The Sisters of Versailles (47 page)

Finally the petitioners and the unimportant file out and I am left alone with Richelieu. He is my most important ally and has all the news: he has spies everywhere. It’s been a few days since I’ve seen him and I am sure he will have plenty to tell.

“What news, my dear friend?”

Richelieu sits and sucks on a piece of pineapple. “Mmm, delicious, delicious. I heard this one came straight from Martinique—exquisite.” He wipes his mouth delicately with a red handkerchief that matches the brocade on his coat, and smiles at me. “The Marquis de Thibouville . . . Found last night in a Paris gambling house with a footman of Noailles.”

Interesting. I never would have thought . . . The marquis always had some flamboyancy in dress and action, especially when directing our play, but everyone here at Versailles is flamboyant.
The drabness of the previous reign has been permanently erased in a shower of pastel fluffery.

“Where is he now?”

“Being held at his Paris home.”

Richelieu looks at me intently. I rack my brains, trying to think of what I know of Thibouville and his family connections. I come up short. I really should have paid more attention to those schoolroom genealogy lessons. Who knew that Tante and Hortense would prove to be right?

“What do you propose we do?” I ask, carefully smoothing white cream over my face. It smells faintly of eggs and apricots.

Richelieu sucks another piece of pineapple. “Nothing, for now. We will keep the knowledge for later, when it may be of use. Of course, if it happens again, the king must be informed and it will be the Bastille for him.”

I nod. I have a lot to learn from Richelieu; he has taught me well the importance of information. Nothing, nothing, not even the pearl choker Louis gave me last year, is as valuable as information. Richelieu has not been appointed prime minister: Louis is adamant he will rule alone. Rather surprising, but I suppose it is a good sign and at least Richelieu’s position as a first gentlemen of the bedchamber ensures both of Louis’s ears are in his hands. Between the two of us, the king is never alone. Never.

“What else?”

Richelieu waves his hands. “More songs, of course.”

“Let me hear them.”

He takes a crumpled pamphlet from his coat pocket. “This one is making the rounds from the Bastille to Saint-Denis. Marville is having a devil of a time finding the source. But we’ll get there.” Marville is the lieutenant general of the Paris police. I suspect the verses come from Maurepas, but proof is impossible to come by. He reads:

“One is almost forgotten,

Another almost dust,

The third is on her way,

While the fourth is waiting

To make way for the fifth.

Loving an entire family—is that faithlessness or fidelity?”

I take the pamphlet and study the verse. One is forgotten. Yes—everyone has accepted that Louise is over. Pauline is certainly dust, thank goodness. And Diane, well, she could be said to be on her way, though I am not sure where she is going. But . . . the fourth is waiting to make way for the fifth?

Hortense is the fourth sister, and I am the fifth.

“This makes no sense, none at all.” I frown. “This implies that Hortense is waiting to make way for me? But she is not with the king. I am! It makes no sense.” My voice pitches a trifle higher and the butterflies in my hair flutter in sympathy.

“I’ve rarely seen you so disturbed, Marie-Anne. Even that lewd piece from last week didn’t raise your ire so.”

I try to smile but I can feel myself shaking. I stare at myself in the mirror and will my fingers not to tremble as I circle rouge onto my cheek. Richelieu watches me with amusement. I’m used to his condescension—only he can get away with it.

Hortense is my weakness. I don’t care about the little sluts that Louis sometimes feels the need to visit; I don’t care about that beautiful child Mathilde de Canisy, now married to the Comte de Forcalquier, with her youth and extraordinary cupid mouth; I don’t even care about that bourgeois charmer from Paris that everyone is talking about. Well, I do care about her, but not as much as I care about Hortense.

I follow Hortense’s Mass attendance: once, of course, is the minimum and a must—God must be placated—but twice a day or more indicates true piety. Normally Hortense goes twice a day, but lately there have been days when she attends only once. As long as she keeps her piety, I am safe. If not . . . if not . . . I have an inspiration: Hortense needs to get pregnant again. Fast.

