Mistress of the Sun

by Sandra Gulland

  The drama intensified as the rings got progressively smaller and contestants were eliminated. Two fell, one having to be carried off. In the end it came down to Louis and Jean. Petite was proud of them both, but especially of Louis, who had done well in spite of his overly spirited mount. No one, not even her brother, carried a lance with more ease.

  Louis checked his horse, not allowing him into a full gallop, then caught the tiny ring neatly. A cheer went up. Vive le roi!

  Jean ran at the ring full bore and caught it as well.

  “That’s close,” Athénaïs said.

  The judges deliberated for some time. A stunned silence fell when they announced that the winner was the Marquis de la Vallière: although His Majesty had shown superior mastery, the Marquis’s speed had been greater.

  “Don’t applaud,” Petite told Gabrielle behind her fan, her voice low.

  The crowd murmured as the Queen awarded Jean a diamond-encrusted gold sword and buckler.

  The sky turned golden. Lully’s musicians played as “Spring”—a young lady crowned with flowers—entered on a Spanish charger, followed by gardeners carrying preserves. “Summer” trailed in on an elephant, leading a swarm of harvesters, followed by “Autumn” on a camel leading grape-pickers, and, at the last, “Winter” riding a now somewhat-too-awake bear and accompanied by old men carrying bowls of ice. The charger shied on seeing the camel, and the elephant had to be pushed out of the way. Lully raised his baton and fifty costumed servants bearing food danced in unison as a crescent-shaped table was unveiled. Hundreds of pages holding wax torches stepped forward, twirled. Eyeing the bear uneasily, Monsieur de Molière, as Pan, announced the feast to the queens.

  The Queen Mother took her place at the head of the table, with Louis on her right and the Queen on her left. Philippe and Henriette joined them, followed by la Grande Mademoiselle and the other princes and princesses of the blood. Thousands of torches were simultaneously lit, casting a magical light over the tableau. Citizens watching from the crowded terrace cheered. Behold: the royal family, in all its glory.

  Petite glanced up at the night sky. The moon was nearing fullness, illuminating the château, the fountains and canal. It’s going to be grand, Louis had told her. It pleased him to see an army of men working with pickaxes and shovels. From somewhere, she heard a horse whinny, and another horse answer. She looked out over the great dark wilderness beyond—their wilderness no longer.

  A WIND CAME UP the next day, after the hunt (Petite: one boar, a clean kill). Louis ordered the tapestries from his bedchamber hung on the west side of the outdoor theater. These and an impromptu fabric dome helped keep the torches and candles from blowing out during Monsieur de Molière’s comedy.

  Petite sat with the ladies of the Court in raked benches to one side. Louis’s armchair was positioned directly in front of the stage, his wife and mother on either side. He caught her eye as he scanned the crowd, smiled slightly, then turned to attend to the Queen. The Queen Mother looked over at Petite and frowned, and then the Queen turned, following her gaze.

  They know, Petite thought as the curtains parted.

  The play, The Princesse d’Elide, began innocently: a fairy-tale story of a prince in love with a princess, driven mad with love-longing. However, the princess loved horses with a passion and would not be wooed. She loved the hunt, the music of the deep forest glens.

  “Like someone I know?” Athénaïs said from behind, tapping Petite on her shoulder with her fan.

  Petite watched the play unfold with trepidation: the play was about Louis…and her. She sat very still, hardly breathing, overcome with uneasy delight.

  ON THE THIRD NIGHT, the Court assembled for a musical performance at the end of the Allée Royale. The royal family sat on a dais facing the basin of Apollo. Opposite them was a castle surrounded by water.

  This was the enchanted lake…and this the enchanted palace.

  As Lully raised his baton and the music began, Petite, Jean and Gabrielle were led to their seats four rows back from the royal family (Jean protesting, “We are the royal family”).

  “Here comes the sorceress.” Gabrielle pointed to a barge in the form of a marine monster on the dark water.

  Jean whistled along with other men as torches were lit and evil Alcina was revealed, attired in scanty gauze. With a wave of her wand, her palace lit up. Demons, dwarves and giants danced out from the shadows, their devil faces ghoulish.

