The Rivals of Versailles: A Novel (The Mistresses of Versailles Trilogy)

by Sally Christie

  Madame Infanta inclines her head as her daughter barrels back into the room, holding her ice stick to her forehead. “I am rhinoceros! Soy rhinoceros!” Whump! She trips on the edge of the carpet and she and the ice go flying. A nursemaid quickly removes the wailing child while the ice melts into a sticky red pool on the parquet.

  Madame Victoire laughs. “She saw the rhinoceros in Paris and can’t stop talking about it.”

  “I always thought unicorns would be far more attractive,” observes Madame Henriette in her dreamy, faraway voice.

  “Now, I have decided on a singing of Armide, in honor of our newest lady,” says Madame Infanta. “Madame: may I present the Comtesse de Narbonne. You have met before, I am sure?”

  Françoise, the young Comtesse de Narbonne, steps forward, ravishing in a simple light blue robe, her complexion all white peaches. I remember Elisabeth gushing to me about the new lady in Madame Infanta’s suite. What did she call her? A delicious dahlia. Yes, indeed.

  “Our dear Comtesse is now married,” says Madame Infanta smoothly. “And, if I may be so bold, as we are among women here . . . she now knows the joys of the marriage bed.” Her words are pointed and sly: all the world knows the Comte de Narbonne lost his manhood at the Siege of Namur in 1746.

  Since that awful scene when he untied my robe, Louis and I have spent only rare nights together and there are rumors about this young countess. Something sways inside me, though outwardly I remain calm. I greet the young girl and murmur congratulations on her recent wedding.

  “I thought to have her sing to us.”

  Françoise de Narbonne smiles at her mistress and clasps her hands in front of her as she starts to sing. The violinists in the corner take up the melody. I study her even as I continue smiling; she is tall and slender, and oh so young, with flawless skin and surprisingly thick lips that give her face a seductive air. And—though surely not—there appears to be a slight curve to her stomach. I shake my head; no, I must be imagining things.

  She chooses the aria where Armide celebrates her triumph over her lover, and as she sings she looks at me in defiance. Her voice is low and husky, as though she has a sore throat.

  “ ‘At last he is in my power,’ ” the young duchess sings, and I close my eyes. They will do anything to get rid of me, even support another woman in their father’s bed. I feel as though I will faint, and sway slightly.

  “Madame,” says Madame Infanta in oiled concern, raising her hand to stop the music. “You look gray. So very gray. Are you not well again? What can we do for you?”

  I regain my composure, and look around at Louis’ daughters, lounging like malicious monkeys as I stand in the summer heat. They will not win. I will not let them.

  “Thank you for your concern, Madame, but I am perfectly fine.” A thin sheen of sweat starts to coat my cheeks and neck, and underneath my skirts my legs are trembling. “I am perhaps just a little overcome with the beauty of dear Madame de Narbonne’s voice. Truly, my dear”—I turn to her—“your voice is a marvel. How I would love to sing a duet with you.” Yes, there is a curve under her robe, a slight protrusion.

  “A duet!” chortles Madame Infanta. “What a funny notion! I do believe Narbonne’s voice carries just fine. Alone.” She raises her eyebrows at me.

  I smile back at her. “Then I too will sing alone,” I say, and without waiting for permission, I launch into another aria from the same opera:

  Flee this place, where Armide reigns,

  If you seek to live happily

  She is an indomitable enemy,

  You must avoid her resentment.

  No one dares interrupt and when I am finished, I curtsy deeply and smile at my hostesses. I am indomitable, I think, a sudden rush of confidence sweeping my body. They may play their little games but they underestimate the depth of the connection between Louis and me. The depth of his dependence on me, and the width of my reach. Nothing can touch me, not even a beautiful fifteen-year-old girl.

  My sources soon confirm that indeed, Françoise de Narbonne is sharing the king’s bed. I don’t believe this is the first time he is unfaithful to me; I know that his valet Le Bel sometimes brings young girls from the surrounding villages, and houses them under the eaves of the palace. But they are dirty grisettes, not Court ladies. And Mathilde, Périgord, Robecq—all are enigmas, though I suspect all have graced his bed.

