“A night assignation. To Marly, no doubt. I will regain his love.” I let it be.
“With such a favorable reading, you might well wish to enhance the image in the glass with something a bit more powerful. I know a woman on the rue Beauregard who can help you—”
“Oh, my God. You are another one of La Voisin’s! To think that I never suspected! What a joke!” She collapsed back in her armchair with a faint laugh, as if the joke were not very funny at all. “It really is too much—her people are absolutely everywhere.” She leaned forward again. Her voice was arch with a courtier’s self-control. “Tell me, then. What do you see in the glass for Madame de Montespan? I will pay you well for this second reading.”
I prepared my things a second time and looked deep into the water. “Oh, this is very interesting,” I replied. “I see Madame de Montespan leaving court. She is enraged, traveling in her coach at full speed toward Paris. It is absolutely laden with boxes.” I looked at the water-filled ruts on the road and the new spring buds on the trees. “Yes, definitely, she has been sent away, and all the indications are that it will be quite soon.”
“Why, this is delightful!” exclaimed the countess. “She will fall, and all her power will be mine.” A little half smile played across her face. “For whom do you read next?” she asked in a casual tone.
Something whispered in my mind, this means danger. And to distract her from an interest in my clients, I said, “In this season of holy penitence I have renounced all further readings in order to spend all my hours at my devotions until once again our most blessed Lord is resurrected.” After all, we were approaching Holy Week and it sounded like a good excuse. No fortune-telling until after Easter—what could be more admirable? Besides, at court, unlike Paris, it was good form to keep up the appearance of piety just to stay in fashion. Lately I’d found myself sitting through almost as many Masses as Marie-Angélique used to. Very well, the countess’s eyes seemed to say. You won’t tell me. We understand each other.
***
It was after Mass the following Sunday, as I followed the crowd of aristocrats and their servants out of the chapel at Versailles, that I was approached by a stranger.
“Madame,” he said, as he pressed past a lackey carrying a hassock for the Duc de Condé, “may we speak? I believe I need, ah, a fortune told.” I looked closely at him; he didn’t seem the type. Besides, he had a provincial accent, complete with rolling southern r’s. “You have influence: I’ve seen you with great lords, I’ve watched you mobbed in the corridors, almost every wretched day that I’ve spent in this place. And now—your maid tells me you have the acquaintance of the Duchesse de Vivonne.” I glared at Sylvie, who paraded behind me with my missal. Influence peddling again. How much money had she taken from this man I couldn’t help?
“I am afraid that the Duchesse de Vivonne will not use her influence for anything less than a thousand pistoles, and that only to pass a petition. You have no guarantee that the King will ever receive it. No, you are far better off trying to present it to the King yourself.” The man hadn’t a chance. He had the rustic, old-fashioned garb of an impoverished provincial noble. His heels were too flat. His buckles were paste. His neck and wrists were without lace. His wig sat ill over his lined, sun-browned face, and the plumes on his hat were sad and shabby. An hobereau, a joke.
“There’s so little time, and I’ve waited for days—when the King leaves his carriage, at the entrance to the chapel before daily mass, at the door of the King’s cabinet de conseil. I haven’t the clothes, the air of a courtier. I can’t push through the crowd. I get pushed aside; he doesn’t see me. But I must be heard. I must get my placet to the King, or my son is doomed.”
So he wasn’t trying to get an office or secure an inheritance. My curiosity was aroused. Besides, I felt sorry for him. Most people spent months and thousands of écus trying to give the King a petition. One bribed lackeys to find out which way the King would pass, one bribed courtiers for their influence, one bought court dress, one hired an overpriced little attic in the town of Versailles, one wore out shoes. Only a provincial could imagine it would be otherwise.
“What is your petition about, Monsieur—?”
“Honoré d’Urbec, of the d’Urbecs of Provence, at your service.” He took off his hat with a flourish, and bowed deeply. For a moment my breath stopped. Lamotte’s friend. There was no mistaking an odd name like that. But Lamotte’s friend had a Parisian accent.
“An old family?” I asked politely.
