by Jean Teulé
Just at this moment a cannonball caught him right in the head. The chevalier’s torso fell into Montespan’s out-stretched arms.
The waves rose and fell in the starless night amid the muted sounds and creaking of the vessel – La Lune – where the Gascon had found a berth. The ship, overloaded with the wounded, was the last to weigh anchor. The other transport ships – L’Hercule and La Reine – (in better condition) carried the high command to the open sea whilst Louis-Henri was on board his leaky, sluggish tub. It had been poorly refitted by Rodolphe, a carpenter in Toulon. Planks were giving way on deck, where the badly burned survivors had left their shirts of skin. Winds drifted over human detritus where the marquis was seated. The stumps in that military laundry, that public bathhouse, were wrapped in blue and white cloth; to those of a sensitive nature, these men were more terrifying than monsters. Over there were the sweating shapes of hundreds of Christ-like faces with dark, gentle eyes. Not far from Louis-Henri a man lay humming, his guts spilling out. His mouth gaped open and his sleeves gestured in the air, making mad signs that no one responded to. He sang,
‘Beaufort, you’re a clever one
And we’re right to fear ye
But the way ye’re reasoning
We’d take ye for a gosling.’
Long oars reached out and lapped the rhythm across the surface of the water. In the morning, near the peninsula of Giens, a terrible cracking sound ripped through La Lune: it split in two and sank in a second, like a block of marble. One thousand two hundred wounded men from the regiments of Picardy and Normandy were lost. A few survived miraculously, clinging to a rowing boat. Montespan was pulled deep into the roiling waves. He struggled to make it back to the surface, burdened by his saddlebag, which had not left his side. The gold was weighing him down. He had to get rid of it. In the rush of swirling water as the ship touched bottom, sand rose and scratched his face; he groped blindly in his treasure and filled the pockets of his military greatcoat. He let go of the saddlebag and rose breathless to the surface, his lungs bursting. The rowing boat was far away and he had no strength left to shout. He tried to calm himself and swam among the mutilated bodies. He clung to one of them to recover his breath and, at water level, contemplated the disaster of this failed expedition against the Barbary corsairs. He was astonished to find himself thinking, ‘Where is La Fontaine? Could the fabulist not pen a lovely sonnet? And Le Brun – these floating stumps, would they not inspire a pretty tapestry?’ Slowly he set off, swimming across a Mediterranean in mourning, but he was truly too exhausted and, on either side, the heavy pockets of his greatcoat pulled him towards the bottom. He plunged his head underwater and tore at the seams of his coat. He watched wearily as the heavy bracelets sank straight down, with sets of diamonds and necklaces of precious stones gliding away like snakes. Broken strands of pearls hovered, and their little white globes escaped from the string. They scattered, shone and disappeared into the black water.
Finally he saw a meadow in the distance, where the last buttercups, the last daisies begged the day for mercy. He washed up on the beach, like a jellyfish. With one cheek in the sand, his lips blew bubbles, a rosary of love: ‘Athénaïs …’
He returned to France: the war had brought no glory to his name. Once again, Montespan had come back covered not in honour but in shame and debt. His head wound in rags, he arrived on foot, and only in his shirt, at Rue Taranne. He climbed the steps, and opened the door to the kitchen. Athénaïs was sitting in a tub, taking a bath. She stood up, clutching a towel to her, then, on recognising her husband, she dropped the towel in the water. Louis-Henri looked at her round belly and gaped.
7.
‘A girl, and now a boy: ’tis what is called “the King’s choice”!’
Constance Abraham, the wigmaker’s wife on Rue Taranne, waxed ecstatic as she gazed at the sleeping infant before picking him up. ‘Ah, praise be to God, is he not lovely, this little Louis-Antoine with his fair white skin. He is the image of his mother!’
But Athénaïs, standing next to her in the shop, was wringing her hands whilst Marie-Christine, now two years of age, tugged at her mother’s skirt. Athénaïs pushed her away: ‘Leave me alone.’
Louis-Henri de Pardaillan was sitting in a tall armchair being shaved. He looked at his wife.
‘Are you all right, Athénaïs?’
The marquise was not all right. She felt oppressed, had difficulty breathing, and had sudden violent urges to weep. The kindly, plump wigmaker’s wife thought she understood her malaise.
‘Don’t worry, my dear, this must be a post partum reaction; ’tis quite frequent. I had the same, did I not, after my son’s birth. Do you recall, Joseph?’
‘I do!’ exclaimed the wigmaker, trying a new wig on Montespan’s scalp. ‘Dear me, you became so sensitive that the slightest vexation, sometimes even a compliment, brought on a fit of tears or anger. You lost your appetite, you couldn’t sleep, and you were so distracted I wondered if you were not thinking about someone else.’
‘Boo-hoo!’
The fair marquise burst into tears. Her husband lifted the towel from his lap to wipe the shaving cream from his face. He pushed the copper basin in front of him away and got to his feet.
‘Athénaïs!’
He embraced his wife whilst their little girl clung to her, saying, ‘Maman, Maman.’
