The Duke’s humors went out of balance after the abrupt departure of the royal party, and on the twenty-seventh of January he came down with a fever. Two celebrated doctors from Paris were sent for, but after only one week the priests were called in.
“We’re going to need mourning gowns,” Princess Marguerite informed her waiting maids. “A seamstress is coming this afternoon.”
Petite’s eyes filled: the Duke was dying? She felt she had come to know him personally, albeit indirectly. She had been spending time in the château library, and on a number of occasions she had come across the Duke’s notations in the margins: Ha ha! Preposterous! The fool! “I’m so sorry. That’s…” The words sad or terrible or even awful seemed too pedestrian for a man like the Duke, the son of King Henry the Great. “Tragic,” she said with feeling, recalling the devastation of her own father’s death.
“I know,” Princess Marguerite agreed. “Once he dies, we won’t be able to live here anymore—because we’re only girls,” she added with disdain. Without a male heir, all the Duke’s property reverted to the Crown.
THE DUC D’ORLÉANS’S bedchamber smelled of incense, pigeon feathers and caudle, a warm sickbed gruel mixed with ale. The shutters had been fastened, the drapes drawn, and the fire and candles lit. To prevent his soul from escaping, five dead pigeons—messengers to the spirit world—had been placed at the foot of his bed, a massive piece of furniture hung with faded embroidered cloth.
Squeezed between a curio cabinet and trunk, Petite and Nicole stood behind the three princesses at the periphery of the room, watching as Abbé Patin approached the bed. “Your Highness, your devoted daughters have come to see you.” Abbé Patin gestured to Princess Marguerite to come forward.
“What should I say?” Princess Marguerite looked stricken.
“Tell him that you will pray for him,” Petite whispered, her eyes tearing.
Marguerite stepped to the foot of the bed. “I will pray for you, Sire,” she said.
“Your Highness, give your daughter your blessing.” Abbé Patin leaned over the bed. “Repeat after me: ‘I bless you.’”
“I bless you,” the Duke said feebly, his eyes closed.
Marguerite kept her head down, her eyes fixed to the floor. Petite handed her a nose cloth, sensing that she was about to cry. The Princess pressed it to her eyes.
ON CANDLEMAS, AFTER all the beeswax candles in the château had been carted to the chapel to be blessed, after every brittle sprig of holly, ivy and mistletoe had been taken down, the princesses and their attendants gathered in the château library to read from their breviaries. Shortly after eleven of the clock, a funereal bell signaled that the soul of the Duke had departed.
The girls fell to their knees and made the sign of the Cross, as Madame de Raré led them in prayer. “O gentlest heart of Jesus, have mercy on the soul of thy servant…”
Petite silently counted the solemn tolls of the bell. One. Two. Three…Outside she could hear the faint lowing of the cattle being brought in from the hay meadows. The scent of freshly baked bread filled the air. Four. Five. Six…
Then other bells joined in and the pealing turned raucous, joyful even.
“The soul of His Highness your father is ascending,” Madame de Raré said uneasily. “Let us rejoice.”
“What a racket,” the youngest princess said, covering her ears. It sounded as if pots and pans were being hit with metal objects.
And then they heard wagon wheels in the courtyard.
“Why is the furniture being removed?” Princess Marguerite asked, looking out.
Things were being handed out the windows to carters: chairs, candlesticks, even bed curtains.
“We’re being robbed,” whispered Madame de Raré, and the youngest princess burst into tears.
“By the servants,” Petite said, recognizing a water boy.
“We must alert the guards.” Madame de Raré grabbed her cane.
“The guards are the robbers,” Nicole noted as four husky men in uniform loaded an ormolu mirror onto a cart.
“Your Highnesses?”
Petite’s stepfather stood in the doorway, looking bewildered and uncharacteristically undone, his ruff askew.
“Your esteemed father, the Duke—”
“We’re being robbed,” the governess said.
