The France of Louis XV
The Comte de Salvan stood at the end of the canopied bed
in red high heels and pacified his offended nostrils with
a lace handkerchief scented with bergamot. He was dressed
to attend a music recital in stiff gold frock, close-
fitting silk breeches with diamond knee buckles, and a
cascade of fine white lace at his wrists that covered soft
hands with their rings of precious stones. His face was
painted, patched and devoid of the disgust and discomfort
his quivering nostrils dared display at the stench of the
ill, and the smell that came from the latrines that flowed
just beyond the closed door to this small apartment below
the tiles of the palace of Versailles.
Its occupant, one Chevalier de Charmond, gentleman usher
to the King, languished amongst feather pillows, his
shaved head without its wig and in its place a Chinese
cap. He was suffering from la grippe, but being a
committed hypochondriac was convinced he had inflammation
of the lungs. His physician could not tell him otherwise.
He blew his nose constantly and coughed up phlegm into a
bowl his long-suffering manservant emptied at irregular
intervals. He had been bled twice that day but nothing
relieved his discomfort. The presence of the Comte de
Salvan promised a relapse.
The Comte listened to the Chevalier’s platitudes without a
smile and waved aside the man’s apologies with a weary
hand. “Yes it is a great honor I do you to descend into
this stinking hole. How can you bare it? I’m glad it’s you
and not I who must exist like a sewer rat. No wonder you
are unwell. If you left that bed and went about your
duties you would feel better in an instant. But it is your
lot,” Salvan said in his peculiar nasal voice. He
shrugged. “It is most inconvenient of you to take to your
bed when a certain matter of great importance to me is
left unfinished. If I thought you incapable of carrying
out my wishes…”
“M’sieur le Comte! I—”
“To the benefit of us both, remember, dear Charmond, to
the benefit of us both. I could have given Arnaud or Paul-
René the privilege of doing me this small favor. Indeed,
does not Arnaud owe his alliance with the de Rohan family
all because I made the effort to whisper in l’Majesty’s
ear? One cannot have one’s relatives, however removed,
married to inferior objects.” He proceeded to take snuff
up one thin nostril. “And Paul-René would still be
scraping dung off Monsieur’s boots if I hadn’t put in a
good word on his behalf to have him promoted from the
kennels to the Petite Écuries. And now you dare lie there
when you are well aware my dearest wish must be fulfilled
forthwith. I will certainly go mad if something isn’t done
soon!”
The Chevalier attempted to sit up and look all concern
with the first rise in the Comte’s voice. He schooled his
features into an expression of sympathy and shook his head
solemnly. “You cannot know what agonies, what nightmares,
I have suffered on your behalf, M’sieur le Comte. Every
night I have lain here not sleeping, my head pounding with
the megrim, unable to breath, and I have thought of you,
my dearest Comte, and only you. How best to serve you. How
to successfully bring about a resolution to your torments.
It has been a constant worry for poor Charmond.”
“Then why can’t you do this small thing for me?” screeched
the Comte. “Do you believe you are the only one I can
trust? Do you? You promised me three days at the most and
I have waited seven. And time is even more important now
because the old General is dying; of a surety this time.
And nothing is signed. Nothing is in writing. Nothing is
fixed until you get me what I want! I must have what I
want and I will. I will! Whether you get it for me or I go
elsewhere—Why do you smile, eh?”
The Chevalier blew his nose and tossed the soiled
handkerchief to the floor. “I offer my humble apologies,
M’sieur le Comte, if you thought I smiled at you,” he said
quietly. “I was not smiling at you but for you. I have a
picture of the beautiful mademoiselle in my mind’s eye and
I am indeed happy for you. I congratulate you on your good
fortune. It is not every day a man comes across one as
she. You are a lucky man, M’sieur le Comte.”
The anger left Salvan’s eyes and he smiled crookedly, a
picture of the girl in his mind’s eye. Some of the heat
cooled in his rouged cheeks and he swaggered. Another
pinch of snuff was inhaled, leisurely and long. “She is a
beauty, is she not, eh, Charmond? Such round, firm
breasts. A rosebud for a mouth. Hair shot with gold and
eyes that slant ever so slightly, like a cat’s. Most
unusual. And to think her delights are all untouched. Ah,
it makes me hard just thinking about her! But I tell you,
Charmond, I do her a great honor, a great honor indeed. I
am lucky, yes, but she doubly so to even have a second
look from Jean-Honoré Gabriel de Salvan. When she learns
of the honor done her she will surely embrace me all the
more sincerely and devotedly. Oh, Charmond, I cannot wait
until she—”
“—becomes your son’s wife?” interrupted the Chevalier
smoothly, which brought the color flooding back into the
Comte’s face and caused his eyes to narrow to slits. “What
a joyous day for the house of Salvan!” declared the
Chevalier. “But an even more joyous day for the beautiful
mademoiselle. Who’d have thought the old Jacobite
General’s granddaughter would be done such a great honor?
