The Sisters of Versailles (30 page)

Never mind, I am going to Versailles!

From Marie Philippine de Braille

House of the Dowager Duchesse de Lesdiguières, Paris

April 20, 1741

Madame de Vintimille,

Honored greetings to you, my lady. Please excuse the impropriety of receiving a letter from one unknown to your most esteemed person; allow me to introduce myself. I am Mademoiselle de Braille and I am employed as a reader for the most honorable Duchesse de Lesdiguières, but today I write to you on behalf of Mademoiselle Diane de Mailly-Nesle, who has engaged me as her writer.

I write on her behalf to inform you that she is delighted with your invitation and looks forward to visiting Versailles and Choisy this coming summer.

She wishes me to inform you that she has had two new dresses made for this momentous occasion, and begs you to consider if she may take back the peach bows from your blue dress, as she is sure you have many, many dresses now that you are the Comtesse de Vintimille. She believes the peach bows are necessary to adorn her new brown silk. She also begs me to inform you that she has a new gray dress and has used the lemon lace from your presentation gown to enliven it. She also wishes to humbly remind you of the green brocade shawl she presented you as a gift several years ago, and wonders if you would be so kind as to return that favor when she is at Versailles, as she has no other shawl that is in any ways as fine as that one.

Awaiting your esteemed response, I remain your humble servant,

Philippine de Braille

Louise

CHÂTEAU DE CHOISY

May 1741

I
am
embroidering a set of curtains for Pauline’s bedroom at Choisy, to match the newly painted walls. The fabric is blue and gold and I sew small white doves trailing up the stripes and stitch a border around them, sewn of our initials stitched closely together. Mine and Louis’s, not Pauline and Louis’s.
LdFLdMLdFLdM
. Only if you knew to look would you notice the letters. It is my secret and private revenge on Pauline, but I know she will never notice.

In this new year, I want to love Pauline again, because it is always better to love one’s sister than not. I find I can even forgive Louis, and when we spend time together I no longer reproach him. He is the king and a man and can do what he wants, and my duty is to accept and support him. Acceptance is surely better than grief and despair? I want colors back in my dreams and joy back in my life and I was determined that this spring would finally bring me some small piece of contentment. May is a beautiful month, the hardness of winter gone and memories of warmth returning.

But such happiness is not to be. For now comes the news . . . Oh.

The Comtesse de Toulouse, always kind and always a friend, seeks me out before the others could. I am on duty this week at Versailles but have brought the Choisy curtains back with me. She finds me early one morning, stitching my doves.

“Darling.” She holds me at arm’s
length and searches my face. “Have you heard?”

“No? What? Good—bad? Tell me.” My thoughts fly to the worst. The king? A convent?

“Sit down, dear.” Her voice is calm and motherly, though I can’t remember my mother ever using that tone.

“Please, Sophie, tell me quickly, what is it?”

“Your sister Pauline . . .”

“Does she wish me to leave?” My voice is calm, but inside I am being strangled alive.

“No, no. Your sister would never do that! But Richelieu told me last night . . . she is expecting.”

“Expecting what?” I blank, sighing with relief that I am not to be banished. Even though we have a good relationship, and have been in harmony this past winter, the fear of being banished always remains, creeping around the corners of my conscience like a cat in shadows.

“Expecting a child, dear Louise.”

Oh.

I stare at the
comtesse
. Is this a prank, a joke, a lie? But I know from her face, innocent of powder but painted with kindness, that she would never do such a thing.

“Thank you for telling me,” I say softly. “Thank you, really.”

She nods. “This world can be too cruel sometimes.”

I laugh shortly. “Indeed.” The
comtesse
married her last husband for love; they enjoyed fourteen happy years together before he died.

“I wanted to tell you before someone else broke the news, in a rather less kind fashion. Here, you are alone and you can compose yourself before you venture out.”

When she leaves I close the door and lean against the wood, fighting the floor that threatens to pull me down to its hard embrace. I send Jacobs out with a quick note of excuse for the queen and crawl back into my bed. My cocoon. My dress lies abandoned on the floor, the symbol of a day aborted.

