The Oracle Glass (18 page)

“That's just the sort of thing that would ruin my image. My stock in trade depends on mystery and terror. People who go dancing and flirting have neither.”

“But what do you write?” she wheedled.

“I intend to become very rich someday, and one must start with the correct foundation, records and logic. The Romans—”

“Oh, bother the Romans. Sometimes I actually believe you're as old as they say. Who else but an old lady would come to a place full of beautiful young men and rich old ones and spend her nights
doing
accounts
? The best way to become rich is the easy way: marry a man with money. Or find a buried treasure. A woman can't get rich by herself—that's a law of nature.”

She unlaced my corset and helped me on with my nightgown. It was exquisite. A waterfall of fine embroidery and lace on linen as thin and pale as if it had been woven of spiders' webs. All my things were nice now. The truth was, I was indifferent to Madame de Morville's clothes, as long as I had my books, but La Voisin encouraged the wearing of luxurious things; it impressed my clients and was supposed to be the lure that drew me deeper into the fortune-telling business. She never understood that for me the best lure was watching the extraordinary assortment of human characters that revealed itself to me each day. It was my reward for a solitary childhood hidden in corners when the guests came.

The only dress I really wanted I was having made in secret; Monsieur Leroux, the draper, had procured the silk for me at a great bargain. But it was not a dress for the old Marquise, and that is why it had to be made secretly, safe from La Voisin's spies. It was a dress for a young girl, not yet twenty. It had a rose bodice and skirts, turned back to show an ivory taffeta petticoat and a stomacher embroidered with flowers like a garden in spring. La Voisin would have hated it. I wanted to walk with André Lamotte in the
orangerie
in it. I wanted to smell the heavy perfumed blossoms and hear him say “I never understood it before; you are really very beautiful. All that time I was looking at the wrong face in the window.” I knew I was a fool, but I couldn't bear not to be. It had to happen. It just had to. With magic, with money, I would make it happen.

“Just how rich do you intend to be?” Sylvie's voice broke into my thoughts.

“Unbelievably rich. I intend to repeal that law of nature of yours.” Rich enough to revenge myself on Uncle and the world for making me what I had become, I thought silently.

“Well, you can start tomorrow with the Countess of Soissons. She ought to be a repeat client, the way she runs to fortune-tellers. She sent the most delicious little page, all covered with ribbons, when you were gone this afternoon. If you could have seen him blush when I pretended to pull up my garter!”

Olympe Mancini, the Countess of Soissons—another of the nieces of the late Cardinal Mazarin, and said to be a widow by her own hand.

“Don't get yourself in trouble, Sylvie, teaching pages about nature.”

“Trouble? There's no problem with that. Madame Montvoisin arranges everything.”

“I hope you don't mean what I think you do—”

“Goodness, where have you been living—the moon? Madame Montvoisin provides the best service in the city. I recommend her to everyone. Safe and silent. Not like those others. They make a mistake, and
voilà
! Your body is dumped in the river. Madame does not make mistakes. You're safer with her than with the King's own surgeon. Her organization includes all the best ones in the city; they work on commission. All the society ladies go to her. How else could they live the gallant life at court? You ought to know; you've sent her enough business yourself.”

Oh, Geneviève, how could you have been so simple? La Voisin is not like you, enchanted with playing the game of deception. How could you have ever believed for a minute she didn't offer real services, not flimflam, for all the money she gets? Here it was, as plain as could be before my very nose, and I hadn't recognized it. She was an angel maker, a high-society abortionist, and the fortune-telling was a cover. The penalty was torture and death—for her, for her associates, for the women who employed her services. Suddenly I saw it all clearly. The secret signals, the terrified faces. A silent network of women, all tied together by fear and the possibility of mutual blackmail, was hidden behind the shining facade of gallantry and jewels, of elegant gowns and velvet masks. Hairdressers, perfumers, ladies' tailors, all organized into a secret business cartel that covered the city like a web. “Have you a problem, my dear? I know the cleverest woman who can fix it. No one ever need know.” And I was in the center of it all. As I blew out the candle, I asked, “And La Bosse?”

“She's a filthy woman. Only whores go to her.”

That night I couldn't sleep, despite the medicine. And as I twisted and tangled in the sheets, I felt the eerie warmth of the oven behind the tapestry, and saw the desperate eyes of the women in the waiting room, and heard Uncle laughing, because he was a man, and could do anything he wished.

