The Cat and the King Read online

  There was something in her tone that brought instant conviction. Then and there I made the most important decision of my life.

  “I should be proud to take you, Mademoiselle, with no dowry at all!”

  Her eyes shot me a little golden gleam of gratitude, and she clasped her hands in a gesture of thanks. “Thank you, sir. From my heart. But you will not be so tried. There will be a dowry.”

  I had a hard time with Mother over its amount. She insisted that the Lorges were bluffing, and I dared not tell her about the scene in the rose garden for fear that she would consider the girl too brash and bold, qualities that are quickly deplored by strong-minded women when they find them in their juniors. So I simply told her that I had fallen hopelessly in love at first sight, which was in part the truth. As this was perfectly consistent with Mother’s conception of the giddiness and inconsequence of men, particularly in her own family, she decided to accept it. It might, after all, have proved too difficult to plant my affections in new territory if she had had first to uproot them in old. She had a private conversation with Gabrielle, the gist of which was never revealed to me, and then, quite abruptly, agreed to the lesser dowry. My marriage contract was signed by the king and by half the royal family, and my real life began.

  3

  IT WAS the greatest fun, introducing Gabrielle to court life and watching the glitter of the huge palace with its silver furniture and thousands of gaudy occupants reflected in the dark eyes of this soberly observing girl, who had hardly known anything previously beyond the walls and gardens of her convent. She took in everything; I had only to tell her any fact once. I could not make out at first whether this was because Versailles had made so deep an impression upon her or simply because she was intelligent. It was probably both. She was certainly never blinded by the glittering spectacle of the court. She learned etiquette as one might learn a trade.

  I was up early to attend the king’s lever, and Gabrielle would join me in the great gallery as he passed through on his way to mass. We made our calls on those who had apartments in the palace in the morning, sometimes separately and sometimes together. I would attend the king’s dinner at one, where he ate alone at table, and in the afternoon Gabrielle would return to our little house while I followed the royal hunt, unless we both joined the king’s promenade in the gardens. In the evenings there were always receptions, with card games or dancing, and we both attended the king’s supper, where he sat flanked by members of the royal family. Then Gabrielle would go home, and I usually stayed for the coucher.

  Our day was really a kind of celebration of the natural functions of our magnificent sexagenarian monarch: his waking, his washing, his eating, his exercising, his retiring, even his defecating. It was no coincidence that the far-flung alleys and drives around the château were all centered, in one huge geometrical design, on the royal bedroom, even the royal bed, the source of our kings. We had become so accustomed to a monarch who took so utterly for granted that his every act should be a public ceremony and who never altered the perfect regularity of his habits, that we were surprised to learn of kings in other courts who were sometimes bored or fatigued and who created distant retreats for their private pleasures.

  Gabrielle was impressed with the king’s endurance.

  “He must have the strength of an ox,” she observed to me.

  “Easily. And it helps him to have been king so long.”

  “Can he even remember a time when he wasn’t?”

  “Oh, I think so. His memory is perfect, and he was at least four when Louis XIII died. His father is said to have asked him what his name was, and he replied: ‘Louis XIV.’ ‘Not quite yet,’ the dying man is supposed to have murmured.”

  “I’m sure it happened,” Gabrielle half-whispered, curtseying deeply as the great perruque and the large aquiline nose appeared in the doorway at the end of the gallery.

  She learned the thirty-four duke-peers and their order of precedence. She learned the false claims of the Rochefoucaulds to be numbered thirteenth, ahead of the Saint-Simons. She learned who was entitled to an armchair and who to a tabouret, or stool, in the presence of a son of France, and how long a train a duchess wore in mourning a prince of the blood. She learned who was entitled to drive into the Cour du Marbre and who had to descend at the main gate; what gentlemen could remain covered in the king’s presence, and for whom both wings of a double door had to be flung open. She learned that the dauphin was always referred to simply as “Monseigneur,” and the king’s brother, the due d’Orléans, as “Monsieur.” She learned that Madame de Maintenon ranked in court only as a marquise, but that in her own apartments she was treated like a queen. And, above all, she learned about the bastards.

