Authors: Kelly Gardiner
I
WAS FAMOUS
.
Rich. Beloved. All in a moment.
From that evening, my life altered—again—as it has done so often since. Dramatically. Irretrievably. Can you believe it? I barely do myself.
I worked hard, no doubt about it. I’d been hungry many a night, rode many a mile in my life. I was seventeen years old and was the most reviled, and most beloved, woman in France—as, to be sure, I have been ever since. All the world’s a stage, according to that English playwright. My world was, from that day on—the salons and drawing rooms, the
salles
and duelling grounds, the ballrooms and avenues and coffee houses. They were my stage. Even here, even now.
I don’t care whether or not you trust my word on this. It is what it is. I am. I’m telling you, in that moment—those hours—on stage that night, I became a new being—a creature of the city, of the Comtesse and the Académie—of my own making. Complete. Untainted by my birth or my past crimes. Not exactly reborn, it’s true. Certainly not innocent. Of course not. I make no claims of that nature.
A woman. More than a woman. There’s a word for it, you know. For me.
Travesti
. The maid in breeches. The one who crosses over. I’m not the first, nor the last. I am probably the finest—the most interesting. In Italy, I’ve heard, and on the English stage, there are plays written about us—heroines who go about dressed as men—comedies and romances where girls are mistaken for boys, just like in the classics. I saw one once, in Spain. But this isn’t one of those stories. Perhaps if I had lived a thousand years ago, with the ancients, with the Amazons or the poet of Lesbos—or a thousand years in the future, when Louis is forgotten like all the other kings, and Versailles has fallen into rubble.
But there is nobody like me—at least, not in my lifetime. I wonder sometimes if that’s all I was—all I am—a
travesti
. Not an Amazon. Not a chevalier. Never a queen. But somewhere between man and woman, fool and monster.
That’s my fear. In the dark hours.
I’m not speaking of the woman in the riding boots and fine feathered hat, sweeping low in a courtier’s bow. Or the deity with breastplate and sceptre. No, no. I mean the stable girl inside me, clamouring like a street urchin—hiding like a thief.
She’s always with me—within me. I’ve always known her, even if at times I ignored her existence or, in my weak moments, lied about her less attractive traits. I don’t forget her, though. I seek her out, sometimes, in the crowd at the Palais-Royal or in the streets around the Louvre, even, I admit, in the ballrooms and parlours of the Comtesse and her world. But she doesn’t belong there.
Neither do I.
Just as well. I never really cared for the court, for the salons. Not really. I am partial, I admit, to good wine, to a chandelier ablaze with light. I like the company of beautiful or brilliant—preferably both—people. And it is true that it’s much easier to be brilliant, and very much easier to be beautiful, if you are wealthy. Or at least well-fed. So I go to the salons and
levées
and balls—not anymore, obviously. Why would I? Now I have you for company instead, scintillating conversationalist that you are.
But then, I watched, admired, scandalised a bit here and there if only to keep my name on their lips. How can I say this without sounding presumptuous? I floated above them, like Pallas Athéna on her machine observing the ballet corps. I smiled and nodded, drank their wine—just a little; drunkenness has only rarely been one of my vices, I assure you. I sampled the roasted meats and ices, danced if I wished, stood in the light so that the shape of my ankle, the curve of my breast, were seen at their best—even sang if I was implored.
Still, I wasn’t one of them. I never imagined that they wished me to be. That’s a trap. Thévenard, even Fanchon, thought they were so beloved they would be clasped to the aristocracy’s naked bosom; so enveloped in the glow of Paris high society that they would become noble themselves. It can never happen. They delude themselves, even now, and they wish it to be true—that I can’t understand.
For I’ve seen the court in its undergarments—in some cases, literally. I’ve glimpsed the pompous mistress with no teeth, the whining marquis without his breeches and his secretaries. I have seen them all—wigless, brainless, humourless, soulless. I would rather be me.
Yes, even now. You think it odd? It’s true enough. I would rather die here, undefeated except by death, than live the vapid life to which so many aspire.
I know that now. I didn’t before.
You may think of me, if you will, as a martyr to beauty, to love, to my sex. See me, if you can, not as this pathetic wreck of a woman before you, but as a heart halfway to Heaven—perhaps closer; as a soul not in torment but in repose.
