The Many Lives of John Stone
“I do not say these things to compliment you, Jean-Pierre. I mean what I say. Nevertheless, now that you are a courtier, I would urge you to be . . .” My father searched for the right word. “More guarded. You have always had a trusting nature, whereas in Versailles what you need most is eyes in your back.”
He embraced me and I told him that I would always think of him as my father. He did not release my shoulders immediately but turned me around slowly with his thumbs.
“I’ve been trying to lose him since we left the palace,” my father said. “He is a tenacious fellow. Though it is a comfort, I suppose, to know that you are protected.”
A Swiss Guard entered my angle of vision, and when our eyes met, the young soldier immediately averted his gaze. I should have liked to inform him that taking my chances with would-be assassins was preferable to suffering the constant company of the King’s guards. I reasoned, however, that neither of us had any say in the matter.
XXI
Three times a week, between the hours of seven and ten, intimates of the King met in his apartment to divert themselves with cards, billiards, and conversation. I arrived that evening at the royal apartment at the invitation of Liselotte, who was almost immediately called away to have a word with the King. Feeling ill at ease in such illustrious company, I stood in a corner listening to the musicians play. Liselotte was admitted to an adjoining room, and as the door opened, I saw the King taking aim in a game of billiards. He was putting all his weight on one red-stockinged leg, while stretching the other out behind him, angling his foot in a most elegant manner. I heard the clack as he struck the ball. “Bravo, Sire!” called out a chorus of voices. I wondered if anyone ever dared beat the King. The door closed.
On the other side of the room, a game of Reversi had just finished. Large sums of gold were changing hands—fortunes were regularly won or lost in Versailles on the turn of a card. With a start, I realized that the tall gentleman who seemed intent on joining the players was none other than the Comte d’Alembert, Isabelle’s father. Having never been introduced to him (I was, after all, the scoundrel responsible for the Colonnades incident), I hoped that he would not recognize me. I retreated farther into my corner. But then I witnessed something that shocked me. As he approached the card table, the three players remained seated as if he were not there, and refused to acknowledge his presence. Worse, another fellow all but pushed him to one side and proceeded to sit down in the chair d’Alembert clearly intended to occupy himself. I watched d’Alembert’s back tense and his hands clench into fists, but he kept his dignity and walked calmly out of the room. I could not understand such behavior, and on Isabelle’s behalf, I felt incensed at such disrespect. I was not the only one to have noticed. Half the room had seen it, and as the music played, accounts of what had happened passed from one mouth to another until the whole of the King’s apartment was buzzing with descriptions of the humiliating snubbing of the Comte d’Alembert.
When Liselotte finally reappeared, I hastened to join her. She was engaged in conversation with an ancient duchess—the same whose nose the daughters of the King’s surgeon had once dared me to tickle with an ostrich feather. Her dress propped up her crumbling body in such a way that her head and neck rose out of the bodice like a tortoise from its shell. When I greeted her she paused long enough to scrutinize me with her pink-rimmed eyes and yawn extravagantly. I don’t believe she knew, or cared, who I was. I gathered that the two women were discussing Isabelle’s father. The old duchess evidently did not hold a high opinion of him.
“I knew his wife while she was still a child, and I told her mother that he had a cruel heart. I assure you this news doesn’t surprise me one jot—”
“Madame, it is not news,” said Liselotte. “It is merely a rumor. How is the man to defend himself against such tittle-tattle? Gossip spreads so quickly at court—it’s like smoke blowing off a bonfire.”
“And there’s no smoke without fire—”
“With you as judge, Madame,” said Liselotte, “what need has one of a jury?”
The duchess shrugged her bony shoulders. “The proof is the guilt you can see in his eyes.”
“I cannot believe there was anything suspicious in the manner of Madame d’Alembert’s death. . . . I had hoped that we had put the Affair of the Poisons behind us a long time ago.”
