The Enemies of Versailles

by Sally Christie

  The six of us advance in unison to ring his chair. He looks up at us in pleasure, his delight genuine. “All six of you here, together. What a delight. And how are you settling in, my dears?” he says to Sophie and Louise.

  “Very well, Papa,” Louise says as Sophie blushes. “It is most agreeable to be home.” They chat awhile and I watch them, alert to where I might jump in and stop her prattling, for I fear she is boring Papa. Louise has a certain confidence that I find rather unnerving in one so young. And intelligence too, though surely she is not as intelligent as I—I don’t think she knows any Greek, or even Latin, for that matter.

  Papa turns to Élisabeth. “My dear, you will leave us soon,” he says. “How we shall miss you.” Élisabeth curtsies and rises with a look of pained sorrow.

  “We are devastated, Papa, all of us,” I say, inching closer, wondering if he will notice and comment on the book of Confucius I hold in my hand.

  “Mmmm,” acknowledges Papa, still smiling at Élisabeth.

  “Dearest Father”—Élisabeth always calls him Father, an affectation at once annoying and provoking—“what sorrow as each day brings us closer to our departure! And little Isabelle: she cannot sleep for crying, such is her sorrow over leaving her grandpapa.” Élisabeth darts her eyes to the door, but Beauvilliers has not yet returned with the girl.

  “Can’t sleep for crying? Indeed?” says Papa, and I see he is delighted at this lie.

  “Nonsense, Élisabeth,” I cut in. “Her nursemaid tells me she sleeps like a sheep. But I can scarcely sleep, for—”

  “Alas,” says Papa, draining his glass and handing it to Victoire, who turns pink at the honor, “such is the fate of kings, to have their daughters depart for far lands.” He looks us over fondly again, then his eyes seek out the ladies standing or sitting behind us. “Élisabeth, you are not the only one who must depart. Where is our dear friend the Comtesse de Narbonne, who is to accompany you? Her mother is sorely troubled, for her delightful daughter is only fifteen.”

  “Indisposed,” says Élisabeth shortly. Narbonne is pregnant and was retching all morning; she has been banished until she can learn to control her emotions better. Suddenly Élisabeth kneels on the floor in front of Papa and takes his hands in hers. What is she doing?

  “It is the sad fate of princesses to be separated from their beloved parents,” says Élisabeth, staring up at Papa in perfect filial piety. I burn with anger that I did not think of such a pose, then burn more at her next words: “You must let me know what we can do from Italy to help my dear sisters get married—there is, of course, the King of Sardinia, who would be most suitable, and have we quite given up on Prince Charles?”

  Betrayal, I think, glaring at Élisabeth, who is looking ever so smug in her pious pose on the floor. That she would wish her own tarnished fate upon the rest of us! The threat of marriage and all its horrors—the terrors of a foreign land and the bestial side of men—hangs in constant heaviness over our heads. Papa is the only man we need to love. Victoire turns bright red and I can feel Sophie start to tremble beside me. Louise’s composure has left her and now she has the darting, hunted look of a mouse. One of her shoulders inches higher.

  “Indeed,” says my father, oblivious to the distress Élisabeth’s words have caused. He rises and instantly the room falls silent. The Marquis de Meuse rushes over to fit Papa’s wig back on his head. “I forgot to mention—there have been Sardinian inquiries for Sophie. Now I would bathe, then stop by the Marquise’s before the evening.”

  He leaves with his retinue, a great clattering of men and dogs and smells, and the salon is once again restored to feminine harmony.

  Sophie moans and covers her face with her hands.

  “Oh no!” cries Victoire. “Not Sophie! Oh, terrible, terrible news!” She stops an attendant gathering the refreshments and takes a violent swig from one of the men’s ale glasses. Victoire is menaced by Ferdinand of Spain, but his queen is not dying as expected. Victoire prays nightly for her continued good health.

  “Why did you say that, Élisabeth?” chides Henriette gently. “You know how talk of marriages distresses us, and now look at poor Sophie.” Thank goodness the Stuart prince wasn’t able to reclaim his throne, or Henriette would be in England now. England, for goodness’ sake, where they pour their tea themselves and can’t even bathe properly. Recently there was another scare with the Elector of Bavaria, but at twenty-two, Henriette now feels the safety of her years.

