THIRTY-NINE

Brissac served his patron well; the boxes above the stage were crammed with masked men and women of the demimonde, chattering loudly, displaying their finery, and peering about to see if they could determine who else of interest was there. Our own box was filled with a satanist abbé and his mistress, ourselves, and La Voisin and her current lover, the Vicomte de Cousserans, a debauched gentleman with purple veins on his nose. In the ripple of conversation the name “Pradon” could be distinguished, as well as rumblings of Racine’s failure—the dreadful blond actress, too coarse for the part, the common verses, the vulgar treatment of a subject that must be handled with the utmost delicacy if it is not to become, well, indecent. Thus can the opinion of the world be purchased, I thought. In the pit beneath, soldiers, students, and riffraff paid for the evening set up the cry “Pra-don, Pra-don!” as if rehearsing for the rolling cheers with which they would greet every line of the work as it was presented.

“Oooo!” I heard a woman squeal. “That is definitely Mademoiselle Bertrand, the comedienne. I’d know her hair anywhere. And that dress!” I looked to see exactly what sort of hair this prodigy possessed. Blond. Dyed. Mountains of it, all done up with brilliants and bows. Not as nice a box as ours, I sniffed to myself. And public lovemaking with that overdressed fellow in the crimson velvet. Actresses have no taste. Acting is, after all, a profession without respectability, scarcely better than prostitution. A vast, powdered bosom heaved up above tight stays. Her ungloved hands seemed rather entangled in the gentleman’s clothing. He laughed, and the way he tilted his head seemed familiar.

“Why, that is indeed Mademoiselle Bertrand. And who is her latest moneybags?” The vicomte leaned forward to look more closely, applying a lorgnon to the eyehole of his mask. “Well, I’ll be damned! It’s that wretched upstart who finished me off at lansquenet last week. What was his name?”

“D’Urbec,” prompted La Voisin, with a sideways glance in my direction. I looked again. This time his face turned fully in my direction. Unlike the occupants of our box, he was unmasked. D’Urbec, in an immense black wig, with a massive silver knobbed walking stick leaning beside him, a comedienne draped over him, and a boxful of raucous companions. I wanted to think he looked lonely in the midst of it all. But he didn’t. He radiated smugness, satisfaction. He was taking in the scene as if he owned it. He didn’t even look a trifle wistful, damn him. Just arrogant and pleased with himself. La Voisin’s eyes were watching me from behind her mask.

“I loathe upstarts,” announced Brissac.

“The man comes from nowhere. Everything he gets is at the tables. He wins as if he’s made a pact with the Devil. Tell me, my dear; you are an expert. Has he made a pact with the Devil?” asked the vicomte, giving La Voisin a squeeze around the waist.

“Not with the intervention of anyone I know of,” announced La Voisin. “Though I have heard he has gone abroad to a foreign adept.”

“I’ve a sure test of that.” Brissac laughed. “Tell me, what would you say if I ruined him publicly?”

“Why, that the Devil wasn’t his patron…shh…the curtain’s going up.” Brissac leaned toward the vicomte’s ear and whispered something. They both chuckled. “Done!” said the vicomte, as the first of Pradon’s dubious verses rolled across the stage.

I returned home with a dreadful headache. The play, perhaps, the crowded box and the stench from the pit. Or was it the lemonade Brissac had purchased for me? I remembered the yellow roses. Definitely, something in the lemonade. Damnation. And La Voisin’s maternal look of approval as he offered it. Another love powder. Powdered cockscomb, desiccated pigeon hearts, and who knows what other rot. No wonder I had a headache. I thought of Brissac. As repulsive as ever. Madame’s love powders were about as effective as that irresistible perfume my mother used to use. How can I turn this to my advantage? I deserve revenge for this headache. I will pretend that it has worked; first, I’ll show a growing tenderness for Brissac—I’ll buy him a new suit. That will put them off. Then I’ll act as if the stuff is fading and watch their contortions as they try to slip me another dose. I’ll lead them a merry dance.

