by Rita Monaldi
"As I think I have already mentioned to you, I was part of that expedition which played an important role in the history of Europe," said Atto with ill-concealed pride.
On the 13th and 14th the Mazarinettes went to greet the King and his mother who were passing through those parts. Although they all spent the night in the same palace, Maria and Louis were not permitted so much as to exchange one word. And he, the King, put up with this in silence.
"It was then that the thought crossed my mind: His Majesty will never be any better than that weakling of a father of his, Louis XIII! The Cardinal can sleep quietly in his bed…" said Atto scornfully.
It was on that very occasion, when the young King was mounting his horse to continue the journey, that Melani was the bearer of a most secret letter from Maria: the last farewell.
"No one but me has ever known of the existence of that letter. It was long and heart-rending. I shall never forget the words with which it ended."
Atto recited from memory:
Des pointes de fer affreuses, herissees, terribles, vont etre entre Vous et moi. Mes larmes, mes sanglots font trembler ma main. Mon imagination se trouble, je ne puis plus ecrire. Je ne sgais ce que je dis. A Dieu, Seigneur, le peu de vie qui me reste ne se soutiendra que par mes souvenirs. O souvenirs charmants! Que ferez vous de moy, que feray je de vous? Jeperds la raison. Adieu, Seigneur, pour la derniere fois.'*
"And this was truly her last farewell to their love," he concluded.
"But," I suggested, "did you secretly read that letter?" "Eh?" murmured Atto, embarrassed. "Silence, and do not interrupt me."
While I laughed inwardly at having caught Melani out (it was clear that he had taken a discreet look at Maria's letter before delivering it to the King), the latter continued his narration.
Mazarin strove to persuade Maria to accept the proposal of marriage from the Constable Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna, a member of the noble and most ancient Roman family which the Cardinal's own father had served. Mazarin himself had served Filippo Colonna, Lorenzo Onofrio's grandfather. It had been Filippo Colonna who had dissuaded Mazarin from marrying the daughter of an obscure notary with whom he had fallen in love and who had instead set him on the way of the soutane — the prelature — wherein he had, as his patron had predicted, found great good fortune. The young King's way seemed thus to be traced by and modelled on that of the Cardinal, who pitilessly bestowed on his ward the broken web of his own destiny.
In order to persuade Maria to have herself married off to Lorenzo Onofrio, Mazarin was prepared to make concessions. Maria then requested to be allowed to return to Paris at once. Thus she did return to the capital. There, however, her uncle ordered her to be immured in his house. Destiny, however, so arranged matters that, while the Cardinal was busy elsewhere * Awful iron spikes, bristling and terrible, will stand between you and me. My tears, my sobs, cause my hand to tremble. My imagination clouds over, I can write no longer. I know not what I say. Adieu, my Lord, the little life that remains to me will be sustained only by memories. O charming memories! What will you make of me, what shall I make of you? I am losing my reason. Adieu, my Lord, for the last time. in France, Maria and her sisters had to leave the Palais Mazarin because of some rebuilding works. And where did they take up lodgings? In the Louvre, in the Cardinal's own apartments, while the latter learned the news in letters from one of his informants and was unable to do anything about it.
In the Louvre, Maria was once again the object of new, unexpected intrigues: she was passionately courted and received a proposal of marriage from the heir to the Duchy of Lorraine, Charles, the future hero of the Battle of Vienna. He was an eighteen-year- old, handsome, enterprising and brimming with ardour. She was prepared to marry him, far preferring him to Colonna, whom she had never seen and who would lock her up in Italy, where a husband's power over his wife was absolute. Mazarin, however, finding all manner of pretexts, vehemently refused. He feared that, even married, Maria would still be dangerous in Paris.
Meanwhile, preparations were proceeding for the marriage between Louis and the Infanta of Spain. There were seven months of negotiations and preliminaries before the ceremony could take place, in two stages, as required by custom, on either side of the frontier (all sovereigns being forbidden to set foot in the neighbouring kingdom, since that would be equivalent to a declaration of war).
