“That’s not possible,” I protested. Jean Racine had been grief-stricken at Thérèse’s funeral. Even I had been moved.
“Word is that the child she was carrying was not his—but that of the Chevalier de Rohan.”
Heavens. Rohan had been one of the many noblemen who had courted Thérèse. I recalled his painted cheeks. He’d been more persistent than all the others, reserving a chair on the stage every time she performed. It was said he’d wanted to marry her, but his family forbade it. Still, I could not credit the rumor.
When eventually Athénaïs’s stream of gossip ran dry—“Cloistered like this, I hear nothing,” she lamented—we got down to work, fortified by yet another goblet of faulty wine.
I was to begin my search on the morrow for a wet-nurse, someone who wasn’t nursing children of her own, Athénaïs emphasized—her baby must not be obliged to share milk.
I was accustomed to working hard, used to the constant demands of theater life—scheduling rehearsals, mending costumes, counting out office receipts—but this was an entirely different realm. Instead of searching out lengths of worn fabric in the used-clothing stalls, I was to assemble tailclouts, swaddling bands, biggins, and bibs. Instead of prompting players with their lines, I would be sitting in a luxurious room, eating rich delicacies, drinking Turkish liqueur and bubbly wine while listening to tales of Court life—tales from the Land of the Blessed.
January 25, 1669
Dear Claudette,
Thank you for your letter. However, you need not worry. Your mother and dear brother seem to be managing. My wife and I will alert you if there are any problems.
Alix claims the new prompter reads too softly, yet I can hear him from the parterre. You are greatly missed.
The world of the theater carries on apace, with all the usual uproar. As you know, Molière near died of vexation over the Company forcing His Majesty to forbid his play Tartuffe from being performed. Now there is talk that the King is going to allow him to stage it again, which will have the bigots in a lathering fury, no doubt. One must be so careful. I have to admire Molière for persevering.
We did not earn out on Marius, unfortunately, but we’ve begun to prepare for a new tragedy by Racine, which we anticipate will be well received. He is being hailed as the new King of Tragedy—which irks dear old Pierre, of course.
The rivalry between the Racine and Corneille factions has become bitter, in fact. Racine supporters openly attack Corneille’s work as archaic, and Corneille supporters denounce works by Racine as unheroic. Such rivalry is not bad for the door take, frankly, but it’s hard on the players when confronted with one or the other faction’s noisy claque, whistling disapproval. You will be pleased to know that the claques remain silent whenever your mother performs.
Believe me yours faithfully,
Monsieur Josias de Floridor, Theater of the Bourgogne
Note: The rumor about the cause of Thérèse du Parc’s death is outrageous. It is impossible for there to be any truth in it. Fortunately, Racine seems unaware of the accusations.
BEFORE LONG I had taken charge of managing Athénaïs’s household, the baby to come, and everything in between. I fired the old hag—curtly, without remorse, throwing her rags after her, fair riddance!—and hired an energetic girl to do the cleaning. I found a violinist to help soothe “Madame de Sconin’s” frayed nerves, and lined up an excellent wet-nurse in the country, where the air would be beneficial to a newborn. The woman, a peasant (but clean, I checked), was due to wean her own infant in a week. I made her husband vow on a Bible not to have relations during the years of nursing.
The baby was to be delivered not by a midwife, but by Monsieur Blucher, a surgeon. It seemed strange that a man would be involved in such an intimate matter, but Athénaïs said that the father of the child—“Monsieur Mysterious”—insisted. A surgeon was permitted to use surgical instruments, should such be needed, and instruments were forbidden to midwives. “He’s promised I’ll stay nice and tight.”
I met with Monsieur Blucher at his office on the rue Saint-Honoré. He is short, with hair on his knuckles. He agreed to be brought to the residence blindfolded—for a fee.
“He’s expensive,” I told Athénaïs, presenting her with Blucher’s account—eleven livres, and this only for a consultation.
She waved the note away. Monsieur Mysterious would pay.
