Petite’s room under the eaves was tiny as well as shoddy, and smelled strongly of smoke—but it was warm, at the least (unlike the majestic rooms below). A night candle threw a dim light over the furnishings: a bed with patched linen curtains, a bench, a pallet for a maid, two wooden chairs and a small table, a close-stool and a trunk. Hung on the pale blue walls were a cracked mirror, a crucifix and a moth-eaten tapestry of the Last Supper. A shuttered window opened onto the street, to judge by the sound of squeaking carriage wheels and the clip-clop of horses going by.
Françoise straightened the mirror and bid her daughter good night. “I had my girl smoke out the bugs,” she told Clorine before closing the door.
Clorine took a gown out of Petite’s trunk and sniffed it. “I’ll lay everything out in the sun tomorrow,” she said, and then checked to make sure that the door to the passage was double-bolted, safe for the night.
Petite took out her wooden keepsake box, which she set on the wobbly table. Hidden within, wrapped in a lace mantilla made by her aunt Angélique, was the worn leather-covered book Life by Saint Teresa. She’d stolen it from the Duke’s library before leaving—saved it, she told herself.
PETITE WOKE TO the sound of a rooster crowing and horses’ hooves on cobblestones. She parted her bed curtains.
Clorine was lying on her back, staring at the ceiling. “We’re in Paris and we haven’t yet been murdered,” she said, struggling to her feet.
“We’re not actually in Paris,” Petite said. It pleased her to be in the countryside. She wondered where the palace stables were. She would miss riding with Abbé Patin, who had stayed behind in Blois.
Petite and Clorine joined the Marquis, Françoise and their pimpled chambermaid for morning prayers. At the peal of Sunday church bells, Petite and her mother left for Mass.
“O Heavenly Father,” Petite heard her mother pray in the vast marbled palace church, “I commend my children to Thy care. Strengthen them to overcome the corruptions of the world and deliver them from the snares of the enemy. Amen.”
“Amen,” Petite said to herself.
“There he is,” Françoise said, emerging from the chapel.
A young man was leaning against a marble column, one gloved hand on the hilt of a low-slung sword. He was wearing a green velvet doublet and tight knee-britches. With his many sword knots, topknots and rosettes, he looked for all the world like a young man of birth and quality.
Is it truly Jean? Petite wondered. A comely young man, he had their mother’s pretty round cheeks, her pouty mouth, her curls.
Jean grinned, tipping his extravagantly feathered hat. “Madame,” he said, taking his mother’s gloved hand and kissing it, “is it possible that this lovely young lady is my sister?” He flourished his hat, then pressed it against his body, under his left arm.
Petite made a shy curtsy. She felt she was meeting a stranger, yet there was so much that was wonderfully familiar—Jean’s two dimples, the way his forelock fell into his face, his teasing manner.
“I see I’m going to have a job on my hands keeping the young bucks away.” He touched the hilt of his sword and winked.
Yes, it was her brother, a brother now grown, yet a boy still to judge by the playful twinkle in his eyes.
“You may be a man of quality, son, but you’re all askew,” Françoise said with pride, reaching to straighten his ruff.
Jean jumped back (a tidy jeté, Petite thought, impressed).
“This little neck rag happens to be from Perdrigeon, the best linen-draper in Paris,” he said, straightening it. He repositioned himself into a standing pose—head upright, shoulders back, legs extended with the feet turned outward.
“I hope it didn’t cost you,” Françoise said, brushing off a stone bench with her muff and taking a seat.
“I won it at cards off my friend Michel de Tellier, son of the minister of state.”
“Truly? But then, of course, you sit down with princes.”
Jean made an offhand gesture. “Michel tells me what’s going on. He grew up with the King, so he knows him well.”
The King, Petite thought: her poacher. The way they had met seemed a mythical tale to her now, like a fable from some faraway time.
“In fact, the last time I saw Michel, he told me the King is getting married to his cousin, the Spanish Infanta.”
“Ah,” Françoise said, catching Petite’s eye. “So it’s official, then.”
