Marcel, having seen more of the world than had his only child, knew that there were perils ahead and that it would take the strongest of wills to avoid them. He wanted to trust Charpentier, and yet the composer was a man. Marcel saw how he looked at Émilie. He did not share his wife’s certainty about the fate that awaited his daughter if she became a singing ornament in the salons of Paris, but he knew that her innocence would be short-lived in that setting. Although she was still young, Marcel could see that Émilie would be beautiful, and beauty, talent, and poverty combined usually produced one thing: a courtesan. Innocence was a great treasure, to be sure, but people as poor as he and his family could not afford the luxury of protecting it beyond its time.
Four
Passion makes a fool of a wise man and makes a wise man of a fool.
Maxim 6
“That woman must be stopped … She continues to lead the king down immoral paths … He flaunts his unlawful love before the court and the world … His Majesty does not yet realize it—he is too blinded by love—but such actions put everything—everything—in peril.”
St. Paul went over the widow Scarron’s words in his head as his carriage bumped along the rutted roads to Paris. She wants to get rid of Montespan. Well, so do half the women in France, if the truth be told, but no one had yet succeeded. He had been charged with an almost impossible task, St. Paul thought. It was no simple matter to turn the king’s attention away from the wittiest, most intelligent, most beautiful woman in Christendom. And supposing he achieved this extraordinary feat? Then what? Then the widow Scarron might step in and take her place—no, the idea was too absurd. Yet the void would be filled, of that St. Paul was certain.
First, he thought that it might be a good idea to try to dig up some scandal on Montespan. It shouldn’t be too difficult. He was going to visit his godmother, the Duchesse de Guise. She was no partisan of the court, and if he were going to hear anything really damaging about the king’s mistress, he might well hear it there. And besides, his finances were in a more than usually disastrous state, and he could normally cajole the old lady out of a few louis. It was worth the risk of going to Paris and being accosted by his creditors. It would do him no harm to get away from court for a while too. He could think at the Hôtel de Guise just as easily as at Versailles—perhaps more easily, without the constant pleasures and distractions of the court to woo him, and with his belly full of his godmother’s famously ample provisions.
He had agreed to the widow Scarron’s terms most reluctantly. In exchange for his services in arranging the events that would deflect the king from Madame de Montespan, she would ensure that he would receive a generous pension. It irked him to be subservient to someone who had been born in a prison, although her father was of an ancient family. Despite himself, he could not help admiring her intelligence and wit, the qualities that had helped her overcome her failings to become the governess to the king’s illegitimate children, but there was something sanctimonious about her unwavering piety. St. Paul had grown up inside the court, and this early training had taught him not to trust anyone who seemed to be sincere.
Athénaïs de Rochechouart de Mortemart, otherwise known as the magnificent Madame de Montespan, was altogether a different sort. She should have been queen, St. Paul thought, if her parents hadn’t bartered her off in marriage at a young age to that idiotic Marquis de Montespan. He wondered if she knew that the widow Scarron—the woman who used to be her closest friend—was now plotting so desperately against her. St. Paul was more than willing to take the opportunity the widow Scarron offered him, assuming that he would be able to claim some support and compensation for his trouble along the way. But what or who could possibly distract a man with such legendary appetites from the marquise? She had swept in, practically annihilating her predecessor, the demure Duchesse de La Vallière. If there was any weakness at all, any chink where one might find a place to drive a wedge, it would be within the character of Madame de Montespan herself. She had one flaw: her temper. If he could find a way to make her use it to her detriment, then there was the faintest glimmer of hope that they might be able to succeed.
But first, St. Paul thought, it was necessary to eat, drink, and pay his tailor. As his carriage drew up to the door of the Hôtel de Guise, he adjusted his features into a suitably obsequious smile, straightened his brocade coat, and prepared to spend a boring day playing cards with his elderly godmother.
What Émilie did not realize when she agreed so readily to becoming Monsieur Charpentier’s pupil was that learning how to sing would be only one of the tasks the composer would set her. Parisian society was elegant and sophisticated. The ladies and gentlemen were well read, appreciated art and music, knew how to dance the minuet flawlessly, and possessed sharp wits and knowledge on a vast variety of subjects. For Émilie to make her mark in that setting would require more than just a pretty voice. Half of every day was, therefore, devoted to other lessons: dancing, drawing, elocution, etiquette, and—most difficult of all—reading.
At first, when Charpentier realized Émilie found the reading and writing so daunting, he tried to make it a game. He would reward her with cakes and tea if she could learn the words he set her and use them in sentences. The results were not spectacular. When the lesson did not end successfully, Émilie stared longingly at the treats she was to be denied, until Charpentier relented and let her have them anyway. He could not bear it when her radiant smile faded, when her eager, dancing eyes turned away from him and tears gathered beneath her lashes.
It was another matter altogether when they turned to Émilie’s singing lesson. Sometimes the look that spread over Émilie’s face when she was lost in the music almost took Charpentier’s breath away. That, and the magnificent sound that gave him chills, made him forgive her just about everything else.
