The Courtier's Secret
Une
"Are you ready, my dear?" Uncle Jules asked, his voice muffled by his protective headgear.
Jeanne nodded her head and her own helmet, nothing more then a tin plate with peepholes, wobbled precariously.
With his own nod, Jules brought his sword up in front of his face, aiming it straight up, like a finger pointing to the heavens, and bowed slightly but respectfully to his niece; the graceful move revealing a glimpse of the swordsman's prowess. Jeanne mirrored her uncle's salute and waited, willing her lungs to work, to breathe deeply in and out.
"En garde!" Jules barked.
Jeanne straightened her sword arm out from her waist and dropped into a crouch. Her left arm hung high in the air behind her head, the forearm gracefully bent and the wrist curled. The right arm poised half extended, protecting the waist with the elbow and the chest with the wrist. Her quad muscles quivered with strain and exhaustion, her biceps and triceps burned their rage as she held this precarious pose for the tenth time that morning. The sound of her own breathing echoed back to her as it bounced against the crudely constructed helmet and she smelled the remnants of the peach she'd eaten for breakfast on the vapors.
Her uncle moved. Left foot over right; she followed his provoking pattern.
"Come at me, girl, come and get me." Jules bellowed at her, teasing her with the tip of his fine rapier.
She moved as instructed, changing her footwork to a sequence of aggression.
"Bon, bon, good, good," her uncle encouraged her. "Now advance!"
Lifting the toes of her front foot, she rolled her foot up to swiftly step forward with both feet.
"Advance!"
Same move again.
"Advance, advance!"
Again, twice, first step, a quick one.
"Bon. Now, get ready to go in for the kill!"
Jeanne felt sweat drip down her forehead, felt it burn as it rolled into her eyes but she dare not spare a second to wipe it away. More sweat slipped slowly down her spine, tickling her blood-engorged skin, but she dare not take a moment to brush it off. The pain in her forearm burned red hot, the muscles controlling her grip on the pommel refusing to give way. Another parry, another thrust and she moved a step closer.
The loud clangs as the long, thin rapiers came together time after time echoed in the hollow, stone room and she inhaled the musty scent of the creeping dark mold growing where the ground water seeped in. The old empty chamber in the basement of the grand chateau of Versailles became a void in time, place and sound. Their bodies were all that existed here, and the small sounds they made became part of the training. Jeanne knew what to listen for, the right ssshink that told of a good slash, a deep grunt from her uncle; now she had him on the run. If he grunted more than she did, it was a good day, like today. A feint, a parry and she pressed him almost to the wall.
Today, she thought, maybe today I will win for the first time.
Jeanne's thoughts allowed the smallest grin to tickle the corner of her mouth. Parry, thrust, lun--
The gong of the chapel bells clashing above their heads vibrated through the entire room.
Jeanne and Uncle Jules froze in place.
"Is that--" She began.
"The chapel calls!" Her uncle cried, pulling off his headgear, releasing his long white mantle of hair.
"Good oncle, I am lost!" Jeanne threw off her own helmet, her chocolate brown hair spilled about her shoulders as the head gear hit the ground with a resounding thump.
She threw her sword to her uncle who deftly caught it by its grip. "Our secret, mononcle?"
"You need to ask?" Jules looked at his niece askance.
With a small smile and a slight shake of her head, Jeanne took off for the door at a run.
"Tomorrow, dear man, yes?" She called to him over her shoulder.
"Of course, ma petite," Jules waved and smiled with fondness at her quickly retreating form.
Down the hall and around two corners, up one flight of stairs and down three hallways, to the latrine she ran. From the basement of the main building, the small one that had been Louis XIII's hunting lodge, to the back side of the south wing, just one of the expansions of his son, Louis XIV, she flew. She loosened the small ribbons and strings holding her costume together as she ran. Jeanne Yvette Mas du Bois thanked the good Lord she had spent so much of her childhood in this labyrinth of a castle; she knew every inch of it. Already short of breath, her lungs groped for air, she cursed this most ridiculous of castles. It was 1682 for goodness sake, there had been over two decades of renovation work and there were still only a limited number of privies and most of those all on this side of the massive mansion.
