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

by Sally Christie

  “Oh, I don’t think . . . I don’t think I should like that.”

  The countess tuts and takes a sip of tea, then winces as though she had just sucked on a raw lemon. I don’t like it either.

  “Think of all that you would have if you were publicly declared mistress. Your own house, for one. The Marquise has five houses, you know.”

  Oh. I didn’t know that. A house of my own would certainly be nice, without Madame Bertrand or any of the other girls. I would bring Rose, and she could be my lady’s maid and my housekeeper.

  “You would like that,” says the countess, taking another disdainful little sip. “This tastes like vinegar. Not to my liking at all.”

  I nod, not sure what she wants me to say, or do.

  “There is only one thing that is standing between you and your future happiness. The Marquise de Pompadour.”

  “But couldn’t the king just give me a house, my own house, now?” I think of Catherine’s entreaties to Le Bel—I should just ask the king directly. “What does this have to do with the Marquise?”

  The countess tuts in impatience. “He will never grant you your own home while the Marquise reigns. She would never allow it. You must,” she continues, looking at me with her small raisin-black eyes, “demand the dismissal of the Marquise.”

  “Of the Marquise de Pompadour?” I say in astonishment. “Oh no, I could not, he loves her too much. And why would I want her gone?”

  “Really, this little kitten act is charming and probably works wonders on the men, but it does nothing for me. You must stop acting so innocent.”

  “But . . . I could never dismiss her. She is far too powerful.” I think of our meeting at Fontainebleau, of her soft words, of the smooth way she looked at me and appraised me, then rubbed me down and ate me for dinner.

  “You may think she is powerful, but I know better. I am the Marquise’s closest friend and confidante.”

  “I thought that was the Maréchale de Mirepoix.”

  The countess frowns and dismisses the idea with a wave of her hand. “Nonsense. And my special friend—I am sure you of all people will know the meaning of that—is the Comte d’Argenson, the minister of war.”

  “Indeed,” I say, as I have often heard the king and others say when they have no interest, but are pressed upon to be polite.

  “The Marquise’s position is weaker than ever. Bowed with grief over her lost child, and almost without important friends. Now is the time to demand her dismissal. And mind, once you are installed, remember who helped get you there.”

  I look down at my hands. From her tone it is clear she thinks of me as a serving girl to do her bidding.

  “Surely you do not want to stay here forever? Playing second fiddle to that wondrous child Marie?”

  I stiffen. “He still visits me as often as he visits her.”

  “Mmmm,” says the countess doubtfully.

  “Well, what about Rose?” I ask.

  “What rose?”

  “The kitchen girl. She came with me to Fontainebleau. Could she come with me to Versailles? She has a scar on her face and is not nice to look at, but I do love her so.”

  A look of intense irritation passes over the countess’s face. “Child, I do not think you understand the magnitude of what I am proposing to you.” She leans closer, a snake to the mouse. I blink and wish I could retreat but the chair pins me down. She gazes at me hungrily.

  “What is it you would have me do, Madame?” I ask politely, for I can see she will not leave until she has accomplished what she came for. Or at least until she thinks she has.

  “Finally. Now, here is the plan.”

  That night I lie awake and think of our conversation. She is intriguing, I know it, plotting in the way of Versailles.

  I think about living at Versailles, having my own apartment there, like the lovely rooms at Fontainebleau. Or perhaps I would move into the Marquise’s apartments, said to be the most magnificent in the palace—Catherine was once invited in, when she was preparing to dance in the ballet, and said the decorations of the rooms were coordinated to the seasons outside.

  I could move into her rooms and then I would always be at the side of the king. No menace of the Marquise, lurking in the halls, waiting to ambush me with hot coffee. And no rivalry from other girls. Catherine would be banished, I think with satisfaction, for if I succeed in displacing the Marquise, then getting rid of Catherine—and Marie—would be as easy as flicking a dead fly off a windowsill.

