by Jean Teulé
Louis-Henri coughed in the ray of light and withdrew his head. The doctor Clément left his head in the light: he was a sweaty red-faced man of fifty-odd years, with a drunkard’s puffy nose. Montespan listened.
‘As I went alone into the bedroom, still blindfolded, I exclaimed, “Ah, ah, it seems I am to fetch an infant from where it is by groping up the very same way that got it there.” In her bed, undergoing her first labour pains, there was a particularly well-made young woman whom I could feel with my fingertips – a human statue of the sort you see only in the grounds of a chateau, a woman made for a lord from Mount Olympus. Standing next to her, nervous and worried, was a little man (his voice came, rather, from below). I asked him whether I was in a house of God, where one is not allowed to drink or eat; as for myself, I was famished, having left my home just as I was about to sup. The little man complied readily. He handed me a pot of jam and some bread. “Have as much as you like, there is more.” “I believe you,” said I, “but is the wine cellar less abundant? You have not given me any wine and I’m stifling.” The little man became annoyed: “A bit of patience, I cannot be everywhere at once.” “Ah, well done,” I said, when I received a goblet filled to the brim. This gentleman was likely not a bourgeois – too many sounds of extravagant rings on his fingers clinking against the glass, and in the manner he handed the wine to me I understood that he was not at all in the habit of serving …’
The practitioner withdrew his head into the darkness. Louis-Henri, more and more interested in his cellmate’s story, moved into the faint ray of light. ‘Go on.’
Clément resumed his tale.
‘When I had drunk, the man asked me, “Is that everything?” “Not yet,” I replied. “A second glass to drink with you to the health of the good woman!” As the man said no, I told him with a smile that the woman would not give birth so easily and, if he wished the child to be handsome and strong, he must drink to its health. And so, for the love of his progeny, he toasted with me. Just then a piercing cry signalled the infant’s first attempt to enter the world. The child was in the breech position, but came out easily. I touched his little feet to make certain everything was all right, slid my hands up his little legs – ’twas a boy – and tied off the cord. I placed my palms on his chest, where his heart was beating very rapidly, and went on up to his frail neck, and it was then that the little man with lots of rings stopped my wrist and called out, “Lauzun!” The hinges on the door leading to the landing creaked. There came a squeaking of leather boots, no doubt this Lauzun fellow. I also heard the millet seeds bouncing in the nurse’s rattle and the little man’s voice ordered her, “You, only you, must stay secretly by this child who shall have no name.” “As it pleases you,” replied the maid. “I will not go out, save to pray at the neighbouring chapel at the eleven o’clock mass.” Then, heavier by a pouch, I merrily set off to be taken back to my home, or so I thought, but I was brought here, to Fort-l’Évêque (which I recognised from the cries of the animals being slaughtered without). And since that moment I have been waiting – what for? Who for? You?’
Montespan withdrew into the darkness. He thought for a moment, then asked, ‘When a married woman gives birth, is her husband always held to be the father?’
‘Oh, yes,’ replied the practitioner. ‘And that is so whosoever the genitor might be. The husband remains legally the father according to the fundamental principle of Roman law Is pater quem nuptiae demontrant!’
‘Thus, the husband may enjoy all rights to the child?’
‘But of course.’
Silence fell again in the cell, then Montespan sang, lungs fit to burst,
‘Bourbon so loved my wife,
With child he left her, so
To the fleur-de-lis long life!’
26.
‘Marquis, your turn has come to leave the dungeon! Yesterday, the doctor was set free. Today, you will be released. Mind the daylight! The sun will burn your eyes.’
The gaoler’s torch, which was steeped in foul-smelling oil, smoked and flickered as he raised his arm towards the corridor, inviting the inconvenient husband to follow the light. Rats ran across the damp flagstones, their claws scraping against the stone, and the warder pushed Montespan out into the Vallée de la Misère.