  I myself am only seventeen, and though I can see the journey’s end and sense the sweet reward, I still consider myself in danger. That I am the most attractive of my sisters is without a doubt, and my beauty has even caused romantic indiscretions: when I was fifteen, a lace merchant, at the palace to show his wares, declared himself impossibly in love with me. He was taken to the Bastille, of course, but I was secretly pleased, for that dalliance has made me more worldly than my sisters.

  Louise is the most vulnerable—she is twelve, the perfect age for a princess to marry—but she stuffs the left shoulder of her gowns with rags to raise it higher than the other, to pretend she is a cripple. She started this conceit before leaving the convent and I feel a small prick of jealousy, for it is rather a clever move.

  Sophie looks around wildly, a lamb about to be shorn.

  “Never fear, dear sisters, we will not let this happen! Never,” I say firmly, glaring at Élisabeth. I pat Sophie’s trembling arm. She knows I will protect her. “Sardinia! And Sophie has told us how much she hates fish!”

  “She’ll never survive the childdeath,” says Victoire, hiccuping dolefully into her glass of ale. “I mean the childbirth. Beauvilliers’ cousin died last week; she was only fifteen, and as small as Sophie.” Victoire collects the names of women who have died in childbirth, a rather morbid hobby in one usually so placid and happy.

  Beauvilliers enters with the little Princess Isabelle.

  “You quite missed him!” snaps Élisabeth as the child is deposited on her lap. She starts to tidy her daughter’s hair and looks around at us complacently, unmoved by our distress. “I only want what is best for Papa and for France. And for yourselves—you must know the pleasure that comes from being a mother.” She kisses Isabelle’s head and the child twists around and yanks on her mother’s pearled choker. Dribbling little hoyden, I think in disgust.

  “Oh, but, sister, to leave Versailles and Papa and go far away—we are not as strong as you are,” says Henriette in genuine affliction.

  “We are as strong,” I snap, “but Hen is entirely right—who would want to leave Versailles? And go somewhere dreadful, like Parma?”

  “Do you have no wish for a natural life?” Élisabeth cuts back. “And is that not woman’s fate as prescribed by the Bible? Quite frankly, I am glad Papa is considering marriages for you. Perhaps he is coming to his senses.”

  “Treason,” I hiss as Sophie continues to moan and Victoire starts sobbing, “to talk of our father that way! As though he were not of his senses!”

  “I only speak the truth,” says Élisabeth mildly. “Father has been sadly remiss in his duty of finding you husbands. Lazy, even.”

  “Only from his love for us!” I shout, my heart beginning to palpitate madly. What insubordination! I realize I am gripping Sophie’s arm rather tightly. Little Isabelle starts wailing for no reason, and I have a sudden image of tops, hundreds of them, spinning out of control over a vast parquet floor. “You must never talk of our father in that way again,” I say, struggling to modulate my voice. It is my duty to control this chaos; I must not snap under the pressure. November 18, I think grimly, November 18, and then order will be restored.

  “There, there.” I pat Sophie again, her little arm reminding me of a bird’s wing. “We will never let this happen, never! I will do all in my power—and my influence with Papa is great—to avoid this calamity.”

  When I was six—it is my most treasured memory—I ran and beseeched my father not to send me to the convent with my younger sisters. Si
nce that time I know he can refuse me nothing and I will not hesitate to use my charms on him again. I sit down and enjoy a quiet moment with my image of the scene: myself with tears in my eyes, humbly beseeching Papa—perhaps I might strike that pose on the floor that Élisabeth just used to such effect—as he looks down fondly at me, perhaps with tears in his eyes too!

  Little Isabelle slips off her mother’s lap, pursued by a hapless nursemaid.

  “I don wan go! No quiero—” Whump! The little girl trips over the edge of the carpet and goes flying, hitting her head on the corner of one of the gilt sofas.

  November 18, I think again as the tops finally stop spinning and make one last turn before coming to rest in silence on the floor.

