Mistress of the Revolution (16 page)
I frowned. “That was very unbecoming, Madam, just after the late King’s death too.”
“And the Queen was twenty then. She should have known better. You are but seventeen, Belle, but I cannot imagine you acting in such a manner.”
The door to the apartment next to ours slammed. We heard the voices of a man and a woman, obviously in high spirits. I was reminded of my evenings with my late husband. My body stiffened with the memory. But this lady seemed to be enjoying herself more than I had ever done. Her encouragements and praise were followed by less distinct but still lively exclamations. Her lover, from all appearances a man of few words, soon joined his moans to hers before bellowing with satisfaction. That, however, only interrupted the proceedings without concluding them and the happy couple continued their entertainment late into the night. The Duchess and I could follow in the minutest detail their conversation, which put an end to ours.
The next morning, I was happy to settle by the Duchess’s side in the carriage.
“We will call on my daughter,” she said as soon as it was in motion, “and tell her what happened. You know that she is a lady-in-waiting to Madame, the Countess de Provence, who is married to the King’s brother. You would have been presented to her yesterday if she had been in Versailles. She will, no doubt, be impatient to make your acquaintance, for she cannot abide the Queen.”
“Why not?”
“The Queen thinks of herself as the prettiest woman at Court, and never lets her sister-in-law forget it. Not that Madame, who is indeed no beauty, has any delusions in that regard, but she does not like to be reminded too often of her own plainness.”
“It is certainly unkind, and unwise, of the Queen to offend her sister-in-law. What about the other members of the royal family?”
“The Countess d’Artois, who is married to the King’s youngest brother, has not much to recommend herself. She causes quite a bit of scandal by her liaisons with the Bodyguards assigned to her service. Some say that her last pregnancy has no other origin.”
I gasped in horror. “Is the Chevalier des Huttes—”
The Duchess laughed. “Oh no, dear, I did not mean our friend the Chevalier, of course.” She became grave again. “As to the rest of the royal family, they seldom set foot in Versailles, except for state occasions. The Queen herself now hates the Court. She spends as much time as she can in her little château of Trianon, her own private retreat within the grounds of Versailles. She receives only the Duchess de Polignac and her clique there, in addition to the handsome Fersen, of course. Sometimes she also invites Madame Elisabeth, the King’s sister, to whom you were presented yesterday. A delightful person, on good terms with everyone. To give you an idea of Madame Elisabeth’s generosity, three years ago, she asked the King to forego her New Year’s Day present, in order to give her friend, Mademoiselle de Causans, a dowry of 150,000 francs.”
“What happened to that Mademoiselle de Causans?”
“She was able to marry the Marquis de Raigecourt, my dear.”
“Would he not have married her without her 150,000 francs?”
“Probably not, and such a dowry is not extraordinary. When the Duchess de Polignac’s daughter was married, at the age of twelve, to the Duke de Guiche, the Queen requested that the Treasury give the little bride a dowry of 800,000 francs. That is considered high, especially in the current state of the public finances, but there is not a thing the Duchess de Polignac would not obtain from the Queen.”
I looked out the window. “So, Madam, what do you think of my chances of remarrying with less than 3,000 francs to my name?”
“To be candid, dear Belle, I think they are slim, unless of course some man loses his head over you, which is always possible.”
“The Chevalier des Huttes seemed to think that I could find a husband in Paris.”
“If he had any sense at all, he would marry you himself. I have not failed to point this out to him. Where will he find a woman with one tenth of your beauty, your understanding and your sweetness of temper? You would have him if he proposed, would you not?”
“Maybe,” I said, blushing.
“You do not fool me, dearest. Of course you would. I cannot forgive him for being such an idiot. The truth is that he is in love with the Queen.”
I stared at the Duchess.
“Do not look at me like this, Belle,” she added. “She does have that effect on certain men. Do you know why the Chevalier brought you to Paris? He thought you might attract the Queen’s benevolent attention. She would indeed gain much by having you as a friend. But the stunted mind of a money-hungry simpleton like Madame de Polignac is what she can grasp. You have nothing to regret, my dear. If the Queen had displayed the slightest hint of a liking for you, the Polignac clique would have thought of some scheme to discredit you in her eyes before the day was over. You have no experience of Court intrigues, and you would not have known what was happening to you.”
“My late husband told me that the Duke de Lauzun and the Count de Fersen were the Queen’s lovers. Is it true?”
“Only they know,” said the Duchess. “What is certain is that the Queen used to be very, very favorably inclined towards Lauzun before he left for the American War. She gave him public marks of her favour and could not bear to spend a day without seeing him. She has become much less friendly towards him. These days, she cares for no one but Fersen. He is admitted several times a week in the Queen’s private apartments at Trianon, while enjoying the company of less elegant females on his days of leisure in Paris. The difference between Fersen and Lauzun is that Fersen does not flaunt his successes with other ladies. He always keeps in public that cold manner which so well matches the Queen’s.” The Duchess shrugged. “Fersen is a hypocrite, like all of those foreigners who presume to criticize the freedom, or the looseness, as they call it, of French morals.”
I had already abandoned any hopes of obtaining a place at Court. Versailles did not seem to agree with my temperament. The other option considered by the Chevalier des Huttes, which was to remarry, sounded equally unlikely. I hoped that the Duchess was wrong about my prospects. After all, when I was fifteen, two men had been prepared to take me without a
sol
.