Quai de la Mégisserie was dazzling in the sunlight and Louis-Henri, still in chains, raised his forearm to his eyes to protect them from the glare. While he was being unshackled, his pupils gradually adapted and through his sleeves he began to see the vivid colours of the quai, bustling with people and sedan chairs weaving among mountains of slain cattle. The marquis heard a drum roll. Soldiers moved apart and formed a circle around him. Nauseating steam rose from huge boilers. Sweating women plunged chickens into the swirling water to scald them before plucking them, and then, curious, they went over to the guard of honour the soldiers had formed. Burghers, yokels and a few noblemen clustered round. The drum stopped beating and a horseman of the watch moved into the circle facing Louis-Henri.
At nine o’clock in the morning on 7 October 1668, the horseman read the royal command, proclaiming in a thundering voice, “‘By order of His Majesty the King!”’
Everyone fell silent. Even the mortally wounded beasts at the butchers’ now died soundlessly on the shores of the river. Looking up at the sky, they watched as seagulls circled overhead, coming up the Seine from the sea. The web-footed scavengers swooped and seized bovine guts and hens’ intestines from the water and carried them skyward like streamers of dancing red, green and blue; it gave a festive touch to the blue sky. As the gulls dipped towards the surface of the yellow river stippled with points of light, the Gascon followed the beating of their wings. The river Seine in the sunlight was like Françoise’s blond hair; how he had loved to plunge his long fingers there, like the teeth of a comb. He sighed, whilst the horseman of the Paris watch again raised his voice: “‘His Majesty, being most dissatisfied with the noble Marquis de Montespan…”’
‘What? He is dissatisfied with me? Oh, the scurvy knave!’
The horseman pretended not to have heard, or to have heard another word, such as brave … grave … and continued, ‘“… orders the horseman of the watch of the City of Paris forthwith, and by virtue of this order of His Majesty, that once said noble sir and marquis has been set free from the prison of Fort-l’Évêque where he was detained, he shall in the name of His Majesty be ordered to leave Paris within twenty-four hours and repair to his estate located in Guyenne, there to remain until further notice ...”’
The husband gave a loud snort.
‘So there it is. After stealing my wife, mocking me on the stage to unanimous amusement and imprisoning me, now he exiles me. As a cuckold all that remains is to get myself to my distant chateau of Bonnefont, where our daughter and my mother are waiting…’
‘“… His Majesty prohibits him from leaving his estate without his tacit consent, on pain of punishment!” Which means,’ confirmed the horseman, ‘that you will be beheaded or sent to the galleys.’
Then he concluded, ‘“His Majesty orders all his officers and subjects to come to his assistance.”’
‘And our son?’ cried the marquis. ‘I will not leave without him!’
‘He has been brought back from court. You will find him at Rue Taranne.’
The circle of soldiers dispersed and the people around the Marquis de Montespan hurriedly moved away, averting their gaze. Walking amidst the chicken blood and feathers on the quai, Louis-Henri went home on foot, to the other side of the Seine, shouting all the way:
‘One day o’er this earth
We will scatter the bones
Of the king of war:
If the land will yield
From one grain a hundred more
Great God! Hail upon our harvest
And take from us our crop!’
27.
‘In Saint-Denis as in Versailles
Lives a man sans heart and sans entrails
Waste not your prayers
upon his soul
Such a monster doth not have one!’
‘Stop singing your absolutely appallingly subversive ditties! They’re like cuckoos’ eggs in a nest of turtledoves!’ Joseph Abraham was holding his head in both hands as clients fled his shop. Even those in the middle of being shaved had left at a run, with foam on their chins and towels still round their necks, when they saw the cuckold waltz in and heard his bawdy verse: ‘He’s a madman!’
The wigmaker was of a similar mind. ‘They’re right, or are you rolling drunk?’
Only Constance Abraham came to the marquis’s defence, slapping her husband with a cloth, as she asked him, ‘Would you do all that to have me back? Would you risk your life?’
