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Chapter 4 -The Snake Pit (part 1)

This palace is as big as a city and like a circus, we are all on display.  Locals rent a hat and a sword for the day and wander around the manicured lawns playing at being nobles. We watch them, then pick up our too big skirts and shuffle off to continue the game ourselves. No-one truly feels ennobled here, not even the King.  He is only a boy-man, as kept in his place the rigours and intricacies of court life as the rest of us. No, Sir, you may not walk from your bed to your chamber pot unaccompanied. No, Sir, you may not open your own curtains when you wish to see if it’s sunny outside. You may not wear lace cuffs a quarter of an inch shorter because that signifies a man of utterly different rank to your majestic self. You must eat, wash, dress and defecate in front of members of the court knowing, all the while you do so, that half of the noblemen watching you hate you from the bottom of their gut. They hate your Queen even more.

But at least you have a pot to defecate on. Most of us here don’t. We have to find some private place – perhaps behind a large dresser or in a dark alcove – and relieve ourselves there. The embroidered silk skirts (prized so highly women go hungry to be able to pay their silk merchant and seamstress) sweep along corridors that are filthy and past corners ankle deep in the stools of the French aristocracy.

18th century French silver chamber pot

“Athenais?”

It was dark now, the sun finally going down after what felt like a long day. The                                              parlour of my apartment was lighted only by a small candle and I was sitting in the gloom, pondering the death of poor Piotre Palovna. I had spent some hours helping to clean the Princesses' apartments after the Master of the Provost had examined the body. Piotre was taken off to be prodded some more before being tipped into a paupers grave. The Princess had been found another set of rooms on the far side of the palace. They were not as prestigious but she seemed happy to accept them and took to her bed immediately. She barely spoke, continuing to drift in and out of consciousness. Although, on one occasion, when I was carrying a silver dressing table set into her new bedchamber I caught her looking at me sharply. But then her eyes snapped shut and she turned her head back into the pillow.

“Athenais?”

His voice was quiet, with the slight tremble which led some people to believe he was a nervous man. I knew better. I rose from my chair to greet him.

“Sir, I wasn’t expecting to see you until next week. How good of you visit.”

He took my hands and guided me back to my chair, then settled himself into the low armchair opposite. The Duc d’Aubrey looked at me and smiled.

“Well, I hear you have had an exciting day.”

The Duc had been my benefactor for many years, since I was child. My father, in an unusually capable moment, had provided him with a small service decades ago, rescuing one of his horses from a ditch. In return the Duc had always looked after Maman and I, repaying the debt many times over. In recent times I like to think that he had become more a friend. He was the only person at court, or in the world, who indulged my love of reading. He would visit me once a week and allow me the greatest pleasure – to debate, sometimes to even fiercely argue, the merits of Voltaire. He was a slight man, his shoulders a little stooped with age but his thin, patrician face and exquisite clothes signified his status. I returned his smile.

“You could say that. It was not the first corpse I have seen but certainly the first murdered one.”

“And you have born the shock well. No fainting or sniffling. What about your dear Maman?”

We both laughed.

“Oh, she fared better than I would have expected,” I said. “She didn’t faint or become hysterical. I believe she is now playing cards with that Spanish Countess, Blanca, and her sister and no doubt regaling them with the details of her heroism!”

The Duc’s thin shoulders shook with laughter.

“I can imagine! She is a dear woman but not ….”

“Discreet?”

“No, no.

“And I hear you found time to make eyes at the famous Sulpice Debauve?”
“Make eyes at!” I snorted in mock outrage. “You know me so well, Sir, that when I find myself in close proximity to a man as agreeable and handsome as Monsieur Debauve, I cannot help but make eyes at him.”

The Duc laughed.

“Yes, I hear he is an acquired taste. I've never met him myself, although I believe he is a man of excellent learning and character, if not as handsome as you would like.”

“I do not ask for handsome.” I paused. “I do not ask for …. anything.” The Duc looked at me questioningly. I turned away.  “Only Monsieur Voltaire,” I said brightly, picking up a book from the side-table. “Sadly departed from life but still here in these works.”

“Indeed, Athenais. Let us move on to Monsieur Voltaire. An altogether safer choice of man, I believe.”