilded lives at Versailles.

Though they proclaim my loveliness, I doubt they talk about me to the king—why would they? To them I am just a lovely nothing. Sometimes in my glummer moments I think Versailles is the ultimate salon, but one to which I will never be invited. I am like a fly, on the wrong side of the glass.

They say the king is very sad these days, for his mistress, Pauline de Vintimille, died giving birth to his son. I felt a flare of hope when I heard the news, but then quickly we hear the king is once again in the arms of her sister Louise. I think of Louise often—they say she is not very pretty but is kind, and the king treats her as both a lover and a nurse. Is it possible to be jealous of someone you’ve never met?

Then we hear he is courting another Mailly sister, the youngest one, the cleverest and most beautiful one.

Her name is Marie-Anne.