mandarin with the index finger of his right hand (visibly broken and glued back on) raised in warning. In the chests beneath the windows, we rummaged among blackened silver teapots, cords and braiding for curtains, even a pack of playing cards from Paris. Abbot Melani even stuck his head into the stoves, emerging stained with soot.
Coughing at all the dust, we unrolled carpets and French drawings and lifted enormous tapestries with scenes mythological and pastoral, always hoping to discover some secret hiding place or a concealed entrance to some intimate little room (after all, it is not easy to hide a globe!), in our dogged search for Capitor's presents.
After Louise de la Valliere, continued Melani with his lips curled in a supercilious little smile, there began the reign of Madame de Montespan. Exceptionally beautiful, witty and always at the height of fashion, with a seething sensuality and a heart of ice, la Montespan meant to conquer the King at all costs, and this was quite obvious. He knew at once, but resisted her. He went further and teased her: 'Madame de Montespan desires me to desire that which I do not.'
Then, however, the King's senses, and his intellect, the orphans of his heart, gave in. The ascent of Madame de Montespan coincided with the death of every feeling or appearance of such a thing. Not only was Louis no longer capable of loving; from Madame de Montespan onwards, he was unloved.
'Only much later did the Most Christian King come to understand that no woman had really loved him,' said Atto enigmatically.
With Athenai's there began the ten years of the apogee of Louis XIY the era of splendour and arrogance, which was to end with the Affair of the Poisons, when the King realised that he was the prey of his mistresses, not they his. Years in which he gave the worst of himself, bedding hosts of other damsels with high hopes, ever ready and ever different. Not all of them deserved censure; some acted under the illusion that they could save a young husband or fiance from being sent to the wars or in an attempt to recover for their father the family fortune unjustly confiscated by the treacherous Colbert. Louis never failed to take special pleasure in crushing the latter in his bare hands.'My boy,' the Abbot addressed me, perceiving the horror painted on my face, 'the Most Christian King had suffered one day in a far distant past as he could never have imagined it possible to suffer; he who had already known the terror of the Fronde.'
Now, like a cruel boy who inflicts unspeakable suffering on a little bird, the King watched the shipwreck of those wretched women's illusions to see whether they were suffering as he had suffered, and whether indeed it was possible to suffer so much. He wanted to tear from those hearts the secret of their pain, the only thing that once defeated the magnificent Sun King.
'But all that happened in the secrecy of the King's bedchamber,' warned Atto, as we proceeded along the gallery, with the great vault echoing our footsteps.
At court, however, Athenais reigned undisturbed: the 'reigning Mistress', they called her, paraphrasing the title of 'reigning Queen' which distinguishes the King's consort from the Queen Mother. They were not so mistaken. With Madame de Montespan, Louis had presented the court with a surrogate Queen: here at last was one who possessed the exceptional beauty and wit needed to enhance the splendour of the French court.
'She radiated luxury and magnificence, just like the Aurora of Pietro da Cortona,' said the Abbot, pointing to the splendid fresco on the ceiling of the gallery.
Atto's attention was suddenly drawn to the fresco of Midday which, between Aurora and Night, occupied the middle of the gallery. It depicted the fall of Phaeton, struck down by Zeus's thunderbolt for having dared drive the Sun's chariot.
'The first time I came here, I passed over this: to celebrate the culmination of the day, Benedetti chose an event of pride punished. On the walls below, he placed sayings praising the King of France. How very singular.'
'Yes,' I acknowledged in surprise, 'it seems almost a warning to the Sun King.'
''Thy destiny is to be mortal, Phaeton, but what thou de- sirest is not for mortals,'' Atto quoted from Ovid's Metamorphoses in confirmation of my remark. The Abbot then continued his tale. Without being one, Athenais played the part of a Queen: she received, she entertained, she fascinated all the ambassadors. The King showed her off with extreme pleasure and gloried in her: all in all, she was a service to the monarchy.
