The Sisters of Versailles (14 page)

Please do not worry about getting married; there will be a husband for you when God wills it to be so. The Comtesse de Rupelmonde told me that her youngest sister married, for the first time, at twenty-six! And the girl had only four fingers (a great family scandal, please do not repeat). So you see it is not too late, especially as you are not even deformed.

You know that I would love you to visit me at Versailles, but that would be very difficult and of course one needs money to live here. My dear husband continues with his numerous charitable causes and money is very tight. Please tell Diane, for I know she is interested in such things, that blue squirrel fur is all the rage this winter at Court; the Princesse de Soubise wore a skirt trimmed with six layers of it and no one could decide whether it was delightful or simply too much!

I tried to find some for you but it is very costly now as all search for it high and low. I send instead these green ribbons for you and Diane; my dressmaker brought them last week and I instantly thought of you and your green eyes. They are a very unusual shade. Madame Rousset (my dressmaker) said the color is called “envy green.” They will look fabulous on you and will certainly complement your brown convent dress!

Please stay well and all my love,

Louise

Louise

VERSAILLES

1737

T
hough many suspect
that the king has a mistress, none can guess her name. The king goes less and less to the queen’s bed, and perhaps in consequence her list of important feast days grows longer and longer.

“Saint Paphnutius,” grumbles Louis one night in September. Outside, the black air is thick and still and Matignon’s dogs are mercifully quiet. We are in my apartments, the window open and a single candle the only light. Just the two of us. My favorite part of the day. He indicates his shoes and I kneel down to take them off.

“Saint Paphnutius. I am sure he was an honorable monk and a noble saint, but I for one have never heard of him. And she uses that as an excuse! Not that, of course, my dear, I would rather be there than here with you.” He caresses my hair. I have been careful to shake the powder out, for Louis hates old powder with a passion, and often leaves his own hair without it. “But one must do one’s duty, and I thought tonight I had the heart for it, and the bone. But no—I found my way blocked by Saint Paphnutius.”

I unroll his stockings. Now the king and queen have eight little children but only one son; the poor little Duc d’Anjou, and a sister, died a few years ago. The
dauphin
continues in good health and the king dotes on his little princesses, but still. With only one son it is hard for him to consider his duty over and so he must persist in visiting the queen.

I kiss his naked legs, covered with soft black hairs. “My day can now begin,” I murmur, and he laughs and pulls me up by my hair, gently but firmly, and onto the bed beside him.

“And mine as well,” he declares gallantly as he takes off his chemise, by himself.

We keep our secret well; not an easy thing in this palace of a million intrigues. We keep it fast and no one beyond our little group—Fleury, Charolais, the Comtesse de Toulouse, the king’s valet, Bachelier, and my faithful woman, Jacobs—knows the truth.

No one knows but everyone likes to guess; suspicions and rumors pile like leaves in autumn. Louis prefers intimate suppers, often taken in the apartments of the Comtesse de Toulouse. Tonight we are a small group, just a dozen or so, and he is in a rare good humor—the boar were most obliging on the hunt this afternoon. After the fish stuffed with fennel and the goose brains in gravy, he stands and raises his glass. Chatter stops instantly.

“A toast,” he declares, looking up at the ceiling. “To her.”

The guests buzz in confusion as we raise our glasses. To her, up there? A toast to the Virgin Mary in Heaven, or to the queen, whose apartments are on the floor above? Or to one of the painted nymphs on the ceiling panorama?

“A toast to my mistress,” clarifies Louis, looking around at his guests. “To her.” He smiles rakishly and I almost choke with happiness on my champagne.

“But who is ‘her,’ sire?” demands the Marquis de Meuse, a mincing man who is known for the cleanliness of both his and the king’s boots. “You know
everyone
has the utmost curiosity and there is much in wagers riding on this. Why, I stand to be out a four pair of horses if I am not correct with my pick. Do help us win our bets and reveal who the lucky lady is. I beg of you.”

“No, I shall not help you with your bets, but I should like to know what the wagers are.” There are twelve of us and each throws out their opinion, accompanied by laughter and a running commentary on the king’s face when each lady’s name is mentioned.

At the end, the ladies leading in the group’s estimation are the German Duchesse de Bourbon and an Orléans
princesse
. They are both very young and very attractive, so I find myself in good company. Others vote for young Mathilde de Canisy, newly arrived at Court and so beautiful she was immediately nicknamed the Marvelous Mathilde.

I am the last and throw my bet on Madame la Duchesse, who seems the least likely; she’s German, after all. I feel a little cold, though the room is awfully hot, when I think about the Marvelous Mathilde. I hope Louis doesn’t get any ideas. That would be awful.

“Well, you are all wrong,” announces Louis with a very satisfied smile; he loves secrets. “The lady keeps her honor for another day, and I have the sublime pleasure of keeping my secret, from those who presume to think they know everything about me.” He drains his glass and the courtiers do likewise, looking amongst themselves for confirmation.

I hug my secret to myself. I can’t smile at Louis so instead I smile down at the table and find my happiness reflected back at me from the glassy eyes of the fish on my plate.

