The Earl of Feversham tottered out and steadied himself against the doorjamb. He looked neither happy nor sad, but vaguely lost. This man was now Commander in Chief of the Army. Paul Barrillon had a look on his face as if he were sucking on a chocolate truffle and didn’t want anyone to know. Samuel Pepys, Roger Comstock, and Daniel Waterhouse shared an uneasy look.

“M’Lord? What news?” Pepys said.

“What? Oh! The King is dead,” Feversham announced. His eyes closed and he leaned his head on his upraised arm for a moment, as if taking a brief nap.

“Long live…” Pepys prompted him.

Feversham awoke. “Long live the King!”

“Long live the King!” everyone said.

Father Huddlestone finished the rite and turned towards the door. Roger Comstock chose that moment to cross himself.

“Didn’t know you were Catholic, m’lord,” Daniel said.

“Shut up, Daniel! You know I’m a Freedom of Conscience man-have I ever troubled you about your religion?” said the Marquis of Ravenscar.

For the market is against our sex just now; and if a young woman has beauty, birth, breeding, wit, sense, manners, modesty, and all to an extreme, yet if she has not money she’s nobody, she had as good want them all; nothing but money now recommends a woman; the men play the game all into their own hands.

–Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders

To M. le comte d’Avaux

12 July 1685

Monseigneur,

As you see I have encyphered this letter according to your instructions, though only you know whether this is to protect it from the eyes of Dutch spies, or your rivals at Court. Yes, I have discovered that you have rivals.

On my journey I was waylaid and ill-used by some typically coarse, thick Dutchmen. Though you would never have guessed it from their looks and manners, these had something in common with the King of France’s brother: namely, a fascination with women’s undergarments. For they went through my baggage thoroughly, and left it a few pounds lighter.

Shame, shame on you, monseigneur, for placing those letters among my things! For a while I was afraid that I would be thrown into some horrid Dutch work-house, and spend the rest of my days scrubbing sidewalks and knitting hose. But from the questions they asked me, it soon became obvious that they were perfectly baffled by this French cypher of yours. To test this, I replied that I could read those letters as well as they could; and the dour looks on the faces of my interrogators demonstrated that their incompetence had been laid bare, and my innocence proved, in the same moment.

I will forgive you, monseigneur, for putting me through those anxious moments if you will forgive me for believing, until quite recently, that you were utterly mad to send me to Versailles. For how could a common girl such as I find a place in the most noble and glorious palace in the world?

But now I know things and I understand.

There is a story making the rounds here, which you must have heard. The heroine is a girl, scarcely better than a slave-the daughter of a ruined petty noble fallen to the condition of a Vagabond. Out of desperation this waif married a stunted and crippled writer in Paris. But the writer had a salon that attracted certain Persons of Quality who had grown bored with the insipid discourse of Court. His young wife made the acquaintance of a few of these noble visitors. After he died, and left this girl a penniless widow, a certain Duchess took pity on her, brought her out to Versailles, and made her a governess to some of her illegitimate children. This Duchess was none other than the maitresse declaree to the King himself, and her children were royal bastards. The story goes that King Louis XIV, contrary to the long-established customs of Christian royalty, considers his bastards to be only one small step beneath the Dauphin and the other Enfants de France. Protocol dictates that the governess of les Enfants de France must be a duchess; accordingly, the King made the governess of his bastards into a marquise. In the years since then, the King’s maitresse declaree has gradually fallen from favor, as she has grown fat and histrionic, and it has been the case for some time that when the King went every day to call upon her at one o’clock in the afternoon, just after Mass, he would simply walk through her apartment without stopping, and go instead to visit this widow-the Marquise de Maintenon, as she was now called. Finally, Monseigneur, I have learned what is common knowledge at Versailles, namely that the King secretly married the Marquise de Maintenon recently and that she is the Queen of France in all but name.

It is plain to see that Louis keeps the powerful of France on a short leash here, and that they have nothing to do but gamble when the King is absent and ape his words and actions when he is present. Consequently every Duke, Count, and Marquis at Versailles is prowling through nurseries and grammar-schools, disrupting the noble children’s upbringing in the hunt for nubile governesses. No doubt you knew this when you made arrangements for me to work as a governess to the children of M. le comte de Beziers. I cringe to think what awful debt this poor widower must have owed you for him to consent to such an arrangement! You might as well have deposited me in a bordello, Monseigneur, for all the young blades who prowl around the entrance of the count’s apartment and pursue me through the gardens as I try to carry out my nominal duties-and not because of any native attractiveness I may possess but simply because it is what the King did.

Fortunately the King has not seen fit to grace me with a noble title yet or I should never be left alone long enough to write you letters. I have reminded some of these loiterers that Madame de Maintenon is a famously pious woman and that the King (who could have any woman in the world, and who ruts with disposable damsels two or three times a week) fell in love with her because of her intelligence. This keeps most of them at bay.

I hope that my story has provided you with a few moments’ diversion from your tedious duties in the Hague, and that you will, in consequence, forgive me for not saying anything of substance.

Your obedient servant,

Eliza

P.S. M. le comte de Beziers’ finances are in comic disarray-he spent fourteen percent of his income last year on wigs, and thirty-seven percent on interest, mostly on gambling debts. Is this typical? I will try to help him. Is this what you wanted me to do? Or did you want him to remain helpless? That is easier.

My dark and cloudy words they do but hold

The truth, as cabinets enclose the gold.

–John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress

To Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

4 August1 68 5

Dear Doctor Leibniz,

Difficulty at the beginning*is to be expected in any new venture, and my move to Versailles has been no exception. I thank God that I lived for several years in the harim of the Topkapi Palace in Constantinople, being trained to serve as a consort to the Sultan, for only this could have prepared me for Versailles. Unlike Versailles, the Sultan’s palace grew according to no coherent plan, and from the outside looks like a jumble of domes and minarets. But seen from the inside both palaces are warrens of stuffy windowless rooms created by subdividing other rooms. This is a mouse’s-eye view, of course; just as I was never introduced to the domed pavilion where the Grand Turk deflowers his slave-girls, so I have not yet been allowed to enter the Salon of Apollo and view the Sun King in his radiance. In both Palaces I have seen mostly the wretched closets, garrets, and cellars where courtiers dwell.