The Eight

by Katherine Neville

  “Everything on earth, my dear David, has to do with politics. You know what was buried at Montglane Abbey, do you not?” Valentine and Mireille turned white, but David looked at Talleyrand strangely and picked up his wineglass.

  “Pah. That’s an old wives’ tale,” he said with a scornful laugh.

  “Is it?” said the other. He watched the two young women with his intense blue eyes. Then he picked up his wineglass as well and took a sip, seeming to be lost in thought. At last he picked up his fork and began to eat again. Valentine and Mireille were frozen in their places, not touching their food.

  “Your nieces seem to have lost their appetites,” Talleyrand commented.

  David glanced over at them. “Well, what is it?” he demanded. “Don’t tell me you believe in this nonsense, too?”

  “No, Uncle,” said Mireille quietly. “We know it is only a superstition.”

  “Of course, it’s only an old legend, isn’t it?” Talleyrand said, recovering some of his former charm. “But one that you seem to have heard yourselves. Tell me, where has this abbess of yours gone, now that she’s seen fit to conspire with the pope against the government of France?”

  “For God’s sake, Maurice,” said David irritably. “One would think you’d studied for the Inquisition. I’ll tell you where she’s gone, and let there be an end to it. She’s gone to Russia.”

  Talleyrand was silent for a moment. Then he smiled slowly, as if he’d thought of something privately amusing. “I suppose you’re right,” he told David. “Tell me, have your charming nieces had occasion yet to visit the Paris Opera?”

  “No, Monseigneur,” said Valentine hastily. “But it has been our most cherished fantasy, ever since our early childhood.”

  “As long ago as that?” laughed Talleyrand. “Well, perhaps something can be done about it. After luncheon, let’s have a look at your wardrobes. I happen to be an expert in couture.…”

  “The monseigneur advises half the women in Paris upon fashion,” David added wryly. “It is one of his many acts of Christian charity.”

  “I must tell you the story of the time I arranged the coiffure of Marie-Antoinette for a masqued ball. I designed her costume as well. Even her own lovers did not recognize her, not to mention the king!”

  “Oh, Uncle, could we ask monseigneur the bishop to do the same for us?” Valentine begged. She felt a sweeping relief that the conversation had changed to a more amenable topic, and a less dangerous one as well.

  “You both look ravishing enough as it is.” Talleyrand smiled. “But we will see what little we can do to improve upon nature. Luckily I’ve a friend who keeps among her entourage the best dressmakers in Paris—perhaps you’ve heard of Madame de Staël?”

  Everyone in Paris had heard of Germaine de Staël, as Valentine and Mireille soon learned. As they swept in her wake into her gold-and-blue box at the Opéra-Comique, they saw the array of powdered heads turn to recognize her arrival. The cream of Parisian society filled the stacked boxes that rose to the rafters of the overheated opera house. To regard the jumbled array of jewels and pearls and laces, one would never suppose that outside in the streets, a revolution was still under way, that the royal family were languishing in the prison of their own palace, that each morning tumbrils filled with members of the nobility and clergy were sent groaning over the cobblestones to the Place de la Révolution. Within the horseshoe of the Opéra-Comique, all was splendor and festivity. And the most splendid of all, coursing into her box like a great bateau on the river Seine, was that youthful grande dame of Paris, Germaine de Staël.

  Valentine had learned all about her by questioning the servants of her uncle Jacques-Louis. Madame de Staël, they’d informed her, was the daughter of the brilliant Swiss finance minister Jacques Necker, twice exiled by Louis XVI and twice recalled to his post by popular demand of the French people. Her mother, Suzanne Necker, had maintained the most powerful salon in Paris for twenty years, of which Germaine had been the star.

  A millionairess in her own right, Germaine had purchased a husband at the age of twenty: Baron Eric Staël von Holstein, the impoverished Swedish ambassador to France. Following in her mother’s footsteps, she had opened her own salon at the Swedish embassy and plunged headlong into politics. Her rooms were flooded with luminaries of the political and cultural milieux of France: Lafayette, Condorcet, Narbonne, Talleyrand. Germaine became a philosophical revolutionary. All the important political decisions of the day were made within the silk-lined walls of her salon, through the men whom she alone could draw together. Now, at twenty-five, she was perhaps the most powerful woman in France.

