Emilie's Voice (29 page)

Madeleine was completely mystified. It never occurred to her to wonder where the ruined slippers had come from: like the dress, she assumed they were a gift from Monsieur Charpentier. Sophie, unable to speak, waved her hand at Madeleine and went out to see if she could turn the scraps into ready cash.

Thirty-one

The next morning two uniformed guards entered Émilie’s cell. All the other inmates cowered in the corners. Guards generally took prisoners out of that particular cell for one reason only: to escort them to the gallows. Anyone who was to be released was simply called upon by the jailer and allowed to walk through the door. The guards found Émilie easily enough, because she was alone, crouched in the middle of the dark room, her arms wrapped around her knees, still rocking back and forth on her heels. They dragged her roughly from the floor. The other women all crossed themselves and spat, at once pitying her and feeling glad for themselves that they were not being led to a similar fate, at least not yet.

Émilie was certain she was being taken to her death. Indeed, she wished for it. And since this was her last hour on this earth, her last opportunity to leave something of herself behind, she started to sing. At first she could not make her vocal cords obey her commands. But as they warmed up, the sound of her voice swelled and echoed through the cold, dank mass of the Bastille.

Émilie continued to sing as she was led out of the dark prison into the midst of a gorgeous June afternoon in Paris. Her eyes had grown accustomed to the obscurity of the cell, and she had to close them against the flat, brilliant sunlight, unmitigated by shade. So she did not realize that rather than being shoved into an oxcart for the trip to the Place de Grève, she had been bundled into St. Paul’s coach. For several minutes she kept her eyes tight shut against the glare of daylight, convinced that with every revolution of the wheels, she grew closer to the hour of her execution.

But the rue St. Antoine seemed unnaturally long. Her throat became tired, and she stopped singing. When the trip continued beyond the short distance from the Bastille to the Place de Grève, Émilie opened her eyes. She saw the interior of the coach, and through the window the houses and shops of Paris passing by. Sitting across from her, with a hankie to his nose and mouth because of the stench that Émilie gave off after sitting amid the detritus in the Bastille, was St. Paul. He looked just the same, but a walking stick leaned on the cushion next to him, and there was a dark stain on the right leg of his breeches.

Too shocked even to speak, Émilie assumed that all would become plain to her in due course. After the recent events, she had relinquished any idea of being able to control her own destiny and simply watched with detached curiosity as things happened to her.

“Well, aren’t you going to say anything? Don’t you want to know what is going to become of you?”

St. Paul’s smile sickened Émilie. Her eyes had become enough accustomed to the light to notice that his coach, on first appearance so elegant, showed signs of wear, that the edge of the silk cushion was threadbare, and that the gold leaf was wearing off around the door. They sat in silence for the remainder of the trip.

Moments after Émilie had been shoved into the coach, Marcel arrived at the Bastille. He had his pouch of money ready and was prepared to lay it all out to bribe the guards and get his daughter out of prison.

“I’ve come for Madame Émilie Charpentier,” he said to one of the guards.

The man said nothing but consulted a large book. He closed it, and then went through a door to another room. After about an hour he returned.

“Your daughter’s not here anymore.”

“What do you mean? She was brought here yesterday.”

“Yes, but she’s gone, I tell you.”

Marcel instantly feared the worst. He knew Émilie had just had a miscarriage, that she had not fully recovered from it. His legs began to give way beneath him, and the guard reached his hand out to steady him, realizing that Marcel had jumped to the wrong conclusion.

“I mean, she’s just been taken away, released from prison, and gone in the Comte de St. Paul’s coach.”

It took Marcel a moment to comprehend how completely he had misunderstood. As he did so, his face underwent a miraculous transformation. Although he feared St. Paul, at least Émilie was out of the Bastille, and perhaps they could get to her. He clapped the guard on the shoulder, then practically ran all the way home.

“She is out of prison! Émilie is saved!” Marcel could not contain his joy when he arrived back at the Charpentiers’ apartment, where his wife and Sophie sat in the parlor. Charpentier was in the other room, propped up with cushions in bed.

“Thank God!” breathed Madeleine. “But where is she?”

Marcel told her his story, leaving out nothing. “All that remains is to find out where St. Paul has taken her, and she will be home!”

“She is at Versailles. I must go immediately and get her back,” came a voice from the bedroom doorway.

Marcel, Madeleine, and Sophie all looked over to see Charpentier, who stood before them, wearing only his shirt and breeches. His bare calves and feet looked thin and unsteady, and his face was the color of bleached parchment. At first no one moved a muscle, but then Charpentier began to sink, slowly, to the ground, as though his legs were made of sponge. Marcel and Madeleine reached him at the same moment and helped him back to bed.

Madame de Maintenon stood at her window and watched a flock of geese lift off from the surface of a fountain and fly away in perfect formation.

“When Madame Charpentier awakes, bring her directly to me,” she said to Marie, who stood silently by. “You may go.”

Marie curtseyed and left.

“So, St. Paul, you have brought her back from the dead.”

St. Paul paused with his dish of tea halfway to his mouth. “She fooled us all. She deserved to be apprehended.”

The widow Scarron turned and looked at the count, whose walking stick leaned next to him on his stool. “How did you hurt yourself?” she asked.

“A hunting accident,” he said, blowing on his tea to cool it off.

“Perhaps it would have been better if you had left her where she was.”

“Better for whom?” St. Paul put his dish down and stood.

“For everyone, I think.” Madame de Maintenon extended her hand to St. Paul, who bowed over it and left.

Almost as soon as the door closed on St. Paul, Lully was announced.

