by Yves Jégo
‘Look, Olympe,’ said Hortense, turning to her elder sister, ‘who is that young blonde woman wearing that French-blue gown? The one who has just entered Monsieur’s box,’ she added, with a wave of her fan.
‘I see her,’ replied Olympe curtly.
The Cardinal’s niece was quicker than the people in the pit, who took another second to identify a new presence in the King’s brother’s box. A murmur ran around the theatre like a sudden shiver, diverting attention even from the red curtain which veiled the front of the stage.
The young blonde girl was quite unaware of the stir she was causing. Her head slightly tilted forward, fingers toying with the dark velvet of her gown, she seemed lost in thought. Her white skin was a striking contrast to the dark red of her lips. With each breath, the flesh quivered at the base of her neck and beneath her shoulders, whose slender curve was followed by the edge of her gown. Her youth was betrayed by high cheekbones set above the hollow cheeks of a child who had grown up too quickly. In the reflections from the silver candelabra fixed to the walls of the boxes, she radiated elegance and vitality. Her blonde hair, drawn back into a large chignon, hung heavy over the nape of her neck, emphasising its slender elegance. Suddenly sensing that all eyes were upon her, she started and reddened slightly. Then she stood up and left the box nimbly, despite a curious, swaying gait, to escape the audience’s attention. The moment she disappeared, the atmosphere lost some of its intensity.
Olympe Mancini pouted haughtily as she watched her walk away.
‘She’s the innocent young thing who, by some passing fancy, has been attached to the household of Monsieur’s future wife.’
‘How beautiful she is,’ commented Marie with a smile.
Her elder sister’s dark eyes regarded her scornfully.
‘And do you know what she is called?’ asked Hortense.
Olympe looked exasperated as the three knocks sounded, signalling the start of the performance. Lackeys hurried to snuff out the large chandeliers.
‘I am told that her name is Louise de La Vallière,’ Olympe consented to reply.
The red curtain quivered and began to rise.
CHAPTER NINE
Palais-Royal theatre, Sunday 6 February, nine o’clock at night
LOW cloud now veiled the Parisian sky, heralding snow. A bitter cold assailed the theatre-goers as they left the Palais-Royal, hurrying to reach the carriages lined up at the foot of the front steps. A few isolated groups lingered under the peristyle, shivering as they said their hasty farewells. But a group of ten men seemed immune to the cold air and in no hurry to go home. Their roars of laughter echoed along the colonnade, punctuating the speech and gestures of a small, fat man with a curled wig on his round head and deep-set, porcine blue eyes above a curiously upturned nose. His gaily-coloured silk clothes and buckled shoes were in sharp contrast to the coarse clothing, boots and soldiers’ capes of the men surrounding him.
‘Here’s to the health of Monsieur Molière!’ he declared with an evil chuckle, raising the wine bottle in his hand.
He clinked it against two others that were being passed round amongst his drinking companions, and wiped his mouth on the silk sleeve of his doublet.
‘Damn that showman! At least he won’t be boring us for much longer with that play,’ he muttered, as if talking to himself. ‘Here you are, my friends, you’ve earned your evening’s pay.’ He felt the weight of a purse attached to his belt, much to the delight of his associates who had been recruited to whistle and generally disrupt the play.
Still laughing heartily, the little group continued on their way through the columns, brazenly staring at passers-by who were hurrying away. At the corner of the theatre, the hired thugs stopped for a moment to discard the empty bottles, then threw their last few rotten apples at the wall in front of them.
The man in the wig watched them from a distance, still darting piercing glances right and left as if in search of a new outlet for his malicious intent.
‘Do you dare show your face again?’ he demanded mockingly, addressing the figure which had just emerged through the secret door at the back of the building, used by the performers.
The light from a carriage lamp lit up the face of the young woman he had shouted at, bringing a salacious expression to his fat face.
‘Don’t suppose you’ve got any other talents, my girl?’ he enquired, moving towards her.
Frozen to the spot by the group’s menacing advance, the young girl lowered her shawl, drew it about her shoulders and looked anxiously around her.
‘You weren’t made for that kind of stage! Do you want us to show you a different kind of performance?’
By now the men were almost surrounding the actress, and their cruel smiles brought a flash of panic to her eyes.
‘Nobody to walk you home, you poor wretch?’ said the fat man in a syrupy voice, rubbing his blubbery hands together. ‘And she’s shivering, the poor soul! Is it the cold, my pretty one?’
‘No, Monsieur, it is the discomfort occasioned by your coarseness.’
The voice made the man in the wig jump. He screwed up his eyes to identify the shadow which had just spoken from the stage doorway.
‘What business is it of yours?’ he demanded aggressively.
‘Come on, Julie,’ said Gabriel, moving towards the girl. ‘Let’s go back inside for a while.’
The man stepped menacingly between them and pushed the end of his walking stick against Gabriel’s chest.
