Free The Cat and the King by Louis Auchincloss Page B

idleness. I tended now to identify her with the king. Her father had ruined my life, and his jokes at my expense began to take on the aspect of a jeering commentary from the paternal compound. What was she but part and parcel of the whole vicious apotheosis of Louis XIV?
    I was too much of a gentleman to hold her bastardy against her, but it nonetheless had the effect of linking her in my mind to the unlawfulness of much of what the king was doing. And so it took very little to bring my feelings towards her to active animosity. She objected to my intrigue with Madame de Creon because the testy officious little due de Bourbon had an eye for that lady himself, and Madame la Duchesse encouraged his infidelities as an excuse for her own!
    At the king’s supper, one night, when I found myself seated by Madame la Duchesse, she turned to me with a small smirk and asked me:
    â€œWhat should I call the little Creon? My lover-in-law? One needs some term like that, don’t you think? We have so many new relationships in court these days.”
    â€œYou might call her ‘lover legitimated.’”
    â€œFie, prince, put back your velvet glove. That’s too blunt a blow for a man of your wit.”
    â€œYour turn, then. I bare my chest. Strike!”
    She looked at me as if she were searching the most vulnerable spot. “They called our grandfather-in-law the Great Condé for his conquest of enemy territory. I think we’ll call you the Great Conti for your occupation of areas that are... shall we say, less rigorously defended?”
    This bold association of my name with the female sex organ in the presence and almost within the hearing of the king would normally have made me roar with laughter. But the use of obscenity to dramatize the contrast of my present life with the glorious past of my hero made me so indignant that the tone of my response must have been actually grating.
    â€œIt’s your father’s fault that I live as I do! Why don’t you use your influence to get me a command?”
    â€œAnd be the cause of sending you away from court? Be the possible agent of some damage to those beautiful features? Ah, no, dear prince, a thousand ladies would scratch my eyes out!”
    I turned away from her, too wrathful to trust my speaking tone. The king, at any rate, was about to rise, and I noted that he had observed us. Had there been a hint of disapproval in those opaque eyes at the animation of our discourse? The king, I knew, with Madame de Maintenon, tried to keep Madame la Duchesse’s conduct at least outwardly respectable. He deplored in his children any activity that recalled his own lascivious past and framed in irony his present stiff morality. Any association with a man of my descending reputation would be just what he desired the least. Which was just what gave me my idea.
    I would become the lover of Madame la Duchesse! It would be an exquisite combination of revenge and pleasure. I determined to set about it at once, and the very next day I presented myself at the apartment of Madame de Maintenon at a time when I knew my prey would be there.
    â€œSo, prince, you are seeking respectable company for a change!” Madame de Maintenon’s tone was haughty but not unfriendly. She was always grateful to have the princes of the blood dancing attendance on her. “We are flattered. I am only sorry your dear little wife is not here. She seems to spend more and more time with her mother in Paris these days.”
    â€œShe is indeed, ma’am, the very symbol of filial devotion. A saint, I venture to suggest.”
    â€œWell, we could use one in the family.”
    I bowed in silence, letting her “family” pass, and then went over to take a seat by Madame la Duchesse.
    â€œWhat in God’s name brings you here?” she challenged me at once. “Do you have the nerve to do your chasing under the very nose of the old prude? Don’t forget she was once