The Cat and the King

by Louis Auchincloss

  “That’s a tall order, I admit,” she replied, with a frank laugh. “But I think I could convince her that what he said about her in Spain was simply what he says about all our sex. Madame de Maintenon has always had a bit of a weakness for me. She cares about unity in the royal family, and if I told her I could bring it about... well, who knows what I might not accomplish?”

  I considered this coolly. Did Madame la Duchesse think me such a fool as to renounce the Berry marriage for a few useless good words put in with an old woman who was an implacable enemy of Orléans? No. She was covering a threat, and she expected me to see it. But I played dumb.

  “I’m sorry, but I fear that the due d’Orléans has fallen into such low esteem with Madame de Maintenon that even your amiable offices would not suffice to pull him out.”

  Madame la Duchesse at this threw me a harder look. “Very well, Monsieur de Saint-Simon. Let me put it this way. Your friend Orléans has made some very grave enemies at court. He may wake up some day to find that one of them has become his sovereign. Are you aware that there are people in the dauphin’s immediate entourage who go so far as to label Orléans’ conduct in Spain treason? And who believe that he should stand trial for it?”

  “I am so aware, ma’am. But the charges at the very worst amount to no more than that he permitted himself to listen to certain grandees who asked him to consider the Spanish crown if Philippe V should abdicate. There is no treason to the king of France in discussing, while in Spain, a question of the Spanish succession.”

  “Even when the king of France has crowned the king of Spain? Even when they are grandfather and grandson?”

  “That, ma’am, must be deemed in law a mere coincidence. And surely Monseigneur, should he become our sovereign, would not strain the law more than his own father has done!”

  I had her there. She would have to unsheathe her sword. If she had one.

  “Monseigneur, if ever called to the throne, will be, I am confident, a very great king. But he is no better a prince than a father, sir. His devotion to his three sons, and in particular to the youngest, is touching to see. He will naturally be intensely interested in the character of the bride selected for the duc de Berry. Particularly as Berry himself, however charming and handsome a youth, is of a singular naïveté.”

  “Naïve in what respect?”

  “Naïve in taking for purest gold what may have a sizable quantity of alloy. For seeing as innocent and virginal, for example, a princess who may have considerably more experience than he imagines.” Here Madame la Duchesse paused menacingly. “Experience, indeed, of what I fear may be an appalling nature.”

  “To what do you allude, ma’am?”

  “I think I shall leave that to you to find out,” she said finally. “It should not be difficult.” She raised her voice now to tell her usher that she would receive.

  I was perplexed. Obviously, Madame la Duchesse knew something about Mademoiselle de Valois that I didn’t but that she was convinced I did. I took my departure and went to our apartment, where I found Gabrielle dressing for mass. When I gave her my account of the interview she regarded my image curiously in her mirror.

  “Don’t you know what it is?” she asked.

  “Why should I not tell you if I did?” I asked, with some pique.

  “Because you were shocked. Or because you were afraid to shock me.”

  “Is it so bad then?”

  “Pretty bad.” She paused and fixed her gaze again on my reflection. “Madame la Duchesse is referring to the rumor that the due d’Orléans and Mademoiselle de Valois are lovers.”

  “Orléans! With his own daughter! That child! Oh, come, Gabrielle, even Versailles can’t be so obscene!”

  “Can’t it? You should know better. There’s nothing people won’t say.”

  “But can any of them really believe it?”

  “Of course they can really believe it. Once a thing’s said, it’s bound to be believed.”

  I hesitated. “Surely you don’t believe it?”

  There was a pause, during which Gabrielle looked down at her brushes and combs. They were ancient pieces, of heavy silver, with gorgons’ heads and warriors, which had belonged to my father’s mother. Gabrielle’s delay made the air in our chamber seem heavy, as with some malign incense. “I don’t go in for belief or disbelief,” she said at last. “I simply make a point of noting what is said.”

  I was exasperated by her calm. “You mean you don’t really mind—it doesn’t appall you—it doesn’t make your blood run cold that a father as devoted as Orléans should actually seduce his fifteen-year-old child? I mean, the mere idea of it, Gabrielle! Of course, I shouldn’t like even to sully my lips by denying it. Good God!”

