Emilie's Voice (13 page)

The footman led Émilie past the formal reception room, with its thronelike, red-velvet-upholstered armchair at one end and tapestry-covered tabourets lining the walls, then ushered her through a small door into a more intimate chamber. Madame de Montespan’s private sitting room was not awe-inspiring and monumental; it was large and luxurious, filled with a vast quantity of soft, silk-and velvet-upholstered furniture that beckoned one to recline. Silver salvers of sweets were placed so that they were never out of reach, and the sunlight that washed in through the sheer drapes seemed to hang, tremulous, in a state of near extinction. In the corner a musician played the lute quietly. Because he was somewhat hidden behind all the furniture, the music seemed to arise from nowhere, to be distilled from the atmosphere, and once created, it was absorbed into all the yielding surfaces of the room. Madame de Montespan also had her own magnificent suite of rooms in the chateau of Versailles, but it was a measure of the king’s regard for her that he had built this jewel of a home for her practically on his own grounds. Those who were less charitably inclined implied that Louis built it so he could have an occasional rest from his volatile and demanding mistress.

Émilie closed her mouth suddenly, realizing that it was hanging open when she walked in. Never had so many of her senses been assaulted in so delightful a way at the same time. It took her a moment to realize that some of what seemed to be upholstered furniture was actually motionless footmen, stationed here and there with the function of holding a tray of chocolates, or a sconce containing a candle, at the precise location necessary for someone’s possible need, should he happen to be sitting or standing in a certain place. Émilie half expected that the chairs themselves would suddenly sprout arms and legs and beckon her—an image that was both amusing and terrifying.

It was not until she spoke that Émilie noticed Madame de Montespan.

“Come closer to me,
mon enfant
,” she cooed.

Émilie approached her cautiously.

“Come now! I won’t hurt you, child. Come and sit by me.”

The marquise patted the space next to her on the divan, most of which was covered by her rich, damask gown. The setting was perfect, and although Émilie had admired the marquise’s beauty before, for the first time she really understood the lady’s capacity to enchant.

“Why are you frightened? You must know that I am your friend.” With this statement, the marquise lifted her feet off the sofa and sat upright, making more space beside her. Émilie obeyed and perched on the edge of the divan. The scent of Madame de Montespan’s rich perfume wafted toward Émilie every time the marquise made a gesture. She took Émilie’s hand and began to stroke it.

“Sing for me,” she said, sounding like a sulky child begging for a treat.

“What, now, Madame?” asked Émilie.

“Of course!” she answered, letting just a hint of irritation creep into her voice. “My lutenist can accompany you.” Madame de Montespan smiled very, very slowly.

The control she had over her facial muscles fascinated Émilie. Just the slightest shift of her eyes brought a little Moorish footman, whose skin was the color of the ebony keys on Monsieur Charpentier’s harpsichord, to Émilie’s side. He bowed to her, and gestured toward the musician, whom Émilie now saw on the other side of the room.

The lutenist stopped playing the moment the marquise asked Émilie to sing. He waited for her to walk the distance from the sofa to the corner where he sat with the lute cradled in his lap. With a little pang of homesickness, Émilie noticed that it was not one of her father’s. She also noticed that the musician smiled serenely and stared somewhere off into the distance.

“What will you sing?”

His question caught Émilie off guard. He had not turned toward her when he spoke, and all at once she realized that he must be blind. She whispered to him the name of an air by Lully, and he strummed a few notes of accompaniment. Then Émilie began to sing.

“No, no, no! Not that one!”

Émilie had barely let one note escape from her mouth when she was interrupted by the marquise.

“Sing me something from
Alceste.
” Her expression was almost pleading, beseeching. The abrupt change in tone from one sentence to the next made Émilie’s head spin. And besides, she was not supposed to sing the music from
Alceste
for anyone. No one was even meant to know that she was going to perform the role, outside of Lully, St. Paul, Madame de Maintenon—and the rest of the cast, of course.

“You see, it’s
my
opera. So it’s only right that you should sing it for me.”

For an instant Émilie wondered who had betrayed the secret they had all been sworn to keep. But with so many in the cast, and footmen always hovering around, it seemed logical that word would spread. And besides, she did not see how she could say no to Madame de Montespan, and so Émilie did as she was told.