Not she, I’ll wager. She cannot but be grateful to you, my
dear Salvan. She will embrace you! And show her gratitude?
Of a certainty. She will repay you the way you desire her
to do so.”
“I do not doubt that but...”
“But?” The Chevalier shrugged expressively. “What can go
wrong?”
“Idiot!” snarled the Comte. “If you do not get me that
lettre de cachet my plans, they will be ruined!”
The Chevalier threw the last of his handkerchiefs on the
floor and rang the small hand-bell at his bedside for a
lackey. “I am doing all I can to do just that, my dear
good Comte. Even as we speak I am certain it is being
attended to. Poor Charmond may be bedridden, on the point
of pneumonia, but still he thinks only of you, my dear
M’sieur le Comte, and your ever so desperate predicament.
Poor Charmond only hopes, humbly hopes, M’sieur le Comte
has not forgotten his own—not quite so desperate—
predicament? After all, and I beg your pardon for even
mentioning it to you because I know you would not
disappoint me, a favor for a favor is what you promised.”
The lackey came into the room with clean handkerchiefs and
the Chevalier boxed his ears and felt better for having
done so. He settled back on the pillows and pretended to
show an interest in his hands, but he was watching Salvan
and he trembled inwardly at the black look on the man’s
hideously painted face; the lead paint thick and white to
cover pitted cheeks and chin. He thanked God he had never
had the smallpox to such a disfiguring degree. He cleared
his throat and the Comte looked at him.
“Forgive me for recalling to your memory our agreement,
M’sieur le Comte,” said the Chevalier. “You shall have
your lettre de cachet. I hope it brings your son into
line. Why he doesn’t want to wed a beautiful virgin is not
for me to understand. He must be a little mad, eh,
Salvan?” When the Comte did not laugh he dropped the smile
into a frown. “Should he still not do as you wish once the
letter de cachet is waved under his nose, and you clap him
up in the Bastille or Bicêtre until he sees reason, you
still owe Charmond his favor. I hope M’sieur le Comte
intends to honor his bargain.”
“Honor it?” shouted Salvan. He went up to the bed, causing
the Chevalier to cower, and lowered his voice, for he knew
the walls between the apartments to be thin. “How dare you
question my honor!” he hissed. “A Salvan’s word is never
in question! You tell me I will have my lettre de cachet,
and so I tell you I am doing all I can to steer Roxton
away from Madame de La Tournelle’s orbit! Your task is the
infinitely easier one, Charmond. Have you any suggestions
on how to oust a consummate lover from an eager woman’s
bed? Have you? No! I thought as much. And do not spout
drivel at me that it is you who wants this favor. It is
Richelieu who directs you, isn’t it?”
“M’sieur le Duc de Richelieu?” blinked the Chevalier.
“Very well! Play out your game!” spat the Comte. “I know
you have little interest in the de la Tournelle. Or to put
it correctly she is not the sort of female to interest
herself with an insignificant worm such as your—”
“M’sieur le Comte! I object most strongly to your tone.
Have I been of insignificance to you? No! Charmond he has
been most valuable to M’sieur le Comte!” The Chevalier
blew his nose vigorously and looked offended.
The Comte sighed. “As you wish, Charmond.” He went to the
looking glass in the corner and critically surveyed
himself from powdered campaign wig to the sparkle of his
over-sized diamond shoe-buckles. Ever the conceited
nobleman, he was well-pleased with himself and this
improved his mood, as did the thought of seeing the
beautiful mademoiselle at the recital. “I grant you have
been helpful to me. But don’t tell me you are interested
in Marie-Anne de Mailly de La Tournelle. That I won’t
believe! It’s Richelieu who wants her, or wants her for
the King, and hopes to rule Louis through her. So he
thinks. Whatever! His gyrations don’t interest me.” He
glanced at the Chevalier. “I will tell you why you want to
see Roxton tumbled out of Marie-Anne’s bed: jealousy.”
“Jeal-ous-y?” It was the Chevalier’s turn to screech.
