The French Mistress

by Susan Holloway Scott

  “My husband was impressed by you in Dover, mademoiselle,” she said, as if addressing the gown and not me. “The moment you appeared today, I saw for myself that his praise of your beauty was no exaggeration. But he’d also spoken highly of your wisdom and discretion, complements I questioned in a lady as young as you are. Even Lord Arlington is apt to credit more to a pretty face than perhaps he should.”

  She glanced over her shoulder and smiled at me, as if sharing a secret that women alone could understand. “Now I find I must apologize to him, a difficult task for any wife. His first judgment of you was well-deserved. You are wise and discreet beyond your years, and clever, too, I suspect. You are not above a few words of advice, are you?”

  “Of course not, my lady,” I murmured, for advice from this lady could be of considerable use.

  “Yes, you are clever, my dear,” she began, “but never forget that the king is infinitely more so. You must take considerable care in managing him. Never speak directly to him of political affairs, or show any aversion to those who are near him, no matter how taxing or trying some of those rogues may be. Loyalty is one of his greatest qualities, but only if you can garner it for yourself.”

  “I shall try my best, my lady,” I said, and bowed my head in acknowledgment of her sagacity. What she’d said was true for all courtiers, whether ladies or gentlemen, and I would do well to heed every word.

  “I believe you will, mademoiselle,” Her Ladyship said with approval. “No wonder the king desires you. What an agreeable change you’ll make from the bold and brazen slatterns he usually chooses!”

  “Thank you, my lady,” I said, realizing the significance of this compliment. She could make all manner of jests about her husband’s judgment of me, but I suspected hers held equal weight, and if I’d failed to impress her favorably, I’d have had a much more difficult path for myself at Court. Thus I curtsied again, the better to convey my gratitude. “I am most honored.”

  “We’ll all be honored if you succeed in pleasing the king, my dear. I am sure you won’t forget us, and share the favors that His Majesty might drop your way.” She gave the gown one final brush with her hand and turned back toward me, her hands folded at her waist. “You were right to choose this gown. You’ll please the king by wearing it.”

  “That is my only wish, my lady,” I said fervently, “to please His Majesty.”

  “You will.” Gently she took my face in her hands and kissed me on the forehead. “Now sleep, mademoiselle. The morning, and His Majesty, will be here soon enough.”

  I smiled up at her, giddy with expectation, and who could fault me for it? In the morning, His Majesty would be here with me. With me.

  And no, I did not sleep at all.

  Chapter Fourteen

  WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON

  September 1670

  This was how I would always remember my first glimpse of the king in London.

  Unable to sleep, I drew a chair close to the window and sat with my bare feet curled beneath me to watch the sun rise, the clouds turning gray, then pink, and finally breaking apart to reveal the new day. From Lord Arlington’s lodgings, I could see the green swatch of the park stretching out behind the palace. The grass was crossed by numerous paths, empty now of visitors at so early an hour. The only notable witness was a large single bronze statue on a marble pedestal, a likeness of an ancient warrior, scaled beyond life, who in his full manly nakedness raised his clenched fist in salute toward the palace. Oblivious to this bronze combatant, white swans and brown ducks glided on a long rectangular pond—the English canal that Lord Buckingham had described to me—whose surface shone silvery bright in the early sunlight, and a score or so of wild deer grazed upon the lawns. The very tops of the great oak trees were beginning to shift their color for autumn, green leaves fading into gold.

  As was common at this season of the year, a mist had risen from the ground during the night, and now only a few patches of it remained, softening the scene likes wisps of fairy gossamer. Through this mist, beneath the oaks, I saw the movement of a darker form: more deer, I thought, or perhaps some other creature in search of its breakfast.

  I leaned forward, my elbows resting on the sill, and the shadowy form in the mist took a more human shape and became four gentlemen. The three who walked behind I did not notice, except to see that they were there. How could it be otherwise, when the tallest one striding boldly in the fore was the king?