Liselotte excused herself, dragging me with her by the elbow so that we could talk in private. It was the first time I heard the calamitous rumor that threatened the d’Alembert family, although I was to hear it from different sources and in several different versions over the coming days. It was said that the Comte d’Alembert had poisoned Isabelle’s mother and had bribed officials to conceal his crime. It was true that her death had coincided with the so-called Affair of the Poisons, which had erupted at court some years before, and which had scandalized the whole nation.
It started when a priest divulged some of the confessions he had recently heard to the chief of police in Paris. The ease with which one could procure poisons, the sheer scale of the murders, and the involvement of powerful and titled individuals at court was alarming. Hundreds of suspects were arrested, and by the end of the affair, dozens had been executed, burned, exiled, or imprisoned. However, when the King’s mistress was also implicated, public trials ceased and the affair came to a rapid close. Many lettres de cachet were issued, so that many suspects still languished in prisons without hope of a trial or of release.
“It was a terrible time,” Liselotte said as we made our way back to Monsieur’s apartment. “Everyone suspected everyone else. A husband could die peacefully in his sleep and a fog of suspicion would hang over the grieving relatives for months.”
“But, Madame, why are people accusing the Comte of this crime? And why now? Isabelle herself told me that her mother died of a fever when she was a little girl—”
“I dare say she did, but after all this time how can one prove it? Being innocent is not enough: You need to be able to convince people of your innocence. As for who started the rumor . . .”
“Could it have been Montclair?”
Unwilling to commit herself, Liselotte shrugged. “Whoever it is, if their motive is to destroy d’Alembert’s reputation, they’re succeeding.”
“Do you think it could be true?”
“Personally, I believe d’Alembert to be innocent—though he could just as easily be guilty. After living through the Affair of the Poisons I assure you I could believe anything of anyone.”
“Poor Isabelle! Even to hear such a rumor about your father—”
“If he’s innocent, pity the father rather than the daughter, even though Isabelle’s chances of making a glittering match are considerably lessened.” A smile formed on Liselotte’s face. “Although every cloud has a silver lining. . . .”
I felt ashamed, for the same idea had come, unbidden, into my own head. “I must go to her!” I cried.
Liselotte told me such behavior was inappropriate and insisted that I wait until the following morning’s dancing lesson, when I could speak to Isabelle in person.
“Incidentally,” Liselotte added, “I have not seen your Spaniard of late. Do you suppose he is unwell?”
I told her that I did not know.
XXII
Early the next morning Liselotte summoned me to her rooms. She announced that until the rumors concerning the Comte d’Alembert were disproved, Monsieur judged it unseemly that any member of his household should be on intimate terms with the Comte’s daughter. Liselotte passed on Monsieur’s remarks to me without comment, stroking the silky folds of her wide skirts as she spoke. Given that I was Monsieur’s secretary, I was requested not to contact Isabelle. It was unfortunate, Liselotte said, for she knew how very fond I was of Mademoiselle d’Alembert, but in the circumstances, I had to put my own reputation first. After all, to continue a friendship with the daughter of someone rumored to be a murderer might have consequences for my own family. The expression on Liselotte’s rosy face a
s she fixed me with a meaningful stare was hard to stomach. I was sorely tempted to tell her that I was not related in any way to the King. Instead, I bowed and left the room. I did not, however, attend Elisabeth-Charlotte’s dancing lesson that morning and was not to do so again.
Ignoring Liselotte’s advice, I started to write Isabelle a note. The words refused to flow, for how could I tell her that, thanks to the scandalous reports that put her father in such an evil light, her presence was now considered an embarrassment? I paced up and down beneath the cherubs and their garlanded goddess. I even began to wonder if the Comte d’Alembert had murdered his wife before scolding myself for being as weak-minded as the rest of the court.
A footman scratched at my door, as was the custom, and my irritation at being interrupted vanished when I was handed a letter from Isabelle herself. It seemed to me that someone had tampered with her seal. I opened it in a state of tender agitation. The sight of her handwriting provoked an emotion somewhere between happiness and dread. I traced the sweep of her signature, Isabelle d’A, and brought the paper to my face. But again there was a scratching on the door, and the footman entered a second time.