“I comprehend,” the Marquis answered with a shaky sigh. There was nothing anyone could do, he explained. Everything had, in fact, been ransacked, stolen the moment the Duke breathed his last. Even the sheet that covered his body had been stripped from him. “It is your mother the Duchess who appeals for you currently, Your Highnesses,” he said, bowing with grave formality.
PETITE AND NICOLE STOOD behind the princesses as they paid their condolences to the Duchess, who was reclining on her bed in a heavy black gown, her head draped with a lace-edged veil of black crêpe. Already the room had been hung in black and the one mirror covered. Two attendants, also in black, were sitting by the fire, making what appeared to be mourning jewelry from the Duke’s hair.
The Duchess’s maid of honor stood beside her reading a prayer out loud: “O God Almighty, I pray Thee, by the Precious Blood which Thy Divine Son Jesus shed, deliver the soul in Purgatory that is destitute of spiritual aid. Amen.”
“Amen,” the princesses said, their heads bowed.
“Amen,” Petite and Nicole said.
“Eternal rest give unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. Amen.”
“Amen,” they all echoed.
“Amen,” Abbé Patin said, entering with a document in his hand.
“Where is my Duke?” the Duchess demanded.
Abbé Patin glanced over at the princesses with a look of dismay. “With the Lord Almighty, Your Highness.”
“Tell him to come home.”
“I would if I could, Your Highness,” Abbé Patin said gently, “but I’m afraid that the good Lord wishes to keep him.”
“Amen,” the Duchess said with a sigh.
“Forgive me, Your Highness, but at present the law requires that I read you the Duke’s last wishes.” The Abbé held up the document.
The Duchess fell back against the pillows and closed her eyes.
Solemnly, Abbé Patin read the Duke’s will, informing the Duchess that her husband had left everything to the Crown: his library of ancient texts, his collections of stamps, medals and engraved stones, even his cabinets of curiosities. His tulip bulbs, however, he had bequeathed to the Queen Mother. What remained was to go to charitable foundations.
“Send for my lawyer,” the Duchess said, as if waking from a long sleep.
“WE’RE MOVING TO PARIS,” Princess Marguerite announced to Petite and Nicole. “Immediately. The Duchess says we must take possession of my father’s palace in Paris before la Grande Mademoiselle claims it. She has countless castles, and we don’t even have one.”
Petite set aside the book she was reading (Ovid’s Metamorphoses). They were moving—to Paris? The city was dangerous; there were murderers there.
“Alleluia,” Nicole said.
But then, the King lives in Paris, Petite thought—as well as my brother. “Even the Duchess?” she asked. What about the sacred observances? A widow was to stay in a darkened room for forty days after the death of a husband.
“She’s leaving day after tomorrow with the chief steward and his wife.”
Petite was astonished. Everything was happening so quickly. “But what about the Duke?” His body was on display in the Church of Saint-Sauveur. His heart was to be embalmed and then donated to the Jesuit convent that afternoon.
“She’s taking him with her…and we’re to follow in a week or two.” Princess Marguerite twirled, revealing a forbidden red flannel petticoat.
THE PRINCESSES SET OUT for Orléans on the twentieth of February. They were a party of forty-seven: the princesses and their attendants (Petite, Nicole and four others); the governess; the attendants’ attendants (Clorine and six others); a cook and her t
hree helpers; the grooms, equerries and all the guards.
The river, normally placid, was swollen and somewhat treacherous due to ill weather. Teams of oxen pulled the boats upriver against a wind. Carp were caught and cooked over charcoal burners on the blustery deck.
Petite stood against the rail, watching the passing woods and undulating meadows. Horses cantered and kicked in a field, tossing their heads. There was a white horse among them (but it was dappled). She’d never been so far from home.
From Orléans they traveled north by coach, reaching the ancient hunting château of Fontaine Beleau on the sixth day. From there it would be only one long day’s journey by barge to the city.
They left before sunrise, in the dark. Wolves could be heard howling in the distant woods. The sky lightened in brilliant hues. The girls played Put-and-Take (Petite winning ten sous) as their governess read out loud to them from The Book of Vices and Virtues. Gradually, the river opened onto a vast plain dotted with windmills, and suddenly, there it was before them on the distant horizon: Paris, its spires and towers rising up through a haze of smoke.
