Before Versailles Read online

  ALSO BY KARLEEN KOEN

  Dark Angels

  Now Face to Face

  Through a Glass Darkly

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2011 by Karleen Koen

  Title page art: A View of the Royal Palace of Fontainebleau (oil on panel) by Hendrik Frans de Cort (1742–1810) (attr. to)

  Private Collection/ © Lawrence Steigrad Fine Arts, New York/The Bridgeman Art Library Nationality / copyright status: Flemish / out of copyright

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  www.crownpublishing.com

  CROWN is a trademark and the Crown colophon is a registered trademark of

  Random House, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Koen, Karleen.

  Before Versailles : a novel of Louis XIV / Karleen Koen. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  1. Louis XIV, King of France, 1638–1715—Fiction. 2. France—Kings and rulers—Fiction. 3. France—History—Louis XIV, 1643–1715—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3561.O334B44 2011

  813′.54—dc22 2010035562

  eISBN: 978-0-307-71659-0

  Jacket design by Jennifer O’Connor

  v3.1

  For X

  and

  for Louise de la Vallière

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Characters

  Prologue

  Two months later, May 1661, at the royal palace of Fontainebleau … Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  June 1661 … Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  July 1661 … Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  August 1661 … Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  September 1661 … Chapter 40

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

  Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.

  Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities.

  Create in me a clean heart, O God …

  — PSALMS 51:7–10

  Characters

  THE ROYAL HOUSEHOLDS

  Louis XIV: king of France from 1643 to 1715.

  Maria Teresa: queen of France; infanta or princess of Spain.

  Philippe: younger brother of Louis XIV, first prince of France; formerly Duke d’Anjou, now Duke d’Orléans; known as Monsieur at court.

  Henriette: Duchess d’Orléans, first princess of France; married to Prince Philippe; sister of Charles II, king of England; known as Madame at court.

  Guy-Armand de Gramont: Count de Guiche; friend of Prince Philippe; brother of Catherine; cousin of Péguilin.

  Catherine: Princess de Monaco, married to crown prince of Monaco; lady-in-waiting to Madame; sister of Guy-Armand de Gramont; cousin of Péguilin.

  Olympe: Countess de Soissons; superintendent of the queen’s household; niece of Cardinal Mazarin.

  Athénaïs de Tonnay-Charente: maid of honor to the queen.

  * La Porte: valet to Louis XIV.

  Péguilin: friend and captain of the guards to Louis XIV; cousin of Catherine and Guy.

  Louise de la Baume le Blanc: maid of honor to Madame; cousin of François-Timoléon de Choisy; formerly in the household of the late Duke d’Orléans.

  * Fanny de Montalais: best friend of Louise de la Baume le Blanc; maid of honor to Madame.

  Anne: queen mother of France; former regent of France; mother of Louis XIV and Philippe; a princess of Spain.

  Madame de Motteville: lady-in-waiting to the queen mother.

  GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS

  Cardinal Jules Mazarin: former first minister; deceased.

  Cardinal Richelieu: minister to Louis XIII; deceased.

  Viscount Nicolas: superintendent of finance.

  Jean-Baptiste Colbert: official in Louis XIV’s government.

  Charles d’Artagnan: lieutenant of Louis XIV’s musketeers.

  Marshall de Gramont: one of the officers of the crown; father of Guy-Armand and Catherine.

  Prince de Monaco: prince of a small nearby kingdom; ally of Louis XIV; his son, the crown prince, is married to Catherine.

  CHARACTERS IN COURT AND AROUND PARIS

  Madame de Choisy: noblewoman at court.

  François-Timoléon de Choisy: youngest son of Madame de Choisy; cousin of Louise de la Baume le Blanc.

  Marie, Duchess de Chevreuse: former lady-in-waiting to Queen Anne.

  La Grande Mademoiselle: an Orléans, one of the princesses of France; first cousin of Louis XIV.

  Molière: one of France’s great playwrights and actors.

  La Voisin: a witch.

  Queen Henrietta Maria: widow of Charles I of England; mother of Henriette of France known as Madame and also of Charles II of England; daughter of Henri IV; aunt of Louis XIV.

  *fictional characters

  Prologue

  NTELLIGENT, VIRILE, HANDSOME, A MAN WHO MADE HIMSELF master of all he surveyed, Louis XIV was the foremost figure of his age. He was its prize, its comet, its star. His drive, cunning, and absolute determination to forge France into the premier kingdom of its time awed and frightened his fellow kings. None of them could match him. He supported the arts and literature so thoroughly that France became a cultural beacon that shines to this day, and by the time he died, every court in Europe copied the manners and fashion of his. The language of France became the language of art, of culture, of commerce, and of diplomacy for several hundred years. His palace at Versailles is a national monument and was one of the wonders of the world in its time.

