The French Mistress

by Susan Holloway Scott

  “Not only to us, Louise,” Maman said, “but to His Grace the Duc de Beaufort as well. Without his beneficence toward you, there would be no journey for you today.”

  “I have shown His Grace every gratitude, Maman,” I protested. The duc was an old friend of my father, a former comrade in arms from the Fronde. Because the duc was now the Grand Admiral of the Navy, he was often with the fleet in Brest, not far from our château, and thus a familiar guest in our home. “His Grace has told me so himself, and praised me for my pretty airs.”

  “Please, Louise, more modesty, I beg you.” Maman clucked her tongue with dismay. “Recall that His Grace has shown you the rarest favor by recommending you for a place in Madame’s household.”

  I nodded eagerly. Madame was the familiar name of Henriette-Anne, the duchesse d’Orleans, wed to Monsieur, the brother of King Louis himself. She was also sister to the English King Charles, with royal blood in her very veins. But what mattered to me, of course, was that this august lady was to become my mistress, and I her newest maid of honor.

  “His Grace could see how much I wished to serve at Court,” I said, again with more pride in myself than was wise before my mother. “He told me my beauty would be a welcome ornament to the Court, and that I’d be happy with Madame.”

  “Oh, my foolish, foolish daughter!” exclaimed Maman sorrowfully. “His Grace has been kind to you, yes, but he is also a man known for his shrewdness, and his understanding of politics. He is offering to bring you forward to Court not to please you, Louise, but to please others. If you find favor with those in power, then he means for you to remember him, and make sure he receives his share of that favor. It’s the way of Court, how it has always been. As you serve Madame, His Grace expects you to serve him, too.”

  In my giddy enthusiasm, I’d realized none of this, nor had anyone bothered to explain it to me before now. Yet rather than turning me fearful or wary, the duc’s expectation of my success and his confidence in me made me bolder still.

  “I’ll bring honor to him, Maman, and to you and Papa, too,” I declared. “You’ll see. Before long, everyone at Court will know me, even His Majesty himself.”

  “Louise, it’s time.” My father had come for me himself, his weathered face impassive. “You can’t keep the horses waiting any longer.”

  “Oh, Louise.” My mother’s eyes were bright with unexpected tears as she embraced me one last time, her lips cool as they brushed across my cheek. “Never forget your faith, daughter, and always place your soul in God’s hands. In time you will be charged with keeping your husband’s soul for the True Faith as well. To be a good wife, you must not falter.”

  She marked me with the sign of the cross, and kissed me once again on my forehead. “May God in all His Glory guide you, Louise, and may the Holy Mother watch over you while I cannot.”

  After waiting so long, it seemed the rest of my leave-taking was done too quickly, a jumble of fond wishes and promises, weeping servants and barking dogs. Before I’d quite realized it, I was on my way, my family and home gone from my sight.

  I wrapped my cloak tightly around myself and closed my eyes, determined not to cry myself. I must be brave, I told myself fiercely. I must be serene in my thoughts and charming in my demeanor, and smile as if I’d no cares in the world. I was bound to make my fortune, just as my brother, Sebastien, had done. Just as he had taken an officer’s commission with the army to serve God, glory, and France, so now would I go to Court to claim glory of my own. I’d please the Duc de Beaufort with the influence he sought, and win the rich, solemn, titled husband my parents wished for me, and perhaps one for my younger sister as well.

  And what did I wish for myself in that lonely, rocking carriage? What prize did I desire so dearly that I would trade the security of my home for its possession? I’d no thought then for titles or jewels or great houses. That came much later.

  Ah, it almost shames me to speak of it now, my wish sounds such a simple, unformed longing, unworthy of the ripe opportunity presented to me.

  I went to Court to find love, and be happy.

  And by all the saints in heaven, how I wished I had.