‘Do stop pulling on my skirt, you’ll tear it! Oh!’
Athénaïs wept profusely, knelt down and immediately apologised to the little girl. ‘Forgive me, Marie-Christine. I am not a proper sort of mother. I have no maternal instinct…’
‘But you do!’ protested Constance Abraham loudly, waking the infant still in her arms, who began to cry. ‘Have no fear, my sweet, a post partum depression never lasts very long. In the space of a few hours or a few days you will once again feel like the happiest of mothers. And you will want many more children.’
‘Particularly as you are fearsome fertile; your powder ignites easily,’ said the wigmaker. ‘Whenever your husband returns from the army, he finds you with child.’
Constance rocked Louis-Antoine, who continued to wail.
‘The only question one must ask is, after the first child who so resembles her father, and the second child who so resembles his mother, who will the third child resemble?’
‘Boo-hoo!’
The marquise stood up, shaken by violent spasms; she was in an extraordinary state of sadness and anxiety. Leaning over the railing of the mezzanine, the apprentices – holding curling irons, curlpapers, and sticky pomade made from cherry-tree sap for hardening the curls – were able to ogle Athénaïs’s breasts from directly above. As she sobbed, her breasts bounced, and they were bigger than ever, for they were about to produce milk, and several buttons on her bodice popped open. The apprentices leant further. Athénaïs’s skirt of watered silk swept over the tiles of the shop as she fled. Her hips swayed as she headed for the door at the rear and the stairway leading to their apartments. She called out in apology, ‘Forgive me – I am ridiculous!’
The apprentices were breathless at the sight of the shuddering curves of her bottom. Joseph Abraham, raising his head, discovered that more than one of them was fondling himself. ‘You up there, do you want me to come up and give you a hand?’
Montespan was distraught. He was sitting with traces of shaving cream on his chin, whilst wearing a wig that was still under construction, from which there dangled strands of hemp to tie the hair, and little wire teeth to untangle and restrain it.
Madame Abraham, calmly seeking to soothe the infant’s cries, slipped a fleur-de-lis comforter into his mouth. Louis-Antoine instantly sucked avidly, and silence fell.
‘Go upstairs and see to your wife,’ the wigmaker’s spouse advised the husband, ‘and find something to distract her. Don’t worry about the children, I can keep them until the morrow if you wish…’
‘By then I shall have finished your wig,’ added Joseph. ‘Give it me that I may curl it.’
&
nbsp; Louis-Henri de Pardaillan, his hair disarrayed from trying on the wig, thanked his landlords. He gently stroked little Louis-Antoine’s cheek with the back of his index finger, and went over to his daughter, who worshipped Athénaïs as much as he himself did. Marie-Christine had been leaning against the wall beneath the bunches of fresh hair from Normandy that hung from the ceiling; now she lifted the blond strands on either side of her ears. She twirled her fingers and tried to make ringlets to imitate the hairstyle her mother had invented.
8.
When Louis-Henri entered the salon, he found his wife slumped in a chair.
‘Do you feel better, Athénaïs?’
She did not reply. The marquis, standing by the window, looked out on the roofs of the city and the falling twilight. A foretaste of boredom loomed on the horizon. The marquise was chewing the inside of her cheek, making faces. Finally she announced like one of the oracles, ‘Tomorrow will be worse, and the day after worse still.’
Montespan sat down at the gaming table and opened an ivory snuffbox. He handed a pinch scented with bergamot to his wife, who pursed her lips and looked away. He lit a long white pipe with a little bowl, drawing the tobacco smoke up the bone stem.
‘Why do you say that?’
She adjusted her hoop, rubbed her handwarmer and stared at her husband. Then she lowered her eyes, playing with her fan, mumbled two incomplete and incomprehensible words and, leaving time suspended, lapsed into a long, unhappy silence.
‘I say that because I should like to be protected from the parade of misery and creditors that my husband offers me every day! I should like to stop doing the rounds of notaries and moneylenders, and stop pledging our good name and our insignia of nobility. I should like to stop seeing you hiding on payment days!’
Louis-Henri shrugged and picked up the snuffbox.
‘Ah, yes, I know I am a man of little consideration, and my credit is that of a dog at the butcher’s. I am poorer than ever, but I have the curve of your neck, your nimble and frivolous arms, and the caresses, day and night, of your words. I have the wealth of your eyes. I live in your essence alone. I am rich in your countless kisses, the only thing I am rich in. What do I care if the hours seem dark if there is sunlight between us?’
‘There is no sunlight in me.’
‘Then I will take my chances on another war. I am told that France and Spain will fight in Flanders. I will bring you cloth from Ghent, and laurels of glory, and jewels from Antwerp, and bars of gold …’
‘Oh, do not speak to me of gold – I would do anything for gold! I am no longer in a mood to live in poverty.’
‘While I was away fighting the Barbary corsairs, might you have been corrupted by luxury when you went to dance at Versailles?’
‘Naturally! I love luxury. I can scarcely sleep for love of luxury – the clothes and meals and dances and interiors and everything that goes with it!’
