Before Versailles (43 page)

A shout rose up from the courtyard. Courtiers were walking along the balustrade of the suspended garden, seeing who could keep his balance. Fanny stopped crying long enough to ask, “What is it?”

Louise stood up carefully. “I think the Count de Guiche just fell in the pond.” She laughed, but Fanny began to cry harder than ever.

“What is it?” asked Louise. “Are you so in love with him?”

“Of course I am!” Fanny was fierce, as if there could be no other way to be in love.

“You didn’t—you haven’t—”

“I did and I have and I’m glad. The world’s different after you’ve done it, Louise.”

Sweet Mary, thought Louise, digesting the fact that Fanny was no longer a virgin. A year ago, watching an Orléans princess sully her reputation, they’d made a vow to stay pure no matter what temptation brought them.

“He’s cruel,” said Fanny. “Do you know what he makes me do? Deliver love letters that he writes after we’re finished. While I’m still lying on his bed. Love letters for Madame. And he makes me do other things, too.”

Love letters from the count? But Madame loved the king, thought Louise. She felt deeply shocked. “Tell him no.”

“If I do, he won’t see me anymore. And if I don’t see him I’ll die.” She held both hands against her breast, as if the heart underneath was breaking apart.

“Tell him it hurts you to see him write the letters.”

“I can’t. I can’t lose him.”

Fanny lay now with her head in Louise’s lap, and Louise stroked her hair, her puffy, tear-streaked face. She’d woken up gasping last night, certain the musketeer was in her chamber. In the lantern-lit courtyard to the right of them, the laughing, crowing, cock-of-the-walk courtiers had more than one man among them wet now, and the women clustered around them. Above the stars sparkled, as beautiful as the diamonds Cardinal Mazarin had bequeathed those he loved. Louise smelled the fresh, clean forest. Did she dare go riding tomorrow? Would the musketeer somehow be watching? So Fanny hadn’t saved herself for her husband. Was it the wine that made her feel less shocked than she supposed she should feel? Was Fanny different, tainted now that she wasn’t pure? That’s what the nuns taught. She was supposed to shun Fanny, to lecture her, to tell a priest, but she wouldn’t do any of those things. She didn’t love her friend any less. It was all very confusing. She’d need to ride out into the quiet of the forest to sort it all out, only now she was afraid of riding out, afraid of encountering the musketeer. It felt like the boy was doomed, that somehow she had failed him. She must break her invisible leash, tell someone. But who? She felt very wise and very stupid all at the same time. That was the lovely thing about wine. One didn’t mind.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, Henriette stared at a towering vase of roses and lilies as she thought about her dilemma. She and Louis had come close to a serious quarrel during the night. Are you saying you want to end this? Then do it, he demanded. I’m saying it hurts me to be talked of, she’d wept. She drummed her fingers on the table at which she sat. So. Who should she suggest for him to flirt with? Definitely not the Countess de Soissons. Nor the queen’s stunning maid of honor, though Athénaïs de Tonnay-Charente was very pleasant and certainly made Henriette laugh with her wit. But there was a singlemindedness about her that made Henriette wary. Two faces floated into her mind from among the young ladies all about. One was lovely but not lively, a Miss de Pon. The other was lively, but not lovely, a Miss de Chimerault. Yes, excellent, neither too sultry nor too beautiful. Now, who else? There ought to be one more. Everyone said good things came in threes.

There was a soft knock at the door, then Louise poked her head through the opening. “Shall I take the dogs?”

The dogs bounded out from under Henriette’s feet, prancing and whimpering for Louise. So, thought Henriette. The decision was made. The third would be Louise. A perverse sense of mischief came up in her. This would raise Louise to a new level. She might even be able to get a decent husband from it, if her mother had any sense. She felt pleased with herself. It was her duty as a princess to see about her ladies, and she was doing just that.

“Wait a moment. I have something for you to deliver.” She dipped the quill pen in ink and wrote the three names. She folded the letter and dropped sealing wax on it, using the ring Louis had given her to press into the wax. She smiled. Louis would just have to do his duty. Surely flirting with others wouldn’t be too onerous. It wasn’t for her.

L
OUIS AND
C
OLBERT
met in the chamber of books.

“The taxes are coming in?” Dressed in a leather jacket and boots, a whip in his hand, Louis was going hunting as soon as his council meeting was finished. But more and more, he felt he must see Colbert, steady Colbert, secretive Colbert, stalwart Colbert. I depend on him, Louis thought, and he breathed a little more deeply at the thought of all that could go wrong if his dependence was ill chosen.

“Taxes dribble in slowly. About her majesty, the queen mother—” Colbert cleared his throat, then without a word gave the king a copy of a letter.

Louis read his mother’s latest note to the Viscount Nicolas. There spilled out on the page were all her current frets, that Colbert might not be a friend to the viscount and to beware of him, that Henriette was with child, that there could be a terrible scandal, which must be avoided at all costs. On and on she went, writing of things Louis wished she had not.