  I stopped. The words seemed to have choked me. Gabrielle was brushing her hair, having sent away her maid when I came in. The long, hard strokes and her intent gaze into the mirror seemed to imply that my protests were simply the kind of thing that a woman had to put up with in court, like the overcrowding in the receptions and the bad smell in the corridors. That incest in the royal family should be a fact or a rumor; that the idea of it should titillate some people and horrify others; these were simply aspects of a piece of news at the palace that it was Gabrielle’s duty, or pastime, or perhaps even her pleasure, to sift and classify. Did it matter if it was true or not? Did not its existence in the minds of the courtiers give it a kind of truth, perhaps even an adequate truth?

  “Look, my dear,” Gabrielle said at last, turning to me as with a desire to be reasonable. “Let us not get into a dispute about incest. I am perfectly willing to concede it is a mortal sin. That is a matter for God. The matter for us is what Madame la Duchesse is planning to do with this weapon. It seems obvious to me that what she was trying to tell you was that she will take it to the king if the Orléans do not at once withdraw from the Berry marriage.”

  “You mean the king doesn’t know? Isn’t that kind of gossip relayed to him immediately?”

  “Not necessarily. There are some things people are afraid to tell him. Remember the messengers of bad news who, in ancient days, were put to death. I, for one, should think twice before imparting to his majesty the unwelcome information that there was incest in his family. And that his only nephew is proposing a child of his, whom he has seduced, the king’s granddaughter to boot, as the unsoiled bride of the king’s grandson!”

  “But I thought the king’s police spies had to tell him everything!”

  “Well, suppose they did. Would he believe them? What Madame la Duchesse will do is prove it to him.”

  I gaped. “Prove it to him?”

  “You know she has a way of making her stories stick. Even when her father doesn’t trust her and knows that she has a motive for lying. The woman has an absolute genius for invention. And then, too, she will make the thing seem so real that, even if she isn’t entirely believed, Mademoiselle de Valois will be hopelessly soiled in the king’s eyes. It doesn’t, after all, take much, and the child has a very lively personality for her age.”

  “What can we do then?” I asked in despair.

  “Fight fire with fire,” Gabrielle replied promptly. “Or, better yet, get to the king before Madame la Duchesse. Tell him about her affair with Monseigneur!”

  Had I heard this before the Orléans story, I should have been shocked inded. But I was now too numb, hardened already to the royal world that Gabrielle was opening up to me.

  “With her own brother?” I asked weakly.

  “With her half-brother,” Gabrielle corrected me. “But it will be equally horrible to the king. They’re equally his children, after all. And, unlike Orléans and the little Valois, it’s more than a rumor. It’s gospel truth!”

  “What do you mean, Gabrielle, by gospel truth?” I asked gravely.

  “I mean that I had it from the dowager princesse de Conti, who had it from Mademoiselle Choin herself. That poor creature is absolutely terrified of Madame la Duchesse, who tells her that the dauphin will
repudiate her unless she acts as a cover to their intrigue. Of course, it’s perfectly true that he’s tired of the Choin, and that she owes her marriage entirely to Madame la Duchesse, who wanted to keep her brother from marrying a possible rival, so the Choin has no weapon to use. When Monseigneur goes to her bedroom, the wretched morganatic spouse must shiver in the closet while Madame la Duchesse, slipping in by a side door, wantons in the arms of her portly sibling!”

  Gabrielle saw that I was now hypnotized and took full advantage of it. I had never heard her speak so cuttingly or, for that matter, so vividly.

  “But the dauphin is a religious fanatic!” I protested. “He’s even superstitious. How does he expect to save his immortal soul?”

  “Ah, that’s where Madame la Duchesse is at her smartest. She has persuaded him that she can get him a dispensation. She’s used her mother’s old magic tricks. Incantations, formulas, who knows? Maybe even a black mass. The poor dauphin’s fascinated by her wickedness. He probably finds it sexually stimulating! He’s besotted with her. And he has to do everything she says, or she’ll withdraw the charm, and then he’ll go straight to hell when he dies!”