“Yes?” I demanded, slapping the letter down on my lap.
The sallow-faced footman, who never looked well, conveyed to me the surprising news that the King’s premier valet de chambre was waiting for me in the royal stables.
“Monsieur Bontemps is waiting for me?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“I am to go now?”
“At once, Sir.”
I pushed the letter into the top drawer of my desk and set off in haste. Halfway down the corridor I stopped, turned around, and obeyed an almost physical impulse to go back to my desk: I could not bear to be parted from Isabelle’s letter. Thrusting it into my pocket, I ran through the corridors of the palace and out into the sunshine of the courtyard.
* * *
The King kept a vast number of horses, and the royal stables were as spacious and elegant as any château. Inside, the warm air was thick with the sounds of whinnying and snorting and champing, and the stink of manure was ripe enough to make even a country boy gag. I hurried under lofty arches, and past lines of stalls, from which the arched necks of many noble horses emerged. Their melancholy gazes followed me, revealing the whites of their eyes as I passed them by. A stable boy directed me to the courtyard where I might find Monsieur Bontemps.
Here, in this semicircular space, horses, men, and carriages wheeled around in an intricate dance. I stood with my back flattened against a wall for fear of being trampled. It had been dark the last time I saw Alexandre Bontemps’s coach and four, but I recognized it all the same. It was black and bore no royal insignia. I found the great man inside, his calm face wearing the resigned expression of one used to waiting. He was humming a tune and resting his legs on the opposite seat. His white-stockinged ankles, in their buckled shoes, were neatly crossed.
“Ah, Jean-Pierre,” he said, sliding his feet to the floor and telling me to climb in. “I should be glad if you would join me for a short ride.”
There was something in his demeanor on this occasion that failed to put me at my ease. He closed the blinds and rapped on the roof of the carriage so that I had no idea where he was taking me. Against the sounds of creaking axles and hooves striking cobblestones, we had a curious, one-sided conversation during which he seemed to be encouraging me and warning me about something at the same time. Matters had moved on apace, he said, while not specifying to which matters he referred. He informed me that the King desired to see me at Marly the following evening, at dusk. He would arrange for a carriage to take me there.
Light crept in around the edges of the blinds, though I could see nothing, and presently the horses slowed down and came to a halt. We must have been in the town for I could hear the cries of street hawkers in the distance and the rumble of wagons close by.
Monsieur Bontemps looked at me squarely in the face and announced: “I have brought you here today to see a friend.”
The carriage door opened and the Spaniard was pushed into the carriage by unseen hands.
“Signor!” I gasped. “Where have you been?”
The Spaniard greeted Monsieur Bontemps (without, I thought, any warmth) and sat down opposite me. He took both my hands and pressed them between his own. Although he smiled, it was clear to me that all was not well. His eyes were glassy, and his hands, normally warm, were cold and clammy.
Monsieur Bontemps asked him if he had finished preparing for his departure.
“Departure?”
“I leave Versailles for the port of Calais at dawn tomorrow,” said the Spaniard. “I am due to set sail in two days’ time.”
“The King himself,” added Monsieur Bontemps, “has asked Signor de Lastimosa to journey to the Swedish court and report back to his Majesty on affairs that might be of interest to France. It is a great honor.”
“Yes, Monsieur Bontemps,” said the Spaniard. “I would go so far as to say it is an honor I feel I do not deserve—”
“The King is careful to reward his courtiers as he sees fit, Signor,” replied Monsieur Bontemps. He adjusted the tresses of his long, dark wig and turned to me. “Time is short, Jean-Pierre, and your farewells must necessarily be brief.”