They will have a child together.

Just when I thought my heart was truly broken, it finds a new way to break and grief runs fresh. They will have a child together. He will never leave her now. And oh! How I wish I had a child of my own, a little daughter to cuddle on my chest and to feel her tiny arms around me; to have the joy of knowing that one person, just one person in this world, loves me wholly and forever. Yet I fear my hopes are for nothing: my husband refuses to see me and now I only have Louis to my bed occasionally.

There is no guidance in the Bible for the situation I find myself in but I need to talk to someone. In my dreams I ask the queen for advice. She is always courteous, though you can still tell she was raised in the Polish equivalent of a hunting lodge.

“I am sorely troubled and I thought perhaps you might help me.”

The queen smiles faintly but her eyes stay cold. Though a kindly woman, she is still the queen and must harden her heart as much as she can against the endless requests that surround her like snow in winter.

“No, I want nothing from you, Your Majesty,” I clarify. “I only seek your advice.”

“
Vor
you, my
dareeling
daughter, I will gladly help you.” Once, she might have called me her “darling daughter,” but now her pride prevents her from extending such closeness. But this is only an imaginary conversation, so in my mind she calls me her darling daughter and her hand, soft with hard peaks from too many hours of sewing, covers mine gently.

“Madame, I ask your advice: How do you bear it? When you want to be with him, but he does not, and you must wait and wait, and hope and hope. And then when he does come, how do you stop reproaching him and declaring your love and imploring him to stay with you forever?”

The queen points to a tapestry on the far wall, woven with scenes of early Christian martyrdom. “Our beloved saints. They will help you. Fructuosus. Cephas. Phlegon. Onesimus. They
are all here to help you. Identify the right one, and all will be well.”

I curtsy and lean to kiss her hand but inside I am disappointed. How can obscure saints help me? And who is the patron saint of sinners who wish ill on their sisters?

Even my confessor starts to remind me that repetitiveness is a sin. He has already absolved me of the sin of jealousy and of adultery, and says there is no need to ask forgiveness again and again.

“God loves not those that toil in the wheel and return to where they started. You could try reading the story of Sarah and Hagar—a splendid example of a woman who humbled herself and accepted the trials God sent. And don’t forget, there is always the convent for those who feel the secular life too trying to bear. Is not your dear aunt the abbess at Poissy? Perhaps I should write to her?”

Even God is tired of me.

Pauline strumps around like a queen, constantly caressing her stomach—which remains flat—and being more thoughtless and rude than usual. The king is all nervous fluster and clucks over her with distressing frequency. The courtiers are becoming more aware of Pauline’s power—even those that have openly professed their disdain—and now invitations to Choisy are like white foxes: rarely sighted and very valuable. Pauline leaves it up to me to decide whom to invite; she really doesn’t care for such trifles.

“You see, Lou”—she has started to call me that, though I detest the name; I am not a cat—“they finally understand that I am not a flash of lightning, or a cheap tallow candle that burns too quickly. I will bear the king’s son, and we will start a new dynasty, one to rival the descendants of Madame de Montespan. The silly sheep must realize that I am here forever. Forever. I wonder, when they write the story of my life, will they compare me to Madame de Montespan, the great love of Louis XIV’s youth, or to Madame de Maintenon, his mistress and wife of his later years? Perhaps both?”

What am I supposed to say to that? I have come to realize that
Pauline is completely unfeeling. Well, perhaps not unfeeling, but she simply doesn’t consider other people. Ever. She’s even rude to Louis, and astonishingly, he never seems to mind.

“Everyone loves you, Pauline,” I murmur. What else can I say? We are standing on the wide stone terrace in front of the palace at Choisy, debating whether to take the carriage out to meet the king in the forest. An overwrought footman has come back with the news that two stags, antlers entangled, have been spotted and that it will be a momentous kill.

“I think it is going to rain,” I say. “We can see it—them—when they bring it—them—back to the palace.” I am tired and would rather lie in my bed, and cry, than ride out with Pauline and watch her caress her stomach and see the king squeeze her shoulder and beam at her.

