The Enemies of Versailles

by Sally Christie

  “My honored pupils,” announces Marvette, coming into the salon, accompanied by his men carrying the tools of their trade. “We shall prepare to chart the course of Venus!” I note with satisfaction that Louis-Aug blushes suitably at the mention of Venus—so very inappropriate of the Greeks to name the planet after a female goddess associated with the immoral side of life.

  Sophie’s intransigence subsides, thank goodness—I never could determine what had caused her outburst—but now I am convinced something is happening with Louise. She is so complacent, and at peace, and her usual acerbic wit quite diminished.

  A dreadful thought swaddles itself around me and refuses to unwind: she has a lover.

  As much as I cannot countenance the idea, I become more and more convinced it is the truth. She has long been jealous, no doubt, that I am the only one amongst us with a romantic history. She is thirty-two, and though I am loath to admit it, she is still rather pretty. I find myself staring at her, noting with suspicion the serenity of her countenance, and even her apparent sincere enjoyment of our trumpet lessons, which she had hitherto resisted.

  But who?

  I corner Victoire. “We must find out what Louise is doing in the evenings!”

  “Certainly,” says Victoire, her eyes widening and starting to look flustered. “I’ll ask Civrac. What do you think she is doing?”

  “I suspect . . .” I purse my lips, then utter the dreaded words: “I suspect a man.”

  “Oh! Oh no,” breathes Victoire, her eyes popping. Civrac is instructed to glean what she can, but she only comes back with the news that Louise is praying and spending more time in the chapel.

  Unlikely, I think. Or perhaps . . . praying her sins away? My knees weaken at the thought of the scandal that would hit us were my suspicions to be true.

  Sometimes, I think glumly, watching Louise one morning at breakfast as she calmly butters her toast, it is as if the whole world is turned upside down. Prostitutes in the bed of our father; Louise’s sudden secretiveness; Sophie’s rage. Surely such a state of affairs cannot last?

  Chapter Twenty-One

  In which the Comtesse du Barry happily ensconces herself in the largest apartment in the palace

  “Oh, beautiful, beautiful!” I run through the finished rooms and stop counting after eight. Peach, yellow, pink, blue, delicate rooms of light and love. “Beautiful!”

  The Marquis de Marigny, the Director General of Buildings and the Pompadour’s brother, is proudly showing us the results of the yearlong renovation of my new apartment. In his stubborn, full-cheeked features there is no hint—at least none I can discern—of the beauty of his dead sister. Louis is relaxed and comfortable around him, and I decide I like him too.

  “Thank you, Marigny! They’re beautiful.” They call him Mariné—Marinated—but apparently he doesn’t mind. Even though he looks to be well past forty, he married only a few years ago. His wife is rumored to be one of Louis’ bastards, by a woman called Irene Filleul—Chon says she is finding so many past paramours her head is dizzy with girls. Marigny could therefore be considered Louis’ son-in-law, though Louis has never acknowledged the connection.

  Marigny bows. “I am delighted you are content, madame.”

  “More than content!” I confirm. “Now you may go.”

  “Madame?” asks Marigny, looking at the king. Louis shrugs slightly, as I have taught him.

  “Thank you, we would be alone. We have some work to do.”

  “And what work is that, Angel?” chuckles Louis after Marigny takes his leave. “Certainly, the bathing room is unfinished—you heard the man, the Tuscans are—”

  I kiss him. “No, not that kind of work, silly.” I drag him through a small door into a large reception room, sunny and pink, and explain to him the need to christen each room.

  “I like the sentiment, but there are thirteen rooms,” protests Louis with a muffled groan. He once complained, in admiration, that he had finally met his match: someone with a stronger desire than his own. “An admirable sentiment, but could we not find something a little less . . . sacrilegious than ‘christen’?”

  “Baptize?”

  “I am not joking, Angel,” he says patiently. “We must remember God can see us at all times.”

  “Of course, dearest. Bless? No wait, I’m sorry, that won’t do either, far too religious-y. How about . . .” I twirl around the room once more. “How about anoint?”

  He groans and I giggle; there is no escape.