  My doctor, Quesnay, is increasingly concerned about my health and finally tells me I must have no more miscarriages. The implications of his words are clear. I am only twenty-eight but it is as Quesnay says: I will be dead before thirty if I try to please this man physically.

  He is all I live for, yet he is killing me.

  When I tell Louis, he embraces me sadly. We both know this is the end. The end of so much, including my hopes for a child with him. I cling to him and through the night he comforts me tenderly.

  “How safe I am in your arms, Pomponne. How safe.” He falls asleep beside me and I think to the future. A future without children, without his arms around me. I kiss his sleeping brow, breathe in his familiar scent. When the dawn comes to take him away, he rises and takes my hands in his.

  “I must go, my dear,” he says, and there is true sorrow in his eyes. “But I do not go far, be assured of that. You are my friend, dearest. I would be lost without you.”

  And I without you, I think, staring up at him in mute misery. He leaves and I lie back in the empty cocoon of my bed. Friend. The worst of words, the best of words. I trail my hand over the warm indent where his body was, roll over and inhale the lingering shadow of his scent. I will no longer be the mistress of his five senses, paramount in all his affections. A friend.

  And, though my bed may be empty, I know his won’t be. A dangerous situation, though Frannie reassures me: “Remember, darling, it is your staircase the king goes up and down. We all know the king is a master of habit, and you are the greatest habit of all. It is with you he seeks comfort, diversion, cuddles.”

  I’m a habit, I think sadly, then shake my head. No, not a habit—no one loves a habit. But everyone loves their mother.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  At the end of 1749 Madame Infanta finally departs for Parma, taking the Duchesse de Narbonne—I worked hard on a sapphire engraved with a flourishing F de N—and much of the king’s buoyancy with her. My brother, Abel, also travels south with them. He will spend a few years studying Italian art and architecture; though many scoff and say that Italy is good for nothing but pasta and poison, I know that what he learns there will benefit French artistry.

  Madame Infanta’s departure leaves a magnificent empty apartment. I now have almost fifty servants in my household, from my beloved Dr. Quesnay to my steward, my equerry, my chef and all his kitchen; footmen and porters, valets and torchbearers; numberless female attendants headed by Nicole; women for my wardrobes and clerks for my accounts, not to mention my coachmen and all the men in my stables. And two Senegalese pages, sent by the governor from the island of Gorée.

  I need a new apartment.

  I need to tell the world that though things are changing, I am going nowhere.

  Louis’ daughters and their growing households also covet Madame Infanta’s apartment, so I must work fast. Versailles has changed me: I have become craftier and less forgiving of my enemies. There are limits to natural goodness and I now understand that once I am ahead, most everyone behind is my enemy. Sometimes I think of the trusting girl I once was, that naïve young woman who thought that everyone would be charmed by her. How wrong I was, how foolish.

  Louis has more than once complained of the stairs leading up to my apartment, so I have Collin, my faithful steward, lever up a stair board when I next expect the king. As anticipated, Louis arrives grumpy and limping, complaining of a stubbed toe. I wrap him in sympathy and a clean white bandage, then insist I move somewhere more convenient for him, with no more of these dreadful accidents.

  Louis agrees. “Yes, I did slip last year, didn’t I? But w
hose apartment? Villemur died last month—he was inoculated three years ago, and there you see the danger—but his rooms are far too small. You need a table for at least sixteen, and of course your own kitchen.”

  “There must be a— Wait, I have it! The apartments of the Comtesse de Toulouse! With our dear Madame Infanta leaving, it is the perfect solution. Just a short trip down the marble stairs, well lit and spacious. No more dreadful accidents.”

  “Still small,” observes Louis. “Perhaps we could add a few rooms from her son’s suite?”

  The news astounds the Court: the exile of Maurepas and now this. The largest suite on the ground floor, traditionally reserved for princes of the blood and royalty.

