Before Versailles (2 page)

François-Timoléon de Choisy:
youngest son of Madame de Choisy; cousin of Louise de la Baume le Blanc.

Marie, Duchess de Chevreuse:
former lady-in-waiting to Queen Anne.

La Grande Mademoiselle:
an Orléans, one of the princesses of France; first cousin of Louis XIV.

Molière:
one of France’s great playwrights and actors.

La Voisin:
a witch.

Queen Henrietta Maria:
widow of Charles I of England; mother of Henriette of France known as Madame and also of Charles II of England; daughter of Henri IV; aunt of Louis XIV.

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fictional characters

Prologue

NTELLIGENT, VIRILE, HANDSOME, A MAN WHO MADE HIMSELF
master of all he surveyed, Louis XIV was the foremost figure of his age. He was its prize, its comet, its star. His drive, cunning, and absolute determination to forge France into the premier kingdom of its time awed and frightened his fellow kings. None of them could match him. He supported the arts and literature so thoroughly that France became a cultural beacon that shines to this day, and by the time he died, every court in Europe copied the manners and fashion of his. The language of France became the language of art, of culture, of commerce, and of diplomacy for several hundred years. His palace at Versailles is a national monument and was one of the wonders of the world in its time.

From birth, war was his backdrop, and the nobility surrounding him as he grew to manhood was as proud as Lucifer and as trustworthy. The ambitions of others were always faintly in the distance, or up close, naked, fangs gleaming. Louis possessed a consummate skill in turning those ambitions to his own advantage, and before he was thirty, he had become the hard, graceful, prowling lion of all of Europe.

There was a moment in his young life when he deliberately chose to grasp power. It was a moment when tenderness was still his—before time and pride closed him—a moment when his heart, like many a man’s, yearned for something true. It happened in his forest palace of Fontainebleau. Perhaps it went something like this …

March 1661, France

YOUNG WOMAN GALLOPED HEADLONG AND RECKLESSLY
down half-wild trails in the immense forest of Fontainebleau. Her fair hair had come loose from its pins, and she leaned low against her horse’s neck and whispered the filly onward, as if she were being chased by murderers. It was said she possessed magic with horses, and the groom attempting to follow behind her believed it. She was like a picture he’d seen once—of a centaur, a creature of mythology, half man, half horse. The only souls to hear the sound of thudding hooves were birds, rabbits, foxes, in burrows or hollow logs or nests of green moss and twigs, all of which stayed hidden, out of sight and harm. The forest around them was wild, huge, one of France’s glories. For centuries, kings had hunted under its majestic and ancient trees. It was said to be filled still with forest spirits, shy, sly, summer-like sylphs who blended into the leaves that would unfurl soon and blessed or cursed the humans impinging on their malachite- and emerald-hued domain.

The horses galloped into a clearing in which a tree lay fallen. The young blonde leaned forward in her sidesaddle and told her horse that the beast could do it, and the filly responded, sailing over the tree effortlessly. Afraid to take the dangerous jump, tired from their long gallop this day, the groom pulled hard on his reins, and the horse under him snorted and jerked its head and turned in circles, while the blonde trotted her horse back to him. Her face was lovely, flushed, incandescent—the way it could be when she was this happy and carefree. Her name was Louise de la Baume le Blanc, and she was just on the cusp of ten and six, and she had no idea of it, but her life was about to change forever as certain stars finished their alignment.

“You ride better than a man, miss,” said the groom.

“What a day we’ve had. So wonderful.” She dropped the reins and put her hands to her hair, fallen from its many pins onto her shoulders.

“Ow-w-w,” came a long, low yowl from the woods around them.

Startled, both Louise and the groom turned in their saddles. From between trees whose trunks were the size of Egyptian obelisks, a boy appeared. Waving his arms, breath growling rasps in his lungs, he howled like some demon in a church passion play.

The howls took their breath away, but so did what was upon the boy’s face: an iron mask, its visage grim and terrible, with holes for sight and a raised impression for the nose. Dark hair fell through leather straps to cascade down the sides of the child’s head. Only his mouth, where a string of slobber hung, was visible, and his continuing cries sent shivers down the spines of both Louise and the groom. He ran straight toward Louise, and her horse laid back its ears, reared, danced backward, and she fell.

