Paris: The Novel (94 page)

Two days later, as Amélie was sitting in the dauphine’s dark room, both she and the dauphine were astonished when a courtier came to inform her that the king himself desired her presence.

“I can’t imagine why,” Amélie said. “I’m sure I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Nor can I, but you must go at once,” the dauphine told her.

She knew that, when not in council, the king conducted most of his business with a very few advisors. But she was quite surprised to find herself ushered into a salon in which the king was sitting on a fauteuil quite alone. Beside him was a table, covered by a rich cloth on which there were a number of papers. She curtseyed deeply as the door closed behind her.

She had never been in the intimate presence of King Louis before. He was wearing a coat of deep red velvet trimmed with gold, a lace cravat and a large wig that reproduced the magnificent dark brown hair of his youth. His face was sensual, a little fleshy now, but every line proclaimed that he was used to being obeyed. His eyes were smaller than she had realized, as dark brown as his wig, and sharp and cynical as the world that he commanded. In his usual fashion when seated, his left leg was tucked back and his right, impressively muscular in its white silk stocking, was stuck out proudly.

“You are young, Mademoiselle d’Artagnan,” he said calmly. “You bear a fine name.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” she said. She felt rather frightened.

“It is my wish that you should honor the name of d’Artagnan that you are so fortunate to bear. I am sure you understand me.”

“I think so, sire.”

“Whatever you may believe about your birth, you are never to speak of these doubts again. Never. If you do, you may be sure that I shall hear of it.”

“I merely try to be honest, Your Majesty,” she ventured.

“That is often commendable. But in these circumstances it is ill-advised and would bring pain to others and to yourself. You will therefore do as I wish.” He looked at her to make sure she had understood.

She bowed her head, and said nothing.

“You have the opportunity to render a great service to a family who have served France for many centuries, and to bring happiness to a brave and honest man. I am speaking of course of Monsieur de Cygne.”

“He did me the honor to propose marriage, Your Majesty, but he may have changed his mind.”

“On the contrary, he is quite determined to marry you, Mademoiselle d’Artagnan, and it is my wish that this marriage should take place.”

“I wonder, Your Majesty …” she began desperately, but the king signified that she should cease speaking at once.

“I wish it,” he said bleakly.

Le Roi le veult
: the king wishes it. The final word against which there could be no argument and no recourse. She fell silent.

And then she discovered why even the princes of the blood trembled in the presence of the Sun King.

“It is best for everyone that you do exactly as I say, mademoiselle,” King Louis quietly continued. “You must trust my wisdom. You will never question your birth again, you will marry Monsieur de Cygne and one day you will be glad that you did.” And now his voice suddenly became harsh. “But if you fail in the slightest degree to follow the instructions I have just given you, then you will regret it.” He picked up a sheet of paper from the table. “Do you know what this is?”

“No, Your Majesty.”

“It is a
lettre de cachet
, mademoiselle. With this, I can send you to the Bastille or any prison of my choosing. I can place you in solitary confinement, and give instructions that you are never to be seen again. I do not have to supply any reason for my action. It is entirely within my power. I have sent young women to prison in this manner before. And I am quite ready to sign this letter now, and find Monsieur de Cygne another wife. The guards outside the door will convey you to prison at once. In one minute from now, mademoiselle, you will vanish forever.”

Amélie felt herself shivering. A terrible cold descended upon her. She had never known such fear before.

“I will do as you command, Your Majesty,” she said hoarsely.

“Do not at any time disobey me, mademoiselle, in the smallest particular. I shall hear of it if you do. And then, even Monsieur de Cygne will not be able to save you.”

“I shall never disobey you, sire,” she swore, “as long as I live.”

“I shall come to your marriage,” he said, and dismissed her.

A year later, Amélie de Cygne gave birth to a baby boy. Her husband wrote to his young cousin in Canada to announce the fact. He did not write to him again.

•  1715  •

It was quite a common sight, in the early years of the eighteenth century, to see the old man on the Pont Neuf, especially when the weather was warm. His grandson would bring him there in his cart.

Some people could still remember him in his prime.

“You should have heard him then,” they would tell the younger folk. “The greatest mouth in Paris.” And strong as an ox. For look at how long he had lived. Nobody was sure of his exact age, but he must be over eighty. He still wore a red scarf around his neck, under his white beard.

If people came up and spoke to him, he would answer them briefly, and when he did so it could be seen that he had two or three teeth, which was remarkable for such an aged man.

When he appeared in the summer of 1715, Hercule Le Sourd had not been seen for months, and the previous winter had clearly taken its toll. His face was gaunt, and his clothes hung upon him loosely. But he got out of his grandson’s cart and walked stiffly across to the middle of the bridge. And was seen there every week or so after that.

One day his grandson took him along the Left Bank of the river so that he could gaze down the huge southern sweep to the cold facade of Les Invalides, to which King Louis had added a splendid royal chapel with a gilded dome. “I’ve seen pictures of St. Peter’s, Rome,” his grandson told him, “and this looks exactly the same. Paris is the new Rome.” Another
time, they went to the northern part of the city where King Louis had demolished parts of the old city wall and built handsome boulevards there instead. “The king’s made France more glorious than she’s ever been before,” the younger man declared confidently.

