FOURTEEN
I was, at this time of my first prosperity, living in a furnished room in a boardinghouse in the rue du Pont-aux-Choux. The mistress of this modest but eminently respectable abode was convinced that I had come fresh from boarding at the rather too austere Convent of the Ursulines upon the receipt of a small inheritance. The splendors of her cook and her excellent feather-beds accounted for the change. My rank and a fortuitous reading concerning her elder daughter’s marriage had filled her with awe; thenceforth I ranked above her previous star boarder, a snuff-taking abbé with mournful, brown, spaniel eyes, who supplemented his tiny income by doing translations of Italian pornographic works.
For a small consideration, I was additionally allowed to receive visitors and clients in her little parlor behind the clumsily hand-painted screen produced by her second daughter, the unmarriageable one. My landlady acquired yet another small sum by reporting my presence to the police, who investigated my business and found it honest, at least insofar as deceiving the gullible is legal, though not meritorious.
The greater sorts of clients I visited in their houses, tipping the widow’s little kitchen boy to retrieve a chair or fiacre from the hiring stands, depending on the distance and the weather. Within scarcely a week I had been to three unimportant salons and referred two ladies with unfaithful lovers to La Voisin as well as a man in search of a buried treasure hidden by his great-uncle during the Fronde. I was beginning to be able to compare the merits of the kitchens of several great houses. I felt like quite the woman-about-town. Yet though my life was in many ways mending, I still avoided public places where I might encounter my uncle or brother, who could unmask me and, as my male relatives, claim everything I had, even my freedom.
By the end of January, I found I had cleared the substantial sum of thirty-eight écus, which was not bad for a beginner. And so on a chill, misty morning in the beginning of February, I went to meet La Voisin on a Sunday after Mass to give her the proceeds of my first real work and my accounting.
The cold sun had just broken through the heavy morning mist, and the bells were still reverberating through the narrow streets of Villeneuve as the modest portals of Notre Dame de Bonne Nouvelle swung open to disgorge a stream of jostling, gossiping Mass goers. Pushing my way through the dispersing crowd, I found I was following in the wake of a large, hunched old woman dressed in a flowing black cloak and an extravagantly overdecorated hat, who cleared her way by prodding the slow or unwary with an immense, gold-trimmed staff. Her face was heavily painted, and there was a malign glitter in her eye. Another witch, I thought; I’m getting to recognize them. Who could this one be?
My patroness, elegant in a fur-trimmed hood and well-cut, narrow waisted jacket, had flung back her handsome embroidered mantle while she paused before the church door to pull on a pair of scented kid gloves. She looked up to see the gaudy old thing approaching her like a galleon in full sail; an expression of intense annoyance crossed her face. The old woman’s heavily painted face broke into a knowing grin.
“And how is La Voisin today?” I heard the old woman ask. “Well, I trust? And how is the husband? Still alive?” She cackled uproariously at her own joke as La Voisin pursed her lips with disgust and walked quickly away without answering. The old woman continued to push her way into the church, where she evidently had business. My patroness, still icy with distaste at the encounter, spied me at a distance of several paces and made a hurried little gesture that I should meet her around the corner, away from the strolling, chattering crowd of Mass goers.
“That ghastly woman. I wish you to stay away from her. What on earth brought you here now? Go to my house by the side door and meet me there.”
Offended, I walked the little way to her house, where the door was opened by her husband, still clad in his old dressing gown. He seemed to be the only member of the household who had not gone to the late Mass.
“Come in,” he said, as he shuffled back into the house ahead of me, trailed by an orange cat and her two half-grown kittens. “I suppose you’ll want a seat,” he added as he sat down in an accustomed armchair and one cat leaped onto his lap. A second took a perch on his shoulder.
