The Sisters of Versailles (50 page)

Our presence? Does he mean “our” as in us, or is it just the royal “our”? I hadn’t thought of
going with him, but I wonder if I should.

“But, Princess”—his special name for me—“won’t you miss me? Why is it that you are pushing me to war, to leave Versailles and to leave you?”

I run my fingers down his thigh and he sighs in pleasure. Far away we hear one valet berating another, telling him to be careful with the steaming irons. “I would sacrifice my own pleasure for the sake of the nation.”

“I would miss you, Princess. Perhaps too much.” He shifts and I tighten my hand around him.

“I would miss you too,” I say, and I mean it. I’d have to talk with Richelieu, but why not accompany him? It would be good to get away from Versailles, and see more of France. I’ve never been anywhere except Burgundy. I suggest the idea to him but Louis only laughs and shakes his head.

“No, Princess, no: the front is no place for women. Ladies, at least.” I murmur my acquiescence and continue working my hand, to bring him to a place where he will deny me nothing.

Richelieu likes the idea, both of them.

“Yes,” he says, “let’s get the king out to the front and away from Maurepas. And I don’t see why you shouldn’t go as well; Louis XIV went to war with both Madame de La Vallière and Madame de Montespan, at the same time, and it didn’t hurt anyone then.”

So it is decided, though Louis still has to agree. And perhaps Diane should come as well?

Diane

METZ, FRANCE

June 1744

W
hy do you
think peasants smell?” We are in the carriage, rocking along the road at a quick clip. I really, really hate traveling—my back hurts the minute I step into a carriage. And oh! The odors. Simply frightful.

“Because they are peasants,” says Aglaë helpfully. “It’s what they do, they smell.”

We are four in the carriage, heading to Metz and to the king and war: myself, Marie-Anne, and our friends Aglaë and Elisabeth. Behind us is a second carriage with our women and clothes.

“It’s true; if we didn’t wash for a month we still wouldn’t smell as ripe as they do,” says Elisabeth. “Look at our grooms. They are poor but they don’t smell. Yet peasants? It must be in their blood.”

“But why don’t they wash? Water is free, isn’t it? When it rains they should just stand naked under the sky and wash that smell away.”

“I think charities should give less food and more scent to the poor—a good dousing of rose oil would go a long way to solve their stink.” We all nod in agreement.

Our friends are both older ladies with scandalous pasts. Aglaë in particular is good company; she is the daughter of the old regent and sister of the notorious Duchesse de Berry. She used to live in Modena and has entertained us with many funny stories
about Italians and the dull horror of the court there. The heat inside the carriage is intolerable and we wear loose, old clothes for comfort and carry masks to keep our identities hidden. Overnight we stop at inns and eat the gruesome food. In my pie this morning I found the crest of a cock! It actually wasn’t as disgusting as I thought it might be; it tasted rather like chicken.

During these stops we hear the local people talking, hear the rumors and gossip of the country. It is no secret that no one loves Marie-Anne or myself, or that they say scandalous things about us. Some of the things they say, of course, are true; I try not to think too much about that dreadful night at Choisy.

“I’ve heard he lets them ride him as one would a horse.”

“That youngest one’s a Protestant, mark my words: everyone knows the Tournelles are Huguenot sympathizers.”

“Ten days of hail? Nothing like it in a century. Why, even my mother, all eighty-eight years of her, has never seen the like! But that’s what happens when a whore rules the world.”

“Apparently incest is all the rage at Versailles now; even the
dauphin
and his sisters are getting involved.”

At an inn past Reims a table of drunken oafs next to us complains that
la pute—
the whore—is on her way to Metz and that will only create problems. Women at war cause excessive rain, as well as the drooping of a man’s anatomy; neither is good for the fighting spirit. One adds that the Châteauroux harlot is a witch who has blinded the king, and that France will only prosper again when she is dead and gone.

Marie-Anne smiles her sour smile to show she has heard but doesn’t care. She spends the rest of the day staring sightlessly out the window and chewing her nails. She is worried: Louis did not give her permission for this trip and she told the queen she needed time away to attend a personal matter. I don’t like to see her like this: it is not her habit to regret a decision. As we near our destination I wrap the tips of her fingers in ribbons so she cannot further destroy her nails. Louis is very fastidious about such things and I know that Marie-Anne wants nothing to mar our arrival.

After five long days, we are in Metz. Almost in Austria, or at least the Austrian Netherlands—it’s all very confusing. They say Austrians have enormous hands and feet and eat rotten fish; they have no choice as they have no coast. I hope we shan’t meet any.

No one greets us on arrival and this puts Marie-Anne in a bad mood. She snaps at the chambermaid who comes to wash her and slaps me when I drop her striped petticoat, one she was saving for this reunion, on the floor. We are lodged at the abbey in the center of town; Aglaë and Elisabeth are garrisoned—I like that word, we are really at war!—in another room. Marie-Anne orders me to join them there before the king arrives, but I am still in her room when he bursts in. He holds Marie-Anne for a long while and she snuggles in his arms. Finally he holds her away from him.

“Too long! Too long! I shall not stand to be away from you for this length of time again.”

“Fifty-eight days, sire,” says Marie-Anne shyly. “I counted every one.”

Marie-Anne says she loves the king, but I am always confused by how silly and childish she acts when they are together. Not like herself at all. It’s just an act, she says. I must pretend to be a little girl so he can be a man.