It was obvious that Athénaïs no longer had any problems with respect to finances. Since selling his position in the King’s Chamber, her father had been made Governor of Paris, a prestigious position that paid richly. I suspected that such good family fortune had something to do with Monsieur Mysterious, who must have influence at Court, I deduced. No doubt he was both rich and powerful.
I recalled—with revulsion—the unctuous man who had barged into Mother’s dressing room the night she performed as Medea. Could Monsieur Mysterious possibly be the Marquis de Louvois, now the Secretary of State for War? Athénaïs often mocked him, but who else had such power?
IN EARLY MARCH—two days before the dissolute unruliness of Mardi Gras—Monsieur Blucher was brought blindfolded into the house and led groping to “Madame de Sconin’s” chamber, where, masked herself, Athénaïs screamed the all-too-real agonies of a woman in labor.
It was a long night, a long day, and another long night. I resorted to prayer. Finally, after Athénaïs had fallen senseless (thanks to opium pills), twins were delivered: first a beautiful blue boy, strangled on the cord, and then a girl with a strangely large head.
Dazed from lack of sleep and the trauma of birthing, I paid Monsieur Blucher, tipping him well. I instructed the maid to sew the body of the boy into a shroud and take it to the Cimetière des Innocents, to be dumped into the open pit for the bodies of bastard babies. As for the girl, such a misshapen baby would normally be exposed to weather, left to die, but I wasn’t sure if that was the custom for nobility. I wished I could rouse Athénaïs from her deep sleep, ask her what I should do, but I couldn’t—and at any rate the thought sickened me. Many, if they had known how Gaston would come to be, would have left him to this same fate.
Masked, in an unmarked carriage, I wended my way through streets congested with revelers in Mardi Gras costume, the mewling baby girl in my arms. All the way to the wet-nurse’s abode in the country, I coddled her, a nagging sadness weighing down my heart. I would never hold a child of my own.
ATHÉNAïS RECOVERED SLOWLY. I entertained her through the long hours by playing piquet and reading to her out loud. Secluded as we were day and night, invariably sipping bubbly wine, we became almost familiar. I was her maid, certainly, but my relationship with her was intimate. I bound her breasts, cleaned her small linens, and applied fine flour to her face. She was still afraid of the dark and when she woke in the night, I soothed her. By day, I learned to amuse and intrigue her, bring a smile to her luminous eyes.
She was fascinated by the world of the theater, drawn to the practice of what she called “the magical arts.” Her interest in me, my world, was as heady as the potent wine. Playfully enigmatic, I alluded to a knowledge of charms, hinting at powers of enchantment.
Once, feigning to have access to the occult, I called on “spirits” to reveal the identity of Monsieur Mysterious. This had become a teasing game between us. “Marquis de Louvois!” I whispered dramatically.
She laughed at my ploy. “I wouldn’t let that guttersnipe lay a finger on me,” I was relieved to hear her say. The Secretary of State had the manners of a servant, she said with mocking scorn. He was so desperate to be accepted as a member of the high nobility, he spent hours each day just trying to get his ribbons right. “As if nobility has anything to do with ribbons.”
“Then who?” I asked evenly, dealing out the cards facedown, two at a time.
Athénaïs turned over a king. “Keep guessing,” she said, smiling impishly.
I stared at her in astonishment: the King?
CHAPTER 36
The thirteenth of December,
an unlucky Friday, was the premiere of Racine’s newest play Britannicus, and Mother had been cast in the lead. I arrived at my family’s rooms laden with scarves, shawls, and even a few (glass) jewels. Shortly before, Athénaïs had returned to Saint-Germain-en-Laye—to Court—and no longer considered these items suitable.
“From Madame de Sconin,” I explained. I myself was wearing a lovely gown from “Madame de Sconin’s” charity basket.
“This shawl could easily be mended,” Mother said, running the fine fabric through her fingers. “You’ll do it, won’t you, Claudette?” She held it to the light. “Now that you’ll be back home.”
The window was open. Street vendors below called out their wares: secondhand clothes, lice bags, tin toys.