The first act of the treaty was the solemn renunciation of her hereditary rights to the throne of Spain pronounced by the Infanta Maria Teresa. On the following day, still on Spanish soil, the proxy marriage was celebrated with the Most Christian King. Louis was represented here by Don Luis de Haro, the Spanish negotiator. No Frenchman was admitted, except for Louis's witness, Zongo Ondedei, Bishop of Frejus and Mazarin's evil genius.
Anne of Austria and the Cardinal could not bear the delay. A thousand times they had repeated to Louis that his Spanish fiancee was beautiful, far more beautiful than Maria Mancini. It was thus essential that she really should be beautiful. Madame de Motteville, a lady in waiting to Queen Anne and Mademoiselle de Montpensier, a cousin of the King, were therefore sent incognito on a mission: to evaluate the bride's womanly qualities.
On their return to the French camp on the frontier, they knew they would have to answer only one question: "Well, what is she like?"
"They did all they could to appear satisfied," Atto laughed derisively, "but it was enough to look at their faces, their drawn smiles, their assumed expressions… We knew the truth at once."
"In fact, she does not seem to be very tall: on the contrary, somewhat on the small side. To put it briefly, she's short," they confessed in unison. "But she is quite well made. Her eyes are not too small, her nose is not too big," they forced themselves to say, the one interrupting the other. "Her forehead is, in truth, somewhat ungarnished," a roundabout way of saying that the spouse was bald in the temples and her hair anything but orderly.
Madame de Motteville concluded brazenly: "If she had more regular teeth, she would be one of the most beautiful women in Europe." Mademoiselle de Montpensier, more scrupulous, seeing that very soon everyone would be able to judge the Infanta with their own eyes, allowed herself to let slip, "It hurts one to look at her." Then she hurriedly corrected herself, explaining that she was referring to that horrible coiffure and to the "monstrous machine": the enormous farthingale into which Maria Teresa's poor little body was forced.
"At that point, we were all terrified by how Louis might react on the next day, when he saw the Infanta for the first time."
"And what happened?"
"Nothing of what we feared. At the meeting with his future bride, he went through the ceremonial like a perfect actor. Under his mother's doting eyes, he followed her innumerable recommendations and acted out the ritual part of the lovelorn suitor consumed with impatience, as is the custom at royal weddings. He even galloped rather gallantly along the riverside, with hat in hand, following the bride's boat. Louis was splendid, so manly and ardent on his steed, and sent poor Maria Teresa into ecstasies.
Abbot Melani adjusted the buckle of one shoe, then the other, after which he raised his eyes to heaven.
"Poor wretched Infanta," he murmured. "And what a wretch, he."
By that impeccable conduct, Louis was striving to obey the exhortations of the Queen Mother: to silence the heart and lock his senses in a drawer. He venerated his mother and was confident that she and the Cardinal had made the best choice for him. Such was the outcome of the inexperience of life and love to which the pair had condemned him. Yet, from the moment he saw his bride, he began silently to be consumed by the worm of doubt and suspicion, the burning fear of having been deceived.
From that moment on, the fire within him burned down to cold ash. The young Sovereign's face gave nothing away, nor did his actions or words, although a thousand eyes watched and a thousand ears listened at every moment. It was not possible to detect any weakening in the man who, at barely twelve years of age, surprised by the fury of the populace during the
Fronde uprising had, when on the point of fleeing the royal palace with his mother, gone to bed still dressed and managed not to open an eye all night, while the furious mob passed near his feet, silenced only by a sacrosanct respect for the innocent sleep of the boy King. What would have happened if someone had raised the coverlets a little and seen the deception?
To his companions who, after the visit to Maria Teresa, went to him in the hope of persuading him to open his heart, asking him what was his impression of the Infanta, he replied simply: "Ugly." And not another word could be got out of him.
"Who knows how much he was suffering," I ventured.
"Because his future wife was not as he expected her to be? No, not as much as you think. For him that changed little or nothing. He was awakening to the fact that his heart was not docilely following his mother's reassurances, as he had for a time wanted to believe. He had been warmed by the sun of a fine pair of black eyes, lost in the heather scent of Maria's wild brown hair, enchanted by her witty barbs and silvery laughter."