Instead he coughed and wheezed until his face turned the
color of blood. When he could speak again he said, “How
can you say so? What do I care for Roxton’s conquests? I
admit, my dear Salvan, I find it unbelievable that such a
one as he is so sought after in the bedchambers of
Versailles and Paris. Yet, he is! His reputation equals
Richelieu’s. Some say it surpasses his conquests. What
female hasn’t thrown back the covers for M’sieur le Duc de
Roxton? And which ones does he disdain from favoring? Only
the ugly and the virtuous. And as they are one and the
same, my dear Comte, the number is small indeed!”
The Chevalier pulled a face of loathing and thumped his
fist into the coverlet. “Why? Why do our women receive
this Englishman with open arms who dares wear his own hair
down his back like some Viking conqueror? He has a great
beak for a nose, shoulders that are too broad and legs as
thick as tree trunks! And as if to goad us all beyond
permission, what does he do?” he continued in a thin
voice. “He does not keep beagles or wolf-hounds or
greyhounds. No! He-he keeps whippets. A woman’s toy! He
could very well parade about with two kittens in diamond
collars as have those ill-looking animals at his heels.
Ugh! I will say no more.” He collapsed against the pillows
and wiped sweat from his florid face. “You must excuse me,
M’sieur le Comte. I must be bled...”
Salvan came away from the looking glass and stood over the
Chevalier, his eyes bright with a private humor. “You lie
in that bed sweating like a pig, pouring scorn on my
English cousin, when it’s what he does with this,” he
grabbed his own genitals, “and this,” stuck out his tongue
and wiggled it, “is why your heart’s delight prefers the
attentions of M’sieur le Duc d’Roxton.”
“You defend him only because his mother was a Salvan,” the
Chevalier said sulkily.
“As it should be,” the Comte replied haughtily, adjusting
himself. “I can’t answer for his English ancestry, except
it is an ancient lineage. An English dukedom is no small
thing. And his mother, my aunt, was of impeccable virtue
and of a most noble character, and a Salvan by birth.
Enough said! Do not try my patience to its limit, my dear
Charmond.” He flicked open his gold snuffbox and took a
pinch. “Your observations of Roxton amuse me because they
are quite to the life, but when you dig beneath the muck
you lose your footing!”
“Forgive me, my dear M’sieur le Comte,” said the Chevalier
with excessive politeness. “I admit I harbored
expectations that Felice would grant me certain liberties.
That was until she caught the eye of your cousin at the
Comédie Française. Yet I do not despair of having her,
knowing Roxton tires so quickly of such easy prey. But
resentment wasn’t the only reason which prompted my
outburst. Perhaps I will not voice my concerns at this
time. It is late. You have a recital to attend, and I, I
am tired. It is only—well, no, I shall not open my mouth—”
“Open it! Open it!” ordered the Comte. “Don’t goad me,
Charmond! You have wasted enough of my evening and still I
am no nearer to having what I want in my hands!”
“Has not M’sieur le Comte considered the alternative?”
asked the Chevalier smugly. “It would be infinitely
simpler if you bedded the beautiful mademoiselle without
consideration for the formalities. Why must you wed her to
your son before you can take her as your mistress? Is not
your son’s marriage to the beautiful mademoiselle the bone
that sticks in your throat? Remove it! Touché. All is as
it should be.”
The Comte de Salvan had a great desire to choke the life
out of the Chevalier de Charmond yet he restrained this
murderous instinct. Instead he clapped an open palm to his
powdered forehead and groaned aloud. “Why do I endure this
imbecile? Mon Dieu. I am surrounded by fools and
scoundrels!” He stuck his face up close to the startled
Chevalier. “Do you think I did not think of that? Ah! You
are too stupid. I will not explain. Do you think me a man
of no honor? I, a Salvan? I don’t go about as M’sieur le
Duc de Richelieu seducing unwed females. Preposterous!
There is my unsullied reputation to think of. There is
what I owe my name. That fever, it has entered what little
brain you possess. I am done with you!” He turned on a
heel to go to the door. “I will have the lettre de cachet
by the end of this week—”
“Your so English cousin has turned his satyr’s eye on the
beautiful mademoiselle.”
The Comte stood still. He did not turn or speak so the
Chevalier continued after a pause and a blow of his red
nose. “You think me a dolt and a scoundrel for advising
you to cut through the formalities, but I tell you, my
dear Salvan, if you do not, the girl will no longer be
worth all the energies you expend to have her in your bed—
wed or unwed. Roxton has noticed her and so it is only a
matter of time before his tongue—”
“By the end of the week,” Salvan said without turning and
slammed the door.
