Count Lucien signalled. A half-dozen footmen staggered forward, bent beneath the weight of a magnificent ebony prayer bench of the most fashionable style. Inlays of exotic woods and mother-of-pearl, outlined with gold, illustrated scenes from the Parables.
His Majesty’s artisans have outdone themselves, Marie-Josèphe thought.
The King and the Pope saluted each other, Innocent bowing with genuine humility, His Majesty deigning to incline his head to his fellow prince. The courtiers with His Majesty, the churchmen with Innocent, bowed deeply each to the other side. When they rose, Mme de Maintenon’s expression shone like the sun, with unutterable joy. In public she kept her own council; she raised her black lace fan before her face, but it betrayed her by trembling.
His Majesty could give his hand only to the Emperor, the only man in Europe whose rank equaled his own. He did not breach etiquette for the sake of Pope Innocent, as he had for his deposed ally James of England.
Though Innocent forbore to offer his ring to Louis to be kissed, he searched His Majesty’s escort, and stretched his hand toward Mme de Maintenon.
Mme de Maintenon hurried forward, her black silk skirt and petticoats rustling against the black and white marble. A powerful unacknowledged queen on a distorted chessboard, she knelt—gracefully, despite her age—before Innocent and pressed his hand, his ring, to her lips.
“Perhaps he’ll stone her,” Madame muttered, only loud enough for Lotte—and Marie-Josèphe, just behind her—to hear. Marie-Josèphe felt rather shocked, but Lotte pressed her lips together, and her shoulders shook.
“Rise, sister.” Innocent treated Mme de Maintenon with exquisite and kindly politeness, supporting the faction that believed she and the King had married.
His Majesty and Pope Innocent and Mme de Maintenon walked together across the Marble Courtyard to the chateau entrance, the Royal Family and the bishops and cardinals falling in behind, the courtiers bowing as they passed. Another cheer from the crowd rose around them and echoed from the walls, making the busts of heroes and saints shout and cry as they never had in life.
7
Marie-Josèphe accompanied Mademoiselle and Madame back to Madame’s apartments. Put out of sorts by Mme de Maintenon’s triumph, Madame grumbled all the way.
“Innocent will take all His Majesty’s time,” she said, “Planning wars, estranging me further from my relatives… I fear His Majesty will never invite us on another hunt, or even a walk.”
“We could walk by ourselves, Mama,” Lotte said.
“It isn’t the same.”
“Oh, Madame,” Marie-Josèphe said, “how can His Majesty do anything ordinary today?”
“His entertainments this evening will be ordinary enough, I have no doubt. No pope will stop the gambling or the drinking, and he certainly cannot stop the boredom!” Madame sighed, then brightened as she led the way into her dim, cold apartments. “I must finish my letter to Electress Sophie.”
“You’ll have to admit to Aunt Sophie that the Marquise de Maintenon came away unstoned.”
Madame made a sound of disgust. “The old whore! By your leave, Mlle de La Croix.”
“I beg your pardon, Madame?”
“And I beg yours! I cannot help my improper language, for I ran wild when I was young.”
“I heard no improper language,” Marie-Josèphe said.
Madame laughed, and Lotte joined in.
“So the old hag hasn’t taken you in, with her piety and her mouse turds! I knew you were a sensible young woman.”
“You give me too much credit, Madame.” Marie-Josèphe’s cheeks warmed intensely with her embarrassment. “If you spoke improperly I couldn’t tell—I don’t know what that word means.”
“Which word?” Lotte asked dryly. “Turd, hag, or whore?”
“The last,” Marie-Josèphe whispered.
“It is charming that you do not know it,” Madame said. “I must get to my letters.”
Marie-Josèphe and Lotte curtsied as Madame disappeared into her private chamber.
Lotte took Marie-Josèphe’s arm. Together they left Madame’s rooms. Odelette followed. Dusk was falling; as they passed, servants lowered the crystal chandeliers and lit masses of new candles.
In Lotte’s apartments, the ladies-in-waiting claimed Odelette to dress their hair. Lotte drew Marie-Josèphe to a corner by the window so they could whisper together.
“You have led such a sheltered existence!” Lotte said.
“You know that I have.”
