“A pity. She was the most delightful company, although I must admit her intelligence frightened all of us.”
“You knew my mother?” Lili blurted out. She heard the rustle of skirts and the murmur of voices behind her and instantly felt foolish. Of course she knew her. And the queen asks the questions, not you, she reminded herself. “Please forgive me,” she said. “I forgot my manners.”
“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” the queen said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “All this frippery is a waste of time, but everyone does seem to insist on it.” She looked through her glasses again. “I can see her face in yours.”
Lili glanced at Maman and saw that her eyes were shining. “I hope so,” Lili said. “I’m very proud of her.”
“But you still haven’t told me whether you play cards. I love a good faro player with the sense to let me win some of the time.” Her eyes crinkled. “After all, I am the queen.”
“I will do my best to please you,” Lili said, feeling a burst of perspiration under her arms. So far it had gone well, but she’d have to back up and turn around soon, and she felt everyone’s eyes boring into her back.
“And now,” the queen was saying, “I must get ready for dinner.”
I want to do this perfectly, Lili thought with an intensity she had never felt during months of practice. I want her to like me. Her steps backward were small enough to avoid catching her hem, but as she twisted her body around, she felt her train catch on one of her panniers and knew without looking that it was bunched to one side behind her.
She managed to do what she had practiced to repair the situation by rote, taking a few steps forward and letting the weight of the train drag it to its proper position, but she heard the whispers around her and knew her error hadn’t escaped notice.
Maman and Delphine had already begun walking away, and she started behind them, keeping her eyes glazed to avoid seeing Anne-Mathilde, whom she hadn’t noticed but assumed was there.
“Please return for a moment, Stanislas-Adélaïde,” she heard the queen say.
Could it get worse? Some of the women had stepped back, eager to begin gossiping with their friends, and to her relief, Lili had room to take a few steps to turn around.
“I’m so sorry,” the queen said, when Lili was facing her again. “I stretched out my foot just as you turned and your train caught on my slipper.” The queen’s expression was stern as she surveyed the faces around her.
What she had said was untrue—anyone could see that—but what did it matter? The queen said it was not Lili’s fault, and that was the end of the matter.
“You may go,” the queen said, with a flicker of a smile.
She’s giving me another chance, Lili realized. I have to do it right this time. An unexpected calm came over her as she went up on her toes and brought her train around flawlessly. Her burden lifted, she floated through the clustered women, whose fans could not hide their astonishment at the queen’s intervention.
The Queen of France rescued me! She saw Delphine’s exultant grin and felt as if their spirits were dancing around the glittering room. And best of all, it’s over.
HEAVY SNOW AND swirling wisps of fog cocooned Versailles in the first days after Lili’s and Delphine’s presentations. “Why did we have to come in December?” Delphine complained. “It’s spoiled all my plans, to be stuck inside. We haven’t been anywhere but our rooms and the queen’s apartment.” She let out a frustrated sigh at being ignored. “Maman! You’re supposed to be still when I’m sketching you!”
“I didn’t know you were,” Julie said. “I was too busy with my book to notice.”
“It was a surprise, and now it’s spoiled! Lili, will you promise to be still if I sketch you?”
Lili giggled. “No.”
“Well then, sit down and write. Sometimes you don’t move for hours then.”
“Maman,” Lili said, still ignoring Delphine’s petulance. “I’ve been thinking about the king. Where is he? We haven’t seen him once, and I’ve heard he’s often there when young ladies are presented.”
“He comes to speak for a few minutes with Marie Leszczynska every morning during her toilette, but they each have their own lives and they’re busy with their own duties.”
“Where does he live?” Delphine asked, looking up from her drawing.
Julie smiled. “It’s a very big palace.”
“Yes, but—”
“There’s another château on the grounds called the Trianon,” Julie went on. “Madame de Pompadour lived there, and the king spent a great deal of his time with her even after they weren’t lovers anymore. People knew if they wanted something from the king it was best to get her to ask on their behalf. But she died last year, and most people say the king is quite bereft.”
“That’s sad.” Delphine put down her sketchbook. “Even when people die too old to be attractive anymore.”
