The Prisoner of the Castle of Enlightenment

by Therese Doucet

  Mesdames, messieurs, here we have

  An enigmatic gentleman

  Who goes by the name of Harlequin.

  Is he a trickster, a sphinx?

  What devilry has he got up his sleeve?

  He does not show his cards,

  Nor are they written on his face,

  So he’s certain to win the game.

  Beware, beware, of Harlequin!

  Don’t bet your hand against him.

  But he brings us here,

  We’re served food and wine.

  We shall have no fear,

  But of the passing of time.

  Therefore we drink,

  After this execrable rhyme,

  To the invisible Marquis our host

  And his friend Harlequin.

  Ulysse’s poem was received with groans, cheers, and laughter. We toasted Harlequin, the Marquis, and Boisaulne. I drank sparkling wine along with everyone else, and after several toasts the room tilted a little around me. The food began to appear on the table and we worked our way through six or seven courses of dishes richer and more elaborate than the simple solitary meals of game, bread, and vegetables I had become accustomed to in the last several weeks. There were aspics, meats in pastries, piquant and creamy sauces, meringues and Chantilly cream and berries. I had a long talk with the Scotsman, who sat across from me. At first I thought because of his ugly imp’s face and bad clothes he would be dull to talk with, but he took pains to keep me amused, telling me jokes and asking me many questions. I didn’t wish to lie outright about my position there or my relationship with the Marquis, but through simple omission and turning his questions quickly back on him, I managed to evade any discussion of it. My questions were rewarded with stories of his travels. As a young man he had survived a voyage to America and back. He had visited the courts of Prussia, Bavaria, Sardinia, and Spain. This was his first summer at Boisaulne.

  Our conversation was interrupted by an announcement from Harlequin, who had been listening in from time to time, in between chatting with Séléné and Aurore. He held up a hand for our attention and cleared his throat.

  “Since some of you are new to our little society here, I must explain there are certain rules traditionally followed by those who spend any length of time at Boisaulne. Most of them have been laid down by the Marquis himself, as conditions for my inviting visitors on his behalf. Whatever his eccentricities, it can be said of him that he’s a proponent of the ideals of the lights of our age: reason, tolerance, progress, humanity, science, government for the good of all. I for one have no quarrel with any of it, so I hope none of you will find it too burdensome.

  “One rule, as must already have become clear, is that we don’t use our ordinary names here. In general, a name is given to us at birth and carries with it a weight of history, of place, of fortune, inheritance or the lack thereof. A man can’t help the accidents of his birth and circumstances but can strive against them to do good or ill. So, to remind us to act as masters of our own fates, we go by names of our choosing here.

  “Another rule is that we don’t speak of families here, of parents, wives, husbands or children, for similar reasons. The third rule is that we don’t speak in the day of the things we do in the night. In other words, what you do then is your own business, and shouldn’t intrude on the friendly dealings we have with each other in our illuminated circle.

  “Apart from those rules, I’ll just remind everyone that, like the salon gatherings held by some of our illustrious fellow guests, the manor is meant to be a place friendly to serious discussions. So we must all be prepared to find our arguments and ideas scrutinized and criticized from every angle, and ourselves held to high standards of logic, rigor, and good faith in seeking the truth in our discussions. That’s all. My thanks again to all of you for making the journey here.”

  Donatien listened to Harlequin’s speech with a slight smile. He caught my eye and winked at me. The Castle of Enlightenment. So this was what he had meant.

  When the conversation resumed, Séléné turned to me.

  “So, tell me, dear, what have you read?”

  I froze with a mouthful of meringue. It took me a long moment to chew and swallow and wash the bite down with a sip of bubbly wine. In the embarrassment of it, tears almost came to the corners of my eyes.

  “Er, begging your pardon?” I croaked at last.

  “I said, what have you read?”

  “I, well, goodness. I began with the Bible in French, I suppose …”

  “Are you a Calvinist?”

