cheek with the flat of his hand so violently that she would bear the mark on her white skin for at least three months.
17.
At the Montausiers’ hôtel particulier , all the women had adopted the hurluberlu . In addition to wearing ‘innocent’ gowns they bore, on their left cheek, a five-fingered mauve and blue mark like a star on their skin. Louis-Henri was dumbfounded. On seeing the loose muslin floating over the bellies of all these ladies of rank, he wondered whether the King had not impregnated them as well.
For weeks Louis-Henri had spent sleepless nights, and he had lost all semblance of a man who was happy in his marriage. His face was like that of a skinned cat, with bloodshot eyes. His periwig sat askew when he bolted like a fury into the first-floor gaming circle, spewing insults and outrage. He shouted that the King was a second David, a vile seducer and a thief. He raged and spouted every insolence imaginable against His Majesty. From the billiards to the trou-madame table, the courtiers were terrorised and, fearful of seeing their position at court compromised should they chance to hear the marquis’s imprecations, they fled.
There had been joy and abundance. They had been eating well and wagering high (’twas rolling in money there) – and then suddenly Montespan came and spoilt it all. He provoked a dreadful row. He condemned and castigated the attitude of a monarch who, for his own good pleasure, trampled all principles of family and of love! His tirades were tiresome and embarrassing; and when people were not yawning, they scoffed at this husband who had the poor taste to complain that the King had seduced his wife.
‘The conceited man doth protest, whilst the fool laments and tears his hair. The honourable man the King betrays goes hence; to speak he does not dare.’
But Montespan continued his vehement criticism, unwisely showering a thousand biblical curses upon the sovereign’s august head. One lady said to him, ‘You are mad, you must not continue with all your fairy tales.’ Blinded by rage, Montespan paid no attention to her warning. His eyes darted everywhere, he was looking for someone, and at last he saw the old duchesse Julie de Montausier.
Poised on a chair pierced with a hole above a pewter basin, the duchesse was defecating in public, whilst the nobles around her held a wind-passing contest they found wildly entertaining. The duchesse herself let out a few farts. Montespan swooped down upon her.
‘Give my Françoise back to me!’
‘Who is Françoise?’
‘My wife, whom I will never again call by any other name than that with which she was baptised. Athénaïs– ’tis too …Versailles. You took my wife from me to hand her to the King. Give her back! I love her.’
La Montausier was most astonished.
‘You were joined in holy matrimony four years ago and you still love your wife? If I may be so bold, your fishmonger feels the same penchant for his wife. But you, Monsieur, are a marquis. Do you believe that my husband loves me? Monsieur le duc,’ she asked, turning her head to the right, ‘do you love me?’
‘Of course not,’ replied her husband.
Montespan was flabbergasted.
‘And yet,’ he said to the duc, ‘were you not the finest wit of the time, did you not write La Guirlande de Julie ? That unique collection of madrigals, composed for her name-day, a more delicate and enduring bouquet than any real flowers could make?’
‘’Tis true … each poem compared Julie to a different flower: a rose, a tulip … but above all it was the dowry of Mademoiselle de Rambouillet that I coveted.’
And she had gone on to become his wife; now she was not in the least offended, unlike Louis-Henri, who continued, ‘But when I saw the two of you, I thought that—’
‘If you judge by appearances in this place, Monsieur de Montespan, you will often be led astray. What appears to be is almost never what is chez nous .’
The Gascon stood there open-mouthed.
‘As
17.
At the Montausiers’ hôtel particulier , all the women had adopted the hurluberlu . In addition to wearing ‘innocent’ gowns they bore, on their left cheek, a five-fingered mauve and blue mark like a star on their skin. Louis-Henri was dumbfounded. On seeing the loose muslin floating over the bellies of all these ladies of rank, he wondered whether the King had not impregnated them as well.
For weeks Louis-Henri had spent sleepless nights, and he had lost all semblance of a man who was happy in his marriage. His face was like that of a skinned cat, with bloodshot eyes. His periwig sat askew when he bolted like a fury into the first-floor gaming circle, spewing insults and outrage. He shouted that the King was a second David, a vile seducer and a thief. He raged and spouted every insolence imaginable against His Majesty. From the billiards to the trou-madame table, the courtiers were terrorised and, fearful of seeing their position at court compromised should they chance to hear the marquis’s imprecations, they fled.
There had been joy and abundance. They had been eating well and wagering high (’twas rolling in money there) – and then suddenly Montespan came and spoilt it all. He provoked a dreadful row. He condemned and castigated the attitude of a monarch who, for his own good pleasure, trampled all principles of family and of love! His tirades were tiresome and embarrassing; and when people were not yawning, they scoffed at this husband who had the poor taste to complain that the King had seduced his wife.
‘The conceited man doth protest, whilst the fool laments and tears his hair. The honourable man the King betrays goes hence; to speak he does not dare.’
But Montespan continued his vehement criticism, unwisely showering a thousand biblical curses upon the sovereign’s august head. One lady said to him, ‘You are mad, you must not continue with all your fairy tales.’ Blinded by rage, Montespan paid no attention to her warning. His eyes darted everywhere, he was looking for someone, and at last he saw the old duchesse Julie de Montausier.
Poised on a chair pierced with a hole above a pewter basin, the duchesse was defecating in public, whilst the nobles around her held a wind-passing contest they found wildly entertaining. The duchesse herself let out a few farts. Montespan swooped down upon her.
‘Give my Françoise back to me!’
‘Who is Françoise?’
‘My wife, whom I will never again call by any other name than that with which she was baptised. Athénaïs– ’tis too …Versailles. You took my wife from me to hand her to the King. Give her back! I love her.’
La Montausier was most astonished.
‘You were joined in holy matrimony four years ago and you still love your wife? If I may be so bold, your fishmonger feels the same penchant for his wife. But you, Monsieur, are a marquis. Do you believe that my husband loves me? Monsieur le duc,’ she asked, turning her head to the right, ‘do you love me?’
‘Of course not,’ replied her husband.
Montespan was flabbergasted.
‘And yet,’ he said to the duc, ‘were you not the finest wit of the time, did you not write La Guirlande de Julie ? That unique collection of madrigals, composed for her name-day, a more delicate and enduring bouquet than any real flowers could make?’
‘’Tis true … each poem compared Julie to a different flower: a rose, a tulip … but above all it was the dowry of Mademoiselle de Rambouillet that I coveted.’
And she had gone on to become his wife; now she was not in the least offended, unlike Louis-Henri, who continued, ‘But when I saw the two of you, I thought that—’
‘If you judge by appearances in this place, Monsieur de Montespan, you will often be led astray. What appears to be is almost never what is chez nous .’
The Gascon stood there open-mouthed.
‘As
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