  Chapter Two

  PARIS

  October 1668

  When my carriage finally reached the city, the driver took care to take me by way of the rue Frementeau so that he might play the proper guide, and point his whip toward the king’s own palace, the Louvre. Though one wing was covered with a web of scaffolding—for even then, the king had a madness for building and refurbishing, never leaving any property in his possession to go untouched—I still stared with my country eyes wide at the sheer enormity of the Louvre, with row upon well-ordered row of gabled windows and towering brick chimneys.

  While I would spend most of my days and evenings at the Louvre, as every good courtier did, my lodgings would be elsewhere. Slowly the driver inched the carriage along the crowded rue Saint-Honoré to the Place du Palais-Royal, and the residence of the duc d’Orleans, the king’s brother. Here was where I’d serve as a maid of honor to the duchesse d’Orleans, and I eagerly gazed out the window at my new residence.

  The Palais-Royal was smaller than the Louvre, less imposing, and yet more elegant, even to my untutored eyes. While the front of the Louvre seemed straight and severe as a soldier at his post, as was to be expected from its beginnings as a fortress, the Palais-Royal seemed full of curves and swells and flourishes, as beguiling as any lady of fashion.

  Later I was to learn how correct my first impressions were, and how true these two palaces were to the nature of the two royal brothers. But on that autumn afternoon, for me even the Palais-Royal seemed very large and daunting, and I felt woefully unprepared to conquer it on my own.

  Now most young ladies in my circumstances would have had another to accompany them, a parent or other relative or friend to make their introductions and ease their path into this new world. But my parents were too poor (and, truth be told, too shy of the Court and its manners) to have joined me on such a costly journey. Likewise my sponsor, the Duc de Beaufort, was far away from Paris in the Mediterranean with the French fleet. Thus I was forced to make this first venture on my own, friendless and with no other support than that which I could muster within myself: a tiny comfort, indeed.

  But I would persevere. I took a deep breath to calm myself and whispered a hasty prayer as I unlatched the carriage door. I was already climbing down to the paving stones when a young footman in beautiful pale blue livery hurried forward to help me, clearly scandalized that I’d dare do such a thing without assistance.

  “Good day,” I said, keeping my chin high to mask my uncertainty. “I am here at the bidding of Her Highness the duchess.”

  “You and everyone else,” he said with a bold-faced flippancy that shocked me. “Why else come at all, eh?”

  I raised my chin a little higher. I’d no wish for him to see my discomfort, even as I felt my cheeks flush to betray me. “I have letters of introduction to Her Highness. She will be expecting me.”

  With further impudence, he pointedly looked from my hired carriage to my battered and worn trunks, and finally to my dress, clearly finding every article wanting.

  “Please tell Her Highness that I have come,” I said, fumbling in my pocket for my precious letters. “My name is Mademoiselle de Keroualle.”

  “Oh, aye, I’m certain Her Highness is waiting for you,” he said with a sly rascal’s wink. “Go on to the porter, there at the door, and if he believes you, he’ll send you to Her Highness’s quarters.”

  I gasped, horrified that I might yet be rejected after my journey. It was unthinkable that I should return home having failed before I’d begun, and impossible, too, for I’d not nearly enough money to continue the hire of the carriage. I blinked back my tears and clutched my bundled letters before my breast like a talisman of truth.

  “I am who I say,” I whispered miserably. “Truly. My letters will—”

  “Hush, mademoiselle. I meant only to teas
e,” he said, turning kind. “Her Highness won’t send you back, not yet. But take care, pretty lamb. There are plenty of wolves waiting in Paris with far sharper teeth than mine.”

  I dashed away my tears with the heel of my glove and hurried inside the tall doors. I felt shamed that I’d let a servant unsettle me so. He was right, too: there would be plenty of others who’d be less kind to me, and I resolved not to be so tender again.

  But oh, how insignificant I felt as I presented myself to the stern-faced porter in his blue-laced coat and curled wig, and then again as I hurried to keep pace with yet another footman as he led me through the palace. I’d never been in any house so large, nor so fine, and by comparison my family’s ancient château with its rough stone walls and faded tapestries seemed shabby indeed. Paintings as big as life hung on the walls, the images so vivid I expected them to address me as we passed. There were looking glasses to magnify the light that filtered through the leaded windows, and narrow long tables with marble tops, and bouquets of marvelous flowers in porcelain vases.

