by Eric Flint
“How odd. In any case, very shortly absolutely everyone will know that he’s the very best at planning galas and spectacular entertainments and we will have sponsored him first. Someday, he’ll be in their new Académie française. There’s hardly any doubt about that, and he’s one of ours—a Huguenot, I mean—so there is also no way that Maman will let Richelieu and Mazarin seize the glory of having discovered him for the Catholic party. This ballet will be a real coup for the Protestant cause.”
Bismarck had difficulty envisioning a ballet directed by a sodomite as a coup for the Protestant cause, but was tactful enough not to say so.
* * *
Some hours later, the young duchess disappeared to be dressed, so that she might join her still-invisible mother for a yet-unspecified mandatory social occasion.
Ruvigny and Bismarck headed off for a tavern, to meet some of Ruvigny’s old friends from his first years in the Royal Guards in Paris. Who were late, of course. They ordered ales while they waited.
“I had no idea you were on such close terms with the Rohans,” August said, shoving his mug around the table and leaving a wet streak.
“It’s not the Rohans, really,” Henri answered. “I don’t know the duke very well and I’ve never presumed on any acquaintance with him for advancement in the service of Grand Duke Bernhard. It’s the family of the senior duchess—that is, it’s the Béthunes who are our patrons. Our families have known each other just about forever. It was through her father, the duke of Sully, that my father got his sinecure as lieutenant-governor of the Bastille. I was only three when Papa died, but Maman has repeated constantly to all of us, ever since, just how much gratitude we owe to the Béthunes. Sully himself was godfather for my oldest brother, who died in the Royal Guards. Sully’s wife and one of his sons were godparents for my sister Rachel. For my little brother Cirné, too, but he died when he was hardly more than an infant.”
He shifted uneasily on the bench. “I’m not comfortable with Rohan’s politics. At the siege of La Rochelle, I was with the royal forces. If the Huguenots have any hope of surviving in France, they’ll be better off practicing a policy of ‘respect the crown and placate the king’ rather than rebelling.”
“Doesn’t Peter, in the Epistle, say ‘honor the king’ rather than ‘placate the king’?”
“At the French court, it’s ‘placate the king.’ Not that such an approach succeeded either, according to the up-time books. Nobody loved Sully when he was chief minister, even though he perhaps did more for France than anyone else under Henri IV. The Catholics hated him because he was Protestant and the Protestants hated him because he was loyal to the crown. It’s hard to deal rationally with fanatics.”
* * *
The elder duchess appeared at breakfast the next morning, not apologizing for anything but making a fuss over Ruvigny. She wasn’t bad looking, Bismarck thought, for a forty-year-old woman who had borne ten children. But nowhere nearly as good as his own mother, who had borne eight. Mutti must be a dozen or so years older than the duchess. The last time he had seen her, which was nearly ten years ago now, she would have been about the same age as the woman to whom he was making a bow in this year of 1636. She had looked a lot younger and healthier, in spite of all the troubles of the war.
Making a fuss over Ruvigny stopped the instant he carried out their mission and handed over the letter. The duchess did not respond to the duke’s letter with appropriate wifely compliance, much less biblical submissiveness. Her reaction was more along the lines of indignation amounting to anger. Fury, perhaps. Even the ire of the classical Furies themselves.
“No way!” she screamed at Ruvigny. “So ‘chaos is coming.’ I am quite prepared to manipulate, to the benefit of Rohan, any political advantage that is to be attained from looming chaos, but I can only do that in Paris. So ‘danger lurks.’ I am not prepared to abandon the court. Nor will I agree to send away my daughter, who is at long last getting old enough to play her own part and therefore belongs at the center of the world, in Paris, and not in the boondocks of the County of Burgundy. Doesn’t he think I am capable of protecting her from some forced Catholic marriage?”
No one of any importance, she finished, ever went to Besançon. Or ever would, in all probability. Certainly not within her lifetime.
After which she flounced out.
