Before Versailles

by Karleen Koen

  Monks, again, thought Nicolas. “Were there any children found, any of the boys?” he asked.

  The man shook his head and left Nicolas standing on his terrace, looking off into the distance, to the grand statue of Hercules upon its hill. His majesty had stood in the rain yesterday with his hat over the blonde head of lissome Miss de la Baume le Blanc, talking persuasively to her about something. Making love, Nicolas would imagine, though Catherine swore Madame had his full regard, that he flirted on her command. A young dog, thought Nicolas, not knowing in which kennel he wished to sleep. He could sleep in them all, as far as Nicolas was concerned. A distracted king allowed the leeway necessary to be all that he, Nicolas, must be, to have all that he must have, which was much.

  CHOISY FOUND HIMSELF ushered into his majesty’s chamber of books on the ground floor of Fontainebleau. Three dogs rushed forward to sniff him, as Louis, looking out an open window, another dog lying on a cushion at his feet, turned to look at him.

  “Thank you for coming.”

  “You have only to command, majesty.” Choisy was flattered. He circulated in the lesser circle that was Monsieur’s.

  Louis gestured toward chairs, and Choisy waited for him to sit down first. Dogs milled around them, finally settling at Louis’s feet.

  “You are acquainted with Miss de la Baume le Blanc,” Louis said.

  “She is one of my mother’s favorites, mine, too.”

  “How long have you known her?”

  “Since your uncle, the Duke d’Orléans, may he rest in peace, died.”

  “Tell me of her family.”

  “Her father was a soldier, long dead. There are a brother and mother, and half-sisters from her mother’s second marriage. A small estate near Amboise, her brother’s and her mother’s, nothing there for her.” He leaned forward, ready to gossip a little. “My dear cousin had to borrow in her own name to buy court clothes. Her family didn’t give her so much as a extra coin.”

  “They quarrel?”

  “Oh, my goodness, no. I don’t think my little cousin knows how to quarrel. She’s an obedient girl.”

  “Has anyone her favor?”

  “I’d like to think I do.” And at Louis’s expression of surprise, “I’m not as you imagine, sire.”

  “I imagine nothing.”

  What exquisite manners you possess, thought Choisy, and spoke quickly to cover pain at the king’s unexpected kindness. “She’s simple, really. Her idea of happiness is a hard gallop atop a horse twice a day. She loves the woods, the fields, the flowers. She adores all animals. I think she likes them more than people. She isn’t of this world, sire.” He stopped, aware he was talking too much, made a gesture that took in the many books, the engravings and paintings and sculpture, the elaborate embroidered draperies at the long windows, the world outside those windows with wide courtyards and plots and intrigues and betrayals. “She’s pure of heart, and I don’t say that lightly.”

  “You care for her, I see that clearly.”

  “With all my impure heart.”

  “Is it true that Monsieur dressed himself as a woman, called upon the Count de Guiche, and was not only slapped about, but pushed from the count’s chamber?”

  Taken completely off guard, Choisy gasped.

  “Is it true he wept outside the door and begged to be allowed inside until you and the Chevalier de Lorraine came to his rescue and dragged him away? How often does the count strike my brother?”

  “Sire … I have no—Who has told you such a thing?”

  Olympe, but there was no reason to reveal that. Louis leaned forward in his chair. “Is it true?”

  Courtier’s charm deserting him, Choisy was silent, his mind working to find a way to answer.

  “I’m going to take your silence to mean yes.”

  “No—”

  “No, it did not happen as I’ve heard, or no, you don’t wish to speak of this, even to me, because of your friendship with my brother.”

  “I-I have nothing but admiration for Monsieur.”

  “I am so pleased to hear it. Did the Count de Guiche strike my brother and leave him weeping in a hall?”

  Choisy closed his eyes. “Yes,” he finally said.

  Louis leaned back in his chair, and with a start, Choisy realized that their interview was over.

  “HER MAJESTY AWAITS you, sire.”

