Aurore giggled, earning us a dagger-edged glare from the Marquise. I half wanted to laugh out loud, just to spite her, but then I remembered what Thérion had told me about the Marquise throwing the Book of the Rose into the fire. Tears sprang to my eyes at the thought of my lost book and poems, and my lost love, and I had to dab at them with my napkin. Thérion wouldn’t look in my direction at all.
As if she had guessed my thoughts, the Marquise directed a small self-satisfied smile my way.
“But perhaps Madame la marquise could indulge her love of hunting here at Boisaulne,” said Séléné, with what I recognized as a poisonous sweetness. “Harlequin, you must have a few muskets about. The château’s always so well-provisioned with everything one could want.” Her tone was so arch, I seemed to hear a double meaning in every word. I made a mental note to ask her about her late husband’s hunting accident, as I remembered how much joy the memory of it had seemed to bring her.
“It’s a curious thing,” the Marquise said. “My dear husband claims the woods here make for poor hunting. Yet when the Abbé and I spoke to the curé in the village, we heard an entirely different story. It was astonishing. We were told the villagers have free rein to hunt on Boisaulne’s lands as long as they don’t cross the river. Moreover, a considerable amount of meat and skins from this side of the stream goes to the villagers in exchange for a paltry amount of foodstuff, hardly any more than Boisaulne’s guests need to eat.”
Thérion looked pale. “Most of Savoy has been in a state of famine the past few years. Every autumn you see a heartbreaking exodus of boys from the villages setting out to make their way on foot to Paris to become chimney sweeps and servants. Those who don’t find work in the city, far from their parents, become beggars in the slums, or they simply starve. But Maisnie-la-Forêt has kept its children. The famine hasn’t touched here. I’ve simply tried to do the right thing by the villagers.” He had been drinking steadily throughout the meal, and his speech had begun to slur.
The Abbé cleared his throat. “I hardly see how making poachers of the people can truly benefit them in the long run. When their hands are chopped off for thievery, will they thank you?”
“Indeed,” the Marquise said, “one has to think of the welfare of the soul and not just the body. There’ll be no more of this, letting these worthless poachers take advantage of us. It enrages me, just to think of it. It’s lucky I’m finally here to take a hand in things. To imagine, all this time, a mountain hunting manor being neglected and run to ruin as you let people cheat and rob us. And I certainly intend to get a count of the game population in the forest on both sides of the river. The Abbé’s something of an authority on animals. He can help us with it.”
The Abbé chuckled. “Madame la marquise, you flatter me. Of course, I did help the Duc de Montvalère to gather together the animals for his game park. But I think of myself more as a man of science, a naturalist. I’ve been collecting a few samples to study and had meant to collect more live ones when the weather clears up. This could lend itself to survey of game species at the same time, but I must warn that it’s an inexact procedure.”
“Might I accompany you?” the Scotsman asked. “I’d love to see how you do it. I had noticed, too, that there were a great number of species in the region unfamiliar to me. Perhaps I could even be of some assistance to you.”
“Quite. It would be my pleasure. Speaking of a survey, do you know, I was looking at some maps of the area in the Marquis’s study. It appears the domain of Boisaulne borders on several villages of heretics – Vaudois, as they call themselves. Degenerates worse than Huguenots, so wicked even the Calvinists would hardly acknowledge them as among their own. These depraved dregs of humanity ought to have been wiped out with the rest of their kind a century ago. But quite extraordinarily, they’ve been treated with indulgence and particularly protected by the lords of Boisaulne. Apparently there’s a history of the domain being infected with this terrible disease, the idea of so-called religious toleration, which has become such a scourge to the stability of the governments of Europe in our times.”
The Scotsman coughed delicately. “Perhaps you don’t recall, sir, that my own countrymen are Presbyterians for the most part? We’re but a hair’s breadth from being Calvinists ourselves.”
The Abbé smiled his gentle, peaceable smile. “My dear friend, I don’t mean to cause any offense, but I’m firmly of the belief that Protestantism is the greatest calamity that ever befell Europe.”