  As Talleyrand limped painfully about the box, seating the three women, Valentine and Mireille studied Madame de Staël. In a low-cut gown of black-and-gold lace that accentuated her heavy arms, muscular shoulders, and thick waist, she cut an imposing figure. She wore a necklace set in heavy cameos surrounded by rubies, and the exotic gold turban that was her trademark. She leaned aside to Valentine, who was seated beside her, and whispered in her low, rumbling voice that could be heard by all.

  “By tomorrow morning, my dear, everyone in Paris will be upon my doorstep, wondering who the two of you are. It will be a most delectable scandal, as I’m certain your escort understands, or he would have dressed you more appropriately.”

  “Madame, do our costumes not please you?” asked Valentine anxiously.

  “You are both quite lovely, my dear,” Germaine assured her wryly. “But white is a color for virgins, not flaming rose. And though young bosoms are always in vogue in Paris, a fichu is normally worn to cover the flesh of women under the age of twenty. As Monsieur Talleyrand well knows.”

  Valentine and Mireille flushed to the roots of their hair, but Talleyrand interjected, “I am liberating France in my own fashion.” He and Germaine smiled at one another, and she shrugged.

  “I hope you enjoy the opera,” said Germaine, turning to Mireille. “It’s one of my favorites, I’ve not seen it since my childhood. The composer, André Philidor, is the finest chess master in Europe. He’s played chess and music before philosophers and kings. You may find the music old-fashioned, since Gluck has revolutionized the opera. It’s difficult to listen to so much recitative.…”

  “We have never before seen an opera, madame,” Valentine chimed in.

  “Never seen an opera!” said Germaine in full voice. “Impossible! But where have your family been keeping you?”

  “In a convent, madame,” Mireille replied politely.

  Germaine stared at her for a moment, as if she’d never heard of a convent. Then she turned and glared at Talleyrand. “I see there are a few things you failed to explain to me, my friend. Had I known that David’s wards were raised in a convent, I should scarcely have chosen an opera such as Tom Jones.” She turned back to Mireille and added, “I hope you will not be shocked. It is an English story about an illegitimate child.…”

  “Better to have them learn the moral at an early age,” laughed Talleyrand.

  “That is indeed true,” said Germaine between thin lips. “If they retain the Bishop of Autun as their mentor, the information may prove quite useful.”

  She turned back to the stage as the curtain rose.

  “I believe that was the most wonderful experience of my life,” Valentine said after the opera as she sat upon the thick Aubusson carpet in Talleyrand’s study, watching flames lick at the glass doors of the fireguard.

  Talleyrand leaned back in a large chair of blue watered silk, his feet propped on an ottoman. Mireille stood a few feet away, looking down into the fire.

  “This is the first time we’ve had cognac, as well,” Valentine added.

  “Well, you are only sixteen,” said Talleyrand, inhaling the aroma of the brandy in his snifter and taking a sip. “There will be time for many experiences.”

  “How old are you, Monsieur Talleyrand?” Valentine asked.

  “That is not a polite question,” said Mireille from the fireplace. “You
should never ask people how old they are.”

  “And please,” said Talleyrand, “call me Maurice. I’m thirty-seven, but I feel as if I’m ninety when you call me ‘monsieur.’ Now tell me, how did you like Germaine?”

  “Madame de Staël was very charming,” said Mireille, her red hair glowing against the firelight, the color of the flames.

  “Is it true she’s your lover?” asked Valentine.

  “Valentine!” cried Mireille. But Talleyrand had exploded with laughter.

  “You are remarkable,” he said, tousling Valentine’s hair with his fingers as she leaned against his knee in the flickering light. To Mireille he added, “Your cousin, Mademoiselle, is free of all the pretensions one finds so dull in Parisian society. I find her questions refreshing, and never take offense at them. I’ve found these last few weeks, dressing the two of you and escorting you about Paris, to be a tonic that’s reduced the bile of my natural cynicism. But who told you, Valentine, that Madame de Staël was my lover?”

