The Sun King Conspiracy

by Yves Jégo

  The emphases were the same and so was the slightly drawling intonation. D’Orbay stepped forward and embraced the man tightly.

  ‘Let me look at you,’ the man said as he stepped back, his outstretched arms still resting on François’ shoulders. ‘You still have the eyes of a child, but with a few small lines now, and an unfamiliar hard glint in them.’

  François d’Orbay was so full of emotion that for a moment he could not speak. How he has aged, he thought as he took in the white hair, the almost translucent skin and the hollow cheeks. Even his blue eyes, which seemed larger now that his face was ravaged by fatigue, no longer shone with the same brilliance, as if all the life within the tall, emaciated body had taken refuge there in order to fight one final battle.

  It was Pontbriand who broke the silence.

  ‘Come, François, let us take a stroll. Walking is not easy for me, but I do not much care for standing still.’

  Then, as d’Orbay noticed Pontbriand grimacing as he put his weight on his stiff right leg, he said grimly:

  ‘That hasn’t got any better either, has it?’

  They slowly walked a little way together, along the banks of the stream. The visibility was better now, and d’Orbay had the feeling that he was walking beside a shadow. Only the old man’s exhausted breathing gave him any substance.

  ‘You know that poem by John Donne, François. How does it go? “Blood, suffering, sweat and tears / are all that the earth possesses …” Sometimes, I confess, I have the impression that it was written for me.’

  André de Pontbriand now stood facing the almost invisible bulk of the abbey, his blue eyes seeming to see through the wall of mist.

  ‘Fifteen years, François, for fifteen years I have been living like a rat. It is fifteen years since I saw my family, kissed my wife, took my children in my arms. Fifteen years during which I have vegetated like a hermit, for fear of compromising my Brothers. For fifteen years I have reproached myself for having placed our cause in danger and saving my own life without making good the damage I had done.’

  When he turned back towards François, the younger man saw that his eyes were feverish.

  ‘Is it not curious? I saved my own life, but only to live like a dead man, concealed and useless. All I have done is teach children from time to time, as I once taught you, never to see them again … And all this, only for our plans to fail one after the other,’ he said, indignant, ‘as they did again, here in England!’

  ‘The conditions turned out not to be favourable,’ François cut in briskly. ‘The men were unsuitable: too divided, too ambitious.’

  André de Pontbriand gestured listlessly.

  ‘You don’t have to humour me, for pity’s sake. I know the truth: why hide it from each other? Our men thought that to kill a King would be enough to bring down the edifice of tyranny and change the course of everything, alter a country’s destiny. But killing the King of England served no purpose, because he had a son and supporters who survived; worse, who found in his death a new energy to fight the revolution that had begun. And do you know why they won in the end, why this attempt to abolish a despotic order failed, why there is once again a King upon the English throne? Because that revolution was incapable of producing for all to see the proof of the purity of its intentions. All it had to show was the blood that dripped from a man’s severed head. What a mistake: to believe that the murder of a King could replace the need to demonstrate why the monarchy should be overthrown … Oh, I quite understand the impatience of those who acted: it is not easy to possess the truth without being able to demonstrate it. But however tragic the prospect of having to wait, perhaps for centuries more, we must no longer allow ourselves to be blinded; we must no longer believe that we can triumph before we have rediscovered the key that gives access to the Secret.’

  The old man’s face tensed.

  ‘I am more aware of this than anyone else. I have paid so dearly for it that my belief in its ultimate success is perhaps the only thing that still keeps me alive …’

  D’Orbay frowned uncomfortably and laid a hand on the arm of the man whose voice had suddenly become faint.

  ‘Enough of that. Tell me why you have come. You have taken a huge risk, leaving France and travelling to London. You have also risked giving someone else a clue that might lead to me, or identify us both and destroy my cover. It is not that I enjoy it, but my trading business has helped the passage of so many of our brethren that it cannot be considered unimportant. Your trip was planned in such a hurry, and doesn’t even satisfy the minimum security requirements: that is not like you,’ he concluded in a calm but questioning tone.

