The Enemies of Versailles

by Sally Christie

  “Well, if it rains, none of us shall go, and then you shall join us in our Chinese lesson, which we will reinstate should the weather not cooperate,” I say, equally firmly, and a look of something like hatred flits across the girl’s face. I wonder in irritation what is wrong with her this afternoon.

  “Excellent! Civrac, we must bring an icebox for the geese!” says Victoire happily.

  Antoinette smiles sweetly, though a little grimly, and says she is looking forward to the outing, as one might look forward to nothing more.

  She takes her leave after an abrupt curtsy, and as she does, the idea that she didn’t want us to accompany her crosses my mind, a mouse that skitters along a skirting board then disappears quickly through a crack in the wood. I dismiss my thought as absurd.

  Or is it? She’s slipping away, I think suddenly. Sometimes it feels as though the whole world is changing, all the new brides for my nephews, their new households, the easy way the younger people mix together. Marriages being planned for my little nieces Clothilde and Élisabeth. Artois, the dauphin’s youngest brother, getting married next year. A younger generation nipping at our heels, like an irritating dog that refuses to leave one alone.

  Everyone is slipping away, I think bleakly, remembering Louise’s shining contentment when we visited her in the convent. And Papa, as distant as the moon, writing frequently to Louise, but hardly ever coming to see us at all. Everything escaping, water over rocks, clouds racing across the sky, our happiness disappearing into the hands of the harlot.

  “Antoinette’s hair is really getting absurd,” I say sourly, picking up a coffee cup and putting it down again, then getting up to circle the room. “Only actresses wear their hair high like that.”

  “Oh, I quite like it. It rather suits her—she has such a noble forehead,” sighs Victoire. “I do hope it doesn’t rain tomorrow. Geese! I shall ask for them to be prepared with caper sauce, as last time. Or was it caraway sauce? Civrac?”

  “Not a noble forehead,” I snap. “It is a too-high forehead, and almost as displeasing as her protruding lower lip.”

  After my sisters disperse to their own rooms, Narbonne directs the footmen to bring in my writing desk. They set it by the window, where I can observe the world outside. I stare out the window, then at my correspondence—a letter to my niece Marie-Louise, my sister Élisabeth’s youngest daughter, now married to the heir to the Spanish throne—but then the little table rocks—I am not sure how—and the inkwells spill out in a great splash on the floor, turning the whole world black and blue.

  “Foolish girl!” I snap at the chambermaid who rushes in to clean it. “Foolish girl! What a mess you’ve made! Why can’t you do anything right?”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  In which the Comtesse du Barry witnesses a painful and rather sordid scene

  “I must be present!”

  “No, dearest, that would not be appropriate. Would that my son had not died,” sighs Louis, “that the burden of this dreadful conversation might not have fallen on me.” We are talking of the dauphin and dauphine; the crisis over the consummation—or lack thereof—has reached a head, and Louis is determined to get to the bottom of their inability. The doctors are vague; some prescribe an operation, while others contend that the dauphin is not yet ready to be a husband. Pish—not yet ready—the boy is eighteen.

  “I’ll hide behind the curtains!”

  “Don’t be silly, Angel,” he says, rather curtly.

  I giggle. “Make them try it in front of you! You should be able to help, with so many years of practice.”

  Louis smacks me lightly on the buttocks. “Don’t be vulgar, little one.”

  “I know—I’ll hide under the sofa!”

  “No.”

  “France! Do not deny me this,” I say crossly, sitting up and looking down at him through my tangled hair. I roll off the bed as though in exasperation, then crawl back across the carpet to him. I envelop his legs in my arms, and look up at him with pleading eyes, and even shed a few tears, then lean in and start to play with the buttons on his breeches.

  “Oh, dearest.” The king sighs as I unbutton his breeches with my mouth, and I know I have won. He never holds out for long. Easier than getting that rock-crystal toilette set, I think as I wash my mouth out with rosemary water, kept by the bed for just this purpose. And even that magnificent set paled before the necklace he has just commissioned for me. The king knew of my distress at the pope’s refusal to grant my divorce, and as consolation, he commissioned an enormous diamond necklace, valued at two million livres.