In the abandoned corridor, she reached the latrine, closing the door behind her and instantly felt trapped; it was no more than a box in the wall containing a wooden bench with a hole from which emanated the foulest of odors.
Jeanne sloughed off the old knickers, shirt and bucket top boots that once belonged to her brother, her chest heaving, gasping for breath depleted by the long and convoluted trek.
Millions of louis had been spent on Aubusson and Gobelin tapestries but hardly enough privies for half the population living under the glorious roof, and all of them so far away that accidents occurred every day. Uncountable were the drunken nobles or lost visiting diplomats urinating, defecating or vomiting in any private corner of the maze-like corridors, staircases or window embrasures in their fruitless struggle to make it to the latrines or get a chaise percee in time. The drunks were the worst; their inebriated state dissipating any inhibitions for public elimination. They behaved quite raucous about the whole endeavor. Jeanne found their obnoxious laughter as disgusting as their hygiene habits.
Somehow the chateau remained clean; accidents disappeared quickly at the hands of the thousands of servants indentured for just such service. Louix XIV insisted Versailles, now La Maison du Roi as well as the seat of France's government, be kept immaculate, not the norm for government and public buildings. An adult response to the squalor he had lived in as child in the Louvre.
Almost dressed, Jeanne felt the feminine and frilly stockings and undergarments of a wealthy young noblewoman soak up the sweat still flowing from her invigorated glands and stick to her skin. Her own musky, womanly scent hovered around her, but she could do nothing about that now. To not appear, as she must every morning, at the King's Chapel Royale would be to provoke certain misfortune and there remained but a minute since the first gong of the bell.
Still lacing up the front of her bodice, Jeanne kicked open the door, banging it harshly against the hallway wall. In the empty corridor she ran, the hard heels of her bow-festooned shoes clanked against the hard wood floor and the lacy fontage on her head bounced with each step. Up two flights of turning stairs, she emerged next to the Hall of Battles on the ground floor and flew through the door leading out into the crowded courtyard, instantly blinded by the blazing light of the hot August sun reflected off the white marble outer walls of the chateau. It would be unseemly to run but she walked as fast as possible, her practiced smile firmly in place as she greeted the multitude of people milling about.
Back into the building, the North Wing now, through the small corridor filled with courtiers and commoners--there for a glimpse of their sovereign--quickly to the door of the chapel.
Mon dieu! The King led the precisely contrived procession up the aisle, the comtes, marquises and barons were across the threshold and the dukes stood poised to enter. She had missed her place! She was the daughter of the Comte de Moreuil, Gaston Du Bois, she must enter before the dukes. To break this code of conduct, one imposed by the King himself, could bring the harshest of punishments.
There was no hope for it; she must do what she must. Wringing her hands, Jeanne bit her full bottom lip, lowered her large chocolate brown eyes, dipped her head and pushed past the dukes and their wives, tight-lipped women who scowled at her. Jeanne knew she would be the juiciest tidbit on the tip of every wagging tongue today, gossip being the second most preferred past time of the courtiers, just a step behind currying favor. She slipped into the pew where her mother and father sat but thankfully the Comtess de Cordierer and her daughter separated them.
The King, now firmly ensconced in his tribune, took no notice of her late arrival, but the same could not be said for her father. She dare not turn or glance in his direction, for the ire in his eye would surely burn her to the quick. Afraid to look at him, she felt the heat of his wrath surround her like a shroud. Mademoiselle le Thibault, the Comtess' daughter, stared at them, wide eyes bouncing back and forth between Jeanne and her father, a spectator at a highly entertaining game. Jeanne's jaw clenched, the muscles flexing under the fine facial skin, angry with herself for giving one such as this fodder for her lurid mill. She did her best to still her wringing hands and twitching foot; taking deep breaths of the incense-laden air, Jeanne felt herself relax.
