The Oracle Glass (57 page)

“My death, Madame. How will it be?”

“I always charge in advance for that.”

I seated myself before the water vase with some fear, for if her death were grievous enough, she might not want the papers anymore. But I needn't have worried. She appeared very old in the image that arose.

“You will live a long life,” I said. Her famous complexion was in ruins: it looked like crumpled paper that children have played with and discarded. She appeared to be dozing on a great, canopied bed.

“You are in a bed with rich hangings in the great room of a château that I do not recognize. A portrait of the King hangs opposite the bed.” A château of exile.

“Ah!” she exclaimed. “Then he is still mine!”

“You have plenty of company: ladies are playing music and singing. There are others—yes, sewing and talking.” It was a strange scene, late at night. The room was full of blazing candles, as if Madame de Montespan was afraid of the dark. The ladies' heads were nodding. Suddenly Madame's ancient eyes opened with a look of panic—she shrieked soundlessly at the women, who resumed their singing. Paid companions, to frighten off the night with cheerful noise.

“Then I am beloved,” said Madame de Montespan.

“Evidently so,” I agreed.

“Then your plan must work. I'll waste no time. Mademoiselle des Oeillets, call my great carriage. I want four footmen, three postillions, in the blue and silver livery. And my mounted guard—quickly! And dress in your best. I have an important errand in the country, and I will need your company.”

“Tell me,” she said as we mounted into her carriage and settled into the heavy velvet cushions, “how did you know what I wanted and prepare to have it so soon?”

“The glass,” I said. “It showed your salvation and mine.” She nodded as if she believed every word.

We stopped briefly before my house in the rue Chariot and were immediately surrounded by little boys, shouting to see the grand equipage and attendants in their bright silver and blue. The postillions warned them away from the immense, vicious carriage horses as the lackeys helped Gilles bring out my trunks. Sylvie, clutching a satchel, handed the bird cage in to me while Mustapha, in full Turkish regalia, turned the key in the front-door lock. As the carriage rattled toward the ramparts, Madame de Montespan overcame her distaste of the bird enough to ask, “Tell me…does that…creature…talk?”

“Hellfire and damnation!” announced the bird, as we were waved past the customs barrier and into the suburbs.

“Unusual vocabulary,” observed Madame de Montespan. She pulled back the carriage curtains to let in the light and air. The carriage swayed and rattled as the horses broke into the fast trot that took us into open country.

“What else would you expect of a bird that knew La Voisin personally?” I answered. But inside, my heart was singing
He's waiting for you
, and my mind was fixed on the remembrance of his dark eyes.

La Voisin and the witches of Paris were real historical figures, whose lives and deeds are preserved in the testimony they gave, under torture, during the celebrated “
Affaire des poisons
.” These records have generated a great deal of controversy, as various historians have sought to prove the participation or nonparticipation of some favorite figure in the web of poison, conspiracy, and witchcraft. Evidence of classic coven structure is found by some authors; others disagree. To me, the organization looked more like a cross between the “corporations” that organized the trades of the day and a sort of franchise structure, and so this is how I have depicted it.

The evidence against Madame de Montespan, along with that implicating other persons of quality, was kept in a separate sealed coffer and burned by the King himself. Madame de Montespan did, however, definitively lose favor after the Affair of the Poisons and died in exile from the court. Madame de Maintenon, the new favorite who succeeded her, is thought to have been secretly married to the King after the death of the Queen. Her rise to favor inaugurated a reign of piety, conformity, and vicious religious persecution.

Mademoiselle de Fontanges died shortly after giving birth to a child who also died. To still the rumors arising from the accusations of the witnesses before the commission that Madame de Montespan had engaged Romani to poison her, the King reluctantly agreed to an autopsy. The doctors, who had no effective means of detecting poison anyway, declared her death to be from natural causes, thus saving a great deal of trouble.

The Comtesse de Soissons was warned by the King of her coming arrest and fled in the night. Thereafter she wandered across the face of Europe, leaving a trail of mysterious deaths in her wake.

The Duchesse de Bouillon brought twenty carriages full of aristocratic supporters to her trial. Having been accused of wanting to poison her husband to marry her lover, she appeared with her husband on one arm and her lover on the other, to announce that she had indeed seen the Devil, and he looked exactly like La Reynie. The King exiled her with a
lettre
de
cachet
.

Primi Visconti survived the scandal to write gossipy memoirs of the court.

La Voisin was burned alive on February 22, 1680, in the Place de Grève. She did not confess under torture, refused to make the
amende
honorable
at Notre Dame, and was said to have shoved aside the priest before being fastened to the stake with iron bands.

La Trianon and La Dodée committed suicide in prison.

La Bosse was burned alive, but La Vigoreux died during torture.

Marie-Marguerite Montvoisin, the Abbé Guibourg, Le Sage, Romani, and others who were witnesses to the activities of Madame de Montespan were not brought to trial, where their evidence might become public, but were imprisoned for life, incommunicado. Also imprisoned in this fashion were all those unlucky enough to have temporarily shared a cell with them.

Gabriel Nicolas de La Reynie is considered to be the founder of the first modern police force.

William of Orange and the Princess Mary were brought to the throne of England after the Catholic monarch, James II, was driven into exile in the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

King Louis XIV died in 1715, having outlived three throne heirs. He was succeeded by his great-grandson, who became Louis XV.

The fiscal collapse of the state, projected by the great patriot, soldier, and administrator Sébastien le Prestre de Vauban in 1709, was complete before the end of the century.

Judith Merkle Riley (1942–2010) held a PhD from the University of California at Berkeley, and she taught in the department of government at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California. From 1988 to 2007, she wrote six historical novels:
The Oracle Glass
,
The Master of All Desires
,
A Vision of Light
,
In Pursuit of the Green Lion
,
The Water Devil
, and
The Serpent Garden
.
www.judith.com