“You look well,” he said, after a long silence. He inspected me as I sat on the little straight-backed chair he’d pointed out to me. “Prosperous.” He stroked the big orange cat on his lap. A rumbling purr rose from beneath his hand. “Less like a drowned rat than the first day I saw you.” I didn’t say anything. I was offended. Geneviève Pasquier could never have looked like a drowned rat. It’s not a proper way for a person from a good family to look, no matter what circumstances they find themselves in. The silence sat very heavy among the brocade chairs and dark, ornate furniture that crowded the long, high-ceilinged room.
“Of course, when I first met her, she was the most beautiful woman in the world. I was madly in love. Can you imagine? Madly in love.” He stared at the wall for a long time, as if the tapestry could answer. I couldn’t imagine it. Gaunt, unshaven, and frail, he didn’t look like a lover, a man who could whisper gallantries, or sing to the music of mandolins.
“I had a ring made up—of emeralds and pearls. How her black eyes flashed when she saw it! She was made to wear emeralds. It is the tone of her skin. You…should not wear them. They will make your skin look sallow. No…for you, a necklace of sapphires. Sapphires and diamonds. Your skin will look like the snow. The eyes will pick up the color—the gray take on a bluish tint.”
There was something eerily repulsive about all this. He sounded as if he were half asleep, talking in a dream. I could hear pattering on the floor above, the sound of something rolling, and the cries of children.
“The creditors…put the children into the street…” He went on in the same dreamy voice, like a sleepwalker. “As they were taking me to prison, they saw the ring on her hand. ‘Hand it over,’ they said and tore it from her finger. Her eyes flashed black, like wells of poison, like night storm-clouds that contain deadly lightning. ‘I will repay,’ she said, and her voice was steel. They laughed. They are all dead now, Mademoiselle. All dead. And she has sucked away my vital essence. I am dry. A shriveled leaf. A withered apple—” There was a bang as the front door was flung open, and La Voisin entered by the black parlor. At the same time, Margot, Nanon, the cook, and assorted members of the household rattled into the kitchen door at the back of the house.
“Antoine, I will not have you boring the little marquise. Come, Mademoiselle, into my cabinet. Have you brought a full accounting?”
“Of course, Madame,” I answered as I followed her into her little cabinet. The fire was out; she left on her heavy cloak but drew off the high gauntleted Italian gloves, finger by finger. They were dyed an exquisite deep blue. The scent of them filled the cold little room.
“That Antoine. As useless as my old tomcat. Can’t catch rats, can’t make kittens. And yet I keep them both on, though I can’t imagine why…” She unlocked the cupboard door, hunted among her ledgers, and took down the volume P.
“Thirty-eight écus,” she said, her black eyes glowing at the sight of the gold. “My, my. You do well so quickly.” She stared at me suddenly, her eyes trying to pierce me through. “You haven’t held any back, have you?”
“No, Madame. Here is the accounting. Paper, pen, and ink. Transportation, and a pair of heavy stockings because the shoe was making blisters.” She looked fondly at the pile of coins on the table, and then back to the sheet with my account.
“And what is this payment to La Trianon?”
“A sleeping draught. The corset is painful.”
“Painful? Of course it’s painful. You need the pain. It will harden your resolve to become rich. Give up the opium. Steel your mind with hate and revenge instead. Remember that it is him or you. Opium will undermine you.” She struck her pen through this item. I resolved to hold back a portion of my next fee and to keep my purchase secret. I needed opium now. It drowned pain and stifled night terrors. It was the only cure for remembrance and grief. I was sure La Dodée would find it in her interest not to tell. After all, I was now a good customer. My patroness looked up at me, for I still stood as she sat, making entries in her ledger. Her voice was calculating and her smile false as she said, “A lady such as you should not be without a maid. Who is lacing you up now? A servant of that silly widow?”
“Her youngest daughter helps me dress.”
“Let me see those stays. Hmm. You are still bent. She isn’t strong enough to tighten them right. You’re still sleeping in them, aren’t you?”
“I wouldn’t have needed the sleeping draught if I weren’t,” I answered in a sarcastic voice. She smiled in return, but too many teeth showed.