Father Herbert, the parish priest of Versailles, took his place at the balustrade font, vestments of mulberry tenting over his vast paunch, tall mitre giving the false impression of height. Raising his arms wide as if to embrace the entire congregation, he launched into his sermon with a booming voice.
"The people of the noble land of France must thank God and the King for the greatness in which we reside. It is by their power and by their hand that we grow and prosper with such exuberance."
He made no reference to the Pope or to Rome; no priest serving the crown had any desire to spend the rest of his days in the Bastille. No, this sermon would serve no more purpose than to praise the King. Louis was a champion of Gallicanism; the purely French movement whose intent meant to diminish papal authority and increase the power of the state, specifically the power of the Sun King.
"Look around you, I pray, for in these very walls is built the power of our great sovereign."
The chapel stood as a paradigm of Louis' affluent dominance; the gold-gilded scrollwork, the beautiful caryatids and atlantes sculptures and most especially the altar painting. Almost as long as the wall upon which it sat, Meal at the House of Simon the Pharisee came as a gift from the Republic of Venice in 1664, a testament to just how far reaching Louis' fingers of power stretched.
Louis XIV sat tall in his velvet seat, large dark eyes raised innocently to the heavens, lids fluttering prettily now and then as the priest spoke so eloquently of him. A small shy smile upon his face reflected the innocence of a child being praised. It was no secret the King loved to hear himself lauded. No matter the true sagacity of sincerity, words of homage thrilled him to no end. The expostulating priest banged his fisted hand on the pulpit before him, voice rising to a near screech.
"We must do whatever our King and our Lord ask, for to serve them is our only purpose in this mortal life." The priest's face turned red with intensity as he culminated his sermon.
Louis slumped in his high backed arm chair, shoulders falling forward; he lowered his face and the self-deprecating grin faded from the corners of his mouth, clearly disappointed the ingratiating sermon had ended. Jeanne's hands, poised peacefully on her lap during the service, began once more to wring themselves like a washerwoman wrings a drenched cloth. In her mind she cursed the brevity of the thirty-minute service. Looking down the pew, she peeked once more to her left and caught another glimpse of her father's countenance. Her throat caught as she swallowed the burst of saliva. Her father's facial skin burned crimson red, as if all the blood in his body now congealed under his thin, white carapace. From his brow to the hairline of his white wig, a dark vein pulsed with each rapid beat of his heart and his jaw clenched repeatedly as if his face pulsed.
The loud growl rose from Jeanne's stomach, not from hunger, but from the painful knot of foreboding that twisted her so tightly. She knew what lay in store, knew with assurance that it would be terrible, for she had suffered her father's wrath many times. She couldn�t avoid the storm heading her way, but she could try to out run it.
Jeanne gathered her wide, long silk skirts about her and rushed from the pew, jostling a rotund duchess who stood in the aisle blocking her passage. The prim, powdered woman squeaked in protest but Jeanne paid her no heed. With a small, sharp turn of her head, Jeanne saw her father push past her mother, the Comtess and her daughter, meaningless obstacles standing between him and his prey. Jeanne quickened her own steps, trying to decorously out run him, but he would not be deprived. Pere came upon her with a few long strides of his short legs and grabbed her roughly by the arm. He spoke not a word but flew down the aisle, teeth barred in an angry snarl disguised as a smile, his daughter in tow. Jeanne curled her spine, slumping, knowing how much it infuriated her father that she stood an inch above him. He yanked her along like a recalcitrant two-year-old, her humiliation mounting at the hundreds of shocked faces they passed.
