“Go to Paris, then, immediately. Seek out Monsieur Charpentier, but take care that St. Paul does not know that you do so. Tell Charpentier to take his wife out of the city, to this place”—Madame de Montespan scribbled an address on a sheet of paper—“and leave her there. Oh, and give him this as well.” She reached into a drawer in her desk and retrieved a leather pouch full of coins. “Quickly!”
François bowed and departed, taking the money and the paper with him.
As the fields and forests gave way to scattered houses, and gradually to dwellings that were closer and closer together, François tried to remember the last time he had been in Paris on his own. It was when he was very young. From the age of ten he had been attached to the court, at first serving the Grande Mademoiselle and now the widow Scarron. He had generally traveled only between St. Germain and Versailles, with occasional sojourns at the rue Vaugirard to the south of the city proper when it was deemed prudent to get the illegitimate royal progeny out of sight. There were more buildings than he remembered, and more people too. The city was noisy—in part because more of the streets were cobbled than in the past, so that horses and carriages made a mighty clatter as they went about their daily business.
The route to the Hôtel de Guise took him over the Pont au Change. François saw the lute-shaped sign of the Atelier Jolicoeur as he passed. He wondered what Marcel had done with the letter, whether he had found anyone to read it for him. He would know soon enough. Undoubtedly the luthier would have been to see Charpentier by this time if he had. And François was afraid that it was only a matter of time before Madame de Maintenon discovered that he had switched his loyalties. It was a foolhardy thing to do, at his age, when he was so close to being taken care of for the rest of his days.
The carriage stopped at the servants’ entrance to the Hôtel de Guise. François alighted and was led to Monsieur Charpentier’s apartment.
“My name is François. I must beg leave to speak plainly with you.”
Charpentier gestured toward the one chair in his study that was not covered with papers.
“Thank you, but I cannot stay long. I would prefer to stand.”
“Perhaps you had better tell me your business.” Charpentier felt the heat rise to his face. Without being told, he knew who François was. He had seen him, once before.
François looked around him nervously. “It is already dangerous that I had to come here. I have put myself at great risk. I would do so for no other person.”
“But we have never met.”
“I speak of Mademoiselle Émilie,” he said.
“She exists no more.” Charpentier turned away from François and pretended to be looking for something in the untidy heap of books and papers on his desk.
“I think we both know that she does. I was there when you came, that night after the performance.”
“What do you want of me?” The composer stopped fussing with his papers and faced François. “And I tell the truth: there is no more Mademoiselle Émilie. She is now Madame Charpentier.”
François took a step back. “Forgive me. Perhaps I misjudged you. I pray that she comes to no harm. But still, I must tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
“There are interests at court who know she did not perish that night, and who will do anything—anything—to bring her back. I speak of le Comte de St. Paul.”
“But why?”
François shrugged. “Why else? To please the king. To please the king, and grow wealthy.”
Charpentier’s legs suddenly felt weak. “What can I do?”
“You have an ally at Versailles, whose name I must not mention.
You may trust this lady if for no other reason than that it is in her interests that Émilie not be returned to court. I bring you instructions, and some money with which to effect your escape.”
Charpentier listened carefully to what he said. Things were worse than he imagined. It was dangerous for Émilie to remain where she was; in fact, it seemed likely that her whereabouts were already known. He wanted François to leave immediately, wished that courtesy did not require him to stay and listen politely, so that he could return to his wife, pack her into a fiacre, and send her into the country to escape St. Paul. But courtesy also required him to be sensible of the risk the servant had taken to warn them. “Thank you, my friend. You are very courageous to come and tell me this. I hope your kindness will not endanger you as well. If there is something I can do for you—”
“Non, Monsieur. Please do not consider yourself obliged to me. I act only on the orders of another. Good-bye, Monsieur. God speed Mademoiselle Émilie—Madame Charpentier.”
Sophie was at her usual afternoon station, across the street from the house on the rue des Écouffes where Émilie and Charpentier lived, when she saw a doctor rush up to the door and enter. He was there for about an hour, and when he came out, his shoulders were bowed, and there was an air of defeat about him. She had no way of knowing whom he had gone in to see, but something told her that all was not well in the Charpentier household. Respectable doctors did not normally pay calls on prostitutes and the mistresses of clerks, who were the only other occupants of Émilie’s building. A few moments later the Charpentiers’ young maid emerged, carrying a basket full of linens and crying.
Could Émilie have died? Sophie thought she would have noticed something more, she had been so vigilant. Perhaps Émilie was very ill. She stayed where she was and waited to see if Charpentier appeared. After about twenty minutes she saw him run from the direction of the rue St. Antoine into the house, followed by the maid, whose basket was now empty. Sophie was desperate to know what had happened. She looked down at her scanty costume. After a few moments’ thought, she headed toward her room a few blocks away. If Émilie was about to die, she didn’t want to miss her final opportunity to confront her about the slippers. And for this visit, she thought she’d better make herself appear a little more respectable.
It started that morning. Émilie awoke with a terrible pain in her abdomen. The baby, who had just begun to kick and move inside of her, was utterly still. She did not want to stir from her bed.