The Scotsman smiled too. There was admittedly something amusing in hearing such a declaration made in in such a gentle, friendly tone.
“Worse than the Black Plague?” he asked. “Worse than the earthquake of Lisbon?”
“Protestantism has been responsible for the bloodiest of wars and civil conflicts. And that’s not even the half of it. It threatens to destroy our future. It threatens the stability of every government, even those of countries such as your own where it’s embraced as the state religion.”
The Scotsman raised his eyebrows and awaited further elaboration.
“The State and the Christian faith are two sisters,” the Abbé said. “They’ve sometimes quarreled, but they cannot do without each other. The one sustains the other. Legal codes take their precepts from the faith, and the state protects the faith. The faith in turn upholds the state and the monarch’s authority. These twin pillars of order used to rest on a foundation of majestic infallibility, which led by way of blind trust in authority, and renunciation of individual reason, to a set of universal beliefs.”
The Scotsman nodded. “With this I can’t disagree.”
“Then innovators weakened this foundation by undermining it, seeking to dig deeper. How did they do this? They replaced obedience with discussion. They set the arrogance of individual reason and judgment against Catholic judgment and the authority of long tradition.”
The Scotsman looked ready to burst out laughing. But I was still trembling at the mention of the Vaudois villages. I saw how slit-eyed the Marquise was as she listened and how Thérion grew paler still and gulped down another goblet of wine far too quickly and filled it again. Now his eyes looked glazed over and his stare was vacant.
One by one, while the Scotsman and the Abbé had been speaking, Séléné, Ulysse, Clio, and Tristan had each slipped out of the room.
“Excuse me,” I said, folding my napkin in front of me on the table, “but the journey from Grenoble was tiring today. I think I’ll go upstairs now. It’s been such a pleasure becoming acquainted.”
Aurore and the Scotsman excused themselves too. The Marquise, her face now a rictus of the friendliest goodwill, wished us a good evening and we went out, leaving Thérion alone with her and the Abbé.
XV
Aurore and I undressed and got ready for bed, but before we could blow out the candles, there was a quiet knock on the door.
“It’s Clio. May I come in?”
Hurriedly we put on dressing gowns, and I opened the door. Clio came in and sat down at the foot of my narrow bed. Just as she opened her mouth to speak, there was another knock. This time Aurore rose to answer it. It was the Scotsman.
“Ladies, good evening. I’m so terribly sorry to bother you. I hate to intrude on your privacy, but I wanted to have a word …”
There was another knock at the door.
“Ach,” said the Scotsman. “This is rather embarrassing.”
Aurore shook her head. “No matter. Would you be so kind as to see who it is?”
He opened the door and let in Séléné and Ulysse, who looked around the room and laughed.
“I see we’re not the only ones who thought it was time to have a talk about things,” said Séléné.
“We’re only missing Tristan,” said Ulysse. “Shall I go and fetch him? Our would-be knight might think it’s unchivalrous to go knocking on ladies’ doors at night.”
“Would you mind?” said Aurore gently. Ulysse disappeared and came back a few minutes later with Tristan.
Despite the somber nature of our gathering, it had the air of children’s party or a costume fête, with all of us in our dressing gowns. One by one, our visitors found seats on the sofa or the armchairs or one of the beds.
Ulysse tipped his tasseled, Oriental-style embroidered nightcap to us in salute and said, “I suppose we’re all thinking along similar lines. This is a crisis situation, is it not?”
“These people are horrible,” Clio said. “They’re going to ruin Boisaulne for everyone if we don’t do something.”
Séléné folded her arms across her chest. “Not only that, but Harlequin’s a dear friend, and this woman’s going to kill him. He’s done nothing but drink since she got here. Who can blame him? She’d make me want to drink myself to death too.”
“And this priest makes me want to set something on fire,” Ulysse said. “Like maybe that hideous wig and collar of his.”
“The priest – I mean, the Abbé – is Donatien’s uncle,” Clio said. Her round freckled cheeks were pink with anger.
“What?” My mouth gaped open in shock.
