Finding Emilie (26 page)

“Wives too,” Julie said. “More than once a wife was sent to his bed, sometimes little more than a child bride—a gift in exchange for a favor or advancement of some sort. Now that Madame de Pompadour is dead, I doubt he’ll stop wanting young bodies, and he may decide to find them for himself.”

What if it had been the king under the stairs at Vaux-le-Vicomte? Lili banished the thought with a shudder.

“Don’t worry, mes petites,” Julie said. “Everything at court has to be negotiated, and he’ll look around in places he’ll meet with less resistance than he would get from me. But I have more peace of mind knowing he’s unaware right now that two such pretty girls are in his palace.”

She looked up to see one of her servants carrying a note on an ornate silver tray. Julie opened it. “Oh, this is lovely!” she said. “Up now, both of you! We’re going on a sleigh ride.”

THE DECEMBER SUN
blazed down on the gardens and parterres stretching out from the palace at Versailles, creating a glare so blinding that Lili looked up into the cloudless sky for relief. The storm had left behind a knee-deep blanket of snow, leaving white epaulets and wigs on sculpted nymphs, and settling like modest drapery over the private parts of reclining gods. A few birds had come out from their roosts, chirping and scolding one another, knocking snow from shrubbery as they searched for a place to forage.

Since it was warm for a winter day, the queen had ordered open sleighs. Hers was a gilded tangle of swirling mythological figures and vines in interlacing arabesques. Behind it were two smaller sleighs, equally ornate and with the same red upholstered seats. Drivers stood by each, dressed in red livery.

“Well, won’t this be fun?” Anne-Mathilde said as the three girls got into one of the smaller sleighs. “I haven’t had a chance for a decent conversation with either of you since last summer at the château.”

“And I’ve so missed it!” Delphine reached up to adjust her hat, avoiding Anne-Mathilde’s eyes.

“You both looked so lovely at your presentation,” Anne-Mathilde went on, ignoring the insincerity in Delphine’s tone. “Tell, me Lili—I’m dying to know—did the queen really step on your train? It’s just too amusing …”

Lili glanced at Anne-Mathilde and brushed away the comment with a flick of her hand. “I’m glad it’s over,” she said. “And you heard what the queen said about her slipper. I have nothing to add.”

Anne-Mathilde’s eyes flashed at Lili’s dismissive reply, but she chattered on as if she hadn’t noticed. “I remember my first panniers—tiny little things like a doll’s clothing. I’ve been coming to Versailles all my life, you know. The ladies-in-waiting used to flock around me like birds.” She laughed. “Oh, how I used to hate that!”

“I can imagine,” Lili said, looking away. “All that attention must have been grueling.”

Anne-Mathilde sniffed to convey that she would not do Lili the honor of acknowledging her comment. “My mother says this is your first visit to Versailles, and of course it does give one quite a bit to wonder about. Anything you want to know, please just ask!” She put her gloved hand to her mouth and her eyes widened. “Oh! Speaking of something you should know, I received a letter from Jacques-Mars. He said we should expect him any day.” She scanned their faces for a reaction.

Delphine shrugged. “How nice.”

How nice if he were lost in a blizzard and died, Lili thought, smoothing her gloves.

“Just think how amusing it would be if he were here now.” Anne-Mathilde patted the empty seat next to her. “He’s such good company, don’t you think? Although I prefer Ambroise Clément de
Feuillet—I suppose you’ve heard our families are discussing marriage. He’s the future Comte d’Étoges, and everyone knows their château is one of the most charming in France. It’s terribly perfect, really.”

Lili nodded in mock seriousness. “Terribly.”

“He’s off hunting with the king today. He’s one of his favorite courtiers, and the queen adores him …” Her voice trailed off as the sleigh made a wide arc in the snow before coming to a stop.

Relieved to be temporarily spared from Anne-Mathilde’s prattle, Lili got out quickly from the sleigh and walked to the viewing terrace at the far end of Versailles’s formal gardens. A blanket of white covered the entire expanse, broken only by the greenish-black cones, rectangles, and undulating swirls of groomed shubbery. The melting snow had already fallen away from the tops, leaving behind what looked like black cross-stitching on a huge white pillow, set against an azure sky.