  The innocent knight appeared, ready to storm the palace of the enchantress. Music soared as they prepared for the ultimate battle between good and evil. Alcina and her devious subjects were winning, but the knight had a magic ring—a ring with the power to destroy enchantment.

  Petite watched, captivated but troubled, knowing the power of magic, its dark side…knowing that it was not so easily vanquished. She was startled by a volley of shots. Everyone roared with astonishment as Alcina’s palace was destroyed in a thundering blaze of fire rockets.

  THE ENCHANTMENT HAD come to an end, with evil vanquished, yet the fete continued for three more days: jousting in the dry moat, a tour of the menagerie, a lottery, and, every night, a comedy by Molière. On the last night, hooded and cloaked, Louis finally came to Petite’s room, making his way through the dark corridors like a thief.

  “At last,” he said, removing his mask. The festival may have been in Petite’s honor—or so he claimed—but they’d hardly even had a chance to speak. The daily hunts had been far too public, and every afternoon he’d been in meetings regarding a new addition, the work on the foundation scheduled to begin as soon as the Court departed. “I feel like an idiot skulking about like this,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed to pull off his boots. “My subjects parade their mistresses alongside their wives and nobody thinks a thing of it.”

  There had been only one courtier, in fact—a marquis making a show of parading his wife and paramour side by side that morning—and it had been noticed, Petite recalled. Nonetheless, there was a measure of truth in what Louis said. No matter what the Church ruled, courtiers rather expected a married man to have a mistress, and would treat her with respect (so long as she was noble—and unmarried).

  “Yet because of my mother, I have to sneak around,” Louis grumbled, climbing into her bed.

  IN THE MONTHS that followed—as the Court traipsed from Fontaine Beleau, to Paris, to Villers-Cotterêts, to Vincennes and then back to Paris again—Louis became increasingly annoyed with his mother’s rule. In Paris, in the little house overlooking the Palais Royale gardens, Petite and Louis enjoyed a measure of freedom—long afternoons reading, dancing, playing music and making love, and even (once) an enchanting hour with their baby Charles—but even so, he could not place Petite beside him at entertainments. She could walk with him in the gardens along with all the other courtiers, she could ride with him on a hunt, but she could not join him in a dance or sit with him at the gaming tables at night in his mother’s withdrawing room.

  “Come to the Louvre tonight,” he told Petite one afternoon, kicking off the covering sheet. A fire was blazing, the room overwarm. “I’ll call for you in my mother’s antechamber at ten of the clock.”

  “But Louis, the queens…” Petite objected. It would be an insult for her to appear in the Queen Mother’s salon. She was six months along; even corseted, this was difficult to disguise.

  “They won’t be there. My mother’s ill and my wife stays with her.”

  “They’ll know. They’ll find out.”

  “I’m not going to hide you any longer!

  “But why now?” Petite protested. “I’ll soon be going into confinement in any case.”

  “King Frances I had an official maîtresse en titre, King Henry II, King Henry the Great,” Louis said, his voice no longer gentle. “My wife’s father has sixteen, for God’s sake. The kings of England, Austria…”

  “The Queen is with child, Louis—it will distress her.”

  “I will not be ruled on this! When they dishonor you,
they dishonor me,” he said angrily, rising from the bed.

  LOUIS APPEARED AT the entry to the Queen Mother’s antechamber precisely at ten, accompanied by his usual entourage: Gautier, Lauzun, ten Swiss guards and a quartet of violinists. He was wearing a feathered and jeweled hat. Bows stiffened with wires adorned the toes of his high red-heeled shoes.

  Gautier stepped forward into the antechamber. “Mademoiselle de la Vallière?” He bowed, formally, from the waist. “His Majesty requests your company.”

  Taffeta rustled as the women in the room turned to stare.

  Lauzun did a funny little cat hop to one side. “After you,” he said, making an extravagant bow.

  Careful not to reveal even a hint of a limp, Petite followed Louis into the Queen Mother’s winter apartment. He moved slowly, calm and resolute. She felt like a soldier following a commander into battle: a battle for the King’s right to be with the woman he loved.