My head throbbed terribly. The love powder must have had some damned drug in it. Images flitted through my mind, and my stomach felt ghastly. I seemed dimly to remember some sort of conversation with the vicomte about—yes, d’Urbec. Ruining him. Wasn’t he ruined already? I lay down on the bed, trying to decide which part of me felt the sickest. D’Urbec had sat on the edge of my armchair, as if he feared to spoil it, and inspected his hands, all torn and callused from the oar. How many times can a man be ruined and still press on? There was, after all, a sort of perverse gallantry about it. And bitter determination. I saw again the scene in the box; now I understood it. He had hired a woman, the same way he’d leased a flashy carriage and bought all those showy clothes. He was thumbing his nose at the world, as if to say: you think money is important? I’ll give you money. Quick, loud, vulgar money. The man with a mind mocks money, too. I couldn’t help liking his mockery, for I knew it well—the mockery of the arrant stupidity, of the cold heart of society.

I broke into a cold sweat as I lay there, my mind a riot of strange memories. D’Urbec had a whole vocabulary of mockery: there was the funny tenderness beneath the mockery in his voice when he called me “Athena,” knowing that I could barely make out Greek, and his mockery of Lamotte, as sharp as a sword run through a friend that had become a rival…A rival? For what? Not…no, it couldn’t be—not for me. Oh! What was the odd feeling that was coming over me? Horrible. Not sensible. D’Urbec, he was filling my mind, making my heart hurt. What a stupid heart I have, I thought. Runny, like a half-boiled egg. Why is my heart like this? I don’t want a heart. I’d cut it out if I could. But then my chest would ache as much as my head.

That night I lit the candle in my ruelle from the fire and sat thinking before my open book. I could see d’Urbec, in that ridiculous Brandenburger overcoat he used to wear, his dark eyes glowing and his arms gesticulating as he explained his theory of the fiscal incapacity of the state. What has happened to me? I wrote. Have I been drugged? Is it La Voisin’s spell at work? Or is it something in me that has always been there? Is it only sympathy that has grown to overwhelming proportions, or was it always more, and I was afraid to recognize it? Why did it frighten me so? Why does it frighten me now? God help me. I am in love with Florent d’Urbec, and I have made a mess of everything.

I blotted the page and shut the book. Then I took out a fresh sheet of paper and wrote: “Beware Brissac. He has made a scheme to ruin you” and signed it, “A Friend.” D’Urbec was still too angry with me, I judged, not to throw it out if he knew where it came from. I’ll trust it to Mustapha to deliver it. At least he won’t take it straight to La Voisin. Even so, in this city of intrigue, d’Urbec might well never receive it. Yes, Mustapha. Sylvie takes money from too many people. Putting the letter under my pillow, I fell into a troubled sleep.

“So, Mustapha, did he get my letter?” Mustapha, heavily bundled up against the cold, had returned, ostensibly from his mission to purchase more cordial from La Trianon’s ever-busy laboratory. As I hurried downstairs to open the door for him myself, Sylvie didn’t even look up from her mending, assuming my eagerness was related to my lust for opium.

Mustapha’s voice was low. “Yes and no, Madame.”

“What do you mean? Didn’t you see him get it?”

“I found his rooms by inquiring at the Théâtre Guénégaud and sent an old friend of mine, a dwarf who begs on the Pont au Change, to deliver the message so that he wouldn’t recognize me. My friend, who is trustworthy, was shown in to find him at breakfast with La Bertrand, the comedienne. He was wearing a silk dressing gown and a brocade fur-lined cap. Evidently he has shaved his head like an aristocrat these days and hired the services of a rather exclusive wig maker.”

“I don’t care about his wig. Go on.” Mustapha hesitated.

“Madame, he recognized the handwriting. He tore the letter up unread.” He shook his cloak off before the fire. “And…that’s not all. When La Bertrand asked what the letter was, he shrugged his shoulders and said it was just another billet doux from one of the many women who were mad for him.”

“Mustapha, no one paid you to tell me this, did they?”

“On my honor, Madame. I’ve told you just as it was told to me.” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“Then, evidently, there is nothing more I can do for him.”