“Just keep them tight, and soon you’ll be out of them at night. I think I know just the maid you need…” I didn’t like the sound of this. A spy to keep me in order. She must be afraid I would grow independent. I changed the subject.
“That woman who greeted you,” I said, “who is she? One of us?”
“One of us, I suppose, in the larger sense,” La Voisin sniffed, distracted by her memory of the offense. “That is Marie Bosse. You won’t find that she’s your type. Entirely illiterate, and adds on her fingers. She practices the Old Arts, but she has no business talent. Of course, she envies me. She wanted to be Chosen, instead of me. But who would have her? She’s careless, and a drunkard. Besides, she was married to a horse dealer.” La Voisin’s voice dripped snobbery. A good thing La Voisin had raised the profession of witchcraft to be so elegant, I thought. I certainly had no desire to be associated with the vulgar widow of a horse dealer.
“Madame should not grieve forever over a husband so long dead. How much more youthful you would look, my dear Marquise, were you to robe yourself in the fresh colors of spring.” The elderly, snuff-taking Provençal abbé leaned his face so close as he spoke that I could feel his breath on my neck. Across the table, the widow Bailly abruptly ceased dishing out the soup and stared disapprovingly at him.
“I am too old to concern myself with the vanities of this world,” I sniffed. But spring was in my heart. For the first time in my life, I wanted a new dress. A pretty one.
“Even the vanities which lead the multitudes to gather behind that screen every day in ever greater numbers?” The abbé’s voice was lazy and knowing, as he gestured carelessly to the screen in the corner of the room which was both Madame Bailly’s salon and dining room. Horrible man. Provençals never stop chasing women. It’s a habit with them. On their deathbeds, they proposition their nurses.
“That is my charitable work, Monsieur. I spend my days helping others.” I pretended to be busy breaking a roll.
“Madame la Marquise is a miracle worker, a miracle worker. A draper with his own shop and assistants. My lucky, lucky Amélie. And it all has come to pass just as she said,” Madame rushed to my defense. Amélie looked at the table and blushed at the thought of her impending marriage. Brigitte, her younger sister, dowerless, sullen, and spotty faced, stared at her resentfully. The other boarders, a collection of impecunious foreigners and provincials, looked annoyed at the interruption of the meal.
“Surely, I cannot but accept the word of a hostess so charming,” oozed the abbé. Madame Bailly blushed with pleasure and resumed serving the soup. The steady click, clank of soup spoons resumed. Monsieur Dulac, the notary, took up again telling of the scandal at the Foire Saint-Germain, which was only newly opened for the season before Palm Sunday.
“…and when we arrived at the rue de la Lingerie, all was in turmoil, stalls smashed, and a lemonade seller with a broken arm, I swear, and her whole stock spilled upon the ground. It was some young vicomte and a companion, dead drunk. They had pushed their horses into the fair and ridden them at full gallop through the alleys, waving their swords and overturning the stalls. I had narrowly missed being killed, being killed, if you may imagine!”
“Monsieur Dulac, you should confine yourself to the evening, when the quality attend, after the opera,” Madame Bailly observed as her maid of all work removed the soup plates.
“As if you’d know,” whispered Brigitte spitefully.
“And the prices are doubled, Madame Bailly,” answered the notary, “and then I should have had to confine myself to looking only. Whereas today I saw a most marvelous creature for only two sous. A rarity from the far Indies—a raccoon.”
“Oh, what was it like? Was it like a dragon?” queried Amélie.
“No, it was entirely covered with hair like a wolf and had an immense tail, quite striped. They are said to be as venomous as a serpent. But then, the Indies are a place of great danger. They say that there are carnivorous vines there capable of crushing a man to death and drinking his blood with their long, hollow tendrils.” The company shuddered.
“Ooo!” exclaimed Brigitte. “Do they have one of those on display as well? It would be splendid to see it at feeding time!”
So nothing would do but that we would get up a party to go and inspect both the raccoon and the gentry that very evening, in a hired coach procured by the generous Marquise de Morville, whose charitable works had brought her ever-increasing prosperity.
