by Kate Forsyth
Palais du Louvre, Paris, France – February 1673
My first love affair came about because of a death.
It was dusk in winter, and Paris was covered with a mantle of white snow. All the mounds of garbage were hidden beneath that white cloak, so that the alleyways seemed as immaculate as the domes and spires of the chateaux and cathedrals.
The court was on its way to the Palais-Royal to see a performance of the Troupe de Roi at the Duc d’Orléans’ private theatre. I walked from the Louvre, delighting in the crisp cold air and the sight of the golden lanterns strung all along the Rue de Rivoli. My boots – crimson-dyed and fur-lined – sank deep into the snow, and I kept my hands buried in my muff.
‘Mademoiselle de la Force, welcome.’
As I came through the doors into the vast entrance hall, I heard the heavily accented voice of Elizabeth Charlotte, the Duchesse d’Orléans, the new wife of the King’s younger brother, Philippe. Nicknamed Liselotte, she was a squat little figure, badly dressed, with a broad nose and a round red face, coarsened from never wearing a veil when she rode to the hunt.
‘So you walked, did you? Gut gemacht. All these fine ladies who cannot bear to walk more than six paces. No wonder they’re all so fat. You know I’ve been confined to a sedan chair myself? Yes, I’m afraid all the rumours are true and there’s a bun in this oven.’
I laughed and offered her my congratulations, stripping off my fur hat and cape to pass to a footman.
‘I have to say, it makes me believe in miracles after all,’ Liselotte went on in her loud German voice. ‘Who could believe my pathetic fop of a husband could be such a man? You know, of course, that he has to drape himself with rosaries and holy medals to get it up at all …’
‘Sssh,’ I said, for the King was only a few paces away, greeting his brother with an inclined head, a mark of highest favour.
‘Oh, His Majesty knows all about his brother, don’t you worry. Who doesn’t know?’ Liselotte brooded on this for a moment, her thick brows pinched together. I looked at her in some sympathy, because the whole court did of course know that Liselotte was forced to live in a ménage à trois with her husband’s lover, the beautiful and depraved Philippe, Chevalier de Lorraine.
‘Nasty creature, that catamite of my husband’s,’ Liselotte said. ‘Come, sit with me. You know I cannot bear to be near him or my husband, unless I absolutely have to, and I utterly refuse to sit with the King and his whores.’
I stifled a laugh, for the King was settling down in his silver chair with his squat little queen, Marie-Thérèse, beside him, and his two gorgeous blonde mistresses vying to make sure they sat on his other side.
These three women travelled everywhere with the King in his coach, and it was said he usually managed to bed all three at some point during the day. Louise de la Vallière had been his first mistress but had recently fallen out of favour. Her usurper, the voluptuous Athénaïs, the Marquise de Montespan, was now considered the true queen of France, and predictably it was she who won the silent tussle of the chair, sinking down beside the King in a soft explosion of pale silk and speaking to him in such a low voice that he had to bend his ear to her mouth in order to hear.
Athénaïs was, of course, a nickname. Her real name was Françoise, like half the women at court, and the Marquise de Montespan could never bear to be like other women. We all were given nicknames in the Parisian salons in those days, probably to distinguish between all the Louises, Maries, Annes and Françoises. She had adopted the nickname Athénaïs, derived from Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom. I was called Dunamis, which was the Greek word for strength and so a play on my surname.
‘I’m so glad you’re here, Mademoiselle de la Force. I like people who laugh at what I say. I am looking forward to the play, aren’t you?’ Liselotte said.
‘All of Paris is!’
‘It’s a new play tonight,’ Liselotte said. ‘This is only the fourth time it has been staged. Molière himself is to play the lead role.’
‘Oh, that’s wonderful. I heard he was unwell.’
Liselotte twinkled at me. ‘Consorting with actors again, are we?’
I put my nose in the air. ‘What can I say? One comes across all kinds of interesting people in the salons.’
