The French Mistress by Susan Holloway Scott Page B

the actual birth. But among ourselves we spoke endlessly about whether the child would be the son everyone desired, or only another disappointing daughter.
    There were other babies to discuss as well. In March Madame du Montespan had given birth to her first child by the king, a beautiful and robust daughter. It was all supposed to be a secret, of course, to preserve the dignity of the marquise’s cuckolded husband, but everyone at Court knew the truth, just as we all knew the lady had been installed in a small, elegant (and convenient) house on the rue de l’Echelle, not far from the Tuileries. Louis was delighted with his new daughter. It had been nearly ten years since his queen had presented him with the dauphin, and his open impatience with that poor lady’s efforts seemed to grow with this latest proof of his Bourbon virility.
    Only his English cousin fared worse. Charles had likewise been wed for many years, but while the number of royal bastards blossomed at a rate distressing to Madame, the English queen’s womb remained barren and empty, and the king without an heir. From Lord Rochester we learned that Charles had recently taken a most unsuitable woman for his latest mistress, a tawdry low actress named Nell Gwyn. Though Rochester declared her to be the most amusing little creature alive, Madame was horrified by how willingly her brother debased himself with such amusements. What a sorry waste of the royal seed, especially if it resulted in another woeful bastard instead of a noble Stuart princeling!
    There was one more baby arriving in our world, too, one of less place in the world, perhaps, but of consequence to our household, and Madame’s peace. I learned of it early one morning, that same spring.
    “Do you hear that, Louise?” Gabrielle whispered to me from her bed.
    It must have been soon after dawn, for I could hear the servants beginning their day in the hall outside. Our rooms were still dark: no one expected maids of honor to rise so early, especially after dancing at the Louvre the night before.
    “She’s been retching like that for at least a quarter of an hour,” Gabrielle continued. “Surely she must be empty by now.”
    My thoughts still thick with sleep, I lifted my head from the pillow to listen. As Gabrielle had said, someone was being ill. I could hear the distinctive sound of vomit splashing into an earthenware chamber pot.
    “Too much wine, whoever it is,” I muttered, yawning. “Go back to sleep.”
    “No, no,” Gabrielle insisted. “It’s Françoise, and it’s not wine that’s making her sick. It’s the bastard in her belly.”
    At once I was awake. For the haughty, beautiful Mademoiselle de Fiennes to have been trapped in her intrigues like this would be news indeed. When I’d first arrived at Court, she had been the most desired, and therefore the most powerful, of our little circle of maids of honor. Now, if she truly were with child, she was ruined. “Françoise? You are certain?”
    “She’s been sick like that every morning for the last week,” Gabrielle whispered eagerly. “She’s pale and poorly, too, if you’d but notice, and weeps over nothing. I’m sure of it.”
    The maid who’d been ill crawled back into her bed, unable to smother a small groan of misery and despair. I heard it and understood everything it signified, as likely did all the rest of us lying there in the dark. There would be no discreet house in a fashionable neighborhood for her, as there’d been for Athenaise du Montespan, no handsome allowance settled on her and her child. Françoise was ruined, in every sense. We’d no need to speculate who the father of her child might be, or wonder how he’d acknowledge his paternity. Sadly we all knew that, too. Two days later, the rest of the Court would know as well.
    We were gathered around Madame in the front hall near the door, waiting for Monsieur and the Chevalier de Lorraine to join us before we climbed into the coaches that would