  “Where they both deserve to go,” I retorted in disgust.

  “Well, do you think the king will want Mademoiselle de Bourbon for Berry when he hears all that?”

  “She’s just as much his granddaughter as Mademoiselle de Valois.”

  “Perhaps doubly so!” Gabrielle exclaimed with a sharp little laugh. “How do we know how long this affair with Monseigneur has been going on?”

  I threw up my hands in a final expression of dismay. “I must go to the Palais-royal,” I told her now. “I must have this out with Orléans. The whole wretched thing!”

  3

  IN MY LETTER to the due d’Orléans, I did not mince my words.

  I described in full detail my interview with Madame la Duchesse and then outlined Gabrielle’s information and proposal. I told him that I should wait on him the following day at the Palais-royal and request his permission to approach the king through the duchesse de Bourgogne. This last had also been Gabrielle’s idea. The duchesse de Bourgogne was not only the favorite of the king and Madame de Maintenon; she was a daughter of Orléans’ half-sister (Monsieur’s daughter by his first marriage, to Henrietta of England) and she was very fond of her uncle. Even more important, she detested and feared the cabal of Meudon.

  To my surprise, Savonne, when he heard that I was going to the Palais-royal, offered to accompany me. He and I had to some degree patched up our old friendship, after the Polish fiasco, when Gabrielle had convinced him that she alone was to blame, but the relationship had never been the same. He had given up any idea of taking religious orders, and I disapproved of his dissolute bachelor’s life. He was privy to our project of the Berry-Orléans marriage, and professed to approve of it, but I had not trusted him with Gabrielle’s plan.

  “But I shall have to talk to Orléans alone,” I pointed out.

  “That’s all right. I can pay my respects to the duchess. And to Mademoiselle de Valois.”

  “Mademoiselle de Valois? She’s only a child.”

  “You haven’t seen her for a while. She’s developed. She’s charming.”

  “Oh, very well. Come along.”

  It occurred to me on the drive into Paris that it was odd that Savonne should be showing so little desire to rejoin his regiment, from which he had obtained an indefinite leave. Some people thought he was courting the youngest Mademoiselle de Beauvillier, and indeed it was high time, at thirty-seven, that he should marry, but the old duke had not spoken to me about the possibility of such a match, and I was almost certain that he would have. I considered it more likely that Savonne was deep in some adulterous intrigue. Never in my wildest dreams did I suspect the truth.

  We were waiting for the duchesse d’Orléans in the great portrait gallery when the door at the far end burst open and a young woman, or a girl, it appeared, came running across the floor to us. I stared at such unseemly behavior, but I stared a good deal harder when I realized that it was Mademoiselle de Valois herself.

  “Monsieur de Savonne!” she exclaimed, as she pulled up, panting, before us. “I heard you were here. Why did you not ask for me? How dare you come to the Palais-royal without asking for me?”

  I looked in amazement at my friend, who had turned very red. I had had no idea that he was on such terms with a princess who was young enough to have been his daughter. And where, for that matter, was the princess’s governess?

  “I would not have presumed,” Savonne murmured, bowing to her. “I had no idea... I could not tell that...” He paused and looked at me in embarrassment, for all the world like a boy caught in some silly prank.

  “Do you think, because I shall be duchesse de Berry, that I am to have no friends of my own?” the little lady continued imperiously. “Tell him, Monsieur de Saint-Simon, that the court is not like that!”

  I was struck dumb. Could this radiant, flashing-eyed blonde be only fifteen? She had certainly, in the year since I had last seen her, turned into a beauty. She moved, she laughed, she gesticulated, like her aunt Madame la Duchesse. She was small but perfectly formed, and conveyed a sharp sense of vitality. As I watched her turning her wiles on poor Savonne, I suddenly had a vision of this girl with her father, and my mind went dark.

  “I had not been aware that you and Monsieur de Savonne were such friends,” I managed to murmur.

  “Oh my, yes!” she replied. “He has been frequently at Saint-Cloud. He has given me riding lessons. We have fished in the stream. Monsieur de Savonne is much acquainted with the great out-of-doors. When I am married I shall join the king’s hunt, and Monsieur de Savonne will accompany me.”

