The Rivals of Versailles: A Novel (The Mistresses of Versailles Trilogy)

by Sally Christie

  His Majesty is still greatly saddened by the departure of our dear Madame Infanta. She leaves behind an empty space, on the large side, that cannot be easily filled. Do send all news you have of her, that I might share it with him. We did hear that one of her ladies, the Comtesse de Narbonne, was brought to the bed of a boy. His Majesty, always wishing to commend his subjects, sent the Duchesse a fine pearl choker as a gesture of his admiration.

  A dinner party last night; a bat came down through the chimney and there was much shrieking and fear—Frannie slipped off her chair and sprained her wrist, poor dear—but then the Maréchal de Noailles killed it with his sword. There was much hilarity, and puns comparing the Austrians to bats. If you had been here I am sure you would have thought of something very witty and spontaneous to add. How we miss you!

  We are all eagerly awaiting the dauphine’s confinement—will this year be the glory of France?

  Ever in friendship,

  J

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “I heard the Marquise had a sore throat yesterday,” whispers Alexandrine, the Marquise de Belzunce, and the only one of Mesdames’ ladies who has made any effort to be civil. “And a cough.”

  “It is true,” I say airily. Madame Adélaïde may still despise me but my proximity to the Marquise has gained me some friends. “A trifle sore and dry, but my aunt prescribed a most excellent tonic of peppermint and lead.”

  “I would recommend mercury water,” says Alexandrine. “My sister was stricken with a swollen throat, and the doctors prescribed thus.”

  “Was she cured?” I ask.

  “No, she died,” replies Alexandrine, turning away to congratulate the old Duc de Luynes, who has just won the round by betting on the 2. “The number of times he has scromped his wife,” she whispers back in a malicious hiss.

  We are at a cavagnole party in the Queen’s Apartments. The game is a hundred years old—the average age of the courtiers in attendance, I note sourly—and completely stale. The family sit and play, along with a few courtiers; those who are not at the table may watch or circulate as they please. My mother informs me that comète is fashionable now, at least in Paris, but change comes slowly to Versailles, I think grimly: a thin trickle of water through a crack in the wall, firmly plugged by tradition.

  Mesdames don’t gamble but sit with their mother, Henriette looking as though she has been crying all day and Adélaïde jingling a bag of coins in a manner designed entirely to annoy.

  The crowds shuffle and a new party sits down. I pick at a loose thread on my sleeve, then see to my horror that the entire lace flounce is unraveling. Drat my woman Julie—she is entirely unsuited to the exigencies of palace life; I shall write to my mother tomorrow and demand a replacement. Or perhaps that is now my husband’s concern? I’m sure he would be appreciative of my fashion woes. To hide my disintegrating sleeve I move to the window and stare out at the night.

  Court can be exciting—so many new faces, so many new men—but the weeks I must be in attendance on Mesdames are rather dull. The only intrigue comes from helping Henriette in her secret correspondence with the Duc de Chartres—I have shown her how to skillfully slice the seal off a letter, then reseal it with a dob of clear wax, spread with a small knife; how to reply in miniature code at the upper-right corner, where any swain worth his salt will know to look. I also suggested she embroider one of her garters with something to remind her of her love, though the chances of any man ever seeing Henriette’s thigh are very dim—the princesses are ferociously guarded.

  But apart from such small reliefs, service is a dreadful routine of ceremonies, Mass, formal meals, too much standing, and too many dull afternoons, supposedly earmarked for pleasure but rather more focused on outlandish pursuits like learning Greek or algebra.

  But when my duties are over—well. I was invited to sup last week with the young Duchesse de Chartres; she is a princess of the blood yet a kindred spirit flows between us. At our intimate meal in her town house we were served by a particularly handsome footman and as he turned to leave she winked at me and held up two fingers—twice.

  On the days when I am free I sometimes walk down by the canals where the more informal young people of Court and town go. I wear a veil and indulge in some harmless flirtation. It’s all rather free, even more so than in Paris, where my mother did occasionally try to keep me in the house. Just yesterday I met a very handsome young man, one of the handlers in the kennel. Not the Governor of the Kennels, unfortunately, but he told me his name was Pierre and that he knew how to make bitches squeal.