  Those magnificent rooms will announce most solidly that I am still at the center of his world, despite what is happening, or not, in the bedchamber. And on the surface things remain as they always were. He still adores me and flatters me and defers to me. I am still the most powerful woman at Court and I control all access to the king, all appointments and all preferments.

  I have woven, I think in a moment of clarity, a soft and invisible net around him. The net is very fine and very tight, and so is his illusion of liberty.

  “The coldest winter since ’09,” says the old Duc de Broglie. He regales us with stories of frozen peasants and icicles on cow udders.

  It is the second hard winter in a row and the peace, after so many years of war, has not afforded any economic relief. Crops have failed for several summers and famine stalks the land.

  Amidst continued grumblings about the expense, I cancel the Little Theater. In truth, I am glad, for it had become more and more exhausting. I also increase my charity and continue to support French craftsmen and artists, but my efforts are just little drops in an enormous ocean of need. Even if I am the most powerful woman in France, I am powerless against the waves of poverty and discontent that grow stronger with each passing year.

  In Paris, street children disappear and rumors spread that they are taken to be drained of their blood, used to cure leprous princes. When the king travels to Paris to celebrate the Feast of the Conception at Notre Dame, the mobs call him Herod and accuse him of bathing in the blood of the disappeared children.

  He is not the only target. I visit the Paris convent where Alexandrine is to be educated, and my carriage is pelted with stones and we must flee through backstreets to Uncle Norman’s house.

  There is even talk of burning down Versailles.

  The king strides into the council room, white as a bone and shaken. Rarely have I seen him so upset. I take the note from his trembling hand: You travel to Choisy and Crécy; why don’t you travel to Saint-Denis?

  Saint-Denis is the traditional burial place for French kings. This is a direct threat, not a witty joke or a cruel sally, full of allusions and mostly directed at me.

  “Now, now, Sire, not to worry,” soothes Argenson. “Berryer will find the author of this outrage.” Berryer is the head of the police, a man of great loyalty but still unable to stop the flow of vitriol that continues unabated in the wake of Maurepas’ departure.

  “On the mantel. In the Wig Wardrobe! Who put it there, I say, who would dare?” Louis’ face is yellow and waxy and there is an emptiness in the lovely deep eyes that once so delighted me. In five short years he has become a far cry from the handsome man who took me in his arms in front of the fire at my mother’s house. He is only forty but in tired moments appears a decade older.

  “What insolence! Everything, all of it, the names, the accusations,” the king continues to rail. Rarely does he show anger and the ministers watch him carefully, following his movements like apprehensive hawks. “They called me Herod—a madman who murdered his family!”

  “Perhaps they were alluding to Your Majesty’s many architectural achievements. I believe Herod was also a great builder?” offers Machault hopefully, but he is quickly silenced by an almost lethal glare from the king. I give him a grateful smile for his efforts: Machault, as predicted, has remained a loyal friend.

  Argenson suggests seeking a scapegoat to divert the ugly rumors about the missing children.

  “Any man, we can say we found the bodies of ten children in his cellar—that would exonerate Your Majesty completely.” The evil of his words chill me, as do the murmurs of assent from the other men.

  “But to even react to these rumors—no, I cannot have it,” I say firmly. “To engage them is to give them credence.”

  “They already have credence,” says Argenson quietly, staring at me with his hooded eyes. For once his eyes do not lower to my chest but remain firmly fixed on my face. I am struck by the menace in his voice and the tension in the room, as thick as unswept dust.

  “They are like children, believing in fairy tales.” The king sits down and starts to fiddle angrily with a button on his cuff.

  The men watch him silently.

  “They are indeed your children,” Machault finally ventures.

  “I will not hesitate to punish my children,” says the king grimly.

  “I am not sure, Sire, that that is the right—”

  “From now on I shall not visit Paris if I need not! Not ever. No more opera or balls or ceremonies. I shall not travel there unless I am required at the Louvre. Or at Saint-Denis, as they so ardently wish.”

  “But, Sire, the capital of our great country, they need to see their king. As your illustrious predecessor once said, ‘We owe ourselves to the public.’ ”

  “No.”