“That may be,” Hercule said, but he was too old to be easily impressed.

Yes, he thought, King Louis had added to the glory of Bourbon France. The great nobles obeyed him. The country was better run. Across the ocean in the New World, French adventurers had just made good their claim to the territory centered on the vast Mississippi basin and called it Louisiana.

In Europe, the power of the mighty Hapsburgs of Austria and Spain was waning. By force and clever bargaining, the Sun King had grabbed rich border territories like Alsace out of Hapsburg hands and into his own. By marrying his heirs to Hapsburg princesses, King Louis had done even better. For when the inbred Hapsburgs couldn’t even provide an heir for Spain, one of his grandsons had inherited the Spanish throne. True, the Bourbons had to promise the rest of Europe that France and Spain would never be ruled by a single monarch, but it was a friendly Bourbon, rather than a rival Hapsburg, who now lay over France’s southern border.

French culture was the fashion. All over Europe, French was becoming the language of diplomacy and the aristocracy.

I, myself, as a Frenchman, am proud of all this, Hercule admitted.

Yet the Bourbon glory had come at a cost. The Sun King’s ambition had alarmed his fellow rulers, especially the Protestant ones. When he’d attacked the Netherlands, he’d gone too far. And the last two decades had seen a long drawn-out war in which the great English general Churchill, now Duke of Marlborough, had smashed the French army several times, proving to all the world that mighty France was not invincible. The war had left the Sun King’s treasury depleted, and France with few friends. Was that so good?

And yet beyond that, it seemed to Hercule, there was something else. Something intangible, like a cloud obscuring the sun.

The ancient Greeks told it as the tragedy of hubris. A king grows too proud, and the gods punish him. Medieval men spoke of the wheel of fortune, which never ceases to turn. Or perhaps God, for His own good reasons, had turned His face away from the King of France.

Whatever the cause, one thing was clear to Hercule Le Sourd: in the last few years, King Louis XIV had run out of luck.

It wasn’t only the grim cost of his wars. Everything had gone wrong. The harvests had failed—the surest sign of divine displeasure. Disease and famine had struck the countryside. And now his heirs had started dying. The dauphin, heir to France. The dauphin’s son. The dauphin’s elder grandson. Was there a curse on the family? One had to wonder. And now the king was old, and his health was beginning to fail, and his heir was his younger great-grandson, a little boy of five.

After all of King Louis XIV’s dynastic efforts, the kingdom of France would shortly be back where it was before: financially ruined, and with a helpless child upon the throne.

The sun was being extinguished. The darkness was closing in.

It was almost the end of August when the strange thing occurred. Hercule Le Sourd had asked his grandson to take him to a different place that day: the stately square of the Place Royale in the Marais quarter.

When they got there, he directed his grandson to a particular spot, and then got out and stretched his legs a bit.

“Why do you choose this place to stop?” his grandson inquired.

“Something wrong with it?”

“No.”

“Then mind your own business,” said his grandfather.

What had happened to that strange woman? he wondered. Probably dead by now. And no doubt I’ll be following her soon myself, he thought. And it occurred to him that in every corner of Paris there must be places where people had made illicit love—people who were long since turned to skeletons and dust. And if they were all to be resurrected in the body at the same time and in the act of love, what a strange panting, and moaning, and grinding of bones there would be. And in the warm, thick air of that August afternoon, it seemed to him that just for a moment, he could sense all those vanished bodies like spirits all around him, but as spirits with substance, however light. Was it possible that memories, and souls, could take a vaporous form and float about? If they could do it anywhere, it would surely be in the sultry warmth of the intimate, arcaded brick-and-stone enclosure, on a silent August afternoon.

It had not happened only once. The lady had come back for him the next day, and the one after that. Three times they had made the journey
from the Pont Neuf to the Place Royale. Three times they had made passionate love. He had been young then, and vigorous.

Then she had disappeared, and he’d never seen her again. He did not know who she was, and made no attempt to find out. What would be the point? He was left with three strange, magical memories, as if he’d been transported like a knight in a romance, into another world.

He stayed there some time. Then he said he wanted to go home.

The cart had just started up when he turned to his grandson and remarked: “Look at that.”

“What?”

“Over there.” Hercule pointed to a spot just in front of the arcades, about fifty paces away, where a figure was standing.

“I don’t see anything.”

“The small man, the old one, dressed in red.”

“There’s no one there, Granddad.”

And then Hercule understood.

“You’re right,” he said. “Trick of the light.” But he gazed down at the little red man as they passed him, and the red man stared back.

So that was him, Hercule thought. Usually it was kings and great men who saw the red man, just before some terrible event—often their own death. But he’d heard stories of ordinary people seeing him.

What did the red man’s presence mean this time? The death of the king, like as not. Perhaps his own as well.

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” he said aloud.

“What?” asked his grandson.

“Nothing.” If he was about to die, Hercule thought, he was glad he’d come to this place of memories today. “The best three fucks I ever had in my life,” he said aloud.