Whatever I have become, I’m not a hypocrite. I’ve seen those men. They strut about Versailles like bitches on heat, squealing and squawking—peacocks in every way but one. It’s they who are the hens, who present and promenade and wait for Louis, for the Dauphin and, yes, for Monsieur, to notice them. To pay just a moment’s attention. It’s pathetic, really.
They fling their wives, their daughters, even their sons, in the path of men just a little more powerful than themselves—for a title, a position in the royal bedchamber, or some fragment of fortune.
I learned early on—not from Papa and the masters, but from the pages—that the truly noble soul does not need ostentation. The gentle body is distinguished from the common not by gold braid, but by soft silk. Those peacocks at court are often not of the old blood, and you can see it in their mediocre wigs and hear it in their every shriek and giggle.
Dress richly, but simply. That is my motto. For extravagance promotes greed and disdain. The truly noble souls recognise each other by their bearing (and mine has always been regal), by their soft step and intelligent countenance and—this is the most important thing I will tell you, so pay attention—by their tailors.
This applies, you understand, only to men—and to me. It’s hard to imagine now, I know. You see me in this plain linen, this habit that scratches and crumples, my hair covered, the veil a little grubby. You’ve never seen me as I truly am.
But then. Then I would buckle my sword belt over breeches of the finest wool. My blouses were washed every week and dried on lavender bushes. My hair was glossy as chestnuts. I dressed not as a man, not as a woman—just as myself. As a chevalier who happened to be born female. I wore the clothes and the sword of a gentleman, but I wore them as a woman. I never let anyone forget who I truly was—am. Julie-Émilie. Mademoiselle d’Aubigny. Madame de Maupin.
La Travesti.
Nobody else. Me.
I never forgot it, either—who I was, where I came from, and where I might have ended up if it hadn’t been for my friends, my lovers, my protectors. I’ve been very lucky—not so much lately, I grant you, but I haven’t given up hope.
I’ve played many roles, many great women, queens, goddesses. But I am my own greatest creation. La Maupin.
It had to be that way. I swear. I could never have been one of those pretty sopranos—a wife, a mistress. I just don’t have it in me, though I’ve never quite known whether that’s a blessing or a curse. It’s just how it is. I’ve never been able to comprehend their rules, and never really believed they applied—not to me. When I was a girl, I wondered how could they stand it, those women? All that bosom-baring and whimpering, all those petticoats and pearls, and never being allowed to leave the house unescorted.
Now I understand that if you have the will and the money, you simply do what you want. Even if you’re a woman. It’s not so easy, of course, but it’s possible.
You don’t believe me?
Do.
I’m telling you, it’s the truth. The two most powerful people I’ve ever met in my life—truly powerful, I mean, rather than merely entitled—were women. My Comtesse. And my soul, my twin, my La Florensac. But it’s not just them. Doesn’t matter whether you’re a baker’s wife or a whore or a princess—if you have the strength, you can take a lover, write a motet, lead an army, rule a country. Women have. Not all, granted, but some. And we adore them, don’t we? In theory. We make statues of warrior women, paint them on our ceilings—goddesses with shields and togas and one fair breast exposed so there can be no doubt. The palaces of Europe are covered in them. The Opéra stages, too, for that matter.
Yet most women I know—no matter how clever, no matter how strong—are dragged down by husbands or fathers or titles or too many petticoats, or priests clutching at their hems, telling them, ‘No, you cannot do that, you cannot be that.’ I never listened. That’s rare. Even a woman like the Comtesse pretends to pay attention to the sermons and the instructions, but then does whatever she wishes.
I don’t bother waiting to hear your words—any of you. You’ll only tell me what I know to be lies:
you cannot do that, you cannot be that.
Such words are wasted on me, as they are wasted on all women of ambition, of intellect, of power—and there are more of us than you know. I’ve even known women who write books.
Don’t gasp. It’s true, I swear. Plays and romances and poems and
tragédies
. Honestly.
How little you people know of my world, my life. Well, well. I know little of yours and have no desire to learn any more.
It’s my story that matters.
