The Hurlyburly's Husband

by Jean Teulé

  Gabriel de Rochechouart, Duc de Mortemart, poured himself a little cherry liqueur, and offered some to his son-in-law, who declined with a wave of his hand and a sigh.

  ‘Thus, there is only my uncle left – Henri Gondrin, the Archbishop of Sens – who might take my side … He shall condemn the King’s adultery from his very pulpit.’

  ‘His Majesty will soften him with a cardinal’s hat. Louis-Henri, to be a king’s cuckold is the chance of a lifetime. Do not let it go by, it will not come your way again.’

  ‘How can anyone think I shall remain silent and accept this?’

  ‘You are mad.’

  ‘Mad about Françoise.’

  ‘Ah, there he goes again! Such a fuss because the King likes to play the libertine with my daughter!’

  Montespan restrained himself from doing violence to his father-in-law.

  ‘Louis-Henri, accept this state of affairs, else everyone will find you in poor taste. The King is vexed by the noisy, repeated demonstrations of a subject who is insolent enough to dare lay claim to his wife. You have become a figure of fun in Paris. ’Tis said Molière is writing a play about you.’

  ‘Oh, really?’

  18.

  Amphitryon arrived on stage in front of his domain in Thebes, and stood next to a servant (Sosie) played by the author of the play; he was angry with Jupiter because he had just heard an unlikely story. He had discovered that whilst he had been away at war, the god (who rode astride an eagle, up there on his cloud) had cuckolded him by taking on his physical appearance in order to spend the night with his wife (Alcmene); from this union a child would be born:

  JUPITER: To you a son shall be born who, under the name of Hercules …

  A married man rarely appreciates another man announcing to him that his wife is with child and that the name has been chosen without consulting him. It might have amused the spectators at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal but it clearly did not amuse Amphitryon, or Montespan, in the theatre.

  Louis-Henri, standing among the crowd in the stalls, had paid fifteen sols for his ticket. The seats costing six livres were in the dress circle, the boxes, and on either side of the stage where the King, accompanied by Françoise, was attending the performance that 16 January 1668. The husband could not make out his rival’s features so grand were the King’s plumes, but from time to time he could just perceive, behind His Majesty, and depending on whether she leant forward or back on the seat, the blond curls on his wife’s neck, or sometimes her profile. Often the actors turned deferentially to the monarch. At other times, they shouted abuse at Montespan in the audience.

  ‘He may now console himself, for strokes from the wand of a god confer honour on him who has to submit to them.’

  ‘Upon my word, Monsieur God, I am your servant; I could have done without your attentions …’

  All around the marquis the crowd were laughing. The aristocrats shoved him with their shoulders or their hips. And bit by bit they propelled him to the centre of the hall, directly under the enormous candelabra on the ceiling. This was the first time Louis-Henri had been to the theatre. He did not know that he was standing in the very spot one absolutely had to avoid in the stalls: beneath the light with its many candles that dripped profusely by the end of the performance. After a prologue and two acts, this was the third and final act. The wax was overflowing its little bowls, raining upon the marquis’s thick periwig, but he did not notice, so absorbed was he by the spectacle. He listened to the pleasing consolation to the betrayed husband on stage.

  JUPITER: Sharing something with Jupiter has nothing that in the least dishonours, for doubtless, it can be but glorious to find one’s self the rival of the sovereign of the gods.

  Montespan grasped the transparent allusions to his own situation in an era where the pleasure of the mighty was the only law. What did he think of the play? That it was a toadying sort of play, a courtier’s play. Molière was clearly on the King’s side (quite rightly had he kept the role of valet for himself!). And Jupiter tried to convince Amphitryon that he should not remain bitter, but consider himself, rather, as the happiest of men, for he would gain much thereby.

  JUPITER: A glorious future crowned with a thousand blessings shall let everyone see I am your support; I will make your fate the envy of the whole world.