“Our descent is of a most venerable antiquity,” he announced with a grandiose flourish of his hands, his southern accent becoming even stronger as he warmed to his subject. “There were d’Urbecs in the time of Julius Caesar, although the name was spelled differently then; there were d’Urbecs with Charlemagne, on the Crusades. Were our goods proportionate to the historical glory of our name, we would rank among the first families of France, as we do, in a moral sense, to those of true discernment…” A dreamer, I thought; a spinner of tales. In short, a Provençal. The elderly gentleman paused, frozen suddenly by my sharp stare. He looked abashed. “I may as well tell you now, Madame, so that you may decide whether or not you wish to continue our conversation, that our family lost its noble standing in my grandfather’s time, through engaging in trade. We have been reduced to paying the taille, like commoners.”
“I do choose to continue the conversation anyway, Monsieur d’Urbec. But not in this corridor. Besides, I have an engagement that I cannot change. Meet me instead in the Grove of the Domes after dinner, where we may be seated and continue at our leisure. It is unattractive to the courtiers in this season, and we will have quiet.”
“At what time?” he asked, taking out an immense, old-fashioned, but very elaborate, egg-shaped watch from his pocket. An astonishing watch for one so clad. It appeared to show the phases of the moon as well as the hour.
“At three, shall we say, Monsieur d’Urbec? I am sorry I will not be free before then.” And I went off to hunt for an open table for a free dinner, for I had become a shameless cherchemidi, like most denizens of Versailles.
***
A brisk spring breeze was bending the new-budding branches in the Grove of the Domes, and I was grateful for my heavy shawl when I stepped from my chair to find the elder d’Urbec waiting in the marble arch of the first dome. He swept off his rusty black hat by way of greeting.
“I am now ready to listen to everything, Monsieur d’Urbec,” I said, as we seated ourselves on a carved stone bench. I must admit I found it interesting, as I did any information that would shed light on some part of Lamotte’s life with his friends. Gambling, the old man confessed, was the madness that had cost the family everything, but when the estates were mortgaged and then lost, an eccentric grandfather had turned a passion for telescopes and mechanisms into a prospering business in naval chronometers and fine timepieces for the gentry, to the humiliation of the family’s more genteel members.
“My sons all inherited the talent for mechanisms—but in Florent, I saw something more. Was I wrong to think he was the one who would save us? True, he was hotheaded, like all of us, but—to come to this. God, the disgrace…”
An uncle had spotted the boy’s promise and, because he had only daughters, had sponsored his studies, sending him to Paris to study law.
“My brother-in-law, you must understand, is not like us. He is a crude man but a successful tax farmer, and he craved an heir to whom he could pass on his offices. I was, at the time, much less successful, save in the matter of sons. So I let him have Florent. The opportunities, you see. Education, money. To study in Paris. Why should he be nothing but a clockmaker all his life? I had always”—and here he sighed—“dreamed he might gain rank and fortune enough to petition for a rehabilitation of the family name and standing. What father wouldn’t want these for his son? Then I heard that he had fallen into bad company and w
as neglecting his studies. Women, I suppose, and low-life taverns stuffed full of unemployed writers. His uncle was furious and threatened to break all ties with him. I came to Paris two weeks ago to remonstrate with him, to urge him to obey his uncle in everything—and what do I find? The seals placed on his room. He is under arrest. I went to the police, to the magistrates. I couldn’t discover the charges. Then I found a friend of his. Protected by the Duchesse de Bouillon. He told me my son was sentenced under suspicion of writing a seditious book under the pen name of Cato! Totally unlike the boy. He is like me—he would never be ashamed to air his opinions under his own name! A d’Urbec does not hide in the shadows to oppose wickedness! Why, in the old days, my father would—” Here the old gentleman left off abruptly. So, I thought, it does run in the family. A tribe of hotheaded southern crackpots. Revolutionaries. And probably freethinkers, too.