Part III
THE ENCHANTER
Chapter Twelve
THE RIVER BECAME congested, the water murky, the air scented with refuse. Windmills stood motionless against an ominous gray sky. Boats loaded with grain, livestock, bricks or lumber seemed barely able to float. Madeleine, the youngest princess, waved gaily to them all, even to some chickens bound at the feet, hanging woefully from a pole.
Sprawling monasteries and cloisters gave way to a patchwork of homesteads with gardens, vineyards, pastures of animals picking at weeds. Pigs wandered dirt roads lined with sod huts. A pack of snarling dogs circled an overturned baker’s cart. Four children ran barefoot along the shore, chasing after a man driving a high gig, a thin cow tied behind. Laundry boats hugged the shore, patched linens hanging from the riggings like sails.
And then, beyond the towpath, they saw vast gardens and two enormous edifices, the royal palaces of the King—the ancient Tuileries and the newer Louvre, both empty now because the Court was still in the south. They passed under a footbridge and pulled up in front of a tower.
As the barge jolted against a crowded dock, their captain yelled instructions to the workers. The governess grabbed Princess Madeleine’s apron strings before she could climb out.
“Smells like a chamber pot,” Princess Marguerite said, pressing a nose cloth to her face.
“Why are we stopping here?” Nicole asked. The city proper was farther up the river.
“The Palais d’Orléans is on the other side, outside the city walls, in the countryside,” the captain said, throwing a rope to a laborer on the dock. “We have to take boats across.”
They had to wait as their papers were checked, the toll taxes paid, the barge-owner, cook and tow-boys tipped, and their trunks reloaded onto passage boats. At last they set off, the eleven laden vessels perilously winding through the busy river traffic, dodging the flyboats darting in and out. A church bell was ringing for vespers by the time they pulled up near a massive stone structure. The city wall was as wide as a horse from nose to tail, and so high Petite had to crane her neck to see the ramparts above. A tree was growing out of a tower.
They were required to wait as their trunks were once again unloaded.
“Ready?” the captain said finally, opening the door of a conveyance with one hand and fending off vendors, tradesmen and beggars with the other.
Princess Marguerite frowned at the shabby hackney.
“It’s not a team of six, I know,” the captain said, “but it will be nightfall soon and you’ll be safer in disguise.” The rest of the entourage had long ago set out.
The three princesses, Petite, Nicole and the governess squeezed into the dirty interior, the captain climbing up beside the driver, his sword unsheathed. Clorine and the other servants perched on top of the trunks piled onto the wagons following behind.
They took a muddy road along the outside of the city wall, a stone construction punctuated by peaked turrets. On their left was open country, on their right the tall city wall. Every three, four or five turrets there was a gated entrance: porte Saint-Victor, porte Saint-Marcel, and then porte Saint-Jacques—a large and busy entry crowded with vendors and beggars, full of ragged children.
“This is where Jeanne d’Arc entered the city,” Petite said. “I think.” With my great-great-great-great-grandfather. She craned her head to glimpse the city within. She could see all manner of carts, carrying-chairs and coaches surrounded by swarms of foot passengers: a chimney sweep, two women with their ankles showing, a peg-legged beggar. She looked out for the wanton women, the petty thieves and bandits Paris had in great numbers. The Devil resided in Paris; that was known. She wondered if Jean’s school was nearby.
Shortly after porte Saint-Michel, the carriage turned away from the wall onto a muddy rutted road, bouncing perilously over slop-filled potholes as it passed a two-wheeled cart loaded with barrels of wine. The driver stopped as a mangy dog crossed the road. Beyond, to the left, were open fields and woods dotted with clusters of buildings—a number of them monasteries with large gardens, Petite guessed, reassured by the peace of that landscape.
“Up ahead is the Saint-Germain Fair,” the captain yelled down.
Princesses Marguerite and Elisabeth hung out one window. The vast covered market teemed with people—commoners, but also some elite in furs and feathers. A beggar in velveteen breeches knelt by the entrance with two lit candles before him. Beside him a boy played a flute. The scent of fried oysters hung on the air.
