The Shadow Queen A Novel (28 page)

“The idiot?”

“He’s … in jail!”

She squinted to make out Floridor’s writing. “Which one?”

“It doesn’t say.” There were so many: Saint-Lazare, Vincennes, Conciergerie, Hôtel de Ville. I’d heard of their torture chambers.

“He wouldn’t be in the Bastille.”

No, certainly not—the Bastille was for political and religious prisoners, young noblemen whose families wanted them brought in line. Gaston would not be in such luxurious accommodations. Gaston would be in a cold cell, crowded with men and rats. I felt faint, my breath coming in gasps. Every time I imagined what he must be going through—his confusion and terror—I started to break down, my panicked thoughts racing. Even charity schools terrorized him! At the ring of a bell all the boys had to put their hands on their knees, then on the table, then clean their slate with saliva and hold it up for inspection. Gaston had failed at every step and had been punished brutally for it. I couldn’t bear to imagine the torments he might now be enduring.

“Claude, where are the salts?”

“I’m well, Madame. I’m just … frightened,” I said, leaning against the wall. I thought of the pillories, gallows, and scaffolds I’d seen in public squares. An execution always drew out a crowd. I’d seen a man drawn and quartered in Blois. Even with his arms and legs torn from him, he lived. “I have to go.” My hand on the door.

“Wait.” Athénaïs rang a bell and a footman appeared. “Ready my fastest coach,” she commanded.

“Thank you, Madame,” I breathed.
Thank you.

“MERCI DIEU,” FLORIDOR
exclaimed. “I was just going to go out. I think he’s in the Hôpital Général. But it’s not really a hospital, it’s a prison …” He paused, running his hand over his eyes. “For lunatics. It’s run by the Company.”

Ay me.
“What did he do?”

Floridor threw out his arms. “Like before: he took something, but this time it was a nobleman’s cane, left on a park bench apparently.” He shook his head. “That poor boy.”

The Hôpital Général was at a distance, so we took a riverboat. Coming into view, it looked like an enormous domed château. It took us some time to find out which building, which wing, which entry, which door. We were directed into a clerical office.

“We have, you must understand, over six thousand here,” the clerk informed us wearily, leafing through stacks of notices, and then leafing through them yet again.

“He doesn’t talk well,” I told him. “Just a few words. He’s a big young man with a long beard. He’s gentle, childlike. He has his papers with him at all times.” Ever since he could walk.

“Ah,” the clerk said, studying a document. “Gaston.”

I looked gratefully at Floridor. “He’s
here.
”

“But we can’t let you see him,” the clerk said primly.

“Why?” I cried out.

“He committed a crime. There are procedures.”

I threw a silver écu on his desk. It bounced and rolled, but he caught it deftly. “My brother is a child in a man’s body,” I said angrily—
furiously.
“If you don’t release him, I will be going directly to Monsieur de Mortemart, the Governor of Paris. And he will put
you
in chains.”

Floridor regarded me with surprise.

“On whose authority?” the clerk demanded with an amused scoff, slipping the coin into a leather box.

I showed him my identification certificate, required at every city gate. “I am in the employ of Madame de Montespan—the Governor’s daughter.” I managed enough regality in my demeanor to convince him of the reality of my threat.

We were taken down into the dungeons. The stench was overpowering, the smell of rot and feces. And then there was a curious echoing hum, an incessant keening from what turned out to be hundreds—and
hundreds
—of rag-covered men lying on soiled straw. I saw their cringing fear of the brutish jailers, the welts on their backs, their limbs. I saw one lying dead.

And, at last,
Gaston,
squatting beside a man in an iron collar. He cried out when he saw us. I raised him up, weeping.

IT TOOK A
long time to get my brother out of that hell, and then even longer to get him safely back to Floridor’s house on the rue de la Comtesse d’Artois. I’d never seen Gaston so feeble, diminished. “I don’t know what to do,” I confessed to Floridor, huddling by the fire after I’d finally gotten Gaston to sleep. (Singing, singing …)

“In the morning I’ll show you the place my wife found in the Marais,” he said, and I sadly agreed.

Floridor, Gaston, and I set out at ten of the clock. I had tried to persuade Gaston to stay behind, but he’d wailed like a baby. “You must trust me,” I told him sternly, “and do what I say.”