“That went a lot better than I expected,” Ruvigny said.
Bismark thought that the French ate breakfast too late. He had practically starved before food appeared on the table.
The breakfast, as late as it was, didn’t last long because there was another rehearsal, to which he was again relegated to being a spectator and involuntary recipient of the female lead’s constant chatter at those times she was not onstage. Today, she was trying to explain her mother, “because I do not want you to think poorly of her, M. von Bismarck. Henri, of course, already knows it all. He lived through a lot of it. Not when she got married, of course, because he wasn’t even born yet.
“She was ten years old when the late king—Henri IV, that is—commanded that she should marry my father. Not just be betrothed to him, at that age, which would not have been so unusual, but marry him. The ceremony was in the temple at Ablon. She wore a white dress, and some joker asked, loud enough for the other guests to hear, ‘And who is it that presents this child for baptism?’ Papa was twenty-five. He went back to the army and Maman got to live with her mother-in-law.”
She stopped. “How old were you when you got married, M. von Bismarck?”
“I’m not married. I’m twenty-five and I can’t afford to get married, any more than Henri over there in the chorus line can. Maybe not ever.”
“Do you have a mistress?”
“If I could afford a mistress, I could afford a wife, and I would much rather have a wife, I assure you.”
“Does Henri have a mistress?”
“No, mademoiselle.”
“Oh, good. But then Maman grew up. By then, though, Henri IV was dead and the Rohans were in revolt again. Politically, at least, Maman has always been fiercely loyal to Papa. She has defended the Rohan cause tirelessly to the court; she has raised immense amounts of money for his ventures, even when she and my grandfather thought they were too risky.
“And, of course, she had to bear him children after she grew old enough. I am certainly legitimate,” the little duchess said proudly. “That is why Papa is so concerned about my marriage and sent the letter that has irritated Maman so much, you understand. Uncle Soubise has no children at all, so I am the only hope for continuing Rohan. Papa can be sure that I am the legitimate heiress of all that Rohan represents, because Maman was quite conscientious about her behavior until Papa gave up begetting after none of my eight brothers and sisters survived early childhood. She didn’t take lovers until after that.”
Bismarck could not think of a tactful reply. At least, not one that was relevant.
At which point, Benserade and the choreographer beckoned her back onstage.
Bismarck hoped that they would have lunch, or maybe dinner, or just a snack, pretty soon, but was afraid that they wouldn’t. It was a mystery why the dancers, whether ladies-in-waiting and courtiers or actors and ballerinas, had not been reduced to skeletons.
The next day was more of the same. A ballet in Paris appeared to involve as much in the way of logistics as a minor military campaign. The little duchess and the ladies in waiting, and the men of course, danced in the traditional style, but the ballerinas hired from the theater were doing two pieces in the modern en pointe style that the up-timers had introduced. Since their presentations meant that the other female dancers were offstage quite a bit, though both the courtiers and actors partnered the professionals in their display, Bismarck was subjected to more chatter.
“The night of the ballet, you will be presented to M. de Gondi. Be very, very, careful. He is Maman’s current lover, and extremely prone to take offense at the slightest thing he can interpret to be a discourtesy. Also, he has
a retinue of favorites who follow him around and take offense on his behalf. Henri fought some duels when he was younger, before I ever met him, but I do believe that he has outgrown it. It would not be good if either you or he got trapped into one while you are here and it would not be beyond some of the courtiers to entrap you into having to fight one, just to embarrass Papa. Don’t trust anyone. That’s the best. Anyone, even one you think is now your closest friend or most committed ally, may well betray you tomorrow if some advantage is to be obtained from it.”
“Lover?” Bismarck had learned most of his French in a classroom and was not certain of his comprehension at times, particularly when a conversational partner spoke with excessive rapidity. Which all the French seemed to do most of the time. He wanted to be sure that he had heard clearly.
