by Jean Teulé
Now Montespan motioned to his children to follow him down the central aisle. Marie-Christine went first, on tiptoe, and lifted the sprinkler above the coffin, then handed it to her brother, whom Louis-Henri was holding in his arms to help him. The little boy leant over the coffin.
‘What? There is nothing in the box!’
There was nothing for him, nor for anyone else in the church, no doubt, but for Montespan there was everything. When the undertakers had placed the lid back on the box and were preparing to nail it down, the marquis’s sighs and tears became cries mingled with kisses and embraces; Louis-Henri clung so desperately to the empty coffin that they could not close it. It took several persuasive lords to pull him away.
Outside, he took his two children by the hand and, with his hat under his arm, was followed by a bevy of stunned friends. People were walking in silence, disconcerted by the tragicomical spectacle of the marquis’s sorrow as he followed the empty coffin behind his horned carriage. Even the black horses pulling the vehicle wore stag’s horns.
This was a land of stone and blazing summer sun, where tempers easily became heated, and moustaches were twirled: the local people had come out in defence of their marquis and his extravagant behaviour – he was a marvellously exemplary Gascon! A cuckold who did not meekly bow his head. They praised his escapades, embellished them in their numerous lively retellings. The coffin, followed by the assembly from the parish, was taken with great pomp to the top of a hill for burial. Louis-Henri leant over the whirling void of an abyss.
‘So what are we burying?’ asked Louis-Antoine of his traumatised sister.
The bells of Notre-Dame-des-Neiges were ringing the death knell of the marquis’s disastrous marriage.
‘I have often been invited to funerals,’ sighed the Seigneur de Gramont in the ear of the Seigneur de Biron, as they walked back to the village, ‘but I have never before been invited to attend the funeral of a love.’
‘Of what did it die? I have heard tell of abuse.’
‘I fear it was also from a fit of undue vanity and ambition.’
To the sound of a little bell, the death crier announced that for one month mourning would be worn as far as the banks of the Baïse.
‘He’s a decent, polite sort, the best marquis on earth,’ continued Biron. ‘He has but one failing: a stubborn love.’
Montespan, alone on the hill, crouched down and planted before the grave a simple wooden cross where two dates were carved: 1663–1667.
‘’Tis young to die at the age of four.’
He stood back up, facing into the tramontana blowing above the valley.
‘May the wind carry you away from your terrace at Versailles, Françoise. If I thought it might bring you here upon a whirlwind, God knows I would keep all my windows open and welcome you!’
But the sky was growing darker. Night fell early in winter, darkness reigned for long hours. Nocturnal shadows were the domain of fear – ghosts, wolves, evil spells were the accomplices of the night.
Louis-Henri left his message on the wind and headed back down to the chateau, that isolated refuge for crows. In his bed, Louis-Antoine was crying, ‘Oh, my God, where am I?’ They ran to him. ‘Oh, I do not know where I am.’ His blankets had all fallen off; his father tucked him in again. Montespan’s mother said, ‘The little girl also woke with a fright, she woke several times … Her imagination is greatly overwrought by the ceremony. She complained to me of a headache and told me it was from weeping. Life is hard, and short. It quickly forces children to behave as adults, does it not?’
Louis-Henri did not reply, as if he had not heard.
35.
The day after the funeral of his love, Montespan found himself wishing he could believe in resurrection. After all, had Françoise not been born of a dead woman? When they had finished supper and he was still sitting with his elbows on the long oak table in the kitchen, he drummed his fingers against his glass and listened to the whistling of the water being boiled for the washing up. His short-necked steward, who was wearing a beaver cap adorned with feathers, observed him and said to the cook, who was scrubbing a cauldron, ‘We must make him eat beef.’
Madame Larivière did not share his opinion.
‘Beef may be solid food for the body, but it makes the blood thick and melancholic. Chicken is better; it revives even the weakest of natures.’
