The company buzzed with political talk: the war with Spain, the glorious recapture of Corbie, the unrest in much of France.
“Thirty thousand men!” exclaimed one red-faced Marquis, hobbling about on gout-gnarled limbs. “I should like to have been there! To see His Majesty at the head of his army. Mon Dieu! What a sight it must have been!”
“Ah, no,” exclaimed another, whom Jean-Auguste had introduced as the Lieutenant Governor of Touraine. “There is not a man in all of France, of course, who would not die for Louis, but I would put myself beside Cardinal Richelieu in battle. There is a sight to stop the heart and freeze the marrow in every enemy soldier! I mind him at La Rochelle, black armor over his red robes, skirts tucked up to free his boots and spurs—proud and fierce and angry! There was no cleric in him that day!”
“I knew him at the academy,” said an old man. “He would have had a brilliant military career had there been another brother to take the bishopric at Luçon.”
The Marquis laughed sardonically, “And then he might have counted among his enemies only those who bowed to a foreign flag!”
Lysette found it all terribly dull, even when the talk turned to the fresh uprisings in Angoumois; Soligne seemed a lifetime away, and scarcely worth her concern anymore. Jean-Auguste and André were debating the finer points of some campaign or other, in desperation Lysette sought out Marielle and some of the other women—domestic trifles could hardly be more tedious than another battle!
“We shall go to Paris in a few weeks,” Marielle was saying. “The Court will be gay, what with the victory of Corbie.”
“And half the army disbanded until the spring campaigns!” exclaimed a pretty young thing, the wife of the red-faced Marquis. “I intend to break the heart of every handsome courtier at the Louvre!”
“And what of your husband?”
The Marquise shrugged. “So long as his gout gives him pain, he needs must sleep alone!”
“And you?” asked another, archly, to a chorus of giggles.
The Marquise smiled like a cat. “There is no place in all the world more filled with wicked delights than Paris!”
A heavy-set woman in green silk sat down in a froth of petticoats and began to fan herself angrily. “Aye! But what is one to tell one’s husband? By my faith, Monsieur my husband seems to have more spies than Cardinal Richelieu himself! How tiresome it is to have to lie to him at every moment!”
“But why lie?” said the Marquise. “My dears, have you not heard of the charming Madame de…” and here she named a woman whose husband held a high position in the government.
The woman in green opened her eyes wide. “But she is a scandal! They say she has more lovers than the Seine has fish!”
“Riddle me this,” said Lysette to the Marquise. “How may a woman lie, and yet not lie?”
“Oh, bravo!” cried the woman in green, clapping her hands at Lysette’s wit.
“I shall tell you,” said the Marquise. “The lady is an equestrienne! She mounts and rides all her lovers. When Monsieur her husband questions her fidelity, she swears on the Blessed Sacrament that she has lain beneath no man save him!”
The women laughed uproariously at that, but Marielle only smiled her gentle smile. “But le bon Dieu alone knows what she tells her confessor,” she said softly.
“Ah, you are too virtuous by half, Madame du Crillon! I wonder that you and Monsieur le Comte bother to come to Paris at all!”
Marielle smiled stiffly. “There are friends to see, and we enjoy the theatre. Monsieur le Comte is particularly anxious to see Monsieur Corneille’s new play.”
“And the women of the Court are as anxious to see Monsieur le Comte!” said the lady in green wickedly. “I vow he is as handsome as ever he was in the days when he broke hearts—and crossed swords with half the outraged husbands of Paris!”
Marielle bit her lip, and even Lysette frowned in annoyance. It was one thing to have designs on a woman’s husband—it was quite another to mock her to her face! She put her hand gently on Marielle’s arm. “Come, ma chère. Will you take a turn about the hall with me? I am longing to know more of this Monsieur Corneille. Will there be other entertainments in Paris this season?”
“I do not see why we cannot go to Paris, Jean-Auguste!” cried Lysette, her voice rising in an aggrieved whine, her mouth a stubborn pout across the supper table. It was the third time in a week she had broached the subject, growing more petulant each time.
