The black and gold coach rolled on its way, scarcely checking till Versailles was reached. Then it slowed to enter the gates, and Léon sat forward to peer interestedly out into the gloom. Very little met his eyes, save when the coach passed under a lamp, until they entered the Cour Royale. Léon stared first this way and then that. The three-sided court was a blaze of light, shining from every unshuttered window that gave on to it, and further supplemented by great flambeaux. Coaches were streaming in a long line to the entrance, pausing there to allow their burdens to alight, then passing on to allow others to take their place.
Not until they finally drew up at the door did the Duke open his eyes. He looked out, dispassionately surveying the brilliant court, and yawned.
‘I suppose I must alight,’ he remarked, and waited for his footman to let down the steps. Léon climbed down first, and turned to assist his Grace. The Duke stepped slowly out, paused for a moment to look at the waiting coaches, and strolled past the palace lackeys with Léon at his heels, still holding the cloak and cane. Avon nodded to him to relinquish both to an expectant servant, and proceeded through various antechambers to the Marble Court, where he was soon lost in the crowd. Léon followed as best he might while Avon greeted his friends. He had ample opportunity for taking stock of his surroundings, but the vast dimensions of the court, and its magnificence, dazzled him. After what seemed to be an interminable ti
me, he found that they were no longer in the Marble Court, having moved slowly but surely to the left. They stood now before a great marble staircase, heavily encrusted with gold, up which a stream of people were wending their way. Avon fell in with a very much painted lady, and offered his arm. Together they mounted the broad stairs, crossed the hall at the top, and traversed various chambers until they came to the old Œil de Bœuf. Restraining an impulse to clutch the whaleboned skirts of Avon’s coat, Léon followed him as closely as he dared into a room beside which all the others through which he had passed faded to nothingness. Someone had said downstairs that the levée was being held in the Galerie des Glaces; Léon realised that this was it. It seemed to him that the huge gallery was even double its real size, filled with a myriad candles in scintillating chandeliers, peopled by thousands of silk-clad ladies and gentlemen, until he discovered that one entire side was covered by gigantic mirrors. Opposite were as many windows; he tried to count them but ceased presently in despair, for groups of people from time to time obscured his view. The room was stuffy, yet cold, covered by two great Aubusson carpets. There were very few chairs, he thought, for this multitude of people. Again the Duke was bowing to right and left, sometimes stopping to exchange a few words with a friend, but always working his way to one end of the gallery. As they neared the fireplace the crowd became less dense, and Léon was able to see more than the shoulders of the man in front of him. A stout gentleman in full court dress and many orders sat in a gilded chair by the fire, with various gentlemen standing about him, and a fair lady in a chair by his side. The wig of this gentleman was almost grotesque, so large were the rolling curls that adorned it. He wore pink satin with gold lacing; he was bejewelled and painted, with black patches on his florid face, and a diamond-hilted sword at his side.
Avon turned his head to speak to Léon, and smiled faintly at the look of astonishment on the page’s face.
‘You have seen the King. Await me now over there.’ He waved his hand towards an embrasure, and Léon started to retrace his steps, feeling very much as though his one support and guide in this vast place had deserted him.
The Duke paid homage to King Louis the Fifteenth, and to the pale Queen beside him, stayed for a few minutes to speak to the Dauphin, and proceeded in a leisurely fashion to where stood Armand de Saint-Vire, in attendance on the King.
Armand clasped his hands in warm welcome.
‘Mon Dieu, but it is refreshing to see your face, Justin! I did not know even that you were in Paris. Since when have you returned, mon cher ?’
‘Nearly two months ago. Really, this is most fatiguing. I am thirsty already, but I suppose it is quite impossible to obtain any burgundy?’
Armand’s eyes sparkled in sympathy.
‘In the Salle de Guerre!’ he whispered. ‘We will go together. No, wait, mon ami, La Pompadour has seen you. Ah, she smiles! You have all the luck, Justin.’
‘I could find another name for it,’ said Avon, but he went to the King’s mistress, and bowed exceedingly low as he kissed her hand. He remained at her side until the Comte de Stainville came to claim her attention, and then made good his escape to the Salle de Guerre. There he found Armand, with one or two others, partaking of light French wines, and sugared sweetmeats.
Someone handed the Duke a glass of burgundy; one of the footmen presented a plate of cakes, which he waved aside.
‘A welcome interlude,’ he remarked. ‘A ta santé, Joinlisse! Your servant, Tourdeville. A word in your ear, Armand.’ He took Saint-Vire aside to where a couch stood. They sat down, and for a time talked of Paris, court-life, and the trials of a gentleman-in-waiting. Avon allowed his friend to ramble on, but at the first pause in Armand’s rather amusing discourse, he turned the subject.
‘I must make my bow to your charming sister-in-law,’ he said. ‘I trust she is present to-night?’
Armand’s round good-humoured face became marred all at once by a gloomy scowl.
‘Oh yes. Seated behind the Queen, in an obscure corner. If you are épris in that direction, Justin, your taste has deteriorated.’ He snorted disdainfully. ‘Curds and whey! How Henri could have chosen her passes my comprehension!’
‘I never credited the worthy Henri with much sense,’ answered the Duke. ‘Why is he in Paris and not here?’
‘Is he in Paris? He was in Champagne. He fell into slight disfavour here.’ Armand grinned. ‘That damnable temper, you understand. He left Madame, and that clodhopping son.’
Avon put up his eyeglass.
‘Clodhopping?’
‘What, have you not seen him, then? A boorish cub, Justin, with the soul of a farmer. And that is the boy who is to be Comte de Saint-Vire! Mon Dieu, but there must be bad blood in Marie! My beautiful nephew did not get his boorishness from us. Well, I never thought that Marie was of the real nobility.’
The Duke looked down at his wine.
‘I must certainly see the young Henri,’ he said. ‘They tell me that he is not very like his father or his mother.’
‘Not a whit. He has black hair, a bad nose, and square hands. It is a judgment on Henri! First he weds a puling, sighing woman with no charm and less beauty, and then he produces – that!’
‘One would almost infer that you are not enamoured of your nephew,’ murmured his Grace.
‘No, I am not! I tell you, Justin, if it had been a true Saint-Vire I could have borne it better. But this – this half-witted bumpkin! It would enrage a saint!’ He set down his glass on a small table with a force that nearly smashed the frail vessel. ‘You may say that I am a fool to brood over it, Alastair, but I cannot forget! To spite me Henri marries this Marie de Lespinasse, who presents him with a son after three fruitless years! First it was a still-born child, and then, when I had begun to think myself safe, she astonishes us all with a boy! Heaven knows what I have done to deserve it!’
‘She astonished you with a boy. I think he was born in Champagne, was he not?’
‘Ay, at Saint-Vire. Plague take him. I never set eyes on the brat until three months later when they brought him to Paris. Then I was well-nigh sick with disgust at Henri’s fatuous triumph.’