When the song was finished, there was total silence in the room. Émilie looked in the direction of the marquise, whose face was turned away. One of the footmen approached his mistress cautiously and held out a silk handkerchief, which she took and applied to her eyes. Émilie saw her draw a deep breath before she turned and spoke.

“I have been watching you closely. Yes, you are indeed a talent.” In one languid movement, she shifted her position on the divan to make even more room at her side. “Come back and sit here,” she commanded, but not without kindness in her voice. “You are very young.” She watched Émilie walk back across the room. “I can see what they are doing. I see it all. I was there, at the masquerade. You are very pretty.”

Madame de Montespan’s eyes traveled up and down Émilie’s body. She shivered to remember the feeling of being so exposed on that dreadful day. But the marquise ignored her discomfort and continued to speak. Soon Émilie became mesmerized by her face. Watching it was like watching clouds skitter across the sky on a windy day. In that moment Émilie thought she had never seen a more beautiful woman.

“I must tell you something that may cause you distress,” said the marquise, her expression darkening. “You have been brought here to help a certain woman—I shall not dignify her with the title of lady—destroy me.” She paused.

Her comment shocked Émilie. It jarred against the soothing atmosphere of the room. She had no idea how to respond, and so she said nothing.

“Yes, what can you say? I feel it is my duty, my obligation, to warn you that the perpetration of her designs upon me will result in your destruction too.” Madame de Montespan held perfectly still at the end of this statement, keeping Émilie’s eyes locked in her gaze. “My spies inform me that they have plans to put you in the king’s bed, which is the way that they propose to supplant me, so they imagine … You blush! And I dare say you hardly understand why. Well, no matter. Others have failed, and you will too.”

Émilie was horrified. The stern look on the marquise’s face gradually subsided and was replaced by one that seemed to close off all communication between them for a moment.

“They have miscalculated, however, and the result will have no effect upon my position with the king. And once they realize this, you will have outlasted your usefulness. That is a very perilous position to be in at court.”

A wave of mild nausea swept over Émilie. It had never occurred to her that there was any reason at all beyond music that she had been brought to Versailles. How could she have been so naïve? There was danger all around her, and she had failed to notice it. Émilie had a momentary image of herself as a little mouse, being toyed with by a well-fed cat. She began to realize that human beings were passed around like chips at a gaming table at Versailles. Madame de Montespan seemed to imply that she, Émilie, was merely currency, that it was all she had ever been since she arrived at court.

“I can see that you are alarmed. But have courage,
ma chérie!
I have a plan to extricate you from this unappealing prospect,” said the lady, “and I think you will find it greatly to your liking. It involves, among other things, a reunion with your
‘Cher Maître,’
Monsieur Charpentier.”

At the mention of this name, Émilie sat up just a little straighter. It did not escape her notice that Madame de Montespan used a term for Charpentier that could only have come from a perusal of the letters that were supposed to have been completely secret.

“I thought that would please you!” said Madame de Montespan, a note of triumph in her voice. “In order to achieve this object, I must ask you to follow my instructions precisely and to maintain utter secrecy, for your own sake if nothing else.”

Émilie cast her eye around the room at the six or seven servants who stood placidly waiting for instructions.

“You need not mind them!” The marquise gestured vaguely in the direction of her staff. “They would not dare breathe a word of what passes within my boudoir.”

Émilie looked to see if her comment had had any effect at all on the people who were so cavalierly included in her sweeping comment. Either she spoke the truth, or Madame de Montespan’s footmen were so adept at concealing their true feelings that they could have chosen careers on the stage. From all Émilie had seen, servants were a fickle lot, requiring little more than higher wages to persuade any one of them to switch allegiance. She did not know what could possibly induce those at Clagny to behave any differently.

“Ah, young love! I know it. I have loved and been loved as no other before me. Fortune, power, glory—all these are nothing when compared to love. Do not throw it away for an hour of notoriety.”

Émilie was confused. What did any of this have to do with love? She was very fond of Monsieur Charpentier, to be sure. And she counted the days between letters, and compared everything that Monsieur Lully told her to what her former teacher had told her, usually to the detriment of Monsieur Lully. But was this love? And if it was, why did it matter to Madame de Montespan?