Nothing of this showed in the King's behaviour during the nuptial celebrations and festivities, except one single detail: for the liveries at the reception, Louis chose the colours of Maria's family crest.
He absolved his first conjugal duty without batting an eyelid, but on the very next day, with the court by now journeying back to the capital, the King abandoned his bride for two days. Where did he go? No one voiced the least allusion to this, but everyone knew: Louis suddenly made a deviation from the planned route and galloped towards Brouage, the castle where Maria had stayed in the Charentes, a region where she is still fondly remembered. At Brouage, Louis wept by the seashore. He asked to be shown the bed in which she had passed the night without closing an eye.
"But if no one spoke of this, as you yourself have said, how come you know all these details?" I asked in astonishment.
"In that chamber, Maria's bedchamber, I myself saw him. I had come with others on the orders of His Eminence. We found him overcome by a sort of agony. He was, I thought, like an image of the Deposition: the blankets torn from the couch, and he, crouching in a corner under the window, trembling with pain in the cold dawn of the Charentes."
We again took the avenue leading to the courtyard before the entrance, crossing it from end to end, accompanied by the murmur of the fountain at its centre; Atto measured the space with slow and measured paces.
"At Brouage, Louis at last tore his heart from his breast. There he wept all the tears he had to weep; there he bade farewell to love forever, without knowing that in so doing he was saying farewell to himself, to that quiet and calm self which I had known and appreciated, and which was now lost forever. I shall never forget him. The face which looked up at me was that of a pillar of salt under the grey light of that dawn at Brouage. That was the last act. The rest is… a morass."
"A morass?"
"Yes. The slow sinking of that love, its weary agony, the painful series of attempts by the King to forget Maria."
Back in Paris with his Spanish bride, Maria Teresa, who knew nothing of all this, Louis was informed by the perfidious Countess of Soissons that the young and passionate Charles of Lorraine was courting Maria amiably and probably with success. The King grew furious with Maria, despised her, mistreated her. She in her turn grew cold; then he returned to the fold and began to visit her at the Palais Mazarin in the rue des Petits Champs.
"In other words, just in front of my present home," said Atto with calculated nonchalance. "And the courtiers, led by those two gossips Madame de La Fayette and Madame de Motteville, who still detested Maria out of envy, insinuated that Louis was going there more for the beauty of Ortensia, the youngest of the Mancini girls, than for love of Maria."
"Was that true?"
"What did it matter? Louis XIVwas now married. The promises had been broken, the dream had vanished. Only a year before the lovelorn couple competed with poetic verses, now they went for one another with barbed, venomous remarks. They had become the eidolon, the phantasms of themselves. They had let life slip away from them, and the loss was final."
"Excuse me, Signor Atto, but you mentioned the Countess de Soissons?" I asked, wanting to be certain of the name.
"Yes, so you know her?" replied Atto with irony, irritated by my interruption. "Now listen and keep silent."
So I did keep silent, but my thoughts were straying elsewhere, to the letter from Maria in which she had spoken of the dangerous poisoner, the mysterious Countess of S., the memory of whom was so painful to the Connestabilessa. Was she perhaps this Soissons? The Abbot's tale, however, was already galloping on its way and distracted me from my reflections.
It was in the year between the marriage with Maria Teresa and the death of Mazarin, explained Melani, that Louis understood his error, and what was more tragic, that there was no remedy for it. His mother's prophecies had not come true: happiness had not come. But there could be no turning back.
"All or nothing — that was the King of France. And still is. Maria was his all and they took her from him. Since then Louis has been nothing."
"What do you mean?"
"The dissolution, the destruction, the systematic and deliberate dismantling of the monarchy and of the figure of the King himself."
With a grimace, I betrayed my dissent. Was not Louis XIV the Most Christian King of France, not the most feared sovereign in Europe?
I did not contradict Atto. Other thoughts were racing through my mind.