  I blush at the memory. Of course, such dalliances are common, for I am constantly pursued by men of all classes and stations. Even the humblest footman cannot help but admire me if I open my eyes wide and smile.

  “It is a dark night,” says a voice beside me, cutting through my daydreams and bringing me back to the dullness of the queen’s card party. I am about to make a cutting remark about nights often, if not always, being dark, when I see in the window reflection who is beside me.

  Oh.

  “Monsieur,” I say, dropping down in a deep curtsy. The dauphin looks and even smells like pudding—extraordinary. Could he be soft all over? “It is indeed dark outside. Black as the night, in fact.”

  “You are not playing?”

  “No, I am not.”

  There is a silence. Before he can remark that the window has glass, I take a bolder step: “Your coat is very fine, Monsieur. What a nice shade of . . . um . . . brown.” I reach over and twiddle one of the buttons. No one is watching us; no one ever watches the dauphin.

  He blushes but it is less of a blush than a look of intense stupid surprise that blooms over his face and squishes his eyes.

  “You have beautiful hands,” he says finally, in the voice of one being strangled.

  “Oh, thank you! They are very white. And I have fingers.” I wiggle them for his benefit and lean a little closer.

  “Yes—fingers,” says the dauphin, now sounding as though his fat throat has entirely closed over.

  “Ferdie!” His wife waddles over. She is past her due date and has been allowed out of bed in the hopes that movement may induce labor. I shudder; when I am pregnant I shall not waddle around like an obese duck, but take to my rooms and spare others the pain of looking at me.

  Though married for nearly four years already, the dauphine has only managed two stillborn sons and one daughter to replace the daughter of the first dauphine, dead a few years ago. So, almost four years and still no son and heir; the Saxons are as disappointing as the Spanish.

  She leads the dauphin away and I remain by the window. What was that? Was that his attempt at flirting? Astonishing. Finally the queen announces she is tired and will retire—the old Cardinal de Luynes startles awake and before he can remember where he is, commands everyone to open their Bibles to Genesis, verse 2.

  After Mesdames’ couchée, Alexandrine leads me to her cousin’s rooms for the real entertainment of the night. To my astonishment my husband is there, his horn in one hand.

  I am suddenly happy to see him. “Play for us, oh, play for us, dear François!” I cry, clapping my hands. He obliges and starts a mournful dirge that promptly puts two members of the group to sleep, the lovely young Comtesse de Forcalquier—the one they call the Marvelous Mathilde—snoring with the slack mouth of a whore.

  I tap my foot and study my husband, marveling at the way melancholy flows off him. A footman comes to pour me more champagne and I note with appreciation his deep blue eyes and handsome mouth. Then I realize by his dress and manners that he is not a servant, and I smile even wider. He is wearing an extravagant red coat, with a sword in the new curved style.

  “You are very beautiful, Madame.”

  I incline my head. Bold, but his words are true. “And who has the pleasure of serving me tonight?”

  He executes a sweeping bow, still balancing the champagne bottle in one hand. “The Chevalier de Bissy, Madame. Of the family of Bissy.”<
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  “What would you say,” I ask him, suddenly desperate for some firm flirting, “if I wiggled my fingers at you like this?”

  I mimic the motion that had so entranced the dauphin earlier.

  “I would say, my fair lady, that you are flexing the fonts of desire, ready to coax the genie from the bottle.”

  Ah. Now, those are sweet words of love.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  A son at last, a little Duke of Burgundy, an heir for his father and grandfather: the future Louis XVII. The whole Court is in celebration, and it is rumored that the Marquise fainted with happiness when she heard the news. My nascent flirtation with the dauphin—despite my Aunt Elisabeth’s advice, I was intrigued—disappears in the joy surrounding the birth.

  The country does not appear to share in the jubilation. At the official celebration ceremonies in Paris, the king was booed and the reception chilly. The birth of their future king, yet the faces in the crowd sullen and angry!