  Perhaps . . . Sleep overcomes me, and I dream the king is in my bed. I am shivering and when he asks me why I tremble, I say that the world is cold without him holding me, and he laughs in delight and hugs me close.

  Versailles . . .

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  “Colder than a dead fish,” says the king, bursting in through the kitchen door.

  “Oh, Sire, we were not expecting you!” I exclaim, secretly smiling inside for I know Catherine is indisposed this week, and Marie has a cough that won’t go away, no matter how much castor oil she takes. But it seems the king came only to see me.

  “Perfect timing as always, my love.” We go up to my room and he leans down to kiss me, bringing all the cold of the outside world into my cozy bedroom.

  “Be a good girl and take off my cloak.” He sits down and rubs his hands at the fire. I kneel in front of him and massage them and cover his fingers with hot kisses.

  “Let me get you some wine.”

  “No, I took the precaution of bringing my own.” He pulls a bottle from the cloak and sets it on the table. “Richelieu swears this is the finest from Conti’s own. But bring a cake or such. Something sweet!”

  I run down to the kitchen, suddenly breathless—this is the day. “How is it he comes like this, unannounced?” I scowl at Cook and Rose. “Without even a word of warning.”

  “Madame Bertrand,” indicates Cook, swirling her finger around her head. She prepares a kettle over the stove. “He’ll want coffee, as well as wine?”

  “Well, it is most inconvenient,” I say in irritation, for I wanted to plan this better. I decided to follow the countess’s advice and had been awake all day planning. “He wants something sweet. If Madame Bertrand had let us know, we could have prepared.”

  My eye is caught by a cloth on the table. “What’s under that?”

  “A cherry pie, made from dried ones, but you’d never guess it, soaked in sugar water first, to make them plump,” says Cook smugly.

  “It’s Catherine’s birthday tomorrow, and she requested it special,” adds Rose.

  “Good! That is just the thing. Bring it quickly, mind.”

  “Parlement is a beast that never dies,” says the king as we sit by the fire. “They are as impossible to please as a frigid whore.”

  “Oh, my dearest, what troubles you have,” I murmur softly, and lean over to caress his cheek.

  “Yes, indeed, all this discontent and those men making outrageous demands. A voice in all affairs! The power to disapprove appointments made even by myself! This is not England, I said, and I will say it again. Argenson took more of their demands this morning.”

  “It sounds terrible,” I murmur in sympathy. When would be a good time to set the wheels in motion? Before, between, after? I am suddenly terribly, terribly excited. I decide to wait until after—between—when the mood of a man is soft wax in a woman’s hands.

  “And then Argenson, he brought in the papers and I gave them to the Marquise to read, and then she told him . . .” I listen to the king drone on while I imagine entering Versailles, not in a curtained sedan chair but in a glorious carriage like the one we rode in to Fontainebleau, pulled by four horses. No—six horses. Is that even possible? I would only need four, I decide, as I am a little afraid of horses.

  The coffee comes and the king is delighted with the warm pie—cherry in November! “A fine thing—nothing finer,” he exclaims, and digs in while I sip my drink and watch him.

  “And then Argenson refused to
read Machault’s brief, and while Rouillé can be a pedant, his experience in the navy . . .” but he is still talking, and suddenly I am impatient.

  “Oh la la!” I say, jumping up and settling myself on his lap, taking his spoon and licking the sticky cherry off it. “All this talk of briefs is making me aroused.” I lean in to kiss him and taste cherry and sugar and soon the telltale hardness shows me the time is right.

  After, as we lie under the thick fur blankets, he continues to moan on about his problems. I stroke his hair until he stops, his complaining done and over. He snuffles and sighs in contentment.

  “My love,” he says. “These hours and nights with you—such a balm for me.” I grin in delight.

  Now!

  “So,” I say, sitting up and smiling down at him. Though the windows rattle and howl with the chill November wind, the small room is toasty and the fire warms the remains of the pie, sending the aroma of sweet cherries wafting through the air. “So, tell me, King, how is the old flirt doing? Is she still around?”