“So he told me, yesterday. He blames me, and you, for seducing Donatien and tempting him. Of course he doesn’t know you’re you, Belle-me, since we switched to calling you Psyché. This afternoon when they got back from going to church with Aurore, he pulled me aside and said he wanted to talk to me about it. He led me into a corner of the library and sat down too close to me on the sofa – like this –” She scooted over next to me to show us how uncomfortable the distance was, and then moved back. “He took both my hands in his. He said I ought to seek forgiveness from the Lord, and beg Donatien’s forgiveness too.”
I shook my head. “But that’s disgusting.”
“Oh, it got worse. He said his nephew was so generous and forgiving, he wanted to become my patron, and I ought to accept the offer and ‘submit’ to him and let him guide my career.” She shook her head. “What a repulsive piece of …”
“That’s an astonishing hypocrisy. What did you say?”
“Well, I pulled my hands away as if I’d touched a manure pile. I ought to have told him to … to go and fuck himself. But I was too stunned to say anything. I just jumped up walked away without a word.”
Tristan looked grave and pale with fury on Clio’s behalf.
“And the Marquise,” I asked, “how is he connected with her?”
The Scotsman said, “It appears the Abbé’s been her spiritual advisor for some time. Harlequin must have known him, but I don’t think anyone realized he was a relative of Donatien’s.”
“I’d practically forgotten what Harlequin’s wife even looked like,” said Séléné. “They move in such different circles. I’d seen her once or twice at Madame Dufaud’s salon, long ago. But she’s no great intellect, obviously, so I can only imagine salons would bore her. I tried asking what she’d read, and she looked at me like she’d bitten a lemon. I can only think she must be a vulgar, ignorant creature, devoid of culture.”
Ulysse snorted. “No better way to fit in at court. La Pompadour’s the only one with any polish there.”
“But it isn’t any wonder now,” Aurore said, “why Harlequin was always so silent on the subject of his marriage.”
“Perhaps,” Tristan observed, “that was the real reason all along for the rule of not talking about families at Boisaulne. I admired Harlequin’s attempts to take philosophical stances in favor of Enlightenment, but that rule always struck me as strange. After all, every philosopher through the ages has discussed the family at some point.”
“I think you’re right,” the Scotsman said.
“Do you know though,” said Ulysse, “going back to the subject of Donatien, I’d heard some rumors about him, now that I think about it.”
“What rumors?” Clio asked.
“Something about him getting into trouble with the law over mistreating some prostitutes. Everyone wrote it off as nothing or laughed at it. Now I wish I’d said something. But he’d always been a friend of my family’s – his father knew mine. And the rumors sounded silly, something about giving the women pastilles with Spanish Fly that made them sick, flogging them, and making them piss on a crucifix. Of course I wasn’t bothered about the crucifix – ‘Écrasez l’infâme,’ and all.”
“It’s rather ironic then,” the Scotsman said, “that he’s got such a Catholic uncle.”
“No, it isn’t,” I said. “They’re two sides of the same coin.” Given the cruel persecutions of my Vaudois forbears, this was a subject on which I felt entitled to speak with authority.
“How so?” the Scotsman asked.
“It’s a wish to dominate, in both cases,” I explained. “Didn’t you get the sense the Abbé’s interest in Christianity was more for the sake of its political uses than any love of Christian principles for their own sake?”
“You’ve put your finger right on it. Bright girl,” Ulysse said.
“Anyway,” Clio said, turning to me, “now you’re back, and you see how things are. Boisaulne is ruined. Should we all just leave and go home early? Or is there anything we can do?”
“I think we need to rescue Harlequin,” Séléné said. “We need to come up with a plan.”
“There’s something I should tell you all,” I said. Suddenly, all eyes were on me and the room went quiet. Quickly I got up out of bed and went to the door, opened it, and peered out into the hall, just to make sure no one was listening. The corridor was empty. To make sure we weren’t overheard, I took a handkerchief from Aurore’s vanity table and stuffed it into the keyhole. I got back into bed, under the covers, and then I said, “Harlequin and I were lovers.”
