Author: Carmel Bird
Date: 2025-08-11 00:00:00+00:00
Publisher: Transit Lounge Publishing

CRIMSON VELVET HEART

Also by Carmel Bird

NOVELS

Field of Poppies

Family Skeleton

Child of the Twilight

Cape Grimm

Red Shoes

The White Garden

The Bluebird Café

Cherry Ripe

Unholy Writ

Open for Inspection

Crisis

SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS

Love Letter to Lola

The Dead Aviatrix

Automatic Teller

The Essential Bird

The Common Rat

The Woodpecker Toy Fact

Births Deaths and Marriages

Fair Game

Dimitra

The Mouth

ANTHOLOGIES

The Stolen Children – Their Stories

Red Hot Notes

Relations – Australian Short Stories

Daughters and Fathers

Home Truth

Penguin Century of Australian Stories

BOOKS ON WRITING

Telltale (memoir)

Dear Writer (and Dear Writer Revisited )

Not Now Jack – I’m Writing a Novel

Writing the Story of Your Life

PICTURE BOOKS

The Cassowary’s Quiz

Fabulous Finola Fox

Arabella

CRIMSON VELVET HEART

CARMEL BIRD

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA
www.transitlounge.com.au

Copyright © 2025 Carmel Bird

First published 2025

Transit Lounge Publishing

This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be made to the publisher.

Every effort has been made to contact all copyright holders. The publishers will be pleased to amend in future editions any errors or omissions brought to their attention

Cover design: Sandy Cull/gogoGingko

Typeset in 12/17pt Adobe Garamond Pro by Cannon Typesetting

Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group

A cataloguing entry is available from the National Library of Australia

ISBN: 978-1-923023-52-9

A prince must have no other objective, no other thought, nor take up any profession but that of war, its methods and its discipline.

NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, The Prince

I have loved war too much.

LOUIS XIV, spoken on his deathbed

Light of my life; fire of my loins.

VLADIMIR NABOKOV, Lolita

AN OLD, OLD STORY

Consider the skin of the donkey. Silent, empty, it hangs from an iron hook on the stable wall, while the head, with its long drooping ears, dangles sadly down across the furry cape. Eyelids closed, stiff black lashes. The grey-brown fur is softly flecked with specks of gold. Fresh dark blood seeps from the smoothly halfsevered neck, dribbling onto the beaten earth of the stable floor. Fresh stench of death. The broken body – bones, flesh, viscera – has been offered to the hounds in their kennels. When the bones are stripped clean, they will possibly be used to fashion spoons and skewers for busy kitchen maids.

Once upon a time, when the donkey lived with the king, it filled the royal coffers every morning with hundreds of gold pieces from its bottom.

⬩ 1 ⬩ TWILIGHT IN THE CHÂTEAU OF SAINT-GERMAIN-EN-LAYE

1642

‘They really killed the donkey? Really truly?’ the child says.

‘The king made the order. So, they had to do it.’

‘Oh yes, the king. Yes.’ The child nods and smiles.

He thinks for a moment, smoothing with his hands the ears of Filou, his white Pyrenean mountain dog. He gazes half-sleepily up at his mother with wide green-brown eyes.

‘But the donkey was so special for the king. It gave him the gold pieces from its bottom every morning. So – no more gold pieces.’

‘No more. All gone now. What do you suppose the king did next?’

‘I know, I know. He went hunting ! No, no – he went to war !’

‘Yes, he did, he went to war.’

‘But tell me again, dear Mama, tell me the story from the beginning.’

‘Once upon a time there was a king, the greatest king there ever was on earth.’

So it is that the four-year-old child, Louis-Dieudonné, God-Given Son of the King of France, in snowy silken sheets, is on the brink of sleep. In the safety of his small bed in the royal castle of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, high up above the banks of the Seine, just a two-hour carriage ride from the centre of the city of Paris, he hears the old story from his beloved mother, Anne Marie, Queen of France, known as Anne of Austria, daughter of Philip the Third of Spain. Her bosom is soft as a rose, her throat a flowering of creamy froth. He buries his face in the sweet aroma of his mother.

France has been at war now for twenty-four years and will continue to be so for another six. The battles began as the result of a desire for territory and also from passionate religious differences, with French Catholics ultimately triumphant. War, then, is a natural state of affairs for this royal child. Above his downy bed hangs the tortured ivory image of Christ on the Cross. Thoughts of the skin of the donkey as it hangs on the stable door mingle with images of a princess in her moonlight-silver dress, while Louis gently drifts into slumber, Filou entwined in his arms. Before he is much older, the child will be known as Louis the Fourteenth, King of France.

⬩ 2 ⬩ A CHILD IS BORN IN SAVOY

1685

The tale begins in the city of Turin, one hundred miles west of Milan. Snow is falling. It is late afternoon, the sixth of December, dark and chill. In the candlelit bedchamber of Anne Marie, Duchess of Turin, there reigns a breathless hush among the members of the court gathered to witness the birth of the duchess’s first child. Every soul in that room, perhaps every soul in the alpine country of Savoy, nestled as it is between Italy, Switzerland, and France, hopes for a son and heir for the duke. The silence is inhabited only by the low moans and piercing cries of the sixteen-year-old duchess. Oils of camomile and rose and lavender, heated in shallow earthen bowls, fill the air with their sweetness, mingling with the reek of sweat and blood and rancid human waste.

‘The curse of Eve,’ the ladies of the court mutter to each other.

For almost two days, with her husband the Duke Victor Amadeus by her side at all times, Anne Marie has tossed in pain on the vast royal bed beneath a canopy of crimson velvet, lined with bronze and silver silk. High above her hangs the coat of arms of Savoy, a bold white cross on a scarlet ground, surmounted by a royal crown. The child she is birthing will be the heir to the duchy, ultimately Duke of Savoy – Savoy, the magical strategic pathway through the maritime Alps, a vital piece of territory to be negotiated in times of war. He who controls that pathway is known as the Gatekeeper.

The doctors are now despairing, and as the Gatekeeeper kneels sobbing by the bed, his head in his hands, the heavy mahogany doors to the chamber open, and a priest and his acolyte part the crowd. There is a rustle of vestments, flurry of coats and skirts, murmur of silk and velvet. The duchess convulses, and while the doctors prepare again to open the vein in her elbow and let out the blood, the priest leans over her damp, shuddering body and begins to intone the last rites. ‘May Christ who died for you now admit your soul into his garden of paradise.’

As if in response to the solemn words, the oil on the priest’s thumb, and perhaps the sight of the bloodletting instrument, the convulsion stills. The baby crowns. The gathered throng has receded in the presence of the priest. Almost before anyone can realise what is happening, the tiny creature, gushing and sliding, makes its bright bloody appearance in the world and lets forth a faint but promising cry. This is followed by a howl of triumph and joy from the duke. The priest’s voice trails away, and he steps back, breathing the words of the Hail Mary. There is some astonished cheering from the crowd. But – another hush falls on the chamber and the child’s body becomes visible. It is female.

The disappointment in the room is palpable, and the court leans forward in a rush, then pulls away, as the child is quickly cleaned and wrapped and handed to the waiting nursemaid.

Anne Marie is calmed and bled from the foot. So many busy hands flitting and flying between the patient’s legs. The afterbirth is put aside. The priest blesses mother and child, and then he stands back, sprinkling holy water like blessed raindrops as he goes. Victor Amadeus kisses his wife’s clammy forehead, smooths her hair, and then summons his men, turns on his heel and leaves the scene. His face is grim. He must cancel the planned fireworks and cannons. There will be no popular celebrations, for his wife has not given him the male heir he needed. His mother, Madame Royale, Marie Jeanne Baptiste, tall and imposing in burgundy velvet, moves forward to whisper comfort to Anne Marie, and the court crowd dissipates. The duke’s mother is fond of the duchess, once a young princess sent from France with the purpose of manufacturing the heir. A shadow of deep worry now wrinkles the brow of Madame Royale. For what use is a baby girl? Yet Victor Amadeus, in his disappointment, is not unaware of the human needs of Anne Marie and their baby daughter. ‘Set up a camp bed for myself beside the duchess’s bed,’ he says to his men, and he spends some of the following days and nights in attendance on his wife, whose recovery is slow and painful. She has lost a great deal of blood. He also visits on occasion the apartment of his baby daughter, to be named Marie Adélaïde. Anne Marie is young and fertile, and she will surely give him sons.

There must be sons. There will be sons.

The news of the birth of Marie Adélaïde is duly relayed to the King of France, who responds by sending an ambassador, the Marquis d’Urfé, to pay his respects.

‘What,’ says Victor Amadeus, ‘he sends the pathetic grandson of a simple writer of romances? Noble, no doubt, but scarcely the French king’s highest officer. I confess I have not heard of this d’Urfé before, although his grandfather the writer spent much time, I believe, in Savoy.’

This is not the first time the duke has felt the smart of the fine diplomacy of France. It will not be the last. The king is determined to subdue the Gatekeeper of Savoy; the Gatekeeper is determined to resist.

Snow is thick on the ground when the French marquis, in his flowing cloak of wool and fox fur, arrives in time for the ritual purification of the young duchess, who is still fragile and confined to bed. She is unable to take her part in the ceremony, which would usually be in the newly completed chapel of San Lorenzo beside the Royal Palace. She sits, pale and wan, tiny beneath the billowing canopy of the bed, leaning on a huge white satin cushion. Her gown is fashioned of cloudy pastel blue silk, its edges decorated with silver and cherry red embroidery. Silver lace flounces dangle at her wrists. A necklace of fat creamy pearls glimmers at her throat. A soft white veil threaded with silver on her head. Baby Adélaïde, lavishly dressed in fine white lace made by the sisters at the nearby convent, lies sleeping in her mother’s arms.

Again, the lords and ladies of the court are present in the chamber, creating a murmur and a rustle like bees in the clover and wind in the leaves of the trees. The scene resembles a ritual gathering for the welcoming of a baby in a fairytale. Will there be good fairies and bad fairies? Who will have the greater power? The glamorous assembly intones in Latin the 23rd Psalm, and heads are bowed as the priest, all in white, welcomes the woman and her child into the bosom of the Church after the ordeal of the birth. He commends them to the happiness of everlasting life. Time will tell.

‘It was unusual to witness this ceremony in the duchess’s bedchamber. Yet all was conducted with dignity and grace,’ writes the marquis in his report to his king. He observes that the child appears to be thriving, and that the mother, while still somewhat delicate, is recovering. ‘Her cheeks showed a certain faint blush, and she smiled from time to time.’

This report pleases the king, since, for one thing, Anne Marie is a member of his family. She is his niece. She is a strategic link between France and the duchy of Savoy, gateway to the prosperous lands of Italy.

Some weeks later, when the first breezes of spring ruffle the new leaves, and the duchess is well again, and the marquis has returned to France, the baby – serene, smiling, and waving her arms – is taken to the Chapel of San Lorenzo to be baptised. The chapel, alight with flickering candles, is filled with members of the court and other nobles, all in their richest churchgoing finery – velvets and silks and jewels. With a certain grandeur and formality, the family and the godparents process into the church, their footsteps on the elegant mosaic patterns of the aisle, as the orchestra plays the overture to Antonio Sartorio’s opera Adélaïde. They make their way to the gleaming marble font where the archbishop waits with open arms. He takes the child, and now the only sound in the vastness of the chapel is that of water trickling over her round naked head into the font. A sudden brilliant ray of sunlight momentarily falls through the lantern high above. It illuminates the circle gathered round the font. The name ‘Marie Adélaïde of the House of Savoy’ rings out in the great hollow of the chapel. The music swells, and the archbishop hands the baby to her mother, whose eyes are now misted with tears. Her grandmother, Marie Jeanne Baptiste, who is also her godmother, leans across, touches the baby on the forehead and then places a frilled white lace bonnet on her head. Emmanuel Philibert, her great-uncle and godfather, gives to her mother for safekeeping a carved coral rosary, and places on the baby’s pillow a silver rattle, on its handle the elaborate carving of a cross.

Now Marie Adélaïde gurgles and snuggles into her mother’s shoulder, while the bells on her rattle tinkle, almost unheard, and the orchestra music rises once again. Victor Amadeus is now beaming with pride, his bright blue eyes sparkling. As Anne Marie takes his arm, baby Adélaïde is handed to the nursemaid. Her rattle clatters to the stone floor. Her father retrieves it and passes it to his mother. The party proceeds out into the clear spring sunshine. The crowd before the chapel shout and cheer. Adélaïde makes a spluttering mewing noise and falls asleep.

For all the grandeur of the religious ceremony, a modest feast awaits the congregation in the Royal Palace hard by the chapel. They drink a toast to the newly baptised, and Adélaïde, named for the saint who was once Empress of Rome, is whisked away by her nursemaid. Through the clatter and buzz of conversation can be discovered a certain thread of particular interest – this being the usefulness of princesses in marriage deals.

‘The duchess still appears to be fragile.’

‘She is very young. She will have sons.’

‘A girl-child is always useful for bargaining.’

‘So, tell me, who is Saint Adélaïde?’

‘Patron saint of widows and princesses, I believe.’

‘Princesses! Ah, one day our princess will find her prince.’

‘As you say, a girl-child is often useful – in her way.’

‘We are getting ahead of ourselves. She has just been baptised.’ ‘It is never too soon to cast an eye over the possibilities.’ So the voices weave their wisdom.

Like a narrative in a book of old tales, the birth of the first child of the Duke and Duchess of Savoy has its clear bright side. It has as well its promises of darkness. Light and dark will be revealed as the story unfolds. Sometimes the story will be told in the words of one of the sisters in the convent of Sainte-Odile, in Paris. Her name is Clare, and she believes herself to be chosen by God to document the life of the Princess Adélaïde of Savoy.

Sister Clare begins her story at its end. For when she opens the tale, Adélaïde has been dead for four sad years. The good sister is a most trustworthy storyteller. She will reveal to you, in her opening remarks, that baby Adélaïde did indeed marry a prince.

⬩ 3 ⬩ LISTEN WITH YOUR HEART

1716

Today, February twelfth, is the fourth anniversary of the death of my dearest childhood friend, Marie Adélaïde, the Duchess of Bourgogne, in that terrible year of 1712. In three days from now, her son, Anjou, will be six years old. Since September last year, when King Louis died, the little boy, his great-grandson, has been the King of France. Louis the Fifteenth. Never could I have imagined, that day long ago when first I saw Marie Adélaïde, Princess of Savoy, that such words as I have just written here could ever be spoken in truth, could ever flow from my quill.

Adélaïde and me – our first meeting:

It was at the college of Saint-Cyr on a chill morning in November, in 1696, just two weeks after Adélaïde had first arrived at Versailles, a girl of eleven who was going to marry the grandson of the king.

‘The new princess is coming to visit us!’

‘Will she join our classes, perhaps?’

‘Sing in the choir?’

‘Impossible !’

‘Will she be haughty and demanding?’

‘Kind or cruel?’

‘She is sure to be beautiful.’

‘Perhaps she will be really sweet and friendly?’

‘Maybe she will distribute gifts?’

‘Maybe she won’t.’

Some of the girls said she would be this, and others said she would be that. We were so excited. As it turned out, in the months to come, she did mingle with us, and we admired her in a way. Mostly for her spirit and energy. Oh, and her charm and her sense of fun. She could be the soul of dignity, and yet she could also display such playful mischief as I had seldom seen in anyone before. She was so alive. Actually, I had never seen such joyful naughtiness. Our director, Madame de Maintenon, used to bring her to Saint-Cyr, from the palace, on the designated days.

It was really important for Adélaïde to become properly educated, truly French. To put aside the Italianness of her life in Savoy. Her mother, who was the king’s niece, had ensured that her French was perfect, although if Adélaïde wanted to tease, she would adopt a faint Italian accent in her speech. She could also speak German.

She and I were the same age, but while I was in the Green Ribbon Class, she had to be lower and to join the Red, for her reading and writing had been quite neglected in Savoy where it seemed to me she and her little sister Luisa had been allowed to run more or less wild. They had a governess, but there had been no real teaching of the kind we enjoyed at Saint-Cyr. The patron of our school was the Sun King himself, so we understood ours to be the best education in the world. There were many times when Green and Red classes would combine for such pleasures as stories or sewing or dancing or play-acting. Stories were incredibly important in our program. How we all loved the them!

Adélaïde and I seemed naturally to gravitate towards each other. We became a kind of twosome. She would visit only about three times every week, as her life at court was busy and demanding. But we became sweet true friends over time. She would often come from the palace in the afternoon with Madame de Maintenon, and sometimes she even arrived in the morning to share our lessons and our meals. She was dressed not as a princess but as a Red, in sober brownish uniform and with a bright red ribbon. Red, I should say, was Adélaïde’s favourite colour. All shades from coral to burgundy. She entered into the games along the alleys in the gardens, and she joined in with the college choir in the chapel. She had a pretty singing voice. She was also a marvellous mimic, dancer and actress.

Our spiritual exercises she followed with great devotion and even rigour. ‘If you do the right thing in this world, Clo-Clo, you will one day join the angels in the next.’ She called me ‘Clo-Clo’ for at that time, before I joined the convent, my name was Clotilde.

I must say that sometimes, when she was getting up to mischief, it seemed to me she could completely abandon all hope of joining the angels.

How well I remember her first visit. On the chilly November morning, the whole college, all wearing long heavy cloaks, was assembled at the entrance to the cloister of our chapel in two long excited lines. I was breathless with the thrill of being so close to a princess. One girl even fainted and had to be taken back to the dormitory.

After the mass, Adélaïde was escorted on a tour of inspection of our workrooms, refectory, and dormitories. I wondered how she could find these places of any interest, as they were rather plain – and much later on she admitted to me, with her special laugh, that they were in truth of really no interest to her. ‘What do I care about neat rows of simple beds and a room full of empty tables, smelling of vegetable hot-pot?’ Yet at the time, she had seemed to be delighted by everything she saw. I realised before too long that she had been carefully trained in the skills of tact and secrecy by her father, the Duke of Savoy. Adélaïde was a superb actress, and her acting became in time her truth.

Françoise Charlotte, the niece of Madame de Maintenon, was in the Green class with me, and she had written a speech that we all spoke in unison in the chapel on the day of Adélaïde’s arrival. It was seasoned with delicate praise of the princess, who sat like a solemn diminutive queen in a flowing cloak of charcoal velvet, a circlet of diamonds twinkling from among her chestnut curls.

I have lived here, safe but sad, at the convent of the Sisters of Sainte-Odile for almost four years now. I came here not long after Adélaïde died. Mother Matilde has recently instructed me to repair to this tiny room in the East Tower henceforth each day between the hours of Prime and Terce to document in detail, in my own fashion, my memories of past happiness and sorrow, and to be sure to ‘tell the true story of the life of Adélaïde, Duchess of Bourgogne, since you were so close to her at Saint-Cyr. Listen with your heart, my child. Your heart knows. Listen, and write it down.’ Obedient, I did not question the sagacity of her direction, and yet in my heart’s core I seem to sense there is much I must say that Mother would wish forever concealed. Perhaps she knows such is the case, for her life has been long, and she has seen and heard things far beyond my own imagination. Terrible, terrible things, such matters as are quite beyond my ken. I imagine poison and witchcraft. Cruelty, burnings, executions, torture. And I think of the murders of Mother’s own Huguenot relatives. So many families are a mixture of Catholic and Huguenot, and this state of things causes a great deal of heartache, as well as sharp and even deadly divisions within families. Territorial wars and religious persecutions are part of the fabric of our lives.

‘Your absence from the world will give you the strength to create with your words a vision of that world in all its beauty, and with all its flaws.’ That is what she said. Her words seemed too grand for me to grasp. ‘Picture the joy and the sorrow, and write them down.’

Not only are there matters unfit for the eyes of Mother Matilde, but also there are tales of my own that I have never told. Am I now to open my heart in the written word? Mother says this work I am doing will not be read by living eyes other than my own. How strange that seems. When I die, it has to be placed upon the funeral pyre of my few belongings and destroyed by the burning coals, its tales drifting into the heavens with the smoke and flames. Even the angels will never be able to read what I have written. In which case I can feel a great freedom in the writing. I plan to include here my many faults. I imagine Mother intends and hopes this is the case.

Unlike confession to a priest, this written detail of life as I live it and life as I see it is free to climb the heights and plumb the depths – and to ramble in-between at will. It is the fashion at court to write one’s memoirs, or even to write strange, invented tales. Monsieur Perrault is the master of such concoctions, with Madame d’Aulnoy as the mistress. Such stories were a central part of our lessons and conversations at Saint-Cyr.

I am far from the court now, and I have never wished to invent stories. But I must apply myself to the composition of this memoir. Mother guides me. She provides me with parchment, ink and quills, and has placed on the wall before me a small image of our patron, Sainte-Odile. The saint is surrounded by blue larkspur, and she is holding a book on which there is a pair of eyes, for our patron was miraculously cured of blindness. We always pray that the eyes of our spirit may be opened.

‘I am afraid I will never know which tales to tell and which ones to leave out of the story, Mother,’ I said.

‘The eyes of your spirit will be opened, Sister, and your heart will know, and your hand will guide the quill.’ Then she left me here in the East Tower, her black habit swishing, and the fat wooden rosary that dangles from her belt swaying and clicking.

I stared at the empty page for a long time, asking our saint for guidance. First, I decided I would call the document my ‘Storybook’, and I am very happy with that title. My thoughts wandered, and as I considered the blindness of our saint and the horrors of losing one’s sight, I returned to childhood, and I remembered the legend of the larkspur, a flower we often use on our sore eyes.

During Lent, when we were children at Saint-Cyr, we listened to the story of the sweet young rabbit who stayed with the disciples outside the tomb, insisting that Jesus would return to life.

Why would a rabbit think of that? When the miracle happened, and Our Lord was resurrected in his body, Jesus was so pleased with the rabbit that he presented it with a sprig of larkspur in the centre of which was an imprint of the rabbit’s head. The larkspur we grow here at Sainte-Odile is a celebration of that tale. And sure enough, if you gaze into the middle of each flower, you will find the image of the rabbit with its long, long bunny ears. It never occurred to us in our innocence to wonder, then, what the risen Christ was doing with a sprig of larkspur, there outside the tomb.

When Adélaïde came to Saint-Cyr, she had never heard the story before. She knew nothing of our dear Sainte-Odile. She was delighted and danced out into the garden, expecting to find larkspurs. There were none to be seen. However, our kind, wise director, Madame de Maintenon, made sure that the following year there were beds of vivid blue larkspurs blooming in the gardens of the college and even in the gardens of the palace of Versailles. And she showed us her Book of Hours where one of the pages is all decorated with pictures of bright blue larkspurs. The picture in the middle is of Jesus feeding the people with miraculous bread and fish. Adélaïde and I had permission to collect some of the flowers from the garden at Saint-Cyr, and so we pinned sprigs of larkspur on the dresses of all the girls in our classes. How pretty they looked ! Larkspur seeds, however, are poisonous. I sometimes reflect on the way that in the prettiest of God’s creations, there often lurks a deadly seed.

Are these the stories Mother wishes me to tell? Perhaps they are. Colourful tales from my time at Saint-Cyr. But I realise she also means me to recall much more serious matters. Well, the tale of the bunny is what first came to me as I contemplated the picture on the wall. There will be larkspurs in the garden here at Easter. Larkspur and lavender. Lavender.

This brings on the very darkness I was hoping to avoid. I confess here, on this page, that thoughts of Jean-Jacques are never far from the surface of my mind. Jean-Jacques – this is the first time I have permitted myself to write his name in the four years since I came here. Yet I have thought of him every day. I have never spoken of him to a soul. Lavender – he would give me one head of lavender, tucking it into the palm of my left hand like an aromatic little furry creature. For luck and for love, he said. I cannot write about him; I must try not to think about him. I know he must be dead. Is he dead? He is dead to me. Yet I confess, to this Storybook, he is forever living in my heart. Sometimes, I wish I had the courage to forget him. I have now written his name, and with his name he begins to return to a kind of life. I may well regret this. Tomorrow or the next day.

Oh, how and why did my quill take me here? Blessed Sainte-Odile, guide my thoughts and stay my hand.

I must return to the happy days of childhood, long before Jean-Jacques came into my life. It is important for myself and for this Storybook that I go back to the time when Adélaïde first arrived at Versailles, for that was when everything changed, when the future looked so much brighter than ever before. Yet I see now how swiftly the picture was filled with shadows. Happy Sister Clare, laughing little Clotilde, run, run back to the days of light and joy.

There is a kestrel, bright chestnut with a grey-blue head, that roosts in the rocks high above the convent. Does he observe me as I sit here, trying not to start chewing the end of my quill? I stare up at him, and I smile, as he sets off from his outpost to search for prey. May he be my inspiration. May my thoughts soar to higher realms. May they hover as the kestrel hovers, still in the air above his quarry.

⬩ 4 ⬩ A CRUEL FATE

Perhaps one of the most fortunate things that ever happened to the child Adélaïde of Savoy was the fact that there, within the walls of Saint-Cyr, was the dear child Clotilde who would one day become her biographer. Fortunate for Adélaïde herself, and fortunate for all who might wish to know her as more than a young woman who played her part in the saga of the House of Bourbon and then stepped out of the pages of history into obscurity. Sister Clare’s Storybook would never have been written without the dramatic interventions of a cruel fate. A lover, a battle, a loss. Deep sorrow saw her residing in the convent where Mother Matilde in her wisdom set her the daily task of unburdening herself at her desk in the East Tower. The world will, perhaps, forever marvel at the gorgeous life of the Sun King, while all but forgotten is the princess from Savoy who captured his heart as none before or after did. May the testimony of Sister Clare forever bring Adélaïde to life. By some miracle, her pages were never consigned to the fire.

⬩ 5 ⬩ DONKEY TALES

In the winter of 1696, when Adélaïde and I were nearly eleven years old, she travelled all the way from her home in Savoy to become the bride of the Duke of Bourgogne, the grandson of the king. Adélaïde’s birthdate was on 12th December 1685, and mine was one week later. She often pretended to be my older sister. A strange fact was that we, in some measure, resembled each other in looks – to the point where it was possible for people to mistake one for the other. Like many portraits of princesses, those of Adélaïde are not entirely truthful, for she was not exactly pretty, and neither am I. With time, I grew to be considerably taller than she was. She had chestnut curls and big dark eyes. I am sure hers were more sparkling, more beautiful than mine. She had a certain flavour of Italy about her, and I think that was a key part of her charm. We imagined we could have a lot of fun with tricking people, but it was not often possible, since Adélaïde was almost always accompanied by her ladies, except when she was alone with the king and Madame de Maintenon, whom she knew as ma tante. She called the king, at his request, ‘Grand-père’. Her purpose at court was to marry the king’s grandson. At Saint-Cyr, we were occasionally able to deceive some of the little girls into believing I was Adélaïde and she was me. Now that I think of it – why was that amusing? After all this time, it feels so silly. Her ladies would even join in the fun.

In later years, I became one of those ladies who waited on Adélaïde at court, for I had the privilege of being among her official embroiderers. By the time we were seventeen, we had well and truly left behind the classrooms of Saint-Cyr, although many girls stayed until they were nineteen. I lived again with my parents. Adélaïde, in the apartments in the palace, was busy with married life and court life and the constant incredible whirl of entertainment. Personally, I never enjoyed the gaming tables, but Adélaïde grew to be very keen on them. There was a recklessness about her which alarmed me.

When I was one of her embroidering ladies at court, I became acquainted with the storytellers, such as Monsieur Perrault and the Countess d’Aulnoy. At Saint-Cyr we read and heard many of the chronicles that had so enriched the court before our time. And Adélaïde really loved them, as did I. We would retell them to each other. She liked the way I told Monsieur Perrault’s ‘Donkeyskin’.

‘Do you know who loves that story, who has loved it since he was a little boy? The king, that’s who,’ she said to me one day in the garden at Saint-Cyr.

‘Really?’

‘Really truly.’

To tell you the truth, I am chilled by this tale, but Adélaïde would laugh her tinkling laugh and say: ‘But, Clo-Clo – Clotilde, I command you to tell me the story. Tell it your way. Off you go ! Once upon a time there was a king …’

Here I will draw a little breath and consider the horrible story, for I must confess it interests me. Strangely. Perhaps it is already clear that my thoughts can often return to the legends that have inhabited my world since I was a child. Rabbits, donkeys. And princesses. Of course.

What happens in the story of the donkey? Well, although Monsieur Perrault told the old tale so magically, in his special rhyming way, I will tell it as briefly as possible, in my own quiet prose. I believe this is how Adélaïde liked it best. Even the king, she said, preferred to hear it in rather rambling sentences, with pauses and comments, the way I tell it.

‘One day you should come with me and tell the story to Grand-père,’ she said. But I never did.

The Story of Donkeyskin

Once upon a time in a far country, there was a sad king whose wife had died. He was a very rich king, for each morning his favourite donkey would open its bottom and pour forth a shower of golden coins. But he was a widower, and he was not happy. Wishing to take a new wife, wishing for a son and heir, he searched and searched throughout his kingdom, but nowhere could he discover his heart’s desire.

Then one day he glimpsed his graceful daughter as she was walking in the rose garden in the early evening, the ribbons on her bonnet fluttering and glowing in the dying sunlight. There, he said to himself, is my bride. But when he gave the girl the news of her coming marriage, she was horrified. And she was terrified.

‘Oh, Papa,’ she said, hoping to gain some time in which to discover a way to avoid her fate, ‘I hope that you may grant me first three wishes.’

‘Of course I shall, my darling,’ said the king.

So, first of all she wished for a gown as beautiful as the moon. And the next day her father presented her with a dress fashioned from silver and pearls. Then she wished for a cloak as glorious as the sun, and this too appeared as if by magic. Troubled beyond all reason and completely changing the direction of her thoughts, the princess then demanded her father should sacrifice for her, in honour of her, the life of his favourite donkey. The one that gave him his gold.

‘And bring me his skin.’ She said this in a strangely quiet voice. The pigeons listening from beneath the eaves quivered in astonishment and horror.

He will never be able to bring himself to do that, the princess said to herself. But the next day her father presented her with the skin of the miraculous donkey, and she knew she must flee the court to save her life, to save her soul. Never would she become the wife of her own father. Not ever ! So, she packed her dress and her cloak in a special bag made from the fine skin of a deer, and she disguised herself as a poor peasant, clothed in the skin of the donkey who had died. She was now known just as ‘Donkeyskin’.

Far and wide throughout the land she travelled, working in filthy kitchens and sleeping sometimes under bridges, sometimes in draughty stables. At night, in her lodgings, she would remove the skin and array herself in silver and gold, to dance a lonely little dance in the silence of the moonlight. Then she would gently pack her finery away, preparing for sleep and for the troubles of the day to come. It was such a strange and unforgiving life that she had chosen for herself.

Then one evening, just as she was wrapping the velvet cloak about her shoulders and beginning to do her dance, a foreign prince on horseback was passing by. Through the gaps in the door of the stable he glimpsed her in all her glory. He knew she was a princess, and he fell in love with her at once. He whisked her onto his snow-white horse and swiftly rode with her to his palace far away, where they were soon wed.

If you are wondering what happened to her father, well, because the donkey was dead, he no longer had the riches to pay for his wars and the life of his kingdom. No wife, no heir. No money. And after many years he died of age and sadness and poverty. Meanwhile the prince and the princess lived long and happy lives with their sons and daughters in their distant land. And the prince conducted many successful and triumphant wars which brought riches and treasures into his domain.

Adélaïde told me that Grand-père sometimes asked her to tell him the story. Tears would come to his eyes, she said, as he recalled the face of his mother and also that of his old nursemaid Pierrette. Both had told him the tale many times. It was Pierrette’s soft, singing voice he loved the most. He said he could hear her when he listened to Adélaïde.

‘I think Pierrette came,’ Adélaïde once said wistfully to me, ‘from Turin.’

As the king sighed, Adélaïde, who would be sitting as usual on his knee, would wipe his tears away with her silk handkerchief. She might pick up his hat, which lay on the cushion beside them, and, peering sideways at the king, she would slide her fingers along the great length of its pure white ostrich feather.

‘Did I get it right, Grand-père?’ she would say with a grin, and the king would smile sadly and nod.

Then he would toss back his head and laugh and say that a donkey dropping gold pieces from its bottom was just what he really needed. Then he could see some wars! ‘How could I have imagined my grandson’s bride would also be my best storyteller?’

And she would smile again and hold her head on one side and offer him her hand to kiss. She had a most beguiling smile, her lips half open. If I am truthful, I must say that her teeth were quite unappealing, being crowded into her mouth and very uneven. Some of them were going black, and she often suffered from toothache. But she had a way of smiling that somehow concealed the faults.

She was, I think, in every way, a highly intelligent girl. Trained, as I have said, by her particularly clever father.

Madame de Maintenon, who would have listened to the story with a certain distaste, would tut-tut and offer to tell some less grisly tale in which princes and princesses met in rose gardens and lived happy lives together forever. Or else she told one of the fables of La Fontaine or perhaps the history of a saint. She was very pious woman.

Once I asked Adélaïde, ‘Why do you like the terrible story about the donkey so much?’

‘I suppose maybe because Grand-père loves it. And he likes me to tell it.’

She stopped and seemed to be deciding whether she would reflect further on my question. In silence she stared down at her hands for what seemed like a long time. Then she said, in a little dreamy voice:

‘I sometimes think of the day in the coach on the bridge at Beauvoisin when I was leaving Savoy and setting out for France.’ But then she stopped again. She tossed her head, and she smiled her swift, sweet smile and went on:

‘But there’s another true-life story about a donkey that you might not know.’

‘Perhaps you had a pet donkey that sang to you every afternoon.’

‘No, not exactly. Shall I tell you? In the city of Turin there is a pretty church that was specially built —’

‘In honour of donkeys?’

‘Silly. No, it was built so they could display the grave clothes of Jesus there.’

‘How could that be? And what does the donkey have to do with it?’

‘Don’t be so impatient, Clo-Clo. I will tell you.’

The Shroud of Turin

‘Long, long, long ago – I think it was probably in the fifteenth century – Duke Louis of Savoy received the sacred grave clothes of Our Lord as a gift from a noble lady.’

‘Why would she give such a relic away? For love? And how did she come to have such a holy object?’

‘Patience, I say, patience. This is a long, long adventure story. Mama used to tell it to us. The grave clothes had been stolen years before, when the pope’s Christians went to war with the Christians of Constantinople. Christians forever against Christians. You know how it is. The pope’s armies ransacked that city where the grave clothes had been kept for many ages, killing all the women and all the children, and destroying the houses and the churches. And they managed to get the Holy Shroud in the hope of taking it to Rome or perhaps to France – I am not sure which. First they killed everybody, and then they stole the holy shroud. And then somehow the task of taking the shroud to France fell to this noble lady. I think her name was Marguerite. It was safely stored in red silk in a cedar box strapped to the back of a donkey. See, this is a donkey story !

‘Now, when the lady’s entourage reached Chambéry in Savoy, on their way to France, the donkey suddenly stopped and could not be budged. You know how donkeys are. The priest who was with her decided that because of the way the beast was behaving, the precious relic was ordained by heaven to reside in Savoy. So, it was stored in a chapel in Chambéry. But guess what – many years later the chapel caught fire, and the shroud, all smoky and yellowy, was damaged by drops of melting silver. Imagine that. The Poor Clare nuns were called in to mend it, but they were not really skilled with their needles, and their mending was rather clumsy – which was sad for the shroud.

‘After many more dangers and adventures, it came to its final destination in Turin, where my ancestor decided he could keep it safe, watch over it, and see it cared for by skilled embroiderers. When it was fixed, they had the biggest celebrations in front of the Palazzo di Madama. When it’s not being displayed, it is kept behind a grille above the high altar in the Chapel of the Holy Shroud. They built the chapel specially for the shroud, and it is part of the cathedral and the palace. It took a long time. There is a wonderful dome. It’s famous, I think, for its beauty. Light from outside comes into the chapel, down through the dome.’

She paused and looked up, remembering. Because I was rather fanciful, I thought I could see, reflected in her dark eyes, the sunlight of Turin falling through the windows of the dome.

‘I really love the chapel.’

I could hear in her voice a distinctly wistful longing to see Savoy again, to visit the chapel, to see, perhaps, the shroud once more. To see her family.

‘On special occasions they still take the shroud out of its box on the altar and stretch it out in the cathedral so the people can come and see it. When the duke and I get married, here in France, the Holy Shroud will be put on display in Turin as part of the celebrations. That’s the plan. Imagine ! Anyway, the important thing in this story is that it travelled by donkey when it first came to Savoy.’

‘Ah, now I understand. Yes, it was a long adventure for the shroud.’

‘Whenever they are getting ready to display it in the cathedral, the archbishop looks at it carefully for signs of decay. If he finds any holes, the only person permitted to mend it is the Duchess of Savoy. Mama. She takes her special golden needles and finest silky threads and does the repairs. It is one of her favourite tasks ever. She is extremely skilled. Everybody says so. She taught me how to thread a needle and how to sew. And I must tell you that she knows a prayer about thanking God for the work of the donkey in stopping in our country, at Chambéry. So, I suppose I have always liked donkey stories. Donkeys are special. After all, Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.’

‘And Mary rode a donkey to Bethlehem on Christmas Eve.’

‘Do you realise that in the Bible there are only two talking animals, and the donkey is one of them?’

‘Who is the other one?’

‘The serpent in the Garden of Eden.’

‘You sound exactly like a teacher or a preacher.’

‘Just call me “Donkey-Girl from Savoy”.’

‘I can tell you,’ I said, ‘that my aunt had a donkey, and whenever my cousin Cécile had a fever they gave her donkey’s milk. And when she had measles they took some hairs from the cross mark on the donkey’s back, and boiled them in oil of violets and honey, and gave her the mixture. It cured her.’

‘I can believe that. Mama used to give me donkey’s milk when I had toothache. So, oil of violets and honey and donkey hair for measles ! I would certainly be cured by that if I had measles.’

As I write ‘I would be cured’, I must put down my pen and stare out the window at the sky in sorrow. My soul sinks. In what seems like a few short years, after she told me about the shroud, measles would claim the life of this sweetest of storytellers.

Yes, two things overshadow my Storybook: the death of my Adélaïde and the loss of my Jean-Jacques.

But that day, as we were telling stories, Adélaïde laughed and tossed her curls and waved her lovely hands, like ears, above her head and made what was meant to be the noise of a donkey braying. To me it was more like water gurgling down a mountain stream on a summer afternoon. I have always been inclined to romanticise almost anything she did.

‘Oh, I think I will tell that story about the shroud and the donkey to Grand-père. He will love it.’

And she did. And he did.

⬩ 6 ⬩ CHILD-WITCH

Yes, fate delivered to Adélaïde the perfect childhood companion – something of a miracle in the midst of the sophistications and dangers of the court, which had but recently recovered from the revelation that poison was being widely used there to kill one’s enemies. Illicit love affairs were a normal part of court life, and with them went a culture of distrust of one’s friends. This was really no place for a child.

People saw Clotilde as the lucky one in their relationship, and yet one could argue that Adélaïde was even more fortunate. For this was a true friendship, simple and loving and enduring. There were many at court who were only too ready to find fault with the little girl from Savoy, with her Italian manners. Their malice was fed by the delight the king took in her company, by the way his gaze would follow her in fascination as she skipped and danced and whirled and sang – small angel or sprite among the worldly princes and princesses of Versailles.

‘Angel or sprite? More like child-witch, if you ask me.’

‘You can see the devil in her eyes.’

‘Will her little belly be up to the task of making princes?’

‘Time will tell, time will tell.’

So said the whispering women of the court – darkly jealous of the little foreigner who had come to take the role of mother to the king’s descendants.

⬩ 7 ⬩ I LISTEN TO HER LIFE

Here in the blessed silence of the East Tower, my thoughts turn so often to joyful times at Saint-Cyr when Adélaïde and I might sit side by side, working on our embroidery. My mother used to tell me that when you sew, you leave traces of your soul in the embroidered shapes. Did we do that? Perhaps we did. Adélaïde loved to chatter and tell stories, and, as a consequence, sometimes made terrible mistakes in her stitching, mistakes she would quickly correct. She could always laugh when this happened, pull out the stiches, rethread the needle and start again.

‘Will you suck this thread for me, please, Clo-Clo? You know how I hate doing that. And your spittle is so much better than mine.’

Although I regularly damaged my fingers with my needle, often causing drops of blood to stain the fabric, I can honestly say that I never once saw Adélaïde catch her fine skin on hers. She was clever with embroidery and also with knitting, taught these things by her beloved mother, who had learned them when a child in France, for she was the daughter of the king’s brother, the Duke of Orléans. Adélaïde once knitted a slender crimson silk neckscarf for the king. He pronounced it to be perfection and wore it several times, I believe, to concerts at Versailles, tied in a floppy bow beneath a froth of silver lace. He, who could command the finest seamstresses and weavers and knitters in the whole world, wore the little girl’s handiwork with pride and pleasure. A slash of vivid colour against the sober hues of his old age. I believe that when he was much younger and had many, many mistresses, he used to wear fantastic colours. I have seen paintings that show him in bright red and in the dazzling blue of the sky. And in the tapestries that hang on so many of the walls, he can often be seen as his magnificent young self on horseback during battles. There is one tapestry that I returned to over and over again.

‘Surely we are not going to look at the poor old white horse again !’ Adélaïde once said to me. And off we went so that I could stare in horror at the big crimson splashy wound in the side of the horse at the siege of Douai. Fat creamy smooth body punctured by a cannonball. And the rider in gold is clinging on to the poor horse’s head as he, in his beautiful golden-yellow coat, falls to his death. All the men in the picture have enormous popping eyeballs. It made me sick and dizzy, and my own popping eyes would swing back again and again to the gaping wound that bleeds in stringy brightness down the animal’s side.

I always admired so much the tapestry of the siege of Bruges in which the king is wearing the most enormous scarlet feather in his hat. And in the tapestry about Dunkirk his hat is one great billowing puff of those feathers. Yes, the whole hat is fashioned from feathers that float in the breeze like the huge crown of some strange rare red ostrich from the Menagerie.

Red feathers for victory; red blood for death.

Nowadays the king is not seen with those scarlet feathers floating on his head. His colours are dark and sober, matching the colours of his beloved Madame de Maintenon.

But I think my favourite picture of him is a small painting that hangs in the library at Saint-Cyr. Perhaps I love it because I used to see it often. The king is only fifteen years old. He is dressed in the costume he wore in The Ballet of the Night. Oh, how I wish I had seen that. The king played the part of Apollo the sun god. His whole costume is vivid gold. It is a dress, with a skirt gathered at the waist and reaching just several inches above the knee. His beautiful legs are on show in golden stockings. One foot in front of the other, and his feet are shod in golden slippers with high heels and with bunches of ribbon on the buckles. The skirt is hung with jewelled ribbons, as if radiating like the sun. More ribbons fan out from his shoulders, and his arms are covered in long sleeves, puffed at the wrists and elbows. His arms are stretched out from his sides, and his hands are delicately hovering at the level of his hips. His hair is of the same gold as his costume, and it hangs to his shoulders in flowing curls. Then from his head the rays of the sun fan out in one great burst, like a huge daisy in full bloom. The high, high feathers on top of his head stretch out and out and up and up, making him magnificently tall. I love this picture. I once copied it in a little painting which I gave to Adélaïde. She seemed to be delighted with it.

Adélaïde amazed me with her skill at the spinning wheel. The threads of wool or silk she used for her creations often originated from her own hand. Such were the things she had learned when running wild, back in Savoy.

‘Once upon a time, Clo-Clo,’ Adélaïde begins in her sweet voice and pretty French, with just a distant hint of Italian, and she spins a tale as she spins a thread.

Now, there was at court a group of people, notably jealous women, who liked to seize upon any hint of un-Frenchness in Adélaïde. This was in order to show how unsuitable she was for the position of bride to the Duke of Bourgogne. These women believed that their daughters should have been chosen as the bride. Some of the most lively conversations at court, I must say, are driven by the serpent tongues of malice. Dark whispers scurry around the apartments like joyful mice in a barn full of grain. Adélaïde was, as I said, by her mother’s blood, the granddaughter of the king’s brother, the Duke of Orléans, so she was not un-French by birth. However, the word ‘Italian’ when used in the same breath as the name of her grandfather, the king’s brother, was a reference to the fact that the duke preferred men partners to ladies in the bedroom. Men with men were practising ‘the Italian vice’. So, to call Adélaïde ‘Italian’ was to be exceptionally nasty and spiteful. The gossips delighted in drawing attention to her grandfather’s love of the men. Much of her spirit and charm were not Italian at all, for she had surely inherited them from her grandmother, the duke’s first wife, Henrietta of England, the dear Minette, mother of Adélaïde’s mother, Anne Marie. I imagine the kinder people at court could see in Adélaïde the powerful imprint of her English ancestor. I know that Henrietta believed her own death was the result of drinking a cup of chicory, poisoned by the same spite that drives the tongues of the gossips. And let it not be forgotten that Minette was in fact the first romantic love of the king himself, even though she was his sister-in-law. People do tend to forget that.

I marvel at the family closeness of so many noble romances. And yes, I am well educated in the hard and somewhat complicated truths of court gossip. Not for nothing did I sit with my mother as a small child, silently taking in the stories of the women as they sewed. Much wisdom is exchanged as the needles fly and as the silky stitches compose the images on the cushions and hanging cloths. Did the king see the ghost of the grandmother Minette dancing in the very person of the little girl from Savoy? I think perhaps he did. Perhaps she brought back to him sweet memories of his long-lost times with his darling Minette.

With such dark matters swirling always in the background of life at court, Adélaïde and I liked to explore the brighter pathways of life. These were delightful tales of her childhood long ago. Oh, so long ago! When she was running wild in Savoy.

‘Once upon a time,’ she says, ‘my sister and I lived in a lovely palace where the gardens were full of enchantments.’

‘More enchantments than in the gardens of Versailles?’

She knows I am only teasing – I realise she loves the lost palace of the past more than anywhere in the world. With a dreamy look in her shining dark eyes, sometimes she falters as she almost sheds a tear. ‘Oh – so many more. Just maybe an hour or so in the coach – an hour from the heart of Turin – you will find the magic kingdom of La Vigna di Madama. The house of my beloved grandmama. My mother lived there, you know, far away from my father, who was always so busy with wars – and …’ She pauses as if wondering whether to continue – but she goes on after the little break. ‘… and his exciting life with his ladylove, Mama’s lady-inwaiting. Her name is Jeanne Baptiste, Duchess of Verrua, and we speak of her as La Verrua. Now – oof! – let us forget about her. Mama and Luisa and I were happy together at La Vigna, as happy as the butterflies in the lavender. Flit, flit – oh, you can not imagine the delights.’

‘Then tell me !’

‘Should I? Do you deserve to know? Have you been good enough? As good as a golden goblet?’

‘Better than a golden goblet.’

‘Truth?’ And she holds out her palm for me to give her some trifle or trinket as a token of my honesty.

Over time I gave Adélaïde many a rose or tulip – or ivory hairpin – during these exchanges. One time I gave her a dead blue butterfly studded with spots of silver. I had found it lying among the salvia, and I saved it in a wooden box until I needed it. Adélaïde really loved that butterfly, and she kept it in her missal, pressed flat forever. Where is it now? She would solemnly examine each object, sniff it, hold it up to the light, pretend to reject it, and then, laughing and dancing, she would accept the token and tell me the stories of her life at La Vigna. It was at La Vigna that she learned to bake her beloved cheesecake – full of sugar and spices and decorated with little strawberries – which she once made and shared with us at Saint-Cyr.