A letter was waiting for me in Paris. Madame de Montserrat, my sister, had responded, which in itself astonished me. I opened the missive, my hands trembling.
Thank you, dearest sister, for your letter. I had heard such contradictory accounts of you as to be unable to form any opinion of you. Madeleine had sent word that you had disgraced yourself and the family by eloping with one of Géraud’s friends. Then I learned that you were staying in Paris with our cousin the Duchess d’Arpajon, whose reputation is above reproach.
I understand your decision not to enter religious life, I even approve of it. I remained a novice myself for three full years before taking my final vows at sixteen, a choice I never regretted. I have found within the walls of Noirvaux a peace that would have eluded me in any other place. Your situation, however, is different. Your letter did not seem to indicate that you are at all prepared to renounce the world. Believe me, the call, when one receives it, is unmistakable. That time may come for you too, perhaps sooner than you expect, but it is clear that you have not been granted that grace yet.
What I propose is that you come and visit our community whenever you like. For one thing, as a selfish creature, for one remains selfish or becomes more so in a convent, I will be delighted to meet you at last. You were but an infant when I left Fontfreyde forever, and the last memory I have of you is that of a baby of three weeks in your nurse’s arms when she took you away. You already had hair the same colour as mine, much to poor Mother’s despair.
Moreover, a retreat here, if only of a few weeks, could help you become better acquainted with your real wishes and needs. Prayer works wonders.
Please continue writing.
May God keep you, dearest sister, under His holy and worthy protection.
Hélène, Abbess de Noirvaux
To say that I was delighted with that letter would fall short of describing my feelings. I was impatient to meet Madame de Montserrat and decided to avail myself of her offer as soon as my Paris engagements slowed with the advent of the summer.
The Chevalier des Huttes called a few days after our return from Versailles. The Duchess had gone out to visit her daughter and Aimée was napping. He was clearly embarrassed.
“You seem to have heard of my debut at Court,” I said, smiling. “Please rest easy. My vanity has already recovered.”
“It was my fault.” The Chevalier bit his lip. “I should have warned you of what to expect. It grieves me to think that, though the Queen is goodness itself, she does not know how to show it. There is not a kinder, more amiable person within her private circle.”
“I am sure that you are right. You have known her for many years. I just have the misfortune to be outside her private circle. Please do not worry about me.”
“How can I help it? I feel a great deal of responsibility towards you, My Lady. I was the one who brought you here, leading you to expect things that may never happen.”
“You are too harsh on yourself, dear Chevalier. You did not promise anything except to deliver me safely to the Duchess’s house.” I looked out the window. “Did you know that I wrote Madame de Montserrat and that she responded? She invited me to Noirvaux for a retreat.”
“I am glad to hear it, My Lady, and will be happy to take you there whenever you wish.”
“You are very kind, as usual. In your opinion, Sir, would the Marquis think less ill of me if he knew that I intend to go visit our sister? Do you think he will ever forgive me for moving to Paris?”
“I do not believe that he has forgiven either of us. Yet, My Lady, he may be mollified if he hears that you are going to Noirvaux, even for a short visit.”
The Chevalier looked at me gravely. “He has his fair share of worries these days: the situation in Auvergne is less peaceful than it used to be. You have, of course, heard of the new municipal assemblies that will now govern all the parishes. The Marquis presides over that of Lavigerie, as is his right as the titular lord of the town. But then Jean-Baptiste Coffinhal, his former attorney, who is now the main landowner there, had the insolence to refuse to let the Marquis participate in the deliberations, allegedly because he can only represent the interests of the nobility and not those of the commoners! What an outrage!” The Chevalier shook his head sadly. “I could have imagined such insult from the younger Coffinhal, but I expected better from his elder brother.”
I could not hear Pierre-André’s name without a pang. It seemed that his whole family had now espoused his quarrel with my brother. I knew that my former suitor lived in Paris and often wondered whether he was aware of my presence in town. I never passed the massive towers of the
Grand Châtelet
, half a mile from the Duchess’s mansion, without thinking of him. I pictured him in one of the courtrooms at that very moment.
It would have been easy to discover his whereabouts. Many times I was tempted to call on him. I was always stopped by the fear of finding him resentful, hostile, contemptuous or, worse, indifferent. I did not want to hear him say that he no longer cared for me, to face the pain, the humiliation of having him turn me out of his chambers.
Also, since I intend to tell the plain truth in these memoirs, I will not deny that, since we had last met, I had absorbed some of the prejudices of my class. I was a Baroness, albeit a penniless one. I associated only with aristocrats. Not all were wealthy, but all lived in a world of luxury, of idleness, of parties, of pleasure, which was becoming mine. A liaison between a commoner and a noblewoman, a notion that had seemed completely natural to me at fifteen, would have been very odd to them. It had not even entered the Chevalier’s mind, when he had brought me to Paris, that I might be tempted to renew with my former suitor.
There may have been still another, maybe more compelling reason: my remembrance of Pierre-André was associated with the season of my life when I had been forced to forsake him and all of my hopes. It would have been unbearable to bring back the anguish of my engagement to a man I had loathed, of those terrible first weeks of my marriage. Time had passed, but the pain of those memories was as fresh as ever.
Whatever the reason, I did not avail myself of the opportunity I now had to meet Pierre-André Coffinhal, when only a few years earlier I would have bartered my soul to run away with him.