“You don’t look well today, my love,” said Charpentier, as he dressed to go to the Hôtel de Guise for a day’s work.
“No, I’m a little tired. I think I’ll just rest a while longer.”
Charpentier kissed Émilie on the forehead and left.
For an hour or two, Émilie slept. She had horrible dreams. She saw St. Paul laughing at her and brandishing a pistol. Then Madame de Maintenon’s mouth dripped blood. Finally, Marc-Antoine sobbed and sobbed, as if he had lost his soul. She awoke with a start, her abdomen in agony.
“Lucille!” she screamed. “Lucille!”
The maid rushed in. Émilie writhed on the bed, clutching her stomach. Lucille pulled the covers back and gasped. Émilie looked down. A large pool of blood soaked the sheets. “Run! Fetch a doctor, and Monsieur Charpentier!” she said, wishing she could die, anything to stop the pain.
Émilie had no idea how much time passed before the doctor was there. He stood by and felt her forehead, letting her body run through its ghastly business. When her spasms stopped, he lifted the sheet and examined her. “I’m sorry, Madame Charpentier. Your baby, you understand.”
The pain in her stomach gradually subsided completely. She knew that she had pushed everything out, that all the blood and mess around her was what had been inside her, and now it was gone.
“I’ll lift her while you remove the sheets,” the doctor said to Lucille. “Take them to be burned. I’ll stay and see that she’s all right.”
Lucille was pale. Her hands shook as she gathered up the bloodstained linens.
The doctor held Émilie in his arms. She could not take her eyes from the bed. There was something there. “My baby,” she whispered, then she closed her eyes and turned away.
Charpentier had just bid adieu to François and was already extremely agitated when Lucille burst into hi
s study, shaking and crying.
“Oh, Monsieur!”
“Émilie! Is she—?”
“Thank the Lord, Madame Charpentier will be all right, she is just very weak. But the baby …”
Without waiting for her to finish, Charpentier grabbed his cloak and ran all the way back to the rue des Écouffes. He found Émilie exhausted and in some pain.
“Oh, Marc-Antoine!”
“Hush, Émilie, it’s all right.” He held Émilie and let her sob her heart out into him. Within moments his shoulder was soaked.
“I want—my baby—I want—to die!”
“There now! It’s all right. You are well, that’s all that matters. Hush, you must sleep now.”
Bit by bit, Émilie’s choking and weeping abated and she lay back against her pillows, exhausted. Charpentier sat on the edge of the bed and stroked her forehead until she closed her eyes. When she was fully asleep, he joined the doctor in the other room.
“Will she be all right?” Charpentier asked.
“There was not too much blood, so she should make a recovery.
But she should not be moved for a week.” The doctor handed a bill to Charpentier and waited politely while he counted out the coins to pay him.
“What about—children?” Charpentier stopped the doctor on his way out of the door.
He turned with his hand on the knob and said over his shoulder, “I wouldn’t advise it. She was lucky this time, but who knows what might happen the next. And if she should go to term …” He did not finish, but nodded to Charpentier and then left.
Charpentier sighed deeply, then returned to the bedroom. He began to walk back and forth, every once in a while casting a glance in Émilie’s direction. Her face twitched now and again, and twice she murmured something and then awoke with a start, only to fall asleep again the next instant. Charpentier felt his pocket. In it was the pouch full of money François had given him, and a piece of paper with the address far out in the country where he was supposed to send Émilie so that she would not be discovered. He had been told that he could not remain there with her. It would be too suspicious. But now everything had changed. Émilie was too ill to be moved right away: the doctor said a week. And he did not want to leave her alone with Lucille, who was too young to deal with any potential difficulties.
And with Mademoiselle’s fête the next night, it would arouse suspicion if Charpentier left town suddenly. If they were to get Émilie away undetected, he must continue his life as if nothing were planned. That would mean leaving Émilie at home alone and unprotected. He had to think of something else, yet every idea led to a dead end.
“Beg pardon, Monsieur Charpentier, but there’s a lady downstairs says to give you this.” Lucille entered the room and handed Charpentier a pasteboard card. On it a small but confident hand had written “Sophie Dupin.”
Sophie … Charpentier could not place the name. All at once he stopped pacing. Sophie! Of course! “Please ask her to come in.”
Lucille stood where she was.
“Go on, do as you’re told!”
The maid turned, shaking her head as she went down to the street door. “Won’t even let me bring the landlady in for a cup of tea …”
Sophie had gone to some trouble to make herself look decent. She had washed the paint off her face, run a comb through her hair, donned a dress she had purchased in preparation for the end of her career as a prostitute, and doused herself in lavender water. Altogether she did not look too bad.
“What brings you to my home?” Charpentier greeted Sophie in the parlor, having closed the door to the bedroom so that she could not look in and see Émilie.
“Well, I, uh, I’m looking for a position, as lady’s maid.”
“A lady’s maid? But as you know, I am a bachelor.” Charpentier was aware that Sophie had been let go without references. And he remembered her approach to him on the street. He thought it odd that she should just turn up like this, although he could not blame her for wanting some other employment than that of prostitute. He wondered how much she knew.