‘Including, I have heard, a certain young actor …’
‘Many actors,’ I said firmly, though I felt myself blush. It was true that I had become friendly with one particular young performer, a protégé of Molière’s named Michel Baron, who was playing the role of the hero in the play tonight. He was not at all handsome, having a long thin face with a long thin nose, but he was very amusing. Michel could mimic anyone. With a twitch of an imaginary skirt, the wave of an imaginary fan and the lift of a haughty chin, he would become Athénaïs. Or he would droop his eyelids and let his hand flop from the wrist and mince forward a few steps and voilà! The Duc d’Orléans.
I had met Michel at the salon of Marguerite de la Sablière, a rich and brilliant woman whose house was always filled with writers and actors, including Jean de la Fontaine, who had written the Fables I had so loved as a child. We were among the youngest at the salon, Michel being only twenty and me two years older, and both of us had ambitions to be writers. I introduced him to the court salons, so he could charm and flatter some rich court lady into being his patron, while he took me to the cafés and cabarets of Ménilmontant and Montmartre, two villages outside Paris where wine was exempt from city taxes and so much cheaper for our poor thin purses.
The theatre was filled with the rustling of silk, the fluttering of fans, the flapping of lace and the nodding of feathers. Six tinkling chandeliers, each holding aloft six tall candles, illuminated the stage while another thirty-four candles were arranged in rows along the front, filling with air with a haze of smoke. Footmen carried about silver goblets of the King’s favourite wine, an effervescent rose-coloured concoction from Champagne that was the new craze at court. It was said that the wine-maker Dom Pérignon had cried to his fellow monks, ‘Come quickly, I am drinking stars!’ True or not, that story alone made me love the sparkling new wine.
The curtains were dragged back and a roar went up, for there sat Molière in a high-backed chair, dressed in a long-tailed green coat. He had a muffler about his neck and a damp cloth held to his brow, and his desk was littered with various bottles of medicines and pills. With the help of an abacus, he was adding up an immensely long bill, which scrolled down his lap and onto the floor.
‘Item One, on the 24th, a small, insinuative clyster, preparative and gentle, to soften, moisten, and refresh the bowels of Mr Argan,’ he moaned in the plaintive tones of a chronic invalid.
A shout of laughter went up from the men at the word ‘bowels’, and women pretended to hide their faces behind their fans in shock.
As if encouraged, Molière went on to mention bowels, bile, blood and flatulence several times in the next few moments, until the audience was weeping with laughter.
The play rolled on till the final scene, where the character played by Molière pretended to die so that he could tell who truly loved him: his beautiful daughter or his beautiful second wife. With his green coat torn loose at his throat, Molière sank back on his chair, saying piteously to his maid, ‘Is there no danger to counterfeiting death?’
‘What danger can there be?’ the maid began.
Molière suddenly lurched up, coughing convulsively.
‘What an actor,’ Liselotte said.
‘Brilliant,’ the Chevalier murmured. ‘I wonder what they put in his maquillage to make him look so grey?’
The actress playing the maid had recoiled, one hand to her mouth, then darted to support Molière. He coughed as if his lungs were wet paper, then suddenly gasped and clasped his handkerchief to his mouth. We were close enough to the stage to see the white cloth suddenly turn red and sodden.
‘A vial of pig’s blood hidden in the handkerchief?’ Liselotte wondered uneasily.
‘I think … I’m afra
id …’ I started half out of my chair.
The maid turned to the side wings, calling for help. Michel ran onto the stage and supported Molière as he coughed up more blood. The crowd was beginning to stir and murmur. Molière heaved himself upright. ‘Enough. On with the play!’
‘But, sir …’ Michel protested.
Molière thrust the bloodstained handkerchief into his hand and waved him away. Reluctantly, Michel withdrew from the stage.
The maid stammered through her next lines: ‘Only stretch yourself there, sir. Here is my mistress. Mind you keep still.’
Molière lay out on the couch, looking ghastly, as first his stage wife came in to find him supposedly dead (‘Heaven be praised!’) and then his stage daughter (‘What a misfortune! What a cruel grief!’). The conniving stepmother was banished, the beautiful daughter won her true love (Michel doing his best to look ecstatic while all the time shooting Molière looks of the deepest anxiety). The curtain fell with unusual haste upon the scene, and we were all left to look at each other and marvel and wonder.
