Gates of Gold

Endless Etiquette

September rushes past in a blur of etiquette lessons and the daily rhythms of court life. Cécile can hardly believe the public gathers each morning to watch the king rise from his four-poster bed. He then passes through his toilette, where one nobleman hands him his shirt, another his shoes, each hoping to win his favor. Most requests reach him midmorning as he strolls the long Hall of Mirrors. Its mirrored wall faces windows over the Grand Canal.

The hall brims with courtiers dressed as brightly as peacocks: men in red-heeled shoes, silk stockings, and brocaded topcoats. Women wear cinch-waisted gowns that bare their shoulders. Cécile stands behind Madame with the dogs and hears the same plea again and again. “Marly, Sire?” one man asks, hoping for a place on the king’s next hunting trip. Another begs for money to cover gambling debts from the card tables, which hum every evening. The king answers each with only a nod or a shake of his head. Cécile had imagined life at Versailles would feel like heaven. But for those whose days revolve around him, escaping to the countryside has become their dearest wish.

After the assembly, everyone files into the ornate chapel the king built inside the palace. Mass becomes one of Cécile’s few breaks from tending the dogs. Under its painted dome, the king’s family and the court’s most important members sit in galleries above. Servants and lesser courtiers stand below.

Every day, Madame snores through the sermon loudly enough for Cécile to hear from the back. She says she can’t help it, since the opening words alone put her to sleep. Cécile tries to listen, since the sermons preach feeding the hungry and showing kindness to strangers. Still, she doubts many at court take them to heart. Mass often runs two or three hours. Her legs ache from standing so long that she almost envies the dogs their naps.

In the afternoons, Cécile roams the grounds with the dogs. Madame joins her when she isn’t hunting with the king. One sunny day, they gondola down the Grand Canal to the Ménagerie, wrestling Madame’s heavy skirts out of the boat. It’s Cécile’s first glimpse of the carousel there. It’s also her first real look at the exotic animals Françoise had only described: elephants, giraffes, lions, ostriches, flamingoes, and creatures she can neither name nor imagine.

“Does the king raise them for food?” she asks. Madame laughs. She explains that it isn’t for food. The Ménagerie exists purely for enjoyment, a gift the king gave Marie-Adélaïde when she arrived at court at Cécile’s own age. Cécile’s mind swims. She wonders whether such a gift would have made her into a girl who expected the world to serve her.

Turning back, Madame huffs that the animals remind her of the palace’s own exotic courtiers. They also remind her of its foreign visitors from China and the New World. Cécile agrees, and Madame continues. She compares the exotic creatures, locked away with no escape, to captives forced to row as galley slaves below decks until they die. Madame admits that sometimes she thinks there is no greater slavery than a lifetime of service to the king. Madame’s words frighten Cécile. Although she may think these thoughts, she would never dare to say them aloud. It could cost her position, or worse.

Madame has already confided how she longs to return to her native Germany, though every request is denied. She married the king’s brother, who died ten years ago. But as a member of the royal family, her duty is to stay in the king’s company wherever he goes, to Marly, to Fontainebleau. With a war now in its tenth year against her homeland, she has little hope of ever seeing her family again.

“And you,” Madame asks, “do you miss your father, Cécile?” The question catches Cécile off guard. It’s like dropping a bucket into a forgotten well and drawing up water she didn’t expect to find. Cécile nods but keeps her eyes ahead, unwilling to let the sudden tears show.

She lived alongside Papa for years, cooking and cleaning under his direction. She never quite realized the depth of her feelings for him until she left. More than anything, she misses his voice, soothing her with stories he’d heard about court. She misses, too, the passages he read aloud from the Iliad or the Odyssey. “Yes, some,” is all she allows herself to say, afraid the whole truth might make Madame think her not strong enough for court.

They walk on, Cécile keeping all three leashes steady in her hands, until they reach an arched stone trellis topped with urns. There, the dogs stretch out in a thin rim of shade beside a fountain. At its center, water spurts from the mouth of a stone giant, crushed beneath a rain of rocks for daring to challenge Zeus. Madame explains that Zeus is the greatest of the Greek gods.

Papa taught her enough mythology to know the story. She thinks she understands how that giant feels, buried under all that weight. Ever since she arrived at the palace, her neck and shoulders have felt just as tight. They’re cinched by the constant effort not to make a mistake. She wants to be a good servant and thereby honor Papa, Madame, and the Sun King. But duty is beginning to feel less like an honor and more like a yoke upon her shoulders.