  Despite the economies that are supposed to be happening at Court, a lavish ball to celebrate the birth is held. The ball is extravagant: the food beyond compare, the company select, the rooms draped with hundreds of blue and green lanterns. The Marquise decided it would not be masked, declaring such balls an extravagance not needed in this time of fiscal restraint, but everyone knows it’s because she doesn’t want a luscious Pineapple or masked slinky Cat flirting with the king.

  Back in the bosom of his family, the dauphin is beaming like a bourgeois and quite ignores me. I am not too disappointed: Aunt Elisabeth repeated again that he will never take an official mistress and that I am quite wasting my time. But still, the walls of a challenge are irresistible. How fascinating it would be to capture a future king and not just some unimportant courtier. Or dog handler.

  At the ball I meet my husband’s cousin Étienne, the Comte de Stainville. My husband admires him and says he is the future of the family, but I instantly dislike him. He has a bulbous nose and bulging eyes and brings to mind a deformed fish, something blobby that lives on a riverbed and rarely sees sunlight. One so unappealing should really limit his social interactions. His wife is the granddaughter of a common financier, and surprisingly both she and the Princesse de Robecq are rumored to be wildly in love with him.

  “Madame la Comtesse de Choiseul-Beaupré,” Stainville says, bowing low over my hand. “Cousin. I trust married life is treating you well?”

  I incline my head.

  “My dear cousin François was most certainly in need of a wife,” he says lightly, then moves away rather abruptly. I sense his disapproval, though I don’t know why he would disapprove of me. Never mind, he is so inconsequential he scarcely exists.

  The Marquise is looking, if possible, slightly frayed, and everyone is interested to see the king rather ignoring her. Despite his delight in his heir, he was shocked by the reception in Paris and as the evening progresses he sinks into a dark and melancholic mood. “His black blankets, we call them,” Aunt Elisabeth tells me. “Because they cover him and everyone else in gloom.”

  The Marquise is entertaining a group with a tale about a fortune-teller in Paris. In the middle of her story the king walks by and says rather loudly, “And what old wives’ tale is she telling now?”

  “In fact, Sire,” says the Marquise lightly, smiling at him, “it is a tale about an old wife. Madame d’Angerville must have at least eighty years on her, and when she went with her husband—”

  Irritation oozing off his face, the king turns away in mid-sentence and stalks off.

  “—was quite able to predict the unfortunate accident,” finishes the Marquise quickly, and smiles at the audience that remains. A hush goes through the room and all eyes follow the king as he stalks through the crowds, grimly drinking his champagne and looking as though he would like to push someone.

  Suddenly, no one can talk of anything else:

  “Public humiliation—it’s about time. Any fool can see he’s tired of her. As we all are.”

  “This whole friendship charade—looking shakier than the old Cardinal de Luynes’ fingers.”

  In a corner of the Hercules Salon, I gather a crowd of admirers around me: Bissy, as attentive as always; two footmen plying me with the finest champagne; the middle-aged Comte de Livry smiling at me lavishly; a smattering of other courtiers. I am in a fine mood; my mother sent me two bolts of apple-green silk from Paris, and Alexandrine’s dressmaker made me the most delightful gown, the color setting my eyes to perfection. I am having a wonderful time. In the distance I see my husband, deep in conversation with the Duc d’Harcourt.

  “A plate of cherries!” I say to Bissy, and he smiles for he knows what is coming. A footman is dispatched, then returns with a large dish of fresh cherries. I show the crowd a trick I practiced when I was young: tying the cherry stems in knots with my tongue. There is much ribaldry and clapping as I spit out each perfect knot.

  “A talented tongue, indeed!” someone cries in the crowd, and I curtsy, then almost topple over. I find if I drink more, I can often overcome the dizziness that happens earlier in the evening. “More champagne,” I whisper to Bissy, who rushes to oblige.

  Then the king appears, holding a plate of brandy butter pears in one hand, a glass of champagne in the other. He looks a little flushed and is leaning on the Marquis de Gontaut, who is propelling him to my side. I pop in another cherry stem and the king watches in delight as I produce, on the tip of my tongue, the perfect knot.