“Evidently. But what was in the letter, Madame?”

“A warning, Mustapha.”

“I myself would never discount a warning from the celebrated seeress Madame de Morville,” observed Mustapha. “Among other things, you are never wrong.”

“I wish I were this time,” I said. How could I blame d’Urbec for hating me? What more had I a right to expect? If only I could at least win back some small part of the friendship I had thrown away so foolishly! How was it that in my mad dash after the trivial-minded, empty hero of my childhood I had missed the fact that I possessed something as precious as d’Urbec’s regard? Suddenly I felt old and sad. I went to stand by the fire, extending my hands before the leaping flames that looked so much like glowing salamanders among the logs.

“Still, in my search about town I have found other scandals that may amuse you, Madame.”

“Oh, do tell. I am in need of amusement.”

“There is a new sonnet attacking Monsieur Racine’s Phèdre, said to be penned by Nevers himself—or at least one of his camp. It is so vicious that Racine will have to answer.”

“And then, of course, Nevers will have license to counterattack,” I pointed out.

“Exactly,” agreed Mustapha. “Then it is the end of Monsieur Racine’s masterwork, and possible of Monsieur Racine himself. I’ve never heard of anyone yet who has outsmarted a Mancini cabal.”

They were playing bassette at the Hôtel Soissons, and the money fever was high. At the principal table sat the countess in her great armchair, a dozen or so of her little dogs clustered about her feet. Madame de Vertamon was cutting the cards, while the Marquis de Gordes observed them all through the lorgnon in his hand. At the other tables, one could see the players exulting as fortune turned their way or tearing at their wigs and beating the tables with their fists as thousands of pistoles vanished at a turn of the cards.

“My friend, I am short of money. Have you five hundred pistoles?” Madame de Rambures turned to the gentleman standing behind her, who was obliged to supply them. The requirements of male gallantry were such that few men who won ever left with their winnings; one must assist the ladies’ play. And the ladies did lose. They lacked strategy, I observed, and let themselves be carried away by the emotion of the moment.

I drifted through the room, picking up gossip: the new styles, news from the front, the personalities of military commanders dissected, ditto ladies of fashion, society physicians, and magistrates. Through the gabble of voices I heard a woman laughing: “Oh, my dear, you hadn’t heard? The Sieur Racine has fled to the Jansenists. He wrote a sonnet accusing Nevers of incest. And Nevers has made it clear Racine’s life was worth nothing if he stayed.”

“Nevers is entirely within his rights. I say, it warrants a thousand cuts with a stirrup leather…”

I moved on, not wishing to be caught listening in. “So, Primi, you do not play?” Visconti had appeared at my shoulder, ever the bored observer.

“I ventured a single pistole day before yesterday, Madame de Morville, and within an evening had won a thousand. Then the ladies all said, ‘Visconti the magician will win for us’ and had me play for them as their champion. This evening I was wiped out and withdrew before I went into the kind of debt I could not repay.”

“Eminently sensible, I think.”

“Ah, but it harms my reputation. How can a prophet fail at cards? Perhaps it is wiser never to play, as you do.”

“Primi, who is the dark fellow holding the bank at the table over there? I don’t believe I’ve seen him here before.”

“Oh, him? That’s Monsieur d’Urbec. Not a distinguished-sounding name, but they say he’s connected with foreign banking interests. There are rumors of a foreign title, but as the possessor of one myself, I can assure you that it counts for little. No, it’s the money he has that makes him welcome. He’s very generous with the ladies, he knows how to get a gentleman out of an embarrassment, and he has the Devil’s own luck at cards.”

“Oh, he cheats?”

“No, he’s like Dangeau. He plays with strategy, not emotions, and so has become Fortune’s favorite. He comes from nowhere and is invited everywhere. They say he may be negotiating to buy an office—some provincial tax farmership, I think. A parvenu, but not without wit. Ah, there’s Monsieur Villeroy—look how he dissembles; he thinks he conceals from the world that he is the countess’s lover, but it is written clearly on his face. The science of physiognomy, it is infallible.”