Had the Chevalier the benefit of seeing the Comte’s face
he would have revelled in the effect of his words. As he
did not he gave himself up to complex musings, and into
the hands of his physician to be bled. He ordered his
servant to scuttle across the palace to a particular suite
of rooms to report all that had transpired between he and
his visitor.
The Comte de Salvan repaired to the upper levels of the
palace. Leaving the stench behind he forced himself to put
aside the Chevalier’s warning and to wear his most gay
public face. He tottered up the Grand Escalier to the
first floor, crossed the Hercules drawing room, bowing and
waving his handkerchief to all who acknowledged his
existence. The opulence of this large ornate marbled room
was a comfort to him and he breathed easier. He stopped to
take snuff with two cronies who lounged by a Sarrancolin
column and searched for his son amongst the crowd of
powdered and beribboned nobles moving into the
Appartement. Unsuccessful, he dismissed the moody boy from
his thoughts hoping to catch sight of the one beautiful
face amongst a hundred he desired to make his own. Alas,
she had yet to appear.
He was one of the last to enter the Appartement. It was
crowded and he could hear the orchestra but had no chance
of seeing its members from the back of the room. He spied
the Duc de Richelieu, newly returned from exile in
Languedoc, and close by his side, languidly fanning
herself, was Madame de La Tournelle. She was resplendent
in petticoats of blue damask, embroidered with large
sprays of flowers, and showed a pretty wrist covered with
milky strands of pearls. For a long time he did not notice
the Duke of Roxton standing by his side.
“You will not find what you are looking for,” drawled the
Duke of Roxton, quizzing-glass fixed on Madame de La
Tournelle. “That which you desire is not here.”
Salvan spun about and stared up at the impassive aquiline
profile.
“Continue to gawp and I will go elsewhere,” murmured the
Duke. “Mademoiselle Claude has been beckoning with her fan
this past half hour. Sitting next to that frost-piece is
preferable to being scrutinised by you, dearest cousin.”
Salvan snapped open a fan of painted chicken-skin and
fluttered it like a woman, searching gaze returning to the
sea of silk and lace. “To be abandoned for that hag would
be an insult I could not endure, mon cousin. You merely
startled me.”
“I repeat, your search is fruitless.”
“Ah! You see me scanning faces. I always do so. It is
nothing,” Salvan said lightly. “Did you think me looking
for someone in particular? No! Who—Who did you think I was
looking for?”
“My dear Salvan,” drawled the Duke, “your son, your most
obedient son.”
“D’Ambert? Yes-yes of course my son!” Salvan said with
relief. He turned back to the performance in time for the
final round of polite applause. When the King had taken
his leave Salvan drew his arm through that of his cousin.
They walked a little way off to a corner of the room that
was less crowded to better observe the audience
disperse. “That ghastly noise is at an end, thank God.
Were you as bored as I? Don’t answer. I know it! Where
have you been, mon cousin? I have missed you in the
corridors of the palace this past week. Do not tell me you
are fatigued with us and stay in Paris? Or are you weary
with what is on offer?”
They bowed to a passing beauty, her hair dressed in an eye-
catching creation of plumes and pearls and her lips
painted a delicious red.
“She tries to catch your attention, Roxton. Now there is
one who could cure your ennui.”
“Madame is not worth the effort.”
“Parbleu! How fortunate are those who can afford to
choose.”
Roxton took snuff and flicked a speck of the fine mixture
from a wide velvet cuff. He shrugged. “It is obvious
M’sieur le Comte has not had the—er—privilege of madame
without her skilful paint and uplifting bodice. You are
welcome to her if that is to your taste.”
“No. Not I!”
“No. Your tastes lean toward the—er—uninitiated, do they
not, my dear cousin?”
There was the slightest pause before the Comte let out a
forced brittle laugh. He tapped the Duke’s velvet sleeve
with the silver sticks of his fan. “That is as well or our
paths would cross, and that would not amuse me at all!”
“You may rest easy, my dear,” said the Duke smoothly,
quizzing-glass allowed to dangle on its silk riband. “I
have never yet had the urge to play nursery maid.”
Salvan flushed in spite of himself. He changed the topic
immediately. “You saw Richelieu? He has been back at court
this past week. They say he and the Tournelle plan to oust
the dull sister as soon as it can be contrived. De Mailly
is ignorant of the whole! She will see herself banished
before she knows what she is about and—”
“My dear, this is old news,” interrupted the Duke. “But
perhaps it is new to you? You need to spend less time
lurking in corridors and a good deal more between the
sheets—”
“As you do?” Salvan snapped before he could help himself.