“No, I think we should go. The rain will hold off. Just get your shawl. And bring me my green brocade one. Beauchamps, get the carriage, we ride out to His Majesty. We must be there to share this wonderful happening. And we go alone—I can’t have the Duchesse d’Antin ruining this occasion with her silly laugh.” From the salon on the second floor the Duchesse d’Antin and the Comtesse d’Estrées glare at us through the glass. Pauline ignores their icicle eyes.

I turn slowly back into the palace. I feel like I am bearing an enormous load. One small little addition, one tiny piece of straw more, and I will break.

Simply break.

Pauline

CHÂTEAU DE CHOISY

July 1741

T
his summer is hotter
than any before; I cannot breathe. I have a small black page—a gift from the Duchesse de Rohan-Rohan—who fans me without stop, but even the light breeze scorches. It is as though we are in Hell: flowers droop and at dinner jellies melt into great puddles of bloody liquid. I am pregnant and very uncomfortable, and I want to scream. My ankles are swollen and my fingers too puffy to wear the rings that Louis gives me. I dream of the winter and of the ice that forms on the inside of windows and of frozen beds that take forever to warm up and of how, if you are seated too close to the fire, you can simply move away and be cold again.

I remain at Choisy, for the heat here is slightly more bearable than at Versailles. I have the idea to make the wine cellars into a retreat. Perhaps we could bring down some chairs and drape the walls with velvet and dine down there? Perhaps even sleep down there? Unfortunately the cellars are rife with rats and the palace rat-catcher cannot guarantee our safety. Seeking comfort, I wear a loose muslin robe I designed myself, with no front or back or even waist. The others whisper that it’s scandalous, that it looks like a chemise, only suited for the bedroom. And I sometimes go barefoot. I don’t care what anyone says.

I find I am not as interested as I used to be in war and politics. I don’t really care about Austria and all that is happening in the Elbe Valley. I am not even interested when the king wants to talk
about the unrest in Saint-Domingue or about the peasants that continue to starve all over the country. I really only care about the child growing in my belly. Unexpected, really, that something so small could occupy me so completely.

It will be a boy even though no one else believes that. Including Louis. It is a joke of long standing that both of our families are very proficient at producing girls—my mother had six daughters, if one includes the little bastard she had with the Duc de Bourbon. And out of all her pregnancies, the queen only succeeded in giving birth to three boys, one stillborn, alongside eight girls.

But I know our child will be a boy.

Louis has always declared—though not directly to me—that he will never act as his great-grandfather did and legitimize his bastards. Courtiers, including the many who are descended from those royal bastards, don’t hesitate to remind me of his pledge. I’m not worried. My son will be acknowledged by the king, and he will marry a Condé or a Conti. Or Richelieu’s little daughter.

Here is the truth: I am smarter than Louis. It is rather annoying to constantly make sure he does not perceive this. Even though flattering and puffing up men has been the task of women from time immemorial, it sometimes feels as though I am taking care of two children: the one who grows in my belly and the one who hangs around me like a little yapping dog. Pregnancy—and this heat—make me irritable and I can no longer hide my annoyance as well as before.

Louis feels impotent that he cannot change the weather and he is bored, for the hunt has also suffered. The dogs and horses are too hot to move and only want to sleep all day. I think Louis should stay at Versailles—he has a kingdom to run and I can send him my instructions and thoughts perfectly well by courier, several times a day. Then I could just pass the next two months lying in the shade by the river with little Neptune and his fan, and rest in peace until this ordeal is over.

But instead Louis travels regularly from Versailles, accompanied by a clutch of courtiers with their noises and their smugness.
He pesters and pesters and pesters me with his attentions and his crawling hands and his constant solicitations, a hopeful look in his eyes that I will grant him a smile or a caress. I could scream! He reminds me of Louise! At first he didn’t let me sleep alone and was constantly pawing me. The sexuality of the king is the virility of the nation—France is in good hands there—but sometimes it all gets rather too much. Now he is banished to Louise’s bed. My idea. No matter how annoyed I am, I can never forget the danger that lies when there is a king and an empty bed.