Before Versailles

by Karleen Koen

  LOUIS STRODE THROUGH his gallery. It was empty of people. Only the king might invite them in, and Louis seldom used this long, echoing chamber, beautiful as it was with its windows on each side and intricate, vivid frescoes with their Renaissance surround of graceful stucco figures. He preferred to hold court in his wife’s gallery where all the maids of honor were, where Henriette and her ladies congregated, and as he walked through, his steps made a lonely, echoing sound.

  Adultery. That’s what they were contemplating. He could bear it, but could she? Had Philippe shouted at her? His temper could be terrible. Was she sobbing in her bed right this moment? Was that why there was no note from her today? He’d strike Philippe if he’d threatened or browbeat her. His grimness made his heart a stone. Good. A king needed a heart of stone.

  CATHERINE STOOD AT one side of the bed Henriette had refused to leave all morning. Louise was stationed near the closed doors.

  “You have to get out of bed,” Catherine begged. “You have to act as if everything were just as it should be.”

  A spaniel whined, stood on hind legs, and pawed against the bed.

  “Merciful Hands of Jesus Christ the Lord, will someone take these damned dogs out before they soil the rugs?” Catherine shouted.

  Louise moved from her place near the doors, walked forward and bent down to pick up one of the dogs. “It’s only natural,” she said in her soft voice.

  “What’s only natural?” snapped Catherine. “That the dogs should make shit on the rug?”

  “No. That Madame should be distraught to hysterics. If such lies about me were spoken, I would be hysterical, too. And angry once I was finished crying.”

  For the first time in hours, Henriette sat up. “She’s right. I should be crying. And raging. How dare they pick me to pieces like this?”

  Louise whistled, and the other spaniels surrounded her skirt as she led them out of the bedchamber.

  “That’s it,” said Henriette, her voice a croak from sobs, but something like vigor in it again. “I don’t need to stop crying. Of course I’m crying. I’m distraught with the horror of this. Now, would I join the festivities tonight or would I lock myself in my rooms?”

  “Can you brazen it out?”

  “Wouldn’t I? Or would I hide away?” Tears had magically dried in the absorbing intricacies of examining her own behavior.

  “Can you face the queen?” asked Catherine.

  Henriette drooped. That the Spanish infanta would be hurt in all of this was one of those consequences she had refused to consider closely. “She doesn’t know, surely. No one would dare tell her. His majesty would banish them.”

  “What about the queen mother?”

  Henriette sniffed. “Old busybody.”

  “What about Monsieur?”

  “I’m innocent, and I’m hurt beyond words. I’ve done nothing, really.” She looked Catherine in the face. “I haven’t.”

  Yet, thought Catherine, thoughts straying to her own adventures. Nicolas had laughed when they were done, as they lay on the floor of his bedchamber like two animals. They’d never made it to the bed. If his majesty receives half the pleasure I just have, he’d said, kissing her nipple, he is a fortunate man.

  “You will fling yourself in his arms, expecting his support. Trusting it.” Catherine said.

  “We’ve been married only a few months, and already this court is trying to—”

  “Foul your marriage.”

  “Foul our precious, precious marriage. And it is precious to me. It really is. I love Monsieur. I just can’t withstand his majesty’s admiration. And what about your awful brother?” She glared at Catherine.

  “I think the sight of your weeping today gave him pause. He can’t help his feelings for you.”

  Henriette sighed and fell back among her pillows in a calmer frame of mind. It really wasn’t her fault, was it? She had captured the two most exciting men at court without trying to, well, perhaps a little trying, but only to test her wings, so to speak. She was new at this game of flirtation and its companion, seduction. It was a dangerous, powerful, and exciting mix. She loved it.

  BUT HER CALMNESS frayed when Philippe didn’t arrive to escort her to the night’s festivities.

  The maids of honor, gowned and jeweled, clustered restlessly in the antechamber. Every one of them knew something was wrong. It was in the air.