  They were now facing each other, the old man taller than d’Orbay by almost half a head.

  ‘Why are you here, ten years on, François d’Orbay? Why have you come to see old Charles Saint John, an honest merchant who’s prospered through trade in the Indies?’

  D’Orbay swallowed hard.

  ‘To talk to you about old, bitter memories, master,’ he began gently.

  The man sighed heavily.

  ‘I haven’t come here to see Saint John, master. I have come to seek advice from André de Pontbriand.’

  The old man leapt forward as though the embers of an inner fire had suddenly burst back into flame:

  ‘Don’t touch him!’

  André de Pontbriand had listened calmly to d’Orbay’s detailed account of their position. With narrowed eyes he had analysed the strengths and weaknesses of the situation, scrutinising d’Orbay’s sentiments without revealing his own opinion at all. But the moment he heard about his son’s involvement, that calm was suddenly shattered. He seized d’Orbay by the collar.

  ‘Don’t touch him, do you hear me? I want to see him. Bring him to me and I’ll persuade him. I’ll get that code back. After all, I am the only man who would be able to identify it and decipher it straight away. I want to see him!’ he repeated, raising his voice.

  D’Orbay gestured that people might hear them. Pontbriand conceded with a nod, but he wouldn’t let go of d’Orbay’s coat.

  ‘It’s not so straightforward,’ the architect argued. ‘As you said yourself, the risks are enormous and we have enemies everywhere. Our only chance is for him to know nothing about us.’

  ‘Bring him to me,’ repeated Pontbriand. ‘I want to see for myself. And I’ve already waited too long. Cardinal Mazarin’s gaols may not have finished me off, but my damaged leg isn’t their only legacy. I didn’t escape from that dog only to die here without having achieved a thing,’ he hissed, his eyes glinting with anger once again. ‘I have been living alone like an animal for fifteen years, François: don’t you think I have the right make myself useful? And if that enables me to see my son, who was a child and still is in my memory, is that such a crime?’

  He let go of the coat.

  ‘I want to repair the harm I did when I lost the documents, preventing our Brotherhood from revealing the Secret it guards to the world. If it hadn’t been for my mistakes, our Brothers might already have succeeded … And I need to explain to my son why he hasn’t had a father for the past fifteen years.’

  Seeing him sway, d’Orbay tried to support Pontbriand but was brushed aside.

  ‘You were the pupil and I was the master. You still address me as such. But now I am no more than a dead weight, and you are one of the masters …’

  Once again, François d’Orbay held out a hand to André de Pontbriand, who accepted it.

  As they resumed their walk amongst the tombs, the sun appeared for the first time that morning, a pale aureole surrounded by white, only just visible through the wisps of fog.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte – Wednesday 16 March, five o’clock in the evening

  ISAAC Bartet knew everything. After all, that was his job. Many years before, he had entered the service of Cardinal Mazarin and served him as an investigator in certain delicate matters. For some time, he had also been secretly working for the Su
perintendent, thus playing a double game that relied on the fragile balance of gleaning information and giving it either to the Chief Minister or to Fouquet. He sat calmly in the small, half-decorated salon which separated the two wings of the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte, awaiting the master of the house. Fouquet had asked him to conduct a full investigation into young Gabriel. The spy had worked as quickly and as efficiently as usual. He had discovered the young man’s precise origins and his connection with Louise de La Vallière, although he could not state with any certainty that she was his mistress. Most importantly, he had discovered that Colbert’s police, led by Charles Perrault, was keeping watch on the actor, suspecting him of being mixed up one way or another with the burglary at the Cardinal’s residence. Thanks to his network of contacts, which extended all over Paris, the investigator had also solved the mystery of Gabriel’s attackers. He knew that the zealots searching for the marriage contract between Anne of Austria and Mazarin were without doubt behind the fire in the Cardinal’s library. Like the police, they too imagined that Gabriel was somehow involved in that affair. Isaac Bartet was delighted with his harvest of information and had decided to travel to Vaux in order to pass it on to Fouquet, and also to inform him what Colbert had been up to lately.

