It happened that the house where Émilie was staying was known to Sophie. Although she had never used it herself, other women she’d spoken to on the streets named it as an ideal place to bring high-class customers, who might be offended by the usual rundown apartment. The landlady made a show of being respectable, but in addition to renting rooms on a long-term basis (generally to the more modest class of kept women), she was not averse to letting out for an hour or two any that stood vacant, if those who wanted them looked respectable enough and could pay.
For the moment, Sophie bided her time, waiting to see what the couple would do next. She took to loitering near Émilie’s room whenever she could, hoping to hear or see something significant.
It was not long before Sophie’s patience paid off. The day after she began her new vigil, she overheard Charpentier speaking to the landlady on his way in.
“I’ll want a closed fiacre, here, at midnight. Can you arrange it for me?” She saw Charpentier discreetly slip a few coins into the landlady’s hand.
“Easy as pie,” she answered. “It’ll be waiting for you, right here.”
Charpentier thanked her and went into the house.
That’s an evening’s wages out the window, Sophie thought. She would have to be on hand to see what Charpentier intended to do with this carriage so late at night. She would do her best to compensate, then return at about eleven-thirty. It was more difficult to get business early in the evening, before too much drink had made the men bold and horny, but it was better than nothing at all. And there was no question of her not being on hand to see what Émilie and Charpentier would do.
By midnight, with only a few additional liards in her pocket, Sophie was hidden in the shadows near Émilie’s room, watching, waiting. After a moment or two she saw the door of the house open, and through it came Charpentier leading a cloaked and hooded figure by the hand to the waiting coach. Sophie had not seen Émilie since the night she helped her prepare for her début at the Hôtel de Guise, but she had a clear, physical memory of the young girl. A year of growing, a long cloak, and a dark wig were not enough to disguise Émilie’s way of walking, her gestures, her profile.
The coach traveled slowly to avoid making too much noise, so Sophie was able to follow them easily on their course through the winding Paris streets, taking little short cuts in order to keep up. In any case, the exercise did not tire her. It was time and energy well spent.
“Pardon, mademoiselle.”
A man’s voice spoke, and Sophie quickened her pace. She did not want a customer at that moment.
“Mademoiselle! Stop at once!”
Sophie, with a sinking realization that this was not a customer, stopped where she was. Doing her best to look respectable and fierce, she turned just as she heard the heavy footsteps about two feet behind her.
“Monsieur, may I be of service?” There before her was a police officer.
“What’s a girl like you doing out here at this hour? And in a nice, respectable neighborhood like this?”
“I’m just going for my evening walk, to settle my stomach.”
“Perhaps you’ve just eaten something that disagreed with you?” The officer leaned toward Sophie. She stepped aside quickly and he lost his balance, falling flat on his face. “Putain!” He spit the word out as though it fouled his mouth to say it.
Sophie looked around. She could still hear the coach wheels but had lost sight of the vehicle. She had to think of something. The policeman struggled to stand up.
“So sorry, Monsieur, but I fear I shall be ill at any moment.” Sophie slid her foot in the way of the officer’s so that he fell down again, cursing and spitting. She tried to run off, but he grabbed her ankle. His grip was very strong.
“I think you’d better come with me.”
Marriage was something Émilie’s mother had threatened her with when she did not behave. She had never thought of it as a desirable event. Although her parents were certainly not miserable, she was more aware of their affection for her than conscious of their feelings for each other. She had left home too young and too suddenly for her mother to have fully explained all that getting married involved. Émilie knew that she and Charpentier would sleep in the same bed together and that they might possibly have children, but the connection between the two events was not entirely clear to her. Added to that, the obscurity of the night, the lonely furtiveness of the excursion, only placed another layer of unreality on the whole event.
“You’re trembling!” Charpentier held Émilie’s hand.
“I don’t know why I’m frightened. I know you will be kind.”
Neither of them looked directly at each other, instead choosing to peer out of the coach windows as they rolled quietly along. When at last they arrived at St. Louis, having taken a deliberately circuitous route to the church that was only about half a mile from where Émilie lived, Charpentier helped her out of the fiacre.
“Wait here a moment,” he said, leaving her halfway up the steps as he went on ahead to see that everything was in order.
Émilie stood where she was and removed her hood. A breeze had come up and chased away the mist that hovered at ground level. The buildings and streets were suddenly very clear, clean, and quiet, devoid of the constant bustle that normally enlivened them. Émilie filled her lungs with air that smelled of Paris, an unmistakable mix of baked bread, fish, and horse manure. She had not been outside since their arrival in the city a few days before. She looked up to the heavens and saw the remaining clouds being pulled away from the moon, and a few autumn stars twinkling weakly. Émilie let the moonbeams caress her face for just a moment, and then she looked toward the east and gasped.
There, illuminated for an instant, were the eight towers of the Bastille, silent and dark. Even in the daytime the compound was a heavy, threatening blot at the end of the rue St. Antoine. Émilie lifted her hood again as the clouds came racing back to conceal the moon. She turned to look for Charpentier, suddenly desperate for his touch. He walked toward her down the steps, smiling. She began to breathe again.