It was a modest house, fairly small, at the back of a courtyard. I held Gaston’s hand going up to the door. I could hear a boy crying within and I was tempted to turn away, but I owed it to Floridor and his wife to try.

The man in charge hardly looked at Gaston. “Papers?” he demanded. With trepidation, I handed him Gaston’s certificate, which had been stamped at the Hôpital Général. “No criminals,” he said firmly, closing the door in my face. I admit: I was relieved.

“You must find something. We can’t keep on like this,” Floridor’s wife whispered to me as I took my leave the next day. “Josias would never refuse you, but his health is not good.”

BACK IN SAINT-GERMAIN-EN-LAYE
, I collapsed, weeping once again in front of Athénaïs. I couldn’t help myself! I told her what a gentle soul my brother was, how profoundly I loved him, how puzzling he was—so ignorant and yet so wise—and how nothing I did seemed to help. “He would be perfectly at home in a monastery,” I said, “but the Church would never permit it.” Even a novice was required to read Latin. “A priest once called him the son of the Devil.”

“Under the influence of the Company, no doubt.”

No doubt. The Company’s “influence” was insidious, a plague.

“
They’re
the Devils,” Athénaïs said heatedly. “Look how they threatened His Majesty over Molière’s
Tartuffe—
”

And practically killed the playwright, so great was his distress.

“—forcing His Majesty to bow to
their
will. They aim to rule, but fortunately they are merely a faction, although a faction fueled by passionate hate and righteous conviction. There is nothing of Christianity in it,” she said, sitting down at her escritoire. She wrote a short note, sprinkled it with sand and handed it to me. “Saint Francis is a small monastery I help support in Paris. They are decidedly not of the Company, I assure you. They will take your brother in.”

I fell to my knees and kissed the hem of her gown.

“Claudette, really!” She laughed.

GASTON WAS UNSURE,
I could tell. Too many people professing to help had hurt him.

“We’ll stay the night, the two of us together,” I promised as the gate opened. “In the morning, you can decide.”

It was a humble establishment. Chickens pecked at our feet. Gaston giggled at their antics, which I took as a good sign. There were gardens of flowers and vegetables, two cows, a mule, and several horses. A black mutt with a comical face waddled out to greet us.

I rang a bell in the courtyard and a man in a patched robe came out. He greeted us with a dip of his head.

I explained that we wished to see the abbot. He smiled, oui, indicating that he was himself the person to talk to.

Rather taken aback by the “abbot’s” humble bearing, I handed him Athénaïs’s letter. Come with me, he gestured.

I did not need to stay the night. Gaston, on hearing the choir—on
joining
the choir—felt immediately at home with these gentle men. I lingered for some time and then slipped away uplifted, with a cautious feeling of hope in my heart.

CHAPTER 48

I
n the years that followed I often thought—with a glowing satisfaction—of Gaston’s happiness in that humble little monastery. Crammed into the back of a pet-filled carriage on rocky, muddy roads, or racing over the new wide expanse between Saint-Germain-en-Laye and His Majesty’s ever-expanding château at boggy Versaie (back and forth, back and forth), half listening as Athénaïs mused on about Court intrigues, complaining of the King’s latest fancy, I would nod, staring out at the passing landscape, thinking of Gaston singing his beautiful heart out. He had found his calling.

But my own life … what did it amount to? Ropes of false gems, rabbit-fur wraps, secondhand leather gloves: the stage props of wealth and status.

An illusion?

I was envied, true, in a position of influence, the intimate confidante of the “shadow queen,” considered to be the
real
queen of France, in fact. Athénaïs’s estranged husband had finally granted her a legal separation and so, with the signing of a simple piece of paper, the world had shifted. No longer required to play the role of official mistress, Louise de la Vallière retired to a convent, leaving Athénaïs the undisputed victor.

The King built Athénaïs a château in Clagny. “It’s not even suitable for an actress!” she’d exploded on seeing it. Cowed by her emotional fire rockets, His Majesty had had it torn down and was in the process of building a second, much grander château, one worthy of the queen that she was. The location wasn’t far from Versaie—a leisurely half-hour walk, if that—but there was more of a breeze and a want of insects of the biting kind. It would have magnificent gardens, an orangery paved in marble, an extensive gallery—even a moat. With thousands of workers, it seemed to be springing up overnight (as if by magic, people whispered).

