The Enemies of Versailles

by Sally Christie

  Choiseul had suggested we approach our father to reproach him; remind him of his duty to France and to his subjects, and invoke the peril to his soul if he does not abandon the woman and his shameless project of bringing her into the palace.

  “Letters,” I finish up. “I have thought long and hard, and have decided that letters are the best way. That way our reproach retains permanency.”

  “Letters to the prostitute?” squeaks Sophie, her eyes alive with fright.

  “No, silly,” says Victoire, “letters about the prostitute. Right, sister?”

  “Indelicate woman!” I almost shout. “Letters about the indelicate woman!”

  Louise raises one eyebrow. “It rather seems that Choiseul is getting you to do his dirty work. You know how Papa hates reproach.”

  “Nonsense!” I sigh in exasperation. “If you do not wish to participate in our letter-writing campaign, Louise, then you may be excused. Those of us who care about our father’s soul shall remain here, and start the letters. Sophie—get Civrac to tell Mercier to tell someone to bring in our writing implements.”

  Quills, inks, scratch paper, and parchment—the weapons of the righteous, of those who do battle for France against indelicate women.

  Once I am satisfied with my letter—a delicate missive that professes our desire to lead Papa from the desert of sin to the rivers of spiritual harmony, as Moses led the Pyramids—I decide that I shall hand-deliver it. I request an audience with Papa; it has been a long time since I have done so and he receives me warmly in one of the rooms of his private apartments. I note with relief he is in a good mood.

  But of course he’s in a good mood.

  “Dearest Father.” I curtsy and stand before him.

  “What is it, Adélaïde?” he asks kindly. We are in the Wig Chamber, and he sitting beside the window at a small desk with a stack of papers. He has dismissed his men and now it is just he and I alone in the small room, the smell of powder and bear’s grease almost overwhelming. I try not to breathe in these threatening odors of masculinity, reminding me as they do of my interview with Choiseul, the way his chair approached mine. Did it touch—his chair—touch mine?

  But I must focus on the task at hand.

  “My dear father.” My fingers tighten around my letter. “You know how much I—we—love you.”

  “Of course, dear. And you know how fond I am of you.”

  “Papa, it has come to my attention, to our attention, a distressing matter, most distressing, Father . . . reproach, in the desert . . . Egyptians . . .” I stumble over my words, unsure how to begin.

  “Are you worried about the new horses from Limoges?” he asks pointedly. A certain hardness plays around his beloved eyes. “I’ve already ordered Fourget to replace them.”

  “No, certainly, they were distressing, but there is something even more distressing—”

  “The illness of Madame de Castries?” he says, referring to one of my sisters’ ladies. His voice is now hardening to match his eyes. “Certainly, smallpox is distressing.”

  “No, Father! My concerns are more—spiritual—my distress for your soul. Your eternal soul . . . the desert of sin . . .” I trail off as his face changes from hard to black. He holds up a hand and suddenly the room is terrifyingly cold.

  “Enough. I know why you have come, Adélaïde, and I do not wish to hear it. Do you understand?” His words are as hard as iron and just as heavy. “I shall not have you comment on, or even think about, my private life. I shall not suffer reproach for it, least of all from those in my own family. Is that clear?”

  I gape at him, suddenly wanting, more than I have ever wanted anything, to take back my words. To take back this visit.

  “Is that clear?”

  “Yes, Papa,” I manage to croak. I don’t know what to do. Why is he so angry? Why is he looking at me like that? Almost as if . . . almost as if . . . Oh, I am shaking and the tears are falling fast. Why is he so angry, when all I care about is him?

  “Are you crying?” he demands, his voice heavy with disgust. “Get ahold of yourself. You’re being a fool, and you look quite ridiculous.”

  He stands up and regards me, and through my tears I can see his face soften. He sighs, still looking at me with a mixture of disgust and annoyance. “I’m off to Marly tonight for a few days. I believe we will be dining together next Saturday—please wish your lady sisters a pleasant week.”

