The Courtier of Versailles

~One~-3

Turning back to the bed, Jeanne gasped, dropping the cloth to the hardwood floor. Her mother stared at her with lifeless intensity.

“Ah, dear Maman, you are awake.” Jeanne rinsed the cloth once more, ridding it of the clinging dirt from the floor. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she gently placed it on her mother's marred skin.

“Why must you antagonize him so?” Adelaide sound meager, diminished. She spoke without gesture or expression.

“I do not mean to, Maman, truly I do n—not.” Jeanne's dark eyes avoided her mother's golden ones. She held the cloth to her mother's face until the heat of their bodies stool the coolness from it. Jeanne dunked it again in the chilly water, bringing it back to her mother.

“Can you ever forgive me?” Jeanne's swelling tears of contrition spilled over and ran a course of repentance down her cheeks.

The corners of her mother's mouth rose in the slightest of smiles. Adelaide brought a hand up, cupping her daughter's face.

“Do I not always?” Lowering her hand, Adelaide braced herself, pushing against the silk coverlet, struggling to sit up straight. She leaned against the carved wood of the headboard, gripping her head as if it were about to fly off her shoulders.

Do you want me to call the physician?” Jeanne rose from the bed, alarmed by the whiteness of her mother's golden skin blanching against the pale against the darkening bruise.

“No. No, I am fine. We must not let anyone see me.” Adelaide almost shook her head; pain stopped her at the first twitch. She reached up and captured her head with her hands once more.

“I will always forgive you, ma petite. But I do not know how much longer I can protect you.” Adelaide raised a shaking head; Jeanne took it, sitting once more by her mother's side. “Things are not as they were when you left for the convent. Your father's situation is more precarious than ever.”

Adelaide spoke freely, free of any fear of interruption. As a member of the state council and a fairly well-placed courtier, her husband would be wherever the King was. Gaston rarely returned to their rooms except to sleep, too afraid not 'to be seen'.

“The King has wrenched all power from the noblemen.” For a moment, Adelaide pressed her lips together to the point of bloodlessness. “It is but a masquerade he acts, letting them believe they advise him. The Fronde has left our King paranoid and controlling.”

Mother leaned toward daughter, grasping the young hands. Jeanne flinched at the feel of such cold hands. She gathered he resolve, cupping the hand in both of hers, warming it, wishing she could give back all she had received.

“They are powerless men, these nobles, reduced to petty games and intrigues to give their life meaning. They are humiliated and frustrated by the machinations the King forces them into. It is no wonder they lash out at any around them less powerful than they.”

“But we are his family!” The words flew from Jeanne's mouth like wayward birds and she unable to catch or contain them.

“Who is more powerless than their wives and daughters?” Adelaide scrunched shoulders up toward her ears. “Your father is one of the few noblemen still to serve in Louis' government and it is only because he possesses a financial education. His position is tenuous at best. Why do you antagonize him so by speaking thusly?”

“It is not my intent, Maman.” Jeanne turned from her mother, walking to the open doorway, poised in the egress as if to take flight. “And it is not my fault.”

It was not her fault her father suffered at the hands of the King. Louis XIV ruled by absolute monarchy, rumored to have proclaimed forthrightly, “L'État, c'est Moi,”—I am the State. It was his complex set of unwritten laws and codes of behavior: who may enter the room when, who may sit, who must stand, who may eat and when. Noblemen now held only honorary positions and pensions. Life was nothing more than a struggle for trivial distinction and privileges.

Louis would do anything to keep the nobility from uniting against the Crown, as they had during the Fronde over thirty years ago. The memories of the ten-year-old King, of the deprivation and despair during those years, colored all his decisions; he ruled by them, dedicating his life to punishing them for it.

He filled his high council, the Conseil d'en haut, with promoted commoners, usurping the nobles, finding it easier to dismiss an elevated commoner than to strip a comte, and all his descendants, of the title. It was the reign of the lowborn bourgeoisie, as the Duc de Saint-Simon had so aptly named it. The rest were the King's puppets, dancing to the threat of court banishment or a life in the Bastille. These impotent men could but displace their frustration on those weaker than they, their women.

Jeanne turned back to her mother, hands pressed against her stomach as if, under the yellow embroidered bodice, her intestines fought to gain their freedom. Her long shadow, cast by the guttering candles, shook upon the wall behind her. With small, rapid movements she shook her head back and forth, long brown curls flowing like waves about her head.

“I am not like the other girls. There is…something…wrong with me.” Her deep brown eyes pleaded for understanding.

Adelaide's mouth formed a ghost of a smile, a benevolent acceptance of a mother to her wayward child.

“I know, ma chère, I know. But you can try. Why did you not try harder at the convent?”

“Ah, morbleu!” Jeanne's hands flew dramatically in the air. “I could not stand it, Maman. The girls, they are beyond stupid. They are ludicrous, puerile. They fainted in horror at the least little thing, or worse, giggled incessantly for hours and hours.”

Jeanne ran the few steps back to the bed, falling upon it with such force that her mother bounced upon the feathers.

“I cannot bear a life where the most momentous decisions I have to make are what to wear and what to serve. It is too meaningless and trivial. I want to learn things, study, be a part of the world. I can n—”

Adelaide raised a hand, silencing her daughter.

“Do you think you are the first woman to long to break the shackles imposed upon us by the virtue of possessing a womb?” Her mother's words hissed out from between closed teeth. “If so, you are greatly deceived.”

Jeanne saw her mother's frustrated tears, the vein popping on her forehead, her red splotchy skin and, for the first time, saw true anguish, anguish at her own wasted life.

The young, suddenly frightened girl did not know what to do to relieve the pain of this woman, this angel who had given her life and so much more. She did the only thing that came to mind.

Jeanne stuck out her tongue and rolled her eyes as she'd seen the King's jesters do.

Her mother's face went blank—then split wide; she barked a laugh of pure delight. Her eyes popped and one long, slim hand flew to her chest as if to contain the swift skip of her heart.

The pall of despair lifted. Still laughing softly, she gazed upon her daughter with soulful eyes, bright with the turmoil of her emotions. Adelaide reached out for her daughter and pulled her into a tight embrace.

“Oh, ma petite, you are and always will be the breath and death of me.”

Jeanne smiled from the safety of her mother's bosom, memories of such sanctuary taken there over the years flitting through her mind like passing scenery. She inhaled the musky, flowery scent of her mother and squeezed back with all the force of her overwhelming love.

“I will try harder, Maman. I really will.”

Adelaide clucked her tongue.

“Non, ma chère Jeanne, you most probably will not.”