  “No, our villages all followed the teachings of a sectarian preacher. Though there is some resemblance, I’d say, to Calvinism and the beliefs of the Huguenots.”

  “Theology isn’t my forte. You must explain it to me a little.”

  “Pardon me, of course. It began with a monk who called himself Peter Waldo. He praised poverty, simplicity, asceticism, and chastity. He gave away his riches to become a wandering preacher and founded a sect that became known as the Vaudois, or the churches of the valleys. Most of our people lived further south, in Piemonte and the Dauphiné, and they were nearly exterminated in the Wars of Religion. But a handful of villages on the other side of the mountain from here, where I was born, were settled by Vaudois. They had fled north to Genève at one point, and then instead of going back home they went into hiding in the woods by the alpages, high up and far from the main roads, where few travelers ever came to know of their existence or their heresy.”

  Séléné listened with bright-eyed attentiveness. “Fascinating. Do you mean to say that you yourself are a heretic, from a hidden village?”

  I laughed. “No. I must admit that after reading some of the tracts of the philosophes, d’Holbach, Diderot, Voltaire, and so on, I became more of a Deist in my heart. I can’t disbelieve in a Divine Being, but I see him more as a clockmaker who set the world in motion and doesn’t otherwise intervene in human affairs.”

  She nodded. “You and most of the rest of us I think. But if you were raised in a heretic village, how did you come to read the philosophes?”

  “My father moved to the town of Annecy after I was born and built up a small fortune as a merchant and investor. My sisters and I had a governess when we lived in town, so I learned my letters in French. Then I was married to a lay pastor of our faith, who kept a bookshop in Annecy to earn a living. I used to read the philosophes when I was minding the shop and no customers needed help. But the rules – I’m sorry. Mightn’t it be allowed to speak of the pastor, though, since he passed away some years ago?” I asked sheepishly, with a glance at Harlequin.

  “I should think so,” she said in a conspiratorially lowered voice. “I’m a widow too, and not unhappy with my lot. It’s been a way to live prosperously and freely. There are few things more fortunate for an ambitious woman than to have a dead, rich husband.”

  “Oh,” I said, recoiling a little. “Was – was he unkind to you, your late husband?”

  She laughed. “You have no idea. But that was a long time ago. Thankfully, a hunting accident relieved me of him after only three years. I’ve been free ever since – well, except for a short spell in the Bastille.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “But lovers are ever so much better than husbands, aren’t they? I thought it would be the same because I’d been in love with my husband for a year before I married him. But when a man regards you as his property it’s different. He thought my wild past entitled him to punish me, and he was a jealous man. If there’s anything I can’t abide, it’s jealousy.”

  Donatien had caught the thread of our conversation and listened with amusement. “You did have a rather wild past. He ought to have known what he was getting into with you. You should tell the story to Belle-me, it’s a good one.”

  “Which story?”

  “Why, the convent of course.”

  She rolled her eyes, but seeing my wide-eyed look, said with good humor, “Very well. I ran away from a convent when I was fif
teen. My parents thought it would provide me with a good education for being married. But it certainly wasn’t the education I wanted! I disguised myself as a boy and fled to my sister’s house in Paris, which was a much better life for me. Parties and balls, and I could read whatever I liked without having to make up my own stories. Of course since I’d got used to doing it I kept making up stories anyway.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” I said. “Aurore mentioned you’re a novelist.”

  “I publish under a nom de plume of course. But perhaps you’ve come across the Memoirs of the Baron of L---?”

  I blinked. “Why yes. I could hardly put it down. I stayed up most of the night reading the last half. You’re the author? Truly?”

  She smiled. “You’re flattering me. It was just a potboiler.”

  “Well, well,” said Donatien, putting an arm around Séléné’s shoulder and leaning in toward me. “So the pastor’s widow likes potboilers. I wonder what other kinds of excitement she likes.”