  He was dressed in dark colors, though whether in somber mourning for his sister or simply by his usual custom, I did not know. He walked briskly, his long legs making his stride so long that the other gentlemen labored to keep pace. I smiled, remembering that stride from Dover and how he never seemed to tire. His dark hair fell back over his shoulders and his coat was open from his exertions, the white linen of his shirt in stark contrast to the otherwise unrelieved black. Scurrying incongruously around him were a half dozen of his spaniels, their ears flopping and their tongues lolling as they, too, hurried not to be left behind.

  At this distance, I couldn’t make out his features beneath the shadow of his flat-brimmed hat, yet still I leaned closer to the glass, my fingertips pressed to the cool surface, as if that were enough to see more. He seemed everything a king should be: virile, strong, handsome, and masterful.

  “Good day, Your Majesty,” I whispered, and smiled fondly. “And what a fine day it is with you to grace it.”

  Abruptly he stopped his walking, and the other gentlemen stopped with him. He said something that made them all laugh (for the jests of kings are always amusing), and then, to my horror, he turned and pointed up toward my window, and looked directly at me.

  I gasped and tumbled backward, my chair crashing to the floor in a most clumsy fashion. Given the sun, the distance, and the glass pane between us, I doubted he was able to see me spying on him, but I still felt the shock of his attention as surely as if we’d been only a few feet apart. More shocking still was the realization that he could be on his way to these quarters, and I was still in my nightclothes, with my hair frowzy and undone.

  “Mademoiselle!” exclaimed Lady Arlington, drawn to the room by the thump of my chair. Unlike me in my night shift, she was fully garbed for the morning, complete to the pearls around her throat and in her ears. “What has happened? Why are you not dressed?”

  Chagrined, I pointed to the window. “Nothing has happened, my lady. I was looking from the window, and saw His Majesty, and—”

  “Yes, yes, and now he in turn shall see you in this sorry, slovenly state if you don’t hurry.” She clapped her hands briskly. “Now make haste. Call your maid, and dress yourself at once. At once!”

  It was as well that I’d already settled on wearing the mourning gown without further ornament, and that in the same plain spirit I’d decided not to paint my face or eyes nor dress my hair in any elaborate fashion. Thus when the king did arrive and I heard his voice greeting Lord Arlington at the entry, I was ready to present myself exactly as I’d planned, sitting on a cane-backed chair as the epitome of well-bred, artless innocence.

  Prepared as I was for this moment, I couldn’t keep my heart from racing with excitement and more than a little anxiety, too. So many people in both England and France had contributed to launching my adventure and had worked together to bring me here, with an equal number of ambitions and hopes now resting on my plump white shoulders. Not the least of these ambitions were of course my own, for while my other sponsors would glide to another if I were to fail, I’d only myself to look to for my future and whatever fortune I could make.

  But nothing was certain. However charming I remembered His Majesty to be, he remained no more than a man, and an inconstant one at that where the fair sex was concerned. In the time since I’d seen him last, he might have found another lady, more beautiful and more obliging. He could have lost interest in me for being French, or suspected the hand of his cousin Louis, or perhaps I’d ceased to interest him for being so readily offered. He might have re
turned his devotions to Lady Cleveland, or even to Her Majesty.

  In those final moments before he entered the room, I thought of all these unhappy possibilities and a score of others, yet not once did I ever guess what really came to pass.

  “You recall Mademoiselle de Keroualle, sir, I am sure,” Lord Arlington said as he opened the door and ushered the king and Lady Arlington into the room. “Mademoiselle, His Majesty.”

  I had only the most fleeting impression of his dark-clad height looming over me and the face I remembered so well, before perforce I bowed my head and curtsied. I kept low, my downcast gaze fixed on the floorboards as I waited for him to speak, and give me leave to rise. I waited, and waited still, my heart racing within my breast and my palms damp with worry as I held my skirts and wondered miserably what I’d done wrong.