Ulysse looked both amused and pleased. Tristan’s eyes widened. Aurore nodded thoughtfully, and Séléné’s mouth rounded into a silent Oh. The Scotsman cocked his head, Clio frowned and looked struck. From her reaction, I was seized by a sudden fear.
“Am I the only one?” I asked, my voice choking up a little.
The others all looked inquiringly at each other. I met Clio’s eyes, and there was a tense moment of silence. “Clio?” I asked. I ought to be brave. I ought to be willing to face the truth. “Did you sleep with him, too?”
She drooped and looked down at her hands in her lap. “No. I – well, I wanted to. I kissed him once, on the lips.” Her cheeks were flushed, and I was so relieved, I found it charming. “He pushed me away. He wasn’t unkind, but he said he was much too old for me, and besides, he was a married man.”
I looked around at the rest of their faces. “Am I the only one, then?”
There were a few nods, and Aurore said gently, “I told you, I’d never heard of him doing anything of the kind. He always had a great reputation for fidelity.”
“I figured he must be one of those odd people who don’t care for lovemaking at all,” Séléné said. “He has no children. I thought perhaps he was simply a cold fish, as they say. Or perhaps he liked gentlemen, though I’d never heard of him indulging in that preference, either. I certainly tried with him a time or two. But no.”
“So the Marquise was right to be jealous of you,” Aurore said. There was only the slightest hint of a reproach in her tone.
I swallowed. “She was. I was his mistress. He didn’t want anyone to know, not even his friends, because he was afraid of the Marquise finding out. For a long time he kept his true identity a secret even from me.”
I didn’t have the heart to try to defend myself any further, to tell them my father had sold me to Thérion to pay his debts, or that I couldn’t help falling in love with my master and jailer when he came to me in the dark; or how the Marquise had always seemed so far away, more dreamlike and unreal than any of the magical things at Boisaulne. I had never imagined I would have to meet her face to face, that she would intrude on our joys, sever our bond, and destroy my book and our peace. I had all but forgotten that in the eyes of the rest of the world, the man I loved was an adulterer, and I was the fallen woman he had sinned with. It had seemed
to me love justified us and bound us together in a way no marriage ever could, by a law as ancient as the roi des aulnes’s woods.
“My dear girl,” said Ulysse, “I don’t think any one of us is really in a position to cast the first stone. I, for one, love Séléné, and she’d sooner skewer me in a duel than marry me.”
Séléné looked up at him from her seat on the sofa, blinking. He was perched on the arm of the sofa next to her, half standing. Were there tears in her eyes? There were. She wiped them away with the heel of her hand and smiled. “But darling, you never even asked.”
“You’d have said no, wouldn’t you?”
“True. Still, it’s sweet of you to think of it. I’d shack up with you, if you liked.”
“I’d like that very much.”
The two of them looked tenderly at each other. He placed a hand on her cheek and stroked it, and she rested her head against his hand.
Tristan said, “Can we return to the subject at hand? Ulysse and I rarely agree on anything, but he’s right that we can’t cast stones. And this woman is no less horrid for being his lawfully-wedded wife.”
“But it’s not as though there’s anything we can do about it,” the Scotsman said. “There’s no legal divorce in your Catholic lands, even for kings.”
“Oh, shove it in our faces, why don’t you,” grumbled Ulysse.
“He could convert and flee to Genève,” said Tristan. “The lady who took me in when I came to Annecy did it the reverse way. She emigrated to Savoy and became a Catholic so her marriage could be annulled. It might work in both directions.”
“Shouldn’t that be for him to decide?” said Aurore. “Anyway, I think it’d be quite difficult to throw away everything you have and leave your home and friends forever. He’d be penniless there, and a fugitive from the law if he ever came back. Her father’s a fermier général. All that’s needed is a lettre de cachet against him, and she and her father will control all his goods, in essence.”
“And it’s just what she’s threatened,” I said. “She can expose him for the cartoons he’s published. He’s not safe even in Savoy because her father knows the governor and could have him sent to Miolans. My own husband was locked up there, in the dungeon of Miolans, and they only let him out to come home to die when he got sick.”
The Prisoner of the Castle of Enlightenment Page 20