“Imagine how it would be to return to the man you truly love, the man who taught you what it was to live, to breathe, to sing!”

Émilie let this thought trickle into her heart and, once it was there, turned it over and over. She remembered the feeling she had when she and Monsieur Charpentier sang together, a feeling powerful and yet unnameable, and the memory warmed her from her scalp to her toenails. She closed her eyes and conjured up the sensation of Charpentier’s hand pressing against her abdomen, and the way he would not look at her when he sat at the harpsichord, and the way he did look at her when he had come to escort her to the fête. It all seemed to make sense now. Of course she was in love. As she listened to Madame de Montespan outline what sounded like a very risky plan, she was powerless to move, speak, even think for herself. The plan involved a daring rescue in the middle of the night after her début as Alceste. The marquise promised that she would take care of bringing Monsieur Charpentier into the scheme. She had certain knowledge, so she said, that he was just as attached to Émilie as she was to him.

“Is he?” asked Émilie, forgetting to address the marquise with her proper title.

Madame de Montespan pushed a little tendril of hair back behind Émilie’s ear. “Poor child, you really are naïve. Don’t you know what power you wield? All that beauty, and that voice as well. You could have anyone you wanted.”

Émilie blushed deeply. What was this beautiful lady implying? “But I don’t want anyone,” she said, not knowing what else to say.

“No, of course not. You don’t want just anyone, you want him.”

By the time she sent Émilie on her way back to Versailles, the Marquise de Montespan knew that, despite the hazards, this young girl would do anything she asked of her. Years of experience taught her to recognize when she had made a conquest, and little Émilie Jolicoeur was in love. Perhaps not with her, but with the idea of love that she had made so enticing.

Madame de Montespan was particularly pleased with herself when she went to the queen’s apartments that evening to play cards. She sent for Émilie, and the ladies persuaded the girl to sing an air. As each listener was enfolded in the rich, thrilling sound of Émilie’s voice, the marquise thought she could detect greater depth and power in it even since earlier that day. And for this she accepted some of the credit, quite happy to partake of the imminent triumph of the most remarkable creature at court.

Twelve

One warm September Sunday, as Charpentier walked home from the Church of St. Louis, where he had just directed the music for High Mass, he noticed that a private coach, small but very beautiful, kept pace with him and stayed near him all the way through the streets of the Marais. When he was about a block away from the rue des Quatre Fils, he heard the horses quicken their pace just a little until the vehicle drew up level with him. The coach window lowered. A woman’s gloved hand rested on the top of the door. It was dark within, and he could just see the suggestion of her profile, shrouded in veils.

“Monsieur Charpentier,” the woman called to him. He approached. “Do not come closer. I have a letter for you, from someone who wishes to help you.” The woman held a folded piece of paper out to Charpentier. He reached from where he stood and took it from her. “I shall return exactly one week from today for your answer,” she said. Before Charpentier could say anything, the driver clucked his horses to a trot, and the coach departed.

Charpentier examined the note he held in his hand. The paper was very heavy and fine. He opened it and read.

The letter was not signed. Charpentier felt the blood race to his fingertips. For the past months he had temporarily put aside his notion of reclaiming Émilie, ever since she wrote and told him that she was to sing the role of Alceste in Lully’s opera. This was too big an opportunity to squander; Charpentier felt he must trust Émilie’s innocence and better nature to protect her from any scandal at court. His letters to her were always full of advice, including any information he could pick up from the other servants at the Hôtel de Guise about who to watch out for and who was harmless. He was relieved to hear that Lully, although unscrupulous, was hardly likely to have designs upon Émilie’s person. And nothing in Émilie’s letters to him had given him any cause to think there was anything that was troubling her beyond a little homesickness.

On the other hand, Émilie had been at Versailles for almost nine months. Even over the brief time he had worked with her, she had matured. Without any fresh input to give him a new impression, Charpentier’s memory of Émilie was frozen in time. All at once he realized that she could be in much more danger now, the result of nothing more than the normal course of nature. It was clear that leaving matters as they stood might spell disaster. Yet if Charpentier took Émilie away from Versailles, neither of them would ever be able to return. All his dreams of a court appointment would end, and Émilie’s career would be destroyed.