I will pretend now to be Adélaïde as I fill this page with words. I hear her voice. These tales are the stories she told me about her life. Long ago, at court, the Countess d’Aulnoy heard one of my own stories and suggested I write a play. How I used to love listening to the countess’s ‘Green Serpent’. The part about spinning cobwebs into hair and then making fishnets from the hair. I never wrote a play. But I will now borrow Adélaïde’s voice, and I will tell more of her tale.

Adélaïde:

My grandmother lived at La Vigna, and after a little while, so did Mama and my sister and I. And my beloved Spanish mare, Paloma. I can tell you, La Vigna looks like a pretty French palace. But behind it – well, life there was really nothing at all like life here in France. We were as free as little deer. You have never seen such a divine steep green hillside as the slope behind the palace. You should see the terraces ! You can run from one to the other, in and out of shady groves of lovely whispering trees. And there are special belvederes so you can see the scenery way off into the distance. There are darling little temples – I know you would love the statue of Cupid. So many places to play ! We used to dance through the orchards of fruit trees – and the vineyards as well.

One day I am going to visit La Vigna again and remember how it was when Mama and my sister Luisa and I could wander there together. Perhaps I will take you there to see it all for yourself. It seems strange to me that here I am, a princess living in France, while my little sister Luisa is already a queen in Madrid. Think of that. Queen of Spain. Ouf! There are days when I don’t understand how that happened to us. Queen of Spain. Imagine that ! Little Luisa. And I will be Queen of France. Imagine that ! And Mama is all alone at La Vigna. Except, occasionally, my Grandmama leaves her palace in Turin and pays Mama a visit. Luisa and I used to visit our grandmother in Turin once a week. Now we all just write letters to each other – I write to Grandmama and she writes to me. So do Mama and I. In her letters Mama tells me she is happy with the rather simple life at La Vigna. She spends part of each day in prayer, always remembering me and Luisa. I do wonder – in thoughts I would never express to anyone but you, Clo-Clo – does my mother pray that La Verrua will disappear? Or perhaps – and this is a rather strange idea – perhaps Mama is rather pleased, in many ways, with the life she leads, far from the theatres and ballrooms of Turin. Perhaps she doesn’t really mind that La Verrua is my father’s official mistress. After all, it is usual for a great prince to have a wife for the purpose of getting heirs and a ladylove for sharing his bed.

Listen to this – my sister and I used to churn the butter with the dairymaids. Have you ever milked a cow? Of course you haven’t. We had such pretty little goats to milk as well. I used to make the most delicious cheese. Our goat cheese was grandmother’s favourite. And don’t forget my famous cheesecake. Oh, I am quite the pastrycook ! We sang songs to the cows – they give more milk if you sing. You will know one of our songs – it is French – ‘Sur le Pont d’Avignon’. And you know how I love horses, how I adore them – well, we groomed our own horses at La Vigna. Imagine ! My darling favourite mare, Paloma, was a gift from my godfather, Emmanuel. That dear horse understood everything I said to her. She truly did. You can remember how I wept when Mama told me in her letter that she had died. Somehow, I had imagined that although I was no longer there at La Vigna, Paloma would be there for eternity.

You might imagine Luisa and I were forever running about like wild creatures at La Vigna, but you would not have the full story. Poor Madame Dunnoyer tried to teach us to read and write, but as you know, she had little success. Oof! I am not very clever with the quill. Mama, however, was a wonderful teacher, and she instructed us in matters of religion and manners. And she told us the stories of our family. You know that my mother grew up here at the French court. She always made sure we spoke proper French. And she would say: ‘Love God, and always in public show the complete composure and dignity of a royal person.’ She taught us that Grand-père is God’s representative on this earth. Mama and even Grandmama are completely devoted to the king. I was an excellent student of all that. Well, for one thing, the king is Mama’s uncle. And he is so kind and generous and funny too. I had not expected him to be such a wonderful dancer ! I love his beautiful shoes. Do you love his shoes, Clo-Clo? And his fine scarlet stockings. I wish he would wear them more often. Sometimes I feel sad that he is all dressed in mousey grey and brown. Think of the golden coat he is wearing in your little painting ! But that was when he was a boy.

I remember being permitted to sit with Mama when she repaired the holy shroud with her lovely golden needles. Oh, but recently I had a wicked ugly thought. Truly dark. Shall I tell you? I recalled how we would contemplate the shroud for about an hour, praying, and staring at the terrible marks of the scourge on the saviour’s back and the clear rivulets of blood about his sacred head. All at once, there came into my mind the description of the bleeding donkey skin hanging on the back of the stable door. It was as if the two pictures merged into one. I became dizzy, and I was filled with deep sorrow. I confessed this the next morning, and my confessor explained that perhaps I had had a vision, a gift from heaven telling me that the saviour was humble and that the donkey was God’s holy creation. I had been offered divine wisdom, and I should rejoice. I should take the vision into my soul, and I should be always modest and humble. So, I did rejoice, but the knowledge of what I had seen was so horrible it has stayed with me. The darkness is often not very far from the light.

To comfort myself in the face of such thoughts, I fly in my heart back to my life at La Vigna and then to the court at my grandmother’s other house, the Palazzo di Madama in Turin. Oh, that was a world away from the court we have here at Versailles. That was where I learned to play blind man’s buff, which is as you know just about my favourite thing. The charming officers from the army used to grab us by the ankles, me and Luisa, and sledge us across the parquet floor, and we would squeal like little pigs. Imagine ! How shocking. Grandmama would only laugh and encourage us all to keep playing. Yes, in my heart, I sometimes recall myself shaking with laughter as I am dragged across the floor with my hair flying out behind me. Like seaweed.

⬩ 8 ⬩ THE TAPESTRY THAT HANGS FROM THE STARS

One thing is linked to another and another. Events in the life of one person today trace their origins back through time and place in an intricate web, a vast lace cloth woven by fate, a tapestry that hangs from the stars. One piece of the pattern shifts to become entwined with another, and the picture changes slightly, then the thread moves off in another direction. The range of colours is beyond human imagination.

Because of its geographical position, the small state of Savoy is known as the Gatekeeper state, with the duke himself being the Gatekeeper. Savoy is a kind of passage. In the east it holds the gate that leads to Italy, and in the west it holds the gate to Switzerland and France. Naturally, the powers on the other sides of the gates wish to take control of the passage itself. The Gatekeeper dukes have, for centuries, learned to be particularly sly and crafty. Adélaïde’s father, Victor Amadeus of Savoy, is a sharp and highly intelligent ruler, and throughout his life he plays now on one side, now on another. Sometimes he is allied with France, sometimes with its various rivals for power in the region. It is a dangerous game. How, one wonders, does Victor Amadeus sleep at night? Well, he does have his ladylove to comfort him.

One month before the birth of Adélaïde in 1685, her father is making plans to visit Venice for the Carnival. The King of France does not believe the French Ambassador d’Estrades when the man assures him that this is nothing but a pleasant visit to a charming city.

‘Oh, in winter?’ the king asks.

Is the wily Duke of Savoy secretly negotiating with the French king’s cousin and rival, Emperor Leopold of Germany? Of course he is. This fact is perfectly obvious to the king, who instructs his ambassador to deliver some ‘important information’ to Victor Amadeus.

‘Give him this message – say that unless he cancels his visit to Venice, we will send French troops to invade his little country and destroy it.’

‘Indeed, Your Majesty. Should I quote a particular quantity of troops?’

‘I think eight thousand – yes – the idea of eight thousand troops marching into Savoy will surely stop his coaches from rumbling off into Venice to arrange an allegiance with the emperor.’

It certainly seems to be a highly significant and sobering number of armed men. It will convince the duke of the seriousness of the king’s purpose.

‘The ridiculous little duke is married to my niece, Anne Marie, and I know he will listen. Oh yes, he will take heed. I mean what I say. He knows that. Convey the message. Eight thousand.’

Victor Amadeus does not go to Venice.

In December that same year, Marie Adélaïde is born during a time of relative peace in the region – although such peace exists while the mayhem of war rumbles forever beneath the surface, in the distance yet never far away.

Back in November 1684, the French king, the Sun King, the very Gift of God, has just seen his glorious Hall of Mirrors completed. Incredible ! Sensational ! People have no words to express their awe at the sight of this magical meeting place of all the arts.

The Hall of Mirrors measures half a mile. In the distance, at the farthest end, the king is seated, reclined, as he was for a time most days, like a god of the ancient world on his throne. As for the room itself – the light of day, as it enters through seventeen vast and graceful windows, falls on the mirrors. How many mirrors? Three hundred and seventy-five. They have been made in France, where such manufacture can now rival the workshops of Venice. Oh, the dazzle, the dizzying flash and splash of images as they flicker and multiply. The gallery is filled with the swirling figures – the ladies in shimmering silks, frothing with all the colours of a rose garden, the gentlemen in the finest velvet coats gleaming like the wings of the birds from distant tropical lands. Diamonds shimmer, wink, glitter and sparkle as the crowd shifts and twirls, and the melodies of the violins and harps rise and fall. And up, up on the heaven of the ceiling is the story in pictures of the king’s successes in battles and his treaties for peace. In the centre is an image of the king ruling his world. Gods and heroes of Greece and Rome abound. The god of Mars appears in his chariot, which is pulled by magnificent wolves. Three thousand candles burn here at night. Flames flicker among the crystals of the huge hanging chandeliers. The glimmers from the clustered golden candlesticks play with the light and shade. By day the mirrors multiply reflections of not only the interior of the gallery but also of the vast gardens seen beyond the windows. With just one pair of eyes, a visitor is dizzy with so much delight, perhaps drowning in a bewilderment of beauty. Then there are the golden statues, the silver tables and chairs, the paintings on every piece of wall – thirty of the paintings show the military triumphs of the king. And throughout the whole dazzling gallery there are gleaming silver tubs containing the king’s favourite plants, the orange trees.

Outside the Hall of Mirrors is reality. For elsewhere, far away in Savoy, there is a wedding. It is now November 1684, a year before the birth of Adélaïde. The Royal Castle of Racconigi lies twenty-five miles south of Turin. This is a charming pleasure palace where the gardens are a distant imitation echo of those at far-off Versailles. Prince Emmanuel Philibert lives here. He will one day be Adélaïde’s beloved godfather, giver of the silver rattle. Today he is marrying Caterina d’Este of the ducal family from the Italian town of Modena. This all seems pleasant and harmless enough, but nothing is simple in this part of the world where France is determined to rule the gatekeeping land of Savoy.

Emmanuel Philibert, the prince-bridegroom, is Victor Amadeus’s uncle. He is also a distant cousin of the French king, and long ago he served for a time in the French cavalry. He is now lieutenant general in the army of Savoy. He is a particularly clever human being, and although he was born deaf and mute, he has cultivated superb skills of communication, as well as great military prowess. This bridegroom, who is fifty-six years old, a seasoned warrior, will later bend over the tiny Adélaïde and tenderly place the silver rattle beside her. Being deaf, he doesn’t hear the tintintinkle of those tiny silver bells.

While the prince is a Savoyard, his bride is Italian. France cannot possibly allow these marital bonds to be made with the enemy, Italy. The King of France would have the prince, who is at this time heir to the strategic duchy of Savoy, marry one of his own illegitimate daughters, such girls being useful in the complex game of war and diplomacy. But, oh, the power of love to intervene, and to create knots and tangles in this great fabric of history. The prince marries the lady of his own choice. The King of France has forbidden the marriage. The Duke of Savoy, father-to-be of Adélaïde, in allowing it, has disobeyed the king.

And the king will not forget. He shakes his head with its luxuriant dark wig of long curling hair and makes an order to Victor Amadeus. ‘You must banish the couple from Turin forthwith, and you will arrange with the pope for an annulment of this unfortunate marriage.’ Such is the message Ambassador d’Estrades takes all the way from the King of France to the Duke of Savoy.

After the disobedience regarding the marriage, first of all, once again the duke does not totally obey the king. One half of the decree is carried out, while the other half is not. In a cavalcade of coaches, the prince and his bride do travel into exile. But, thinking the matter over, and before applying for a papal annulment of the marriage, Victor Amadeus summons the Archbishop of Turin and his council to examine the legality of the union.

‘We must put the laws of the Church above the wishes of France. That is clear. The marriage itself is perfectly legal.’ So says Victor Amadeus, who is now skating on thin ice. Very thin ice indeed.

‘The marriage is legal,’ comes the response from the archbishop. Thud !

The duke does not apply to the pope for the annulment. ‘Yes,’ he slyly says to the ambassador, and he produces an oily lie. ‘We are preparing the application to the pope. You will understand, as the king will understand, such matters take some time.’

All the time in the world. The weasel Victor Amadeus has no intention of applying for the annulment.

And it will also take a little more time for the sword of retribution to fall, but fall it will, and there will be consequences. Terrible, unimaginable consequences.

All this just one year before Adélaïde is even born. It is hard to imagine how she is going to fit into the tapestry of the story of France and Savoy. There will be conflicts, wars – kings grasping for power of all kinds over the lands and minds and hearts of others.

⬩ 9 ⬩ THE WARS

Here in the convent of Sainte-Odile, I am always aware that Mother Matilde mourns each day for the horrendous deaths of her Protestant relatives at the hands of the Catholic forces of the king. I observe her lighting candles in the chapel, and I imagine she is praying for their souls, one by one, day after day, year after year. Into the mysterious peace that breathes all night and all day in our little chapel, where Our Lady of Loreto, black as night, watches with her mystical blessing, come to me thoughts of anger and blood and cruelty and hatred and lies and diseases, and the constant clash and conflict of the flames and swords and machineries of war. Saint Louis himself died long ago from dysentery during the eighth holy war against the Infidel in North Africa. Does war ever bring peace? Is there ever truly a winner?

War brought me Adélaïde; but war took Jean-Jacques away.

As we pray for the dead and pray for peace in the chapel, among the lights and smoke of the candles, among the honeyed notes of the lyre and the spinet and the flute, as the chants of the sisters hover in the air, the fires of hell burn in our minds. I have sometimes even imagined the pit of the inferno being reflected in the mirrors of the palace of Versailles, so that my head would seem to burst. And I weep. Understanding escapes me. I think of how all the glittering solid silver chairs and tables from the Hall of Mirrors were taken away and melted down to pay for the king’s wars. The same thing happened to the silver dishes and furniture from the castles of the nobles. This precious metal was needed to finance what were sometimes called ‘the wars of religion’. How is it even possible to make people believe in a religious faith by threatening their lives and stealing their lands? Surely there is a deep flaw, a foul dishonesty at work – one king wants the lands of a neighbour-king, and so he claims that God has commanded him to punish the neighbour for having the wrong ideas about God.

I realise I am not particularly learned in matters of theology, but it all troubles me even more when I try to contemplate the notion of Protestant rulers persecuting the Catholics in their lands. Across in England, the kings are Protestant, and so their religious massacres are the opposite of ours. However, I must believe that their wars are wrong and ours are right. The English king and queen, James and Mary, must live in exile at Versailles because they are Catholic, and England must have a Protestant king. Our king recognises James and Mary as English monarchs. How is all this possible?

It is like a crazy puzzle, or a tapestry sewn by lunatics so that it makes no sense as a picture.

No, no, my mind and heart do not travel well with the tales of the realities of war. In my imagination, as the silver melts so will the crumpled bodies of the warriors on the battlefields. And it seems to me that it is all for simple reasons of greed for more land and more power. The love of God? How can the love of God play a part in this hellish quagmire? Do my thoughts here play with heresy, with treason? Many people approve of the battles against the Huguenots – they see the king as Hercules himself, taking a flaming torch to the many throats of the many-headed monster, the hydra, the Protestant faith.

One idea chases another in my head, and I despair.

Why so dark, your imagination, Sister Clare, why so very dark?

There is something most striking about the image of the melting silver armchairs, where princes and princesses once sat in their velvet coats and golden gowns, toying with their diamond bracelets and stroking the ears of their hounds. The chairs melt down to make the currency to buy the weapons of war. In my silent imagination, here in the East Tower, I see the bodies of the princesses melting, melting, and then I see the bodies of the princes strewn across the battlefields, blobs of bone and blood and slush, covered with busy flies and maggots as the sounds of battle fade into the distance. And rats leap and rattle around in the silence that comes with the aftermath of war. There is no silver.

The dead and vacant eyes of my own Jean-Jacques stare up at the wide and empty heavens.

I dare not ask my confessor to explain why my thoughts are so ghastly and grim; I dare not trouble Mother Matilde with my bewilderment. I am silent. I feel like a stupid child in the face of the perfection and sophistication of the court and its expensive, necessary wars. Does it matter that sometimes they are wars fought for lands and territories and trade routes, and sometimes they are fought for the minds and hearts of religious people? And where is the line drawn between the types of wars? The intertwining purposes of these great conflicts are like a tangle of savage neverending madness. I light a little candle. I pray for wisdom. I pray for simplicity. I pray for peace.

⬩ 10 ⬩ THE EDICT OF NANTES AND THE EDICT OF FONTAINEBLEAU

1589 and 1685

The crimson thread of love tied Emmanuel and Caterina together at the Castle of Racconigi. This event caused all kinds of trouble from Savoy to Rome to Versailles. Catholics and Protestants went to war. The belief in God is one of the most powerful and persistent and pervasive strands of all. Back, far back, long, long ago in the twelfth century, a Frenchman named Peter Waldo is cast out of the Catholic Church. Some stories have deep and distant origins. The shadows of politics, religion and war are cast over the life of Adélaïde, Princess of Savoy, and also over the life of Sister Clare in the convent of Sainte-Odile.

Peter Waldo’s crime is the heresy of urging people to interpret the Bible for themselves, instead of listening to the priests. Since there are no copies of the Bible for the people to read, and in any case the people, by and large, are unable to read, Peter Waldo sends out his followers, known as Poor Men, to do public readings from the sacred text. The Poor Men soon come to be known as Waldenses. So from way back then, the tapestry of history arrives at the time in 1589 when the Catholic grandfather of Louis the Fourteenth grants freedom of worship to French Protestants. And some of these Protestants are Poor Men. The Sun King’s grandfather signs the famous Edict of Nantes.

This agreement is intended to end the religious wars raging between Catholic and Protestant that have been tearing the heart of France apart for many years. By ending the wars, the edict will unify the country under the monarch – and will, it is hoped, thereby enhance the power of the monarch. In the minds of the king and his advisers, it is to be but a temporary arrangement and can be revoked at any time. Revoked at any time. Right now, there may be ‘freedom of religion’; tomorrow, however, there may be once again persecution of Protestants, as well as wars to left and right across Europe and beyond.

In 1685 the Waldenses are living peacefully in a green valley in Savoy, in a part of the realm of Victor Amadeus, Gatekeeper extraordinaire. Their dress and their language are simple and ‘pure’. They say: ‘Kindness and quiet, my friends. May we till the soil in peace and good will. Let us pray for a good harvest.’ They are worshipping God in their own way. They appear to have forgotten to keep watch on old enemies. Many of them are able to read the Bible for themselves, as there are printed Bibles all across Europe. Cheerful, peaceful farmers reading the holy text, living their lives and hoping for the joys of eternity in heaven. But French Catholics at the king’s court see them as the king sees them – they are enemies to be destroyed, incidentally inhabiting territory that would be most useful to France.

Then in 1685, November eighteenth, a year after the wedding of Emmanuel and Caterina, a few weeks before Emmanuel, having returned from exile, will be present at the baptism of Adélaïde, the King of France decides to act. On this November day, Louis XIV signs a paper cancelling the Edict of Nantes. Revoked ! After almost a century of tolerance of Protestants, France now sets about their persecution. The significant document of revocation is known as the Edict of Fontainebleau. The music of that name ‘Fontainebleau’ is more often associated, in the history of France, with the vast and luxurious palace thirty-four miles from Paris, where the king who signed the paper cancelling the Edict of Nantes went hunting every year at the end of summer. The Edict of Fontainebleau states that the heresy of Protestantism is ‘high treason against God and mankind’. Such a crime is punishable by ‘torture, loss of property, public humiliation and death’.

Catastrophe for Protestants, known as Huguenots, preachers of poverty and Bible-reading, across France. ‘Join the Catholic Church, go into exile – or expect to be killed.’ So says the Fontainebleau paper. Killed? Yes, there will be massacres.

French Protestants have fled their own country, and some of them have settled among the Waldenses of Savoy. They have mingled with the people there, receiving welcome and kindness. Will the gate be fastened to enclose these French exiles in the valley, free from harm? Free from the rage and clutches of Louis of France? Will the Gatekeeper Victor Amadeus come to their aid? What power does he have, in the face of the might of the King of France?

Once again, in this fatal November, the French ambassador to Savoy, clip-clopping in his coach along the dusty roads, must deliver a message to Victor Amadeus. ‘The king orders you to destroy the whole colony of heretics in the valley.’

The duke can scarcely believe his ears. Destroy the colony? His own people as well as the recent refugees from France? Behind his blue eyes there is a jolt of terror. He takes a deep breath as he concocts the lie. ‘We are preparing our troops to carry out the king’s order – it takes time,’ the double-tongued duke says to the Ambassador d’Estrades.

And for three whole months he repeats versions of this fabrication, until the Sun King, losing patience with Huguenots and also with Victor Amadeus, and reaching boiling point, writes to d’Estrades: ‘He can judge for himself that I shall not permit matters to remain as they are, and I shall probably suffer some annoyance from the insolence of these heretics. It is just as likely as not that the Duke Victor Amadeus will find an alteration in my sentiments towards him, which hitherto have been most friendly. I am confident that he will seriously reflect over what I have said.’

It is an Ultimatum.

In such an atmosphere of threat, baby Adélaïde is safely baptised in springtime beneath the great dome of San Lorenzo. Life goes on. It is remarkable that Victor Amadeus can deal with the birth and baptism of his first child at the same time as he must be deeply and personally involved in bloody war. Such are the lives of princes. The light shines down through the arched marble ceiling of the chapel on the happy scene as Adélaïde is welcomed into the Catholic Church. A deep and rumbling darkness gathers in far-off Versailles.

Four months after Adélaïde’s baptism, on a sparkling April day in 1686, when the bees are busy in the cherry blossom, and the low growl of the wood pigeons is heard in the forest, Victor Amadeus finally bows to the rule of the King of France. Reluctantly he heads an army of troops marching out of Turin towards the valley of the Waldenses. These are French troops, sent by the king but led by the Duke of Savoy, under the banner of France with its golden crown and three fine fleurs-de-lis. The duke does not carry the flag of Savoy but a banner bearing an image of the Shroud of Turin. Such a mixture of symbols flutter above the troops. To the gatekeeper, Louis issues the order: ‘Take my men, Duke, to the valley of the Waldenses and lay waste to the land. Depopulate your valley.’

Depopulate your valley.

It can be rather strange, sometimes, to place this all-powerful king alongside the charming, loving, laughing old grand-père who will later dance with the little Princess Adélaïde from Savoy in the flowering groves of his palace gardens, who will play blindman’s buff with her in his apartments, who will sit her on his knee and whisper secrets to her.

Depopulate your valley.

Eight thousand armed men march behind Victor Amadeus, nicely echoing the king’s previous threat of invading Savoy, back when the duke was planning the visit to Venice with his ladylove. Louis has now sent his army to Savoy. They are on a holy mission; they are crusaders descending on the four thousand Poor Men in the valley, and on their recent visitors who are refugees from France.

Three thousand candles glimmer in the Hall of Mirrors.

The great tapestry that hangs from the stars is full of numbers.

Depopulate the valley. Track down the men and women who are fleeing in surprise and terror. Run your swords through the hearts of the children. Hang the heads of the children round the necks of their fathers. Set fire to the churches. Rape the women. Waldenses and their exile friends must fall before the mighty army. If they will not convert, bayonet them and leave them in the fields and woodlands. The farmers have formed an army, but for one thing their numbers are small. The only weapons they have against the flashing swords and braying bayonets and mutilating muskets are rough metal hooked beidanas and a few rusty firearms. Sticks and shovels. They scurry before the armed men on horseback, they fall and are trampled into the mud. The soft green fields ring with the shouts of the soldiers, the crack of bones, the clash of metal on metal, metal on wood, the screaming of horses, the moaning and crying of fractured and dying men. Broken bodies lie bleeding – scattered and ripped and crumpled across the landscape, gnawed by rats, some splattered with the brains of neighbours, some sleeping white and pure like angels at peace in paradise.

Light rain falling.

A terrible silence descends. As the light fades.

Let the people flee in terror to distant countries if they will. Holland, England, Germany. A thousand children are torn from their families, orphaned, and transported to Catholic homes to be raised in the One True Faith by French strangers. Seven hundred people are imprisoned in the fortress castle of Verrua, just eighteen miles to the north-east of Turin itself. Most of them are slaughtered. Some die from disease. Forty-two of the pitiful surviving prisoners are given permission to leave the valley and find some sort of new life in Switzerland. The number of Poor Men and their friends now to be counted has dwindled to a handful before the might of the French army, led by the Savoyard Duke of Turin, father of the girl who will one day marry the grandson of the bloodthirsty King of France.

Two violent years pass, during which time Adélaïde’s little sister Marie Luisa is born. At the palace of Turin, there is still an empty space where there should be a son and heir.

In his heart of heart, Victor Amadeus is dark with poisonous fury at the way the French king has used him against his own people.

‘One day, I will be avenged !’

His wife’s hateful uncle Louis in Versailles – with its leaping fountains and its gleaming mirrors and its glorious music and charming tellers of tales – is a raging monster with bloody tentacles stretching across Europe.

‘I will be avenged.’

Victor Amadeus has never set eyes on the French king. But he has heard him described by others who hate and fear him, as well as those who love him and serve him. Ambassadors have brought handsome miniature portraits of the great king to Turin. The duke stares at these portraits and is repulsed by what he sees. Travellers have described to him the reality of the king’s appearance, which is now very far from what appears in paintings. The king is fiftyeight years old, his body no longer the glorious vision of the portraits. The haughty, handsome Sun King – with his wig that flows from way up above his forehead, and with the scarlet high heels of his jewelled shoes – transforms, in the heated brain of the duke, into something like Typhon, the father of all monsters with his hundred dragon heads. Victor Amadeus looks at his wife, Anne Marie, and again all he can see, hovering before him, is the hideous face of her uncle, Louis of France, grinning coldly at him in triumph with his grotesque, almost toothless mouth, his great fancy wig concealing his bald skull, which is seething with evil plans. Yes, his smooth and dancing legs, his pointed feet, his magical satin slippers encrusted with jewels and raised up on wicked shining scarlet heels – these things have disappeared from the real world in which the sun is, ever so slowly, beginning to set.

Anne Marie produces the baby, Marie Luisa, another virtually useless female offspring. Well, possibly useful in a marriage bargain. Again, there are no fireworks to celebrate the birth. Victor Amadeus is savage with dismay, raging at his wife, smashing furniture and tearing down a whole wall of French tapestry in his passionate hatred of fate, of girl babies and of the King of France. As the careful pictures, stitch by stitch, of Greek gods and goddesses slide and crumple to the floor, a cloud of dust rises up and hangs in the air. The bare stone walls are exposed in all their blank patterns of pale squares. Careful block after block of stone. Another daughter !

‘Where, in heaven or hell, is my son?’

⬩ 11 ⬩ THE GREEN PARROT AT THE OPERA, TURIN

1689

At the court of Versailles and in the salons of nearby Paris, there were many noble ladies who conducted thrilling and intriguing salons. One of these ladies was Jeanne Baptiste, widely known as La Verrua. She came to the court from Savoy, and she was wonderfully wealthy extraordinarily cultured, and related to French nobility and intelligentsia. Although her father was twenty years older than her mother, he was her mother’s nephew. La Verrua was most beautiful. When she died in 1736, she left behind no fewer than 18,000 books and a dazzling collection of 8000 precious stones. And many more things, such as enchanting paintings and elaborate furniture. To the hundreds of exotic birds in her vast aviary, she left a small fortune in gold coin intended to provide for their wellbeing – a thoughtful and imaginative countess who dearly loved her quetzals and hoopoes and kingfishers and honeyeaters and Chinese pheasants. She left a strong silken thread of memory that leads back to a moment in the Royal Palace of Turin. And she plays her part in the developing story of the marriage between Adélaïde and the Duke of Bourgogne, grandson of the King of France.

It is January 1689. Adélaïde is three years old, and her sister Luisa is just four months. The winter is severe. La Verrua and Victor Amadeus love to ride together in a sledge through the falling snow. One chilly evening, in the theatre at the palace, clad in shimmering apple green satin and silver lace, she sits beside him. He is sometimes described as being ‘cold, capricious, secretive’. He is about as trustworthy as the devil himself. So, where is his wife? The sad duchess, Anne Marie, is seated off in the distance somewhere. They are all attending a performance of the opera Alceste.

Paying little attention to the music and drama on the stage, the duke bows his head towards the lady’s face as he listens to some tale she tells. He laughs quietly; she smiles. ‘Close your eyes and hold out your sweet hand,’ he whispers. Into the hand he places a small object. With his own hand, he curls her fingers over it. ‘Now open your eyes.’

To her delight she discovers, in the soft pale palm of her hand, an exquisite gold brooch in the shape of a brilliant little parrot, studded with precious gems. It is almost more like a toy than a piece of jewellery. She blushes with pleasure as he pins it, flashing with diminutive diamonds and emeralds – two tiny rubies for eyes – to the froth of silver lace at her bosom. With his fingers, he lightly brushes the lady’s left breast, feeling the nipple.

‘The strawberries are ripe.’

‘Ready to eat at suppertime.’

‘At suppertime.’

Discretion is not followed here. The scene is closely observed by the husband and uncle of La Verrua, both of whom appear to find nothing amiss. Perhaps they approve. Their Jeanne Baptiste has found favour with the duke. This can only bring them good fortune. It is also observed by the French ambassador. He will report the details to the King of France, who always follows the movements of Victor Amadeus from afar with keen interest, both personal and political. Since he cares very much for the wellbeing and happiness of his niece, wife of Victor Amadeus, he will not be pleased to hear about this little scene, the sight of which is as good as a shout ringing across Savoy and into every court and marketplace in Europe. When the glittering parrot is pinned onto the lady like a badge of her new position in life, the whole world knows that La Verrua and the duke are in love. Tongues wag, fans flutter, heads nod – and life goes on.

Amor vincit omnia. It can cause a great deal of grief in the process.

When a man is in love, he doesn’t necessarily think very well, as his heart can overtake his reason. So it is, at this time, with Victor Amadeus. Has he forgotten that his unhappy wife is the beloved niece of the dangerous French king? Does he not recall the fact that, to a degree, the survival of his own territories depends on the temper of the French king? That the French king desires to occupy Savoy? Anne Marie must now endure, by the duke’s order, the presence of La Verrua as her personal lady-in-waiting. Yes, her personal lady-in-waiting is her husband’s mistress. Such a state of affairs is not uncommon. When this glamorous woman is not with Anne Marie, she is alone with Anne Marie’s husband. Does the duke not know that the French king rules the world? That he, Duke of Savoy, is but a grasshopper of a gatekeeper ruling a little duchy? That the king is the lion in the old fable, and the duke is only the gnat? The gnat might bite the lion but will then be eaten up, perhaps by a spider. Has Victor Amadeus forgotten the scope and reach of France? Has he overlooked the matter of the bloody misery of the massacres he was recently forced to lead against not only the French Protestant refugees but also his own people in the valley of the Waldenses?

Yes, he has forgotten all that. The fine pin of the green parrot pierces the silver lace – and life goes on.

For eleven long years, the love affair between the duke and La Verrua continues. She and the duke have a daughter and a son. She is also the mother, with her husband, of four other children. She survives both poison and smallpox. But eventually Victor Amadeus tires of her. She decides to leave Savoy, where she is now strictly and even cruelly confined by the duke. She decides at last to escape, to spread her lovely wings in a wider, grander world, so that in 1700, she whisks herself away.

The end of her affair with the duke coincides with the birth of a son to Anne Marie and Victor Amadeus. At long last ! The duke’s real attention is concentrated on his desired heir, whose title is the Prince of Piedmont. Leaving behind the boy and girl of her union with Victor Amadeus, La Verrua arrives in France, where she has many connections at the royal court – not the least of which links is Adélaïde, who has now been in France for four years.

La Verrua has already had a hand and a voice in the arrangements for the marriage of the child Adélaïde. The child of the gnat has married the grandson of the lion and will become the Queen of France. La Verrua has, in her soft white hand, a small ghostly silver needle that has partly sewn the pattern of the life of the little girl into the great tapestry of history.

In grand and glorious reality, when begins her new life in France, in 1700, the child Adélaïde has become the child-wife of the young grandson of the Sun King. The lady’s connection with the Duchess of Bourgogne is that of having been her father’s mistress, and it is a significant connection, one way or another, for good or ill. Curiously, La Verrua spends four years in the French countryside before making her way to court. She and Adélaïde exist in different worlds, and when La Verrua finally gets to the court, she appears to have shed all interest in her Savoyard links. No word is ever spoken between La Verrua and the young duchess. Another time; another place.

For those four years before arriving at court, La Verrua can be found living more or less quietly in the French country house of her family and sometimes in a pleasant little French convent. Does she tend the geese at the convent? Indeed she does. Does she embroider roses and daisies along the hems of petticoats for ladies of the court? She does. Then after this, emerging like a comet from the darkness, for thirty-two glittering years she lives a grand and public life in her own splendid residence in Paris, appearing regularly at court, until the time comes to say goodbye to life itself. Goodbye forever to her fabulous library of handsome tomes and her art gallery and her beloved aviary of marvellous birds, the living brothers and sisters of her twinkling parrot brooch.

Gone !

She leaves in her wake the blight she and her green parrot visited on the world of Anne Marie, and the tight and steady stitches she wove into the fabric of the life of Marie Adélaïde of Savoy.

⬩ 12 ⬩ THE WORM AT THE HEART OF THE SECRET

Among my few possessions here at Sainte-Odile is a pincushion fashioned by Adélaïde with the help of a wood carver at the palace. It is, naturally, one of my dearest treasures. When Mother Matilde first saw it, she admired it so heartily that she asked me if I could make something similarly charming for the convent. I told her it was modelled on such an object in the possession of Madame de Maintenon. I think it was then that she devised a plan for me to make more than one, perhaps several, so they could be sold within the convent and outside to raise funds for the support of the sisters. By such small transactions the convent is able to survive and do its heavenly work. Hence, my writing of this manuscript is but one of my designated tasks; one of the others is making the pincushions, and another is making pomanders from the oranges sent to us by the king. Some of the fruit is used in cooking; the rest is material for the pomanders.

I will describe the pincushions. Each one, the size of an open hand, consists of a rigid wooden frame carved in the shapes of leaves and topped by the figure of a royal crown. This frame is painted in gold. Are we permitted, I asked Mother, to fashion articles bearing the royal crown here at Sainte-Odile? She then put the question to Madame de Maintenon, who put it to the king, who issued full permission for us to do it. This was an incredible royal gift to the convent – the image of the royal crown on our little wooden hearts ! Mother was told that the king smiled broadly and raised a toast to the success of our labours.

The whole of the pincushion is in the shape of a heart, and the central section, the place for the pins, is covered with opulent red velvet. Mother pointed out that when it was replete with pins, it bore some echo of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and also the Bleeding Heart of Mary. Yes, it really does remind one of the holy hearts. Sister Joseph is a marvellously skilled wood carver, and she makes the frames. I paint them with gold leaf, and then I fill the centre with velvet, stuffed with washed wool from the convent sheep.

For a time, I wondered if I were wise to tell Mother the purpose of the original pincushion, which I have never seen. What I know of it I know from a drawing which Adélaïde did. I put the question to my confessor – should I explain it to Mother – and he advised me to remain silent. It was enough, he said, that Mother should rejoice in the production of facsimiles of the hearts of Our Saviour and his Blessed Mother. Why overload her, he suggested, with more detail? So, I have kept my counsel. However, now, in my Storybook, I feel impelled to describe the purpose to which Madame de Maintenon put her pincushion.

Adélaïde always called Madame de Maintenon ‘ma tante’, and I think that here in my Storybook I might sometimes dare to do the same. I can be more courageous here than I ever am or was in real life. Sometimes I call her ‘Françoise’, and sometimes I feel the need to call her ‘Madame de Maintenon’. I think it depends on the mood of what I am writing. It is rather wonderful to have these private pages, secret pages, liberating pages, in which to reveal some of the deep dark tales I can tell. And this is one of those.

Now, ma tante is a virtuous and devout Catholic woman – she is known far and wide for her steadfast faith in God and His Church. And her kindness to children is legendary. It was her great dedication to children that first brought her to the attention of the king. She was the devoted governess of the children of His Majesty and his mistress, Athénaïs, Madame de Montespan.

Ma tante is most troubled by the existence of the Huguenot heretics and is, I believe, sorely conflicted in her heart concerning them. She wishes they could be converted in peace to the Catholic faith, avoiding all the bloodshed and cruelty of war. For while she longs for a Catholic France, she recognises the humanity of the heretics and sees their violent destruction as a tragedy in the very core of France. Nevertheless, she is dedicated to the removal of their doctrines and practices from the soil of France, and I suppose even from the face of the earth. Is ma tante a fanatic? I feel she is not, for her manner seems to me to be always measured and thoughtful, if firm. (Some people say she is a fanatic.)

As I wrote earlier, many of the king’s wars are waged against the heretics. When ma tante has news of the true and peaceful conversion of a heretic – particularly if that person is a leader or a preacher or a celebrated noble who was once known for his devotion to the false religion – she takes down her pincushion from the hook on which it hangs, beside a shrine to the Blessed Virgin, in her bedroom. I only know these things because Adélaïde has told me what she has observed. As Françoise intones a prayer of thanks for the enlightenment of the convert, she slides into the crimson velvet a long, sharp pin, a marker of peaceful victory. As she does this, she smiles, and yet she weeps, for the news of the victory reminds her of her own Huguenot family and the religion she followed in part of her childhood. Her red velvet heart is, Adélaïde said, dense with pins, all made from fine silver spikes, each topped with an amber or crystal bead. Sometimes, weeping, she takes down the heart and removes the pins. She smooths the crimson surface of the velvet with the palm of her hand, counting the numbers as if whispering a prayer. She then replaces the pins, and she hangs the heart back on its hook. She gives thanks for the conversions, yet she knows that all over the country Catholics are erasing the lives of Huguenots in the most violent and terrible ways. She weeps for this. The number of peaceful pins in the crimson velvet heart is a poor, sad little number compared with the volume of the tragedies enacted every day in the name of religion. She calls the pincushion ‘The Quiet Heart of Victory’.

There, I have told the story. Strangely, having followed the tale of the original pincushion, I now feel a kind of relief in my own heart as if I have confessed to a sin and have been absolved. I also pray for the conversion of the sinners, that they may follow the true faith, and so save their lives and their souls. And then perhaps the wars will stop.

The pomanders are a much more innocent and simple matter. While grand ladies and gentlemen might carry beautiful silver and enamelled pomanders covered in pearls and precious gems, filled with spices that will mask the pungent odours that float everywhere in the air, more humble folk like to carry withered oranges stuck with cloves and rolled in a cinnamon, mixed with the powdered roots of irises. These are the ones we make at Sainte-Odile. The spices can be expensive, but Mother has good contacts among the merchants. We usually sell the pomanders for a small fee, and some are given away on feast days.

The most charming pomander I ever saw was the one Adélaïde’s godfather Emmanuel sent to her one day as a gift. It was a silver ball divided into six compartments, which opened one by one to reveal a different spice or herb: cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, cardamon, lavender, wormwood. The globe opened up like a graceful and wonderful star. Perhaps it was placed beside Adélaïde in her coffin. I like to think so.

I muse with pleasure on the pomanders and the pincushions, and I feel my heart lift, my spirit sing, and I experience a certain peace. Yet as soon as this comes upon me, I feel the desire to confess a great, dark secret that I have kept in my heart for ten long years. Sometimes in dreams I hear an unknown voice calling from a far distance: ‘Run, run Jean-Jacques !’ I must stress that the memory of Jean-Jacques is not, I believe, a sin but a dreadful secret, a matter almost beyond my understanding. However, there were surely transgressions when we were together in life.

I have in these pages, in passing, made reference to Jean-Jacques. He was the son of a gardener at the Palace of Marly. He was sometimes sent to work at Versailles, which is where I first met him. He was walking along a row of lavenders in full flower, whistling and carrying a box of small plants. Bees were sailing in and out of the lavender, and there was a gentle, aromatic breeze. I was standing across from the lavender, picking leaves of oregano for my mother. When he saw me, he called out to me, and he asked me if I knew the time of day. I did not. Nothing was further from my thoughts.

‘Well, never mind,’ he said, ‘the sun is shining, and that’s all that matters.’

I laughed when he said that, and, quickly snatching a few heads of lavender, he came over to where I stood. He bowed and handed me the lavender, began whistling again and went on his way.

The next day, I purposely returned to the oregano patch, and sure enough, as I walked by, there he was, pulling weeds from a bed of thyme.

‘You are one of the embroidery girls,’ he said, looking up at me.

And I blushed then.

After that, we met often among the herbs at Versailles, until he had to return to work at Marly. Whenever he was about to come to our gardens, he would somehow get a message to me, and we would meet. Before long, our encounters – in truth, few and far between – were in the early evening, when work was over, and we would embrace and tell secrets in the shadows behind my family dwelling.

My own father was a royal gardener of high standing and also a military man, descended, I say with pride, from several generations of lesser nobility. Because of our bloodlines, I was able to become a student at Saint-Cyr. When I think of this, I realise with a start that if I had not been at Saint-Cyr, I would never have met my beloved Adélaïde. That is indeed a most strange thought. The workings of fate ! It is of course because our fathers were both gardeners that I encountered Jean-Jacques among the lavender that day. I am surprised our paths had not crossed before. But the realm of the palace of Versailles is vast. He was then a most handsome boy but two months older than myself. It breaks my heart to see his name here on the page. He left his garden of magical herbs at Marly behind him, and he marched with the king’s army to the battle of Cassano. We were nineteen years old. We had known each other for less than a year. I had left the safety of Saint-Cyr early to live again with my mother and father at Versailles. This was at the request of Adélaïde, who believed she needed me as one of her ladies.

Early one morning Jean-Jacques and I embraced in the deep shadows of our favourite chestnut tree. Because it was nearly autumn, some of the leaves were just beginning to turn. It was the day after the Feast of the Assumption, when the angels carried Mary, body and soul, to heaven.

When I took my vows here at Sainte-Odile, I confessed to the priest the depth of my passion for Jean-Jacques, although I did not reveal the details of that passion. And I have never since then put into spoken or written words the truth of what happened under the chestnut tree. During the formal confession, I said very little, and the priest seemed to be able to provide for himself the substance of what I was saying. It was, no doubt, a fairly regular and ordinary tale for him to hear. Boy and girl fall in love; boy must go to war; no time for a wedding; semi-naked communion on the grass beneath a convenient tree. The virgin and the soldier.

I implied that since my lover had died in battle, and my dear Adélaïde had been taken by sickness, my whole attention was to be on the purification of my soul, on service to the Almighty, on the beauty of my journey towards heaven. I made no reference to the fact that my heart still burns for Jean-Jacques and that my mind so often turns to thoughts of our short time together.

Oh, how I have rehearsed the hour we spent beneath the chestnut tree over and over in my mind, and on rare occasions in my dreams for all these years. That hour is, to this day, lit like a scene in the most beautiful play on a stage I can just glimpse at a distance I can never touch.

We know we may never see each other again, and the heat in our blood, a deep and relentless heat, guides our hands and our bodies until we become completely careless and mindless of where we are and who might know. We are alone in the universe, and we hear nothing but the sounds of a breeze as it caresses the leaves above us and the quiet melody of our own sweet kisses. I do not feel the scrape of leaves on my naked back. As he presses his body against me, I feel his red heart beating behind his ribs. With tentative fingers I lightly caress his manhood – soft sweet dew on its solid head. By some dreamlike magic he enters my body gently, and then we rock together with more and more vigour until at last he groans and spills his seed inside me, and I cry out in my own brief ecstasy. Oh, I never imagined such exalted blessedness could be. I seem to see, as if lit by an internal lamp, his essence as it makes its way inside me. Nothing could be more beautiful. We lie there locked together as one, and then we know it all must end, and we hasten to cover our naked bodies. We are streaked with my blood. I take a drop of the bright crimson, and I mark his forehead with a cross. He traces the cross with his finger and places a film of blood on my lips.

We said goodbye. He walked away. I never saw him again. I have stood beneath the canopy of that ancient tree in summer. I have felt its purple-grey bark with my hands as I looked up into the dense dark leaves, listening as they rustled faintly, watching slivers of sunlight as they filtered through the slender spaces. I have imagined that instead of watching Jean-Jacques walk away from me, I am seeing him run towards me, his face all brown from the sun, his arms waving in joy. Run, run, Jean-Jacques ! He was listed among the dead lying in the mud and wreckage of Cassano, on the banks of the Adda. I pray for his soul.

Sometimes I indulge in a fantasy – he was taken prisoner, and he will return, one bright shining day, to France; he escaped and found his way to Genoa, from where he set sail for a far distant foreign land. Perhaps he became a merchant dealing in the precious spices of the East. He made a vast fortune and will return to Versailles, his pockets filled with gold. I will abandon the convent, and we will be united in a peaceful old age, in a rambling mansion surrounded by sweeping green meadows where sheep graze, and where small fountains trickle in shady groves and fields of his beloved lavender are spread across the hillsides.

We live happily ever after as in a tale by Monsieur Perrault. In the silence of my East Tower, I could almost be the Sleeping Beauty waiting to be woken by my prince. I must here hasten to admit that I do not consider myself a beauty. Adélaïde always liked to wink and to point out that if you took the beloved stories to their logical conclusion, the prince and the beauty would eventually wither and die. But first – feeling argumentative, I once said to her – they had a beautiful life that seemed to last forever. I remember she turned away and said rather sadly, ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

When I was a young child, I recall, my mother used to say to me that telling stories was how we keep the shadows of night and the darkness of death at bay. I never understood, then, what she really meant, but I now believe I do have a glimmering of what is at the core of this idea. If I tell myself sweet tales about Jean-Jacques, he lives. On several occasions I have had the chance, at the palace, to look at Monsieur Le Brun’s painting of the Queen of Persia. Among the crowd there is a young man in a golden turban. He reminds me of Jean-Jacques. Am I foolish? I probably am. Yet this little indulgence of madness probably keeps me sane. I would never confess these thoughts anywhere but here in my Storybook.

Perhaps the saddest part of my tale is the fact that the love Jean-Jacques and I had for each other had to be a secret, even from Adélaïde. I feel a great liberation now, having this Storybook in which to open my heart, on which to shed my tears. Mother Matilde – how very wise she is to have given me this task.

Some weeks after Jean-Jacques had left, I waited for my body to bleed. Nothing happened. I was frantic for reasons that conflicted with each other. I imagined I was carrying a child who would never have a father. I longed for the birth of that child. For Jean-Jacques to live again in a new creation. Yet I wished that child did not exist. I was filled with shame and sorrow. I could not speak to anyone: not to my mother, not to Adélaïde, not to a priest – to no one. All I could think of to pray for was the return of Jean-Jacques. That prayer was never answered. I had sinned, and I would forever carry that sin, as I felt I would never atone for it.

And then, one frightful night, in an agony of unimaginable pain, I spurted blood all over my bed. There was no way I could conceal it from my mother, as the Versailles quarters where we were living – my father, my mother and I – were small. She was so sad and so loving and so kind. She bathed me gently and administered an ointment of egg yolk, turpentine and oil of roses to my damaged opening. She brought me clean bedding as well as cups of precious Vichy water and a healing plate of salted mushrooms with ginger and honey. She forbore ever to speak of the matter again. I know she knew what had happened – it was after all a simple, universal story. My mother was clearly relieved and pleased when I decided, years later, after Adélaïde had died, to come here to Sainte-Odile. She and my father were able to provide my modest dowry, and I was grateful. There was also the dowry I received when I graduated from Saint-Cyr.

