Paris: The Novel (91 page)

“He wears high heels to make himself seem taller. He always has,” her guide whispered back.

“He does not seem so terrifying.”

“Do not ever make that mistake, my dear. The king is the politest man
in France. He even touches his hat to the scullery maids. But his power is absolute. Even his children are terrified of him.” She indicated a man in the robes of a Jesuit priest walking just behind him. “That’s his confessor, Père de La Chaise.” Amélie noticed that people were smiling at the priest. “Père de La Chaise is kind to everyone,” said her friend. “If the king is the most feared, La Chaise is the most loved man at the court.”

Next came a large, blond man, with a pleasant, Germanic face, and the first signs that his impressive physique might run to fat.

“That is the king’s eldest son, the dauphin. We call him le Grand Dauphin, because he’s so tall. It’s his wife you’ll see tomorrow.

“Ah. And behind him you see the Duc d’Orléans, the king’s brother, and his wife.”

A handsome woman, dressed very simply and wearing a diamond cross, passed by.

“Since the queen died, the king’s friend Madame de Maintenon has so taken him over that the rumor is that they have secretly married. But nobody knows.”

Then came a lady who clearly had once been very beautiful. Her face still contained traces of beauty, but it was clear from the way she walked that her legs had puffed up.

“Madame de Montespan, the king’s most important former mistress. She gave him a number of children, and he’s legitimized them all.”

“He can do that?”

“I’m surprised you didn’t know. He can do what he wants. Well, almost. You know he chooses the French bishops. He doesn’t let the pope do it.”

After the cortege had passed, her friend decided to give Amélie a tour of the palace and grounds. “Over there,” she indicated, “is the north wing where you’ll have your room, assuming the dauphine accepts you. But we can look at that tomorrow.”

Madame de Saint-Loubert could see that Amélie’s ignorance of the court was far greater than it should have been for an aristocratic girl, and she hoped that she hadn’t made a mistake by suggesting that she come to Versailles. However, others had come there with far less breeding and good manners than Amélie and done very well, so she set to work to explain some of the principal characters at the court, how they were related and where they stood in the pecking order.

The list was long, and the relationships were so complex that it made Amélie’s head spin. There were the children of the king by the late queen, and then his children by his mistresses. Then there were the children of other branches of the royal family, both legitimate and illegitimate. And of course, the many descendants of branches of royalty, legitimate or otherwise, going back for centuries. Usually the offspring of the king’s mistresses were married into the greatest noble families, sometimes even into the legitimate royal family.

“Don’t worry,” Madame de Saint-Loubert told her, “the pattern will soon emerge if you just keep paying attention.”

When it came to the pecking order, she had to explain a most important principle.

“The princes of the blood are closest to the king in rank, and so the precedence is usually easy to follow. But rank and power are completely different. The king’s eldest son and the king’s brother are at the top of the tree. But they have no part in the government. Louis won’t even let them attend meetings with him.”

“But why?”

“To keep all the power in his hands. No chance of rivals, I should think. Wouldn’t you?”

“I hadn’t thought of it.”

“If you need a royal favor, then go to the mistresses. It’s a general rule that his mistress usually has more influence on a king than his wife.”

“What about his old mistress, Madame de Montespan? Is she important?”

“He visits her every day. He’s fond of her. But you know there was a big scandal—well, you were too young. Anyway, it was said that she used poison to get rid of another mistress. Nothing was ever proved. I’m sure it’s not true. But there’s always been a cloud over her since.”

“I feel as if I’ve walked into a dangerous labyrinth.”

“All courts are like that.”

As they returned from the palace, Amélie could not help feeling a sense of misgiving.

The next morning they returned to the palace to see the dauphine. Amélie knew her story. “She is not one of the court beauties,” Madame de Saint-Loubert had told her, “yet she seemed to please the dauphin.
They’ve had three children. But the last birth, this year, took a toll on her health, or so she says.”

The apartment of the dauphin was large, bright and airy. But that was not where they found his wife.

Although it was morning, the small back room was dark, the windows covered. An Italian maid let them in. The wife of the large, hearty-looking prince Amélie had seen yesterday did not seem well. Though Amélie knew that she was only about twenty-five, she had the impression that the sickly figure before her was much older. The dauphine was sitting in a fauteuil, and she summoned Amélie, telling her to sit on a small gilt chair. Her gesture was rather listless.

Only as she got close did she realize something else about the dauphin’s wife: She was astonishingly ugly. Her skin was blotchy. Her lips were pale as an old woman’s, her teeth were rotten, and her hands were unnaturally red. But most striking of all was her big, bulbous nose.

The poor lady’s looks were so unprepossessing that it was lucky Amélie had been prepared for them. She kept her face a mask.