“Of course, Maman,” I said, ruffling Gaston’s long hair (in need of a trim). His beard had grown! My throat tightened at the thought of what I was going to have to tell them. “I will mend it—but there has been a change of plan.” Athénaïs was already with child again, but this time she did not need to retreat to a hideaway for her confinement. The King’s “official mistress,” the Duchesse de la Vallière, had agreed—under coercion, I did not doubt—to accept Athénaïs’s existence, and even to cooperate in keeping the nature of the illicit relationship a secret. As for the Queen, she apparently was easily duped.
“Ah, the dramatic pause,” Mother said after an uncomfortable silence, her penciled brows lifted. She had thrown the shawl over her “good luck” red and yellow dressing gown. The old gown was worn to threads at the cuffs and elbows, yet she superstitiously insisted on wearing it before every new performance.
“Do you remember the Duc de Mortemart’s daughter?” I began.
“She visited my dressing room once,” Mother said.
“Oui. She’s with the Court now … and she wants me to work for her.” You’re the only one I can trust, Athénaïs had told me. I was to be her suivante, her confidential maid: the person with whom she could speak openly, the person she entrusted with her secrets. “Madame de Sconin arranged it.” My lies were a shadow of the truth. “But I’ll have to live in Saint-Germain-en-Laye.” In truth, I felt a little hiddy-giddy about it, an emotion I took care to conceal. Life at Court! “I’m to begin tomorrow,” I admitted apologetically. Your mother and brother will be fine, Athénaïs insisted. I need you more.
Gaston stared at the floor. The silence was unnerving. Why was my mother not speaking?
“I’ll earn money,” I added. Not as much as one would think, but more than at the theater. “We’ll be able to put Gaston into an apprenticeship.” Eventually. God willing. “And I will be coming to Paris often.” I was to be the go-between—the internunce, Athénaïs called my role, using the Latin term—the one to make sure all was in order with the new governess and the soon-to-be two bastard babies.
“Then tonight is a farewell,” Mother said finally, her voice husky.
“Non,” I said, taking her hands. (Mort Dieu, so cold.) “Tonight is to applaud you.”
IT FELT BOTH familiar and strange to be backstage at the theater again: back in shabby rooms hung with sweat-stained costumes, listening to the murmurs of players going over their lines, the sound of Floridor pacing.
After helping Gaston into his usher’s coat and settling Mother in her dressing room—after helping her review her lines and dressing her hair in a new style I’d learned from Athénaïs—I went out front. I listened with anticipation as the loges began to fill, people talking amongst themselves, greeting one another.
Going around to the entrance for the nobility, I was rather alarmed to encounter Monsieur Pierre at the foot of the stairs to the second-tier loges. “I’m surprised to see you here!” I whispered. Racine and his supporters would be rabid with suspicion.
“I’m in disguise,” he said, holding up a cane.
I smiled. It hardly masked the great man.
“I thought it time I regarded the work of the young playwright who is said to have bested me.”
“Nobody could do that.”
“Care to join me?”
“You have room?” I didn’t really care for the Paradis, where the family of players were permitted to sit. The railing was low, the benches hard, and the servants of the nobility who sat there tended to be rowdy.
“My brother Thomas and I reserved an entire loge, but he and his companions can’t make it. I have it all to myself.”
Seated beside Monsieur Pierre in the comfort of his private loge—sipping the cordials the loge attendant brought—we caught up on news: his wife was doing “not badly”; his brother’s play The Death of Hannibal had been a moderate success; the death of the Queen of England had not been a surprise, but rumor had it that it was the opium prescribed for her sleeplessness that had killed her; an Armenian had opened a bar just for serving a hot Turkish liqueur—
“Coffey?”
“Have you tried it? They say it perks one up.”
“It does,” I confessed, looking out over the audience. I was concerned to see so many empty seats. The theater was only half full, if that. Normally the parterre would be bursting with shopkeepers from the rue Saint-Denis.
“Thomas and his friends went to see the Marquis de Courboyer beheaded instead,” Monsieur Pierre said as Floridor ended his oration.
Ah, that would explain the poor attendance, I thought, applauding as the first set was revealed. Courboyer was a Huguenot and had been convicted of treason.