“I beg to differ, Monsieur. Not only are you married, but your wife is a person who, you recall, is known to me. I have seen her. I know she lives here. But I am able to keep a secret.”
Charpentier looked Sophie up and down, and then directly in the eyes. She drew herself up proudly and met his gaze without flinching. Could this be a solution to his temporary difficulties? “That does not mean—if it is true—that we actually need the services of a lady’s maid. If I were to engage you in this post, what assurance do I have that I may trust you? I know that you were dismissed from the household of Mademoiselle de Guise. I never discovered why.”
“My dismissal—there was a misunderstanding. Had I been able to tell the entire story, Monsieur, I do not think that it would have been I who was dismissed.”
“Perhaps you’d care to tell me that story?” Charpentier remembered Sophie’s kindness toward Émilie on the night of her début and thought perhaps she was telling the truth.
“I don’t think it is important right now. If you do not need a lady’s maid, I shall trouble you no longer.” She turned to go.
“Wait!” Charpentier gestured toward a chair. “Please sit down. You were good to my wife once. I owe you some hospitality.”
Sophie paused, then took the seat he offered. “My life has not been easy since we last met, Monsieur.”
“We have little money. The wages would be very small.”
“It has been difficult to find a position, you understand. In short, Monsieur, beggars cannot choose their relief.”
“It just happens, Sophie, that you have come at a fortuitous time. I cannot help but place great trust in you. My wife is ill. She has suffered a—” He could not bring himself to say it. He had to turn away. “You see, until today, she was going to have a baby.” Charpentier barely uttered the last word.
“I’m sorry, I have come at a bad time.” Sophie stood.
“No, as I said, it’s a good time. Please sit. We need your help. I too am a beggar of sorts. I have to tell you a long story, and you must swear never to repeat it.” Charpentier sat down in the chair opposite Sophie.
“So now what are we to do, Monsieur le Diable?” Sophie stroked the tom’s chin. He purred loudly and closed his eyes. She had all the information she needed to put Émilie away for good, and to ruin Charpentier’s career. She did not ask about the slippers. She had not been able to see Émilie at all, which was entirely understandable. Apparently she was still unwell.
In fact, Sophie had found out that Émilie had fallen ill once before, the night after the soirée at which she had made her début. It occurred to Sophie that it was this that had prevented the singer from returning the borrowed shoes. Yet whatever happened all that time ago did not change the consequences. She, Sophie, had been disgraced, had had to earn her living screwing dirty, greasy men who, nine times out of ten, really wanted to kill her. And she had been incarcerated for one revolting night in the Bastille, although the magistrate had let her go the next day (he was one of her customers). All because Émilie had repaid her kindness with, at the very least, disregard, if not malice.
Sophie decided she needed to sleep on the question. She stretched out on her bed, shoving to one side the cat, who growled at being displaced from the spot he had warmed up so thoroughly. Then she blew out the candle and tried to rest.
Twenty-five
It seems that nature has prescribed for each man, from his birth, the limits of his vices and his virtues.
Maxim 189
Lully and St. Paul’s spy easily discovered where Émilie was living, but this knowledge was not yet converted to a plan that would succeed in getting her back to Versailles. Other than François’s letter, which only proved that she was actually alive and had been carried off by Charpentier, there was no proof of any wrongdoing on Émilie’s part, and she was not important enough for charges of a political nature to be trumped up against her. So once her where
abouts were known, the two co-conspirators had to meet to discuss what they might profitably do with this knowledge.
“For heaven’s sake, man! This is unbearable.” St. Paul covered his nose with a scented handkerchief. The location of his conference with Lully was the cellar where the garbage was thrown before being removed from the vicinity of the château altogether, and the stench of rotting flesh and vegetation (not to mention human feces from the thousands of chamber pots emptied daily) was almost overpowering. The locale had been Lully’s suggestion. He well knew that there was no other place in the palace of Versailles where they might stand a chance of being able to discuss their business unheard by anyone else.
Trying not to retch, Lully outlined the situation to St. Paul. “I think we both … render invaluable service … His Majesty—” he said, turning to gag from the necessity of breathing in order to speak.
“Yes?”
“Our man knows … couple hides,” he gasped. “Two possibilities. One—make Mademoiselle Émilie sing.”
“And what would that do?” asked St. Paul, removing the handkerchief from his nose just long enough to spit out the words before gagging and covering it again.
“She would be recognized. Bring her back. But—difficult. Something else: a valuable trinket—missing,” said Lully, drawing closer to St. Paul and forgetting to hold his nose against the smell.
“Go on,” said the nobleman.
“If the girl has it—thief—and we can arrest her!” Lully was so pleased with himself that he almost shouted his last few words.
St. Paul hushed him, although there was no one anywhere near them to hear. He had almost forgotten about the missing gift. “What … look like?”
“A bird. Diamonds.”
“Nowhere here?”
“They’ve searched. Gone.” Lully turned and gagged again.
“We know where … but she never leaves.”
“The maid. A bribe?”
St. Paul thought for a moment. “Possibly. Or landlady. I’ll go, tomorrow.”
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