Enchantress of Paris

by Marci Jefferson

  He stood. “You know I delayed my marriage for your sake. Entertaining Olympia was a ruse!” Olympia huffed, and the king ignored her. “I waited for you to—” He stopped himself before revealing too much. “Then I heard of your fascination with the Prince of Lorraine, how you love him, how he visits you.”

  Olympia had fed him lies. I glanced at her, and she grinned back, full of pride and glittering with Mazarin diamonds.

  King Louis waved his hand dismissively, and I curtsied, backing from the room, kicking my skirts back with each step. When the doors closed, I spotted Venelle. “Call up the carriage. We’re going home.”

  Before she could go, the doors swung open again. The cardinal emerged. “That was very good, Marie.”

  I hated him for making poor Louis suffer! “You orchestrated this like one of your court ballets.”

  My sisters shrank back. Venelle disappeared. I doubted she’d call up the carriage.

  Mazarin curled his mustache. “Whatever do you mean?”

  “You didn’t have to humiliate me.”

  “I will do what I must to ensure you wed Colonna. You will leave, Marie. Leave France to me and leave King Louis to Olympia.”

  “Look at yourself. Your plots and deceptions have cost you your health.” I studied him. The pristine red robes couldn’t hide his frailty. I whispered quietly, “I warn you, inflicting pain upon me while I am already defeated shall cost you your life.”

  “Go upstairs.” He ignored my warning. “You will serve the queen at my table tonight.”

  I took each of my sisters by the hand. We turned without being properly dismissed and marched up to our apartments to await supper.

  * * *

  That night a herald announced Their Majesties at the appointed hour. I stood against the wall like some overdressed footman. As they entered, I couldn’t help studying the woman who’d taken my place. Short of stature and a bit plump, she wore magnificent clothes. The dark roots of her blond hair showed her servants had forgotten to rinse it with lemon juice. Her skin was white as cream. Though her cheeks were rosy, it wasn’t a youthful blush but a rash, as if she were sensitive to whatever unguents she used to lighten her complexion. She was no beauty, but I couldn’t stop staring. Her chin jutted forward, making her lower lip seem large, as if she were chewing her thin upper lip. Her eyelashes had been plucked to prevent the buildup of ceruse powder on her lids, which made her blue eyes seem unnatural. She said nothing and looked at no one. Mazarin stood shakily from his seat, and King Louis made a show of insisting he sit and rest. The king ignored me completely.

  His Eminence had never served a more delectable table. The footmen carried in platters of vegetables and fruit compotes and bœuf bourguignon. I set each dish before the queen. Her Majesty’s misaligned jaw didn’t hinder her eating. She shoveled down every bite, chomping with gray teeth while the king and the cardinal discussed opening a university, a hospital, a grain store. My ideas! The queen gulped so fast she swallowed air, which came back up in little burps. How does he kiss that jutting mouth? She made no conversation. She showed no interest in anything whatsoever. He would be bored with her within months. I wondered if she even knew who I was.

  The supper lasted an hour, yet felt like a year. As the cardinal made farewells, I assumed they would leave without addressing me.

  But at the door, the queen muttered to the king in Spanish. “I can’t believe this is the woman you thought you loved. She’s so … dull.” Then she glanced at me for the first time. She turned to the cardinal and laughed with disdain.

  The king and my uncle froze. They knew I spoke Spanish better than either of them. My uncle had failed to introduce me as a family member, and she hadn’t spoken to me. Therefore it would breach etiquette to address her.

  I didn’t care.

  I curtsied as if her rude words were our introduction and spoke perfect Spanish. “Welcome to France, Your Majesty. I hope all the kindness you bestow on subjects such as myself will be returned to you in equal measure.”

  She looked at King Louis, blinking her lashless lids at him. She doesn’t even realize I insulted her.

  I glared at the king, daring him to punish me. How could he place this simpleton over me? Anger flashed in his hooded eyes as it used to do when he was mine. And for a moment he was mine, staring me down. I imagined what it might be like if he dragged me to the next chamber to rail at me, where I could kiss the anger away. But he steered his queen out. The doors closed on their backs.