  The carved double doors swung open upon a glittering scene. The courtiers rose from the gaming tables and the musicians put down their instruments. Petite glanced over the room, at all the staring, startled eyes. Yeyette, Claude-Marie and Athénaïs were standing with the Duchesse de Navailles. Mercy.

  “Step,” Lauzun murmured, nudging Petite forward.

  Everyone bowed before Louis as he approached a gaming table set by the fire.

  Philippe motioned to the armchair on his right. He was wearing a wig with a single curl running around the bottom and his rose silk suit was trimmed in lace. “Your Majesty…?” He shifted his right foot forward and bowed.

  Louis acknowledged his brother, then tipped his hat to Henriette, who made a curtsy. She had fully recovered from the birth of a son three months earlier, and looked herself once again, enlivened.

  Petite wasn’t sure what to do. A reverence was called for—but how deep, and how many? She curtsied to the ground. Does my belly show? she worried. She prayed not.

  Louis pulled out the chair opposite his. “Will you be my partner in a game of Karnöffel, Mademoiselle de la Vallière?” He watched her steadily.

  Everyone in the room was ominously silent.

  “Yes, Your Majesty.” Petite made another reverence and they all sat down: first Louis, then Philippe, Henriette and lastly Petite. Louis signaled the musicians and they took up their instruments. Laughter and conversation slowly resumed.

  Solemnly, Philippe dealt out the pack. “Hearts trump,” he announced with an ironic smile.

  With difficulty, Petite picked up her cards; they were slippery and new, and her hands were clammy. She glanced across at Louis, but he was intent on his hand.

  “I have a two and a four trump,” Henriette told her husband, who made a face. Karnöffel was a topsy-turvy game; cards were openly discussed between partners.

  “I have the six of hearts,” Louis told Petite, “the Pope card.”

  Petite studied her cards. She had the seven of hearts. Seven in the trump suit had special powers, she recalled, but she could not remember what they were. The game had been forbidden in her childhood as anarchistic: the King could be beaten by a low card, the Pope by an under-knave. And then she remembered.

  “I have the Devil card,” Petite said, a sick feeling coming over her.

  THE NEXT DAY, on learning of the affront, the Queen Mother raged and the Queen took to bed with a sudden high fever.

  I warned him, Petite thought angrily, shuffling through a carpet of damp yellow leaves. She entered the silent refuge of a little church. The thin tapers at the altar were bowed, as if burdened by an invisible weight. Petite lit a candle for the Queen and placed it in the sand-filled trough in front of a statue of Mary—the one holding the baby Jesus in her arms, a baby Jesus with old, sad eyes. O Mary, she prayed, the Queen must not suffer for my sin.

  The door behind her opened in a burst of damp wind. The candle guttered and went out.

  IN SPITE OF vomitives, purges and bleedings, the Queen’s fever did not abate. Almost a full month early her labor began. Church bells chimed three times and then there was silence.

  “It’s a girl,” Clorine said sadly.

  “Go find one of the Queen’s maids,” Petite said. “Find out how the Queen is doing.”

  She paced until Clorine’s return.

  “She’s in a fever still. The baby’s hairy and dark—and ugly as a toad,” Clorine reported, putting down her basket.

  Petite crossed herself. A demon child.

  NIGHT HAD FALLEN when Clorine came running into Petite’s chamber. “Come to the window,” she called out, throwing back the heavy curtains. “Quick,” she said, fumbling with the shutter bolt.

  There, in the starry night, was a steak of light.

  “A comet,” Petite said, turning away. She was full with child and should not be looking at such a thing.

  “Someone’s going to die,” Clorine said, falling to her knees.

  “IT WAS FOR the Princess,” Clorine told Petite five days later. The newborn had died.

  “Oh, the poor Queen.”

  “The poor King. They say he wept.”

  Somewhere, Louis is grieving, Petite thought. If only she could be with him.

  “Imagine shedding tears for an ugly little monster like that.”

  Petite pressed her hands to her belly, frightened by a stillness within her.

