The Rivals of Versailles: A Novel (The Mistresses of Versailles Trilogy) (36 page)

A Letter

From the Desk of the Duchesse de Pompadour

Château de Bellevue

October 24, 1756

My dear Richelieu,

I send you greetings from Bellevue; I do so enjoy the countryside and the locals here are simply charming. One of the gardeners has the name Armand and I instantly thought of you, my dear Duc, as it is the same as your Christian name. He even looked like you—as short as a shrub!

I must offer you my condolences that Our Majesty declined your candidacy to lead the troops. I am confident we are in good hands with the Maréchal d’Estrées—such a mature man, faithful and loyal, guided only by his rational brain, and not by any other part of his anatomy. Besides, we must remember that your year as First Gentleman of the Bedchamber starts next January. Despite your success in Minorca, I believe your talents are better suited to handing the king his candle or his slippers, rather than leading men on the battlefield?

Thank you for your news of the Marquise de Coislin, though I had thought you better able to distinguish fact from rumor. But forgive me! You are growing old, and as one descends to second infancy such mistakes become all too common, I am afraid.

Well, I must end this letter to prepare for the evening’s entertainment. We have six tables of cards for tonight and I hope I shall do well; a good gambler always knows when to fold or sit the game out. But you know that: you are an excellent gambler.

I will have the pleasure of seeing you back at Versailles next week.

I remain your humble and devoted servant,

The Duchesse de Pompadour

Chapter Sixty

A
rgenson is becoming impatient and insists I withhold my pleasures until she is firmly banished. It has already been a month, yet still the Marquise is here.

“And don’t let him tickle the back of your neck,” he barks sharply, his hooded eyes fixed on Diane’s bulky chest, barely covered with an enormous white fichu.

Diane looks sheepish. “He asked,” she mouths to me in apology.

“Now read this letter from the Prince de Conti.”

I stare at the spindly scrawl, like a spider’s web, I think, and shake my head. Argenson snatches back the letter—why is he being so hateful?—and reads aloud. “ ‘And mind you keep your wits about you and do not let him stroke the back of your neck. Demand that he declare you. Everyone must know your love.’ ” Argenson finishes up with a grimace. “Do you understand? Conti will be back at Court next week and we must anticipate a good outcome to share with him.”

“I don’t want to see him,” I say sullenly. “He’s only going to scold me and I am not a child. I am the most powerful woman in France and the king loves me.”

“I think you may be confusing the fine line between seduction and love,” remarks Argenson tightly.

That night the king sends for me.

“Darling,” he says as he comes to embrace me. I duck away before he can stroke the back of my neck.

“You must declare me. Everyone must know our love,” I say nervously, backing away. I still feel a little uncertain in the king’s presence; he is a very intelligent man, and of course he is the king.

“Indeed,” he says, pulling me back toward him, one hand on the nape of my neck.

“No, not tonight,” I say, though I do want to collapse into his arms. I love the way he tickles and strokes me, and I love the smell of his nightshirt, carnations mixed with musk.

“You are indisposed?”

“No, no, I am . . . I cannot . . .” I sigh, and so does he. “I must—I have certain conditions . . . to be met, I have met conditions,” I stammer.

“I see, I see,” he says, sighing. “Did not the ruby earrings Le Bel gave last week please you?

“Oh yes, they were lovely, they went perfectly with the gown I wore to the Marquise de Belzunce’s dinner, you know, my crimson dress with the poppies . . .” I stop. I must remember Argenson’s advice. “But I want more.” Oh dear, that didn’t sound very proper. It would be so much nicer if the king could just understand what I wanted, rather than me having to ask.

I stare at him and he stares back, but there is no such understanding.

“Well, you must do as you see fit, my dear. And I shall do as I see fit,” the king says, getting up and ringing a bell. A footman appears.

“Get Le Bel,” he says, “and my coat. I’m going for a walk.”

“Oh, where are you going? I could come with you.” I remember our romantic stroll in the gardens, all that talk of Greek and telescopes. The little teardrop in his eye. He might need comforting again.

“No, no. That would not be a good idea. I would be alone, take a time down in the town,” he says, kissing me briefly on the cheek. “Let me know when you are feeling less . . .” But he doesn’t finish his sentence.

I am left sitting on the bed, feeling a little empty and foolish. What am I to tell Argenson? I really don’t want to see his squinched-up eyes when he looks at me in disapproval or stares at my chest, or any more of his lectures.

After that night I don’t see the king for some days, and now he has traveled to Bellevue to join the Marquise and I am not invited.