“It’s lovely, isn’t it.” Anne-Mathilde had gone off to join the others, and Delphine was standing next to her. “And the palace looks no bigger than my hand, we’re so far away.”

Lili scarcely heard Delphine as she took in what looked like a vast, empty page on which a giant hand had penciled geometry notes. “Yes,” she murmured, looking away with a shiver, even though the day was mild enough to make her winter cloak uncomfortably warm.

On her visit to the Comte de Buffon at the Jardin de Roi she had seen a skeleton of a field mouse, and the memory of the symmetry of its tiny bones came to her as she looked across the snow-covered gardens of Versailles. As perfect in their beauty and as holy as a cathedral, those bones were, she thought. These snow-covered terraces and walkways were just something to look at. They could never be more than that. They could not speak to the soul the way that mouse, that pink mantis, indeed everything at the Jardin de Roi spoke to her.

That’s where I want to be. Lili shut her eyes, remembering Buffon’s kind face, and the excited way Jean-Étienne Leclerc talked about science. This strange world here, with its crazy rituals and rigidity—gardens
that say “Keep out,” and rules that leave the queen naked while people argue over her chemise?

No wonder her mother had wanted to escape to Cirey. I want to escape too, Lili thought. I want to go back to Hôtel Bercy. I want to go back to the Jardin de Roi.

When she was younger, Lili imagined her skull was a house where her ideas existed without any need to go outside. These days her mind roamed, seeking answers and solace her interior world could not provide. In the incomprehensible world of Versailles, her thoughts flooded outward as if she were speaking wordlessly to a presence hovering just out of sight. You have to help me through this, she said to the air, not certain whom or what she was addressing, or exactly what she meant.

The sun went behind a cloud and Lili looked up to see several more forming. “Brrr,” Anne-Mathilde said, getting back in the sleigh and pulling a travel rug up over her shoulders. “I’d so much rather be back at the palace. The queen can be so tedious with her little outings. Now there’s a piece of advice for you—get used to wondering how you ended up stuck somewhere with her and her dull daughters, when you’d so much rather be just about anywhere else.”

“Umm,” Delphine said as she tossed part of her blanket over Lili and pulled it up under their chins. She laid her head on Lili’s shoulder, radiating contentment sufficient for the two of them.

ONCE OUTSIDE THE
walls surrounding the château and gardens at Versailles, the sleighs made their way down a path to a clearing in the royal forest. Servants had already arrived and set a log fire burning, so the queen and her party could warm themselves. Marie Leszczynska was the shortest woman in the party, and was dressed so plainly that a stranger coming on the scene would not have imagined she was anyone special, except for the constant hovering around her.

The queen had brought a pouch of bird feed and soon was carrying on a conversation with the birds pecking at her feet. The afternoon
light was already beginning to dim, and her daughters were cajoling her to get back in the sleigh and go home, when in the distance a hunting horn sounded. Soon, two men on horseback, one carrying the king’s standard, trotted into the clearing. They dismounted quickly and bowed before the queen.

“Is my husband far behind?” Marie Leszczynska asked, handing the empty pouch of bird food to a servant. “We were just leaving, but we’ll wait if he’s near.”

Within a few seconds, the king came into the clearing on a huge chestnut-colored stallion. Behind him on an equally large horse a well-built man in his twenties dressed in an elegant riding habit came. He waited for a groom to grab the bridle and then he dismounted, handing him the reins.

The man bowed in a graceful arc before the queen. “Ambroise Clément de Feuillet!” the queen said with a warm smile. “It’s so nice to see you. I heard you arrived last week, and I had hoped your business with the king would not keep you so constantly occupied.”

“I am duly chastised, Your Majesty.” Ambroise returned her smile with one of his own. “I shall make a point of visiting tomorrow,” he said, bowing again with a flourish, “since I have now been made aware of how badly I am missed.”