When I reflect that once upon a time I conceived a child, I can barely believe it. As a small girl, I listened to many a tale as my mother, my grandmother and my aunts worked and talked, talked and worked. Wide-eyed I would sit on the low stool beside them, silent, absorbing the good and the bad stories that threaded their way through the family. So many wanted or unwanted babies born, so many babies unborn, so many babies who had died swiftly after their first breath. Who were the fathers? Were they away at war?

One day, as my mother and my grandmother were making soup, and I was peeling and cutting up the onions, my eyes stinging and tears dripping down my cheeks, I heard the story of a girl my grandmother knew. Like me, she was the daughter of a royal gardener. I feel a remote kinship to her, although her story is quite different from mine. Her name was Angélique. She had a baby, and then she and the baby disappeared and were never heard of again. This all happened in the year before the king was married to the queen, and he, yes, the king, was the father of Angélique’s baby. I stopped peeling the onions. How could that story be true, I wondered – how could the king be the father of the baby that disappeared? But I remained silent and continued with my task.

Enough about kings and babies – for there is another secret that I have never revealed to any living soul. A second story that I have never laid before the priest in the confessional. I can no longer hold back the ugly worm at the heart of this secret. As far as anyone could tell, Jean-Jacques was an ordinary Catholic person, not devout yet quietly obedient. However, one terrible moonlit night as we lay almost chastely and yet wickedly in each other’s arms in one of the empty carriages behind the stables, he told me that his family were still secret believers in the heretical faith and that his own Catholic life was a sort of playacting. I stared into his eyes, and he turned his face away. I felt a fine sword slide in slow silence into my heart. I looked up and saw, through the curtains of the carriage, thin black clouds as they sped across the moon. I could not speak; I could not weep. We held each other tightly, too sorrowful and bewildered to know our own thoughts. He was living in fear of being discovered. And I must tell you – believe me – we never spoke of this again. Yet, the truth hung, like an evil mist, around our lives. ‘Why, Clotilde,’ my mother said, ‘are you feeling unwell?’ And Adélaïde once looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘You have not smiled for days and days. What is it, Clo-Clo? May I fetch you a cordial? Camomile and honey?’ But each time I just shrugged and drifted off to pretend to do something else. I could not sleep. It was not long after this that Jean-Jacques and I gave in to our passion beneath the chestnut tree, and he departed with the king’s army for the battle of Cassano.

A Huguenot, just a dead Huguenot on the battlefield of Cassano. I can scarcely bear to write those ugly words of doom. Huguenot. Cassano. To write them is to drive long sharp pins into the crimson centre of my own beating heart.

I wish I could erase, destroy this confession. I am unable to do so. It will live here in the pages of my Storybook forever. But what is ‘forever’? When I am dust, will the Storybook with its darkness live on? Even if this is the only place where the secret of my heart is unveiled and narrated, and even if the Storybook itself falls to dust, the secret burden on my soul will be, will have been – what – embroidered and woven somehow, somewhere, in the smallest heart-shaped fabric into the womb of everything.

⬩ 13 ⬩ SHE WILL ENTER FRANCE NAKED

1697

It was a long and winding journey that brought Marie Adélaïde from Savoy to Paris, as a child of eleven years. Adélaïde was a key part of the treaties between France and Savoy. A simple bargain. For the price of your daughter, we will agree to peace. Such treaties seem wildly improbable when viewed in the light of past matters between Louis and Victor Amadeus. Yet treaties they were. France has a grandson, Savoy has a daughter. From the body of the daughter, the royal house of Bourbon will manufacture its descendants. Long live the house of Bourbon ! There were dozens and dancing dozens of documents and discussions and dramas back and forth – couriers and high officials and whispers, lies and blunt truths. But in the end, the French king had his wishes granted.

‘She will enter France naked,’ said the king.

And she did. Stripped, the Princess Marie Adélaïde of Savoy, like a character in a fairy story, like a prize in a party game, like a newborn lamb, became the French king’s trophy in the 1696 Treaty of Turin, which foreshadowed the Treaty of Ryswick, which put an end to the Nine Years’ War in 1697. From one treaty to the next seems simple enough, but the sunlight in the life of Princess Adélaïde of Savoy was now haunted by shifting shadows.

Adélaïde was betrothed to the king’s grandson as part of the Treaty of Turin, and her marriage agreement was part of the Treaty of Ryswick. These negotiations were carried out in secret by the king’s representative, René de Froulay, Count de Tessé. During the months of discussion, Tessé had spent much time with Adélaïde, her sister and her mother, and they had all grown very fond of each other. Tessé will become a quietly benign character in the whole future life of Adélaïde, moving in and out of focus. When the marriage contract was signed, it was Tessé who acted as proxy for the Duke of Bourgogne. And when Adélaïde later made the journey from Savoy to France, he was beside her, offering kindness and comfort. There he will be, diplomat and soldier, from time to time, hovering in her life like a guardian angel. Yes, sometimes fortune smiled upon Adélaïde, and sometimes it did not.

With the treaty, Victor Amadeus had aligned himself with France, for the time being. ‘From now onwards,’ he said, ‘we are all French!’

But Victor Amadeus was forever a trickster. Now this ally, now that. So, who could ever guess what might happen to his loyalty to France as the years trundle on?

But in 1696, the day for Adélaïde to leave her Savoy home has come. She is betrothed to Louis, Duke of Bourgogne, and in one year’s time, when she is twelve years old, the couple will marry. That year will be filled, for her, with more challenges, more excitements, more pleasures than she could ever, ever have imagined. Rather more than most people could imagine.

In 1696 her father is in a state of hysterical tears. Perhaps they are tears of sorrow at the departure of his daughter; perhaps they are mingled with tears of anguish and fear, for in his heart he does not necessarily trust the terms of the Treaty of Turin. He, himself, is capable of so much twisted dark deception of his political enemies; why should the King of France be straightforward? For two months, messages have travelled back and forth between Victor Amadeus and Louis.

Horses, coaches, officials bearing important documents, cross and crisscross the land. If the letters were a conversation they would be uttered in chilling tones, through almost gritted teeth, neither speaker giving way to the other.

The father: ‘The winter is too harsh. She will catch a chill and perish when crossing the Alps.’

The king: ‘Six French chemises and a cloak. That is all she will need to protect her.’

The father: ‘She must be accompanied by a doctor, a governess, and two maids. All from Savoy.’

The king: ‘When in France, she will have the protection of purely French company.’

The father: ‘She must have women she knows to hand her a chamber-pot and make her clean, to save her embarrassment in moments of weakness, dirtiness, or indisposition. For she may be so transported with delight at the wonders of the French court that she will forget the mechanism of the human body. She should have a familiar intimate woman there to calm her. Although she is still quite young, there is possibility that she could suffer, during the journey, the surprise of the issue of woman’s blood from her body. In so many ways and for so many reasons, she is but a child, and she may weep.’

Will his eloquence persuade the king?

The king: ‘It is my desire for her happiness which forbids me to consent. She will be attended by French women appointed by France, no matter what the uproar. Any tears she has should be dried before she meets with me.’

Yet, in spite of these exchanges, by some sly miracle, the weasel Victor Amadeus succeeded in placing Madame Marquet, Adélaïde’s confidential maid, her nounou, by his daughter’s side for the whole journey to Versailles. And that lady, who had been with Adélaïde since birth, remained with her for Adélaïde’s first two years in France. Fortune sometimes really does favour the princess from Savoy in subtle ways.

Madame Marquet secretly carried in her baggage Adélaïde’s favourite doll, which was carved from the wood of an ancient beech in the gardens at La Vigna. This was a boy-doll called Baba, given to Adélaïde by the gardeners when she was born. The clothes Baba wore for the journey had been made by one of Anne Marie’s sewing women, and they resembled the court dresses of Turin, which were simpler than those of the ladies at Versailles. The king had prepared for her a collection of the finest French dolls a child could wish for, dolls in silk dresses embroidered with precious stones. But nothing would ever truly replace Baba. As for the problem of the chamber-pot – it can seem at times that Victor Amadeus must have been some sort of quiet, cunning, ratlike magician. In any case, the matter was solved by the presence of the Savoyard nounou. Furthermore, placed above all others, in the array of ladies who would attend to Adélaïde in France, was Marguerite, Duchess du Lude, a wise widow, nominated for her great task by Madame de Maintenon. And when Madame Marquet finally decided to leave France for Savoy, the Marquise de Nogaret, daughter of the man responsible for baking the royal bread, became the new nounou. Her official title indicated that she was Adélaïde’s dame du palais, and she and Adélaïde became firm friends. She had once been an early romantic favourite of the king.

As noted earlier, so often, in matters of the royal court, does a kind of social or family incest ripple quietly through the story. A favour here, a favour there. A lover. A niece. A title. A marriage. Among the royal families of Europe, marriage was a matter between close relatives. The king himself was married, at the grand old age of twenty-two, to his first cousin, the Spanish Infanta, Maria Teresa. The royal tapestry is about as complicated as could be imagined, bloodlines snaking here, there, and everywhere in shining smiling strings of finest scarlet silk. And sometimes those strings tangle into knots, and sometimes they fray and strain and snap.

The day appointed for the signing of the marriage contract rolls around at last, and on this day, the fifteenth of September in 1696, Adélaïde, dressed in silver brocade, a diamond tiara on her chestnut curls, has her first experience of feeling on her hand the kisses of a hundred women and two hundred men. Many, many more lips will brush her fingertips before she becomes the bride of the Duke of Bourgogne. Church bells ring out, and fireworks light the skies in Turin and faraway Paris and glittering Versailles – where there is now a life-size portrait of Adélaïde. To the king, the French ambassador in Turin has sent Adélaïde’s corset and a length of white silk ribbon to match the size of her slender waist. Using the measurements, the seamstresses of Versailles have sewn elaborate gowns in the French style with which to present Adélaïde on her arrival.

Adélaïde, elder daughter of the royal house of Turin, travelled for many days by coach from her home to marry the Duke of Bourgogne, grandson of her great-uncle Louis. A vast entourage of coaches and carts accompanied her. Those words conceal a weighty catalogue of fine detail and tumultuous emotion. The child left behind what was in fact her whole life up to that point – her darling sister Luisa, as well as her sweet sad mother and her doting grandmother. Not to mention her father, he who was so often away at war, or else occupied by his romantic business with La Verrua and her strawberry nipples. Adélaïde left her nursemaids and her ladies. She left the boy, Rocco, who polished her shoes. Father Benedict who heard her prayers and guided her spirit. She left the gardens and forests of La Vigna, the dairymaids and the cows and goats. The strawberries in summer – and the herbs, which she would twist and crush between the palms of her small hands before casting them into a cooking pot in her grandmother’s kitchen. The soft brown smock she wore when she worked beside the gardeners on sunny afternoons among the vegetables. The rushing silvery waters of the river Po. Her favourite dog, Chouchou. Her lovely white mare Paloma. Her virginal. Most of her collection of beloved dolls. The bottle of donkey’s milk and cloves to soothe her frequent toothache. The frogs gently croaking in the round pond. The mysterious shrine to the Black Virgin of Loreto on the shelf behind her bed. A basket of half-finished embroidery, the coloured silks lying in tangled knots beneath a scattering of dried lavender and withered wormwood.

And that sad list of people and places, and creatures and things but partially composed the fabric of the life she left behind. What is a human heart?

In the Maritime Alps, a stone bridge spans a river that divides the Kingdom of France from the Duchy of Savoy. It is a humpback stone bridge, perhaps a sort of magic bridge, half Savoyard, half French. It could easily appear in an illustration for a fairy story, such is its rustic mossy charm. It is here, on the bridge in the town of Beauvoisin, at three o’clock in the afternoon on the sixteenth of October 1696, that the blood of the child Marie Adélaïde undergoes a transformation from the crimson of Savoy in the east to the royal purple of France in the west. They call the place Pont-de-Beauvoisin – is there irony embedded in the ‘beautiful neighbour’ of the name? Adélaïde crosses from the land of her childhood to the kingdom of her destiny.

The chilly trek south-east from Turin to Beauvoisin measures three hundred miles. Her mother and her grandmother accompany her for the first tiny stretch of twenty miles, but then, amid a flurry of the most sorrowful tears, they turn back towards home.

‘My darling daughter, remember always that I love you with all my heart.’

Adélaïde has been trained and advised that when overcome by tears, she must swiftly follow the sadness with laughter, and she does her best to put this rule into practice. She smiles as her mother holds her tightly in her arms, their two hearts beating against each other, their tears coursing down their cheeks. She wipes the tears with the back of her hand, like an urchin on a cold night. She stands still and upright and is lifted into her carriage. Her behaviour must at all times be seen to be royal. Her chamberpot, managed by Madame Marquet, is fashioned from the finest silver.

Her coach is making for Montargis in France. From there the plan is that she will rest, then move on to Fontainebleau where she will be met by the king. The journey from Beauvoisin to Montargis will be another 360 miles. The child, this vessel, will need to take many a deep breath, will need to control her tears and indeed her bladder and bowels, and she must have all her wits about her. In every town along the way to Beauvoisin, there are cheering crowds and church bells and musket volleys and fireworks – and Adélaïde’s hand is kissed and kissed and kissed. She is small and sweet and dignified and smiling – she represents peace – she is a key element of the treaty – and she will one day in the distant romantic future be the Queen of France !

But before the cortege, which is now swollen with a vast following of joyful supporters, reaches Chambéry, amid all the clamour and celebration, the grandeur and the display, something horrible happens. Adélaïde squeals with pain as an insect suddenly flies into her eye. A gnat ! A gnat ! The coach stops. Madame Marquet holds the child in her arms, while the doctor, who is still part of the Savoy company, comes forward to attend to the patient. He takes a silk handkerchief and rolls a corner to make a point. Then, with great tenderness, he dips it into a solution of camomile and lavender and inserts it into Adélaïde’s eye-socket. She no longer makes a sound, such is her ability to disguise her feeling of pain. Tears bubble and flow down her cheeks, the gnat is removed in pieces, and everyone sighs with relief. Around her eye, there is a redness and a slight swelling, but the crisis is past. They can proceed to the alpine town of Chambéry, the last stop before they reach the humpback bridge at Beauvoisin, two hundred miles away.

The cavalry, in scarlet jackets, is out in force. The town of Beauvoisin is lit with flares, and every child is wearing a festive feather in its hat. Adélaïde and her party are lodged at the château, which is ablaze with lights and decked with ribbons and banners. The following day, after mass in the chapel, there is breakfast and a reception at which Adélaïde’s hand is kissed and kissed. Then, after another church service, she is off to lunch with the nuns at the convent of the Visitation and then back for another reception at the château. Where would a child who has not yet celebrated her eleventh birthday find the energy for all this vigorous activity of which she is the reason and the centre? Adélaïde has learned her father’s lessons well, and her acting ability is nothing short of marvellous. The journey continues – horses, carriages, carts, dogs and men on foot – and Adélaïde finally arrives at the Pont-de-Beauvoisin.

It is early in the morning of October sixteenth. There in the middle, facing France, stands the waiting coach, a gleaming box with windows, like a patient little château on wheels anticipating the arrival of a fairy queen and her entourage of sprites. France is still in mourning for the princes and nobles who recently died in violent defence of their king and their country, and so the coach is elegantly draped in violet ribbons. It has been travelling from Versailles for a full month, accompanied by four other sumptuous coaches filled with nobles as well as a physician, a surgeon, an apothecary, a chaplain, an orchestra, and the royal maître d’hôtel. There are minor carriages for servants, and on horseback are the soldiers and guards. There are furniture movers and tapestry hangers, as well as servants for gathering firewood. For her kitchen and bakery there are thirty-seven servants – to name but some of the company that will see to her on her travels into France. There are six hundred people in the French company that greets the child Adélaïde.

A pageboy from Savoy holds the train of her dress as she steps from her coach and enters the sedan chair that will carry her onto the bridge. This boy weeps as he hands the train to his French counterpart.

The waters of the river Guiers flow beneath the pageant of history taking place above. Crowds have gathered on the banks of the river. The back wheels of the carriage are resting in Savoy, the front wheels in France. Lining one side of the river, guards, in the scarlet jerkins of the house of Savoy, sit proudly on their horses which are caparisoned as if for battle. They give the signal to the trumpeters, and a run of luminous high notes thrills the air. The crowds hold their breath. Amid a pregnant silence Adélaïde takes her first step on French soil, and there is a roll of drums. The orchestra assembled on the Savoyard bank of the river bursts into a sweet and vigorous fanfare. The cheers of the Swiss Guards on the French side are followed by a deafening roar of cannons, and the crowds go wild. Alone the child enters the carriage amid a joyful cacophony that rings across the water from both sides of the river. Somewhat like a fine chess piece, she has moved from the past into a static present and will now proceed into the future.

The coach remains quite still on the bridge, as inside it, behind its thick heliotrope velvet curtains, every last stitch of Adélaïde’s clothing is removed. Her long chestnut curls fall onto her pale naked shoulders. She does not stir but stares straight ahead, silent as a corpse, her dark eyes focused on some far distant untold thought. Like a doll in a trance, she permits the dresser-women to clothe her bare body from head to toe in the silks and ribbons of the French court. She is permitted to retain her shoes. The dressers whisper, they nod, they register that the little frame is less robust than was expected by the size of her earlier corset. Some of her flesh has been kissed away.

Gifts from the king are waiting for her in the carriage. She receives a box made from the tusks of elephants and decorated with the shells of tortoises. It contains fifty diamonds, and a set of three golden bracelets which are finely wrought with designs of tiny flowers and birds, but which, alas, are too large for her childish arms.

Now the horses stir, the coach gives a shudder, and it moves forward. Slowly it trundles into the French village where the party will remain in lodgings for two nights before continuing its journey. The air rings with cheers and musket-fire on both sides of the river Guiers. The finest living example of the spoils of war has entered the realm of the King of France.

⬩ 14 ⬩ I WAS PUT ON EARTH TO TELL HER STORY

Memory takes me back to when I am almost eleven years old. It is November. The year is 1696. Cold and bleak. I sit in a circle of my friends at our school, the Maison Royale de Saint-Louis, in Saint-Cyr. In a few days we will greet a royal visitor, a princess, a girl of my own age who is coming from Italy to marry the king’s grandson. Marie Adélaïde of Savoy. Rather strangely, in time, she is even going to join us in some of our lessons. When this happens, we are to treat her like an ordinary student, like a girl from a more or less noble family who needs to be trained according to the rules laid down by Madame de Maintenon. We are to address her as Mademoiselle de Lastic, yet we know already this is not her name. I never really understood the purpose of this attempted deception, and after a short time nobody bothered to obey the rule.

The powerful whisper of court gossip is like wind and water. It makes its own rules, makes its own way. My mother sits with the embroiderers at Saint-Joseph’s Workshop in Paris, and as roses and lilies bloom with the stabs and rhythms of their needles, so the fine details of the true tales of the court unfold from their lips. We know, for example, that Madame de Maintenon, as the wind and water know, is the secret wife of the king. I can not even understand what a secret wife might be. If she were not a secret, she would be the queen, but because she is of humble birth, she can never be the queen. My mother has tried to explain this to me, but I suspect that even she does not understand.

Madame is also the Director of Saint-Cyr. And she is in charge of preparing the princess for her royal duties. I often marvel that such a powerful person could be the sweet, kind lady who sits with us and tells us the fairytales she has heard at the court. Once when I was suffering from a fever, it was she who brought me cordials, and she who encouraged me to sip them from a silver spoon she carried with her.

I had, at that time of excited expectation about the arrival of the girl from Savoy, no thought of what this Mademoiselle de Lastic would truly mean to me. She arrived at Versailles on the seventh of November. I now think of this day as the beginning of a great transformation in my own life. Our destinies, mine and hers, were very different, yet somehow they became curiously entwined. I now give myself this task of memory – or should I say that I believe this task has been divinely given? I was put on earth to tell her story. Is that too grand a notion for the daughter of a gardener and his embroiderer wife?

So, at the age of thirty, and on the anniversary of this day when my life was about to change, I, Sister Clare, have come to the convent chapel to remember Adélaïde in my prayers. I light a candle, leaving it to flicker among the several other candles at the foot of the wooden statue of the Virgin of Loreto, black as night.

In the East Tower, each and every day, I now write a record of my life and of the life of my beloved Adélaïde. In my mind, almost in my reality, I stand today on the humpback bridge, and I gaze into the waters of the river Guiers. They give back to me, in a kind of silent song, the words I need to tell the tale. The day of transformation is now a day of lamentation. Adélaïde died long ago, but before she died, she lived, oh how she lived.

She loved to tell stories herself. Some of these tales flash into my mind as I think of her. In particular, the images of ‘Donkeyskin’ rise up before me. Her pretend name of de Lastic was like the useless cloak in a legend. Among ourselves, the students simply called her Adélaïde In time, she came to call me ‘Clo-Clo’.

One day, Madame de Maintenon read the singsong story of ‘Donkeyskin’ to us from the book by Monsieur Perrault.

‘You may now draw some pictures to illustrate the story,’ she said.

We worked with our quills and paints, and I drew a picture of the princess in her sun cloak, all yellow and amber and orange and red. Oddly enough, nobody drew the donkey.

Adélaïde drew the ending with the princess and the prince on a little white horse. ‘My beloved Paloma,’ she said to me, and she sounded sad.

She often said that happy endings were just silly nonsense for children to help them go to sleep after the horrible things that had happened in the story, and in real life. ‘Not ever after, Clo-Clo – just for the time being. Happy for the time being.’

This day – and I recall it so vividly, for she spoke in her soft dreamy faraway voice – she said to me as she sketched:

‘Whenever I hear that story, and the princess is naked, I remember the time on the bridge at Beauvoisin. There I was with no clothes on. I think I would have welcomed the skin of a donkey.’

Then, as usual, she laughed. I can hear that laughter now. I hear it in my dreams. She said in a louder, more ordinary tone:

‘I am drawing the happily-ever-after. But you know and I know that that is only for the time being.’

Well, her own time being was short. Twenty-seven years. It may be unusual to refer to the death of the main character so early in the story, but here I am on the dream bridge, and with me is the ghost of Adélaïde, diminutive bright angel, naked, pausing to breathe for the last time the air of Savoy on her passage towards the court of the great Sun King.

During our friendship as schoolgirls and later as young women, Adélaïde shared with me some of the story of her life as a child in Turin. I remember her saying once, ‘You should have tasted the strawberries at La Vigna ! Now, that was the flavour of paradise. And Luisa and I would run across the garden and throw them at each other. Splop ! Our dresses were stained with juice, and we were in terrible trouble, but yet we did it again and again.’

Much of what I know of her life has also been told to me by others. As I meditate on the moment on the bridge, her sweet little Italian voice, speaking its perfect French, comes back to me as she describes the ritual of that day, what happened to her then, before she was handed into the sedan chair to travel to the river, to step onto the bridge, to enter the royal coach where she would be relieved of her Savoy identity, where she would stand before a group of strangers as naked as the day she was born.

She was eerily accepting of it all, yet her lip sometimes quivered as she told the tale. I think her eleven-year-old heart was broken then, although the bright face she was able to turn to the world gave no hint of sorrow. She was perhaps born with a particular ability – born a princess. As soon as her father had signed the paper giving her to France, she became a member of the immediate family of the Sun King. Both her mother and her grandmother were devoted to him, since her mother, Anne Marie, was his niece, and her grandmother, Jeanne Baptiste, was his half-cousin.

‘When I was a child, my father’s astrologer once foretold that I would die young. Imagine that ! Yet here I am still, as old as anything. I often used to say I was going to marry the French king’s grandson, and live at Versailles and go hunting with the king every single day. Imagine ! And here I am. Did I invent my own destiny? Am I a being with such gifts and powers?’ More laughter, yet with a little edge of something, I always thought, of nervousness.

Long after, in the winter of the year before she was taken from us, it was all rather a different story. As I was sewing with a group of some of her ladies, Adélaïde came to join us. A crow had landed outside the window close by and was standing very still, staring in at us. ‘That makes me shiver, when crows do that – just look at its eyes,’ one of the ladies said. Some of us laughed.

‘Oh,’ said Adélaïde softly, ‘it makes me think of the astrologer, and what he said long ago. He foretold that I would die before my twenty-seventh birthday.’

Her voice was so steady and compelling. Everybody stopped what they were doing and turned to listen.

‘I must make haste. I cannot enjoy myself for long, for I shall die this year.’

We all stared at her, unable to utter a word. She stood up and turned towards the doorway, and, in an eerie silence, she left us. The crow flew off. Sudden and silent as the grave.

But I must return in memory, now, to the days when she had just joined the family of the Sun King.

She was sent across the border to marry the Duke of Bourgogne. She was so young and not legally able to sign the documents of her betrothal. They had to get permission from Pope Innocent, who was happy to give it. He said that Adélaïde was gifted with knowledge and discernment far beyond her years. How would he possibly know that? Yet that was what the king wanted to hear, and in any case, I think he was certainly right.

She would chatter to me, telling over and over the story of her removal from Savoy to France. ‘Mama planned to send my governess with me in the coach, as well as two maids and a doctor, but the king said I had to go to France all by myself. I cried a lot when Papa told me this. Who would dress me, and who would help me with the chamber-pot? And even Papa wept. He wept with me. He said I would need my maid by my side in case I wet my undergarments in my excitement at meeting the king. The horror of that shameful thought was almost too much for me. I cried and cried.’

But when she said that, it was long after she had left Savoy, and now she simply laughed at the thought. Yet as she embraced her father for the last time, the little girl wept bitter tears, and she clung to him as he did to her.

It is well known how the king gave orders, saying all the Savoy clothes – with the exception of her shoes – that she was wearing when she set out from Turin, right down to her handkerchief, were to be removed and destroyed. ‘France wants her naked,’ he said, his voice clear and loud and steady.

I sometimes wonder what became of those discarded garments. Were they destroyed? I imagine they were taken away and burned. After all, the king had ruled generally that only French clothing was to be worn at court by everyone.

For some reason, I reminded Adélaïde of this harsh ruling on her nakedness, one morning as we were busy with embroidery. ‘You were just a little naked girl in the coach, watched by everyone,’ I said.

She tossed her head and laughed. She then leant over towards me and playfully stabbed the heart of a sickly yellow daisy I was stitching. ‘Naked !’ she said, and looked me straight in the eye. And laughed again. I could say that she sniggered. Yet back on that fatal day in Beauvoisin, when first her heavy gown was lifted off her, and then her many layers of undergarments were removed, right down to the white linen britches royal people wore, she held her breath and closed her eyes and prayed. ‘Holy Mother of God, give me courage.’

‘They even took the handkerchief embroidered by your grandmother …?’

‘They did. And the French garments truly seemed to be softer, to be made from silk and air.’

And she stood up and laughed and did a little twirl. Yet I thought there was something forlorn in her gesture.

‘But perhaps I’m inventing a kind of enchantment, just so I don’t remember how really scary and horrible it all was. But I am not making it up when I say that the French dress they put on me was beautiful. Of course it was. It was golden. Yes, the dress was golden.’

⬩ 15 ⬩ DARK SORROW IN SAVOY; BRIGHT JOY IN FRANCE

Agreat emptiness descends upon the royal family in Turin. After all the elaborate festivities, the brightest jewel in their lives has gone, the sweetest music, the warmest heart. They can suppose that they might never see her again. Oh, will she be happy in France? Long ago, her mother, at the age of fourteen, left her own family at the French court to go to Savoy to marry Victor Amadeus. In her heart, she can now almost feel that Adélaïde’s destiny is somehow an answer to her own, that she herself is returning to where she belongs. While she mourns for the loss of her daughter, she also rejoices that the child will be treasured by the king – who is, after all, Adélaïde’s great-uncle. And ultimately, the child will have the glory of being the Queen of France.

For her father, this marriage signifies more than that, much more. Adélaïde’s presence at the French court, as the bride of the heir to the throne, will in part align the territorial desires of France with those of Savoy. He will miss her as part of the fabric of life in Turin, but she is useful to him now that she is in France. Is it possible that she will become some sort of childish intelligence agent? He has trained her as a fine actor; she was a gifted and willing pupil. Her smile is dazzling, spontaneous and convincing – and not necessarily always sincere. Double-dealing is in the blood she has inherited from her father. Where will her loyalties truly lie?

The sorrow and shadow left in the lives of her mother and grandmother and sister are in distinct contrast to the widespread elaborate joy in the French court at the prospect of her arrival.

The lavish cortege sets out from Versailles with its six hundred people, on its way to meet her. There are six royal coaches each drawn by six or eight horses, containing the high officials, ladies, medical staff. There are many lesser vehicles, accommodating such folk as servants and cooks – not to forget all the soldiers and the Swiss Guards. Oh, the noise of people, dogs, and horses and vehicles of all kinds. At midday the chill, vast sky is flecked with bloated clouds, some steely black, some white like the snow that sometimes falls. A kestrel hunts its prey across the sky, its eye so sharp it can catch a smaller bird in the dim of twilight. The kestrel may gaze down on the scene of the vast company wending its winding way across France.

It is autumn, September seventeenth, when the Sun King leaves Versailles, intending to meet Adélaïde at the lovely palace at Fontainebleau. However, such were the glowing reports the king had received of Adélaïde’s demeanour and beauty, he decided to proceed further on past Fontainebleau by thirty-five miles and to meet her at Montargis, sixty miles south of Paris. He leaves Madame de Maintenon behind at Fontainebleau. Adélaïde gets to Montargis, a place of canals and waterways, at six o’clock on the evening of November fourth.

From the balcony of the grand house where the king is waiting for her in the darkness, he and his entourage glimpse the carriages as they trundle towards them. Swiftly, bearing blazing lamps, they go down to greet the little girl.

From this moment on, the world blazed with celebration and joy.

The child alighted from the coach, wrapped in an ambercoloured velvet cloak fashioned by the needlewomen of Versailles. The lining of the cloak was made from the skins of grey-brown rabbits, and its edges were decorated with strips of silvery grey ribbon embroidered with golden fleurs-de-lis. The king, swathed against the cold in a heavy cloak of dark blue wool, held a flambeau close to her face. She did not flinch. He embraced her and kissed her three times – once on the forehead and once on either cheek. He lifted her up, as if she were but a feather on the breeze, and then placed her back on her feet. She kissed his hand, and then, hand in hand – like lord and lady, or like father and child – they ascended the staircase, negotiating their way, by the light of flaming torches, through all the people who thronged the steps. Shadows flickered, in excitement, when they moved.

Her chamber was filled with nobles and dignitaries, and she met for the first time her grandfather, Philip Duke of Orléans, brother of the king. He was astonished and delighted by her beauty, dignity and grace. Doubtless he was reminded of his daughter, her mother, the sorrowful Anne Marie who would never see her daughter again. When her cloak was removed, she stood before them in a gown of buttercup yellow, a shining sprite with a string of tiny diamonds encircling her throat. Her pale brown boots made from the skin of baby deer were removed and replaced by scarlet silken slippers. Yes, it was like undressing and dressing a favourite doll.

At dinner she sat between her great-uncle the king and his son the dauphin. She conducted an elegant public conversation with them and with other members of her audience, to the delighted astonishment of all.

‘My father sends his regards to the people of France. I am so very happy to be here.’

There was a charm of a kind in the faint Italian stress that decorated her speech. How could such an exquisite child, having travelled so far, preserve such poise and dignity? She was a bright bewitching miracle.

‘I wish her poor mother could be here,’ said the king, ‘to witness the joy we feel in the little one’s presence.’

The king and his brother were aware of the lonely life of Adélaïde’s mother, aware that her lady-in-waiting is also her husband’s lover. Such matters travel easily across the continent.

After supper, the king went to his own chamber and wrote a long letter to Madame de Maintenon, extolling the beauty and grace of the child. As it happens, when the king died in 1715, his wife destroyed all his letters, with the exception of this one. There in the handwriting of the king himself is a word-picture of Adélaïde of Savoy as she was during her first days in France.

‘I would not have her changed in any way whatever.’

The king praises her modesty and dignity, and says she has the most charming figure he has ever seen. High praise indeed ! This king has seen some figures in his time. Her complexion, white and rosy, is ‘all that one could desire’. She is ‘like a person who has seen the world’. That is quite a statement to make about a ten-year-old girl. His only criticism is that her curtsey is ‘rather too Italian’. He admires her rich chestnut hair and childish, irregular teeth. Before she is much older, these teeth will turn black, and some will disappear, but for now her smile is entrancing.

The king’s own hair is non-existent under his high and glorious wig. And Adélaïde can see that most of his teeth have long since disappeared. She observes, without understanding, that food and drink dribble from his nostrils, and her gaze is steady – she apparently registers nothing but continues to smile. She does not know that sections of the king’s jaw and palate were destroyed during a violent dental extraction followed by infection. Although some effort was later made to fill the space caused by this loss, there remained, forever after, a tunnel through which food and drink would sometimes shoot up in a fountain and come trickling from the king’s nose. Adélaïde appears to pay no attention to the irregularities of his kingly face, which is pitted by the scars of smallpox. The king, almost absently, dabs the dribble with his royal handkerchief of silk and fine French lace. She remains serene and smiling, as if pleased with every sight before her eyes. The stench that floats from the king’s mouth is almost muffled by the cloud of perfume that moves with him – a certain drift of orange-flower water, but principally the odour taken from the gland between the genitals and the umbilicus of the male musk deer. This musk is a key ingredient of his favourite Aqua Angeli – nutmeg, cloves, roses, jasmine, oranges – that perfumes his shirts. Adélaïde finds it delightful, and as time goes on, and she becomes more familiar with the king, she loves to bury her face in his chest and inhale his aroma.

Later, everyone sits down to supper, during which Adélaïde’s demeanour is ‘perfect’. She has a small and delicate appetite, taking but a slice of pheasant with gravy, a few leaves of salad, a sweet pastry and a few preserved strawberries. She is amazed to witness the disappearance down the king’s throat of four bowls of soup, a pile of salad, a pheasant and a partridge, slices of roast mutton, ham. But she shows no sign of her true feelings. She continues to chat and nod and smile. ‘My father enjoys hunting pheasant.’

At this time in his life, the king is still able, to a degree, to chew his food with his remaining rotting teeth. However, in a few years’ time he will need to have everything minced and softened, and much of what he swallows will be delivered by the use of a special hollow instrument.

After supper, the king, to the astonishment of all, places the child in his own armchair. He plays one of his favourite card games, jonchets, with her. He is thrilled that she appears to be a gifted player. He offers her sips of his digestive syrup – a concoction of aniseed, chervil, fennel, carrots, coriander, camomile, sugar, sherry – and although she finds it particularly disgusting, she swallows several mouthfuls and smiles. ‘How very tasty !’

The hour comes at last for Adélaïde to retire to her bedchamber,

‘Ah, but I cannot bear to bring myself to quit your company, dear lady,’ says the king. ‘I shall wait until your ladies have deposited you in your bed, and I shall visit you.’

‘And I shall welcome you, Grand-père.’

He did so. She sighed and smiled. He smoothed her brow with his hand, and kissed it before tiptoeing away. The next day he was back to watch her dress, and, seeing her ladies brushing her hair, he pronounced it as being the most beautiful hair in the world. The most beautiful hair in the world !

After breakfast, twenty thousand people gathered to watch as Adélaïde, the king and all the company set off for mass, at the church of the Barnabite Fathers who were also in awe of the graceful demeanour of the little girl. Throughout the ceremony, the king held Adélaïde’s hand tightly in his, almost as if he feared she might fly away. Soon after the ceremony, there was an elaborate and hearty meal, after which the royal party departed for Fontainebleau, accompanied by the music and cheering of the crowds. Adélaïde sat beside the king in his coach, in which there was another vacant seat, ready for her bridegroom-to-be. He would meet them on the way. The young Duke of Bourgogne would have his first vision of the magical sprite from Turin.

⬩ 16 ⬩ TWO BEES IN A FIELD OF LAVENDER

Often as I work on embroidery here at Sainte-Odile, my thoughts drift back to the days when I would sit beside Adélaïde, sewing. Embroidery was one of the most important classes at Saint-Cyr, and we worked on beautiful simple objects such as cuffs and collars, but sometimes we made illustrated panels for churches and even altar cloths for cathedrals. Adélaïde loved to chatter away, and I have vivid memories of many of her stories from life.

There was the day when she, in the king’s coach, near the ending of her journey from Turin, had almost arrived at the palace of Fontainebleau. Two figures were sighted on foot, moving down the road towards them.

‘Could it be the Duke of Bourgogne and his tutor Beauvilliers?’ she said, and then she continued, as if telling a story. ‘Yes, Clo-Clo, the bridegroom had grown impatient to meet his bride, and so there he was, trudging like a slender soldier, his crooked shoulder leaning heavily to the left, towards the royal coach.’

They had told the princess he was crippled, but indeed, on first sight, his condition was not as bad as she had imagined. But then she stared more closely, and she could detect that one leg was shorter than the other, so the heel of one foot never touched the ground. She demonstrated this to me, hobbling across the room and laughing.

‘But you did not laugh?’

‘Oh no. I pretended not to notice.’

She went on:

‘At the command of the king, the procession halted, and the young man was welcomed into the coach where, he twice kissed the hand of his betrothed.’

‘And they lived happily ever after !’ I said.

‘Oh, certainly.’ And she looked up at me with a sly twinkle in her eyes. ‘Forever and forever as happy as two bees in a field of lavender.’

After all, I knew what she thought of the idea of ‘happily ever after’.

‘His hand trembled as it held hers, and his lips scarcely brushed her skin. Each kiss was like the flutter of a soft grey moth.’

Then she lowered her head over her sewing, and she continued with her needlework in a musing silence. It was not always easy to guess what she was feeling. Even when she was at her most exuberant and charming, she could be privately sad or even angry. But I do know that the hours following these kisses were marked by a great frenzy at the palace of Fontainebleau where Adélaïde herself was obliged to embrace and kiss over and over and over again an interminable flurry of bodies until she thought she would faint. Once when she spoke of it she put her hands over her ears and shook her head and whispered:

‘Oh, Clo-Clo! The noise ! The noise ! The smell of the bodies ! I felt like a strange little animal trapped in a mad, mad stinking circus !’

My mother, who heard all the little details of royal news as it travelled seemingly along swift magic pathways until it reached the needles of the embroiderers, told me that when Adélaïde arrived at Fontainebleau, the king was holding her by the hand, and it looked as if she were a puppet emerging from his pocket ! Strange little animal, puppet – my private thoughts always return to the understanding that she was really a pawn or chattel in a vast game of wars and dynasties. This is a horrible thought, and I used to try to put it out of my mind, but here in the Storybook I am free to express it. My beloved Adélaïde was in a trap.

Once, I tentatively told her the puppet story, and she threw up her arms and laughed her tinkling, adorable laugh. ‘Yes, yes,’ she said, ‘that is exactly how it was.’ And she did a silly puppet dance around the room, waving her arms and kicking her legs. She was safe and sound in the king’s huge coat pocket until she had to pop out and kiss the world.

In those days, as my mother told me, the king no longer chose to wear the elaborate, bejewelled costumes of his past, his fabulous velvet habit habille, but was clothed in simpler, almost sombre garments. These were the clothes in which he was familiar to me. Many gentlemen at court were still clad in magnificent bright finery, but in his latter years, the king often stood out as the unadorned figure in the glittering crowd. He still stood out, shone out – he was the Sun King. You could dress him as a beggar and his true nature would surely still glitter through the rags. With a puppet in his pocket. And always, the dignified and sober shadow of our dear Madame de Maintenon was by his side.

I often need to remind myself, when I think of these glimpses into Adélaïde’s life, that at the time, in November 1696, she was not yet quite eleven years old. Her birthday would be on December sixth, one week before mine. I have always put us side by side, asking how we could be similar and yet so very different. Although she had been trained by her father to be a diplomat, I truly will never understand how that small girl could summon the physical and mental strength and energy to fulfil her royal duties so faithfully. And the king, in particular, was completely entranced by the manner in which her magic was accomplished. Smiling and bowing and embracing and dancing and singing and speaking with the echo of a sweet Italian folk song – she was charm itself – a perfect crucible from which to pour forth the descendants of the royal house of Bourbon.

I stare at what I have written, and I wonder at the ways the darkness creeps into my words, almost unbidden. For I cannot ignore the fact that there was a vast catalogue of public and private matters to be navigated before any new Bourbons could appear. First, in one year’s time, Adélaïde must be officially united in marriage with the duke; then her body must become that of a woman; then she and the duke must have sexual congress and conceive; then there must be a healthy boy-child. That child must grow – and so the royal carriage trundles along the wandering road of history. I have never before set those steps out in writing, but now I have done so, I sit here in the East Tower and I stare at the words: marriage, woman, congress, conceive, child. They seem now so cold and real – so far from what I imagined I was going to record in this Storybook. I believe I thought I would ramble on like a lady at court telling a lovely old tale. Yet I must face those cold truths. They are, I suppose, the truly vital part these pages. The chilling reality that lurks at the heart and hovers at the edges of life at court.

It was not to be until she was fourteen years old that her womanly blood began to flow. Mine had begun a few months before hers, and she used to quiz me on my experience. I showed her my small pillows, which my mother made from linen and filled with absorbent bog moss to soak up the blood.

‘Is the pain so terrible, Clo-Clo? Is it? I have seen ladies faint from the pain.’

And I would reassure her that it was not. This was the truth, in my own case. Yet she often suffered. It all came as a terrible shock to her, even though she had tried to imagine it. ‘Blood, Clo-Clo,’ she had whispered to me, her eyes wide and frightened, ‘actual red-red blood from deep inside?’

Right now I am thinking of the later times when, to ease her pain, she drank warm tea made from fennel and ginger, and she inhaled oil of lavender from a heated bowl. These measures sometimes seemed to help. And, because she was forever dedicated to producing the dazzling smile and the bubbling conversation, it was not always obvious that she was in pain and distress. I sometimes think that she could have been the greatest actress at the Comédie Française. Occasionally, however, she would need to retire to her bed with a warm cloth on her body for relief. Her principal lady, Madame du Lude, always took great care of her and did everything she could for her comfort, although Adélaïde really preferred to discuss intimate matters like bleeding with someone closer to herself in age, someone such as me. Her waist was much smaller than mine, and I think this was perhaps a cause of her problem. I will return to my memories of all this on a later page of the Storybook. I dislike writing about it, and yet it fascinates me and is a key matter in the saga of her royal life.

As soon as I stare at the realities of Adélaïde’s life, my heart trembles, and my mind flits back to my own story, and I tell myself again that the tale of me and Jean-Jacques was not ever going to be a great romance. It was but a fleeting moment in the whirling stream of life in this harsh everyday world. A powerful moment when a child was conceived yet never born, lost in an early gush of blood and tissue. Oh yes, the red-red blood.

This grim recollection brings me down to earth, to the realisation that I am sitting here in the convent, looking out at the empty sky, dreaming, and hoping, perhaps, to see the kestrel. I am warm and fed and housed, and I give thanks to God and his Holy Mother for all that is good in my existence. Surrounded by the sisters, old and young, who are now my companions.

Thinking of the realities of Adélaïde’s life leads me, perhaps curiously, to reflect on the goodness of God and on the large, impenetrable facts of heaven. Perhaps I begin to understand the purpose of my being here in the tower with the book of manuscript and the ink and the quill. Pages sewn together with horsehair twine. I briefly feel a type of joy. And yes, yes, the kestrel streaks across the broad heavens. Does he listen to my imaginings? Through the sun haze, now he flies, now he glides. I realise he is on a silent mission to kill for his dinner. Small birds beware ! Mice and shrews and voles – scurry to safety !

I recall Jean-Jacques. He is like a doomed little rodent, a tiny figure marching off to war – away, gone. Yet there are times when I allow myself to dream and to believe in dreams, and there I see the figure of Jean-Jacques standing in a field beside a stream, the midday sun behind him. He is still as a statue, a fine russet scarf about his throat, and he is smiling, and he is waiting for me to come to him. These are thoughts I must banish from my heart, and still they come unbidden, moving like mist to beguile me, bewitch me, fill me with a hope that is utterly meaningless and immeasurably sad.

⬩ 17 ⬩ HUNTING THE GREY WOLF

Louis, Duke of Bourgogne, fourteen years old, grandson of the king, limped forward, kissed the hand of his betrothed, and sat in the royal carriage as it went on to Fontainebleau.

‘You may visit the princess once every two weeks,’ the king said, and that was that.

The boy and girl scarcely spoke to each other, while Adélaïde and the king chatted and laughed together throughout the journey.

‘How many crows do you see in that field?’ the king asked her.

‘I see no crows.’

‘That is because there aren’t any,’ said the king. And Adélaïde giggled and squeezed the hand of the king while the carriage jogged along towards the palace of Versailles.

But what manner of young man was the Duke of Bourgogne who sat in almost sullen silence as his grandfather chuckled with the princess and smiled down upon her? Bourgogne’s birth had been accompanied by a gigantic bonfire, which was started by a delirious palace guard who dragged his own straw mattress into the courtyard and held a torch to it, laughing hysterically as the flames rose, the sparks danced, and the dusty old straw crackled and cackled. Joyful crowds joined in, tossing onto the flames more straw mattresses, as well as chairs, tables, bedsteads, doors, shutters, shoes, hats – well, anything they could lay their hands upon. Rats could be seen madly scuttling to places of safety. Clouds of mice flew off in terror. People, dressed, half dressed, almost naked, leapt and capered and shouted by the marvellous light of the blaze. Who could have imagined that this was a kind of portent – for that new baby boy, he who would later sit silently in the carriage with his betrothed, would become a fierce and raging child.

He was three years old when, in a blinding temper, he heaved the mantel clock, all gold and glorious enamel, from its shelf in his apartment, and hurled it down the stairs, almost killing the maidservant who was dragging a tray of warm broth and bread up from below.

‘No broth! No broth!’ he screamed. ‘Pheasant ! Pheasant !’

When his father, the dauphin, would set off for the hunt at five in the morning, the little duke sometimes tried to run after him, attempting to join the throng of snorting horses and joyful dogs. ‘Wolf! I hunt wolf!’ he would cry, dancing up and down as his nurse attempted to restrain him. Sometimes he broke loose and ran after the hounds as the party swiftly disappeared into the distance. At night, he would try to stay awake to greet his father and the men as they returned from the forest, dragging with them the corpses of their prey, reeking of sweat and blood. These daily killings had the result of severely lowering the populations of grey wolves, heading them for their disappearance from the forests of France.

From babyhood, the duke displayed his ungovernable temper, smashing clocks, plates, furniture – anything to hand in order to express his anger and frustration with any attempt to guide or correct or educate him.

‘Be extra careful,’ said one of his nurses to another, ‘if you displease the little duke he will sink his teeth into your arm. He will draw blood.’

Would the child explode? Nobody and nothing could stand in his way. If his temper was part of his nature, it was probably fuelled by the fact that his doctors prescribed, as a correction for his crooked shoulder, a heavy iron collar and cross which was cruelly painful – chafing and squeaking and utterly useless. As a result of wearing this device, the boy developed a hunched back, making it difficult for his dressers to clothe him. It was not possible to disguise his deformity. When Adélaïde stood beside him, the perfection of her little body only served to emphasise the defects in his.

How can this turbulent creature become, by the age of fourteen, the bridegroom who brushes the hand of his bride with a kiss like the flutter of a quiet moth? What miracle has taken place?

The name of the intervening miracle-worker is François Fénelon, priest, theologian, poet and, above all, gifted educator. He was appointed tutor to the duke when the child was seven. A gentle common sense prevailed at last, so that by the time the boy met Adélaïde his temper – his whole character – was more or less reformed. And by the time he was eighteen, the monster within him had been subdued. It had quite disappeared. Even, it seemed, his back had perhaps, to some degree, straightened. Just a little.