“Oh, how I do love to ride in a real carriage!” enthused Brigitte, as we set off in the twilight for the grounds of the vast Abbey of Saint-Germain on the left bank of the Seine. Amélie shot her a withering glance.
The draper, a ponderous middle-aged fellow, who sat crammed beside his fiancée and her sister, announced, “When we are wed, you shall always have a carriage at your disposal, my dear Mademoiselle Bailly. Your dainty feet shall not touch the earth.” Her mother sighed.
“What touching, what elegant devotion! Oh, Monsieur Leroux, you are so gallant!”
“How could it be otherwise with such a charming young person?” said the abbé, who, squashed between the widow Bailly and myself, had not yet decided behind whose waist his hand should creep. On my side, he encountered frost and hard steel, on hers, squeals and giggles. He withdrew to the more favorable side.
“Oh, look, they’re lighting the street lanterns!” Brigitte pointed to a man on a ladder at the corner near the police barrier.
“Monsieur de La Reynie’s finest invention,” pronounced the draper. “Soon all of Paris will be as safe at night as your own bedroom, Mesdames. He has increased the watch and soon will have swept away every last beggar and thief that has disgraced our great city. Ours is an age of marvels…”
Our carriage had halted to let a grand equipage pass at the intersection. Its coat of arms was painted over and it was full of masked ladies and gentlemen on their way to the fair. The opera had let out. Beneath the newly lit lamp, a public notice newly affixed over several old ones caught my eye. The latest books banned by the police. Illegal to possess or print, purchase or sell, strictest penalties, etc. My scandal-loving eye searched for something interesting: La défense de la Réformation—dull Protestantism. Philosophical Reflections on Grace—even duller Jansenism. Observations on the Health of the State, author unknown, pseudonym “Cato.” D’Urbec, Lamotte’s friend, the scholar. So this is what has become of your treatise on reform. The geometric theory of state finance has led you to the stake, if you are not in exile already. Somehow, I felt as if I had just come from a funeral.
“Banned books make the best collector’s items, Madame la Marquise,” the abbé remarked offhandedly, inspecting the place where my gaze had fallen. You ought to know, you old reprobate, I thought, since they are your trade.
“A man who would own such things is no better than a traitor who would undermine the safety of the state,” announced Monsieur Leroux, the draper.
“They broke a traitor on the wheel last week by torchlight on the Place de Grève,” interjected Brigitte. “Everyone says it was lovely, but Mother wouldn’t let me go.”
“It’s not proper for a girl to go to night executions unescorted,” announced her mother.
“A woman of a certain position should always go escorted to executions. I would of course always escort my wife to such commendable moral exhibitions personally,” said Monsieur Leroux, clasping Amélie’s hand.
“Of course, there’s a great deal of money to be made in banned books,” suggested the abbé wickedly, for he had observed the draper closely during the ride and had taken his measure.
“Money?” Monsieur Leroux’s interest was aroused. “Why, surely, not very much,” he added hastily.
“Oh, when Le colloque amoureux was banned, the price went from twenty sols to twenty livres. And now there’s not a copy to be had anywhere. It might well fetch thirty or more livres if a person could get hold of one.” An ironic smile played across the face of the abbé.
“Twenty…thirty livres? Why, that’s astonishing. As a return on capital…” The draper was lost in calculations.
“And then there’s Père Dupré, who wrote anonymously to the police to denounce his own treatise attacking the Jansenists. A dull and unoriginal work; he had not been able to sell a single copy. Within a month, the entire edition sold out at ten times the original price.” The abbé leaned toward the draper with a malicious smile and whispered confidentially, “Of course, it is important to have a powerful patron.”
“Scandalous!” exclaimed the draper. “Still, it shows a certain commendable ambition. Far better than the disgrace of being a failure.” Monsieur Leroux looked complacent. He, of course, would never consider being a failure. And to him, the patronage of the great could justify any enterprise.