Since May and the court's official move to Versailles, the population had grown exponentially; close to ten thousand people now lived within these resplendent walls The vast but crowded hallways were crammed with courtiers, commoners and peasants, some hoping for a chance to petition the King, others merely hoping for a glimpse of him. Passed all these speculative and scrutinizing eyes, Gaston pulled Jeanne like a dog on a leash.
Through one gilded and jeweled salon into another, Gaston marched swiftly along, feet pounding the marble and dark wood floors below, as if, with each step, he crushed them, or his daughter. The long curls of his high, white wig flying about behind him like a banner proclaiming his importance. Jeanne ran to keep up with him, but her heavy skirts and the many layers of taffeta and silk that lay beneath them made it difficult to take large strides.
Gaston's grip on his daughter's upper arm tightened as they perambulated through the palace. She felt the clutch of his hand squeezing her muscles, flattening it to a thin layer of flesh. She felt the pressure of each of his fingers through to the bone, like daggers pressing against her, threatening to puncture her by sheer force. Jeanne heard her father's heavy breathing close to her ear and smelled the wine on his breath. Her own lungs began to burn. In the tight, crushing stays of corset and petticoats, she could take only short, shallow inhalations and they weren't enough to fuel the physical strain she suffered.
With just a few more steps, they were through the Buffet Room and on the staircase leading to the uppermost floor. At the top the trapped August heat hit them. Papa yanked her down the long corridor to the entrance of their suite. Wrenching the door open to the dark, low-ceilinged hallway, Gaston launched his wretched daughter from him. Jeanne landed on the small foyer's floor on her knees.
Jeanne turned frightened eyes up to her Pere, loosened dark hair falling across her face, rubbing the arm where she still felt the pressure of his gouging fingers.
"Go to your room," Gaston growled, his voice like the rumble of a wild animal.
"Oui, Pere," Jeanne whispered as she scrambled to her feet. Her legs tangled in the folds of her skirts and she fell again to her knees, the ache of broken blood vessels quickly rising to the surface of her skin. Afraid to turn and look at her father, she tried again, successfully gaining her feet. With three quick steps she made it to her bedroom door, entered the room and closed the portal. With backward steps she reached the bed she shared with her sister and sat down. Jeanne stared at the door, expecting her father to come crashing through it at any moment. She could not stop the shaking of her legs or her hands. Jeanne pulled her legs up, wrapping her arms around them, curled her body into a ball as if to stave off the assault she knew would soon come. Slowly rocking on her curved buttocks, she waited and prayed.
***
He paced back and forth in the small room that served the Du Bois� as salon, study and dining room, crossing the carpet of maroon and gold, arms flaying about his head. Adelaide Lomenie Mas du Bois sat as still as possible on the small, upholstered chair, silently suffering her husband's outburst. Adelaide kept her mouth tightly shut, so tight they paled, all blood wrung out of them with the force of compaction. To open them would be to suffer much worse than a verbal lashing.
"Is it not enough that she should return here in shame, but that she should flaunt her misbehavior in front of the entire court is an outrage." Gaston's face glowed purple, almost black under the white, powdered wig, and spittle flew from his mouth. "I should have begged Madre Robiquet to keep her at the convent, or begged the King for the money to keep her there."
Jeanne heard every word her father said, every growl he made; the thin, almost paper walls did nothing to contain the vocal volcano. She grimaced, recalling the chagrin and terror she�d felt when she had returned to Versailles a few days ago, turned out of the convent where she had spent ten years; ten years of living hell. The salivating tongues of the courtiers dripped with delight at the scandal of her dreadful behavior preempting her removal, humiliating her father even more.
"She is a disgrace to my family, to me, to the King. The whole world knows my daughter has the tongue of the devil, speaking to the nuns as if she were their equal, or worse, their better. Now they know she has the soul of the devil as well, they see for themselves that her behavior is no better than the filthy peasant's who beg at the gates."
"She is young, Gaston," Adelaide spoke timidly, golden eyes sheepishly lowered.
Gaston whirled on his wife, piercing her with his steely, black-eyed gaze.
