The Sisters of Versailles (9 page)

He takes over: “It is only a matter of time before the king strays from the—ah—marriage bed. And it is important that when he strays, he does not go too far.”

Fleury talks of the king as though he were a child, I think, as I watch the two play their game in front of me. After three years here, I am better at reading what is left unsaid or what stays beneath the surface. It is a useful skill but not one that comes naturally; I prefer honest words to artifice. Even so, I have no idea what they want of me. For they surely want something.

“What we are saying, Louise, is that the king is certain to take a mistress.”

“A mistress? Oh, no, the king is far too devoted—” I let my words fall off. It is true that everyone is betting on when the king will take a mistress, and who she will be. Gilette has quizzed me about her own chances, and wonders if the king will fall in love with her long dark hair, since the queen is fair-headed. She plots to leave her hair as loose as she dares and unpowdered one night, and claim that her hairdresser was sick.

“No, Louise,” says Charolais with just a hint of impatience. “His days of devotion are fast fading. And he is a young man, only twenty-three, just like you. He cannot live the life of a monk forever.”

“The king will take a mistress,” repeats Fleury. “But who that mistress will be, well . . . That is a matter of
supreme
importance. Even national importance.”

They both smile at me intently. Last year the Marquis de Beaulieu came back from India, alive, and kept the Court entertained with stories of snake charmers. It is as though they are trying to hypnotize me with words as their music.

“It is so important, dearest Louise, that the king’s mistress be
someone we know. And trust. Someone from a good family, of course, an ancient one, and someone who will have only the king’s interests at heart. Someone who has no greed or ambition, and who will bring no complications.”

The music stops, and suddenly the meaning of this meeting becomes clear. “You wish my help in finding the king a mistress?” I say, looking between the two charmers.

Fleury looks at Charolais, who makes a small grimace, as if to say,
I told you so.
She turns back to me with a dazzling smile. “You are very perceptive, dear Louise. As always. It is true in a way that we wish your help, and who better to help us than the one we wish would help us the most?”

I am not sure I understand. At Versailles in such situations, it is always best to remain silent.

Fleury steps in: “I think we need to talk plainly, and simply. Clearly. Louise, we think you should be the king’s mistress. For the king, and for France.”

“Imagine, Louise, the chance to be a royal mistress.” Charolais almost licks her lips but curls her tongue in at the last minute. Her lips are dyed carmine and rather cracked. “You could be the new Agnès Sorel or Diane de Poitiers.”

I look blankly and Fleury raises his eyebrows. “I see your education is as lacking as they say. Try this, my dear: you could be the new Madame de Montespan, or Madame de Maintenon.”

He speaks of the last king’s most famous mistresses. Of course those ladies I do know—Athénaïs de Montespan, the beautiful love of the king’s youth, supplanted in his affections by the devout Marquise de Maintenon, the companion (and secret wife!) of the king’s later years. I know well of their fame and their beauty, and of the power they had over that most powerful of men. I don’t think I am one such as they, but Charolais and Fleury, two of the most influential people at Court, seem to think I am. It is flattering, of course, but still . . . the queen. And Philogène.

“Puysieux.” The cardinal flicks at his sleeves as though to flick the idea of my lover from my mind. “The Marquis de Puysieux,
the man you call Philogène, is a nobody. We are offering you the king.”

“Think on it, dearest Louise. Think on it in your dreams.” Charolais pats me and a feather wisps against my wrist, a little tendril of temptation.

But of course that night I can’t sleep.

The next day they find me in my apartments. Fleury is brusque and invokes my family name and the chance to do a great service for France. “Your forefathers served their kings on the battlefield,” he says, “and now we wish you to serve your king in the royal bed.”

“Why me?” I have the courage to ask. “There are prettier and . . . ah, more
experienced
ladies than I at this Court.”

Charolais rattles off the reasons: “Louise, you are pretty and pure and virtuous, at least for Versailles. You have no ambitions to meddle in politics, I can see that, and all your friends know you only suffer gossip because you can’t get away from it. It is your very virtue, in fact, that has made us decide that you are the perfect woman for our king to love.”

They have put a lot of thought into this. “You talk of my virtue, but what you propose is immoral—”

“Puysieux? Was that—is that—not
immoral
as well? You mounted that ladder
very well
.”

Suddenly I feel like crying. “Well . . . I may have already sinned, but the king has not. I would be an adulteress, encouraging him to stray from his wife. And the queen would be devastated.”

“No, Louise,” says Charolais firmly, rising and coming toward me. She puts her hands over mine. I stare at her gray gloves, delicately embroidered down the back with a row of little purple flowers. I should get some like that, I think. I wish I wasn’t having this conversation. I wish I were somewhere else. I really do.

“You must not think like that. You
cannot
think like that. Because if you do not rise to this challenge, someone else will; someone
who might harm the queen. Whereas you, you would do all in your power to make the inevitable
situation
as comfortable and pleasant for the queen as you can. We all know your devotion to her.”

Fleury nods. “Exactly! Very solid thinking, mademoiselle.” He then proceeds to lecture me on how becoming the king’s mistress will be the best thing for the queen.

I am never defiant. I always do what is asked of me. I was obedient to my parents and I am obedient to my husband even though I have no respect or love for him. And now I know I cannot withstand this request from these great personages. I feel the walls closing around me; my dress tightens and I sweat even though the palace is cool this September day. I am very confused. The idea is certainly intriguing and what an honor to be loved by the king! But . . . I lay down my last objection and the one that is closest to my heart.