  He strides out of the room and the doors close behind him with terrifying finality. I cannot move. His words, so horrible; more distressing was his tone, that coldness I have never heard before. Is that who he is? I stagger over to sit in his chair, still warm from the imprint of his buttocks, and I think again of the coldness in his voice—I have never heard him speak in such a way. Never, not even when we reproached him about the Pompadour.

  And what does he mean, his private life? What is a private life? I want to put my head in my hands and sob forever, but for the stone-faced footman who stands inside the door, I keep my body erect and gradually stop my sobs. I should return to my apartment, but I do not trust my legs, nor the carping courtiers I am sure to find along the way.

  Gradually the afternoon—this horrible, hated afternoon—dims around me and the balls holding the wigs darken into shadowy outlines, and it is as if I am surrounded by a hundred headless courtiers.

  A passel of dogs bark in the antechamber then the doors open again.

  “And then she said, get him off me, and he—”

  “The presence of Madame de France!” cautions the footman, and the men stop. It is the Duc de Richelieu with the Duc de La Vauguyon, laughing together.

  “Madame,” says Richelieu, stopping and presenting me with an extravagant bow. I hate men, I think suddenly, men and their stupid follies and pitiful lusts. “Madame, I did not expect to find you here. What a pleasure this is.”

  “I was just leaving, I say coldly, glad the candles are not yet lit and that my face remains in shadow. “Man, get my equerry, I need his arm.”

  Back in my rooms, I retire to bed, complaining of a slight headache. Narbonne pulls the curtains around me, and inside the darkness and through my sobs I relive, again and again, Papa’s terrible words that I fear will never leave my thoughts.

  What have I done? What have I destroyed? What has that woman destroyed?

  Chapter Fifteen

  In which the Comtesse du Barry becomes the Comtesse du Barry

  Within a fortnight—a fortnight of happy days and dreamy nights (and also a fortnight during which Monsieur Le Bel died of apoplexy, poor man)—Barry arrives back in Versailles with his prize. I’m upstairs in my room when I see the carriage pull up. Barry emerges first, sneezing dreadfully, followed by a tall, heavy man who radiates surliness. Finally, a small woman in a badly made red dress, picking straw out of her hat, emerges blinking into the sunlight, looking as lost as a needle in a haystack.

  “Not even two cushions, and both of them straw,” I can hear her complaining through the open window. The big man—that must be his brother, Guillaume—stops suddenly in front of the door.

  “And once more, before I enter into this house and into this ignoble agreement—six thousand livres is simply not enough. Not enough for the ignominy of being offered up like a trussed chicken. I must insist, once more, before I cross this hearth—”

  “Oh, shut up,” says Barry wearily; his voice tells me they have been having this argument for the last many hours. “The whole street can hear you.” He pushes his brother rather violently over the threshold. I giggle and run down to greet them.

  I kiss Barry and present my hand to Guillaume, who takes it roughly without even a bow. I note his provincial manners with amusement: so this is what my superior Barry would have been had he stayed in Toulouse. Guillaume is big and heavy, a hastier sketch of his more refined brother. He’s dressed in a badly cut black coat with pink stockings, the whole outfit with the look of one worn only for best.

  “Mademoiselle de Vaubernier, I pre
sent Monsieur le Comte du Barry,” says Barry dryly. “And vice versa, if you please. Where is Rose? There are crates of brandy in the carriage that need to be unloaded. Rose!”

  “Hello,” says the little woman in the red dress, appearing from behind the angry bulk of Guillaume. I note her kind eyes and sharp mouth. “I’m Françoise Claire du Barry, but everyone calls me Chon. My brother . . .” She gestures to Guillaume, who is now staring at me with an open mouth, a hint of drool threatening to slide down his enormous jaw. “I’m the sister.” She attempts an awkward curtsy, which makes me giggle, and I sweep her up in a big embrace.

  “Welcome!” I decide I’ll like her, though Barry never mentioned anything about bringing a sister back. “Are you to be married too?”