“Clearly,” the old man continued, “it was a case of mistaken identity. But I realized that unless I could find the true ‘Cato’ I could not make a case. Justice moves swiftly in Paris. The inquiry had already taken place. I went every day to the Châtelet. At last I discovered he had been sent to the galleys for life. Monstrous! Monstrous! A miscarriage of justice! Only the King can right this terrible mistake! But each day that true justice is delayed, my son’s position becomes worse. The prisoners have already departed for Marseilles. How many will survive the march on the chain? How many will survive the rowers’ bench? I have done business in Marseilles, Madame, and I have seen what becomes of galériens. They die, Madame. They die like cattle. A law student? He cannot live. Better if he were a sturdy vagabond or a highway robber. They are the powerful ones in that world; they form alliances at the expense of the other prisoners. You must assist me, Madame. If I could only approach the King, or the Duc de Vivonne, who is Captain General of the Galleys, or even a woman of influence who might intervene with them…”
“I am afraid, Monsieur, that at each step of the process you describe, more money than your wealthy brother-in-law collects for the state in a year would have to change hands. You are not very worldly if you think that justice can be got without money.” I looked at his petition. It would never move a magistrate who had seen the evidence. What had they gotten when they searched his room? What had they gotten from Griffon, or from Lamotte?
“What is the evidence that links your son with this scurrilous work?” I asked.
“Ah, none whatsoever, Madame. That I know for a fact; I bribed a clerk of the court. They had nothing but the book itself, which was banned by the order of the Lieutenant General of Police, a fellow named La Reynie, and a denunciation from a paid informer who lives in taverns. The informer is known to be an untrustworthy fellow, and even the magistrate on the case doubts his word, the clerk informed me. But suspicion is enough, Madame, in cases of treason. And the work, I hear, would merit this. It predicts the fall of the state from fiscal corruption—not, of course, that I have read it, mind you,” he added nervously, looking around. Then he looked at me, his face troubled, and went on: “This Lamotte tells me that he managed to see him once in prison. My son never confessed during the interrogation. And Lamotte swears they never found a copy, a note, anything in his possession. So my case is proven. Mistaken identity!”
“No confession? Then perhaps there’s hope. Continue with your petition, Monsieur d’Urbec, and I have an idea that I will pursue. And my suggestion is this: take up a position where the King’s Apartment connects with the Salle des Gardes, for the Salle des Gardes is wide and long, and the crowd around the King will disperse somewhat, so that you will be able to approach him there.”
“A wonderful idea! Why did no one else suggest it to me? A thousand thanks, Madame! Is there some consideration I may make for your kind intervention?”
“Hardly. I imagine my mercenary little Sylvie has already done you sufficient damage. For myself, I act in the name of justice served.” He bowed again deeply and left, trudging through the spring mud, while Sylvie summoned the bearers of my chair, who had been throwing dice only a few paces beyond the domed pavilion.
All that afternoon I was in a kind of dreamy daze. André Lamotte and I were sitting at an intimate little supper table, drinking wine.
“That was terribly clever, the way you saved d’Urbec. It’s a pity I didn’t think of it myself. I admire a brilliant woman. And brains so rarely are combined with beauty. Lackey, pour the Burgundy I’ve been saving. Geneviève, let’s drink to our future.” And as we raised glasses, I shook off the dream. Enough of this stupidity, Geneviève Pasquier, I said to myself. Girls who daydream end badly, Grandmother always said. But then, who was she to talk? Hadn’t she wept over Astrée in her own day?
April 5, 1675. What madness makes me want Lamotte, who will never have me? It’s enough to make a person believe in demons that can seize the soul. Is it because he’s beautiful, or because he was Marie-Angélique’s, and having him would make me as beautiful as she? It certainly isn’t his mind. No, it has to be his charm. Even the memory of it warms me through. And he makes the world seem deliciously simple. I want to be part of his easy simplicity—But as I wrote, I started, as if something cold had touched me. I looked up into the dark beyond the candle and saw something hollow eyed and mocking, staring at me. It looked like the ghost of Florent d’Urbec.
That evening in the town of Versailles, as Sylvie brushed off my clothes in our tiny little rented room under the eaves, I looked up from writing in what she chose to call my “account book.” “Sylvie, I want you to take this letter into Paris tomorrow and put it in the confessional box of the Jesuit church on the rue Saint-Antoine.”