Cartet smoothed his moustache then took hold of a varnished potbellied jug full of Muscat wine from Frontignan, and poured a plentiful glass for Louis-Henri.
‘Come now! To keep your head above water, don’t let despair get the better of you. A spot of wine can awaken and delight an entire soul. Let’s make the best of things …’
The marquis took up his glass and swallowed it down in one gulp. The steward refilled his glass with the nectar.
‘And then, like the children and your mother, you must away to bed, Captain.’
‘To bed … In wrinkled sheets, where my body lies heavy with painful dreams and my muscles ache. I have the vapours when night falls, my mouth hurts, my hands clench.’
The cook and the steward exchanged furtive glances; Cartet walked across the creaking floor to fetch an instrument and tried to string together a few true notes. ‘It takes longer to tune a lute than to play it. It’s tricky to play, unlike the guitar from Spain.’
The marquis was bored in the rustic solitude of Bonnefont. He was assailed by bitter thoughts. On his lips he still had the taste of Françoise’s kisses. He reached for a wicker-covered bottle of rose-flavoured ratafia, grabbed it, pushed back his bench and left the room. Outside, snowflakes fluttered like feathers.
He was mired in the uselessness of his days and nights, and there was nothing left for him but to be patient and drink rhubarb tea in the evening for as long as his loving, faithful wife was caught up in the dizzy whirl of royal favour. All he wanted was for her to return to him – the memory of her voice tore his heart to shreds.
As he sat on the low wall by the moat, facing the chateau, remembered images paraded in front of him … Françoise’s face haunted him, obsessed him, and he was wretched. Madame Larivière ordered Cartet to stop his dissonant scratching on the lute and to put it away in the old guardroom. Louis-Henri saw his love reappear before his eyes, but it was the steward inside the chateau walking past a window with a candlestick in his hand. The marquis took a long swallow of ratafia (there were not only roses in this potion) and would have liked to believe it was Françoise he could see. He rushed to the guardroom, flung open the door and cried, ‘Cartet, go quickly and fetch my wife’s wedding gown and put it on.’
‘What?’
‘Then you’ll walk past the window with the candle, several times. During that time I’ll sit on the wall and watch you. Hic.’
‘But, Captain, I’m too fat, specially in my bearskin breeches; the gown won’t fit me.’
‘Then strip off your breeches and leave the gown unlaced at the back.’
‘Oh, Monsieur le marquis!’
‘Take off that hat, too, Cartet, that beaver thing with the feathers. I must believe you are Françoise.’
Sitting by the moat with his rose ratafia liqueur bottle to his lips, Montespan raised the bottom of the bottle and gazed at the windows. He prepared to enjoy the sight of Cartet imitating his wife. In the beginning he was disappointed, for Cartet galumphed round-shouldered in front of the windows, looking like an old-time brigand.
‘Better than that!’ shouted the marquis. ‘You must strike a pose, affect an attitude, be plausible! Pretend you are powdering your face or something like that.’
The erstwhile sergeant did as he was asked. He walked along, swaying his hips; he twirled on the spot and gracefully lifted his paws to his face. In the snow and the dark, Madame Larivière observed him from the shadow of the horned carriage, near a tall wisteria. Montespan, hic, hugged the empty bottle to his chest and opened his eyes wide. His darkness lifted a little. He found himself pursued by illusions and ghosts. He go
t up, drifted for a moment, incredulous and wandering, then rushed towards the old guardroom. Madame Larivière followed him. On entering the room, the marquis cried out, ‘The days have gone by so slowly; it seems like centuries since you left me, Françoise!’
‘Hey, Captain, it’s me,’ said Cartet on finding himself entwined in the marquis’s over-eager embrace, at the mercy of his groping hands. ‘Monsieur de Montespan, I am your steward!’
‘Ah, how soft your lips are, my sweet,’ said the cuckold, trying to kiss his former sergeant. ‘How I love your ringlets …’
‘That’s my moustache!’