The meeting of the King's Council had just broken up, and His Majesty had left by an inner door, to avoid the cluster of petitioners at the public entrance of the council chamber. As the dignified procession of ministers of state, in full wigs and wide plumed hats, entered the corridor, there was a murmur of disappointment among the waiting crowd. A delicate jockeying at the door resulted in Colbert's exit being delayed in favor of the Marquis de Louvois—Louvois the merciless, who controlled the King's army and the King's police, whose gaucheries of dress elicited titters from the court, and whose heavy-featured face had the unfortunate look of a coachman.

“Monsieur de Louvois…” La Reynie stepped forward as if he had just arrived, rather than having been kept waiting at his superior's request.

“Ah, excellent. You are here,” said Louvois in the brusque, commanding tone he habitually used. “I have taken the matter up with His Majesty personally. He commends you and your police for your swiftness in locating her. And His Majesty wants you to know that he takes a profound personal interest in the case. Madame de Brinvilliers must not be allowed to flout the King's justice. She has already been condemned
in
absentia
, so it is appropriate that you use all necessary means to bring her back to France for execution.”

“That is understood, Your Excellency.” The two had drifted away from the crowd, Louvois, with his overdecorated walking stick and ever so slightly vulgar high-heeled shoes, and La Reynie in the sober garb of the chief of police on an official visit to Versailles. In one of the great official antechambers, apart from all listeners, they paused.

“There is something else,” Louvois said quietly. “There are persistent rumors that some of the first names in France are involved with an underground traffic in poisons. His Majesty is concerned that such tales may undermine the glory of his reign. So far, the marquise is the only woman of quality who has been connected with such crimes. His Majesty wishes you to conduct an extensive investigation concerning her possible confederates. Only when we have proved to our satisfaction that she is an isolated monster can we put these rumors to rest at last.”

“I agree completely, Monsieur de Louvois,” responded La Reynie. “But what if she is not?” Louvois turned away, silent.

Even though his carriage did not reach Paris until after nightfall, La Reynie sent a messenger immediately to Desgrez's house.

“Now, you must be very careful of the Comtesse de Soissons,” announced Sylvie as she laced up my corset. “
Oof
—Do you really want it this tight all the way up? You look straight enough to me once it's on…Well, you shouldn't offend her, is what I meant to say. Those Italian ladies, they're all poisoners. ‘The Italian vice'…it's not just a disease, that's what I say! And the Comte de Soissons died just two years ago under
very
mysterious circumstances, to say nothing of others around her. And her sister, the Duchesse de Bouillon, she's another one, I tell you. For all her salon is so fashionable, she's still a Mancini, and they say she's just yearning to be a widow. Don't look so surprised. Believe me, I have my ways of knowing. But their custom can be the making of a fortune-teller—not that you aren't all the mode since you read for the Queen. But the countess—she's a repeat customer. Please her, and you'll make your fortune with all those ambitious, plotting ladies. But if you're dead, you won't do either of us a bit of good, so don't go stepping wrong.”

The Comtesse de Soissons, a dark-haired woman with a pointed, crafty face, and an oddly childish, turned-up nose, received me in her rooms at the palace. They were very tiny, by the world's standards, but I now recognized how extraordinarily large and well located they were by Versailles standards, where the courtiers of even the highest ranks are packed in like pickled herring in a barrel. And of course, the gilded and inlaid furniture, the heavy carpets, and the silk tapestries were of a fabulous luxury.

“I want to know whether a…supremely noble…lover will turn again to me,” she whispered, out of the hearing of her attendants. Oh, goodness, I thought, another woman who wants to sleep with the King. They came in the dozens, high and low. Poor provincial nobility would scrape up their last sou to get their prettiest daughter presented at court; great ladies, married or not, would offer bribes to get a place among the maids of honor to the Queen or any other position where they might be seen frequently by the King. They schemed and fretted and bought love charms by the satchelful. Whenever the King's eye wandered, business always picked up. One night with the King was like a lottery prize. Two or three nights with the King, and the court would bow at your approach. “That's the new favorite,” they'd whisper, and the other ladies would turn away their cold, powdered faces. It was a kind of magical transformation that lasted only until the gaze of the Sun King shone elsewhere, and the magic vanished. The supreme position, even for a short while, and your family reaped the benefits—pensions, offices, titles. Only an ex-mistress was not to be envied; everyone knew and pitied the fate of La Vallière, once made a duchesse but now residing, permanently shaven-headed and divested of her children, within the dank walls of the convent of the Carmelites. A very edifying change in life, said the preachers.

The image in the glass was very clear, but its significance was ambiguous. “It is unclear to me what this means,” I said frankly. “I see you in a carriage drawn by eight horses, traveling at full speed through the dark by the light of torches borne by outriders.”

