The Sisters of Versailles (7 page)

I have learned that my husband is rather short on money. I do my best with my old wardrobe and have become very adept at arranging ruffles or bows on old gowns to make them look new again. And original, for though everyone here must speak and act the same, everyone wants to be noticed. Recently, Gilette admired my simple green gown, the stomacher sewn with bands of real white carnations. Gilette usually reserves her speech for snide remarks or gossip, but this time she complimented me on my elegance and creativity. And I think she meant it.

Gilette is also constantly urging me to forget Louis-Alexandre. She has a lover, as do so many women here, but I am adamant that I will be faithful to my husband. I must be accountable for my sins before God. And besides, I don’t have children yet.

“But you can have fun without being
strictly
unfaithful,” says Gilette in her light voice. “There are ways.”

“And where would be the fun of that?” Mademoiselle de Charolais laughs. “Don’t be foolish, Gilette.” Mademoiselle de Charolais is a sister of the queen’s
surintendante,
Mademoiselle de Clermont, but unlike her sister she is very beautiful. She is not married but takes lovers as she pleases and routinely disappears for a month or two, complaining of a “bellyache.” I suppose when one is the granddaughter of a king, one can do anything.

“I am surprised you would need to be educated about the ways, mademoiselle,” banters Gilette.

“Oh, please, you have no need to insult me.” Charolais and many of the women here wear their looseness like a necklace they are proud of, for all to see. “Let’s just say I moved beyond that phase long, long ago,” she continues. “A very long time ago. Now I am not satisfied until . . . shall we say the hand has been fitted into the glove?”

“Tush, we need to start small,” says Gilette, laughing and
squeezing my shoulder with her cream-gloved hand. “A mild flirtation for our little Louise would be a very fine first step.”

“On a ladder with many rungs,” finishes Charolais with a smirk. “And oh! What delights await you at the top.”

I try not to blush. A flirtation might be nice and certainly possible in this palace of a thousand gallants, but I am afraid that if I start down that path I might find myself at the end of it like Gilette and Charolais and so many other pincushions. Though it is sometimes hard to find Him amidst the many Greek and Roman gods that line the walls of the palace, I must always remember that God can see us everywhere, even at Versailles.

But when one is surrounded by vice, that which shocks fast becomes normal.

May is simply the most delightful month at Court; the rooms are warm again and the sun shines and in the gardens the cherry and lime trees molt their blossoms over the ground like snow. One fine afternoon the queen calls for easels and paints to be brought outside that we might pass the afternoon painting.

“We must inspiration,” announces the queen.
Inspiration
was yesterday’s word.

“Madame,” says the Princesse de Montauban in a voice thick with honey and thinned with sarcasm, “your memory never ceases to astound me.” Mademoiselle de Clermont, formidable in her position and her birth, fixes a sharp eye on Montauban, who smiles back innocently.

We settle on the grass in the North Parterre, encircled by hedges of strictly cut rosebushes. “Get those away from me,” hisses Tante Mazarin as a hapless footman approaches her with a palette of paints. “Not while I am wearing my brown satin. Colored mud—that’s all paint is. Stay away.”

Then she slips easily into a light voice and sidles up to the queen. “Madame, why would I want to paint myself when I can watch the glory of your art? It would be far more prudent of me to admire your work and learn from such talent.”

The queen smiles thinly and settles at her easel in front of a small rosebush. I now believe the queen knows false flattery but is too weary to protest the compliments that flow her way. I watch the half smile that stays on her lips. She is in a good humor these days: she just gave birth to another little daughter and is still enjoying the loose robes of pregnancy.

A few of us take easels and canvas. I like painting; it is easier than reading and it is a wonderful thing to preserve the beauty of nature. Real flowers wither and die but a painting lasts forever. My favorite part is mixing the colors; on this fateful day I search for the perfect shade of pink, a soft blush color, to capture the very inside of the little rose I have chosen as my model. If only I could order a dress of the same color! But I have already ordered two new dresses this year, and it is only May. If I am not careful my bull of a husband will come raging at me about money again. I turn my mind away from those unpleasant thoughts and start to paint.

The Princesse de Montauban is as skilled at painting as she is at sarcasm. She makes me a little bit afraid; for months after I arrived she complimented me profusely on the elegant way I took my coffee. Then Gilette took me aside (though only sometime later) and told me I was doing it all wrong: one never, but
never
, must let the third finger touch the cup.

Soon Montauban’s delicate depiction of a bright pink rose is receiving compliments all around, though of course everyone must praise the queen’s bush more. A group of gentlemen appears round the hedges. I know most of them, but only in the slight way that everyone knows everyone at Versailles. The men admire the queen’s work and Montauban’s beautiful rose. Then they turn to Gilette’s canvas. Gilette has painted her rose in a very odd manner, concentrating only on the opening of the bud and making it more oval than round.

“Well, well, well, what is this unusual flower you are painting, Madame d’Antin? It is exceedingly beautiful. What do you call such a rose?”

“It is a
cocksglove
,” one man declares.

“No, I do believe it is that sweetest of all roses, the Latin name being
Cuntus mirabilus
,” another replies.

I giggle despite myself. Such lewd talk!

“I’ve heard the petals are good enough to eat, though sometimes a little pungent and fishlike,” the first man says.