“Monsieur Charpentier, are you quite well?” It was old Robert, one of the footmen, who sat by the servants’ entrance polishing some silver when the composer arrived at the Hôtel de Guise, hardly realizing that he had continued to walk.

“Yes, I’m fine,” answered Charpentier.

He went to his room and sat for a long time. As the sun set, and the walls turned golden and then red, Charpentier came to understand that he must not put ambition above what was right. But it was this, the deciding what was right, that caused him some difficulty. Was it right to leave Émilie to her fate, an innocent all too vulnerable to the unscrupulous forces at court? And was his desire to rescue her from some indistinct but ominous fate more self-serving than he wanted to admit?

In the end Charpentier decided that Émilie was still too young to defend herself against the intrigues at court. If he did not think that the effort would prove unsuccessful and probably ruin any future attempt he might make to bring Émilie back to Paris, he would have rushed to Versailles immediately. But with neither the means nor any definite proof that she was in imminent danger, he judged it prudent to be guided by whatever insider it was who claimed to have a plan to avert disaster. And so Charpentier wrote his affirmative response, saying that he would go along with the plan no matter what it entailed, and carried it with him for days until he finally delivered it into the same gloved hand that reached out of the same small coach that followed him home from St. Louis the next Sunday.

In addition to Émilie’s letters, over the next few weeks Charpentier received three more from the mysterious woman. That it was a woman Charpentier assumed, as much from the delicacy of the sentiments as the scented paper. The scheme she outlined was relatively simple: Charpentier was to come for Émilie at eleven forty-five at night on October the fifth. She would be ready to flee with him, waiting by a door to the right of the Cour de Marbre. So long as no one found out about the plan, it should go smoothly. Émilie was under the watch of the servant François, but her general compliance, so the anonymous informant told Charpentier, had lulled her guardian into a false sense of security.

It was fortunate in some ways, Charpentier thought, that he had not been called upon to rush off to Versailles the very next day. Mostly the delay gave him time to prepare for Émilie’s return. It was difficult to know what to do with her once she was back in Paris. He could hardly bring her back to the Hôtel de Guise, and he had been told in one of the letters that Émilie should not return to her parents’ home, since that would be the first place she would be sought. The only answer was to engage a room for Émilie somewhere discreet and quiet. He had asked a valet at the Hôtel de Guise for advice, since he had no idea about these things, making up some story about a sister of his coming from the country. The servant suggested an address south of the rue St. Antoine, in an area that was a little rundown, he said, but private and cheap. Charpentier found the house and secured the lodgings for Émilie, feeling a little sheepish about the whole process. He did not like the way the landlady looked at him, assuming, he was certain, that he was simply looking for a place in which to carry on a love affair.

“Did you know, Madame, that Mademoiselle Émilie has been to see la Montespan more than once?” St. Paul and Madame de Maintenon strolled in a secluded part of the garden at Versailles. He had just arrived to deliver his weekly report on Émilie’s progress and development.

“Is that so?” she said. “It does not surprise me.”

“Should we not keep a closer watch over her?”

The widow Scarron fingered the pearl rosary that hung around her neck. “I don’t think that is necessary. I have everything under control. François keeps me well informed.”

St. Paul thought for a moment. “The marquise might try to remove her from court. She was there, at the masquerade. She saw how the king—”

“I don’t think she would dare. The king would suspect her immediately. Too many other so-called rivals have been, shall we say, encouraged by Madame de Montespan to leave court.”

St. Paul stepped on a large black beetle that crawled over the grass.

“And what is more, Monsieur le Comte, His Majesty is now departing once more for the Low Countries to lead his armies,” said Madame de Maintenon.

“No doubt with the marquise in tow!”

“I hear not. He has specifically asked that she remain behind. Her health is delicate, apparently.”

St. Paul thought about this. Montespan would be in a foul temper over such a slight. “Which gives us time to prepare Mademoiselle Émilie even more fully for her encounter with the king,” he said.

Madame de Maintenon fixed St. Paul with an unflinching stare. “Sometimes I am amazed, Monsieur, that a gentleman with your instincts can still be so naïve. I believe you have only partly understood my intentions. My goal is not simply to unseat the marquise, who is hardly worth my consideration, but to save the king by teaching him that there are greater pleasures than the gratification of the senses. The girl is my instrument, in all senses of the word. In any case, putting a guileless young peasant in the way of losing her innocence would not distract His Majesty from the considerable charms of Madame de Montespan. The king is not so easily amused for more than one night.”