  Chapter Three

  In which Jeanne develops a fear of falling

  The bed is far too narrow for two, and the mattress is just a hard wisp of an idea, a rough straw pallet barely a finger thick. The bells start tolling at five, even before the sun starts to rise. The door flies open, and at the end of the vast dormitory a ragged crow in black calls out to us to rise and consecrate our day to God.

  We tumble out of bed in sleepy silence and start to dress over our shifts. Even though it is a hot July morning, we must never be naked, for nakedness is a sin. There are many, many sins, and the threat of their constant presence keeps the nuns very busy.

  Outside, the day is brightening, but inside, the long attic room is still dark. I climb into my white wool dress and then comb my friend Charlotte’s hair with my fingers and secure it under her bunting. She is about to do mine when Hermine pushes her away. “You don’t know how,” she hisses, pulling my locks. “You always make a mess of hers.”

  “Oh, I don’t care who does my hair,” I say. “Really. But do hurry, or Sister George will be back again.” A lie; I want Hermine to do my hair, but don’t want Charlotte to feel bad.

  Hermine produces a small comb from under her mattress, a hidden luxury, and starts to untangle my hair. For a precious moment I am back with Frederica combing my hair and calling me her little angel, perched on her lap at the toilette table, bathed in the scent of rose powder. I hate wearing the bunting and the veil; I want my hair loose and free over my shoulders. Once a month we bathe and wash our hair and that is my happiest day; when I am older, I will wash my hair every day.

  “You’re so pretty,’ whispers Charlotte. I smile, for I like being told I am pretty. I wish I had a mirror, that I could see for myself, but they are not allowed. I love my thick, blond hair—love is another sin, though I am not sure why—and the other girls love it too. After Hermine has combed it out, everyone touches it and we all agree it must feel as soft as satin. I’m the only one who has ever felt real satin, and I confirm it does. Sister George reenters, and deft as the thief her mother is reputed to be, Hermine slips the forbidden comb into her sleeve.

  “What is happening here?” says Sister George harshly, coming toward our little cluster. She softens as she sees me in the center. “Ah, Jeanne, and how are you this morning, my angel?”

  I murmur something and look at the floor. Sister George takes the cloth from Hermine and proceeds to wind it around my head, stroking me and soothing my hair into it. Sister George makes me uneasy; she is always looking at me as though she is hungry and I am a cake she wants to eat. Once she even took me on her lap, and I was shocked because I never thought nuns could hug like mothers.

  “Now! Off to the chapel with you all,” she says, giving my head one last caress. I take off with the other girls, running and tumbling out the door. The only time we are allowed to run is when we are on the way to God. I remember at Frederica’s how I used to run up and down the staircase, and sometimes even up and down the street in those happy days before I was sent to this convent. Punished, and all because of that man with the dirty green eyes.

  Now mornings, afternoons, and days pass long and dreary inside the thick stone walls of the convent. When I first came I cried, a lot, but soon I learned to be happy—even in this grim prison there are things to smile about. I have so many friends, and some of the nuns adore me—some perhaps too much—and lessons are never taxing. We learn the Bible, of course, but in addition to our catechism we are taught reading and writing, and how to keep account books. I hate numbers. There is also lots of sewing: we sew for the poor children and for the fallen women, endless lengths of scratchy cream linen we make into rough skirts and capes. It seems that once a woman has fallen, she can no longer sew for herself.

  The nuns watch over us like hawks, afraid that we too will fall. Bastards and girls with no fathers, like most of the little girls here, are in the most danger of falling. Though what we might fall into is less clear.

  “Perhaps they don’t want us to fall down?” says Hermine dubiously.

  “It’s because bad women don’t have shoes,” says little Annette solemnly. “And then they trip and fall down.” We only have yellowed calf slippers that are too thin and in the winter our feet feel like lumps of ice. Annette has a bad cough and what the sisters call the devil’s lungs; I hope she doesn’t die like her sister Marie last year.

  “They don’t want us to fall into wells, or out of windows,” says Charlotte. We nod, for Charlotte is older and more knowledgeable. The well in the courtyard is covered, tightly, and only the porteress, a beefy woman who smells of sweat and something darker, is strong enough to uncover it. The windows don’t open properly, and they are too small to fall out of in any case.