  Two million livres! It will take several years for the jewelers to amass the diamonds required for the most perfect necklace the world has ever known.

  Even Richelieu was astounded. “Two million livres? No woman has ever been worth that!”

  “But the king loves me more than anyone has ever loved anyone, anywhere,” I replied. And it’s true: he is as infatuated as ever.

  Chon muttered darkly that revolutions have been based on less, but Chon is just a natural worrier. And perhaps even jealous? Despite my best attempts—there is one form of intrigue I do enjoy—I have been unable to convince her to take a lover. Though, come to think of it, I did see her last week with a fan similar to the one the Comtesse d’Egmont, Richelieu’s daughter, is currently flaunting—perhaps a secret admirer gifted it?

  On the day of the interview, Chon insists on joining me and we huddle in a dark cupboard in the paneling, the door ajar but shielded by an enormous vase of tulips on a table in front.

  “My dears,” says the king, motioning for the dauphin to sit down and grasping the dauphine in a rather long embrace. The dauphine extricates herself from the king and sits beside her husband, her face impassive.

  “Oooh, I like her dress,” I whisper—the neckline of the dauphine’s bodice is ornamented with starched blue ruffles. Chon kicks me to be silent.

  “Ah, my children. My dear children.” Louis shakes his head, smiling coldly at the two sitting before him like the wayward children they are. What a funny situation. I start shaking with giggles until Chon puts her hand, surprisingly strong, over my mouth and pinches me. Louis shakes his head and utters some more vague platitudes about dear children. He wanders around the room, his hands clasped behind his back, the dauphin and his wife following his movements carefully.

  “So, now. You must tell us what you have been able to achieve thus far,” says Louis, stopping and gesturing to his grandson.

  “Sire . . .” The dauphin squeezes his eyes shut, his pasty complexion reddening. “Sire. We have, I b-b-believe, achieved”—he is gulping like a fish on land—“the . . . inside . . . of . . . our wife.” He lets out a huge breath and bows his head to examine the carpet intently. His wife beside him is as stiff as a meringue, and I notice a faint blush creeping up her neck.

  “Yes, as you told the doctors,” says Louis impatiently. “A fine erection, but what happens once you are inside, boy?”

  “He forgets where he is,” I whisper, and now it is Chon’s turn to shake with silent laughter.

  “Ah, inside, yes, inside.” The dauphin chokes over his words and his wife puts a hand on his arm. I can sense humiliation and more pulsing beneath a thinning mask as she struggles to stay serene.

  “Sire—Grandpapa,” she pipes in, her voice thin and careful. “He does try. We do try. But the pain . . .”

  “Whose pain?”

  “My husband’s pain, Sire.” The last tenuous hold breaks and the mask slips off, revealing the frightened, humiliated child behind it. Something in her face melts my heart. That poor girl—caught in a tragedy not of her own making.

  “Pain! Pain!” barks Louis, starting to circle the room once more. His voice is perilously close to a shout. “You, leave us,” he says, pointing at Antoinette, and in his anger he is unable to even feign politeness. The poor girl dashes out of the room, leaving Louis alone with his grandson and his anger.

  “Pain, pain! Mewling as though a vir
gin never parted! How is it that you are not able to perform this most natural of acts?” explodes Louis. “You are the shame of Europe, and my shame.”

  Chon and I watch, aghast; I have never heard Louis raise his voice like this.

  “Just get in there and move, boy, move!”

  The dauphin’s face is now a deep purple color. He stares dully at his shoes, breathing heavily.

  “Have you at least done it with your hand?” demands the king, going over and shaking his grandson’s shoulder, his voice rising ever higher. Any more and they are going to hear him in the antechamber. “Are you at least capable of that? Does that hurt?” he spits. “Look at me when I speak to you!”

  The dauphin looks up at his grandfather with an expression of terror and hate. Louis catches some of the look and withdraws his arm in disgust.

  “Leave us,” he mutters, turning his back and staring out the window. “Leave me before I say more things to regret. Get out.”