Gilette presses me: “Your woman told mine you bathe every night in water tipped with olive oil. And you sleep with your hair still coiffed . . . Only a woman who has a lover would take that care . . . do you finally have a new lover?”

People know Puysieux and I are no longer together, though they don’t know why.

“Goodness, it’s not that husband of yours, is it?”

There I don’t have to lie. “Certainly not! Olive oil is good for the skin and I have always bathed in that manner.”

Gilette appraises me with her cool gray eyes. We have grown apart under the burden of my secret, but I don’t really miss her. She presses on: “You’d tell me if you had? Taken another lover?”

“Of course, dearest, of course.” I can now lie like a true
versailloise
—perhaps not a talent I should be proud of. I change the subject. “But what a lovely necklace—are those all rubies?”

There is a part of me, a small part, that wants people to know that I love Louis and that Louis loves me. And then we could be affectionate in public, sit beside each other at the entertainments, talk without fear. Charolais insists I keep our affair a secret for as long as I can.

“Nothing intrigues a man more than intrigue, Louise.”

“Yes?” I agree tentatively.

We are sitting in her salon and Charolais is showing me her new cosmetics. Even though she is past her fortieth birthday, she still has the skin of a woman half her age. She knows all the potions and remedies; only she dares to dabble in light magic like her famous grandmother did during the notorious Affair of the Poisons. Thinking on it makes me shudder: babies sacrificed, so many people poisoned, so many Court ladies arrested . . . I hope her lotions are not scented with even a whiff of magic. Though she does have the most remarkable skin.

She pats a rose-scented cream onto my cheek. It stings slightly.

“Once everyone knows about you and the king, he will quickly become bored.”

As I smooth the lotion onto my cheeks I search her words for hidden meaning, but this time I think she has said exactly what she meant. The idea that the king is only with me because he likes intrigue is very insulting. Nonsense. Louis is with me because he loves me. I think Charolais might be jealous; Gilette told me she wanted to be the king’s lover, many years ago, but that he had no interest.

Fleury has the opposite view and has recently been urging Louis to be open about our affair. Fleury has come to despise the queen and he thinks it is high time that Louis declares himself a man who chooses his own mistresses. I really don’t know what to think. I smooth out the rose cream but it feels like my face is on fire. I ask Charolais if I can have more of the patchouli
oil she gave me last week—Louis declared the smell transported him into raptures. My cheeks turn even rosier at the memory and Charolais looks at me as though she knows exactly what I remember.

I leave in a bad mood (“Once everyone knows about you and the king, he will quickly become bored”—nonsense!) clutching a vial of patchouli and the pot of rose lotion that smells lovely but feels as though it is rubbing my face raw. The misery of the day is compounded when my husband, at the palace for a regiment display and dinner, stops by my apartment before he returns to his house in town.

Jacobs hands me a note from the king’s valet, Bachelier; he will come for me before midnight. I take the note and my heart sings. I was not summoned yesterday but tonight I shall see him! I throw the note in the fire, hoping my husband doesn’t notice, and I disappear into the chamber to have Jacobs prepare me.

To my horror my husband comes into the room where I am washing and looks at me curiously, drinking a large cup of wine. Jacobs shoos him out and he leaves, trailing a smell like Brie gone bad behind him.

When I come out he is settling down to eat a savory pie he ordered. He roots around in it and emerges triumphant with a chicken head, which he proceeds to noisily suck on.

“Delicious,” he announces. “The regiment dinner was a paltry affair, only twelve dishes and two of them carrots, for goodness’ sakes. And no asparagus, though it is in season—disgraceful.” He drains his glass of wine and pours himself another.

He looks at me with curiosity. “Is this on my account? The hair and the robe?”

“No.” I sit down on the sofa. I can’t leave with him here, for he will want to know where I am going.

“This wine is awful—why do you drink it? And this place is so dusty. Makes my eyes swell.” His eyes are red and puffy, but I think it’s the drink more than anything. He finishes his pie and wipes his hand on the tablecloth.

“So, where are you going, almost midnight and dressed up like a strumpet? Tell me.”

I want nothing more than him gone from this room. I want to say he should go back to his sword maker’s daughter, but I don’t have the courage. And perhaps he has someone new.

He looks at me curiously while picking idly at the little daisies I have arranged in a vase on the table. He snaps the head off one.

I flinch.

He throws it on the floor.

“Don’t do that,” I whisper.

“What?” He turns to me with a hard look and I realize he is quite drunk. I don’t know why he hates me so; I tried to be a good wife to him and he never uttered one word of kindness to me. Not one. I shudder, remembering his hands on me. Thankfully it has been a long time and I push the memories of those nights down into a place far, far away, where I need never encounter them again.

I get up from the sofa and move away from the light into the protection of a dark corner and look out the window. All is quiet above and below. The Comte de Matignon has gone to the country for the hunting, and taken his dratted dogs with him.

“Come here.”

I go and stand in front of him, looking as miserable as I feel. I mustn’t cry or my rouge will run and I will have to redo it and I hate to keep Louis waiting. Why won’t he
go
?

“What are you hiding?”

“What do you mean? Nothing.” I look down at my hands. Outside I hear the clocks chime and a thin peal of laughter comes from the courtyard. Midnight is coming.

“You smell like a Turkish whore.”