‘Stop right there, lad. Don’t you know it’s rude to interrupt a conversation? A yokel like you shouldn’t even be speaking to me!’ Gabriel gritted his teeth and caught the girl by the arm, bringing her round behind him. Passers-by hesitated at the sight of the group. Menservants urged their masters to walk away.
‘I cannot hear any conversation, only words spoken in drink,’ jeered the young secretary. ‘And since that is the cause of your odious behaviour, I’m willing to do you a favour and overlook it.’
The man paled and turned angrily to his drinking companions.
‘You young scoundrel, I’m going to beat you senseless …’ he growled, once more face to face with Gabriel.
Nimbly, the young secretary seized the upright cane and tore it from its owner’s hand. Whirling it round, he landed a stinging blow on the side of the man’s head. The man lurched groggily backwards and found himself sitting on the muddy roadway, whimpering and holding his ear, which was oozing blood onto his now lopsided wig.
The others hesitated for a moment before rushing forward to help him up, clearly worried about the effect this episode might have on the man’s generosity. Gabriel took advantage of this to leap towards the shelter of the door, as a parting shot throwing back the cane, which landed on the fat man’s belly.
The door slammed. Gabriel’s adversary struggled to his feet, pushing away his companions and abusing them in turn.
Through a spyhole, Gabriel watched him limp towards a carriage parked some distance away, a handkerchief clamped to his ear.
‘The pig,’ he said, turning back to the still-trembling girl.
She smiled at him.
‘What a horrible evening … Thank you, Gabriel, but you’re mad. Don’t you know who that man is?’
‘All I know is that he’s a lout who deserved to be taught a lesson …’
She took his hand.
‘Little boy from the provinces, playing at being a knight! If you want to be an actor, you’ll have to take more care.’
He looked at her in astonishment.
‘That man is Berryer, and he’s one of Colbert’s henchmen. Colbert is secretary to Cardinal Mazarin. He’s a man to be feared and a very powerful enemy for a travelling entertainer.’
Gabriel shrugged his shoulders.
‘Berryer? You’ve had a fight with Berryer?’
Molière suddenly appeared in front of his secretary in his shirt sleeves, looking red-eyed and haggard. He grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and shook him affectionate
ly.
‘Poor fool,’ he said in a voice somewhere between anger and laughter. ‘Do you have any idea who you’ve just provoked? The leader of the clique responsible for all the whistling tonight. One of those people who’ve decided that we’re going to fail because – in their eyes – we don’t belong to the right camp.’
He sighed and let go of Gabriel, giving him a final shake.
‘The way things stand … I know that Monsieur Colbert’s friends have little liking for me. It’s not that they dislike my plays, but the money we live on isn’t to their taste … Come my friends,’ he said to the company as a whole, ‘we shall think about all this tomorrow. And as for you, Monsieur Secretary: less chivalry and more accountancy, for pity’s sake!’
Inside one of the last carriages left in the square, a young woman leant towards her neighbour.
‘Louise, what are you dreaming about?’
As she let the curtain fall back over her window, Louise de La Vallière turned away from the little stage door she had been watching throughout the entire episode, closely observing Gabriel’s behaviour.
‘Oh, nothing,’ she replied, shaking her pretty head. ‘Nothing at all.’
CHAPTER TEN
Mont Louis – Sunday 6 February, ten o’clock at night
FOUR men, hidden beneath black capes, had been walking for at least an hour along the banks of the Seine towards the walls that marked the boundary between the city and the surrounding countryside. Shivering in the bitter cold and the snow that was now falling in fat flakes, they walked northwards in single file, almost perfectly aligned, in silence. The little group was guided by a tall fellow who was tightly clutching an enormous cloth bag.
‘Hey, Your Lordship, where are you off to? I can warm you up if you like,’ said a voice that shook with cold.
The voice belonged to the hand, clad in a tattered lace glove, which had just caught hold of the bag and obstructed its passage, the better to intercept the man carrying it.
Without a word being spoken, a dagger’s slender blade sliced through the darkness in search of the woman who had halted the group’s progress in this way. The muffled thud of a body hitting the ground told the killer that his aim had been true. The poor whore had not even had time to notice the strange green and brown eyes of the man who had just taken her life. The snow would soon hide the girl from sight. The murderer knew that, in Paris, poverty forced so many women to offer their bodies to passers-by that nobody would risk weeping over this death, nor would they claim the frail corpse that lay crumpled on the ground. Still silent, the four men set off again, now striding out towards the Porte Saint-Antoine, where handcarts jostled each other as peasants tried to get out of the suburbs before the snow would prevent them rejoining their families. Whitened by snowflakes, the countryside was illuminated with a new brightness, a reassuring fact for those emerging from the badly lit streets of the city.
‘We must hurry,’ said the man with the bag, who was still leading the way. ‘It would be a pity to make the gentlemen wait.’
Their journey became increasingly difficult as the blanket of snow grew thicker. In the distance, they spotted the outline of Champ-l’Evêque hill, which some also called Mont-aux-Vignes. Little by little, the ultimate destination of their nocturnal walk became visible on the horizon.
