The Chevalier Read online

  The Chevalier

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Prologue

  Part I

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Part II

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Part III

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty One

  Copyright

  The Chevalier

  Mike Hobbs

  Prologue

  A Death

  My sister’s black dress rustles in a gust of wind. Some might think it a sign of envy – misplaced at this hour – but I want that dress. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been clothed in one of her hand-me-downs. Perhaps our father’s funeral is not the best time for such thoughts – but when else could I have noticed how well black becomes her? And must, given our similar complexions, suit me? Enough: I brace myself to address the matter in hand.

  I watch them lower his coffin into a small rectangle in the frozen ground. Who could believe his corpse would be so shrunken? He had declined to bone in his last months. A few latecomers are padding across the graveyard towards us, their coats sharp black against the crunched-down snow. Flakes drift down from the trees to nestle on the grey wigs of the shivering mourners. The sound of one bell slowly tolling lies muffled on the air.

  The priest murmurs the service, the words sliding to soft nothings in the background, his breath dissipating into the murk. My mother can hardly bear to lift her tear-streaked face to look at his scuffed boots, let alone to meet the eyes of the congregation. It seems a dismal turnout for a man who had not been without importance in the town. The local grandees may have soured against him, but he had been the Mayor once, for God’s sake.

  My thoughts are interrupted by the closing invocation of the divine, his voice rising in pitch. “By the Grace of Our Lord, and the just protection of our King, Louis the Well-Beloved, I call upon those present to watch over the widow and progeny of the departed, Louis Déon de Beaumont, that he may dwell in everlasting peace and they in the light of the nation’s goodwill and bounty.”

  That’s all most unlikely. Somehow, I don’t believe we can expect too many gifts.

  We leave the churchyard and shuffle along slippery paths towards the long-familiar haven. On the canal, holes in the ice recall my childhood winters. We reach our château’s boundary, turn away from the water and take the narrow track beneath the ivy-covered wall. Now I feel a tug within, realising that I will be seeing all these for the final time.

  This sickness swells to a churning in my throat as we come to a gap in the wall, which reveals the edifice of our old home, solid and forbidding in its sepulchral stone. Our former servants, rehired for the day, are bringing out cases and trunks to stack onto the carts that throng the courtyard. Behind the frosted windowpanes, I glimpse furious activity; before long we hear the sound of hammering on wooden boards.

  The few stragglers from the funeral wander around our yard. My sister, pale and blonde and self-possessed, tries to interest them in a libation. She is persuasive. From dusty bottles, we drink a slow toast to the dead from cups unwrapped in haste. One by one, the members of the gentry make vague excuses and depart.

  Finally, only four of us remain.

  A slothful procession of carts passes us by and creaks off down the road, taking most of our remaining heirlooms. What had my father done, or left undone, to leave the house so bare?

  With calm indifference, the townsfolk watch the cavalcade recede. After it’s gone, they turn and head back up the hill, to the cramped quarters of Tonnerre. Dusk is making a cold day colder. It is time for me to go. First, however, I embrace my sister, brushing her dress’s sleeve in longing with my hand.

  “Farewell, Victoire.”

  “Goodbye, my little brother,” she says, with her bland, superior manner.

  “My fondest love to your children. And to Henri, naturally.”

  “I pray that you may also find the happiness I’ve found.” The sanctimonious prude smirks at her glib formula. She knows so little.

  “We live in hope.”

  “And mind you keep your hot young head in check. What’s done about the house is done. There’s no point in bearing grudges.”

  I resist a compulsion to box her ears. Our home snatched from us by a crew of titled thieves who wish to use its glory in the service of the state, and she cares nothing. She has her own château now.

  “Why else do you think I took up the law?”

  She raises a plucked eyebrow in reply. It is a glacial farewell.

  Next, I embrace the round-bodied Madame Benoist as if she were my own. Who knows? She was closer to me than my acknowledged mother, after all. Indeed, she often took me in, and brought me up with her five children. Her bosom glows as warm and sweet as when I was a boy. Apart from her loving, she has no advice to give me. Perhaps I can escape with equal ease from my surviving parent.

  “I am bound for Dijon, mother.”

  She nods. “God speed you, Charles. And kiss the feet of the Black Virgin for us all.” Like many who were roisterers in their youth, she has become devout with advancing age. The sudden gleam of piety in her eyes gives me a flash of just how bright she used to be. Victoire and I both take our delicate good looks from her.

  “You know I shan’t be returning?”

  “Remind me why that is so.” Her mind is quite distracted.

  “After my case is heard, I must take up my new position with de Savigny in Paris.”

  “Of course. My salutations to him – he was so good to your poor father.”

  Not good enough when the wolves of the Dijon Parlement pounced somehow on his clear and uncontentious will, but I do not wish to vex her more.

  “Are you sure you’ll be looked after when I’m gone?”

  “I thank you. I shall be most happy with your godfather on his estate.”

  Yet I sense that our departure is even harder for her to bear than it is for me. Unless I have immense good fortune, her independent life is over. She gulps and sniffles: warning signals to the wary.