  I pull him down beside me onto the perfectly parqueted floor. “Now, you lie back,” I say, straddling him.

  He complies, shaking his head. “I used to think this position so sacrilegious—la, all roads lead to God this morning. La!” He chuckles. “Angel, I’m even starting to talk like you! What would I do without you?”

  “La, what wouldn’t you do?”

  I love everything about my new apartment. I am seven years old and back in Frederica’s boudoir, only this is ten times more luxurious. Taffeta hangings, Turkish sofas, giant mirrors, carpets as plush as birds, rooms of intimacy and delight, scented with potpourris and fresh flowers. A nest—or a cage—for the most beautiful bird of paradise: me.

  I revel and roll on my luxurious bed, the mattress a foot thick, then get up and wander for hours through the furnished rooms, marveling at my good fortune. Since the party at Bellevue, my life at Court has become infinitely more enjoyable. Mirie is a firm friend, and the Marquise de Flavacourt was even quite pleasant to me last week over beriberi.

  When Choiseul absented himself in disgust after the dinner, the Duc d’Aiguillon took that opportunity to worm his way into the king’s favor, and is now constantly at his side. He must have been very handsome when he was younger, to have won the heart of Marie-Anne de Châteauroux, but now he has receded into middle-aged dumpiness. Nonetheless he is always full of flattery; he is quite the poet, and once even said he would like to drink my sweet nectar, were I not taken by his master.

  He tried the same line on Chon, who told him very clearly that she was not a honey farm.

  Of course there are plenty who still disdain me at every opportunity. The young Comte de Lauraguais, apparently as big a lecher as his father the duke (or so Chon tells me), brings a flower seller from Brittany to Court. He parades her around and calls her the Comtesse de la Tonnerre—the Countess of the Barrel, a pun on my name of Barry. I think it rather funny, and even stopped to greet the girl one day; she blushed and looks frightened in equal measure.

  The prank incenses Louis and he suggests to young Lauraguais that he spend some time in England, and immediately. His mother has just died and I think the punishment over-harsh, but Louis assures me I needn’t be so kindhearted—Diane was only his stepmother.

  “The Duchesse de Lauraguais, a part of my past,” Louis says sadly; she was one of the infamous Mailly-Nesle sisters rumored to have slept with him many years ago. “She was his stepmother, never had children of her own who lived, poor woman.”

  “Still . . . it seems cruel to send him away now, when he must be grieving. I know how I would feel if the monk Guimard died.”

  “Who?” asks Louis.

  “The monk Guimard,” I repeat, and explain that he is a friend of my mother’s.

  “A monk? But surely—not anything more than a friend?”

  “No, of course not!” I lie. Chon is constantly urging me to be more cautious in what I share with the king. Ma is now ensconced comfortably in a convent in Paris and I visit her quite often. It is a very aristocratic convent, and my mother is now known as Madame de Rançon de Montrabé.

  Ma greets us with a hug and treats Chon and me to a plate of chestnut-coated chicken wings fresh from the fryer. Of course she doesn’t have to prepare and sell chickens anymore, but she still enjoys cooking. The kitchen is respectfully empty for my mother, and the monk Guimard is here. I wonder, briefly, how the nuns explain his presence.

  “You know what you should do,” he says, when I tell them the story about
the Countess of the Barrel, “is take one of those high noble friends of yours, and have them pretend they’re a fishwife for a day!”

  “Oh, they’d never accept that,” says Ma.

  “Ha! You might be surprised at what they would do,” I say, delighted with his suggestion. “For the right amount of money. Chon, do you think the Maréchale de Mirepoix would consent to play a fishwife for a day if I gave her my new emerald necklace? She did so admire it last night.”

  “Don’t press your luck,” says Ma, crushing a great mound of chestnuts under her rolling pin. “Tread carefully. It’s like hens when the cock is rampant—you think they are docile, but they’re just scared into submission.”

  I take another chicken wing. “Mmm. Will you give my chef the recipe for this? I would serve them at my supper. My first supper,” I clarify, “that I will be giving in my new apartment.”