What a charming man, Lili thought. And rather good-looking too. Anne-Mathilde doesn’t deserve to be so fortunate. Ambroise excused himself from the queen and came over to kiss the hand of the Duchess de Praslin, before turning to Anne-Mathilde. “We’ve had a disappointing hunt,” he said, after a perfunctory brush of his lips on her hand. “Only one boar. And it killed one of the dogs before His Majesty got off a shot.”

He turned his head at the sound of loud barks and yelps. Soon another horse trotted into the clearing with a pack of dogs scrambling around it. Lying astride the saddle in front of the rider was the limp body of a dog, and a few feet behind, tied around the neck and dragging in the snow, was the carcass of a huge wild boar. Snow had gotten trapped in its bristly hide, caking one shoulder with crystals of
blood. The tusks that had taken the life of the dog stuck out from its half-opened mouth and its eyes were glazed with snow that had melted into slime. Half-crazed with the smell of the kill, the dogs growled and nipped at each other as they sniffed the carcass.

“May I ask you to control those animals?” The queen looked up at the king, who was the only one who had not gotten off his horse. The kennel hands scurried to gather the dogs in a corner of the clearing, tossing them bits of dried meat, and putting out basins of melted snow for them to drink.

Lili had shrunk back to watch from behind Maman when the king appeared. Louis’s face was broad across the cheeks and rather flat overall, and his dark eyes were overwhelmed by thick eyebrows as black as ink. Other than the fact that he was quite fat and his face was florid with the cold, she decided he was not a bad-looking man. But still… you sleep with young girls? she thought. Why do you need to do that?

“I wish they’d go,” Lili heard Delphine whimper. “The horses scare me. And that dead dog and horrid-looking boar!”

Ambroise Clément de Feuillet went over to the king, who bent down to listen. Louis nodded his head and sat back up. He turned his horse in the direction of the path back to the palace and waited while the others got on their mounts. With a tap of his heel the king left the clearing at a trot, followed by his courtiers and the pack of barking dogs. The only ones left behind from the king’s party were Ambroise and the rider carrying the dead dog. Ambroise gave him the reins of his mount, and the equerry left the clearing, leading the second horse and dragging the dead boar behind.

Suddenly it was quiet enough to hear. “I have the king’s leave to go back with your party, Your Majesty,” Ambroise said to the queen. “I understand Mademoiselle de Praslin has room in her sleigh.”

“Lucky for you I don’t force you to sit with an old woman like me,” the queen said in a tone so uncharacteristically teasing that Lili thought she might reach up to pinch his cheek. “And you will have two other charming young women to sit with as well.” She looked in
Lili and Delphine’s direction. “I don’t believe you’ve been introduced.”

Ambroise went over to Julie. “Madame de Bercy, I believe?” He bowed, gently picking up her hand and touching it to his lips. “My father introduced us last year—at a ball at the Luxembourg Palace, if I recall. It’s good to see you again, and looking so well.” He looked over at Delphine and Lili. “May I have the pleasure of meeting these young ladies?” As Julie presented each of them in turn, Ambroise bowed and took their hand, bringing his lips as close as he could without touching their fingers.

“Is your stay at Versailles a long one?” Ambroise asked. Though his inquiry was directed at all three of them, his eyes rested only on Delphine. Before she could reply, they heard the commotion of the sleighs being readied for their return. “May I?” He offered Julie his arm and turned to wait for Delphine to fall in step beside him.

Anne-Mathilde had been watching from near the fire and was now coming toward them. She insinuated her way between Ambroise and Delphine and took his other arm. “Have you forgotten I’m here?” she asked Ambroise, bursting into peals of nervous laughter. Lili looked sidelong at Anne-Mathilde’s face. She doesn’t want him near Delphine, Lili thought, suppressing a smile as they walked toward the sleighs.

Chateau de Cirey, Champagne, France, I September 1734
To Monsieur Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis,
Paris

Dearest Maupertuis,

I am sorry to have left Paris without the chance to inform you of the terrible change of circumstances in my life. My little boy, Victor-Esprit—dear God, not yet even two years old!—died last week, and I left immediately for Cirey with his tiny coffin for burial in the family cemetery. His passing was not unexpected, since he had been frail since birth, but the shock of seeing my own flesh and blood lifeless has had the most profound impact on me.