Revolution - Jennifer Donnelly [49]
An army of servants appears bearing champagne. Four dozen gardeners, frantic behind the hedges, run ahead of the royal party, turning taps and opening valves, and suddenly great Apollo rises again from the frothing waters of a gilded fountain. In the shadowed groves, marble satyrs seem to stretch and wink and stone goddesses draw breath.
Had you but seen it, I promise you, your high-minded principles, had you any, would have melted like candle wax. Never would you have wished such beauty away.
Some days after we arrived, my father told me that for thirty years Louis XIV, the Sun King, took for himself one-third of all taxes to build the palace and that the poor were worked to death to fund his extravagance. By then I had no ears for his tedious speeches, for I had seen rooms made of mirrors and diamonds as big as grapes. I had seen dogs fed chocolate and shoes covered with rubies and I wanted to hear no more of the poor. I was sick of the poor. Always weeping and whining and stinking and leaking.
We played our puppets at the palace. All the court children came. Their governesses and tutors came. Their noble parents came. It was an odd sight—the bluest blood in France seated at our shabby puppet theater—but slumming was fashionable that season.
After the shows, I played music for the children on my guitar. I taught them songs and dances. I took them on noisy, twining parades through the gardens. Most of all, I made the sad prince laugh. For when I did, the queen slipped me coins.
I capered for him like one possessed. Dressed in my britches, my long hair tied back, I told riddles and jokes. Did conjuring tricks. Tumbled and flipped and cart-wheeled. I hopped out from behind trees to startle ladies. Threw stones in fountains to splash gentlemen. Shot off firecrackers to make the servants drop their trays. Louis-Charles did not like the noise of the crackers at first but soon grew used to it, for well he loved the mischief.
The old Duchesse de Noailles was scandalized to see a prince of France behaving like a gypsy’s boy and said so, but the queen paid her no mind. She saw her son grow happy and that was what she wanted most. Not cake. Despite what some have said.
All was going well. I had a dry place to sleep and a little sack of coins my uncle knew nothing about. I drank wine and ate sugared cherries.
And then things got even better, for one day, one of the queen’s ladies came to our rooms and said that the queen wished to make a request—would Alexandrine consent to live in the palace and become the dauphin’s companion?
I nearly choked on the cloves I’d been chewing. Before I could say whether I would or I wouldn’t, my uncle said, Alexandrine would be greatly honored to grant the queen’s request, my lady. We would all be honored.
The woman smiled. The queen will see you in her apartments in an hour’s time, she said to me.
As soon as she had gone, I turned to my uncle. You should have let me answer, I told him angrily. It was my choice to make, not yours. It’s stuffy in the palace. There are too many rules. Too many eyes. Too many ears. I do not wish to live there.
He laughed. What you wish does not matter. The position is an important one.
And if I will not do it? I asked saucily.
I got a crack across my face for an answer. You will do it, Alex, my uncle said, or I will beat you silly. Lose the queen’s favor and we lose our place here.
The queen’s favor. Like a bucket of water, those words doused my anger and the sting in my cheek.
You will go to the queen, my uncle said. You will play the part of companion and play it well. You will not defy me in this. You will—
You are right, of course, Uncle, I said.
I warn you, do not—What? he sputtered, surprised by my sudden tractability.
You are right. I will do it. Our family’s fortunes depend upon it.
My uncle’s eyes narrowed. He was suspicious. As well he should have been, for it was not my family’s