  I also spy Stainville and the great Duc de Richelieu, inching closer to the crowd around me. Stainville wears a look of opaque contempt but I am pleased to see that Richelieu, a man who has studiously looked right through me since my arrival at Court, appears intrigued.

  “Try this one, my dear,” the king says. He throws me the heavy stem of one of his pears, which I deftly catch with my mouth. I keep my eyes on him while I struggle with the thick stem but eventually I have to give up. I sink to my knees laughing, the crowd cheering around me. “It is too thick!” I wail. “Too large for my mouth!”

  The king laughs and offers me his hand to help me up. As I rise I look into his eyes and suddenly see that he is rather handsome, and probably still would be, without all the wine.

  Was I aiming too low with the dauphin?

  The Marquise sidles up, seemingly unbowed by the earlier snub.

  “Rosalie is such a high-spirited girl,” she says warmly, squeezing the king’s arm and smiling at me. “And how thoughtful of you to help the dear girl off the floor, when it is quite clear she is incapable of doing it herself. What a delight she is.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  We are in my aunt’s rooms, one of the better apartments of Versailles. The least the Marquise could do, my aunt often complains, for the years of friendship she has provided her. Still, there is no kitchen and the rooms overlook only a narrow courtyard that rarely gets any sun. “I would have far preferred a set with its own water fountain,” Aunt often complains. “As it is, Émilie has to beg from the Matignons or rely on those wretched water boys.”

  My cousin Stainville and his distasteful blobby nose, as well as the Duc de Richelieu, are gathered in the apartment with us. The powerful minister of war, the Comte d’Argenson, is also in attendance. Argenson is often by my aunt’s side these days; I shudder to think they are courting. When I am old and ugly, I shall give up making love as a service of general interest so that others don’t have to consider me.

  Aunt Elisabeth informs me this is a family meeting, though my husband does not attend, nor the Marquis de Gontaut, nor the Duc de Biron, by rights the head of the family.

  I know why these great men are here and accordingly wear my most becoming robe, the bodice low and pinned with a fichu that is the merest slip of an idea, a nominal nod to virtue. My stays push up my breasts as though willing them to escape the confines of the gown, and I note that Argenson can scarcely keep his eyes off my chest.

  “Rosalie, my dear, tell our honored guests what passed
between you and the king at the concert yesterday.” Aunt Elisabeth smiles at the assembled men.

  I incline my head and take a deep breath. I will not be nervous; these powerful men—Stainville excepted—must know that I am strong of heart and mind. I note with satisfaction that they are looking at me, and not in the way men usually look at unimportant women, with a glance that passes over them and slides quickly out the next door. I remember again Stainville’s look of opaque contempt at the ball—now he must see I am worth something.

  Aunt has warned me to curb my arrogance: even a hint of arrogance in a female, she says, is perceived as badly as bare breasts in church. This is something the Marquise taught her and she grudgingly has to admit she is right. Men and color combinations—no one knows them better than the Marquise. And possibly intrigue.

  “Well, sirs, it was a small gathering, a select one, do note”—none of these three men was invited—“and after the piece was finished—Destouches, a trifle bold for my tastes—the king declared he was tired of sitting and would walk awhile. He asked me to accompany him, asked me directly, I must add, and without the approval of the Marquise. She hid her emotions well, but I am sure she was quite horrified when she saw us leave the room. The king and I”—that does have a nice ring to it—“walked the length of the Hall of Mirrors, twice; we chatted to the Comte de Matignon, who recently lost his favorite dog, and kindly greeted the Princesse de Rohan. We returned to the gathering at length and there the Marquise sought to introduce us to the cellist; it is my opinion that the king was not interested and only greeted the man out of politeness.”

  After I finish, the men discuss me amongst themselves, occasionally posing me a question. They don’t ask about my husband, and they don’t ask about Bissy, or Pierre either, and for that I am grateful. They would never understand—Pierre is a dog handler—and I myself don’t fully understand it. I simply put it down to a weakness inspired by the full moon and the change of seasons, which can lead even the most sage-headed man—or woman—to folly.