“I thought that would please you!” said Madame de Montespan, a note of triumph in her voice. “In order to achieve this object, I must ask you to follow my instructions precisely and to maintain utter secrecy, for your own sake if nothing else.”
Émilie cast her eye around the room at the six or seven servants who stood placidly waiting for instructions.
“You need not mind them!” The marquise gestured vaguely in the direction of her staff. “They would not dare breathe a word of what passes within my boudoir.”
Émilie looked to see if her comment had had any effect at all on the people who were so cavalierly included in her sweeping comment. Either she spoke the truth, or Madame de Montespan’s footmen were so adept at concealing their true feelings that they could have chosen careers on the stage. From all Émilie had seen, servants were a fickle lot, requiring little more than higher wages to persuade any one of them to switch allegiance. She did not know what could possibly induce those at Clagny to behave any differently.
“Ah, young love! I know it. I have loved and been loved as no other before me. Fortune, power, glory—all these are nothing when compared to love. Do not throw it away for an hour of notoriety.”
Émilie was confused. What did any of this have to do with love? She was very fond of Monsieur Charpentier, to be sure. And she counted the days between letters, and compared everything that Monsieur Lully told her to what her former teacher had told her, usually to the detriment of Monsieur Lully. But was this love? And if it was, why did it matter to Madame de Montespan?
“Imagine how it would be to return to the man you truly love, the man who taught you what it was to live, to breathe, to sing!”
Émilie let this thought trickle into her heart and, once it was there, turned it over and over. She remembered the feeling she had when she and Monsieur Charpentier sang together, a feeling powerful and yet unnameable, and the memory warmed her from her scalp to her toenails. She closed her eyes and conjured up the sensation of Charpentier’s hand pressing against her abdomen, and the way he would not look at her when he sat at the harpsichord, and the way he did look at her when he had come to escort her to the fête. It all seemed to make sense now. Of course she was in love. As she listened to Madame de Montespan outline what sounded like a very risky plan, she was powerless to move, speak, even think for herself. The plan involved a daring rescue in the middle of the night after her début as Alceste. The marquise promised that she would take care of bringing Monsieur Charpentier into the scheme. She had certain knowledge, so she said, that he was just as attached to Émilie as she was to him.
“Is he?” asked Émilie, forgetting to address the marquise with her proper title.
Madame de Montespan pushed a little tendril of hair back behind Émilie’s ear. “Poor child, you really are naïve. Don’t you know what power you wield? All that beauty, and that voice as well. You could have anyone you wanted.”
Émilie blushed deeply. What was this beautiful lady implying? “But I don’t want anyone,” she said, not knowing what else to say.
“No, of course not. You don’t want just anyone, you want him.”
By the time she sent Émilie on her way back to Versailles, the Marquise de Montespan knew that, despite the hazards, this young girl would do anything she asked of her. Years of experience taught her to recognize when she had made a conquest, and little Émilie Jolicoeur was in love. Perhaps not with her, but with the idea of love that she had made so enticing.
Madame de Montespan was particularly pleased with herself when she went to the queen’s apartments that evening to play cards. She sent for Émilie, and the ladies persuaded the girl to sing an air. As each listener was enfolded in the rich, thrilling sound of Émilie’s voice, the marquise thought she could detect greater depth and power in it even since earlier that day. And for this she accepted some of the credit, quite happy to partake of the imminent triumph of the most remarkable creature at court.
Twelve
There is no disguise that can hide love for long when it is present, or give the appearance of love when it is not.
Maxim 70
One warm September Sunday, as Charpentier walked home from the Church of St. Louis, where he had just directed the music for High Mass, he noticed that a private coach, small but very beautiful, kept pace with him and stayed near him all the way through the streets of the Marais. When he was about a block away from the rue des Quatre Fils, he heard the horses quicken their pace just a little until the vehicle drew up level with him. The coach window lowered. A woman’s gloved hand rested on the top of the door. It was dark within, and he could just see the suggestion of her profile, shrouded in veils.
“Monsieur Charpentier,” the woman called to him. He approached. “Do not come closer. I have a letter for you, from someone who wishes to help you.” The woman held a folded piece of paper out to Charpentier. He reached from where he stood and took it from her. “I shall return exactly one week from today for your answer,” she said. Before Charpentier could say anything, the driver clucked his horses to a trot, and the coach departed.
Charpentier examined the note he held in his hand. The paper was very heavy and fine. He opened it and read.
Monsieur Charpentier,
I have reason to believe that your little music student is in peril of losing her innocence at the hands of the mighty. I have spoken to her about this danger, but she is sworn to secrecy, so she will not speak of it in her letters to you. For reasons of my own, I wish to help you remove her from this situation. Before I can tell you my plan, I need to know if you would be willing to act swiftly and without concern for your safety. Please give your answer by this same courier one week hence.