“Leave us now, Diane,” she simpers, and the king fair pushes me out the door, giving me a resounding slap on my backside as he does. “You had best beware,” he calls after me. “I have army manners now.”

Later we join them for dinner and I see that all of Marie-Anne’s nerves are quieted and she looks as radiant and happy as the king. We are an odd party—the king, us four ladies, and a smattering of stern-faced dukes and generals. We eat in a large mess hall that reminds me of the refectory at the convent, and the king regales us with tales of recent victories. He has been having a grand time and assures us that victory will be France’s before too long.

“Is that not true, Noailles?” he cries, and his chief marshal inclines his head and says he could not agree more with His Majesty,
though his words are accompanied by the unmistakable odor of displeasure. Noailles is a friend of Marie-Anne’s, but it is clear he does not support our arrival.

I was afraid we would be served army food, gruel or dried cod or some such horrible thing, but instead we dine on spicy lamb stew, cheese-and-egg pie, and delicious apple breads. I have a sudden craving for apricot jam, eventually settled the next day at breakfast with some damson marmalade.

“Perhaps you’re pregnant,” says Aglaë shrewdly, sipping her chocolate, watching me pile my third bun high with jam.

“No, Diane always eats like that.”

I consider, then grow excited and flush. “Oh! Perhaps I am.”

Marie-Anne raises her eyebrows and the ghost of something sour flits across her face, then disappears as quick as a wisp of smoke. She gets up to hug me.

The king comes in and joins the hug before we can separate.

“What is the occasion, mesdames?” he inquires, releasing us, then takes a slice of cheese from the table. “No, no.” He waves the footman away. “I will not sit to eat. We ride out early.”

“Diane might be expecting.” The three of us know from the timing that it is not the king’s, but the flushed look on Aglaë’s face shows she is avidly considering the possibility.

“Ah, Lauraguais will be delighted. A man can never have enough sons.”

“Perhaps, sire, but my husband is so unfaithful, I am not even sure if the baby is his.”

The king chokes with laughter and cheese spurts out of his nose. When everything is cleared away and the tears have dried in the king’s eyes, he takes my hand and bows to me, still chuckling. “And that, madame, was perhaps my least regal moment ever. If these were not modern times, I would have had you clapped in the Bastille for treason.”

The king spends hours overseeing dispatches and huddled with the generals in a room we call the Camp. On a table in the center
of the Camp there is a sizable map of the area, and nothing delights the king more than to show us the changing pins of blue (us) and yellow (the Austrians) as battles are fought and won. It is all very dull but we are ready with polite murmurings of interest and take pains to conceal our ennui. Once Aglaë convinces one of the generals to stop lecturing about the proficiency of their Prussian allies and instead explain the forward thrust to us. I can’t stop giggling. Marie-Anne runs her hands up and down the king’s arms in a manner that causes him to blush and stammer, and causes the generals’ eyes to almost pop out of their face.

We are very much aware that we are not wanted here by anyone except the king. Of course, he is the only person that matters, not the generals or the disapproving Bishop of Soissons, but there is a harsh atmosphere here that curdles our days. Everyone looks at Marie-Anne as though they want to chew her to bits, then spit her out.

We ride in a borrowed carriage around the streets of Metz, but it is a little town, nothing like Paris. The fashions are dreadful and most of the women are stout and ugly, and it appears that rouge and powder are not essential here. “Austrians look like that, too,” says Aglaë knowingly; she is very well traveled and has even been to Vienna. “They are
thick
people. Not in the head, so much, but in the arms and wrists and legs. Lips. Such places.”

We are invited to the house of the governor for dinner and suffer through an interminable evening listening to the man’s son, a smug little boy of ten with a quavering duck voice, sing all six of César’s arias from the opera
Giulio Cesare
. If you know that opera, you will know that the arias are very long. When we are finally released and back at the abbey, Marie-Anne declares that any future social visits will take place in our apartments. “Let the peasants come to us,” she says, falling on her bed.

“The governor is hardly a peasant,” says Elisabeth stiffly. There is a distant family connection.

“You know what I mean,” says Marie-Anne in irritation. “These provincials. My God, why did I come here?”

That night we all drink too much plum brandy. Louis is away in Lille and it is a stifling hot night. Our rooms are on the first floor but even the open windows can’t coax in a breeze, so we strip down to our shifts and fan ourselves and squeeze lemons on our arms and necks against the needling mosquitoes. We throw the bits of lemon on the floor and soon the floor is a yellow carpet.

“We are farther south than Paris, so that is why it is so hot,” I say knowledgeably. Pauline once told me that in Africa, it is so hot the natives cook meat without making a fire, just by setting it out under the sun.

“Not south, just west.” Aglaë knows; she has lived everywhere.

Richelieu will soon be joining us at Metz, and Aglaë entertains us with stories about him. They were lovers in her youth and she declares him to be the most accomplished man she ever had the pleasure of attending in bed, and tells us he uses his fingers as skillfully as he plies his cock.

“I am not sure this is a very ladylike conversation,” Marie-Anne says, though I can tell she is interested.

“But there are no ladies in the dark,” replies Aglaë, and we all laugh.

We fall silent and I start thinking about Pauline. I’ve been thinking about her a lot lately; of that last hot summer when she was pregnant, as I am now. How she used to complain! I’d like to talk about her, but Marie-Anne never wants to. Marie-Anne never really knew her; they were sisters but like strangers. Strange sisters. I giggle.