burst he managed to reach up to the outstretched arms on the launch. Louis-Henri, already on board, clutched his hand and hoisted him slowly out of the sea. Saint-Germain, streaming with water, promised, ‘I am very close to the King and will convey your perspicacity and heroism to him. His Majesty shall reward…’
Just at this moment a cannonball caught him right in the head. The chevalier’s torso fell into Montespan’s out-stretched arms.
The waves rose and fell in the starless night amid the muted sounds and creaking of the vessel – La Lune – where the Gascon had found a berth. The ship, overloaded with the wounded, was the last to weigh anchor. The other transport ships – L’Hercule and La Reine – (in better condition) carried the high command to the open sea whilst Louis-Henri was on board his leaky, sluggish tub. It had been poorly refitted by Rodolphe, a carpenter in Toulon. Planks were giving way on deck, where the badly burned survivors had left their shirts of skin. Winds drifted over human detritus where the marquis was seated. The stumps in that military laundry, that public bathhouse, were wrapped in blue and white cloth; to those of a sensitive nature, these men were more terrifying than monsters. Over there were the sweating shapes of hundreds of Christ-like faces with dark, gentle eyes. Not far from Louis-Henri a man lay humming, his guts spilling out. His mouth gaped open and his sleeves gestured in the air, making mad signs that no one responded to. He sang,
‘Beaufort, you’re a clever one
And we’re right to fear ye
But the way ye’re reasoning
We’d take ye for a gosling.’
Long oars reached out and lapped the rhythm across the surface of the water. In the morning, near the peninsula of Giens, a terrible cracking sound ripped through La Lune: it split in two and sank in a second, like a block of marble. One thousand two hundred wounded men from the regiments of Picardy and Normandy were lost. A few survived miraculously, clinging to a rowing boat. Montespan was pulled deep into the roiling waves. He struggled to make it back to the surface, burdened by his saddlebag, which had not left his side. The gold was weighing him down. He had to get rid of it. In the rush of swirling water as the ship touched bottom, sand rose and scratched his face; he groped blindly in his treasure and filled the pockets of his military greatcoat. He let go of the saddlebag and rose breathless to the surface, his lungs bursting. The rowing boat was far away and he had no strength left to shout. He tried to calm himself and swam among the mutilated bodies. He clung to one of them to recover his breath and, at water level, contemplated the disaster of this failed expedition against the Barbary corsairs. He was astonished to find himself thinking, ‘Where is La Fontaine? Could the fabulist not pen a lovely sonnet? And Le Brun – these floating stumps, would they not inspire a pretty tapestry?’ Slowly he set off, swimming across a Mediterranean in mourning, but he was truly too exhausted and, on either side, the heavy pockets of his greatcoat pulled him towards the bottom. He plunged his head underwater and tore at the seams of his coat. He watched wearily as the heavy bracelets sank straight down, with sets of diamonds and necklaces of precious stones gliding away like snakes. Broken strands of pearls hovered, and their little white globes escaped from the string. They scattered, shone and disappeared into the black water.
Finally he saw a meadow in the distance, where the last buttercups, the last daisies begged the day for mercy. He washed up on the beach, like a jellyfish. With one cheek in the sand, his lips blew bubbles, a rosary of love: ‘Athénaïs …’
He returned to France: the war had brought no glory to his name. Once again, Montespan had come back covered not in honour but in shame and debt. His head wound in rags, he arrived on foot, and only in his shirt, at Rue Taranne. He climbed the steps, and opened the door to the kitchen. Athénaïs was sitting in a tub, taking a bath. She stood up, clutching a towel to her, then, on recognising her husband, she dropped the towel in the water. Louis-Henri looked at her round belly and gaped.
‘A girl, and now a boy: ’tis what is called “the King’s choice”!’
Constance Abraham, the wigmaker’s wife on Rue Taranne, waxed ecstatic as she gazed at the sleeping infant before picking him up. ‘Ah, praise be to God, is he not lovely, this little Louis-Antoine with his fair white skin. He is the image of his mother!’
But Athénaïs, standing next to her in the shop, was wringing her hands whilst Marie-Christine, now two years of age, tugged at her mother’s skirt. Athénaïs pushed her away: ‘Leave me alone.’
Louis-Henri de Pardaillan was sitting in a tall armchair being shaved. He looked at his wife.
‘Are you all right, Athénaïs?’
The marquise was not all right. She felt oppressed, had difficulty breathing, and had sudden violent urges to weep. The kindly, plump wigmaker’s wife thought she understood her malaise.
‘Don’t worry, my dear, this must be a post partum reaction; ’tis quite frequent. I had the same, did I not, after my son’s birth. Do you recall, Joseph?’
‘I do!’ exclaimed the wigmaker, trying a new wig on Montespan’s scalp. ‘Dear me, you became so sensitive that the slightest vexation, sometimes even a compliment, brought on a fit of tears or anger. You lost your appetite, you couldn’t sleep, and you were so distracted I wondered if you were not thinking about someone else.’
‘Boo-hoo!’
The fair marquise burst into tears. Her husband lifted the towel from his lap to wipe the shaving cream from his face. He pushed the copper basin in front of him away and got to his feet.
‘Athénaïs!’
He embraced his wife whilst their little girl clung to her, saying, ‘Maman, Maman.’
‘Do stop pulling on my skirt, you’ll tear it! Oh!’
Athénaïs wept profusely, knelt down and immediately apologised to the little girl. ‘Forgive me, Marie-Christine. I am not a proper sort of mother. I have no maternal instinct…’
‘But you do!’ protested Constance Abraham loudly, waking the infant still in her arms, who began to cry. ‘Have no fear, my sweet, a post partum depression never lasts very long. In the space of a few hours or a few days you will once again feel like the happiest of mothers. And you will want many more children.’
‘Particularly as you are fearsome fertile; your powder ignites easily,’ said the wigmaker. ‘Whenever your husband returns from the army, he finds you with child.’
Constance rocked Louis-Antoine, who continued to wail.
‘The only question one must ask is, after the first child who so resembles her father, and the second child who so resembles his mother, who will the third child resemble?’
‘Boo-hoo!’
The marquise stood up, shaken by violent spasms; she was in an extraordinary state of sadness and anxiety. Leaning over the railing of the mezzanine, the apprentices – holding curling irons, curlpapers, and sticky pomade made from cherry-tree sap for hardening the curls – were able to ogle Athénaïs’s breasts from directly above. As she sobbed, her breasts bounced, and they were bigger than ever, for they were about to produce milk, and several buttons on her bodice popped open. The apprentices leant further. Athénaïs’s skirt of watered silk swept over the tiles of the shop as she fled. Her hips swayed as she headed for the door at the rear and the stairway leading to their apartments. She called out in apology, ‘Forgive me – I am ridiculous!’
The apprentices were breathless at the sight of the shuddering curves of her bottom. Joseph Abraham, raising his head, discovered that more than one of them was fondling himself. ‘You up there, do you want me to come up and give you a hand?’
Montespan was distraught. He was sitting with traces of shaving