First the dauphine offered her a piece of cake. Since it would have been impolite to refuse, even though she didn’t want it, Amélie ate the cake while the dauphine watched her.

“Despite her physical ugliness, the dauphine is most fastidious when she eats. She cannot bear to have women near her who eat messily,” Madame de Saint-Loubert had forewarned her. “But don’t worry, your table manners are excellent.”

As she didn’t drop any crumbs from her mouth or spill anything on the floor, this seemed to satisfy the dauphine.

Could she read and write? Had she a good hand? The Italian maid brought her a pen, ink and a piece of paper and she was commanded to write a few lines of any verse she knew.

Amélie obliged with some elegant religious verses from Corneille. The choice, and her handwriting, seemed to do.

“The dauphine is well read and speaks three languages well. She won’t expect this from you, however,” her mentor had also informed her.

Then the conversation turned to her family.

Who were her parents? Amélie named them. And her grandparents? Amélie named them too. And her great-grandparents? These she also named. And their parents? Amélie named all sixteen.

“They are all noble?” The dauphine sought confirmation. Amélie confirmed
that they were. “This is good. This is important,” said the dauphine.

“You must understand,” Madame de Saint-Loubert had explained the night before, “that if you think your father is concerned with ancestry, this pales into insignificance compared to the attention paid to the subject by German royalty and, as I hope you know, the dauphine by birth is a Bavarian princess. She might take you if you weren’t of sufficiently pure blood, but she’d give you a terrible time. She even treats Madame de Maintenon like a servant because her ancestry is imperfect.” She smiled. “I had already checked with your parents, or I wouldn’t have brought you here. It would have been too cruel.” She paused. “By the way, I wouldn’t say that you are close to your cousins who lost their nobility, if I were you.”

And did she have cousins in Paris? the dauphine asked, quite pleasantly. And Amélie was just about to answer happily that she had indeed, her mother’s niece and nephew of whom she was so fond, when, by the grace of the Almighty, she remembered and avoided the terrible trap.

“I must confess with shame that one of my mother’s family made an unfortunate marriage,” she answered quietly, “and I believe there are children, but I know nothing about them.” With this monumental lie, her dear cousins Isabelle and Yves miraculously disappeared.

“Many families suffer misfortune. Your family has behaved quite correctly,” the princess told her. She turned to Madame de Saint-Loubert, who had remained standing quietly in a corner near the door. “I think she will do very well,” she said. “Will you show her where her rooms are?” Then she addressed Amélie. “Come to me tomorrow morning, my dear, after Mass. By the way,” she added, “as I never go out, there is nothing for you to do. But you won’t mind.” This last, it seemed, was an order. They quietly withdrew.

“You didn’t tell me she was quite so ugly,” Amélie protested to Madame de Saint-Loubert. “I almost made a face. However did her husband find her attractive?”

“Well, he did. There’s no accounting for tastes. Let’s go to see your room.”

The north wing was given over entirely to the quarters of the many aristocratic folk with duties of one kind or another in the palace. There were also some impoverished aristocrats who, if they’d ever had any duties at the court, were now too ancient to perform them, together with a few
relicts of former courtiers. Some of the grander courtiers had quite elegant quarters there. But large though the place was, the need for lodging had already outgrown the space available. And what with subdivision and doubling up, the higher floors had in no time turned into the most aristocratic tenement in the world.

Having climbed the stairs to the highest floor below the attic, they made their way along a passage until they reached a door that had been cleverly cut in half and divided so that the left half swung one way, and the right the other.

“Yours is the left-hand side,” said her guide, and as they opened it, “I’m afraid the right side got the window.”

It was the size of a small room. Big enough for a little bed and an armoire for her. It was airless. And pitch-black.

“It’s not very nice,” said Amélie.

“It’s a start,” said Madame de Saint-Loubert firmly. “We’ll go and get a candle and some other things.”

“You don’t think,” suggested Amélie, “that the wife of the Dauphin of France would want her maid of honor to have a window?”

“It’s hard to know,” said Madame de Saint-Loubert, “since she seems to like sitting in the dark herself.”

As they went down the stairs again, her mentor tried to comfort her a little.

“You must understand,” she explained, “that the main thing is to be here. Everything comes from that. Once you’re here, who knows what wonderful things may happen? But if you’re somewhere else, nothing will ever happen. That’s the point.” She gave Amélie an encouraging smile. “You’re quite nice-looking. You’re noble. Just be polite to everyone and make friends. That way, with a little luck, you’ll find yourself a suitable husband.”

“Is that what my parents want me to do?”

“Every important and eligible person in the kingdom comes here. What would you hope for if you were a parent?”

The next day, Amélie arrived at the appointed time. She was told to sit quietly, which she did for an hour. Then the dauphine asked her to take a letter to the Duchesse d’Orléans, and Amélie set off.