Enchantress of Paris

by Marci Jefferson

  That’s when I tried to warn Olympia. “Olympia, if King Louis cannot expend the passion you inspire, he will become frustrated.”

  “How do you know anything of men?” She took my brush and plopped herself before the great looking-glass, stroking her hair. “I will give him just enough to hold him in thrall until my wedding.”

  I decided not to tell her which books I’d read or how I’d gotten them. “You don’t love him.”

  She waved this comment away. “Intimacy with the king is the loophole to power. He must tell his secrets and desires to no one but me.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Her expression changed. “You weren’t here for the Fronde wars when Paris was a raging mob, burning, raping, pillaging, slaughter in the streets. Our uncle moved us just in time, plotting battles, buying loyalties, subduing the French nobles. He saved us. I never want to see that mob rise against us again. You would do well to follow his commands.”

  I didn’t bother pointing out that French hatred for Mazarin’s abuse of power was what sparked the Fronde in the first place, and it only ended because the French believed King Louis had come of age. “Louis is the one with the crown.”

  “So our uncle must know his private thoughts.”

  It made sense. The king’s seal was needed to dictate state affairs. But our uncle was the one with the brilliance for making money. Which, I knew, he hoarded for himself. “Using the king thus is more reprehensible than anything I could contrive, yet I am being sent away.”

  Olympia held a bottle of beauty elixir aloft. Gold dust within it glittered in the firelight as she sipped it lightly. “If I could fully control the king, His Eminence would have made me queen. There is no potion for that. None that worked. At least as comtesse de Soissons I will become part of the Bourbon family, a princess of the blood! When I am married, I will have the freedom to bed the king. That will give me more power over him. His Eminence will reward me by making me his heir.”

  I was disgusted. “One of our brothers will be Mazarin’s heir.”

  “Philippe is too difficult to control. Alphonse is too young to be useful. It will be me.”

  Control. Suddenly I understood my uncle’s motives, and I hid my surprise by moving to my bed. Mazarin wanted me out of the way because he didn’t think he could control me. To stay at court, I must somehow oblige him. There was as much chance of that happening as there was of Olympia handing over my pearl necklace.

  * * *

  Long after my sisters had fallen asleep, I slipped from silk sheets and crept to my cassone. Such Italian trousseau chests were meant for brides. Mine was half the usual size and secondhand, acquired hastily for my admission to the convent in Rome. The hinges creaked softly, but no one stirred. I shuffled linens and petticoats and opened the false bottom. I’d discovered this secret compartment during my first week at the convent. It had inspired me, for here I could hide my very own grimoire.

  I’d bound the book myself from loose parchments and discarded leather, compiling charms I’d heard my father chant, listing from memory formulas to prolong life, and composing my own oraisons, healing spells that were half Latin Bible verses and half prayer. I jotted everything I’d overheard Papa say about the attributes of planets and astrological houses. When the nuns had assigned the pottage gardens to me, I’d subtly followed his lunar planting and harvesting times. I’d recorded my father’s magical uses for herbs, making tinctures and teas, and testing them in my cell between convent duties. Since returning to Paris, I’d been memorizing passages from my father’s texts in the cardinal’s study on how to summon angels, then transcribing them while my sisters slept. Though it contained not a single curse or malevolent spell, my grimoire held knowledge that a girl with an evil star shouldn’t possess. Especially one with a cardinal for an uncle. Altering a few herbal cures would turn them to poisons. My grimoire’s mysteries would be misunderstood. A penchant for divinity had condemned me in my mother’s eyes, but my grimoire would condemn me by law of church and man. I was not so bold as Olympia, and I had more to lose.

  I closed the cassone and went to the fireplace, still crackling brightly, and stepped over a slave girl with ebon skin sleeping by the hearth. My uncle liked to keep Palais Mazarin warm and refused to bank the fires at night for safety. Instead, he appointed slaves to sleep on the floor to prevent flaming logs from rolling out onto expensive carpets. She was dispensable. Like me.