  “That was too bold,” said the cardinal. “Watch your tongue when you serve the queen.”

  “I’ve no intention of serving her again.” Today had proven things could never be the same. “I’m going back to Paris first thing in the morning.” I walked toward my bedchamber.

  “Go. Hide your face while you can,” he said. “But when the royals return to Paris next month, you will serve her every single day. Or marry Colonna and move to Italy.”

  I paused.

  “Just think. The whole court will watch you serve the queen in all her official glory while Olympia services the king in private. Your sisters will marry and be raised above you in rank. You will inherit none of my fortune. You will age in disgrace.”

  “I don’t want to go all the way to Rome. Let me stay here with my sisters in peace.”

  “If it’s peace you want, you will go.”

  August 26

  The next month, the queen mother summoned my sisters and me to the Hôtel de Beauvais to watch Queen Maria-Thérèsa’s formal entry into Paris. Every lady remotely connected to the queen mother’s court elbowed every other for a place at the windows. Watching the spectacular procession streaming through the Porte Saint-Antoine was like watching theater on a grand scale. I found I couldn’t endure the heat and the crush of perfume-doused women. I had to separate from Venelle and my sisters.

  I spotted Princess Henriette Anne, King Charles of England’s sister, and stood behind her. “Congratulations on your brother’s restoration to England’s throne.” He had finally recovered his crown, just as I’d predicted.

  She looked at me with huge, innocent eyes. She’d been crying. “Thank you, Mademoiselle Mancini. Forgive me if I seem sorrowful.”

  I tried a smile, but the commoners’ cheers from the streets sparked too many memories. I needed distraction. “Are you anxious to return to England?”

  “Goodness no,” she said. “I…” She leaned in to whisper. “It’s just that I always thought this would be me.” She pointed to the rows of prancing horses, musketeers, the Hundred Swiss, noblemen in jewel-encrusted doublets, and the king himself dressed in silver and red with the Mirror of Portugal gleaming from his hat. The crowd roared as the new queen’s chariot came into view.

  I laughed uncomfortably. “You mean, you thought you would be queen?”

  Her cousin, a chestnut-haired girl named Frances Stuart, put a comforting arm around Henriette Anne. I could see this quiet beauty was destined to break hearts. “It was her mother’s greatest wish,” she said.

  The princess nodded. “My mother groomed me for queenship. I—” She squeezed her eyes and tears slipped out. “I was your uncle’s second choice. If only my brother had been restored a bit earlier, it would be me riding in the queen’s chariot today.”

  I told myself it didn’t matter. I looked out at the queen rolling past in her gold and diamond dress, shimmering like sunlight on water. With his new lands and all this wealth, King Louis is now a step closer to his own vision of what a great king ought to be. I felt dizzy. I stepped away from the window and looked around, hoping for a chair. Or a door. Instead I spotted the queen mother. She stood in the center of the largest window, and instead of watching the cavalcade, she watched me.

  The triumphant smile she wore brought back all the pain. It had never really been just between us, but she gloated all the same. I walked out without seeking proper dismissal. It didn’t matter. She’d achieved her purpose in summoning me.

  * * *

>   When I finally made it to the carriage, Moréna lifted my hair and fanned my neck. I bit my lips to keep from crying.

  Hortense climbed in behind me. “Did someone insult you? Forget them. You have your sisters.”

  I waved my hand. “It’s the memories—knowing I worked so hard for something I never could have had.”

  Moréna shook her head. “You still love him.”

  Lip biting was no longer enough. The tears spilled. I clung to Hortense. “Cast my feelings for him out!”

  “What?” She looked at Moréna, confused.

  “Please,” I begged, choking on sobs. “Do what Ovid suggests in Remedia Amoris and speak ill of the king to me. Whisper in my ear commands to forget him.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “Do it,” said Moréna, pushing Hortense toward me.

  She leaned in, my Mancini sister, and whispered horrible things about the king. She reminded me of his broken promises and his affair with Olympia. She called him too lofty, too proud, too shallow to love deeply. Undeserving. Unkind. Unavailable. And whether it was some power in her Mancini whisper or merely my belief in her, my sobs slowly died away.

