The Cat and the King Read Free

be. ‘So safe and comfortable!’ she exclaims. ‘With such good food and such dear, gentle friends. And one is always somebody when one is the abbess’s niece. Oh, believe me, Gabrielle will do very well there. I sometimes wonder if
I
should not have been happier in a convent!’”
    As Gabrielle imitated her mother’s tone, I fancied that I was hearing Madame de Lorges herself. It was a perfect rendition of a worldly woman’s hypocritical yearning for the cloister. Yet I wonder if even then it did not occur to me that a girl who could so perfectly ape her formidable parent might have a will that even such a parent could not have broken.
    â€œTell me what I can do,” I said simply.
    â€œTake me with the smaller dowry that my father is offering! I promise you that you will never regret it. A good wife can be a help at court. I have heard that from people who must know. I am sure that I can learn how it is done. And I shall place your career before anyone and anything. Please, sir. Try me!”
    There was something in her tone that brought instant conviction. Then and there I made the most important decision of my life.
    â€œI should be proud to take you, Mademoiselle, with no dowry at all!”
    Her eyes shot me a little golden gleam of gratitude, and she clasped her hands in a gesture of thanks. “Thank you, sir. From my heart. But you will not be so tried. There will be a dowry.”
    I had a hard time with Mother over its amount. She insisted that the Lorges were bluffing, and I dared not tell her about the scene in the rose garden for fear that she would consider the girl too brash and bold, qualities that are quickly deplored by strong-minded women when they find them in their juniors. So I simply told her that I had fallen hopelessly in love at first sight, which was in part the truth. As this was perfectly consistent with Mother’s conception of the giddiness and inconsequence of men, particularly in her own family, she decided to accept it. It might, after all, have proved too difficult to plant my affections in new territory if she had had first to uproot them in old. She had a private conversation with Gabrielle, the gist of which was never revealed to me, and then, quite abruptly, agreed to the lesser dowry. My marriage contract was signed by the king and by half the royal family, and my real life began.

3
    I T WAS the greatest fun, introducing Gabrielle to court life and watching the glitter of the huge palace with its silver furniture and thousands of gaudy occupants reflected in the dark eyes of this soberly observing girl, who had hardly known anything previously beyond the walls and gardens of her convent. She took in everything; I had only to tell her any fact once. I could not make out at first whether this was because Versailles had made so deep an impression upon her or simply because she was intelligent. It was probably both. She was certainly never blinded by the glittering spectacle of the court. She learned etiquette as one might learn a trade.
    I was up early to attend the king’s lever, and Gabrielle would join me in the great gallery as he passed through on his way to mass. We made our calls on those who had apartments in the palace in the morning, sometimes separately and sometimes together. I would attend the king’s dinner at one, where he ate alone at table, and in the afternoon Gabrielle would return to our little house while I followed the royal hunt, unless we both joined the king’s promenade in the gardens. In the evenings there were always receptions, with card games or dancing, and we both attended the king’s supper, where he sat flanked by members of the royal family. Then Gabrielle would go home, and I usually stayed for the coucher.
    Our day was really a kind of celebration of the natural functions of our magnificent sexagenarian monarch: his waking, his washing, his eating, his exercising, his retiring, even his