The Sisters of Versailles

by Sally Christie

  “Did you win? Oh, I hope so, you know how I would like another box of those dried apricots.” I don’t usually play at cards—the games are very confusing and I always lose, though Pauline encourages me to play when I have some spare money.

  “No—yes. Yes, I did win, but that is not important now. Can you imagine what I heard?” Pauline’s eyes twinkle in the candlelight and I jump up and hug her.

  “Something good, something good! Did Louise invite you to Versailles? But I saw her letter to you last week, she didn’t—”

  “No, it’s not that,” says Pauline impatiently. “Unhook me, I’m not waiting for Sylvie, that woman is so slow.”

  “Well, what is it? Is Dray’s daughter pregnant again?”

  “No, it’s so much better than that.” I sit down on the bed and Pauline pulls off her gown.

  “Tell me.”

  She giggles. I’ve rarely seen her in such a good mood; normally, Pauline doesn’t like laughing or anything resembling joy.

  “Guess!”

  “Louise has found you a husband!”

  Her giggles stop. “No,” she says grimly, unpinning her hair and shaking it out. “Though this news will help with that little project, I am sure. But it is about Louise.”

  “Louise is pregnant!”

  “No, she’s not pregnant! Goodness, Dee Dee, is that all you care about? If you want a child so badly, look no further than old Bandeau.” The porter at the convent has a beaked nose and roving eyes and likes to grab the little girls and exhort kisses from them. I giggle; I know she’s joking.

  “Tell, tell, tell!”

  “So Louise . . . Louise . . .”

  I’m going to pop!

  “Louise has a lover!”

  Pauline sits down heavily on the bed beside me and I tumble back in astonishment. Louise has a lover?

  Imagine that! And apparently Louis-Alexandre, her husband, doesn’t even care. I think the news very funny—in the schoolroom Louise was always so good and only ever wanted to be virtuous, almost as much as Hortense. She would be troubled if we played with our toys on Sundays and even wanted the maids to double their petticoats in summer so that when they knelt to light a fire, the outline of their buttocks would be obscured. And now she, sinning along with everyone else at Versailles!

  I tell the funny news to everyone I meet, even to the little students and the nuns, until one of them slaps me and says if I don’t learn to talk of more appropriate things, she will tell Mother Superior to stuff my mouth with bread so I can’t make a sound.

  I laugh, because it sounds so funny—imagine me with a mouthful of bread!—but it is true. I do like to talk and the nuns are always scolding me for babbling and for not thinking before I talk. But why should I think before I talk? Why would I want to do things twice: First think something, then say it? Surely it’s easier to do just one or the other? Only kind Sister Domingue doesn’t laugh; instead she just rubs my head and tells me that one day, I’ll learn.

  Pauline decides the news is excellent and she has doubled her letter-writing campaign. She is convinced that a Court lover will surely have money and influence and therefore can help Louise fulfill her sororal duties. She considers blackmail, but Madame de Dray only snorts at that idea and says that Pauline has a lot to learn about the ways of the world: Who would care enough to pay money to keep such a thing a secret? Especially when it is clear her degenerate of a husband (her words, not mine) obviously doesn’t care?

  Hortense sometimes visits now from Tante Mazarin’s, even though carriage travel makes her sick and she complains that the stream behind the convent smells of rotting fish. She doesn’t tell Tante that she visits. I think that she is lonely, now that Marie-Anne is married and gone to Burgundy.

  Hortense tells us that Tante now despises Louise as much as she despises Pauline and has made her, Hortense, swear on the Bible to never talk to Louise again!

  “I suppose she hates me too,” I say. “I mean not because I am a whore, obviously, not like Louise, I mean she’s not a whore, Tante just says that, but because I live with Pauline.”

  “I don’t know,” says Hortense earnestly. “It is quite difficult following Tante’s feuds; she has so many. But she says they are a necessary feature of polite society, for they remind people of their place in the natural order.”