  “He will be much honored, I am sure,” I observed, giving my speechless friend a glance. “But tell me, Mademoiselle, has something happened to your lady-in-waiting? I am sure your father would be distressed to have you so unattended in his house.”

  “I am attended as I desire to be, Monsieur de Saint-Simon,” she replied in a lofty tone. “I am only surprised that you should comment on it.”

  “The duke allows more latitude here than at Versailles,” Savonne put in, happy to change the topic from himself. “He has advanced ideas for the education of princesses.”

  “Isee.”

  “Which means you don’t,” Savonne retorted, taking refuge in the offensive. “Of course, we know that you think everything should be done as it was in the days of Charlemagne. It may interest you to know that Mademoiselle de Valois studies the heavenly bodies at night through her father’s telescope and aids him with experiments in his laboratory.”

  “I have no objection to learning in a princess,” I retorted. “But I do not know what your qualifications are in that respect. Now that Mademoiselle can ride and fish, perhaps she will graduate to more sophisticated instructors.”

  “Oh, but Savonne is a friend!” the impertinent chit exclaimed. “I do not rank him with my tutors. He, like you, is helping to make my marriage!”

  “I was aware of that.” I gave Savonne another stare. “But I did not realize, perhaps, at what cost to his personal feelings.”

  Mademoiselle gave a little shriek of laughter. “Oh, he knows I couldn’t marry him! So he naturally wants what’s best for me. I should, I suppose, be marrying a crowned head, but what girl wants to leave France? Think of my poor aunt, who died a queen in Madrid, chained in etiquette. They say she was poisoned, but I’m sure she died of boredom. No, it’s better to be a princess at Versailles than a queen anywhere else. As duchesse de Berry, I shall be the second lady of France. I shall outrank my mother and grandmother!”

  I found at last that I was able to adjust to this new view of Mademoiselle de Valois. After all, she was a granddaughter of Madame de Montespan, and the Mortemarts were famous for their precocity, worldliness and wit. But what still remained as a shock was my sense of Savonne’s involvement. He was staring at this young creature with positively wa
tery eyes!

  “The greater the rank, the greater the responsibilities,” I warned her. “And I do not consider that our etiquette is as much laxer than that of Spain as you suppose. Consider the king himself.”

  “Oh, but he likes etiquette,” she said with a sniff. “That’s different. I shall like it myself. At certain times. Oh, yes, I’m like you, Monsieur de Saint-Simon. My father has even compared me with you. He says that you and I know all the rules. But one has to know the rules to know how to get around them. Look at the duchesse de Bourgogne. She does.”

  I was about to defend her future sister-in-law from this imputation (although there had been rumors there—God knew how this girl had got wind of them!), when both wings of the central door were thrown open and the duchesse d’Orléans entered, followed by two of her ladies. She was as fair as her daughter and of almost as smooth a complexion, but she was much taller and more statuesque.

  “Elizabeth!” she said sternly. “You are not to receive gentlemen alone. I have told you that repeatedly.”

  “I am not receiving anyone, Mama. I simply found these gentlemen here. I suppose I may walk about my own home as I please?” Mademoiselle de Valois’ tone certainly did not show the slightest awe of her mother. She turned to me now as if the latter had not been present. “Of course, you noticed, Monsieur de Saint-Simon, that both doors were opened for the duchess. I do not suppose she would expect such a courtesy at Versailles, where it is reserved exclusively for the children of France. My father, as a grandson, does not claim it, even here. But Mama maintains, at least in her own domain, that a legitimated child of France ranks with a real one.”

  “You are insolent!” cried the duchess. “Leave us!”

  Her daughter continued to talk to me without offering her mother the slightest attention. “When I have my own apartment at Versailles, as duchesse de Berry, you may be sure that only one door of my salon will be opened for Mama. The double accolade will be reserved for myself, for my husband, for my grandmother, for the dauphin and for the due and duchesse de Bourgogne. You see, Monsieur de Saint-Simon, I have learned the rules!”