Farewell, My Queen by Black Moishe (children's ebooks online txt) 📗

crossed themselves. Then they were handed a damp, scented towel on which they wiped their hands. As far as the Queen was concerned, her participation ended there. She did not drink a drop from the glass of water set before her and did not even pretend to need a plate. As she did not ask for anything, the manservant stationed behind her armchair maintained a total immobility that seemed to redouble her own motionless state and make it more evident. Sad, her eyes downcast, she waited with resignation for the King’s appetite to be sated. She knew this would take time, because for him, this was the beginning of a festival of devourment. “His Majesty’s appetite deserves to be remembered by posterity” was the phrase commonly heard at Versailles. And whereas nothing was happening around the Queen, in the King’s vicinity there arose a brisk rhythm of comings and goings. A great many château servants had disappeared, but the Royal Commissary remained faithful. Thus, at the start of the meal, everything gave me a feeling of order and permanence. The delay had not been a prelude to disorganization. The ceremony of the Royal Repast had always been grandiose, and this occasion promised to be no exception. The King, it appeared, had eaten for his breakfast a meal gulped down with undignified haste before sunup so he could attend that dawn meeting of the Royal Council—some cutlets and savates of veal. Uneasy in his mind and still wavering over the dilemma of “Shall I stay, shall I go,” he had demanded more: “Cutlets and savates of veal amount to very little,” he had said. “Have them do me some eggs in mustard sauce.” Six, he had added for greater precision. And a bottle and a half of Burgundy wine. But that had been much earlier in the day. Since then, what between awkward moments and painful emotions, he had worked up a serious appetite. Food trolleys replaced trays, to be replaced in turn by entire tables covered with cooked dishes. The King went on devouring. Entrées, meat dishes and fish dishes, artful heaps of vegetables. First course, second course, third course. Joint of beef scarlet-rare, rice soup served with fattened pullet, Turkish-style minced wildfowl, water pheasant, skate livers, hashed ram’s testes, hare’s tongues, mutton sausages, fattened chicken, chicken blondin, chicken vestale, leek fritters, cauliflower fritters, oceans of green peas. He ate, he drank, he spake not a word . . . except to request another serving of pigeon, of eel and weever, of crayfish, pig’s head, and turkey’s feet. After a time, he stopped talking altogether and sat half-swooning, his waistcoat and doublet unbut-toned, confining himself to pointing at quivering mounds of white and green jellies, blancmange and celadon eggs, conglomerations of roes, and hare’s-ear mushrooms prepared in various ways. An impeccable gastronomic performance, an improbable refilling of the royal cavity . . . but toward the end, when it was time for the course of sweets and mousses, an incident occurred. There was an inexplicable pause in the proceedings. No one came to remove the dishes. After a lengthy wait, the King decided to send the Chief Cupbearer in Ordinary to make inquiries. The Chief Cupbearer did not come back. So the King sent the Yeoman-Scullery-Cupbearer accompanied by the Cupbearer Officer of the Commissary. They did not come back either. The King, purple in the face, said something in an undertone to the Queen, who gave the briefest of answers. Suddenly, meteorically, there came running a disheveled creature copiously daubed with soot. All she had on was a filthy skirt and a fichu that left her breasts bare. To me she looked as though she had escaped from the howling, leaping, galloping, flying firedance that, in defiance of the succor brought to man by Religion, has spanned the centuries and still serves to summon up witches. Surely she had come straight out of such a coven, with her plateful of impurities held aloft by her fingertips and her great mouth split from ear to ear in a perverse and toothless grin. She went to the King, where he sat waiting with all those serving dishes around him: on one platter a half-gnawed bone stood out, on others a rabbit’s head, or a collapsed pyramid of celery soufflé, a few crab shells, a ring of mullet, piles of giblets . . . She slapped down, onto the table in front of him, an iron plate on which had been arranged, in a kind of ridge above a carpet of potato peelings dragged through ashes beforehand, some tufts of animal hair and a dead rat. She burst out laughing and quickly vanished. There was a hubbub in our little gathering. But no one dared to stir. For several seconds the King examined the horrid concluding dish in his menu. Then he stood up, with difficulty, but successfully.

As he had done in the morning after the Council meeting broke up, but walking much less steadily, he repaired to the Apollo Salon to ascertain the temperature. The notebook was in its place. But the valet whose task it was to record the figures was gone. There remained the big crystal thermometer hanging from a window. The King leaned right up against the panes to discern the numbers. He was reluctant to record the temperature himself. He did not.

The Queen, on leaving the luncheon room, had taken the direction leading to her apartments. At first I thought she was indeed going to her own rooms; in reality, she was headed for those of Gabrielle de Polignac.

Nowhere in the various salons had the flowers been changed. I was told that the same was true in the Queen’s apartments.

I AM GRIPPED BY PANIC

(six o’clock in the evening).

So many warning signs had been accumulating, and all of them baleful. I noticed, too, a singular stir and bustle in the château but paid no attention. Six o’clock in the evening was when people normally withdrew to their own