Enchantress of Paris (5 page)

“You and I are both serious by nature. I understand how you scrutinize your own pain. I, too, lost a parent.”

His perception seemed uncanny. Something else occurred to me.
He must not know about his real father.
I had to look down.

He took it as sadness. “I should leave you. When your mourning concludes, I hope to see more of you at court.” He smiled softly, warming his features. “You're not like other girls.”

“Me?” I felt breathless. Could it be that what made me different from my sisters actually gave me merit in the king's eyes? I longed to receive that soft, unexpected smile every day. “I won't be at court, sire. My uncle will send me back to the convent.”

He seemed surprised. “No. You'd be wasted there. Shall I speak to your uncle about this?”

Just then my uncle cleared his throat from the center of the great hall. I hadn't heard him enter. His eyes darted from me to King Louis. “Sire, it's good you've come. I have papers for you to sign before I leave.”

The king nodded to me, then disappeared with my uncle. I went out to the carriage harboring affection for the king my family used so badly.

*   *   *

Wearing nothing but black, my sisters and brothers and I held one another quietly, tears spent, at the Church of the Augustins. Victoire looked pale and held her stomach continuously. I held the hands of Olympia and Hortense through the bishop's eulogy and watched Cardinal Mazarin make a great show of wiping his eyes before the dukes and princes in attendance.

After the requiem mass we lined up to exit the nave, and Mazarin said to me, “Kiss your brothers and bid farewell. Say good-bye to your sisters and prepare your things. You take leave on the morrow.”

Victoire suddenly leaned on my shoulder, steadying herself.

The cardinal looked alarmed. “Are you unwell?” he asked her.

“I must return to the Hôtel de Vendôme. Please don't take Marie from me so soon after God has taken my mother.”

He pressed his lips together. “Very well, I entrust your three youngest sisters to your care. Marie mustn't go to court. She must obey you in everything, Victoire. And as soon as that child of yours is born, Marie goes.”

And there in the midst of my mother's funeral, I felt elation.
God forgive me.

*   *   *

Philippe took our tearful little Alphonse back to the Jesuit College at Clermont. Victoire took Hortense and Marianne. The cardinal, Olympia, and I rode alone to Palais Mazarin. We sat opposite her, and she pouted while I planned what to pack.

Guilt forced me to keep from looking too happy. “I'm going to Victoire's at the Hôtel de Vendôme. I'll be taking my pearls with me.”

Olympia shrugged. “You'll have no better use for them than I. We must seclude ourselves in mourning.”

“Victoire will have many visitors.”

“I don't need visitors, I need the king.” She kicked our seat.

Surprisingly, our uncle didn't grow angry. “You may return to court after a few weeks.”

“King Louis could replace me in that amount of time, and you know it.”

Mazarin showed no emotion. “You should have wept more during your mother's illness. Then he would have reason to believe you need consoling now. Think of how you might have taken advantage of a king's succor.”

“Lift our mourning restrictions,” Olympia said. “Let me perform in the ballet tonight.”

He gently tugged the fingertips of his red leather gloves, one by one, inching them off. “That would expose you to ridicule.”

“At least let me watch. I must see for myself which of the simpering court brats throws herself at the king's feet.”

Even I, one who rarely went to court, knew the answer to that. “They all will.”

Our uncle was unmoved. “Olympia,” he said, not looking up, “you sound like a woman who doubts her powers of seduction. It's that fool witchcraft of yours. You can't win a Frenchman with potions.”

I gasped. He cast me a sidelong glance that made me want to scoot away.

“It worked for Catherine de Medici.” Olympia threw out her hands. “She was Queen of France for years.”

I had to interject. “She only succeeded in making the French hate Italians.”

Olympia ignored me. “The only way I'll be able to control Louis is if I lie with him. Move up my wedding.”

Our uncle bent his arm and lunged at Olympia, bringing his gloves down on her cheek so fast she had no chance to move. The leather made a horrid
slap
against her skin. She cried out. I backed into the corner of the carriage and balled my hands into fists.