Athénaïs was fully in power, without a doubt, yet the higher her station, the more uneasy she became. She sent me more and more often to Paris to pick up beauty remedies, charms, and the essential “amatory assistant” from Madame Catherine. Sometimes she woke in the night screaming from frightening dreams (several times weeping over Alexandre, her beautiful lost love, her beautiful lost life). She ate compulsively … and drank. She had violent explosions of temper against the Widow, and even—twice—against the King himself. People began to refer to her as the Tempest, a dangerous and unpredictable force of nature.

I tried my best to soothe—that had always been my role. I massaged her shoulders and feet, made up her hair, and pinked her cheeks. “You’re beautiful,” I assured her, positioning the candles to throw a flattering light. “You enchant His Majesty with your eyes, your wit, your sensual allure.” I worked with tailors and seamstresses to create unusual and arresting ensembles for her. I painted her face to illuminate her bewitchingly luminous eyes. In the theater, I had learned the arts of enchantment, skills Athénaïs made use of.

Skills she had
need
of, for La Vallière had been replaced with an even more threatening opponent: the Church. In the spring of 1675, Père Lécuyer, a priest at Versaie, dared to refuse Athénaïs absolution. I calmed her as best I could. “Talk to His Majesty,” I whispered.

But the Church, more and more infused with the ideology of the Company, was not so easily dealt with—even by the King. His Majesty talked the matter over with his spiritual counselors and—repentant and clearly wary—reported back to Athénaïs that the consensus was that Père Lécuyer had only been doing his duty to God.

Athénaïs was overcome with fury, screaming that His Majesty was beneath her, a shopkeeper with bad breath! With a stoic expression, he tipped his hat (ever a gentleman) and left.

The next time, it was brave Xavier who brought the message. His Majesty’s confessor, Père La Chaise, insisted that Athénaïs and the King live apart.

“And His Majesty has consented?” she asked coldly, imperiously.

“I’m afraid so.”

“Did Louvois have anything to do with this?” she demanded with heat. Ever since she’d publicly shown her support for Colbert, the Minister of Finance, Louvois had been a thorn in her side. Any move she made to advance a cause—especially with respect to her family (and most especially her brother Vivonne)—the devious and chimerical Secretary of State somehow managed to prevent it.

“Perhaps indirectly,” Xavier admitted. “Because of the coming war with the Dutch, Louvois has been urging His Majesty that he must prepare his soul to meet death.”

“Because Monsieur de Louvois is such a caring individual,” Athénaïs said, with clear but misdirected irony. It was true that Louvois cared only for himself and His Majesty, whom he revered with religious intensity.

Xavier wisely chose not to respond. “It’s understandable that the King would not want to risk dying unshriven, Madame. He has decided to receive Communion at Whitsuntide.”

“As he often does at Easter,” she countered.

“Oui, but—” Xavier looked pained. This was not to be a temporary separation, as had been the custom during Lent in years past, he explained. Athénaïs was to move out of her vast, luxurious rooms at Versaie and into her château at Clagny. He paused before adding, somewhat apologetically, “And stay there.”

I glanced at Athénaïs, alarmed. The château was not quite finished; there were laborers working there still.

“Furthermore—” Xavier took a deep breath before continuing. Athénaïs and the King were no longer to have contact (no carnal relations, was clearly meant). Nor was she to accompany His Majesty on campaign.

Athénaïs rose up out of her chair. I moved to her side (the better to contain her). “His Majesty received Communion in years past without such drastic measures,” she observed with the appearance of calm.

True. Xavier cleared his throat. “His Majesty has been advised that the past practices were insufficient—that this is the only way for him to properly prepare to take the sacraments.”

Only the pendulum clock could be heard in the silence that followed. Even the monkey had stilled, even the chattering parrot and snuffling pugs.

“Inform His Majesty that he need not fear,” Athénaïs responded evenly—but not without a hint of contempt. “I would not wish to tarnish his eternal soul.”

THE NEXT DAY,
in a public display of subservience, we moved into Athénaïs’s château at Clagny, in spite of the work still going on there. Athénaïs had been “allowed” to hold onto her apartment at Versaie, so the transition was not too rigorous, even with all the animals and birds. It was the stigma that was testing; everyone was watching, everyone whispering that the mighty Athénaïs had been banished.