The Rivals of Versailles: A Novel (The Mistresses of Versailles Trilogy) (37 page)

Act VI

Duchesse

Chapter Sixty-One

I
t is a cold, evil winter and the Court retreats to the Trianon, cozier and easier to heat than Versailles.

We leave behind an empty palace, as dreary and forlorn as the New Year. Only Madame Victoire, the king’s third daughter, remains, sick in bed. Louis kisses me goodbye and says he is going to visit her, then spend the night in town. I wish him well and remind him of the state council the next day.

Then, the end, and the cruel reminder that rivals do not only come in human form.

A crazed madman, the incarnation of all the discomfort of the times. One fanatic who thought that by striking at the king, he could strike at the heart of all that ails our country.

Damiens attacked as the king was leaving Versailles that January afternoon, under the portico at the entrance to the Marble Court. He was hatted in the presence of the king, a strict breach of etiquette that instantly raised suspicion, but before the guards could arrest him . . . his knife pierced the king’s coat right where his heart was and Louis, my darling, adored and flawed Louis, fell on the steps, the shadows of the winter dusk adding to the confusion and mayhem.

The news came to us at the Trianon that the king had been assassinated and all immediately set out for Versailles. The road was lined with carriages racing against the spreading night, some travelers alighting and running along on foot, conscious of the glorious spectacle of grief they presented.

Time quickly revealed that the king is not dead, but bleeding and in mortal danger. My relief is extreme, but so is my grief. I want nothing more than to see him, to cool his brow and kiss his
lips, stanch his wound with the force of my love. But that is denied me as his family takes charge and Versailles closes around its king. I think of Marie-Anne, the first one, of how she barricaded herself in the sickroom at Metz. Here, such an action is unthinkable.

Back in my rooms, fires are hurriedly lit and friends and foe alike descend to comfort and gloat. By virtue of his profession my dear Quesnay has the entrée to the sick chamber and he acts as the lifeline between my rooms and the king’s, providing updates as the crisis unfolds.

“The bed where he lies is without linen; the stewards were not ready for him to spend the night. Comfortable sheets are of the utmost urgency.”

An anxious hour later: “His daughters Mesdames Adélaïde and Sophie arrived, and upon seeing their father lying on a bed without a sheet, a bare mattress in fact, they fainted dead away. And there was blood too,” he adds, almost as an afterthought.

The moon unfurls over the palace and candles glisten in every window. Quesnay tells us that in the crush outside the king’s bedchamber the Comte de Vivonne tore his coat, and one of the king’s valets has gone mad with grief. “Then the queen arrived and she fainted, and had to be carried away. Madame Victoire, still on her sickbed, insisted on being carried to her father but the doctors forbade it and so she fainted, but in her own room.”

Later: “The sheets have been replaced and the king rests comfortably. The wound is light, but poison is feared.” Poison. The room sways then disappears, and when I open my eyes I am on the carpet, Nicole fanning me and my friend Mirie stroking my wrist as though I were one of her rabbits.

Then Quesnay brings the worst news of all. He takes my hand and kneels before me: “The king has requested his confessor.” My blood runs colder than the dawning day outside. Those are the words I most fear, for a priest will force the king to relinquish all evidence of his sinful life; he will have to relinquish
me
.

“Did he mention me?” I whisper. Quesnay looks uncomfortable, his wig askew and tatty, his neckpiece soaked from tears.

“No, Madame, nothing like that.”

Relief or just a reprieve?

The weak January sun rises over a changed world and we hear that the doctors have declared the king out of danger and the dagger unpoisoned. Louis’ heavy coat sheltered him from the worst of the blade—a thick jacket padded with fox hair I had specially ordered for him.

Quickly the interrogation of the madman Damiens begins. Hearsay abounds about the heinous seed that attacked our king:

“Enraged by the parliamentarians!”

“In the sway of the Jesuits!”