  “But we fall asleep every night,” wails little Agnes, a shivering slip of a girl who, according to the rumors that seep around the convent, is the daughter of a hanged man.

  “But falling has nothing to do with sleeping,” I add, though I am not entirely sure. Frederica was a fallen woman, I think, but her bed was so soft I gladly fell into it!

  All we know is that fallen women are sent to Louisiana, where bears will eat them, or to the prison at La Salpêtrière, where they shave your head. From the narrow windows of our garret we can see onto the rue des Vignes, and once we saw a whole cartful of fallen women on their way to that dreaded prison. The women were calm, and some were even smiling, and none seemed to care too much.

  My friend Charlotte is leaving next year to be apprenticed to a lace maker, far away in Passy. She doesn’t want to go and cries every night. I don’t know what Ma’s plans are for me; she comes once a month to visit but doesn’t bring the monk Guimard, whom I miss terribly. The nuns would not approve of a man of God in the company of a married lady, but I am not surprised: they do not approve of anything.

  When it is warm enough, we crawl onto the roofs of the convent and watch the world in the streets below and marvel at the city that spread around us, hiding so many people and lives unknown to us. Sometimes I long to be out there in the squalor and energy of the streets, but other times, when the January cold bites us in half and pigeons freeze in the gutters, the thin blankets and thinner gruel of the convent seem like the greatest sanctuary in the world. The nuns have taught us that the outside world is a dangerous place, with many dangerous situations to fall into.

  “Look,” says Charlotte, pointing into an uncurtained window across the street that we can see into from our perch on the roof. The room is small but seems like a beautiful gem box, draped in red and orange sheets.

  “Oh, how lovely!” We watch as a woman pulls on a bright pink gown over her gray chemise. We both sigh—imagine wearing pink, not this horrid white that turns so fast to gray. The woman disappears from view and then we see her again in the street below.

  “I wonder where she is going?” I say, following her movements toward the Palais du Luxembourg. She looks very small from up here, a forlorn pink dot. Would I like to be her, outside and all alone? I don’t know, but regardless, soon I must leave; no girl can stay here past her sixteenth birthday, and I am already fifteen.

  The day when I must leave comes far too soon, and not soon enough. I am not as sad as I could be, for Charlotte has already left, apprenticed
to the lace maker, and little Annette went home to die of her lungs. I’m not sure what awaits me on the outside, but I am sure something good will happen.

  Mother Superior gives me a final lecture and Sister George cries and makes me promise to write. I promise, but only to make her happy. Lying is a sin, but here I cannot see the harm.

  Then I am out of the convent gates, for the first time in nearly a decade. The street, so long familiar from our perch in the attic rooms, is now mine in all its glory. But it looks different from here below, narrower and meaner. The street—where everything happens.

  I tear off my head covering and my hair falls glorious and loose down my back. I’m about to throw my hated wimple into the gutter, but instead I drape it over my shoulders like a cape and turn my face to the sun, and feel as though it is shining just for me.

  “Mademoiselle! You are lost, I shall help you to your destination!” declares a man carrying a stack of books, stopping with a smile.

  “No, thank you, I am not,” I say, smiling at him and thinking how kind his face is. “I am waiting here for my parents.”

  “Then I will wait here with—”

  The grate of the convent door flies open and Mother Superior’s voice cries out for the man to be gone.

  “Ah! Such beauty,” a priest exclaims softly as he walks by, and puts a black-gloved hand around my waist and murmurs a blessing on me.

  A carriage drives by and halts a little way past. A fine-wigged older gentleman leans out of the window and smiles at me. He reminds me a little, in my faded memory, of Monsieur Dumonceaux. The coachman jumps down and comes toward me with an important face.

  “Mademoiselle, my master, a fine connoisseur—”

  “Darling!” It is my mother and the monk Guimard. The carriage takes off reluctantly, the coachman running to catch up with it. We embrace and hug and start the long walk to my mother’s new lodgings. Greedily I drink in the sights and sounds so long forbidden me: the squalor and energy and life, the splashes of beauty and elegance overwhelming after the austerity of the convent.