To Dance With Kings Read online

  IT HAD BEEN Augustin’s suggestion that he and his companions should walk to the fête and they willingly agreed. They were a good foursome and rarely fell out over anything these days, but when they did their quarrels were fierce, for all four had strong temperaments. Yet the bond formed during their service as musketeers bound them in honor as well as in friendship. Early in their acquaintanceship, after swords had been drawn in a violent dispute over a woman, they had made a solemn oath never again to poach on one another’s territory once a verbal claim had been made. As they were all gentlemen born it was a pact that could never be broken, no matter how testing the situation or how luscious the woman concerned, and subsequently it had kept their friendships intact.

  They strolled with the fashionable strut that gave a swing to their short silk cloaks and an additional arrogance to their posture. Maybe this walk had evolved generally through the wearing of bucket-topped boots, but even in buckled shoes, as they were now, men of fashion and authority walked in this manner as if they owned the world and everyone in it. It reflected the whole structure of their society, for France was the most powerful and prosperous state in Europe, unified and centralized in the king himself.

  If anything the spirits of the four friends were even higher than earlier in the day, and they laughed together and chaffed one another good-humoredly, feeling refreshed and full of energy. They had bathed from buckets of water in the ramshackle outhouse before returning naked and dripping to dry off in the cottage. There they donned clean linen and hose and the rest of their finery, which consisted of knee-length silk coats over full-cut breeches, and on their heads wide-brimmed hats with huge nodding plumes. A patch or two on chin and cheekbone to give drama to their looks and finally each took a differently colored spangled mask, fashioned like a face in vivid satin and mounted on ivory handles, to make them part of the magical theme of the fête, which was entitled Les Plaisirs de l’Île Enchantée. It was being held in honor of Louise de La Vallière, mistress of the king, even though his wife and mother were to grace the proceedings with their presence.

  As the gates of the hunting lodge came into view, Augustin’s mind flicked back to the only time he had visited here before. That had been three years ago in the early summer of 1661, the weather as balmy then as now and the occasion the first party held here by the king for a group of close friends, whose ages ranged from eighteen to the king’s own age of twenty-three. Augustin, newly arrived at Court and to whom the king had spoken only once, was puzzled as to why he, then only sixteen, should have been included. The most likely explanation was that a few weeks before, his father had done the king a great service in a matter of finance and, as a form of appreciation, the son had been invited to the party instead of the father, whose austere manner and middle age would have been thoroughly out of place.

  The lodge, which could be reached in just over an hour at normal speed from Paris, was the king’s own private property and stood on a slight rise overlooking the village and the countryside beyond. Built of warm russet brick and creamy stone, roofed with blue-gray slate, it was a small unpretentious mansion that had been designed originally as a male preserve for the late king, Louis XIII, from which he and his fellow huntsmen rode out to enjoy the chase in the surrounding forests and fenlands where stag and other wild game abounded. In his last days, not knowing death was near, he had expressed a wish to retire there as soon as his son was of age and devote himself to his spiritual salvation. Instead, when he drew his last breath, his son, the new king of France, was still only five years old.

  Except for sharing the same consuming passion for hunting, which had been ignited in him in the forests around Versailles when he was twelve, Louis XIV had grown to be quite a different man from his father, being dedicated as much to pleasure as to his royal responsibilities. Through the lodge’s happy associations with his early youth, only joy and relaxation known within its walls and environs, he had begun to see that it could be a delightful center in which to entertain those he liked best. Being away from Court, what better to ensure that married partners were never invited together to these small, informal gatherings. It would enable him to leave his wife of a year in Paris and add to his own and everybody else’s sense of freedom while at his beloved lodge of Versailles.

  Augustin had learned a lot about life at that party. An exciting and throbbing sensuality had prevailed throughout the whole three days and nights, generated by lavish hospitality, the excitement of good hunting, and the exuberance of sophisticated youth. Liaisons were many, but discreet, so that nothing marred the harmony that prevailed under the lodge’s roof or on the grounds where the festivities were held, there being no salon large enough within to hold feasting or dancing on any scale.

  Although since his first visit Augustin had never again been invited to one of these exclusive parties, a royal obligation having been fulfillled, he continued to take an interest in the lodge and looked forward to seeing what changes had been made there in the interim. As he and the trio with him approached their venue, the sound of music drifted out from the grounds to meet the stream of arriving guests. The precincts of the lodge had a welcoming aspect. Semicircular ramps enclosed an opening forecourt as if to embrace whoever entered the gates, which were set between two small pavilions that echoed the warm russet brick and creamy stone of the lodge itself. East-facing, it further emphasized a hospitable aspect by enclosing three sides of a black and white marble quadrangle, the Cour de Marbre.

  Augustin was struck at once by the sumptuous new embellishments of the mansion. One and a half million livres, a sizable fortune, had been spent on interior redecoration and on extending the gardens on a vast scale. The ironwork balcony, which ran above the central entrance and under the windows of the first of the upper floors, had been marvelously gilded, as had other ornamentation that lent itself to this new splendor, all of which shone brilliantly as if the king had chosen to emphasize that his royal device was the face of Apollo, the sun god, whose very rays had been captured to shine out from this country abode.