“Let me go! I haven’t done anything wrong! I was just—” a female voice shouted, rupturing the stillness of the night.
Émilie looked at Charpentier with alarm. A policeman led a whore down the middle of the rue St. Antoine in the direction of the Bastille. She struggled and dragged against the rope he had tied around her wrists.
“We’ll just let the magistrate decide in the morning, shall we?”
“Quickly,” whispered Charpentier, taking Émilie’s hand and pulling her up the church steps and into the sanctuary.
Inside, Émilie could still hear the prostitute’s voice complaining and yowling against her captor.
“It’s all right. I don’t think they noticed us,” said Charpentier.
“But the poor thing! Do you think he was taking her to the Bastille?”
“It’s of no account. Look, here is Father Dominique.”
The priest, who was a particular friend of Charpentier’s, greeted them. The small group processed quietly up the long center aisle of the church, whose nave was lit only by a few candles, leaving it mostly in deep obscurity. But the darkness felt far from empty. Whether because of the echo of worship just finished or because she felt the presence of the souls of those who were commemorated in windows and tablets, it seemed to Émilie that a crowd thronged just beyond reach of the candlelight.
The rites were very brief. Émilie was relieved to mount the coach once again and return to her little safe haven, this time as Marcelline Charpentier. Yet despite her misgivings, something about the whole affair, now that it was accomplished, gave her a glow of pleasure. To be married was to be something else. To be someone else. To belong to someone else. To be a wife. To have a husband. Émilie threaded her arm through Charpentier’s and leaned her head on his shoulder, letting the gentle motion of the coach soothe her.
He gave her arm an answering squeeze.
Twenty-two
Thos
e who are incapable of committing great crimes do not easily suspect them of others.
Blaise Pascal
Madame de Maintenon was alone in her sitting room writing letters when the footman announced St. Paul. She was still extremely vexed with him for his part in the disastrous events following the performance, and would have preferred not to see him. But as yet she was uncertain how much the count really knew about her initial plan, and thought it unwise to risk alienating him. The girl had died; that was too bad, especially since the manner of her death did not have the dramatic force she had hoped it would. At least her own hands were clean.
Madame de Maintenon had just finished folding and sealing a letter to Monsieur de la Rochefoucauld when St. Paul entered.
She stood and curtseyed deeply. “I am delighted to see you, Monsieur le Comte.”
“Madame,” St. Paul said. “There is some paperwork, for the authorities. As a self-murderer, Mademoiselle Émilie must be accounted for. What do you wish me to do?”
“I beg your pardon, but I was under the impression that François had taken care of all the legalities.”
“If a burial dispensation was to be given, it required the signature of the king.”
Madame de Maintenon rose and turned away from St. Paul. “I think you should leave the authorities to me. I don’t want to trouble the king if it is not necessary. He is much occupied at present. There is trouble once again in the Low Countries. Ask François to attend me here, and I shall discuss the matter with him.”
“As you wish, Madame,” said St. Paul, who bowed and left. As soon as he was on the other side of the door, he smiled broadly.
“What do you know about this business of the singer?” the king asked one morning when he was closeted with Colbert, going over the accounts. “St. Paul has been running around suggesting that all was not as it appeared.”
“I know little about the matter, but I don’t advise an investigation,” said the canny finance minister, not looking up from the ledger.
“Oh?”
“It doesn’t do to go turning over rocks. You never know what will crawl out.” At that, Colbert made a hand gesture that was their silent code for Madame de Montespan. One could never be too careful. The king’s mistress was not known for her forgiving nature, and if the singer’s death just happened to remove a potential rival from court, then there was always the chance that something suspicious was going on.
“I see. Shame, really.”
Louis intended that to be his final word on the subject. He had long ago learned to choose his battles, and he did not want to upset his pregnant paramour. There were many other pretty maidens at court who were all too eager to amuse him, although none, he had to admit, had such a voice.
But the matter of Émilie’s death refused to stay sealed shut. One cold winter’s day, Marcel Jolicoeur took it upon himself to deliver two violins to Monsieur Lully, who had ordered them months ago.
“What can this accomplish?” asked Madeleine, as she brushed off Marcel’s best coat while the maid waxed his new leather boots.
“The violins must go to Versailles in any case. And I must do this, for myself. I cannot believe—” Marcel could not continue his thought.
Madeleine sighed. “Going there will not bring her back. And now, how do we know the commissions will continue? What about the money?”
“The fiacre will cost less than the silk for your dresses,” said Marcel.
Madeleine said nothing more.
The luthier had never been so far away from his home before. The trip seemed momentous, despite the fact that he planned to be home in time for dinner. He watched the houses and churches become more sparse and finally give way to rolling fields and forests, dotted only by the occasional farmhouse or inn. After a time the village of Versailles appeared, and then, like a monstrous growth from the landscape, the immense château loomed ahead. Out here, stuck in the middle of nowhere, it looked more imposing than the Louvre.
