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Authors: Susan Holloway Scott
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he likewise was in exile, a wandering decade in poverty unbecoming to any prince—seemed to have done the opposite.
In Madame’s telling, her brother walked through the streets and parks of London with an astonishing ease, speaking to any man as he pleased. He attended the public playhouses, drank beside sailors in taverns, rode his own horses in races, and swam naked in the Thames River for all the world to see. With a sister’s pride, she claimed him to be as tall as a giant and as handsome as Adonis, though with a nonchalance in his attire that made her despair. I longed to meet such a royal paragon, and when at last I confessed my desire to the duchess, she’d winked merrily, and vowed she’d do her best to make my wish come true.
Bereft of her husband’s love in her life, she had turned her passion to making an alliance between France and England, and between Louis and her brother. If those two and their armies could join together against the Dutch, then there’d be a real chance of negotiating a lasting peace among them, and an end to the costly small wars that had been waged for twenty years and more.
There were many more fine points and subtleties of diplomacy to this plan, of course, many concessions back and forth that were not shared with me. But the one feature dearest to Madame’s heart was also the one most likely both to infuriate and terrify the English, and that was for Charles to renounce his Protestant beliefs and embrace instead the Catholic faith of their mother. She wished for an alliance between England and France based not just on shared politics, but on faith, joined together against the hated Protestant Dutch. If the King of England could be drawn back to the True Church, then surely his nation would follow. To sweeten the prospect, Louis was offering a substantial amount of gold to Charles as well, a gift that Charles, who was perpetually impoverished (a curious situation for a king, but then English kings were forced to rely upon the largesse of their Parliament), could scarce afford to ignore.
Could there be a more glorious, more noble, more worthy design? Madame longed for this, prayed for it every day. I understood, and prayed with her. The final success would come down to the two kings, the two cousins, with this single young lady as a bridge between them.
This, too, Madame confessed to me in the garden, with such giddy pride and excitement that I came to believe in her powers, too. Monsieur might mock her ambition, but Louis trusted Madame far more than he did his waspish brother. Declining a secretary for such delicate correspondence, she sat at her desk each day and herself wrote feverishly long letters to both kings, letters that were sent only by the most trusted of couriers. Sometimes Louis himself visited her in her rooms, the two of them locked away to plot and plan (and whatever else they wished, too, I suppose), exactly as Monsieur most dreaded.
I could only guess at the contents of these letters—she did keep that to herself—but I knew that her dearest hope was to be a part of the final negotiations in person, in England. Not even Monsieur would be able to keep her back. She hadn’t seen her brother since before her marriage, and a reunion on English soil was now her fondest dream.
And yes: by the time she finally would make that journey, I planned to be so indispensable to her that I’d be sure to be brought along, too. I’d ambition enough for that.
I ran my hand along the edge of a low wall, gathering up a mitten full of snow. Though it was too dry and light to pack into a ball to toss, I still could throw it up into the air to make my own private snowfall, and I laughed with cheery delight as the tiny crystals sparkled in the sunlight around me.
“Here, Madame, here,” I called, scooping up more snow into my hands. “I’ll do the same for you, if you wish.”
Madame laughed, but held her oversized beaver muff up before her face to shield it. “No,
In Madame’s telling, her brother walked through the streets and parks of London with an astonishing ease, speaking to any man as he pleased. He attended the public playhouses, drank beside sailors in taverns, rode his own horses in races, and swam naked in the Thames River for all the world to see. With a sister’s pride, she claimed him to be as tall as a giant and as handsome as Adonis, though with a nonchalance in his attire that made her despair. I longed to meet such a royal paragon, and when at last I confessed my desire to the duchess, she’d winked merrily, and vowed she’d do her best to make my wish come true.
Bereft of her husband’s love in her life, she had turned her passion to making an alliance between France and England, and between Louis and her brother. If those two and their armies could join together against the Dutch, then there’d be a real chance of negotiating a lasting peace among them, and an end to the costly small wars that had been waged for twenty years and more.
There were many more fine points and subtleties of diplomacy to this plan, of course, many concessions back and forth that were not shared with me. But the one feature dearest to Madame’s heart was also the one most likely both to infuriate and terrify the English, and that was for Charles to renounce his Protestant beliefs and embrace instead the Catholic faith of their mother. She wished for an alliance between England and France based not just on shared politics, but on faith, joined together against the hated Protestant Dutch. If the King of England could be drawn back to the True Church, then surely his nation would follow. To sweeten the prospect, Louis was offering a substantial amount of gold to Charles as well, a gift that Charles, who was perpetually impoverished (a curious situation for a king, but then English kings were forced to rely upon the largesse of their Parliament), could scarce afford to ignore.
Could there be a more glorious, more noble, more worthy design? Madame longed for this, prayed for it every day. I understood, and prayed with her. The final success would come down to the two kings, the two cousins, with this single young lady as a bridge between them.
This, too, Madame confessed to me in the garden, with such giddy pride and excitement that I came to believe in her powers, too. Monsieur might mock her ambition, but Louis trusted Madame far more than he did his waspish brother. Declining a secretary for such delicate correspondence, she sat at her desk each day and herself wrote feverishly long letters to both kings, letters that were sent only by the most trusted of couriers. Sometimes Louis himself visited her in her rooms, the two of them locked away to plot and plan (and whatever else they wished, too, I suppose), exactly as Monsieur most dreaded.
I could only guess at the contents of these letters—she did keep that to herself—but I knew that her dearest hope was to be a part of the final negotiations in person, in England. Not even Monsieur would be able to keep her back. She hadn’t seen her brother since before her marriage, and a reunion on English soil was now her fondest dream.
And yes: by the time she finally would make that journey, I planned to be so indispensable to her that I’d be sure to be brought along, too. I’d ambition enough for that.
I ran my hand along the edge of a low wall, gathering up a mitten full of snow. Though it was too dry and light to pack into a ball to toss, I still could throw it up into the air to make my own private snowfall, and I laughed with cheery delight as the tiny crystals sparkled in the sunlight around me.
“Here, Madame, here,” I called, scooping up more snow into my hands. “I’ll do the same for you, if you wish.”
Madame laughed, but held her oversized beaver muff up before her face to shield it. “No,
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