  Séléné waggled her eyebrows and giggled. Then her face turned serious. “You’re exquisite,” she said to me. She was drunk. I think we all were.

  

  After supper, coffee was served, and the faint sounds of a gavotte drifted in from the music room upstairs.

  “Let’s have some dancing,” said Harlequin, who had been quiet through most of the supper since his speech about the rules of the Castle of Enlightenment. He led us out to the antechamber and down the gallery hall, which was lit up by candles in sconces. He opened another pair of double doors set into the wall that I hadn’t seen before, camouflaged as they were by the gilded and painted marquetry of the hall. The doors opened out into a spacious, high-ceilinged salon with a mezzanine gallery and railing halfway up the wall above us, from which a wide staircase descended. On the side of the mezzanine was another pair of double doors whose existence I hadn’t previously suspected, that opened into the music room, so the melody of the gavotte filled the room.

  We paired up into couples. Ulysse asked Clio to dance, and she blushed as she accepted, averring that she didn’t dance well – clearly a modest falsehood since she danced very prettily.

  Séléné bowed to Donatien as a gentleman might to a lady and asked him whether she might have this dance. Donatien, who had watched Ulysse claim Clio with a petulant air, laughed and pretended to curtsey before accepting, but he took the lead on the dance floor. The Scotsman asked me to dance, and Tristan bowed to Aurore in an awkward, stiff manner. Since we were an odd number, Harlequin stood off to the side next to a buffet of drinks and sweets, looking on. His pale silver-blue eyes seemed to follow me with constant, furtive attentiveness.

  For the next few dances in a row we switched partners with each change of the music, and each of the gentlemen took a turn sitting out. Harlequin danced with me last of all and didn’t seem inclined to speak much when he finally did. There was so much I wished to ask him that it was hard to know where to begin, but I had to seize my opportunity, since he had been talking with the others and avoiding me all night.

  “Harlequin,” I said as we stepped forward, my hand resting on his arm, “why didn’t you tell me more about the Marquis before I came here?”

  “You didn’t ask.”

  “I was so frightened.”

  “You needn’t have been.” He looked down at me in concern. “You know that now, don’t you?”

  “Still. You ought to have told me more of what I had to expect.” We turned and faced each other, joining hands. “I never imagined I could be so happy here.”

  “Are you happy then?” For a moment he met my eyes and held my gaze.

  “More than words can say. So much it almost hurts sometimes.”

  He nodded. “Good.”

  “But the Marquis – he only comes to me at night, in the dark. You must have seen him. Can you tell me what he looks like?” We pivoted around and walked in the other direction, in line with the other dancers.

  “Does it matter, if you’re happy with him?”

  I considered this as we crossed hands with the other partners and went around in a circle before returning to one another.

  “So you won’t tell me,” I said when we rejoined our hands.

  “Anything you want to know, you should ask him. You probably know him better than I do by now. I only follow his instructions.”

  “Hmm.” We turned round again. “By the way,” I said as he took my hand and led me forward, “I was curious. How did you get your nickname?”

  “It seemed appropriate. Harlequin’s a clever, resourceful fellow. In the comedies he helps his master unite with his beloved.”

  “But isn’t he also a rogue and a trickster?”

  He grinned. “Perhaps I am, too. Harlequin’s half fool, half sage. He’s a masked, checkered, patchwork man. So he’s not unfitting as an alter ego.”

  We stepped sideways together. Donatien’s words from this afternoon came back to me. Any one of us could be the Marquis, and no one would be the wiser. The conviction took hold of me that Harlequin was one and the same as Thérion, the Marquis de Boisaulne. It could be him, couldn’t it? It must be him, since my heart beat faster at the touch of his hands on mine, and when my eyes met his silver-blue ones, I felt as though I were sinking down into a bottomless sea. Yet there still remained to me enough doubt that I didn’t want to embarrass myself by asking him, only to be proved wrong. I would wait and watch until I was more certain. Then I would ask him.