From atop the other horse, the groom began to hit at the boy with a riding crop, lashing at thin arms and shoulders, and the boy staggered, holding up his hands to protect himself.

“Get away from here! Brigand! Thief! Murderer!” Circling around the boy, the groom hit him everywhere, soft neck, thin shoulders, long arms, bare hands. The boy howled louder and ran toward trees behind them. The groom jumped down from his saddle to Louise, who hadn’t moved since her body hit the ground.

“Miss! Oh please, miss!” he cried.

Now others ran into the clearing. The groom cursed himself for letting her ride so far from the château. Were they in danger? What was happening? Who was this, now? A band of thieves? Decent people pursuing a mad, nearly grown boy? What? Then he saw that one was a soldier, a musketeer, wearing the colors of the great and powerful Cardinal Mazarin, first minister to the king, dying now—all France knew it—power and wealth unable to stop that grimmest of cutthroats and thieves, death.

The musketeer, gaunt and fierce-faced, made a signal, and every man halted where he stood. The musketeer walked forward, his glance taking in both groom and the immobile young woman on the ground.

“Have you seen someone on foot? A boy, nearly grown?” he asked.

“Yes, he ran at our horses.” The groom pointed toward the thick trees behind them. “He ran that way.” And then in a pleading tone, “This young lady needs help. Is there a farmhouse near?”

The musketeer shouted orders, and at once the others ran off in the direction in which the groom had pointed.

“Who is he? What is his crime?” the groom asked.

The musketeer didn’t answer, asked instead, “Did you come from the palace?” The royal palace of Fontainebleau was some miles distant.

The groom shook his head. “From Madame de Choisy’s.”

“You’re not to speak of this to anyone.” The musketeer’s face had been beaten by weather and life to a flint-hard grimness. “I command it in the name of the cardinal. Do you know who he is?”

Who did not? Cardinal Mazarin had been virtual ruler of France for years.

The musketeer strode away, picking up his gait into a trot, already halfway across the clearing before the groom dared to open his mouth again. “Sir! Wait! I beg you. My lady is in distress—”

But the man was lost to the thickness of the woods. The groom looked down at Louise, and to his immense relief, her eyes were open.

“Can you sit up, miss?” he asked. “Your horse is gone. You’ll have to ride mine. Move slowly and see if anything is broken. Is this the first time you’ve fallen from a horse, my lady?”

“No. Who was that soldier?”

“He did not say, my lady.” The groom helped Louise to rise, brushed at leaves and dirt on her skirt. “He did say we were not to speak of this.” Her conduct was, of course, not his concern. He could still see the musketeer’s cold eyes. His own mouth was sealed. He was no fool.

“Obscene,” said Louise, “that thing on his head, as if he were a monster instead of a man. Not even a man. A boy. What can he have done to deserve such a fate?” In her eyes were tears of distress and pity.

The groom held his hands so she could hoist herself into the saddle. Her legs were slim and colored blue by the stockings she wore. The sight of them—she had to ride astride now, as men did, rather than on a sidesaddle—softened him for a moment, as did the tears and her fresh prettiness. He decided to warn her again.

“The musketeer commanded silence, and his master is master of us all, the great cardinal,” he repeated.

Reviled, feared, obeyed, Cardinal Mazarin was the most powerful man in the kingdom of France, first minister to the young king and lover, it was said, to the queen mother.

Louise didn’t answer. She was a tenderhearted girl, too gentle really for the court she was about to join. But in her was an untested streak of sword’s steel. One day, it would move her from the glamorous, wicked salons of court to an isolated nun’s cell. It would keep her from going mad with grief at all that was no longer hers and bring her to a solace deeper than she could imagine, but that was years ahead, ten or more, a world away from this moment. This moment, this day, she was just a girl who—like all wellborn girls of the time—would blaze brightly a moment or two before she married, except that only the blazing was in Louise’s stars. And it was just as well she didn’t know it.