There was, in Fénelon’s brand of education, a reliance on storytelling, not least the repetition of fables, many of which the tutor wrote for his pupil, inspired in part by the tales attributed to Aesop.

‘Please tell me again the tale of the wolf and his shadow !’ the boy would say. Then the tutor would sit beside him and, in firm but tender tones, begin:

‘A wolf, roaming the forest while the sun was sinking in the west, kept catching sight of his shadow as it flickered between the trunks of the tall trees. “Just look at the size of that shadow of mine,” he said in a loud voice. “I am larger and more powerful than a lion. Oh, the lion is not as fit as I am to be the King of the Beasts.”

‘Guess what – a lion was silently prowling nearby and overheard these arrogant words. In a moment, he easily sprang upon the wolf and swiftly devoured him.’

‘What is the moral of the story?’ asked the boy, knowing full well what it was but playing a game of innocence.

‘I would like you to tell me the moral,’ said the tutor.

They laughed, and the boy said:

‘Is it Never Walk in the Woods at Sunset?’

‘No.’

‘Is it Always Speak in a Low Voice?’

‘No.’

‘Then it must be Arrogance is Self-deception !’

‘Yes, you are right.’

A great deal of the prince’s education was conducted in pleasant conversation and games with Fénelon, whose treatise on the education of young women had been designed for use by Madame de Maintenon at Saint-Cyr, where Adélaïde would also benefit from its clarity and wisdom. And its storytelling.

By the time she met her husband-to-be, he was a different person from the child he had been. If anything, he was perhaps overzealous in his religious observation – as strict with himself as he had previously been wild. The savage teeth and wolf claws had become the powdery lips of a moth and the quiet paws of a kitten, and he was considered by many at the court, where loose morality and general frivolity were highly valued, to be growing tedious and dull. He was ‘a dreary pious hunchback’, in the words of one princess who liked to remind people that he was, after all, still deformed. Her poisonous opinion of the king’s legitimate grandson was possibly coloured by her own conflicted and deeply negative feelings – of jealousy, for she was one of the same king’s illegitimate daughters. The waspish princess and her sisters and friends delighted in spying on Adélaïde, the duke’s wife-to-be, and they loved spreading all the scandalous tales they could think of. They invented the notion that Adélaïde was in love with the king himself. And the king, as everyone said, was totally enthralled – enraptured, in love with – the Savoyard princess.

‘She has eyes for the king alone,’ those women would say. And then among themselves they would whisper that the old king seemed to have eyes only for Adélaïde. Yes, they somewhat resembled a Chorus in a play in Ancient Greece.

‘When she sits on his knee, it is perfectly clear what the weight of her stupid bottom is doing to his excitable old bone.’

‘We imagined it was almost dead.’

‘Ha ! It has been resurrected.’

‘Does the little witch know?’

‘She knows.’

‘Does the old whore de Maintenon know?’

‘Of course she does.’

‘Oh yes ! The little one for stimulation, and the old hag for fulfilment.’

‘Perhaps. Or maybe hag-face doesn’t figure in it at all.’

‘Worse things have happened behind the curtains of the royal bed.’

‘Oh yes – much worse.’

So sang the Chorus.

Did Adélaïde catch some of the substance of these stories? As always, she was unreadable. She was the joyful companion of the king, but she was not going to lose sight of her true purpose at the court. She was there to become Queen of France, and nothing was going to stop her. And if at first she was somewhat troubled by her bridegroom’s appearance and demeanour, she would grow to love and treasure him, to a degree. She sometimes called him ‘Baba’, after the favourite doll that Madame Marquet had spirited out of Turin for her. He had two pet names for her. One was ‘Columbina’, drawn from his beloved studies of Latin theatre, and also from his pleasure in the Commedia dell’Arte where she was the wife of Pierrot and the mistress of Harlequin. He often called her just ‘Bina’. Baba and Bina. It is perhaps revealing of the complexity of their relationship that the other name he had for Adélaïde was ‘Draco’. How far was this, the name of the harsh Athenian lawgiver, a jest? Yes, she was a wily politician, daughter of her duplicitous father, but to describe her as draconian, suggesting she was also a mythical dragon, seems to be overly dramatic. Dove or dragon? Bina or Draco? Her husband’s written verses only serve to cloud the matter further. He wrote: ‘Draco, what sweet servitude, to be the slave of duty and of you.’

Adélaïde was more than able to counter the vicious remarks made by the princesses and the poisonous circle of backbiting gossips who could twist to their spiteful narratives any and everything she did. At least, to all appearances, she grew eventually to love her husband. Draco had faded, and Bina the wife welcomed Baba the husband into her arms. Into her heart?

Although, let it be noted that nobody brought out ever in her more high-pitched joy than that same husband’s grandfather, the king. He really was her favourite – and she was his. The eyes and ears of the princesses and their cronies were sharp, and sometimes these women were very close to accurate in their conclusions. Their songs and comments did not escape the ears of the many working women at the court, women such as the busy seamstresses.

⬩ 18 ⬩ THE WICKEDNESS AND SNARES OF THE DEVIL

As well as teaching me sewing and fables, my dear mother loved to prattle on to me about the gossip of life at court, educating me in the ways of that world. She hoped I might rise above our family station and marry into the nobility. She was forever pointing out to me the beauty and virtue, not to mention the lands and properties, of various young men at court. Little did she realise that all this fell upon deaf ears, for by the time I was old enough to care, I had eyes only for Jean-Jacques. Such duplicity ! I close those very eyes in shame, and I pray for forgiveness. I would pretend to pay attention to her directions and ape an interest in one or another of the chosen suitors. This one has three fine estates, but this other is so handsome – and then, this other is one of the king’s most valued musicians, and he has vast lands to the north of Paris.

According to my mother, the ten years before the arrival of Adélaïde at court had been much, much less glamorous and glittering than the Adélaïde years. With the arrival of the astonishing little girl from Savoy, everything came to life again. Suddenly. Like a flash of lightning. I often mourn the fact that my mother’s hopes for my life were dashed when I decided to retire to the quiet safety of Sainte-Odile, far from the wonderful operas and ballets and banquets and balls of Versailles. And the music – oh, the music ! And the sweet perfumes. These perfumes wafted above and around the foul stench that lurked forever beneath the court where people had a habit of emptying their bodies behind chairs or in corners. I might comment here that one of the first delights I encountered at the convent was the general sweetness of the air. For Sainte-Odile is dusted and cleaned every day by the sisters, and it is polished and perfumed with beeswax and herbs.

When I think back to the court, I confess I long for the plays and the storytelling. I miss the jewels and the dresses. I do not regret, however, the high-pitched excitement at the gaming tables with all their intrigue and whispered secrets of romance and wickedness. Oh, the scenes of debauchery behind curtains, below staircases, in haystacks, in stables, even, of course, in bedrooms ! If half the tales of courting and nakedness were true, the palace was forever seething with all kinds of unlawful couplings. Once, long ago, I witnessed two half-naked men in vigorous embrace on the ground beneath a hornbeam hedge. It was late afternoon, and the sunlight presented to me an astonishing pair of gleaming buttocks, smooth as pearl. I confess I stood and stared in fascination at the busy couple, but they did not seem to care. So lost were they in the pleasure of each other. I have tried to banish the image of them from my memory, but they remain imprinted, and now and again their shiny surfaces, blushing pink, emerge in my mind’s picture, rhythmically shifting in a green surrounding world of luscious oval leaves.

My mother is a devout woman and could finally accept that I possibly had a calling to convent life, not knowing I was governed by sorrow and fear, that I was at that time empty of vocation. Mother Matilde has explained to me that it is possible to develop a vocation, and I believe that is what has happened. As I lived for a time in the tranquillity and holiness of the convent, among the devout and busy sisters, most of the attractions of the world ceased to exist for me. The truths of my loss of Jean-Jacques and my loss of his never-to-be child moved into a strange realm of the impossible, and I began to turn my thoughts to higher things, to charity and love and obedience and salvation and prayer, and I underwent a powerful change of heart. I received the gift of vocation, and I took my vows. I sometimes marvel at the fact that I have never confessed to a priest the story of my great transgression. And not to confess completely is also a form of the cardinal sin of pride which dooms my soul to the fires of hell. I am partly able to comfort myself that I have now shared this sin with God and his Mother. And with this Storybook.

I work away at my Storybook, exploring such things as I know about the world and meditating on matters beyond my understanding. I reflect on my father’s life as a gardener and on how closely that binds him to Jean-Jacques, my own beloved gardener in heaven. I gaze over the miles and miles of the parks at Versailles, and I fall into a rapture at the spectacle of flying fountains and endless, endless green, regularly relieved by great pools of gleaming water. Somewhere in the far, far distance I fancy I can perceive a tiny figure with a wheelbarrow. Jean-Jacques. It is Jean-Jacques ! I try to call out, but, as if in a dream, I have no voice.

Since I have been here at the convent, I have not seen any members of my family. I wonder if I will ever see them again. Am I dead to them? Perhaps I am. My father was able to provide my modest dowry, and for this I am most fortunate. It is strange to think that I am here, confined, while they are out there in the world, not so very far away, busy among crowds, free to roam.

Mother Matilde considers it wise that I should concentrate on my relationship with God. ‘You are still quite young,’ she tells me, ‘and you need to breathe the quiet of the convent, to taste the simple companionship of the sisters, confess your sins, and to do the will of God.’

Is she right? I believe she is. But perhaps I will never truly know the answer to that question. I must assume that God has sent her to me to give me the opportunity to save my immortal soul.

So frequently my thoughts drift, or swiftly switch, from the heavenly to the worldly. How very dramatic was the change in the court when Adélaïde burst onto the scene ! I was a child then, and I did not have the knowledge or experience to measure these things, but over time I have realised the reach of the changes that were made. The court had, I am told, all gone dreary and flat when Madame de Montespan lost the favour of the king and Madame de Maintenon took over in his affection to become his secret wife. For Françoise, as I sometimes dare to call her in these pages, unless I call her tante, brought to the king a sober and religious understanding that hell and damnation lay in store for him if he did not repent his sins. She – who had long since converted from the Huguenot faith of her early childhood to being a devout adult Catholic – was determined to ensure that the king would spend eternity in heaven.

Not every convert is as dedicated in faith as Françoise. Her pincushion, red as blood, which I duplicate for sale at Sainte-Odile, exists as the receptacle for her desire to bring all of France back to the one true Church, to convert all Huguenots. And to please the king. I try to imagine the holy pleasure she takes as she marks another successful conversion by stabbing the heart of the cushion with those bright pins. Is she destroying also the heart of her child-self? Many of her beloved relatives have remained faithful to the Huguenot beliefs all their lives. I imagine she lives in darkest fear for them, and that she prays day and night for their peaceful conversion to the Church. Perhaps she trembles as I tremble when I pray for the soul of Jean-Jacques, as I pray that before he took his last breath on earth he might have abandoned his family’s heresy and embraced the beauty and safety of the one true faith.

It often seems to me, here in the peace of the East Tower, to be strange that the way to salvation and the joy of heaven is forever strewn with cruelty and war and bloodshed, and the violent deaths of so many, many people. I think I will never understand. A statue of Saint Michael the Archangel waving his sword aloft hovers above us all in the chapel – he is the great warrior saint who warns us of the ‘wickedness and snares of the Devil’. He, Michael, is the field commander of God’s army. Those words – wickedness and snares – oh, traps and pitfalls – hang in the air like evil smoke when we pray to the archangel. They haunt me and make me shiver and squirm. There is so much that remains beyond my understanding.

Better to bow my head and concentrate on my embroidery and give thanks for my vocation. Chatter with the sisters on matters of how best to make bread, how to sew a glowing halo around the head of a silken saint. Let the peace and goodness of the convent surround me and wash over me. Holy Michael Archangel, defend us in the day of battle. It is strange how, as soon as I think of peace, I rush to recall ‘the day of battle’. Is the silence always set against the noise? Is the light always followed by the darkness? The answer here is yes. When I become tangled in these eternal puzzles, rather than resort to reading the words of the Gospels, as Mother Matilde would have me do, I run to the fables we loved at Saint-Cyr. Perhaps they are easier to grasp than the word of God. Perhaps I lack the intellect required to understand the things I need to understand.

Adélaïde was much quicker than I to grasp the moral of any story. She had heard some of the fables as a small child in Savoy. She told me that her grandmother would tell the tale of the gnat and the lion. The arrogant little gnat vanquishes the lion by constantly stinging and stinging him until the lion breathes his last. All well and good. But then the gnat is so delighted with his success that he fails to notice the fine silvery cartwheel of a spider’s web. He becomes so entwined in the web that he too loses the battle. ‘Victory does not always last long,’ her grandmother used to say.

‘You see,’ Adélaïde told me, ‘my father was really the gnat, and Grand-père was the lion. If my father ever succeeded in victory over the king, he would end up being eaten by some spider or other, anyway. So really, there is never an end to the chain of victory and defeat. I suppose the spider will be eaten by a bird – the bird will be shot by a hunter, and the hunter will be eaten by a wolf – and so on. And on.’ She would laugh. ‘Forever. Until the end of time …’

Then she would fall silent as if, just for a moment, she was contemplating the end of all time. The daughter of the gnat becomes the beloved companion of the lion. Now that is not in the fable ! Many folk said, in fact, that she was more than a companion, but I close my ears to such wicked whisperings.

She used to laugh at me when I was rather puzzled by her talk of lions and gnats. I could see what she was saying, once she explained it to me, but I was never quick as Adélaïde was quick. She often appeared to be a frivolous, even silly girl, but she had a fine intellect and had been well trained, not only by her father but by her wise old grandmother in Turin as well.

And, as if to preserve her lost childhood, she kept forever the simple doll Baba. He ruled over all the exquisite French dolls given to her by the king. There is a story – a true story, not a fable – that not long after she arrived at Versailles she was observed sitting on the floor of the Salon of Peace surrounded by all the gleaming new dolls in their velvet and silver lace. On her lap was Baba, and she and Baba were telling stories to the others. The courtier who first told the tale said she looked ‘like a tiny, tiny bee in the centre of a gigantic golden hive’. I have only once been in that room, at the opposite end of the Hall of Mirrors from the Salon of War, but I will never forget the sense of being encased in a huge casket of gold and mirror that was completely lined, walls and ceiling, with great big paintings celebrating the power of peace. I looked right up to the ceiling, and there was a picture of a grand chariot drawn by doves. Driving the chariot was a figure I was told was meant to be France. I can just imagine little Adélaïde lost in a world of her own with her Baba and the dolls, sitting beneath that ceiling. Like a tiny, tiny bee.

High on the stone wall of the East Tower, there hangs an ancient, rather small tapestry woven in wool and silk long ago by one of the sisters whose name has not been recorded. The frame on which she made it is still in use here at the convent. It is a picture of Saint Louis and a little girl who has just been brought back to life by his holy touch. The way the child is standing, looking so alive and almost luminous, she somehow reminds me of Adélaïde. And even the colour of her dress resembles the dark coral that was one of Adélaïde’s favourite shades for her gowns. Saint Louis is in bright blue speckled with golden fleurs-de-lis, and his crown seems to be slipping forward off his head. The picture, somewhat crude and clumsy, always makes me smile.

I have a vivid recollection of a time when I was very young myself, and I accompanied my mother when she delivered some sewing to one of the ladies at Versailles. I remember standing in startled awe in a hall where the walls were decorated with enormous tapestries. The figures in them were larger than life, and so they were overwhelming and frightening. Lifelike and bright, so very bright – in them, the wool and silk are gloriously embellished with threads wrapped in silver and gold so that they glitter like stars. I can scarcely envisage the size of the looms on which they were created. One image hovers in my memory: half-naked women with wings flying through the clouds and tipping jugs of sparkling water as they go. There was a huge naked man with curling blond hair and the wings of a large bird. Stars were sprinkled in the air behind him, and there seemed to be trouble and noise, blaring noise. He was spraying water, like fine lace, from his mouth. Who was he? An angel, a devil? Such thoughts and memories buzz in my mind and trouble me. My mind is a clutter of pictures from my past.

Sometimes I wish I did not have this daily task of Storybook composition, and I even imagine running to the window and tossing the paper and ink out, out into the crisp air. They fly and tumble and become part of the tapestry of everything. But then I fall into a panic. I must retrieve them, for there is a whole world of story still waiting to be told. The kestrel silently inhabits a thin and distant cloud. He brings me back to my senses, and I write on in a strange kind of joy. I glance up at the resurrected Adélaïde with Saint Louis. She smiles. And my concentration shifts back to the long, long journey she took as a little girl, travelling from her home in Turin towards her glowing future. And her terrible death in the palace of Versailles.

⬩ 19 ⬩ TEACH ME WELL, MA TANTE

When the royal company had finally arrived at the palace of Fontainebleau, on that cold November day in 1696, the king presented the child from Savoy with all the crown jewels, instructing her to choose whatever took her fancy. This gesture was a clear token of the fact that he had decided not to send her back to Turin. Life seemed to shift swiftly from such moments of enchantment and luxury to times of childish laughter and joy. For while at Fontainebleau, amid the flurry of ceremony and the constant public display and celebration, Adélaïde played several rounds of her favourite game of blindman’s buff, much to the delight of all, the sweet child flitting blindly among the members of the court, a silken bandage wrapped across her dark Italian eyes.

Before leaving in the long procession of coaches for Versailles, the king and Françoise take Adélaïde for a coach-ride by the side of the canal.

‘I have arranged a little scene for you,’ whispers the king, bending towards Adélaïde. Her bright dark eyes sparkle with pleasure. ‘You are going to enjoy this.’

He takes her to see the flock of great cormorants in the act of catching fish – something she has never seen before. Their comical walk, their half-jumps as they dive and disappear from view into the water – all this makes her laugh. They bring their catch to the surface, and if they throw it to the bank beside the canal, it is gathered in hand-nets and will end up on the banquet table. But sometimes, the birds swallow the fish whole. Then, almost at once, they take off into the air.

‘Oh, oh, they fly like geese !’ Adélaïde’s pleasure in the spectacle inspires the king to much joy and laughter.

Later, as they sit in the coach, the little girl whispers to Françoise:

‘Teach me well, ma tante, I beg you, teach me all that I must do to please the king. I am your most willing pupil.’

And teach her she did, from the first moment of meeting and for many years to come. Perhaps Françoise saw her child-self in Adélaïde, and perhaps she was in some ways trying to create a perfect new version of herself – such was her diligence in her instruction of the future Queen of France. Françoise could never become queen. She was the king’s ‘secret’ wife. As matters stood, in the fullness of time, Adélaïde, the princess from Savoy, would transform into the queen. Life is never very far from legend.

With some sort of volcanic slippage in time, there might have been – one fine and magically impossible day, in an era never heard of in history – a King Louis the Something of France with his Queen Adélaïde.

The hour arrives for the court to return to Versailles. In the growing dark of early evening, after travelling all day long, the procession of coaches, headed by that of the king, arrives at the great palace. It will be here, perhaps more than at the college of Saint-Cyr, that Madame de Maintenon will guide and shape the young Duchess of Bourgogne – now known, on the instructions of the king, as ‘La Princesse’. The king, his secret wife, and his grandniece are about to form an historic trio at the court. A tangle of fate, chance, destiny, history, politics, blood has brought them together to form a magic circle. It is almost as if Adélaïde has carried a flame that has lit a touchpaper. What are the true ingredients that go to make up this extraordinary group of three?

Perhaps the most unlikely element is that of the wife – secret wife, Françoise. Once upon a time, the young King Louis had a wife: she was a princess from Spain, Maria Teresa, and after marrying the king in 1660, when they were both twenty-two, she bore him six children, of whom only one survived childhood. That one, Louis, grand dauphin, would become the father of Adélaïde’s bridegroom. It was his death, from smallpox in 1711, that paved the way for Bourgogne to become heir to the throne. The king, it should be said, had many favourite lovers, and they gave him at least ten more sons and daughters. Some of those daughters were the princesses who spent so much time whispering and gossiping about Adélaïde. When the king was thirty-five years old, he was still particularly close to his beautiful mistress, Athénaïs, Madame de Montespan. He was distant from his wife, the queen, Maria Teresa. Then Françoise d’Aubigné quietly entered his orbit, as it were from the side. She is known to history as Madame de Maintenon.

⬩ 20 ⬩ WHO EXACTLY IS MADAME DE MAINTENON?

A child was born in a filthy, long, narrow prison cell in Niort, three hundred miles west from the city of Paris, one hundred miles north of Bordeaux, sixty miles inland from the Bay of Biscay. Her name was Françoise d’Aubigné, and this was the year 1635. Some say she was born in that cell, and some say she was born ‘close by’ – the plain truth can be at the mercy of time. Her father, the prisoner d’Aubigné, had seduced the sixteen-year-old daughter of the gaoler in a previous prison, married her – and Françoise was the third child of the union. Folk tales often have such grim and grubby beginnings. Françoise’s two older brothers, dressed in rags and infested with lice, used to beg for food in the street.

Françoise, on her mother’s side, was a member of an impoverished, disgraced noble Catholic family. Some light has perhaps been shed in the gloom, with this background. The child was baptised. But her father was not a Catholic, being the son of a noble Huguenot warrior and poet – and therein lies the kernel of a problem that will nestle within the heart of the child Françoise. One day she will try to resolve it with her velvet pincushion. Her father was not a Catholic. This was a bad mistake in vigorously, viciously Catholic France. Some of her relatives were Catholic; some were Huguenot. Part of her was one thing; part of her was another. By the time she acquired the crimson pincushion, the Catholic side was dominant. Yet her Protestant relatives had given her the example of a certain tolerance and kindness in childhood, and these qualities prevailed. The purpose of the pincushion exercise was to remind her that when there was one less Protestant in the world, then the world was a better place. And if that state of affairs could be peacefully achieved, so much the better. A swift stab in the velvet heart would celebrate the change. As a further complication, her Huguenot father was a convicted rapist and murderer, and he was also an enemy of the state. In Catholic France in the seventeenth century, that was a most dangerous position to have. And yet his daughter, Françoise, would become – in a secret Catholic ceremony – the wife of the French king.

Although the rules contained in the Edict of Nantes still officially applied, protecting Huguenots from Catholic persecution, in France and indeed across all of Europe, the world seethed with religious hatred and simmered with unrest and fierce and bloody battles. Françoise was baptised a Catholic, although during her early childhood she was among Protestants and did not wholly practise her baptismal faith. When she was three, she was sent to live with the nearby Huguenot family of her father’s sister, where they dwelt in the pretty chateau of Mursay, just six miles north of Niort. Turkeys and goats and buttercups and butterflies and cousins – and kindness and peace and freedom. A small château with turrets and a moat. Her mother and two brothers had gone to live in poverty in Paris, where her mother sought justice through the courts in her case against her husband, and where she subsisted by doing odd jobs of embroidery and basket-weaving.

By hard work and possibly by miracles, Françoise eventually succeeded in carrying her own skills as an embroiderer into the royal court. Her work was indeed sublime. Some people even believe that Françoise invented petit-point. That may or may not be the truth. Hanging in her apartment in Versailles, she had an exquisite example of her work. It was a silky portrait of the Duke of Bourgogne when he was a child of five. He is seated on a cushion in a dream garden of wallflowers and tulips. It is hard to believe that this peacefully smiling cherub could be the raging monster everybody describes before he underwent that miraculous change of character in late childhood. Like the camera, the artist’s brush can lie, leaving a false trail for the historian to follow.

At Mursay, Françoise’s older cousin Philip taught her reading, writing and arithmetic. ‘Oh, Françoise,’ he would exclaim, ‘you are such a clever little girl !’

In the Huguenot manner, there were regular family prayers and readings from the Bible, as well as clear demonstrations of kindness and consideration for beliefs of others, including Catholic Françoise.

On Sundays, instead of going to mass, she visited her father in his cell in Niort. She met the gaoler’s daughter, who owned a dazzling miniature silver tea-set – it must have been fashioned by a fairy silversmith. Françoise never ever forgot the charm of that little tea-set: four silver plates and cups and saucers, one fat miniature silver teapot, one cute little silver milk jug, one elegant silver cake-stand, one fancy silver bowl for sweetmeats and another bowl for sugar. Many years later, she ordered one to be made for the pleasure of the youngest children at her college of Saint-Cyr. Memory is a sweet and powerful thing. You needed tiny nimble fingers to use that tea-set; Françoise was blessed with such fingers.

When she was nine, she left the château, for the d’Aubigné family was at last reunited, and they sailed far away to the French West Indies where the father was able to support them, growing tobacco and bananas, the children being enlisted among the workers. Instead of sewing pretty pictures, Françoise was needed to harvest the tobacco. Legend has it that during the sea journey, fever broke out, and Françoise fell ill and was assumed to be dead. She was wrapped in a sheet and placed on the gangplank, ready to be tipped into the sea. However, her mother – while giving the child a last kiss and whispering a desperate prayer to Mary Star of the Sea – detected signs of life. She was saved from the waves. Françoise lived, thereby changing the course of history.

By the time she was twelve, the family was back in Paris, where the nine-year-old Louis of the royal house of Bourbon was on the throne. The distance between the girl and the king was incalculable. They belonged to two completely different worlds. She was in the coal cellar, and he was floating through the clouds in a golden coach covered with gleaming pearls. What strange activity among the stars of heaven could possibly ever bring them together?

When her father died, Françoise returned to the sunny pleasures of the château of Mursay. She worked in the farmyard and, to preserve her complexion against the sun, wore a nose-mask. This charming young woman in her wooden clogs and simple grey dress with the brown apron, her dark eyes peering from the black velvet of a harlequin nose mask, would feed grain to the turkeys.

Her cousins would often laugh at her vanity. ‘Oh, Françoise, what are you, a lady at a palace ball?’

Always in the background of her life hung the question of her religion, and while she was at Mursay, a Catholic relative decided it was time to act. Such disparate forces worked their way across the lifetime of Françoise. On this occasion it was Madame de Feuillant, mother of her long-ago godmother, who took charge and sent the girl to a convent where she came under the kind and generous care of one Sister Celeste. Popes and saints and candles and confession and the Body of Christ. Education. The result was that Françoise was now on the pathway to being the intensely Catholic woman she later became. Yet she hated living in the convent and wished to break free, to know the music and freedom and flurry of the real world.

‘And now,’ said Madame de Feuillant, ‘you are sixteen, and it is time for you to experience the delights of sophisticated life in Paris.’ Somewhat like the fairy godmother in the tales of Charles Perrault, she said:

‘Here is a delightful blue silk gown for you, since blue is your favourite colour. And a corselet, as well as handkerchiefs of lace from Alençon, and a pair of pale green leather slippers. You will love this perfume of bergamot and ambergris and lavender. And may I introduce you to the wonderful Madame de Scudéry, who will welcome you to her circle of amusing and intellectual ladies.’

Perhaps there was a particularly good fairy present at the baptism, way back there in Niort.

But alas, by 1652 there was a set-back: she married a ‘crippled’ playwright, Paul Scarron, who was twenty-five years older than she was and of a miserable temper. At least he saved her from having to return to the convent, and then he died in 1660. Eight years she was with him, and eight years can be a very long time. But during those years she began to mingle in educated and sophisticated circles. Paul Scarron was a colleague of such luminous folk as the playwrights Racine and Molière.

Françoise must now earn her living – something she does by working as governess and teacher to the children of the nobility. Her world is about to be transformed.

The king’s principal mistress Athénaïs, known as Madame de Montespan, selects Françoise to be the governess for the bastard children she had with the king. These children will live with Françoise for four years, in what appears to be a rather ordinary Paris house. A rather extraordinary visitor – the king – frequently comes to the house after hunting, there observing the happy lives of his half-royal children and becoming entranced by everything about their governess. As it happens, Louis is drawn to the Catholic morality as well as the motherly tenderness of Françoise. In time he awards her the funds to buy the château of Maintenon, which lies at twenty-five miles from the palace of Versailles. It reminds her of the lost paradise of Mursay, and she plans one day to retire there.

In 1680, when Louis, dauphin, son of the king, marries Marianne-Victoire of Bavaria, Françoise is chosen to be the dauphine’s second Mistress of the Robes. She is moving now in the highest circles, wearing the sober black gown of her office. From a silver chain around her throat, there dangles a glittering diamond cross.

She is routinely accompanied by Nanon Belbien, her beloved maid, and by her young African page, Angola. On court occasions when her gown of velvet or damask might weigh sixty pounds, she needs Angola to carry the ten-foot train, gripping the fabric with small, black, elegant hands. He seems to be forever smiling, his teeth unusually even, white and gleaming in a world where teeth, coated with sugar, are so often missing or are but dark stumps in malodorous gums.

The king’s friendship with Françoise has developed to the point where she has great long conversations with the monarch every single day. Indeed, intellectual conversation has begun to fascinate the king, who also spends hours in discussion with the dauphine from Bavaria; these dialogues include the voiced opinions of the dauphine’s second Mistress of the Robes, Françoise.

Françoise has travelled from the prison in Niort to the secret marriage ceremony with the King of France.

His wife dies, his ageing mistress Athénaïs is retired from her position, and he is reflecting more and more on mortality and the judgement of his soul. The adulterous merry dance – with so many lovers, so many offspring – that has been his life so far is slowing down, and the realisation that his soul must ultimately answer for his sins is dawning on him. He has never forgotten his dear mother’s lessons. Among all the people who could guide him in his growing quest for salvation, Françoise comes to the fore. She is also a woman, and the best conversations are often conducted in bed, before and after the king’s necessary sexual exercises.

It is now 1683. In two more years the third member of the strange trio will be born – when Adélaïde makes her first appearance in the world, out there in Turin, land of the wily Gatekeeper. Meanwhile, in what is perhaps one of the most significant secret marriages in the history of the world, Louis and Françoise are wed.

Yes, it is clear to all that they are a couple, and she is known as his ‘secret wife’. But few know that their union, unacknowledged by the state, has in reality been blessed by the Church in a thrilling clandestine nuptial mass at midnight on the tenth of October 1683.

The elaborate court has been centred at Versailles since 1681, and yet the vast development is still a bustling, dusty, noisy, foulsmelling building site. The palace itself, containing the royal apartments, is complete, and at night it blazes with candles and torches, the Hall of Mirrors glittering with solid silver furniture. The lodgings of the lesser members of the burgeoning community are generally mean and murky.

Another part of the puzzle that will bring Adélaïde to France is the fact that in 1682, the chaos of more war in Europe has begun, and in 1683, when the queen dies and Françoise and Louis marry, the Habsburg Empire and its allies unite against France, forming the Grand Alliance. The baby girl who will be born in Turin in 1685 is destined to be a key player – perhaps a puppet – in this game of war. The French prince who is her destiny was born in 1682, as the rumblings of war were beginning. And Adélaïde’s father, Victor Amadeus of Turin, is the gnat who keeps the lion of France wondering which side he might be playing on.

The words of the four-year-old Louis echo in the memory, down the years: ‘What do you suppose the king did next?’ says his storytelling mother.

‘I know, I know, he went to war !’

Lacking the gold coins from the backside of a donkey, Louis melted down the silver furniture in the Hall of Mirrors to finance the exercise. And he listened to a wise new motherly voice, that of his wife and moral adviser, Françoise, Madame de Maintenon. The principal aim of the wars was the desire for lands, for territory. Another consideration was the wish to obliterate the enemy’s religion. Of course, there was no purity in this, and the two aims were frequently conflated. The desire for power was the true and simple reason. Françoise kept score of religious conversions, some quiet, some loud and dramatic, with her crimson pincushion and her amber and crystal pins.

Many people viewed Françoise as a malign influence on the king and therefore on the whole of France. Her strict religious observance was repugnant to many, and there were popular songs and theatrical performances which satirised her character. Those who knew about her pincushion believed it was just a celebration of Catholic massacres of Huguenots. The company that performed La Fausse Prude, a play that delighted audiences with its close depiction of her as a kind of monster woman, was exiled from Paris by order of the king.

Quietly, in the privacy of her chamber, she steadily counted the progress of Catholic France as she populated that soft velvet heart with long, sharp slivers of silver.

⬩ 21 ⬩ THE ANGEL IN THE LIGHT

Just like so many people at court, my mother was fascinated by Françoise. Plenty of folk came from humble homes to become wealthy and successful, but I think the story of the king’s secret wife was specially thrilling and fascinating, like one of Monsieur Perrault’s stories. It had a strange sort of magic in it.

I was about five years old when my mother and I were slicing the vegetables to put in the soup. My father came in from his work in the garden and told us that the new pink rose was to be named ‘Madame de Maintenon’.

‘I wish they would name a rose after me,’ I said.

‘When you marry the king, maybe they will,’ said my father, and he laughed and tossed me a tight white rosebud from his pocket. I put it behind my ear, and my mother shook her head and said tut-tut.

‘How do you marry the king?’ I asked, serious.

My mother, who is extremely religious and loves Françoise, chimed in. ‘The king’s wife is devoted to God, and to spreading peace and goodness. She spends many hours in prayer, and she has the protection and guidance of a most beautiful and powerful guardian angel.’

‘How do you know that, Mama?’

She put down the parsnip she had been peeling, wiped her hands on her apron and sat on her chair, taking me on her knee. ‘Clotilde,’ she said, and by her voice I knew she was going to tell me something important, ‘Clotilde,’ and she paused to take a deep breath, ‘I have seen the guardian angel.’

‘Now, Thérèse,’ said my father, ‘you mustn’t fill the child’s head with impossible tosh. You and your signs and wonders.’

But my mother took no notice of him, and he left the kitchen, shrugging his shoulders and rolling his eyes.

I sat still and silent while my mother went on. ‘One afternoon at dusk, I was walking alone across the palace gardens. All was quiet. Not a leaf was stirring. Then a carriage swept past me. It rolled on ahead, and when it stopped, I saw the black page Angola step nimbly down. He offered his hand to Madame de Maintenon, and as she descended, I saw what seemed to be a sudden blaze of light within the carriage, as if, a great torch had been lit. This was impossible. But as the lady stepped onto the pavement, the light eerily emerged from the carriage and hovered up above her. I was transfixed. Two of the ladies got down from the carriage, paying no attention to the light. They could not see it. All of them then walked swiftly towards the palace, while the light travelled with them, always up above the head of Madame. And I saw, I swear I saw, within the brilliance of the light, blazing, the prone figure of an angel, his hands held out in blessing. The most beautiful creature I have ever, ever seen. The little group disappeared into the palace, and the light was no more. I know I saw her guardian angel.’

My mother’s eyes were bright with tears of joy as she told me this story. I believed her. I still believe her. There are angels. There are miracles. I have only ever told this tale once before. I told it to Jean-Jacques, and he, unlike my father, believed me, believed my mother. Even though his Protestant faith would surely say it was nonsense. Oh, how I wish and hope and pray that there were such a guardian angel watching over him. I realise that everyone has a guardian, but to have one that can manifest itself like that – oh, it is almost beyond belief. Yet I know it is true. I feel its truth. I am not really surprised that Françoise would merit such an angel, for she is very close to God. I wonder why my mother was given the gift of seeing it. That puzzles me, and it sometimes worries me. But then, I must remember that gifts can come from heaven in the most mysterious ways. Has the king seen the angel? Perhaps he has; perhaps that is the secret of the great bond between him and Françoise. Perhaps their guardian angels float, invisible, above them.

When I was a child, I used to talk to my angel, but it is many years now since I engaged in such simple and comforting conversations. One time, long ago, a priest told me that the guardians were like busy housekeepers working away in the background of people’s lives, making things tidy, working things out, seeing that the stairs were safe, that the mad dog would not bite, that the tree would not fall on the carriage as it trundled along the road. ‘You cannot see what your angel is doing, Clotilde,’ he said, ‘but be assured that he is always watching over you and forever smoothing your way.’ I listened, but even then I could see a flaw in the logic. What had happened to the angel when a boy was bitten by a mad dog, when a family was killed by a falling tree? But I didn’t put my argument to the priest, whose word was law. I have always wanted to keep my confessors happy. Even then I had heard enough about the terrible punishments given to people who argued. I think the Jansenists, who are the enemies of the Jesuits – and the Huguenots, who are Protestants – believe they don’t need angels because everything good and everything bad is already decided by God. I think if you are a Protestant, then you are born destined for heaven or for hell. As I understand it, you have no free will. I don’t really understand these fine details of beliefs. But I believe I persuaded Jean-Jacques that he had an angel. I think Jean-Jacques was getting close to true conversion, to recognising the Faith, to receiving baptism, to knowing his guardian angel. Was I right? Was he one of the people who could merit a stab of silver in the pincushion of converts? I hope and pray for this.

I pray that before he died he might have truly converted. But he was not a person of importance to anyone but me and would hardly qualify for a place on the pincushion. Yet I remind myself that Françoise was always more interested in goodness and simplicity than in grandeur and nobility. So perhaps she would find a crystal pin for him.

She and the king were determined, in the early days of Adélaïde’s life in France, that the little princess would be protected as much as possible from the high life of the court. High life leads to corruption, and I believe they hoped to preserve the glow of her childish innocence. My thoughts sometimes fly back to the first years of my friendship with Adélaïde, when she was shielded from the gambling and the operas, and often spent evenings with Françoise and the king, listening to stories and singing old country songs around the harpsichord. All that changed later on, but at first her life at court was, in a sense, more plain and simple.

⬩ 22 ⬩ I ADORE THE TOUCAN

Versailles, 1697

Within the vast lands of the palace at Versailles were several menageries where there lived wonderful collections of wild animals. These places had been given to various princes and princesses for their personal pleasure, interest and relaxation. At the southern arm of the Grand Canal was the king’s own Great Menagerie.

A fine little château-like pavilion stood in the grounds. Iron balconies on the second floor overlooked the animal courtyards which radiated out from the centre. And the animals, in wedgeshaped enclosures, were separated into their classes and housed in suitable landscapes. Wading birds such as storks and herons inhabited a wetland. Three thousand pigeons cooed and fluttered in an immense house of their own. The eagles lived in a little craggy forest where porcupines and foxes inhabited holes in the ground. Lions, gazelles, a rhinoceros, a pair of zebras, a camel. In times gone by, there had also been a female elephant. It was originally from the Congo, a gift from the King of Portugal in 1668. This elephant was famous for consuming huge quantities of bread and wine and vegetable soup, and she was the delight of artists and biologists, and the pride of the king. When she died in 1681, she was duly dissected by a biologist at the Academy of Sciences. It was a major scientific event, reported far and wide, to the glory of France.

Let us pause here and consider the fact that the biologist was Claude Perrault – brother of Charles, whose fame as a teller of tales has far outstripped the fame of this scientific Claude. Charles saw the magic; Claude saw the science. People will remember the stories of princesses; nobody much will recall the dead elephant.

In the Great Menagerie, the ostriches had a desert and the waterbirds had a glorious pond. In an elegant aviary there lived dozens and dozens of rare, exotic birds such as toucans, parrots, cassowaries, kingfishers. Crocodiles had a river. You could observe flamingos, wild ducks, pelicans, cranes. Elaborate expeditions to foreign lands were sent from France to join the company of this great otherworld of God’s creatures. All this could be observed from the balconies. Down to earth, in the Menagerie farmyard, there were cows, horses, donkeys, turkeys, ducks, goats, sheep, chickens.

In the pavilion, there was an eight-sided salon from which rose a handsome dome with seven long windows topped with the king’s own symbol of the beaming sun. There were many smaller rooms as well, filled with tables and couches, carpets, tapestries. A taste of paradise. Perfumed. Always music, always laughter. Portraits of all the animals could be seen throughout the pavilion, to the delight and amazement of visitors.

Adélaïde, entranced by the living creatures, was also fascinated by the pictures. Again and again she would ask to return to the painted image of a zebra. ‘I think he is speaking to me,’ she whispered.

‘So what might he be saying to you, my dear?’ asked the king.

‘He says I must go to his enclosure and count his stripes.’

And with a little skip she headed off back to the wild animals, the king by her side chuckling with pleasure at the child’s whimsy. In the presence of the living zebras, they engaged in the game of trying to count the stripes on their bodies.

It was the middle of the morning when Adélaïde and the king were strolling hand in hand towards the zebras.

‘Oh look, Grand-père,’ Adélaïde whispered, touching the king on the sleeve, ‘today the boy zebra is climbing onto the girl !’

They stood still and watched together as the male’s long curved member entered the female quite slowly. The animals shifted a little on the spot, and walked around for several minutes, stuck together in a kind of dance. When the dance was finished, they stood side by side, then seemed to drift into the nearby clump of trees and disappear. The king and his companion looked at each other, smiling, and then they too ambled away, hand in hand.

As well as a place for such childish pastimes, the Great Menagerie was a romantic resort where love affairs rippled through the joyful company. The menagerie was a most thrilling and delightful place to gather for the elegant whirlwind of royal parties. Such parties had not been so frequent or so thrilling since the ‘reign’ of Madame de Maintenon began – her sober and devout approach to life cast its spell over the king, and hence over the whole of Versailles. But the busy world of high fashion and fantasy was reawakened, reillumined, with the arrival of the child from Savoy.

Adélaïde had not been long in France when the king and his wife first took her out to the Grand Menagerie. ‘I am going to show you the porcupine and all his companions,’ said the king to Adélaïde, who gasped with joy, opened her eyes wide and folded her hands as if in prayer.

Along the broad canal, they rode in a golden gondola, serenaded by violins, the king a splash of blue and gold, his wife a quiet smudge of grey and amber, the child a vivid burst of coral. As in a dream the slender vessel cut a steady way through the water towards the world of the king’s Great Menagerie. Never in her life had Adélaïde even imagined such extraordinary creatures as she saw that afternoon. She fell in love with two shy gazelles, ‘so soft and sweet with their big brown eyes and spindly legs’.

‘Do you like the little château, my dear?’ said the king.

‘I think it is most pretty.’

‘Then the château and all its animals shall be yours. For your own personal use.’

‘Even the porcupine?’

The king laughed. ‘Yes, even the porcupine.’

Adélaïde, like a caricature of a child in ecstasy, squealed and clapped and jumped up and down. She hugged the king and kissed his cheek. Madame de Maintenon put out a restraining hand in some alarm, but the king threw back his head and laughed and then kissed the child on the forehead.

‘I do love the little kingfishers,’ Adélaïde said.

‘Not the toucans? I really like their clear colours,’ said the king.

‘Oh, but I also adore the toucans ! And the flamingos ! Pink ! The flamingos are all so bendy and so pink ! Do they not have eyes like the little black buttons on the cassock of a priest.’

And so it was, that in his eagerness to please his enchanting new ‘granddaughter’, the king decided there and then to give this whole strange and wonderful place to Adélaïde for her personal amusement. He also made her a gift of another large selection from the crown jewels.

‘The king is besotted.’

‘What a fool.’

‘Lost his mind over the little mischief.’

‘They say she is the new light of his life.’

‘What a trio they are – the shrivelled sovereign and the doddery old hag and the giggling little Italian freak.’

Whatever the Chorus thought and said, it was clear that the atmosphere of the court had changed dramatically with the arrival of Adélaïde. The somewhat righteous and religious gloom that had descended with the king’s secret marriage to Françoise had lifted, and there was a return to merriment and to a degree of mischief, and even pranks.

⬩ 23 ⬩ FIRECRACKER

Some mornings when I sit here, I look down into the convent gardens and the orchard, and I am lost in a moment of dream, as the faint ghost of Adélaïde seems to float before me. Above the tops of the apple trees, above the rows of rosemary and lavender, the misty green of the vegetables, the kitchen herbs, some almost-presence of the spirit of a lost princess hovers in hints from heaven. Heaven? She must be in heaven. On earth she fashioned with her laughter and her dancing feet something like glimpses of paradise, and then, in those dark February hours, she was snatched swiftly away.

The kestrel from the rocks high above the convent sometimes wheels like a silent angel over the gardens, talons ready, eye and beak sharp as razors, before his sudden swoop to pluck a small grey mouse from life to death. Oh, the accuracy of his golden eye, the command of his claw. As the bird dives upon its prey, so the floating spirit of the little duchess, like silver smoke, drifts out across the orchard, out into infinity.

Adélaïde used to say her favourite fountain in the Labyrinth at the palace gardens was the one telling the story of the Kite and the Doves. ‘You see, Clo-Clo,’ she says, ‘the kite pretends he will protect the doves if they agree he can be their king. So he moves into the dovecote, and one of the rules he makes as king is that he will eat one of them every single day.’

‘What is the moral of the story?’ I say, playing along with her.

‘Never Trust a King,’ she says, her eyes twinkling, her lips curving in a naughty smile. ‘Or perhaps it is Never Trust a Creature who has his own Interests at Heart.’

‘Ah, but how can you know he has his own interests at heart?’ I say.

‘Ha-ha ! You can’t tell until he starts eating your sister.’

‘So why is that your favourite fountain, then?’

‘Because I love the way the statue of the kite sprays water all over the statues of the doves, and I think it’s very funny.’ She grins as she says this.

‘The poor doves !’

‘Stupid doves !’

‘I feel sorry for them,’ I say.

She falls silent, and her smile fades. I know her soul is compassionate; it is the bright brittle surface that conceals the softness of her heart.

There was a day when her carriage ran over and killed a shoemaker in Paris. She jumped from the carriage and discovered the identity of the man. Later she visited his wife and children, bearing baskets of food and a bag of gold coins. The dead shoemaker’s wife fainted and dropped the bag, and the gold pieces rolled across the pavement. Adélaïde joined the children as they hopped and scrabbled to retrieve them.

Sometimes, as I lie awake in my cell, I imagine rambling through the Labyrinth with Adélaïde, fountains playing, playing, and we stop every now and again and choose a sculptured fable, out of all thirty-nine, and tell each other the story. I fall into a peaceful, happy slumber.

Today I am taken back, as in a dream, to an afternoon when Adélaïde and I had somehow escaped from her ladies and our tutor at Saint-Cyr and were running free in the gardens of Versailles. We had for many weeks had a plan to get up to mischief there, and this was the chance. We had succeeded in changing from our brown school dresses into some costumes we had used for an opera. Adélaïde wore coral and I wore buttercup, and we mingled quite easily with the ladies who walked and chatted and laughed along the pathways of the gardens. I had a wreath of dark red roses in my hair.

I will attempt to paint the picture with my words. The magic of the quill and the ink and the paper will take me from this humble tower room out into the vast geometry of those gardens.

Late afternoon, early summer, a faint chill hangs in the air. The place is thronged with hordes of people, among them the old Duchess of Saint-Mizan in her sedan chair. She is on her way to visit the Dragon Fountain, which is her favourite. She stops there to marvel at the leaping play of the highest waterjet in all of the gardens. Probably in all of the world. The roar and gush of the water is deafening, and the fact that the fountain is playing means the king is somewhere in the vicinity. We can hear the melodies of the little orchestra that travels with him. So grandeur is in the order of the day. Supposing we were to cross paths with the king ! He would surely recognise his beloved Adélaïde running wild in the gardens, with no chaperone or guard of any kind in sight. I could perhaps be sent to prison ! We must be careful. But we enjoy the danger. There are shrieking monkeys as well as twittering birds in the trees – barking dogs running hither and thither, piles of slippery and pungent dog droppings on the paths and underneath the trees among the human droppings. The gardens are teeming with life in many forms.

The soothing melodies of the royal orchestra waft on the breeze, drifting through the gush of the fountains, the gurgle of the crowd, the panting and barking of hounds. Many people pinch their noses with their fingers to block out the ever-present odours of the human and animal waste that builds up in the bushes and seeps into the soil beneath – a stifling reminder that all is not majesty and glory here on earth. Almost everyone carries a bag of sweet herbs, or dangles a porcelain or silver pomander containing such spices as cinnamon and cloves. They press silk handkerchiefs drenched with rosewater to their nostrils. The duchess in her sedan chair sits on a cushion infused with oils of lavender and camomile, and the slightest wriggle will release the pleasant perfumes if not to her nose, at least up her bottom. Her bracelets jingle and jangle on her fat old arms.