“A whore is a woman who sells herself for money.”
“In Martinique we would call her a slave. Or a bondservant, if she sold herself.”
“Not a slave, not a bondservant! A woman who sells her body.”
Marie-Josèphe shook her head, confused.
“Who sells her body to men. To any man.” Exasperated, Lotte said, “For sex!”
“Sex?” Marie-Josèphe tried to make sense of it. “Do you mean, fornication? Sex without marriage?”
“Marriage! Silly goose.”
“I—” Marie-Josèphe fell silent. It would be improper for her to defend herself against her royal mistress’ ridicule, though she felt hurt that Lotte would take such pleasure in making fun of her.
You raised yourself too high, Marie-Josèphe told herself. If Lotte slaps you down, then you deserve it.
“I don’t mean it!” Lotte said. “Marie-Josèphe, I’m sorry. You must let me teach you everything about the world—how could the nuns keep you in such ignorance?”
“They hoped only to preserve my innocence,” Marie-Josèphe said. “The holy sisters are innocent themselves. They know nothing of—” Her voice fell to a whisper.
“Whoring,” Lotte said out loud. “I’ll tell you of Ninon de L’Enclos—I met her, if His Majesty found out!—Or mama—but of course she isn’t a whore, she’s a courtesan.”
“What is that?”
Lotte explained. To Marie-Josèphe, the difference could dance on the head of a pin with a thousand angels.
In the convent, the nuns had repeated dire and ambiguous warnings that Marie-Josèphe never understood. Only once had she asked what “fornication” meant, exactly; a week alone in her room with nothing to eat but bread and water could not cure her unwomanly curiosity, but the punishment made her devious about how she found out answers. The punishment left her with the holy knowledge that intimate relations between a man and a woman were evil, obligatory in marriage, and unpleasant.
When she was Lotte’s age, Marie-Josèphe had wept for her dead mama and papa, who had loved each other while they lived, who loved her and Yves, who had been required to submit to distress and pain to create their children and their family. She wept because she and her future husband would have to do the same thing, if she wished to recreate the enchantment of her childhood. She hoped she was strong enough, and she wondered why God had made the world this way. She wondered if God had made a joke. But when she asked the priest at confession, he laughed. Then he told her people should not love each other, for such love was profane. People should love God, whose love was sacred. Then the priest assigned her such a heavy penance that she suspected she had nearly earned a beating.
Once Mother Superior lectured her students about fornication. She left them in such a state of confusion and excitement that at bedtime they whispered instead of sleeping. When the holy sisters checked their charges at midnight, they heard the whispers. That night, and for a month afterwards, the sisters laid themselves down next to the students, rigid and wakeful, to prevent forbidden words and to enforce the proper sleeping position among their charges: on their backs, their hands on top of the covers.
“Now you know of Mlle de L’Enclos,” Lotte said, “who is a wit, who was the toast of Paris, a courtesan.”
“She committed mortal sin,” Marie-Josèphe said, appalled.
“Then everyone at court will go to hell!”
“Not everyone! Not Madame—”
“No, not poor mama,” Lot
te said.
“And not His Majesty!”
“Not now, it’s true, but when he was young, why, Marie-Josèphe, he was the worst!”
“Oh, hush, how can you speak of His Majesty that way?”
“Where do you think the mouse turds came from!”
Marie-Josèphe tried to reconcile her belief that children resulted only from marriage, with the indisputable fact that the duke du Maine—and his brother and sisters and his half sister—existed.
“His Majesty can do as he wishes,” Marie-Josèphe said.
And perhaps, Marie-Josèphe thought, God makes the business of creating children less horrible, for his representative on Earth. That would explain why His Majesty had created so many.
“Not according to the Church—not according to Mme de Maintenon! The courtiers say she has him locked up in a chastity belt.”
Embarrassed, Marie-Josèphe held her silence. She, the elder, should be the more knowledgeable. Lotte had ventured into territory about which Marie-Josèphe was ignorant.
“And I’m not going to hell—not for that reason, in any event,” Marie-Josèphe said, trying to regain a foothold. “Nor are you—”
“Are you sure?” Lotte said slyly.