“Yes, her current lover. But truly, everyone says that Maman is quite fastidious. It’s not as if she’s one of those women who claim to be ladies but fuck the footmen for fun. She only takes one lover at a time and all of them have been politically influential and members of the highest nobility.”
Marguerite sighed. “Even though in the case of the Nogarets, she chose two full brothers at different times, Cardinal de La Valette and the comte de Candale.” She wrinkled her nose. “Which is just…not fastidious.”
Bismarck’s eyebrows were practically up in his receding three-point hairline.
“So, what was I saying? It’s not as if Maman has a reputation like la Chalais, for whom a man published a poem in praise of her slit.”
She punctuated that by nodding her head firmly.
“Her husband, the comte de Chalais, killed the comte de Pontguibault in a duel because of that poem. It was a big scandal at the time—that must have been about a dozen years ago. But Chalais was beheaded later on, because la Chevreuse seduced him into one of her conspiracies against Richelieu. She’s a very distant cousin of Papa’s, from the Rohan-Montbezon line.” She paused. “You will remember what I told you about duels, won’t you? It just will cause too many complications if you or Henri cause a duel while you are staying with us.”
Bismarck blinked in the face of this apparently never-ending gossip. It might be true that nobody ever paid attention to her, because when she did have a captive listener, her mouth overflowed with everything she was thinking. Much of which was astonishingly world-weary and far more cynical that a girl her age should be, he thought.
If anybody asked him, which nobody was likely to.
At least, when the day of the performance finally arrived, he would be in the audience rather than backstage. He hoped.
He hoped, but he knew that sometimes hope was in vain. He had seen the modern English translation of the Bible in the school library when he was studying at Helmstedt. Well, not the modern of the up-timers but the modern of his own day, the one sponsored by King James. The passage Henri had quoted on their ride to Paris had not employed “useless” or “futile.” “Vanity,” the Teacher had written, speaking the Word of God. “Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.”
Solomon must have visited Paris at some stage of his career. But, then, he had been presiding over a royal court of his own. With wives in the plural, concubines by the hundred, and troubles of his own.
Monogamy had a lot to be said in its favor.
Marguerite propped her chin on the heel of her hand. “And then there’s Tancrède.”
“Another…ah…lover?”
The little duchess managed to convey jaded disgust with one short glance. “My half-brother.”
“The duke also has affairs? An affair? His junior officers, at least during my term of service, have not been aware of any.”
“My maternal half-brother. He’s six. Trust me, M. von Bismarck. One has not truly lived until one has ridden, most of the time in a closed carriage, from Venice to Paris, with a pregnant, motion sick, middle-aged woman who is expecting an illegitimate child and knows that it will have to be fostered out because her husband draws the line at accepting a possible male heir whom he has not fathered. After such a wonderful journey, it’s hard for a girl to retain any illusions about the joyous and sacred nature of motherhood, no matter what the preachers say in their sermons.” She paused. “Candale begat the boy. He and Maman slept together in my own father’s house. That’s really bad taste, don’t you think?”
Bismarck nodded. Bad taste was the least of it, from the perspective of a devout Lutheran.
Even ballet rehearsals finally come to an end.
“It’s actually true, what she said when we arrived, isn’t it?” Bismarck asked that evening as he finished taking off his boots and leaned back, wiggling his toes.
“Huh?” Ruvigny was half-asleep already.
“That nobody other than you paid any attention to her when she was in Venice and twelve years old. Nobody pays any attention to her now that she’s in Paris and is seventeen years old, as far as I can see, other than dressing her, rehearsing her for that ballet, and parading her around to salons and court appearances. She’s the greatest heiress in all of France and she’s completely neglected. Nobody listens to her at all. Nobody even tries to provide her with some kind of…moral compass. Not as far as I have seen.”
“Not since her grandmother Rohan died,” Ruvigny answered. “That must be five years ago, now. The duchess’ parents, Sully and his wife, are still alive, but Marguerite doesn’t see much of them. He’s in retirement in the country, which amounts to a nice way to say house arrest, writing his memoirs and dreaming of his ‘great design’ for a federation of all Christian nations.”