'She knew perfectly well that the King did not really love her,' said Atto with a certain bitterness, 'but he had great need of her 'to show himself loved by the most beautiful woman in the kingdom', as she herself liked to say. An ornament like so many others, when all's said and done.'
'In common with Maria, Athenais had the courage to stand up to the King,' added Atto. 'She was not afraid to speak her mind, and she had good taste, like a true Queen.'
During the decade of her 'reign', the Palace of Versailles became what it is today. The papier mache of ephemeral architecture which, in Louise's day, lasted for the duration of some fete, was transformed into rocks, travertine, bronzes and marbles, arranged according to the secret order of surprise and the unexpected, bringing to life new groves, fountains and flower beds. The Grand Canal was populated by a tiny fleet of gondolas and feluccas, brigantines and galleys. The park, stifling under the mantle of the summer heat, was dotted with the white and azure of Chinese pavilions.
But above all, Athenais dedicated herself to her personal residence, not far from Versailles, repeating the splendour of the palace in miniature: the great Le Notre (the sublime genius of architecture, he who had laid out the palace gardens and, before them, those of Vaux-le-Vicomte, Fouquet's ill-starred chateau) was called upon to surpass himself, with gardens of tuberoses, narcissi, jasmine, violets, anemones, and basins of tepid water perfumed with aromatic herbs…
'And that which you simply cannot imagine if you have not seen it. Alas.'
'Why do you say that?' I asked, hearing that melancholy moan.'Because all that grandeur came to no better end than Fouquet's chateau. It all fell in ruins with the disgrace of its patroness, just as Vaux was wrecked when its lord was arrested. And this too confirms what I am telling you.'
'Why? What happened?'
'The Affair of the Poisons broke out, my boy, the greatest trial of the century, as I have already mentioned to you. Almost everyone had a part in it; and, after Olimpia Mancini, Athenais was the most deeply involved. Witnesses emerged who had seen her participate in black masses, in which children were sacrificed, all to keep the King's love. All this was hushed up, but for her it was the end. And the hunter understood at last that all along he had been the quarry.'
Learning of what iniquities his mistresses were capable, hearing of satanic rites and of witchcraft performed to gain orgasms in his bed, Louis understood that in all his amours there was very little love. From that revelation he never recovered. He had imagined that he had reversed the roles since the time of Maria Mancini, when he himself had been sacrificed on the altar of power. Instead, his destiny had been repeated: once again he had been a pawn on the chessboard of those who swore fidelity to him. And this time, he was alone; he had not even the consolation of sharing his sad fate with the woman of his life. It was thus that the doors of old age opened up for him.
We had completed our exploration of the first floor and we were now climbing the grand staircase. We continued right to the top, coming to the third floor, where the servants' quarters had once been. By comparison with the rest of the villa, this was another world: there was no furniture, no mouldings on the walls and ceilings, no embellishments. There were a number of mezzanines for the servants, others for the saddlery, and various service rooms. Spiders, flies and mice were the undisputed lords of those sad, empty rooms. It seemed just the squalid image of the Most Christian King's old age.
We began patiently to beat on the walls with our knuckles in search of secret rooms and to check whether some floorboard concealed a trap door, or if a windowsill contained a strongbox. We then moved on to a chest of drawers. It would not open; unlike all the furniture we had hitherto inspected, it was locked.
'Ah, here, perhaps, we have it!' exclaimed the Abbot, recovering his good humour. 'Go down to the first floor and find me a knife in the cutlery drawers. I seem to have seen some in that great cupboard held up by old Generalissimo Goatleg,' he sniggered, alluding to the imposing and severe wooden satyr carved on it.
I went down to the first floor but found nothing. I then went down to the ground floor and there I found a knife. Before returning, my attention tarried a moment on one of the portraits of women hanging on the walls which had hitherto escaped my attention.
It was a lady no longer young, a little too plump, with features that were not repugnant, yet so wan and ordinary that they contrasted no little with the pomp of the portrait, from which one gathered without the shadow of a doubt that this must be a person of great consequence. I read below, on the frame:
