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  To Joe, my lion and my rock

  RIP

  Part I

  Convergence

  1750–1769

  Chapter One

  In which little Jeanne Bécu is exposed to life

  I slip away from the warmth of the kitchen and out into the deserted hall. Behind me, my mother is elbow-deep in a giant bowl of flour and spices, gossiping to a neighbor, while four chickens roast over the fire. Out here, life is colder and grander. I creep up the marble staircase that rises before me like a giant ladder to Heaven, the banister smooth under my hand. I reach the landing and crouch in silence, but I heard Frederica leave earlier. She left behind a trace of her scent when she wafted down the elegant staircase, her special blend of roses and grace.

  I creep along the passageway and peek into Frederica’s boudoir. If she were here, I might get a kiss and a bonbon, or a slap depending on her mood, but now the room is deserted. I enter and the plush carpet softens my steps. A painting of Monsieur Dumonceaux, who owns the house and Frederica and everything in it, looks down on me. Monsieur Dumonceaux is an old lover of my mother’s, and he brought us to Paris and gave us our lodgings. He’s not a lover anymore—Frederica is now his lover—but he is always kind to us, and Ma says he is a good man.

  His portrait watches over Frederica, but when she has a new guest, she asks the footman to cover it. The rest of her room is cozy and sumptuous: a fire still licking lazily in the hearth; a wardrobe so big I once slept in there, hidden for hours; crimson curtains hanging over the tall, airy windows; a marble table set with a decanter of a wonderful-smelling potion called brandy, which always makes me think of men and candy. I sniff at the little array of perfume bottles on her table then head to my destination: her bed with its layers of green silk sheets and heavy white furs, lace and velvet trimming the pillows. A mattress as soft as a dream welcomes me down in its embrace, so different from my pallet in the kitchen. I burrow under the heavy blankets and nestle in. Ma always says I am lazy, but I’m not lazy, I think as I drift off to sleep, just . . . happy.

  “And what have we here?” says Frederica in her bright, charmed voice, the one she uses with Monsieur Dumonceaux and her other gentlemen. Frederica has dark, curling hair, and laughing blue eyes that can turn as cold and hard as gems. The man with her this evening is not Monsieur Dumonceaux but an older gentleman with watery eyes, wearing an orange coat that reminds me of the skin of a cat.

  I am sleepy and dreaming under the pile of furs. I smile up at Frederica, then at the man as well; Frederica’s moods are always changing, but men are generally pleasant.

  “Little scamp,” says Frederica fondly, and tousles my hair. “Now go on back to your mother, and tell her that Monsieur de Braque here will want a juicy chicken later.”

  “Such a charming child!” declares the man, who must be the Monsieur de Braque who wants a juicy chicken. “And what harm would there be, were she to stay?” he asks, raising his brows at Frederica, as though making a joke, though I know he isn’t.

  “Oh, quiet, Jérôme,” says Frederica, laughing and picking me up roughly. I avert my eyes from the man’s gaze and struggle to pull down my dress that is now tangled around my waist. “She’s only a child.”

  “Ten?” asks the man eagerly. “How lovely she is!”

  Seven, I want to protest, but I don’t say anything, for suddenly I want to get out of the room and away from the man’s watered green eyes. The color of scum on a pond, I think with a shudder, and squirm against Frederica to let me down. I hear the soft tinkle of her laughter, raindrops on smooth glass, and she pushes me out. “Get back to the kitchens,” she hisses before closing the door. “Now, la, monsieur, to be so interrupted . . .” I hear her say as she turns back to her evening entertainment.

  I lean against the door but the thick oak muffles the scene behind. I imagine what they will be doing, dogs rutting in the street that stay together, joined and panting, even after slops are thrown on them.

  Joined and panting, I think, traipsing languidly down the corridor now that Frederica is safe with her guest. I stand at the top of the staircase and imagine, for one moment, that the house is mine, and that Frederica is my mother and instead of sleeping in the kitchen that reeks of raw chicken and mold, I have a room next to Frederica’s, and my own bed is as soft and glorious as hers.