* * *
A month later, Bismarck and Ruvigny reluctantly set out from Paris. Reluctantly only because they were returning to Rohan with the his wife’s final refusal to either join him or send his daughter to him. The duke would not be happy.
“Why did the duchess have to delay so long? Basically, she gave us the same answer a month ago, the instant she read the duke’s letter. She just postponed, then delayed, then procrastinated, and finally dragged her feet about giving us her written answer. Now we’re headed back to Burgundy in the middle of what looks like it could be the most miserable winter I’ve ever seen. Even worse than last year.” August looked up at the lowering gray sky, which was drizzling tiny pebbles of sleet onto the half-frozen mud of the ungraded track that was pretending to be a road in eastern France.
“She’s not the one who has to ride in this,” Henri pointed out. “She may have put things off so long so she could add that she didn’t want to risk the seed pearl’s health by traveling in midwinter to the rest of her excuses.”
“He isn’t going to like it.”
“Entendu. Maybe all the church bells ringing to celebrate the child of the royal couple in the Netherlands will distract him. Too bad it was a girl.”
“But healthy, which isn’t something the Habsburgs can always count on. That augurs well for the future.” August hunched his shoulders against the sleet. “Sometimes it’s better for the heir to come second, with a girl first to undergo the process of having her head stretch out the mother’s hips for childbearing.”
The duke wasn’t happy. He was far from happy. As soon as they reported to him, he started to compile a yet another list of acceptable—acceptable to him—matches for Marguerite. “It’s more urgent with every day that passes,” he insisted. “As Grand Duke Bernhard said, when he declined the honor of fulfilling the role of her husband himself, she needs someone who can be Rohan for her.”
Section II
Brussels, December 1635
From: Susanna Allegretti, Brussels
To: M. Leopold Cavriani, Geneva
Most honored patron and friend,
Not having received word from you, I conclude that your other obligations have taken you to places that the postal service does not reach. Because of the difficulties I mentioned in November, I am taking prudent measures to avert what otherwise might become a series of unfortunate events.
I will remain here in Brussels for t
he time being, awaiting your further advice.
Your devoted friend and servant,
Susanna Allegretti
The old cobbler looked up from his workbench. “Are you sure that you want these shoes altered the way you described? They will be very unstable to walk in, and the points are likely to damage the floors.”
“Yes, Joseph. Exactly as I described.” Susanna hopped down from the wide window sill on which she had been perching and took one of them in her hands again. “The wooden heels themselves—whittle them down from about here…” She pointed. “…just start a quarter-inch below where they attach to the sole and keep whittling until they are very narrow when they meet the floor. They’re only about an inch and a half high altogether—that’s what is fashionable now—so the wood shouldn’t break when I put weight on them. Then stiffen the matching fabric, mold it to look like it is covering a normal shoe heel, and glue it to the unwhittled quarter-inch of the wooden heel at the top.” She pointed again. “Right here. The false fabric heel should be just a little off the floor—an eighth of an inch, maybe. Not enough that a casual observer will notice but enough that it won’t snag.”
“Every pair? This will ruin them and shoes do not grow on trees, petite Suzette. You have to pay for them.”
“Yes, Joseph. All five pairs. I have my reasons.”
From: Susanna in Brussels
To: Marc, wherever you are (c/o M. Leopold Cavriani, Geneva)
My dearest heart,
Should you hear stories that a certain overly-persistent Lorrainer colonel of my lamented acquaintance has a broken instep, do not be concerned for me. I will be perfectly fine, I promise.
Wishing you were here.
With all my love,
Susanna
Besançon, January 1636
Leopold Cavriani came into town with his son Marc late in the month, dusted the snow off his nose and kicked the slush off his boots, did not curse the slippery cobblestones, inquired where the duc de Rohan might be found, and expressed cheerful relief when informed that his quarry was not at the top of the citadel.