  Barry returns from the carriage with an opened crate full of brandy bottles. He pours himself and his brother two great glassfuls. Guillaume takes his as though in a daze and downs it without taking his eyes off me. Suddenly he begins to talk. “This scheme is the most capital idea. Versailles! I shall visit Paris tomorrow, perhaps with my lovely wife? I take back my words of ingratitude, brother.” His voice is a rough growl and I note with distaste the unfashionable wide cut of his coat. “I am most desirous of assisting in this scheme, and as our mother always says, fraternal love is the most elevated of emotions.”

  “She never said that,” scolds Chon, taking off her hat and picking up the bottle of brandy. She takes a swig. “That was a ghastly journey.”

  I giggle at her manners. “Let me get you a glass. Rose! Rose!”

  “Don’t get any ideas, brother,” drawls Barry, draining his glass. “She’s the king’s now—even I haven’t dared a poke since she met him.”

  “But I shall be her husband!” declares Guillaume. I look at him coldly. It’s nice not to have to be polite to every man I meet, especially boorish provincials.

  “Oh, what lovely flowers,” says Chon, admiring an enormous bouquet on the side table. She leans in to sniff and I indicate the ribbon they are tied with, studded with diamonds, finer than anything we ever sold at Labille’s.

  “Oh my, are those real?” she says, fingering the pink and blue satin.

  I grin and nod. “From the king,” I whisper, as though it were a secret, though I suppose it isn’t.

  “Chon is to be your companion and teach you the ways of the world, and of the Court,” announces Barry in satisfaction. “And we needed a woman on the journey to fetch things and wake us when we got to the inns.”

  “But you’ve never been to Versailles, Chon,” I say kindly. And even I don’t drink straight from bottles, I want to add. Not anymore, at least.

  “No, I never have. I’ve never been anywhere. I am that worst of creatures, a dowerless girl,” she says wryly. “And from Toulouse to boot.” She sits down on a chair, finds a candied hazelnut behind a cushion, and pops it in her mouth. “Must keep these away from Guillaume—he has a dreadful reaction to hazelnuts.”

  “But you are a noble,” I say in surprise. “Surely someone would marry you?” Even if she is hunchbacked and rather ugly, surely her birth puts her above the sorrow of spinsterhood?

  Chon shrugs. “My mother would not sully our name with a base man, and a poor man with the right name would not sully himself with a penniless woman. It’s just how the world is.”

  “You sound remarkably wise for one who has never, until this week, even traveled outside Toulouse,” remarks Barry, taking off his coat and dropping it on the floor. His fingers grapple with his neckcloth. “God, I’m tired. My bones feel like they’ve been cracked in two.”

  “My wisdom comes from books,” retorts Chon. They look nothing alike, I note, watching them argue. Barry is still handsome, despite his forty-six years—and the brandy, which has coarsened his features and reddened his nose. In contrast, Chon is small and neat, thin and secretive. As for the brother . . . well, I won’t waste another thought on my future husband.

  My mother and the monk Guimard come from Paris to the church for the wedding. I hug them both, and then hug Barry, and even Guillaume, who grabs at my bodice and has to be roughly bundled, weeping from too much brandy, into the carriage that will take him straight back to Toulouse.

  The priest who performed the ceremony looks on in sharp disapproval and stares straight ahead when Barry tries to engage him in conversation.

  “A toast to Jeanne!” cries the monk Guimard in something close to ecstasy; the cases of brandy from Toulouse have even made their way into the church. I’m not sure how the carriage carried all of us and that many crates. “A toast to my lovely daughter!” The priest’s head snaps around in horrified censure.

  “I speak in general terms,” mumbles the monk Guimard, looking down at his bottle in fright. “Daughter of Eve, that sort of thing. Daughter of fortune?”

  A great roar bellows forth from the priest. Barry quickly bundles us all off into another carriage and we repair back to the house on the rue Saint-Louis to continue the celebrations.

  Barry, Ma, and the monk Guimard settle themselves on the sofa—I doubt they’ll be getting up again today—while Chon and I sip our drinks and giggle over the fantasy that Barry has had prepared for me. Guessing that the king’s genealogists would accept any fabrication without demur, Barry invented an illustrious family history for Mademoiselle de Vaubernier, one that would make a prince proud, and one that contains, many times over, the required degrees of nobility for a court presentation.