  From birth, war was his backdrop, and the nobility surrounding him as he grew to manhood was as proud as Lucifer and as trustworthy. The ambitions of others were always faintly in the distance, or up close, naked, fangs gleaming. Louis possessed a consummate skill in turning those ambitions to his own advantage, and before he was thirty, he had become the hard, graceful, prowling lion of all of Europe.

  There was a moment in his young life when he deliberately chose to grasp power. It was a moment when tenderness was still his—before time and pride closed him—a moment when his heart, like many a man’s, yearned for something true. It happened in his forest palace of Fontainebleau. Perhaps it went something like this …

  March 1661, France

  YOUNG WOMAN GALLOPED HEADLONG AND R
ECKLESSLY down half-wild trails in the immense forest of Fontainebleau. Her fair hair had come loose from its pins, and she leaned low against her horse’s neck and whispered the filly onward, as if she were being chased by murderers. It was said she possessed magic with horses, and the groom attempting to follow behind her believed it. She was like a picture he’d seen once—of a centaur, a creature of mythology, half man, half horse. The only souls to hear the sound of thudding hooves were birds, rabbits, foxes, in burrows or hollow logs or nests of green moss and twigs, all of which stayed hidden, out of sight and harm. The forest around them was wild, huge, one of France’s glories. For centuries, kings had hunted under its majestic and ancient trees. It was said to be filled still with forest spirits, shy, sly, summer-like sylphs who blended into the leaves that would unfurl soon and blessed or cursed the humans impinging on their malachite- and emerald-hued domain.

  The horses galloped into a clearing in which a tree lay fallen. The young blonde leaned forward in her sidesaddle and told her horse that the beast could do it, and the filly responded, sailing over the tree effortlessly. Afraid to take the dangerous jump, tired from their long gallop this day, the groom pulled hard on his reins, and the horse under him snorted and jerked its head and turned in circles, while the blonde trotted her horse back to him. Her face was lovely, flushed, incandescent—the way it could be when she was this happy and carefree. Her name was Louise de la Baume le Blanc, and she was just on the cusp of ten and six, and she had no idea of it, but her life was about to change forever as certain stars finished their alignment.

  “You ride better than a man, miss,” said the groom.

  “What a day we’ve had. So wonderful.” She dropped the reins and put her hands to her hair, fallen from its many pins onto her shoulders.

  “Ow-w-w,” came a long, low yowl from the woods around them.

  Startled, both Louise and the groom turned in their saddles. From between trees whose trunks were the size of Egyptian obelisks, a boy appeared. Waving his arms, breath growling rasps in his lungs, he howled like some demon in a church passion play.

  The howls took their breath away, but so did what was upon the boy’s face: an iron mask, its visage grim and terrible, with holes for sight and a raised impression for the nose. Dark hair fell through leather straps to cascade down the sides of the child’s head. Only his mouth, where a string of slobber hung, was visible, and his continuing cries sent shivers down the spines of both Louise and the groom. He ran straight toward Louise, and her horse laid back its ears, reared, danced backward, and she fell.

  From atop the other horse, the groom began to hit at the boy with a riding crop, lashing at thin arms and shoulders, and the boy staggered, holding up his hands to protect himself.

  “Get away from here! Brigand! Thief! Murderer!” Circling around the boy, the groom hit him everywhere, soft neck, thin shoulders, long arms, bare hands. The boy howled louder and ran toward trees behind them. The groom jumped down from his saddle to Louise, who hadn’t moved since her body hit the ground.

  “Miss! Oh please, miss!” he cried.

  Now others ran into the clearing. The groom cursed himself for letting her ride so far from the château. Were they in danger? What was happening? Who was this, now? A band of thieves? Decent people pursuing a mad, nearly grown boy? What? Then he saw that one was a soldier, a musketeer, wearing the colors of the great and powerful Cardinal Mazarin, first minister to the king, dying now—all France knew it—power and wealth unable to stop that grimmest of cutthroats and thieves, death.

  The musketeer, gaunt and fierce-faced, made a signal, and every man halted where he stood. The musketeer walked forward, his glance taking in both groom and the immobile young woman on the ground.

  “Have you seen someone on foot? A boy, nearly grown?” he asked.

  “Yes, he ran at our horses.” The groom pointed toward the thick trees behind them. “He ran that way.” And then in a pleading tone, “This young lady needs help. Is there a farmhouse near?”

  The musketeer shouted orders, and at once the others ran off in the direction in which the groom had pointed.

  “Who is he? What is his crime?” the groom asked.

  The musketeer didn’t answer, asked instead, “Did you come from the palace?” The royal palace of Fontainebleau was some miles distant.

  The groom shook his head. “From Madame de Choisy’s.”

  “You’re not to speak of this to anyone.” The musketeer’s face had been beaten by weather and life to a flint-hard grimness. “I command it in the name of the cardinal. Do you know who he is?”

  Who did not? Cardinal Mazarin had been virtual ruler of France for years.