  My first supper at Versailles, I think in excitement, as a presented lady and as an accepted lady. Ma wraps up a few of the chicken wings for the ride back, and in the carriage Chon and I plan the guest list and entertainment.

  “Should I put on a play? Or have a poetry reading?” I say, a little dubiously. Mirie has told me about all the cultured entertainments Pompadour used to stage. I’ve seen her portraits—I am definitely prettier—but Mirie says she was the most elegant woman she ever had the pleasure of knowing; not a stitch wrong, not a word out of place. “She was always onstage, it seemed, some might say the essence of artifice, but at heart she was a good woman.” Mirie’s face got rather red when she talked, and it appears she genuinely cared for the woman.

  Chon shakes her head. “No, that’s not your style. Just be yourself. That’s the way the king likes you.”

  “Fine,” I say happily. “We’ll have good food, and lots of wine, and just our own wit for entertainment. Nothing else!”

  Back at Versailles, Louis greets me with the news that he has found the perfect house for me: Louveciennes, the palace of the young Princesse de Lamballe, widowed last year.

  “Syphilis, and advanced,” whispers Chon. “Heard it from the princesse’s own reader.”

  “The princesse has syphilis?” I say in astonishment, thinking of her angelic face, perfect nose, and extreme piety; she crosses herself every time she sees me.

  “No, not the princesse, silly,” whispers back Chon. “Her husband had it. Though of course . . .”

  “Well, it sounds lovely,” I say to Louis, feeding him one of the wings we saved from the carriage ride. I riffle through the floor plans unrolled on a table. “But how does Madame de Lamballe feel about me taking her house?” The princess only arrived last year, from Italy, and is constantly weeping. Very sad about her dead husband, or relieved—one can never tell which.

  “So charming, charming, my dear, always concerned for others, above yourself,” says Louis, taking me in his arms.

  “Don’t be,” hisses Chon when we are alone again. “The Princesse de Lamballe isn’t concerned for you, and never will be, so why should you care about her? And Louveciennes is perfect—my source tells me it has wonderful gardens, and is most conveniently placed—just over an hour from Versailles.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  In which Madame Adélaïde considers an interesting proposition

  My dreams are so vivid and intense, and so interesting, that I cannot help but look to them for inspiration. It is a flaw I have prayed long and hard against, but still I dream. Last night I dreamed of a giant blue egg, a robin’s, I suppose, that rolled over and then . . . I can’t remember much else.

  Choiseul, his disapproval sufficiently registered, returns to Court to oversee preparations for our new dauphine’s impending arrival. When he seeks another audience with me, I acquiesce graciously. These days, old rivalries are best forgotten as all join in common cause against our enemy.

  This time his sister accompanies him; the man is gallantry personified.

  I nod to Beatrice, who sinks down in a stiff curtsy. We are close in age, but she is most unattractive and I believe looks far older than I.

  “I have a plan, my dear ladies, to defeat our common enemy. I must seek your approval and help in its implementation,” says Choiseul, after the pleasantries have been exchanged.

  I nod my head in perfect understanding.

  Beatrice nods as well. “Yes, we are in need of a fresh plan, for that woman’s hold shows no sign of lessening. I heard she does exercises, down there,” she hisses, and shakes her head in disgust. I too look suitably aghast, though I have scant idea what she is talking about.

  “She has tried hard to win my approval,” continues Choiseul, “but it is not to be had. She even tried using my nephew Lauzun to intercede with me.” I sneak a peek at Beatrice, rumored to have been the young man’s lover, but she seems unflustered at the mention. Unflustered! “She wanted him to plead her case. Needless to say, I was unmoved.”

  As he orates on I think what an odd-looking man he is; such a lumpy nose. He caused a scandal last month by attending the state council with no wig or powder, his orange hair showing for all the world to see! Modern and radical, I think with a shudder, wondering what my dear brother would think were he to see me now, chatting away with this man he once called a liberal lecher.