  “Cost me a pretty penny—the rules have tightened since Pompadour’s time. But a wise investment, I’m sure,” says Barry proudly, surveying the papers.

  “Oooh, look, Ma—you’re now the Marquise de Montrabé.”

  “No bleeding way! Me, a marquise?” says my mother in astonishment, her mouth gaping, her hair falling rapidly out of her cap. “And Montrabé—that’s the little village where I used to help with that old man’s harvest—what was his name? His son was my first lover.”

  “What’s that, now?” demands the monk Guimard, turning to her in astonishment.

  “And look, Monk Guimard,” says Chon quickly. “Even a nod to you—Jeanne’s uncle is now a cardinal. The Cardinal of Cardillon. Doesn’t that sound grand?”

  I giggle. “The name of a hamlet close to Vaucouleurs where I was born. No more than two farmhouses.”

  The serving girl Rose comes in with another two bottles of brandy. I motion to her to sit down with us on the sofa, and she does so, nervously touching her face scar—a hot poker in childhood, no doubt.

  “Drink with us, Rose, it’s a day for everyone to celebrate,” I say gaily, and she giggles; she is a sweet girl and I dread to think what her life is like with such a deformity.

  “Ah, my little girl, you’ve become quite the lady,” says Barry in satisfaction. “I always knew you were special, and everything is happening perfectly.” He is betting that with the passing of Le Bel, the houses in town—or was there just this one?—will remain shuttered. “Great good fortune. You have done well, Jeanne!”

  I incline my head and sweep down in an elegant curtsy. “Indeed I have. A true countess I am now, with a lineage dating back to 1355, and never a more refined lady will you meet.” I execute my curtsy perfectly, then twirl around in a pirouette and collapse in happiness next to my mother.

  “Fit for a king, is my little girl,” says Ma proudly, stroking my hair.

  The monk Guimard raises his glass. “Now, without that perlicky priest looking on—what, has he never sinned?—a toast! A toast to my lovely daughter!”

  “To Jeanne,” all chorus.

  To me, I think happily.

  Chapter Sixteen

  In which the Comtesse du Barry vexes over her presentation

  I call him France and treat him with that mixture of mother, nurse, and whore that men, especially as they age, seem to enjoy. He is—was—a jaded man, but I turned him around. He says I make him young again, and I do: I have restored life into him. In turn he calls me Angel and sometimes “my little jade.” He
gifts me a magnificent toilette set made entirely of that fine stone, but that is just one of my many presents, and soon my coffer is full of jewels of all kinds.

  “We fit together so well,” he muses one night, watching me finish up the remains of our supper. We dined, a small group: Chon, Richelieu, Saint-Foix. Barry is back in Paris—the king has conveyed very clearly to him that it will be the Bastille if he so much as shows his face at Court. Riches for him, yes, but glory, no.

  I push him to the very far reaches of my mind and only remember him when Chon reads from one of his endless letters. I don’t miss him at all, and only now from afar do I realize how he suffocated me.

  “We fit together so well,” Louis repeats. “As though we were two pieces of this spice set: salt and pepper, perhaps. I am the old gray pepper”—and it’s true, beneath his wigs his luxurious brown hair has turned half-gray—“and you the fresh young salt, as white and fine as the day.” He fingers part of the magnificent porcelain cruet set, the two little jugs and two little pots fitting together perfectly.

  “Salt makes old meat sing,” I say.

  “Ha! Indeed it does, and indeed you do. But who is the vinegar?”

  “Oh, that would have to be Chon,” I say, popping a strawberry into my mouth and savoring the sweetness—as sweet as my new life.

  “Come here, Angel, surely you have had enough strawberries?”

  I go and sit on his lap and he unpins my hair until he is draped in my curls. “You make me so happy,” he whispers in my ear, as he whispers so often. “You are so free, and simple.”

  “Simple?” I pull back and pout in mock affront.

  “Simple, I mean, my dearest, free of intrigue and politics. Do you know,” he continues in a small, sad voice he uses when he wants sympathy, “can you even begin to imagine, dearest, what it is like to be surrounded by intrigue, all one’s life? A living hell, it is.”