  I grasp my horse’s reins and prepare to mount. Maybe I am harsh on my mother, but she was apt to abandon me when Parisian delights summoned her. Time may mellow me. I swing myself up into the saddle and wave farewell to my three ladies and the township of my birth. My stallion slides through the gates and down the freezing street. Once out of sight I guide him round the corner, away from the Faubourg du Pont, onto the straw-covered main road.

  For twenty-one years, I have been Charles Geneviève Louis Auguste André Timothée Marie Déon de Beaumont, son of a nobleman. Now I’m the near-penniless Chevalier d’Éon, and I must make my way alone.

  Part I

  Creation

  Chapter One

  The Red Dress

  You could say that I do not know my own mind. This same black dress has hung in my closet for so long, and
for almost as long I have contrived to ignore it. But every so often it catches my eye, and I allow myself to feel its folds about my person.

  These widow’s weeds are staring at me now.

  This is not an everyday compulsion, as you will understand. If you do not, I must make my position clear. It is a yearning that grows and grows through many seasons until at last it must be satisfied. When I give in to it, I eliminate all the possibilities of discovery. Thus far, I have confined myself to parading in front of the glass in my small chamber, behind a bolted door.

  I am aware it might be considered wrong. And, of course, I do not wish to offend society in Paris, have no desire to crush my career before it has even begun. So I have remained resolute, ignored all those voices in my head that tell me how pleasant it would be to take the air, and to mingle a little with humanity in this guise.

  However, I have long known that this day would come, and that once it arrived, it would be difficult to stop at a mere promenade. There is always the further lure of going out into the social world, to see how I might react differently to others with my appearance changed, with (so to speak) an altered sex. Not to mention how these participants in my experiment would behave towards me. Would they have an inkling of my true identity? I am convinced that no one will be able to discern my natural state. But I am fearful of the consequences if they do.

  Yes, you could say that I do not know my own mind. I wonder whether any man or woman truly does.

  For now, I grant, the urge has become constant. It makes me believe that I will never rest until I make my own scientific experiment. Adjusting my face to the feminine, adding rouge and kohl, I strip and clothe myself in female undergarments, acquired on various escapades that still cause me some shame. There was the time when I was almost found by a laundress… but no matter. I put on the black dress and lace up the kidskin boots I’ve had a cobbler make as a gift for a lady friend – fortunately, my feet are small. Now I examine myself in the glass and revel in my appearance. Finally, I check the staircase and the yard are empty, take up my mask and walk out into the evening.

  The sun is beginning to set on a fair, windless day, propitious for my exercise. Advancing with quick, nervous steps, I make my way unhindered through the narrow streets of Saint Germain. As I move across the Seine, I join the crowds and carriages, one with an almost royal escutcheon, making their way towards the Opéra.

  * * *

  In the carriage marked with three orange fleurs-de-lys, the elfin Comtesse de Boufflers is adding some final touches to her face. She checks these enhancements in an ivory-backed hand mirror, smiles and picks up her mask.

  Her companion heaves a deep sigh. “Will your husband be meeting you there?”

  “Not if I see him first.”

  “I hope he won’t become tedious about this, Charlotte.” The refined features of Louis-François, Prince de Conti, cousin to the King, go into hiding as he puts on his own mask, depicting a fierce, famished wolf. He fiddles with it, more out of nervous habit than because it will assist in avoiding detection. “The man is quite percipient.”

  Their carriage rattles over the last cobblestones of the Ile de la Cité and makes its way onto the northern half of the Pont Neuf. Spring has arrived in Paris – the first leaves are on the island’s trees.

  She reaches across and adjusts his cravat, where it has been unsettled by the mask. “Leave him to me, my dear.”

  “Very well.” He pretends to acquiesce, although he has never intended to do anything else.

  “Seems so strange to have a bridge without houses,” Charlotte wonders aloud, a thought that strikes her each time she travels this way across the Seine.

  The Prince nods, deep in contemplation of how he can best manage his battle for the mind and soul of the King and, if victorious, how soon he can possibly get away to gather the income from his estates. His mistress has grown used to the taciturnity of powerful men and employs well-practised means of filling the long silences.

  “Don’t you just adore the way the setting sun plays on the waters?” She looks westward to the Tuileries, the pallor of her face aglow in the last rays.

  A cursory glance, a grunt of agreement, and he contents himself with admiring her whitened cheeks and the button nose supporting her jewelled, feathered mask. His gaze slips to her bosom, still flushed from their recent exertions, with the little mole on her right breast poised on the verge of plunging into the abyss within. The low cut of her rustic blue dress draws attention to this eternal predicament.

  There’s a sharp jolt as they reach the northern bank, and the time for such peaceful reflection is over. Crowds are massing, other carriages and fiacres converging, a host of chattering bees drawn by the chance to ogle the finest flowers of society.