Here comes the sedan chair with the duchess, in her gown as grey as slate, down the Water Walk. It halts at the Dragon Fountain. The two carriers set the chair on the path, glad to rest. They nod and chat and gaze at the thrusting glassy water. A million pearly droplets rush and swoop and fall. The giant marble Apollo, with his arrow, slaughters the writhing serpent, Python. The carriers cast their eyes over the seductive, strolling, smiling women passing by, heads a concoction of powdered curls laced with fine rivers of sparkling jewels.

Like vigilant, whispering birds, Adélaïde and I are concealed behind a statue of a sphinx. We have been preparing for this game for some weeks. In my pocket, I have a tinderbox containing brimstone matches. And Adélaïde has, stuffed into a leather pouch, a firecracker called Serpent, all rolled up in a tube of paper, green and gold. When Serpent is lit, he will wriggle and fizz until he explodes in a small noisy ecstasy of excited ribbons and sparks. In the daylight of the gardens, he will not be seen in his full splendour, which he saves for the darkness, yet the sound of the explosion, the putrid odour of his smoke, will be enough to thrill our impish hearts.

While the old duchess marvels at the sight and splish-splash of the fountain, we glide forward, unobserved by the chattering mob around us. Serpent is artfully deposited beneath the sedan chair. Have the bearers noticed us? They have not. Up above, the lady sits on her perfumed cushion, her ample silky skirt flowing across her fat knees and onto the gilded wood of the floor. I pass the tinderbox to Adélaïde, who prays that the first match will light. Yes, we are playing with fire. I shield her from view as she strikes the match and holds the flame to the touchpaper. Success ! Like invisible mice in a busy kitchen, we take up our place again behind the sphinx. The tiny evil flame dances along, squirming and jiggling, until suddenly devilish sparks spit, and with a krak ! and a swish and a boom, Serpent explodes under the duchess’s chair, which rocks sideways and almost topples.

People jostling nearby stand still in alarm, hands to mouths, eyes wide in astonishment and a kind of fear. The odour of gunpowder fills the air. The chair rocks again and wobbles, rights itself. The lady squeals like a frightened child or animal, her old face contorted in comic horror. The two bearers come to life and grasp the chair to steady it, while she appears to recover. With her handkerchief, she dabs at a bright trickle of blood dribbling from her left nostril. The flashing sequence of events is over in a moment, and before long the chair is moving off in the direction of safety, its curtains enclosing the hysterical figure within. The chair weaves in and out of the ambling, milling groups, a clumsy bobbing creature in the bright tapestry of the gardens of Versailles.

Perhaps the Duchess of Saint-Mizan never really recovered from the shock delivered by the Serpent. When she died from scarlet fever in late summer, some saw a definite link between the mysterious firecracker and her demise.

I now shudder with shame as I confess to our cruel misdemeanour. I tell the tale in an attempt to record events as honestly as I can. (Deep down, I am still, to this day, rather proud of our trick. People far and wide always wondered who could have been the culprits.)

In cool delight, we walk away from the scene, tinderbox and matches safe in my pocket. We almost tiptoe, two monkeys in fancy dress, tiny feet in ruby slippers, giggling softly. No one else will ever know what happened there at the Dragon Fountain. We run along a deserted gravel path and collapse in laughter onto a vast stone seat. We crinkle our noses and wave our fingers and twitter.

‘That was so funny !’

‘And she squealed like an old pig.’

‘Like an old pink pig !’

‘Old blue pig !’

‘Squeee !’

I produce a handful of red-ripe cherries. We pop the fruits into our wicked mouths, feeding each other and still giggling. We compete to see who can spit a pip the farthest. I win the contest, and Adélaïde smacks me lightly on the shoulder, whereupon I shriek with laughter – and then, leaving the tinderbox behind in a bush, we skip off up the path together, disappearing into the sun and shadow of the afternoon, as the ambient melodies of violins and cellos drift through the gardens.

Can we be forgiven because we were children? I have never confessed to a priest this sin of gross cruelty towards the duchess. In truth, I have never spoken of it to another soul, although Adélaïde and I sometimes recalled it but not in later years. Perhaps one of the benefits of my task in writing this book of thoughts and memories is that I will unburden myself first here and then in the confessional.

Did Adélaïde ever think about the ugliness of what we did that day? Did she confess such sins before she died? Why should this matter to me? It matters because I still love her as a sister, and I wish one day, perhaps one day soon, to meet her in heaven. Although my beloved Jean-Jacques and I often shared stories of our childhoods, I never told him about the firecracker. I was too ashamed. Now the ghost of Adélaïde, drifting out there in the convent garden, has brought the memory of it, not just to the forefront of my mind but to the page in front of me – and, with it, the memory of Jean-Jacques. He is never far away. And yet he hovers in the mists of nowhere.

Oh, Jean-Jacques, in some moments I am firm in my belief that you have died, and in others a faint glimmer of hope awakens in my heart, and I say to myself – how could he be dead – how could all that warmth and kindness and laughter and skill have turned to nothing? What really happened in Cassano, at that battle, eleven years ago? Does Mother Matilde intend for me to tell the story of my love for you? What does she really know about me? I ask these questions, and immediately my mind and spirit rush, in a kind of panic, towards the days before we met, the days when I was simply a student at Saint-Cyr, and Adélaïde came from Savoy and first lit up my childish world with joy. Yes, my love, my dearest Jean-Jacques, my thoughts flee from the nothing of your death to the days before you strode into my life. I have placed you in a compartment – The Time of Jean-Jacques – which has a beginning, a middle and, alas, an end. Will I ever have the courage to write more of that brief middle tale? I sometimes feel its substance fading, drifting into nowhere, into nothing. Perhaps I should let it go into its own oblivion. Oh, memory is such a strange and shifting creature.

⬩ 24 ⬩ AFTER THE BATTLE OF CASSANO

1705

Adélaïde was almost eighteen when her father, ever the untrustworthy rat, broke his treaty with France, in 1703, and joined the Imperial side, the Grand Alliance. This was not a holy war; this was just part of the everlasting struggle for land, territory, supremacy. It more or less began in 1701, when Philip, Duke of Anjou, the younger brother of Adélaïde’s husband, succeeded Charles the Second to the throne of Spain. The countries of the Grand Alliance could not tolerate the fact of Bourbon blood ruling the Spanish Empire. The wars raged on, and within two years Turin itself was in danger of falling to France. In 1705, the Alliance decided to threaten the French who occupied the northern Italian city of Milan. Their strategy involved crossing the river Adda at Cassano. It was in the shallow waters of the Adda that the armies met, and the battle surged and eddied back and forth for four grim and chaotic hours.

The air filled with the clash of swords, the blast of muskets, the cries and moans of men, the screams of horses as the armies waded and pushed and splashed in water, mud and blood. Many men slid and tumbled and drowned. Metal breastplates, lined with velvet, encased broken bodies, and slowly those bodies descended beneath the water. Ribbons of small bubbles played out from bleeding armpits. Soldiers were trampled beneath the hooves of horses, beneath the feet of other soldiers. Injured horses drowned. Swords and muskets slipped into the river and disappeared. Feathers floated, floated, and gradually sank. Leather gauntlets drifted across the slimy surfaces. Dead bodies stirred as the river gently flowed through dark wandering reeds. When a weak sun came out, the light would flash from the sharp faces of lonely swords, would glitter from sinking helmets, would gleam from the veneer of great gouts of crimson blood. There were losses on both sides, and there was no victor. This battle was part of what came to be known as the War of the Spanish Succession, which did not end until 1714.

By the side of the river lies a pure white stallion, its chilly skin ripped open by the ball from a cannon.

By 1714, Adélaïde has been dead for two years, Clotilde has been in the convent for over a year, and Jean-Jacques has not been heard of since he waded into the Adda with his musket in 1705.

What happened to Jean-Jacques in the battle? He was left for dead on the putrid bank of the Adda. The sun set on the battle scene, the sounds died away, the broken armies retreated, leaving the river a vast soup of saturated broken bodies. The living left the dead for dead as each limping army returned to camps on separate sides of the river. Not a soul remained to survey the shattered scene. Colours faded. Rats duly arrived. The next day there would be crows and vultures, as well as the human scavengers who picked what they could from the fresh remnants of the battle. A sorry pair of boots here, a perfect sword there, a bag of coins, silver holy medals, the remains of upended carts, and cooking pots from the remnants of smashed coaches. Black flies descended, and soon fat maggots wriggled through butchered flesh and spattered brains. There was a certain eerie silence and the metallic smell of blood.

As the moon rises above the battlefield on this balmy August night, on the bank beside the river, among a pile of mangled bodies, the young red heart of Jean-Jacques is still beating in his handsome chest. He lies, face up. His cheeks are festooned with loops and trails of black slime and drying blood. One eye is closed, the lid swollen and red. Slowly, the other eye opens. One soggy leather glove lies slung across his throat; his left hand moves up and pushes the glove aside. He takes a deep breath and shifts uneasily on his heap of bodies. Filthy water squelches, and a malign force seems to suck him back into ooze. As he gradually pulls himself from his prison of dead bodies, someone scuttles across his path, skips sideways and disappears into the night. Jean-Jacques crawls on all fours until he reaches the rocks at the base of a low stone wall. He is on dry land. For a few minutes, he stands, leaning against the bridge, and then he turns, his head moving from one side to the other. He can see a narrow pathway leading into what appears to be a forest. That will be the best way to go. He stumbles and half runs towards the secrecy of the trees. He is alone in the embrace of dark and ancient beeches. He shuffles deeper into the forest until, two miles in, exhausted, he can no longer move forward. He is afraid there will be wolves patrolling the wood, but, unable to go on, he lies down in a clean grassy hollow, prays to God for his own safety, and falls into a blank and healing sleep.

In the early hours of the morning, a sound disturbs him. Someone is shaking his shoulder. He starts in terror, as if waking from a nightmare. A soft Italian voice tells him not to fear, as an ancient monk places his finger on Jean-Jacques’s open mouth. At the sight of the monk, his heart leaps and then sinks. Will the monk simply rob him and leave him, or perhaps stab him to death? But the monk, who is accompanied by his hunting dog, takes from his belt a bottle of watery wine which he presses to Jean-Jacques’s lips. The soldier sips and gulps and begins to choke and weep. His lips are cracked and bruised.

‘My name is Jerome, Brother Jerome. I will help you, in the name of Christ. You must trust me.’

‘Jean-Jacques. I am Jean-Jacques. The battle, the battle in the river.’

Jerome switches from speaking Italian to a singing, fractured French. ‘If you can give me your arm, I will take you to the monastery.’

They hobble through the darkness until they come to the tall wooden gates of the small monastery of Saint-Francis, a sweet stone refuge on the edge of the forest.

As soon as they are inside the ancient stone walls, Jean-Jacques faints in the garden beside a beehive. Brother Jerome runs indoors and brings another monk out with him, and together they carry the wounded soldier into the monastery where they strip him of his ruined clothing, wash him, and dress him in a clean white shirt. Gently, they cut back his dark beard and his hair, transforming him from a wild, rough soldier into the handsome young man beneath. They fear for the sight in his eye, applying gentle poultices of herbs and oils. When the swelling subsides, the eye is sightless. His whole body is bruised and cut and failing. They bathe his wounds in wine and honey. For three days he lies in a cell in a fever, while the monks minister to him and pray for his recovery. They give him cordials made from oregano, sage, and rosemary, and feed him tiny quantities of dark bread with boiled eggs and fresh fish.

Half blind, he has effectively deserted the French army. He is six hundred miles from home.

⬩ 25 ⬩ I ALWAYS LIGHT A CANDLE

16 August 1716

Today is the eleventh anniversary of the day when Jean-Jacques and his companions left this earth. On this day I light a candle for his soul. In the convent, we are taught to pray for peace, and yet we also know that the wars are necessary. I remember that at one end of the Hall of Mirrors is the Salon of Peace and at the other end is the Salon of War. In the ethereal gleam of the great hall, life in all its greatest glory is performed. Is life, then, always a mixture of war and peace? The curious fact is that the aim of war is peace, and yet peace never lasts. There is forever war. No sooner is there a victory than there is a defeat. Back and forth, back and forth.

Oh, how I treasure the safety of the convent. There is always the need to pay for war, so even here at Sainte-Odile we donate much of the money from the modest sales of our various objects – the honey, the unguents, the embroidery, the pincushions – to the king’s army. And then we pray for peace. I sometimes remember the story where the donkey dispensed the golden coins to pay for the wars. Fairytales The old stories are certainly often full of good ideas. We need such a donkey. And the dear donkey not only paid for wars but also saved the princess from the lust of her father the king. Yes, we need such a donkey.

Adélaïde was more practical than I was about war, being the daughter of the ruler of Savoy. Her father had to fight constantly for the right to rule his own land. Sometimes he would join up with France, and sometimes he would be with Austria. It seemed to me that he was never still. One of his daughters, Adélaïde, was destined to be Queen of France, while the other, Maria-Luisa, actually became Queen of Spain as the wife of Philip the Fifth.

What a tangle were all these wars. They came to an end when the enemies of France agreed that Philip really was the King of Spain, but they added that his sons could never become rulers of France. To me it is all like a mess of coloured silks in a basket – or, when I am in a darker mood, perhaps more like a swampy nest of writhing serpents.

Although Adélaïde appeared to be a playful young woman, free from cares, she was very sharp and knowledgeable. She told me once that in her private letters to her father, letters about rather trivial domestic moments in her life, she often spoke also of politics and wars. I found that hard to believe, actually, for it would have been a most dangerous thing for her to do. The Swiss spies are everywhere, and all letters in and out are read. How could she, even she, get past the eyes of the secret observers? Perhaps she did.

After she had said it, she laughed and tossed her head and said it was nonsense and I should forget all about it. ‘Ooof! Wars. There are always wars, Clo-Clo. They seem to be so complicated, don’t you find? I prefer not to think about them.’

But I know she did think about them. A lot. Her darling little sister Maria-Luisa often had to take charge in Spain because the king was away at war, and she would write letters to Adélaïde, telling her all her woes. How deeply sorrowful I felt when I heard the news, just two years after the death of Adélaïde, that Maria-Luisa also had died.

⬩ 26 ⬩ THE BEAK OF THE IBIS

The destinies of the soldiers who fought for France were, in one sense, in the hands of the king. Life and death were ultimately in the hands of one man – a man like any other. Except, of course, this man-king was like no other.

He had arrived in the world after twenty-three years of barren life for his parents.

A clamour of gossip had accompanied the empty womb, the vacant cradle.

‘You realise, the king is not the father of the baby.’

‘Is the queen the mother?’

‘All the evidence would seem to say so.’

‘Then who is the father? The king?’

‘Oh, your guess would be as good as mine.’

‘Gargantua, perhaps?’

‘Someone or other out of the land of magic, I suppose.’

‘What about an archangel?’

‘Or faithful companion – Cardinal Mazarin? How about him?’

‘Oh yes, people do say so.’

‘By some marvellous divine power? Or in the usual way?’

‘No one will ever know.’

‘Somebody knows !’

You can usually trust the Chorus to explore every angle.

The abbey church of Notre-Dame de Val-de-Grace, built in Paris by the queen in gratitude for the birth, is the home of the black Madonna, queen of peace. War, however, was so often a cause for celebration. And such joyful ceremonies would take place in the churches, including in the Val-de-Grace. One of the child-king’s dearest memories was of standing on a balcony of the Louvre palace with his mother, watching the parade of the hundreds of bright fluttering banners and flags taken by the French from the defeated Spanish troops at Rocroi when he was five. Victory ! The cupola of the Val-de-Grace was 130 feet high and visible from miles around. The child could be forgiven for feeling like a god.

Yet he was, of course composed of human flesh and blood, and even he sometimes suffered from physical ailments. One of the most serious and dramatic of these occurred in January 1686.

At this time, Adélaïde, far off in Savoy, was one month old, gurgling beside her silver rattle in her cosy princess-bed. Louis was forty-eight, and he had developed an abscess on his perineum. It was two finger-breadths from the anus, quite deep and growing larger. His physicians attempted to address the problem with sugar compresses and then with a red-hot iron. More compresses, this time made from a mixture of roses cooked in red wine from Burgundy. Treatments continued over four months, and included enemas and laxatives. The pain was intense, and would come and go, come and go.

‘This is killing me with worry,’ said Françoise. ‘All these hot and peppery poultices are worse than useless. The physicians do not know what they are doing, and the king’s life is impossible.’ So was hers.

‘If I may not ride to hounds, I shall tour the gardens in a sedan chair,’ said the king. This he did in an agony he could not describe, and the usually soothing sights and sounds, including those of the fountains and the orchestras, failed to capture his attention.

The wound morphed into a fistula, a tunnel ending in a hole in the skin oozing blood, pus and faeces. Many a pair of soft white royal under-drawers were soiled beyond hope. The king at last agreed to allow his surgeons to operate, and a secret plan was devised.

Before any action could be taken, the surgeons needed to practice their skills in complete secrecy on selected patients from various hospitals. The patients were given no knowledge of the process they were to undergo; those who died in the exercise simply disappeared and were buried at sunrise with no tolling of church bells. It is possible that one of them may have survived but knew no details of the experiment he had just endured. The king’s chief surgeon, Charles François Félix, developed, throughout the several trials, a special instrument: a curved silver probe resembling somewhat the beak of an ibis. His name, Félix, strikes one faint happy note in this sorry saga of the fate of the terminus of the royal digestive system.

Matters continued throughout the year until, in November, it was decided that the surgery would take place that month. Félix and three assistant surgeons would perform the work. The day before the operation, Louis – twisting in exquisite pain – toured the current building works in his sedan chair, and ate a moderate and sober evening meal with Françoise. In strict privacy. Early the next day, he was given an enema, and he made his confession to a Jesuit father, François la Chaise. Then, at seven in the morning of the eighteenth of November 1686, when Adélaïde of Savoy was almost one year old, the surgeons were ready in the antechamber of the French king’s bedroom. Fifty candles in silver stands filled the room with yellow light. Bowls of orange-flower water, warmed by more candles, cast their aroma through the room. Two Swiss Guards stood to attention outside the chamber door.

The king was naked, except for a fine white shirt on his upper body and a white lace bonnet covering his bald skull. From an iron hook on the wall above him there hung a plain wooden crucifix – naked body of the tortured saviour. Louis lay on a simple bed, face down, with a pillow under his belly. His arms were held steady by two strong apothecaries, and his legs were held apart by two more. And so it was that Louis, wide awake, received the ministrations of the beak of the silver ibis and various other sharp and shiny instruments.

The curtains had been drawn, and a chill wind howled outside across a dull sky. Françoise, wearing a sombre gown of black wool, stood alone by the yawning stone fireplace, watching intently, sometimes holding her breath. Her fingers moved along the beads of her silver rosary, as her silent lips formed the words of her prayers. A fire glowed and flickered beside her, throwing its heat into the breathless chamber where the surgeons muttered to each other as they worked. Behind Françoise, at a distance, was a small choir of senior students from Saint-Cyr. At intervals they sang a hymn, composed by Lully when the queen died in 1683. It was ‘God Save the King’ which would go on to become the national anthem of England, of all places. The minister for war clutched the king’s hand. Louis gripped him tightly back. Legend has it that Louis made no sound, except when he twice called upon God in a quiet voice.

God Save the King ! Happy and Glorious !

The procedure took three hours and included bloodletting. The ibis beak cleared the fistula channel. This was then left to heal, without stitching. The bed and the floor around it were splashed and splattered and drenched with royal blood.

By ten o’clock, as if by a miracle, the king was able to sit up and be dressed. All instruments and all evidence of the drama that had taken place were removed from the bedchamber, which became for another hour or so a great hustle and bustle of servants. Cleaning and tidying.

Finally, the room was cleared of all except his wife, his confessor, his chief surgeon, his minister of war, and two servants. The king drank a beaker of water infused with orange flowers, and then he said, in a loud voice:

‘Call my ministers !’

And so he held, there and then, to the astonishment of all, a more or less regular council of his ministers. His mood was strangely bright, and he would occasionally burst into song – the words of the ancient folk song ‘Le carillon de Vendôme’ somewhat mystifying those who heard them this day from the king’s lips.

Mes amis, que reste-t-il

A ce dauphin si gentil?

‘I fear the king may have lost his mind,’ hissed one minister to another.

‘I think I saw his brains dripping from his arse,’ said the other through gritted teeth.

‘Hold your tongue, sir, or a clever surgeon might come and snip it out.’

Two days later, the king abandoned the sedan chair and walked in the gardens with Françoise. Surgeon Félix changed the dressing each day. He subsequently documented the monumental event of the surgery in eighteen pages of meticulous tiny script. He was rewarded with a title, a palace and great wealth. The anal fistula operation became a popular procedure among nobles at Versailles, whether they needed the surgery or not. Fashion is a curious thing. News of the miracle, of the king’s courage, and of the skill of the doctors travelled far and wide. The ibis beak and the ingenuity of French surgery were celebrated throughout Europe.

Ten years later, in August of the year just before Adélaïde danced into the king’s orbit, there was another surgical event. On his neck the king developed a painful carbuncle filled with the pus of infection. Many a person would have died as a result. A dozen times his surgeons snipped at the thing with scissors, adding to the suffering with every cut. Louis did not complain. For several weeks he was confined to his apartments, seeing virtually nobody but Françoise, who gradually nursed him back to health. She prayed for a miracle. Perhaps her prayers were answered. God Save the King !

During this time, he and she together devised the plans for Adélaïde’s household at Versailles and for her education at Saint-Cyr. This education would begin as soon as she arrived in 1696 and would continue until the consummation of her marriage in 1699. However, since they had not yet met Adélaïde, they had no idea of the dramatic change the little girl was going to cause in their lives and in the life of the court – even in the life of Clotilde, daughter of a seamstress and a gardener.

⬩ 27 ⬩ SHE IS PERFECT

Almost a year would pass between the time of Adélaïde’s arrival at court and the celebration of her marriage to the Duke of Bourgogne. In that year, the king would visit her twice every day and would make it his personal responsibility, not to mention his greatest delight, to please her in every way possible. She had been trained to enchant him; he was enchanted.

‘She is perfect,’ he sometimes said, softly, as if meditating on the fact.

He devised an elaborate program of entertainments for her, a program longer and more varied than any child could ever have imagined. He wished to demonstrate to her the marvels of the world he had created. Already you have seen him make her the gift of the Menagerie. Yes, he wished to shield her from the sparkling wickednesses of life at court, hoping to show her always the beauty of music and art and nature.

‘I love to tour the gardens of the palace,’ he said to her. ‘Will you travel with me?’ And so it was that the king and the little girl, in a special wheeled sedan chair, frequently whirled along the paths of Versailles, steered by two Swiss Guards. No other person ever had the privilege of accompanying the French monarch in this way. Ever. In the history of the world.

He took her to the great stables, where, in the riding school, lithe young men performed more or less like circus actors in the ring. Adélaïde clapped and gasped and sometimes squealed with pleasure. She sighed with a kind of rapture whenever they visited – something they did often – the orangery. Two thousand aromatic trees, gifts from the royal houses of Italy, Spain and Portugal, stood in glowing splendour beneath a vast domed ceiling that was forty-two feet high.

‘Look up, Grand-père !’ the child whispers to him. ‘Look up ! I can see heaven !’

And the king throws back his head and shakes his dark curls and lets out a roar: ‘Yes ! Heaven ! Breathe the aroma of heaven on earth. Oranges, oranges, oranges.’

The perfume of the orange is the favourite of the king – in the Hall of Mirrors there also stand dozens of orange trees in silver tubs. Between the trees in the orangery, the pathways are inhabited by gleaming statues of people and creatures from Greek and Roman mythology, telling their stories in stone. A marble baby Zeus is nurtured by the goat Amalthea. Prometheus steals fire. Apollo is there – god of dance, truth, prophecy, archery, music, healing. Diana, goddess of the hunt. Mars, god of war.

The king and the little princess visit the orchards, their grand landscapes reminding Adélaïde of times in the hillsides of La Vigna. Apples, apricots, peaches.

‘In summer,’ the king says, ‘these trees will bring you the finest, juiciest, pearliest peaches in the whole wide world.’

‘The whole wide world,’ she repeats, and she feels a pang of sadness for her childhood home. But in the company of Grand-père, no memory can erase the smile on her lips or the sparkle in her dark Italian eyes. ‘I love their furry skins !’ And she rubs a peach across her cheek.

The king takes the peach from her and consumes it almost whole, laughing. Juice running down his chin.

They go for outdoor picnic banquets where the low tables are set out beneath billowing tents. They feast to the melodies of violins.

‘Now I will teach you to fish in the Grand Canal,’ he announces one afternoon. And servants produce rods and baskets, already prepared, from the coach. Adélaïde is a willing pupil, and they often return to the palace with baskets of fish for the king’s table.

In winter she skates on the frozen canal while the king watches her from his carriage, his enthusiasm at her pleasure quite clear as he smiles his toothless smile and waves to her. ‘Spin round again !’

Indoors, across the busy year before the wedding of Adélaïde and Bourgogne, there are frequent entertainments for her – musicians, jugglers, puppets, magicians. She loves to play jonchets, and she and the king adore their games of blind man’s buff. Stumbling about blindfolded, laughing and falling down.

Out at Marly, on balmy evenings, Adélaïde sits with the king at supper parties where she joins in, to the horror of the company, when he begins rolling pellets of bread with his fingers and hurling them at the ladies. Simple pleasures are not always dignified. His only response to her fun is his hearty laughter, which is backed by the quiet tunes of the ever-present violins.

One night, inspired by the sight of a huge silver bowl of fruit on the table, the king reached out a hand and grasped a gleaming orange. This he pitched into the air, down the table, and followed it with an apple and several more oranges, all the time laughing with glee. The company gasped in surprise. The music played more loudly. Fortunately, Adélaïde, astonished, did not copy him when he threw the fruit. She sat beside him, still and straight, a little half-smiling statue. Once, one of the king’s daughters failed to dodge an orange. She recovered from the blow, and she then tossed a bowl of salad at the king. Another total silence fell on the company, but the king, his wig dripping with bright green vegetables, just laughed all the more. Adélaïde then came to sudden life. She jumped onto his lap and threw her arms around his neck, gathering some of the juice from the vegetables on her face. The king wiped her cheeks with a handkerchief, and her tinkling giggles were muffled as she buried her face in his chest. They were both damp with juice. Everybody stared at them in a kind of horror. Then the party quickly continued, but nobody threw anything again that night.

Adélaïde’s formal education was in the hands of Madame de Maintenon, who was at first dismayed and even astonished at her pupil’s backwardness. ‘She knows nothing,’ she said, ‘not how to read nor how to write. She seems incapable of absorbing anything.’

Improvements were swiftly made, yet to the end of her life Adélaïde was unable to spell ‘Versailles’.

It was important to keep the lessons short, since the child’s attention span was limited. Two lessons a day, one on Roman history and one involving the fables of La Fontaine. She also learned dancing and how to play the spinet. She was admired for her embroidery. The fable lessons were her favourites, and she always loved retelling the stories to the king, who listened to her as if he were a child and she were his nurse. Or his mother.

⬩ 28 ⬩ THE STONE CASKET AT THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART

I was not present when Adélaïde married the Duke of Bourgogne in the chapel at Versailles. I was with the other ladies at Saint-Cyr. We lit a great bank of candles, and we celebrated with a special goûter – Italian macarons and figues glacés with cups of cider. We danced to the music of two flutes and a harp, played by the senior girls. We had been permitted to abandon our school dresses in favour of festive attire, and we were delirious with excitement. My mother had made for me a simple but charming dress of pale golden silk left over from when she sewed two coats for the royal babies. The dress filled me with delight and even awe. I had never had such a lovely gown before. It was embroidered on the hem and the sleeves with wandering strings of delicate azure flowers. There were two strange little blue birds flying towards each other across the back of my neck – so exquisitely small, as if they were a secret.

The only other wedding I was close to was that of my cousin Cécile. It took place when I was nine. I remember the weeks before the wedding when my mother was helping Cécile to sew a special gown for the occasion. From a filmy pale yellow length of dimity silk, which my mother had procured from a market, they slowly brought to life something that seemed to me to be from an old, old story. Holding a tray of selected threads, I sat in the corner of our kitchen and watched as day after day Cécile and my mother worked with the scissors, the needles, the threads, the pins – and ribbons of creamy lace – until the day came when there she stood, a princess, I thought, and perfect. On the morning of the wedding, I helped to weave the garland of lilies and sweet pink buds of roses for Cécile to carry with her. I was permitted to twine four buttercups, tiny but glowing yellow, into the heart of the bouquet. The ghostly aroma of the garland quivered and drifted around me, and somehow a happiness bubbled up within me, and I found myself weeping for inexplicable joy. Cécile’s father was a glove-maker, and he made, for her long and elegant hands, a pair of the softest gloves, dust-coloured and fashioned from the skins of unborn lambs. The bride wore no jewellery, except for a silver medal of Sainte Geneviève on a chain around her neck. My mother and father attended the ceremony in the chapel of Sainte-Geneviève at the church of Saint-Eustache – a small wedding in one of the grandest churches in Paris. I felt so proud; I felt I was part of some heavenly ritual, even though I was simply imagining it all.

I was left at home with my grandmother, and I remember we lit a candle, and I drew a picture with charcoal and chalks: my version of the bride and groom, with an accent on the garland of lilies and roses, studded, I should admit, with several great big buttercups. The couple was standing in a kind of bright halo, while outside its edges were rain and cloud and lightning – the wedding was, as some said, ‘blessed’ by a heavy shower of rain. The groom – his name was Hubert – had to carry Cécile to their waiting carriage after the ceremony, in an attempt to save her silk slippers. I remember thinking that the rain was more of a curse than a blessing. These were times of much icy weather and sudden torrents. Crops failed all over the country, and one of my cousins in Provence died, I believe, from hunger.

When I think of weddings, the tears that came with the garland of flowers can prick my eyes. The window of memory is so powerful. I have imagined the feelings of those brides – Adélaïde and Cécile – and I used to imagine my own wedding, when I would marry Jean-Jacques. But while I used to dream up the gown, the time, the place, I now forbid myself to think about such things. They are locked in a stone casket at the bottom of my heart. I wonder if, in the minds of many of the other sisters here at Sainte-Odile, there are not wedding gowns and wedding banquets forever hovering in the perfection of a dream. Profession at the convent is when a sister marries Our Lord, and parts of the ceremony can resemble an earthly wedding – with no visible bridegroom in his best clothing. My memories of my full profession in the chapel are of the archbishop who was frequently robed and re-robed, now wearing his golden mitre and now removing it, and of the two golden angels that forever guard the altar. They seemed to glow and gleam on that day in a manner I have never seen, before or since. I prostrated myself before the angels and the archbishop, and I received the veil and the silver pendant containing a tiny chip of the rock that once miraculously opened to protect Sainte Odile from the murderous rage of her father. This pendant hangs forever from a silver chain around my throat. I touch it often, and it brings me joy. A consoling piece of rock.

I confess to a foolish sadness that came to me on the day of my profession. For mingled with the happiness of the day, there were sorrows. I suppose these sorrows are really clues to the fact that I have not given myself utterly to God. My confessor comforts me when I tell him these things, and he says God forgives me, and then he just counsels me to pray the rosary with fervour and concentration. The great sadness – it was the loss of my long curling hair, my chestnut hair that so resembled the lustrous locks of my dear Adélaïde. With the hair went one of my fondest links to her. Such was the imperfection of my profession that I snipped a fine strand of my hair on the night before the ceremony. Days later I wound it, strand by strand, into a skein of dark red silk. I then worked that silk into the picture of the rocks in a small embroidery of Sainte-Odile. That picture hangs on the wall of my cell. This Storybook is threaded with my shameful and wicked secrets. I am a weak and imperfect daughter of this convent.

And now my thoughts return to the stone casket. Even for this Storybook, I will not open the casket. Sometimes, late at night, when I lie in my cot listening to the silence of the convent, pierced sometimes by the distant hoot of an owl, I make a pact with myself – I will not mention Jean-Jacques in my Storybook ever again. But then, in the morning, even as the kestrel flies across my window, flashing silver and gold in the sun, I break my own pact. Over and over. Day after day. Would that I could truly encase my love in the heavy stone casket – where he most surely belongs.

Oh, the splendour beyond splendour of the wedding of Adélaïde and the duke ! Yet that day, also, the heavens opened, and the skies were shrouded, for a time, in darkness. Again, the shock of the weather was seen as a blessing.

In both marriages, while there was some sunshine along the way, when the curse came, it was terrible. As Adélaïde used to say, Cinderella died in the end. I must comment that when the princess and the prince are united, I always feel a strange twinge of disbelief and even disappointment, as if the storyteller is just eager to end the whole thing and go home to bed.

I sometimes pointed out to Adélaïde that the Church says the end of the story is not the end of the story, that after death comes judgement and purgatory and possibly everlasting ecstasy in paradise. Perhaps, I would suggest, in paradise mistakes made in life get corrected, and the souls of the faithful find their true companions, their one true loves. They hold hands and dance in the soft light of an eternal sun.

Adélaïde said this sounded like heresy to her, and then she laughed and said I should probably be locked up in a nice convent. ‘You are such a little preacher, Clo-Clo. Or are you a philosopher? Or a poet. Or a prophet. Why do they all begin with P? I shall call you Pipi !’

Within a year, my cousin Cécile was expecting a child. Oh, the rejoicing in the family ! I had knitted a small blanket with wool from my uncle’s sheep. My mother had sewn seven gowns, which were exquisitely folded and placed in a woven basket. It was almost as if she anticipated seven babies. But Cécile and the boy-child did not survive the birth.

Then, a year or so later, Hubert came back from the siege of Namur, where he had been severely injured in the neck by musketfire, and he died early the next year from fever. Forever after, my mother could not bear to hear mention of the siege of Namur.

I should not concentrate on death and darkness ! When I close the window of memory and gaze instead from the window of the East Tower, my heart sings as I survey the music of the vastness of the skies. Sometimes I imagine the tower is up among the clouds. My eyes linger on the far horizon where I can glimpse the light of a sweet future. May I always recall the great flurry of joy that came with my dear Adélaïde’s wedding.

But before I leap ahead to paint my pictures of life after that wedding, I must pause and consider the year that elapsed between Adélaïde’s arrival at court and the day in December of 1697 when she finally became the wife, as she had always hoped to be, of the grandson of the king. I must return to those days when we could on rare occasions perform such tricks as when we threw the firecracker under the old duchess’s sedan chair.

Such tricks, I hasten to add, were few and far between. For my life was generally ruled by the regulations of our beloved Saint-Cyr, and Adélaïde’s was in truth – for all its glittering entertainments, for all the intense attention paid her by the king – a life lived within the shadow of the royal crown. Yes, it is a shadow. And Adélaïde was shadowed almost all the time by ladies and spies. Some people still believe that she herself was a spy for her father. I think I can say, with complete confidence, that this was not the case. How can I know? I just know. I believe that her love of the king was greater than her loyalty to her father. In some strange way, when she married the king’s grandson, she married the king himself.

I say ‘shadow’ now, but back then I would not have used such an ominous word. As the years have gone by, I have realised that Adélaïde’s destiny was the opposite of bright. As children we all imagined she was on a dreamlike pathway to the height of everything, where all ease and luxury would be hers, forever. The days of her childhood were rich in incredible wonders. Yet she was, as I see it now, trapped in a gold and silver prison filled with flowers and jewels and music and mirrors and dancing and exotic animals and bowing courtiers. There was a grotesquerie to the magnificence, a vicious underlay of thorns beneath the bed of roses, and a vast shadow floating, looming overhead. Always in the near distance rang the ragged howl of war, and I believe that Adélaïde, in her heart, was – in spite of her marriage to France – always torn between her loyalty to her adopted country and her lifelong love of the country of her birth. There was an eerie strangeness in the shining trio of the king, his wife and the little princess from Savoy.

As my father later explained to me, the royal wedding could not take place until after a certain war had ended. Until treaties were firmly established, and until the King of France was satisfied that Adélaïde could in fact be the wife of the duke and the mother of his children. And of course she must first become a woman; she must first bleed. The marriage ceremony would, for the sake of security, be celebrated even before the first flow of blood. Then it would be completed when her body was ready. Such intimate personal details were part of the common conversations at the court. The most intimate parts of Adélaïde’s body were discussed over the card tables and in the taverns and gutters of Paris.

My father as well as my mother always seemed to know what was happening in the lives of all kinds of people, both low and high. My father liked to read the gazettes and to retell what he found there. It was difficult for me to understand the connection between the two events, the wedding and the war, for although we were companions at Saint-Cyr, my world was not Adélaïde’s world. Her world will move into books of history; mine will disappear when this Storybook is buried with my body.

‘The king has signed the treaty,’ my father said, late in September. And in the air was the word ‘Ryswick’, as people breathed it with tired relief. ‘The princess’s father has promised he will be on the king’s side in the war now,’ my father added, ‘and the princess is the key to the bargain.’

I nodded, as if I understood. Adélaïde will be the key to the bargain …? Such a tiny golden key in such an enormous iron lock ! Now, after all the things that have happened, I really do understand, but back when Adélaïde was married on a Saturday, the day after her twelfth birthday, just five days before my own, much of the meaning of things escaped my childish comprehension.

People, high and low, spoke it seemed of nothing but the wedding, in the weeks before. My mother had tried to explain to me that marriage papers had been signed when the war ended. ‘The king and the princess’s father had to sign the papers.’

But it was all too mysterious for me. Weddings were a matter of lovers going to church and wearing their best special clothes. The bells on the church would ring out to tell the world the joyful news.

Adélaïde was quite used to having gorgeous gowns fashioned for her, although the dress for her wedding, the whole magnificent display of it, was the most elaborate and exquisite that even she had ever known. My mother was one of the seamstresses engaged in the lengthy process of a stitch here, a stitch there, by the light of the sun by day, and by the light of the candle and the flares by night. I think I felt, in a way, that I was some sort of insect observer happily trapped between the body of the princess and the needles and pins of the dressmakers, now looking this way, now looking that.

I would shiver with excitement. I would never actually see Adélaïde wearing her wedding clothes, but on two occasions I saw the work as it progressed, and I was able to think her into it. Perhaps I was also thinking myself into it? I have seen a painting of the wedding, and there she is – a lovely doll trapped in a silk and velvet housing of vivid colour and light.

I was invited to join my mother in the long and twittering workroom where fifty or so women laboured on the several costumes. Here and there stood headless wooden stands in the shape of this duchess or that duke, sometimes half dressed in the beginnings of their various gowns and coats. Baskets of ribbons overflowed in more colours than any rainbow ever dreamed.

Adélaïde’s dress had an absolutely enormous train of azure velvet, marked in gold with a repeating pattern of fleurs-de-lis. It would hang from her shoulders on golden cords.

‘But how will she be able to move?’ I said in alarm.

‘Oh,’ my mother said, ‘you must realise, Clotilde, that she will have carriers from the guards for the train. There is no need for you to worry about that.’

I always marvelled at the sight of slender women whose clothes had to be held up by small armies of strong men.

Sometimes I carried a large pincushion full of pins, both short and long, for my mother’s use as she and the other women worked their magic. The fabric of the gown was silver silk, heavily embroidered with fine silver thread in rhythmic ornaments of flowers, leaves and arabesques. As the garment moved, the light was caught by a lavish display all over it of twinkling, spangling, rubies and pearls. The glow and shine and dazzle of it reminded me of flocks of strange glittering birds in flight among the foliage of a dream garden. At the elbows it had elaborate ruffs from which Adélaïde’s slender arms would emerge as if from the petals of a wondrous flower.

⬩ 29 ⬩ THE SPOILS OF WAR

Madame de Maintenon takes Adélaïde by the hand as they walk by the canal at Versailles. ‘I have a gift for you, my child, a wedding gift.’

‘Oh, ma tante ! How very kind.’

They pause and stand still as the water quietly laps beside them, as their winter cloaks stir in the chill breeze.

The woman then releases Adélaïde’s hand and makes the sign of the cross with her middle finger on her forehead. She bends over the child and holds her gaze. ‘What I give you, my child, is a promise. I wish you to know, in the name of Christ, that I will forever stand behind you, will support you in every possible way, will pray that the sun will shine upon you, that your union with the duke may be fruitful and that great happiness may be yours. Hold this gift of a promise in your soul. May my love and goodwill embrace you, and may I be with you as if I were a godmother, or an invisible shadow.’

Adélaïde draws in her breath, staring out along the length of the canal. Two swans are slowly drifting in the distance. The sky is streaked with clouds.

Then she turns and reaches up to place a soft kiss on the woman’s cheek. ‘I thank you, ma tante, with all my heart.’

They walk back to the palace in comfortable silence. A soft breeze ruffles the water.

The wedding of Adélaïde and Bourgogne was celebrated on the seventh of December 1697, the day after Adélaïde’s twelfth birthday. Eight months earlier, fifty horses to be included in the wedding procession were brought to France from Holland, Naples and Northern Italy – dapple greys and blacks. Glorious new carriages were constructed for the use of Adélaïde and her entourage. Her household, including the staff for her stables, numbered more than five hundred. One little girl, five hundred servants.

Personal preparations among the nobility unfolded, as people vied with each other for the magnificence of their appearance. So many lavish costumes, for both men and women invited to the event, were needed. Fine fabrics, gold and silver thread, dressmakers and in particular embroiderers became scarce. Servants ran hither and thither with messages and parcels. Coffers were opened, and out tumbled the diamonds and rubies and pearls to be attached here, there, everywhere, on gowns and coats and hands and hair and shoes. The dethroned and exiled King and Queen of England, James and Mary, Catholic refugees living at Versailles, were honoured guests among the royal party. Their regalia was more sombre than that of their French hosts, a probable reflection of the sadness of their own position in their world.

Adélaïde rose before dawn on the day and was robed with much ceremony by her ladies. Her underdress was spangled with diamonds and rubies, and trimmed with lyrical patterns of silver ribbons. The overdress, fashioned from silver cloth, was ornamented with more rubies, and embroidered in silver with a gossamer of lilies and leaves. Her train was blue velvet and twenty-five feet long, dense with rubies and pearls, and webbed with spun silver. Rows of pearls, a gift from the king, encircled her throat, and her tawny curls sparkled with a myriad diamonds. She moved with almost adult courtliness and seemed to be held in a shimmer of luminosity. She was a vision, a miracle. Far now from the naked child in the coach on the bridge above the river Guiers.

People of the court accompanied the bridegroom to the bride’s apartment. His step was careful, his crooked back and limping gait controlled and almost invisible. He wore a flowing mantle of black velvet embellished with scrolling figures in golden thread and lined with cloth of silver. The suit beneath was cut from black velvet with pink edges. At his throat he wore a froth of white lace flashing with diamonds. A white plume nodded above his dignified black hat. He offered Adélaïde his hand, and they processed to the king’s study for the ceremony of private betrothal.

Adélaïde’s grandfather, Monsieur the Duke of Orléans, brother of the king, was alight with huge diamonds which he wore as a population of winking great buttons on his severe black velvet suit. There was a faint look of Adélaïde in his tired yet beaming face. His second wife, known as Liselotte, wore a golden dress that was decorated with soft black flower shapes. She was lavishly garnished with diamonds and pearls. Liselotte was one of the most lethal critics of Françoise and of Adélaïde, calling one a haggard old whore and the other a child-jezebel-slut.

As for the king, he wore cloth of gold, embroidered in gold thread, and studded with flashing diamonds. His golden brocade shoes, with his signature scarlet heels, were tied with enormous ribbon bows, and were dripping with intricate pathways of pearls and rubies. Behind him, floating like a shadow, was his secret wife wearing dark amber velvet embroidered with slender leaf-forms in gold. He was, as usual, the tallest figure in the company, with the help of his mighty curling wig and the heels of his beautiful shoes. It was sometimes hard to believe that, unadorned, the king was but five feet and four inches tall. Beside him, as always, were two of his favourite hounds.

All this bedazzle processed, led by the king, in slow dignity from the royal study to the Hall of Mirrors where, lit by a forest of chandeliers, the smooth surfaces blazed and flashed, and where flutes and violins filled the air with a sweet and gentle harmony. Through the state apartments, down the Grand Staircase and into the Royal Chapel in the north wing of the palace. Now was the time for the public betrothal of the couple, performed by Cardinal de Coislin, short, fat, red-faced, enveloped in a stiff pale gold bishop’s cope. The bride and groom knelt opposite each other on low cushions dyed scarlet with the bodies of insects from the Americas. Adélaïde seemed to concentrate on staring down at her bridegroom’s cushion. The shade of red was one of her favourite colours, yet she did not smile, appearing to be lost in a reverie.

There followed a nuptial mass during which Adélaïde extended her delicate childish left hand, and her new husband placed a perfect golden ring on her finger. She also received from him thirteen pieces of gold, signifying all his worldly goods.

After this, the procession reformed and made its way to Adélaïde’s grand apartment, which was next to that of the king. Just twenty-one royal guests sat down to a merry feast at the large horse-shoe table, while a crowd of noisy onlookers hung round, eyes wide with startled amazement at the scene before them.

A blissful few hours of rest followed, during which time dark clouds gathered in the sky. By six o’clock, the new Duchess of Bourgogne was on display once again as she met with the ambassador from Savoy as well as a contingent of Italian nobles who had arrived in France for the wedding. With a certain nostalgic relief, she listened to the music of their speeches in the language of her birth and smiled graciously as she responded with sweet fluency. The ambassador gave her letters from her mother, her grandmother, her little sister. She read them briefly, her eyes shining with tears, and handed them to her lady to carry away for later. La Vigna and the Palazzo di Madama were far off in the other world of the past. Madame de Maintenon hovered at her elbow. Her father had sent her a bracelet of emeralds, which she fastened to her wrist. It was too large. Her nod was sad as she handed it to one of her ladies.

Then at seven it seemed the whole world joined the crush in the king’s apartments before returning to the Hall of Mirrors to witness in the grounds outside, by the Swiss lake, the most elaborate display of fireworks ever seen at Versailles. But alas, this glorious prospect of fizzing light was interrupted by a sudden storm, wild and savage.

‘This could be a terrible omen,’ people muttered sideways to each other, while still smiling, pretending that the storm was somehow benign.

‘God extinguishes our fireworks and provides his own.’

The court was not short of amateur soothsayers and other prophets of doom. The storm raged outside. Everyone, trying to ignore it, sat down to a lavish supper, while two great orchestras played, and the palace buzzed with joy. It is almost impossible to imagine how the twelve-year-old bride sustained her charming conversation and melodic laughter throughout this long, long day of relentless emotion and celebration. Yet sustain them she did. While outside, the storm battered the windows and lit up the sky, lightning skipping from cloud to cloud, a cold wind whipping the branches and the leaves of the trees across the gardens of Versailles.

Then it was time for the ladies to accompany Adélaïde to the nuptial bedchamber. A green velvet cloth, embroidered in gold, was spread out over the bed, which was blessed by a cardinal. Adélaïde was undressed by her ladies, standing once more before an audience in her smooth nakedness. Still and silent as a statue of an undraped marble goddess. She breathed softly. Her heartbeat was brave and steady. She received her white silken nightgown from the exiled English queen, while the English king, in the adjoining room, gave the naked bridegroom his nightshirt which concealed his crooked back. King Louis, beaming with pride and hope, his almost toothless mouth a joyful hollow, gave his grandson a bright orange dressing-gown to be worn as he went to meet his bride in her bedroom. The bridegroom’s hair was tied back with a dashing flame-coloured ribbon.

Adélaïde was lifted like a tiny toy into the bed, the curtains on either side of it being open. Bourgogne removed the orange robe and took his place beside her. The king and all the royal party entered the room to view the scene and witness the physical evidence of the meaning of the Treaties of Turin and Ryswick as the pair lay side by side like dolls in a huge bed in a great glorious dollhouse.