“Why don’t we recall her husband, Flavacourt, from the front?
Find him a ministry or secretariat or something? Away he is useless to us. Hortense needs him here. As do we.”

“That might be difficult. We are almost at war, as you know.”

“Mmm.” War—games for men and boys. What is it good for? I pat my hair and admire the flesh-colored butterflies. They will go well with my pink gown for the evening. I should have had a few made in silver, I think with light regret.

“Pretty,” I say to Dages and dismiss him. He bows and sidles out with his tools.

“And one more, Marie-Anne,” says Richelieu, eating the last of the pineapple.

They never stop, this tidal wave of songs and verses and sonnets, watering the buds of every scandal like April showers. Where do they come from? Some say—many say—they start at Court and come from Maurepas, Charolais, Marville, anyone. Anyone could be my enemy. Perhaps everyone is my enemy. Richelieu reads once more:

“Madame is exiled, all in tears

Goodness, but sisters are a thing to fear!

Once one was all beloved

But now something new

Looks like a coup

From one so beautiful

Goodness, but sisters are a thing to fear!”

Goodness, but sisters are a thing to fear
. I laugh drily. It’s funny, and it’s true.

Richelieu bows out and Leone comes in with my cream gown. I read the verse again.
Goodness, but sisters are a thing to fear.
As I dress, a memory comes to me of Louise’s wedding day; she was so young then—we all were. The five of us together in the nursery. She in her wedding dress of silver, the rest of us in our matching everyday dresses of yellow muslin. We hugged forever and we swore we would never let each other go. And now look at us.
Pauline dead, Louise banished, Hortense and I barely speaking. At least Diane I can trust.

I think.

Where did it all go wrong? Or is that even the right question? In the weeks after I banished Louise, she would sometimes intrude on my thoughts, unbidden, and leave me with a queer sinking feeling, but then I would see the king, and all my qualms would disappear. It was the right thing to do, and now as the months pass, I think of her less and less. And never with regret.

Once dressed, I sit by the window, cradling Marie-Audrée and losing myself in her soft fur. I need a few moments to prepare for the coming day. Well, I will need more than a few moments: I will need stamina, courage, wit, and duplicity. And many other things.

I stand up reluctantly. It is time. First to Mass, then to greet the king. The butterflies are deliberate.
Butterfly
is his pet word for my pussy and now I wear them in my hair, subtly swinging every time I turn my head, to remind him all the day of what is coming in the night.

Perfect.

Goodness, but
I
am a thing to fear.

Louise

RUE SAINT-THOMAS-DU-LOUVRE, PARIS

September 1743

I
live in a
humble house now, far away from the glitter of Versailles or the proud mansions of the nobility across the river. He provided it for me; I knew he never would forsake me entirely. I live simply and in no real comfort; I keep no carriage and rarely entertain those I used to know in my previous life. Jacobs, my dear, faithful Jacobs, stays with me and I know I am lucky to have such a friend.

For the first time in my life, I know what I am and I know what I am not. I am nothing special. Because I was born to a family of nobility and prestige, I thought—nay, I
knew
—that I was better than other people. How wrong I was!

I never knew how the poor lived. Our servants were invisible. They were not deserving of our pity or our compassion; they worked for us and it was thanks to our grace that they survived. We were taught that anyone who was not noble was not fully human, and that their lot was not our concern. Charities had to be done, of course, but only by rote obligation and we were free as flies to ignore the suffering around us.

Apart from our servants I do not ever think I met a poor person. Even as children, when we ventured out from our nursery to walk along the Seine or enjoy the gardens at the Tuileries, Zélie and our attendants formed a shield around us to protect us from the beggars and the ragged ones. I remember once I saw a small child lying by the side of the road, almost naked. It was cold outside
but she had no shoes or cloak. I asked Zélie why the child lay like that and why she did not go warm herself by a fire. Zélie told me that the poor have thicker skins than we do and so do not feel the pain, and that the little girl lay like that because she was lazy.