“It’s soon to be announced. The King told Michel he’s none too happy about it, but it’s part of the treaty with Spain, so—” Jean shrugged. “The price of peace, I guess.” He put on his hat and adjusted the tilt. “So, Mademoiselle Petite—I have to be back at the college for a fencing lesson this afternoon, but I’ve time until then. How about a tour of the city?”
“You’ll take care, son?” Françoise said.
Jean took up a pose, then lunged, thrusting high and low, as his mother and sister laughed. “You should have seen the fights during the festivals before Lent.”
Jean and Petite walked their mother back to the palace, and then set out. Petite felt shy taking a young man’s arm, even if he was her brother.
“Do you mind a walk?” Jean glanced down.
“I bet I can outwalk you,” she said.
It was but a short distance to the porte Saint-Michel, where they joined a line of foot passengers. An official with a huge mustache examined their papers. “You’re with the Palais d’Orléans?” he asked Petite.
“She’s with me,” Jean said, showing his student identification papers. They were waved through.
Inside the city walls they were assaulted by a tumult of sound: coachmen cracking whips, church bells tolling, dogs barking, vendors yelling—one selling herbs, another figs, yet another oranges from Portugal. A girl sat on a stool milking a goat, splashing streams of steaming white into a tin pail. Gangs of beggar children swarmed until Jean threatened them off.
A wide avenue stretched before them, congested with people and all manner of conveyances. Jean squeezed Petite’s gloved hand.
“Don’t be afraid.”
“I’m not,” Petite lied, for there were beggars everywhere—cut-throats, no doubt—as well as women of a certain type, although many were young, not women at all, just girls with pleading looks and soiled petticoats. A blind man with a copper cup sang at one corner as people hurrying to Lenten sermons tossed in coins. The streets were mucky; many wore patens. At every corner, porters clamored to offer chairs. Two pigs roamed free, their snouts in garbage piled up beside the market stalls.
They headed south, Jean talking of his skill at backsword and single-rapier; of a recent adventure he’d had when the report of a pistol caused his school horse to jump a fence and gallop away at breakneck speed; of a chestnut hunter he longed to buy, with its short back and broad forehead, its long, thin tail; of hunting boar with princes in the forests of Saint-Germain-en-Laye.
“Speaking of boar,” Jean said as an old woman pushed past, bent under a pole supporting buckets of water, “I’ll never forget your returning on that White, draped over his back like a sack of grain.”
“All I can remember is getting on him,” Petite said. What she would never forget was the searing pain in her leg, the fear she’d felt looking into the boar’s beady eyes. “I don’t remember anything after that.”
“We thought you dead.” Jean patted Petite’s hand with affection. “Strange the way that horse just disappeared.”
“For a long time, I kept looking for him,” she confided, stepping over a stream of stinking sewage. And now? she wondered. Had she given up?
They passed through the peaceful, tree-lined courtyard of a convent and came to another road. After a time they entered an arched tunnel, emerging onto a bright cobbled road lined with shops and houses of roughcast stone and wood. A butcher displayed a CLOSED FOR LENT sign. Three boys crouched by the door, playing with tops. Petite could smell the river, but she couldn’t see it.
Around a corner th
e street opened onto a broad pavement, and suddenly there it was—a congested gray expanse of water crowded with houseboats, barges, sailing ships.
“You always knew your way with horses,” Jean said, throwing a pebble at a gull—but missing it. “Do you still ride?”
“I backed horses for the Duc d’Orléans.” Light sparked on the murky water.
“Fie! Really? You should have been born a boy,” he said, leaning on the stone balustrade. “Mother wants me to find a husband for you. She says it’s time you settled. I think she expected the Marquis to be more of a help.” He thumbed his nose. “What a simpleton! He can’t even get his teeth to sit right. He had them in upside down the other day.” Jean found another stone and threw it, this time striking a gull in flight.