  God help me cast aside old ways and blend in at the royal court. I tossed the book in, and flames leapt around it, twisting and dancing as my treasured pages curled, blackened, and turned to ashes. Sighing, I turned to step over the slave girl again.

  Her eyes were wide open, bright reflections of my burning grimoire. We stared at each other a moment, saying nothing. Then I went back to bed.

  CHAPTER 3

  When I woke early the next morn, I knew Olympia would never return my pearl necklace, much less loan me the pearl pins. The maids crept about our chamber, fueling the fire and setting out our morning food. I made a decision. As I opened my bed curtains, Olympia arose.

  “Maids!” she called, and chambermaids rushed to her toilette with focused attention. They stripped her naked, sponging her skin with an infusion of warm water and frankincense. They bustled about with curling rods, dress pins, and globs of face paint, and soon the chamber smelled of jasmine perfume. They tugged red and white striped Guernsey stockings up to her thighs and tied them in place with red ribbon garters. They helped her shimmy into a crisp white chemise and held her hands as she stepped into gray watered-silk taffeta petticoats. Her black velvet overskirt was lined with soft gray fur and trailed behind her even after bustling. They laced the matching bodice up her front and stitched a gray fur-covered stomacher into place over the laces. When the maids finally fell away exhausted, she studied herself in the huge Venetian looking-glass. She pulled on the corkscrew curls falling from the buns above her ears, then released them, and they bounced back into place. “Damn,” she said with a frown. “Why did Mamma have to get ill? I look horrid in mourning colors.”

  She’s going for jewelry next. “You should hurry,” I said. “You wouldn’t want to miss the king’s early walk in the gardens.”

  It worked. She checked her backside in the looking-glass, then snapped her fingers. The maids brought a black fur cloak, tied it at her neck with a black satin bow, and raised the huge hood over her coiffure. Olympia turned on her black velvet high heels and left. I couldn’t believe my luck.

  The maids picked up discarded gloves and ribbons as they walked out. They would leave me with Rose, the old servant who had nursed us as children in Rome and knew nothing of coiffures. “Wait,” I said quietly, and the slave girl with ebon skin stopped. “W-will you help me dress, too?”

  Cardinal Mazarin had acquired many of her kind through business trades recorded in his ledgers, listed as the nameless, faceless tangible good called female slave. She’d never uttered a word in my presence. She grabbed my hand and squinted at my palm. Finally she dropped it, looking at me with guarded appreciation. “Are you a witch?” She gestured to the fireplace where my grimoire was lost in ashes.

  “No!” I glanced, but no one was left to hear, and my sisters still slept. “I never made any pact with the devil and never shall. I merely practiced magic. But no more.”

  She almost seemed disappointed. “Very well, I’ll help you.”

  I couldn’t place the accent in her perfect French. “Did you learn palms in your homeland?”

  She shook her head. “My mother and I were taken from Africa by Portuguese traders when I was knee-high. I never met the snake-god of my people, but my mother taught me our ways before she died, things that would scare you out of your skin. I learn a bit of magic from every household I’m sold into. Palms I learned from a diamond trader in Holland.”

  What might she learn from the Mancinis? “What did you see that made you want to help me?”

  She thought before speaking. “Mark
s that indicate you’ll live a liberated life. With you I’ll have a chance at freedom.”

  I laughed. “Doubtful.”

  She seemed serious. “There are other signs, and they are stronger with you than with your sisters. If I help you now, you’ll help me later?”

  I did not see such marks or signs. “I always repay kindness.”

  She went straight to work, curling my hair and washing my face with rosemary vinegar. She pulled the laces of a black satin bodice until I was forced to stand straighter. She sprinkled me with a bottle of Olympia’s best perfume and grinned.

  I laughed again. “What is your name?”

  “Moréna.” She stuck the tip of her finger into a pot of Olympia’s mix of special red containing cochineal and a secret ingredient I was determined to uncover. She dabbed my cheeks and lips.

  I walked to Olympia’s huge lacquered cabinet, a gift from His Eminence, and rummaged until I found my skimpy pearl necklace. I tied its ribbon behind my neck. We turned to the mirror, and I watched as Moréna placed the pearl pins in my curls. Better.

