“D’Avaux says you are good with money,” the King said.

“I say d’Avaux is good at flattering young ladies,” I answered.

“It is an error for you to feign modesty when you are talking to me,” the King said, firmly but not angrily.

I saw my error. We use humility when we fear that someone will consider us a rival or a threat; and while this may be true of common or even noble men, it can never be true of le Roi and so to use humility in His Majesty’s presence is to imply that the King shares the petty jealousies and insecurities of others.

“Forgive me for being foolish, Sire.”

“Never; but I forgive you for being inexperienced. Colbert was a commoner. He was good with money; he built everything you see. He did not know how to speak to me at first. Have you ever experienced a sexual climax, mademoiselle?”

“Yes.”

The King smiled. “You have learned quickly how to answer my questions. That pleases me. You will please me more by now making the sounds that you made when you had this climax. You may have to make those sounds for a long time-possibly a quarter of an hour.”

I must have clutched my hands together in front of my bosom, or put on some such show of girlish anxiety. The King shook his head and smiled in a knowing way. “To see a certain deshabille, in a quarter of an hour, would please me-only that it might be glimpsed, through the door, by the ones who wait in the gallery.” The King nodded toward the door through which he had entered. “Now if you will excuse me, mademoiselle. You may begin at any time.” He turned away from me, doffing his coat and handing it to one of the chirurgeon’s assistants as he moved toward the heavy bench, now draped in white linen, that sat in the middle of the room on a carpet of sailcloth. The chirurgeon and his assistants closed in on the King like flies on a piece of meat. Suddenly-to my indescribable shock-the King’s breeches were down around his ankles. He lay down on his stomach on the bench. For a moment I fancied he was one of those men who likes to be struck on the buttocks. But then he spread his legs apart, bracing his feet against the floor to either side of the bench, and I saw a frightful purplish swelling in the crevice of his buttocks.

“Father Edouard,” the King said quietly, “you are among the most learned men of France. Even among your fellow Jesuits you are respected as one to whom no detail is unnoticed. Since I cannot view the operation, you will please me by paying the closest attention, and telling me the story later, so that I will know whether this chirurgeon is to be counted a friend or an enemy of France.”

Father Edouard nodded and said something I could not hear.

“Your Majesty!” the chirurgeon exclaimed. “To perfect my skills, I have performed a hundred of these operations, in the last six months, since I was made aware of your complaint-”

“Those hundred are not of interest to me.”

Father Edouard had noticed me standing in the corner. I prefer not to speculate what sort of expression was on my face! He locked his dark eyes on mine-he is a handsome man-and then glanced significantly toward the door, through which I could hear a low hubbub of ribald conversation among the dozen or so courtiers biding their time.

I moved closer to that door-not too close-and let out a throaty sigh. “Mmm, Votre Majeste!” The courtiers outside began shushing one another. In my other ear I heard a faint ringing noise as the chirurgeon picked a knife up off his table.

I let out a groan.

So did the King.

I let out a scream.

So did the King.

“Oh, gentle, it is my first time!” I shouted, as the King shouted curses at the chirurgeon, muffled by a silken pillow Father Edouard was holding to his face.

So it went. For a while I continued screaming as if suffering great discomfort, but as the minutes wore on, I changed over to moans of pleasure. It seemed to go on for much longer than a quarter of an hour. I lay down on a rolled-up carpet and tore at my own clothes, pulled the ribbons and braids from my hair, and breathed as heavily as I could, to make my face flushed and sweaty. Towards the end, I closed my eyes: partly to block out the hellish things I was beginning to see in the middle of the room, and partly to play my role more convincingly. Now I could clearly hear the courtiers in the gallery.

“She’s a screamer,” said one of them admiringly. “I like that, it makes my blood hot.”

“It is most indiscreet,” said another scornfully.

“The mistress of a King does not have to be discreet.”

“Mistress? He’ll throw her away soon, then where will she be?”

“In my bed, I hope!”

“Then you had best invest in a set of earplugs.”

“He had best learn to fuck like a King before he’ll need them!”

A drop of moisture struck me on the forehead. Fearing that it was a splash of blood, I opened my eyes and looked vertically upwards into the face of Father Edouard de Gex. He was indeed all spattered with the blood royal, but what had fallen on me was a bead of sweat from his brow. He was glaring straight down into my face. I have no idea how long he had been watching me thus. I glanced over towards the bench and saw blood everywhere. The chirurgeon was sitting on the floor, drained. His assistants were packing rags between the King’s buttocks. To stop all of a sudden would be to give the ruse away, and so I closed my eyes again and brought myself to a screaming-if simulated-climax, then exhaled one long last moan, and opened my eyes again.

Father Edouard was still standing there above me, but his eyes were closed and his face slack. It is an expression I have seen before.

The King was standing up, flanked between a pair of assistants who stood ready to catch him if he should faint. He was deathly pale and tottering from side to side, but-somewhat incredibly-he was alive, and awake, and buttoning up his own breeches. Behind him other assistants were bundling up the bloody sheets and drop-cloths and rushing them out through the back door.

Here is what the King said to me as he was leaving:

“Nobles of France enjoy my esteem and confidence as a birthright, and make themselves common by their failures. Commoners may earn my esteem and confidence by pleasing me, and thereby ennoble themselves. You may please me by showing discretion.”

“What of d’Avaux?” I asked.

“You may tell him everything,” said the King, “so that he may feel pride, inasmuch as he is my friend, and fear, inasmuch as he is my foe.”

Monseigneur, I do not know what His Majesty meant by this, but I am sure you do…

To Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

29 September 1685

Doctor,

The season has turned and brought a noticeable darkening of the light.*In two days the sun will sink farther beneath the southern horizon as I journey with Mme. la marquise d’Ozoir to Dunquerque at the extreme northern limit of the King’s realm and thence God willing to Holland. I have heard that the sun has been shining very hot in the South, in the country of Savoy more on this later.

The King is at war-not only with the Protestant heretics who infest his realms, but with his own doctors. A few weeks ago he had a tooth pulled. Any tooth-puller chosen at random from the Pont-Neuf could have handled this operation, but d’Aquin, the King’s doctor, got it wrong, and the resulting wound became abscessed. D’Aquin’s solution to this problem was to pull out every last one of the King’s upper teeth. But while he was doing this he somehow managed to rip out part of the King’s palate, creating a horrendous wound which he then had to close up by the application of red-hot irons. Nonetheless, it too abscessed and had to be cauterized several more times. There is another story, too, concerning the King’s health, which I will have to tell you some other time.