“
Never
command me.” He settled back in his seat, unruffled, as if nothing had happened. “Keep your hold on the king or be replaced. A campaign in Flanders is forthcoming. I want the king to sign for troops and ride to the front himself. Ensure he is amenable or I will send
you
to a convent, too, as far from Paris as I can find.”

She put her hands down, cheek glowing. “As you wish,
Your Eminence.
”

Our uncle started replacing his gloves. He'd planned to strike her all along. “Come down from the ceiling, Marie. As long as you obey, you have nothing to fear.”

I hadn't realized I'd climbed the bench in my attempt to distance myself. I sat back down and pressed my face against the wall of the carriage. I felt the jerk and dip of every broken flagstone in the street.

Watching me, Olympia let out a sinister laugh. “Are you certain you don't want to go back to your convent, Marie?”

“What has happened to you all?”

Our uncle ignored me.

Olympia snorted. “Welcome to Paris.”

*   *   *

At Palais Mazarin the cardinal's chief minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, was waiting. We followed them into the front hall, where they turned directly into the library and shut themselves up for what might be hours of fiscal discussions. Olympia grabbed my hand and pulled me back out. “Come to the Palais du Louvre with me.”

“To see the ballet?”

She nodded. “We can make fun of the bourgeoisie who attend in second-rate satin, striving to imitate nobility's fashions.” Winter wind blew back her hood. Her hair blew wildly. “I know what you are up to with your little pearls and face paint.”

I held my hood so my carefully placed curls wouldn't get ruined. “You don't know what it's like in your shadow.”

“If you want to remain at court, you have to know which men have the money, which women spread their legs, and who needs the most favor. I can show you.”

She was right. All I knew of the French courtiers I'd learned from reading my uncle's papers. “No tricks?”

She dragged me down the steps and waved to the carriage driver, a wrinkled old man, just as he started unharnessing the horses. “To the Louvre!” she called. He looked skeptical. Everyone knew we were in mourning. She flashed her dimples. “Please?”

The old man actually blushed, and he shouted toward the stables. In moments, coachmen and equerries swarmed the carriage, and we were rumbling down the road again. Olympia reached behind a red velvet cushion and produced two black vizard masks. “You planned this,” I cried as she tied mine into place. She only winked.

The men helped us alight at the Louvre, and with hoods pulled over our hair, we slipped in through a side door. Olympia led me upstairs, through a few chambers, and finally into a gallery box. A handful of people turned to watch us enter, but we stepped aside.

“There is Colbert de Terron,” she said, pointing to a man in the hall below. “He is Jean-Baptiste Colbert's cousin. Ambitious, but easily bribed.”

A woman in the gallery studied us with discontent. Olympia snapped open a fan to hide our mouths, and she whispered, “That sour thing is Madame de Motteville, the only woman who sincerely likes the queen mother.”

A minor commotion sounded below, and Olympia pulled me to the railing. “Ah,” she said. “And now we have King Charles the Second of England, here in exile since their parliament executed his father. Look at that swarthy complexion and black hair, don't you just want to taste him?”

I elbowed her.

“He may have no kingdom, but he
is
still a king. Look, it's his mother, Henrietta Maria, aunt to King Louis, and his sister, Henriette Anne. Isn't she deathly thin? Their shabby English retinue have taken over the Palais-Royal and live off our scraps.” She looked at me pointedly. “Is this a family you should ally with?”

I understood. “Stay within their good graces because they have the king's favor, but don't pander because they have no power.”

She grinned, proud, then pointed to the audience below. “Note who to avoid based on who is absent. You do not see Gaston, duc d'Orléans, uncle of King Louis. He and his daughter disgraced themselves by siding against the crown in the Fronde. Same with the Prince de Condé—that Bourbon cousin was the master behind the Fronde.” She tipped her head toward the stage. “Endeavor to please those closest to the king. The ones he chooses to dine with, to gamble with, to dance with.”