“He said to beware the dauphin. Most surprised, really—one doesn’t expect intrigue or plots from pudding.”

“More heavenly fire raining down on this Sodom that is Versailles—no, no, not my opinion: I heard it from my priest.”

Damiens worked for a member of Parlement and heard his master’s discontent with the king. Somewhere in his addled brain he thought that to remove the king would be to remove the greatest obstacle to the happiness of France.

With the king out of danger, his family encircles him in a stranglehold of love. Frannie, as part of Madame Adélaïde’s household, replaces Quesnay as my lifeline to the room where the center of my world lies in melancholy.

He doesn’t send for me. No word for three days while I occupy the curious space between the living and the dead. I receive all those who come and visit, curiosity painted on their faces as clearly as their rouge. I do not put on an elegant face. Everyone knows my precarious situation and why bother to hide it in front of the carping courtiers, vultures in another guise?

“Oh, my darling, what a sad, sad day for you.”

“Three days now? Four? No word, no word at all! Whatever is he thinking? And what are
you
thinking?”

“One look at your hair shows me you are destroyed, simply destroyed, by grief.”

Every day that passes without word is a day closer to my banishment. And if banished, I decide, I will never return to Versailles. Never, no matter how he may beg and plead.

I wait, seven agonizing days. Forgotten, oblivion, the void of an empty plain.

“Never, never have I seen a man so melancholy. And unshaven,” says Frannie, shaking her head, her eyes full of sympathy. “They say the wound is healed, but not the heart.” I understand completely: to have a subject turn against him would be Louis’ greatest sorrow. Frannie tells me the king sees his confessor every day. Perhaps my greatest rival of all is God, and the mortal fear of death and sin. Against that, his promise means nothing.

On the seventh day, Machault comes in with a face as grave as a churchyard. He bows and I dispatch everyone from the room.

“It is with no pleasure at all, Madame, that I come with my news.” Machault’s face is solemn but his eyes, curiously bright and darting, cannot meet mine. I thought I was prepared, but I am not.

“It would be best if you left, my lady. It is how the king would wish.” As he delivers the cruel blow, Machault’s eyes are fixed on his stained cuffs—a lack of care for appearance is taken as a sign of good grief. He is sad for me, I think, and without my protection—what is his future?

“Thank you, my dear friend,” I say, my voice surprisingly steady. The uncertainty is over; his will is known and it will be done. I am a subject like any other, my fate in the hands of a capricious master. “Thank you. I will make the necessary arrangements.”

For a while after he leaves I sit in my favorite window seat, look beyond the parterre to a row of towering yews, now covered in snow. He’ll gain some popularity from this, I think, watching a sudden swirl of small birds fleeing the bushes. A brush with death, a hated mistress banished; we are in 1744 and the aftermath of Metz once again. The people will love him for this.

And so I am to leave this cruel palace where I have known the greatest of sorrows and the greatest of triumphs. The worst of dreams, the best of nightmares. What I have feared for so many years has now come to pass. And so I must go.

I rise and smooth my robe with my hands, the soft velvet assuring me that I am alive, and that I can feel.

“Nicole, have Collin bring in the trunks from town. We will start packing.”

Mirie bustles in, without a rabbit.

“What are you doing?” she demands.

I stare at her wordlessly as Nicole and the other women continue bringing my dresses out, the four trunks open like gaping mouths to swallow my happiness.

“Stop. Immediately.”

Nicole pauses, holding a pile of pink winter furs. I sit down on the sofa and begin to cry quietly.

“Jeanne, Jeanne.” Mirie is beside me, the warm scent of honeysuckle cradling me. I have a friend, I think, then I sob even louder.

“Who wins at the card table?” demands Mirie, her little hand gripping my wrist.

I shake my head, unable to reply.

“The one who wins is the one who stays at the table. If you leave, you’ll never win. Stay, and you have a chance.”