“Such
children
,” hisses the Duchesse de Boufflers, steering her great bulk away. She and Tante Mazarin create a protective wall of chatter around the queen. One of the men detaches himself from the group and comes over to my easel. He is very handsome and is wearing an exquisite cream coat sewn with violets. I know his wife quite well, a pleasant woman who always wears a ribbon around her neck—it is whispered that men have been known to faint at the sight of the wine mark she hides beneath her choker.

“It’s beautiful,” he says softly, looking at me and not at my canvas.

I blush. “Oh, no, sir. I am an amateur.”

“The painting, perhaps, though the color is nice. What a perfect shade of pink. But the real work of art, madame, stands before me.”

He takes a step closer and I look in his eyes and then a curious thing happens: the world recedes and everything around me—the queen, the courtiers, the bushes and the flowers, Gilette’s dirty painting, even the sun and the grass and the heat of the day—they all disappear and then there is only him and I, alone together.

I think: So this is love.

Only the setting sun breaks the spell and returns us to reality. When at last the man draws himself away from me, he bows low and lingers over my hand.

“Would you do me the honor of presenting me with your delightful rose, madame?”

I blush.

He gestures to the half-finished painting.

“Oh. Of course . . . but it’s . . . it’s not finished.”

“It is perfect as it is,” he says, with one last long look in my
eyes. He leaves with the rest of the gentlemen and I stare after him as they disappear down the path. Gilette skips up and pinches my arm.

“Our little Louise has made a conquest,” she says in a too-loud voice.

“Oh, nonsense,” I say. “Shhh. He is just a kind man.”

“Just a kind man with the most handsome face since Jupiter!” chips in the Princesse de Montauban, poking a brush dripping with cerise paint at me.

“And with that disgusting thing on his wife’s neck, he’ll be easy pickings, I’m sure,” adds Gilette. “Oh, my little Louise, you are starting to climb the ladder. I am so proud of you!”

I giggle despite myself, rather intoxicated by what has just happened. I see Tante Mazarin bustling toward me and I know a lecture is coming.

“Deliver it to my apartment,” I call out to a footman, pointing at my canvas, and then Gilette and I sprint up the steps to the terrace, laughing all the way.

His name is Philogène.

Puysieux is his family name, but I call him by his Christian name, Philogène. What a name! I could say his name for hours. Philogène, Philogène, Philogène. He is so handsome, thirty years old and in the prime of his life. He is perhaps the most handsome man I have ever seen. Dare I say he is more handsome than the king? Would that be treason? But I think it is true. He has big beautiful eyes and an elegant nose and wonderful white teeth and a large mole just below his ear, that I call his beauty patch. He is always dressed elegantly and his favorite color is blue—the same as me! Beside him, my husband looks like quite the country lawyer.

I do believe he is perfect. Philogène, I mean, not Louis-Alexandre.

Philogène, Philogène, Philogène.

In addition to being the most handsome man at Court, he is
also very intelligent and charming. He has the high regard of the king and his ministers, and has traveled abroad many times on Court business. He has even lived in Sweden, a cold country filled with Protestants; he says they are not as awful as one might think.

At first I resist and insist I wish to remain chaste, but my friends are having none of it. They tell me that Philogène is the most handsome man at Court and that he is dying of love for me, and then they remind me again about my husband and that sword maker’s daughter.

I feel my will crumbling. I am not a very strong person to begin with and Versailles has definitely changed me. Rather rapidly too. And . . . surely there are greater sins?

The other ladies tease and prod to know how my affair is progressing and ask why it is already July, yet all the world knows I have not given in to Puysieux? I don’t ask how all the world knows; scandals here are like spring buds that flower with gossip as their water.

Once a footman, blushing scarlet, carried a ladder into the salon where we sit with Her Majesty.

“The ladder you ordered, Madame de Mailly?” The other ladies peal with laughter, but instead of blushing and losing myself in confusion as I might have done when I first arrived, I say calmly: “No, you may take it away. I don’t need it.” I wait a beat, then add: “But perhaps in a week or two.” Gilette and Montauban cheer and Tante’s eyes look to bulge out of their head. The queen beams in confusion, laughing eagerly though she knows not the joke.

Clermont glares at us with icicle eyes then says smoothly to the queen: “Madame de Mailly thought to help you practice
escalate
, madame.”
Escalate
was Wednesday’s word.

I sink back in my seat, feeling like a true
versailloise
. And I think my friends might be right: Perhaps I could use a different view? My resolve is disappearing like dew on a hot morning.

The next day I kiss Philogène for the first time, then spend the night in the chapel praying away my sin.

Gilette studies me. “Where were you last night? We missed you at the tables.”

“Oh, a touch of indigestion.” I wave my hands vaguely over my stomach. Gilette peers at me suspiciously.

“Not that kind of bellyache?”

“Oh, goodness, no.” I blush. I wish it were. It would be nice to have a child, not with my brute husband . . . but with Philogène? I still see Louis-Alexandre occasionally, so if I were to become pregnant the baby could well be his. Besides, everyone knows the most important thing is to have the child, not who the father is.

Oh, such thoughts, to so quickly undo my night of penance!

Philogène is ardent and seeks every opportunity to be at my side. Soon we are kissing and more in the shadows and spending every free moment in the privacy of the hedge-high gardens and mazes.