He sighed deeply and put down his knife. “But the glassworks, Lysette,” he said patiently. “Must I tell you yet again? I should be here.”
“Pooh! The Rondini said it would be weeks, while the furnace and crucibles were heated up! And the teams of men must be trained. And in the meantime I am dying of misery and boredom!”
“Are you so unhappy then?” he asked, an edge of concern in his voice.
Caught off guard by the warmth and sympathy in the depths of his soft eyes, she arose from the table and went to stand by the window, shielding her face from his all-seeing gaze. Unhappy? Searching her mind for the first time, she nearly laughed aloud, surprised at her own feelings. Unhappy? So far from it was she that, though her heart ached constantly for André, her life was filled with a contentment that was closer to happiness than anything she had ever known before. Still, it would hardly do for him to know!
“Are you?” he repeated, coming up behind her and turning her into his embrace.
She could not lie with those eyes upon her! With a heartbroken wail, she burst into tears and pushed him away. “You promised! Before you went away! You promised! And now I shall be old and ugly before ever I see Paris again! Even Guy was not so cruel!”
He threw up his hands in exasperation. “In a few weeks then. Please, Lysette. Be patient!”
“No!” She stamped her dainty foot in fury. “Hateful! Hateful! Hateful!”
“Nom de Dieu, Lysette! Stop! I shall not be hectored in my own home! We shall go to Paris when I choose it, and not a moment before!”
“Then go to Paris! Go to the devil, for all I care!” Whirling to the table, she snatched up the wine jug and smashed it at his feet, her jaw outthrust belligerently.
For a moment he stood immobile, his eyes filled with cold anger and disgust, then he knelt and fingered the shards of fine porcelain, shattered now beyond all hope of repair. His eyes were almost sad when he straightened again and looked at her. “It was from Limoges,” he said quietly. “Gabriel brought it. You might have chosen something less dear to me.”
“Oh-h-h!” she moaned, her tears starting afresh. “I hate you!” she cried, and fled the room so he might not see that her misery arose from shame, rather than her failure to change his mind.
By morning, however, the pain had faded, and she was able to view her Paris campaign with the dispassionate eye of a general. She should have remembered from all their clashes on the journey from Soligne: her fury was powerless against his calm determination. She always ended up the fool, or consumed by remorse. So resolved had she become to have her way in this matter, however, that she was prepared to fulfill her wifely duty, if need be (and in good humor, to please him!), if the victor’s baton would be hers.
She found him in the library, writing letters at a small desk. At sight of her, he put down the sealing wax he had begun to heat at a small candle, and waited for her to make the first move, his gray eyes cool and distant.
She fell on her knees before him, gazing up at him contritely. “I am truly sorry,” she said, soft-voiced, her eyes misty with tears, “for my wickedness and vile temper, and for badgering you so! And for Gabriel’s wine pitcher.” (That, at least, she genuinely regretted!) “You are very patient with me, and kind, and I bring you naught but grief. Will you forgive me?”
He grunted gruffly and nodded in assent, then started to turn back to his desk. “Now leave me to my correspondence.”
She jumped to her feet and plunked herself determinedly on his lap. “No! Not until you tell me you f
orgive me! You must say the words, or I shall not rest content!” She smiled pleadingly at him. “Please.” The voice soft and melting.
He fidgeted in his chair. “Very well. I forgive you.”
She kissed him fervently on the mouth so he looked at her in wonder (though not without pleasure at her unexpected warmth); then she ruffled his hair with playful fingers, shaking her head in mock dismay. “It is still an ungodly color, but I have grown quite fond of it!” She stroked the naked spot above his lip, so recently adorned. “More especially since it no longer rives your face in two! Did you shave it for me?” she asked softly, and was delighted to see his face turn as scarlet as his hair.
“I…I know not!” he said uncomfortably. “I simply wished to do it!”
