Chapter 5: Octobre 1688, Vaux-le-Vicomte

Our visit to the magnificent château, Vaux-le-Vicomte, was in its way taking a dangerous chance. Madame Fouquet had regained the château many years before. It had been seized by the King after Colbert had convinced him that Nicolas Fouquet, Louis XIV’s superintendent of finances, had funded its construction through theft from the public purse. The more likely real explanation: it was seized due to a fit of Kingly envy.

The King, though, still looked upon the Fouquets with a jaundiced eye. The arrogance of naming their estate ‘Worthy of the Viscount’ was an unnecessary slap at the King’s ego. It was petty, but it would never be forgiven and certainly never forgotten.

As Madame Fouquet was an old friend of Aurora’s family, her visits there were, if not tolerated, at least overlooked. It was a place of refuge for us, away from Versailles, where we could quietly be together for short periods as if we were man and wife.

We walked together in the gardens behind the château with its remarkable gardens arm-in-arm, happy and content.

“Last week I encountered the Queen at Versailles,” Aurora said. “I was quite surprised but she actually remembered my name. I was, of course, introduced to her when I first arrived with my husband, but that was for all of thirty seconds over a year ago.

“She said, with that funny Spanish accent of hers, ‘I am told that you are going to present your husband with a child.’ I noticed that she didn’t say ‘his child’ so perhaps she implies that he is not the father. Her ladies tittered as she said that. I suspect that she was being sly or clever.

“Oui, your highness, I have been so blessed.

“Then she informed me that my husband had announced to the Court that ‘his’ child was going to be a male. She asked me if I agreed.

“I smiled at her and said, ‘What kind of wife would I be to contradict my husband?’ At that, she laughed, and said that would make me just like all of the other wives at Court. And then she bid me adieu and she and her ladies turned to leave. But she took several steps and turned her head back in my direction and told me, ‘You must raise your son to serve France and to love his King.’

“I replied that ‘her command was also my deepest desire’, at which time she nodded in my direction and smiled at me. She wished me ‘bonne chance’ with the birth and left.”

We walked silently for several minutes again. I could sense that Aurora was disturbed and was mustering her courage to say something to me. She asked if we could sit down on one of the benches.

“Christian, I want to name our child after you!” she finally proclaimed.

“My love, my dearest love, you know that is not possible,” I replied. “I wish that you could carry my name, and that our child could carry my name as well, mais il n’est pas possible; it is completely impossible.”

“I understand,” she whispered sadly, “but I can wish and hope...”

I leaned over to her and kissed the side of her face with a light brushing of my lips.

I could see her forehead frown in concentration and I knew that if I looked at the front of her face that she would have her lower lip gripped firmly between her teeth.

“Christian?” she asked, and I knew that there would be a difficult question coming that she expected — no demanded — that I answer.

“Actually, I couldn’t name our child after you because,” and she raised an astonishing point, “even after all of our time together, I don’t know your surname! You’ve always just been my ‘Christian.’”

I had to actually laugh. How could we have been lovers, and share a child (albeit one still in the womb) and not have shared such a basic fact?

“For a long time, even before I was brought to the Court, I have gone by the name ‘Coeur d’Noir’.”

She lifted her eyebrow at me quizzically.

“Christian ‘Black Heart’? You aren’t an evil man. Why would you say you have a black heart? Have you done vile deeds that cause you to take a name with such dark and dangerous overtones?”

“The answer is: yes, I have done reprehensible evil in times past. But that was long ago and I’ve since repented. But my soul is damned nonetheless, and I don’t hide myself behind pleasant words and pretentions of virtue. And in any case, that is not the name that I was born to.”