  “Will King Louis visit your mother today?” she asked in a knowing tone.

  “My efforts aren’t for his benefit!” Or were they? I wanted to explain that if I showed Mamma I could blend in at court she might change her mind and convince Mazarin to let me stay. But part of me longed to see the king’s frown turn to a smile again. Marianne and Hortense woke up, and I said nothing more, for it was time to return to Mamma’s sickroom.

  * * *

  Victoire met us in the cardinal’s antechamber with her two sons. We played marbles on the floor until our brother Philippe arrived with the shadow of a beard on his face. At sixteen he was taller than most men, yet hadn’t learned to shave like one. He put his hands on his hips. “Did you miss your brother?”

  Marianne scoffed. “We saw you just yesterday.”

  Philippe shook his head. “I’ve brought your other brother Alphonse from school!”

  A scrawny boy just taller than Hortense entered with a wide grin. Oh, how he’d grown!

  We all jumped up to embrace him. We kept our voices hushed, retelling old stories from Rome and sharing new ones of schools and convents. Physicians came and went, ignoring us, shaking their heads, arguing over which emetic to give Mamma. Victoire’s children fell asleep on the padded benches while Philippe and Alphonse took to editing one of Philippe’s poems, spreading parchments on the floor. Finally, in the late afternoon, King Louis arrived, as I’d secretly hoped he would. I’d smoothed my skirts and thrown back my shoulders before I even noticed the pulse of excitement coursing through me. He searched the room and found my face. And smiled.

  I curtsied alongside my family, trying to think of something clever to say.

  He nodded toward the stack of books by my chair. “Ever the reader, Marie Mancini.”

  Say something! “You read my book?”

  “A few pages. Enough to meet Rinaldo, our valiant hero.”

  “What do you think? Will he give up his quest for Armida?”

  He frowned. “Her part confused me. I had to skip to the end to—”

  “Don’t do that,” I interrupted. “Read it properly!”

  Behind him, Olympia stared daggers at me. The courtiers gasped. I pressed my lips shut.

  But King Louis just grinned. “Very well. Give me one week.” Then he turned serious again. He moved to my mother’s chamber and the doors opened to admit him.

  I smiled as he passed. I doubted he would read another page, much less finish in a week.

  Olympia stepped out of his train, eyeing my pearls. “You used my special blend of red.”

  “Don’t begrudge me a little pleasure before His Eminence sends me to rot in a convent. You forgot this.” I handed her the little vial of yellow potion.

  She glanced around to be sure no one was watching and slipped it into the hanging pocket beneath the folds of her skirts. “He isn’t for you.” She hurried to her place behind the king.

  They weren’t long. King Louis left quickly with just a nod in my direction. Physicians ran in and out. Mamma’s maids ordered more hot water from the footmen in the antechamber. One woman ran out only to return moments later with a jug, sloshing milk out onto the marble floor in her haste.

  Finally the cardinal threw open the doors. He stood sentinel and called my sisters one by one to Mamma’s bedside. Victoire went first and returned holding her pregnant belly as if she needed to lie down. Marianne went next and came back crying, which made Hortense cry as she went in. Philippe and Alphonse went in together. My nails had cut deep slits into my palms when they finally came out and His Eminence signaled for me. I rushed forward, but a woman screamed from within, “She’s breathed her last!”

  My uncle turned, his great scarlet silks whipping my skirts as we ran to her side. Ashen, my Mamma wouldn’t look at me. Her eyes were fixed to a spot above her bed. “No!” I cried, and fell beside her. My sisters were behind me then, wailing. The women covered their faces with their aprons and the physicians argued and the cardinal chanted prayers. Mamma’s life was over. And so would mine soon be.

  CHAPTER 4

  Never had man manners so courteous in public and so harsh in his own house as Cardinal Mazarin.

  —HORTENSE MANCINI’S MEMOIRS

  Days later I descended the stairs of Palais Mazarin with Hortense and Marianne for our mother’s funeral, so bewildered by grief that I hardly noticed the man waiting in the great hall.

