Farewell, My Queen

by Black Moishe

  “I have reread what I have written, and without being as enthusiastic as you are, I must admit that I am not entirely dissatisfied. The flow of my periods shows a sense of style, the expositions are forcefully developed, and over all, these few pages are infused with genuine fervor. To be quite exact, these two pages. There lies the problem. And I must confess to you that I am extremely worried. I have very little time in which to carry out this mission. I have been working too hard. The seventh volume of my History of France has left me worn out. My pen, these days, is soon wearied. Can the pace be sustained? My pen will need to be swift and its arguments unanswerable. It must take the brigands and their propaganda unawares. The hour is early still, and I have a long night’s work ahead of me and a good supply of candles, but I am beginning to lack for energy. My pen wants rest.”

  “Then give it some rest, and tomorrow . . . ”

  “Ah! Tomorrow! But what will tomorrow bring, Agathe, my dear? Where will you be?”

  With my heavy shawl and my bedspread in one hand, my bulging velvet bag in the other, I was stopped short, taken aback by the question. I tried once more to picture the world outside Versailles. No picture formed in my mind.

  Versailles was my life. And, as with my life, I had never really imagined what its last day might be. Or even that there would be a last day, with a morning, an afternoon, an evening, and then a night with nothing on the other side. Nothing familiar, at any rate.

  FLIGHT. I AM FRIGHTENED IN THE UNDERGROUND

  PASSAGES. THE MESSAGE RECEIVED BY MISTAKE

  (from ten o’clock to midnight).

  “It is true, and for this we give thanks to Divine Providence: among the inhabitants of our Kingdom, only a minority have joined the band of rebels. Those who have not stifled the cry of conscience, and who sense the full importance of maintaining order and respecting authority, would blush to join a revolt whose instigators are behaving as criminally toward God as toward men.” Hurrying along to the apartments of Diane de Polignac, I continued to say over and over the last words of the Pastoral Letter—it was a way of staying with my good friend a little longer, keeping up my fortitude, and warding off the evil spirit of Diane. Diane called God “the Great Juggler” and connived with him in feats of skill and acrobatics. She was always finding new stunts to perform and made no distinction between jugglery and magic tricks. A ball she threw in the air took wing and flew away as a dove.

  In normal times at Versailles, people were afraid of Diane. I had caught sight of her, prowling around, throughout one whole part of the night. Her public declarations of fidelity to King and crown, her admonitions, when compared to the pettiness of my own thoughts, had filled me with shame. Then she had vanished, and no more had been seen of her during the day. But I had not found it very difficult to guess what was Diane’s real preoccupation, behind this overt display. Not altruism, certainly, nor the slightest shadow of noble sentiment. Contrary to what she would have had us believe, the safety of the royal family was not a consideration. In fact, by the night of July 14, she must have already been planning to flee. Her fine speech was intended to avert a general migration; if she was to obtain the Queen’s full support, it was in Diane’s interest that her departure be an exception. Unless, of course, she had been acting out the little sacrifice scene for the sheer pleasure of deceiving others. Diane was guided by a single principle: do whatever was best for her. And she served just one cause: her own. But she served that cause with rare talent and rapacity. And now, suddenly, I found myself in the same boat as that monster. To save myself from being shipwrecked, I was supposed to embark on her disreputable little tub.

  The large salon that I entered was a scene of feverish activity, but whereas the château presented at every turn the image of total disorder, headlong flight, or chaotic congregating, here one had the impression that the people present had not been taken by surprise, that they were prepared, so to speak, for any eventuality, including this one.

  Six or seven persons were gathered in the salon. Diane’s usual headquarters staff: Count Vaudreuil, the Duke de Polignac, the Duke de Coigny, and Father Cornu de La Balivière, Almoner in Ordinary to the King, who had become a member of this tight little circle through his passion for gaming. There was also Gabrielle de Polignac. She lay on a sofa, listless, her face hidden by a fan. At her side, her daughter, Madame de Gramont, was looking sadly at a newborn son from whom she would have to be parted. For the observer with a complete view of this tableau vivant, Gabrielle de Polignac and her daughter represented an enclave of inertia and melancholy, in stark contrast to the other characters, who had Diane at their center, very much in command.