  The king opens his eyes to look at me. I smile and play with my hair, as I know he likes: he once said it reminded him of a kitten playing with ribbons.

  “I do not understand. Who is ‘the old flirt’?” There is a hard tone to his voice but in my excitement I miss it. I see it plainly enough after, when all is done and over.

  “You know who I mean, King. The old flirt, that old Pompadour. Is she still hanging around?”

  There is silence and I refuse to see the darkness, coming swiftly closer.

  “I would be so much happier . . .” And here I swallow in sudden nervousness, for when I imagined this scene, a hundred times, my words were smooth and seductive. Now they are awkward and wrong but I cannot stop, for I must finish what I have begun: “I would be so much happier without that old lady at Versailles, and then you and I could be together, always. You should just send her away.”

  The king is looking at me in shock, as though I have just committed the most heinous of crimes. And suddenly I realize I have.

  Oh.

  He pulls back the covers and turns away while he dresses himself awkwardly. I should help, but I am frozen in sudden fear.

  “In jest,” I say in a small voice as he fumbles to button his coat, panic rising in me. I try to keep my voice light. “Just a joke, King, you know I care not about the Marquise, I only care about you, and I know she is your friend . . .”

  I trail off as the king stands up and turns to me.

  “I will continue in my belief, Mademoiselle, that those words were not your own, but were placed in your mouth by the enemies of my dear friend. I will persist in that belief, in order to keep the sweetness of our memories alive. You have greatly displeased me.”

  He bows with awful finality, a formal bow that shuts all the doors and takes away all the keys. And throws those keys down a deep, deep well.

  Then he is gone. I hear his footsteps on the stairs and wonder if I should run after him, but I know . . . I have done wrong. The time for forgiveness is not in the first moments, but only after when the anger has spread out and thinned away; that is the time to lick away sins and seek forgiveness. But what if I never see him again?

  I sit in silence and then get up to the finish the pie; Catherine shall have no pleasure from this. But I have made a mistake. He might forgive me, eventually, but would the Marquise? I stare uneasily into the fire—will I be sent to the madhouse? Is Claire still there, and who would know where I went? I shiver and scrape the plate and suddenly I am crying, in fright and regret.

  They come later that night, Le Bel and two men I don’t know, burst into my room and rouse me from the bed. I can hear Rose crying on the stairs and Madame Bertrand hiccuping through a sad song. I am in my chemise and Le Bel offers me a great cloak, not mine, and they bundle me out of the house as though I were a bunch of rags, into the freezing night and the waiting carriage. We speed away and through my tears I hear Le Bel tell me I’ll get my clothes and fripperies later, but I don’t know if that will be.

  I am deposited at my mother’s house on the rue Sainte-Appolline, where my sobs double. Oh! How I wish I could take back what I just did. If God would grant me time to do it over, then how different it would all be. My parents and Brigitte are at home and the house is dirty and mean, the bed I must share with Brigitte only a coarse mattress stuffed with old rags. I was once in the halls of Versailles and Fontainebleau, and now I lie on this horrible bed, crying in the arms of my sister, no fire to warm the room or the chill of my soul.

  “But what about the rubies?” I demand in the morning, looking around the small, miserable house. “And the ten thousand écus Le Bel assured me the king had sent your way?”

  “Ah, worries and such,” says my mother, suddenly looking very old. “Madeleine’s cough so bad she missed the entire season, and with the sudden death of the Comte de Leury—how could a surgeon forget a scalpel inside the leg, I ask you?—things have not been good for Marguerite.”

  I spend my hours wishing for a potion to turn back time and reverse what I did. My mother tells me I am a stupid little flea, but not to worry—once my tears are dried there will be other men and other wonderful lives waiting, and that I am still so young. The king’s touch is not like the touch of other men; it enhances value rather than detracts.

  “Why, Rohan has already been in touch . . . and the Duc d’Ayen has not ceased to express his interest. He even took up with Madeleine again, in a partial way, but has assured me his primary care was you.”