  A few days later, another push, but this time out onto the streets. We hear Frederica shouting at Dumonceaux that I am a little tramp, tempting her clients, and claiming she has no more use for us. Ma loses her position as cook and now we have to leave the comfortable house and all her clients in the neighborhood who buy her chickens.

  “Snozzle-faced bitch,” complains my mother. We gather our belongings off the street and prepare for the long walk to my stepfather’s house. My feet are bare, though it is cold out; I can’t ruin my only pair of shoes in this mud.

  “What sort of a woman is threatened by a seven-year-old child?” Ma continues, spitting and glaring up at the impassive windows of the little house.

  A porter from next door watches us without curiosity. “An angel in the making,” he says, gesturing to me. “She’ll be trouble all her life.”

  “Come on, dears, let’s get going.” Ma’s lover, the monk Guimard, stands beside us in our distress. He leans over and hoists a sheet filled with heavy iron pots, my mother’s treasure and trade. “I never liked her, but at least Dumonceaux still does right by us.”

  “But how does he do right by us if we cannot live in his house anymore?” I ask, but no one answers. I am dragging a basket filled with our clothes, vainly trying to avoid puddles and the deep mud as we start our journey. It will take us two hours at least to cross the city and already the October night is cold and the streets grim.

  “Well, aren’t we a raggedy bunch!” says the monk Guimard in his jolly way, always ready with a kind word or funny story. I wish he were my father, but whenever I say that my mother tells me to be quiet, or he will be arrested for indecency. “Joseph and Mary without an inn,” he continues, “and with a little babe in arms. That’s you, Jeanne. But time will be our friend; chickens are always in demand and your skills are beyond compare,” he adds kindly to my mother, wobbling slightly under his burden as he steps over a dead dog.

  “Rançon will take us in,” says Ma, carrying her enormous copper kettle and a heavy gridiron, referring to her husband and the man she says I must call father. “And at least we don’t have to worry about Jeanne.”

  “Why don’t you have to worry about me?” I ask, jumping quickly out of the way as a magnificent six-horsed carriage roars by.

  “Monsieur Dumonceaux has agreed to take on your education,” my mother says.

  I stop. “What do you mean, Ma?” I ask, thinking, I don’t know why, of the man’s green watery eyes and the hungry way they devoured me.

  “He has agreed to send you to a convent, where you’ll be educated and even learn your letters. Imagine that!”

  “A convent! Oh no!” I cry, thinking of the convent on the corner of our street and the grim black-clad nuns that circle in the courtyard. Nothing goes in or out: What do they even eat?

  “Ah, now don’t cry,” says the monk Guimard kindly. “Nuns can be dear ladies, I remember one particularly fine young novice when I was young—”

  “Shhh,” hisses Ma. “You talk too much. It’ll be the Bastille
for you, one of these days. Careful—I know that pig—took a chunk of Madame Fargé’s ankle last week.” She pulls me away from a snortling boar that has started following us.

  I trundle on, crying now, because I don’t want to disappear into a convent and leave Ma and the monk Guimard. And I may never see Frederica’s room again, never burrow in her soft sheets, never be treated to butter bonbons and little drops of her scent. My fate has been decided, I think, sobbing openly now as we walk wearily through the dark streets. I am to go to a convent, and I’m quite sure they won’t have any satin sheets for me there.

  Chapter Two

  In which Madame Adélaïde contemplates sisters and all things sororal

  “Do tell us about the convent, dears,” says Henriette, smiling kindly at my two youngest sisters.

  Sophie and Louise are seated opposite us on the sofa, looking like two frightened rose-clad hares. Well, Sophie at least; Louise appears quite calm. They returned last week from the convent at Fontrevraud, where they were sent for their education twelve years ago. I too had been destined to go with them, but with my wiles and charm managed to escape that fate.