  “There are five of these who have been ‘legitimated,’” I instructed her, making no effort to control the natural disdain of my tone. “There is the king’s daughter by Vallière, who is now the dowager princesse de Conti. Then there are the four by Madame de Montespan: the duchesse de Bourbon, who is known as ‘Madame la Duchesse,’ and her unmarried sister, Mademoiselle de Blois. And two sons: the duc du Maine and the comte de Toulouse.”

  Gabrielle pondered this a moment. “But if they’ve been legitimated, should you still call them bastards?”

  “The king can make a bastard. Only God can unmake one.”

  We were standing at the far side of the parterre d’eau. Looking east now we could see the whole great shimmering yellow-white façade of the seemingly infinite palace. “You would think that the man who could build all that...!” She paused.

  “Could do anything he wants?” I finished for her. “That’s precisely what it’s designed to make you think.”

  “And was it unlawful for the king to make Maine a duke?”

  “No,” I replied, wincing at this. “That, alas, was within his power. He can make anyone a peer. But what was unlawful was his placing Maine and Toulouse ahead of the other peers. He could not properly alter the precedence.”

  “But if he could make his sons peers, could he not have made them princes of the blood? And wouldn’t that have put them lawfully ahead of you?”

  “The only way the king can make a prince of the blood is in bed with his lawful spouse. A prince of the blood is a very carefully defined person. He must be a descendant, in a direct male line, from Hugues Capet, who reigned seven hundred years ago.”

  “Let me see if I can name them,” said my good little student, holding up a hand to count fingers. “They are the king himself, of course, and his son and three grandsons, his brother and nephew...”

  “To be exact, those are not princes of the blood,” I corrected her. “The dauphin and his children are sons of France. And ‘Monsieur,’ the king’s brother, due d’Orléans, as a child of Louis XIII, is, of course, also a son of France. Chartres, his son, ranks as a grandson of France. The princes of the blood today are the Bourbon-Condés and the Bourbon-Contis, but they have to go all the way back to Saint Louis in the male line to find their first royal ancestor!” I was now almost solemn, as befitted the gravity of the topic.

  “But suppose they were all to die out? Sons and grandsons of France and princes of the blood?”

  “Then the peers, after seeking divine guidance, would select another first family. I presume they would start with the Uzès, who are the premier dukes.”

  “But wouldn’t even a ‘legitimated’ bastard of the king, in such an emergency, have a better claim than some completely unrelated duke?”

  Scandalized by this idea, I was about to reprove her, when I reminded myself that she was simply trying to learn. I was silent for a few moments until I had regained my calm. “In a Christian society,” I told her, as we now walked slowly on, “we must be regulated by the sacraments. The king is our master, but no more so than God is his. He must be subject to the divine constitution. If he is to be free to promote his illicit seed to the throne, we have no more dignity than did the slaves of Attila. There have to be things a man will stand up for and di
e for, or life is not worth living.”

  “But of course I see that, dear!” Gabrielle exclaimed with sudden warmth. “I want to believe in the things you believe in. It’s just that I have to understand them first. My father, you see, taught me that the king was everything.”

  “The king is a great deal,” I conceded. “But he is not everything. And he shouldn’t wish to be. And if he would only listen to his peers and not to his middle-class lawyer-ministers, he wouldn’t!”

  We saw now approaching us a cortege of courtiers following the great wheeled sedan-chair of Madame de Maintenon, drawn by two porters. Walking slowly beside it was the king himself. He was showing his wife the latest changes in the garden. When he raised his hand, an usher would tell the porters to halt. He would then tap on the glass, which the occupant would lower, and he would lean down to explain the removal of a statue or the creation of a fountain. It was remarkable to see the mightiest monarch in Christendom stooping to whisper his views through a slit in the window to a lady who was probably not even listening.

  “Let us join the group,” Gabrielle whispered to me. “It doesn’t look well to be so apart.”

