The Last Banquet (24 page)

She looked at the misshapen mess under my fingers and the potter hastened to assure her that working the wheel was hard and mine was a very good first effort, many did far worse in their first attempts and not everyone had the skill. I thanked him for his time, which embarrassed him, and washed my hands under a squeaking pump outside. The sun was hot enough to turn the remaining splashes of clay on my wrists to earthy scabs. They tasted of metals and salt, like raw liver or fresh blood.

Père Laurant, who now styled himself Maître Laurant, wrote from the Sorbonne to say he heard I worked simply like a man of the people, stripped to the waist, and my love for the natural over the artificial was an inspiration. I don’t bother to reply. That didn’t stop him writing a pamphlet proclaiming the best of the French aristocracy as instinctively noble and quoting me as a suitably Rousseauian example. Jean-Jacques’
Du Contract Social ou Principes de Droit Politique
had been published a few years before, and, like others, Père Laurant was busy trying to dress what already existed in new clothes to show we already had the framework for creating the best of all possible worlds.

His pamphlet and my foolery with the potter’s wheel were behind the royal letter, although I only discovered that later. By the time it arrived, the estate was running smoothly, the animals had settled, even the proudest of my neighbours had begun to think of Manon as the chatelaine of Chateau d’Aumout, as long as they didn’t think too deeply. There was no reason for me to worry about leaving her, not that I was presented with a choice. But still I wondered at the words.
The king requires your presence.
That evening Manon asked me what was wrong and took the letter, and my silence as permission to read.

‘You must go.’

‘Of course I must. I just wish I knew what he wanted.’ I was fifty, married for the second time, with a son to take my place and a daughter soon ready to be wed. I had my kitchens, my recipes and my mountain of notes. I was a good subject of Louis XV, quiet and unambitious and untroublesome. What could the king possibly want with me?

Manon and I make love that night and I doze in her arms, my wrist still trapped by her thighs, her fingers stroking my neck. ‘It might do you good,’ she says.

I drag myself out of sleep enough to be querulous and feel her smile, her hand stilling for a moment as she waits for me to answer. The peacocks are noisy outside despite the darkness of the night and I can hear sabots crunch on gravel. A kitchen maid returning from a tavern or a groom sneaking into the village. In a quiet part of my mind, where Charlot is still thin and Jerome fierce, Virginie beautiful and I’m young, I envy them.

‘I like it here.’

‘No,’ she says. ‘You’re comfortable here, there’s a difference.

Cross your heart and tell me honestly that you’re happy.’ ‘I’m happy enough.’

Manon sighs. ‘What is it? Is it us?’

I assure her that it isn’t. And in the aftermath of that, because Manon’s good at letting silences lengthen and I always feel the need to fill them, I admit that nothing seems to matter as much as it once did. My waist has thickened in the years since Virginie died, the stubble beneath my wig has thinned and grey shows in the fur of my chest and groin. I tell Manon that I know I’ve acquired the habits middle age brings; that I eat more and taste less, I walk the same path through the gardens after lunch, lost in my thoughts and no longer see the trees and water around me. Sometimes Laurant trots at my side, very occasionally Hélène will deign to walk with me, but Tigris always comes. Her head nudging up under my hand if I ever forget she is there.

‘All the more reason to go.’

‘What about Tigris . . . ?’

‘You should think of your children first,’ Manon says. She prods my ribs with her elbow less gently than she could. ‘You should think of me.’

‘You would hate court,’ I tell her. ‘And Hélène is exactly the wrong age. As for Laurant, I’m taking him with me.’ Manon has other ideas. In the end I agree to leave Laurant to keep Tigris company. In return, Manon will protect Hélène, and I will hurry home as soon as I’m allowed. I’m required to make two promises: that I will spend as much time saying goodbye to my children as I do to my big cat, and that I will spend as long saying goodbye to my daughter as I do to my son. Rolling off Manon, which is where I’ve been while negotiating this, I kiss her cheek and feel her arms close around me.

‘Come back happier,’ she whispers in my ear. I tell her I will and believe it. Visiting Versailles always makes me grateful I don’t have to live there.

‘You are the marquis d’Aumout?’ The boy who asks is about Hélène’s age – although a boy and a girl at fourteen are very different beasts. He has the hesitancy some boys get at that age, his voice is a scratchy embarrassment. We have not met for six years but the retinue behind him proclaims his rank.

