Pierre Pevel - By The Alchemist in the Shadows Page 0,77

in the pleasures of life. And while her husband was promoted to due and then supreme commander of the royal armies, she became the mistress of the youngest son of the due de Guise, Claude de Lorraine, prince de Joinville and due de Chevreuse. Luynes died in 1622, during the course of a military campaign in the south of France against the Huguenots when Marie was twenty years old. Exposed to the hostility of Louis XIII, she nevertheless continued her duties with respect to the queen. But one evening, while she led her friend on a run through the halls of the Louvre as a game, Anne d'Autriche fell and, three days later, she suffered a miscarriage. This tragic loss provoked the king's wrath. He blamed Marie, pronounced the young widow's disgrace and banished her from the royal court.

Defying social conventions, Marie married the duc de Chevreuse barely four months after Luynes's death. Louis XIII was opposed to their union. But the due's loyalty, his glorious military record and his blood ties with the I louse of

Lorraine persuaded the king to forgive him and, shortly after, to allow the duchesse to rejoin the queen's entourage. From that position, she then embarked on one of the most notorious careers as a schemer — and as a lover — in the history of France. In the space of only a few years she pushed the queen into the arms of the duke of Buckingham and very nearly succeeded in causing a great scandal. She opposed the marriage of the king's brother, Gaston, to mademoiselle de Montpensier.

She took part in a plot against the cardinal that was barely foiled and was implicated in another against the king himself. Her life was saved only by her status as a foreign princess. Condemned to retire to her country holdings, she fled to Lorraine and, without giving up any of her other pleasures, she continued to involve herself in conspiracies. After the siege of La Rochelle, England negotiated a peace treaty with France and interceded on behalf of the duchesse. She thus returned to France after a year in exile, surrounded by a certain diabolical aura, thirty years old but not ready to settle down. But she was either lucky enough or smart enough not to take part in the revolt that started in the summer of 1632 in Languedoc, which ended with the victory of the royal troops and a death sentence for the duc de Montmorency.

In Paris, the duchesse de Chevreuse lived in a magnificent mansion on rue Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre, between the Louvre and the Tuileries. Remodelled for her by one of the most celebrated architects of the day, this splendid dwelling was composed of a central building flanked by two square pavilions, from which two wings extended to frame the courtyard. The latter was closed off a by third, lower wing, which contained a monumental gate decorated with pilasters and sculptures.

The lateral wings contained the facilities that were indispensable to the life any great household: kitchens, offices, servants' quarters, stables and coach houses. As for the central building, it housed the private apartments and the halls, a string of grand rooms that were used only on social occasions. To the rear, a terrace overlooked an exquisite garden.

The Hotel de Chevreuse was a veritable palace where the duchesse gave superb parties which tended to take a licentious

turn. It was also a den of intrigue into which Arnaud de Laincourt, on this very afternoon, was determined to enter.

'Come in, monsieur! Come in!' called out madame de Chev-reuse in a light-hearted tone.

Laincourt hesitated for a brief instant, then doffed his felt hat and crossed the threshold of the doorway that had been opened for him.

The room into which he had been admitted was part of the duchesse's private apartments. The furniture, the parquet floor, the wood panelling, the draperies, the gilt work, the painted ceilings, the ornaments and the framed canvases were all in the best possible taste and evidence of an extraordinary luxury. The air in the room was perfumed. As for the atmosphere, it was feverish. The chambermaids and wardrobe mistresses were engaged in whirling ballet with the duchesse at its centre. Sitting before a mirror that was held out for her, she had her back turned to the door and was giving precise instructions whose results she immediately verified in her reflection. It was question of adding a hint of rouge here, a pinch of powder there; of arranging a few stray locks that