  ***

  Little by little Gabrielle came to be acquainted with the persons whose names and ranks she had so carefully conned. I took her one morning to call on the king’s oldest bastard daughter by the Montespan, the duchesse de Bourbon, known in court as “Madame la Duchesse,” in her great apartment in the south wing. Madame la Duchesse was certainly not a particular friend of mine, but she was intimate with her husband’s brother-in-law, the prince de Conti, my hero, and I cultivated her for his sake.

  “I certainly congratulate you on your choice, Monsieur de Saint-Simon!” the duchess said, snapping her dark, mocking eyes at Gabrielle. “We had no idea that you had an eye so sensitive to pulchritude. We feared you might bring us some little brown bride from the provinces and tell us that she was descended from Julius Caesar. But this is better. Oh, this is very fine!”

  Madame la Duchesse had inherited the Mortemart liveliness from her mother. She was small and dark-haired and tense, with jet-black eyes that seemed to pierce every shield, every bluff. She said harsh and witty things in a charming way, and she never seemed to lose her temper. She was supposed to be heartless, but never wantonly unkind. She would stab you in the back only if she had to.

  “Do you ever miss the convent, my dear?” she asked Gabrielle, with a smile that made her question a spoof.

  “I wish I could say I did,” my wife replied gravely. I was beginning to learn that Gabrielle was never shy, simply muted. “It might indicate a state of grace.”

  “We come to court from the convent, and some of us return. Mademoiselle de la Vallière returned.”

  “What was left for her, when she lost your father’s favor?”

  “Very prettily replied. Your wife will go far, Saint-Simon. Keep an eye on her!”

  And she laughed the silvery laugh of the Mortemarts. There was a bit of a jeer in it.

  Afterwards Gabrielle said to me, “She may be a bastard, but she has charm.”

  “I suppose there’s no reason a bastard shouldn’t have charm. Her mother was the most fascinating woman in France.”

  “And her husband is a prince of the blood?”

  “Her husband is the first prince of the blood.”

  “How did he relish being married to a bastard?”

  “Very little. But he was young, and did what he was told. His grandfather, the great Condé, had been a rebel and wanted to make his peace with the king. Besides, there was a precedent. His cousin, the late prince de Conti, was married off to the king’s bastard by Vallière, Marie-Anne.”

  “It sounds as if the whole royal family was being bastardized.”

  “It just about is. Or will be, if the king goes through with his plan of marrying Mademoiselle de Blois to the due de Chartres.”

  “To his own nephew?”

  “To his own nephew.”

  “A grandson of France?”

  Gabrielle had learned her lessons well. I patted her hand. “Even so. We may live to see the dauphin’s sons not spared.”

  Gabrielle seemed pensive. “I should like to ask you something,” she said at last. “Something personal.”

  “Isn’t that a wife’s right?”

  “You must be the judge of that. And please tell me if I’m overstepping myself. I have been noting the principal activities of the men at court. They hunt. They gamble. They seek positions. And then...” She hesitated.

  “They make love?” I finished for her, with a wink. “All except me. I have no need to go beyond my own blissful nest for that.”

  Gabrielle smiled, perhaps the least bit perfunctorily. “But the other things—you don’t go in for them, either. You never gamble. When you go riding, it’s by yourself or with Savonne. And there doesn’t seem to be any office you’re after.”

  “There isn’t. I have everything I want.”

  “Well, that’s just it. It occurs to me that as a courtier... you’re...”

  “Unique?”

  “Well, let us say highly individual. I cannot help wondering why you would not prefer to be at La Ferté.”

  It may seem strange to my reader, but until that moment I had never really asked myself that question. I was so full of the life at court that I perhaps may have wondered if life really existed anywhere else, or at least with anything like the same intensity. To be a part of the king’s ritual seemed as important as saying mass was to a priest. To live close to the source of power struck me, perhaps fantastically, as a kind of accomplishment in itself. If heaven, as some maintained, was simply the contemplation of God, perhaps the contemplation of the monarch was a kind of earthly preparation for it. I said this now to Gabrielle.