B
ACKSTAGE, THERE’S A FRENZY
. The stagehands laugh as they drag down the machines and set up for tomorrow night. They can’t sweep the stage, though—it’s crowded with people—shrieking, clamouring people all pushing one another out of the way so they can get closer to the goddess, the nymph, the new ruler of their hearts.
Comte d’Albert and the Duc d’Uzès shove the ballet corps aside and make their way through the crowd. To her.
D’Albert bows before her, tries to take her hand. ‘My love,’ he says, loud enough for everyone to hear. ‘You were magnificent.’
She stares down at him, suddenly impossibly regal, as if the swordswoman has been reborn as a deity.
‘I thank you, Comte. I had not imagined I’d see you again. I understood you had rejoined your regiment.’
‘I did.’ His smile falters. ‘But I came back to town. For this.’
‘Then I thank you again. Both of you.’
‘Madame.’ D’Uzès swallows his disdain and bows, too, but not quite as low. ‘Had we only known, all those months ago in Villeperdue, that you were … as we see you now … we might have—’
‘Been more polite?’
Before he can answer, before she can say anything more, the big baritone appears at her side and picks her up in an embrace.
‘Ha ha! Julia. We did it. Didn’t we?’
Now she can’t help smiling. Her arms slide around his neck. ‘We certainly did.’
‘My darling girl.’ His face, close up, is a mess of paint and sweat, his grin wicked. ‘They adored you.’
‘And you.’
It’s a lie. They both know it. But they know that will change, that one day soon he, too, will hold the audience by the throat. But someone’s tugging at her sleeve. The pretty, pale young man.
‘Shall we see you later, Émilie? There’s a party—a dance. Everyone will be there.’
Thévenard releases the goddess from his grip. His smile vanishes. He bends down and hisses in her ear, ‘Who is this?’
‘A friend. From before.’
‘Pah! What sort of friend?’
‘None of your business.’
Thévenard shoves d’Albert out of the way with one shoulder. ‘Is he your lover? Your protector?’
‘I don’t need a protector. You know that.’
True. ‘Your patron, perhaps?’ He can’t decide which is worse—his goddess loving someone else or being paid for favours.
‘Please, Gabriel. Don’t be pathetic. I hate that.’
‘I hate him. Privileged little—’
She looks at them from afar, as if she was still flying over their heads in her chariot—the golden boy, the black-eyed giant. Her lovers. Her past.
‘Enough,’ she says. ‘I need to get out of this armour. Let me go.’
They scowl at each other, d’Albert with one hand on his sword, Thévenard’s beard dripping sweat onto his chest.
She walks away from them all. Everyone steps aside to let her pass. They feel like bowing, like prostrating themselves before her, but it’s insanity, surely. Or passion.
D’Albert dodges around Thévenard and runs after her, calling out, ‘Émilie, is he your lover? That singer? Surely you haven’t forgotten our sweet days together?’
Thévenard follows him. ‘Peacock! I could crush your pretty blond skull in one hand.’
She doesn’t turn around. Doesn’t wait. ‘In the name of God, is there anyone in this city who is not a jealous fool?’
The Comtesse appears before her, as if conjured. D’Albert bows curtly to her. Thévenard looks as if he has been struck by lightning. Or love.
The Comtesse smiles, notices it all, understands it all, and bows herself, deeply, before her protégée. ‘My dear Julie.’
She holds out one gloved hand. Julie grasps it, relieved. Grateful.
‘We are all in awe,’ says the Comtesse. ‘You were magnificent. There is no other word for it.’
‘D’you know what? I think I was.’ Julie grins.
‘The city is yours, darling. Anything, anyone, you want. You have only to stretch out your hand.’
So she does.
It all comes to her in the hours, the days, that follow. Wine. Baskets of flowers. Lovesick bachelors with family crests on their calling cards. Letters from breathless girls. Ball invitations. A splendid chestnut mare from d’Armagnac’s personal stables, selected to match her hair. A note from Monsieur, delivered by a ridiculously handsome young man. A three-year contract with the Académie, promising twelve hundred
livres
a year. A bowl of plums from the gardeners at Versailles. A tatty bunch of violets with no note attached, delivered, she is told, by an elderly man with a face like a pudding.