‘Do you think he is really ill?’ Liselotte wondered.
‘I fear so,’ I answered, close to tears.
The King ordered a servant to go and make enquiries. I waited with Liselotte for news, while the rest of the crowd slowly dispersed, going back to the Louvre or to their own apartments nearby. The two Philippes – the prince and his chevalier – wandered off, and Athénaïs drew the King down to talk to him, his dark head bent over her golden one.
‘I might go back to my room,’ Queen Marie-Thérèse said.
‘Very well, dear,’ her husband the King said vaguely, not looking up.
The Queen hesitated. ‘Shall I see you soon?’
The King lifted one hand. ‘Later, dear, later.’
Queen Marie-Thérèse waddled out to her sedan chair, accompanied as always by one of her dwarves and a smelly little dog. I should have gone with her – I was one of her ladies-in-waiting and it was my job to make sure she was comfortable and happy – but Marie-Thérèse paid little attention to me, as her French was poor and my Spanish even poorer. I did the absolute minimum of my duties possible, although I always made sure I was around between supper and bedtime. That was when Queen Marie-Thérèse liked to play cards. As she always played for high stakes and always lost, my income was greatly enhanced by this vice of hers. Her latest round of losses had paid for my fur cape and hat.
Truth be told, I could hardly bear the Queen. She spent half her day on her knees mumbling prayers to God to make the King be kind to her and the other half lounging around drinking innumerable cups of hot chocolate, surrounded by her dwarves and her dogs. The latter were far better treated. Her dwarves slept on the floor outside her bedroom door and ate whatever scraps she thought to fling them. Her dogs had their own valets and carriage, and their own room in their palace, and often sat at the table with the Queen and ate from her plate.
If I’d had any choice, I’d have left the Queen’s service long ago, but I couldn’t afford to. Ladies-in-waiting are not paid very much, and most of my winnings were spent on scented gloves, red-heeled shoes, lace trimmings (exorbitantly expensive) and sedan chairs to get me to the various salons that I slipped out to once the Queen was snoring in her bed. Oh, and on bundles of expensive paper, ink, goose-feather quills and pumice stone. I spent every spare second I had scribbling stories.
I made my excuses, called for my cape and hat, and slipped out behind the Queen. Not to return tamely to the Louvre, but to make my way to Molière’s house.
It was not far, being just across from the theatre on Rue de Richelieu, but I was frozen to the bone by the time I got there. The house was full of actors and actresses in the very throes of histrionics, people weeping, sighing, groaning and throwing themselves about. No one paid me any attention at all, so I was able to find my way up the stairs to Molière’s bedchamber, where his wife, Armande, and her mother, Margeurite, were chafing his hands, burning feathers under his nose, lifting cordials to his slack mouth and generally trying to make themselves feel useful.
Michel sat by the bed, his head sunk in his hands, his fingers writhing about in his curls. I bent over him and whispered his name.
He looked up, his eyes red-rimmed. ‘Oh, Charlotte-Rose, he’s dying.’
‘Can nothing be done?’
Michel shook his head. ‘He has consumption. He caught it in gaol, you know, that time he was imprisoned for debt. He has been ill for years.’
‘Why did he go on stage?’
‘He needed the money,’ Michel said simply.
‘Is there anything I can do? A doctor? An apothecary?’
Michel snorted in derision. ‘Would they attend him after he ridiculed them so in his play?’
‘Surely they would not refuse …’
Michel shrugged one thin shoulder. ‘People hate to be mocked.’
I nodded in agreement, remembering in one quick flash the King’s fury when I had humiliated him in front of his courtiers. I shoved the memory away – it brought nothing but pain – and tried to think what I could do to help. Molière’s green coat lay crumpled on the dusty floor. I bent and picked it up, shaking out its folds. Michel shrank back at the sight of it.
