Enchantress of Paris

by Marci Jefferson

  * * *

  Early the next morning we returned to the Louvre, where we gathered with the royals, the Martinozzis, and the Soissons family outside the marriage bed. I did my best to ignore the king. The queen mother parted the bed curtains. Soissons was still asleep. Olympia whipped back the coverlet and pointed to the bloodstained sheet. A murmur of approval went up. I gave Olympia a questioning look, and she eyed the nearby closestool. She’d hidden the nasty thing in the night soil. I sighed with relief.

  My sisters and I dressed Olympia, then stood behind her like ladies in waiting behind a queen while she and Soissons received visits. Courtiers lined up to congratulate them, not for their own sakes but to please the cardinal. They bore gifts—a jeweled brooch, goblets cut from alabaster, a looking-glass, a purse of silver, and even a great green parrot.

  In the afternoon, Notre Dame Cathedral gave a special mass. My younger sisters and I rode through Paris with our uncle in a long procession of carriages. Hortense and Marianne watched a boy carrying a sheep slung across his shoulders as he led a mule harnessed to a wagon full of pigs. From an upper window, a woman dumped piss from a chamber pot, splashing the mule. Startled, the mule slipped in a pile of steaming horse dung in the street, jerking the wagon and setting the pigs to squealing and oinking. A passing gang of Gypsies whooped with laughter.

  “Your Eminence,” I said, taking my opportunity with measured confidence, “I’ve planned a small fête at Palais Mazarin.”

  “You are the temporary lady of the house.” He hardly looked at me. “But if one distasteful rumor is uttered, you will be gone before the gossips draw their next breath.”

  I nodded, suppressing my smile.

  He turned his attention to homes along the quay. Even the most stately had mud and garbage littering their doorsteps. “Look how the bourgeoisie merchants climb into their fine carriages wearing gold cloth when they know only nobility are permitted to wear it.” He made a harrumph sound. “Looks like they can afford new taxes.”

  We turned onto the wide Pont Neuf toward the oldest part of Paris, the Île de la Cité. The great cacophony of Parisian life on the Pont Neuf, as much an open street theater as a bridge, echoed around us. Vendors called out such goods as oysters, wooden legs, cakes, or glass eyes. Charlatans yelled louder, selling phoenix fat, dirt from the Holy Land, and water guaranteed to extend your life by one hundred years. A singer dressed in an exotic costume from the East belted out a song about a murder that had taken place on Pont Neuf a week earlier. Beggars and rowdy drunks clustered under the statue of Henry the Fourth to watch a burly man yank a tooth out of an older man’s mouth. Pickpockets darted among the crowd while prostitutes scanned it for randy customers. While I watched this in wonder, a thud sounded against the carriage wall. Mud spattered on the cardinal’s scarlet robes. I sat up in time to see a man in a butcher’s apron hurl another great handful of mud at us. “Death to the Italian!” he screamed over the racket. A cheer went up on the bridge and along the quay.

  Our driver whipped the horses, and we coursed across the rest of the bridge. I fell back. Mazarin wiped the mud off with a handkerchief as if it were nothing.

  They hate him. The poorest peasants, the middling bourgeoisie, merchants great and small, minor nobles, and the elite closest to the crown—they all harbored the same hate for Cardinal Mazarin. They screamed it on street corners, printed it in pamphlets, and probably begged it in their prayers: Death to the cardinal who wallows in their money and seems to control the king by magic.

  We arrived at Notre Dame Cathedral, where bells pealed and birds scattered as we halted before the Gothic doors.

  Marianne pointed to the fanciful gargoyles overhead. “Aren’t they adorable?”

  “They’re supposed to be frightening,” I said as we entered. “To ward away evil.”

  “They don’t work because Olympia can get in. And look—” She stuck out her tongue and crooked her fingers atop her head to mimic the devil’s horns. “So can I!”

  I shushed her, but she’d been heard. Someone behind me said, “Those pagan Mancinis!” My cheeks burned. I wanted to turn around to see who it was, but something stopped me. This was the way of courtiers. I don’t have enough standing to condemn their spite. So I kept walking.