“Madame de Maintenon. You truly set an example for the court, living in such modest retirement.” Lully had heard that the widow Scarron was none too pleased about Émilie’s return to court, and knowing that her influence with the king was now beyond dispute, had decided to take preemptive action.

Madame de Maintenon held her hand out for Lully to kiss. “Good of you to come and visit me, considering your busy schedule composing a new tragedy for the king.”

Lully was surprised that she knew about it. He generally discussed these things with no one but His Majesty. “Yes, the premiere is in two months.”

“Your message said that you had something important to tell me, about the singer?”

“Yes. I thought you would want to know. My position is so delicate here. I must sometimes pretend to go along with things just to keep my neutrality.” Lully then proceeded to tell the widow Scarron that St. Paul had approached him to plot for Émilie’s return. “Naturally, I did not agree to this.”

“Strange. That is not what I have been told by Monsieur de St. Paul.”

“I can have no way of knowing what lies the count has chosen to spread about me. You know what a desperate state he is in.”

“He must have had some hold over you, to feel that he could even suggest such a treacherous action. And he brought me this, which he claimed to have gotten from you.” Madame de Maintenon retrieved François’s letter from her desk. “If I did not know the handwriting, I might have believed him when he told me that you wrote it.”

“I assure you I did not! And when it came into my possession because the luthier could not read, I endeavored to keep it from disturbing His Highness’s tranquillity. Otherwise I would not be speaking to you so openly now.” Lully took a pinch of snuff. She was a devious creature, and St. Paul was—St. Paul.

Madame de Maintenon smiled. “Your candor is quite unexpected. But I imagine you are not sorry to have such a talent returned to court? And surely you must take some pleasure in having thwarted your rival so effectively.”

“But, as I said, Madame, I have done no such thing!” Lully drew himself up. He would not have gotten where he was without the ability to act.

“Do not trouble yourself, Monsieur Lully. I shall make sure that His Majesty understands your position completely.”

What a pity, thought Madame de Montespan. Why could they not just leave the poor girl alone? She never liked St. Paul much. He always had a desperate air about him. Even if he really was practically starving, it was very unseemly of him to let anyone else notice.

The marquise hoisted her legs up onto the divan. She was far along in her pregnancy. Too far along to upset herself over something she could not change. And what if the king finally enjoyed Mademoiselle Émilie—or Madame Charpentier, rather? She herself would be out of commission for a while. He had strayed before. Yet she was always able to draw him back. Sweet as she was, beautiful though her voice was, that little peasant would never be a substitute for the most desirable woman in the realm.

The marquise smiled. She knew that Madame de Maintenon was extremely vexed that the pretty young singer was back at court. She had heard, through her spies, that little Émilie’s death had been presented to the king as divine retribution for his sinful longings. For a time Louis forbore to indulge his carnal appetites. He must have been frightened. And then he had sent her to the rue Vaugirard, to put the evidence of his immoral behavior out of sight of the court.

But he was the king, and the greatest one that ever lived. The rules were different for him—for both of them. The marquise gently stroked her swollen belly. She knew that her beauty, her fertility, gave her as much power as the queen. And Madame de Maintenon could never take that away from her, no matter what she did.

After a short while Madame de Montespan turned her mind to other things. She set about planning her next meal, ordering her favorite delicacies, as the mental exertion had given her a prodigious appetite. After all, the baby, the royal baby, needed to be nourished in a manner befitting its station in life.

Colbert closed the enormous ledger book and stood from his stool. “You have heard, Your Majesty, that the little singer has returned?”

“Yes, extraordinary that. Seems she didn’t die after all. Divine justice, don’t you think?”

“A bizarre affair, apparently.”

“Madame de Maintenon tells me that she is very contrite and wishes to be taken back into court.”

Colbert scratched his ear. “It would be a nice gesture, I think, to forgive her. She has done you no real harm. And she is so young.”

“Yes, that’s what I thought. Lully will be pleased to have her, I imagine. Shall we go to chapel?”

King Louis XIV and his finance minister left the room.

As soon as Émilie arrived at Versailles, she was stripped, bathed, and scrubbed. It was the first time she had ever been completely immersed in water in her life, except for once when she was a little girl and fell into the river. Then the servants put her in a muslin shift and sent her to bed in her old room, which now had two bars on the outside of the window, positioned so that she could not open it wide enough to fit her body through the gap. She was to lie still for three hours—the time the medical men thought necessary to allow her internal organs to settle into their correct places once again, since water must have been absorbed by her skin, and Émilie’s liver, kidneys, and stomach would float around dangerously until she had dried out completely. Émilie was by this time so exhausted that the forced rest was not forced at all, and she instantly fell into a deep sleep. Except for opening her eyes once or twice, she did not fully awaken for sixteen hours.

When she at last became conscious of her surroundings, her first thought was that what had happened over the last eight months had been nothing but a dream, that she had never left this place. But the scratches and bruises on her arms and legs from rough handling in the prison soon disabused her of that impression. She was conscious of pain that spread over her entire body. It was a mighty effort to move, but she sat up, very slowly, and then swung her feet over the edge of her bed until they rested on the cold wooden floor. Within seconds of doing this, Émilie heard a knock on her door.

“Come!” she said, in a voice that sounded oddly strangled, as if she hadn’t used it for a very long time.

Marie, the same silent servant who had waited on her before, unlocked and then opened the door and entered with a court dress for her to wear, and all the materials necessary to arrange her hair in the manner preferred by the king. She was followed by another maid Émilie had never seen before, who carried a light breakfast on a tray. This young girl placed the tray on the little desk, then curtseyed and left. Marie stayed to help Émilie dress. Just as in previous times, the two women said nothing to one another.