The king and his entourage then left the room, but much of the company remained while, for another fifteen minutes, Bourgogne’s father sat beside the reclining couple in pleasant conversation. It came time for the groom to leave the bride alone and to retire to his own room. The king had ordered that the marriage would not be consummated for at least another year, perhaps two, when it was hoped that Adélaïde would be a woman.

It is interesting to consider how the fate of the world hung on the arrival of the flow of blood from deep inside this one little princess from Savoy.

As Bourgogne began to leave, Adélaïde came to life and leapt from the bed and ran to him, her nightgown billowing around her slender body. She threw herself into his arms and planted a powerful kiss on his mouth. He responded in surprise and seemed about to enter into the full spirit of the kiss, when Adélaïde pulled away and dashed back between the bed-curtains to burrow beneath the wide green cover of the bed as if playing a game of hide-and-seek. A trill of giggles emerged from inside the bed.

When all this was later reported to the king, his face darkened, and he said, with a kind of growl: ‘I have ordered that the boy will not so much as kiss the tip of her finger until it is time for them to be together as man and wife. And that will be as soon as possible after the child becomes a woman. They will have a lifetime of passion.’

‘Did you hear what the king said?’

‘Yes, and did you see that kiss?’

‘I saw the little minx. Quick as lightning.’

‘Bourgogne was keen enough.’

‘But not quick enough, the hunchback.’

‘And what do you suppose the old hag, Maintenon, thought about it all? I guarantee she will have something to say to the bawdy Italian tart.’

‘Yes, the so-called bride opened her lips – just a promise that she was more than willing to open her legs.’

A messenger was on his way to give a full account of the day’s events to Victor Amadeus in faraway Turin.

⬩ 30 ⬩ HER DRESS WAS AS WHITE AS THE DRIVEN SNOW

Two days after her wedding, Adélaïde visited us at Saint-Cyr, to our great excitement. How different this was from the time two years earlier when she had come to us as a stranger. We were so proud of her now. There we were, in our brown dresses like sparrows, with our various coloured ribbons, and she arrived in a coach drawn by four dapple greys with their swishing tails. Her dress was as white as the driven snow, and it was covered with so much silver embroidery that she had to be assisted with walking. She resembled, I thought, an articulated doll as she was shepherded along through the gloomy darkness of the weather. She came to the chapel, and we sang first of all a Te Deum, and then we recited verses composed in her honour. I still think it was one of the sweetest ceremonies I have ever seen or heard. She shone like a goddess from a myth, light yet solemn – as if she had, I thought, a heavenly purpose. She might have descended from a distant cloud to bless us with her presence. I know this sounds like the burbling of a child who was in awe of a princess, and indeed, it is. Yet, to this day I can still feel in my heart the atmosphere of wonder that hung in the chapel that afternoon.

Before long, the deity returned to her carriage and was spirited away, for she had a ball to go to.

We went back to the dining room and enjoyed a special spread in celebration of her visit, before settling down to listen while one of the most senior girls told us a story by the light of the candles. She said it was an old Portuguese tale she learned from her aunt. I think I was tired after the excitement of the day, and my mind was still drifting in the glory of the presence of Adélaïde in our chapel. Hence, I did not really concentrate on the details of the queen who swallows a rose petal and consequently gives miraculous birth to a daughter who carries the faint image of a rose on her forehead. Then the queen dies. The king marries a hideous witch. She is jealous of the princess, and torments her day and night. So the princess runs away from home. After trials and tribulations, exile and slavery in distant lands, and also encounters with bears and wolves, the princess returns by some strange mistake to her original land. The whole country has been changed and ruined by the presence of the witch. But the witch is now dead. And the princess, without realising what she is doing, marries the king, and brings peace and prosperity to the land. And then the story finishes with one of those bothersome happy endings. The king was not really her father, because of the matter of the rose petal in the first place. Happily ever after, after all.

The next day we heard accounts of the ball in the Hall of Mirrors. By the light of five thousand candles, as the orchestra struck up the first minuet, the glittering company stood back while Adélaïde and Bourgogne took the floor. She was no longer hampered by a cloak and could dance like the sprite she was. He was in black velvet covered with diamonds; she was in red velvet, adorned with pearls. In spite of his crooked back and short leg, he appeared to be able to dance. At suppertime, the hall was transformed into a magic garden covered with flowers and fruit. The tables, set out among orange trees, were draped with bright green moss instead of cloth, and they twinkled with sweetmeats of every colour and form. Celebrations such as this continued for days and nights, and they included a new opera written in honour of the bride and groom. News of all this splendour moved swiftly through our world, as if carried by the birds of the air, and we talked of nothing else for many weeks. I will never know how Adélaïde sustained her energy and sweet temper throughout this time, and I remind myself that it was the middle of winter, chill, and dark, and wet. Perhaps everything only shone all the brighter for that.

I sometimes wonder whether Mother Matilde had any idea how much of my Storybook might be taken up with accounts of the luxury of court life. This is something that comes to me quite naturally, since I grew up in the company of my mother and her lady embroiderers. I have vivid memories of sitting in the sunlight in a garden, learning to thread a needle and to make stitches. When I was a child, my personal landscape often consisted not of gardens but of rooms full of buttons and fabrics and threads, threads in skeins like little snakes, in all possible colours and shades. Women around me chattered and exchanged tales of life and death, and I listened, yes, I listened.

⬩ 31 ⬩ THE LITTLE DONKEY FROM OVER THE MOUNTAINS

And so the chorus of gossips echoes across the land:

‘When will the silly little hoyden show signs of having the body of a woman?’

‘Sometimes it seems she never will!’

‘It appears the stupid monkey is still too busy to pay proper attention to the reason why she is here.’

‘Huh! The reason. Tell me about it. She is only interested in games and horseplay.’

‘Doesn’t she realise she has a job – she’s just part of the loot from the king’s battles.’

‘A royal heir would come as a surprise to us all.’

‘Particularly to Her Craziness. With her long foxy red locks. It would be a shock !’

‘That will slow her down. A royal heir.’

‘You know she rides around the gardens at night – on a donkey?’

‘A donkey?’

‘Yes. Apparently she loves donkeys. In the moonlight.’

‘Strange. But does she love the duke?’

‘Ah, that’s a good question.’

‘Not a pretty sight, the duke.’

‘Never was; never will be, that one.’

‘The king himself continues to be besotted with the mad minx.’

‘Besotted he is. He lets her do anything.’

‘Aha – perhaps she lets him do anything in return?’

‘Could be …’

‘Well, that would clear up the matter of the heir, I suppose.’

‘Needs must when the devil drives !’

‘You are so funny.’

‘And remember how he laughed when she sipped his syrup and spat it across the table in disgust.’

‘How could I forget.’

‘Then there was the matter of the frog legs.’

‘Frog legs?’

‘If you missed that, you were the lucky one. So she sings a high note, mouth wide open, and the king drops a frog leg in, and she tries to swallow it and sing at the same time. It never works, of course. And the mess ! And they fall over themselves laughing.’

‘Ah, then there was the supper where she and the king competed to see who could open their mouth widest to catch the greatest number of green peas. What with the hideous teeth of her Austrian ancestors and his general absence of teeth, it was a rather ugly sight !’

‘Huh! I was in the firing line, and there were peas in my wig and all down the front of my gown. Streaks of sloppy cream with cinnamon. They carried on as if nobody else was there. In a mad world of their own.’

‘Disgusting !’

‘The old whore can’t control either of them.’

‘Oh, but she is always present, always has her eye on things.’

‘Do you suppose Apollo still rides that chariot every night?’

‘Indeed he does. And sometimes during the day.’

‘But maybe he would prefer the little donkey from over the mountains?’

‘Well, the donkey can excite him, and the hag can finish him off.’

‘Or perhaps a threesome?’

‘I can think of worse things.’

‘If you can think of worse than that, I don’t want to hear about it !’

As Adélaïde swiftly took her place in the royal family of France, the men and women of the court watched her closely. Some were filled with joy and hope for her, but many were only too happy to see her through the eyes of jealousy and malice. She could inspire great love and affection, as well as every opposite emotion. Some could see her as a bright fairy princess who would become a glorious Queen of France, mother and grandmother of kings of France; others – it sometimes seemed most – saw her as a pretentious foreign creature fit only to be tortured and thrown to the lions. The most repugnant element of all this, for her enemies, was the way their king seemed to have discovered in her a new meaning in his life. They had been unable to inspire such joy and vigour in the ageing monarch; yet this peculiar creature, who was really only part of the spoils of war, had succeeded in setting him alight.

Thus the conversations pitter-pattered around the court of Versailles, while Adélaïde, wife of the heir to the throne of France, continued to be a child and was therefore not ready to produce a serviceable Bourbon baby son – which was, after all, the whole purpose of her existence.

⬩ 32 ⬩ SHE STOPS TO PONDER THE REALITIES OF THIS IMAGINARY FACT

1699

It is September 1699, and in a few months Adélaïde and I will be fourteen. I do not mean to suggest that everybody sees us as a pair – except I do, and to a degree I know she does too. All eyes are quite openly on her for signs of womanhood. When will she bleed? When will her body be ready to begin to produce heirs to the throne of France? Mine is by now ready for whatever should transpire, unaware of the tragedies ahead. Hers keeps everyone on keen alert. When she bleeds, the duke will need to leave the apartment he shares with his brothers and move to a finer dwelling that gives access to Adélaïde, and also to the king. He will begin to fulfil his married duty. All of France is waiting and watching.

And then it happens. When her ladies are dressing her one crisp autumn morning, they spy the telltale spots of royal blood, and a message is sent to Madame du Lude. This lady makes her own inspection of Adélaïde’s nightgown and then goes swiftly to the king’s afternoon meeting with his ministers. The joyful news is what the world has been waiting for. It whizzes all over Paris, all over France, appears in the news-sheets, and is celebrated in horrible popular verses and songs. It is almost two years since the couple were married; it is surely time for the world to begin to welcome their children.

My life will change as her body changes, for she must now concentrate on truly being a wife, and then a mother, and must take her place more fully and seriously in the politics of the royal family and France. She will no longer be a regular visitor to Saint-Cyr. Oh, how I will miss her !

We weep together as we contemplate the reality of what has happened at last. How long will it be before a child is born?

‘But, Clo-Clo,’ she sobs, ‘I will need you by my side with your clever needle and thread.’

This thought amazes me. I had imagined and feared that I might disappear completely from her life. Once, my mother had suggested I could find work as an embroiderer at court, but it had always seemed to me to be something outside the realms of possibility.

‘Yes, soon I will call for you to join the sewie-sewies at the palace. I will need lots and lots of gowns – and not just for myself. There will be baby princes, Clo-Clo, little princes. And they will need dresses. And you will make those dresses.’

And then she stops to ponder the realities of this imaginary fact, and silent tears roll down the peach-coral of her cheeks. It is as if the trickle of her blood has in that moment awakened her to the harsher truths of who she is and what she is and just why she is living at Versailles.

⬩ 33 ⬩ SHE THROWS HER FISTS IN THE AIR, AND SCREAMS

Adélaïde’s flow of blood is the final act of the Treaty of Turin. Three more steps to glory: consummation of the marriage, then conception, and then birth of a prince. The king himself explains the first of these steps to Bourgogne. He is, after all, an expert in such matters. His secret wife undertakes to enlighten Adélaïde, who has not yet recovered from the shock of the dribble of blood from her body, accompanied as it is by strange sharp pains.

The French world Adélaïde has inhabited so far has been a kind of luminous playground, almost a magic place where wishes come true, and where even the king obeys her, fulfils her every whim. But now her body takes charge, dictates that she will do the bidding of nature, will take her husband’s body into her body and finally expel his heir. The explanation of it all – from the regular flow of blood to the sexual act to the pregnancy and the birth of a child – seems to still her very breath.

Adélaïde has never quite connected her knowledge of the births of baby goats and foals with the workings of her own body. She is horrified by what Françoise tells her. She always knew she would have children for France, but she has not before considered the blunt details of the fact. It is as if she has never imaginatively rehearsed this aspect of life, has never seen dogs or horses – or indeed zebras – mating. She is all at once afraid, is engulfed in a darkness she has never envisaged for herself. She feels dizzy and nauseous, and she falls forward on her beloved tante and sobs and weeps – she throws her fists in the air and screams. Her mind is become a terrible whirlpool of thoughts of Bourgogne’s crooked body on top of her smooth white perfection. No!

Women come running, and Françoise orders a cup of warm camomile with honey and brandy. As the bleeding girl-woman sips from the cup, Françoise, kind but ever realistic, says to her:

‘Royalty begins where the man begins – in the loins of a man and the belly of a woman.’

Adélaïde drops the cup, spilling the contents all over her gown, and swoons in her lady’s arms.

⬩ 34 ⬩ COMPLETED TO PERFECTION

22 October 1699

See the Boy of Burgundy,

And now the Girl of Turin,

Run naked through the forests,

Through the flowers and the grass.

See him free her buttons,

Then see her open up,

And see the dreary hunchback

Fuck the monkey up the arse.

Thus went one of the milder lewd songs that appeared on papers and in pamphlets following the consummation of the marriage of Adélaïde and Bourgogne. The police had orders to remove the verses from circulation, but this was impossible. The words often originated from among the princesses and noble ladies who somewhat resembled a gaggle of cackling and whispering hens in silk and silver. It was they who regarded Adélaïde – so young, so foreign, so beloved by the king – as fair game for their malice. Louise, Duchesse de Bourbon, illegitimate daughter of the king and one of Adélaïde’s cruellest enemies, was the source of several of the ribald songs which soon reached the streets and taverns of Paris, and swiftly spread across France and beyond.

The consummation was formally announced in the main newspapers and also in foreign journals, and there was great public rejoicing. Special masses were said in the churches of France for the culmination of the union of the royal couple.

After all the excitement of the expectation, with Adélaïde weeping on and off for days, the event of the consummation was in fact less troubling and less dramatic than might be expected.

‘It seems she suffers from bashfulness and fright,’ the king said to Françoise.

‘Ah, I have made every effort to allay her fears. I trust she will remember what I have told her,’ said Françoise.

‘And what is that?’

‘To regard it as a duty to God and the king, and to rejoice in the love of her husband.’

‘I instructed him to try to remember her pleasure as well as his own.’

‘I coached her in the giving of pleasure.’

‘You did well.’

Françoise forbore to add that she had prayed with Adélaïde and instructed her to pray to Saint Rita for patience, humility and obedience. She had said to Adélaïde:

‘Try to forget that you are there at all and give yourself to him. Do whatever he wishes you to do.’

‘You used to tell us, tante, at Saint-Cyr, that marriage is no laughing matter,’ said Adélaïde.

‘Quite so, dearest child, quite so. Now you see. It is no laughing matter.’

And the two embraced.

On the day of the consummation, having spent the afternoon at Fontainebleau, the royal party set off for Versailles in the evening. At ten o’clock on the night of October twenty-second, Adélaïde went from the apartment of Françoise, where she had dined, to her own rooms, and there, controlling her tears, she was undressed by just one lady. Bourgogne’s apartment led from that of the king. He and the king had dinner, during which the king personally fed his favourite hounds, who were always guests at his table. He gave his final nuptial instructions to his grandson, who had been given some practice in the sexual act with several useful women. Bourgogne undressed in his own apartment, where his valet arranged his hair, and then joined Adélaïde in hers. The king had promised to visit them, but when he arrived at their door, it was closed, and he walked away, thoughtful, returning to the comfort of the company of the dogs, as well as that of his beloved Françoise.

With tears, patience, humility and obedience, then, Adélaïde was finally deflowered. No laughing matter.

‘Well, he looks rather worn out,’ people observed, the following day.

‘He has gone out hunting with the king.’

‘Where is she?’

‘Oh, she has gone to Saint-Cyr.’

‘The deflowered virgin can gather autumn rosebuds in the garden.’

‘The laundry at the palace is quite busy today !’

‘Oh yes, I believe blue blood can make a terrible stain.’

‘You have to soak the spoiled bedlinen in donkey’s piss and stardust.’

Laughter.

And indeed, Adélaïde spent the whole day at Saint-Cyr, where she was unusually pale and quiet and reflective, following part of the ordinary program with her class. They read the Bible story of the wedding at Cana, often sneaking sideways looks at the now initiated bride. Adélaïde’s brown uniform had been abandoned, and she was dressed in shining coral velvet decorated with small pearls.

The events of the night before were acknowledged by a festive goûter and a mass at which there was the presentation to Adélaïde of a coronet of autumn leaves and berries. It nestled among her chestnut curls as if deposited there by fairies, rather than by the fat red fingers of a jovial old priest.

⬩ 35 ⬩ A NEW HINT OF WARINESS

When Adélaïde came back to Saint-Cyr on the day after her first night with her husband, everyone agreed that she was distant. She was still able to summon her radiant smile, but

I for one believed I could tell that it was only a mask. She was all dressed up, and I took this as a clear sign that she was no longer one of us, that she had stepped into a realm – was it dark or bright? – into which we could not enter. I do not think I was being fanciful when I read in her velvety dark eyes a new hint of wariness. Had she moved from a world of certainties into an unknown place? What was going to happen next? Would she, before another year was out, be the mother of a baby son? Would she spend her time feeling her body change, filling bowls with the stinking contents of her troubled stomach, while holding cool cloths to her throbbing brow? Waiting, as the months went by, for the pangs and pains and blood and tears of birth. These were my own thoughts, not hers, but I believed I could see all this in her eyes and in her manner. All the other girls seemed to see in her was joy. I liked to think I knew her better than they did – well, that was true enough.

Perhaps I should just say that she was, from that day onward, a truly married princess, now linked by blood to the king. She had accepted his gift, delivered by his grandson, into her body, and she would later offer the king the gift of a great-grandson. I sometimes forget that Adélaïde was the granddaughter of the king’s brother – so she was already a link in the chain of the House of Bourbon. But now she was even more entwined in that vine and would in time produce fruit.

Yes, she was now completely set apart from us in our dull woollen uniforms and coloured ribbons. Her education had mostly moved from the schoolroom and into the unknown realm of the great and dangerous ocean of life, royal life.

I realise that back then, I did not have the skill to express these notions, but I think I was somehow able to feel what was changed in her, and how, and why. And some of the sunlight had disappeared from our lives.

The day-by-day use of words in my Storybook seems to have given me the key to understanding the things that happened in the past. Mother Matilde in her great wisdom and the steady, quiet life in the convent have provided the materials for me to make some sense of life’s bewilderments. This is beginning to sound rather grand – perhaps I am enacting the sin of pride.

‘You could be one of the storytellers at court.’ That is what some of the sisters often say to me.

At meals we are silent, and we listen to readings from the Bible, but Mother once mused on the idea that on some special occasion I could tell a tale of my own invention. I shrink from this, and I hope, trust and pray that I will not have to do it. In the secret wickedness of my imagination, I half see myself as an entertainer beside Monsieur Perrault, or as a writer of plays such as those of Monsieur Molière. But in truth, this is sheer nonsense, and I am afraid of public display. I am a shy creature, a modest mouse. I can recall events such as when Adélaïde and I escaped the bonds of discipline and lit the firecracker, but they were acts of childish misdemeanour, not moments of personal exposure. I keep my thoughts to myself, my words to myself – my only true confidante is my Storybook.

Adélaïde was opposite to me: she was a dare devil. And in this, marriage did not change her. Oh, how she still loved to play jokes on people. She would think nothing of removing her slippers and skipping like a butterfly through a crowded room of sneering duchesses, singing, with a definite Italian inflection: ‘I am going to be your queen ! La-la-la. Behold the Queen of France !’ But I suppose that if you are married to the heir to the throne, that is the kind of thing you can do. There was no use trying to tell her to be more calm and dignified, not only for the sake of her role in life but simply for her own safety. No, she was free of care, forever determined to do whatever she wished. I think I have made it clear that some people adored her for this, and others detested her with a dark and dangerous passion.

I have never confessed to my private thoughts of public performance – except here, in the Storybook – and I sometimes reflect in wonder at the quantity of my personal transgressions I have never uttered in the confessional. And then I can drift in a downward spiral towards despair – one of the worst sins of all. Move on, move on, Sister Clare. Think about – what – Adélaïde’s life after her ‘wedding night’ and remember how later on your own life changed when she invited you to join her at court as an embroiderer.

Yes, I finally fulfilled my mother’s ambition for me. Times of peace and beauty, sometimes sitting in Adélaïde’s apartment, quietly creating vines and branches and flowers on fragile silks, while idly conversing with my sister embroiderers, telling stories true and false.

Sometimes, she even included me in her wild excursions. Oh, memories of the far distant day we lit the firecracker still come back to haunt me. And there were other times …

‘Clotilde is my oldest friend from school. She must put her sewing down and join us on the picnic !’

Late one morning, in the summer of the year just after the completion of her marriage, she invited me to travel in a coach with herself and four of her ladies to picnic on the banks of the Pond of the Swiss Guard. The chatter in the carriage, the steady clip-clop of the horse, the jangle of their trappings. We were abandoned beneath the trees by the edge of the pond, with the promise of the return of the coach before sunset. It moved off a little way into the forest, where it spent the remainder of the day.

Well, we sat on cushions on the grass, and we feasted on partridge and pastries and many different fruits. We had cups of wine from a cool clay casket. Then quite suddenly Adélaïde threw back her head and groaned and said she had a toothache. I must comment that by this time many of her teeth were black and rotten, and caused her much trouble.

She jumped up and announced that we would remove all our clothes and step into the waters of the pond. There were shrieks and murmurs of horror and dissent, and one of the ladies wrapped her shawl around herself, refusing to budge. She looked firm and all at once afraid. The first task of the ladies was to obey the king by keeping watch over Adélaïde at all times, yet the power of their duchess was such that, with a nice pirouette and a wave of her hand she could slip from the bonds with which they were meant to hold her.

Sometimes I thought it was a magical ability. Her dark Italian eyes would flash, now in merriment, now in command.

‘Madame would never allow this, Your Grace,’ said the lady who was trying to follow the rule. ‘May I say that I should like to advise you against it.’

‘Ooof!’ said Adélaïde. ‘I say we bathe – and my toothache will vanish into the waters of the pond. Come on, Clo-Clo! Splishy-splashy !’ She laughed and took my hand, dragging me with her as she pranced up and down. I too was reluctant. ‘I am Monsieur le Docteur, and I command the patient with the aching tooth to descend into the pond. At once ! And all the loving ladies beneath the trees will step beside her, and they will plunge into the water. Plunge !’

The lady in the shawl turned away as if in disgust and lay on the ground, burying her face in a cushion. I wished I could join her, but I did not dare. Adélaïde ignored her, as the rest of us, in some dismay, shed our garments, each helping the other, now and then looking sideways, afraid we were being observed.

I always obeyed Adélaïde, and when she ran, naked, pale skin gleaming, into the pond, I followed her, keen to cover my body with the water. It was so cold. I caught my breath. I could hear frogs gurgling somewhere deep and distant. I can now scarcely believe all this happened. Our dresses lay in an untidy heap beneath the tree, rather like a gathering of bright, exotic birds.

There is a great flurry of splashing and squealing, but I become strangely turned in on myself, in a watery world of my own, cut off from the hysteria around me. Numb. I believe I can feel fish and weeds lacing their pathways across my skin. My feet jar on stones and slide on mud, and I feel my own warm water as it is released into the pond. I go deeper, as the real world recedes from me and I am in a dream. The water laps at my chin, and I hold my head up to keep my hair dry. I am alone in the world, and the sky stretches, pale lavender, above me – clouds, the sun, an eagle.

Adélaïde let out a cry and climbed out of the water. She stood on the bank in her nakedness, bent over, her arms across her belly, slimy lumps of undigested food spurting from her mouth. We all rushed to comfort her, placing her on the ground and succeeding in dressing her. She sat up with her back to a tree, shivering. I dragged on my clothes and ran to find the coach, fear and panic in my heart like fire. Some of this story is vivid, like nightmare, and much of it is blurred and misted by time and sorrow and guilt.

‘Come, come quickly ! Please ! The duchess is in great distress.’ I was breathless and shaking. There were two coachmen. They helped me into the carriage, and we set off at a gallop to cover the short distance. The other girls had dressed and were seated in a trembling group, their gowns damp and crumpled. The remains of the picnic were packed in a jumble in the baskets to be tossed into the coach. When the horses stopped, I ran to Adélaïde. The coachmen lifted her into her seat, where she swooned and fell asleep. In her crumpled pale green and apricot gown, she resembled a crushed insect. All evidence of the picnic was bundled into the coach, and we raced to the palace.

The royal party was about to set off for Marly, but our arrival caused a long delay. Adélaïde, in some disarray, was able to walk to her aunt’s apartment. The ladies and I waited to be summoned. After a short time, Madame de Maintenon called for us, and we received a cold and furious lecture. The ladies, even the one who had not entered the water, were dismissed from service. I was sent home to my mother in disgrace, but somehow Adélaïde ensured that I would remain at court.

By early evening Adélaïde – having been given a cordial of cloves and opium and honey, and with her miraculous strength of spirit, her ability never to give in to weakness – joined her husband and the king and Françoise in the coach to Marly. But the following day she remained in bed with a high fever. She was attended by doctors and given all manner of medicines, and after a week of fevers and convulsions and bleedings, she was considered to be near death, and she made her confession. Bourgogne, who by this time was deeply in love with her, overcome with grief, kept vigil at her bedside, bent over like a mourner at a grave.

However, she recovered and remained in bed for three weeks, with news of her condition being reported throughout the court, throughout the country. My mother, who had been black with fury at my role in the disaster, strongly suggested that next time the duchess proposed I join her on a wild excursion, I should decline. I agreed with my whole heart. I decided I would have to feign illness rather than join in, and there would be times when I did.

The king was beside himself with worry. He was enraged with the coachmen who had taken us to the pond, and, he reminded everyone that the duchess was to have an official chaperone at all times. It seemed strange that even the most powerful being in the world can be helpless in the face of one such as Adélaïde. Then I recalled that he had been, from the first time he set eyes on her, completely entranced, enchanted, enslaved, beguiled by her – even filled with the desire, some say, to possess her.

‘The only way to get her under control would be to lock her in a tower without windows and throw away the key,’ my mother said. ‘Even then she would get the spiders and the mice to do her bidding, and she would find her way out before sunset.’ She added, when I was sent home in the shame of my damp garments: ‘I sometimes wish, Clotilde, that she had never crossed your path.’

I went into the courtyard and wept. I knew how much my position as one of Adélaïde’s ladies meant to my mother, and my mind and heart were in turmoil – my dearest friend was in some ways my greatest enemy. Her high spirits could become my downfall.

The king forbade Adélaïde ever to go bathing in this manner, ever again. Although as a boy he had quite enjoyed swimming, it was many years since he had entered a pond or a river or a lake, and he seldom used the bathtub. People said he never bathed at all, ever, being suspicious of water as a source of disease. He relied upon his toilet waters and perfumes to cleanse him and to kill bad odours. I am unsure of the truth of these stories. He certainly exhibited a great love for water as a work of art, filling the gardens of his palaces with leaping fountains and shimmering pools. And when he was a small boy, he had delighted in sharing his mother’s huge marble bath, after which the two of them would, I believe, rest on nearby pillows, dressed in grey linen smocks.

At the time of the incident at the pond, which was a different matter altogether, the king swiftly pointed out the obvious truth of his belief in the dangers of bathing. However, I know for a sad fact that Adélaïde sometimes, somehow, succeeded in escaping detection and went to Paris to go swimming in the Seine.

So, these measures to control Adélaïde were never going to be effective. She had always had great ability in hoodwinking authority; she would continue to exercise that skill. I never met her father, but from what I have heard, I imagine she inherited such qualities from him. Yes, I am sure she did. For only a genius of his standard could have miraculously eluded the attention of the king’s shadowy cohort of Swiss spies who reported to the monarch their every observation. Day and night they roamed the palaces of Versailles and Marly, and Fontainebleau. Who were they? If I had been asked to point out one of these men in a crowd, I should have been unable to do so. If no detail escaped them, can they also have been in the pay of Adélaïde? Of her father? Is this possible? It would take a seer with the gift of second sight to penetrate the layers of deception at the court. I maintain my belief that Adélaïde was not a spy. Other people disagree with me.

Sometimes in dreams I return to the dark womb of the pond. Here in the convent I can often control my thoughts and memories, but I am unable to control my dreams. I try to draw inspiration for my life, my thoughts, from the heavens I see from the window of the East Tower. At this moment, the sky behind me is flushed with the flesh and gold and violet of the setting sun, telling me that tomorrow that same sun will rise up from the horizon before me, bringing light and hope to my day. I always watch for the kestrel, and he almost never fails, day in and day out, to deliver to me a bright message of God’s love and wisdom, and the inspiration to persevere.

⬩ 36 ⬩ YOU OWE US A SIMILAR CHILD

It was not only the French king and his court who watched Adélaïde closely for signs of new life in her body: all of France, it seemed, was concentrated on this matter. Months went by, and years went by, and false alarm was followed by false alarm. Miscarriages, searing pain, gushes and spurts of bright precious blood from Adélaïde’s tiny body, blood that took with it the future hopes of France. The watching for a child to appear began at the time when the century changed from the seventeenth to the eighteenth. By February it was Carnival time. From the joyous feast of Candlemas until the sobering arrival of Ash Wednesday, there were weeks of festive celebrations. There was great rejoicing in France, rejoicing such as only the French could conceive. A virtual frenzy of pleasure ruled the court, a perpetual whirl of gaiety. Not just a new year, but a whole new century ! There will be new princes born into the House of Bourbon. Yes !

Carnival danced on even as the court continued to observe and catalogue Adélaïde’s many misses and failures in the production of the heir to the throne.

Much of the Carnival was designed to delight Adélaïde. Sometimes she was able to participate in the joy, but often she was too ill to raise her head.

Perhaps the most elaborate event of all was given in the Hôtel de la Chancellerie at Versailles. As fortune would have it, for this marvellous party Adélaïde was in fine health. At one end of the ballroom, where musicians were playing the latest melodies on hautboys and violins, hung a large portrait of Adélaïde, the guest of honour. A crush of ladies and gentlemen in brilliant silks and satins, and glittering with gems, danced and sang by the light of chandeliers and huge gilded candelabra. In another room, which was filled with lights and mirrors, was a theatre in which actors from the Comédie Française performed a bright new comedy. Saving the best for last: there was a room where five booths were arranged in a semicircle. Guests were invited to ‘shop’ for the goods being offered, wares that were exotic culinary treats. The sellers were musicians dressed in appropriate costumes – selling pastries, oranges, lemons, lemonade, sweetmeats, tea, and coffee – and they sang songs all about the virtues of their wares. Guests could then return to the theatre for a ball, which was yet followed by a ‘grand ball’ in the main ballroom. Dance, dance, dance.

Adélaïde danced the night away, not leaving until five in the morning. She had an insatiable passion for dancing, a passion matched by that of the king. Together they pranced and twirled across the floor. In years to come, people would say it was this very king who ‘invented the ballet’.

However, what was happening inside the body of the duchess was of common concern, far and wide. It was officially reported in the Mercure de France. There was even a popular song: ‘The Miscarriages and False Alarms of the Duchess of Bourgogne’.

Adélaïde’s family in Savoy, particularly her grandmother and her mother, were also dedicated to any news of an impending birth. In the wall of her mother’s bedchamber there was a shrine to Our Lady of Loreto. Beside the black statue of the Virgin lay the silver rattle given to Adélaïde on the long-ago day of her baptism. When Anne Marie prayed for her daughter, she would gently lift the rattle and hear the tinkle of its bells. She sent her daughter a silver basin for containing holy water, topped by a statue of the infant Jesus in white coral. It was a small but potent gift. Its purpose was made clear from the accompanying letter:

‘May this child of coral awake in you, night and day, the thought that you owe us a similar child, and let nothing hinder you in this, neither fears for your fine figure, nor any other thing.’

Nothing could be clearer. Yet there is something eerie and sinister about the idea of a child similar to a white coral baby Jesus. And although the king had given Bourgogne permission to visit Adélaïde in her bedchamber every night, two whole years were to go by before a conception was confirmed in the summer of 1702, to be followed in autumn by the disaster and sorrow of the first miscarriage. More would follow.

⬩ 37 ⬩ A MELANCHOLY MONK

I will write the truth as plainly as I am able. Remembering that I was put on earth to tell the story of the Duchess of Bourgogne, I will now concentrate on the events of the early years of her marriage. I believe Bourgogne truly loved his wife. In those years, I can say with confidence, Adélaïde did not love her husband. I say this with sorrow, but with my heart. Much later, she developed a tenderness for him, but for quite a long time she showed scant pleasure in his company. They had their pet names for each other, but while I could hear adoration in his tone when he said ‘Bina’ or even ‘Draco’, in her voice when she said ‘Baba’, there was a quiet chilly laugh. In contrast, I must say, when the Sun King shone on her, like a mirror she reflected back his fire.

And as she became ever more captivated by the excitement of the court, I could detect the gap between the duke and duchess widening. When she was ill, the duke was totally destroyed, consumed by terror that his darling would not live. He wrote passionate poems to her. She thought they were a cause for laughter and read them out to her ladies. He penned notes to her:

‘I thank God for his mercy in the gift of your life.’

I observed her as she read this and saw a crease of exasperation cross her brow.

In contrast to Adélaïde’s endless pursuit of pleasures, Bourgogne grew more serious, and more devoted to the rules of the Church. As she became wildly obsessed with dancing and with gambling, he renounced these as snares of the devil. If he was obliged to attend at balls or at the gaming tables, he made everyone feel uncomfortable by his obvious disapproval. I can recall the things people said.

‘There he is, frowning and staring at his shoes.’

‘What does he want to be, a melancholy monk?’

‘Well, they call him the royal monk, don’t they? He goes to mass three times every Sunday.’

‘Wearing the splendid costume of the Order of Saint-Esprit, no less.’

‘Charlotte tried to make him smile. She pretended she was going to kiss him. And do you know what he did? He whisked her pearl brooch from her bodice and scratched her with the pin, on her neck !’

‘I remember when he was a child. He was as mad as a raging bull.’

‘Yes, but I thought he had changed.’

‘I believe the Bible says that the leopard does not change his spots.’

‘He fasts and fasts, and look at him – he’s as thin as a withered vine-branch.’

He stopped going to the theatre. And he had his favourite silver wine coolers melted down to provide food for the poor. Some people laughed, some were exasperated, and some said they found him rather frightening. There were times when he rather frightened me. He played for such low stakes at the gaming tables that Adélaïde took to choosing other partners. I suppose you could say he had scant understanding of what the word ‘play’ means. Her losses at the tables were so excessive that the king always had to pay them.

Bourgogne’s other true love was music, and with considerable skill he would adapt the words of hymns to the melodies of his favourite operas. I thought this was such a strange thing to do, putting together the music of two competing worlds.

I could wish I had not seen the shocking impersonation Adélaïde performed one afternoon. She was quietly spinning silk while the ladies and I were sewing – a sweet and serene moment in her apartment. Looking out the window, she saw the duke and his confessor passing by. Now the duke’s gait was rather crooked, and the deformity of his back had grown more pronounced so that he hobbled as he went.

Adélaïde stopped what she was doing, and she let out a squeal as if of delight. ‘There goes the twisted duke and his faithful follower,’ she cried. She proceeded to perform a clever imitation of her husband’s walk, crossing the room several times until she collapsed in laughter. She always was a clever mimic.

We were all silent with a sort of embarrassed astonishment. I did not know where to look. Still laughing, she sat down at her spinning wheel and continued to spin. She was still smiling when the duke and his companion visited us, and the light of her smile then fell upon them. At such times, I was reminded of the fact that her father was often described as being ‘two-faced’. She certainly was her father’s daughter.

I hoped the news of this whole nasty scene would not pass beyond the walls of the apartment, but, as usual, someone told someone who told someone else, and in the end it reached the duke himself. He was so angry that he refused to share Adélaïde’s bedroom for more than a week. The whole court buzzed with the story until the king ordered his grandson to return to his wife. ‘It is your royal duty,’ said the king. And the duke obeyed.

Alas, Adélaïde’s delight in cruel practical jokes aimed at the duke knew no bounds. I can scarcely bear to tell here the story, which travelled far and wide, probably reaching Paris and even the provinces. Was it reported in the gazettes? That I do not know.

One night she said she was very tired and went to her bedchamber quite early. There she arranged for the beautiful young Madame de La Vrillière, daughter of one of her ladies, dressed only in a charming chemise, to take her place in the bed while she and a group of giggling women hid behind a curtain.

The duke arrived and believed his wife to be asleep, and, not wishing to disturb her, he undressed and climbed into bed, leaving his candle burning at the bedside.

As soon as he was nestled beneath the bedcovers, Adélaïde leapt from her hiding place like a huntsman confronting his prey. ‘What on earth do you mean by this !’ she shrieked at him, pulling back the covers to reveal the grinning lady. The others all collapsed in laughter.

The duke, thunder in his eyes and in his heart, grabbed La Vrillière by the arm and threw her crashing to the floor, wrenching her shoulder and tearing the delicate fabric of her chemise. ‘Vile whore ! Daughter of Satan ! Rot in Hell ! You are a python, a foul, foul monstrosity !’ He spat sprays of saliva like poison, and there were tears in his blazing eyes.

He would have stamped on her, but she managed to evade him and, trembling in pain and fear, took flight from the room. She remained in her own bed for some days, her body covered in bruises, and never forgave Adélaïde for involving her in this appalling trick. My old love for Adélaïde was blighted at this time by my sorrow that she could be so cruel.

When peace between the royal couple was more or less restored, the king decided it was time for his grandson to go to war. On the sixth of September of the year 1703, he led the French army to victory at Breisach, on the river Rhine. Yes, victory ! This was two whole years before my Jean-Jacques joined the army. And Bourgogne returned home. It could have been a different story. Supposing it was he who had never come back. I should not harbour such thoughts. He was twenty-one at the time; Adélaïde was eighteen. He was a serious warrior; she was still a silly princess playing all kinds of games at court.

I never imagined I would keep a record of these matters. Every time I see or write or think the word ‘battle’, I feel my heart bleeding. I see the dead white visage of Jean-Jacques lying on the battlefield, facing a cruel moon.

As I write this, bringing to my mind the horrors of war, I must put down my pen and blink back the tears of grief that come to my eyes. I stare out into the empty sky. When the duke went to war, he travelled by coach and on horseback, decked out in the magnificent uniform of a leader of the French forces, long white feathers waving in the breeze.

Jean-Jacques went to his death on foot, or sometimes on horseback, in the simple garb of a soldier. Oh, may I hope to meet him if I ever get to heaven.

⬩ 38 ⬩ BROTHER LAVANDE

Sister Clare has written: Jean-Jacques went to his death on foot. Yet history knows he is alive in the monastery on the edge of Cassano, not far from Milan. For eleven years now, in the mind and heart of Sister Clare, he has been beyond her reach, in heaven. In the truth of the real world, he is six hundred miles away as the crow – or the kestrel – flies. It might as well be six thousand miles. He might as well be in heaven. Will that gap ever be bridged on this earth? He is forever present in her heart, in her dreams. For him, she is an absence, a sweet figure from the distant past, as he proceeds with his life in the monastery of Saint-Francis.

Just as life goes on in the court, and a different life goes on in the East Tower of the convent, where Sister Clare has lived for the four years since the death of Adélaïde, life in the monastery goes on. It is eleven years since Jean-Jacques disappeared from view.

As Jean-Jacques, with his new-found faith, entered the daily round of work and prayer, punctuated by meals and sleep, he grew to experience the simple goodness of the Franciscans. Life at Versailles became just a fading dream. The filthy waters of the Adda began his transformation; the waters of his Catholic conversion and baptism at the monastery claimed his heart and soul. After so much sorrow and pain, he came to love the low stone walls, the curved tiles of terra cotta on the roofs, the music in the chapel, the brothers themselves, the communal refectory and dormitory.

Above all, Jean-Jacques loves the garden where the monks grow their thyme and oregano and lavender. Specially the lavender, French lavender, which they have in fact brought in from France. He feels his mind and soul open to the rituals and the beliefs of the monks. His is now a true conversion. He confesses everything to the priest, Father Michael. Everything including his former false ‘conversion’ and his carnal passion for Clotilde. He knows nothing of the child who was conceived and who never saw the light of day. Known as Brother Jacques, he takes his vows and is admitted into the order. He is forever separated, not only from Clotilde but also from his own family in France. He remembers them all in his prayers but has resigned himself to his life without them. His new life began, in effect, when he almost died during the battle of Cassano.

As he gradually takes charge of the herb garden, the monks often laughingly call him Brother Lavande. His rows of dreamy blue lavender stretch in a blanket across a hillside. He can be seen, from early morning to dusk, with breaks for the prayer hours, moving in his soft brown habit along the flowers. Bees buzz in the summer. The monks make aromatic honey. At the back of the monastery is his distillery beside a cave where ice from the mountains is stored. He compresses heads of lavender into a huge black iron cylinder beneath which is a drum of water. This goes onto a roaring fire. As the water boils under the lavender, the oil, mixed with water, is released. He then runs this liquid through a pipe and into another vessel, which he places in the cold cave until it separates, with the essential oil floating on top. The oil, so precious – it is believed to be a cure for a hundred ills from gout to insanity. It is bottled in small quantities and sold to finance the work of the monks. Brother Jacques is in charge of a rather grand industry, supplying courts and castles far and wide. In size and significance, placed beside the business of the embroideries and velvet hearts of Sainte-Odile, this is a vast and thriving enterprise.

Brother Jacques lives his serene and productive life, humbly offering it to God. But – there comes a day when Brother Jerome climbs the hillside and walks with him along the rows of lavender. ‘My son,’ he says, ‘your great work among us here at Saint-Francis is done. You are being called to pursue your task of gardener with our brothers in your homeland of France. In the spring you will journey to the Franciscan monastery of Notre-Dame in the hills behind Grasse, taking with you your marvellous knowledge of herbs and their properties. Brother Gabriel will travel with you on horseback, as he too will join the monks in Grasse. It is a journey of two hundred and fifty miles. I have here a letter for you to deliver to the abbot. May God be with you, my son. May the Holy Mother of God guide and protect you.’

So Brother Jacques will continue to work with lavender, and the monastery of Notre-Dame in Grasse will grow a little richer, will become famous for the high quality of its herbs. He is immersed in his life and work as a monk. He is still six hundred miles from his old home. Sister Clare will continue to write her Storybook in which the person of Jean-Jacques has died long ago in battle.

⬩ 39 ⬩ IN LETTERS OF BLOOD

When the duke first went to war, I believe Adélaïde duly wrote brief, pleasant letters to him each day. Couriers in carriages galloped across two hundred miles to deliver her messages and to return with his to her. His were long and serious and passionate. But after a time she became too busy enjoying herself to put her mind to writing letters, and weeks went by and weeks went by. We all knew she was neglecting this important task, but it was not our place to speak to her. I hoped Françoise would take control of the situation somehow, but to my surprise nothing happened for several months.

Bereft of the sunlight of Adélaïde’s letters, the duke wrote in despair to one of her older ladies, Louise de Montgon, telling her of his vexation. Louise might not have been his best choice in this matter, since she did not hesitate to pass on many of the details of it all to the other ladies. Gossip was in her blood. ‘He says he misses her so dreadfully that he is as gloomy as a chimney, and he prays to God that she would pick up her pen.’

‘As gloomy as a chimney ! Imagine that !’

And they all giggled at the thought. There was something quite apt about it, and the duke’s sombre religious observances were often the source of amusement to the twittering young ladies of the court. And they tittered as they said that when he was at war his men resented him, for he ran his army as if it were a monastery, punishing the soldiers for breaking their fast on holy days.

Then one day in shock Louise read out, within my hearing, part of a letter from the duke. ‘I am charging you, madame, to learn from her own lips whether she loves me and to give me her answer in her own words.’

Did Louise therefore speak to Adélaïde, as requested? I feel that she did not. She was only playing with the duke; she was not obeying him.

In any case, nothing happened. Still Adélaïde was too caught up in the lovely swirl of her life at court to put her mind to writing a letter to her husband on the battlefield. Gloomy as a chimney ! Who cares? There were at least two sides to the person of Adélaïde. One was the warm, dazzling, amusing, loving, childlike coquette; the other was the cruel, heartless, selfish, calculating, jesting, manipulating politician. One considered the feelings of other people; the other concentrated only on herself. I could often see these two beings in conflict within her, and I even imagined that conflict as resulting in her frequent attacks of toothache. Is that too fanciful? I sometimes wonder how much power the mind has over the body. In spite of her faults, I still loved her.

One afternoon, she had asked me to sit by her and read to her, for she was suffering with her teeth. I read her some of Monsieur Perrault’s fables from Aesop.

They are so full of sober wisdom. Oh how I could wish that Adélaïde would take them to heart. As I read, I was carried back to our days in the workrooms at Saint-Cyr. Such innocent times. I came to the story of the fox and the bramble, and when I reached the moral at the end, never trust the untrustworthy, Adélaïde sat up and said, ‘That’s very good, Clo-Clo, really good. Fortunately, we are all trustworthy here.’

But then she smiled a wry smile, for she knew she was jesting, and she fell back on her pillow in agony, her lips twisted in a crooked smile of pain.

She was sipping soothing cordials, and the physician was sitting with her, drawing blood from her elbow. She put out her hand and requested the phial of her blood. Surprised, the physician passed it to her. All at once, her eyes twinkled as she smiled at him, waving the glass phial. She held it up to the light and, turning to Louise who was standing by, she said:

‘Perhaps I shall send this to my husband, since I am much too weak to write him the letter he demands.’

Was this a joke? Louise stared at her in silence. There were times when her mistress was too shocking and difficult to contemplate.

‘But no! I know what. Dear Louise, you will write to him for me, and instead of using ink, you will write the letter in my blood !’ A slow and wicked smile spread across her face, and she closed her eyes with a deep sigh of satisfaction, as if she had just solved a puzzle. ‘Tell him I am too weak from suffering to write myself.’

Louise could do nothing but obey.

The letter in Adélaïde’s blood crossed the land and was duly delivered to the duke. Strange creature that he was, he was ecstatic at the sight, and he wrote back to Louise in his own blood. Sadly, Louise, the go-between, could not be trusted. Alas ! In a kind of amazement, for she had never seen anything at all like this before, she shared his letter with the other ladies. They were likewise astonished and disgusted, these ladies of the glittering court.

‘His own blood?’

‘Is he a madman?’

‘Look, he says he will keep her letter all his life, and he will kiss it every day because of the precious ink which has been used. Phui !’

‘Yes, he must be completely mad.’

‘It is sort of romantic,’ said one lady, wistfully.

‘It is completely horrible !’ said Louise.

There was no reply from Adélaïde. What did she think of the duke’s letter? She told me that she thought he had misunderstood her bloodstained note, which she had meant as a sort of joke. ‘Like something in a comedy by Monsieur Molière,’ she said. ‘I don’t mind that he wrote back in his own blood, but what he wrote was so serious and so holy – more like a sermon than a comedy. He has absolutely no sense of humour. Oh, phui !’

Six more letters he wrote to her, with no response. He continued to write to Louise, fearing that his wife is ill, swearing that should she die he will kill himself. Then he wrote to the king, imploring him to recall him from the battle so that he could return home to his dying wife. This finally caused Adélaïde to write to her husband. She told him the king was absolutely furious with him. But this was just not true. The king was simply puzzled, not understanding the long history of all the letters – letters of blood, written and not written. Adélaïde told the duke that he must do his duty and stay with the army.

Her letter was cold and distant. She had her reasons for wishing him absent.

Having come thus far in this ugly tale, I must now hasten to the chapel for prayers.