  The coach swings left along the riverfront to pass by the Louvre, then turns hard right before the Tuileries to wend its way through huddled streets towards the Opéra. All around the palace quarters, the multitudes are swelling. The stench of this unwashed populace assaults them; in swift defence, Charlotte brings out a scented handkerchief and holds it to her twitching nose.

  A cacophony soon erupts outside the Palais-Royal. Whores, beggars, cheats and sweetmeat sellers all surge forth, bent on proving they can shout the loudest, as though for some wager. There’s a torrent of souls out on the streets. The horses whinny at the press of bodies. Pushing through them, the driver making liberal use of the whip to clear a path, the carriage breaks free.

  Now the road opens. A faster pace, as the mare urges on the stallion – they are racing through the crush. Winds spring up and snatch at the driver’s coat so that it billows behind him. Charlotte leans out of the cabin, shuts her eyes and feels the breezes tingling on her cheek. The Prince sits back and watches faces in the crowd grow blurred as they hurtle by.

  Evening’s last embers are dying on the cooling air. They draw near their promised land, and the carriage starts to slow down. Other coaches are crammed in a mad jumble ahead of them. A plethora of beasts and a hillside of maids are alighting and surging up the Opéra steps. It is the first ball of the season.

  “What a mêlée!” Charlotte cannot hide her joy at the prospect.

  “You’d think people would learn, but it’s always the same.”

  He helps her down from the carriage and takes her arm; she sashays through the crowd while he prowls in close, vulpine attendance by her side. As they reach the entrance to the Opéra, the Prince spots a beautiful, pale young woman, standing alone, hesitant, dressed in mourning black.

  “There’s one for the Duc de Richelieu,” he says.

  “Don’t be coarse, my sweet – besides, she’s not a nun. No one can say that our noble swordsman is not a creature of habit.”

  They pass through the doors and enter the main hall. The sight dazzles even their well-accustomed eyes. The Opéra is sparkling fresh from its annual clean, new paintwork adding lustre to the costumes of the milling guests.

  Above the buzz of countless conversations, music swirls up and down the cavernous ballroom. Myriad candles flicker in the breeze created by the whirling dancers and the orchestra. Hundreds of animal masks encircle the bobbing heads of the country wenches in choreographed splendour. Other revellers pace to and fro, in groups or on their own, slowing to examine whoever takes their fancy. The atmosphere is one of barely suppressed excitement.

  Charlotte, too, pauses to survey her peers. Most of the women are clad in silks of white, sky blue, faint yellow or light green. One radiant beauty, however, is wearing a bright scarlet dress.

  “Who’s that, my dear?” She points to the young woman in red whose powdered ash-blonde hair is piled high. The woman has fine cheekbones and a long, straight nose beneath a dreamy, pleasing pair of dark blue eyes that glitter through her jewelled mask. These features crown a most curvaceous figure which, if anything, exhibits even more décolletage than Charlotte does herself.

  “She’s Marie, Madame de Courcelles,” he says, screwing his wolf’s he
ad around so that he can see more clearly. “Already widowed, so they say.”

  “Ah yes, poor thing. She seems to be bearing up. And who’s with her?

  “Not sure – it might be her new lover. Hard to tell underneath that disguise. No, wait a minute, perhaps it’s her protector.”

  “The Comte de Guerchy? I think you’re right. Maybe he’s both.”

  “That’s the one, anyway. Not quite so stupid as he likes to make out.”

  Guerchy – tall and cumbersome in movement yet well-built, with the powerful bearing of a soldier and the masked head of a bull – is standing behind Marie. He’s concentrating hard, fixing some pearls around her neck. As he secures the clasp, he tries surreptitiously to fondle her – she squirms and pushes his hands away. Without looking back, she moves off through the crowd towards the exquisite young creature in black.

  * * *

  I should explain. It has taken me some time to spirit my sister’s dress away from her château. A chance visit one summer after another fruitless appeal to the Dijon Parlement, Victoire and her husband taking my mother back to her new home, a swift examination of the depths of her wardrobe… let us hope she has had no occasion to notice its absence. I certainly have had no real opportunity to wear it in society – until now.

  Strictly speaking, I should no longer be mourning my father, but black offers me both sympathy and protection. I have observed that women are more likely to engage in discourse with a grieving stranger, so it is possible I may attract female company. Furthermore, men are less inclined to force their attentions on a bereaved woman, fearful that they may be met with a deluge of tears.

  This latter supposition appears to be true, since, although behind their animal masks many are watching me with lascivious relish, they are in general doing so from a distance. The other half of my theory is also soon proven correct: a gorgeous young woman halts in front of me, scarlet silk glimmering in the candlelight. She removes her mask and I mine; we gaze at each other in mutual fascination. I am first taken with her eyes, deep blue yet welcoming; then a delicate, well-chiselled nose, set between two lightly rouged cheeks; next my gaze travels down to rest on thin lips that part in a smile of great allure. Overall, she has a small head that does not prepare me for the wonders of her form, an intoxicating lack of proportion. The red dress enfolds her in its sensuous silk, glittering next to her pale, luxurious breast.