“Plumbing issues,” he told me before he left, stopping by to see me in my apartment. “Something you would not understand, my dear.”

“Well, the game is up,” announces Conti, throwing open the doors to Diane’s apartment. He bows to Argenson but ignores Montbarrey and me. Conti returned to Court last week, having decided that his disapproval was sufficiently registered. I wish he weren’t here; I don’t want any more lectures.

“She’s a crafty one, a sly one, we must give her some credit,” Conti continues, kicking over a small chair. Oh! I bristle with pride, thinking he is talking of me. Soon, however, it becomes clear he is referring to the Marquise.

“Look at this letter, supposedly from a ‘Monsieur Robert.’ My men have checked and he shall have our eternal enmity, but he counts on the Marquise lasting, as all foolish men do.” Conti takes a letter from his pocket and unfolds it. “We know the prurient interest His Majesty takes in his subjects’ letters, and this one was no doubt planted by the Marquise, and shown to the king by Janelle in the Post Office.”

“Is Janelle not with us?”

“No, he is not; the man is frustratingly immune to even the most persuasive of arguments, or money.”

The two men are ignoring me, making me nervous. And what does
prurient
mean? I have a sudden sense of foreboding.

“Let me read aloud the salient lines,” says Conti. He stalks around the room, occasionally kicking something, and reads: “ ‘A mistress is a necessity, we the French can accept that . . . The Pompadour is the finest example of a French flower, a compliment to her . . .’ Dah dah, more along those lines . . . then here: ‘The indiscreet silliness of the girl they call the Vashti lowers the majesty of France.’ ”

I—lower the majesty of France? How hateful. I open my mouth to defend myself, but Argenson stops me with a raised hand. Montbarrey stiffens and comes to stand by me, ready to defend my honor. Dear Montbarrey. Perhaps
he
will be my minister of war, not foul Argenson.

“You know how he hates to be embarrassed in front of his subjects, and overly cares for their opinion,” says Conti to Argenson, who nods in agreement. “Though little good it does him.”

“I knew this was doomed from the beginning,” says Argenson. “I should never have involved myself, debased myself . . .”

“Great sirs,” says Montbarrey, standing erect beside my chair and clicking his heels together, one anxious little hand on my shoulder, “I do not like the defeat I hear in your voice, nor the disrespect implied to my sister.”

“And who is this miniature man?” asks Conti in irritation.

“A brother-in-law, I think,” replies Argenson.

“She has no end to useful advisers, does she?” says Conti, shaking his head. He shoo-shoos Montbarrey, who backs away in lockstep with each shoo. When he deems Montbarrey sufficiently close to the door he turns back to Argenson and continues: “The best of generals, my man, knows when to surrender. He has said she must go before he returns from Bellevue, that much is decided.”

Are they talking about me? Go? Where? I look between the two men, but still no one is looking at me, or addressing me.

Argenson sighs. “That woman has the staying power of a barnacle. If this weren’t 1756, I would accuse her of witchcraft.”

The Prince de Conti kicks over one last chair, then stops in front of me and bows formally. “Madame de Mailly de Coislin, I must make known to you the king’s pleasure. His Majesty requests you to leave Versailles and retire to Paris. At least for a while.” He takes a sealed letter from his pocket and hands it to me.

They might call me silly, but I know what the letter is. The king is telling me to leave. This is . . . this is . . .

“Now, now, go and enjoy a few months there,” Conti says,
more kindly than he has ever said anything to me. “You still have—ah—friends at Court and none can tell the future.”

I burst into tears and flee down the hall away from Diane’s rooms. As I go I hear the Court reveling in my humiliation.

“Came in as a child, going out as a child.”

“Don’t you mean whore, not child?”

“I know the expression is a nine days’ wonder, but a thirty days’ wonder also has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”

“She lasted less time than it took to wear out my new pair of slippers.”

On the way to my room I collide with a servant carrying an enormous basket of candle ends. They clatter on the floor around me as I sink down in defeat. He wants me to go, I think ever so sadly between my sobs. He wants me to go.
She
wants me to go. I knew she was my enemy, that kitten play at charades—I just
knew
it. I wail and try to get up, but slip and tumble once more over the candle ends, then collapse in defeat.

My mother rides back in the carriage with me to Paris, mopping my tears and holding my head to her breast.

“Dearest, you’ll be happier in Paris, away from this world. Your father and I have arranged for you to visit Marie-Stéphanie down in Châtillon; now, how would you like that?”

I sniff. It has been rather a long time since I have seen my friend; she rarely comes to Paris. But no—“I want the king,” I wail. “I am so embarrassed. Mother! They said I was like a child. And Conti said I lowered the majesty of France. Well, not Conti, but some awful man who wrote it in a letter and the king read it and agreed!”

