Enchantress of Paris (40 page)
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Authors: Marci Jefferson
I relaxed. “Thank His Royal Highness for this generous warning. I am aware of the situation and have taken necessary precautions.”
He seemed stunned. “How did you know?”
I glanced out the window to the brightening sky, where my stars had faded for the day. “I have my sources.”
He nodded, but seemed hesitant.
“Is there something else?”
“Indeed.” He pulled a fold of black velvet from his waistcoat pocket and handed it to me.”
I didn't open it. “What is this?”
He cleared his throat. “A message,” he said. “One so delicate the king dared not put it to paper, but rather entrusted it to me. He bids you to take my next words as if they were from his own lips.”
My breath caught. I sat abruptly.
The poor man cleared his throat again. “It has been a goodly number of years since your relationship with the king ended. He bids you to know that he still thinks of you every day. When constructing a palace, he considers your tastes. When he hears the most moving music, his thoughts turn to how you used to dance. When he reads something interesting, he longs to discuss it with you.”
I slowly opened the folds of velvet. There in the morning sun, a frame of diamonds sparkled like so many precious memories. Within it was a miniature portrait of the king himself. To receive a portrait of the king was a symbolic mark of favor.
“He says no other woman can beat him in a horse race. He will never return to Lyon, for he would feel the loss of you too acutely. He cannot live at the Louvre because your image haunts every chamber. He rules in a manner that he hopes would make you proud.”
I held the portrait aloft so my tears wouldn't stain it. He didn't look the same, but he had aged well. Neither of us was the same. We could not go back, but we would always treasure what we had shared.
“And, my lady, above all, he wanted me to tell you that yours was the brightest star he ever had the privilege to love.”
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King Louis XIV is known for having a string of beautiful mistresses, yet he never expressed such an outpouring of emotion for anyone other than Marie Mancini. Some historians believe she was the one true love of his life. None of the numerous letters they wrote to each other were preserved. Every mention of Marie in the king's memoirs was removed, though some were known to exist. Only they knew what really transpired between them that would cause Marie to leave France rather than accept the opportunity to become his mistress.
There are no fictional characters in this novel, though some liberties were taken where facts were unknown. For example, historians consistently call Marie's father a necromancer, and though I couldn't uncover the primary source of this claim, I incorporated it because of other indications that the family embraced mystical ideas. Contemporaries did record that Marie's father was a great astrologer who had discovered an evil star in her horoscope. This horoscope has never been found and cannot be accurately redrawn because we do not know the time of her birth. Her horoscope in the novel was based on a birth time of noon with loosely applied precepts from William Lilly's seventeenth-century publication
Christian Astrology.
I was unable to pinpoint an “evil” star. The “unnamed star” that suggests Marie might leave her husband in the novel is actually Uranus, which hadn't yet been discovered by astrologers and was unfamiliar to Lilly. Marie herself wrote books on astrology, refers in her memoirs to having premonitions, and was known to costume herself as mystical characters. No one can know to what extent Marie practiced magic if at all, so I only put books into her hands that an Italian necromancer-astrologer of noble blood might reasonably have access to. The maid Moréna's personality and heritage were largely fictionalized, for little is known about her other than the color of her skin and her inability to enter convents due to her religion. The witch known as La Voisin may not have been practicing the dark arts at the time of Marie's fictional visit to her home. But Olympia did visit her, and details illuminated in those scenes came to light years later in the Affair of the Poisons. The theory that Cardinal Mazarin was the Sun King's biological father is debated by historians. Author Anthony Levi makes a fair case for it in his book
Louis XIV.
The bold and brilliant Mancini sisters embarked upon too many adventures to detail in one novel. To anyone wishing to study Marie's story in further detail, I recommend starting with the indispensable
Hortense Mancini and Marie Mancini, Memoirs,
edited and translated by Sarah Nelson, and
Five Fair Sisters,
by the late H. Noel Williams.
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The enormous task of completing this novel would not have been possible without the constant and complete support of my husband and our patient children, and I am immensely grateful to them. Gratitude goes also to my mother, for always being there; my trusty agent, Kevan Lyon; editor Toni Kirkpatrick, who always makes me smile; publicist Katie Bassel, whose reliability enabled me to focus my energy on this project; Thomas Dunne, for coming up with the concept that inspired this novel in the first place; keen-eyed copyeditor India Cooper; author Sara Ann Denson, whose advice and insight I hope never to be without; my circle of friends and familyâI would be lost without you; Julianne Douglas, for researching countless French resources at my every whim; the Allen County Public Library, for its vast resources and for Nancy Saff's assistance with difficult research; author and Mancini expert Elizabeth Goldsmith, Ph.D., for reflections on the Mancinis and for her wonderful work
The Kings' Mistresses
; and finally Marie Mancini, for having the courage to stand up for herself in a world that did not yet value women.
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Marci Jefferson
is the author of
Girl on the Golden Coin
. She grew up in a nomadic Air Force family, but her passion for history sparked while living in Yorktown, Virginia, where locals still share Revolutionary War tales. Jefferson graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University's Medical College as a registered nurse. She now resides in the Midwest with her husband and two children in a home full of books and toys.
Visit her Web site at
www.marcijefferson.com
. Or sign up for email updates
here
.
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ALSO BY
MARCI JEFFERSON
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CONTENTS
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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martin's Press.
ENCHANTRESS OF PARIS.
Copyright © 2015 by Marci Jefferson. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
Cover design by Kerri Resnick
Cover photographs: woman © Victoria Davies/Trevillion Images; Chateau de Fontainebleau © Gavin Hellier/Getty Images
eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Jefferson, Marci.
    Enchantress of Paris: a novel of the Sun King's court / Marci Jefferson. â First edition.
          p. cm.
    ISBN 978-1-250-05709-9 (hardcover)
    ISBN 978-1-4668-6074-2 (e-book)
  1.  Louis XIV, King of France, 1638â1715âFiction.  2.  Mazarin, Jules, 1602â1661âFiction.  3.  FranceâKings and rulersâFiction.  4.  DivinationâFiction.  I.  Title.
    PS3610.E3655E53 2015
    813
'
.6âdc23
2015017353
e-ISBN 9781466860742
First Edition: August 2015