“A night assignation. To Marly, no doubt. I will regain his love.” I let it be.

“With such a favorable reading, you might well wish to enhance the image in the glass with something a bit more powerful. I know a woman on the rue Beauregard who can help you—”

“Oh, my God. You are another one of La Voisin's! To think that I never suspected! What a joke!” She collapsed back in her armchair with a faint laugh, as if the joke were not very funny at all. “It really is too much—her people are absolutely everywhere.” She leaned forward again. Her voice was arch with a courtier's self-control. “Tell me, then. What do you see in the glass for Madame de Montespan? I will pay you well for this second reading.”

I prepared my things a second time and looked deep into the water. “Oh, this is very interesting,” I replied. “I see Madame de Montespan leaving court. She is enraged, traveling in her coach at full speed toward Paris. It is absolutely laden with boxes.” I looked at the water-filled ruts on the road and the new spring buds on the trees. “Yes, definitely, she has been sent away, and all the indications are that it will be quite soon.”

“Why, this is delightful!” exclaimed the countess. “She will fall, and all her power will be mine.” A little half smile played across her face. “For whom do you read next?” she asked in a casual tone.

Something whispered in my mind,
this
means
danger
. And to distract her from an interest in my clients, I said, “In this season of holy penitence I have renounced all further readings in order to spend all my hours at my devotions until once again our most blessed Lord is resurrected.” After all, we were approaching Holy Week and it sounded like a good excuse. No fortune-telling until after Easter—what could be more admirable? Besides, at court, unlike Paris, it was good form to keep up the appearance of piety just to stay in fashion. Lately I'd found myself sitting through almost as many Masses as Marie-Angélique used to. Very well, the countess's eyes seemed to say. You won't tell me. We understand each other.

***

It was after Mass the following Sunday, as I followed the crowd of aristocrats and their servants out of the chapel at Versailles, that I was approached by a stranger.

“Madame,” he said, as he pressed past a lackey carrying a hassock for the Duc de Condé, “may we speak? I believe I need, ah, a fortune told.” I looked closely at him; he didn't seem the type. Besides, he had a provincial accent, complete with rolling southern
r
's. “You have influence: I've seen you with great lords, I've watched you mobbed in the corridors, almost every wretched day that I've spent in this place. And now—your maid tells me you have the acquaintance of the Duchesse de Vivonne.” I glared at Sylvie, who paraded behind me with my missal. Influence peddling again. How much money had she taken from this man I couldn't help?

“I am afraid that the Duchesse de Vivonne will not use her influence for anything less than a thousand pistoles, and that only to pass a petition. You have no guarantee that the King will ever receive it. No, you are far better off trying to present it to the King yourself.” The man hadn't a chance. He had the rustic, old-fashioned garb of an impoverished provincial noble. His heels were too flat. His buckles were paste. His neck and wrists were without lace. His wig sat ill over his lined, sun-browned face, and the plumes on his hat were sad and shabby. An
hobereau
, a joke.

“There's so little time, and I've waited for days—when the King leaves his carriage, at the entrance to the chapel before daily mass, at the door of the King's
cabinet
de
conseil
. I haven't the clothes, the air of a courtier. I can't push through the crowd. I get pushed aside; he doesn't see me. But I must be heard. I must get my
placet
to the King, or my son is doomed.”

So he wasn't trying to get an office or secure an inheritance. My curiosity was aroused. Besides, I felt sorry for him. Most people spent months and thousands of écus trying to give the King a petition. One bribed lackeys to find out which way the King would pass, one bribed courtiers for their influence, one bought court dress, one hired an overpriced little attic in the town of Versailles, one wore out shoes. Only a provincial could imagine it would be otherwise.

“What is your petition about, Monsieur—?”

“Honoré d'Urbec, of the d'Urbecs of Provence, at your service.” He took off his hat with a flourish, and bowed deeply. For a moment my breath stopped. Lamotte's friend. There was no mistaking an odd name like that. But Lamotte's friend had a Parisian accent.

“An old family?” I asked politely.

“Our descent is of a most venerable antiquity,” he announced with a grandiose flourish of his hands, his southern accent becoming even stronger as he warmed to his subject. “There were d'Urbecs in the time of Julius Caesar, although the name was spelled differently then; there were d'Urbecs with Charlemagne, on the Crusades. Were our goods proportionate to the historical glory of our name, we would rank among the first families of France, as we do, in a moral sense, to those of true discernment…” A dreamer, I thought; a spinner of tales. In short, a Provençal. The elderly gentleman paused, frozen suddenly by my sharp stare. He looked abashed. “I may as well tell you now, Madame, so that you may decide whether or not you wish to continue our conversation, that our family lost its noble standing in my grandfather's time, through engaging in trade. We have been reduced to paying the
taille
, like commoners.”