"Young? Non. She is impudent and unruly, completely out of control. Bernadette is two years her junior and yet she is the perfect young woman, gracious and polite, affable and charming. She will be married and gone within the year." Gaston threw his hand up toward the door, as if pushing his youngest daughter through it.
Jeanne's eyes rolled in her head at the mention of her sister. Her own words for the blonde, plump beauty were vastly different from her father's. Though she loved Bernadette dearly, Jeanne found her sister's obsequiousness, her blindingly obedient behavior maddening.
Gaston stood before his wife, his reddened face inches away, hands straddling her, one on each arm of the chair. The deep wrinkles of his skin cast grotesque shadows on his face in the dim candle light of the small room. Adelaide trembled and she pushed herself back against the cushion.
"Your worthless womb. One son was all you managed to spit out of it."
Jeanne slid off the bed and crawled along the floor; she recognized the dangerous tone of her father's voice. He stood close to the edge now, close to the point where words of anger were no longer enough. She felt the coward, with her back to the door, bracing it to keep her father out while her mother defended her, sacrificing herself for her errant daughter as she had so many times before.
Adelaide looked up to her husband, shroud of timidity evaporating, replaced by a spark of anger.
"God chooses whom he shall bless with sons. Do you hold the same contempt for the Almighty?"
The sound of flesh hitting flesh echoed against the walls of the small chamber. Adelaide's head hit the wing of the chair and a small river of blood began to flow from her nose.
Jeanne jumped to her feet and reached out a hand to the doorknob, her fingers quivered with every quick beat of her heart. A sob broke her lips, bile of anguish and despair rising up her throat. Salty tears ran down her face and into her mouth; she tasted them on her tongue, flavored with fear and self-loathing.
"No, Gaston, please no."
Jeanne heard the whispered plea of her mother and courage surged through her veins.
She flung open the door. Her father�s arm was drawn back, poised to once more strike her mother.
"Non, Pere, non. It is me you hate, strike me." Jeanne yelled.
Gaston turned to her with a growl, arm still raised, white-knuckled fist high in the air. Adelaide flew from her chair, launching herself between father and daughter. Jeanne stumbled as her mother's body forced her back. Reaching out, she grabbed her mother's shoulders, trying in vain to remove her mother as the target of her father's violence.
"Stop!"
The shout came from the door. All eyes turned to the young man standing in the aperture.
"Raol." Jeanne whispered her brother's name, lowering her head in relief to rest upon her mother's back.
"Pere, come." The dark-haired, amber-eyed young man whose features so matched Jeanne's own came across the room in a few long strides. He reached up, gently pulling his father's arm down as he turned the man away from mother and sister. "You must come, the Conseil d'Etat is beginning. People are wondering where you are."
Raol's words caught Gaston's attention. He moved his gaze to his son. Slowly, the ravages of rage disappeared from his face, strained jaw muscles relaxed into prominent jowls as the snarl on his lips slid into a smile.
"Ah, Raol, I would be lost without you. You have brought your father the only pleasure he has ever know." Gaston took a step, heading toward the door on the arm of his son. With shocking abruptness, he turned on his heels, monstrous mask of fury back upon his face, gazing at Adelaide and Jeanne with undisguised loathing. Both women jumped back.
"She is your fault, your doing," To Adelaide he spoke of Jeanne as if she were not there, could not hear. "If you cannot control her you will suffer the consequences." Gaston turned his gaze from his wife to his daughter, nostrils flaring as if assaulted by a foul odor, eyes narrowed and piercing.
"Come, Pere, come," Raol urged, placing his large hands firmly on his father's shoulders, turning and steering the elder man back in the direction of the door. With a look over his shoulder, he offered his mother and sister a shy smile peeking out under the fluffy, sable-colored mustache, a small panacea to their anguish.
***
Jeanne knocked softly on the closed door.