And there were a few things to be forgiven. Émilie had never met an adult who was so eager to please her, who, for fear of losing her trust, did not discipline her. At first she was a little suspicious. But it did not take long for her to realize that in Charpentier’s apartment, she was the one with the power.
“I’m not sure I feel like reading today,” Émilie said, when Charpentier’s insistence that she attend to a passage from a small book of children’s stories was beginning to annoy her.
“Are you unwell?” Charpentier asked, immediately putting down the book with such an expression of concern that Émilie could not help laughing.
“I’m sorry, really, I feel fine. But I truly don’t want to read anymore. When can I sing?”
Charpentier looked at Émilie from across the table. “I too wish that you could sit here and sing to me all day long. But that is not what will give you success, not that alone. I don’t know what else to say to you to convince you that this is very, very important. It is worth the effort.”
“My mother said it is idle foolishness to teach me to read, that I won’t need to read in order to keep a household and raise children.” Émilie knew she was testing Charpentier, knew in her heart what he would say to that, but she wanted to hear it from him.
Charpentier leaned forward. “If you do as I ask, you will not have a life like your mother’s. You will be admitted to the highest circles. You will be showered with costly gifts. But most of all, you will spend your life perfecting the art that God meant you to practice, or he would not have given you such a voice.”
Charpentier’s look melted Émilie’s determined resistance. He had eyes like deep, clear pools on an overcast day. Émilie opened the book in front of her and began to read aloud to Charpentier. There were several words she did not know, but he helped her along. In an hour she made it through the entire story, which took up three pages.
“That’s more like it, Mademoiselle Contrary!” Charpentier said when they finished.
Émilie could not help smiling. She had read a story, all by herself. Well, almost.
Charpentier smiled his glorious smile at Émilie, and it sent a little thrill through he
r. She answered with a smile of her own, and the faintest tinge of a blush. “Is it time to sing yet?” she asked.
Charpentier rose and went to the spinet.
Émilie stood and stretched, thankful to be finished with the chore of reading. She took her accustomed place and began to sing to her teacher’s accompaniment.
The composer watched and listened as his student put her voice through its daily exercises. She had made great progress. But there was still something holding her back, something he had not managed to convey to her that would unlock everything her extraordinary instrument could do.
“That is tolerable, Mademoiselle Émilie, but your breathing is not right. You are not giving yourself the support you need to reach those notes and sustain them. Breathe from here.” Charpentier stood up and placed his hand on his abdomen, just below his rib cage.
Émilie put her own hand on her stomach, and breathed in and out a few times.
“No, it is still too shallow. You have the capacity. Here.” Charpentier came over to Émilie and placed his own hand just below her waist. “Now breathe, and move my hand.”
Émilie did as she was told. Charpentier pressed against her so that she had to push to make her stomach expand. He could feel her pulse right through the gathers of her homespun skirt.
“Now sing.”
Émilie’s voice soared through the room and seemed to push at the boundaries of the small space.
“Yes, you have it.” Charpentier let go of her suddenly and stepped back to his seat in front of the harpsichord. “Now, let us try an air.” He began to play, concentrating on the movement of his fingers over the ebony keys. He did not dare to look up at his student for fear she might notice that his simple gesture, his touch, had unnerved him.
“Please, Monsieur Charpentier,” Émilie said when she finished the air. “Can we try the duet again?”
“You mean may we try the duet?”
“May we try the duet again?”
She mimicked the tone of his voice so perfectly that Charpentier laughed out loud.
“All right,” he said, and then dug through the sheets of paper scattered around his feet for the piece she meant.
Charpentier’s beautiful, high tenor voice blended particularly well with Émilie’s rich, pure soprano. At first he had sung exercises with her, paralleling her scales a sixth lower to help her develop greater security with her pitch. She enjoyed this so much that they began to sing simple tunes together, until finally he wrote a duet for the two of them. He placed the music on the stand and stood next to her. Although Émilie memorized the words and music almost the first time Charpentier taught them to her, she leaned in close as if she were reading them off the page anew. Charpentier did not touch his student, but as they sang, every once in a while the music seemed to carry them to the same place, and the distance between them vanished altogether. The sounds they made collided in the room, beating against each other to become more than just two distinct voices, to become something else, something larger and more exquisite. When they finished, neither of them moved for a few seconds. Then Émilie looked at Charpentier.
He caught her gaze for only a moment. “I think you’ve worked hard enough for one day,” he said, turning away immediately. Neither of them said anything else while Émilie put on her cloak and went out the door.
Émilie walked a little more slowly than usual on her way home that evening. It was cold, but she did not feel it. She did not even mind very much when a fiacre rolled through a puddle and splashed her. She still felt the warm pressure of Charpentier’s hand on her stomach. She still heard their voices curling around each other, blending and touching. This intimacy warmed her all the way through, although she did not really understand why. She wanted to turn her steps back toward the Hôtel de Guise and sing again, but she knew it was time for dinner, and that her parents would worry if she did not come home.
