Karleen Koen - Before Versailles: A Novel of Louis XIV

ALSO BY KARLEEN KOEN Dark Angels Now Face to Face Through a Glass Darkly

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Copyright 2011 by Karleen Koen Title page art: A View of the Royal Palace of Fontainebleau (oil on panel) by Hendrik Frans de Cort (17421810) (attr. to) Private Collection/ Lawrence Steigrad Fine Arts, New York/The Bridgeman Art Library Nationality / copyright status: Flemish / out of copyright All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com CROWN is a trademark and the Crown colophon is a registered trademark of
Random House, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Koen, Karleen.
Before Versailles : a novel of Louis XIV / Karleen Koen. 1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Louis XIV, King of France, 16381715Fiction. 2. FranceKings and rulersFiction. 3. FranceHistoryLouis XIV, 16431715Fiction. I. Title.
PS3561.O334B44 2011
813.54dc22 2010035562 eISBN: 978-0-307-71659-0 Jacket design by Jennifer OConnor v3.1 For X
and
for Louise de la Vallire

Contents

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow . Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice . Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities . Create in me a clean heart, O God

PSALMS 51:710

Characters

THE ROYAL HOUSEHOLDS

Louis XIV: king of France from 1643 to 1715. Maria Teresa: queen of France; infanta or princess of Spain. Philippe: younger brother of Louis XIV, first prince of France; formerly Duke dAnjou, now Duke dOrlans; known as Monsieur at court. Henriette: Duchess dOrlans, first princess of France; married to Prince Philippe; sister of Charles II, king of England; known as Madame at court. Guy-Armand de Gramont: Count de Guiche; friend of Prince Philippe; brother of Catherine; cousin of Pguilin. Catherine: Princess de Monaco, married to crown prince of Monaco; lady-in-waiting to Madame; sister of Guy-Armand de Gramont; cousin of Pguilin. Olympe: Countess de Soissons; superintendent of the queens household; niece of Cardinal Mazarin. Athnas de Tonnay-Charente: maid of honor to the queen. La Porte: valet to Louis XIV. Pguilin: friend and captain of the guards to Louis XIV; cousin of Catherine and Guy. Louise de la Baume le Blanc: maid of honor to Madame; cousin of Franois-Timolon de Choisy; formerly in the household of the late Duke dOrlans. Fanny de Montalais: best friend of Louise de la Baume le Blanc; maid of honor to Madame. Anne: queen mother of France; former regent of France; mother of Louis XIV and Philippe; a princess of Spain. Madame de Motteville: lady-in-waiting to the queen mother.

GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS

Cardinal Jules Mazarin: former first minister; deceased. Cardinal Richelieu: minister to Louis XIII; deceased. Viscount Nicolas: superintendent of finance. Jean-Baptiste Colbert: official in Louis XIVs government. Charles dArtagnan: lieutenant of Louis XIVs musketeers. Marshall de Gramont: one of the officers of the crown; father of Guy-Armand and Catherine. Prince de Monaco: prince of a small nearby kingdom; ally of Louis XIV; his son, the crown prince, is married to Catherine.

CHARACTERS IN COURT AND AROUND PARIS

Madame de Choisy: noblewoman at court. Franois-Timolon de Choisy: youngest son of Madame de Choisy; cousin of Louise de la Baume le Blanc. Marie, Duchess de Chevreuse: former lady-in-waiting to Queen Anne. La Grande Mademoiselle: an Orlans, one of the princesses of France; first cousin of Louis XIV. Molire: one of Frances great playwrights and actors. La Voisin: a witch. Queen Henrietta Maria: widow of Charles I of England; mother of Henriette of France known as Madame and also of Charles II of England; daughter of Henri IV; aunt of Louis XIV.

fictional characters

Prologue

NTELLIGENT, VIRILE, HANDSOME, A MAN WHO MADE HIMSELF master of all he surveyed, Louis XIV was the foremost figure of his age. He was its prize, its comet, its star. His drive, cunning, and absolute determination to forge France into the premier kingdom of its time awed and frightened his fellow kings. None of them could match him. He supported the arts and literature so thoroughly that France became a cultural beacon that shines to this day, and by the time he died, every court in Europe copied the manners and fashion of his. The language of France became the language of art, of culture, of commerce, and of diplomacy for several hundred years. His palace at Versailles is a national monument and was one of the wonders of the world in its time.

From birth, war was his backdrop, and the nobility surrounding him as he grew to manhood was as proud as Lucifer and as trustworthy. The ambitions of others were always faintly in the distance, or up close, naked, fangs gleaming. Louis possessed a consummate skill in turning those ambitions to his own advantage, and before he was thirty, he had become the hard, graceful, prowling lion of all of Europe.

There was a moment in his young life when he deliberately chose to grasp power. It was a moment when tenderness was still hisbefore time and pride closed hima moment when his heart, like many a mans, yearned for something true. It happened in his forest palace of Fontainebleau. Perhaps it went something like this

March 1661, France

YOUNG WOMAN GALLOPED HEADLONG AND RECKLESSLY down half-wild trails in the immense forest of Fontainebleau. Her fair hair had come loose from its pins, and she leaned low against her horses neck and whispered the filly onward, as if she were being chased by murderers. It was said she possessed magic with horses, and the groom attempting to follow behind her believed it. She was like a picture hed seen onceof a centaur, a creature of mythology, half man, half horse. The only souls to hear the sound of thudding hooves were birds, rabbits, foxes, in burrows or hollow logs or nests of green moss and twigs, all of which stayed hidden, out of sight and harm. The forest around them was wild, huge, one of Frances glories. For centuries, kings had hunted under its majestic and ancient trees. It was said to be filled still with forest spirits, shy, sly, summer-like sylphs who blended into the leaves that would unfurl soon and blessed or cursed the humans impinging on their malachite- and emerald-hued domain.

The horses galloped into a clearing in which a tree lay fallen. The young blonde leaned forward in her sidesaddle and told her horse that the beast could do it, and the filly responded, sailing over the tree effortlessly. Afraid to take the dangerous jump, tired from their long gallop this day, the groom pulled hard on his reins, and the horse under him snorted and jerked its head and turned in circles, while the blonde trotted her horse back to him. Her face was lovely, flushed, incandescentthe way it could be when she was this happy and carefree. Her name was Louise de la Baume le Blanc, and she was just on the cusp of ten and six, and she had no idea of it, but her life was about to change forever as certain stars finished their alignment.

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