  Such a pity the man is an atheist and freethinker who tries to compromise with Parlement, that body that so vexes my father. Choiseul even considers himself proud to be progressive—as though that were a good thing! Had he been on the right path, he might have done much for France, for by all accounts he is a capable man and my father thinks highly of him. And he is, of course, of superior birth; in recent years there has been a distressing trend for the Nobility of the Robe, the newer nobility who generally assume the lower ranks of administration, to ascend to the highest government positions in the land—I think of men like Maurepas and Argenson, and shudder. But Choiseul: his family traces its roots to 1215, and I know he jealously guards the prerogatives of the ancient Nobility of the Sword.

  “—and no matter how many overtures, I shall never consort with that woman,” he continues grimly.

  “Certainly, brother,” agrees Beatrice, and their look of mutual admiration makes me almost choke, though I am not eating. I have heard the rumors—I did not understand them at first, and had scolded both Victoire and Civrac for spreading such calumny, entirely contrary to nature. I must make sure Sophie doesn’t hear of those rumors, I think, getting flustered, and suddenly wishing for some of Victoire’s cordial. Were Sophie to—

  “. . . of that minx,” finishes Choiseul, raising an eyebrow at me. I hide the fact I was not listening with a quick reprimand.

  “I am sure such language is not appreciated here, monsieur,” I snap.

  “Of course, of course,” he says, “how remiss of me to use such a word, with your known delicate sensibilities. Now, Madame, I know you have much of importance to attend to today—I saw Figliari in the antechamber, for your lesson in ornithology, no doubt—so I will be as brief and blunt as manners allow. I have a new plan for your father’s happiness. And ours.”

  I nod that he may continue.

  “I am commonly known as the Queen Maker.”

  “Are you? I have not heard that expression before.”

  “Indeed, because of the instrumental role I played in arranging our dear dauphin’s marriage.”

  “Of course.” I am surprised to hear Choiseul speak of it so proudly, for surely he knows I—we—disapprove of an Austrian on the throne of France?

  “And the success of that marriage,” he continues, as self-satisfied as a man, “has led me to think—why not a similar bride for your father? The King should marry again.”

  Oh.

  Beside him, Beatrice’s gray teeth are bared in feral agreement.

  “I am thinking one of the sisters of the Archduchess Marie Antoinette might indeed be the ideal candidate,” continues Choiseul. “I have already commissioned a portrait of the Archduchess Élisabeth, an elder sister of our futur
e dauphine. Not an etching—a charming pastel—but I could show it to you in my rooms, should you be so inclined.”

  Is he inviting me to his rooms?

  “You see, at heart the king is a man moved by family”—here he reaches over and caresses Beatrice’s hand—“and though there has been strain lately, I believe that as he ages he will only turn more to religion, and to the warm bosom of his family.” Bosom—my hand loses its tenuous grip on the side of my chair and I almost fall down, but the man continues as though he has said nothing untoward: “The king turns sixty in a few months, an age when the thoughts of men, and even kings, must turn to mortality.”

  He says it so smoothly, it doesn’t sound at all treasonous.

  Upon reflection, I decide Choiseul’s idea is excellent in its simplicity: Papa must marry again. The sanctity of marriage, and the scourge of sin erased, for a new queen would never countenance the Barry woman.

  Perfect.

  And since I will have already lost precedence to the coming Austrian child, I am open to considering the idea. I am not enamored of Choiseul’s choice—another one of the fluster of archduchesses, another Austrian—but the wife herself is immaterial. The concept is what matters.

  “A new Queen of France!”

  “A new mama?” says Victoire with a worried frown. “I’m not sure about that.” She pours herself a glass of cordial—how did it come to be on the table?—and sips with a worried frown.

  “Well, it is a little surprising, but I think it the perfect solution. I must insist on a united front when we talk to Papa.” Oh—did Choiseul wish me to broach the subject with Papa? We had not discussed it, but I hope that is not his intention.

  “There is our father’s soul to be considered, balanced against his”—a delicate shudder for Sophie’s benefit—“earthly desires.” I look around. “But why is Louise not here? She was summoned hours ago!” I should have waited, but was too impatient to reveal the news. And Victoire had no idea! Civrac failed in that one, I think in grim contentment.