⬩ 40 ⬩ LESSONS IN LOVE

The war continues. Bourgogne is still far away on the Rhine. It is spring, and the vast gardens of Versailles are alert with bursting buds and twittering birds. Dew shines on the leaves in the early morning as the mists lift. Adélaïde, wearing pale apricot and silver and a multitude of pearls and diamonds, is making her way in the company of her ladies to her pavilion in her Menagerie. Their plan is to bake Savoy cakes filled with cream and topped with cherries. Memories of childhood at La Vigna. Here at the pavilion there are official cooks who must be – perhaps not obeyed, but at least considered as part of the team of cooks. Yet Adélaïde takes gleeful control:

‘My sister and I used to watch the girls as they milked the cows. We would collect the eggs and pick the fruits ourselves in special baskets. Cherries, strawberries.’

Before they reach the gates of the pavilion, they are overtaken by a party of nobles who greet them cordially.

‘You would care to join us in the kitchen?’ says Adélaïde, ever seeking company and pleasure. Murmurs of delight and consent.

The meeting at the Menagerie is not accidental. Adélaïde has planned it all, planned to spend time alongside one noble in particular. That noble is the dashing, handsome, gallant Armand, Marquis de Nangis, injured in war and home on leave. He is a magnet to the young women of the court, Adélaïde included. He makes a great flourishing bow to the Duchess of Bourgogne. She blushes. Romance is in the air. Most of the cooking is done by the ladies, while Adélaïde and Nangis sit together by a window, murmuring and sometimes laughing softly.

Now it so happens that this Nangis, debonair and charming, is romantically involved with none other than Madame de La Vrillière: the lady who, at the suggestion of the mischievous Adélaïde, once hid in the Bourgogne’s bed. So Adélaïde and the girlfriend of Nangis are already enemies. The little duchess is playing with fire. News can travel fast through the gardens and corridors of Versailles. The scene in the kitchen at the Menagerie reaches the pretty ears of La Vrillière before the last crumb of the last of the Savoy cakes is swallowed, before the Marquis de Nangis has popped the last gleaming cherry between the luscious lips of the Duchess of Bourgogne.

As night falls, the marquis, as usual, enters the bedchamber, not of his wife, but of his beloved La Vrillière. She is waiting for him, bright blue eyes blazing. ‘Did you enjoy the cakes, Armand?’

‘Cakes?’

‘I can imagine you might be suffering from indigestion. I believe that cakes in Savoy are somewhat heavy on the stomach.’

‘Oh, that – my dearest, some of us stopped by the duchess’s pavilion for a few minutes. Naturally we sampled the cooking. But see – I have brought you the orange water you so desired.’

‘Ah, thank you, Armand. But you realise whole oceans of orange water will not excuse you.’

‘Forgive me, but I do not understand.’

‘Forgive you ! As if I will forgive you, you slimy weasel !’ And she hurls the bottle of perfume against the door where it smashes, scattering shards of glass and splattering the orange water across the floor. Her mouth shows cruel teeth, and her voice is steady. ‘Just stay away from the poisonous duchess, Armand. She is trouble for you and trouble for me. May the grinning little witch be trouble for herself.’

Nangis is soon cured of any interest he may have had in Adélaïde. Yes, she is dangerous territory. Better give her a wide berth. Considering the delightful, promising hours she spent with him in the pavilion, Adélaïde is for a short time puzzled and a little sad when he begins paying her nothing but formal attention.

But before long she finds another interesting man on whom to concentrate her gaze. While her husband is away at war, forever writing letters to her, she is making trouble for herself. And, of course, for so many others.

Enter François Édouard, Marquis de Maulévrier, husband of one of Adélaïde’s ladies. Another military man, he is much less handsome than Armand. He is rather coarse and vulgar, even ugly – but he takes to sidling up to Adélaïde and sighing as she passes by. He slithers past her as she sits at the gaming table, engrossed in her favourite lansquenet – her head swivels in his direction. He returns and gently kicks her chair as he goes. She lowers her head and giggles.

Adélaïde decides to play cat and mouse, and when he sends her a love letter, she writes a sweet reply. Yes, unlike her lack of response to the letters from her husband at war on the Rhine, she writes to the serpent Maulévrier. It is all looks and letters from then on, but the eyes of the court, greedy for scandal, choose to imagine the worst. He keeps her letters in an unlocked drawer. Adélaïde, a flirt and a tease, is amused and charmed, and sees the matter as a possible way of attracting Nangis back to her. But there is no chance of that. What happens is that Maulévrier’s wife opens the drawer and reads the letters. She silently ponders on where this is leading and considers her role in the action. She bides her time. She reads on.

What did the Swiss spies make of it all, and what did they report to the king? Were such games tolerated as being harmless and trivial and amusing? Yet Adélaïde was still, after all, the very light of the king’s existence. And yes, she was there for the purpose of producing the heir with Bourgogne, but she was essentially the property of the king, who spent more time with her than with anyone except his wife. She was forever prattling, skipping, flying around him. Perching on the arms of his chairs, bouncing on his lap, tickling him under the chin, whispering in his ear. Was this an adult woman? In her life with the king, Adélaïde had never moved on from the position of entrancing puppet in his pocket on that day, long ago, at the palace of Fontainebleau. The puppet continued to pop from his pocket and take great pleasure in performing for others in public.

The unattractive Maulévrier, claiming a sickness of the throat, took to speaking in a hoarse whisper so that if he were to say anything to Adélaïde – and he had much to say – he would place his lips to her ear. She took a certain delight in this, and it was excellent fodder for the gossips.

The game moved into its most perilous phase when Nangis – finally fuelled by jealousy and ignoring the dangerous fury of his own wife – wooed the duchess Adélaïde all over again. To Maulévrier, this was intolerable. It was all rather like a comedy by Molière, up to this point.

One morning as Adélaïde was returning from mass, Maulévrier saw his opportunity to confront her, and he offered to conduct her to her apartments. As they walked, so close together that her skirts rustled against his coat, he whispered to her, grasping her hand and squeezing her fingers as if he hoped to break them. ‘You owe it to me to dismiss the foul half-wit Nangis from your company. I warn you now that unless you do this, I will reveal your filthy association with him to the king and to your husband. I resolve also, in that case, to challenge the toad to a duel, yes, a duel.’

Adélaïde, speechless with shock and pain and terror, fearing she was in the grip of a madman, pulled away from him and was able to enter her apartments. From this time on, she gathered her ladies close, and she lived in dread of the madman’s threats for six terrible weeks. She often isolated herself in her apartment, surrounding herself with a tight bevy of her ladies, while taking care to ignore both Maulévrier and Nangis. She spent a great deal of time with the king and Françoise, becoming with them more like the playful child of days gone by.

A guardian angel was at hand. This was René, Count of Tessé, Marshal of France who had known and lovingly protected Adélaïde since she was a child in Savoy. In his quiet wisdom, he could see what was happening, and he persuaded Maulévrier’s physician to advise him, for the sake of his health, to go to a warmer climate.

‘Your throat and voice will recover more readily in the sunshine of Madrid,’ said the physician, perhaps wisely realising that his patient’s sore throat was part of the man’s play-acting.

So Maulévrier went south, with an introduction to the King of Spain. The King of Spain was the brother of Adélaïde’s innocent husband, and the introduction came, at the request of Tessé, from Bourgogne himself. It was now that Bourgogne returned from war, amid some rejoicing at court. Now, people thought, the business of providing an heir could begin in earnest.

However, the twisted tangle of Adélaïde’s life was about to gather yet another ghastly knot. Who was married to King Philip the Fifth of Spain, but Adélaïde’s sister Louisa? To whom did the incorrigible Maulévrier now pay his oily court but – why yes, to Marie Louisa, who responded with smiles and charming gestures. She seemed to be almost as silly as her sister. What was the appeal of the ugly Maulévrier? This certainly remains something of a mystery, although it is clear that he had a rather poetic way with words.

He was causing his usual trouble in Spain. The French ambassador to Madrid reported the matter to the French king, and Maulévrier was quickly sent off to fight in the siege of Gibraltar. There was no scarcity of wars when they were needed. But – oh how this skein of royal ribbons looped and gnarled – when he decided to quit the battle and return to the pleasures of Madrid, Louis swiftly recalled him to France. And there he would resume his hideous persecution of Adélaïde.

Worse was to come. For Adélaïde had learned no wisdom. It was now a year since Maulévrier left for Madrid. He was about to return to France. In his absence, the romantic life of Adélaïde had moved on, and she was pouring out her troubles into the willing ear of a most attentive listener. This was Melchior, Abbé de Polignac. And this was not a matter of religion.

Polignac was forty-five, and one of the most charming, handsome and popular men at court. Bourgogne, who had by this time returned from battle, admired him greatly and enjoyed discussing theology and science with him. Oh woe ! Adélaïde, who should have been spending her nights in the bedroom with her husband, working on the matter of the heir, began taking walks in the moonlight with the elegant abbé. All this was fodder for the gossips at court, where Adélaïde provided wonderful material for stories and songs.

She was no longer interested in Maulévrier when he came back from Spain. Ah! Enraged at her treatment of him, he sent her letters in which he threatened to expose her many guilty exploits. In a most foolish attempt to placate him, she again replied in writing, assuring him that she is his friend. This was only fuel to his fire – and the letters went into the drawer. Then, in a new twist, his wife – she who was steadily following the story that the drawer was telling – appeared to be romantically involved with the hated Nangis.

Were these people inspired by the works of Molière? Or did the playwright take his cue from the dangerous games they were playing? And were the Swiss spies reading these letters, chortling to each other as the tale unravelled?

Maulévrier seemed to completely lose all reason. Late one afternoon, he took a walk alone in the gardens of Versailles. Outside the kennels where the king’s hundreds of hounds were kept, he stood still, flung off his embroidered velvet coat, tossed it to the ground, threw back his head and howled like a wolf. Before the guards were aware of what was happening, he rushed headlong into the kennels, shouting obscenities, setting the animals baying and yelping and barking – leaping in excitement. Before he was attacked and torn to pieces, the guards came to life and captured him, dragging him away. He was confined, and later returned to his lodgings.

‘You must come with us, dear fellow,’ said his friends, and they conducted him to a room in a hotel in Paris. He remained indoors all day, but in the dead of night he took a carriage to a distant monastery where he wandered through the gardens until dawn, whistling to himself.

In charity, the monks took him in. ‘We have been blessed with the visit of a lunatic !’ they said, in their innocent wisdom.

He wrote incendiary letters to Adélaïde and even to Françoise. They did not reply. He began to hallucinate, to shout his plans to assassinate Nangis. He was returned to his hotel room and locked in, and a guard was mounted at his door. Trickster that he was, at midnight on Good Friday 1706, he somehow slipped by the guard, smashed a window and threw himself out to his death in the courtyard below. A crumpled corpse on the bloodied cobblestones, to be ferried away before he could be eaten by dogs.

His wife soon let it be known that she had Adélaïde’s letters in her possession. These she passed on to Madame de Maintenon, who confined her horrified response to delivering several sobering lectures to the duchess. ‘I am destroying all these letters. It will be as if they had never existed. I counsel, nay, I command you, to pay the correct attention to your husband, and to bring into the world as soon as possible, a son who will one day be the king of this great country. Now we shall pray together. We shall pray for the king, for the duke, and for the ultimate blessing of the child.’

She burned the letters, and she also succeeded in suppressing a brief wave of malign popular verses and public ridicule in the broadsheets. This described Adélaïde as, among other things, a filthy whore and a howling slutty she-wolf. One even called her a donkey’s concubine – a rather strange but eerily resonant epithet. Did the versifiers know more than the history books could later tell? Comments were even scrawled across some of the pedestals in the gardens of Versailles. Stinking strumpet !

And Polignac, the carnal priest? He was sent in exile to Rome, and later he became a cardinal.

By some miracle, it seems the details of Adélaïde’s sordid saga of gross romantic misdemeanours never reached the ears of either Bourgogne or the king. How can this be so? Françoise was a miracle-worker and a magician. Perhaps the answer lies there.

⬩ 41 ⬩ SOME MARRIAGES ARE MADE IN HEAVEN

I know there is much sadness and regret in the hearts of my mother and father that I should live out my life without issue. They met when they came to Versailles to work, she as an embroiderer, he as a gardener. They belong to families of the lower, impoverished nobility. I can say without a doubt that they are kind, good people who have found love and happiness with each other. I am their only surviving child, my brother and sister having died in infancy. I know how they hoped that by attending Saint-Cyr and then coming to court, I might find a good husband and continue our family. For a few slender moments, it seemed that this might happen. They knew nothing of the dark impediment of Jean-Jacques’s faith. I was always confident that he would, quite soon, find the gift of a sincere conversion. He could have been the greatest pin in the crimson velvet heart. But all that was not to be. Perhaps I should make for myself a pincushion in which I can mark my wish for his conversion. Perhaps before he died …

As I muse on the sad story of my own romantic life, I arrive at the picture of that of Adélaïde. This also is a sorrowful story, with more chapters than there are in mine. To begin at the ending – her purpose in life was fulfilled as she produced an heir for the king. Ad impletum est. But she never found the love and happiness that I see in my mother and father. Perhaps this is of no consequence, but it is still deeply sad. Some marriages are made in heaven, and some are here on earth manufactured by kings. Oh, there are people who point to the time when Adélaïde and the duke gave some appearance of being a happy couple, when their union was blessed with issue. But I am afraid that all I can see in Adélaïde’s romantic life is a line of horrible disasters. How could it have been different? That I do not know.

Musing on the episodes of Adélaïde’s truly dreadful involvement with three terrible men at court, I realise there were five men that I know of in her short life. Five impossible men. I then trace it all back to her father, and so he makes six. Six impossible men.

I shall begin with her father. Victor Amadeus was one of the most untrustworthy people I have ever heard of. And cruel. Adélaïde’s mother suffered humiliation and loneliness as a result of his savage treatment of her, and yet she seemed, strangely, to be fond of him. He trained Adélaïde in his own brand of duplicitous politics. Some say there is evidence she spied for him when she was at the French court. I do not believe this to be true. He sold her to France, yes, but did she work for him while at the court? Such transactions of trading a daughter for a treaty are not unusual. He sold her sister to Spain. Perhaps Luisa was a spy? I think about these matters often. Did I know Adélaïde as well as I thought I did?

The next man was her husband the duke, who was so very opposite to Adélaïde in spirit. I see him as a wild animal who had learned to keep his temper under control by taking himself to the extreme of fanatical religious practice and belief. There were times when the couple appeared to be at peace with each other. They did have the necessary sons.

Then there was Nangis, who was a prancing dandy, then Maulévrier, none other than a madman, then Polignac the suave churchman who became a cardinal. That is five men.

Number six is no mystery: it is the king.

His motto nec pluribus impar was simply and perhaps rather sadly accurate. He was ‘like no other’. And this motto was inscribed in stone beneath his favourite symbol, the beaming face of the sun. Was he more than human? It would often seem so. Apollo, the Sun King.

⬩ 42 ⬩ HE WAS LIKE NO OTHER

The king’s parents had been married, with no children, for twenty-three years before he was born. The queen was thirty-five, so there was no time to lose. There had been four unsuccessful pregnancies. His birth, on the fifth of September in 1638, was considered to be a miracle.

‘It is a miracle !’ chorused the believers in miracles, their starry eyes alight with joy.

‘Call it that then,’ growled the cynics.

‘Whichever way you look at it, it is a mystery,’ nodded the realists.

Divine intervention was at hand. One mystic prophesied the birth of the dauphin. And another received a message from God that the child had been conceived. The queen had a large collection of pearl and diamond rosaries, and she used to choose a different one each day, for her devotions. At long last, her prayers for a son were answered. Such perseverance. The whole business was complex, not just a matter of a few prayers and an episode of sexual congress in the royal bed.

At that time, the Thirty Years’ War still had ten years to go. Always, yes always, there is war to consider.

One day, about a year before the mysterious and wonderful birth of baby Louis, a monk in an Augustinian monastery in Paris received a message from the Virgin Mary. Holding up a baby boy, she said: ‘This is the child God wishes to give to France. The queen will bear this child. But first she must offer unto myself three rosary novenas at three of my churches.’

This would involve a very great deal of prayer, not to mention travel.

The child was born with two teeth. He wore out nine wetnurses, so cruelly vigorous was his thirst for milk. It is sad and sobering to reflect that by the time he was to meet Adélaïde, he was fifty-eight and had almost no teeth to speak of.

He was privately baptised, his public baptism deferred until he was nearly five, shortly before his father’s death in 1643. The day after his birth, he gave his first audience to dignitaries who could view him from a distance, behind a railing. An enormous canopy of white floral damask stretched overhead. The child was asleep on a white satin pillow, in his nurse’s arms, his face serene and visible to all.

‘It’s a miracle.’

‘So beautiful.’

‘So healthy.’

‘Serene.’

‘Look, his eyes are open.’

‘He is looking straight at me.’

‘I can see his teeth!’

‘Teeth?’

‘Yes, already he has teeth.’

So elated was his mother at his birth, and then throughout his childhood, that she seldom left his side. When he was seven, he would lay the foundation stone for the Paris church of Val-de-Grâce, his mother’s gesture of thanks to the Virgin Mary for the miraculous gift of his birth.

‘Oh yes,’ said his nursemaid to her friend, ‘she takes great joy in playing with him and taking him out in her carriage, whenever the weather is fine; it is her great pleasure in life. You know, instead of a court lady handing her the chemise on rising, the little prince does this, and then he kisses her hand.’

‘And you say they take all their meals together?’

‘They do.’

‘And his special green chair?’

‘Oh yes, the chair. She had it made for him. All soft green velvet.’

‘And the nails … Someone said the nails holding it together are made from gold?’

‘Yes, gold – well, gilded. He will sit in that chair, and she will tell him all these stories about wars and princesses and talking frogs.’

‘And she’s an extremely religious woman, is she not.’

‘Religious ! I’ve never seen anything like it ! She’s on her knees, in and out of convents and chapels and cathedrals and monasteries – day in and day out. He goes with her, too. If prayers will make him perfect in every way, take my word for it – he will be perfect.’

‘Well, she must treasure him and pray for him. He is the gift from heaven.’

Louis would grow to love dancing and music and fencing and hunting with a passion. When he was four he liked to take out his dogs and chase ducks.

He was almost five when his father died, and he, the God-Given, with his mother and brother set off in an open carriage to go from Saint-Germain to Paris. The journey of twelve miles took them seven hours, for they must negotiate the jubilant crowds who flocked around them all the way. Stopping and starting, stopping and starting. Louis was now the King of France, with his mother as his regent – her regular companion and adviser, Cardinal Mazarin, a frequent presence.

Just five days later, the French army celebrated a rousing victory over Spain on the borders of the Spanish Netherlands.

Many of his childhood games were military – he liked to march around the garden, playing his drum, and drill other children, and by the time he was five he was given the task of reviewing the regiments of the life-guards. One of his favourite toys was a set of soldiers fashioned in silver: a faithful miniature replica of the French army. ‘Yes, we won the battle again today. The Spanish are all dead – look – all dead all over the fields. Hooray !’ The silver dead bodies of the enemy were scattered across the table.

With his arquebus he would shoot sparrows in the gardens of the Tuileries Palace. He was an excellent shot. He had his own gymnasium. He adored his horses.

When he was nine, he was in bed recovering from smallpox, longing to see his favourite pony. ‘Maman,’ he said, ‘please ask them to bring Allegro here. I love him so.’

The pony was trotted from the stables, across courtyards, along stone corridors. To the great joy of the child, it entered the bedchamber and was welcomed with kisses and laughter and a carrot.

From the time of his father’s death, until he took over the rule of the country, free from the regency of his mother, he was nevertheless involved in war and politics. At nine he went with his mother to the battlefields of Picardy to inspire the troops. There he was, a boy king in fluttering military regalia, decked with golden fleurs-de-lis. He was educated in the history and language of France, and spoke not only elegant French but also Italian, Spanish and some Latin. He was a willing student of politics, philosophy, history, music.

From his childhood, it was clear to him that the best, the only way to rule France was to take over most of the power himself, while still conferring with his ministers, until all decisions would be his alone. He was God’s Gift and so he would have the last word.

The civil war known as the Fronde lasted from 1648 to 1653, with the final result of all power being now in the hands of the boy king. The nobility had lost.

It is 1654, and the civil war is over. Louis, a smallish boy of fifteen, is consecrated king in Reims. There are many ceremonies, going on for days, culminating in the cathedral where, after much long pomp and ritual, he proclaims his consecration oaths. Sometimes he is robed in violet, sometimes in gold. As he sits on a throne at the top of a staircase, the heavy crown of Charlemagne is placed upon his head, soon to be replaced by a lighter crown, and the bishop says: ‘Vivat rex in aeternum.’ At this point the dusty great doors of the cathedral are thrown open, and the crowds outside, accompanied by volleys of cannon and harquebus, cry in thundering chorus: ‘Vive le Roi!’

The celebrations continue for days, during which the consecrated king places his hands on two thousand people suffering from scrofula. The King’s Touch. ‘The king touches thee; may the Lord heal thee.’ The hope is that the swollen spots on the victims’ necks will subside. He gives each sufferer a silver coin. Throughout the course of his reign, some believe, he touched some 308,000 scrofulous people.

By 1682 Louis had moved the seat of this power out of Paris, twenty-five miles into the countryside, where he built his palace of Versailles – and where his control was absolute. He created a universe of which he was the undisputed centre, the sun, the god Apollo. To Versailles he took his world, and from there he governed France in the midst of his many buildings, his gardens and orchestras and fountains and theatres and ballets and menageries and stables and kennels and chapels and fireworks and lovers and gamblers and storytellers and spies. And he created the Hall of Mirrors where you could see everything over and over again. Infinity on infinity. And high above all, on the distant lofty ceiling, were thirty paintings telling the story of Louis and France in brightest fleshy detail.

Perpetually underneath the fabric of everything was the kernel of his mother’s sombre Spanish piety. He always knew that although he might well be the gift from God, the mirror image of Apollo, the greatest king who ever lived, he would, one day, be required to answer to God for his actions. The king must die. This knowledge seems to have lurked in the shadows of his heart, to have slumbered through many a long and tumultuous year of lusty pleasures, until he could see the shadow of death approaching, and he turned to the pious safety of Madame de Maintenon.

Back when he was only four years old, he was all dressed up in velvet and lace and was carried into the Parlement of Paris. It was four days after the death of his father. He stood, an elf in a company of giants, and from his lips, in a steady high pitch, he spoke:

‘I have come to speak to you of my affairs. My chancellor will tell you my wishes.’

Beside him was his mother, his regent, draped in mourning black, her face obscured by her veil, her huge diamond earrings sometimes winking through the shadow.

Military matters occupied the greater part of the discussion, for France continued to play its role in battle after battle of the Thirty Years’ War.

Two years roll by. Louis is again addressing the Parlement, and the topic has not changed.

The king and his mother, who is still robed in black, still concealed behind her veil of mourning, ride in their carriage a mile along the Seine from the palace of the Louvre to the Sainte-Chapelle on the Île de la Cité. The route is heavily lined with soldiers, and it is surging with the tatter and tangle of crowds eager to glimpse the boy king as he sails by. The clip-clop of the horses, the clatter of the wheels on the cobbles, the songs and shouts of the exuberant people. Vive le roi ! Rumble and jingle onto the bridge.

On the island in the river, the Sainte-Chapelle – small and elaborate Gothic, its elegant spires ascending into the clouds – is one of the most mystical and exquisite churches on earth, resembling the jewel box of some fantastical unnamed king of unknown legend. All that is outside disappears like magic, as the bosom and heart of the structure become the centre of the universe. Light spills in, as if through shimmering water, falling on the interior from a whole world of luscious coloured glass, patterned like the wing of the strangest tropical bird.

The cardinals, the marshals, the princes, the princesses – such is the assembly – are arranged like vivid figures in the busy tapestry of the upper chapel, the heavenly stretches and arches of the ceilings weaving above them, in and out of each other as the spreading wings of angels. Pillars multiply, each intensely painted – scarlet or azure or saffron – embossed with the gleaming golden fleurs-de-lis, over and over again, and stamped with the arms of the house of Bourbon. They form a mysterious forest topped by a million kinds of lush stone leaves from which small carved creatures scurry and peep. Saints and angels in stone and glass meet the gaze from nook and cranny. In the gallery high above the king and the assembly is the shrine wherein is locked Christ’s crown of thorns, which the king’s ancestor bought long ago for 13,134 pieces of gold.

Liturgical music swells and swirls, candles are lit, the smell of melting wax mingling with the spicy aroma of incense and the miasma of the human bodies, and the mass begins. After the meditative silence that follows, Louis stands, is applauded, and speaks briefly to the Parlement. As he did two years before. But – after him comes the true business of this gathering.

Two of the speakers describe how France is suffering from the poverty and famine and disease that result from continual warfare. The Chancellor of France explains that only by more vigorous military force will France subdue Spain, the number one enemy. Yes, perhaps, he says, peace is the goal, but peace can only be achieved by success in war, and the only path to success is conquest. The theme of his rousing speech is this: The solution to all problems is war, and for war to be successful there must be a large and concentrated investment of funds flowing into the national purse – and out again onto the battlefield.

The child-king hears this, has heard such sentiments all his life, and they form part of his being. The puzzle is – how to bring in this gold to finance the wars to broker the peace which in turn brings in more gold. Find a magic donkey? It is no doubt simpler to find a wealthy princess, perhaps a princess among the family of an enemy. Two things seem to be at the centre of every other thing: wars and princesses.

One of the most important tasks for a king is that of producing an heir who can keep the power in the hands of his family. So, as soon as possible, he must take a wife from a suitable royal family, a wife who can bring to the kingdom the power of more wealth and more land. A wife whose existence signals peace. Since his birth, Louis’s mother had hoped that, when the time was right, he would wed the Spanish princess Maria Teresa, his exact contemporary, having been born five days after he was. They were double firstcousins. Perfect. His mother was the sister of her father, and his father was the brother of her mother. To put it another way, a brother and sister of France had married a brother and sister of Spain. It’s sometimes one thing to keep the crowns within the family, but another to keep members of the family on good terms with each other.

A year after those events in the Sainte-Chapelle, far away in Madrid, Maria Teresa becomes heiress to the Spanish throne. She and Louis are eight years old. If you join the King of France to the heiress to the Spanish throne, you will stitch peace into the tapestry, you will win the game this time.

King Philip of Spain has not met his sister Queen Anne of France for forty-four years, until they are brought together for the wedding of their children, Louis and Maria Teresa. Yes, it is going to happen. Brother and sister meet. Philip retains a stiff and formal manner to his sister, and she follows his lead. No, they do not fall upon each other with tears of joy. This is politics. France and Spain are often at war with each other, after all.

When Louis is nearly sixteen, he is crowned in the cathedral at Reims in June 1654. As the war between Spain and France is slowing down, in 1658 the negotiations for the union with Maria Teresa begin. There is still a very long way to go before he will meet Adélaïde of Savoy. A very long way. And in the meantime, the legs of many lovely ladies will wrap around the naked body of the king. There are eighteen of them known, and also a steady stream of unknown. But his queen is to be Maria Teresa of Spain. She will be known in France as Marie-Thérèse.

The works of the Spanish painter Diego Velasquez gave the world pictures of Maria Teresa as a child, with her long pale Habsburg face, hugely wide skirts, and hair fashioned to resemble a fancy saddle on a little donkey. And when her proxy marriage to Louis took place, it was Velasquez who decorated the church with paintings of the princess and with Spanish tapestries.

On the seventh of November 1659, the Franco-Spanish war came to an end with the signing of the Treaty of the Pyrenees. The treaty was signed on the Isle of Pheasants, which is a tiny island in the river Bidassoa on the border of France and Spain. A rather strange clause in this treaty states that for half a year the island will belong to France, and for the other half it will belong to Spain. This state of affairs will never change.

Then, on the sixth of June 1660, this is where the two royal parties meet, the proxy wedding having been four days earlier in Fuenterrabia, where the chapel was decorated with swathes of cloth of gold.

In her coach, the princess prays at her personal shrine to the Virgin of Montserrat, and this shrine, with its Black Virgin weeping emerald tears, will afford her much comfort during her life as Queen of France. The Spanish cortege, which has travelled north from Madrid, is fifteen miles long. Fifteen miles.

Having met on the island in the river, the royal parties moved on to Saint-Jean-de-Luz, where, on the ninth of June, the wedding proper was celebrated. Louis was in black velvet encrusted with diamonds. Marie-Thérèse wore the royal French cape of deep red velvet on which were embossed hundreds and hundreds of golden fleurs-de-lis.

They were twenty-one years old. She was a virgin; he was not inexperienced. When he was fifteen, he was initiated by one of his mother’s ladies, and their association lasted for two years. After that, who but some equivalent of a Swiss spy would know how many nights of love he spent with how many women before his marriage.

‘They say he wasted no time that night deflowering the little virgin Spaniard.’

‘How did he find her flower under all that great collection of satin skirts?’

‘He’s an expert in blood sacrifice.’

‘They say there were rivers of dark crimson from one end of the coverlet to the other.’

‘Well, at least that’s a good omen. Perhaps the deed is done and there will be princes before the next year is out.’

‘Yes, but on the way home he paid a visit to his little whore-in-exile Marie Mancini.’

‘He didn’t !’

‘Oh yes he did.’

‘But isn’t that all over and done with?’

‘Ah – you never know with Louis the Lover. And remember he used to write letters to her as often as ten times a day. But it’s all over now.’

‘If that’s over, there will be another pair of willing legs jumping soon from who knows which secret door.’

‘Perhaps not – maybe he will fall in love with his new wife?’

‘What – have you seen her? Ugly as sin.’

‘Oh well, may she serve her purpose and deliver him a dozen fat French sons.’

‘Amen.’

All the signs pointed to the dawning of a glittering new era, but nobody could have predicted just how glorious and luminous and high-pitched it would turn out to be. A never-ending catalogue of paintings and tapestries can be rolled out to illustrate the godly and worldly power and magnificence of this king. There is a large grey-brown lithograph by Antoine van der Meulen. The central figure is the king in hunting gear on horseback, elevated on the Pont-Neuf, accompanied by one hundred Swiss Guards. He is addressing an enormous crowd which seethes, like grains of rice, below him. Behind him the real world fades into a kind of frozen distance. He was on his way to make a sudden and historic speech to the Parlement, announcing his own absolute autocratic rule, which he would exercise for the next forty-two years. Blind obedience to the king was now the rule.

But one remarkable human being who was much later able to bend and break this rule was none other than the little miss from Savoy. How on earth could she succeed where so many crafty ministers and cardinals would fail, getting themselves sent to prison for life for attempting to undermine the king?

The return journey of a hundred miles, from the king’s wedding in Saint-Jean-de-Luz to Paris, was marked by celebrations and triumphal arches all along the way. And yes, alone, Louis paid his final sad visit to Marie Mancini, the beautiful woman he would have preferred to marry, should the choice have been his.

He took his queen to the Tuileries Palace – it would be another twenty-one years before Versailles was ready for occupation, and by that time, Marie-Thérèse had only one year to live. However, she did provide, on the first of September 1661, the necessary prince, Louis, grand dauphin. There were five more children, but they did not survive childhood. And the grand dauphin, as it happened, was a dull disappointment. But he is going to be the father of the husband of Adélaïde, and so he counts for much in this story.

From now on, it’s all power and wars and mistresses and the high life, and the hunting at Versailles and Marly and Fontainebleau. Gardens and fountains and fishing and feasts and rides in golden gondolas. Operas and plays and banquets and gambling, a great deal of gambling. While enjoying so much entertainment, the king was able to work in his office, on his papers, ruling his ministers, for eight hours on most days. And sexual congress – there was a great deal of that too.

There is a French word to describe the life as it was led at Versailles, although it doesn’t really begin to cover everything – the word is ‘panache’. Its original meaning was ‘a bunch of feathers’. And Louis was famous for wearing heaps of huge feathers on his head.

There was always an endless supply of anything Louis wanted. For the buildings of Versailles he employed 36,000 bricklayers, and each night those who had perished during the day were carted away, to be replaced by fresh ones the following day.

Out of the eighteen known mistresses of the king, the main long-term ones were Louise de La Vallière and Madame de Montespan. It was the children of the latter who were placed in the care of a governess, Françoise, later known as Madame de Maintenon. The governess becomes the wife of the ageing king, and so the story is now close to returning to the life of Adélaïde – her extraordinary place in his life and affections, and his in hers.

⬩ 43 ⬩ DOES THE PRINCESS SPIN WITH SPIDER WEBS?

I have said that the story of Adélaïde sometimes reads like a list of disasters, but there are many brighter moments. In fact the list alternates between joy and sorrow, flashes of light followed by deep clouds of darkness. Her son the Duke of Bretagne was born in 1704 amid riotous celebrations, but he died the following year. In the days after his death I was called to her bedside, where I found her white and frail and inconsolable. I sat with her for some hours, and at last she turned to me and said:

‘Tell me a story, Clo-Clo.’

‘Cinderella?’ I said.

‘No, longer, much longer. I want to listen to you for hours and hours. A happy story. A long, long happy story.’

‘The longest one I know is “The Great Green Worm”.’

‘Does it have a happy ending?’

‘It does, but there are bad things along the way.’

‘Does the princess spin with spider webs?’

‘She does.’

‘Then tell me that story, Clo-Clo. Please tell me that story.’

We were transported back to our days at Saint-Cyr, as she lay there and I rambled on and on until I came to the final words:

‘They lived the rest of their lives in great prosperity, leaving behind all the days of misery and disgrace.’

I could not know it then, but in four short months from the death of the baby duke, Jean-Jacques would leave this world, and it would be I who would be inconsolable. Secretly inconsolable. Drowning in my own grief and sorrow.

⬩ 44 ⬩ LONG LIVE THE PRINCE

All of France hoped for a royal heir to emerge from the body of Adélaïde.

When the dust had settled and Maulévrier was dead, and Nangis had disappeared into his domestic life, and Polignac had gone to Rome, and Bourgogne was again home from wars, a slightly more sober Adélaïde was pronounced by her physicians to be with child. The year was 1706. She had produced a son in 1704, but he had not survived.

‘Have you heard that the useless empty-belly wifelet, who spends all her evenings at the gaming tables, has been ordered back to her little barren land of origin in disgrace?’

Such was the false rumour started in the spring of 1703 by two of the king’s illegitimate daughters, commenting on the loss of the first child. These princesses delighted in inventing malicious stories about Adélaïde, and they often supplied the verses for the bawdy songs about her. When this rumour of her exile reached Adélaïde’s ears, she was reduced to hysterics and threw herself into the arms of Françoise who took the matter to the king who, horrified, reassured Adélaïde of his support. He chastised the princesses. Then in the autumn, when a healthy pregnancy was confirmed, he forbade Adélaïde to ride or hunt or dance until after the birth.

‘I will have an heir, and no mistake,’ he said to Françoise at supper. ‘And one day he will be a great king.’ He smiled; he was certain.

He instructed Adélaïde’s coachman always to walk the horses so that the carriage did not jolt. Then her physician ordered her to remain in bed for the final three months before the birth of the Duke of Bretagne, who arrived on the twenty-fifth of June 1704. He was enormous, with a head the size of a three-year-old’s. His swaddling clothes had been provided by the pope, and he was immediately baptised. The king gave him the cross and blue ribbon of the Order of the Holy Spirit. Rockets were fired from the balconies of the palace, to a frenzy of joy from the waiting crowds. It was the first time in French history that there had been three direct heirs to the throne all living at once. The child was to die of convulsions the following April – but in the meantime, France went wild with celebrations of his arrival, his life, his promise of a glorious future.

The mansions of the nobles in the village of Versailles were lit with flares, and there were processions with bugles and drums. Forty-six cannons along the Grand Avenue of Versailles each fired eight salvos.

‘Long live the king, long live the prince, long live the duchess !’

Adélaïde’s jubilant household distributed bottles of wine, and silver coins were thrown from the windows of the palace onto the hysterical crowd. The guild of masons and stone-cutters, bearing aloft a triumphal arch, marched to the gates of the palace and discharged a volley of musket-fire. The bells of every church, every abbey, and every convent in Paris rang out to the heavens. There were bonfires along the Seine, there was bread and wine for the poor, and the people danced all night long in the streets.

Celebrations went on for many days, spreading from the fireworks at Versailles out to the Seine where they continued for many hours. At one Paris mansion an orchestra of twenty-four violins played the sublime works of Couperin and Lully. God Save the King ! Public buildings in Paris were illuminated for a week. All the guilds, from the apothecaries to the saddlers, to the clockmakers, to the lacemakers, competed to hold the most lavish banquets. The Paris Opera sang in a garden lit with ten thousand candles. Bonfires on the roof of a prison; food and wine for the inmates of an asylum for the mad. Poems, motets and madrigals were performed, it seemed everywhere, in honour of Adélaïde and her baby son. Yes, at the centre of everything was the eighteen-year-old duchess and her baby who now resembled nothing less than the Madonna and Child.

The air around her had been purified, and now there was neither uttered nor printed a single ribald tune to mar her perfection. The witchy gossiping princesses continued to mutter among themselves, but their malicious incantations travelled no further than their own diamond-studded ears. Although she was fragile from the birth, Adélaïde was able, five weeks later, to travel with the king, who still revelled in her company, in his coach to Marly.

But. Like a crimson caterpillar, the forces against France in the struggle for supremacy in Europe were on the move. In ten days’ time, on the banks of the river Danube, the French army would be defeated at the catastrophic Battle of Blenheim. Fate has brought things back to reality. Blenheim is a name that will ring down the corridors of history as one of the greatest victories of the English, led by the Duke of Marlborough. Of the one hundred and fifty thousand French troops who fought, only sixteen thousand would return home. This was the turning point in the War of the Spanish Succession. France would no longer dominate Europe.

‘Come, walk in the gardens with me,’ says the king, offering his arm to Adélaïde. And they stroll past the twelve pavilions that line the Reflecting Pool at Marly.

⬩ 45 ⬩ CRIMSON CATERPILLAR

25 June 1704

A clear turning point in Adélaïde’s life was when she and the duke were truly united in the marriage bed. Then the birth of the Duke of Bretagne nearly four years later marked a pinnacle in that life. At last the malice of her enemies was silenced, and it seemed the whole world sang with love and praise for her. No longer the crazy monkey from across the Alps, she has transformed into an angel. If her life was a sort of tapestry, then this area of the work was threaded in gold.

May I be forgiven once again for linking her life to mine. It was at this time, late spring in 1704, that I fell in love with Jean-Jacques. Amid all the fanfare that came with the birth of the prince, ordinary life went on, and there was Jean-Jacques, working away among the lavender and oregano at Versailles. I was absorbed in him, while Adélaïde had been swept up in the wild world of fireworks and grand banquets and candle-lit concerts in the gardens. She never rested. We, the seamstresses and embroiderers, must gather without her, using our memories, and sometimes our own bodies, as models to fashion her gowns.

In the forefront of my mind, however, is not the glow of the celebrations of birth but the shadows of the wars that were forever creeping, creeping across France, taking with them all the beautiful young men. War is always on the move, destroying everything in its path. Even as the whole country seemed to be rejoicing, many thousands of soldiers were being killed in a huge battle on the river Danube, at Blenheim, where the army was defeated.

I have never understood what it was that drew Jean-Jacques to the army. We did not really talk about it. However, I now believe he realised the fact of his dangerous pretence of following the false faith could be further hidden and disguised if he showed loyalty to the king by joining the army. I believe God gave me the task of bringing him to a true conversion. I failed. There was so little time. All there is left for me to do is to pray for his soul. Oh why, I ask every day, why did Jean-Jacques go to war? And is his death simply my own secret cross to bear?

And if life is a tapestry, then there are great areas of darkness, not only at the edges but in the very centre of the picture as well. My thoughts are heresy. But – on perhaps a happier note – I have received permission from Mother Matilde to fashion for myself a pincushion. It is unusual for us to have personal possessions, and the pincushions are meant to be given away or else sold to help raise funds for the convent. She did not question me on the exact reason for my request but gave me licence to make and keep one. I am surprised I did not think of this long ago – the mind and heart follow their own paths. I plan to mark the bright red velvet of its heart with a pin each time I say a prayer for Jean-Jacques. My pins are so much smaller than those of Françoise, yet it is possible I will run out of room before I die.

It has gradually dawned on me that it is in the writing of my Storybook that I come to solve some of the problems and questions that plague me. The pincushion will bring me closer to my love. He is the ever-present absence, beyond touch, beyond sight. When the kestrel streaks across the heavens, I tell myself it is taking my messages of love and sadness to Jean-Jacques.

⬩ 46 ⬩ THE GREATEST DEFEAT IN FRENCH HISTORY

13 August 1704

As Adélaïde and the king stroll beside the Reflecting Pool at Marly, the day is marred by light rain, hence the excursion is less joyful than it might have been. Here is the king with his hounds and his Adélaïde. They shelter under broad umbrellas held by pages. They are accompanied by thirteen strolling musicians with their flutes and violins, protected by a small army of boys with umbrellas. There are also two pageboys with deep black skins who will collect and carry the gifts offered to Adélaïde along the way. A carriage will come by later to collect such objects as are too large to carry, and eventually everything will be taken from Marly to Versailles for the pleasure of the duchess, visible gifts that celebrate the birth of the heir to the throne.

Twelve pavilions line the pool. Violins are softly playing. All stop at the first pavilion, where, emerging from a wall of daisies and rocking on a silver swing, the goddess Flora sings poetry and offers to Adélaïde a posy of pale golden lilies. Next, the goddess of the orchard, Pomona, hands her a basket full of caramels and fruits. Then there is Cupid, a roly-poly child who comes forward with a silver tray holding small porcelain jugs of aromatic liqueurs. Venus offers ribbons and fans decorated with rubies, emeralds and diamonds, and then comes Diana, who hands Adélaïde a miniature bow and arrow made from silver, as well as a crystal goblet. Next is a pavilion where there is a gilded spinning wheel beside a Chinese table lacquered with images of flying dragons. On the table are two hundred pounds of unspun silk.

Adélaïde runs her hand lightly across the silk. ‘Oh, I think this is my favourite place in the whole world,’ she whispers in the king’s ear. ‘May I truly take the spinning wheel and the silk back to the palace?’

‘It is yours to take wherever you please, my dear.’

Of course, she knew he would say this. She smiles her sly beguiling smile.

And she kisses him on the cheek in her delight. ‘I will spin a thousand threads, all these colours of the rainbow, and I will weave them into heavenly cloth, and I will make – now what shall I make? – I shall sew seven silken shirts. Shirts for the king !’

‘The king is sure to be most pleased. I expect he will honour you with, with …’

‘With seven kisses on the hand.’

They collapse in laughter on a stone bench beside the pool. The aged king and his shimmering young grandniece, mother of his great-grandson.

In the seventh and eighth pavilions, from India and China, are fabrics and porcelain and enamels and mirrors framed with fine meandering pathways of jewels. And in the ninth pavilion is an exquisite and magical telescope. It is even more grand, more shiny, more beautiful than the telescope belonging to Adélaïde’s husband.

‘I shall look at the stars every night of my life !’ cries Adélaïde, peering through it at the dark blue ceiling of the pavilion where there are stars painted in gleaming gold. ‘And they will tell me the future.’

The tenth pavilion offers a dinner service wrought in silver, and in the eleventh is a similar service made from gold. The goddess Ceres stands in the final pavilion, accompanied by two black pages who are holding a portrait – thickly edged in ribbons of precious stones – of Adélaïde and her baby son. Although dressed in the pastel frill, furbelow and fontange of the court, she succeeds in calling to mind images of Mary and the baby Jesus.

There is a dark story, an old, old French story, retold by Monsieur Perrault at the king’s court, called ‘Sleeping Beauty in the Wood’. There is a point in the narrative where the princess, having been cursed by the bad fairy at her christening, pricks her finger and falls asleep for a hundred years, to be awakened by her prince.

Adélaïde fell into raptures over the gilded spinning wheel in the pavilion. The spinning wheel in the old story is the fatal agent of change. The princess spins, and sleep follows. A hundred years pass. In the case of Adélaïde, the spinning wheel also comes at a time of dramatic change – she has become a mother, she has fulfilled her purpose. She is no longer the little girl who danced into the king’s heart nine years ago; she is the mother of the king’s great-grandson.

It has been clear to the court – and to the public – and to the reader of these tales concerning the life of Adélaïde of Savoy – that the patriarch’s feelings towards the bride of his grandson have been coloured by erotic desire. In a curious way, in the mysterious world of dreams, Adélaïde came to the court to marry the king himself. That royal desire will never wane, for in the case of this king and this duchess, they were, in the game of dynasty, made for each other – although she is the mother of the great-grandsonheir. It is a kind of tragedy. Were they then, in Eros’s wicked game of love, meant to be bride and groom in a history where the dates went awry? The gods on Mount Olympus do play jokes, grotesque jokes at times.

Will the light in Adélaïde’s life shine brighter as time goes on? The king has arranged another celebration of the birth of the new heir, this time at Versailles. It will take place in the period just before the defeat at Blenheim, which comes two months later. The greatest defeat in French history since the battle of Agincourt in 1415. While there is now an heir, in the important area of war and peace, the lights of France are going out.

In faraway Bavaria the armies of the French and the Grand Alliance are preparing for battle. But in the Grand Courtyard at Versailles, royalty and their guests are seated at tables set for supper in the warm air of the August night. The first of fifty cases of fireworks explodes overhead, while a torchlit procession of chariots proceeds up the Grand Avenue. Into the courtyard, drawn by four white horses, the first chariot brings Mars the god of war. It is escorted by twenty-four Roman centurions carrying lanterns. The lordly throne of the god is decorated with golden fleurs-de-lis, each one bearing the name of one of the twelve finest victories of the king. And the figure of the king stands between Minerva and Bellona, a fierce globe of fire at his feet. As the procession enters the courtyard, and to the sound of trumpets, the real king and Adélaïde step out onto the balcony far above. Silence falls, and on a central stage Mars declaims a poem telling of the birth of the great-grandson of the greatest king on earth. The chariot moves on, and another rolls into the courtyard – accompanied by the crackle and pop and flare and smoke of fireworks – to unfold its own allegorical tableau. And so the night progresses, until the final display of fireworks greets the dawn. Adélaïde is known for her boundless energy and spirit. Does she never sleep?

Somewhere in the palace, the little prince is slumbering and snuffling in his cot, unaware of the grandeur, the trumpets, the horses, the firecrackers that are signalling in sound and light his very existence, short as it will be, on this earth.

The king can not know exactly when his troops will meet those of the Grand Alliance in Bavaria. Yet it so happens that on the eve of the distant battle of Blenheim, on a perfect French summer night, supper is held in the banquet hall back at Marly. The music of violins and hautboys. And in the shady garden glades can be heard the notes of the hunting bugles. Half the population of Paris, it would seem, has been welcomed into the woods and lawns and pathways of the palace. And as darkness falls, the king and Adélaïde in gilded chairs prepare to watch yet more tableaux, while the sky is filled, in letters of fire, with two words: For Adélaïde.

But the crimson caterpillar has by now inched its way to the river Danube and has more or less digested the king’s armies. The dream that France will invade Austria has faded and dissolved. The shrill screams of the horses, the shrieks, moans, groans, curses and whimpers of men dying in agony in bloody, muddy heaps begin to echo across the space between Blenheim and Versailles.

In an irrational but determined attempt to appear untroubled by the mammoth defeat, as late as the twenty-seventh of August, only fourteen days after the battle, the king allows a grand fête to take place in Paris. A filthy cloud of smoke across the fields of Blenheim; a blaze of blissful sunlight in France to celebrate yet again the recent birth of the royal child. Ignoring the blunt and horrible truths of war.