  Guy marched into the antechamber and told a footman to announce him.

  In her bedchamber, Henriette said, “No!”

  “Yes.” Catherine spoke over her.

  Guy walked in. Chambermaids were whisking away refused gowns, and spaniels were worrying a high-heeled shoe, and the dressing table displayed its feminine welter of ribbons and abandoned jewels and small silver jars.

  “Where’s Monsieur?” Catherine asked.

  “I come in his place to offer Madame my escort.” No one who knew Guy would believe him capable of embarrassment, but to Catherine, who knew him better than all others, he looked embarrassed.

  “He won’t escort her, will he?” Catherine said. “I swear I could strike you a hundred times over. You’ve ruined us!”

  “The viper known as the Chevalier de Lorraine has added his bitterness to the brew,” said Guy.

  “What does that mean?” Henriette spoke for the first time since Guy had entered her bedchamber.

  “The chevalier is a mincing, vicious fool,” answered Catherine.

  “A very dangerous, very acute fool,” corrected Guy.

  “I’m not going.” Henriette looked around blindly for a chair to fall into.

  “You must,” said Guy.

  “He’s right,” agreed Catherine.

  Henriette looked from one handsome face to the other. These were the sophisticates of court. If she didn’t trust them, whom did she trust? Guy held out his arm. Henriette put one gloved hand on it.

  “I could weep,” she said.

  “I am desolated that I have caused this—”

  “Don’t speak to me!”

  Hating himself, the ache in his chest for her even deeper, Guy made a small, imperceptible movement of despair before he led Henriette and his sister into the antechamber.

  The maids of honor whispered among themselves as they followed behind.

  “There’s been a quarrel. It’s her behavior,” said Claude.

  “Nonsense,” Fanny hissed with all the authority she could summon.

  “If there’s disgrace, no one will dance with us,” said Madeleine.

  “Everyone will dance with us,” said Fanny. “And what’s more, they won’t know anything is wrong unless we tell them. No one is to breathe a word that they’ve quarreled. Is that clear?”

  “Who crowned her the queen?” Claude whispered, but not loud enough for Fanny to hear. Louise, however, did.

  “It’s about loyalty,” she told Claude.

  IN THE BALLROOM, Philippe, his expressive face grim, stood with his cousin, La Grande Mademoiselle, his mother, and his friend the Chevalier de Lorraine. When he saw Guy walk in with Henriette, he flinched.

  Anne opened her fan with a snapping sound. “I’ve always thought the Count de Guiche had the most divine manners when he wished to display them. He does what you ought to have done.”

  “What ought you to have done?” asked La Grande, significant in diamonds that rivaled the queen mother’s, obtuse to the private drama unfolding around her.

  Anne motioned, and Guy made his way toward her, dragging Henriette along with him.

  “I can’t,” she said.

  “You can, and you will.”

  Anne kissed Henriette resoundingly on both cheeks, and said, a pleased smile on her face, “Do sit down here by me, my dear. I don’t see enough of you. Monsieur and I were just discussing how lovely you look these days. You know, my dear, I think I will accompany you tomorrow if you choose to go swimming with your ladies. I’ve been hiding away too long. Some hours at the river, the water, the sun, they’ll do me good.”

 
; “How-how very kind,” said Henriette.

  “My dear Grande Mademoiselle will join our party. She was just complaining she’s not had time to know you better. We must remedy that. I predict you are going to be fast friends as well as the dear cousins you already are.”

  Fifteen years on and off at the same court weren’t enough time? thought Henriette. She met the eyes of her overbearing, enormously wealthy giant of a cousin and knew that La Grande cared as little about a friendship as Henriette did. The queen mother was erecting a cage for her bar by bar, surrounding her with tattletales. Henriette clenched her jaw in rebellion.