  Her words chill me and leave me sadder than before. I want to go back to the warm house on the rue Saint-Louis. I want to laze all day on my lovely bed and gossip with Rose and eat Cook’s wonderful pies. Most of all I want the king’s eyes on me, approving, slack, desirous. I burn when I think of Catherine’s triumph and Marie’s beauty, or perhaps another has already been found to fill my bed?

  My belongings arrive from Versailles, and it is as Le Bel said: all of them are safely delivered. All my gowns and shoes and jewels, everything down to the small packet of red glass buttons I kept in the bottom of my trunk.

  A few days later, Chief of Police Berryer visits; I remember him from when I worked in Paris. I feel small and sad. They think I am stupid but I am intelligent enough to know the finality of what happened.

  “All we need from you, Mademoiselle, is the name of the person who prompted your fateful words.”

  I stare at him and think of Elisabeth, the Comtesse d’Estrades, with her small eyes and puffy cheeks, the moist disdain on her lips.

  “The Marq—the king is prepared to be generous. A husband, Mademoiselle, with a title, and not a trumped-up one either. You will be a countess; now, how does that appeal?”

  I drop my head but Berryer is quick to see the delight in my eyes. So, the ending is happy after all. I will be a countess, a real one, and married, something all my sisters aspire to but have not yet achieved. This is real, I think, and suddenly Versailles seems far away, nothing but a palace in a fairy tale. I will miss the king, of course, and I know I will cry for many more a day, but right now there is another future in front of me. A husband, a house of my own, a return to the soft and happy life. No more intrigues and plots. Me, a countess!

  “Who?” I demand. They must strongly desire the information I have, to be so generous in their offer.

  “The negotiations are still in progress; you can appreciate, Mademoiselle, it is but three days since your disgrace. However, I have it on good authority that the groom is a certain Comte de Beaufranchet de Something Something, a poor but noble army officer of the Auvergne, unfortunate that, but I am sure he keeps a house in Paris or Versailles. A fine lineage, dating back to the fifteenth century at least, I believe. Not the wealthiest of men, but I have no doubt he will be enchanted by you.”

  There is silence and I curl my toes in delight and shiver inside my robe.

  “If you tell us, there will be a handsome dowry and a promotion for your husband. Despite all that
has happened, the king is willing to be generous, for you and for your child.”

  “What child?” I ask in confusion. “My child died at birth.”

  “Ah, of course he did, of course he did.”

  “He? They told me it was a girl.”

  Berryer stares at me a fraction too long, then blinks. “I apologize, Mademoiselle, that I am not current on all the details of your liaison. You must appreciate that there are many important affairs I must attend to.”

  He’s blustering, I think, as men often do when they are caught in the wrong. How strange. But the thought passes quickly, and I turn to concentrate on the future that he offers, dazzling bright before me like a ruby-red button glinting on a soft gray coat.

  “Now, the details of this plot in which you were so unwilling a member, poor child,” Berryer repeats. His eyes are keen, the net closing in; he can see his offer is one I want.

  I think of those pendulous cheeks, the disdain and the lies. And I to be married, and a countess: a fairy tale is coming true. Perhaps Rose will come with me and her fairy tale will come true too.

  Goodbye, Countess.

  Entr’acte

  The Duchesse de Pompadour

  1755

  It is raining as I sit and write and think. The whole world rains now, at least for me; everything is ugly and gray. All my hopes and dreams died with my little girl’s death. I keep my emotions hidden, as always, but inside I am as frozen and sad as ice and snow. My second great sorrow in life. A burst appendix, not even enough time for me to get there and hold her one last time. I seek what solace I can in the chapel, and though I turn to God with more fervor than I have in the past, a little voice that can’t be quelled says: Too little, too late.

  In the wake of my daughter’s death I thought briefly of retiring to a convent. Weak dreams, really, for I could never be happy there, away from Louis, away from my life at Versailles. Ambition is the greatest torment, and I know it is not only my love for Louis that keeps me here.