“The Marquis de Puysieux,” I say. He is away in Sweden again with the Protestants. “We are in love and what . . . what will happen to him?” Perhaps were he by my side my resolve would not falter, but he is away and I am here, snared and charmed.

Fleury snorts and rises and says he has wasted enough time on this matter already and that he has a country to run. But he senses victory; they can both see I am wavering like a jelly.

“As the cardinal said yesterday, forget Puysieux. Imagine instead the king falling in love with you, and you with him. Imagine that.” Charolais’s hand tightens on my arm and this time she actually does lick her lips.

Trying hard not to, I do find myself wondering what it would be like to be in the arms of the king, to be kissed by him, to make love with him. To make the King of France happy. Oh, Philogène, Philogène, Philogène. What should I do? The next day I don’t stare at the queen, or even look at her, and when the king comes in to pay his daily respects, I slip outside and hide in a corner.

Without waiting for my approval, they set their plan in motion the following week. In Charolais’s apartment her hairdresser,
a snooty man who wields his hair tongs as though he were conducting an orchestra, arranges my hair and fixes my cheeks with rouge and places two beauty spots beneath my eyes, exactly like tears. I am wearing my white silk gown, now adorned with garlands of glossy, peach-colored rosettes.

I am very nervous but also strangely excited. This is the
king
and it would be false to say I was not attracted to him: every woman at Court is half in love with him. Or wholly in love. He is so handsome and regal. Many say Louis XIV was France’s most magnificent king, but I think our Louis is equally magnificent, if not more—I am sure one day he will be known as France’s best king.

Charolais pulls a few rosettes from my dress—the king likes simple things and these detract from your charms, she says—and arranges me on a sofa next to a small fire.

“Have some champagne.” She pours me a large cup and I take it eagerly.

Fleury and the king’s valet, Bachelier, a tall, lanky man with a reserved demeanor, arrive and they nod their approval. So Bachelier is in on this “plot,” though I should not be surprised—he controls everything around the king and is, in his own silent way, rather terrifying.

They retire, but not before Fleury has placed his wormy, decrepit hands on me and wished me luck. Then I am alone with the fire, the champagne, and my shaking nerves. Goodness, what am I doing?

The door opens softly and it is the king. It is the first time I am alone in a room with him, but I must remember, as Charolais keeps telling me, that tonight he is not the king, just a man.

“Madame.”

He bows formally and we look at each other.

Should I rise? But this is an informal meeting . . . a
very
informal one.

The king stays frozen by the door and I stay frozen on the sofa, my chin starting to shake with threatened tears. What am I doing?
This is mortifying. The king stretches out his hand and starts to study one of his fingernails intently. My champagne cup trembles and I spill some on my skirt. I dart another look at him and see he is as mortified as I am. I burst into tears—why had I ever agreed to this mad plan?—and the king jumps as though stung, then bows quickly and retreats from the room.

Oh, mortification! I will leave Versailles; I will go back to that hated country house of my husband’s, anything but stay here. Run away to Sweden and fling myself in Philogène’s arms. Philogène . . . I drink the rest of my champagne and give myself over to my tears. I am so humiliated. It was all so . . . so . . . I can’t bear to think how awful it was.

Charolais rushes back in. “Don’t worry, don’t worry,” she says briskly, filling my glass with more champagne. “Oh, you spilled some! And stop crying or your rouge will run, and look! One of your patches has slipped.” She picks it off and flicks it into the fire. “One is fine. Bachelier is with His Majesty right now. He will persuade him to come back. And I thought I could count on you to cry—the king would never leave a woman in distress.”

I don’t have any words. I wish the floor would open and I could fall through, away from this room, down into the ground beneath. I wish I were
dead
.

“Stop crying, Louise!” Charolais looks at me critically. “Let’s try this. Lounge back, as though reading a book of poems.”

I obey, sniffling, and feel myself gradually beginning to float away with the champagne as my guide. Charolais pulls up my skirt to reveal my green stockings and a blue garter.

“You’re not powdered, are you? Down there?”

For an awful moment I think she is going to dive in and check. “No, no, of course not.” I blush.

“Good, the king hates powder. Anywhere. Good.” Charolais takes another rosette off my bodice and slips it under my garter. “This will surely attract his attention.”

I blush some more and look up at the ceiling. What am I doing? I mean, really, what am I doing?

“Best legs at
Versailles, you know that is what they say about you.”

I didn’t, but I stop crying. Charolais pats delicately at my cheeks with a handkerchief and declares my flushed face “charming” and my expression deserving of my innocence.

“Don’t move. He’ll be back.”

I am left in my awkward pose, staring up at the ceiling.

The king reenters the little salon and this time he comes directly to stand by the sofa. He takes my hand. I have never been this close to him before. Or this alone. I breathe in and my other hand curls around the arm of the sofa. Our eyes don’t meet. My leg feels naked and cold and I am sure he is eyeing my garter.

“Madame, you are lovely,” he says in his wonderful, deep voice, and before I can say anything, he has buried himself in my lap, his heavily ringed hands running up and down my leg. Suddenly the world fades away and all that is left is the fire, the king and I and our beating hearts, and his face in my lap.

Tentatively at first, then stronger, I run my hands through his thick hair, intoxicated by the smell of bergamot and fine leather. I’m touching the king, I think in wonder as his hands climb higher to pull at my garter and bare my legs. Then he pushes a finger inside me, a ring grazing the delicate skin. I gasp and he rises to kiss me. I sink into his soft lips and close my eyes and forget about everything—and everyone—outside of this room.

“Madame, you are beautiful.”

From Pauline de Mailly-Nesle

Convent of Port-Royal

January 20, 1734