We had by this time worked our way well across the Pont Neuf, though our passage had been slowed by the crowds around a dentist on a platform, who was pulling teeth by the light of torches. But soon enough our carriage had joined the ranks of those waiting in rows outside the fair precincts, and we had traversed the dozen steps down into the covered alleyways of the ancient fairgrounds. These were so old that they were sunken beneath ground level, as if pounded down by millions of feet over the centuries. Rows of booths, lit by thousands of candles, shone invitingly down the long alleys, which were called “streets” and named according to the goods sold in them. Vendors of lemonade, watery chocolate, and sweetmeats called out their wares. The smells of good things cooking wafted from the booths where food was sold. Many of them, refurnished for the more elegant evening fair goers, had tables with white linen cloths and fine candelabra.
We strolled down the rue de la Mercerie, to see the furniture and rare porcelains brought from Asia and the Indies. Amélie occupied her time happily exclaiming over what she would like to see in her house, once she was married. Placards announced a “pièce à écriteaux,” one of the subterfuges by which the players at the fair evaded the official monopoly on the spoken word of the Paris theaters. The silent players could not be accused of speaking a word, for the dialogue was posted on large signs in each scene. We paused to watch two gentlemen elegantly dressed in pale silk bargaining for a vase. One of them looked so like Uncle from behind that it made me start. Surely he did not have a coat in that color…The man turned, and I was relieved. No, not the Chevalier de Saint-Laurent. While my companions strolled on, marveling at the jewels, the lace, the silver, the heaps of colored sweetmeats and oranges, I felt cold all over, as if something I disliked might step from the shadows at any moment.
Men in strange costumes shouted the virtues of various gambling dens and tried to entice us to enter, and amid the cries of the vendors, we could hear the muffled sound of singing, accompanied by a clavier and flutes coming from one of the theaters. Why have I come here? I asked myself. They could see me, and take everything away. I walked on in a kind of trance, hardly noticing my surroundings.
A well-dressed gentleman followed by four servants in livery picked his way past us through the crowd.
“My,” whispered the abbé to me, “the evening certainly does bring out a better class of people. Even the pickpockets appear to be of the upper class.” His cozy, obscenely confidential tone brought me back to myself. I observed closely and, sure enough, saw a pale hand flash from its lace-decked sleeve into the pocket of a ponderous gentleman escorting two elderly ladies.
“Ooo! What divine earrings I see there!” cried Amélie, as she led Monsieur Leroux and the rest of us down the long, candle-lit alley called the rue de l’Orfèvrerie, where jewelry of all kinds was on display. Masked women in elegant incognito strolled with their gallants, pausing to point with a gloved hand.
“My dear friend, what a charming little brooch,” we would hear in the high, cultivated voice of a court lady.
“My love, it is yours,” and the gentleman would procure the desired object and present it to his mistress with a bow and a flourish.
“Ah, such pleasures; oh, my friend, I am fatigued.”
“Allow me to offer you refreshment. The Duc de Vivonne has declared that everyone must savor the new drink at the Turkish booth, which invigorates the senses most wonderfully.”
“Oh, Monsieur Leroux,” cried Amélie, “do let us stop there, too!”
And her affianced, anxious to distract her from the glittering display, agreed hastily.
We followed the masked couple to the Turkish booth, where we were seated near the door around one of the tables covered with fresh white linen that filled the large room. Above us stretched a vast, if rudimentary, ceiling hung with blazing chandeliers. Waiters in huge padded turbans and baggy trousers carried curious brass trays filled with tiny enameled metal cups. A strange smell like burned cork filled the room—doubtless the Turkish beverage—but it was too late to leave gracefully.
“Surely, my dear one,” I could hear the masked lady’s high voice pierce the hubbub, “they should not have seated us so close to nobodies.” Madame Bailly and her daughters were too busy exclaiming over the lace and the coiffures of those at the neighboring tables to notice, but the abbé shot me an amused look.
