The French Mistress Read Online Free PDF Page B

each of my new gowns in turn, considering them one by one while I stood by anxiously awaiting her judgment.
    I was mindful of the expenditure my new clothes had represented to my father, and how the rest of my family had been obliged to do without in some area so that I’d be able to represent them well here at Court. Maman herself had chosen every length of cloth with frugal care, and had cut away old lace from her own gowns to be washed and stitched freshly onto mine.
    Yet even before Gabrielle gave her verdict, I knew what she’d say. I’d eyes to see for myself. The moment I’d entered Madame’s rooms earlier I’d understood. How could I have missed the dress of the other ladies attending the princess this afternoon? For gossip and handwork, every one of them had dressed with more elegance, more artistry, and vastly more expense than the gown I’d intended for the most formal of Court occasions. Gabrielle need not speak a word aloud; her garb alone told me more of my lackings than any mere words ever could.
    Her gown was fashioned of peach-colored silk satin of such a weave that it seemed to change from rose to pale gold as she moved, just as did that summer fruit. Her billowing skirts were cunningly gathered in neat cartridge pleats, while the bodice was the work of a master mantua maker, boned and curved behind a long, straight busk to accentuate Gabrielle’s waist. Intricate rosettes of green silk ribbon blossomed from her cuffs, and a collar of finely wrought lace nearly half a foot wide circled her shoulders and was caught at her breasts with a brooch of pearls and carved coral, with more coral beads around her throat and hanging from her ears.
    Beside such opulence, my new gowns—mostly wool or linen, with only one of silk, and no gay rosettes or wide lavish bands of imported lace or cuffs that fell open like a flower’s petals around the elbow—seemed humble indeed, and a woefully inadequate match to my family’s grand aspirations.
    “The cut of these sleeves is rather amusing,” Gabrielle was saying, though now I heard her words as condescending, not kind, and meant more likely to mock the poor country seamstress than to praise her ingenuity.
    “Thank you,” I said, keeping my misery to myself as I prayed that would be sufficient answer. My parents and all the other de Keroualles behind me deserved that much.
    Gabrielle had come to the last of my gowns, lifting the skirts of the final one to glance beneath it, as if to find more hidden beneath.
    “I wonder where that lazy porter must be with your other trunks?” she asked, though I was sure she knew perfectly well that there’d be no more. “We’re all to go to the Louvre tonight with Madame for an entertainment, you know. Likely she’ll present you to His Majesty then, and you’ll want to dress to please him.”
    “I dress to please only myself,” I said. “Not the king, or anyone else.”
    She gasped with surprise: likely the first honest reaction I’d had from her. “But, Louise, everyone dresses to please His Majesty! To catch his favor is the most fervent desire of every lady at Court.”
    “I would wish to please His Majesty, yes,” I said carefully, “but as his loyal subject, not as an adulterous favorite.”
    “But it’s not that way, not with the king,” Gabrielle insisted. “Because he is His Most Christian Majesty and the most powerful monarch of God’s will on earth, even His Holiness in Rome pardons him his indulgences. Besides His Majesty’s reputation as a most pleasing lover, as every woman who has enjoyed the royal person will attest, he is a generous one, too. Jewels, benefices, titles, honors, estates! It is the surest course to success for any lady and her family at Court.”
    Jewels, benefices, titles, honors, estates . Surely such gifts would ease my parents’ situation as they grew older. My younger sister would have a dowry to attract a husband. Royal influence would further my brother’s military