  The boy stumbles out of the room, almost tripping over his shoes. Louis remains fixed by the window, breathing heavily. I suspect he has forgotten we are here, and now I regret being a witness to the awkward scene.

  Louis stays immobile before the window for a long while, then goes to stand before a portrait of his son, dead almost seven years now. I creep out of the closet to embrace him, and see he has tears in his eyes.

  “Oh, France! I’m sorry,” I whisper. “That was awful.”

  “I do not leave much to my beloved country,” Louis murmurs, staring at the portrait, “but I thought the succession to be secure. How has this happened?”

  “But surely your other grandsons will provide? Between the two of them, there will be little Bourbons aplenty. Do not worry, my love.”

  “You don’t understand,” he says curtly. “The dauphin’s position is sacred.”

  “Those poor children,” I murmur. “You are upset, dearest, but so are they.”

  “My tender little dove,” he says sadly, kissing me. “What an oaf that boy is. The girl is not to be blamed, for not even half a man would turn down that fresh flower. But that boy—he is unnatural.”

  “She must be so humiliated,” I say, but there is no glee in my voice. I wonder what it would feel like if Louis no longer desired me. If no one desired me.

  “The doctors assure me of his generous—well, ample at least, genitalia—why can’t he just use it? Pain, what is this pain he minks on about? Pathetic,” he concludes, some of his anger returning.

  “You’ll always love me, won’t you?”

  “Of course I will, Angel, of course. I’ll talk to the doctors again; we’ll have another examination, but I’ll be present this time, see for myself what the problem is. Perhaps an operation, though I doubt he has the constitution to steel himself for that ordeal. A minor procedure, though—his father had one—a simple snip of a tight foreskin.”

  I kiss him warmly to take his mind away. I stroke his neck and wrap myself around him like a blanket, to comfort and caress. A sudden sneeze reminds us of Chon, still in the closet. I pull back, but the king is now holding me greedily.

  “Leave us,” I call out as Chon emerges from the cupboard.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  In which the Comtesse du Barry comforts the aging king

  “Another blanket,” I say, motioning to one of his valets.

  “Monsieur le Comte de Chamilly has already been informed about the king’s feet,” says Madame Adélaïde, avoiding my eyes and staring at a point on the opposite wall.

  Normally I would ignore her, but I feel a sudden surge of pity for the fusty old woman in the pale pink dress that is far too frothy for her masculine looks. Though the aging princesses continue to follow fashion in a slavish but awkward way, the new styles do not suit them.

  “Your father thanks you,” I say prettily, and she casts me a look of venom that would kill a kitten. “Ah yes, here comes Chamilly, accompanied by another blanket for the king’s cold feet. Darling, your daughter is to be commended.”

  Louis squeezes my hand and smiles at Adélaïde, who becomes flustered and takes a sudden step backward. Madame Victoire settles in on the other side of her father, and behind her, like a ciphered shadow, floats Madame Sophie.

  “Little Élisabeth is so excited,” says Victoire, referring to Louis’ granddaughter. “She has been practicing for weeks.”

  I move aside to allow Mesdames’ ladies to settle in around their mistresses, and watch Louis’ eyes linger on the pretty Comtesse de Séran. We are in one of the smaller rooms of the king’s apartments; outside a harsh winter rages. I snuggle inside my fur cape. Yesterday I went out for a walk, but it took two hours for my nose to lose its redness, so today I stay huddled inside like the rest of the Court. A fire burns merrily and a ring of porcelain stoves warm the little room even more.

  Under the tutelage of Madame Victoire, Mesdames Clothilde and Élisabeth are putting on a concert for their grandpapa. Madame Victoire is looking very happy, if slightly disheveled and flushed at the enormity of the occasion. I must remember to have Gérard bring a few bottles of the gooseberry cordial we prepared last year at Louveciennes—I am sure the plump princess would appreciate it.

  Only she and her two sisters attend alongside their father; the dauphin, his brothers, and their wives have gone hunting at Marly. Louis would have liked to have gone with them, but since his fall last year, his doctors are dissuading him from the hunt, especially in icy weather.

  I stand behind him and pick a speck of ash off his wig. Madame Adélaïde inhales sharply and turns away.