  By the time we returned to the Louvre I was sick of uppish courtiers and tedious ceremony, sick of wondering if the king would try to talk to me again, and sick of worrying how I’d respond. When the best carriage arrived to escort Olympia to the Hôtel de Soissons, I was overjoyed.

  “Can we go home now?” begged Marianne.

  I scooped her up and took Hortense by the hand. “Home, where a new life awaits.”

  CHAPTER 8

  God must needs have given free will to man. God’s foreknowledge is not opposed to our free choice.

  —SAINT AUGUSTINE

  Weeks later I stood at the top of the stairs of Palais Mazarin to welcome my guests while one hundred blazing torches lit the courtyard. My friends from the salons alighted from carriages. Molière kissed my cheeks, and Lully brought his violin. My brother Philippe, who had finally had the decency to shave, showed them inside.

  Then Monsieur finally appeared, the prettiest of all with extra pink ribbons on his doublet and matching pink hose. “Cousin,” he said to me with a kiss. He and the king had always affectionately called the Mazarinettes cousins, and we’d thought nothing of it. I remembered the love letters I’d found in Mazarin’s casket. Did Monsieur and the king realize the cardinal was their father, that we were truly related?

  I stuffed down the thought. “Welcome.”

  Monsieur gestured to his carriage. “I brought my other cousins.”

  Out stepped the exiled King Charles of England wearing a broad grin. “Hope you don’t mind.”

  His brother James, Duke of York, a copy of Charles with lighter skin and hair, and their youngest brother, the Duke of Gloucester, alighted next.

  I could hardly believe it. I curtsied. They bowed in return. Royalty at my fête! “Gentlemen, don’t think I’m dazzled.”

  “Our titles aren’t illustrious enough for you?” Monsieur offered his arm.

  I crooked my arm into his. “Each of you is merely another dance partner.”

  King Charles took my other arm. “Well, it’s a good thing we wore our dancing shoes tonight, eh, brothers?”

  The five of us entered the palais together. Footmen threw open every set of doors on our way to the dining hall. Eyes widened at the sight of my escorts, and servants scrambled to ready additional seating. Violinists serenaded us through dinner while the Stuart brothers and Monsieur compared the English Civil War with the French Fronde.

  “Is there hope of regaining your kingdom?” I asked King Charles at a moment when everyone else was engaged.

  He grinned. There was something handsome in the ease of his smile. “Every fresh hope has led to renewed disappointment. Your uncle isn’t making it easier.”

  “You mean the cardinal makes life difficult for those other than myself?”

  He shrugged. “He’s forming an alliance with Oliver Cromwell, the man who executed my father, led his army against me, and rules England in my place.”

  “Blame the Prince de Condé, my uncle’s greatest rival during the Fronde. When Condé lost, he sided with Spain in the endless war for territory. It is bad enough that France is at war with Spain. Condé was starting to gain support in London. Mazarin couldn’t allow that.”

  “Mazarin has a chance of finishing the Franco-Spanish wars for good with Cromwell’s troops on his side. It will force me to leave France.”

  “If only you could raise your own army for my uncle.”

  He glanced around. “This new alliance makes the King of Spain nervous. He may give my brothers and me our own regiments.”

  I gasped. “You would side against your own cousin King Louis?”

  “Against your uncle.” He spoke softly. “Louis may be king, but he will never rule France until he is free of Mazari
n.”

  So it was obvious to all of Europe, too. Poor King Louis.

  Our party moved to the great hall, wineglasses in hand, where King Charles quietly studied works of art by the old masters. I realized with a pang of guilt they were part of his slain father’s collection, which Mazarin had purchased from Cromwell. Clarinet players joined the violinists by the virginal and struck up chords for the opening branle. King Charles whispered to me, “Some have said Louis will never cast Mazarin off because he is his real father. Do they call you cousin as an endearment, or are you cousins by blood?”

  I turned to him. This king without a throne, so affable I’d made no pretenses, was too sly. He wouldn’t get secrets that would damage King Louis from me. “I may not love my uncle, but I will be sorry to see you take arms against him.” I smiled sweetly. “My uncle will learn of it eventually. Now. Let me see your palm, and I shall tell you whether you’ll rule England again.”