The masked lady’s voice could be heard again: “That woman over there, for example, could be none other than Mademoiselle de Brie, the comedienne from the Théâtre de la rue Guénégaud. I’m sure I recognize that dreadful dress and cloak with the train. I do believe they belong to the company—or maybe she bought them secondhand.”
I shifted my gaze to the table in the more elegant section that contained the offending dress. A large woman in a black velvet mask, exquisitely gowned, was engaged in witty conversation with a gallant whose back was to us. His plumed hat was tilted rakishly over his own shoulder-length curls; his blue velvet mantle was carelessly draped over one shoulder, revealing its crimson satin lining. The woman seemed animated and fascinated by him. Even though her figure seemed past its prime, her mask could not conceal fully the remains of once great beauty.
“My masterwork, written entirely as a setting for your beauty and talents…” I could hear the man saying. What a marvelous little drama. An influential older actress, and the young playwright whose career she was sponsoring. How he flattered her!
The Turkish coffee that everyone had raved about so had arrived. We looked into the splendid little cups to see a thick, black liquid sitting like tar on the white enamel. How uninviting. No one wished to be so unsophisticated as to pronounce us gulled. After all, we had already seen the raccoon, which had unfortunately died and been replaced by a drawing, and the two-headed man, one of whose heads was wooden. None of us would ever admit the fair’s most fashionable craze in drink to be nasty.
Monsieur Leroux lifted the tiny cup to his lips, while Amélie watched dotingly. “Most remarkable,” he pronounced. “Somewhat like burned caramel,” and he took another tiny sip.
Amélie lifted the little cup in the elegant way she had spied the lady lifting hers. “Why, Monsieur Leroux, you have said it perfectly. It is remarkable.” But her face was puckered up.
“…I see no one of distinction here. How can you say it is fashionable? Surely Monsieur le Duc meant another booth…” the lady’s high voice floated to us. The rumble of her escort’s answer was lost in the clatter of dishes. “Now, that veiled woman in the black silk over there, with the abbé, might be someone, were it not for the impossibly bourgeois people with whom she is sitting…”
I took my first sip from the tiny cup. Even the sugar, which made the drink as heavy as syrup, could not hide the bitter flavor of the stuff.
“Come, my love,” said the playwright, his voice heavy with disgust at what he had just overheard, “the rustic nobility of the provinces have crowded out all of the court nobility from this place. There is no longer anyone of true fashion to be seen here.” And with an elaborate gesture, he took the comedienne’s arm. She swept her train up in her gloved hand, and together they paraded past the masked lady, then past us and out the door. I knew the man, from his waxed mustachios to the long brown locks that flowed over his lace collar with what appeared to be the aid of a curling iron. I recognized Lamotte, the beautiful cavalier of the rue des Marmousets, made prosperous.
“My, that man is handsome,” observed Brigitte, “although she is much too old for him.”
“That is André Lamotte, the playwright,” I said. Was it the dark drink that made my nerves tingle so in my body?
“My, to know so much of society,” said Madame Bailly with a sigh.
“Lamotte…Lamotte,” said the abbé. “I know this name. I was at the Théâtre de la rue Guénégaud before Christmas and I saw something—what was it called? It was quite the rage for several weeks. Oh, yes. Osmin. It was about a Turkish prince who dies of love for a Christian girl whose face he has only seen in a window—” He broke off to give me an intense, romantic stare. “Men die for love, you know,” he added, trying to put his hand on my knee. I pushed it off.
“My, that’s romantic.” Amélie sighed.
“She was probably blond and had a perfect complexion,” announced Brigitte sourly. “They’re all like that, those stories. No one dies for a girl with pimples.”
I made myself busy sipping the rest of the bitter drink. My mind felt joyful; my thoughts flowed faster and faster. My senses felt acute. What a lovely drink, I thought. I must discover how to have it more often. Not much to taste, but what a splendid effect it has! Surely, a month at a spa could not give my body this strength, my thoughts this clarity. It was then that I knew suddenly that I must have André Lamotte. And cost what it might, I resolved to make him mine with the aid of the witches’ art.