  “I heard it from the servants, monsieur—I mean, Uncle Maurice. Is it true?”

  “No, my dear. It is not true. Not any longer. We once were lovers, but gossip is always behind the times. She and I are good friends.”

  “Perhaps she cast you over because of your lame foot?” Valentine suggested.

  “Blessed Mother!” cried Mireille, who was unaccustomed to swearing. “You will apologize to the monseigneur. Please forgive my cousin, Monseigneur. She did not mean to offend you.”

  Talleyrand was sitting silently, almost in a state of shock. Though he’d said Valentine could never offend him, no one in France had ever spoken of his deformity in public. Trembling with an emotion he could not define, he reached forward for Valentine’s hands and pulled her up to sit beside him on the ottoman. Gently, he put his arms about her and embraced her.

  “I am very sorry, Uncle Maurice,” Valentine said. She placed her hand tenderly against his cheek and smiled at him. “I’ve never had the opportunity to see an actual physical deformity before. I would find it most informative if you would show me.”

  Mireille groaned. Talleyrand was now staring at Valentine as if he could not believe his ears. She squeezed his arm in encouragement. After a moment he said gravely, “Very well. If you’d like.” Painfully he lifted his foot from the ottoman, bent down, and removed the heavy steel boot that fastened his foot into place so he was able to walk.

  In the dim firelight, Valentine studied the foot. It was twisted so badly that the ball was bent underneath and the toes seemed to grow from below. From the top it truly resembled a club. Valentine picked up the foot, bent over it, and placed a little kiss on the bottom. Talleyrand sat, stunned, in his chair.

  “Poor foot,” she said. “Thou hast suffered so much and deserved so little of it.”

  Talleyrand leaned toward Valentine. Tilting her face toward his, he kissed her softly on the lips. For a moment, his golden hair and her whiter blond locks were entwined together in the firelight.

  “You are the only one who has ever addressed my foot as ‘thou,’” he told her with a smile. “And you’ve made my foot very happy.”

  As he gazed at Valentine with his beautiful angelic face, his golden curls haloed in the firelight, Mireille found it difficult to remember that this was the man who ruthlessly, almost single-handedly, was destroying the Catholic Church in France. The man who sought to capture the Montglane Service.

  The candles had burned low in Talleyrand’s study. In the dying firelight, the corners of the long room were swallowed in shadow. Glancing at the ormolu mantel clock, Talleyrand saw it was after two A.M. He roused himself from his chair, where Valentine and Mireille leaned with their hair draped across his knees.

  “I promised your uncle I’d bring you home at a reasonable hour,” he told them. “Look at the time.”

  “Oh, Uncle Maurice,” pleaded Valentine, “please don’t make us leave just yet. This is the first time we’ve had the chance to go out into society. Since we’ve arrived in Paris, we’ve lived just as if we’d never left the convent at all.”

  “Just one more story,” Mireille agreed. “Our uncle won’t mind.”

  “He’ll be furious.” Talleyrand laughed. “But it’s already too late for me to take you home. There are drunken sans-culottes roaming the streets at this time of night, even in the better quartiers. I suggest I send the footman around to your uncle’s house with a note. I’ll have my valet Courtiade prepare a room for you. You’d prefer to stay together, I suppose?”

  It was not entirely true that it was too dangerous to send them home. Talleyrand had a household of servants, and David’s residence was not far. But he’d realized suddenly that he did not want to take them home, perhaps not ever. He’d dawdled out his tales, postponing the inevitable. These two young girls with their fresh innocence had aroused feelings he was hard-pressed to define. He’d never had a family of any sort, and the warmth he felt in their presence was a wholly new experience.

  “Oh, may we really stay the night?” asked Valentine, sitting up and squeezing Mireille’s arm. Mireille looked doubtful, but she too longed to stay.

  “Indeed,” Talleyrand said, rousing himself from his chair to pull the bell cord. “Let us hope it will not become the scandal of Paris by morning that Germaine prophesied.”

  The sober Courtiade, still attired in his starched livery, glanced once at the two disheveled girls and once at his master’s shoeless foot, then wordlessly preceded them up the stairs to unveil the large guest bedroom.

