The Cat and the King Read Online Free PDF

beloved progenitor completely undid me. The tears, I am not ashamed to admit, started to my eyes, and I proceeded to pour forth my gratitude. I do not recall everything I said, but I know that I must have expressed with passion my desire to serve him in all matters. I ended by begging to be considered for any rooms in the château that might be available so that I should have more ample opportunity to pay my court. The reader, in another era, may smile, but he will not be able to imagine the effect of Louis XIV on his subjects when he chose to be gracious.
    He spoke again. “I shall keep your request in mind.” That measured tone always convinced the petitioner that his plea had been securely filed. “One never knows when a vacancy may occur.”
    And then, with that brief though definite, courteous though irrevocable nod, he moved on to the great gallery. I could feel in the very air of the chamber around me the soaring of my reputation.
    Gabrielle met me in the antechamber with the round window known as the Oeil de Boeuf and took in at a glance the success of my audience. When she heard about the apartment, she clapped her hands.
    â€œThat means we’re sure to get one!”
    Indeed, she was right, for we were granted an apartment of three tiny rooms the very next day. They were hardly comfortable, yet they were more coveted than the greatest mansion. For only by living
in
Versailles could one fully appreciate the delights of the court. The palace at night had its peculiar pleasures and opportunities. The public was evicted, and the royal family retired behind closed doors, guarded by sleepy Swiss sentries. Something almost like informality prevailed.
    It was a time for small, intimate suppers or conversations, for passionate post mortems of the day’s events: who was in, who out, who had said what to Madame de Maintenon, who had been alone with the king. It was a time to call on the ministers and perhaps catch them, relaxed, in indiscretions. Oh, yes, an apartment was a great boon, and I was properly grateful to my wife.
    â€œNow you’ve got everything you need!” she exclaimed proudly when we at last surveyed our redecorated reception chamber. I had even hung my father’s portrait of the beloved Louis XIII over the little marble mantel.
    â€œNeed for what?”
    â€œFor whatever you want.”
    â€œAnd what do I want?”
    â€œAh, my dear,
you
must provide the answer to that!”

5
    T HE V IDAME DE S AVONNE , at this period of my life, was my closest friend. He was the merriest person imaginable, when he was not the gloomiest, for his changes of mood were dramatic. His popping blue eyes, curly blond hair and cauliflower face could be like a clown’s when he roared with laughter, but when the melancholy mood descended, he seemed more like a drowned puppy. Yet up or down, he was always the most loyal of friends. He had a charming way of seeming to need me, both in prosperity and when winds blew ill.
    It is commonly said that even men who have the courage of demons on the battlefield may show as cravens in the gilded salon, but I never fully believed it until I became intimate with Savonne. I saw him lead a cavalry charge at Neerwinden with a recklessness that was almost reprehensible, yet I have also watched him tremble so violently before Madame de Maintenon, who was a cousin of his mother’s, that he could hardly articulate a sentence. He professed to hold as sacred as I the rights of the peers, yet he was constantly betrayed by the weakness inherent in his affable and conciliatory nature into intimacies with just the sort of parvenus who most threatened our ancient prerogatives. When I accused him of being light minded, he would shrug and retort that “favor was everything” or “money ruled the roost,” seeming to suggest that the fashionable was also the inevitable, and that resistance had gone out with the ancient martyrs.
    And then, too, he