‘Turn round. I see you have already undone your gown, you saucy wench…’
Madame Larivière came closer and stood in the doorway whilst Montespan tried desperately to make love to the steward, who resisted as best he could, tangled up in the wedding gown.
‘Monsieur de Montespan, this is the second time you’ve confused me with somebody else! The first time was at Puigcerdá, when you were wounded…’
‘The second time? I did not know, Cartet, that you indulged in the Italian vice!’ exclaimed the cook, amidst the swirling snow.
The bare-bottomed steward in his pearl-embroidered red gown turned round. ‘No, no, Madame Lariri, it’s a terrible misunderstanding!’
‘Indeed, so I see … Make the best of things then,’ said she, leaving the room with great dignity.
In a wedding gown, and with his soldier’s honour wounded, Cartet protested in the name of all the armies. ‘I will not let you insinuate that …’ But he collapsed among his pearls and tore off the incriminating gown.
‘Madame Larivière, Madame Lariri!’
Naked and hairy, his fat thighs jiggling, he hurried after the cook in the falling snow to explain to her that …
36.
Dawn broke over the murky water in the chateau moat at Bonnefont. The fire in the hearth in the marquis’s bedchamber was slowly dying. Weary, Montespan got up from his bed: he had a headache, and went over to a basin covered by a fine crust of ice. He pressed it with his fingers and the water seeped up from the frozen film, forming a mirror where the cuckold could gaze at his drawn features and the circles under his eyes. He pressed harder and the ice broke. The water was glacial. He pulled on a rope hanging along the wall to ring the bell in the kitchen.
Crystals of ice distorted the view from the windowpanes of his second-floor chamber. A thin veil of mist was drifting over the whitened fields in the valley. Curls of smoke rose above the farms. In the distance lay the high chain of the Pyrenees. Madame Larivière scratched at the door then came in with a kettle of steaming water. Trails of vapour streamed from the kettle’s spout and the cook’s nostrils, as if she were fuming within.
‘Is there something wrong, Madame Larivière?’ asked the marquis.
‘I slept poorly. An emissary from the King has just arrived and has asked to speak to you. He is waiting in the middle of the courtyard, observing the chateau.’
‘Have him come up and wait in the reception hall while I perform my ablutions.’
‘You would make him wait, would rather wash than scrub yourself with a dry towel, when ’tis known the doctors are wary of water? ’Tis a carrier of all manner of disease, it dilates the pores, and enters the body to corrupt and weaken it!’
In his long underbreeches, the marquis removed his shirt and felt the skin on his arms and torso.
‘If I were to be contaminated, it would have happened already long ago …’
‘As for the King, he has only washed once in his life. Every morning, the first valet places a few drops of spirits of wine on His Majesty’s hands. His lord chamberlain brings the font: Louis makes the sign of the cross, he is cleansed. Next thing, you’ll be bathing in the sea, a folly for madmen and maniacs!’
The cook slammed the door behind her. The marquis smiled.
Washed, and dressed in mourning, Montespan applied his perfume and went through another door that led to the reception hall where the emissary was waiting.
He was a proud cavalryman. He had long, curly hair and a thin moustache, and wore embroidery and lace under a heavy vermilion cloak. He smelt of his horse and of the urine and sweat of someone who had galloped for long hours. He looked the clean marquis up and down.
‘The court is tired, Monsieur, of all this black you wear.’
And without being invited, the emissary went to sit in Louis-Henri’s armchair and stretched out his red heels towards the edge of the hearth, where the cook had lit a fire.
‘Marquis, your uncle, the Archbishop of Sens, is at great risk of incurring royal wrath for having taken your side. In his diocese, he has denounced His Majesty’s adultery with a married woman, and has published the ancient canons branding it a violation of religious law. The King has threatened him with a Zettre de cachet but the prelate responded with another threat: excommunication. He wants to force the Pope to issue a public reprimand to the King of France. It is becoming an affair of state.’