  “But you’re so critical of the king,” she objected.

  “Of the man, for he is a man. And he has failings, grave ones. He has allowed himself to be persuaded by parvenu ministers, who have no sense of Old France, that his power is unlimited. But for the office of the monarch my admiration is complete.”

  “Well... shouldn’t you, then... shouldn’t you...?”

  “What?”

  “Do something about it?”

  I stared. “Do what about what?”

  “Help to advise the king where he is going wrong. Couldn’t you seek a post?”

  “Beauvillier is the only peer he has ever had in his cabinet.”

  “I see. Well, of course, I know nothing about it.”

  Gabrielle, with her perfect tact, seeing that I was upset, dropped the subject and did not raise it again. But she had given me something to think about. Why indeed could I not bring my influence, however small, to bear on the turn of events? I had a sharp eye, an excellent memory and a readily recording pen; I had many friends and connections in court, some in the very highest places. Was it necessary to be a prince, a general or even a minister to have a hand in the shaping of events? Did I have to look further than Madame de Maintenon to see in what devious ways power could be exercised?

  Gabrielle had to give up court life shortly after this colloquy because of a painful and difficult pregnancy. She was very much disturbed at not being able to be with me at Versailles, but she rightly considered it her more vital duty to deliver a healthy heir, and she forced herself to spend long tedious hours on a couch. In the end, alas, all of this did little good, for not only was she brought to bed prematurely of a girl, but of a dwarfish and defective one. My disappointment, however, was obliterated by the passion of hers.

  “I’ve failed you! I’ve failed you!” she cried again and again, twisting her thin arms tightly about my neck. “But you’ll see! I’ll produce an heir for you. You will not have saved me in vain. Oh, I promise you, dear one!”

  My mother and I feared for her life, so desperate was her frenzy. I had had no conception of the violence of her gratitude to me and the intensity of her compulsion to make good. I was almost awed at the passionate loyalty of
this ally I had brought into my life, like a man who walks with a savage dog that regards all the world as threatening his master. But Gabrielle’s fit subsided at last, and she was once again the quiet, patient, reserved and observing creature that she had been. Only she never showed any interest in our poor little girl.

  4

  GABRIELLE’S first substantial contribution to my career at court was in the affair of the alms bag. It was the custom after mass for the young duchesse de Bourgogne, the king’s granddaughter-in-law, who, as we had lost both queen and dauphine, was the first lady of France, to ask a duchess to pass a velvet purse for contributions to the church. The “Lorrainers,” members of the House of Guise, who should have ranked with us as peers, were always claiming a higher position as “foreign princes,” based on silly titles bestowed on them by the Holy Roman Emperor because of scraps of land held along the border. I now learned the latest outrage: that their ladies were claiming exemption from the alms-bag duty. There was nothing for me to do but organize the dukes to make a similar claim.

  “But who will pass the alms bag?” Gabrielle asked me.

  “How should I know? Perhaps some simple gentlewoman.”

  “But if the duchess asks me?”

  “If she asks you, of course, you must. But she can’t ask you if you’re not there. What I’m saying is that the duchesses should abstain from mass.”

  “Won’t it anger the king?”

  “I can’t help that, my dear. It’s the Lorrainers he should be mad at. They’ve been an infernal nuisance ever since the days of the League. Why a monarch who’s so sensitive to treason should put up with them, I can’t conceive.”

  Gabrielle, I had to admit, was correct about the king’s reaction. After the first day, when half the duchesses at court absented themselves from mass, the due de Beauvillier sent for me, and Gabrielle and I went at once to his apartment in the north wing. The duke, who, as I have indicated, was the only peer in the king’s council, was an old friend of my parents and had been my guide and mentor ever since I first came to court. I admired him without reserve and had even once offered to marry any one of his eight daughters. Fortunately for me and Gabrielle, the oldest had wished to take holy orders, the second had been a cripple and the rest too young.