Introduction

Meet Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, a beautiful girl from the middle classes who would rise to become one of the 18th century’s most powerful and enigmatic women. As a child, a fortune teller had told young Jeanne her destiny: she would become the lover of a king. Eventually connections, luck, and a little scheming pave her way to Versailles and into the arms of King Louis XV.

All too soon, conniving politicians and hopeful beauties seek to replace the bourgeois interloper with a more suitable mistress. As Jeanne, now the Marquise de Pompadour, takes on her many rivals—including a lustful lady-in-waiting, a precocious fourteen-year-old prostitute, and even a cousin of the notorious Nesle sisters—she helps the king give himself over to a life of luxury and depravity. Around them, war rages, discontent grows, and France inches ever closer to the Revolution.

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Excerpt

RIVALS OF VERSAILLES EXCERPT

Versailles, at last. I have been here for six miserable hours already, trying to keep sweat and flying wine from ruining my white bodice, and my arrows from being stolen. From my quiver I take a small bottle of scent to rub on my neck. The press is extreme, the rooms a fog of billowing silks, crushed flowers, and wax fumes from the thousands of candles burning in the chandeliers above.

Versailles, at last, but I cannot even enjoy my first glimpses of the splendid palace: the richness of the rooms, the startling perfection and symmetry, the impression that one is walking through a world made entirely of crystal and gold. All is lost beneath the crush and scrum of a thousand people or more.

A Turk pushes rudely past. A Potted Flower faints and is carried from the room by a Chinaman and a Roman. Three Dancing Nymphs look on in amusement as a stampede erupts: they have opened another buffet room. Through the enormous gold-paneled doors I catch a glimpse of tables piled with food: all manner of fish dishes, for it is still Lent, and hundreds of cakes and sweet pastries, including, I overhear a rotund Cat say, some twenty-seven varieties of pie.

The king has not yet arrived. Only the dauphin and his new wife are here, dressed as a Shepherd and Shepherdess. The new dauphine is impressing no one with her looks or her stilted manners. I hear the nasty whispers that float around me, mostly about her aversion to rouge and her red hair she refuses to hide with powder.

As foreseen, there are a great number of birds, including a particularly ravishing Yellow Finch, as well as a sense that time is running out—where is the king?

“Come,” brays a Donkey softly. Binet? He guides me through to the Hercules Salon and pushes me through a door, concealed in the paneling next to the chapel entrance. I find myself in a small, dark room, no wider than my skirts. I sink to the floor, glad to be free of the crowds and the noise, terrified of what will happen next, or not. END HERE THAT WOULD BE AN EXCERPT OF 360 WORDS

An hour or more passes.

A Devil and a Cat crash through the door and the woman—at least I think it is a woman—shrieks in horror to find their tryst hole occupied. As they back away I can hear the commotion from outside—the king and his entourage have finally arrived!

Then Binet opens the door of the little room to tell me that Madame de la Popelinière left Gleefully with a Yew Tree—but she will discover only the Duc de Nivernois beneath the leaves. Another

Yew was seen chatting with the queen; all agree that one couldn’t possibly be the king.

“Don’t worry, charming one, we are taking care of you. Wait,” he says, then he is gone.

The room is hot and dark and it closes around me. Can I trust Binet and Le Bel? What if they keep me here until the king, and my chances, are gone? I am about to go and find him myself when the door opens again and the Donkey trots back in, followed by another man holding a candle. He is leafy but unmasked, and instantly I recognize him.

“Sire, as promised, the Huntress of Sénart.”

“Flora from the Forest,” the king says, bowing low over my hand. “Now transformed into Diana the Huntress. How lovely you are.” His voice is a well of admiration, warm and honeyed.

I have anticipated this, planned this, dreamed of this for so long; now all I can do is gaze at him in wonder. Binet leaves and we are alone with only a solitary candle flickering. Though we don’t speak, something passes between us: an understanding, a beginning, a destiny.

He raises the candle closer.

“I remembered correctly how beautiful you are,” he says in his glorious voice, rasping velvet. “You are ravishing, Madame.”

Though he is as handsome as ever, I see sadness in his eyes. “You are not so well,” I say, and without thinking I reach out a hand to touch his cheek, then snatch it back in horror. He smiles and takes my hand, returns it to his face.

“I think you may be my tonic,” he says, then brings my hand to his lips. Gently he takes one of my fingers in his mouth, and I want to faint at the sensation.

Too soon there is a scratch at the door and this time it is Le Bel, dressed as a Bat. The king releases my hand and reaches over my trembling heart to pluck one of the arrows from my quiver.

He whispers in my ear, close and intimate: “Until Paris.”

“Until Paris, Sire,” I echo, and then he is gone and the force of anticipation and desire overwhelms me. I sink once more down to the floor. It is beginning. I’m going to faint, or—God forbid—

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Discussion Questions

• What did you think of Pompadour’s strategies to keep the king’s love and her position? Were you rooting for her or not?
• Do you believe Louis sincerely loved Pompadour? Did Pompadour love him?
• Who was your favorite of the “rivals” highlighted in the book, and why?
• What surprised you the most about the book? What unsettled you, and why?

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