‘Yes, Your Highness.’

The dauphin smiles. ‘The marquis de Caussard said you were coming. How is . . . ?’ He sees me smile in turn. ‘The old cat is well?’

‘The old one died, Highness. She was old and sick. But the young one is as proud as a princess.’ Behind him courtiers stiffen. ‘And as beautiful,’ I add hastily.

The dauphin laughed. ‘I wish I could see her.’ ‘I will have her portrait painted for you.’

My promise earns me a warm smile and a slight nod that I answer with a bow, and then the prince and his entourage move on, some smiling, others casting dark glances as if the dauphin’s kindness to me offends them. A few seconds later the rose garden is empty and I can hear their voices and laughter from a fountain beyond a hedge. If anything Versailles feels a little more crowded and looks a little more tawdry than I remember. The laughter has a sycophantic edge. Unless I am simply more jaded.

‘That was well done.’

The words come from behind me, and turning I see Jerome leaning on the arm of a blonde-haired girl who looks, at first glance, little older than Hélène. When I glance again I realise she might just be in her twenties. She shares startling blue eyes and a slightly pink complexion with a young man standing behind her. Her neckline is a little too low and the velvet of his frock coat slightly faded. She drops me a curtsy so perfect she must have grown up at court. The young man’s bow is equally polished.

‘You can go,’ Jerome tells them and they walk from the rose garden together. The girl touches the boy on his wrist to stop him looking back.

‘How was your journey?’ Jerome asks me.

‘Long, uncomfortable, boring.’

He laughs, as if at a joke, and asks what I know of Corsica, laughing again when I tell him the national dish is
brocciu
, a ricotta-like cheese made from goat’s milk. And the island is famous for the quality of its ham, which is made from pigs fed in winter on sweet chestnuts and grazed in summer on the
maquis
, the wild herbs of the Corsican uplands.

‘You’ve read Diderot’s encyclopedia.’

‘I wrote that entry.’

He glances around him. ‘You understand the encyclopedia is banned?’

‘I understand the king has his own set, as did la pompadour. No doubt you have copies of your own.’

‘That is beside the point.’ I’d always thought he’d grow to resemble the bear we’d joked he was in our youth but Jerome looks more like a bullfrog, all puffed chest and round belly and fat cheeks. It is three years since I’ve seen Charlot and I wonder how he’s aged and whether I’ve aged this badly as well.

‘You’re looking fine,’ Jerome says.

‘And you,’ I lie in my turn.

‘We’ll play a hand later?’

I remember Charlot’s warning from years before and shake my head. ‘I’m useless at cards,’ I say. ‘I always have been. You know that.’ Jerome’s patronage comes at a price in this place, you play cards and his winnings are a tax. But I want nothing from him, and he wants something from me. I don’t see why he should have my money as well. ‘Still the country mouse.’

‘Says the palace cat . . .’

He laughs, and nods towards a path. I follow him towards a maze and guards step back from the entrance to let us pass. They accept Jerome’s order that no one but His Majesty or the dauphin should be allowed inside. ‘Now we can talk freely,’ he says, leading me deeper, until he reaches a bench and slaps himself down and lifts his wig to wipe his skull. ‘This has to do with His Majesty?’

Jerome looks at me, obviously puzzled.

‘I had a message that His Majesty required my presence.’ ‘That’s a form of words,’ he says with a sigh. ‘I sent for you.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I’ve bought Corsica.’

Jerome’s story is long and complex, or maybe it’s short and simple and I’m simply too removed from politics to grasp it easily. He tells me Corsica has been a self-proclaimed republic for the last thirteen years, ruled by president Pasquale Paoli. This I know. I admire Paoli. Jerome doesn’t.

As far as Jerome is concerned, Paoli is the only man in the world rash enough to let women vote in local elections.

Worse than this, Paoli has established a constitution based on Voltaire. The real owner of Corsica is Genoa, only that Italian city is too weak to take it back from the rebels. ‘So Genoa sold its claim to you?’

‘Its
rights
,’ Jerome said. ‘But yes, basically that’s it.’ ‘What has any of this to do with me?’

‘I want you to negotiate the island’s surrender.’
‘Jerome.’