  “Ah, you would have me bundled up and bound like a baby, my dear!” he says as Chamilly arranges the mink respectfully over the king’s feet. Madame Adélaïde blushes violently—I know he was talking to me, but I let the old woman have her moment.

  “Bound,” echoes Madame Sophie fearfully, looking for all the world as though she might like to flee the room, should anything happen.

  The two little stars of the afternoon entertainment enter with their governess, the Comtesse de Marsan, and their attendants trailing behind them. Clothilde and Élisabeth are both dressed in green damask gowns, their hair piled neatly under matching caps and their faces properly rouged. They blush and giggle as they pay their respects to their grandfather; the elder, Clothilde, is fourteen and as fat and round as her father was.

  They are already talking of a Savoy marriage for her; with this generation, there will be no unmarried princesses haunting the halls of Versailles and draining the coffers of the nation.

  “You are prepared?” asks Adélaïde, but it comes out as more of a command than a question and both girls shrink back in fear. They say the older girl is wont to piss in fright when her fearsome aunt addresses her; I do hope she won’t do so today, for new carpets from Turkey were just installed last week.

  “They are well prepared,” answers Madame de Marsan stiffly, putting a comforting hand on the fright-struck girls. Marsan is the daughter of the hated Duchesse de Tallard, Mesdames’ governess, and it appears they have successfully carried their feud over to the next generation.

  A small orchestra squeezes into the corner of the room. Everyone shuffles closer and I find myself standing almost behind Madame Adélaïde, wedged firmly next to her father. It is strange to be so close to such an avowed enemy. I lean in and sniff cautiously: a sharp odor of prunes and smoke.

  I have tried to induce Louis to be kinder to his daughters, but they don’t know my efforts, nor do they know how sorely they are needed. The king now takes his morning coffee almost exclusively with the dauphine or with the Comtesse de Provence, and there will be another young bride coming at the end of the year for Artois. Soon the Court will be full of these young wives and they are quite eclipsing their aunts in the king’s affection.

  Louis likes beauty and freshness, and I know the aging grayness of his daughters, and their continued meddling in his private life, have pushed him away, and perhaps forever. There is desperation now in Ad�
�laïde’s overtures to her father, but she does not realize it is too little, too late. I know her heart, such as it is, would crumble completely if she heard the way her father talks about her.

  “Meddling old hags,” he called them, when he learned of their role in persuading the dauphine to remain silent to me. “Any person in their right mind would do the opposite of what they counsel; they have even less wisdom than the average woman.”

  Chon always says I am too kindhearted and mustn’t worry about Mesdames, for they certainly never worry about me, but what is a heart for, if not for kindness?

  “The lutes, where are the lutes?” barks Madame de Marsan.

  “Such disorganization,” tuts Adélaïde in disapproval, loud enough for Marsan to hear.

  “Ah, we are in no hurry,” says the king from under his pile of minks. “Élisabeth, come here and show your grandpapa your pretty cap—is that a butterfly?”

  Little Élisabeth, only eight and very sweet, climbs shyly onto the king’s lap.

  “I sewed it myself, Grandpapa,” she says softly.

  “Well, aren’t you a clever little thing!” Louis kisses her forehead. Adélaïde watches them, and from behind, I can see her head is shaking slightly. Élisabeth smiles up at me from around her grandfather’s neck, and I stick my tongue out at her. She giggles.

  Adélaïde snaps around. “Madame du Barry,” she demands, and I almost jump—she has never addressed me directly. “Did you just stick your tongue out at Madame Élisabeth?”

  I smile. “I did indeed, Madame.”

  The king chuckles and Élisabeth giggles, and sticks her tongue out at me.

  “I hardly think that is suitable behavior for a granddaughter of France,” says Adélaïde, her voice laden with disdain.

  “Madame du Barry was just fooling with the little girl,” Louis says mildly, though I can detect the irritation at the edge of his words. “Look, and I shall too!”

  He sticks his tongue out at his granddaughter; Élisabeth squirms in delight and everyone laughs. Except Adélaïde—she is staring blankly at her father, looking as though someone has just struck her.