A child was walking across the tiles, striking poses. It was Louis-Antoine, in priceless silks and exorbitant satins. He was three years old, and now he examined his pater’s black, muddy clothing with a disdainful air.
‘Ah, good day, Father.’
He went on his way without paying his father further attention. He followed a line separating the floor tiles as if he were walking along a thread, learning to move as a courtier did, with his hands just so …
To the wigmakers, his landlords, Montespan explained, ‘I will leave Paris before nightfall. Are the little maid and Madame Larivière no longer here?’
‘They departed nigh on a month ago, but they left your clothes on the table in the salon. They also found, in a wardrobe, the wedding dress belonging to …’
‘I shall tell the coachman to come and collect everything and stow it in the carriage. But first of all – what time is it? – I must go and fetch something. Madame Abraham, would you be so kind as to lend me a basket with some linen at the bottom?’
While Constance trotted off to the back of the shop, Joseph trained a professional eye on the marquis’s scalp and offered to lend him an ash-blue periwig.
‘Here, cover your head with this instead to go out on your errand, for your blond wig is still in such a state! The apprentices will remove the dust and put it right before you return.’
The apprentices? Louis-Henri looked up at them; they were slumped sadly over the workbench in the mezzanine.
‘What’s wrong with them?’
‘For some time now, they have lost their zest for life. I have them eat horsemeat once a week, but there’s nothing for it. They are listless, they sigh … When the shop door opens, they raise their heads as if they were waiting for someone, then they look down again with a moan. Give me your wig – that will keep them busy.’
28.
Near Place du Carrousel, an ash-blue periwig turned right on Rue de l’Échelle and continued towards a discreet grey house set back from the street. The bells in the adjoining chapel rang eleven o’clock. Montespan wondered how one could tell that the bell was cracked. The door of the grey house opened and a nurse came out and locked it behind her. She quickened her step towards the place of worship. The millet seeds bounced in the rattle on her chest and mingled with the sound of a wooden heelmaker’s hammering. Louis-Henri strode ahead with his wicker basket. Just as the craftsman raised his arm and lowered it again to strike, the marquis smashed his elbow into the window on the ground floor of the grey house. The heel-maker looked at the ground all around him, astonished to have heard a sound of breaking glass.
‘It must be true, then, that my wood is not dry enough!’
The Gascon was already in the kitchen, which led to a stairway. He went up to the first floor, found a door and opened it.
He went into a dark room with closed windows and shutters. There was a bad smell; it needed airing. He lit a candle on the mantelpiece, then lifted the candle with its long smoky yellow flame. He looked around and saw an infant tucked up in a cradle. With his basket under his arm, he drew closer.
‘Here’s your father come to take you to Guyenne …’
Out of caution, he shielded the flame with his hand as he drew near the baby. Through his fingers the infant’s face was bathed in light.
‘God’s teeth!’
The child was a monster. A tiny body with a gigantic head, an enormous cowpat of a head palpitating like a calf’s lung, something absolutely unnatural and unbearable to behold. In the middle of this immense flaccid heap that seemed to be full of burning liquid, the child’s features were those of an ancient man expiring on his deathbed. His ugly, suffering mouth was open, struggling for air. The hydrocephalic bastard had been born (via his father!) of stock too long inbred. The genes were utterly confused. There was a defect in the race. Montespan abandoned the idea of abducting him.
‘I should not like people to think he is my own.’
In any event, he could not be moved; the infant was not viable. He would never have been able to lift his head. He should not have existed at all, he was an error in the order of things. That was Montespan’s diagnosis on seeing this pitiful child, whom no one had bothered to name. The Gascon trailed his finger in the soot of the fireplace then went over to give him a name. On the monstrous brow, the fruit of the love between the stage Jupiter and Alcmene-Françoise, the Amphitryon of the farce wrote: HERCULE.
29.