"Signor Atto, what has all this to do with the apparitions of Superintendent Fouquet and Maria Mancini?"
"It has indeed plenty to do with them. Louis was almost twenty-two years old in 1660, when he married Maria Teresa. He was still an indecisive, inexpert young man, incapable of opposing Mazarin and his mother. Barely one year later, as you well know, he celebrated his twenty-third birthday on 5th September by having poor Nicolas arrested; then he imprisoned him for life in the remote fortress of Pinerol, inflicting a thousand torments on him. Now, I ask you, how is it possible that the timid, dreaming young man he had been twelve months before should have suddenly become such a fury?"
"The answer, in your opinion, is the loss of Maria Mancini," I anticipated him, "yet the meaning of the two scenes we have just witnessed still remains obscure to me."
"What you and I saw a little while ago? Nicolas handing a purse full of money to Maria. And, in their first apparition, Maria saying: 'I shall be grateful to you for the rest of my life. You are my truest friend.' Well, you should know that today's apparition explains why Maria expressed those words of affection and gratitude to Fouquet."
"Meaning?"
"I shall take it step by step. When Cardinal Mazarin died, Maria found herself unable to obtain payment of her own dowry from the universal successor to His Eminence's fortune, that dangerous madman the Due de la Meilleraye, the husband of her sister Ortensia. This was a painful situation, because apart from that money, Maria possessed absolutely nothing. She went for help to Fouquet, who had admired her and valued her company since her arrival at court. And it was directly owing to the
Superintendent's timely intercession that Maria at last gained her dowry from her brother-in-law."
"So that bag of coins and all those papers were Maria's dowry?"
"Yes, the papers will have been letters of exchange or things of that sort."
"So that is why Maria, as we saw on our first visit here, said to Fouquet: 'I shall be grateful to you for the rest of my life. You are my truest friend.'" I concluded with passion.
I realised at that moment that the Abbot and I were now talking about these visions as though they were utterly normal phenomena.
"Signor Atto, it seems almost as though the facts which you are narrating to me here in the Vessel are actually congregating in this very place and… they are in fact restoring the past to life."
"The past, the past, if only it were more simple," groaned Atto with a sigh. "That past never happened."
I was shocked
.
"That meeting between Fouquet and Maria about the dowry, and even Maria Mancini's thanks to Fouquet are not just the manifestation of some past event, do you understand? For it was not thus that Fouquet delivered her dowry to Maria, nor did she ever pronounce those words to the Superintendent."
"How can you be sure of that?" I asked dubiously.
"Because Maria wrote those very words of thanks and esteem in a letter which, moreover, the Superintendent never read: the letter was intercepted by Colbert, who had already plotted Fou- quet's downfall, with the King's complicity. As you know, when the news of Fouquet's arrest came, Maria and I were already in Rome; I received the dreadful news in a note from my friend de Lionne, one of His Majesty's ministers.
"And the dowry?"
"Likewise. Maria was already on the point of leaving for Italy, driven from Paris and destined to wed Constable Colonna by the Cardinal's will, albeit posthumous: the dowry was sent directly to Rome, such was the haste of the Queen Mother and the court to be rid of her."
"In other words, the Superintendent never gave Maria her dowry in person, nor could he ever have heard or even read those words: 'I shall be grateful to you for the rest of my life. You are my truest friend.'"
"Exactly."
"So we have then witnessed two events which never took place."
"That is not quite correct, or rather, it is incomplete. If Maria had not been driven from Paris, if Fouquet had not been arrested, then they might perhaps have been able to meet: he would have delivered in person that legacy of her uncle's and she would have expressed those thanks directly to him. Maria's departure was, moreover, a matter of great pain to Nicolas, who foresaw the disastrous consequences to which it would sooner or later lead; even if he, I think, could not imagine that he would be the first victim of the new King's vengeance arising from the ashes of that love."
"So we have seen what should have happened between Maria and Fouquet if malign conspiracies had not wrecked the natural course of their lives…" I understood in a flash, while the breath stopped in my breast.