  Louis needed his keenest senses for this talk with his mother, but Olympe was on his mind. What had made her an enemy of not only Guiche, but even more so of Guiche’s sister, Catherine? Catherine encourages him in his worst behavior, Olympe insisted as she told him of Guiche’s behavior toward Philippe. Dismiss her if you dismiss him. He’s seduced a maid of honor. His sister allows it. And Olympe was against the Viscount Nicolas now, dripping venom, telling Louis outright that the viscount had asked her to spy upon the queen.

  He shook his head to clear it and stepped into his mother’s closet, that most private of chambers—crammed and cramped with small tables and big, heavy chairs, crucifixes hanging between paintings, silver and gilt boxes holding relics, portraits of saints and her Spanish and Hapsburg relatives. He pulled the lace at his throat, his eyes drawn to an enormous portrait of the cardinal that faced him, the rich crimson pigment of a cardinal’s robe filling the frame, the face, with its dark eyes and sensitive, smiling mouth, wonderfully alive, as if the cardinal would step down from the canvas and embrace him. God, how much he had loved this man. He began to perspire and was suddenly lightheaded. Would he faint? Crumble at his mother’s feet like a child? Forgive her. Forgive me. The words rang in his ears as if someone spoke them; yet no one did. Had he heard a ghost? Rage evaporated inside him, and without it, he felt lost, no mooring to steady him through this.

  His mother was finishing her breakfast, and she had looked up from her plate to send a chilly glance his way. Once he had begun each morning with a visit to her; all that had changed. He couldn’t move his eyes from the portrait. The cardinal had stood before the altar as his godfather, this Italian who had never taken formal orders in the church, yet had been so wily and charming that the Mother Church had embraced him and given him title after title for his usefulness, this man who had thought all the world ought to possess at least one thing beautiful and that his godson must possess the most beautiful things of all.

  “I’m surprised you deign to call on me. Am I not to be given a son’s kiss of respect? Such manners,” his mother said, glacial as last autumn’s frost, patting her lips with her huge white embroidered napkin.

  Louis sat down in a chair. “Tell me about my father,” he heard himself say and was shocked that any words had formed at all.

  Anne made a face. “A difficult man, even when I married him, and we were but children. Reared badly, savagely. A brave warrior, suspicious, untrusting, unkind, but brave.” She cut up ham into small, precise pieces and speared one with a fork.

  “Who of us is more like him, Monsieur or me?”

  “Your father had a weakness for handsome favorites like Monsieur, which reminds me. We need to speak about the Count de Guiche and his conduct toward Monsieur lately. I’ve heard some things I refuse to believe.”

  “Amazing I was born if his taste ran to handsome favorites.”

  Her face softened at once. “My miracle, my God-given, what a darling boy you were.” She smiled, temper dissolved in fond memory. “Come and give your mother a kiss and do stop all this sulking. It’s for your own good that I chasten and lecture. Your conduct must be exemplary.”

  “What a miracle I am indeed, being born after years of barrenness.”

  “I wasn’t barren. Your father—”

  “Chose not to grace your bed. I made an interesting discovery a few days ago, Mother. I found a boy who wore an iron mask.”

  She dropped the fork and stared at him.

  “More a youth than a boy, I would say. He would not speak except to howl. Imagine my surprise when I saw his face.”

  She closed her eyes.

&
nbsp; “A face so like mine that I was without words, but not without questions. Who is he, Mother?”

  “Our beloved cardinal had a love child. We put him away in the monastery.”

  The words were out before Louis could blink. He watched her rally around the lie.

  “It broke my heart, of course. You above all people know why.”

  “He resembles me.”

  “Nonsense. I’m sure he resembles the strumpet who was his mother. Oh, I thought I’d never get over it. Don’t ask me to help, I told him. I won’t lift a finger, I said, but I did. You know how I am, too giving of myself. I’ve always been that way.”

  “Your lady-in-waiting went to visit the boy. Why, Mother?”

  She looked down at the plate, its breakfast in disarray. “She was the mother.” She didn’t raise her eyes. “I thought I would go mad when I discovered that she and Jules were lovers.” She met Louis’s eyes squarely with those words, resolute in the courage of her lie. “But I didn’t go mad, and with time, I forgave. I also forgot. It’s time to send the boy away, I think. Genoa, perhaps, or Spain. Perhaps a colony. Where is he now?”