  Meanwhile Gabriel was on his way back from a long walk around the estate, taking advantage of the few pale rays of sunshine that had pierced the clouds after incessant days of rain. The stay at Vaux had enabled him to take stock of the past month’s events. He was well aware of the danger he faced by choosing to retain the papers contained in the red leather case, which he was now sure had been lost by the thieves who had targeted the Cardinal’s library. The discovery of his own father’s signature had haunted him constantly, and he was determined to unlock the mystery of the codes in the insane hope that it might help him track down the man he had missed so terribly since childhood. Deep down, the young man now sensed that André de Pontbriand might not be dead. His father’s absence throughout his youth in Amboise seemed to Gabriel to raise a multitude of questions, as did the attitude of various family members when little Gabriel had asked them about his missing father.

  Lost in thought, he extended his stroll as far as the millstream which flowed through the estate. As he passed the colossal statue that loomed over the gardens, he opened out of curiosity the access hatch to the ingenious system that supplied the various lakes with water. Continuing his exploration, he then descended the narrow iron staircase and inspected the works in detail. Gabriel decided that it would be the ideal hiding place for the red leather document case, which he no longer wanted to keep in his room at the chateau. If I prise loose this large stone, there’ll be enough space to store the documents safely, he told himself as he examined the structure. He promised himself that he would return at nightfall, when the men working on the various sites around the gardens would have left. As he walked back to the chateau, the young man was dreamy. Since that morning, he had been thinking constantly about Louise.

  Isaac Bartet was only too happy to bump into Gabriel, and at once decided to take advantage of the meeting to test him and observe his reactions.

  ‘Did you have an enjoyable walk in the gardens?’ Fouquet’s henchman asked.

  ‘Excellent, thank you,’ replied Gabriel, surprised to be accosted in this way by a stranger.

  ‘You are, I believe, secretary to Monsieur Molière?’ Bartet went on.

  ‘Indeed,’ Gabriel replied, increasingly disconcerted.

  ‘And you have been staying here for several days?’

  Bartet’s persistence was beginning to make Gabriel feel uncomfortable.

  ‘Kindly excuse me, Monsieur, but I have things to do elsewhere, and what is more I don’t really want to answer your questions.’

  ‘That is a pity,’ replied Bartet, not at all thrown by this. ‘Doubtless you are unaware then that last night your master, the talented Molière, was in the office of Monsieur Colbert, for whom he now works? This will oblige you to choose your loyalties, young man. You do not know me,’ added Bartet, ‘but I know who you are. You should be aware that I work for Monsieur Superintendent. My name is Bartet, Isaac Bartet. So you can trust me, for the least that is said about me is that I am the best-informed man at Court!’

  Gabriel was incredulous.

  ‘Molière, working for Colbert!’ he repeated. ‘But that’s quite impossible. At this very moment, he’s writing a play for the Superintendent!’

  ‘Dear boy, just because he undertook a substantial commission and showed loyalty in Mazarin’s time does not prevent him from changing horses as the political wind changes direction. You seem very naïve. Colbert is powerful and liable to become increasingly so. Yesterday alone he turned Lulli and then your man Molière as though they were two pancakes!’

  Gabriel was distraught. His future as an actor in a prestigious troupe was threatened. His childhood dream of treading the boards had suddenly been snatched from his grasp.

  ‘And I have further news. Did you know that the King of France has a new mistress?’ Isaac Bartet continued in a voice intended to be jocular, at the same time pretending not to notice that the young man was agitated. ‘They had their first meeting yesterday evening at Versailles, in the utmost secrecy.’

  At this announcement Gabriel turned pale, which of course did not escape Bartet’s attention. He went on:

  ‘I myself saw the young lady join our esteemed sovereign for an intimate dinner. That little La Vallière girl has a nerve! Only just joined the Court, but already she has scaled its summit.’