  

  After several jigs and minuets, sarabandes, and more gavottes, I was fatigued and overwarm. With most of the rest of the group I paused to rest and take another glass of sparkling wine. Harlequin and Aurore were the only two still on the dance floor.

  The gentlemen clustered around the adorable Clio. I was inclined to be jealous, even if Harlequin had intended to procure her as a mistress for Ulysse. But I thought of Séléné’s words, If there’s anything I can’t abide, it’s jealousy. I knew I wasn’t pretty in the way Clio was, in the way nearly any man in any country of the world couldn’t help but find charming. But Aurore had first wanted to call me Belle, and Donatien had said the same thing. I thought that with my black hair, green eyes, and pale skin, my beauty was of a more particular kind, the kind women found attractive, and perhaps also men of darker and more original tastes, as Thérion seemed to be. I wasn’t discontented with my lot. I’d rather be myself than Clio.

  An arm encircled my waist, and I looked up to see Séléné, who squeezed me and pressed her cheek to mine.

  “How are you faring?” she asked.

  “This drink is going straight to my head,” I said with a laugh.

  “Oops. I brought you another glass. I hope you don’t mind.”

  I set down my empty flute and sipped from the full one she offered me, and she sipped from hers, her eyes sparkling with mischief as we watched each other.

  “I wish I could be as direct as you,” I said. “You’re so brave in saying what you think.” I was already regretting that I hadn’t asked Harlequin more questions. Séléné certainly would have.

  “You needn’t be timid with me. Say anything you like.”

  “Well then … what did you mean about the Bastille?”

  “Oh, that. It wasn’t my fault at all. It was a terrible thing, so sad. Looking back, I do wonder if there was more I could have done to stop it.”

  “You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to talk about it.”

  “No, no, it’s fine. A young officer who was in love with me took his own life in my house. He shot himself with a pistol. I cried and cried, and my valet went out to find some soldiers of the Garde. When they came in, they arrested me. I was accused of driving him to it by breaking off our affair. It wasn’t true at all. I hadn’t even realized he was suffering from a private melancholy. He’d given no hint of it and made no threats. I was as shocked and sorrowful as anyone. Anyway, I wasn’t in prison for long. Thankfully my friends rallied around and came to my defense, a
nd the investigation cleared me of wrongdoing.”

  “Goodness gracious,” was all I could think to say, drunk as I was.

  “Are you done with your wine? Come along with me to the powder room.”

  I downed the remainder of my drink and let her take my arm and lead me out to the hall. I hadn’t known there was a powder room, but another door concealed in the marquetry had been propped open, and it led to a small room for guests with a privy and a dressing table.

  When we were done, instead of going back to the salon, she tugged my arm in the other direction, toward the glass-paned doors at the end of the gallery that led out to the garden.

  “Let’s go outside, just for a little bit,” she said. “I bet it’s a lovely night. Was there anything else you wanted to ask?”

  “Is Harlequin a pimp?”

  “Oh … that would be too strong a way of putting it, I think. He has an eye for feminine beauty, to be sure, not to mention masculine beauty. He likes to see his friends happy, though I’ve never known him to have an affair himself. If he has, he’s been exceedingly discreet about it. Who could blame him? I probably ought to be more discreet myself, but after the Bastille, I sort of gave up.”

  We were out in the garden now, under a nearly full moon. The air was cool, and the leaves and branches of the trees and bushes swayed gently in the breeze. Séléné had taken a lamp from one of the sconces in the gallery and held it out before us to light our way.

  “I think Harlequin likes me,” I said, “or maybe detests me. I don’t know which. It seems he’s always watching me. Yet I feel as though he wants to avoid talking with me.”

  “More than likely you interest him. You seem just the sort of woman who would. Intelligent, unusual, innocent, and yet sensual at the same time.”

  “Is that how I seem? But tell me – do you think Harlequin and the Marquis de Boisaulne could be one and the same person?”