  He laughed, opening his hand to me.

  I glanced at it quickly, before anyone could accuse me of witchery. Fractured at the beginning, his solar line deepened, then ran long. “Stay your course, sly king. You will soon be restored.” I took a sip of wine.

  He grinned. “Keep my alliance with Spain a secret?”

  Agreeing would be siding against my uncle. I couldn’t help it. I nodded. “You should give the cardinal your word that you will ally with France if you regain England.”

  King Charles nodded his agreement. He lifted his glass, and I clinked mine against it. “Clever girl. I don’t see why King Louis spends so much time with Olympia.”

  What could I say? Olympia uses love potions to keep the king entranced. “People call her the charming one.”

  He turned to watch Hortense spin gracefully on the dancing floor. His admiration was plain. “And is Hortense clever and charming like her sisters?”

  “She is both.” I had to smile at his obvious fascination. An idea struck me. One that might get Hortense a crown. “And she will be of marriageable age in little more than a year.”

  He nodded appreciatively. “Is it true Cardinal Mazarin intends to make her his heir?”

  Is that what people are saying? “She is his favorite. To marry her would secure an alliance with France.”

  Just then I spotted my uncle, watching us from the corner of the chamber. He curled one edge of his mustache and moved toward us. Women stopped dancing to curtsy as he passed.

  “Your Eminence,” I said.

  King Charles bowed to him, a mere courtesy since he wasn’t Catholic. “The Eminent Mazarin. Might we have a private word?”

  My uncle gestured toward the farthest door, toward his library and private study. “Just what I was hoping for.”

  I watched them leave. God, don’t let Charles betray me.

  Monsieur muttered at my ear, “What have you done, cousin?”

  I’d proven myself either a liability or an asset, all depending on what Charles told my uncle.

  * * *

  We drank wine and played basset long into the night. Venelle insisted on putting Hortense and Marianne to bed early. It was after midnight when I escorted the last of my guests to their carriages. The servants doused the courtyard torches, and I turned to find my uncle waiting on the front steps.

  “You made an impression on King Charles of England.”

  “So did the lovely Hortense.” I held my breath.

  “But what did he tell you of his plans?”

  Had King Charles told him? Was this a test? My future could depend on my answer. “Political shifts may force him to fight for Spain, but he will remember your generosity when he regains England’s throne.”

  He nodded. “That is what my spies suspected.”

  I held my breath. “Did he mention Hortense?”

  “I couldn’t marry Hortense to anyone who’d side with Condé against France.”

  I felt sick. I might have passed my test, but I’d betrayed a king and spoiled my sister’s chance at a crown.

  “Carnival season is almost over. When Lent begins, people will take to salons instead of balls and fêtes. They will blabber until the summer war campaigns begin. They may discuss things I need to know.” He walked up the steps. “You can expect invitations.”

  “And … the convent?”

  He didn’t turn back. “Not until the summer war campaigns begin.”

  CHAPTER 9

  I took the cardinal’s best carriage to the best quarters in Paris in the next months. At Scudéry’s, women of rank mingled with the wives of playwrights. They kissed my cheeks, studied me up and down, and I pretended I didn’t hear them whisper about me behind their fans. At Rochefoucauld’s house, he tried to get us to exchange witty maxims. But the gossip on everyone’s lips was the cardinal’s alliance with Cromwell.

  “King Charles left France.”

  “Not without asking to marry one of the Mancini girls so he wouldn’t have to go. Is it true, Marie?”

  It was. “Every man adores Hortense.”

  The women were all atwitter.

  “Well, I heard the cardinal let King Charles down easy, saying it would do the Mazarins too great an honor. Can you believe it?”

  Everyone laughed, but it was exactly what my uncle had told Hortense.

  The next gathering at Sévigné’s was no better. She brought out her astrolabe and insisted we discuss astrology. Instead, everyone turned to me and asked about Olympia. “What is the secret to her hold on King Louis?”

  Before I could think of a clever response someone said, “He visits the Hôtel de Soissons nightly.”