“I don’t have a dowry, Jean.” Petite cringed, thinking of the marrowless spinsters in their baglike hairnets. Was she destined to be one? She dreamt of being loved by a good man—a man rather like the poacher—but that was a fantasy, she feared. Many men treated their wives like beasts of burden, even beating them. To be a spinster was a terrible fate, but how much better was it to be a wife, attending to mindless spinning and mending? She dared not voice such doubts: a Christian woman submitted without complaint.
“You’re pretty, even if thin.” Jean chucked her chin. “We need to fatten you up. Men like something to hold onto.”
Petite flushed.
“And you’ll have to give up your romping ways. Saint Paul said that a girl must not be boisterous.”
“Since when did you listen in church?” Petite hadn’t expected her brother to take his role as head of the family quite so seriously.
“Since the priests started talking about matters of importance—like women. And since I had to pass exams,” he confessed with a grimace. “I can get a post in Amboise as a lieutenant, but the pay is only six hundred livres a year, hardly enough to cover the cost of a good sword. I’m hoping to get a better position here in Paris.”
Great bells sounded. “Those must be the bells of Notre-Dame,” Petite yelled over the din. They were louder than any she had ever heard.
They came to a clearing in front of the great cathedral, the square teeming with coaches and carts, horses, mules and little dogs everywhere. Two men had falcons on their shoulders. A grandly dressed woman carried a poodle in her basket, her train held by two boys in rose velvet livery. Another lady had a monkey on a ribbon and was wearing a full face mask of black velvet to protect her skin from the sun’s darkening rays. Petite felt she was at a masquerade ball. In Paris, it seemed, the festival days before Lent never ended.
There were three massive portals at the entrance of the church, the one in the center depicting the Last Judgment, with the good filing off to the left, and the sinners to the right, headlong into Hell.
“Not yet,” Jean said, guiding Petite toward a narrow entrance at the side.
Petite followed her brother up steep winding stone stairs that became increasingly narrow. Four hundred and twenty-two steps later (Petite counted), they emerged breathless at the top.
“Behold,” Jean said, his arms stretched wide. There, below them, was the city. Church spires glittered in the spring sunlight.
Over the shoulders of glowering stone gargoyles, Petite looked down upon the houses pressed together, the carriages and boats, the little people moving about like ants. In the distance was a mountain, and all around the crowded city she could trace the line of the great wall and the open fields beyond. She crossed herself and grabbed hold of her brother’s arm. It seemed a monstrous and unnatural thing to see the world from such a height.
Chapter Thirteen
AS JEAN PREDICTED (and Princess Marguerite feared), it was proclaimed: the King was to marry his cousin, the eldest daughter of the King of Spain. The long-prayed-for peace between France and Spain was to be sealed in the marriage bed. Fire rockets flared and bonfires were lit and citizens danced wildly around them.
Princess Marguerite burst into tears anew.
“He has to marry her,” Nicole said, trying to comfort her. “It’s part of the peace treaty.”
But the Princess was inconsolable, tearing at her laces and howling piteously, refusing all food but calf’s heels.
IN THE MELTING DAYS of August, Paris swelled with visitors. The city bustled with activity, everyone preparing to welcome the King and his bride, their new Queen. He’d been gone from the city for over one year. At five intersections triumphal arches had been erected, festooned with foliage, banners and tapestries. During the Court’s absence, shopkeepers had suffered, as had fan wrights and milliners, blade smiths and falconers, actors and singers. When the Court was away, the city was dead; the moment the Court returned, business thrived.
On August twenty-fifth, la Grande Mademoiselle and the two youngest princesses departed for Vincennes in order to be part of the King and Queen’s entry into the city the next day. Princess Marguerite was not taking part in the triumphal procession, of course, but had at least consented to watch it.
The morning of the grand entry, the courtyard of the Palais d’Orléans was crowded with conveyances, still draped in black mourning. The coaches made their regal progress down the wall road to the porte de Bussy.
Crossing the river at the Pont Neuf took almost one hour. Once across, they moved slowly downriver along the right bank to the Place de Grève. No executions were scheduled that day, but the square was crowded nonetheless. Already fountains were spurting wine, and people were staggering. Banners and tapestries had been hung from every window and flowers set upon every sill.