‘Get rid of it,’ he cried. ‘It’s the devil’s colour! Oh, I’ll never wear green again.’
I glanced at him quizzically but shoved the coat out of sight nonetheless. Michel was always like this, at the peak of delight or the depths of despair, but it was one of the things that had drawn me to him. I had grown tired of the King’s famous impassivity; one was always trying to guess what he was thinking. With Michel, one always knew.
‘Have you eaten?’ I asked.
‘As if I could eat at a time like this.’ Michel flung his face down into his arms again.
On the bed, Molière moaned and muttered something. Armande and her mother wept in each other’s arms.
‘A priest?’ I asked hesitantly.
‘We’ve already sent for two, but they will not come. They say the author of Tartuffe is no fit person to receive the last consolations.’ Michel looked up at me with an agonised face.
‘The King will be furious if he hears that. Let me send for the King’s own confessor. If he will not come himself, he will at least send someone else.’
I ran downstairs and found a small frightened-looking young actor and gave him some money and told him where to go. I then took some wine up to the gloomy bedchamber and poured it for Michel and the two weeping ladies. The atmosphere was so oppressive that I must admit I gulped a goblet myself, though it was cheap nasty stuff.
Molière’s breath was rasping in and out of his throat. He lay so perfectly still, and his profile was so white, he looked as if he was an effigy carved from marble. Only that dreadful, wet, slow breathing showed he was still a man. Between each exhalation and each inhalation was a long ravine of silence, growing longer each time until we were hanging over him, sure each time that it was his last breath.
The door opened. Two nuns came in, snow still frosting their black veils. They seemed so out of place among this rabble of gaudily dressed actors, still in their stage maquillage, that we all started like guilty children. I thought they had come to give the final rites, ignorant réformée that I was, but they shook their heads sadly and said only priests were permitted to do that. Nonetheless, they mumbled some Latin and prayed over him, and it seemed to comfort the two women, and maybe Molière too, for he let out his breath in one long sigh and then did not breathe in again. We listened to the silence for some time before we realised he was gone.
‘He was a great man,’ Michel said. ‘We’ll not see another like him again.’ I was trembling. I had never seen a man die before. My heart felt as if someone was squeezing it in their fists. I too would die like that one day. People died of consumption all the time, even young women like me. If I were to die tomorrow, what would I have done with my life? Molière at least had written more than thirty plays. He had travelled a
ll of France, and he had had many lovers. I had never even been kissed.
I bent and cupped my hand around the nape of Michel’s neck, seeking to comfort him. ‘We must arrange his burial.’
‘Actors are not permitted to be buried in sacred ground,’ Michel said in a shaking voice.
‘What? Why?’ Incredulity sharpened my voice.
Michel slanted me a wry look. ‘Demon spawn,’ he explained.
‘The King surely would …’ My voice failed me. ‘Bring me some paper. I’ll write to him.’
The nuns looked impressed. Even Marguerite, who had played before the King many times, looked impressed. Paper was brought – poor-quality stuff that was brittle and yellow – and I composed a hasty letter and paid more coins to yet another young actor to carry it to the Palais-Royal for me. The reply came swiftly, wrapped around a gold louis. Molière could be buried in the cemetery, but it must be at night and in the section reserved for unbaptised infants. The King could do no more.
The church bells were ringing. It was midnight. The nuns were preparing to lay poor Molière out. I bent and whispered to Michel, ‘There is nothing more you can do. You must rest. Come.’
He nodded and rose. Catching me by the hand, he led me out of the room and down the corridor, Michel picking up a candlestick from a nearby table.
He opened a door and led me inside. I saw, in one brief glance, that it was a man’s bedroom in wild disorder, clothes flung across the chair and spilling onto the floor, a pair of boots lying discarded in the middle of the floor. Then Michel caught me and drew me to him, his mouth coming down on mine.
At first, I froze, startled, but then I kissed him back, urgently, desperately. He fumbled with my bodice. ‘I must tell you … I want you now … more than I’ve ever wanted anyone,’ he said between frantic kisses. ‘I’m sorry. Is this wrong?’