With the King’s valet de chambre at my side, I could not express the confusion and distress that I felt. Nor could I put to the Spaniard the questions I wanted to ask. Something was wrong. But whatever we had to say had to be said now, before it was too late and the moment had passed. And so, instead of demanding where he had been hiding himself, or if he thought the rumor about Isabelle’s father had any truth to it, I spoke the words I felt I was expected to say. I thanked the Spaniard for everything he had done for me, congratulated him on his royal mission to Sweden, and wished him a safe journey. But all the while I had a picture in my head of the moment in the orangery when he had spoken of his desire to return to the citrus groves of Spain. He hated to be cold. I thought of all that awaited him, of continual night and of black, oily seas, of snow and pickled herrings, and a desperate sadness washed over me. Would I ever see him again? The Spaniard, in his turn, wished me well and bade me remember the teachings of Baltasar Gracián. Then, words failing us, the Spaniard and I merely looked at each other.
Monsieur Bontemps, unnerved by the awkwardness of the moment, put an abrupt end to the proceedings and opened the carriage door. Outside, a Swiss Guard stood to attention.
“It is good of you to come, Signor, when you are so occupied with preparations. I am certain you will have much of interest to recount to Jean-Pierre in your letters.”
“Indeed I will, Monsieur,” the Spaniard replied and, bidding me farewell, leaned forward to embrace me. I clung to him. A strange odor hung about his clothes. It was musty and damp, the smell of a cellar. And though I could not be sure of it, I thought I detected the iron tang of blood. The Spaniard climbed out of the carriage and looked up at me. I stared into his eyes, uselessly trying to impart everything I felt. He looked pale in the light of day, and his body sagged as if he had aged twenty years. He thanked Monsieur Bontemps, saying: “You are a man of your word.” To me he said: “God keep you, Jean-Pierre. Make your father proud.”
The door closed behind him, and when I tried to lift the blind to watch him depart, Monsieur Bontemps held it gently, but firmly, down.
On our way back to the palace I did not speak: partly because I was trying to take in this disheartening news, and partly because I guessed that what I wanted to know, I would not be permitted to ask. Monsieur Bontemps, however, had something to ask of me. Signor de Lastimosa, he said, had begged to be allowed to say farewell to me.
“I did not have the heart to refuse, but I arranged this meeting without consulting the King. When you meet with His Majesty tomorrow, I would ask you to make no mention of it. He means to tell you himself of the honor that he has accorded your teacher.”
“Shall I see Signor de Lastimosa again, Monsieur? W
ill he return to France?”
“It is not for me to say.”
To my shame, my eyes filled with tears. I felt I had been orphaned all over again. At least the King’s valet de chambre had the tact to look away. Soon the ringing echoes of the horses’ hooves on cobblestones told me that we reached the great courtyards of the palace. Monsieur Bontemps leaned in toward me, his face earnest.
“The King desires to establish you at court. Our fate, yours and mine, is to serve. We therefore need to be robust; we need to learn to endure. The alternative is far worse. To be cast out into the wilderness, away from the protection of the King, is not something I would wish for you.”
He advised me to show Louis gratitude for what I had and would receive, and to hide from him any anger I might feel for what had been taken away from me.
“Remember, Jean-Pierre, that to win is more often than not to lose, for you can only fall from the highest positions. It is safer, in the end, to be satisfied with less.”
To win is to lose. Words can exert a powerful hold on the immature mind. Monsieur Bontemps’s words struck their mark that day. He meant well, I have no doubt of that, but in hindsight, I wonder what I might have done with my life had I never heard them.
XXIII
It was at the Apollo Fountain in the late afternoon that I finally read Isabelle’s letter. Shaken by the Spaniard’s demeanor and his exile to a cold, foreign land, I could not rid myself of a sense of dread. I felt that nothing was what it had at first seemed, and, that being the case, I could not rely on my own judgement. My life was sliding out of my control and in directions I would prefer it not to go. My feet had led me to the Apollo Fountain because it was here that I had felt joy, the morning after the incident at the Colonnades. Now, alone by the fountain, I braced myself for the news that Isabelle’s letter contained.