In the desolate silence left behind by her father and brother, she and her Maman had embraced in their shared survival, two soldiers rising from a desecrated battlefield. Jeanne began to apologize, but the ravaged and bruised appearance of her mother's face had stolen all words from her tongue. Her mother had kissed her lips, left the room and closed her bedchamber door. Jeanne had waited anxiously for her mother, but she could wait no longer, the words of regret stuck in her throat like a half chewed piece of food and she longed to spew, ridding herself of the choking guilt.
"Maman?" She called softly, knocking once more, opening it a crack this time, without waiting for words of encouragement.
Her mother lay on her back on her bed, no movement save the slight rise and fall of her chest, her eyes shut tight. Jeanne tiptoed to the bedside, peering down at her mother. Fresh tears sprang to Jeanne's eyes as she saw the large bruise spreading like a dark purple stain on the side of her mother's face. Jeanne turned and took the few small steps to the pedestal in the room's corner holding water pitcher and basin. Gathering a cloth from the shelf beneath, she poured cool water into the ewer, soaking the cloth. Turning back to the bed, Jeanne gasped, dropping the cloth to the hard wood floor. Her mother stared at her with lifeless intensity.
"Ah, dear Maman, you are awake." Jeanne rinsed the cloth out in the basin, ridding it of the clinging dirt from the floor. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she gently placed the cloth on her mother's marred skin.
"Why do you antagonize him so?" Adelaide's voice sounded meager and strained, uttered without gesture or expression.
"I do not mean to, Maman, truly I do n...not." Jeanne's voice caught in her throat, her dark eye�s avoiding her mother�s golden ones. She held the cloth to her mother's face until the heat of their bodies stole the coolness from it. Jeanne dunk it in the chilly water, bringing it back to her mother.
"Can you ever forgive me?" Jeanne�s swelling tears of attrition spilled over and ran a course of repentance down her checks.
The corners of her mother's mouth rose in the slightest of smiles. Adelaide brought a hand up, cupping her daughter's face.
"Do I not always?" Lowering her hand, Adelaide braced herself, pushing against the silk coverlet to sit up straight. She leaned against the carved wood of the headboard, gripping her head as if it were about to fly from her shoulders.
"Do you want me to call for the physician?" Jeanne rose from the bed, deeply alarmed at the whiteness of her mother's usually golden skin, especially pale against the blackness of the darkening bruise.
"No, no. I am fine. We must not let anyone see me." Adelaide almost shook her head, but the pain stopped her at the first movement. She reached up and captured her head with her hands, as if to keep it from falling off.
"I will always forgive you, ma petit. But I do not know how much longer I can protect you." Adelaide raised a shaky hand to her daughter. Jeanne took it, sitting once more by her mother's side. "Things are not as when you left for the convent. Your father's situation is more precarious than ever."
Adelaide spoke freely with no fear of interruption from her husband. As a member of the state council and a fairly well placed courtier, he would be wherever the King was. Gaston rarely returned to their rooms except to sleep, too afraid not to "be seen".
"The King has wrenched all power from the noblemen," Adelaide spoke through tight, white lips, "it is but a masquerade he acts, letting them believe they advise him. The Fronde has left our King paranoid and controlling."
Adelaide, the daughter of the Comte de Clemont, a distant cousin to the King, was a part of a prestigious bluestocking society of women and privy to the very inner circles of the Royal family, a fact that only served to alienate the married couple more.
Adelaide leaned toward her daughter, grasping the young hands. Jeanne started slightly at the feel of the cold, bloodless skin. She recovered, putting her mother's hands in her own, capturing them in her younger, warmer ones, wishing she could give back to her mother all she had received.
"They are powerless men, these nobles, reduced to petty games and intrigues to give their life any meaning. They are humiliated and frustrated by the machinations the King forces them into. It is no wonder they lash out at any around them less powerful than they."
"But we are his family." Jeanne burst out, her words flying from her mouth like wayward birds and she unable to catch or contain them.