  * * *

  That evening Moréna brought me a tonic of balm and chamomile. I sat at my writing table and composed a one-line message for the cardinal.

  “What is that?” asked Moréna.

  “It isn’t in the form either of us expected, Moréna, but it is an alternate path to freedom. Another chance. A fresh start.” I looked at the sentence.

  I will marry Colonna.

  She looked away. “What did you hear from your angels that night in the circle?”

  We had never talked of it. In truth, I’d heard nothing more than the roaring winds and the call of my own heart. Though I certainly saw something with clarity: myself, clinging like a fool to the ground in a windstorm, desperate for answers, when I knew my affair with Louis had been doomed from the beginning.

  “That wisdom is accepting our fate when we cannot forge our own.”

  CHAPTER 50

  Early 1661

  That autumn His Eminence allowed me to retreat to Palais Mazarin. I lived quietly while Hortense and Marianne attended court; I read, drew horoscopes, and charted the stars. I memorized the Colonna book, Strife of Love in a Dream, and told myself marrying into such a family would bring me joy. I took Frip on long walks in the gardens. Still a puppy, she tasted every flower, every shrub, and when winter’s chill arrived, she chewed every frosty leaf.

  Though my uncle was still negotiating the terms of my marriage, Constable Colonna sent the Marquis Angelelli to me to act as his ambassador in the new year. Angelelli, with his perfect manners and immaculate clothes, stayed a time at Palais Mazarin.

  Angelelli explained my future role as Colonna’s constabless. He described Palazzo Colonna on Quirinal Hill, discussed Colonna’s yearly trips to Venice, and talked of Colonna’s passion for art and music. He explained Italian customs and manners, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him I remembered them perfectly well. He spoke of Colonna’s charm and good looks, his wealth and his power. “He believes you might have a gift for divinity,” he said to me one day as we walked in the cold gardens, wrapped in furs.

  I stopped walking. “Did he cast my horoscope?”

  Angelelli nodded. “He finds your gift most intriguing. Constable Colonna has an interest in all manner of things.” He glanced at me. “I tell you this so you might feel at ease when you meet him.”

  Was he assuring me I would be permitted to be myself?

  When Angelelli left, I put Frip in a basin in front of the fireplace and hummed while giving her a bath. Poor Frip shivered and groaned the whole time.

  “My lady,” said Moréna. “Are you … humming?”

  I grinned. Perhaps I began to look upon my future with a measure of hope.

  * * *

  The queen mother never summoned me to wait upon her. But one morning in the new year, Olympia, as dame d’honneur, summoned me to attend the new queen’s morning toilette.

  Hortense snorted. “Olympia can stuff her summons.”

  “You don’t have to go,” said Marianne.

  I thought it over. “I’ve nothing to be ashamed of.”

  I proudly wore the pearls King Louis had given me and presented myself at the Louvre. I ignored courtiers who searched my face for signs of humiliation.

  Olympia opened the bed curtains. Queen Maria-Thérèsa sat up, surrounded by layers of white lace linens and pillows, rubbing her hands together, grinning like a child. “That is a sign King Louis lay with her during the night,” someone whispered. The women nodded approvingly, muttering congratulations. They prepared a basin to wash her nether regions, and the queen announced in Spanish that she intended to spend the day in her bedchamber.

  “All day?” I asked the nearest lady. “Does she read? Pray?”

  The woman shrugged. “She just … sits around.”

  Did Olympia think this display would upset me? The queen’s legs were stubby. King Louis had adored my long, slender limbs and the way I wrapped them around him energetically. This woman struggled to scoot herself off the bed. The queen called her priests for a ceremonial communion to sanctify her nocturnal activities. She asked the Lord to bless the night’s coupling with a pregnancy. She prayed to the Virgin Mary for a son. I knew she would do her duty and bear as many as she could manage. Indeed, this was her sole purpose in life.

  Olympia looked at me knowingly from across the prie-dieu, and I understood. She’d summoned me here to show me this woman’s position was not necessarily one to envy.