  Dancing in the gardens was already in full swing. There were as many areas in which to dance as there were to feast or gamble or just rest and listen to the music, for rooms had been created within the gardens, sometimes at a sunken level and also by the clever use of box hedges and trees, arbors and blossoming archways and delicate trelliswork, each area spectacularly furnished and hung with silken drapes and tapestries. A long rectangular lawn, known as the Tapis Vert, led down to the gleaming lake, the Bassin des Cygnes.

  As dusk fell many thousands of candles, and almost as many flambeaux, glowed to give flickering wells of light and pools of shadow in which people milled about, the sparkle of jewels almost matched by the gleam of satin and silk and brocade, while fountains captured the brilliance in their spray. Those taking part in the enactment of the legend of the enchanted isle, which had inspired the fête, wore exotic headgear and fantastic costumes, giving an added magic to the scene. Almost everyone had a glittering mask on a handle which, like those Augustin and his friends held, were used only for effect and not to disguise. After greeting acquaintances and mingling with those they knew well, the four companions gradually split up to take partners into the dancing.

  Out of gallantry, Augustin first asked the king’s mistress. As a lanky youth he had bowed to Louise de La Vallière at that first party he had attended at Versailles. She did not remember him from then and there were too many at Court for her to know him by sight or name, but she smiled and chatted as if she did while they turned and twirled in a gavotte, her skirt of green and silver swirling like the waves of the sea. She wore her golden-brown hair in the fashionable style adopted by most women present, that of a smooth-topped head with a middle parting and bunches of curls bouncing out over the ears to reach to the shoulders. Her single lovelock, arranged to fall below her right breast, sprang in and out of her cleavage in a dance of its own.

  “Isn’t it a splendid evening?” she said to him. “To crown it all we shall soon have a moon as bright as a silver ball.”

  He responded to her small talk, wondering if she knew that in spite of her being the royal favorite, the king, an insatiable womanizer, was no more faithful to her, according to Court gossip, than he was to Queen Marie Thérèse. At that earlier party the king had been newly in love with this modest young woman whose arched eyebrows over large azure eyes gave her a look of pleased expectancy at whatever was to come and whose inviting mouth had a provocative dip in the full lower lip. Then it had been difficult to decide whether Louise or the lodge held precedence in the king’s heart, for it was obvious then, as it was now, that he was enraptured with the small mansion that he had already set in gilt as if it were a precious gem.

  The king, wearing a gold helmet with flame-colored plumes, had come directly into Augustin’s line of vision; a dignified, impressive young man with a natural majesty that made him a dramatic figure even when in more somber clothes and not arrayed as he was this evening as Roger, the hero of the legend, in cloth of gold, a jeweled sun blazing from his silver breastplate.

  He reveled in lavish entertainment. The hedonistic side of his complex character needed a constant outlet in lively company, amorous women, and ostentatious pomp and ceremony. In contrast, when in council with his ministers or when dealing with affairs of state, he was stern, severe, and cold. He did not spare himself in long hours of work. On the battlefield he was a formidable warrior.

  His features revealed the strength in him. He had the Bourbon nose that was long and thin, flaring out into sensual nostrils, his upper lip adorned with a thin, black moustache. His glittering eyes, heavy lidded, missed nothing, or so it seemed to the nobles who found their plans thwarted or their cunningly devised schemes set awry. Once they had ex
pected him to be malleable as a ruler and easy to control, but he had soon shown them that he was otherwise and did not trust them.

  Their lack of respect and open quarrelling during the uprising of the nobles, known as the Fronde, in his early childhood was still a thorn in Louis’s side. He was resolved that never again should there be an aristocratic threat to the Throne of France. Paris would ever be associated in his mind with that painful upheaval and he liked the Louvre least of all the palaces in which he held court. But cities had no charm for him in any case. He was an outdoorsman, happiest in the open air and especially here at his lodge where he could ride and shoot and hunt to his heart’s content. He was already beginning to see that in this place he could create a new seat of power away from all the old intrigues and past bitternesses such as clung not only to the Louvre but also to the palaces of Saint-Germain, Fontainebleau, Vincennes, and Chambord, among others.

  He noticed that Louise had finished her dance with Gérard Roussier’s only son and was being brought toward him. Smiling, he gave Augustin a regal nod and held out his hand to take his mistress’s fingers into his. “I’ve been looking for you, Louise. We haven’t danced for an hour. It’s my turn now.”

  Pearly tears of love welled up in her eyes. She could weep as easily from joy as from sorrow, tears spilling from her at the most disconcerting moments. It was a trait he had found endearing in the first flush of passion. It touched him now, inflamed as he was by the warmly erotic atmosphere of the fête, and he forgot the recent times when he had come close to being irritated. He led her with a loving clasp of fingers into a danse à deux, the Slow Courante with its graceful turned-out position of the toes at which he excelled. A superb dancer, acknowledged without flattery to be the best in all France, he was ably partnered by the lovely Louise and everybody else drew back to watch. If his gaze flickered from one pretty woman to another in the clustered spectators, it was not obvious and Louise did not notice.