  “May I speak with you privately, Monsieur?” Guy nodded in the direction of an empty ballroom bay. Dripping in lace and ribbons and angel-faced curiosity, the Chevalier de Lorraine followed, but Guy spat the word “alone” at him.

  When they were in the bay, Philippe said, “How dare you!”

  “How dare you! She is your wife; the honor of your house rests with her, and you act like a cad.”

  “You’re the one who—”

  Trumpets interrupted to herald the king’s entrance.

  Maria Teresa’s hand on his arm, her ladies displayed behind her like a peacock’s tail, Louis looked around the ballroom, seeking and finding his brother, whose expression he understood instantly. Philippe was furious, rage stirred to burning no doubt by the Count de Guiche or that pest from Paris, the Chevalier de Lorraine. Louis found his mother. She had a smile pasted on her face, but she clutched her fan convulsively. Watch your mother’s hands, Mazarin had always said. They give away everything.

  Louis went to his mother, Maria Teresa at his side. Henriette didn’t meet his eyes but held out her hand to him. He kissed the air just above it and then leaned forward and kissed each of her cheeks.

  “Don’t shrink from me,” he whispered.

  Before Henriette was even certain she’d heard him, he walked to the bay holding his brother and Guy, his purpose to greet his brother and kiss him, also. Any other night, Philippe would have been full of himself to have Louis make such a display; his majesty kissed no other man, but Philippe’s expression remained openly furious. Guy stood behind Philippe, his stalwart defender, thought Louis. Suddenly, though he’d come to soothe the turmoil made by his own behavior, he knew Guy had had a hand in it, and then, his anger was up.

  “I demand a place on your council,” Philippe said. “I’m a prince of the blood. Precedence and law require my presence on your council. I could be of service, brother.”

  “Majesty,” Louis corrected. “You must address me as ‘your majesty.’ You want to be of service? The way you were when I almost died?”

  “Do you ever forget? Do you ever allow missteps in others? There was nothing traitorous in my actions. You were on your deathbed—”

  “You hate that, don’t you? That I didn’t die?”

  “What kind of monster do you suppose I am? You’re my liege lord. If it were God’s will that I be king, I would be! I believe that with all my heart. May God strike me dead if I have ever done anything to harm you, if I have ever plotted against you, my brother!”

  “Majesty,” Louis said again. Across one of Philippe’s shoulders, he met Guy’s eyes.

  Guy had never allowed Louis to win at anything simply because he was king. The rivalry between them had a life of its own, and at this moment, it was a stiff-legged, growling presence. You told him this was the moment to ask directly for his place on the council, thought Louis. How clever you are.

  From the musicians’ loft, violins began their thin, piercing sweetness. Louis left them, walked back across the open space of the ballroom to take his wife’s hand for the opening dance. The next couple in rank, Monsieur and Madame, must join the king and queen, and then, after a measure or three, other couples might.

  “You did beautifully just now. I was proud. Now take Madame out onto the dance floor.” Guy spoke very quietly to Philippe.

  “No!”

  “If you don’t, I will do it, then drag you into the courtyard and beat you senseless.”

  “You told me—”

  “I was mistaken. Do you hear me? I lied!”

  Philippe blinked. This was the one man, other than his brother, whom he trusted in a way he did no one else.

  “I am jealous of your happiness with her. I’m a little in love with her myself, so I took his majesty’s admiration and exaggerated it. It isn’t honorable or kind, but there it is. Go and repair the damage I’ve done this day by disparaging her. She’s done nothing amiss except to be beguiling to one and all. I beg you. On our friendship and our long regard for one another, I beg you, sir.”

  Philippe walked across the ballroom floor to Henriette and bowed. At a measure when others had finally filled the floor with dancing couples, Henriette said, “I know that certain people are saying the most vile things of me. I wept all day. But to think that you would believe them—I am desolate.”

  In one of the bays, Louise and Fanny watched Madame and Monsieur.

  “It’s like a play,” Fanny said to Louise.