“It’s cruel to have to wear mourning on a day like today,” Princess Marguerite said, fussing with her hairnet of black beads. “I will never forgive my father for dying.”
Their coach turned into a narrow sideroad. A footman yelled at people to clear the way. “It’s a princess,” he yelled, and bystanders cheered.
They entered the small courtyard of the Hôtel de Beauvais.
“That’s my father’s sister, Henrietta Maria, Queen of England,” Princess Marguerite said, pointing to the woman about to enter the hôtel, surrounded by attendants.
La Reine Malheureuse, Petite thought. She was dressed entirely in black, still in mourning for her husband, King Charles of England, beheaded by his own people years before. His head had been severed with one stroke—perhaps that was a consolation. That and the fact that her son King Charles II had finally regained his father’s crown, and justice had been restored.
“That’s her daughter in the purple cloak, my cousin Henriette,” Marguerite said, indicating a tall, thin girl with flaming red hair.
Petite tried not to stare, but hair of such a hue was a curiosity, evidence that her parents had had congress during the mother’s courses. She flushed to consider the Queen of England in such a light.
Princess Henriette looked back over her shoulder. Recognizing her cousin Marguerite, she smiled and fluttered her lace fan. Her teeth were white and fine.
“How old is she?” Petite asked. The Princess’s eyes were bright.
“My age, ten and six, but she has no chest.”
Like me, Petite thought with sympathy.
“She looks younger,” Nicole said as the royal party disappeared through the doors.
“She’s going to marry the King’s brother, Philippe,” Princess Marguerite added with chagrin. She’d been passed over yet again.
A footman opened their carriage door. “Mother,” Princess Marguerite cursed, very nearly stepping into manure. “Of pearl,” she added quickly, holding up her skirts.
“Your Highness?” A butler, beribboned in red, led them up a wide circular staircase to an enclosure overlooking rue Saint-Antoine.
“No balcony?” the Princess objected, but on learning that the Queen Mother was seated in the window alcove immediately to the right, she was appeased. A crowd milled below them. Children in rags scrambled for the coins, sweetmeats and sausages flung into the street.
“I
sn’t that your brother?” Nicole asked Petite, pointing to a group of young men perched on a rooftop. One was waving his red cap—the cap of the students of the Collège de Navarre.
“It is Jean.” Petite waved back. Soon he would be graduating and moving south to Amboise. His marks had not been good enough for him to get a position in Paris, as he had wished.
“Alleluia!” Nicole exclaimed as a fire rocket flared close by and a cannon boomed.
Petite looked up the crowded avenue, aflutter at the thought of seeing the King again.
“This could go on for days,” Nicole said as caparisoned mules and horses passed by, followed by the officials of the Queen Mother’s household, soldiers, the Hundred Swiss and the marshals of France.
“Here comes Her Virginship,” said the Princess, referring to her half-sister, la Grande Mademoiselle, famously adorned in a masculine hat. “And the bratchets,” she added as her two sisters appeared, the youngest waving as if she were queen.
At last, a glittering chariot came into view. “The happy bride,” Marguerite said sourly.
The new Queen of France was riding in a Roman-style chariot drawn by six Danish horses. She was draped in a black robe decorated with golden thread and pearls. She sparkled in the hot August sun.
“Thanks be to Mary, they finally got her out of a farthingale,” said Nicole.
“Vive la reine!” people cried. Queen Marie-Thérèse smiled as they showered her with rose petals, cornflowers, jasmine and carnations.
“She’s tiny,” Petite said. The Queen looked like a child in her ornamental chariot embellished with cupids.
“Ah—and here he comes,” Nicole said, pointing her fan.
The King. Petite cheered along with all the others. How splendid he looked, she thought. A glittering diamond brooch held a bouquet of white ostrich feathers to his hat. His horse, caparisoned in silver brocade, was a handsome Spanish bay. Even its harness was studded with gems.
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