Paris: The Novel (87 page)

“My friend,” he said softly, “I want you to walk across to the Louvre. You are to ask, in my name, to be taken to the queen. Please give this letter into her hands—and her hands only. When that is done, and she has it, there is no need to wait for a reply, but be so good as to return here and let me know that this little mission is accomplished.” He smiled. “I entrust this errand to you personally because the subject of the letter is exceedingly sensitive.”

Leaving the palace, Charles wrapped his cloak about him tightly. A cold rain was falling with the gusting wind. Foul winter weather. He
crossed the square in front of the cardinal’s palace. Ahead of him, the long mass of the Louvre’s north side loomed dark and solemn. Through the rain, he could see the dim lamps by a side door.

He announced his business. The sentries knew him. A young officer conducted him along the dimly lit stone halls and galleries toward the queen’s apartments.

As he walked along in silence, he had time to reflect.

Anne, the daughter of the Hapsburg king of Spain, had married King Louis XIII of France when they were both fourteen. It was the usual dynastic marriage, on this occasion to lessen tensions between her Hapsburg family and the kingdom of France.

What had it been like for her? Charles wondered. It couldn’t have been easy.

For by the time they met, Louis XIII of France was exhibiting a very rare medical condition: a double set of teeth. Perhaps because of this, or perhaps for other reasons, he had a terrible stutter. If the girl found this off-putting, what agonies, Charles wondered, had the fourteen-year-old boy suffered?

When they were both eighteen, they conceived a child, but it was stillborn. The same thing happened again, three years later, then another four years after, then another five after that, in 1631. And then, nothing. It was said that when they did sleep in the same bed, his wife kept a bolster between them.

Charles felt sorry for the king. People complained that he was constantly off hunting. Poor devil, he thought, it’s probably to get away from them all. He seemed to have no mistresses. Was that piety, lack of inclination, or the fear that women found him repulsive? Who knew?

“He’s bedded one or two young men,” the king’s hunting companions told him. Perhaps that was what Louis preferred. Or perhaps he’d turned to men because he’d given up on women.

Whatever was going on in the king’s mind, or in the heart of his wife, France had no heir.

That wasn’t quite true. There was the king’s younger brother Gaston. But what a disaster he would be. Constantly plotting against Louis and Richelieu, unreliable, untruthful, disloyal and still without any male heirs of his own in any case, Gaston was the last person that any responsible courtier wanted to see on the throne of France.

No wonder, as he felt his own health failing, that Richelieu had been
secretly doing all he could to provide France with an heir. Some time ago, he had persuaded the royal couple to resume their marital relations, and they’d done so. Such things could be known, and Richelieu knew. But nothing had come of it yet.

One could only pray.

They were at the queen’s apartments. He was told to wait. Then the door was held open.

She received him in an anteroom. Her bedroom was just beyond. She was wearing a nightgown. It seemed she was already retiring to bed. But she smiled at him pleasantly as he bowed.

“Good evening, Monsieur de Cygne. I’m sorry if you got wet coming to see me. You have a private letter from the cardinal?”

Despite her strict Spanish upbringing, there was a gentle playfulness in her manner that was entirely pleasant. She was certainly a good-looking woman, Charles thought. Her hair had a natural hint of red, her eyes were large and brown. She was full-breasted, her skin perfect, her hands especially beautiful. For just a second his face may have given away that he was thinking how delightful it must be to share her bed, but he quickly lowered his gaze. If she noticed, she probably didn’t mind.

“I was to deliver it personally, Majesty, into your hands alone.”

“Then I thank you, monsieur.” She smiled again. “Good night.”

“Your Majesty.” He bowed again and began to withdraw.

It was as he did so that the door of the queen’s bedroom beyond slowly swung open, allowing him a glimpse into a large, high room, softly lit with candles.

And then he saw the man. It was only a fleeting glance, since he instantly looked down, pretending to have seen nothing as he backed out of the anteroom. A moment’s vision of a man in the candlelight.

It could have been King Louis. He thought the king had gone away hunting, but it could have been King Louis, certainly. Only, in that brief glimpse, he could have sworn it was another face he knew.

Mazarin. The Italian. It had looked like Mazarin.

He’d been away in Italy recently, and on his return, Richelieu had sent him off on another commission. Charles had not thought that Mazarin was in Paris.

Ten minutes later he was back in Richelieu’s office.

“It is done, Eminence. I spoke with the queen and gave her the letter myself.”

“Good. Did you see anything else?”

Charles hesitated, just a second. What did the cardinal know? What answer did he want? If in doubt, discretion.

“The queen had just retired. She came out and received me in the anteroom. Having delivered the letter, I withdrew. That is all I can say, Eminence. I had the impression that she was about to go to sleep.”

“And so you should yourself, de Cygne. Go home to your wife and son. How old is young Roland, now?”

“He is seven, Eminence.”

“I am glad you have a son. It is a fine thing for a man to have a son.” The cardinal paused. “Let us hope the king will have a son, before too long. That’s what we need.”

Charles stared at him. But the great man had already started to write another letter, and he did not look up.

