Philippe is not a stupid man, but he is a susceptible one, a taker-up of fads and fancies. At this time he has a good deal to complain about. The King interferes all the time in his private life. His letters are opened, and he is followed about by policemen and the King’s spies. They try to ruin his friendship with the dear Prince of Wales, and to stop him visiting England, whence he has imported so many fine women and racehorses. He is continually defamed and calumniated by the Queen’s party, who aim to make him an object of ridicule. His crime is, of course, that he stands too near the throne. He finds it difficult to concentrate for any length of time, and you can’t expect him to read the nation’s destiny in a balance-sheet; but you don’t need to tell Philippe d’Orléans that there is no liberty in France.
Among the many women in his life, one stands out: not the Duchess. Félicité de Genlis had become his mistress in 1772, and to prove the character of his feelings for her the Duke had caused a device to be tattooed on his arm. Félicité is a woman of sweet and iron wilfulness, and she writes books. There are few acres in the field of human knowledge that she has not ploughed with her harrowing pedantry. Impressed, astounded, enslaved, the Duke has placed her in charge of his children’s education. They have a daughter of their own, Pamela, a beautiful and talented child whom they pretend is an orphan.
From the Duke, as from his children, Félicité exacts respect, obedience, adoration: from the Duchess, a timid acquiescence to her status and her powers. Félicité has a husband, of course – Charles-Alexis Brulard de Sillery, Comte de Genlis, a handsome ex-naval officer with a brilliant service record. He is close to Philippe – one of his small, well-drilled army of fixers, organizers, hangers-on. People had once called their marriage a love-match; twenty-five years on, Charles-Alexis retains his good looks and his polish, and indulges daily and nightly his ruling passion – gambling.
Félicité has even reformed the Duke – moderated some of his wilder excesses, steered his money and his energy into worthwhile channels. Now in her well-preserved forties, she is a tall, slender woman with dark-blonde hair, arresting brown eyes, and a decisive aspect to her features. Her physical intimacy with the Duke has ceased, but now she chooses his mistresses for him and directs them how to behave. She is accustomed to be at the centre of things, to be consulted, to dispense advice. She has no love for the King’s wife, Antoinette.
The consuming frivolity of the Court has left a kind of hiatus, a want of a cultural centre for the nation. It is arranged by Félicité that Philippe and his court shall supply that lack. It is not that she has political ambitions for him – but it happens that so many intellectuals, so many artists and scholars, so many of the people one wishes to cultivate, are liberal-minded men, enlightened men, men who look forward to a new dispensation; and doesn’t the Duke have every sympathy? In this year, 1787, there are gathered about him a number of young men, aristocrats for the most part, all of them ambitious and all of them with a vague feeling that their ambitions have somehow been thwarted, that their lives have somehow become unsatisfactory. It is arranged that the Duke, who feels this more keenly than most, shall be a leader to them.
The Duke wishes to be a man of the people, especially of the people of Paris; he wishes to be in touch with their moods and concerns. He keeps court in the heart of the city, at the Palais-Royal. He has turned the gardens over to the public and leased out the buildings as shops and brothels and coffee houses and casinos: so that at the epicentre of the nation’s fornication, rumour-mongering, pickpocketing and street-fighting, there sits Philippe: Good Duke Philippe, the Father of His People. Only nobody shouts that; it has not been arranged yet.
Summer of ’87, Philippe is fitted out and launched for trial manoeuvres. In November the King decides to meet the obstructive Parlement in a Royal Session, to obtain registration of edicts sanctioning the raising of a loan for the state. If he cannot get his way, he will be forced to call the Estates-General. Philippe prepares to confront the royal authority – as de Sillery would have said – broadside on.
CAMILLE saw Lucile briefly outside Saint-Sulpice, where she had been attending Benediction. ‘Our carriage is just over there,’ she said. ‘Our man, Théodore, is generally on my side, but he will have to bring it across in a minute. So let’s make this quick.’
‘Your mother’s not in it, is she?’ He looked alarmed.
‘No, she’s skulking at home. By the way, I heard you were in a riot.’
‘How did you hear that?’
‘There’s this grapevine. Claude knows this man called Charpentier, yes? Well, you can imagine, Claude’s thrilled.’
‘You shouldn’t stand here,’ he said. ‘Awful day. You’re getting wet.’
She had the distinct impression that he would like to bundle her into the carriage, and have done with her. ‘Sometimes I dream,’ she said, ‘of living in a warm place. One where the sun shines every day. Italy would be nice. Then I think, no, stay at home and shiver a little. All this money that my father has set aside for my dowry, I don’t think I should let it slip through my fingers. It would be downright ungrateful to run away from it. We ought to be married here,’ she waved a hand, ‘at a time of our own choosing. We could go to Italy afterwards, for a holiday. We’ll need a holiday after we’ve fought them and won. We could retain some elephants, and go across the Alps.’
‘So you do mean to marry me then?’
‘Oh yes.’ She looked at him, astonished. How could it be that she had forgotten to let him know? When it was all she had been thinking about, for weeks? Perhaps she’d thought the grapevine would do that, too. But the fact that it hadn’t … Could it be that he had put it to the back of his mind in some way? ‘Camille …’ she said.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘But if I’m to go bespeaking elephants, I can’t just do it on a promise. You’ll have to swear me a solemn oath. Say “By the bones of the Abbé Terray.”’
She giggled. ‘We’ve always taken the Abbé Terray very seriously.’
‘That’s what I mean, a serious oath.’
‘As you like. By the bones of the Abbé Terray, I swear I will marry you, whatever happens, whatever anyone says, and even if the sky falls in. I feel we should kiss but,’ she extended her hand, ‘this is the most I can manage. Otherwise Théodore will get a crisis of conscience, and come over right away.’
‘You might take your glove off,’ he said. ‘It would be a start.’
She took her glove off, and gave him her hand. She thought he might kiss her fingertips, but in fact he took those fingertips, turned her hand over rather forcefully, and held her palm for a second against his mouth. And just that; he didn’t kiss it; just held it there, still. She shivered. ‘You know a thing or two, don’t you?’ she said.
By now, her carriage had arrived. The horses breathed patiently, shifted their feet; Théodore positioned his back to them, and scanned the street with deep interest. ‘Now, listen,’ she said. ‘We come here because my mother has a tendresse for one of the clergy. She thinks him spiritually fine, elevated.’
Théodore turned now. He opened the door for her. She turned her back. ‘His name is Abbé Laudréville. He visits us as often as my mother needs to discuss her soul, which these days is at least three times a week. And he thinks my father a man of no sensibility at all. So write.’ The door slammed, and she spoke to him from the window. ‘I imagine you have a way with elderly priests. You write the letters and he’ll bring them. Come to evening Mass, and you’ll get replies.’ Théodore gathered the reins. She bobbed her head in. ‘Piety to some purpose,’ she muttered.
NOVEMBER: Camille at the Café du Foy, unable to get his words out fast enough. ‘My cousin de Viefville actually spoke to me in public, he