  * * *

  “I would rather die here and now than end up in a watering resort!”

  Peremptory as always, Diane de Polignac leaned slightly back and crossed her arms. Her hard features, the authoritarian attitude, that uncivil manner of speaking . . . I could only cringe. Her short hands with their stubby fingers were like parts of a machine for distributing slaps in the face. She was very liberal with these, and if her domestic staff thought twice before approaching her, it was from fright, not respect. They handed things to her at arm’s length and, turning their bodies a little away, ready to dodge. Their vigilance did not prevent those twin paddles from coming down on them with terrible precision and violence, leaving them bruised and convinced that the blows emanated from a diabolical power. There was something of that sort in her nature.

  “Spa!” yelped Diane. “You want to send us to Spa! There is nothing so mortifying as staying in a watering resort. Those places smell of mildew and rotten egg. You are at the mercy of a lot of beastly doctors. There are some I know who have no compunctions about undressing you.”

  Count de Vaudreuil sniggered. Along with the Duke de Polignac, he was examining several habits cut from dark cloth, such as merchants wear. The priest, standing at a billiard table and concentrating on his shot, was at the same time considering the matter of desirable destinations. The suggestion of a watering resort must have come from him.

  “I shall not leave Versailles, where it is not the custom to thwart my wishes, in order to fall under the jurisdiction of a bunch of doctors. I shall no more go to Spa than to Plombières or Vichy. The only people to be met at such places are fools who think they are dying. They persecute one with the account of their physiological disorders. They can age you ten years in the space of an hour. They have no conversation and to be regularly in their company is quite intolerable.”

  “And yet I remember a stay at Bath . . . ,” protested the Duke de Guiche.

  “Be quiet, Mimi. I was referring to the danger posed by doctors and by doctors’ clients who fancy themselves ill, to say nothing of how disagreeable it is to be surrounded by whores and adventurers. The most vulgar members of society pullulate in towns where people come to take the waters. Not to mention the waters themselves, which are poisonous. In short, Reverend Father, Spa is out.”

  The priest bowed. He was a fine-looking man in the prime of life. A great hunter and unrepentant gambler, he had been known to rise from the gaming table and go directly to the altar where he said Early Mass. Parishioners taking Holy Communion, watching him dexterously manipulate the Host, had complained that it was like watching a player cut a deck of cards.

  “The precise destination does not matter a damn. What matters is getting well away from here. Putting a frontier between the cannibals and us. Any frontier. If need be, we will throw them a bone so they will have something to get their teeth into.

  (I shivered inwardly, and the uneasiness I felt, at casting my lot in with this godless, lawless band, became more pronounced.)

  “I have attended to the basic problem, finding a carriage and horses. Now we must think how we are to be dressed. Let us bear in mind that, even if Gabrielle is the person most threatened, we are all in danger.”

  Diane went and sat in an armchair, which she filled as though it were a throne. Accustomed to organizing the daily activitie
s of her family and associates, she had no difficulty organizing their exile. All at once, there were sounds of banging from a nearby apartment, accompanied by calls for help.

  “Go and see,” ordered Diane. In the past, which she did not yet fully understand was indeed past, she had only to toss out an order, casually, and there would always be someone to do her bidding. But this time no one budged. The command had dissolved into the air, and the din, whatever its source, got louder. Diane dropped the papers she was busy examining, looked around, and saw only relatives, people of her own blood and rank, people whose lives she was in the habit of running but whom one did not order to go and see. Then she spied me, in a corner, clutching my bundle. “Oh. Would you be so good, Madam . . . ”

  I let the noise guide me. When I reached the door that was being pierced with cries and pounded till it shook, I heard: “Rondon de La Tour, you useless goddam Count! Let me out of here, for God’s sake! It’s me, La Joie, your valet. You forgot me, you crummy bastard! You take off and leave your drudge behind, just like that. Here I am, sweating over the Horoscope Set at Naught. I’m churning out lines of Alexandrine poetry. I’m slaving away. I’m knocking myself out:

  O lady, ’twas in vain that once I courted you,

  And told you of my love, and spoke as lovers do.