“She wasn’t old, unless you think I am,” Julie said. “She was just a year or two older than I, and I’m just forty.” She got up and, putting her hands on her hips, arched her back. “Although my bones feel older sometimes.”
Delphine got up. “I’m sorry, Maman. You are the most beautiful woman at Versailles.” She gave her a hug. “Except for me, of course!” She twirled around the room in tight pirouettes. “I just wish we could have a masquerade, or a big banquet, now that that awful presentation is over. I want to wear my panniers and not think everyone is watching me to see if I make a mistake.” She giggled. “Now I’ll be watching right back. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to catch Anne-Mathilde knocking something off a table?”
Lili watched as Delphine turned here and there, charming imaginary people in the drafty air of the parlor. She loved Delphine, but she could never understand how being in a place like this could satisfy anyone with more substance than the delicate Meissen figurines on the mantelpiece, or why Delphine seemed to want nothing more than to be a living version of them.
“Was Marie Leszczynska beautiful when she was young?” Delphine had by now danced over to Julie. “She has rather nice eyes, and I’m sure she wasn’t always so fat.”
Out of habit, Julie looked around to make sure no one was listening. “She was always rather plain, but the king, I’m told, fell quite in love with her after they married.” Julie thought for a moment. “I think everybody loves her, at least a little. She’s a genuinely nice person. Humble too, considering how little she’s allowed to show it. It’s sad really. The king ruined her health with eleven pregnancies and now he wants little to do with her.”
Delphine dropped onto the couch beside Julie. “Eleven?”
“One was stillborn and several others died in infancy. And now her oldest son, the dauphin, is ill with consumption, and the rumor is that he’s unlikely to survive to become king. He stays away from Versailles, probably to keep down the gossip about how ill he looks.”
By now Lili had settled on the floor, cradling her back against Julie’s velvet dressing gown. She turned to look up at her. “What happens if he dies?”
“Right now the dauphin’s son is only ten years old. He’d become king anyway, in time. The only question is which number King Louis he’d be—sixteen if his father never becomes king, seventeen if he does. But it is difficult at court every time the throne changes hands. Everyone has friends and enemies, and everyone scrambles around for the same favor as before, if not more.”
She thought for a moment. “Whatever happens, Marie Leszczynska won’t be queen anymore, but I honestly think she might be very happy to be just the king’s grandmother, and rid herself of those fawning women and ceremonies she has little taste for.”
Delphine sighed. “It’s too bad the little son is too young for me. I’d love to be queen. I think it would be wonderful to have people pay attention to me all the time.” She giggled. “Wouldn’t it be a torment to Anne-Mathilde to have to make a révérence to me?” She got up. “Yes, Your Majesty,” she said, curtseying deeply. “Right away, Delphine. And
then I’d say, ‘It’s always Your Majesty now, and you’d better not forget it.’”
Julie laughed, shaking her head. “I think the torment would be largely yours, ma chérie. Do you know, I’ve seen that poor woman stand naked and shivering while people argued over who had the privilege of putting a clean chemise over her head? And would you really want people discussing your bowel movements as if they were affairs of state?” Lili and Delphine wrinkled their noses in disgust.
“Versailles is beautiful to visit,” Julie went on, “but to be part of the royal family would be far too public for me. You’d make almost no decisions at all about your own life. Every time I see the queen’s daughters, they remind me of little bees buzzing around the queen of the hive. What other life do they have?”
“Madame Victoire is quite pretty,” Delphine said, picking up Maman’s hand and stroking it with a fingertip. “But you’re right, Maman, the others do look like fat little bees, with their chubby little faces. Especially Mademoiselle Sophie.” She scrunched her face until her eyes were slits.
“That’s not my point, ma chérie. And you should be more careful what you say. The king is particularly fond of Sophie, I’ve been told. It would be a very bad idea to antagonize any of them, since their reach is much farther than yours will ever be.” She smiled. “At least since it appears as if Louis-Auguste is not going to be your husband.”