  Breathlessly I followed the silent footman through one hall, turned, then passed through a long gallery, up one staircase and then down another, twisting and turning until my head fair spun. I despaired of ever learning to find my way or, worse, of falling behind my guide and being doomed to wander this grand house forever like some unshriven soul.

  But at last he stopped before a set of double doors, carved and gilded to herald their importance, and guarded by two tall soldiers with plumed hats, swords, and fearsome pikes against their shoulders. My footman’s knock was answered at once by a man who could have been his twin, and as soon as my name was murmured between them, I was passed through the opening, and the doors closed behind me. Beyond a tall lacquered screen I could hear ladies’ voices and laughter, and I’d only time to whisper the swiftest prayer before I was announced and introduced, and abruptly cast into their midst.

  At once the voices stilled, and every face turned to face me. There were a dozen or so young women in the room, maids of honor and ladies-in-waiting, some at cards around a small table, others sitting on low cushioned stools to gossip and pretending to labor at the handwork in their laps. I was too stunned to distinguish one from another, gathering only the most general impression of glorious beauty and jewels and dresses richer and more elegant than I’d ever before seen, or even imagined. If I’d been heaved over the side of a boat into the deepest ocean, I couldn’t have felt more adrift, nor more overwhelmed in my panic, than I did in that chamber.

  Then the woman at the center of the blur smiled at me, and my fears fell away.

  “Mademoiselle de Keroualle,” Madame said with the easy assurance of one who knows all others will stop to listen to her words. “Welcome to Paris.”

  Surrounded by her beautiful attendants, Madame was herself not a conventional beauty in the fashion of the time. Dressed in green silk with pearls around her throat and more hanging from her ears, she was small and delicately thin with sleepy blue eyes, a wide forehead, dark hair, and a nose no poet would find lovely. But she was also blessed with an exquisite complexion, always (as I soon learned) referred to as “jasmine and roses,” and a sweetness to her expression that gave her a kind of beauty all her own. Further, from that first moment in her presence, I sensed both the warmth of her nature and the rare charm of her person that made it impossible not to love her, and believe her to be far prettier and more beguiling than in truth she was.

  “Thank you, Madame,” I said, gaping and grinning so widely with relief that I must have looked a fool. “I am most pleased to be here.”

  In her kindness, Madame only smiled in return, stroking her hand along the long silky ears of the small spaniel asleep in her lap. I stood before her another long moment until, to my mortification, I realized she was waiting for me to curtsy. At once I sank low, heels together, head bowed, and skirts spread as I’d been taught by both my mother and the good sisters. If I could have, I would have stayed like that, and hidden my shame from the others.

  “You may stand,” Madame said, unaware of my distress. “You come from Brittany, yes?”

  “Yes, Your Grace,” I said, struggling to keep my voice even. I would be brave. For the sake of those who were depending upon me, I would not falter. “My father’s château is not far from the port of Brest.”

  “Oh, yes, now I do recall the particulars of your situation, mademoiselle,” Madame said eagerly. “Your parents offered comfort and succor to my brother’s supporters when they were forced into exile here in France.”

  “Yes, Madame,” I said promptly, eager to seize upon any topic that did not include me. As a child I’d heard the sad-eyed Englishmen speaking to Papa about the grievous civil war in their country, and how wicked Protestants had seized the government and murdered King Charles I. This martyred king was the father of Madame and her brother, Charles II, who sat on the throne of England now.

  “My mother took the most tender care of the English gentlemen visiting us,” I continued, prattling on far longer than I should have. “Maman was especially mindful of the state of their eternal souls. She would read sermons to them, and stood as sponsor to any who would agree to be baptized in the True Church, and renounce their Protestant follies.”

  “Indeed.” Madame’s brows arched with surprise, doubtless mar veling at my mother’s piety, as everyone did. “I’d not heard of that, ah, aspect of your family’s hospitality.”