  THE DAY AFTER King’s Day—the coldest day of a bitter January—Petite went into childbed. This time, Louis was with her. She tore his lace collar to shreds, so violent was her pain. He stayed with her until the infant was born, another son.

  Philippe, Louis named him. “We’ll call him Filoy,” he said with a smile.

  “Yes,” Petite murmured, her baby pressed to her heart. Little rascal, son of a king.

  “Colbert’s valet will come for him after nightfall,” Louis said, shifting his weight. “He’s to be baptized in the morning.”

  Petite nodded, feeling the infant’s soft skull with her lips. The secretive arrangements had once again been carefully made. Colbert would await in a coach at the gate. At the crossway of the Hôtel Bouillon, he would give the baby to Monsieur François Derssy, the husband of Marguerite Bernard, a former servant of the Colbert household. The baby would be baptized as their son.

  “I know,” she said. The infant had been born whole, straight and strong. For that alone she should be grateful.

  AFTER A MONTH of bed rest, Petite could walk again, but with difficulty. Her left leg was weak, and unsteady. “I’m fine,” she lied to Louis, who was overwhelmed looking after his ailing mother.

  Early in April, Petite was strong enough to begin attending Henriette. The Princess was with child again and had asked Petite to read out loud to her in the long afternoons: Thomas Aquinas, works by Boccaccio. It helped to lighten the melancholy that hung over the Court. The Queen’s recovery after the death of the monster baby had been slow; she wore a bed robe night and day. As well, doctors had discovered that the Queen Mother had cankers in one breast—a cancer, they called it. She cried out often, and needed help to walk. A madman dressed in devil horns had taken to following the royal carriage. Courtiers displayed charms to ward off demons.

  The news from afar was likewise grim. Thousands died each day of the Plague in London. There had been few such deaths in Paris, yet fear had taken hold—no one embraced, no one dared touch. Henriette’s brother, the Duke of York, had been killed in battle—the report proved to be false, but it caused the Princess to go into convulsions.

  Early in July, listening to Petite read from Madame Scudéry’s novel Ibrahim, the Princess began to weep. “I haven’t felt movement for two days,” she confessed, her hands on her belly. Her eyes looked hollow and her breath was rank.

  The midwife was called to examine the Princess, attendants hovering fearfully. The Princess’s breasts were slack and her belly was cold at the navel. Her water, which stank, was thick. The midwife wet her hands in warm water and rubbed the Princess’s big belly. There was no movement.

 
“Oh dear God,” the Princess moaned. She’d been having dreams of the dead, she said.

  “THEY GOT THE BABY out of her,” Clorine informed Petite nine days later.

  “That took a long time,” Petite said.

  “Aye. A girl, it was.”

  “And…?” Petite’s eyes were searching. “How did it go?”

  Clorine pulled on her earlobe, looked away. “The midwife had her tricks,” she said. She didn’t want to tell her mistress what she knew, the grisly details shared between maids from whom nothing could be hidden. The midwife had tried everything, in truth: sage and pennyroyal in white wine, hyssop in hot water. Even an eagle-stone held to Madame’s privy parts had failed to draw it out. In the end the midwife had had to cut the child asunder and pull it out by pieces, four gagging footmen holding the Princess down. Mercifully, she’d fainted dead away.

  “She was even baptized, I’m told,” Clorine said, feigning cheer.

  Petite frowned. “But the child was not alive.”

  “Aye,” Clorine said, returning to her sweeping. A dead royal baby got baptized no matter what, she guessed—even a cut-up baby so dead it was rotten. Anything so that it could be buried in the regal tombs at Saint-Denis, not with the suicides in the north corner of some desolate graveyard, like all the other unbaptized stillborns.

  DEATH DID NOT tire that fall. In September, the King of Spain died—the Queen’s father, the Queen Mother’s brother. The Court was once again draped in black, the royal family in deepest purple.

  Louis turned gaunt, ashen, as if something in him were dying. His mother was not responding to treatments, and he would not accept the inevitable. He embraced and consumed Petite with a fierce hunger, crying out as he spent, as if in pain. He returned to her daily, and daily it was the same. Few words, an explosive release, and then he’d lie staring, cloaked in a tense silence.