Montespan drove his white steed through the blue landscape of the Pyrenees. Louis-Antoine, sitting between his father’s legs, clung to the horse’s mane. It was the return of the hero. Outside the brick gate to the chateau, peasants who had come to bake their bread cried out, ‘Here he is! Here they are!’
Cartet and Dorothée came running. The cook called out, ‘Madame Chrestienne de Zamet! Madame Chrestienne de Zamet, it’s your son with the little Marquis d’Antin!’
Louis-Henri dismounted and embraced his mother.
‘Oh, dear Lord! How is everyone here?’
‘Well, just consider this: the horses are thin, my tooth is loose, the tutor has scrofula, but I am exceeding happy to see you again before I die!’
The Gascon’s mother had become all skin and bone since he had left, and Louis-Henri was worried. Her back was twisted owing to a cruel attack of rheumatism and her knuckles were swollen.
‘She is pitifully thin because of the dryness of her lungs, which are beginning to waste away,’ whispered the cook, ‘and your daughter, too, was very ill. I made her drink vipers’ broth, which revives the soul. People might think that when you tear the vipers’ hearts out, it’s all over with them. Not a bit. They are still alive, and in a broth they provide strength. They’ve invigorated the little girl.’
Montespan crouched down next to his daughter.
‘Marie-Christine, from the depths of my heart I rejoice in your recovery. But why do you pine so, and fill your father with such terrible fear?’
‘I believe it is because I am waiting for Mam—’
‘And I believe in chicory!’ interrupted the cook. ‘With fricassee of nightingales’ hearts and, every three months, a pilgrimage to the basilica of Notre-Dame-de-la-Daurade in Toulouse!’
‘Madame Larivière takes me there, too, in Père Destival’s cart,’smiled the marquis’s mother. ‘She purges me, and over-looks nothing, so I go to mass with an honest pallor.’
‘What shall we do?’ the cook asked the old lady. ‘Shall we have a banquet this evening to mark the marquis’s return to the chateau, a feast to celebrate the loyalty of his friends?’
‘Then we must invite the villagers,’ suggested Cartet, ‘for last summer, when the surrounding wall on the chateau side threatened to fall down, they came to shore it up and, aware of the state of your finances, Captain, they asked for no wages.’
‘Well then, go to!’ decided the marquis.
The energetic Madame Larivière clapped her hands.
‘Ring the bell at the gate so the farmers’ wives come quickly to help me! Cartet! Go and draw water from the cistern, and take down the game hanging to cure in the shed. The yokels are not allowed to hunt, so they never eat any! I will prepare some haunches of venison and a roast from the wild boar that you caught with the spear, and croustades with a sauce Robert of mustard and onion. That should make enough for a revel! Will you also have a bite to eat this evening, Madame de Zamet?’
‘A bit of boiled chicken, perhaps half a wing … Louis-Henri, your wife has sent you eight outfits, but without any accompanying letter.’
The cook raised her eyes to heaven and walked away, exclaiming, ‘That woman! If she thinks that by doing a little bit of good and a great deal of wickedness … The best one can say is that if you average the two, she was a decent woman.’
After ringing the bell Cartet took hold of the long dagger he always kept in his boot, and with the tip of the blade he traced a cross on top of a loaf of bread. He sliced into the loaf and put a large piece in his mouth.
‘Don’t throw yourself upon the food, you’ll have huge pouches in your cheeks like a monkey!’ scolded Louis-Antoine, then he turned to his father. ‘Are we going to sup with commoners again? Is that the custom here? From what I can see, ’tis the servants who run the house!’
The six-year-old headed furiously to his bedchamber upstairs in the chateau. Looking out, he saw a flight of wild geese. The devoted inhabitants of Bonnefont were starting to arrive bearing bouquets. The high prairie grasses gave off a pleasant scent and the river sang over polished pebbles. Musicians brought a harp and a few violas da gamba. In the courtyard of the chateau they were now dancing a few Bohemian steps with a delicacy and precision that were charming. Some exhausted, malnourished men also arrived. They had come down from the mountain, goading the oxen carrying the wood for the royal navy. The villagers were busy inside the chateau walls. Women sliced vegetables that they tossed into pots of boiling water. The men blew on the embers, preparing a huge fire to grill the pieces of game. Sitting on a chair in the middle of the courtyard, Chrestienne de Zamet was overwhelmed by the joyous activity, which was producing lots of steam and smoke. She asked, ‘Where is my son?’ and someone replied, ‘There above you, on the hill.’
Marie-Christine crossed the drawbridge to join her father. Dorothée was about to go after her but Madame Larivière held her back. ‘Stay.’
‘Come and help me put some planks on trestles instead,’ Cartet suggested kindly.
The marquis’s mother watched as Marie-Christine climbed the hill, and sighed sadly.
‘Who will look after that poor little girl after I die?’
‘I will, gladly,’ said the cook’s daughter, as she set out plates on the tables arranged in a U shape.
As for the … ‘Marquis d’Antin’, he stood at the open window of his chamber with his arms crossed, looking haughtily at the people busy below him, and said, ‘In any case, I refuse to help! I am not a servant. I was received at the court of Spaahn!’
At the top of the hill facing the chateau, Montespan placed flowers on the grave of his love: a few roses lying on a clump of earth surrounded by lavender bushes. The cuckold sat with his back to the tomb and gazed out at the landscape. Outside the chateau, the villagers were dancing some country jigs, bold figures that made their bodies quiver all over. Their heads followed their feet, then their shoulders and all the other parts of their body. They danced towards each other, met, moved apart, then came together again in a way that so affronted the priest of Bonnefont that he promised to excommunicate those who persisted in dancing this diabolical dance.
‘So, Père Destival,’ exclaimed an iron craftsman, ‘eighty-eight and still with us?’
‘The Good Lord hath forgotten me,’ apologised the priest, whilst everyone danced more furiously than ever.
Louis-Henri saw his daughter climbing up the path. She sat between her father’s knees. Behind them was a wooden cross with two dates. The marquis’s arms encircled Marie-Christine. The child picked a sprig of lavender, pulled off the tiny buds one by one. She scattered them over the slope.
‘The mountain will be all blue now…’ said Montespan, smiling into the child’s neck and hair.
Marie-Christine said nothing and continued to blow the seeds from her hand.