“Now, shhh, dear. You know that cruel words are just the wallpaper of that palace,” she says, rocking me in rhythm to the motion of the carriage. She holds me close and I snuffle at her breast—sometimes being a child is nice. “In truth, I am glad you will no longer be there.”

“They said I was a thirty-day wonder, and I don’t even know what that means,” I wail, letting out a huge hiccup.

“Yes, dear. But you like Châtillon, and I will write and tell my mother to visit you there; she might even bring you a new winter dress—now wouldn’t you like that?”

“Yes,” I say, wiping my tears.

The next week my tears are further dried by the present of a pair of shoes with a note from the king, in memory of our good times, and the offer of a house. I sit up in astonishment. Oh! My own house?

Entr’acte

The Duchesse de Pompadour

1756

S
ometimes I feel my life is like that of one of those early Christian saints so beloved by our queen—perpetual combat. I am not yet thirty-five, but feel fifty. Marie-Anne, that stupid child, was banished on Saint Cecilia’s Day, and as I assisted the queen in her devotional Mass, I reflected on that dear saint’s life: endless persecution, torture, multiple execution attempts, the whole world against her.

He sent the child packing; my ruse with the letter worked. That giggling girl is gone but I know
she
will never be gone, the shadowy form of the mistress of years to come, my constant companion and constant threat. I carve an
MA
on a piece of jade and think of the other Marie-Anne, the Duchesse de Châteauroux. I haven’t thought of her in years; even the strongest of ghosts must eventually fade. I have to admit that stupid child was interesting to look at, with her slanted, vacuous blue eyes and her rosebud mouth. Frannie told me that to look at her was to look at the first Marie-Anne.

I throw the jade into the fishbowl, violently, startling the serenity of the fish.

I cannot go on like this; I cannot. Yes, I would die away from Louis, in more ways than one, but I cannot live with the sword of Damocles constantly over my head. Enough.

He comes to me, as he always does; he is traveling on to Fontainebleau tomorrow but I will stay awhile here and rest. He sits on the bed beside me, but I don’t caress his hands or comfort him,
and when he talks of his discontent with the Maréchal d’Estrées, leading our troops, I offer him no comfort or words to soothe.

For the first time I regard him with something akin to coldness. He is recalcitrant, as he is when he knows he has done wrong; his eyes sheepish, the head slightly bowed. But I’ve seen it all before, and I do not want to see it again.

There is silence, and he sighs, pulls at his wig, and contemplates the new toilette table I have installed by the window.

“A fine piece,” he remarks. “What is that wood? It is not mahogany, I think.”

“Ebony,” I say curtly. I take a deep breath. “I would leave, Louis. I would go away. I will retire to Bellevue or to a convent.” My voice catches and I remember when I was younger, how intricately I planned such scenes. Not anymore; I am not onstage this time.

He shakes his head but does not speak.

“I cannot live like this! I cannot. These stupid girls, these plots. You must release me!”

I see he is shocked by the coldness in my voice, and I feel the old sympathy return, the desire to coddle and comfort. I bite my lip, harder than usual, and taste vermillion mixed with blood.

He gets up and wanders around, stares for a while more at the ebony table by the window.

“You mean so much to me,” he says finally.

“I want to leave.”

“No, you cannot . . . you cannot . . .” He stammers and grows red, can’t continue. Here is a man who has spent his life shutting out the world. It pleases him greatly to be impenetrable. I know him best of any on this earth but still I don’t know him, and perhaps I never will.

We stay frozen in silence awhile, and I realize I am holding my breath. Is this what I want? I start crying, small silent sobs, so wretched and undecided. All I want is peace. Why won’t they let me be?

He comes to the bed and pulls me up, suddenly decisive and
firm. He embraces me and my stomach cleaves: it has been so long since I have felt his arms around me. “Dearest, you mean so much to me. You will never leave. Ever. You have my word.”

I exhale and try to hold back the tears. A promise, words so long desired they have grown almost rotten with age.

“You have my promise,” he whispers again, and holds me tighter.

I pull back and wipe my eyes. “You say that, Louis, but then . . . then something—someone—will change your mind.”

“No,” he says fiercely. “No, I will never let you go, or send you away. Be assured of that, dearest, please. I give you my word.”

The promise I have been craving for years. His words should comfort me, but I can scarcely believe them. Only the naked look on his face gave me some assurance, and that night I sleep well, clinging to that part of my faith in him that is still alive.