Marie-Josèphe forged ahead, unwilling to understand Lotte’s innuendo. “—or my brother—”
“Your beautiful brother!” Lotte exclaimed. “Yves is wasted on the priesthood, what a shame! Every woman at court is entranced by his eyes.”
“—Or—or—” Marie-Josèphe stumbled, knocked off-balance. “Or Count Lucien!”
Lotte stared at Marie-Josèphe, argued into concurrence. Then, to Marie-Josèphe’s astonishment, Lotte burst into a great rollicking unladylike laugh.
“Dear Marie-Josèphe!” she said. Her laugh turned to a snort, and she caught her breath. Marie-Josèphe had no idea why she was laughing. “You’re jesting with me, and here I thought you were serious, I thought, My friend is so learned in some ways, and so ignorant in others. But you knew everything all along.” She sighed. “So I suppose I mustn’t try to enhance my reputation with you, for you’ll know I’m exaggerating and I’ll lose your respect.”
“You couldn’t,” Marie-Josèphe said, grateful for a handhold in shifting sands. “That could never happen.”
“I wonder,” Lotte said softly.
* * *
Marie-Josèphe and Yves reached the foot of the magnificent Ambassadors’ Staircase and joined the line of courtiers, progressing toward the heart of the chateau, where the King entertained his guests. So many people stood crushed together on the double staircase that Marie-Josèphe could barely see the elaborate decorations, the sculpture, the multicolored marble.
She wore the same blue gown—she had no other fine enough for this evening—but after Odelette created another lacy tier for Lotte’s fanciful headdress, Mademoiselle had insisted on lending Marie-Josèphe her third-best fontanges. Marie-Josèphe held her head high, thinking, Tonight I’m not quite so far out of the stream of fashion.
They reached the Salon of Venus. The Master of Ceremonies thumped his staff on the floor.
“Father de la Croix and Mlle de la Croix.”
Marie-Josèphe walked into the brilliance of His Majesty’s state apartments.
Banks of candles gleamed and flickered, rising from gold and silver candlesticks on every surface, casting the spectrum of the rainbow through the faceted crystals of the chandeliers. The candlelight reflected from the windows, from the gold sunburst reliefs, from the gold leaf of the wall carvings and the inlays on the furniture. Light leaped and sparkled over jewels, along the gold embroidery on the men’s coats, across the gold and silver lace adorning the gowns and petticoats of the noblewomen. It illuminated the triumphant paintings on the walls and ceilings. It gleamed across the marble floors.
Music whispered through the room, mingling with gossip and chatter. Even a measured piece of court music threatened to set Marie-Josèphe wildly cavorting, dazzled, across the polished floor.
On the ceiling, Venus, Crowned by the Graces, cast garlands of flowers to enthrall the gods at her feet; she was so lovely, the petals so real, that Marie-Josèphe could imagine reaching into the air and capturing a wreath touched by dew. Her perfume might emanate from those blossoms. Motifs of love decorated the Salon of Venus. Under the gaze of the goddess, anything was possible, even for a colonial spinster without connections or resources. After all, Mme de Maintenon had come from Martinique with even less.
A crush of people, a brilliant gathering of royalty and nobility, filled the Salon of Venus. Everyone in the world dreamed of attending the celebration of the fiftieth year of Louis XIV’s reign. The foreign princes of Condé and Conti and Lorraine had arrived even before Pope Innocent, to pay their respects. The nobility of distant lands, from across the Mediterranean, from across the Atlantic, from the other end of the Silk Road, soon would attend His Majesty.
At the announcement of Yves’ name, a murmur of recognition buzzed through the room like a swarm of bees. Everyone turned to look, to bow or smile or nod to him. Yves acknowledged the greetings in a most courtly manner, gracious yet dignified.
Courtiers surged toward Yves in a wave. Before they reached him, their tide broke and parted like the Red Sea.
Louis strolled through the ruptured wave. It rippled as he passed, as his subjects and his guests bowed low. The plumes of the men’s hats brushed the floor and the lace of the women’s petticoats whispered into drifts, colorful spume strewn at the monarch’s feet. The sea of courtiers closed behind him, but the royal family insisted on its precedence. If Madame could not exactly part the waters of the courtiers, she could sail through them like a great ship.