“How would you read Monsieur d’Urbec, Primi?” He shot me a quick glance.

“He’s not for you, little vixen, unless you want to live a life in exile, shuttling between the courts of foreign princes. You are too much a Parisian, I judge, to want that. He has the face of a born adventurer. Bitter, intelligent. He owns too many secrets. He lays plans like a chess master in a world of fools and amateurs. He will counsel kings; but they will not love him.”

“Bravo, Primi. And the physiognomies of the others he plays against?”

“Brissac, our old friend—a delicious monster, a master of debauch. See the slant of the forehead and the way the eyelids droop? Perverse. And the ambassador Giustiniani—Oh, look—”

At the table, some sort of drama was taking place. Giustiniani had laid his cards face down on the table. Brissac tipped his head back and laughed madly. D’Urbec stood up suddenly, his hands flat on the table, his face white.

“Come, let us not miss the excitement,” said Visconti, taking me by the arm.

“A hundred thousand pistoles. I want them immediately, Monsieur d’Urbec.”

“Surely, you do not expect Monsieur d’Urbec to leave town tomorrow—” Giustiniani broke in “…among gentlemen…”

“‘Gentlemen’? And who says Monsieur d’Urbec is a gentleman?” Brissac’s voice was cold and taunting.

“Oh, la, dear Monsieur d’Urbec, I would repay your favor of last night, if only I hadn’t lost so heavily this evening. My husband will be so annoyed with me,” Madame de Bonnelle said with a sigh.

“Gentleman?” said d’Urbec between his teeth. “Gentlemen do not cheat at cards.”

“I could run you through for that. You insult the oldest blood in France, Monsieur Nobody.” Brissac stood up suddenly. The press of people around the table had grown as players left their own games.

In a moment, d’Urbec had seized Brissac by the coat and shaken him in his powerful grip as a terrier shakes a rat. A shower of cards fell from Brissac’s sleeves.

“Why, what’s this?” cried Madame de Bonnelle. “Monsieur Brissac, you naughty man!”

“Canaille,” snarled Brissac, as he dealt d’Urbec a blow across the face, as one would to a lackey.

“Monsieur de Brissac, the dignity of my house…” The Countess of Soissons’s high voice cut through the astonished murmur of the crowd. I watched d’Urbec flush, then grow white. He had nearly given himself away, through the unnatural strength of his arms and hands. And to engage in an illegal duel with a man of such rank as Brissac would expose him and cause his ruin. But the worst that Brissac could expect for offending the King with a duel was to cool his heels in the Bastille for a few weeks. Brissac laughed. The countess looked at d’Urbec as she would a mongrel that had somehow slipped in among her lapdogs. It was a long look, humiliating even to witness.

“How dare you embarrass Monsieur le Duc in my house?” she said in an icy voice. “You may go at once—”

“Not without paying his debt to me,” Brissac broke in, his harsh voice devoid of all courtesy. “I want it now, d’Urbec. Your carriage, the coat you’re wearing, everything.”

“My bankers will deliver it to you tomorrow morning, Monsieur le Duc.”

“Monsieur de Brissac, I do not want this quarrel. I want him removed immediately. Do not risk offending me with your delays over trivialities,” the countess said.

“The scoundrel may flee—I want it now, or I want him in prison.”

“A point in your favor, Monsieur de Brissac. But you should understand I do not appreciate sordid things happening in my house.” The countess looked about her. “Who will guarantee this man’s debt until tomorrow morning?” Not a soul answered. The press of bodies drew back from d’Urbec, who stood like a wounded beast before a pack of encircling hounds. In the silence, I heard my own voice speaking, as if from another place.

“Madame, last night I had a terrible vision that came unbidden as I looked into my mirror. Blood dripped across the face of the glass. I took it for an omen of the day to follow.”

“Listen to the prophetess,” a man’s voice said behind me. The countess, a veritable well of superstition, recoiled slightly. I saw several ladies crossing themselves. “To spare your gracious house, your illustrious personage, and your distinguished guests from this ill omen, I will stand security for this man’s debt until tomorrow morning.” Brissac’s eyes shot hatred at me. D’Urbec turned, slowly, to look at me. His face was impassive. He bowed in my direction.