  My prick was hard for you, though this I durst not tell,

  And thought by subtle means to let you know full well.

  Alas, my feeble cries, you, lady, chose to spurn;

  My incense and my heart alike you left to burn.

  But time has wrought its change; a maid you are no more,

  Yet fresh and fit for love, and lovely as before.

  “Beautiful, hey? Hey? HEY?” (He was throwing his full weight into it.) “Could you have written that? Not bloody likely! NO! NO! NO! And yet it’s by you. It’ll be written by you. You just have to sign it, and they’ll all say Rondon de La Tour has just dished us up a real little masterpiece. The Horoscope Set at Naught is a monument of the literary art. Listen, Rondon, you whoremonger, you’ve let me down. You degenerate sonofabitch! Why’d you disappear like that, you pox-ridden Count? Of course I’ll give you a good thrashing when you come to let me loose, but that’s not why you bolted. Something really horrible is going on . . . There’s a scary silence in the miserable rooms around here. As if the wardens have had their throats cut or something. Help! Help!” The door gave way. And under it, carried by his own impetus, Count Rondon’s personal valet came crashing down. He was silent at last, for the table to which he was chained had fallen on him.

  Diane gave the incident not one second of her attention; the members of her entourage were equally unconcerned. The destination had been settled upon: Switzerland. As always, when there was a serious decision involved, Diane de Polignac’s strategic intelligence and practical common sense had infected her clan. Every member of it was busily occupied with the departure. The priest was digging around in a trunk. I can remember in every detail that red trunk sitting directly beneath a portrait of Madame Adélaïde as a very young woman. Louis XV’s daughter had posed for the artist in full Court dress.

  Diane had donned a man’s costume, something a towns-man would wear, dark-colored and perfectly molded to her squat figure. I looked curiously at the calves of her legs, heavily muscled, their vigorous curves showing clearly under the cotton stockings. She took my glance for one of admiration and gave me in return one of those quick, brilliant smiles that she could produce at will, smiles that, coupled with her intelligence, were the key to her ascendancy over other people. That male costume restored her to her true nature. The dress, which lay where it had fallen at her feet, became a garment that had given her an assumed identity. She pushed it away with the toe of her boot. And I thought to myself that she was treating Versailles the same way she was treating the dress: in the few moments it took to have her stays unlaced, she had thrown into the dustbin all the years of her life at the Court of France. Which is why she was striding impatiently up and down in the large salon of her apartment, now transformed into an actor’s dressing room in which the members of her company, unwilling candidates for exile, were fussing around. Monsieur de Vaudreuil was gloomily contemplating the cloak in which he would be required to muffle himself. “Paris mud, the latest shade,” he joked. “Well, if they are hounding us out of the country, at least we can say we were sporting their colors.” Monsieur de Polignac, his fingers caught in the embroidery around the buttonholes on his waistcoat, was in no mood for laughter. With one violent tug, he snapped the silk cords. “What now?” he asked, ridding himself of the waistcoat and pointing to an ornate lace shirt.

  “That’s not a shirt a merchant would wear,” said Diane de Polignac, exasperated by the blunder. Of the group, only she could hear the approaching footsteps of a populace crying out for vengeance. She alone was truly persuaded that the pamphlets did not lie.

  Aside from fear, intensified by lack of experience, the Polignac clan were feeling some of the excitement generated by theater rehearsals. Father de La Balivière, too, wanted to wear a disguise. He suggested he might travel as a nun. “Very suitable,” remarked Diane.

  Monsieur de Vaudreuil had bared his pale torso with its sunken chest and, perched on high-heeled shoes, was strutting back and forth in front of a mirror. He was trying to coax Diane into the performance, pulling her by the hand. Then he went down on his knees before her, as one expressing adoration. “You’re impossible,” she said, but she was tempted. He stood up and whispered a few words to Father de La Balivière who went away and came back with bottles of champagne. The foam spurted out and splashed over us. The priest’s wimple was soaked. Goblets were produced. “A fête honoring the restoration of the goddess Fortune,” proclaimed Monsieur de Vaudreuil. In the twinkling of an eye he had donned his merchant costume, but he had rouged his pock-marked cheeks and set a mask over his eyes.