  These words were not of a nature to appease Amphitryon, who acted vexed and droll. In the myth of the birth of Hercules, Molière had found an opportunity to ridicule Montespan and amuse the audience. It was a play full of machinery, with many traps and pulleys and a winch, and to the delight of the spectators it was most spectacular, as Jupiter rose into the air on his cloud to the sound of thunder. Hurling thunderbolts, he disappeared into the heavens, shrouded in smoke, whilst the audience applauded. Wax rained upon the marquis’s wig, it dribbled through the curls, stiffened them and turned them white. It brought to mind a hot snowdrift, gradually hardening and making the wig most heavy, whilst Molière, in the role of Sosie, seemed to be addressing the Gascon directly as he reminded him that his tribulations were in the order of things, but that:

  ‘The Seigneur Jupiter knows how to gild the pill.’

  On one side of the stage, behind the row of candles whose light no longer sufficed, the lackey playwright concluded the play.

  SOSIE: Nothing could be better than this. But, nevertheless, let us cut short our speeches, and each one retire quietly to his own house. In such affairs as these, it is always best not to say anything.

  In these final words Louis-Henri heard an order addressed to ordinary mortals: do not presume to judge Jupiter! Keep your thoughts to yourself! ‘In such affairs as these,’ Sosie had concluded, ‘it is always best not to say anything.’ The injunction applied not only to the importunate husband but also to gossips. No more mumbling: ‘Let us cut short our speeches,’ Molière had said, ‘and each one retire quietly to his own house.’ Madame de Sceaux and Madame de La Trémoille, after an orgy of curry at noon, were now overcome with a pressing urge in their box. They relieved themselves into their cupped hands then tossed their mess down into the stalls in the direction of Louis-Henri. The marquis’s shoulders now stank of shit and curry. He looked on astonished as the ladies’ waste seeped into the sleeves of his jerkin. He raised his eyes to the ceiling and on his face received a downpour of burning wax. Everyone had stepped back in a circle around him. He was like a mushroom in the middle of a forest clearing. White stalactites hung on either side of his face from his periwig. He had truly been an easy target both in the theatre and on stage. And the one time he had actually gone to the theatre! This was not about to make him want to come again. There was a smell of something burning. Behind his back someone had set fire to his clothing. An emergency door was open, directly ahead of him. Louis-Henri rushed forward, he had to find a gutter quickly, with some water. Flames were rising from his back. He moved through a sea of laughter pouring from loose and rotten teeth, he smelt the rancid butter and mouldy honey in their cavities. People put out their feet to trip him and stall his progress. He feared he would be burnt alive, when an ecclesiastic’s cape descended upon him and crushed him close to extinguish the fire.

  ‘Uncle!’

  It was Henri Gondrin, Archbishop of Sens, the brother of Montespan’s father: a man of vision and a lofty soul, with a clean reputation where women were concerned, something rare among prelates. Louis-Henri, who had fallen to the ground, was ashamed that his uncle had seen him humiliated in public in this way, but the man was already striding over to the King, who had left the stage.

  ‘Sire, your adultery is blasphemous, a sacrilege physically incarnate in a holy body!’

  The Gascon was on the ground, tapping his shoulders, his sleeves, to put out the last little flames as bitter whiffs of smoke rose from his person, and had his back turned to the King. His fingers were full of ash and shit from his clothing, there was sticky wax all over his knuckles, and he did not see the monarch, but he could hear the dressing-down he gave his uncle.


  ‘Keep your preaching to your diocese, or I will condemn you to exile and imprison you on your estate until further notice!’

  Louis-Henri, sitting on the tiles, turned his head. Near him stood Lully in his pink silk stockings, laughing hysterically at the sight of the crestfallen marquis. The musician struck the marble sharply several times with the iron tip of his walking stick, nearly crushing the marquis’s fingers, but Louis-Henri, sitting just under the Italian’s legs, only had eyes for Françoise where she stood by her royal lover. The Archbishop of Sens planted himself in front of her and said solemnly, ‘This is on behalf of your husband,’ and with all his might he slapped her on the right cheek.

  19.