  Only the futile buzzing of a wasp against a window breaks the silence in the room. I jerk my head in irritation to a footman and there is silence as we watch his attempts to kill it. He finally brings it down with a well-placed swish of his tasseled cane.

  Louis turns to me. “Then how will we get to Compiègne?” he asks, referring to one of his favorite summer hunting places.

  “A consideration, dearest, for one must pass through Paris to get there.” I know he is overwrought and I don’t want him to say anything he will regret later. Louis is already far too removed from his people, perhaps more so than any king before him.

  “We’ll build a road, a road around Paris,” says Louis with the spite of a spoiled child. “Yes, that is what we will do. And it will shorten the time between Versailles and Compiègne. Most satisfactory, really.”

  “The expense . . .” says Machault quickly. “What with all the murmurs against extravagance that surround us these days—”

  “The expense is nothing compared to the outrage I have suffered. Herod! A Herod they called me.”

  Louis gets up again and stalks around the room, looking for something, anything, to hit with his anger. He pushes a footman out of the window alcove and stands to look out over the snow-covered gardens. I know there is grief and sorrow there too, buried beneath the anger. Once they called him Louis the Well-Beloved; now, not six years later, they talk of Louis the Well-Hated.

  From the Reverend Mother Marguerite of the Angels

  Convent of the Assumption, Rue Saint-Honoré, Paris

  April 1, 1750

  To the most esteemed Marquise de Pompadour,

  Honored greetings to you, Madame. Your daughter is well settled, the room furnished as provided, and the kitchens have their instructions. We do not usually allow stuffed toys, as the good Lord prohibits the worship of idols, but a lamb is a holy animal, next only to doves in saintliness. We scoured the thing and one of the eyes fell off, but as soon as it was replaced your daughter ceased her crying.

  As per your instructions, she is to be called Madame Alexandrine. One of the younger nuns complained, saying that such a mode of address for a young girl should be reserved only for royalty. You can imagine, Madame, the punishment she received for her insolence. Also as instructed, only the most select of the other pupils will be considered as her playmates. Her education will be in the hands of Sister Anne, of the Noailles family; a more suitable tutor could not be found.

  She will be learning her letters and I a
m confident she will soon be able to write her beloved mother a letter of her own.

  I am, Madame, your most humble servant before God,

  Mother Marguerite

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Summer mercifully arrives and I invite Louis to my new château at Bellevue. It is the first house that I have built from the ground up, the first one that is truly my own. It will be our perfect retreat, away from the worries of Court, far even from Choisy, which has always been poisoned for me. And Crécy: even if Boucher’s panels were repainted, I would still know what ghosts and sorrows remain behind the whitewash.

  The grumbling continues; critics say Bellevue is too small and lessens the majesty of the king, yet at the same time it is deemed too expensive. I will never satisfy everyone, and perhaps I should not even try.

  But there is one man I do need to satisfy.

  “Darling,” I say as he weighs racquets for a game of paume he will play with the Duc d’Ayen, “I should tell you—the Comtesse de Forcalquier is coming tonight, for a few days. Alone. She needs a respite from her ape of a husband.”

  The Marvelous Mathilde is back at Court and her delightful face never seems to age. I think of the words of Racine: I embrace my enemy, but only to strangle him.

  Louis stares at me with such astonishment and gratitude that I want to laugh and cry at the same time.

  “She’s coming?” he asks.

  “Yes, she is.”

  He shakes his head as though dazed.

  “Is that the right racquet, do you think?” I say, pointing to the one in his hand. “What about this one?”

  “No, this one is perfect, absolutely perfect,” he says, and comes over to embrace me with a tender touch that thrills me as it drowns me in sorrow.

  As the men play, a ball flies off Ayen’s racquet and hits Frannie on the arm. Elisabeth and I retire in sympathy with her to the terrace to fan the hot afternoon away. One of Argenson’s men, waiting since this morning to see the king, leaps forward in anticipation as we settle on the terrace. I shake my head at him.