  The musketeer strode away, picking up his gait into a trot, already halfway across the clearing before the groom dared to open his mouth again. “Sir! Wait! I beg you. My lady is in distress—”

  But the man was lost to the thickness of the woods. The groom looked down at Louise, and to his immense relief, her eyes were open.

  “Can you sit up, miss?” he asked. “Your horse is gone. You’ll have to ride mine. Move slowly and see if anything is broken. Is this the first time you’ve fallen from a horse, my lady?”

  “No. Who was that soldier?”

  “He did not say, my lady.” The groom helped Louise to rise, brushed at leaves and dirt on her skirt. “He did say we were not to speak of this.” Her conduct was, of course, not his concern. He could still see the musketeer’s cold eyes. His own mouth was sealed. He was no fool.

  “Obscene,” said Louise, “that thing on his head, as if he were a monster instead of a man. Not even a man. A boy. What can he have done to deserve such a fate?” In her eyes were tears of distress and pity.

  The groom held his hands so she could hoist herself into the saddle. Her legs were slim and colored blue by the stockings she wore. The sight of them—she had to ride astride now, as men did, rather than on a sidesaddle—softened him for a moment, as did the tears and her fresh prettiness. He decided to warn her again.

  “The musketeer commanded silence, and his master is master of us all, the great cardinal,” he repeated.

  Reviled, feared, obeyed, Cardinal Mazarin was the most powerful man in the kingdom of France, first minister to the young king and lover, it was said, to the queen mother.

  Louise didn’t answer. She was a tenderhearted girl, too gentle really for the court she was about to join. But in her was an untested streak of sword’s steel. One day, it would move her from the glamorous, wicked salons of court to an isolated nun’s cell. It would keep her from going mad with grief at all that was no longer hers and bring her to a solace deeper than she could imagine, but that was years ahead, ten or more, a world away from this moment. This moment, this day, she was just a girl who—like all wellborn girls of the time—would blaze brightly a moment or two before she married, except that only the blazing was in Louise’s stars. And it was just as well she didn’t know it.

  THE HALF-WILD, lanky boy in his iron mask was all she could think about on the ride back to the château where she was visiting. She couldn’t wait to find her cousin, Choisy, to tell him what she’d seen. Leaving the groom in the château’s stable, she walked through ornate halls and antechambers looking for her cousin, but he was not to be found. His mother was busy with guests in the grand salon.

  “Women’s virtue is man’s greatest invention,” she heard Madame de Choisy say to a burst of laughter. Madame de Choisy was one of those women who knew everyone and thrived on the whispers and webs of intrigue that were court life. The only way she had consented to leave Paris was to make certain a steady stream of visitors would journey out into the forest—in the middle of nowhere, she’d lamented, but my suppers will be worth it—to visit her. The Choisys were an important family in France, swirling around the throne like bees, and Louise felt fortunate that Madame de Choisy had taken such a liking to her. She peeped into the salon and saw guests gathered around their hostess, as always, enthralled and amused
by whatever it was that she was saying—and she was always saying.

  She had an opinion about everything and everyone, her family having been near kings and queens for generations. But she was so good-natured and so genuinely amused by life and its variables that no one minded. Certainly not Louise. There was a kind vibrancy about her that Louise found irresistible. Madame de Choisy’s humor and laughing eyes were like balm, especially when contrasted to Louise’s mother’s tight, thin smile and tight, thin heart. Your mother’s a merchant. As she had said those words, Madame de Choisy had held up a hand to stop any argument that might come from Louise. I hate to say it, she had continued, but it’s true. Blue blood does not guarantee a noble heart. For her, all is transaction. Truth had shown its face then in such a blinding flash-of-light kind of way that Louise hadn’t been able to respond. She was wordless at this older woman’s succinct summation of her mother’s character. So that’s what it’s been, she’d thought to herself, transactions between us all this time. Of course.

  In her bedchamber, Louise sat down on the stool in front of her dressing table, thinking about the boy. There were worse sights in Paris on any given day, weren’t there? So she’d seen a mad, nearly grown boy escaped from his captors. It didn’t have to affect her the way it had, as if someone had hit her on the heart. You’re too touchy by far, my girl, she could just hear her mother say. Don’t take your softness to court, her mother had warned. It won’t do there. I certainly hope you are on your knees thanking the saints every night that you attracted Madame de Choisy’s eye. She has launched you, my girl, in a way I could never have done.

  It was true. At the end of this month, she would join the new Madame’s household as a maid of honor, something so amazing she couldn’t quite yet imagine it.

  This new Madame—well, the fact was she wasn’t Madame yet because she wasn’t officially married—but anyway, she was a princess and would soon be the second most important woman in the kingdom because she was marrying the only brother of the king. Everyone was talking about it. That’s what they’d been speaking of in the salon when Louise glanced in. Talking about how happy Monsieur—which is what the king’s brother had to be called and thus his wife must be called Madame—was, saying how much in love he seemed.