  I incline my head, to show that they may answer, then sit up straighter, hopeful that Victoire, slouching beside me, will copy my example. Victoire returned a year ago, ahead of her two younger sisters, but she has been woefully slow in learning the way of our manners here at Versailles. She still eats with her mouth open and last week even addressed one of her ladies as Madame Comtesse, not Madame la Comtesse!

  To be a daughter of France is an enormous burden; a sacrifice of the self on the altar of obligation and duty. Our conduct—and here I talk of my sisters, as well as, of course, my brother the dauphin, and Josepha, his wife—must be exemplary; no stain must touch us, of either the amoral, indulgent sort, or of the more practical kind, like ink.

  In all we do, we must strive to be better than others, for indeed, we are better than others. But Victoire ignores my rigid spine and just takes another cream pastry from the plate and slouches back happily.

  “Eleven years away.” Henriette sighs. “And now the six of us, here together. How wonderful!” My elder sister looks around in contentment, her eyes resting on each of us in turn. In addition to my three younger sisters, our eldest sister Élisabeth, known as Madame Infanta and Henriette’s twin, is also with us. Little Félicité—my only memory is of a pink-faced baby who cried too much—remains behind in the graveyard at Fontrevraud.

  “Well? What did you learn?” asks Élisabeth lazily. Élisabeth is very plump and has tiny black eyes, similar to the Malaga raisins she constantly eats.

  Sophie blushes. I can’t imagine what there is to blush about at a convent, but her timidity pleases me. Victoire has already proved herself agreeably tractable, though a little scattered.

  “Oh, we won’t bore you, sisters,” says Louise, speaking out of turn—Sophie is the elder and should have answered the question. “I’m sure Victoire has already tired you quite silly with her tales. There just isn’t much to tell, really.”

  Victoire startles then nods, her mouth full of cream pastry.

  “Nonsense,” says Henriette softly. “You must tell us about the nuns and—”

  “Well, Victoire did tell us quite a bit,” I cut in, deciding that Louise has talked quite enough. “And I can’t imagine it much changed. A convent is the very definition of timelessness.”

  “Rather like Versailles,” says Élisabeth, raising an eyebrow at me. She returned last year from Spain, where she was sent eleven years ago to marry a Spanish prince. Now she is en route to her husband’s new kingdom of Parma, bringing her high-and-mighty manners with her, and never failing to remind us how little we have changed, and how infantile she considers us.

  Though we welcomed her back with duty and love in our hearts, in truth she irks me. She feels superior simply because she has been to Spain and married. Knows the pleasures of the marriage bed, as she likes to point out, an expression that has already caused Victoire much mortification. I shudder that Sophie’s and Louise’s purity may also be compromised by her crass words.

  No matter; Élisabeth is set to leave next month. November 18.

  “Yes, Versailles is rather constant,” says Victoire happily, wiping her mouth with the back of her sleeve. Heavens! I fear I shall choke on my (small and modestly sized) bite of the pastry. “Always the same routines and such. But I like it here, and I am sure you will too.”

  “Did you at least learn to ride?” asks Élisabeth, before I can. Just because she is married to a Spaniard, she believes she has the monopoly on inquisitions, I think sourly. Élisabeth has very bad skin—the Spaniards are notorious for their filth—and wears her hair in a curiously oiled style.

  “Yes, we did,” answers Louise. “Though Sophie doesn’t like horses—she’s rather scared of them.”

  Sophie blushes again.

  “Oh, so am I!” exclaims Victoire. Victoire has a rather unusual dislike of all animals, except for cooked ones.

  “Victoire could barely ride at all when she came back last year, but now with enough practice she is passable,” I concede. In truth, her failing was our pleasure: under the pretext of lessons, all summer we rode out with Papa, and those mornings were truly the happiest of times. I smile at my thought: if Sophie and Louise are similarly lacking, perhaps we might continue the tradition next spring.

  “Well, I’m sure Sophie will learn soon enough,” adds Henriette, smiling at all of us. Henriette is very soft and kind—a little too kind, I believe.