  The next morning, as he staggered back to the Hôtel Montausier, Montespan discovered that all the ladies now sported a slap mark on both cheeks. He sniggered. ‘If someday the monarch has a fistula on his anus, they shall all have an operation on their arsehole, claiming a harquebus wound, and that varlet Lully shall compose a Te Deum about it – God save the King! – and bang his walking stick on the floor. And ere long it shall become a hymn … In any event, I hope the Italian shall crush his own foot and die of it!’

  Lauzun came up to him, took a good look and smiled. ‘Who is speaking of His Majesty’s posterior?’ The courtier waxed lyrical as he evoked the colour of His Majesty’s excrement. ‘The other day, he evacuated eight times before dinner, twice during his Council and, a final flourish, one hour after he’d gone to bed.’

  Lauzun leant over to the Gascon’s ear.

  ‘There are some who pay up to one hundred and eighty thousand livres a year to see the King shit.’

  Louis-Henri felt like a sparrow in an oven.

  ‘I see no sign of that old baggage Montausier. I’ve come to give her an earful. Where is she? Well? In her apartments at Saint-Germain-en-Laye? I had ordered her to bring my wife back to me.’

  ‘You disappoint your wife,’ interrupted a princess. ‘Athénaïs told me that she was ashamed to see her husband entertaining the populace like a parrot, spouting such vulgar gibberish.’

  ‘That is not true. You are lying! She would never have said that. We loved one another! You cannot even begin to imagine how much two people can love one another! Versailles is hell. Get my wife out of there. She is too fragile. She believes in all sorts of strange things …’

  Montespan burst into tears.

  ‘A broken glass, a spilt saltcellar – both are signs of bad luck to her … She said that during childbirth a mother will give birth more quickly if she wears the father’s shoes and stockings. She believes that after you cut the umbilical cord, you must place it against the baby’s head to ensure long life. She did so for our daughter! And for the boy, she buried the cord under a rosebush to give the child clear skin.’

  His face streaming with tears, he continued, ‘Françoise was certain that if the wedding was held on a Thursday, the husband would be cuck—’

  The aristocrats around him delighted in seeing how he dared not utter the word.

  ‘There’s a manual of demonology she often reads: The Witches’ Hammer. She thinks that if a woman wants to be loved, she must use a potion made of holy water, wine and the powder from a dead man’s bone taken from a recent grave. Often, before leaving for court, she went to obtain some from the soothsayers and witches in their secret shops in the poorer quarters of the capital, above all from La Voisin, on Rue Beauregard …’

  ‘Who did you say? Where? La Voisin?’

  The women moved away, asking each other, ‘Do you know where Rue Beauregard is?’ The Princess of Monaco, reputed to be generous with her favours, knew where the street was to be found, and spoke gaily of the King of France’s genitalia. She said that, unlike King Charles of England, his power was great but his sceptre was quite small, and it was for that reason that in the palace sodomy, in particular, had triumphed. Her neighbour, a comtesse, thought for a moment and was forced to concede, ‘’Tis true, in Versailles there is a fair amount of buggery …’

  Montespan, dismayed, watched as they returned to the gaming tables. Then, from the emanations of fennel spirits in which the man had indulged to excess all night, Louis-Henri became aware of Lauzun’s presence.

  ‘I often find you near me.’

  ‘That is because, as captain of the royal guards, it is also my duty to keep an eye on you.’

  Lauzun was a little man, with dull blond hair and no attractive features. Ill-humoured, solitary, prickly, and shifty by nature, one sensed that he might on occasion have made a good friend, although it must have been rare. The tip of his nose was red and pointed, his hair was lifeless, but there floated about him something like a scent of secret sensuality. The Gascon sighed. ‘My wife has succumbed to a bad dream. Can you help me bring her back to reality?’

  ‘For as long as the King wants her, he shall not give her back to you, but how long will that last? In general, the maîtresse-en-titre introduces him to the new one. Madame Henriette introduced La Vallière. La Vallière brought your wife to dance before the King. La Montespan will introduce her successor to His Majesty. For you the pill is hard to swallow but if it’s gilded, no doubt it will go down more easily.’