  Pauline and I share the gossip we have heard about Louise’s rich and powerful lover with Hortense, who only blushes and says she shouldn’t be listening to such talk. I know she doesn’t mean it. Everyone loves gossip, and those who say they don’t are just lying; they probably relish it most of all.

  From Pauline de Mailly-Nesle

  Convent of Port-Royal

  March 30, 1735

  Louise,

  You may think the convent very secluded but it is not, and we hear a great many things here that might shock and surprise you. We hear all the gossip of Court—all of it. I hope you are enjoying yourself and that your husband, Louis-Alexandre, is pleased with you.

  You know you can tell me anything, because I am your sister and love you above all else. If your husband—or someone else—were rich and powerful, perhaps he would help you with our project of bringing me to Versailles?

  I beg you to consider this. Please remember, I am almost twenty-three and Diane is already twenty-one.

  Here is my news: we had delicious rabbit here last night, and carrots. Well, the rabbit was not delicious, it was mostly very tough. My back is not aching. My teeth are fine. I am sure you do not care about these trifles, but Diane says I should include them. She wanted to write but she spilled her inkwell and Mother Superior says she can’t have any more ink until the end of the month. She sends her love.

  Diane asks me to thank you for the goose pâté you sent, she ate all of it before I was able to take even a spoonful. She said she did not know it was intended for both of us; she claimed she thought I hated goose.

  Do not forget us here. With much sororal love,

  Pauline

  Louise

  VERSAILLES AND HEAVEN

  1735

  In public we must be circumspect and careful but we develop our own language, the secret code of our love. A play is performed outside in the Marble Court, and though we are seated far apart, at the end the king says loudly, “How fair were the jewels on Mélisande’s neck!” Jewels! And me, Bijou!

  When he visits the queen and exchanges pleasantries with her ladies, he often asks me (but not too often; the others always have their ears pricked) if I am well rested.

  Well rested!

  How clever he is. I try to think of similar things to say, but I am not very good with double entendres (or even single entendres). Gilette could help me—she is frightfully sharp and clever—but I can’t involve her. And I don’t want to ask Charolais, for I do everything possible to keep her far from my intimate life.

  Instead I buy a bag of mixed buttons from the merchants down by the Ministers’ Wing, and when he can, Bachelier brings me the king’s coats. I sew a little button on the silk lining inside, right where it will rest on his heart. When I see him wearing one of my buttoned coats, I thrill to know he has a part of me so close to him.

  I make him handkerchiefs covered with little doves, hearts and flowers surrounding them, sewn with love. Once he pulled one out, stroked it, and stared at me. My knees went weak and I thought I would faint.

  Gilette noticed and poked me.

  “Why was His Majesty looking at you in that rather queer way? It must be true that he suffered from indigestion last night. We all thought that was just an excuse to avoid the queen’s bed. But it was a strange look—almost as though he was admiring you! But that cannot be—I am sure it was the oysters.”

  One night he deliberately loses at cards, that I might pocket the porcelain pieces that he just held. I jingle them in my hand, until the Princesse de Chalais snaps at me to stop. I smile at her and slowly rub the smooth pieces. I feel the king’s eyes on me, the heat enough to sear me through.
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  These little tricks and delicious secrets sustain me through the long, boring hours with the queen, through the endless official functions, through the business of the king’s public days and even the informality of his private nights, when he is so close to me, yet so far.

  Now Louis says he has a gift for me. I cannot hold my excitement, for it is rare that he gives me anything. It is barely noon when Bachelier sends me a note telling me to don my cape and a veil. He comes for me a little while later and hurries me into a waiting carriage.

  Inside sits the king, masked.

  “What? Where are we going?” I ask, breathless with excitement. Louis smiles and shakes his head, and even as we leave the palace far behind and the carriage rumbles through a thick wood, he refuses my entreaties.

  “Patience, and you will see!” he commands, pulling off my gloves and entwining my fingers in his. I stare out at the trees and thickets, my excitement mounting. No more than an hour passes when we pull up beside a small wooden house, set beside a clearing in the woods.