Delphine thought for a moment. “Madame Sophie does have a beautiful voice. Perhaps I could ask to accompany her on the harpsichord in the queen’s apartments some evening. We could put on a little concert. Perhaps the king would come too, if he’s fond of Sophie. Then we could meet him, since I’d hate to say I’d been to Versailles and have never seen him except on his balcony during mass.”
Julie’s face was somber. “I would be just as happy if you didn’t. He may be king, but he isn’t what I would call a good man.” She looked surreptitiously toward the door. “Madame de Pompadour made sure no one replaced her in the king’s affections by supplying him with an endless stream of vapid little mistresses, some no older than you. They lasted a few years and who knows what happened to them after that. They weren’t common prostitutes, but daughters of noblemen who used their own flesh and blood to advance themselves.”
She shuddered. “Versailles is really quite an ugly place, for all its beauty. That’s why I come here as little as I can.” She looked away. “And why I immediately start wondering how soon I can go home.”
“They offered their daughters to the king?” Delphine’s eyes were wide with astonishment.
“Wives too,” Julie said. “More than once a wife was sent to his bed, sometimes little more than a child bride—a gift in exchange for a favor or advancement of some sort. Now that Madame de Pompadour is dead, I doubt he’ll stop wanting young bodies, and he may decide to find them for himself.”
What if it had been the king under the stairs at Vaux-le-Vicomte? Lili banished the thought with a shudder.
“Don’t worry, mes petites,” Julie said. “Everything at court has to be negotiated, and he’ll look around in places he’ll meet with less resistance than he would get from me. But I have more peace of mind knowing he’s unaware right now that two such pretty girls are in his palace.”
She looked up to see one of her servants carrying a note on an ornate silver tray. Julie opened it. “Oh, this is lovely!” she said. “Up now, both of you! We’re going on a sleigh ride.”
THE DECEMBER SUN blazed down on the gardens and parterres stretching out from the palace at Versailles, creating a glare so blinding that Lili looked up into the cloudless sky for relief. The storm had left behind a knee-deep blanket of snow, leaving white epaulets and wigs on sculpted nymphs, and settling like modest drapery over the private parts of reclining gods. A few birds had come out from their roosts, chirping and scolding one another, knocking snow from shrubbery as they searched for a place to forage.
Since it was warm for a winter day, the queen had ordered open sleighs. Hers was a gilded tangle of swirling mythological figures and vines in interlacing arabesques. Behind it were two smaller sleighs, equally ornate and with the same red upholstered seats. Drivers stood by each, dressed in red livery.
“Well, won’t this be fun?” Anne-Mathilde said as the three girls got into one of the smaller sleighs. “I haven’t had a chance for a decent conversation with either of you since last summer at the château.”
“And I’ve so missed it!” Delphine reached up to adjust her hat, avoiding Anne-Mathilde’s eyes.
“You both looked so lovely at your presentation,” Anne-Mathilde went on, ignoring the insincerity in Delphine’s tone. “Tell, me Lili—I’m dying to know—did the queen really step on your train? It’s just too amusing …”
Lili glanced at Anne-Mathilde and brushed away the comment with a flick of her hand. “I’m glad it’s over,” she said. “And you heard what the queen said about her slipper. I have nothing to add.”
Anne-Mathilde’s eyes flashed at Lili’s dismissive reply, but she chattered on as if she hadn’t noticed. “I remember my first panniers—tiny little things like a doll’s clothing. I’ve been coming to Versailles all my life, you know. The ladies-in-waiting used to flock around me like birds.” She laughed. “Oh, how I used to hate that!”
“I can imagine,” Lili said, looking away. “All that attention must have been grueling.”
Anne-Mathilde sniffed to convey that she would not do Lili the honor of acknowledging her comment. “My mother says this is your first visit to Versailles, and of course it does give one quite a bit to wonder about. Anything you want to know, please just ask!” She put her gloved hand to her mouth and her eyes widened. “Oh! Speaking of something you should know, I received a letter from Jacques-Mars. He said we should expect him any day.” She scanned their faces for a reaction.
Delphine shrugged. “How nice.”
How nice if he were lost in a blizzard and died, Lili thought, smoothing her gloves.