Lies, all lies. We are all the same, our skin and our feet and our hands. Pain is universal; it does not lower itself for titles or wealth.

I live as plainly as I can. I have a few visitors but truly I am not interested in the news they have to tell. Their lives are so small and so petty. Artificial. Clothes, food, entertainment, who said what to whom, what it meant, who won at cards, who the king smiled at. I think with repulsion now of that life. I feel only disgust when I meet a courtier wearing a coat that could feed a family for a year, or a lady with fresh roses in her hair, a single one of which would buy a meal for ten. How can they be so blind?

How could I have been so blind?

I sinned with Louis, but that sin—adultery—was not the real sin. No, the real sin was the ignorance that I lived in, my oblivion to the suffering of my fellow man. And so I dedicate the rest of my life to the poor, to making their lives on this earth a little better, a little kinder, a little softer. I will not retire to a convent; I believe I can do more good out here than cloistered behind thick walls.

Jacobs comes in with my cape, the same brown one I used to wear when I prepared to sin with the king. Now I wear it not as a nostalgic memento, but as a reminder of my guilty days. I also contemplate wearing a hair shirt, for I have a growing need to remind myself in more physical ways of how wrong my old life was and how great my penance must be.

“Rain this afternoon, madame,” she says as she ties the cape around me. “And Marie tells me the butcher brought the kidneys he promised, she’ll be sure to make a nice pie with them.”

“Did he also send the bones?” I ask anxiously.

“Of course, madame. And he added a few pounds of fat, for he is a good man. Marie will be sending it all to the hospital at Saint-Michel.”

“Good, good.”

We walk out slowly on the streets, the hint of rain following us as we make our way to the church. I come here to Saint-Eustache every morning, and most nights too. I slip into my favorite pew, the worn wooded oak like a familiar cushion beneath me. I am home, and at peace.

I pray for Louis, even though we are no longer together. I don’t pray that he will take me back as his mistress, but I pray that one day he will see the errors of his ways and repent and return to his queen as a good Christian man and live in virtue, not in sin. Though I pray for him, I can also see, finally, truthfully, his faults: he is a weak man, and a selfish one.

And I pray for my sisters. I hear rumors, dreadful rumors. I shudder and am filled with a deep, aching shame that I could once have done as they do now. I could repent a lifetime, but that would not be enough for God.

And I pray especially for Marie-Anne. She will be punished in the afterlife, of that I am certain, but it would also be very gratifying were she to be punished in this life. Very gratifying. I pray that it happens thus, and then pray that I might be forgiven my vengeful thoughts.

As I rise to leave a man in the pew next to mine turns and looks at me. Our eyes meet and I see he knows me, as so many know me. I don’t know how: Did they circulate portraits along with those scurrilous songs?

“Whore,” he snarls, with true venom in his voice. His words shake me, but then they spread out to balm my soul.

“You say it as you see it, monsieur,” I say calmly. “You are an honest man, and I thank you for that.” I hold his gaze a few moments longer, and soon he drops his head in shame. “Thank you,” I whisper again.

Jacobs and I walk home in silence, and on the way it starts to rain, the drops falling heavy on my thick woolen cloak.

From Louise de Mailly

Rue Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre, Paris

September 30, 1743

Dearest Diane,

I trust you are well and settling into the life of a married woman. Heed your husband, but remain true to yourself. My husband was a dreadful man, and though I pretended otherwise, there is no need to lie: even a lie of politeness is a sin in the eyes of God.

I beg you to distance yourself from Marie-Anne. For your own sake, and here I speak humbly and truly: Marie-Anne is not a nice woman, and she is cold and calculating and she will not hesitate to slay or discard people as it pleases her. She is guided by no higher power and restrained by no moral compass.

Please, Diane, write to me and say that you have renounced Marie-Anne, as I am pleased to say Hortense has done. It is for your protection.