  “Let us celebrate the goddess Fortune; it is critically important that we do so. The goddess is not to be trifled with.” They were recovering a certain gaiety of spirit, and I could read in the faces and gestures of those three men the same desire to laugh, to touch, to reveal, as well as the regret that at once ensued whenever they recalled their need to put all that sort of thing aside and depart. But each time, the desire resurfaced to act out just one more comedy, just for a few minutes, just so they could laugh.

  A table was dragged into the middle of the room to serve as a stage. They covered it with a red carpet. They tried to take Diane’s throne from her, but she brandished her sword at them. They settled for a less imposing armchair, which was placed onstage. Gabrielle de Polignac sat down in it, partly recumbent, her arms on the elbow rests, her head thrown back. Facing her, Destiny, Monsieur de Vaudreuil, took up her position. The actor was smiling. Fortune, Gabrielle de Polignac, was gradually supposed to revive. While Adversity, Father de La Balivière, already stooped and bent when the scene opened, caught between Destiny and Fortune, became progressively more and more sickly, was shaken with spasms, and finally stretched out stiff and stark on the ground. Standing upright once more, ready to step over the body of Adversity, whose smile was trying so hard to be triumphant that it was starting to look downright nasty, Gabrielle moved like a sleepwalker. Fuddled by champagne, she continued to hold out her goblet and others continued to fill it up for her. Leaning her head on Destiny’s chest, she said: “What is the news? Why must there always be new news?”

  Encouraged by Destiny, Gabrielle de Polignac was pitting her nonchalance against the Event. Monsieur de Vaudreuil, musing over the absence of Renown, was winding one of his curls around his finger. At that moment the Queen came into the room. We did not have to look at her to know her reaction. Before she had opened her mouth to speak, the enormity of her pain and condemnation smote us like a blow.

  “Please, do not stop. It makes a touching scene. Both of you are playing it to perfection.” It was not so much what she was saying that turned us to stone as the fact that she had en
tered without being announced. Stunned, incredulous, we stood there looking at her. Diane was the first to collect her wits. Leaving the stage, Gabrielle ran across the room to cast herself at the Queen’s feet. The Queen was moved. She said, speaking clearly but very gently: “Your departure must be thought of. I am sure it will be only temporary. Soon you will come back to me, but for the moment, I beg of you, make haste.”

  The Queen bent down to Gabrielle and raised her to her feet. “Let me help you, Madam.” In a deathly silence, with her own hands she removed her friend’s pale green dress, began to slip a petticoat over Gabrielle’s head, and even tried to pull stockings onto the other woman’s legs. She was the one on her knees now, at Gabrielle’s feet. Her face was firm and resolute. She was driven by a kind of energy and precision born of despair. Gabrielle, all white-faced and unresisting, with the fragile nakedness of a little girl, wept soundlessly.

  The Queen, with the impulse for perfection that took hold of her the moment clothing was involved, had reached the stage of covering her friend’s shoulders with a fichu when a thunderous voice announced the arrival of the King. It was the same voice that had shouted, “Gentlemen, the King!” when the Royal Council emerged from its meeting. The voice’s owner must have been replacing the regular Usher. We were profuse in curtsys and bows. By the time we had done with our reverences, the King was in the middle of the room, holding in his hand several passports, which he proffered to Gabrielle de Polignac. But she, unaware, confused, swept away by the force of a newly discovered grief, did not see them, could not see anything. Her eyes were swimming with tears, which were streaming down her cheeks, to be lost in dark stains on the garnet-colored fichu. And the Queen, facing her, still wore that statuesque expression—an expression verging on the nonhuman, or human only in the intensity of the eyes, as they concentrated on seeing, so as never to forget, the person she was about to lose.