She spluttered, ‘I will have money, and pots of it! And I need it right away, lest a catastrophe befall us.’
Louis-Henri murmured, ‘For me, the worst would be to say one day, “She is no longer here.”’
Madame Larivière came into the salon and placed the Montespans’ dinner on the gaming table: fresh eggs and two artichoke hearts, and a pitcher of water. Athénaïs burst into tears. Louis-Henri stood up.
‘Let us go to a salon in the Marais, and dine, and play hoca and piquet and quadrille. That is where one finds the best amusement. And we shall drink wines from Champagne!’
Outside, the long green flame of a poplar tree stretched towards the sky in astonishment. Its leaves shimmered against the windowpanes as if in sympathy with the marquise’s shuddering sobs as she looked up through her fingers. Her husband knelt before her. He kissed her hands which were like holy relics or religious statuary made of precious metal.
‘This morning, I arranged to lease our carriage horses for one year to the launderer in our street. I needed the money to repay a moneylender. Never mind, the Jew shall wait!’ concluded Louis-Henri, brusquely seizing Athénaïs by the waist and sweeping up her petticoats – modest, saucy, secret – all at once.
Embarrassed, Madame Larivière asked, ‘So what shall I do with the dinner then? Should Dorothée go up with the warming pan and heat your bed?’
The husband grabbed his wife as if she were a soldier’s wench, the fair lady’s thighs laid bare, her calves above his shoulders. The armchair collapsed in a volley of caresses and playful blows. Madame Larivière left the room and on meeting the servant said, ‘Don’t you go in there.’
And Athénaïs’s little feet once again touched the floor; a flurry of kisses and good spirits abounded, and the light from the fireplace flickering on the waxed furniture danced once again. Montespan said, ‘Your laughter lights my heart like a lantern in a cellar.’
‘Dearest, I shall put on my last remaining jewels, my emerald necklace.’
On his head Louis-Henri wore a worn-out double wig that was no longer very fashionable. In Rue Taranne, they hailed two sedan chairs. Athénaïs entered the first chair, calling, ‘To the Hôtel de Montausier!’
The bearers of the second chair, where Louis-Henri had taken his seat, did their best to keep up.
9.
In the Marais salon, Louis-Henri scarcely recognised his wife. That afternoon she had been so desperate, yet now she was in her element. She wandered amongst the gaming tables. A good number of people had come up to Paris from court and they immediately fixed their gaze upon her, went up to her and paid her compliments. ‘What a marvellous gown, and you wear it with such grace! Was it not woven in secret by fairies; no living soul could have produced such a thing!’ Athénaïs’s conversation sparkled with charming words more naïve than they were shrewd, although they were shrewd all the same. She was offered some chocolate from a silver platter and pretended to take herself in hand. ‘I shan’t have too many … The Marquise de Coëtlogon told me that it was not her position as a slave-trader but rather her overfondness for chocolates as a child that caused her to give birth to a little boy as black as the devil!’
All around her there was laughter, and clouds of bean powder fell from rocking wigs. Athénaïs walked by the billiard table, where there was talk of a duc from Auvergne who had recently been appointed a maréchal of the realm, and she remarked, ‘A maréchal who swoons away at the mere sight of young wild boar.’ Her ferocious humour enchanted as it hit the bull’s eye. ‘He’s neither man, nor woman, nor little; he’s a little woman.’
‘Oh!’
The courtiers guffawed. They drew back their lips to reveal broken, rotten teeth, but they sucked on cinnamon and cloves to sweeten their breath. One aristocrat counselled another: ‘Cavities are due to dental worms that one must kill with poultices of stag’s-horn powder mixed with honey.’ And they raised their glasses of fennel spirits in a toast and asked Montespan, ‘What do you think?’ Beneath the gilded ceiling, Louis-Henri, in his worn lace cravat, threadbare jerkin and misshapen organ-pipe hose, turned his dirty jacket and did not answer. He did not feel at ease among these people with whom one always had to have one’s mouth open in order to laugh or speak. Just ahead of him he recognised Athénaïs’s characteristic hairstyle, hair drawn back and kept in place by a hoop, then falling on either side of her neck. He seized her by the waist from behind, leant towards her ear. She turned round. It was not Athénaïs but a stranger with the same hairstyle. He apologised: ‘Please forgive me, I thought that …’ and he noticed that many of the women at the gathering that evening had adopted his wife’s hurluberlu. A duc (Lauzun), of ordinary height, sniggered at the way the women presented themselves. ‘If women already were what they become through artifice, their faces as lit up and leaden with the rouge they wear, they would be inconsolable.’
Three little dogs from Boulogne were at his side. When Lauzun farted, he accused them of the misdeed. Montespan moved away. An orchestra of violins was playing a mixture of branles and courants. Candied fruit was served by a cohort
of lackeys. At one of the hoca tables, Louis-Henri made a small wager and played cards. He encountered mocking whispers and felt gazes upon him, but he only had eyes for his own blonde.