"Who is more powerless than their wives and daughters? Your father is one of the few noblemen to still serve in Louis' government and it is only because he possessed financial education. His position is tenuous at best. Why do you antagonize him so, by speaking thus?"
"It is not my intent, Maman," Jeanne turned from her mother, walking to the open doorway, poised in the egress as if to take flight. "And it is not my fault."
It was not her fault that her father suffered at the hands of the King. Louis XIV ruled by absolute monarchy, proclaiming forthrightly, 'l'etat, c'est moi,' I am the state. It was his complex set of unwritten laws and codes of behavior, who may enter the room when, who may sit, who must stand, who may eat and when. Noblemen now held only honorary positions and pensions. Life was a struggled for trivial distinction and privileges.
Louis would do anything to keep the nobility from uniting against him, as they had during the Fronde almost thirty years ago. The memories of the ten-year-old King, of the deprivation and despair during those years colored all his decisions; he ruled by them. He had dedicated his life to punishing them for it.
He filled his high council, the conseil d'en haut, with promoted commoners, usurping the nobles, finding it easier to dismiss an elevated commoner than to strip a Comte, and all his descendants, of the title. It was the reign of the lowborn bourgeoisie, as the Duc de Saint-Simon had so aptly named it. The rest were the King�s puppets, dancing to the threat of court banishment or a life in the Bastille.
Jeanne turned back to Maman, hands pressed against her stomach, as if under the yellow embroidered bodice, her intestines fought to gain their freedom. Her long shadow shook upon the wall behind her, cast by the guttering candles. With small, rapid movements she shook her head back and forth, long brown curls flowing like waves about her head.
"I am not like the other girls. There is�something�wrong with me." Her deep brown eyes pleaded for understanding.
Adelaide's mouth formed a ghost of a smile, a benevolent acceptance of a mother to her wayward child.
"I know, mon cher, I know. But you can try. Why did you not try harder at the convent?"
"Ak, morbleau!" Jeanne's hands flew dramatically in the air. "I could not stand it, Maman. The girls, they are beyond stupid; they are ludicrous, puerile. They fainted in horror at the least little thing, or worse, giggled incessantly for hours and hours."
Jeanne ran the few steps back to the bed, falling upon it with such force, her mother bounced upon the feathers.
"I cannot bear a life where the most momentous decisions I have to make are what to wear and what to serve. It is too meaningless and trivial. I want to learn things, study, be a part of the world. I can n--"
Adelaide raised a hand, silencing her daughter.
"Do you think you are the first woman to wish to break the shackles imposed upon us by the virtue of possessing a womb?" Her mother's words hissed out from between closed teeth. "If so, you are greatly deceived."
Jeanne saw her mother's frustrated tears, the vein popping on her forehead and her red splotchy skin and, for the first time, saw the true anguish in her Maman, anguish of her own wasted life.
The young, suddenly frightened girl did not know what to do to relieve the pain of this woman, this angel who had given her life and so much more. She did the only thing that came to mind.
Jeanne stuck out her tongue and rolled her eyes as she'd seen the King's jesters do.
Maman's face went blank--then split wide as she barked a laugh of pure delight. Her eyes popped open and one long, slim hand flew to her chest as if to contain the swift skip of her heart. The shroud of despair lifted. Still laughing softly, she gazed upon her daughter with soulful eyes, bright with the turmoil of her emotions.
Adelaide reached out for her daughter and pulled her into a tight embrace.
"Oh, ma petite, you are and always will be the breath and death of me."
Jeanne smiled from the safety of her mother's bosom, memories of such sanctuary taken there over the years flitting through her mind like passing scenery. She inhaled the musky, flowery scent of her mother and squeezed back with all the force of her overwhelming love.
"I will try harder, Maman. I really will."
Adelaide clucked her tongue, reveling in the healing force of her daughter's touch.
"Non, mon cher Jeanne, you most probably will not."