I
’
D NEVER HAD ANY TRAINING
. My father could knock out a march on the fife but he couldn’t sing to save himself. D’Armagnac, of course, was officially Master of the King’s trumpeters, so I grew up listening to their squeaking and blustering and banging as they got ready for some pageant or other.
The first time I’d heard a string orchestra, all those years before, tuning up in the Grande Écurie, it frightened the life out of me. It sounded for all the world like a pack of wolfhounds.
When I began with the Opéra in Marseille, it took me weeks to comprehend that an orchestra is, instead, a complex, growling, lyrical menagerie. Complete chaos it is, orchestral music, if you think about it too hard.
The truth of an orchestra is heard when they try to find their common notes before the show. All those strings and tubes and odd plunking things straining in different directions; an orchestra is merely a mob of single-minded maniacs who every so often condescend to work together, and then, mostly, they soar—they ascend—they give us wings.
Then they finish and bow and grumble and stomp off to their grotty little hovels muttering to themselves. Honestly, music is a miracle. You have no idea.
At any rate, I had only ever been used to singing alone, or perhaps with a lute. Not with the entire zoo. Certainly not with other female voices. The training in Paris was a shock, I don’t mind telling you, nothing like the days in Poitiers with Maréchal. I wrote to him for advice, but he hadn’t lasted long in that madhouse—was dead within weeks, apparently. I don’t know if he ever knew how completely I surpassed all his predictions.
Still, I was in a different class to those beautifully trained divas who graced the Opéra before I arrived. Le Rochois was still there, all those years after I first saw her in the Écurie. She was the greatest—is. Even now, though she is long retired. I was no Le Rochois, never tried to be. I had to learn by listening, memorising each note from the sound and the word. But I could do things with my voice that nobody else could do. I astonished the crowds. I winked and they laughed aloud; smiled and they’d nudge each other in the ribs. I certainly made them gasp. But her—they simply adored.
You’ve never heard of her? You’re joking, surely. Marie le Rochois?
Really, Father, even you should have heard her name. Ignorance is as much a sin as vanity or gluttony, you know. She sang at the Écurie, when I was just a child. I’ve told you that. Didn’t you write it down?
Don’t expect me to help you keep track. It’s complicated. Life is. Keep up. If I can remember these things, with my heart torn from my chest and my brain in a fever, then you ought to at least try. I can barely breathe. Yet here I am, talking. So listen. It’s the least you can do.
Le Rochois. And there was a new girl, Fanchon Moreau—blonde, pretty and with a lovely voice. I’ll tell you all about her in the fullness of time. Be patient.
Then there were the two Desmatins sisters, both tarts. A whole corps of lesser voices and bit-part players, as well as the chorus. No matter how lowly paid, how ugly, how precocious, they all knew more of music than I did.
To them the
directeur
or his
surintendant
could suggest a slight change of tempo or emphasis, and they would respond immediately. They knew what he meant, and what adjustments they could make—sometimes, of course, they flew into a rage or burst into tears of frustration, but at least they had a point of view.
I had none. In spite of Maréchal’s coaching, in spite of all my hard work, my voice still only possessed four options: loud or not so loud, French or Latin. Everything else—all the subtlety, the light and shadow, what the Italians call
dolce
or
agitato
—was an absolute mystery to me.
Humbug it was, too. I figured that out, eventually, and came to understand the effect they wanted and how to shape my own lips and throat to deliver it. Or something like it.
Thévenard and I were upstarts from the gutters: him a cook’s son, me the spawn of an ageing
mousquetaire
. They treated us like rubbish at first, and I suppose we were. It was only later I found out that weasel Duménil had been a butcher or some such thing, and the glamorous Desmatins sisters were concubines. But then even Lully had been a kitchen boy—yes, indeed, in the house of Mademoiselle de Montpensier. His father was a miller. So you see how we have all climbed to great heights.
We had to prove ourselves. It’s like any club, any army battalion. There are initiations, humiliations, fights, tests and long nights of hardship. And that was just between me and Thévenard. We brawled like sailors, drank like soldiers, swore like fishmongers. In the end we simply wore one another out until there was no passion, just the sort of holdfast comradeship you share when you’ve been to war—or rehearsals.