  “Shhh,” he says, motioning to the driver as Bachelier brings a hamper down and sets it beside us.

  “By sundown, sire,” he says and climbs back in the coach. Then they are gone and we are alone. I feel as if I have entered a dreamworld.

  “And did I say privacy was the one thing I could not command? Well, I shall admit I was wrong. I have arranged it so that Maurepas and the Marine Council think I am meeting with the Turks, and the Turks think I must closet myself with the council. There will be something to pay tomorrow, but for now, Bijou”—and here he bows and laughs—“this August afternoon—I give to you.”

  I shriek with joy and leap into his arms. He twirls me around until I am dizzy with delight.

  We spend the afternoon exploring the woods. I find a bed of daisies and make him wait still while I twine him a crown of flowers. He picks a giant wild rose for me, and bows low as he presents it: “For my Lady of the Roses, the Lady of My Heart.”

  We pass an old peasant bent double under the weight of his years and the giant bundle of firewood he carries. He calls out a respectful greeting, and when he has passed we both giggle in delight: that man knew not that it was his sovereign he had just addressed.

  The meadow next to the little house is enameled with clumps of wild marigolds in decadent bloom. From the food hamper we take cold eggs, a chicken, a bottle of Gamay. We spread a blanket and I drape my head with gauze against the sun and freckles. We sit side by side in the middle of the marigolds, eating and listening to the sounds of the countryside around us: crickets, birds, the chatter of squirrels, the occasional deep hum of a bee. The fairest symphony in the world, played for us in our field of gold.

  Louis takes the gauze away and unpins my hair and breathes me in. He spreads his fingers like a star through my hair, drawing me closer, and I hold him faster and tighter than I have ever held anyone in my life. They say food tastes better when eaten outside, and it is true: his lips are the most delicious honey and sugar. We lie in the brilliance of the sunshine, bathed in the warmth of the August afternoon, caressed by the balmy wind and lulled by the sun. Though I lie on the ground I feel as though I am soaring like the hawks that circle above. This is the closest to Heaven that I’ll ever be, I think, for Heaven for me is this closeness of Louis in our perfect, sunlit privacy.

  “I could stay here forever,” he murmurs to me, “until the sky falls down.”

  I can’t say anything, so complete is my happiness. I start crying and he licks away my tears, softly and expertly.

  “I wish you were not the King of France.”

  “But I am, Bijou, I am.”

  “You are everything to me.”

  “And you are everything to me,” he replies, and something lights inside of me, something that can never be extinguished, and I know I will carry his words, and the memory of this day, through all the years of my life.

  Small shadows fall across us and the wind grows chill. No! Don’t let the sun go down—would that the world could end, just so this day did not have to. With reluctance we rise and make our way back to the little house.

  “We will come again,” he says as we await the carriage. In the distance we can hear a wolf howling and the woods draw closer as the sun goes down. “To this, our place. The whole of France is mine, but this wood is my most treasured domain.”

  We climb into the carriage and head back to Versailles and to our painted, false lives. But he promised we would come again, I think happily as I lean against him in the carriage, and that is all that matters.

  Back in the real world, Pauline continues to bother me with mountains of letters that arrive with constancy every week. She wants me to find her a husband and bring her to Versailles. Or just bring her to Versailles. But that, as I have explained to her often, is much more difficult without a husband. And poor dear Pauline, she was never pretty and I’ve heard she has not improved with age. Though that is very unkind of me to say, it is the unfortunate truth.

  I do not know who will take charge of her marriage. Papa is in Paris but unwell and unable to help his family; he seeks a cure with an actress, who has experience playing the role of a kind nurse in one of Molière’s plays. And while Tante Mazarin got Marie-Anne married, I cannot ask for her help as we are no longer speaking; our relationship has gone from cordial to chilly to cold. She knows I have another lover and is constantly dropping her pincushion in front of me when we are sewing with the queen.