Monsieur trailed in Madame’s wake, bringing the chevalier de Lorraine with him; Lotte followed, on the arm of Charles, duke de Lorraine. The foreign prince was a wealthier and more highly-placed distant relative of the chevalier, but he was not nearly as handsome. Nevertheless, Lotte glowed in Charles of Lorraine’s attention. Her exuberance overcame the essential plainness of her mother’s side of the family.
Louis stopped some paces from Yves.
Yves saluted the King, graciously, yet with reserve. Marie-Josèphe dropped into a deep curtsy.
“Father de la Croix,” His Majesty said. “I’m delighted to see you at my evening entertainments.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty.”
Yves strode to His Majesty, and bowed again.
“You must tell us your adventures, Father,” Louis said. “Tell us all how you captured the sea monsters.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Louis turned his entire attention to Yves. Louis was the sun. His natural philosopher reflected the light of his King. Invisible in the shadow of her brother’s accomplishments, Marie-Josèphe was free to observe. Royalty surrounded Yves like a whirlpool, leaving Marie-Josèphe in a safer eddy.
“Tell us everything, Father de la Croix.” Madame took Yves’ arm, as if the King, or Monsieur and the Chevalier, might snatch him away and keep his stories all to themselves. “Don’t leave out a single monster, a single leviathan—a single sea breeze!”
“It will be my pleasure, Madame, though in truth the voyage held more discomfort and boredom than adventure.”
Courtiers jostled past Marie-Josèphe, crowding between her and the inner circle. Lords and ladies alike exclaimed over Yves’ voyage, his bravery, his triumph over the dangerous monsters.
“How handsome he is,” whispered the young duchess de Chartres, “Mme Lucifer” as her husband, her cousin Philippe d’Orléans, called her. Mlle d’Armagnac, attending Mme de Chartres, murmured her agreement.
Mme de Chartres and her husband exchanged neither word nor glance; Madame nodded to her with scrupulously correct coolness. While Mme Lucifer gazed at Yves and fluttered her fan, Mlle d’Armagnac gazed at Mme Lucifer’s husband Chartres and fluttered her eyelashes.
The Chevalier de Lorraine towered above His Majesty’s legitimized daughter. “He will
break your hearts, my ladies.” His voice was low, amused, overpowering.
Marie-Josèphe made way for people of higher rank. In the shadows by the doorway, out of the crush, she reminded herself that she had Yves all to herself most of the time. She could hear of his adventures when they were alone. Tonight belonged to him, and he belonged to the court. He had earned every moment of his time in the illumination of the King’s regard.
The air was thick with smoke, sweat, and perfume. The aroma of savory pastries drifted from the Salon of Abundance. Marie-Josèphe’s stomach growled. She ignored her hunger; she had no choice. She had eaten nothing all day but chocolate and pastry; her head ached from too many sweets and her stomach growled for soup, meat, salad. But the court would not be invited to the collation for hours yet.
Marie-Josèphe slipped across the threshold into the empty Salon of Diana, glad of a moment beyond the crowd. The billiard tables waited for His Majesty’s pleasure. A second chamber group played to the empty room.
A flurry of inchoate music strayed in from the Salon of Mars. Marie-Josèphe peeked through the doorway. The musicians of still another orchestra tuned their instruments. M. Coupillet, one of His Majesty’s music masters, hovered nervously before them.
Signor Alessandro Scarlatti of Naples loomed over his young son Domenico, who sat at a magnificent harpsichord. The scenes on its sides, inlaid in polished wood and mother of pearl, glowed in the candlelight. Greed was a sin, covetousness was a sin, but Marie-Josèphe coveted playing the harpsichord.
Scenes of war and triumph surrounded her. On the ceiling, ravening wolves pulled the chariot of the god Mars into battle. Symbols of war and victory covered every surface. Marie-Josèphe wished His Majesty had chosen the Salon of Diana as his music room, for she much preferred the mythical huntress, and M. Bernini’s white marble bust of the King, gazing upward across the chamber with youthful arrogance. She wished she had known His Majesty when he was young. He was handsome now, still—of course—but he had been so beautiful thirty years ago.
The Moon and the Sun Page 11