‘The Regnault folly. There it is!’ said the leader of the group, pointing to the magnificent buildings rising up before them.
Thirty-five years previously, the former estate of the wealthy spice merchant Regnault de Wandonne had – after a great deal of work – become a magnificent house of repose and enjoyment for Jesuits. Men of faith came here in large numbers to end their days or to relax in the tranquillity of the countryside. In season, a kitchen garden and orchards provided appreciable sources of revenue and activities for the more able bodied members of the community. A garden planted with rare species also enabled those Jesuit fathers who were convalescing to find the peace needed for their recovery. This calm and pleasing institution was run by Father de La Chaise. At the height of the Fronde disturbances, when troops armed by the rebel nobles threatened to seize power, Cardinal Mazarin had brought the fourteen- year-old Louis XIV here. From this position overlooking part of Paris, they had observed the violent battles in Faubourg Saint-Antoine. And it was after this visit that the Jesuits had received special permission from the King to call their hill Mont-Louis.
Arriving at the main gate, the nocturnal visitors did not linger to gaze at the landscape, even though it offered a superb view of the capital under snow. They followed the course of the outer wall until they came to the rear of the buildings, where a chapel dedicated to Saint-Côme stood.
‘Wait,’ ordered the man, increasingly anxious to protect his bag from the snow and damp.
The four accomplices stood with their backs against the wall, to avoid the whirling snowflakes. The men were perfectly motionless, despite the cold and their fatigue. Only an imperceptible movement of their lips betrayed the fact that they were praying.
‘Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison …’
The powerful voices of the Jesuits attending Mass rose towards the vaulted roof of Saint-Côme. Father de La Chaise was conducting the service himself, as he did each day. The congregation was a disparate one: resident Fathers, peasants from the estate and their families. A group of around ten men stood at the far end of the chapel, close to the candle-lit statue of the patron saint. Nobody seemed to pay any attention to this group, absorbed as they were in prayer and reflection.
‘Salve Regina, Mater misericordiae, Vita dulcedo et spes nostra salve …’
As the congregation began to sing the song of devotion to the Virgin, one of the Jesuits left the chapel by a side door and approached the four men, who were still standing with their backs to the outside wall of the building.
‘Follow me, it is time.’
Behind the chapel, the men descended three steps leading to a cellar buried beneath the choir of Saint-Côme. The room was vast and lit by large torches, which also had the advantage of warming the place. In the centre, an immense cross-shaped table surrounded by tall chairs constituted the sole item of furniture. A simple olive-wood crucifix hung on the wall. The group from the back of the chapel then entered and arranged themselves in order around the table.
‘The cross of Jesus is our only pride.’
This sentence, spoken in vigorous unison, opened the session and gave everyone permission to sit. Only the four men who had come from Paris remained standing, facing the assembly. With extreme care, the leader of the group emptied the contents of his bag onto the table. As the spoils of his burglary spread out before him, a twisted smile appeared on his face.
‘Our Lord supported us in our holy mission, Messieurs. Here are the documents taken a few hours ago from His Eminence’s office.’
‘Thank you,’ said the eldest amongst them, his face largely hidden under a black felt hat. ‘Nevertheless, I know that you caused blood to flow and that you lost a man. Our Lord has welcomed him to his right hand as a martyr, I am sure of that, but your lack of discretion will cause prejudice against us. This afternoon, at the Louvre, suspicions were already directed at us because of your clumsiness.’
The man with the mismatched eyes paled and hung his head. He had not expected these reproaches.
‘I … I …’ he stammered, drawing back.
‘Enough, we shall speak of this again,’ the other man cut in sharply. ‘Simon Pierre, show them out.’
The Jesuit who had led them in nodded and, opening the door, signalled to the four men to leave.
‘My Brothers, our struggle is about to acquire a new dimension,’ said the eldest man, deeming that from then on, the meeting should continue in complete privacy. ‘Mazarin is afraid, and I have the feeling that these documents will confirm my suspicions. He is only concerned about money. He senses that the final judgement is at hand. The cur will do anything to hide his depravity. More than ever, the Almighty
calls upon us to cleanse the Kingdom. A little while ago, before leaving the Louvre, I learned that Jules Mazarin would be setting off this very evening to shut himself away at Vincennes. The Queen Mother will follow him there.’
‘But must we continue to tolerate what all of Paris derides?’ raged one of the conspirators, brandishing a lampoon he had acquired a little earlier in the Île de la Cité.
The text, like numerous others over several years, was a cruel denunciation of the intimate relationship between Jules Mazarin and Anne of Austria.
‘Of course not,’ cut in the leader of the zealots, ‘that is precisely the point of this morning’s expedition, to procure absolute proof of this infamy. The contract of their secret marriage is vital to us so that we can open people’s eyes and cause a scandal so great that it will justify the elimination of the Italian!’