  * * *

  Philippe held a scrap of foolscap when he sat across from me at our dinner table at Palais Mazarin the next month. He frowned, crumpled it, and tossed it on the floor. He’d moved back into his wing and allowed d’Artagnan to manage the musketeers so he could write his poetry and songs. Mostly he neglected to shave and spent time grumbling about Mazarin’s refusal to find him a rich wife.

  “Brother,” I said, “is there any news from our uncle about my marriage negotiations?”

  Philippe looked up. “Mazarin sent the final terms to Rome for Colonna to sign at the end of February.”

  So, it will happen. My marriage negotiations had progressed apace with Mazarin’s failing health. He’d become so weak he’d moved from the Louvre to Vincennes for rest.

  Philippe rubbed his scruffy chin. “The old man’s illness is serious this time. Colbert is having him sign a flurry of papers.”

  He didn’t have to say what he was thinking; Mazarin won’t make him heir.

  I threw a chunk of bread at him. “Cheer up. At least he made you duc de Nevers. Rich women will fall at your feet.”

  Philippe grinned. “We failed to beat Mazarin, but at least we tried. We mustn’t harbor regrets.”

  I changed the subject. “What have you heard for Hortense?”

  He looked away, reluctant to answer.

  “Don’t tell me he’s signed her over to Meilleraye?”

  Philippe nodded.

  He’s done it. Of all my failures, this was the worst. I rose. “I’m going to Vincennes.”

  * * *

  At Vincennes I tried to pretend I didn’t remember my last visit, when I’d been so sure I could hand all the cardinal’s gold over to King Louis and discovered it was gone.

  This time, with the cardinal in residence, tapestries lined every wall and carpets covered the floors. Men from every walk of life packed the chambers and halls. Bankers and noblemen, churchmen, even shopkeepers waited for an opportunity to petition a weak yet powerful man. Priests and doctors came and went from my uncle’s bedchamber.

  I spotted Colbert. “Is it true about Meilleraye?”

  He gave a curt nod and led me into the cardinal’s rooms.

  My uncle lay upon a massive carved ivory bed. The red silk and velvet tapestries hanging around him and covering his frail body were the most luxurious I’d ever seen. Everywhere I looked was
a painting by Titian like the Pardo Venus, portraits of old French kings, marble gods, bronze and silver statues, vases of jade and rock crystal, and inlaid Italian cabinets.

  “Eminence,” I muttered.

  His lids fluttered open. He studied me hard, mentally acute as ever, trapped in this decaying body. “What do you want?”

  I stepped forward, pulling a silver flask from my hanging pocket. “They tell me your heart is weak, so I brought you this tonic of hawthorn.” Perhaps I felt guilty, for all my harsh predictions of his failing health had come to pass.

  He closed his eyes. “Marie, I wouldn’t drink something you mixed for me if it were the last drop of liquid in this world.”

  I stood there, holding my unwanted gift. “Thank you for sending the marriage documents for Colonna to sign.” He didn’t respond. “They tell me you intend to wed Hortense to Meilleraye.”

  A faint smile played on his lips. “Yes, and she’ll get the bulk of my fortune when I’m gone.”

  He thought this would anger me. I’d long given up hopes of receiving any material sign of this man’s esteem. “I beg you, Uncle, not Meilleraye.”

  “I’ll make a new title for him, duc de Mazarin. They’ll be richer than anyone in France.”

  “He is fixated on religion. He’s a zealot.”

  The eyes opened again. His gaze bore into me. “I wish I had a zealot for each of you Mancini pagans. Go. Leave me in peace with the knowledge that at least my fair Hortense goes to someone who will steer her right if I die.”

  I slammed my flask down on a table. I’d taught King Louis strength, but this man had taught him selfishness. In the doorway, I paused. “Finalize your business and say your farewells, for you will die, Uncle. I warned you hurting me would kill you.”

  He sat up, started coughing.

  I left without looking back.

  * * *

  Hortense’s wedding took place that week at Palais Mazarin. The cardinal could not rise from bed to attend. The Mazarinettes gathered in the chapel. The duc de Mercœur brought Victoire’s children. Martinozzi waddled in with a great, pregnant belly, and Conti never left her side. King Louis brought his queen. He didn’t speak to me.