The Baroque Cycle: Quicksilver, the Confusion, and the System of the World (155 page)

“Horses?”

“
Those
horses,” said Eliza, nodding at the two that were drawing the sleigh.

She and Rossignol were facing forward. The Duchess and the Count had to turn around to see what she was looking at. Eliza took advantage of this to wipe her hand on Rossignol’s drawers and withdraw it. Rossignol hitched up his breeches weakly.

“Do you fancy them?” asked the Duchess. “Louis-François is inordinately proud of his horses.”

“Until now I had only seen them from a distance, and supposed that they were simply white horses. But they are more than that; they are albinos, are they not?”

“Ths distinction is lost on me,” the Duchess admitted, “But that is what Louis-François calls them. When he comes back from the south he will be glad to tell you more than you wish to hear!”

“Are they commonly seen? Do many people have them here?” Eliza asked. But they were interrupted by, of all things, a man riding an albino horse: Étienne de Lavardac d’Arcachon, who had ridden out from the château to meet them. “I am mortified to break in on you this way,” he said, after greeting each of them individually, in strict order of precedence (Duchess first, then Pontchartrain, Eliza, horses, mathematician, and driver), “but in your absence, Mother, I am the acting host of the party, and must do all in my power to please our guests—one of whom, by the way, happens to be his majesty the King of France—”

“Oooh! When did
le Roi
arrive?”

“Just after you left, Mother.”

“Just my luck. What do his majesty and the other guests desire?”

“To see the masque. Which is ready to begin.”

O
NE END OF THE GRAND
ballroom of La Dunette had been converted into the English Channel. Papier-mâché waves with plaster foam, mounted on eccentric bearings so that they cycled about in a more or less convincing churn, had been arranged in many parallel, independently moving ranks, marching toward the back of the room,
and raked upwards so that any spectator on the ballroom floor could get a view of the entire width of the “Channel” from “Dunkerque” (a fortified silhouette downstage) to “Dover” (white cliffs and green fields upstage). To stage left was a little pen where a consort sawed away on viols. To stage right was a royal box where King Louis XIV of France sat on a golden chair, with the Marquise de Maintenon at his right hand, dressed more for a funeral than a Christmas party. A retinue was massed behind them. So close to the front of it that he could have put a hand on Maintenon’s shoulder was Father Édouard de Gex—this a way of saying that there had better be no salacious bits. Not that Madame la duchesse d’Arcachon would ever even conceive of such a thing; but she had hired artists and comedians to produce it, and one never knew what such people would come up with.

The name of the production was
La Métamorphose.
Leading man and guest of honor was one Lieutenant Jean Bart, who knew as little of what to do on stage, during a masque, as would a comedian in a naval engagement; but never mind, it had all been written around him and his dramaturgickal shortcomings. The opening number took place on the beach at Dunkerque. A mermaid, perched on a rock, looked on as Jean Bart and his men (dancers dressed as Corsairs) attended an impromptu Mass celebrated on the beach. Exit Priest. Jean Bart led his men onto their frigate (which was no larger than a rowboat, but wittily decked out with masts and yards sprouting every which way, and fleur-de-lis banners). The frigate took to the Channel’s bobbing waves and headed for England. The mermaid, stranded solus downstage right, sang an aria about her lovesick condition; for she had quite fallen in love with the handsome Lieutenant (in an earlier version, there had been no Mass on the beach; it had opened with Jean Bart spawled on the rock in a state of deshabille and the mermaid feeding grapes to him; but the Duchess had had words with the players, and mended it).

Neptune now arose from the waves and sang a duet with the mermaid, his daughter. He wanted to know why she was so morose. Learning the answer, he became cross with Jean Bart and vowed to take revenge on him in the traditional godly style of subjecting him to an inconvenient metamorphosis.

In the next scene, Jean Bart’s frigate did battle with a larger English one, and there was a lot of swinging from ropes and fake swordplay, which Bart did very well. Just as he was about to grasp the laurels of victory, angry Neptune appeared and, with a thrust of his trident and a roar of kettledrums, transformed Bart into a cat (effected by Bart’s putting on a mask while everyone was distracted
by the histrionics of the sea-god). Because cats cannot give orders and are averse to water, this threw his men into disarray and they were all captured by the English.