So Charles remembered that strange evening, nine months later when, to general rejoicing, King Louis XIII of France and his wife had a son, to whom he gave his own name, Louis. Everyone said the birth of the child was a gift from God, and so no doubt it was.

Thus Louis XIV was born, a strong and healthy baby. Richelieu was relieved.

And Charles de Cygne said not a word.

•  1665  •

The Pont Neuf was a curious place. When Henry IV had built it, he had wanted a fine, simple bridge, uncluttered by houses, that spanned the entire river from Right Bank to Left, with the Île de la Cité serving as a central platform, a station, as the new bridge strode across the water. He wanted something handsome.

But then humanity came flocking, from every alley, every tavern, every dark cavity of the city. And instead of a jostling narrow thoroughfare squeezed between houses, like the other bridges, it found a broad open platform, delightfully set over the busy river, where there was ample room to play.

Singers, dancers, musicians, acrobats, jugglers, women selling love potions, cutpurses, preachers—they all gathered on the Pont Neuf. Anyone
crossing the bridge on a sunny day was certain to find something to claim their attention and make them late for their meeting.

And not the least among these entertainers and villains was a large man, quite a handsome fellow really, with a mop of dark hair, who wore a red scarf around his neck, who made extemporary speeches from which he would continuously break off to insult any passerby. The richer and more important they looked, the more vigorous and more pointed his insults. It would have shown a lack of Gallic spirit if his victims had not thrown him a coin or two for insulting them—so long as it was done with wit. But there was always the possibility that someone would not see the humor of it, and try to punish him. And this would cause merriment as well, for he was not only large but exceedingly strong.

“I was born a huge baby,” he would declare. “So my father called me Hercule, after the hero Hercules. My mother, after giving birth, called me Salaud. And I have been both ever since.”

His speciality was logic. He would take any proposition—it might be supplied by his audience, the more absurd the better—and then with extravagant logic, with indefatigable reasoning, and with asides insulting anyone who caught his eye, he would prove that the insane proposition must be true.

“I am the modern Abelard,” he would shout. “But I am superior in three ways. My logic is better than his. And I have two balls.” And then, to the nearest pretty woman, irrespective of whether she was a streetwalker or a fashionable lady in her carriage: “Permit me, madame, to furnish you with the proof, the absolute proof, of my assertion.”

If anyone crossed him, however, they could expect no mercy. When a young noble passed by him with a look of scorn, Hercule Le Sourd’s revenge was to call out instantly:

And when the young man made as if to draw his sword: “He draws his sword. By day he wears it at his side. By night, between his legs. After all, he needs something to get his hands on.”

When he wasn’t holding court on the Pont Neuf, he made a living as a shoemaker. That was his craft. But this he did at his own little workshop, and at his own pace. Whenever the weather was fine, he came out onto the Pont Neuf, and picked up quite as much money by exercising his wit as he ever made from his proper trade.

Once a young dandy, refusing to take his wit in good part, had drawn his sword and wounded Le Sourd badly in the arm. Le Sourd could have had him arrested, but he didn’t.

“I never resort to the law,” he explained to his audience. “I am a philosopher.” Six months later, the young dandy vanished.

But today, on a warm afternoon in the summer of 1665, Le Sourd the philosopher had a slight feeling of unease.

It was the fourth time the carriage had stopped near him on the bridge.

The carriage was closed. It evidently belonged to someone with money, but there was no coat of arms or other marking to identify the owner. It was driven by a coachman without grooms in attendance. As before, it stopped at a short distance just south of him on the bridge, but close enough to hear his speeches through a narrow opening in the door. There was a thin curtain across the slit, but he had the feeling that he was being observed as well.

Observed by whom? Some aristocrat who found him amusing, but who did not wish to reveal his identity? Possibly. A spy? Also possible.

Cardinal Mazarin always had many spies. They’d have been in the crowd, no doubt, but if their reports had made the great man curious … One never knew.

But the person in the carriage couldn’t be Mazarin himself. Four years ago, after governing for as long as his mentor Richelieu, he also had died in harness, before the age of sixty. It might be some other powerful figure though. It could even be … he trembled slightly at the thought of it … the young king himself.

So was he going to change his tune? Was he going to watch his language, or be careful not to insult the government—just in case?

No. He was Hercule Le Sourd. Let them arrest him if they dared. This was the Pont Neuf, and he was its philosopher king.

He ignored the carriage and began a tirade about the vices of the nobles, adding, for good measure, that if young Louis XIV were a man, he’d hang
most of them from the nearest lamp. He glanced at the carriage as he said it, but there was no sign whatever from within.

The carriage was still there when he finished almost an hour later. He started to walk across to the Left Bank, which meant he would pass the carriage. As he drew level, the coachman touched his shoulder lightly with his whip and called down to him: “Get in.”

“Why?”

“Someone wants to speak to you.”

“Who?”

At this moment, the carriage door opened. And Hercule Le Sourd looked up in surprise.

Geneviève d’Artagnan had always understood her situation in life, from the time she was a little girl. Her family was noble, but they were out of money.