the inventory one or two pieces that he remembered from Florence, long ago, when they had adorned Catherine de’Medici before she had decamped to become the Queen of France.
But when the dauphine withdrew a folded fan, studded with diamonds, and tried to flutter it open, the leaves remained stubbornly closed.
The Princesse de Lamballe tried to lend a hand, shaking the fan herself, but her luck was no better.
Sant’Angelo knew why; the Parisian jeweler had consulted him on its design, and the marquis himself had suggested a hidden clasp, perfectly concealed in a circle of white diamonds.
“ Erlauben Sie mich,” the marquis said, leaning close. Allow me. The dauphine had flushed at his sudden proximity-and several of the courtiers reared back in shock-but when he took up the fan, undid the clasp, then, like a coquette at L’Opera, cocked his elbow and fanned himself with its silk leaves, the Dauphine spontaneously laughed-which gave the others permission to laugh, too. Continuing the joke, he said in a raised voice, “ Es ist unertraglich heib hier drinnen, denken Sie nicht?”-It is insufferably hot in here, don’t you think?-and Antoinette had beamed at him, grateful not only for the levity but for the taste of her native tongue. The marquis had spent many a year in Prussia, and the language was still at his command.
“May I know your name?” she inquired in German. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”
“This, madame, is the Marquis di Sant’Angelo,” the Baron de Breteuil hastily inserted himself to answer. “An Italian friend of the court.”
“And a friend, I hope, to you, too,” the marquis replied. Although many of those present could probably follow the gist of the conversation, the fact that it was conducted in German formed a special bond between the two of them. Glancing around at the deeply rouged ladies in attendance, Sant’Angelo had leaned in even closer than before and whispered, “Have you ever seen so many appled cheeks? It looks like an orchard in here.”
Antoinette covered her lips and tried not to laugh. It was the custom at the French court to plaster rouge on the face like primer on a wall, and he guessed that the young girl would not yet have accustomed herself to the gaudy sight of the ripe red cheeks everywhere. Even the market women tried to copy the effect using grape skins.
“But it’s the powder,” she replied, sotto voce, her eyes straying to one of the more monumentally dusted wigs, “that makes me want to sneeze.”
“That’s what the fan is for,” he said, fluttering it again, before showing her where the clasp was hidden and handing it back. He had had a daughter, Maddalena, in a far-off time and place, and on the last occasion he had seen her she was about this same age…
But that was another life, and, as he had learned to do over the years, he quickly shut the door on it.
Other gifts were presented, too, and some of these were intended for her attendants, such as a set of porcelain Sevres for Prince Starhemberg. When the ceremony was over, the dauphine extended her hand again, and reverting to German a final time, said to the marquis, “I hope that we shall be great friends.”
“I am sure of it, Your Highness.”
“And I believe that I shall be in need of them here.”
She was young, but perhaps not so naive as he’d thought.
Over the next fifteen years she had learned fast, adapting to the rites and rituals, the pomp and circumstance, of the most refined court in Europe. He had watched her grow from an awkward girl to a confident, even imperious, woman. And tonight, when he saw her at the grand couvert -where the king and queen dined in solitary splendor, while dozens of spectators looked on-the queen raised her eyes above the gold-and-enamel saltcellar and nodded a greeting. If only she knew, he thought, that the saltcellar, commissioned by King Francis at Fontainebleau in 1543, was from his own hand.
Waving the Princesse de Lamballe to her side, she whispered in her ear, and moments later the princesse herself drew the marquis aside and said, “The queen invites you to join her at the Petit Trianon tonight. Count Cagliostro will be there, and she thinks you might like to meet him.”
“Indeed I would,” he said.
The Petit Trianon was the queen’s private refuge-a separate, small palace on the grounds of Versailles, where no one was admitted unless by order of the queen herself. Consequently, invitations to her salons there were terribly coveted, and hard to come by; the marquis had once heard that even the king, despite the fact that he had given it to her, had to ask permission to enter its gates.
At ten o’clock, Sant’Angelo approached the neoclassical palace, so much less ornate and extravagant than its Rococo counterparts, mounted the steps, and passed through several rooms painted a distinctively muted blue-gray. From the main salon des compagnie, he could hear the strains of a harp and a harpsichord, playing a song written by the queen’s favorite composer, Christoph Willibald Gluck. He assumed that it was the queen herself, an accomplished musician, who was sitting at the keyboard.
And, as he entered, he saw that he was correct. Antoinette was playing the harpsichord, the Princesse de Lamballe the harp, while perhaps a dozen other members of the nobility were sprawled about on upholstered divans and gilded chairs, sipping cognac, playing cards, amusing themselves with one of the many Persian cats or small dogs that had the run of the place. The marquis, who had seen more than his share of imperial courts, had never known one to include quite so many pets. A parrot perched on the mantelpiece now, safely out of harm’s way, while a white monkey, on a long leather leash, explored the underside of a marble-topped console.
The marquis waited at the threshold to be acknowledged by the queen, but she was concentrating so hard on the score that she did not see him. He recognized the Countess de Noailles, Mistress of the Household, sitting with her dreary husband at a faro table; the high-spirited Duchesse de Polignac, reclining beside a portly man in an open frock coat (frock coats, which were considered too casual for court, were encouraged at the Trianon), and a dashing young officer in a Swedish Cavalry uniform festooned with gold braid. This was the Count Axel von Fersen, emissary to the French court, and from all accounts the queen’s lover.
When the piece was finished, Marie Antoinette looked up at the round of applause, and upon seeing the marquis, glided across the floor toward him. At Versailles, even the way women walked, their feet swishing across the floor as if barely in contact with it, was prescribed and artificial.
But there was nothing false about the warmth of her smile.
“It was such a wonderful surprise to see you tonight!” she declared. “I hope you will be spending many days with us!”
“I haven’t made my plans as yet,” he replied.
“Good! Then I’ll make them for you,” she said, taking his arm and introducing him to several of the guests he did not know. It was only here, at the Petit Trianon, that she could be so free-spirited and informal. She had made the place her private retreat, a refuge from all the stifling protocol and public display of the main palace; here, she had even arranged for the servants to be kept out of sight, and in her boudoir she had installed panels that could shutter the windows entirely with just the turn of a handle.
“Tomorrow,” she said to the marquis, “we’ll have a sleigh ride on the Grand Canal, then a performance at the theater. I’ll arrange it all! And tonight, of course, Count Cagliostro will be demonstrating his powers of mesmerism and mind reading.”
“I was hoping to find him here already.”
“Oh, he is always very mysterious,” Antoinette said. “He likes to make a grand entrance. But this gives us time to play something together!” she said, drawing him toward the harpsichord. “We keep your flute here always.”
“I’m afraid I haven’t played much lately,” the marquis demurred, but Antoinette, pouting, said, “Not even for me?”
When the Queen of France made such a remark, it was never clear, even given their friendship, whether it was a request or an order. And when she suggested that they play “ C’est Mon Ami,” he knew she would brook no denial. The lyrics of the song had been written by the poet Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian, but the music was the queen’s own composition, and she was quite proud of it.
The flute was presented to him, with an exaggerated bow and a sly smile, by the Princesse de Lamballe; he knew she sensed his reluctance. The flute itself had been a gift from Antoinette, a way to encourage him to come to the Trianon and accompany her, and now, as she launched into the tune, singing the words in a bright contralto, he had little choice but to bend his head and play the tune from memory.
“ C’est mon ami, Rendez-moi,” she sang, her head erect, “ J’ai son amour, Il a ma foi,” repeating the refrain. She was dressed in a gossamer peach chemise over a silk gown, with no hoops or stays, and in her hair