  Then suddenly he seized my hands and drew me up himself, pulling me upright so unexpectedly that I gasped aloud, just as I’d done earlier at the window. Now unavoidably, inevitably, my gaze met his, and I could not have looked away even if I’d wished it.

  His Majesty wept.

  “When I see you, mademoiselle,” he said, his voice full of torment, “I see my sister at your side.”

  “Oh, sir,” I said softly in French, scarce more than a whisper as sympathetic tears of my own stung my eyes. My mourning had played its role, but now I almost wished it hadn’t. I dared to weave my fingers more closely into his, squeezing them gently to offer what wordless comfort I could. “Oh, sir, I am sorry!”

  “She was so happy at Dover,” he said. “You know. You were there. And then—then it was done.”

  “You needn’t say more,” I urged, wishing to save him the pain. “Please, sir, do not do this to yourself.”

  He shook his head, more at the unfairness of Madame’s fate than to refuse my comfort. “You loved her, mademoiselle, and she loved you and trusted you. She told me so herself.”

  “But she loved you above all others, sir.” To see a gentleman let his tears fall so shamelessly was the most poignant sight I’d ever seen. “She spoke of you on her deathbed, and now even in heaven, I am sure she watches over you.”

  That made his dark eyes fill anew, yet at the same time I saw his jaw tighten with a determination that seemed at odds with his grief.

  “Arlington,” he said without turning toward His Lordship, “pray take your lady and leave me with Mademoiselle de Keroualle.”

  To be honest, I’d been so rapt in the king’s emotions that I’d forgotten the Arlingtons remained in the room with us.

  “Forgive me, sir,” said Lady Arlington with her usual soft-spoken grace, “but for the sake of the lady’s honor and modesty, I should prefer to remain.”

  “And I, madam, prefer that you should not,” he said, more sharply than I’d expected. “I wish to speak to this lady alone.”

  As favored as the Arlingtons were, not even they could refuse a royal order like that.

  “As you wish, sir,” Lord Arlington said. He bowed deeply, and took his wife’s arm so they might withdraw together. The door clicked shut after them, and I looked back to the king.

  “Come, mademoiselle, sit with me,” he said, and led me over to a nearby settle. This furnishing was long and commodiously wide, and fitted with numerous soft cushions of silk velvet in the Italian manner. With dismay I wondered if he intended to make use of its convenience to make his first assault upon my virtue. But sorrow ruled, and though we sat side by side, to my relief passion was the furthest thing from his thoughts.

  “Mademoiselle,” he said, still clasping my hand as he looked directly into my eyes. “Mademoiselle, I would ask that you be as truthful and loyal to me as you were to my dear sister.”

  I placed my free hand over my heart and bowed my head with sweet grace. “You have my pledge, sir.”

  He nodded, pleased. “You attended my sister when she died, yes?”

  “Oh, yes,” I said as another tear escaped my eye. “I was with her when she was first stricken, and remained until the end, and after.”

  “Then tell me all,” he said firmly. “I’ve heard it from others, but none that I trust to tell me the truth. Tell me now, mademoiselle, and leave nothing out.”

  I took a deep breath and did as he bid, relaying every detail of those dreadful last hours of Madame’s life. From the chicory water to the final consolations of Bishop Bousset, I omitted nothing, exactly as he wished.

  Now was when I’d expected him to display the depth of his loss, but again I was wrong. As he listened, his eyes were entirely dry, his earlier anguish replaced by complete concentration on my words, and a steely determination to miss nothing. Several times he interrupted me to ask some detail I’d forgotten—what antidotes had been administered, and whether blades or leeches had been used for the bloodlet ting, and where Monsieur had been at this or that time—and when I answered, he nodded, and asked me to continue.

  It wasn’t until I’d finished that I realized I’d never spoken of Madame’s death to anyone else before this: not because I’d wished to keep it close, but simply because no one else had asked it of me. In Paris, I’d been too insignificant to anyone other than Madame, and besides, everyone else I’d known who might have been curious had witnessed the death as well.