There is jousting on the river Seine, while Adélaïde and the royal party watch from the balcony of the Louvre palace. There is a supper of twenty courses, and at one in the morning the royal family drive through the streets of Paris to cheering crowds and to the accompaniment of – yes, of course – fireworks across the skies.

Then as the blackest of black clouds fills the skies, there is a violent crack of thunder, then the zigzag of brilliant lightning, then in great thudding curtains of heavenly watery drops, rain begins to fall on the riotous streets of Paris. Relentless rivers of mud and filth surge through the streets while shrieking citizens scamper back into the shelter of their homes – where, in many cases, the rooftops are falling in from the weight of their watery burden. Rats sail and tumble as rivers run through alleyways, down the swollen gutters, gurgling with dead cats and dogs and human waste. One small child is miraculously saved by a noble dog.

Need it be said that in London joyful bells are tolling for victory – a million bells are tolling, fireworks exploding, bonfires raging.

The celebrated child, Louis, Duke of Bretagne, lives for only nine months. He dies on the thirteenth of April in 1705.

‘Nine months and nineteen days !’ Adélaïde’s mother weeps and falls to her knees in prayer. In front of the Shroud of Turin she lights candles and appeals for help with all her heart – prays for the dead baby’s soul and for his brothers-to-be.

She spends many hours with Adélaïde’s grandmother in the Palazzo Madama, where the two share their sorrows and also their fears. For at this time Victor Amadeus, turncoat, is again offering his support to the Habsburgs, to the Grand Alliance, hated enemy of France. Savoy is no longer in league with France. Territory and military alliance must come before family? So where does that leave Adélaïde?

Naked as the day she was born, naked in the coach on the bridge over the waters at Beauvoisin.

⬩ 47 ⬩ THE SONS

As I continue with my Storybook, telling of my life and the life of my beloved Adélaïde, I can not but compare my own sad absence of issue with the arrival of Adélaïde’s three sons. The first little Duke of Bretagne did not live to see his first birthday, but the second one lived from January 1707 until March 1712, when he, as well as his mother and father, was to die from measles. The third son, the Duke of Anjou, born in 1710, outlived them all. He would succeed his great-grandfather, the Sun King; he would become Louis the Fifteenth. Adélaïde had fulfilled her sacred royal duty – she had provided the House of Bourbon with the required heir. And perhaps that is all that matters. Joy follows sorrow; sorrow follows joy. The dynasty goes on.

Caught, I often think, like a small bright butterfly in the web of a monstrous black spider, was Adélaïde. And when she shed her Savoy clothing on the bridge at Beauvoisin, her heart was split in two, and one half of it remained behind in Turin – in Turin with her mother, her grandmother, her father, her father’s lover, and, at that time, her sister. At Cassano, where Jean-Jacques died, her father, now part of the Grand Alliance, was defeated. Then later, when the French besieged Turin for three months in 1706, her father was triumphant. And to continue with some good news, in January of the next year, Adélaïde’s second son was born.

With those deaths, following on from the death of Jean-Jacques all those years before, my own heart was broken, and I came here to Sainte-Odile. I now make bright red pincushions in the shape of hearts, and I reflect upon all these puzzling matters. Write it down, says Mother Matilde. I write it down. I pray to heaven. I watch the kestrel as it lives out its freedom in the clouds.

I must note here that about a year after the birth of the second Duke of Bretagne in 1707, Adélaïde suffered the loss of a child before birth. As I see it, this happened in a strange way. Myself, I was at Marly with some of Adélaïde’s ladies, so I observed the things that happened that day.

In the eyes of the king, Adélaïde could do no wrong. From the moment he met her, it seemed she had cast a spell on him. Yet, at least this one time in 1708, when she was carrying another child in her body, the king was suffering from toothache, and he lost his temper with her. This was almost unbelievable. Her doctors had said she must have complete rest.

Waving them aside, the king said:

‘She will accompany me in the coach to Fontainebleau.’

He seemed to be preoccupied by his pain and other matters, and his temper was very short.

There could be no argument. Adélaïde, white and frail, took her place in the coach and was jiggled and jostled over fifty miles of rough country roads. When they arrived at the palace, she was almost unconscious, and was carried up the great staircase and placed on a bed. She lay there moaning in pain until the blood began to slither, then to trickle, and then to gush. There would be no child this time.

As soon as this was confirmed, the Duchess du Lude hastened out to the pond where the king was engaged in observing the carp. She whispered the sad news in his ear and then retired. The king continued to stare down at the silvery movement of the fish.

Such dramatic news travels fast, and it now reached the company at the pond. The ladies and I were there. We all were silent, waiting for a signal from the king. But he just stared down at the fish in the water. At last he turned to the group, and, standing perfectly still and straight, he announced, flatly and quietly:

‘The Duchess of Bourgogne is no longer with child.’

As people began to murmur words of sorrow and sympathy, the king was suddenly seized by a flash of rage. Then, in the midst of a blaze of temper, he shouted: ‘What does it matter to me? What do I care who succeeds me? I wish to be no longer nagged by a pack of doctors and old women. May I not have my journeys and my plans disarranged again. I shall go and come at my leisure, and I shall be left in peace !’

It was as if the sun itself had stopped in the heavens and had transformed into a crazy old lunatic in a bright blue velvet coat and scarlet stockings. His open mouth was a dark hollow, and as he spat the words, slime gushed from his nostril. He banged his walking stick into the ground, and the silver frills at his wrists and throat shifted and shivered. A terrible pall of silence fell. It lasted for a long time. Princes and princesses and doctors and nobles and servants and gardeners seemed to have been turned to stone.

At last the king took a deep breath, composed himself, wiped his face with his handkerchief, and said, in a calm and measured voice: ‘I shall now proceed to inspect the carp in the pond.’

He moved gracefully away, his head held high, the curls of his tall brown wig swinging across his shoulders. The figures below became animated again, but we spoke to each other in low and wondering voices, standing in little groups, our heads nodding, our faces still bewildered and shadowed. I was filled with what I think was a premonition of something terrible, some force of evil waiting for me in the future, not very far away.

I think that when people are worried and sorrowful, they sometimes become angry as the king did. Their remorse for their selfishness bubbles over and transforms into fury. Their heart is so troubled that they behave in the worst possible way. Up in a bedroom of the palace was a small broken woman lying in a pool of blood that was all that was left of her promised child. The king loved her with all his broken heart and knew he was the probable cause of her distress. To cover his guilt, his temper boiled up.

Was the king soothed by watching the carp in the pond? I sometimes hope he was; and I sometimes hope he was not.

⬩ 48 ⬩ A FAIRY QUEEN IN A FABLE

Adélaïde was twenty-two when her third son, the Duke of Anjou, was born on the fifteenth of February in 1710. Celebrations of his birth were somewhat muted owing to the need for economy. After all, he did have an older brother who was the heir.

The country was almost constantly at war.

The new baby had his own household of twenty-two devoted servants. For some weeks, in the evenings, Adélaïde sat by the fire with Françoise, chatting and knitting, while the king sat nearby attending to court papers. One time Adélaïde knitted, in a fancy stitch resembling lace, a dark yellow cushion for Bonne, one of the king’s favourite hounds. This cushion took pride of place on a low chair in the king’s bedroom, and often Bonne could be seen resting regally upon it, the tassels at its corners dangling beneath her. Before long Adélaïde’s natural and spirited love of pleasure returned in force. She was free to play.

Three days before the second birthday of baby Anjou, Adélaïde will die. Her life had many of the elements of a storybook, but her ending came like an early thunderclap out of a blue sky. Her vicious enemy, Liselotte, wife of the king’s brother, often comforted herself by commenting that Adélaïde was, as well as being a ‘monkey-slut’, ‘not immortal’.

The gaming tables of Versailles beckoned. Adélaïde would play until daybreak, amid the hustle-bustle, jingle-jangle of the gaming room, eventually being positively giddy with elation and perhaps exhaustion. Her debts were so large that the king was called in to honour them. He loved her; he would willingly pay. With a band of her ladies, sometimes thirty all at once, she went to balls and fairs and suppers. She went boating and swimming. She loved exhibitions of such skills as rope dancing and magic tricks and fox tossing. From a certain angle, she resembled at this time a demented butterfly.

She had always grown impatient with her ladies as they constructed on her head sculptural pyramids of hair, lace, jewels, wire, and ribbons. Hours of fidgeting and gossiping when she could have been at the gaming tables. At last she ordered the ladies to experiment with something simpler, so that her chestnut curls hung down, supporting no ornaments and resembling the locks of a dairymaid. She was very pleased, and she hurried to the door of the king’s apartment with a smile and a twinkle in her dark eyes. The king was completely enchanted. A new style had been created for the court, and many a lady breathed a sigh of relief as she abandoned her wires and laces and ribbons, and followed the lead of Adélaïde.

Frequently Adélaïde went out hunting with the king, who rejoiced in this return to the brilliance he so admired and loved. A stranger looking on would assume the glittering little lady with the flowing chestnut curls must surely be the queen. Perhaps a fairy queen in a fable.

Her general popularity rose, and – where once she could be seen as a rather dangerous little trickster – she gradually became renowned for her kindness, compassion, and sympathy.

The refrain of the Chorus was changing.

‘Motherhood has made all the difference to her.’

‘Who could have imagined?’

‘I think the king loves her even more.’

‘She still likes the gaming tables.’

‘I think she always will. But her heart is softer.’

‘There has been much grief.’

‘And she is still young. There is a lot of life ahead of her.’

She had grown much kinder to Bourgogne, and the pet names of Bina and Baba were once again whispered with a certain affection.

⬩ 49 ⬩ A LITTLE SYRINGE

A few of my memories of conversations with Adélaïde remind me of her boldness, and of some of her most teasing and joyful moments.

Although I was really only one of her embroidering ladies, she often confided in me about times she had found specially sad or amusing as she went about her busy life. Here I recall one of her jokes.

‘You will never guess what happened last night before I went to the theatre, Clo-Clo.’

‘Do I want to know?’

‘Of course you do.’

‘So what happened?’

‘I was all dressed up, ready, and just chatting with Grand-père in his apartment – ma tante was there – and I had arranged with the nurse Nanon that she should bring the little syringe with my friend the lavement.’

‘What – you were planning an enema – before going to the play?’

‘I was. It is so refreshing. You know that.’

‘Go on then.’

‘I was standing with my back to the fireplace, facing the others, and I was leaning forward onto the low screen. Nanon came shuffling in behind me, lifted my skirts and knelt down just as if she was adjusting my petticoats. I was all prepared, with a nice naked arse. Quick as a flash, she did the deed, popped the syringe beneath her own skirt, and whisked off out the door. I was laughing like anything.’

‘And then?’

‘Well, Grand-père asked me what was so funny.’

‘You didn’t tell him?’

‘I did. I told him.’

‘But did you then retire to the chaise-percée?’

‘Oh no! I like to keep the refreshment in while I enjoy the theatre.’

‘Impossible !’

‘Oh yes, it’s possible if you know how. Tante and Grand-père laughed and laughed. In fact he took down his bassano and played a funny tune. Then we all left for the theatre. The play was Tartuffe by Monsieur Molière. It was very funny too. Grand-père simply roared with laughter.’

‘And you didn’t – you didn’t …’

‘No, silly, of course I didn’t. That would definitely not have been funny. My faithful chaise-percée was waiting patiently for me when I arrived home.’

I marvelled at the control she had over her own body. I did not find the whole thing at all amusing.

⬩ 50 ⬩ A TERRIBLE EMPTINESS THAT NEVER CAN BE FILLED

Adélaïde, in pale pink silk and lace the colour of fresh bread, the wavy locks of her dark russet hair flowing down to her bare shoulders, is playing cards. Sometimes she concentrates, a little frown puckering between her eyebrows; sometimes she throws back her head, and her laughter tinkles to the delight of her audience. But then, as if she has been stabbed by a swift fine rapier, she screams.

‘My tooth! My tooth!’ and she lets the cards flutter from her fingers.

The game is aborted. The duchess is suffering from toothache. Again.

As she sits there, surrounded by a crowd of whispering friends and enemies, one of her ladies brings her a potion of cloves and salt and peppermint. She is silent and shaking.

In the confusion of the moment, someone places on the table a small silver snuffbox. Adélaïde stares down at it and reaches out to run her fingers over the pearls that decorate its lid. Then she lifts the lid and takes a pinch of snuff between her fingers, drops it on the back of her hand, and takes two little breaths.

‘Don’t let the king see her doing this ! He has forbidden it.’

Almost immediate relief. Adélaïde relaxes in her chair. She holds out her hand, and her ladies help her to stand up. Then they usher her through the crowd and into her apartments. The mysterious snuffbox will never be seen again.

When Adélaïde died, on the twelfth of February in 1712, the great memoirist of the time, the Duke of Saint-Simon, wrote of the ‘terrible emptiness that never can be filled’.

The health of the beloved duchess had begun to decline three weeks before she died. There were three possible reasons. One was the snuffbox. Poisoned, she said, poisoned snuff. She was convinced that this was the source of her fever and her swelling face. But another reason was probably her rotting teeth, and the third was measles.

Although she still insisted on playing cards, she now did so with her whole head swathed in a dark blue hood. She also wore this curious headpiece when she went to mass. Many of her teeth had fallen out, and most of those remaining were black with decay. Her physicians treated her for infection of the gums, giving her cordials and potions. She took to smoking opium and chewing tobacco. Her physicians bled her from the arm until she lost consciousness. It must be recorded that she was prone to infections and fevers, that her health had by this time been impaired by six failed pregnancies and by her frantic life of pleasure.

‘Poisoned,’ she would moan. ‘I have been poisoned.’

At one point during the development of her symptoms, she rose and made one of her famous cheesecakes for the king, serving it during dinner at her Menagerie. But after this meal, she returned to Versailles, and she never thereafter left her bed. For the first time ever in her life she refused to see the king.

‘Please do not enter, dear Grand-père,’ she called when he knocked on the door of her bedroom. The king entered the room and knelt at the bedside while the little duchess was being seized by a convulsion. The pain in her temples was excruciating – worse, she said, than childbirth.

A few days of fever and delirium passed, and the king was vigilant, sitting by her bedside in an anguish of dread. He could feel the shadows closing in. Beside him was Bourgogne, the king and his grandson united in their distress.

She was given a strong mixture of mustard, salt, and oil of cloves to cause her to vomit. Strands of her long hair, dark rust, fell into the bowl of murky acid liquid. One of her ladies snipped off the damp hair which she threw aside.

Adélaïde’s head lay on the white silk pillows like the stone head of a saint on a tomb. Her eyes were closed. Red spots began to break out on her skin. Could it be measles? There was in fact an epidemic of measles spreading through the boroughs of Paris, making its deadly journey through the population of Versailles. Some of Adélaïde’s servants had died from the disease. She scratched at her face with her fingernails until her cheeks bled.

Her frantic husband never left her side except for his calls of nature. He sat there hunched over in black and silver, now praying, now kissing her fingers, now stroking her forehead. He wiped her cheeks with his handkerchief and touched the bloodstains to his lips. ‘You will recover, dearest Bina. I see it in your eyes, your beautiful eyes.’

Adélaïde would stare through him, unable to speak. She had been regularly bled for three days, and now she was seldom conscious.

Françoise, calm but troubled, was almost always in attendance, her rosary moving through her fingers. Seven physicians had been summoned to the bedchamber, and they conferred with the king and prescribed and frowned.

On the eleventh of February the king, in consultation with the distraught physicians, decided that the patient was in need of the Last Rites.

‘Not now, not yet, Grand-père,’ she whispered, with terror in her eyes. ‘I am being consumed by a fierce devouring flame.’

Her husband grasped her hand in horror, almost paralysed with fear and sorrow.

But the king summoned her Jesuit confessor, Father de la Rue. Although she had in the past appeared to be quite happy with this priest hearing her sins, when he arrived she refused to confess to him.

‘I wish,’ she whispered, ‘to speak to the Franciscan Father Noël.’ Her voice had almost disappeared.

Hence the Franciscan was summoned, and he heard her faint confession, which was extremely lengthy. She was in physical pain and mental anguish. He gave her Extreme Unction, smoothing the holy oils across her spotted, fevered brow and breast. The king then went out to welcome the priests who had arrived at the foot of the grand staircase with the Last Sacrament. He processed with them back to the bedroom of the duchess.

After she had taken the Last Sacrament, she was bled from the foot and given an emetic. This time nothing but a yellowish green liquid flowed from her mouth. She drifted in and out of consciousness. Among the chaos and confusion of people hurrying through the apartments, a crowd of strangers began to appear to witness the death of the duchess. It was theatre; it was display.

The king ordered that the relic of the body of Sainte Geneviève in Paris should be ritually uncovered, and that the city’s most powerful and beloved saint should be invoked. This action required the approval of the Parlement, and such was given, for the state of the duchess was considered to be a national calamity.

Then Bourgogne began to suffer from the rigours of his vigil and was also confined to bed. First he knelt sobbing by his wife’s bedside, his arms across her body, until the physicians accompanied him as he stumbled to his own apartments.

The next day, the king, no longer able to bear the sight of his darling as she moved from feeble consciousness to coma, decided to leave with Françoise and drive for some respite to Marly. A few moments after their departure, Adélaïde breathed her last. She was almost twenty-seven years old.

‘She leaves a terrible emptiness that cannot be filled. There will be no moment in my life to come when I shall not mourn her,’ said the king. His voice was cracked with sorrow.

‘Everything is dead here. All life has been removed,’ whispered his secret queen.

Bourgogne, beside himself with grief, joined his grandfather at Marly. And six days after the death of his wife, infected by the virus that had killed her, Bourgogne also died. He was twenty-nine. His death left his son, the five-year-old Duke of Bretagne, as heir to the throne of France.

In early March, Bretagne and his brother, the Duke of Anjou who was two years old, were swiftly baptised. Bretagne suffering from fever and spots, was bled and given an emetic. But just one hour after his baptism, he too expired.

The only survivor of the family was Anjou, also suffering from measles, who was whisked away from the doctors who wished to bleed him again. He was hidden for safety by his governess. When he was five years old, he would be King of France, for his grandfather himself, the Sun King, died on the first of September 1715.

Such were the swift changes in the pattern of the French monarchy, culminating in the final journey of Adélaïde and Bourgogne.

At the autopsies of both bodies, the doctors continued to insist that the couple had been poisoned, but neither the nature of the poison nor the source have ever been decided. Was it poison or was it measles? Could it perhaps have been both?

France was stilled by a great pall of mourning. Five hundred others across Versailles and Paris died from measles in the first two months of the year.

Their two hearts, each in a small golden casket, were sent by coach to Paris, to reside forever in the Val-de-Grâce, the church built by the king’s mother to celebrate his birth. They travelled with guards and bishops in black coaches from Versailles, the windows swathed in black damask, arriving at the Val-de-Grâce after midnight. The skies were thick with cloud, no stars, and the moon was pale and wan. The hearts were ritually entombed. A hundred candles lit the interior of the church.

The two coffins, covered with cloth of gold, were placed on a dais in the state drawing-room at Versailles, where altars were set up and masses were said, one after another. Six ladies wearing long black lace mantillas sat in attendance, as did six bishops who sprinkled the coffins with holy water, intoning muffled prayers.

In one hearse, preceded by three coaches, the closed coffins travelled to the church of Saint-Denis in Paris through the chill of the night, on the twenty-third of February. Three more coaches followed, all arriving at the church at seven in the morning. The horses were black. Crowds gathered in eerie silence all along the way, heads bowed.

‘I fear the king will not recover from the death of the duchess,’ Françoise said to her faithful page, Angola, who was almost always by her side. He received from her many confidences which she could not trust to anyone else.

And as it happened, other ladies – members of the Chorus, great observers of the smallest wrinkles in the world of the court – muttered the same thing.

‘The king will die now,’ they said, ‘now that his beloved has been called to her reward.’

‘The king will never die.’

⬩ 51 ⬩ RACING THROUGH A FOREST

When Adélaïde became ill, she disappeared from my life forever. All kinds of people told all kinds of tales about what happened. I felt her absence everywhere, for she was nowhere. I could hear her voice, her laugh in corridors and corners. I seemed to know she was going to die. I would catch a glimpse of her as she retreated into the shadow of a doorway. But when she passed from this life, she vanished completely from my sight. Then she drifted into my dreams, beckoning, always beckoning, always just out of reach. I would wake with a start, weeping. I prayed for her soul; I prayed for the peace of my own soul.

And then one day as I was trying to soothe myself by digging in the garden beside my father, I heard her voice, and then I saw her standing in the shadow of a nearby hedge. I froze. The sun was in my eyes. I held my hand up to block out the light, and the figure in the shadow faded as swiftly as it had appeared. I felt a chilling breeze. I held my breath; my mind was spinning. I stood up and I walked slowly, slowly to a nearby stone seat where I remained for a long, blank time.

I believe she came to me in a vision, but I have never admitted this to a living soul. I am even somewhat afraid to write of it here. I know I will not ever share this knowledge with my confessor. I have never seen her since, yet she still appears to me in dreams.

One strange night, wearing a scarlet cloak, she was driving through a forest in a small rickety donkey cart, and beside her in the cart sat – the soldier Jean-Jacques. They were laughing. I waved to them, but they did not notice me, and they rumbled away until they could no longer be seen. When I woke from this dream, I could feel a blessed peace. Perhaps it means they are together in heaven. Perhaps. The thought I must not allow myself to think is that I could so easily join them. Is my mind failing me? It was not long after this that I began to plan to come here to Sainte-Odile.

Forget the echo of the joyful voice that used to say, with a ringing laugh: ‘I shall be the Queen of France !’

Forget the whisper in the darkness beneath the chestnut tree: ‘I shall return, and you shall be my bride.’

⬩ 52 ⬩ IN THE BASILICA OF SAINT-DENIS

1712

On the eighteenth of April, the funerals of the dauphin, the dauphine, and their second son, took place in the basilica of Saint-Denis. The two principal caskets were raised on a huge catafalque on a platform in the middle of the choir. Suspended above them was a great gilded crown, too large for a human head. The black pall that blanketed them was heavily edged in ermine and intricately embroidered in gold. Their two crowns lay on a black velvet cushion. And nearby lay the tiny coffin of their son, draped in black and topped with a tragic little figurine of the boy dressed in white, embroidered with silver and gold. Each pillar of the vast church was draped in black velvet upon which were marked silver crosses, and golden dolphins and fleurs-de-lis.

Behind the members of royalty sat all the bishops of France, followed by the lords and ladies of Versailles, the principal ministers, the ambassadors from friendly foreign courts. The king and his wife were absent, remaining at Marly, deep in private prayer and mourning. Sitting in the garden with his wife, gazing out across the geometric splendour of the park, the king wept as he had never wept before, such was his sorrow. He was beyond human consolation. It seemed that God had finally abandoned him. His grandson, his ‘granddaughter’ and his great-grandson. Gone. It seemed almost as if they had never existed. They had been a fleeting dream. The future – empty. All promise fallen into dust. How to believe, how to understand that Adélaïde, the brightest companion, the finest gift who ever skipped and danced and flew upon this earth, was no more.

‘My heart is a dark hollow.’

Later, when he and Françoise together discovered a letter written to Adélaïde by her father, it became clear that a few military secrets had been discussed. The king simply threw it aside, saying:

‘So the little minx betrayed us after all.’

It was as if the betrayal, in the light of Adélaïde’s death, had been some insignificant childish misdemeanour. Nothing could tarnish her perfection.

The basilica of Saint-Denis rang with chants and with the solemn music of a vast orchestra, as hundreds of candles burned, and as the interior was filled with clouds of aromatic incense which poured from silver and golden censers. After six hours, the voices of monks intoned, ‘Benedictus Dominus Deus Israhel,’ and the grand almoner scattered a handful of French soil onto the coffins, which were then, all three, lowered into the vault. The royal robes and crowns of the dauphin and the dauphine were placed on their coffins, as the voice of the knight-at-arms rang out: ‘Pray to God for Their Souls !’

⬩ 53 ⬩ I HEAR IT IN THE TREMBLE OF HIS VOICE

I have often heard people say, after wars, and famines, and even after the deaths of beloved horses or dogs, that ‘life goes on’. And yes, after the royal deaths, life went on. Mine, now empty of both my loves, led me to the convent. And before too long, people began to whisper that the king would surely die very soon. There were those who wished to believe he was immortal, but I think that after death swept away his family with one cruel gesture, his own mortality was written even on the face he turned to the world. I did not set eyes on him, but every visitor to the convent carried news of the evidence of his great sorrow. Father Rafael, who comes here each day, said: ‘I now read the king’s mortality in his misty eyes. I hear it in the tremble of his voice.’

We lit candles and prayed for the king. We lit candles and prayed for his one remaining great-grandson. Will this child grow up to startle the world with the spirit of his mother, we wondered. Will she be forever remembered and celebrated by the world because he is her son? King of France, Louis the Fifteenth, son of Adélaïde of Savoy? Mothers, I think, are usually forgotten. This child will be known as the great-grandson of Louis the Fourteenth.

⬩ 54 ⬩ THERE ARE CANDLES BURNING IN THE CONVENT OF SAINTE-ODILE

The effects of any death ripple out to leave their mark in expected and unexpected places.

While his mother and father and brother lie embalmed in their coffins in the vault at Saint-Denis, two-year-old Louis, now heir to the throne, rests hidden in a closet, guarded by his governess, the Duchess of Ventadour. He too is suffering from measles, his gleaming childish skin is blotched, and fever comes and goes. The doctors have bled him and almost killed him, but the duchess has saved him, thereby marking herself as one of the great heroines of French history. Few people have heard of her.

Controlling her tears as much as she can, she cradles him in her arms and feels his sturdy heart beating against her breast. She kisses his forehead; he murmurs softly as he snuggles up against her. He is a robust child, and with cordials of ginger and lavender she succeeds in calming his fever, which soon passes. After two weeks of secret cupboard life, he is able to emerge in good health and with a hearty appetite. One day in the not too distant future, this chubby boy will be yet another king of France.

He is heedlessly at play with his dogs in the sunshine of the gardens at Marly while his great-grandfather mourns the extinguishing of the light of his existence. Without Adélaïde this king is totally bereft. The Sun King’s blazing sun has been snuffed out.

Two questions remain in the minds of the Chorus, questions that can never be resolved:

One: Did Adélaïde really spy successfully for her father?

Two: Was the love between Louis and Adélaïde ever consummated?

Is the second question more interesting than the first?

The answers are lost to history.

The king will live for only three more years. Dying of the infection brought about by gangrene, he whispers:

‘I have loved war too much.’

The surgeons have removed one of his beautiful legs. When he was fifteen and all dressed up to be painted as the god Apollo, his legs were perhaps his finest feature.

His remains will make the journey to the basilica of Saint-Denis. Did they include the gangrenous leg? The answer to that question is lost in the mists of time. His heart was placed in a small casket topped with silver and bronze angels holding a gleaming silver heart. The casket went to reside next to his father’s heart in the Paris church of Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis. The surgeons who conducted his autopsy observed that his bowel was twice as long as normal.

Then the five-year-old Louis, the fifteenth of that name, will inherit the throne. He has never known his mother, but some of her fire is surely burning in his blood.

In the quiet little convent of Sainte-Odile, Sister Clare prays for the wellbeing of this boy. She kneels each evening in her cell and prays for the soul of her beloved Adélaïde, and for the son who carries her spirit. She will never meet him, and he will never know that many a candle burns for him in the convent chapel. Beside it, another candle burns for the soul of the long-lost gardener, Jean-Jacques.

And moving further afield, and moving on in time, is Brother Jacques among the rows of dreamy lavender at the monastery in Grasse. He also lives in ignorance of the prayers and dreams of Sister Clare, her sewing, her pincushion, and her Storybook in which he is a character of fantasy and reality.

Clare, ever diligent, ever vigilant, also remembers Françoise, in her russet or dark blue damask gowns with her single diamond cross around her neck. It was this woman who, in her invention of the college of Saint-Cyr, first brought firecracker Adélaïde into the simple life of Sister Clare.

And so these spirits dance in concert among the candleflames in the chapel at Sainte-Odile. Who is thinking of whom? Who is praying for whom? Who is not? Sister Clare, always at the beginning and end of her list, prays for the soul of her beloved Jean-Jacques.

Brother Jacques, in the monastery in Grasse, confines his prayers to hoping for the health of his brother monks, for the good yield of the crops, for the abundance of his beloved lavender. Upon the death of the king, he, with the monks in the chapel, prays for the king’s soul, and for the life and health of the child now on the throne.

And as Françoise quietly vanishes from view, so she fades from the candlelit world of prayer. For she does not appear to be on Clare’s principal list, yet she has been a vital instrument in the nun’s life. That life changed direction completely when Adélaïde died, and the doors of the convent closed behind Clotilde – and she became Sister Clare.

Brother Jacques’s prayers for his lavender were certainly answered, for as result of its excellence, the monastery in Grasse has become renowned throughout France. The sweet pungent perfume succeeds in masking many of the foul odours to which people are accustomed, and its medicinal qualities are unsurpassed.

‘As Brother Jerome has no doubt explained, we are sending you on a pilgrimage of a special kind, Brother Jacques,’ says Father August. ‘It is a good-will and trade mission. You will take seeds, oil, and your special living plant baskets to forty-four monasteries and convents throughout the land. You will exchange your goods for money and other goods. And you will take with you the word of God to the people you encounter. You will travel by coach, moving between designated monasteries, where you will be given food and shelter. You will be accompanied on your journey by Brother Gilles. May God be with you.’

⬩ 55 ⬩ THE ROOM IS INSTANTLY FILLED WITH PERFUME

Will the everyday fable of Clotilde and Jean-Jacques conclude with a narrative of their meeting in the garden of Sainte-Odile? Will their subsequent joy be followed by their escape from their vows and their journey on a pirate ship to Brazil where they live happily ever after in peace and harmony?

On a balmy summer day in 1716, when Sister Clare is writing away in her East Tower, and her kestrel is hovering in a blue sky, two weary monks are standing at the convent grille, waiting for Mother Matilde to speak to them. Their faces are burned brown by the sun; their boots are dull with dust. The tall one is blind in one eye. They have left their coach at the nearby monastery, where they have rested overnight, and have carried their baskets of young plants up the steep hillside. Brother Gilles knocks on the door beside the grille with his walking pole and pulls on the bell rope.

When Matilde peers at them through the grille, they explain their mission to her – and in fact the fame of their medicinal lavender has already reached the convent, and she has anticipated their visit. She instructs a young nun to unlock the great wooden door, and the monks are welcomed into the courtyard of Sainte-Odile. Matilde takes them into the Bishop’s Parlour, where they all three sit at the long oak table. One of the nuns brings a tray of wine and small cakes rolled in sugar, and another brings a bowl of water and washes the travellers’ feet. Brother Jacques pours some drops of lavender oil into the warm water, and the room is filled with perfume.

‘The fame of your lavender has gone before you,’ says Matilde, ‘and – ah – now I certainly know why.’

She arranges to buy seeds and plants and oil, and she leads the monks to the chapel and then out into the gardens, where they walk together with two other nuns, discussing the strategies for planting the precious lavender.

When it is time for the monks to go – it is almost noon – as they make their way towards the courtyard, Matilde stops beside a rosebush, clouded with white blooms, and hands Brother Jacques a gift wrapped in a brown linen cloth. ‘Our sisters make these,’ she says, as he unwraps the pincushion. There is also a bundle of twelve pins tied together with a thin black ribbon. ‘They are a copy of one belonging to the great Madame de Maintenon. The wool inside the cushion is from our sheep at Sainte-Odile. If you hang it on the kitchen wall, you will always be able to find pins when you need them. The pins themselves are manufactured by my brother in Paris.’

Jacques tries to imagine the bright elaborate gold and velvet object with its elegant pins, crystal, amber, hanging on a wooden post in the smoky gloom of the monastery kitchen. He lightly passes his fingers over the comforting surface of the heart – and he smiles.

In a few minutes, the two monks are outside the convent walls and walking swiftly down the hill, brown robes swinging to the rhythm of the walk, towards the coach that will take them to another monastery in the noonday sun.

⬩ 56 ⬩ PROVIDING PINS WHEN PINS ARE NEEDED

Today from my high window I watched as Mother Matilde farewelled the travelling monks. I believe they were bringing precious seeds for the convent garden. I often try to imagine what it would be like to move from one convent to another, down dusty roads, with a companion, in a coach. It is now four years since the convent doors closed behind me. The seasons come and go, and are marked by the light of the summer sun, by the frosts of winter, by the blossoms and birdsong of spring. And sometimes, in summer, visitors arrive at the convent gate, bringing news of the world outside our walls. But I have learned, often with tears, to live the inward life, to train my gaze on spiritual matters, to trace a path, if possible, to heaven. My kestrel is my true companion.

When I saw Mother Matilde place one of our pincushions in the hands of the monks, I felt a jolt of surprise and pleasure. In my heart I knew that a tiny bit of me was going out beyond the gates, was travelling by coach to a monastery far, far away. It would not be an instrument for marking the conversions and deaths of Huguenots; it would simply be useful, perhaps hanging in the kitchen or even in the laundry, providing pins when pins were needed. One of the many treasures collected by the monks on their journey. Travel well, little velvet heart, travel well.

⬩ 57 ⬩ THE VELVET HEART WILL HANG ON A POST

And so life goes on. The monks in their dusty boots continue their pilgrimage by coach and on foot until they return south to their monastery in Grasse, scattering precious seeds along the way so that the monasteries of France will sing with great mists of lavender, and tired feet will be washed in aromatic oils. The velvet heart will indeed hang on a post in the monastery kitchen, studded with the utilitarian iron and wooden pins used in cooking, until its crimson surface is pitted and dulled. The crown of France sits neatly atop its golden frame. Sister Clare returns to her prayers, her dreams, her Storybook. The remains of Adélaïde and Louis lie in silence in the basilica of Saint-Denis. Peace of a kind breathes over the kingdom of the child Louis the Fifteenth for a time, until in 1718, there is a war with Spain.

‘What does the king do next?’

‘I know, I know, he goes to war.’

⬩ 58 ⬩ I SLEPT THE SLEEP OF BLISS UNTIL THE DAWN

On the night after the visit of the monks who received our pincushion, when I reflected in my Storybook on the notion of travel outside the walls of Sainte-Odile, I believe I experienced a vision. I had a glimpse of paradise. I will describe this here, but I will not disclose it to another soul. Even my confessor will never hear of this vision. People might call it a dream, but it was a thousand times more vivid, more powerful than a dream. I sometimes muse that every human being receives the gift of such visitations, and one person in a million is moved to report and share the sight. Those few become known to the whole world, and they are often celebrated as the saints, those chosen of God to open the pathways to heaven. I know that I am not strong enough to share the pictures that came to me in the night. I give thanks to Mother Matilde for offering me the secret envelope of my Storybook. It is enclosed in the skin of a baby deer and tied with a dark cord of horsehair. I fancy it is guarded by the kestrel who hunts his prey from the skies outside my window.

Will my words have the ability to paint the picture that moved, like the page of a painted book, into my sleeping mind?

In the hours between Compline and Lauds, as ice-white moonlight shone like softest pearls through the narrow window of my cell, I slept. My slumber was sweet and deep, my heart at peace. Slowly this peace was infused with a distant music, a music played on no instrument I have ever known. Was it the song of the wind in the grasses? A mellow light, a tremor of muted silver began to dawn. Honey, all was honey – my spirit was drowning in pale drifting honey, until a bright, bright lustre filled the air. The music rose and faded. From a great distance, travelling on a beam of radiance, came two figures, delicately holding hands, dancing. One was Adélaïde. The other was the king. They both were just fifteen years old. She was dressed in her shimmering dark coral hunting gown with its high neck and long sleeves and silver lace trimmings. Her chestnut curls stood high above her forehead and tumbled onto her shoulders. Gleaming. Her pale skin was freckled, and a smile flickered across her serene little face. The king appeared as the god Apollo, just as he was in the golden painting, his head surrounded by a sunburst of gilded rays. Two white hounds leapt and frolicked beside them. ‘Luminous’, ‘dazzling’ – these words are not adequate. Was this scene, then, blinding? No, it was the opposite of blinding. It was a revelation, an opening up of truth. In the language of heaven, goddess and god, Adélaïde was the bride and the king was her groom. Their consummation filled the tapestry of the night sky with all the fireworks of Versailles. And the knowledge was mine.

I have listened with my heart. The eyes of my spirit have been opened. The truth I carry is a hidden treasure. The scene did not fade. It was covered by the blanket of sleep, and I slept the sleep of bliss until the dawn.

PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS

ADÉLAÏDE: Marie-Adélaïde, daughter of Victor Amadeus of Savoy & Anne-Marie of Orléans, wife of Duke of Bourgogne (1684–1712)

ANJOU: Third son of Duke and Duchess of Bourgogne, greatgrandson of Louis XIV, became Louis XV (1710–1774)

ANNE: Queen of France, daughter of Philip iii of Spain, wife of Louis XIII, mother of Louis XIV (1601–1666)

ATHÉNAÏS: Madame de Montespan, principal mistress of Louis XIV (1640–1707)

BOURGOGNE: Eldest son of the Dauphin and Marianne-Victoire of Bavaria, husband of Adélaïde (1682–1712)

CATHERINE D’AULNOY: writer of fairytales (1651–1705)

CLOTILDE: Sister Clare, friend of Adélaïde, fictional (1685–unknown)

EMMANUEL PHILIBERT; Prince of Carignano, soldier and diplomat, deaf-mute, godfather of Adélaïde (1628–1709)

FRANÇOISE: Madame de Maintenon, secret wife of Louis XIV (1635–1719)

JEANNE-BAPTISTE D’ALBERT DE LUYNES: La Verrua, mistress of Victor Amadeus (1670–1736)

JEAN-JACQUES: Brother Jacques, loved by Clotilde, fictional (1685–unknown)

LA FONTAINE: poet and writer of fables (1621–1695)

LA VERRUA: see Jeanne-Baptiste d’Albert de Luynes (1670–1736)

LISELOTTE: Duchess of Orléans, second wife of Duke of Orléans, brother of Louis XIV (1652–1722)

LOUIS: King of France, Louis XIII ( 1601–1643)

LOUIS: King of France, Louis XIV (1638–1715)

LOUIS: King of France, Louis XV (1710–1774)

MADAME ROYALE: Jeanne-Baptiste, Duchess of Savoy, mother of Victor Amadeus of Savoy, grandmother of Adélaïde (1644–1724)

MAINTENON: see Françoise

MANCINI: Marie, early love of Louis XIV (1639–1715)

MARIE-THÉRÈSE: Queen of France, daughter of Philip III of Spain, wife of Louis XIV (1638–1683)

MARIA-LOUISA: sister of Adélaïde, Queen of Spain (1688–1714)

MAZARIN: Jules, Cardinal, Chief Minister to Louis XIII and Louis XIV from 1642 to 1661 (1602–1661)

MELCHIOR DE POLIGNAC: diplomat, poet, cardinal, involved in flirtation with Adélaïde (1661–1742)

MOTHER MATILDE: of the fictional convent of Saint-Odile

PERRAULT, CHARLES: superintendent of the king’s buildings, teller of fairytales; the 39 Versailles fountains representing characters from the stories of Aesop were his idea (1628–1703)

TESSÉ: René de Froulay, Count of Tessé, diplomat and military commander under Louis XIV, loyal friend to Adélaide (1648–1725)

VICTOR AMADEUS II : Duke of Savoy, father of Adélaïde and Maria-Louisa (1666–1732)

WALDO, PETER: leader of non-Catholic Christian movement in the Middle Ages (1140–1218) His followers, who lived in Savoy in 1600s, were a significant part of the conflict between France and Savoy.

TIMELINE

1140 – Birth of Peter Waldo, known as the first Protestant

1545 – Waldensian massacre at Merindol

1598 – Signing of Edict of Nantes

1635 – Birth of Françoise, Madame de Maintenon

1638 – Birth of Louis XIV September 5

1643 – Death of Louis XIII May 14 (succeeded by Louis XIV aged 5)

1643 – Battle of Rocroi May 19 French victory

1648 – Peace of Westphalia ends the Thirty-Years’ War – princes in Holy Roman Empire given right to choose religion – religious freedom

1654 – Coronation of Louis XIV June 7 when he is 16

1660 – Marriage of Louis XIV and Maria-Teresa of Spain (both aged 21)

1661 – Reign proper of Louis XIV begins (aged 22)

1680 – Beginning of revelations about poisonings, witchcraft, murder at Court

1680 – Madame de Maintenon accompanied the king on tour of Flanders and borders of Holland and Alsace-Lorraine

1682 – Birth of Duke of Bourgogne

1682 – French court moved from Paris to Versailles

1683 – Death of Queen Maria-Teresa wife of Louis XIV

1683 – Secret marriage of Louis XIV and Madame de Maintenon

1684 – Marriage of Emmanuel Philibert to Caterina d’Este

1685 – Revocation of Edict of Nantes & issue of Edict of Fontainebleau

1685 – Birth of Marie-Adélaïde of Savoy

1685 – Birth of Sister Clare and Jean-Jacques

1686 – Formation of League of Augsberg

1686 – Founding of the Maison Royale de Saint-Louis at Saint-Cyr 15 June

1689 – Death of Marie-Louise (sister of Anne-Marie mother of Adélaïde, and daughter of Philip of Orléans) wife of Charles Second of Spain)

1692 – Siege of Namur

1696 – Treaty of Turin

1696 – Treaty of Pinerolo

1696 – Marriage contract between Marie-Adélaïde and Duke of Bourgogne

1696 – Journey of Marie-Adélaïde from Savoy to France

1697 – Treaty of Ryswick

1697 – Marriage of Marie-Adélaïde and Duke of Bourgogne

1697 – Madame d’Aulnoy writes French version of ‘Cinderella’

1699 – Consummation of marriage of Marie-Adélaïde and Duke of Bourgogne

1700 – Carnival in France between Candlemas and Ash Wednesday

1700 – Arrival of La Verrua in France

1700 – Duke of Anjou (brother of Duke of Bourgogne) becomes Philip V of Spain and marries Maria-Luisa (sister of Adélaïde)

1701 – 1714 – War of Spanish Succession

1703 – French victory at Breisach

1704 – Birth of first son Duke of Bretagne to Marie-Adélaïde 25 June (dies 1705)

1704 – 14 August Battle of Blenheim

1704 – Victor Amadeus switches loyalty from France to Grand Alliance

1705 – Clotilde and Jean-Jacques in love

1705 – Battle of Cassano

1705 – Disappearance of Jean-Jacques

1705 – Death of Duke of Bretagne at nine months.

1707 – Birth of second son to Marie-Adélaïde (dies in 1712 shortly after deaths of his parents)

1708 – 9 – Famine & Frost

1710 – Birth of third son to Marie-Adélaïde (becomes Louis XV great-grandson of Louis XIV)

1711 – Death of Dauphin, father of Duke of Bourgogne

1712 – Deaths of Marie-Adélaïde and Duke of Bourgogne (A – 12 February; B – 18 February)

1712 – Sister Clotilde enters the Convent of Sainte-Odile

1714 – End of War of Spanish Succession

1714 – Death of Maria-Luisa sister of Adélaïde

1715 – Death of Louis XIV 1 September

1715 – Louis XV at age of five becomes king

1716 – Sister Clare begins to write her memoir (4 years after entering convent)

1719 – Death of Madame de Maintenon

SOURCES

Aesop, Aesop’s Illustrated Fables, Barnes & Noble, 2014

Bailey, Anthony, Velasquez and the Surrender of Breda, Henry Holt & Co. 2011

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank Barry Scott, publisher, Kate Goldsworthy, editor, and Sandy Cull, cover designer, for their generous roles in the publication of the novel. My gratitude to Jan Owen for her reading of the first draft. And I thank also Tania Butterworth for her kind gift of an inspirational red velvet pincushion in the shape of a heart.

Winner of the Patrick White Literary Award, and three times short-listed for the Miles Franklin award, Carmel Bird is the author of both fiction and non-fiction. Carmel grew up in Tasmania, and has a wide reputation as an essayist, editor, and mentor. Crimson Velvet Heart is her twelfth novel.

www.carmelbird.com

Table of Contents

Halftitle Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Epigraph
An Old, Old Story

⬩ 1 ⬩: Twilight in the Château of Saint-Germain-En-Laye

⬩ 2 ⬩: A Child is Born in Savoy
⬩ 3 ⬩: Listen with Your Heart
⬩ 4 ⬩: A Cruel Fate

⬩ 5 ⬩: Donkey Tales

- The Story of Donkeyskin

- The Shroud of Turin

⬩ 6 ⬩: Child-Witch
⬩ 7 ⬩: I Listen to her Life
⬩ 8 ⬩: The Tapestry that Hangs from the Stars
⬩ 9 ⬩: The Wars

⬩ 10 ⬩: The Edict of Nantes and the Edict of Fontainebleau

⬩ 11 ⬩: The Green Parrot at the Opera, Turin
⬩ 12 ⬩: The Worm at the Heart of the Secret
⬩ 13 ⬩: She Will Enter France Naked
⬩ 14 ⬩: I was Put on Earth to Tell her Story

⬩ 15 ⬩: Dark Sorrow in Savoy; Bright Joy in France

⬩ 16 ⬩: Two Bees in a Field of Lavender

⬩ 17 ⬩: Hunting the Grey Wolf

⬩ 18 ⬩: The Wickedness and Snares of the Devil

⬩ 19 ⬩: Teach Me Well, Ma Tante
⬩ 20 ⬩: Who Exactly is Madame De Maintenon?
⬩ 21 ⬩: The Angel in the Light
⬩ 22 ⬩: I Adore the Toucan
⬩ 23 ⬩: Firecracker
⬩ 24 ⬩: After the Battle of Cassano
⬩ 25 ⬩: I Always Light a Candle
⬩ 26 ⬩: The Beak of the Ibis
⬩ 27 ⬩: She is Perfect

⬩ 28 ⬩: The Stone Casket at the Bottom of My Heart

⬩ 29 ⬩: The Spoils of War

⬩ 30 ⬩: Her Dress was as White as the Driven Snow

⬩ 31 ⬩: The Little Donkey from Over the Mountains

⬩ 32 ⬩: She Stops to Ponder the Realities of This Imaginary Fact

⬩ 33 ⬩: She Throws her Fists in the Air, and Screams

⬩ 34 ⬩: Completed to Perfection
⬩ 35 ⬩: A New Hint of Wariness
⬩ 36 ⬩: You Owe Us a Similar Child
⬩ 37 ⬩: A Melancholy Monk
⬩ 38 ⬩: Brother Lavande
⬩ 39 ⬩: in Letters of Blood
⬩ 40 ⬩: Lessons in Love
⬩ 41 ⬩: Some Marriages Are Made in Heaven
⬩ 42 ⬩: He was Like No Other

⬩ 43 ⬩: Does the Princess Spin with Spider Webs?

⬩ 44 ⬩: Long Live the Prince
⬩ 45 ⬩: Crimson Caterpillar
⬩ 46 ⬩: The Greatest Defeat in French History
⬩ 47 ⬩: The Sons
⬩ 48 ⬩: A Fairy Queen in a Fable
⬩ 49 ⬩: A Little Syringe

⬩ 50 ⬩: A Terrible Emptiness that Never Can Be Filled

⬩ 51 ⬩: Racing Through a Forest
⬩ 52 ⬩: in the Basilica of Saint-Denis
⬩ 53 ⬩: I Hear it in the Tremble of his Voice

⬩ 54 ⬩: There Are Candles Burning in the Convent of Sainte-Odile

⬩ 55 ⬩: The Room is Instantly Filled with Perfume

⬩ 56 ⬩: Providing Pins When Pins Are Needed

⬩ 57 ⬩: The Velvet Heart Will Hang on a Post

⬩ 58 ⬩: I Slept the Sleep of Bliss Until the Dawn

Principal Characters
Timeline
Sources
Acknowledgements