  He stepped to me as we reached the door. “Mademoiselle Mancini.”

  “Yes?” I let my sisters step out to climb into the first waiting carriage and lifted my black lace mourning veil. It was King Louis, dressed simply in a gray satin doublet and petticoat breeches, without jewels or even his ceremonial scabbard. I fell into a curtsy. “Forgive me, Majesty. I didn’t recognize you without your heralds and pages.”

  He glanced at his attire. “Moving about incognito allows me to be unobtrusive. Kings are prohibited from attending funerals, so I shall make this visit brief.”

  I stood, feeling foolish for not understanding the ways of his court already. “Olympia is still upstairs. She is waging a minor war against our old nurse about appropriate mourning attire.”

  “Actually, I came to see to you.” He took off his hat. “Knowing you would lose your mother cannot have lessened the blow.”

  Tears burned my throat. “Sire, your kindness is touching.” Even without royal trappings, majesty still resonated in his dignified bearing. I reminded myself of Olympia’s warning. He’s not for you.

  “You and I are both serious by nature. I understand how you scrutinize your own pain. I, too, lost a parent.”

  His perception seemed uncanny. Something else occurred to me. He must not know about his real father. I had to look down.

  He took it as sadness. “I should leave you. When your mourning concludes, I hope to see more of you at court.” He smiled softly, warming his features. “You’re not like other girls.”

  “Me?” I felt breathless. Could it be that what made me different from my sisters actually gave me merit in the king’s eyes? I longed to receive that soft, unexpected smile every day. “I won’t be at court, sire. My uncle will send me back to the convent.”

  He seemed surprised. “No. You’d be wasted there. Shall I speak to your uncle about this?”

  Just then my uncle cleared his throat from the center of the great hall. I hadn’t heard him enter. His eyes darted from me to King Louis. “Sire, it’s good you’ve come. I have papers for you to sign before I leave.”

  The king nodded to me, then disappeared with my uncle. I went out to the carriage harboring affection for the king my family used so badly.

  * * *

  Wearing nothing but black, my sisters and brothers and I held one another quietly, tears spent, at the Church of the Augustins. Victoire looked pale and held her stomach continuously. I held the hands of Olympia and Hortense through the bishop’s eulogy and watched Cardi
nal Mazarin make a great show of wiping his eyes before the dukes and princes in attendance.

  After the requiem mass we lined up to exit the nave, and Mazarin said to me, “Kiss your brothers and bid farewell. Say good-bye to your sisters and prepare your things. You take leave on the morrow.”

  Victoire suddenly leaned on my shoulder, steadying herself.

  The cardinal looked alarmed. “Are you unwell?” he asked her.

  “I must return to the Hôtel de Vendôme. Please don’t take Marie from me so soon after God has taken my mother.”

  He pressed his lips together. “Very well, I entrust your three youngest sisters to your care. Marie mustn’t go to court. She must obey you in everything, Victoire. And as soon as that child of yours is born, Marie goes.”

  And there in the midst of my mother’s funeral, I felt elation. God forgive me.

  * * *

  Philippe took our tearful little Alphonse back to the Jesuit College at Clermont. Victoire took Hortense and Marianne. The cardinal, Olympia, and I rode alone to Palais Mazarin. We sat opposite her, and she pouted while I planned what to pack.

  Guilt forced me to keep from looking too happy. “I’m going to Victoire’s at the Hôtel de Vendôme. I’ll be taking my pearls with me.”

  Olympia shrugged. “You’ll have no better use for them than I. We must seclude ourselves in mourning.”

  “Victoire will have many visitors.”

  “I don’t need visitors, I need the king.” She kicked our seat.

  Surprisingly, our uncle didn’t grow angry. “You may return to court after a few weeks.”

  “King Louis could replace me in that amount of time, and you know it.”

  Mazarin showed no emotion. “You should have wept more during your mother’s illness. Then he would have reason to believe you need consoling now. Think of how you might have taken advantage of a king’s succor.”