“Just think how amusing it would be if he were here now.” Anne-Mathilde patted the empty seat next to her. “He’s such good company, don’t you think? Although I prefer Ambroise Clément de Feuillet—I suppose you’ve heard our families are discussing marriage. He’s the future Comte d’Étoges, and everyone knows their château is one of the most charming in France. It’s terribly perfect, really.”
Lili nodded in mock seriousness. “Terribly.”
“He’s off hunting with the king today. He’s one of his favorite courtiers, and the queen adores him …” Her voice trailed off as the sleigh made a wide arc in the snow before coming to a stop.
Relieved to be temporarily spared from Anne-Mathilde’s prattle, Lili got out quickly from the sleigh and walked to the viewing terrace at the far end of Versailles’s formal gardens. A blanket of white covered the entire expanse, broken only by the greenish-black cones, rectangles, and undulating swirls of groomed shubbery. The melting snow had already fallen away from the tops, leaving behind what looked like black cross-stitching on a huge white pillow, set against an azure sky.
“It’s lovely, isn’t it.” Anne-Mathilde had gone off to join the others, and Delphine was standing next to her. “And the palace looks no bigger than my hand, we’re so far away.”
Lili scarcely heard Delphine as she took in what looked like a vast, empty page on which a giant hand had penciled geometry notes. “Yes,” she murmured, looking away with a shiver, even though the day was mild enough to make her winter cloak uncomfortably warm.
On her visit to the Comte de Buffon at the Jardin de Roi she had seen a skeleton of a field mouse, and the memory of the symmetry of its tiny bones came to her as she looked across the snow-covered gardens of Versailles. As perfect in their beauty and as holy as a cathedral, those bones were, she thought. These snow-covered terraces and walkways were just something to look at. They could never be more than that. They could not speak to the soul the way that mouse, that pink mantis, indeed everything at the Jardin de Ro
i spoke to her.
That’s where I want to be. Lili shut her eyes, remembering Buffon’s kind face, and the excited way Jean-Étienne Leclerc talked about science. This strange world here, with its crazy rituals and rigidity—gardens that say “Keep out,” and rules that leave the queen naked while people argue over her chemise?
No wonder her mother had wanted to escape to Cirey. I want to escape too, Lili thought. I want to go back to Hôtel Bercy. I want to go back to the Jardin de Roi.
When she was younger, Lili imagined her skull was a house where her ideas existed without any need to go outside. These days her mind roamed, seeking answers and solace her interior world could not provide. In the incomprehensible world of Versailles, her thoughts flooded outward as if she were speaking wordlessly to a presence hovering just out of sight. You have to help me through this, she said to the air, not certain whom or what she was addressing, or exactly what she meant.
The sun went behind a cloud and Lili looked up to see several more forming. “Brrr,” Anne-Mathilde said, getting back in the sleigh and pulling a travel rug up over her shoulders. “I’d so much rather be back at the palace. The queen can be so tedious with her little outings. Now there’s a piece of advice for you—get used to wondering how you ended up stuck somewhere with her and her dull daughters, when you’d so much rather be just about anywhere else.”
“Umm,” Delphine said as she tossed part of her blanket over Lili and pulled it up under their chins. She laid her head on Lili’s shoulder, radiating contentment sufficient for the two of them.
ONCE OUTSIDE THE walls surrounding the château and gardens at Versailles, the sleighs made their way down a path to a clearing in the royal forest. Servants had already arrived and set a log fire burning, so the queen and her party could warm themselves. Marie Leszczynska was the shortest woman in the party, and was dressed so plainly that a stranger coming on the scene would not have imagined she was anyone special, except for the constant hovering around her.
The queen had brought a pouch of bird feed and soon was carrying on a conversation with the birds pecking at her feet. The afternoon light was already beginning to dim, and her daughters were cajoling her to get back in the sleigh and go home, when in the distance a hunting horn sounded. Soon, two men on horseback, one carrying the king’s standard, trotted into the clearing. They dismounted quickly and bowed before the queen.
Finding Emilie Page 19