  Louis didn’t answer. She licked her lips, pushed back from the table at which she sat, went to stand at the windows with her back to him. “I’ve quite lost my appetite over this.”

  “I desire a favor of you.”

  She didn’t answer, and he waited, because he was so tired, so very tired. He felt like he could close his eyes and sleep for days. “I am going to arrest the viscount,” he said.

  She swung around, her face aghast.

  “And I must know that you will support me.”

  “I thought you wished him to be chancellor! He would be a perfect chancellor! It’s a mistake! There will be war! Oh, darling, you don’t want war! Not yet. What’s he done? Has it to do with this? He knows nothing of it. He’s a good man, an excellent minister. You know how our beloved cardinal depended upon him. You must also. There is no other choice. You mustn’t do this! It’s dangerous beyond words!”

  “On the contrary, I must—with you to help me, or at least, not to hinder.”

  She had her hands clasped together. Her voice rose. “I can’t! I won’t! It’s a mistake I won’t allow you to make!”

  “This court is infested with his spies! If I wear a new coat, he knows it before the thing is placed on my shoulders. There isn’t a coin in my treasury, yet he builds a temple to the god of his vanity a few miles from here. He has an island stockpiled with weapons and men. The commanders of the Atlantic and Mediterranean fleets reside in his pocket. He could isolate France by sea if he were so inclined! I won’t have it. I won’t have anyone that powerful among my ministers! I am going to arrest him and bring him to trial for his crimes against this kingdom. Speculation! False accounting! Thievery! But most of all, daring to plot against me!”

  She was sobbing, and he was too tired to discern why. Was it rage that he didn’t listen, rage that he’d found out about his brother and guessed the truth of his own birth, or rage simply because it distracted from the task at hand? He heard himself say, “Interesting that you call Madame de Motteville a strumpet, and yet she serves you on an intimate basis to this day. Interesting that the boy resembles me enough to be a brother. Interesting that you were estranged from my father for years, including the year I was born, a year in which you were caught sending treasonous letters to Spain, yet born I was. What a forgiving man my father was. Extraordinary when I think about it.”

  There was more to say but not today. None of the bitter accusations that had filled his thoughts for days would speak themselves. He rose from the chair, strode through her antechamber looking neither to the right nor to the left. Stairs took him to the fountain courtyard, and he was glad to be in the sun, glad to see it sparkle on the water of the pond, glad to see those few courtiers who liked morning strolling among the parterres of the suspended garden. The world went on the merry way it always had, never mind that his own was knocked askew.

  She hadn’t admitted the truth, and for that, he realized that he felt a deep and full respect. Courage in the face of adversity. Strength. Determination. She had been rock, and the cardinal had been water flowing around that which obstructed. Who was his father? Did it matter if no one guessed? She would never tell. He suddenly knew that to his bones. Not if she were tied to the rack and pulled to pieces. She would accuse Madame de Motteville of lies if Louis confronted them both, then likely have her poisoned.

  But now the Mazarinades held new menace. They were blatant in their blare that the cardinal and his mother had been lovers. I didn’t write them, La Grande had wept when D’Artagnan questioned her. I swear by all that’s holy. Were they a threat, not about war as he had imagined, but about his birth? If his birth were questioned, the kingdom wouldn’t hold together. I didn’t write them, La Grande had pleaded. Who did, then? The viscount, as Colbert insisted? He stumbled on a paved stone of the courtyard.

  “Sir!” barked the musketeer who followed him, catching him by the elbow.

  He tried to control the shaking that had hold of him. “I think I have a headache,” he said. He must lie in bed, close his eyes with Belle’s dear head under his hand. She was a queen in all senses of the word, his mother, an infanta of Spain, the pride of the Hapsburgs. That blood ran through his veins. The other … well, he’d not think on that for a bit, rest, so that he could be king in all senses of the word, as he must be, as his beloved cardinal who might be so much more, had trained him to be.