  “It is true, Madame,” I said blithely. Although Madame was English by birth, she was the only member of the royal family who had been raised a Catholic, instead of a Protestant; if she hadn’t, I doubt Maman would have consented to my joining her. “My mother said it didn’t matter to her if a soul had been born in France or England or Rome itself, so long as it rose straight to heaven when its mortal life was done.”

  “Souls are perilously frail, mademoiselle,” Madame noted gravely. “I fear at the time of my brother’s exile, he was more concerned with the mortal bodies of his followers than their souls.”

  “He still is,” whispered one of the other ladies, a sly whisper loud enough that all around her heard and laughed behind their hands or fans. “Or rather, those luscious mortal bodies he follows as well as those who follow him.”

  Such audacity shocked me. Not only was this man the King of England, but he was also Madame’s brother, and wedded to the queen. If he did what this lady said, then he would surely be damned for the sin of adultery, and to venture such disrespectful scandal about him in Madame’s hearing struck me as both unwise and ill-mannered. Ah, how much I had to learn of Court, and of men!

  And Madame, it seemed, agreed. “My brother may be a king, Mademoiselle de Fiennes, but he is only a man, with a man’s weaknesses,” she said, her smile still upon her face, but the tension in her words offered an unspoken warning. “For all their strength, men lack a woman’s constancy in love.”

  “They are all alike, Madame, faithless as mongrel dogs who sniff at every stray bitch,” said the other lady, unperturbed, as she idly wrapped one lock of her golden hair around her finger. She was undeniably the most beautiful of the maids of honor, with blue eyes of a color to send gentlemen to sighing. But her beauty was kept from perfection by a certain sullenness about her mouth and in her general expression, marking her as the sort of lady who expected admiration and indulgence as her due.

  “The truth cannot be denied,” she continued in a languid drawl. “Whether highborn noblemen or low scoundrels, it makes no difference.”

  I saw how the other ladies shared glances of concern among themselves, as if this exchange was ominously familiar. The spaniel in the duchess’s lap roused with a low grumbling growl, as if he, too, had been displeased.

  “How unfortunate that you must speak from your own experience, mademoiselle,” Madame said, her hand sleeking along the length of the little dog to calm it, or perhaps herself. “Why, I wonder, should you wish to share such sordid recollections with us? What is your reason for offen
ding me in this manner?”

  “I regret the offense I have given you, Madame,” Mademoiselle de Fiennes said, at last slipping from her seat to curtsy in contrition. “I beg you to forgive me.”

  Yet as abject as the lady’s apology might appear, even I could see that it was false, and not well meant.

  “I should much rather you consider your words before you speak them, mademoiselle,” she said, “than pardon them after.”

  “Yes, Madame,” murmured Mademoiselle de Fiennes, still bent low, as she must until she was granted permission to rise.

  “How much better it would be for your own soul,” Madame continued, “as well as for these wayward gentlemen if you should pray for their enlightenment, rather than find fault for things they cannot change themselves. Is that not so, Mademoiselle de Keroualle?”

  “Yes, Madame,” I swiftly agreed, startled to be drawn into their quarrel.

  “You see, Mademoiselle de Fiennes, how even my newest lady understands what you willfully refuse to see.” Madame sighed wearily, more pale than before. “Rise, then, and pray be civil.”

  Purposefully she looked away from Mademoiselle de Fiennes, and back to me.

  “The Duc de Beaufort claimed that you speak English,” she said, employing that language to test me. “Is that true, mademoiselle?”

  “Yes, Madame, I do speak it a little,” I said, answering in kind as proof. “I learned from those same exiled English gentlemen who supported His Majesty your brother.”

  “Then perhaps one day my brother will be able to thank you himself in the language of our birth,” she said. “He has chided me in the past for not having any ladies about me who spoke our father’s tongue, and could give me that small comfort. But he would, I believe, approve of you most heartily.”

  “Thank you, Madame,” I murmured, awed even to think that my presence would be noted by the English King Charles. “I shall do my best to serve you however I can.”