“What is this reference to the Marquis de Créqui?” Louis asked. “Isn’t he the new commander of my galleys in the Mediterranean?”

“He who is master of the seas has great power on land,” answered Colbert.

“Who said that?”

“The late, great Cardinal Richelieu.”

“Find out about this Créqui.” Louis picked up one of Philippe’s notes to the viscount, skimmed it. It was Philippe’s usual, a demand to be on the council, but grateful for any scrap of regard from the viscount.

Face expressionless, Colbert handed over a note from Henriette in which she thanked the viscount for his kindness and understanding and little gifts. His pledge of loyalty to her meant so much, she wrote.

“How vital the viscount seems to be to my family,” said Louis. “I hope they can survive without him. Give me the plan of arrest.”

In September, in the heart of the province that was most loyal to the viscount, Louis would order him arrested. He and Colbert had begun to plan a coup; swift and paralyzing is what they hoped for. A mobilization of troops and intendants the day of the arrest, the troops to stay in provinces through October. All the viscount’s houses and records sealed. Those who handled the kingdom’s taxing to give over accounts and documents at once. Total abolition of the office of superintendent of finance. Louis to become superintendent of finance. With the viscount’s arrest, money could disappear, trade wither. And there could be war.

Colbert struck a flint to some tinder to burn the latest detail of their plan, and once the sparks had taken hold, neither he nor Louis said a word until it was burned to ash.

“Majesty, if I might beg one more indulgence?”

“Anything.”

Carefully, Colbert repeated the Latin phrase Nicolas had thrown at him. “
Contra felicem vix deus vires habet
. Would you translate that for me?”

“Against a lucky man a god scarcely has power.”

Colbert flushed.

“Is something wrong?” asked Louis

“No, merely my own ignorance. I was told it meant evil to him who evil thinks.”

Louis gathered up his gloves and riding crop.

“Good luck with the hunt, sire,” Colbert said.

“Alea iacta est,”
replied Louis, then, “The die has been cast. The Roman general Caesar said it as he crossed the Rubicon River. He won his battle. We’ll win ours.”

He was off to hunt; only riding, only hunting, the motion of the chase, the exhaustion of hours in the saddle, could soothe him and keep him in one piece for the charade of another evening ahead of him. He was riding the legs off his horses. How many evenings until September? How many evenings until he held Henriette naked? She’d sent him a list with three names, women he was to flirt with. Would that satisfy her? Or would there be yet another demand? There was no safety in this love of theirs, only risk. He’d thought she understood that.

Colbert sat where he was for a long time after the king was gone, not a muscle on his face displaying the fire that blazed inside. What a king he will make, Mazarin had prophesized. Let’s pray we can grow him to manhood. The queen mother would have burst into fury to read the indiscretion of her family, yet his majesty scarcely blinked. He had extraordinary command over himself. You have guided him to greatness, Colbert told the memory of the man who had been his own mentor. Was there a possibility the kingdom could be cleansed, the past overcome? The viscount’s spies were better than theirs.

I
N THE NEXT
week, Louis flirted like mad with the first two names on Henriette’s list. The court was abuzz, but Louis was bored. He met one of them now out on the private terrace above the golden gate, just off the ballroom. Fontainebleau’s gardens spread out before him.

“What a lovely night,” the young woman beside him, a Miss de Pon, trilled, excited beyond words to be singled out by him again.

“All nights at Fontainebleau are lovely. You’re lovely, mademoiselle.” I sound like a bad actor, thought Louis.

She lowered her eyes but not before he saw in the light of the burning torches on this balcony that he could kiss her if he wished. He leaned forward and quickly brushed her lips with his own. She caught his arm and leaned her mouth into his, and they kissed more deeply. It wasn’t that it was distasteful. How could a lovely young woman’s mouth be distasteful? But there was some cool, aesthetic part of him offended. She opened like a flower because he was king.

“You’d better go in now,” he told her.

He waited a while, then walked back into chambers lit by wall sconces and chandeliers and sat down by his wife and picked up her gloved hand and kissed it and held it against his cheek while he talked to her.

“My dear queen,” he said, “we didn’t find the stag the dogs scented today, though we rode for miles, all the way to Versailles and back. The beast had a rack of ten points, which would be a worthy addition to the gallery of stags, wouldn’t it? I’m very tired tonight.” He looked at her. “Take my dauphin to bed and I’ll come soon to hold you both in my arms. I’ll order my handsomest cavalier to escort you,” he told her, pointing to Vardes, and the tall, rakish marquis was bowing to Maria Teresa in less than a moment. Proudly, she gave Vardes her hand. Proudly, she walked with him to the huge doors that would take them to the bedchambers. Proudly, she thought, I am the most fortunate woman in the world. Surely, her example was a light unto this vain court.

Henriette had been standing with Guy, engaging in a little flirtation of her own. As the queen’s ladies disappeared from sight, she tapped Guy on the arm. “Go away.”

“I don’t wish to flirt with others,” Louis told her when they stood together in one of the ballroom arches.