  But now I felt as if an unhappy burden had been lifted from me, as if by telling Madame’s story to her brother, I’d made my final peace with my dear friend and mistress. It was as if I’d been destined to do this last favor for her, almost as if she’d contrived it to be so. Perhaps in some strange way, she had.

  “Thank you, mademoiselle,” the king said, his voice heavy. He’d not wept again, but his expression remained inexpressibly sad, and I’d only to recall the more joyful times earlier this summer to understand. “Now I would ask one more question of you, and again I trust that you will answer me in perfect trust. Do you believe Minette was poisoned?”

  He wished the truth. In these circumstances, what brother wouldn’t? Sitting together as we were on the settle, the difference in our heights was lessened, our faces nearly even. Beneath the black brows and heavy lids, his dark eyes seemed capable of finding the truth in me even if I didn’t venture to offer it.

  Did I believe Madame had been poisoned? In my troubled heart, I did. From the first day I’d spent in her service, I’d seen too much of Monsieur’s loathsome cruelty toward his wife to believe otherwise. Her death might not have come from a deadly potion or herb, as most had suspected and the physicians denied, but there are other ways to poison the soul that are just as fatal to a tender constitution like Madame’s, a thousand small abuses and hateful indignities that would kill over time. No magistrate in France would ever charge Monsieur with the crime of murdering his wife; there must be absolute proof to punish the brother of His Most Christian Majesty. But I believed one day Monsieur would face a higher, more awful judgment, and then he would not escape unscathed.

  But was that what her brother now asked?

  Montagu had warned me that the king not only believed Madame had been poisoned by her husband, but that he also believed that Louis was protecting his brother. Crimes like those could destroy the new alliances (both the secret one I’d witnessed and the false one that had been the work of Lord Buckingham), and could even lead instead to war between England and France. I’d been charged to keep this from happening, to soothe the English king’s worrisome tempers and incline him back toward France, and to tell him whatever he needed to hear.

  Madame had worked hard for the sake of this alliance, and now it was my turn to preserve it. This would be my first challenge as an agent for my country and my king, and if I were the true daughter of France I’d always claimed to be, then it shouldn’t have caused me the slightest qualm or regret. To falter would be to betray my country.

  But the English king knew none of this.

  “You may speak freely here, mademoiselle,” he said gently, misreading my hesitation. “This is England, not France, and the duc d’Orleans is no longer yo
ur master. You’re safe here.”

  I still clasped his hand in mine, our fingers loosely twined together. Now he gently laid his other hand over mine, covering it by way of reassuring me.

  “Tell me,” he coaxed. “Tell me what you know.”

  I looked down at his hand over mine, his long, dark fingers, which were nearly as expressive as his face. He wore no rings to show his station, no bejeweled ornament of state, nor did he need them, such was his confidence.

  “Please, mademoiselle,” he said. “For Minette’s sake, and mine.”

  “Her Highness had been unwell for many months, sir,” I began, still looking down at his hand over mine instead of his face. “From the time of her confinement last summer with the Princess Anne-Marie, and even before. She was often in discomfort and restless, and often could find no position that would bring her sufficient ease for sleep. Some nights she did not sleep at all, but wandered like an unquiet spirit about the gardens of Saint-Cloud. More and more foods distressed her and made her ill and wretch, and she lost so much flesh that her gowns were all remade smaller, else they would have hung flapping loose about her person. She even had extra pleats and furbelows stitched in place to give her more presence.”

  I paused, remembering sadly how thin Madame had become in the last months before Dover. It had been shocking to see her as she was dressed, how the bones of her spine showed like knobs in a row through her too-white skin. When her maids had laced her stays each morning, there’d been nothing spare to draw in, the stitched bones of the stays sitting directly against her ribs.

  “What did her physicians say?” the king demanded. “Surely they would not neglect their duty if she were so ill.”

  “After a certain point, sir, she refused to consult them,” I said. “She forbid us to send for them.”