  ‘What can she see in those people, what does she do there?’

  ‘In the evening, when … “Jupiter” goes back to sleep with his wife, the favourite fashions little filigree coaches for the child she will bear, and she harnesses six mice to the coaches and lets them bite her pretty fingers without a single cry.’

  20.

  Montespan was strolling along the Seine, where barges laden with fodder, grain and sand sailed to and fro. The river was polluted by faecal matter and rubbish of all sorts. Like a sickly old snake, the Seine slithered slowly through Paris, conveying towards its harbours all manner of shipments of timber and corpses.

  Little boys in short trousers ran after rusty barrel hoops. Girls dressed in homespun petticoats gathered at the waist went barefoot amidst the filth and shards of glass. Beggars and fishwives hurled abuse upon honest folk, vile slander that Louis-Henri did not hear. What was the slander of men to him now, this squire whom nobility had abandoned and now shunned? He had just sold his fine fob watch at the Pont-au-Change. What did he care now for the hour or the year? Time was of no importance to him. At the age of twenty-seven, his life was finished. A vendor of rat poison declaimed,

  ‘A soldier who in combat

  Made all the world to tremble

  His wretchedness cannot dissemble

  And cries, “Death to the rat!”’

  The vagabond wandered along, carrying his box of poison by his side. His doublet was full of holes, he had a wooden leg and an old-fashioned ruff; he was ridiculous and grotesque. Over his shoulder he carried a long pole decorated with trophies: his dead rats. The marquis saw himself in the cripple. Montespan, who heretofore had never heeded the life of the street, now observed everything: vinegar vendors shouting, ‘Good fine vinegar! We have mustard vinegar!’, musicians wearing wooden clogs blowing into flageolets and banging tambourines. Here you could buy combs from Limoges, ice cream, powder containers, lancets forged in Toulouse. Over there a woman sold tight bundles of matches from a wicker basket – twigs of reed impregnated with inflammable material. Three craftsmen under an awning were sewing footwear on a workbench covered with hides and tools. They wore leather aprons and used their knees as a vice. Louis-Henri wandered through this place where all these humble folk had come with their goods, their wits and a will to live that he had lost. The marquis turned around and headed into a foul-smelling maze of alleyways where miscreants ruled day and night.

  The absence of any foundations caused the earth to move; the tall narrow houses leant and buckled, their façades cracked. The twisting little streets – often mere dirt paths – were full of recesses and daylight rarely entered the lodgings. Here, too, one was shoved about, life was intense, there were altercations among the vendors, oaths, blows, theft, rubbish tossed from windows, bot
tlenecks and coachmen’s shouts, mules and carts pulled by hand. There was a smallpox epidemic; to protect themselves many people breathed only through a sponge soaked in sage and juniper, but Montespan strode ahead, his hands in his pockets. Why should he care about smallpox? It started to rain. The streets immediately became a cesspool of mud. A thin harlot, wearied by her libertine errands, sheltered beneath a doorway by the window of a cabaret-brothel. Louis-Henri stared at her in the downpour and she gave him a strange, furtive glance.

  A curious idea occurred to the marquis. In the end, why not go and have a laugh with this shrimp, this strumpet, with her long, drawling entreaty of ‘Follow me, Gentleman Sir’. He went up to her. She walked around him, laughing from her toothless mouth.

  ‘What’s this jerkin all burnt up in the back? Some dragon making love to you from behind? And what’s that white stuff sticking to your wig? Did he come all over your scalp? And the smell … Ah, he shat on your shoulders!’

  The prostitute, who knew her clients, could guess from the Gascon’s manner what was wrong. ‘Oh, d’ye have a broken heart?’

  ‘Give me syphilis or the pox, then I’ll go and rape my wife so she can infect the King in turn.’

  Another whore, standing next to them, asked, ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Nothin’, he’s drunk.’

  The door to the brothel opened with a gust reeking of dead sperm and dried menses.