Before Versailles (48 page)

HE HOUSEHOLD OF
M
ONSIEUR AND
M
ADAME WAS IN THE BIG
park. Philippe lay on the grass, his head on a cushion, a big hat over his eyes. Henriette and her ladies were practicing steps for the ballet with her dance master, a musician or two playing the music for them.

Pretending to be sewing, pretending her leg was hurt, Louise sat a little away from her friends, her back against a tree, her mind everywhere but on the tiny stitches her needle was taking. Someone dropped down to sit beside her. It was Choisy.

“I saw him give you bracelets last night.”

“I gave them back.” Plunk went her needle, in and out of the fabric.

“I came to lecture you. I was going to tell you it’s dangerous to flirt with the king.”

“I haven’t flirted.”

“Well, he’s noticed you.”

Louise raised her eyes. The iris around her pupils was as deep as a lake somewhere fed by ice and crystal snow. “It’s all right if Viscount Nicolas or the Count de Guiche notice me, but not his majesty? I must be very stupid. I don’t understand.”

“The viscount’s regard, if handled judiciously, will attract a husband. Guiche, as you know, is untrustworthy and dangerous, but you don’t like him, so I don’t fret, and it gives you cachet to be noticed by him. His majesty’s regard will ruin you. Look how poor little Pon’s father dragged her away.”

“I’m ruined only if I take it seriously. And I have no intention of doing that, nor of flirting, even a little bit.”

“You’d be the first. May one ask, why not?”

“I don’t wish to be a whim, someone he smiles at until bored, and he moves on to someone else. Besides—” he’s given his heart to Madame, she almost said, but stopped herself. “Besides, I’m saving myself like a good girl should.”

“Well, I came here with the set purpose to lecture you, and I find you know what you’re about. This settles it. We have to marry as soon as possible, and then, my dear, you may flirt with anyone you please.”

A tear fell silently onto the fabric. Choisy put his finger to the spot, touched the wet of it, made Louise raise her face so that their eyes met. “You’re not in love with him?”

“Of course not,” said Louise.

“Oh, darling, I hate that he’s fooled with you even a little bit. You’re too somber, you know.” He took a fold of her gown and began to pleat it back and forth. “You could marry me.”

“No.”

“Oh, do.” Looking very much the boy he still was but a little worn at the edges, Choisy made a face. “I misbehaved badly in Paris. Someone has gone to my brother and complained quite vociferously. It’s twice too often. Marry me and make me respectable.”

“No.”

“I’ll protect you.”

“From what?”

“That heart of yours—”

They were interrupted. Guy sat down beside them. Louise picked up her sewing, but Guy grabbed it and put it behind his back. “A smile, and it’s yours.”

Louise stood and walked away.

Guy handed the sewing to Choisy. “Here, you finish it.” He went to Philippe, kicked him hard on the sole of his boot. Philippe moved the hat from his face.

“I beg you to get up and accompany me. My notorious charm seems to have deserted me, and I must, I really must, tease Miss de la Baume le Blanc just a bit more, and you must guard me from her withering disdain.”

H
IS COUNCIL MEETING
over, Louis stood in his chamber of books, at the ornate cupboard. He had pulled down its front to look at the blotter. There, on the light-colored leather surrounding it, was a fingerprint, just as she’d said, except that it was faint enough to be almost unnoticeable. He put his finger atop it.

“Your majesty.”

He turned to face a footman.

“Monsieur Colbert wishes a moment.”

Louis closed up the cupboard and waited.

Colbert brought in a stack of books, began to open each one, turning to the title pages, reading the dedications, all to the Viscount Nicolas.

“Fontaine, Corneille, Saint-Évremond,” said Colbert. “Do you realize he’s being called the superintendent of France’s literature as well as of our finances? Our writers and poets give him accolades that belong to the crown!” He was as indignant as if he had found more evidence of treason.

It was among Colbert’s many opinions that there ought to be a national academy, enfolding painters and craftsmen, writers and scientists, that the crown of France should support them for the greater glory of the nation. How determined and thorough Colbert was, like a mongrel that wouldn’t give up a scrap of bone. But he is my mongrel, thought Louis, and he was suddenly grateful for this merchant’s son who let no detail be too small, who seemed to encompass a kingdom in his head. There was nothing Louis wanted to do that Colbert did not embrace and have an idea for. He desired the same glory Louis reached for, and required that none of it must shine on him. That was one of the viscount’s besetting sins, wasn’t it?

Colbert hovered. Louis knew him well enough by now to know that there was news that neither of them would like. “Well?”

Colbert took a deep breath. “Miss de la Baume le Blanc. I’ve been watching her for some time.”

“Because?”