  “Could the monseigneur find us any nightclothes to wear?” asked Mireille. “Perhaps one of the serving women …”

  “That will pose no problem,” Courtiade replied politely, and he promptly laid out two silk peignoirs lavish with hand-picked lace, which certainly did not belong to any servant. Discreetly, he left the room.

  When Valentine and Mireille had undressed, brushed their hair, and crawled into the big soft bed with its elaborate canopy, Talleyrand tapped upon the door.

  “Is everyone quite comfortable?” he asked, putting his head in at the door.

  “This is the most wonderful bed we’ve ever seen,” replied Mireille from the thick pile of comforters. “At the convent we slept on wooden planks, to improve our posture.”

  “It’s had a remarkable effect, as I can tell,” Talleyrand said, smiling. He came over and sat on the small couch beside their bed.

  “Now you must tell us one more story,” said Valentine.

  “It’s very late …” Talleyrand began.

  “A ghost story!” said Valentine. “The abbess would never permit us to hear ghost stories, but we used to tell them nonetheless. Do you know one?”

  “Unfortunately not,” Talleyrand said ruefully. “As you know, I hadn’t a very normal childhood. I never heard stories of that sort.” He thought for a moment. “But actually, upon one occasion in my life, I met a ghost.”

  “Not truly?” said Valentine. She squeezed Mireille’s hand beneath the covers. The two looked quite excited. “A real ghost?”

  “It sounds rather absurd, now that I say it,” he laughed. “You must promise never to tell your uncle Jacques-Louis of this, or I’ll be the laughingstock of the Assembly.”

  The girls wriggled under the covers and swore never to tell. Talleyrand sat on the sofa in the dim candlelight and began his story.…

  THE BISHOP’S TALE

  When I was quite a young man, before I took my vows as priest, I left my see at St. Remy, where the famous King Clovis is buried, and went off to attend the Sorbonne. After two years at this famous university, the time had come for me to announce my calling.

  I knew it would be a terrible scandal for my family if I refused the profession they’d forced upon me; however, I felt totally unfit to be a priest. Privately I’d always sensed my destiny was to be a statesman.

  Beneath the chapel at the Sorbonne were interred the bones of the greatest statesman France had ever known, a man I idolized. His name y
ou will know: Armand Jean du Plessis, Due de Richelieu, who, in a rare combination of religion and politics, had ruled this country with an iron hand for nearly twenty years until his death in 1642.

  One night, near midnight, I left the warmth of my bed, threw a heavy cape over my dressing gown, and climbed down the ivy-covered walls of the student quarters, making for the Sorbonne Chapel.

  Wind blew the cold leaves across the lawn, and there were strange sounds of owls and other night creatures. Though I thought myself bold, I confess I was afraid. Within the chapel, the tomb was dark and cold. There were no people praying there at that hour, and only a few candles remained burning by the crypt. I lit another and, falling upon my knees, beseeched the late priest of France to guide me. In that vast vault I could hear the beating of my own heart as I explained my plight.

  No sooner was my prayer voiced than, to my utter astonishment, an icy wind blew through the vault, extinguishing all the candles. I was terrified! Swallowed in blackness, I fumbled about to find another to light. But at that moment I heard a groan, and from the tomb rose the pale murky ghost of Cardinal Richelieu! His hair, skin, and even his ceremonial robes as white as snow, he hovered above me, shimmering and completely translucent.

  Had I not been kneeling already, I certainly should have fallen to the ground. My voice dried up in my throat, I could not speak. But then I heard the low groaning sound again. The cardinal’s ghost was speaking to me! I felt the gooseflesh rising on my spine as he intoned his fateful words in a voice that resembled the deep ringing of a bell.

  “Why hast thou awakened me?” it boomed. Wild winds swept about me, and I was still in total darkness, but my legs were too weak to permit me to get up and flee. I swallowed and tried to unloose my trembling voice to reply.

  “Cardinal Richelieu,” I stammered out, “I seek advice. In life, you were the greatest statesman of France, despite your priestly vocation. How did you attain such power? Please share your secret, for I wish to follow your example.”