  Another woman threw her hands in the air. “They spend hours together in her room alone.”

  “Her new husband will get angry,” someone insisted.

  “And risk losing royal favor? Never!” insisted someone else.

  My friend Somaize finally spoke up, “It’s not royal favor her husband has to worry about, it’s the cardinal’s.” Everyone turned spiteful eyes to me.

  I shrugged. “Don’t we all?”

  They laughed, and I felt myself relax. If my uncle thinks I’ll glean secrets from these gossips, he is mistaken.

  * * *

  Weeks later the gossip was entirely different.

  An excitable young woman fluttered her fan so hard I thought her wig would blow off. “King Louis only goes to the Hôtel de Soissons out of courtesy now. Last night he invited Anne-Lucie de La Motte d’Argencourt to dine with him, and they played cards for money late into the night.”

  Another lady rolled her eyes to the heavens. “You call that juicy on-dit?”

  The young woman put down her fan. “When she ran out of money, Mademoiselle d’Argencourt bet her partlet and lost it.” A collective gasp went up around the salon.

  Mine may have been the loudest. Modest ladies and old-fashioned women wore such collars from neck to décolletage. “Did King Louis actually take it?”

  The woman shrugged. The ladies placed wagers of their own. Most bet d’Argencourt would be in the king’s bed before Lent was over.

  Later that night, I crept into the cardinal’s study. “We have a problem named d’Argencourt.”

  He rifled through a casket of papers and waved me away without a word.

  * * *

  But the next week, when I returned to Palais Mazarin from a salon one evening, the cardinal met me in my antechamber. He handed me a tiny pearl ring. “Take this to Olympia with my compliments. Tell her I said to make the king forget d’Argencourt.”

  “I tried to warn you.”

  He frowned. “D’Argencourt’s mother made it clear she would allow the girl to become the king’s maîtresse-en-titre. In exchange for a fortune.”

  I cringed. “How far has it gone?”

  “That’s what you’re going to determine.”

  Moréna peeped out from the front door, and I signaled her to join me. In the carriage she freshened my rouge and dotted perfume to my wrists and neck. At the Hôtel de Soissons, Olympia ha
d spared no expense on entertaining the king. A great bonfire burned in the middle of the courtyard, and liveried footmen lined the stairs to the front entrance. The cardinal’s page announced me to the musketeers guarding the front hall, and they broke rank for me to pass.

  Olympia sat in a chair by the fireplace in her state bedchamber, arms crossed. King Louis had his elbow propped on the mantel above her. Soissons stood nearby wearing a purposefully indifferent expression.

  King Louis looked thoroughly bored, but smiled when I curtsied. “Have you come to demand Jerusalem Delivered? I confess I haven’t finished reading it.”

  “Next week,” I said with a wink, and he laughed. I presented the ring to Olympia. “A gift from the cardinal.”

  She frowned at it, then caught my eye. She knew she was in trouble. “What news? Is the old cardinal’s gout worse? Or did my spell to make it worse fail?”

  “Olympia!” I glanced at King Louis. “You don’t know spells.” I couldn’t believe she would say such a thing in front of him.

  “Oh, I was jesting.” She tossed the ring aside. “Give him my thanks and my love and whatever else you think he wants.”

  King Louis cleared his throat. “I will allow the two of you time.”

  “You just got here.” Olympia sounded angry.

  Soissons backed from the chamber. I felt sympathy for Olympia’s cuckolded husband.

  The king looked torn. “There’s gambling at the Louvre.”

  “What are you going to do? Try to get that d’Argencourt girl to wager her skirts this time? She’s not so stupid that she’ll drop them for less than half your kingdom.”

  I wanted to clap a hand over Olympia’s mouth.

  “If you degrade her, I will leave.”

  Olympia turned away. “Go, then. You’ll be begging to get up my own skirts again soon enough.”

  He rolled his eyes to the heavens, then bowed to me, an honor he wasn’t required to bestow. “Next week,” he said, and slipped from the chamber.

  Olympia frowned. “What is this next week nonsense?”

  “He’s been returning my book next week for several months now.” I paused. “His Eminence will be angry.”