“My thanks, Madame de Morville,” he said. And with an obeisance to the countess, he walked out through the hall alone, never looking back.

“He gets off too lightly,” growled Brissac to a gentleman in his service, Monsieur de Vandeuil. “Have my lackeys thrash him on the way home.” As I watched Monsieur de Vandeuil vanish, I recalled that d’Urbec was not wearing a sword. Silently, I turned to follow Vandeuil out past the lackey picking up the fallen cards. I could hear the countess admonishing Brissac as I went to seek my cloak and hat. “Remember, Monsieur de Brissac, what happens in my house is my affair…” Mustapha saw me depart and followed at a distance. On the stair outside, I paused. Vandeuil had stepped in front of d’Urbec, barring his way.

“The Duc de Brissac is offended by your presumption, lackey.” Four men armed with heavy sticks seemed to detach themselves from the shadows and stood silently in the blackened, churned-up snow of the courtyard within the carriage gate.

“For what? For making him the laughingstock of Paris? Cards up the sleeve—bah! Little cur, your master cheats like an old woman.” D’Urbec stepped away from the blow. The sound of his laughter, mad and bitter, echoed in the darkened courtyard. A half dozen guests and a cluster of servants had gathered on the stair behind me to watch. There was the metallic slither of a sword being unsheathed.

“You know I am unarmed,” I heard d’Urbec’s voice, steady and calm.

“I wouldn’t dirty my blade with you, Monsieur d’Urbec from nowhere. Lackeys, ho!” The thugs encircled d’Urbec from behind. Somewhere behind me, a woman’s high-pitched laughter sounded.

“Enough, Monsieur de Vandeuil,” I called in a commanding tone, and as he turned to see where the voice was coming from, I advanced down the wide staircase. There was no sound but the thump-thump of my tall walking stick on the frosty stone. “I do not wish to see my investment spoiled.” I stopped directly before his drawn blade and stared coldly at him. My ghoulish white face and eerie antique black had made him pause for a moment.

“Madame de Morville, kindly remove yourself from this quarrel. I would rather that Monsieur de Vandeuil suffer the consequences of his acts.” D’Urbec’s voice was level.

“Well, here’s a change. I thought someone like you would prefer to hide behind a woman’s skirts,” Vandeuil sneered.

“He does not need to, Monsieur de Vandeuil,” I said in what I hoped was a sinister and meaningful tone. “He is one of us.”

“One of you? The society of old ladies?” Vandeuil’s high-pitched giggle betrayed his nerves.

“Astaroth never fails to repay. Tell Brissac.” I watched as Vandeuil’s sword point quivered and lowered slightly. “Astaroth dislikes waiting for your answer, Monsieur. I must warn you that to him, delay is an insult.” Vandeuil sheathed his sword, and I stepped aside.

“I would not insult the paving stones of this great house by allowing your blood to fall on them, Monsieur d’Urbec. Out of consideration for our hostess, and for this old dame here, we will meet elsewhere.” In a show of bravado, Vandeuil flourished his hat as he bowed.

“Very well, Monsieur de Vandeuil, at our next meeting I shall take the precaution of wearing a sword.” D’Urbec bowed in response. As he turned, he saw for the first time the armed lackeys behind him. His face was impassive.

“Monsieur d’Urbec, are your porters here? I suggest you dismiss them and escort me home in my carriage. The streets are so full of ruffians these days, it’s dangerous for an old woman.” D’Urbec took my arm with a formal gesture.

“I am at your service, my dear Marquise.” But as he handed me into my carriage and Gilles got up behind, he hissed, “Again you interfere with my life. When will you tire of meddling? What is it you want, anyway?”

“Certainly not gratitude, Florent,” I answered as I leaned back against the cushions and put my hands in my muff. “I don’t want them waylaying my investment on the way home.”

“Your ‘investment’ was not required. You could have withheld your idiot desire to interfere in my business. Now, you compound the trouble you’ve caused.”