“Eh, bien. I care not! I am glad it is gone!” She kissed him tenderly, then scanned his face, her violet eyes filled with pride and pleasure. “How handsome you are! How the women of the Court will envy me!” One red eyebrow shot up in surprise. “When you decide we are to go—naturellement!” she amended quickly.
“Are you really so anxious to go?” he asked, wavering.
She smiled beguilingly and took his hand in hers, placing it over her full round breast. “I defer to you in everything,” she said softly. “You are my husband. But, yes, I should like very much to go to Paris.”
His mouth twitched, but he allowed himself to fondle her bosom for a moment before removing his hand. “Indeed, you must be impatient for the journey, that you are willing to barter so for it!” She frowned at him, mystified, missing the tone of sarcasm in his voice. “Very well, then. I see I shall have no peace until I am agreed to your wishes. We shall leave on Tuesday next.”
Eyes shining, she flew from his lap and pirouetted happily about the room, chattering away, filled with questions that tripped one upon the other, without waiting for answers. “Oh! And how long shall we stay? Will the Court be at the Louvre…or Fontainebleau? I have never been to the Louvre! They say it is beautiful! Is it? And may I have a gown made to go with my emerald buttons? Do you fancy me in white brocade? We must go to the theatre! May we go to see Monsieur Corneille’s new work? Marielle says that is the only reason she and André will be in Paris this season. Marielle says there are mulberry bushes in the Tuileries Gardens, for the silkworms! I have never seen a silkworm! Will you take me to the Tuileries? André knows the old gardener there…” Her voice trailed off as she danced out of the library, pausing at the door to throw him a kiss.
He had smiled in amusement at her enthusiasm, but after she had gone the smile lingered for a moment, frozen upon his face, then slowly faded away. Carefully he folded his letter and reheated the sealing wax, allowing a large dollop of wax to drip onto the overlap. He made a fist with his left hand, contemplating for a moment the signet ring on his finger, then pressed its incised surface into the warm wax. His unseeing eyes stared vacantly at the letter; his fist tightened, the fingers so firmly clenched the knuckles gleamed white. The signet ring rose and fell, again and again and again. Like a man in a stupor he pounded absently at the letter, a tight muscle working in his jaw, until the wax had been reduced to crumbs.
Chapter Sixteen
Paris in December of 1636 was a bustling, complacent city of half a million souls, busily preparing for the Feast Days and Holidays to come. Forgotten for the moment was the war with Spain, the disastrous campaigns of the last year, the terror that had gripped the city when Corbie had fallen and left open to invasion the road to the capital. Was it only a few months ago that Cardinal Richelieu had been the most hated man in all of Paris, his name appearing in curses scrawled upon the walls, his carriage hissed and reviled as it passed through the city? But the threat of invasion had aroused the population; full of patriotic fervor, they had banded together and risen to the challenge of the enemy, mobilizing into volunteer brigades, raising funds to pay those mercenaries commissioned by the Crown, prepared to defend their city with the pride and unity that had characterized embattled Parisians from the time of the Romans. And Corbie had been retaken, and the Spaniards had retreated to their holdings in the Netherlands to await the spring campaign. From Notre Dame to the Place Royale, from the Sorbonne to the Luxembourg Gardens, Paris was enjoying the respite.
At the Louvre Palace, however, the Court buzzed with matters more mundane but ultimately more vital to the future of the realm: the King’s latest liaison. Mademoiselle de La Fayette was a young girl, chaste and pure, with a sweetness that appealed to the melancholy Louis. She had not as yet submitted to him (and there were those who insisted he would never make her his mistress, whether due to his piety or his well-known antipathy toward carnal love), but while she reigned as his favorite she was the center of much speculation and partisanship. She numbered among her friends those who were opposed to the war—and by extension, to Richelieu—who urged her to cement her relationship with Louis at the earliest possible moment. But there were those who viewed her as a threat. So long as Louis moped about the palace, sighing of his tender sentiments and composing sonnets to Mademoiselle’s charm and grace, the Queen, Anne of Austria, slept alone. And there was as yet no heir to the throne. Not since the birth of Louis himself in 1601 had the cry of “Noel! Noel!” been heard in the streets to herald the birth of a prince.