I think of Marie-Anne, the second one, the stupid one, her arch blue eyes mocking me over her hand of kings.
I have only kings
, she said in my dreams and in my nightmares. I hate cards, but I did win there.

“Perhaps.” I agree with Mirie but my voice is sad and small.

“Stop this packing. You go only if the king tells you to, and not a moment before.”

“But Machault—”

“You cannot trust Machault.”

“Machault is a fr—”

“No, he isn’t. Believe me.” She gets up, pulls a creamy lace
robe from one of the chests, and throws it down over the parquet. “Stop, now! And wait for word from the king.”

I submit, a leaf in the river, heading toward a pond or a waterfall, who knows? As the women unpack the trunks, I remember Machault’s uneasiness, the slight embarrassment, those darting eyes that could not meet mine. So, not a friend, even though he owes everything he is to me. Should I be surprised?

Quesnay agrees with Mirie. “The fox, Madame, the fox. Was to dine with other animals and a fine spread was laid. The fox then persuaded his guests that their enemies were coming. The other animals fled, and he enjoyed the supper by himself, and all the more.”

“Machault is the fox,” whispers Mirie as the men come to return my trunks, empty now, to my house in town.

But still, no word. Which is worse: this oblivion he has consigned me to, or banishment? He stays in his room, every afternoon closeted with his confessor, every evening with his wife and children.

Then one night as Madame Adélaïde’s ladies turned to leave with their mistress, he put his hand on Frannie’s shoulder.

“Stay awhile,” he said, and when they were alone he took her cloak, wrapped it around himself, and made his way down to my rooms.

I never knew what turned his mind, but when I saw him all my worries melted away. The thin crowd in my room melted away too, but at the appearance of the king they excused themselves with more politeness than they had shown all week.

I was a tangle: no makeup, my hair loosely pinned, but I had on a clean robe and a warm smile, and that was all that he needed.

Here was a man who needed mending, who needed to be stitched whole again. I embraced him tightly and we sat together until the candles guttered and the room descended into darkness. I unbuttoned his shirt to run my fingers over the wound. I traced the bandage, so small yet so close to his heart.

He clutched my hand and began to speak at last: “Oh my dar
ling. My dearest. Such a betrayal. The doctors say the wound is light, but it is still a wound. Made by one of my own subjects, my own children.”

I hold his hands and murmur the comfort he needs to hear.

“Why?” he asks in a sorrowful voice. “Why? Why would he wish me dead?”

“No! Put no merit on that man’s actions; he is a madman, his brain addled by Satan.” I convince the king, as I am convinced myself, that Damiens acted on nothing more than his own delusions. A week of the worst torture has not revealed otherwise. “Do not listen to your family,” I say firmly. “You must listen to me, my dearest. Put him from your mind, and concentrate on your kingdom and your subjects who love you, and not on the actions of a solitary madman.”

Louis kisses me tenderly on the mouth, and when he draws back, I know he is mine again. By the next day things are as normal and the great palace creaks back to life with me, again, at its center.

Quesnay tells me later that the doctors were amazed at his improvement, but I was not: the greatest tonic of all is friendship and love, one single conversation with a good friend worth more than the strongest medicine.

The whole affair is best left forgotten. I invite Louis to Bellevue for a few days and amuse him with a new mechanical table installed in the dining room, which brings food directly up from the kitchens.

“No need for servants!” he gasps in delight. “In this room, at least. Such privacy! Not even a footman, though I suppose some help turning the handle might be required.”

I beam and pass him a sheet of paper and a quill. “Request what you will, dearest, and we will send it down. Then we wait, until the food appears.”

“Like magic,” says Louis, shaking his head in admiration. “This modern world! What do I have a craving for? Something light.” He pauses, looks blank. “Perhaps a chicken, quartered?”

“Not quartered,” I say hastily. “A half would be best, or even a whole.”

“Indeed,” agrees the king, happily scribbling away. “I shall request it with lemon and rosemary—no, with tarragon? Which would be best, dearest?”