Before Versailles by Karleen Koen Read Free Book Online

in Spanish because it comforted her, there was a distant part of him observing, thinking, she should be speaking French, she should be attempting more, I need her to try harder. And as he spoke, he opened and closed the fan slowly, taking in the scene of this palace in Spain, taking in at some level he was not yet ready to allow emotion into, that the Viscount Nicolas reached here, even to his wife’s household.
    “And our little French dauphin”—the first son of the king was called the dauphin because three hundred years earlier a king of France had purchased huge territories that carried a hereditary title, taken from the dolphin on the coat of arms—“is going to teach you French.” Pray let someone do so, he thought.
    He went on, nothing of what he was thinking showing on his face. He’d learned that early, not to show what he felt if possible. “You’re going to learn it as he does, aren’t you, my sweet? How happy I will be when I hear you speak French well.”
    He stroked her hair, wiry with curl, a light brown. The first time he’d seen her he’d been shocked that the portrait of her sent to him lied. Her face was long, her cheeks fleshy, her nose, well, large. But he’d swallowed a quick flash of dismay and concentrated on duty and honor and the fact that she was the greatest pearl among princesses.
    “Our little dauphin isn’t going to cause his mother a bit of trouble.” Louis leaned forward and kissed the embroidered bedcovers under which lay his wife’s abdomen and the bud who was their child. “My precious son. This is your father. Grow strong, my boy, my prince, my dauphin. Grow strong, and then come out to greet me. I’m waiting for you.”
    Several hearts in the bedchamber beat faster at the sight of this still very young and oh-so-handsome king talking to his wife’s swollen belly with genuine love for the child growing there.
    Louis raised his face. “Tell me about the vine. What is its name again?”
    “Cup of gold,” said Maria Teresa. “The conqueror Cortés gave one to Montezuma.”
    “Who is Montezuma?”
    “He was the king of the new world across the sea, great and powerful, but not great enough, not powerful enough to outwit our gentlemen.” She arched her neck in a prideful gesture. Spain owned the new world and much of the old. There was the Spanish Netherlands to the north of France, and to the west, the Hapsburgs, sons of Spanish kings.
    “I’ll have cup-of-gold vines planted outside this window.” Louis stood. “I’ll plant them outside the windows of the Louvre and Saint-Germain,” these were other palaces in which they lived during the year, “so that everywhere you go you will wake to their perfume. This is your home, sweet plum. Where I am is your home. What do you do today?”
    “I will go with her majesty to a nunnery in the next village. The voices of the nuns are said to be exquisite.”
    The “majesty” Maria Teresa referred to was the queen mother, Louis’s mother, who had been queen of France for years, twenty and more before Louis was born, as well as regent after his father died, but was now in the background, not that his mother ever really stayed out of sight or mind. But Mazarin’s death had taken some of her gusto.
    Louis felt impatient. While his wife went off to listen to nuns chant, content to be in the shadow of his mother, neither of them noticing or caring that most of their ladies were bored to tears, Philippe’s wife would be on her way with her ladies, huge straw hats on their heads, to the river to swim, gentlemen banished with only their imaginations for company. And then several hours later, the women would return in carriages, and the men would accompany the carriages, leaning down from their horses to talk to enchanting young women whose hair was still wet. And they’d gather near the carp pool by the fountain courtyard for a light picnic in the park with some courtiers playing guitars and others practicing dance steps for