  ‘Are you sure of what you are saying?’ Gabriel growled, seizing the informant’s arm. Bartet had not expected this reaction, but was delighted by it.

  ‘Gently, young man, gently. Of course I am sure – I saw them with my own eyes! Are you by any chance jealous? Perhaps you are acquainted with Mademoiselle de La Vallière?’ Bartet added. ‘In that case, pray accept my apologies if I appeared to be unmannerly towards her …’

  Gabriel pulled himself together and let go of the man’s arm. Devastated by this twofold betrayal, he hurried through the great entrance hall and went to his room. He rummaged through his things to find the leather document case, all the while considering the consequences of what he had just learned. Through the window, he saw that dusk was beginning to fall over the immense building site of the chateau gardens. He opened the document case and looked again at the parchment bearing his father’s signature. Tears formed in the young man’s eyes. As he left his room and then the chateau, heading for the hiding place he had identified earlier, a dull anger simmered within him.

  I am going to hide these accursed documents, he told himself, clutching the leather case to his chest, and then this evening – whether she wants to or not – Mademoiselle de La Vallière is going to hear a few home truths!

  The full moon illuminated the chateau almost as if it were day. At the wind’s caprice, the trees cast their moving shadows across the immense gardens under construction, whose subtle harmony had been conceived in Le Nôtre’s imagination. Wearing a black felt hat and a warm, loose-fitting coat, Gabriel left the main building and strode towards the stables. A few minutes later he re-emerged, leading a magnificent bay thoroughbred firmly by its bridle. He made a slight detour to leave the estate, taking the earthen track that ran alongside the outbuildings to avoid the paved avenues, which he thought would be too noisy. On this clear, cold night, the smallest breath by horse or rider formed a fine cloud of vapour, which lingered in their wake as they rode to the gates. Once outside, Gabriel leapt astride the horse and galloped off to join the Paris road.

  The cold which now whipped his face allowed Gabriel to recover a little composure as he galloped between the tall trees lining the road. Since he had learned of the meeting between the King and Louise, the young man’s anger had not abated. He could not bear to think of them together in the intimate surroundings of the hunting lodge at Versailles. As an antidote to his burning rage the sharp cold was almost pleas
ant, as was the thought that he would be regaining control of his life that very evening.

  After all, I can’t stay locked away in that chateau when my future is being played out in the capital. And also, he told himself, too many people seem to know more than I do. This may cost me my stage ambitions for the time being, but I won’t rest until I have got to the bottom of all of this.

  Gabriel arrived in Paris very late and went straight to Louise de La Vallière’s home. The young girl was getting ready for bed having spent a good part of the evening with Henrietta, her young mistress, who yearned for conversation and affection. Louise was tired out by the pace the King’s future sister-in-law expected her to maintain. Gabriel found her dressed in a simple nightgown with a little lace collar. She was surprised and delighted to see the young man again, and threw herself into his arms the moment she opened the door.

  ‘Gabriel, I’m so happy to see you,’ she said, embracing him tightly. ‘But what are you doing here at this hour? Where have you been for the last few days?’

  Gabriel was unmoved by this welcome and pushed his young friend away a little roughly.

  ‘I was worried about you,’ he told her angrily. ‘I was afraid you might have caught cold in the forest at Versailles, unless of course the King of France offered to keep you warm!’

  The attack was so vulgar that Louise was dumbstruck. Gabriel carried on even more aggressively.

  ‘You’re not answering me. Do you imagine, you poor girl, that Louis XIV sees you as anything more than an additional partridge for his hunting table, which is by all accounts already extremely well laden!’

  Thrown for a moment by the violence of this tirade, Louise smiled at the young man, who was a little baffled by this unexpected reaction.

  ‘Are you by any chance jealous, Monsieur de Pontbriand?’ she asked him with a hint of irony which failed to mask her emotion. ‘I’m flattered. But tell me, what do you know about my dealings with the King that you should react like this?’