  “Don’t touch me,” he said to his musketeer when he stumbled again. He’d make it to the bedchamber on will if nothing else. He was his mother’s son. The world was fraught with missteps, wasn’t it?

  THE NEXT DAY Anne dropped an invitation from the Duchess de Chevreuse to visit on a silver tray. “I don’t wish to go.”

  Motteville continued her packing of what the queen mother would need, gowns for evening, favorite rosaries, brushes and combs, an embroidered bed jacket, shoes of all kinds. Haven’t I always known this moment was coming? the lady-in-waiting thought, moving silently among the queen mother’s litter of beautiful things: leather gloves, prayer books with ivory covers, silver hairpins, ribbons, gauze bows, great collars and small caps of handmade lace.

  “I’m not going,” said Anne.

  “His majesty’s command.” The last was a whisper.

  Anne stopped shredding to pieces the paper upon which the invitation was written and watched her lady-in-waiting. Motteville didn’t speak, did not look in the queen mother’s direction once.

  “So,” Anne finally said, “you’ve been ordered to spy on me, haven’t you?”

  Motteville continued her organized whirl from one thing to another.

  Anne laughed, but there was no joy in the sound. “It’s like old times.” How they’d watched her, Cardinal Richelieu, her husband, but they hadn’t been able to stop her. Spain was her first love then, not France. There was no survival for a queen without an heir, so she’d given the kingdom one and saved herself and then held as best she could the kingdom she’d once betrayed, because her son, Louis, was France.

  There was another emotion underneath her rage: respect. He knew what he wanted, and he walked straightforwardly toward it, or as straightforwardly as a king was able. So, she’d done as queen. All right, she’d go and listen to what her old and dear friend had to say. If Louis had pulled the duchess over to his side, that was a triumph. How amazing, that Louis thought he could vanquish the viscount. Even Jules had been afraid to make the attempt.

  Chapter 27

  ELLE’S LICKING OF HIS FACE WOKE HIM FROM HIS NAP. HE opened his eyes and saw that his valet was standing at his bedside.

  “The Viscount Nicolas requests your presence in the courtyard, sire.”

  He dipped his hands in the cool water that was in a silver bowl, dried them. La Porte ran a comb through his tousled curls, straightened the lace at his neck and sleeves. He picked Belle up from the bed and carried her to her cush
ion in the antechamber at the window. Her daughter and sons swirling around his legs, he ran downstairs and out into his courtyard, crossed through the elaborate gatehouse that had been built to celebrate his father’s birth and walked across the bridge that overhung the moat into the common courtyard.

  Men pulled hats off their heads. Women began to curtsy. His dogs started barking immediately at the cats sitting on the wall, but Phaedra, his female, ran straight to the horse the Viscount Nicolas sat upon and began to sniff the beast’s legs. The viscount dismounted and made an elaborate bow. Louis noted the men with him, his private guard, gathered behind a coach. They wore matching tabards, like his musketeers, no cross emblazoned on them, but the color of the cloth all the same. The viscount’s face was smiling, joyous almost. Louis realized his other ministers were there, standing at the coach. They, too, were smiling.

  “I bring you your heart’s desire, majesty,” the viscount said, and he slapped the coach with one hand, then opened its door, and stepped back for Louis to see what was inside.

  Chests, on the floor, on the seats, piled atop one another.

  “Your million,” whispered the viscount in his ear.

  “Into my courtyard,” ordered Louis, then, “Not your guard, viscount. Leave them in the common courtyard.”

  “Of course.”

  “Wine for the viscount’s guard,” he called out, and he led the way across the bridge, through the gatehouse, into his private sanctum. The coach’s wheels were loud on the paving stones.

  People stood along the upper colonnade that mirrored part of the oval of his courtyard, a maid of honor or two, some of his gentlemen talking with them, his mother, dressed for travel, a Spanish shawl tied around her shoulders, her perennial lace widow’s cap on her head. He met his mother’s eyes, and they stared at each other unsmiling, each aware of the distance now between them.

  “Wine for my ministers,” called Louis, looking away from her. He felt fatalistic, what would be would be.