The next scene took place far upstage, on the English shore, where the French sailors were pent up in a prison in Plymouth, gazing out barred windows across the Channel and pining, at considerable length, for France. This was by far the dullest part of the production and gave many a Countess an opportunity to powder her nose; but the upshot was that the mermaid, hearing their dirge, and spying the valiant French corsairs imprisoned through no fault of their own, begged her father to undo the spell he had laid on Jean Bart. Which was grudgingly done, though not until Bart, in his smaller, feline form, had slipped out between the bars of his cell and scampered onto the beach. Changed back into a man, he climbed into a rowboat, shoved it off the beach of Plymouth, and rowed to France.

When Jean Bart had achieved this feat for real, a few months ago, it had taken him fifty-two hours. That was compressed into about a quarter of an hour here. The passage of two days, two nights, and four hours was suggested as follows: Apollo, in a golden chariot suspended from an overhead track by wires, appeared low in the east (stage left); traversed the entire stage in a great arc, singing an aria all the while; and set low in the west (stage right) just as his sister Diana was being launched from stage left in a silver chariot. When she set in the west, Apollo reappeared (for his chariot had been unhooked and rushed around the back of the château) at stage left again, and sang through the second day of Jean Bart’s epic row. Then Diana sang through the second night. During the first day and night, Apollo and Diana respectively mocked the poor figure below them, refusing to believe at first that anyone would have the stupid-ity or hubris to row a boat from Plymouth to France. During the second day and night, they literally changed their tunes: Astounded to see that Jean Bart was still alive, and still hauling on those oars, they began to sing his praises and to cheer him on.

It concluded at the end of the second night with Diana setting at stage right, Apollo rising at the left, and Jean Bart center stage, desperately trying to row the last mile or so to freedom. Apollo and Diana sang a duet, urging him on; and finally Neptune (who had perhaps had enough of their caterwauling) popped out of the waves, sang an additional stanza about what a magnificent chap Jean Bart was, and, raising his trident, ordered that the waves of the sea escort this hero safely back to shore. Which they did, in the form of four dancers painted blue and wearing foamy white caps.

Even
this
audience, which included some of the most jaded and cynical persons on the face of the earth, could hardly keep a dry eye as Jean Bart finally staggered up onto the beach where it had all started, accompanied by a flood tide of patriotic music; but just as the party-goers were erupting in an ovation, yet another god descended from the rafters, dressed in gold, brandishing a lightning-bolt, and crowned with a laurel-wreath: yes, Jupiter himself, but all bedizened with French touches to make of him a hybrid of France with the King of the Gods; or rather, to imply that there was no substantive difference. Apollo, Diana, and Neptune were amazed, and did obeisance; the insouciant Jean Bart favored Jupiter with a courtly Versailles bow. Jupiter had come to make his ruling, which was that Jean Bart did indeed deserve to be subjected to a metamorphosis: but of a rather different sort than being turned into a cat. He handed down a package in golden paper, crowned with a laurel wreath, and Mercury took it from his hand, pranced about for a while in a gratuitous solo, and delivered it to Jean Bart, setting the laurel wreath on Bart’s head. Lieutenant Bart opened the package. Out tumbled a bolt of red. He held it up, and it unfurled: the long red coat and red breeches of a Captain in the French Navy.

The rigging that held the various Gods and Goddesses in the firmament now went into creaking and groaning movement, pulling those Olympian figures up or away so that Jean Bart was left alone on the stage to receive an ovation from the crowd. He hugged the uniform to his chest, turned stage right, and bowed very low to the King. This caused the laurel wreath to fall from his head. He snatched it just before it struck the floor and everyone in the room said, “Oh!” at once. Then, seized by an idea, he straightened up and tossed the wreath directly at Louis XIV, who did not fail to catch it. Everyone in the room said, “Ah!” The King, not the least bit discomposed, raised the laurel to his lips and kissed it, eliciting a great cheer from the assembled nobles of Versailles. For that moment, everything in France was perfect.