The emissary’s tone was as icy as the season. He got up and walked from one side of the hall to the other.
‘In the event that a man who has received the nine unctions of oil from the holy phial should be reduced to the sorry rank of the debauched, it will cause a most fearful uproar, one that will resound with horror throughout all nations. The King has sent me to obtain your consent to the fait accompli, and your agreement to cease this public commotion. How much do you want?’
When one is near a burning fire, but moves away from it, to go to the far end of the room, one is seized by the chill. The emissary came back to the fireplace, where Montespan, leaning on his elbows, opened a page at random in a book by Tacitus and found, ‘In Rome, everything was running to servility.’
‘Colbert,’ said the emissary, ‘who is supposed to find the time to worry about the state of your soul, whilst seeing to problems as trivial as the government and the economy of France, has suggested in the name of His Majesty that a hundred thousand écus might do. I did say écus, I did not say louis, it’s thrice the amount.’
The man was haughty and full of scorn. While Louis-Henri examined the mantelpiece above the fire, the envoy from Versailles added, ‘As well as assuming all your debts, naturally, and that does amount, after all, to—’
‘How is my wife?’
‘The King’s favourite has begun her fairy-tale career; she is, indisputably, queen of France. She has driven La Vallière to the Carmelites and has demanded she be harangued wherever she goes. Her apartments consist of twenty rooms on the first floor immediately beyond the King’s council chamber, whereas the Queen has only eleven rooms on the second floor. She graciously adorns every festivity at court. Her train is carried by a peer of France, whereas the Queen has only a page to carry hers. The King is proud of his conquest, and takes pleasure in having others admire her, the way foreign dignitaries passing through Versailles might admire the buildings and gardens. She is cheerful and gay, and makes pleasantries with the finest of wit. She seems to adopt anything amusing. She is at ease with everyone, and has a gift for putting everyone in their place. At court they are saying that there will not be a war because His Majesty cannot be parted from la Montespan … One of Athénaïs’s chambermaids said of the King, “He desires her thrice a day, ’tis like a huge raging hunger. And so impatient is he, he won’t hesitate to tumble her in plain sight of the servants. But this hardly bothers the marquise, she gladly overlooks the minor inconveniences such ardour might cause.” The Sun King’s libido, in your wife’s presence, has turned out to be as exceptional as his patience with regard to you might prove limited. Two hundred thousand écus!’
Montespan could hear the crowing of the cockerels outside, along with a blacksmith’s first hammering, and the creaking of cartwheels bringing barrels of wine, hay for the horses, and stone for construction. The marquis went over to a stained-glass window whilst the emissary continued, ‘One day, your wife accompanied His Majesty to review his German mercenari
es. When she went by, they shouted, “Königs Hure! Hure!” (The King’s whore! The whore!) “What are they saying?” she asked. When, later on, the monarch wanted to know how she had found the review, she replied, “Perfectly lovely, although I do find the Germans rather too naïve, calling things by their name.” Terribly amusing, don’t you agree? You can well understand that Louis wants to keep la Montespan by his side, all the more so now that she has begun to wear her “innocent” gowns again.’
The cuckold turned round. ‘I am to be a father yet again?’
‘She is right to feel her power enhanced by a new pregnancy. But this time, exceptional safety precautions shall be taken. The bastard, along with its brothers and sisters, no doubt still to come, will be lodged, that much I can tell you, in a lovely house on Rue Vaugirard with a large garden surrounded by high walls where the children can play, shielded from external view and protected by guards. To raise her progeny, the favourite has seen fit to entrust her children to the ugly widow of a paralytic scribbler, who was much weakened by rheumatism, a virtual gnome by the name of Paul Scarron. Upon his death, the lecherous hunchbacked poet left a will: “I leave my property to my wife on condition she marry again. Thus one man at least shall regret my passing!” Your wife has introduced the royal bastards’ governess to His Majesty.’