  After the spectacle of the evening was over, a medieval tournament fought in the glow of crystal candle-lamps, all six hundred guests sat down with the king to a banquet at long tables. Masked and costumed servants, looking like creatures from the fantasy island, held aloft greenery-adorned silver candelabra behind every chair. Augustin found himself seated next to a witty young woman who made him laugh. Before they had finished the first course they were on familiar terms. In the middle of the third she drove her little red heel wickedly into his foot, ready then and there to lead him to her bed in the hunting lodge. The lengthy duration of the banquet only added to a mutual and delicious anticipation that reached a satisfactory conclusion later in the night. She clawed his back like a cat and shrieked her ecstasy in a high-pitched note that must have echoed through several walls.

  DOWN IN THE VILLAGE, Jeanne heard the first crackle of fireworks in the distance and through the chinks in her bed curtain she was bathed in a rose and silver glow. Careful not to disturb her sleeping infant, she sat up to draw the curtain back until she could see the windows and watch the interior of her home change color as if some wizardry was afoot.

  She was alone in the cottage. A neighbor had come to settle her and her infant for the night and see to their needs after the servants had bedded down in the outhouse loft. Théo was with them, not having dared to assert his right to sleep under his own roof when four nobles had staked a claim to it. When the rainbow hues of the fireworks finally subsided she lay back again on her pillows and tried to sleep. It was difficult, there being so much joyful excitement in her over the events of the day.

  Eventually oblivion did come, only to be broken when the two nobles, Jacques and François, returned to the cottage, their laughter and talk and the thumping of their footsteps awakening Marguerite, who was only quieted when put to the breast. Through a ragged gap in the curtain Jeanne saw to her surprise that Léon was already back and lying on his straw bed fast asleep. She liked him for having taken care not to disturb her, but it was Augustin who had given her a sense of destiny.

  He did not return that night. She did not see him until morning when he reappeared to bathe, be barbered by his servant, and don fresh finery before departing once more with his friends until the next night was over. It proved to be the pattern of their days. They ate no food at the cottage, feasts being laid on between nonstop entertainments from breakfast to midnight suppers. They frequently forgot her presence, as the servants did on occasion, and there was much open talk that would have embarrassed a more innocent woman. Jeanne listened keenly, wanting to know as much as she could about the customs, pleasures, and escapades of her so-called betters. She did notice that Augustin had become quieter and more reticent than the rest. None of his companions appeared to be aware of any change in him, but she, watching him as she did, saw how often he was lost in his own thoughts, paying no attention to the bawdy talk around him.

  For Augustin the fête had become a search. He had said nothing to his three friends, not wanting them to gibe him for his foolishness when there were any number of beautiful women for the taking, but he had had a glimpse of a female face he could not forget. Young, sparkling, with huge long-lashed dark eyes and the innocent aura that proclaimed a virgin.

  It had happened on the second night during Molière’s play, an extravagant production in which the king continued to play the role of Roger, whose love for the heroine echoed his own passion for Louise de La Vallière. The theater had been specially constructed in one of the silk-hung groves where those too late to get a seat could take advantage of the cushions and Persian rugs spread out on the grassy slopes higher up. Augustin, seated with merry company on a rug at the side of the grove, could look down into many faces in the audience. While applauding a scene, he happened to glance along one of the rows and sighted her. Illumined by the glow from the stage, enthralled by the king’s performance, the girl was leaning forward and laughing in her delight, her bejeweled hands clapping enthusiastically. Then she sat back as the play proceeded, never taking her gaze from the unfolding drama and not knowing that he could not keep his eyes from her.

  He judged her to be sixteen or seventeen, just a little younger than himself. Her profile was exquisite, her hair a light chestnut and full of curls. He had already made up his mind to find a way to speak to her at the play’s end.

  Yet when the actors had taken their final bow and hundreds of people began to move away from their seats the crush made it impossible for him to get through to her. He did get near enough to see that she was just as enchanting at close quarters and caught her clear voice as she addressed the middle-aged man who flanked her protectively.

  “I’m so glad you let me come, Papa! Wasn’t it splendid!”

  Then a few moments later, quite without warning, she turned her head abruptly and looked back at Augustin, seemingly as surprised by her action as he. He could only conclude that away from the spell of the play she had been seized by the sixth sense that can tell someone when he or she is being closely watched. Whatever the reason, their eyes met and held, hers growing wider, his more intense. A blush soared into her cheeks and she looked hastily away again. To his exasperation more people made a solid block in front of him, putting a greater distance between them. Yet she glanced back once more, giving him a mischievous little smile, and then in the surge of the dispersing audience he lost sight of her completely.

  Since then he had searched for her everywhere. With such swarms of guests and a variety of entertainments going on everywhere it was like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack and he had no success. He had no means of knowing who she was or where she had come from, never having seen her father before, but she had touched a previously un-plucked chord in him, leaving him restless and desperate to see her again.