“He refused to renounce his religion, in spite of priests proclaiming his eternal damnation if he didn’t.”
I had sympathy for such resistance, in truth.
There was a scattering of weak applause as Mother stepped into the light of the foot candles. It had been some time since I’d seen her onstage. She seemed to lack her usual confidence, and on her second verse, she faltered. I sat forward, concerned.
The audience became restless. Racine’s play was challenging, penetrating, but without movement. I was relieved that there weren’t whistlers, no sign of a claque, but chagrined to hear snores from several of the loges. I felt compassion for the players, but especially for my mother, who was clearly struggling, her magnificent voice gradually becoming hoarse.
“I admit Racine’s verse is refined,” Monsieur Pierre observed at the close of the final act.
“That’s generous of you,” I said, helping him to his feet. Refined … and emotionally intense. After a performance of a play by Racine, Mother invariably collapsed. “I thought my mother’s enactment was … well, weak, I’m afraid.”
Monsieur Pierre took up his cane. “Certainly we’ve seen her stronger.”
“I’m worried about her. I’ve taken a job at Court,” I blurted out, my voice breaking.
He looked horrified. “Why would you do that?”
“I’m to be an attendant to Madame la Marquise de Montespan,” I said, hoping that that would explain. It was, without a doubt, a prestigious position, especially for someone from the theater.
He pulled on the little patch of hair beneath his lip. “Well, she’s better than most—an active supporter of the arts and all that. I gather the bigots aren’t too happy with her. She’s a power now, I understand. She’s got the King’s ear.”
And more. “I’ll put in a good word for you,” I joked.
“Do,” he said, taking me seriously. “She’s a patron of both Molière and Racine, but I never could manage the courtier role—all that waiting around, all that bowing.”
“I made the mistake of telling Maman tonight,” I confessed. I should have known better. I should have waited until after the performance.
“Tell Alix she was excellent.” He touched the rim of his worn leather hat. “But whatever you do, don’t tell Racine I was impressed.”
I FOUND MOTHER slumped on the bench in her dressing room, Gaston looking on with concern. Usually the room was filled with admirers, but tonight it was empty.
“I’m fine,” she insisted, coughing into her hideous shawl, which she’d
finally finished.
“Attendance will be better tomorrow,” I said, giving her a nose cloth of my own, a fine embroidered linen from Athénaïs’s offcasts, only slightly stained. “There was a beheading tonight—all of Paris was there, no doubt. You were wonderful, Maman. Monsieur Pierre said to tell you so.”
She coughed again, a nasty rattle. “Monsieur Pierre was here?” she asked once she’d caught her breath, handing back the linen.
Quiet, I gestured, hearing Racine’s voice in the hallway outside. I frowned down at the specks on the cloth: blood?
ACT IV
IN THE SERVICE
OF THE SHADOW QUEEN
(1669, Saint-Germain-en-Laye)
CHAPTER 37
The turrets of the castle at Saint-Germain-en-Laye glittered with ice, sparkling in the bright winter sun. Mist rose from the breath of all the horses. Courtiers walked briskly, cocooned in furs.
Shivering, I followed after the porter, who carried my shabby wardrobe chest on his shoulder. It had scribbles all over it, made by Gaston on scraps of pasted-on theatrical playbills: Music & Lofty Tumbling! A Juggling Clown! Last Chance!
I could feel the appraising glances of the other servants. I boldly met their eyes. I was, I reminded myself, confidential maid to the mighty Athénaïs, the Marquise de Montespan. I was not an interloper; I belonged.
The porter led me to a door on the second floor of the castle. It opened onto a room with a high vaulted ceiling. A silver brazier gave off a sweet perfume, only slightly covering the strong scent of a male cat.
Pale blue drapes framed three narrow windows which opened onto the river valley. The frozen Seine unfurled like a silver ribbon in and around the gentle hills, clouded at times by wreaths of smoke. Below, at the river’s edge, was the sprawling new château where the King, his family, and attendants lived. This older castle was on a rise well above the river, safe from flood.
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