“She was found in this chamber some time ago. It made me uneasy. The viscount is known to regard her highly, then she met with him at Vaux-le-Vicomte. It’s possible she may be a spy for him.” He continued over Louis’s sudden scowl. “One can never be too careful. I have no proof that she is, sire. It’s simply a possibility I beg you to consider.”

He’d had no proof of the island, either; it had simply been a hunch he’d followed. Was Louis’s own intuition about her wrong? “I’ll consider what you say. Good day.”

Louis went to a long window, stepped out into the morning sun, the sight of his palace and its spreading gardens. A mist hung in the distance, in the forests. The mist would clear by noon. When would the mists around him clear? She couldn’t be a spy for the viscount; he could feel it in his bones, and yet, who knew? I have done many unworthy deeds, were his beloved cardinal’s deathbed words. And so he had, as Louis now understood too fully. He had created the Viscount Nicolas and allowed him to flourish. If he were alive today, Louis would have no choice but to order his arrest along with the viscount’s. The man he revered had played a part in the debauch of finance. Who then was truly trustworthy? Certainly not some young woman with eyes like lavender in the hills and a smile—which he had yet to earn—that was incandescent.

He leaned on the iron of the balcony, the muscles in his arms tense. He’d had this fleeting thought that he could lay his head upon Louise de la Baume le Blanc’s sweet breast and be safe for a time. There’d been some sense that with her he didn’t have to be forever the king, that he could be sometimes weary and yearning, and she would not mock, but would wrap her arms tight around him. So, did she, with her disarming innocence, lead him into a trap? Of what kind? He searched for a heart of gold, the way alchemists searched for the philosopher’s stone. He began to believe neither existed.

C
OLBERT SUMMONED A
horse. Within an hour, he was in the little village of Avon and at the door of the Carmelite convent. The Mother Superior listened to his request and then had the girl brought in. She was a wisp of a child, no more than five.

“Do you know who I am?” Colbert asked. And at a shake of her head, he continued. “I am a servant of his majesty’s, and I’ve come to ask you some questions. You know Miss de la Baume le Blanc?”

“Yes.”

“Why does she come to see you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why are you here?”

“She and the gentleman brought me here.”

“Tell me of your home.”

She described the farm, her family.

“When she came to us, there were bruises all over her body,” the Mother Superior interrupted.

“Who struck you?” Colbert asked.

“It’s my fault. He died, and I didn’t, and I was first sick, and then he got sick, and we needed him so much to help,” the child replied.

“I don’t understand. Who died?”

“My brother. He helped Papa in the fields. It’s hard now, without him. And one of our oxen died, too. Because of me, I made our ox sick, too, Papa said.” She took a deep breath, and tears that had gathered in her eyes as she spoke dropped down her cheeks.

“Ah.” Colbert took a moment. “I am filled with sorrow for your family’s loss. But I must speak of Miss de la Baume le Blanc. Does she ask you to do things for her, like listen to the sisters’ conversations here and tell her about them? It’s all right. I am his majesty’s trusted servant, and you may tell me anything.”

“Tell him,” said the Mother Superior.

“She lets me ride her horse, and sometimes she takes me home to visit. She tells me I must come back here because my mother needs me to. She holds me when I cry. She gave me a blue ribbon and a comb for my hair. If I learn to sew nicely, she says she will buy me a gown. She says if I learn to sew nicely, I may sew for coins and so help Papa. She says if I sew nicely, she will make me her maidservant.”

“She asks you to do no listening for her?”

“She asks who to tell secrets to.”

Aha, thought Colbert. “Yes?”

“We decided her mother, the Mother Superior, his majesty, and the Chevalier de Choisy.”

Colbert regarded the child standing before him. “And the secret?”

“We don’t really have one.”

He met the eyes of the Mother Superior. There was no more to be said. He took the child’s hand, bowed over it as if she were a countess. “It is an honor to have met you.”

He walked to his horse, but stood beside the beast for a time to compose himself before pulling up into the saddle. He had come to find bad deeds by Miss de la Baume le Blanc and found instead France and its struggles. He considered himself a decent man. Not for him the gambling and drinking and love affairs of court. For him, there was his family, and there was this kingdom, which consisted of far more than those who peopled its court. There were also those who marched in its army, owned its shops, and tilled its soil. They, too, should have bread on their tables. A farmer should be prosperous, able to buy another ox should one die, able to sire another son, should God take one. Little girls should be safe by the warm hearth of their homes. The despair. Ah, the despair that years of war left. Well, relief was in God’s hands and in this king’s. Back straight, he rode toward the palace, toward his immense task of bringing order to this kingdom, which he loved with all his precise, contained, and passionate heart.

Tomorrow he’d send one of his clerks to buy an ox.