‘I’m serious. The king wants this . . .’ He caught my glance and shrugged, his shoulders heavy inside his brocade frock coat. ‘Well, I want this and the king agrees. He will raise Manon to the nobility, confirm her title as marquise, recognise as noble any children you might have . . .’ Something must have shown in my face because he nodded. ‘Ahh,’ he said. ‘I wondered. Charlot said he thought you were simply being careful.’

‘We can’t have . . .’

‘
You
can,’ Jerome said.

‘And Manon once did. But between us, nothing.’ He clapped me heavily on the shoulder. ‘You have an heir. That’s enough.’

‘How am I to do this?’

‘You agree then?’

‘Do I have an option?’

Jerome shook his head. ‘But I expected you to put up more of a fight.’

The Fall

I
remember that I want to see the menagerie. Of course I do, but before we part that night, and I’m left in a squalid room that stinks so fiercely from a nearby latrine that no amount of gilded cherubs or paintings of pink-nippled shepherdesses can make good the smell, Jerome tells me he’s arranged for me to ride in the royal forest instead. This is a privilege apparently, one reserved for those in favour with the king. Two friends of his will accompany me. He knows they are looking forward to my company.

‘You’re sure I can’t supply you with servants?’

My room has a commode, a basin for washing, a jug already full of tepid water. My cases have been brought up from the coach. ‘No,’ I say, shaking my head and wishing only for some peace. ‘I can manage for myself.’

‘As you will.’

Morning comes and with it a knock at my door. Jerome has sent me a serving maid whether I want one or not. She changes the water, empties my commode, draws back the curtains having asked permission. She leaves when I tell her she can go. A second knock an hour later produces a liveried messenger with a note from Jerome saying he’s waiting, and Armand and Héloïse with him, if I’d like to join them. Since I’m already wearing breeches and my riding coat I have the messenger show me to the stables, a set of low buildings I would never have found for myself.

‘Sleepyhead,’ Jerome says.

There’s something forced about his greeting but I smile anyway and nod to his companions, the young man and fair-haired girl I saw briefly the day before. The boy bows and she curtsies and grooms bring out our horses, already saddled and brushed to the shine of newly fallen chestnuts. Jerome’s animal is huge, and still it dips dangerously under his bulk as he clambers onto his saddle. The young man mounts easily and I realise the girl is waiting for me to help her. She smiles her thanks and Jerome laughs.

‘Héloïse de Plessis,’ he says. ‘And Armand de Plessis. There’s no need for me to give your name. Everyone knows the marquis d’Aumout.’

We set off with a single servant on his own animal, leading a second animal loaded with wicker panniers. Jerome and I lead, the other two ride behind us and the servant and the pack horse go last. Courtiers bow or nod stiffly to Jerome as he passes. He barely notices. The royal forest is a wood filled with neat little bridges over bubbling streams. A grotto squints from between mossy rocks. A spring rises high on a grassy slope where no spring could rise and trickles over gleaming gravel into a little pool below. Butterflies fill the air around us.

‘It gets better further on,’ Jerome growls. He kicks his mount and we keep riding until we reach a clearing in the middle of a patch of what could almost be a real forest, but for its neatly cleared paths and lack of charcoal burners. ‘We’ll breakfast here,’ he says. A blanket is spread over the leaf mould, the first of the wicker baskets is opened and the servant produces fresh bread, newly made butter and jam. A bottle of Champagne follows and elegant little glasses. The wine is cold and the glasses sparkling clean.

‘Your health,’ Jerome says.

I return his toast, accept the toasts of his two companions and turn my attention to the bread and jam. They are as perfect as bread and jam can be. A surprise after the unpleasantness of my room, and my memories of the food at Versailles having an unidentifiable but definite sourness. When Jerome is certain I’ve eaten my fill – only the first few mouthfuls were really satisfying – our servant packs the basket and we mount again and ride deeper into forest. An hour later we stop to look at a waterfall. And then again to look at a pond with a fat carp that circles sadly until Héloïse tosses it scraps of bread and water bulges as it surfaces to take her bounty. An hour later still, we stop at a blasted oak so picturesquely stark that I look for chisel marks or proof it’s been artificially scorched on the side that is burnt. The next stop is for lunch amid the mossy ruins of a little chapel. Jerome’s servant unpacks the other hamper to produce more bread, Roquefort wrapped in linen and another bottle of Champagne. As always the Roquefort is sublime. Even after so many years the first mouthful, like the first sip of Champagne, sends a shiver down my back.