  Of course, I could ask Louis . . . but I would rather not. Here is a little secret: though I am the mistress of the king, and should perhaps be very rich and powerful, I am not. Louis hates, but just hates, when people pester him for favors or seek advantage from him. This is understandable; people ask him for everything every day, at all moments. Just yesterday, the Marquis de Créquy was included in the hunt as a special favor over the death of his mother—a great friend of Louis’s old governess, Madame de Ventadour. He made Louis’s afternoon very difficult by continually talking about a court case involving a dead horse that he wanted settled. Louis was indulgent because the man was in mourning, and has two excellent staghounds, but then he made the mistake of not letting the matter drop.

  “Yes, I could have easily granted his request, Bijou,” he complains later, stopping by on a visit. He won’t stay, but when he is irritable or worried he likes to wander the halls at night, disguised as a doctor with a silly old wig and accompanied by one of his valets. He has a secretive side to him; I know he likes to roam unknown, pretending he is a servant or a simple nobody.

  I anxiously serve him a cup of hot coffee, glad that I bought that stove last week from the Duchesse de Rohan-Rohan. It is made of Meissen porcelain and was frightfully expensive, but it is useful that I might serve Louis something hot and quick on his nighttime promenades.

  I bring him a plate of pastries from the afternoon. “Have an apple butter tartine, dearest. I know you love apples.”

  He waves them away. “No, no. But I would have some duck. Oh, how I long for some duck!” He hasn’t taken off his cloak and sits in dejection at the table. I hate to see him like this, peevish and irritable. I feel I should say something, urge him to stay and seduce him, but I am not very good at things like that. Instead I rub his back and murmur in his ear, until he shifts in annoyance. He sips his coffee then complains it is too hot.

  “I should have him sent away. Créquy. Harsh, but it would send a message. A message, Bijou! My time at the hunt, it is sacred. When I am in the forest I am not the king, I am just a man on a horse. No one knows the burden it is to be a king.”

  “I do, Twinkles, I understand.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “What a burden!”

  “A burden. To be pestered thus, at all hours of the day and night.”

  “Stay . . . please. I will . . . make you feel better. I could . . . ah . . . could . . .”

  “No, no, enough. I would be alone. I shall walk the palace awhile, perhaps go up to the roofs.
And it is so noisy here. Those dogs! You should really speak to Matignon.” He gets up. “Tomorrow . . .” He sighs. “Tomorrow the Hungarians again. Will I ever know peace?”

  He leaves and I sit alone in the room and drink the rest of the coffee. The dogs in the apartment above mine continue barking; a pack of rangy wolfhounds as tall as my shoulders. I should ask the Comte de Matignon to take them away and board them at the kennels, but I don’t have the courage. I could ask Louis, of course, and in one lift of his finger he would take care of it. Could a lettre de cachet be used for a dog? But I cannot ask that favor of him. I vowed long ago never to ask him for anything, for why would I want to distress the man I love?

  Marie-Anne

  BURGUNDY

  1736

  I must confess that I am becoming intrigued by the physical side of our relationship. It is very amusing to see a man become a pleading mess if denied the touch of a certain part of one’s body or if one’s finger presses ever so slightly on another part. My goal these days, in addition to finishing all five volumes of Piganiol’s New Descriptions of History and Geography of France, is to see how far and how fast I can reduce JB to quivering quince jelly, and for what length of time. The advantage is that now he will do anything for me, so instead of having a husband whom I must obey, I now have a husband who will obey me.

  I find myself waiting eagerly for his trips home. Before, JB never visited Burgundy more than once a year, preferring to spend his free time at his Paris house with his atrocious mother—who, I am pleased to report, is now ill and bedridden—but these days he makes every effort to come to Burgundy and see me. I await him with anticipation, for as the months pass, I am beginning to understand what all the fuss is about. Between the sheets. I have caught the shadows, so to speak, or JB has caught them for me.