‘Your blond periwig is ridiculous, Father.’
Montespan, sitting on the banquette in his carriage, turned to Louis-Antoine, who was staring at him.
‘Monsieur Abraham’s apprentices styled my wig like your mother’s hairstyle. They cut it, stretched it up over the scalp, and made ringlets on either side … I don’t know why they did that. The wigmaker shouted and scolded them, but never mind, it was time to leave.’
Wearing his hurluberlu, Louis-Henri looked through the small window in front at the trace horses’ hindquarters, then out of the side window at the passing countryside with its shrubbery, and brambles that scratched the side of the horned carriage.
Draped in black crêpe, the mourning carriage with its stag’s antlers was in use once again, and an astonished France watched as the disgraced man made his way along the interminable road towards his native Pyrenees.
As everyone in Versailles and Paris knew of the marquis’s misfortune, he in turn wanted the good folk in the provinces – the burghers of the towns they went through, the peasants in their fields, everyone down to the last beggar – to know of his cuckolding and how the King had abused him. He wanted the rumour of it to rouse the curious, and for word to spread. He saw the stupefaction in their eyes, the astonishment that caused jaws to drop, revealing toothless mouths. There were mocking gentlemen and priests and merchants who laughed at the cuckold as he rode through their towns. But other minds were fascinated and predicted that someday there would be those who would pore over dusty archives and offer the heady wine of praise … Next to the Gascon, and wrapped in a cloak of mauve serge, his three-year-old son had fallen asleep. All the way along the sandy highway the persistent dust of the road seeped into the carriage, getting into everything, including clothes and lace. Louis-Henri held Françoise’s wedding gown spread across his lap. He could not help but continue to love her. His memory was filled with her presence, with her lively, witty speech.
As night fell after a first afternoon of travelling, they stopped at a semblance of an inn where Montespan ordered the horses to be unharnessed and the coachman to be fed, then he lifted his sleeping son in his arms. The little boy opened his eyes, saw the Gascon’s blond curls and said, ‘Maman … oh … Father, is it true I’m a marquis? Maman told me that—’
‘You are indeed. Only one male in the family can hold the title, and as my brother was killed in a duel, you are now the Marquis d’Antin.’
The inn was an unimaginably poor and miserable dump: there was nothing there but old women spinning. Without getting undressed, they lay upon the fresh straw. The door’s boards were loose and it banged and creaked; it had no lock. There were holes in the roof. The squire, stretched out on his bed of forage, gazed at the milky halo around the moon. Golden stars shifted like sand. Through the open door, the shadow of the trees along the f
og-shrouded river spread like smoke, whilst in the sky …
Montespan dozed off.
30.
At first light the following day, the coachman hollered into the mist of the October morning and the carriage set off again along the rutted roads. As the horses whinnied, their breath showed in a volcano of steam. Their hooves made a fearful clatter and the carriage’s iron-rimmed wheels sent out a shower of sparks, as from a smithy’s forge, whenever they struck the stones on the road.
Although he was clinging to the leather strap hanging from the ceiling, Montespan’s shoulder was dashed against the door several times and he feared that the berlin, swerving so violently, might topple over. Louis-Antoine frequently left his seat altogether. Oh, how cruelly the road buffeted them about. The carriage struggled to climb a hill despite the coachman’s oaths and the cracking of his whip. Montespan got out to push the wheel, and looked at the sky.
‘The weather has turned dreary. I expect it will rain.’
Roads that were dusty in fine weather became veritable quagmires when it rained. To continue along this muddy track, they would have had to lay down bulrushes covered with planks, so the horned black carriage made its way instead through a field, to the fury of the peasants. Then came a bridge that would have collapsed under the weight of the vehicle so they took a ferry to cross the river. Using the royal highways, they covered no more than twelve leagues a day. Montespan’s coach overturned. It took many hours to repair. Then it became mired in the mud: oxen were sent for to pull them out of difficulty.