When at long last she arrived at the Pont au Change, Émilie let herself into the workshop with her latchkey and found her way across it in the near dark. The fire had been doused about an hour earlier when the light went, and Marcel could no longer see to do his meticulous work. Odd how much smaller it looked to her now, she thought. She still loved the smell of varnish, and the faint outlines of unfinished musical instruments hanging from the ceiling and covering the walls exuded a certain potential for beauty. Sometimes she wished she lived down here, surrounded by all these curving shapes, instead of upstairs, where everything was plain and square. At the Hôtel de Guise, everywhere one looked was beauty. All the rooms were made to delight the eye. Even Charpentier’s humble apartment was draped with curtains and had beautiful Aubusson carpets on the floors. Émilie knew it was unfair to compare her parents’ little apartment with the home of a princess, but each day the contrast became more stark, and each day she walked home a little more slowly, postponing the moment when she must return to her old life.
Five
To be a great man, it is necessary to know how to profit from luck.
Maxim 343
Early in the morning about a week later, there was a knock on the door of the Atelier Jolicoeur that was loud enough to hear all the way up on the top floor of the building. Madeleine was busy clearing up from breakfast, and so Marcel went down to answer it. He returned with a letter in his hands.
“What could it say?” asked Marcel. “We shall have to take it to the market to have it read.”
“No, Papa! Let me try to read it myself!” said Émilie. She looked at the writing on the outside of the folded paper. “It’s for me! and it says, ‘Son al-tesse Mademoiselle de Guise requests the honor of the’ something … ‘the presence of Mademoiselle Émilie Jolicoeur in her s-s-salon, December eleven, at six o’clock in the evening.’”
Marcel watched his daughter struggle over the words on the page. He was astounded. She could read. This fact obscured for him the even more astounding one that she had been invited to the most glittering salon in Paris. When she finished, Émilie danced around the room with joy, her exuberant movements filling every inch of space in their tiny apartment.
“I shall need a new dress, Maman!” Émilie said, breathless.
“There, what did I tell you, Marcel? Nothing but expense. And for what? We have no money for this dress. You shall have to stay at home with us.” Madeleine’s voice was sharp and she closed the cupboard door so hard that the dishes inside rattled.
Marcel watched the light go out of his daughter’s face as if someone had thrown a bucket of slops over her. Never did he feel more sorry that his business did not thrive, that he could not provide more material comforts for his family. He shot a look at Madeleine and met her implacable gaze. “Surely there is something we could do without, just so Émilie could have this opportunity?”
“What could we do without? Supper?” Madeleine faced her husband without flinching.
“I could sell something, maybe one or two of my tools.”
“No, Papa!” Émilie ran to him and took his hand. “It’s not so important. Maybe I don’t need a dress to go.”
“What, and be laughed at by those idle folk?” Madeleine walked over and stood very close to her husband.
Marcel could feel her anger leap across the space that separated them. She blamed him for their poverty, he knew. He had taken a great risk with violins, an instrument that was not yet popular with his usual customers, at a time when things were just starting to go a little better for them.
“It does not matter,” Émilie said. “Au revoir.”
Silently Marcel accepted Émilie’s kiss and watched her put on her cloak and leave the apartment; he wondered what she would say to her teacher.
Émilie had to pick her way slowly to the Hôtel de Guise that morning because the cobbles were coated with a thin layer of ice. Her slow progress gave her time to think of how she might break the news to Charpentier that she would be unable to perform at the princess’s salon. By the time she arrived, she was frozen through and still did not
know what to say.
“Good morning, Mademoiselle Émilie!” Charpentier said when Émilie walked through the door, shivering. “Come over to the fire and warm yourself. Did you receive anything by messenger today?”
Émilie untied her cloak and hung it on the peg by the door. She did not want to tell Charpentier her news. She could read the mischievous excitement in her teacher’s eyes and was sorry she would have to spoil everything. “Yes, I had an invitation, from Mademoiselle de Guise. But,” Émilie paused. “I cannot go.”
“Why ever not?” he asked.
“Because I have—because my parents—” Émilie bit her lip and looked down at the floor.
“What is the matter?” asked Charpentier, taking a step closer to her.
Émilie could feel his presence, could feel the warmth of his gesture even before the hand he reached out to her touched her chin, lifting it so that she would have to look into his eyes. “Because I simply can’t!” she said, turning around quickly so that she would not have to face her teacher.
She heard Charpentier clear his throat. “That is too bad, Mademoiselle Émilie, because I had decided, in honor of your hard work and perseverance, that we should take a trip to the dressmaker’s today, and order you a silk gown, appropriate for such a grand event.” Émilie turned back to him. He was smiling. “It is a gift, from me.”
She wished that she could run to him and throw her arms around his neck. He had made her so happy. But he was not her father; he was her teacher, and so she stood where she was and tried to think of something to say. The best she could do was “Thank you, Monsieur.”
“And so I understand that you will, after all, attend the princess’s salon?”
Émilie smiled.
“Well, what are you waiting for? Put your cloak back on. We’ll take a fiacre and be back in time for your singing lesson!”
Emilie's Voice Page 3