Marcel instructed the fiacre to wait for him, and a footman led him to Lully’s apartment on the lower floor of the château.
Lully was a little surprised to see Marcel but just as glad that he would have to take one less trip to the luthier’s squalid little workshop to collect the violins for his ensemble. Still, he had to admit Jolicoeur’s work was very fine. Almost as fine as the Italians’. They concluded their business quickly, but Marcel stood in Lully’s study, curling the edge of his hat nervously in his fingers.
“I wonder, Monsieur Lully, would it be too much to ask—would you be so kind—”
Lully waited impatiently for him to finish his sentence.
“Could I see where she is buried? My daughter, I mean?”
“Of course, this is a natural desire,” he said. “It was a terrible, terrible loss to art. Unfortunately, I am unacquainted with the exact location, you understand …” He paused, letting Marcel fill in the gap however he pleased, but with the knowledge that as a player, as someone who had dared to step upon the stage and perform for an audience, Émilie had fallen permanently from grace and could not be buried in consecrated ground. The fact that she was a suicide simply gilded the lily. “Pierre will fetch someone who may be able to help you, however. If you would be so kind?”
Lully sent his page off to find François while he tried to carry on a polite conversation with Marcel. He did not know what to say to the luthier, who did indeed look very sad. He himself was mystified by Émilie’s actions. It made no sense for her to have done such a thing when she was clearly poised for great success—which was precisely what he told the widow Scarron when she asked to see him. Lully believed that Émilie’s suicide was one unfortunate incident that Madame de Maintenon had had nothing to do with. She had sent for him and quizzed him about the singer’s state of mind on the night of the performance. Lully was a little worried that she would try to blame him for the girl’s rash step, although he did not know why she would think it necessary.
It really was a pity. Émilie had even surprised Lully with her ability to rise to the demands of the role. He was prepared to put Mademoiselle St. Christophle aside for good after the other evening. His one consolation about the whole thing was that Charpentier didn’t have Émilie’s voice at his disposal either.
Within a short while Pierre returned with François, who asked Marcel to accompany him for a walk in the deserted, winter garden.
Marcel let loose a torrent of recollections about his daughter. The memory of her was still fresh in his mind. Every time he looked around at their new comfort and prosperity, knowing that it had been bought at the price of Émilie’s life, he felt as if there were bands wrapped around his heart that were being squeezed. At first he thought of giving up making violins. If it were not for the Amati copy he had crafted for Monsieur Charpentier, none of this would have happened. Émilie would have stayed at home singing for him, perhaps one day for a husband, and eventually for her children. But making violins was like breathing to Marcel, and so instead he lavished even more love and care on every one he produced.
“Were you with her at the end? Why did she do it?” Marcel’s words were labored, squeezed out, as if it hurt him to speak.
“She was unhappy with her performance. She felt the king was displeased with her, and could not bear the disgrace.” François looked away. He wondered if the luthier could tell he was lying.
Marcel nodded, working his mouth a little as if he wanted to say something else, but he simply shook his head. François led Marcel to a corner of the garden, not far from the village of Trianon, the same distant corner where Émilie often strayed when she tried to steal a few moments unobserved. The two men sat for a while on a rustic bench, each absorbed in his own thoughts. Marcel tried as hard as he could to imagine his daughter sitting by him on the bench. He almost felt like reaching for her hand, or stroking her golden hair, and when he closed his eyes, he could see the expression on her face. Marcel always imagined Émilie smiling.
François, on the
other hand, could see much more than just the specter of the young girl he had helped to disappear from life. He could see that his action had only complicated what was already a very murky situation. Although he did not know it for a fact, François suspected that Madame de Montespan was involved in Émilie’s disappearance and that Madame de Maintenon was not taken in by his story of her suicide. The entire tale would unravel with the slightest tug at a dangling thread, and yet everyone left it there in plain view. This was a very bad sign indeed.
The image of Émilie’s father trudging slowly off to the main gate of the château, his strong shoulders bowed with almost unbearable grief, haunted François for the rest of the day and refused to go away when he tried to sleep that night. That and the thought of himself being carted off to prison conspired to make it impossible for the normally sanguine servant to have any repose. He shifted and fidgeted, punching the bed’s lumps of straw into different shapes, but to no avail. At about three in the morning, François rose from his bed, lit a candle with an ember from the fire, and then sat down at his desk.
For the next two hours, François composed a letter and figured out a way to get it to its destination without its being discovered. Writing was the simplest action to take, and it would cut short the train of lies. Although there was no way to fix everything that had happened, it was entirely within his power to amend one part of the whole mess, and so that is what he did. He had to trust that the luthier would understand the necessity to maintain the secrecy concerning what had happened, to allow his daughter to remain dead to the rest of the world. Just before daybreak, when the movement of only a few menial servants broke the stillness of the enormous palace, François crept down to the kitchens to have a word with a certain scullery maid whose discretion he trusted, and the letter began its journey that very morning.
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