“I see.” But St. Paul did not see. His fears were confirmed. He was no longer fully informed of the widow Scarron’s plans. He knew as well as anyone how treacherous a place the court of Versailles could be. It was a very uncomfortable feeling, to be on the receiving end of some clever deception.

“My motives are of the highest, and the end I seek will result in the moral salvation of the greatest king ever to live. Such a noble project requires extreme measures.” The widow Scarron did not so much raise her voice as intensify it. The effect was chilling, and it avoided all risk of being overheard.

“How extreme?” he asked.

Madame de Maintenon seemed to grow inches taller before St. Paul’s eyes, drawing herself as upright as her spine would go and lifting her chin. “This is a matter of state. It justifies any action. Once you have done my bidding, you must leave the next step to me. I will send for you when I need you. Good day, Monsieur de St. Paul.”

The count departed feeling chastened, and angry. The woman is mad, he thought. What could she be up to? She thinks she knows everything, but if she teases His Majesty with some new toy and then does not allow him, in some fashion, to gratify his desire, the king won’t thank her!

By the time St. Paul arrived at Lully’s study, where he had gone at the bidding of Madame de Maintenon, he was incensed. Bursting in without knocking, he surprised Lully, who jumped away from his valet, whose clothing was in a slight state of disarray.

St. Paul took in the scene with one sweep of his eyes, deciding in an instant to store up the information it gave him for use if he ever needed it. “The sketches for Mademoiselle Émilie’s costume,” he demanded, holding out his hand.

“Whatever for?” Lully covered up his discomfiture by acting irate. The valet bent quickly over a pair of shoes on the floor and began polishing them with a handkerchief, as if this had been his innocent occupation when St. Paul barged in.

“Madame de Maintenon is concerned. We do not want a repetition of the fiasco at the masquerade,” he said.

“I might remind you, Monsieur le Comte, that the ladder—and the costume—were your idea!”

St. Paul ignored him. “The sketches, if you please.”

With reluctance, Lully produced the drawings for Émilie’s costume for Alceste. It was the usual thing, very heavy and ornate. Lots of jewels and gold thread.

“Thank you,” said St. Paul. “This will do.” He departed, a little smile on his lips as he closed the door behind him.

“This will do! Who does he think he is?” Lully asked Pierre, who dropped the shoe on the floor and then began to massage the composer’s shoulders. Lully sat on the divan and closed his eyes. “You’d better stay away for a while,” he said to the youth, who kissed him on the forehead before quietly slipping out the door.

From one of the high windows of the palace, Émilie could see a corner of the garden that was somewhat overgrown, a little wilderness where the ladies seldom walked, especially when the ground was damp from a recent rain. Whenever she could escape from François’s constant vigilance, she tried to reach this haven before anyone discovered she was missing. Usually she was intercepted on her way and gently guided back into safer territory. But on this day François was occupied with other things, and everyone was preparing for the visit of an ambassador, so she actually managed to attain her goal. She thought when she was there that she was probably far enough away to sing something without being heard. She could, at last, sing one of Charpentier’s airs.

Émilie began her song, trying to keep her voice small so that it would not sail out over the landscape and creep into the open windows of Versailles. She looked away from the magnificent edifice that loomed behind her, and that she had come to feel was almost a prison, and sent the tones of her voice into the countryside. No one actually locked her in or tied her up, but she had no access to a carriage, and even if she wanted to make the trek back to Paris on foot, she did not know the way. It would hardly do to ask. All her questions about going home for a visit had been met with silence or evasion, as if no one could understand why anyone would want to return to a humble workshop when she had the opportunity to live at the greatest court on earth. And then there was this impossible-sounding scheme that Madame de Montespan had told her about. Why it was necessary for her to flee so furtively, in the middle of the night after her début, she could not figure out. It would be so much easier just to go home for a visit. Then she could decide whether to come back or not. She knew that if she ran away without permission, she would have to sever all ties with Versailles, and no matter how appealing Madame de Montespan made the idea of being with Charpentier again, she wasn’t entirely certain that was what she wanted.