“I’m hungry,” Princess Elisabeth said.
“We’re almost there,” the captain shouted as a stately palace came into view.
“I thought it would have a moat,” Princess Marguerite said.
The palace was a square edifice enclosing a simple flagged courtyard, symmetrical and well proportioned. Petite was surprised that it was so elegant. It had been built only a half century earlier by Marie de Médicis, yet another evil Italian queen, and Petite had expected something sinister. The vast gardens edged with groves of chestnut trees gave the setting a monastic gloom that appealed to her.
“It’s out in the middle of nowhere,” Nicole said.
The riding will be good, Petite thought.
An attendant in livery ran to meet them, shooing away a goat in order to open the massive iron gates, which were inscribed, in gold, PALAIS D’ORLÉANS.
“I have to pluck a rose,” the youngest princess said, taken by an urgent need as their carriage slowed to a stop.
It was dark in the regal entry. The tapers set in candelabra had not been lit. A butler with a torch led them into a vast, empty room—a guard room, to judge by the spears propped in one corner.
“The steward will be with you shortly,” the butler said, lighting three tapers before disappearing.
Petite and Nicole held their skirts wide as Princess Madeleine relieved herself in the fireplace behind them. The cavernous room had been draped in black in honor of the Duke’s death.
“It’s Saint-Rémy,” Petite hissed to Princess Madeleine, recognizing her stepfather’s shuffling step.
The youngest princess stepped out of the fireplace, arranging her skirts just as the Marquis and a page holding a wax-light entered.
“Welcome, Your Highnesses,” the Marquis announced. “The Duchess has been praying day and night for your safe arrival. In consequence, she has fallen asleep, but she will receive you in the morning at the usual time. I’m to show you to your chambers.”
He moved aside for a porter carrying a trunk on his shoulders. “Stack them in the gallery,” he instructed as the servants trailed by. Clorine came in hefting two haversacks.
The three princesses and their attendants followed the Marquis through a series of grand, empty rooms, the cavalcade of boots on bare wood floors sounding like an army on the march. The Marquis pushed open a tall door onto a bedchamber where a maid was stooped in fron
t of a small fireplace, stirring the embers with the muzzle of a bellows.
“This will be where Princess Marguerite sleeps,” the Marquis said, taking the bellows from the maid and pumping it, sending ashes flying.
Princess Marguerite frowned, turning. But for a bed, there appeared to be no furnishings.
“It’s the grandest of the rooms.” The Marquis stomped on an ember.
It was almost midnight by the time the princesses were settled and the Marquis was free to show Petite to their own lodgings. Clorine and two footmen followed behind carrying the leather haversacks and trunks. They went down a long gallery lined with enormous paintings. Petite held her taper up the better to see a portrait of Marie de Médicis riding a magnificent White, its mane long and wavy. The painting next to it showed the face of a lusty Devil in the corner, about to jump out. Petite quickly moved on, following the Marquis and Clorine up winding stairs into the peak of a turret.
“This leads to your chamber,” the Marquis told Petite, directing the footmen and Clorine through a plank door on the left. “But your mother will receive you now in ours.” He opened the door on the right.
The musty room was simply furnished with a curtained poster bed, a table and two ladder-back chairs. A chambermaid stirred under a comforter on a pallet. The high bed creaked as Françoise got up to embrace Petite.
“I prayed for your safe arrival, Louise,” she said, tucking her hair under her nightcap. “And Jean did, as well. He’s coming to see us tomorrow after Mass.”
“How is he?” Petite’s brother had just turned eighteen. He’d been only nine when she last saw him—nearly ten years ago.
“He’s a proper nobleman,” Françoise said, her eyes glinting in the candlelight, “always at his exercises, his fencing, dancing and riding. A galant homme through and through, and with all the best connections. Come, Louise, your room is next to ours. It’s a bit shoddy,” she warned, her hand on the latch, “but at least we don’t have to pay rent.”