The letter was not signed. Charpentier felt the blood race to his fingertips. For the past months he had temporarily put aside his notion of reclaiming Émilie, ever since she wrote and told him that she was to sing the role of Alceste in Lully’s opera. This was too big an opportunity to squander; Charpentier felt he must trust Émilie’s innocence and better nature to protect her from any scandal at court. His letters to her were always full of advice, including any information he could pick up from the other servants at the Hôtel de Guise about who to watch out for and who was harmless. He was relieved to hear that Lully, although unscrupulous, was hardly likely to have designs upon Émilie’s person. And nothing in Émilie’s letters to him had given him any cause to think there was anything that was troubling her beyond a little homesickness.
On the other hand, Émilie had been at Versailles for almost nine months. Even over the brief time he had worked with her, she had matured. Without any fresh input to give him a new impression, Charpentier’s memory of Émilie was frozen in time. All at once he realized that she could be in much more danger now, the result of nothing more than the normal course of nature. It was clear that leaving matters as they stood might spell disaster. Yet if Charpentier took Émilie away from Versailles, neither of them would ever be able to return. All his dreams of a court appointment would end, and Émilie’s career would be destroyed.
“Monsieur Charpentier, are you quite well?” It was old Robert, one of the footmen, who sat by the servants’ entrance polishing some silver when the composer arrived at the Hôtel de Guise, hardly realizing that he had continued to walk.
“Yes, I’m fine,” answered Charpentier.
He went to his room and sat for a long time. As the sun set, and the walls turned golden and then red, Charpentier came to understand that he must not put ambition above what was right. But it was this, the deciding what was right, that caused him some difficulty. Was it right to leave Émilie to her fate, an innocent all too vulnerable to the unscrupulous forces at court? And was his desire to rescue her from some indistinct but ominous fate more self-serving than he wanted to admit?
In the end Charpentier decided that Émilie was still too young to defend herself against the intrigues at court. If he did not think that the effort would prove unsuccessful and prob
ably ruin any future attempt he might make to bring Émilie back to Paris, he would have rushed to Versailles immediately. But with neither the means nor any definite proof that she was in imminent danger, he judged it prudent to be guided by whatever insider it was who claimed to have a plan to avert disaster. And so Charpentier wrote his affirmative response, saying that he would go along with the plan no matter what it entailed, and carried it with him for days until he finally delivered it into the same gloved hand that reached out of the same small coach that followed him home from St. Louis the next Sunday.
In addition to Émilie’s letters, over the next few weeks Charpentier received three more from the mysterious woman. That it was a woman Charpentier assumed, as much from the delicacy of the sentiments as the scented paper. The scheme she outlined was relatively simple: Charpentier was to come for Émilie at eleven forty-five at night on October the fifth. She would be ready to flee with him, waiting by a door to the right of the Cour de Marbre. So long as no one found out about the plan, it should go smoothly. Émilie was under the watch of the servant François, but her general compliance, so the anonymous informant told Charpentier, had lulled her guardian into a false sense of security.
It was fortunate in some ways, Charpentier thought, that he had not been called upon to rush off to Versailles the very next day. Mostly the delay gave him time to prepare for Émilie’s return. It was difficult to know what to do with her once she was back in Paris. He could hardly bring her back to the Hôtel de Guise, and he had been told in one of the letters that Émilie should not return to her parents’ home, since that would be the first place she would be sought. The only answer was to engage a room for Émilie somewhere discreet and quiet. He had asked a valet at the Hôtel de Guise for advice, since he had no idea about these things, making up some story about a sister of his coming from the country. The servant suggested an address south of the rue St. Antoine, in an area that was a little rundown, he said, but private and cheap. Charpentier found the house and secured the lodgings for Émilie, feeling a little sheepish about the whole process. He did not like the way the landlady looked at him, assuming, he was certain, that he was simply looking for a place in which to carry on a love affair.
“Did you know, Madame, that Mademoiselle Émilie has been to see la Montespan more than once?” St. Paul and Madame de Maintenon strolled in a secluded part of the garden at Versailles. He had just arrived to deliver his weekly report on Émilie’s progress and development.
“Is that so?” she said. “It does not surprise me.”
“Should we not keep a closer watch over her?”
The widow Scarron fingered the pearl rosary that hung around her neck. “I don’t think that is necessary. I have everything under control. François keeps me well informed.”
St. Paul thought for a moment. “The marquise might try to remove her from court. She was there, at the masquerade. She saw how the king—”
“I don’t think she would dare. The king would suspect her immediately. Too many other so-called rivals have been, shall we say, encouraged by Madame de Montespan to leave court.”
St. Paul stepped on a large black beetle that crawled over the grass.
“And what is more, Monsieur le Comte, His Majesty is now departing once more for the Low Countries to lead his armies,” said Madame de Maintenon.
“No doubt with the marquise in tow!”
“I hear not. He has specifically asked that she remain behind. Her health is delicate, apparently.”
St. Paul thought about this. Montespan would be in a foul temper over such a slight. “Which gives us time to prepare Mademoiselle Émilie even more fully for her encounter with the king,” he said.