The violinists in the opposite box began to play, and the violas and
basse de violon
joined in the overture. I hadn't participated in a
ballet de cour
since my brief introduction to Paris years earlier. Now, hearing the music again, I gripped the rail and let the melodic chords flow through me. Onstage, lovesick Cupid languished upon a bed. The Sun King himself danced into view, dressed as Apollo. Nine muses twirled around him, our Martinozzi cousin, the Princess de Conti, among them.

“I should be dancing,” Olympia muttered. “Look how Mademoiselle d'Argencourt eyes the king. She'll let the shoulder of that skimpy Grecian costume slip off. She'll snare him.”

“Didn't you use the new potion?”

Olympia shrugged. “The damned things don't seem to have lasting effect.”

“Beyond the heat of the moment, you mean?”

She frowned. “The cardinal is wrong. The king will come to console me. I'll have to do something drastic.”

I paid no attention, just let myself fall into the dotted rhythms and upbeat flourishes of the music.

*   *   *

Back at Palais Mazarin, the cardinal was nowhere to be found. Moréna had my sisters' things packed in a trunk beside my
cassone.
“I'm going with you.”

“Moréna, you belong to Mazarin.”

“Can a man really own a woman?” Her voice had a determined edge.

“I don't have the power to free you.”

“You need a maid. Tell Mazarin you've merely borrowed me to keep logs in your fireplace at night.”

I shrugged. “Then let us away.”

We left Olympia hunched over a mortar and pestle, grinding walnut shells for a face scrub, and set out for our new adventure.

 

CHAPTER
5

Hôtel de Vendôme

January 1657

“How do you like your rooms?” asked Victoire from her silver gilt bed, where physicians insisted she spend the remainder of her pregnancy. Her belly was surrounded by fluffy down pillows and lacy Dutch linens. She extended her hands, and I kissed each of her cheeks.

“Far enough that I cannot hear Marianne's fits when the governess makes her go to bed, and close enough that Hortense can find me if she has bad dreams.”

Victoire laughed. “I banish bad dreams.” Her eyes glittered. “Help me entertain visitors.”

This stunned me. “Me?” With my skinny neck, my big lips, and my pagan ways? “I don't fit in with the nobility of Paris.”

She made a
tisk
sound. “Noble blood doesn't make a person noble at all. I've invited the finest Parisian women so they can see how bright you are. Make a favorable impression and the cardinal might be persuaded to let you stay.”

I grinned. “Everyone who comes simply must stay to dine.”

Victoire's husband, the duc de Mercœur, walked in. “And gamble.” He kissed Victoire. “Offer gambling and the husbands will stay for hours.”

“Which means Marie can converse longer with the ladies.” Victoire turned back to me. “Start your own salon here. You will be like our father leading the Accademia degli Umoristi!”

I had clear memories of Rome's most distinguished literary minds assembling at Palazzo Mancini for readings. And I'd heard of Parisian salons where the witty, the elegant, and the most refined excelled at conversation and exchanged new ideas. Hadn't King Louis suggested I had merit? “You think I could?”

Victoire smiled. “You could shine!”

*   *   *

I raided the Hôtel de Vendôme over the next week. I ordered the servants to carry tables upstairs to Victoire's rooms for gaming. We moved carpets and paintings and half a dozen candelabra. I sent up the library's best books on philosophy. I went to the kitchens, where hams and bundles of herbs hung from the rafters, and women pounding pastry dough in great wooden bowls worked in clouds of flour.

“The duchess directed me to order suppers,” I said to the cook sweetly. We drew up menus featuring oysters, foie gras, and poached pears and ordered cases of wine from d'Arbois.

I instructed the servants. “You must never let the fires die. Never leave a wineglass empty.” They nodded with anticipation.

On the night of our reception, Moréna laced me in gray silk and poked my ribs. “You should eat more.” She pinned one bundle of black silk flowers in my hair and another at my décolletage, then tied a simple black ribbon around my neck. “You'll need new dresses.”

But I was too nervous. “They may not even like me.”

At last a carriage pulled into the court with our first arrival. The footman muttered a name as she stepped out. Madeleine de Scudéry, the author.
This is my chance!