Gates of Gold

Disaster

While the other servants tend to Madame’s linens, food, and toilette, Cécile cares for her three little dogs. Françoise teaches her the routine: brushing each coat, wiping noses, and cleaning teeth, eyes, and ears with a soft cloth. When she’s not directly working with the dogs, Cécile sits in the corner, watching the dogs jostle for their favorite spots close to Madame. Cécile waits for her turn to take them outside. At night, the dogs climb into bed with Madame. Cécile sleeps at the edge of the room, missing Papa but comforted by the fierce devotion of the gentle creatures nearby.

The next afternoon, when the dogs grow restless, Madame looks up from her papers and tells Cécile to take them outside. She explains that she’ll often join them, but today she has letters to finish. Françoise and Cécile rise from the floor and lead the dogs through several halls and apartments, down a small staircase, and out behind the palace. There, elaborately dressed ladies stroll arm in arm with gentlemen wearing sabers at their sides. Courting couples tuck themselves into small groves, and musicians lean over their instruments, foreheads sweaty in the sun.

Beyond the palace stretches the Grand Canal, flanked by trees planted as straight as soldiers. Gondolas, skiffs, and even a miniature ship glide across the water. Statues of dragons and gods rise among the flower beds. Everywhere Cécile looks, fountains shimmer and flags snap overhead until her head throbs from the sheer overwhelm of it.

She wonders aloud whether anyone ever gets lost among so many paths. Françoise assures her that every path eventually leads back to the palace. She explains that this land was once a marshy swamp where the king hunted as a boy. Since then, he has reshaped all of it, gardens, canal, and palace alike, into a monument to his own power.

Cécile feels the truth of it as she looks around. From the palace down to the smallest flower bed, everything answers to the king’s will. It reminds her of climbing a mountain once as a small child, looking down at the world from a great height. She feels proud of how far she had come. Yet for the first time, she also feels uncertain of her own small place in it.

They pause at a terrace overlooking a courtyard lined with rows of potted trees. Françoise explains that these are orange trees, which the king loves. Cécile has never even heard of an orange. Françoise clarifies that people eat them, though really, it’s the king who eats them. Palm trees in giant silver pots ring a round pool at the courtyard’s center. Beyond this Orangerie, another canal filled with racing skiffs stretches south.

A sharp tug on Cécile’s hand interrupts the moment. She looks down to find one of the dogs’ collars lying empty on the gravel. The mottled brown-and-black dog is already racing toward the nearest fountain. She fumbles for his name, stammering something like “Stad, Stud,” before it finally comes to her, and shouts, “Stabdille!” He pays her no mind. Instead, he scampers across the gravel toward two women, a small child, and a governess pushing a carriage. Françoise gasps. “Ah, non,” she whispers. “It’s Madame de Maintenon and the princess. Hurry, before he gets into trouble. I’ll wait here with the other dogs. Allez! Go!”

Cécile runs, but Stabdille reaches the group first, planting himself on the hem of Princess Marie-Adélaïde’s skirt. The princess erupts in laughter, calling him a funny little fellow and asking if he isn’t one of Madame’s dogs. She reaches down to scratch him between his floppy ears. Meanwhile, her son hops onto the fountain’s edge, sandy hair bouncing on his shoulders, laughing, “You can’t get me here!” as he bounces up and down to catch Stabdille’s attention. Madame de Maintenon orders him down at once, scolding that it’s no way for royalty to behave. She reminds him he isn’t at Marly now.

Cécile hurries toward the fountain’s edge, closing in on the dog at last. Just as she draws close enough to grab him, Stabdille leaps up and plants his paws on the boy’s knees. Madame de Maintenon reaches for the boy at the very same moment Cécile reaches for the dog. In a tangle of arms, legs, and paws, the boy and Stabdille both tumble into the fountain waters with a mighty splash.