Madame de Maintenon fixed St. Paul with an unflinching stare. “Sometimes I am amazed, Monsieur, that a gentleman with your instincts can still be so naïve. I believe you have only partly understood my intentions. My goal is not simply to unseat the marquise, who is hardly worth my consideration, but to save the king by teaching him that there are greater pleasures than the gratification of the senses. The girl is my instrument, in all senses of the word. In any case, putting a guileless young peasant in the way of losing her innocence would not distract His Majesty from the considerable charms of Madame de Montespan. The king is not so easily amused for more than one night.”
“I see.” But St. Paul did not see. His fears were confirmed. He was no longer fully informed of the widow Scarron’s plans. He knew as well as anyone how treacherous a place the court of Versailles could be. It was a very uncomfortable feeling, to be on the receiving end of some clever deception.
“My motives are of the highest, and the end I seek will result in the moral salvation of the greatest king ever to live. Such a noble project requires extreme measures.” The widow Scarron did not so much raise her voice as intensify it. The effect was chilling, and it avoided all risk of being overheard.
“How extreme?” he asked.
Madame de Maintenon seemed to grow inches taller before St. Paul’s eyes, drawing herself as upright as her spine would go and lifting her chin. “This is a matter of state. It justifies any action. Once you have done my bidding, you must leave the next step to me. I will send for you when I need you. Good day, Monsieur de St. Paul.”
The count departed feeling chastened, and angry. The woman is mad, he thought. What could she be up to? She thinks she knows everything, but if she teases His Majesty with some new toy and then does not allow him, in some fashion, to gratify his desire, the king won’t thank her!
By the time St. Paul arrived at Lully’s study, where he had gone at the bidding of Madame de Maintenon, he was incensed. Bursting in without knocking, he surprised Lully, who jumped away from his valet, whose clothing was in a slight state of disarray.
St. Paul took in the scene with one sweep of his eyes, deciding in an instant to store up the information it gave him for use if he ever needed it. “The sketches for Mademoiselle Émilie’s costume,” he demanded, holding out his hand.
“Whatever for?” Lully covered up his discomfiture by acting irate. The valet bent quickly over a pair of shoes on the floor and began polishing them with a handkerchief, as if this had been his innocent occupation when St. Paul barged in.
“Madame de Maintenon is concerned. We do not want a repetition of the fiasco at the masquerade,” he said.
“I might remind you, Monsieur le Comte, that the ladder—and the costume—were your idea!”
St. Paul ignored him. “The sketches, if you please.”
With reluctance, Lully produced the drawings for Émilie’s costume for Alceste. It was the usual thing, very heavy and ornate. Lots of jewels and gold thread.
“Thank you,” said St. Paul. “This will do.” He departed, a little smile on his lips as he closed the door behind him.
“This will do! Who does he think he is?” Lully asked Pierre, who dropped the shoe on the floor and then began to massage the composer’s shoulders. Lully sat on the divan and closed his eyes. “You’d better stay away for a while,” he said to the youth, who kissed him on the forehead before quietly slipping out the door.
From one of the high windows of the palace, Émilie could see a corner of the garden that was somewhat overgrown, a little wilderness where the ladies seldom walked, especially when the ground was damp from a recent rain. Whenever she could escape from François’s constant vigilance, she tried to reach this haven before anyone discovered she was missing. Usually she was intercepted on her way and gently guided back into safer territory. But on this day François was occupied with other things, and everyone was preparing for the visit of an ambassador, so she actually managed to attain her goal. She thought when she was there that she was probably far enough away to sing something without being heard. She could, at last, sing one of Charpentier’s airs.
Émilie began her song, trying to keep her voice small so that it would not sail out over the landscape and creep into the open windows of Versailles. She looked away from the mag
nificent edifice that loomed behind her, and that she had come to feel was almost a prison, and sent the tones of her voice into the countryside. No one actually locked her in or tied her up, but she had no access to a carriage, and even if she wanted to make the trek back to Paris on foot, she did not know the way. It would hardly do to ask. All her questions about going home for a visit had been met with silence or evasion, as if no one could understand why anyone would want to return to a humble workshop when she had the opportunity to live at the greatest court on earth. And then there was this impossible-sounding scheme that Madame de Montespan had told her about. Why it was necessary for her to flee so furtively, in the middle of the night after her début, she could not figure out. It would be so much easier just to go home for a visit. Then she could decide whether to come back or not. She knew that if she ran away without permission, she would have to sever all ties with Versailles, and no matter how appealing Madame de Montespan made the idea of being with Charpentier again, she wasn’t entirely certain that was what she wanted.
To chase away these confusing thoughts, Émilie sang. Before long the birds began to chime in. The gardens at Versailles were full of rare and exotic creatures that had been captured in other locations and then brought to the park to entertain the courtiers and the king with their gaudy plumage and their unearthly songs. There seemed to be quite a concentration of them, there in that carefully landscaped wilderness. Although they remained generally out of sight, it pleased Émilie that they blended their songs with hers, and when she tried to imitate them, they sometimes answered back. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, she thought, if I could tell that nightingale to go and sing a message to Monsieur Charpentier?
Émilie was quite lost in this fantasy, imagining that her spirit and that of her former teacher could meet somewhere in the air, and that they could sing together again, and trip over the clouds to arrive back in Paris, when François cleared his throat behind her. She jumped.
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