M
UCH MORE HAPPENED
at the soirée, but it all felt like an afterthought to the masque. Captain Jean Bart lost no time changing into his red uniform; then he danced all night, with every lady in the house. Eliza for once in her life was flummoxed by the intensity of the competition; for in order to dance with Captain Bart, one had to be asked by him, which meant that one had to be able to see, or at least hear him; and at the end of each number the man in red was immediately walled up in a rampart of pretty silk and satin gowns, as all of the hopeful girls—most of whom were taller than Bart—crowded around
him, hoping to catch his eye. Eliza was petite and hopelessly shut out. Moreover, she had some obligations as hostess. The Duchess had granted her leave to add some names to the guest list. Eliza had invited four minor courtiers and their wives: all petty nobles of northern France who had loaned money to the Treasury and built fortifications along the Channel coast. They had done so precisely in the hope that it would lead to their being invited to parties such as this one. Now their schemes had come to fruition; but they looked to Eliza to manage some of the details, such as introductions. Each of them had recently had an audience with Pontchartrain and received a loan document similar to Eliza’s, albeit with a smaller amount inscribed upon it; each now phant’sied that this would entitle him to spend the entire evening following Pontchartrain around as full and equal participant in any conversation the
contrôleur-général
might become engaged in. In order to remain in the Count’s good graces, Eliza had to track them around the château and snatch them away on some pretext or other whenever they started to annoy their betters. This was work enough for a single evening; but, too, it was expected that she would dance at least twice with Étienne, as his titular girlfriend. And since she had jerked him off in the sleigh, it would have been poor form not to dance at least one time with Rossignol.

Rossignol danced like a cryptanalyst: perfectly, but with little self-expression. “You did not understand the soap conversation,” he said to her.

“Monsieur, was it that obvious? Please explain it to me!”

“During the time of the poisonings, ten years ago, where do you suppose all of those ambitious courtiers got their arsenic? Not by their own labors certainly, for they are helpless in practical matters. Not from Alchemists, for those style themselves holy men. Who, other than Alchemists, has mortars and pestles, vats, retorts, and ways of getting exotic ingredients?

“Soap-makers!” Eliza exclaimed, and felt herself blushing.

“Some laundresses wore gloves in those days,” said Rossignol, “because their mistresses would have them go into Paris and buy soap that was loaded with arsenic. They would wash the husband’s clothing in that soap, and he would absorb the poison through his skin. And so for a Duchess to make her own soap, on her own estate, is more than just a quaint tradition. It is a way for her to protect herself and those she loves. When she offers you, mademoiselle, the use of her soap, and of her laundry, it means two things: first, that she has true affection for you, and second, that she fears someone might wish you ill.”

Eliza could not speak. She scanned the crowd over Rossignol’s shoulder for a glimpse of d’Avaux, and, not finding him, forced Rossignol to spin around so that she could see the other half of the room.

“I beg your pardon, but which one of us is leading, my lady?” asked Rossignol. “Who is it you look for? You think of someone who wishes you ill? Do not be too sure of your first assumptions—that is a common error in cryptanalysis.”

“Do you know who—?”

“If I did I should tell you at once, if for no other reason than that I should enjoy another sleigh-ride some day. But no, mademoiselle, I cannot guess who it is that the Duchess is so worried about.”

“Excuse me, but may I break in?” said a man’s voice behind Eliza.

“We are in the middle of something!” Eliza snapped; for men had been pestering her all night. But Rossignol had stopped dancing. He released his grip on Eliza, backed away one step, and bowed deep.

Eliza spun around to see King Louis XIV acknowledging the bow with a warm look. He loved his codebreaker.

“But of course you are, mademoiselle,” said the King of France, “when my two most intelligent subjects put their heads together and converse, why,
pourquoi non,
how could they not be in the middle of something? But your expressions are so grave! It does not befit a Christmas celebration!” He had caught Eliza’s hand somehow, and drawn her into the pattern of the dance. Eliza was no more capable of intelligent speech than she had been a minute ago.

“I have much to thank you for,” said Louis XIV.

“Oh, no, your majesty, for—”

“Has no one ever told you that to contradict the King is not done?”