“What’s in it?” she asked impudently.
“What’s in it is a silver louis for you. But if you wish, you may read it. I haven’t sealed it yet.” Sylvie took the letter and worked her way slowly through it, making her mouth work with each word.
“Ooo. This is nasty. A denunciation to the police. Who is this Cato fellow who promised you marriage and absconded with your silver spoons? And you traveled all the way to Paris to find him, and he’d taken up with another woman? He seems pretty villainous—‘tall, reddish hair with a beard that grows brown, scar on one cheek, makes his living writing libelles under false names and takes money from William of Orange.’ Nasty work!”
“Whoever he is, he is the exact opposite of Monsieur d’Urbec, who is dark and of medium height.”
“Oho, you’re the sly one. Case of mistaken identity, eh? Delays matters a bit. And if they haven’t tortured him to find out who the printer was, why, they might even let him go. That is, if it doesn’t hurt their pride too much.” She looked at me shrewdly. “But I didn’t know you knew this fellow d’Urbec. Are you soft on him?”
“I don’t know him at all,” I answered hurriedly.
“Then how’d you know what he looks like?”
“Why, I suppose he looks like his father, that’s all.”
“Too bad for him if he’s red headed, then,” she answered before she blew out the candle. But her voice sounded cynical.
NINETEEN
The dispatch rider from Paris set out from Fort Saint-Jean early in the morning. Even in the chill air, the stench of the wintering galleys bobbing at anchor almost overpowered him as he rode the length of the Quai du Port to the Arsenal. The pride of the French fleet, the choice assignment for the sons of the highest aristocracy, the low, narrow ships looked nothing like their summer incarnations. The bands of musicians were dispersed, the silk pennants in storage. The gilt and crimson scrollwork was invisible beneath huge canvas tents that stretched from the bow to the stern over the rowers’ benches, giving the ships the air of monstrous cocoons. The rider could read the names on the bows: L’Audace, La Superbe, L’Heroïne…
As the icy pink dawn faded from the sky, the cocoons appeared to hatch hundreds of galley slaves who been released from the chains that held them to the
ir benches all night. Now chained in pairs, surrounded by armed escorts of halberdiers, they were herded across the quay to various workplaces in the city of Marseilles, to earn their winter keep. The rider hardly noticed this everyday sight, and having made his first delivery at the Arsenal, he headed to the more fashionable section of Marseilles, where the Captain of the Superbe had his winter residence.
Breakfast had just been cleared when the lackey showed in the messenger, and the captain was still clad in his quilted silk dressing gown, his wigless head protected by a fur-lined, embroidered cap.
“Well, well,” he said, almost to himself as he read the letter from the Captain General of the Galleys, “it looks as if someone has a friend at court. Remind me, Vincent. Who is this Florent d’Urbec? Have I seen him?” Vincent, whose shaven head and eyebrows proclaimed him also to be a wintering galérien, thought a moment and answered.
“I think it’s that new one on number seven, the one who weeps.”
“Oh, yes, the fellow who mends clocks. I like to have skilled trades among my rowers; I’ve made a good deal of money from him this winter.” He squinted again at the dispatch. “Pah! These courtiers—they don’t understand necessity. Do they expect me just to throw away the men I need? I must have a full complement for the campaign this summer; I see no reason to let a perfectly good one go just now. Later is good enough to satisfy the captain general.” The captain refolded the offending paper and opened the seal on the next dispatch. He waved his hand to dismiss his lackey. “Go see his comite, Vincent, and tell him to inform this fellow that when he can provide me with the price of a Turkish slave to replace him, I will let him go.”
***
The Superbe spent the first weeks of spring in maneuvers designed to break the new men to the oar, then joined the fleet on campaign against North African corsairs for the remaining months of summer. Chained around the clock to the benches, the galériens sometimes rowed for ten to twelve hours at a stretch, the comites feeding them bread dipped in wine to keep them from dropping. Even so, by the summer’s end, thirty-six had died and were pitched overboard.
The Oracle Glass Page 18