“If you’d read the warning I sent you, you’d have had no trouble at all.”

“Hardly. I needed to be at the Hôtel Soissons tonight.” His voice sounded distant, hard. This man was not acting like any professional gambler that I knew.

“Only if you had other business than gaming, I’d say. You’ve lost a fortune tonight, and you do not turn a hair. If I were more interested in you, I would ask who’s backing you. About the only person I’m certain it’s not is Astaroth.”

“Your mental powers, like your malice, are undimmed, Madame de Morville. My compliments.” I was sure of it now. A nouvelliste who knew everyone and everything in a wartime capital. One with a grudge. One who, with only a little sponsorship, could worm his way into any circle. He must be selling information to some foreign government. I wondered if his family had been offered asylum in return for his espionage. Where had they fled? Amsterdam? London? But why did he let me suspect? Somehow, I felt he was testing me.

“It is only common logic, Florent. Astaroth is too capricious a demon to suit most men, and, of course, he is such a tyrant.”

“No greater a tyrant than the King who believes he is the sun,” said d’Urbec quietly.

“Daedalus paid with his life for going too close to the sun,” I answered.

“And Persephone, tempted by a feast of six pomegranate seeds, was condemned to the underworld.”

“Ah, but she was Queen of Hades. There are those who believe that social rank is always worth something, even in the underworld.” D’Urbec remained silent until the carriage pulled into the street where he had his rooms. In the chill dark of the carriage, I could feel his warm breath. The small space seemed somehow filled up with him, with a sort of powerful, animal tension. Suddenly I was jealous of the woman in his bed. As I bade him good night, I couldn’t help adding, “Is that actress waiting up for you? Or do you just lease her along with your carriage?”

“Geneviève Pasquier,” he hissed, “have you ever believed that love is not something that can be bought and paid for?”

“Of course, Monsieur d’Urbec. Love has many motivations. Revenge, for example.”

“And cruelty, Mademoiselle. That innocent cruelty that leads cats to dismember mice as toys and children to pluck the legs off living insects. The need of a clever monster to see how things work.”

“And what if she knows how they work?” His silence in response was brutal. I could feel him looking at me in the dark. I could almost feel his thoughts as they flowed from violence into understanding.

“And so you have tried to buy me, haven’t you, little Athena?” he said softly. “Will you ever be capable of believing that a man could be interested in you for any other reason than money or revenge?”

“God did not make me a lovely person, Florent. I am brave enough not to deceive myself. One must be rational.”

“Yes, always rational, aren’t you? Perhaps someday you will learn that you must accept love that is a free gift, instead of putting it out with the trash. Until then, good-bye, little fortune-teller.”

“Florent, wait—” But he had already dismounted from the carriage.

“Don’t worry, Madame de Morville. I’ll send you a message tomorrow when I have discharged the debt. I thank you and owe you my gratitude.” My heart turned into a knot, there in the dark, and I did not know if I hated him or not. I think maybe I did—the way we hate things that are forever out of reach.

The following afternoon, a boy came with a letter from d’Urbec. The arrangements to transfer the money had been accomplished, and he was leaving Paris on business that might take several months.

“It strikes me that I was perhaps ungracious after your intervention in the most delicate situation of yesterday evening. With your permission, I will call on you after my return, to offer my thanks in a more creditable manner.” I read it over several times. I was not sure what I felt. Perhaps the grippe. After all, the weather had been exceptionally nasty lately.

That night I wrote in my notebook: January 10, 1677. Could d’Urbec have ever cared for me once? It must have been. And now that I have found him, I have lost him. He will never come back. And not only that, but in going, he has made Brissac rich again. Brissac is now free of his need to deal with me, and as full of hatred as a toad. All I have done with my life is trade away love for shallow and trivial desires.

Several salty drops fell on the page, smearing the ink. What could I have ever wanted with Florent d’Urbec anyway? Logic said it could only have ended badly. Logic said he couldn’t like me long, once he’d seen me as I really was. I’d been a fool. It was over.