Roxton swept him a magnificent bow. “As I do,” he
confirmed.
“Ha! A novel approach. Don’t tell me you expend any energy
in conversation.”
“I was not about to tell you anything of the sort, my
dear,” came the insolent reply. The Duke’s black eyes
watched a storm cross his cousin’s ravaged face and he
laughed softly and changed the subject. “Madame sends her
regards,” he said politely. “She asks when next you intend
to visit Paris. She longs to hear the latest gossip of
court which I cannot bring myself to repeat. I said I
would petition you on her behalf and beg you go to her. I
beg and have done my duty. I leave it in your hands.
Sisters weary me.”
The mention of the Duke’s lovely sister instantly
transformed the Comte de Salvan, as Roxton knew it would.
He clapped his hands in delight. “Estée has asked to see
me? You do not jest?” he said expectantly, and fell in
beside the Duke as he walked out of the Appartement and
crossed the Hercules Room and went down the staircase. “Is
she in good health? Does she pine away in that dreary
hôtel of yours? You are most cruel to her, Roxton! Such
beauty deserves to be admired, to be fawned over, and
cherished. She hasn’t been to court now in seven years or
more. She the widow of Jean-Claude de Montbrail, the most
decorated of Louis’s Generals. If he hadn’t been cut down
in his prime Estée would now be at court.”
“Yes, I forbid her the court. That is my right.”
“Even in the face of Louis’s displeasure?” whispered the
Comte de Salvan, taking a quick, nervous look over his
padded shoulder. “I cannot forget your private audience,”
he continued with a shudder. “Me, I fainted. I expected a
lettre de cachet at the very least. I praise God it did
not happen so. You are still barely tolerated by
l’Majesty. He never forgives or forgets such slights, mon
cousin. He might relent a little if you were to allow your
sister to return to court—”
“I have not the least interest in Louis’ opinion of me.”
“M’sieur le Duc! Please!” Salvan gasped in a broken
voice. “Not so loud. I beg you!”
The Duke paused in the vestibule that led out into the
Marble courtyard to permit a lackey to assist him into his
many-capped roquelaure. “I repeat, what your king thinks
of me or my actions is of supreme indifference. You forget
I am of mixed blood. Only half is French, and that my
mother’s. My allegiance is to a German-born King who sits
on the English throne. Regrettable as that circumstance
may be to many, it serves a purpose. And as I am a peer of
that realm, and not this, I need not hold my actions
accountable to your liege lord and master. If my presence
at this court unnerves you, my dear cousin, I am happy for
you to disassociate yourself with my family.” He bowed
politely. “Versailles is no place for those of noble
character, such as my sister.”
The Comte de Salvan tottered outside after him, a servant
with a flambeau quick to follow on his heels. “And what of
the rest of us?”
“Those of us of noble birth and no character amuse
ourselves as best we can. I bid you a good night.”
Halfway across the courtyard two figures moving in shadow
caught Salvan’s eye and he drew in a quick breath.
Instantly, he tried to divert the Duke with some
inconsequential tale about a notorious female and her
present lover, all the while conscious of the raised
voices travelling across the expanse of open air from the
dark recesses of the Royal courtyard. But the Duke of
Roxton was not diverted. He listened to his cousin’s
chatterings as he slipped on a pair of black kid gloves
then abruptly changed direction and sauntered toward the
voices. His cousin made a protesting sound in the back of
his throat and followed as best he could in red high heels.
A slim youth, richly clad in puce satin under a heavy coat
thrown carelessly about his shoulders, and a girl, her
gown concealed under a shabby wool cloak that was too
large for her small frame and had been allowed to trail in
the mud, were huddled under a red brick archway. In the
light cast by a flickering flambeau, they were in heated
discussion, the youth with an arm out-stretched to the
opposite wall to block the girl’s exit.
The Duke did not go so near as to disturb them, yet he
showed enough interest to put up his quizzing-glass. He
was soon joined by the Comte de Salvan, who had hobbled
across the pebbles in his high red heels, was chilled to
the bone for having left his cloak indoors, and was
mentally heaping curses upon his father’s memory for
having permitted his name to be forever allied with a
family of heretical Englishmen whom he blamed for all his
past and present misfortunes.
“Permit me to explain,” Salvan rasped, catching his breath.
“Explain?” purred the Duke. “There is no need. Your so
devoted son is of an age to defend his own actions.”