  Louise moved away, went to one of the open windows. A breeze gently breathed on her. I can smell the forest, she thought, closing her eyes for a moment. Under its green canopy, she felt safe, comforted, at home. There was a part of her that flourished here, where there was no glitter, frivolity, no deceit.

  She turned around to face the ballroom. And yet I would miss this, she thought. Can there be any world as wonderful as this one? How fortunate I am to be here. The candlelight from the chandeliers made the wood a clear, sweet golden color. The paint in the frescoes seemed as clear as if it had been brushed on yesterday. The gilt covering another king’s initials and mottoes sparkled. The sighing sound of the violins, the swirling of skirts as women turned in dance movements, were beautiful. Everything seemed so gracious, so refined, so civilized.

  But it wasn’t.

  ATHÉNAÏS FOUND HER brother lounging with his friends in a hall near the ballroom’s entrance. She stopped a moment as sets of eyes regarded her. There was enough maleness in the small space to frighten another woman. The little queen was terrified of the king’s friends. Too bold, she said. But they haven’t done anything, someone, usually Olympe, would answer. Their eyes do things, the queen would respond. Her brother kissed Athénaïs’s cheek, walked her near the huge entrance doors, the violins above in the musicians’ loft very loud.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she accused.

  Vivonne was big and lazy. “What have I done?”

  “His majesty is in love.”

  His face closed, just like that. Now, he didn’t seem so lazy. Athénaïs wanted to slap him.

  “Are you in love?” he said, really looking at her face, really trying to understand her. “With him?”

  Fool, she thought. Every woman under the age of thirty is in love with the king. She didn’t bother to answer, walked back into the ballroom, passing Louise de la Baume le Blanc looking particularly lissome tonight in the gown she wore, standing dreamily, one shoulder against the corner of a bay. Louise didn’t seem to see her, was staring out at the dancers, staring at his majesty. All of us, Vivonne, she wanted to shout. We’re every single one of us in love.

  Chapter 13

  Y MIDNIGHT, THE ATMOSPHERE IN THE BALLROOM HAD become lighthearted again. Madame and Monsieur’s quarrel had vanished, taking sourness with it. The court was young. Those who had suspected trouble early in the evening had already forgotten it. Madame and Monsieur had danced together so many times that everyone was talking about it. It was almost scandalous for a husband to be so openly in love with his wife.

  “My dance, I believe.” Choisy led Louise away from her friends. “How is life in the household of Madame these days?” he asked, and Louise knew at once that he knew more than he should.

  “Well and happy.”

  “His majesty certainly seems taken with Madame.”

  “Yes, he is very fond of her.”

  “Oh, more than fond
, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Well, she’s so delightful, I think everyone is in love with her a little.” How easily I lie, thought Louise. Perhaps I’m more at home here than I know.

  “MIGHT I TEMPT you with a late supper in my chambers later?” Nicolas stood with Catherine near one of the bronze satyrs that bracketed one end of the ballroom.

  “Why not here? Why not now?” Catherine asked without turning around.

  Nicolas felt his breath catch.

  “Come to the Étampes bedchamber.”

  The bedchamber was on this floor, down a hall, and had belonged to a suite of rooms built for a king’s mistress, rooms that were seldom used these days.

  Knowing better than to follow immediately, Nicolas walked over to Anne, who hadn’t retired as was her habit when Maria Teresa had earlier. All around, young people flirted and laughed and talked to everyone but the queen mother, who sat like some forgotten relic upon a high altar.

  “I have some news for you,” he told her, very softly. “He goes to the queen’s bed later every night, but it seems he meets only with the officious Colbert. What do you know of that, your majesty?” He had other information at his disposal. His majesty was not confessing, had not been for several weeks. But this was not information he would share, unless it became necessary.

  “It means nothing to me,” Anne answered.

  “It might mean something to me. Will you be kind enough to honor me by sharing any word that might satisfy my curiosity?”