  A commotion outside—the Duchesse de Beauvilliers, our dame d’honneur, enters and alerts us that the king is back early from the hunt and is coming here for his débottée, the ceremony to take off his boots. Here! To Élisabeth’s apartments! And heavens—an hour before we expected him!

  Versailles is certainly not unchanging!

  “Oh my, and we haven’t even finished our pastries!” cries Victoire in distress.

  “How lovely to see Papa, and we only saw him yesterday!” says Henriette happily, as she says every day. “He does like to see us all together—six sisters.”

  “Sisters,” whispers Sophie, grinning like the simpleton I am beginning to suspect she is.

  “And coming to see us before going up to see the fish woman!” I announce, referring to my father’s detested mistress, the Marquise de Pompadour. An excellent sign. “But straighten your sleeves!” I snap at Victoire, who always manages to look perfectly untidy. Has Beauvilliers told the women to bring the refreshments in early? And the lights—are they sufficient? The late-afternoon sun is still strong enough, though perhaps more candles—

  “Indeed the king is coming,” says Louise, looking around as though in amusement. I resolve to talk to her about her tone of voice—she sounds almost sarcastic, though I am sure that is not her intent. A little lecture will no doubt have a reforming effect.

  “Get my daughter!” hisses Élisabeth to Beauvilliers, “and quickly.” Little Isabelle, Élisabeth’s child and our only niece—though married for four years, our sister-in-law the dauphine has only managed two stillborn sons—is Papa’s only grandchild. Élisabeth seeks to endear the child to the king, but as Papa can’t abide dribbles or snivels, thus far she has not been very successful.

  The doors fly open and my father enters, bringing with him his attendants and the men in their blue hunting garb with high yellow boots, now stained with mud and blood. Their dogs scamper in eagerly, tumbling over themselves and barking away. Of course, if one wishes to see Papa, one must endure the presence of men, but their masculine energy positively smothers Élisabeth’s delicate salon.

  Papa settles into an armchair and a valet removes his hat and wig while another attendant tousles a cloth through his sweat-streaked hair. He looks so handsome, flushed and hearty from his afternoon in the forests. He is almost forty and in the prime of his life: a more resplendent man France, or the world, has never known. My heart swells with love and pride—dear Papa.

>   His hair mopped, Papa looks around and all fall silent as the great moment approaches. The Duc de Villars stops hitting the bust of Venus with his crop, and the Marquis de Meuse inches closer, breathing heavily and almost falling over the Prince de Soubise in the process. “Vill—no Meu—no, Richelieu, you may have the honor,” Papa says, his eyes finally coming to rest on the Duc de Richelieu. “That was an excellent kill of that stag.”

  Richelieu—a man I positively despise—smirks and settles on one rather shaky knee to do the honor of taking off the king’s boots. As each one is taken off, it is replaced by a brocaded slipper, respectfully handed by the Duc d’Aumont, respectfully taken from a gilt-crusted box held by two valets.

  “Three times since September,” whispers Henriette dubiously. Henriette loves everyone, but even she finds fault with Richelieu, a man the priests call the devil’s footman. “Papa certainly honors him.”

  “Four times,” I correct her—Richelieu took over last week when Papa thought to honor the old Maréchal de Saxe, who fell while attempting to kneel down. Though I cannot criticize him, Papa really should spread his favors to more virtuous men. I look around at the assembled company, but come up short in terms of someone more suitable.

  “Ah, wonderful,” Papa says as the trays of refreshments arrive, followed by the rest of our ladies. There is a small wait as a glass of ale is passed down through the lines of respective attendants until it reaches the Duc d’Aumont, who proudly hands it to the king. Papa takes a sip and waves his hand, indicating his courtiers are off ceremony. Richelieu makes a beeline for the Marquise de l’Hôpital, the Comte de Leddie feeds two of the hunting dogs some cake, and I see with horror that the Duc de Chartres is about to slip over toward Henriette. Heavens, no! The duke had once asked for my sister’s hand in marriage, but was suitably refused. Just in time Papa motions us all over to him.