“I do choose to continue the conversation anyway, Monsieur d'Urbec. But not in this corridor. Besides, I have an engagement that I cannot change. Meet me instead in the Grove of the Domes after dinner, where we may be seated and continue at our leisure. It is unattractive to the courtiers in this season, and we will have quiet.”

“At what time?” he asked, taking out an immense, old-fashioned, but very elaborate, egg-shaped watch from his pocket. An astonishing watch for one so clad. It appeared to show the phases of the moon as well as the hour.

“At three, shall we say, Monsieur d'Urbec? I am sorry I will not be free before then.” And I went off to hunt for an open table for a free dinner, for I had become a shameless
cherchemidi
, like most denizens of Versailles.

***

A brisk spring breeze was bending the new-budding branches in the Grove of the Domes, and I was grateful for my heavy shawl when I stepped from my chair to find the elder d'Urbec waiting in the marble arch of the first dome. He swept off his rusty black hat by way of greeting.

“I am now ready to listen to everything, Monsieur d'Urbec,” I said, as we seated ourselves on a carved stone bench. I must admit I found it interesting, as I did any information that would shed light on some part of Lamotte's life with his friends. Gambling, the old man confessed, was the madness that had cost the family everything, but when the estates were mortgaged and then lost, an eccentric grandfather had turned a passion for telescopes and mechanisms into a prospering business in naval chronometers and fine timepieces for the gentry, to the humiliation of the family's more genteel members.

“My sons all inherited the talent for mechanisms—but in Florent, I saw something more. Was I wrong to think he was the one who would save us? True, he was hotheaded, like all of us, but—to come to this. God, the disgrace…”

An uncle had spotted the boy's promise and, because he had only daughters, had sponsored his studies, sending him to Paris to study law.

“My brother-in-law, you must understand, is not like us. He is a crude man but a successful tax farmer, and he craved an heir to whom he could pass on his offices. I was, at the time, much less successful, save in the matter of sons. So I let him have Florent. The opportunities, you see. Education, money. To study in Paris. Why should he be nothing but a clockmaker all his life? I had always”—and here he sighed—“dreamed he might gain rank and fortune enough to petition for a rehabilitation of the family name and standing. What father wouldn't want these for his son? Then I heard that he had fallen into bad company and was neglecting his studies. Women, I suppose, and low-life taverns stuffed full of unemployed writers. His uncle was furious and threatened to break all ties with him. I came to Paris two weeks ago to remonstrate with him, to urge him to obey his uncle in everything—and what do I find? The seals placed on his room. He is under arrest. I went to the police, to the magistrates. I couldn't discover the charges. Then I found a friend of his. Protected by the Duchesse de Bouillon. He told me my son was sentenced under suspicion of writing a seditious book under the pen name of Cato! Totally unlike the boy. He is like me—he would never be ashamed to air his opinions under his own name! A d'Urbec does not hide in the shadows to oppose wickedness! Why, in the old days, my father would—” Here the old gentleman left off abruptly. So, I thought, it does run in the family. A tribe of hotheaded southern crackpots. Revolutionaries. And probably freethinkers, too.

“Clearly,” the old man continued, “it was a case of mistaken identity. But I realized that unless I could find the true ‘Cato' I could not make a case. Justice moves swiftly in Paris. The inquiry had already taken place. I went every day to the Châtelet. At last I discovered he had been sent to the galleys for life. Monstrous! Monstrous! A miscarriage of justice! Only the King can right this terrible mistake! But each day that true justice is delayed, my son's position becomes worse. The prisoners have already departed for Marseilles. How many will survive the march on the chain? How many will survive the rowers' bench? I have done business in Marseilles, Madame, and I have seen what becomes of
galériens
. They die, Madame. They die like cattle. A law student? He cannot live. Better if he were a sturdy vagabond or a highway robber. They are the powerful ones in that world; they form alliances at the expense of the other prisoners. You must assist me, Madame. If I could only approach the King, or the Duc de Vivonne, who is Captain General of the Galleys, or even a woman of influence who might intervene with them…”

“I am afraid, Monsieur, that at each step of the process you describe, more money than your wealthy brother-in-law collects for the state in a year would have to change hands. You are not very worldly if you think that justice can be got without money.” I looked at his petition. It would never move a magistrate who had seen the evidence. What had they gotten when they searched his room? What had they gotten from Griffon, or from Lamotte?

“What is the evidence that links your son with this scurrilous work?” I asked.