Lysette found it all exciting and wicked, far more titillating than the small-town gossip of Soligne. Would the King importune? Would Mademoiselle de La Fayette weaken? The talk sparkled in the salons, witty, droll, filled with plays on words and clever puns, but always, at bottom, basic and bawdy. Men and women. In bed. Out of bed. Betraying spouses. Afflicted with the pox, (that disease that walked hand in hand with loose morality), which the Court, in patriotic self-defense, had begun to refer to as the “Neapolitan Malady.” The regularity with which high-born ladies, finding themselves with an unwanted dividend in their wombs, sought out surgeons and doctors to rid them of the burden, despite the civil laws against the practice and the disapproval of the Church. Lysette found this particularly revelatory, and determined to add it to her growing store of knowledge.
The whole licentious air of Paris gave her a new sense of freedom. Each day, when she and Jean-Auguste had left their suite in the Louvre to go to the theatre, or a fashionable salon, or a ball, she managed to distance herself from him as much as possible so that she could flirt, engage in ribald conversation, allow herself to be captured for an innocent kiss from some panting admirer—without his critical and disapproving glance. She had seen Marielle and André seldom since their arrival at Court, but she knew that in this atmosphere, and freed from the constraints of home and household, André would be an easier and more willing prey.
Alas. There were others who sighed for André as much as she did. For the first time, seeing him constantly surrounded by fawning women, she wished that he were less attractive, less the object of every feminine heart. And what was the matter with that fool Marielle, that she did not lay claim to him once and for all, or at the very least make some attempt to compete with the women who would steal her husband from her? Lysette said as much to Jean-Auguste one day—she could not tell if her pique stemmed from her own inability to get André for herself, or her pity at Marielle’s helplessness.
“I can scarce understand it! One would almost think that Marielle goes out of her way to be plain and uninteresting! She is handsome enough—and with a little assistance, Nature might serve her passably well!”
Jean-Auguste laughed shortly. “Marielle is a beautiful woman—when she chooses to be!”
“Pooh! Why should she choose not to be?”
“There was a time,” he said, his face suddenly dark with remembrance, “when André burned with jealousy—he would have liked, I think, to kill every man in Paris who looked at her!”
Lysette felt an unexpected pang of jealousy. “Even you?”
His mouth twitched at the note in her voice. “Would it disturb you, my vain little coquette, to think I spend less than every waking moment dreaming of
your charms?” He laughed as her lip jutted out in an angry pout, then went on more seriously. “Eh bien! I fancied myself in love with her for a time. But for Marielle there is only André, always André. That is why she chooses to dress plainly, to let diffidence be her rule. She does not wish to provoke him by encouraging other attentions.”
“Then she is a fool! Will a man notice the ground beneath his feet when there is a rainbow in the heavens?” She frowned in irritation at Marielle’s folly, but in her heart she felt a certain tranquility. When at last she had won André away, she would revel in his love with nary a twinge of remorse, knowing his blind wife had relinquished him without a struggle.
But in the meantime, André seemed to belong to no one—and everyone. Even Marielle had begun to grow testy, her sweet serenity shattered by the women who paid court to him, and by his acceptance, if not encouragement, of their flattery and admiration.
Unable to get close to him herself, Lysette was beginning to feel positively neglected. She stood one night in the Grand Salon of the Louvre, watching him dance with one beauty and then another, aching with jealousy and longing. Feeling peevish and miserable, she had refused Jean-Auguste’s repeated invitations to dance until, with a shrug, he had gone off to the card room to try his luck with piquet.
“But it is Madame la Marquise de Ferrand, is it not?”
She whirled to see one pale blue eye—and a large black patch. “Monsieur le Comte d’Ussé! What a surprise to see you in Paris!”
He took her hand in his and brought it to his lips. “Madame de Ferrand. You are much changed since last we met!” His eye raked her body with such obvious desire and approval that she shivered with pleasure, glad she had put on her violet dress this evening.
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