That day the barren chestnut trees looked to me like the black iron feathers lining the gates of the palace at Compiègne, as if those feathers had spread across the country to become a forest of iron. The parade of horse-drawn phaetons, coupes, buggies, and carriages were filled by some of the wealthiest and most beautiful people in Paris.
You’re attracting some notice, the Comtesse said to me, as we made the first turn. You shouldn’t accept the first admirer, however, unless he does something truly extraordinary to get your attention. And even then, consider resisting, she said. Unless, of course, she said, by accepting him you attract the competition of another admirer. Ideally there will be several. A single man’s support is unreliable, she said. With three you can be secure.
What is the best number? I asked.
That would depend, she said. Three can keep you very busy. But some of us, and she gestured at the crowd circling the lake, have as many as there are on this road right now.
Our carriage rattled a bit on the gravel underneath. We sat in silence. The men driving by seemed identical to me.
The men were approximately the same men. Russian and Italian princes, German barons and French dukes, the famous Turk, Halil Bey. Prince Napoléon.
The Prince Napoléon, she told me, had been married off to a magnificently ugly and devout Christian noblewoman from Italy named Princess Maria Clotilde. He was famous for leaving the doors to his apartment open while he satisfied himself on this or that mistress or whore.
It seemed being the Prince Napoléon has left him in a permanent bad temper, she said. Or that in the arrangement of his marriage, Louis-Napoléon had played a joke on him.
She directed my attention to the beautiful if unadorned phaeton of Louis-Napoléon driving around the Bois in disguise. The Comtesse pointed him out casually. They did not acknowledge each other.
He’s married to his country, the Comtesse observed. Almost every woman in it.
I turned to take in the Comtesse, who did not look away from the Emperor. Her disgrace had not seemed real to me before then. She had seemed only beautiful, powerful, shrewd. The light off the park highlighted her face starkly in that moment and revealed in her expression some unknowable grief, unseen before; and this startled me. I had meant to make some sort of joke, but stopped myself; it was as if I were not there at all.
It was then I understood that she was not disgraced, not exactly. She had been sacrificed.
And then we were back at the rue de Passy, and the Comtesse wished me a good night as she departed.
§
The sight of the Empress at the atelier, the Emperor at his ease in disguise in the Bois, this meant Compiègne had ended. And somewhere in Paris that evening, my new love was also here.
Back at my room, the driver’s wife first made a fuss over my new toilette—how beautiful I look, I am too fine for her house—and then showed me a trunk that had come for me and helped me examine its contents: a tea gown of simple black muslin, much like the Comtesse’s own; a boar’s bristle hairbrush, lotions, maquillage, a nightdress, slippers, hair ribbons. And room exactly for the toilette I wore and the other two bodices in their boxes.
It was if I were to be on a voyage soon, this much I could see, and yet while the driver’s wife cooed over each item, my dread returned and increased until she locked us in once more, put her key in her bodice, and set out her gin and cards. I dressed in the nightdress and slippers, and we played into the night.
I was certain all of this meant I was to leave Paris, and I expected to be taken away the next morning but, instead, a note came from the Comtesse through the driver, inviting me to attend the opera with her that night. I was to wear the opera bodice but to be ready in the afternoon. And so I was.
§
The Comtesse’s son and his nurse greeted me as I arrived. He was a boy with beautiful long chestnut hair, the longest hair I’d ever seen on a boy. He looked like a faerie, neither girl nor boy, at the edge of youth, the sort of creature who could cast you out of paradise if you answered a question wrongly.
You are my mother’s friend, he told me, more than asking me.
Yes, I replied carefully.
You’re very pretty, he told me. It’s how I knew. All of Mother’s friends are pretty.
Not as pretty as you, I said, and he smiled, vanishing quickly up the stairs.
I was shown up to her boudoir where the Comtesse sat waiting for her hairdresser. She told me she had called me early to have my own hair done as well. As her maid settled a kimono around my neck and over my gown, and I joined her in waiting, she withdrew a small velvet bag and shook its contents into her hand.
Here, she said. For you to wear this evening.
Emerald earrings in the shape of leaves, three stones in each, and the stones the size of small tears.
I give this to you now because, when you have your hair done for an evening, you should always show the hairdresser your jewelry so that he may make any necessary adjustments or suggestions. Tonight I am introducing you to a potential admirer. We will go to the opera and then dine afterward at the Grand Seize, where he will meet us. This completes my part of our bargain. At dinner I will speak of yours.
Thank you, I said.
It’s really nothing, she said. I ask that you wear them this evening. And that you continue your habit of refraining from speaking in public so as to keep up the alias I have created. It will only be necessary a little longer.
I turned them over in my hand, and as I did, she said, A lesson on jewelry. You only rid yourself of a gift if you are at the end of an affair—if you are sure there is no hope. If you are in need of funds, sell your jewelry last; first suggest to an admirer the nature and scope of the debt, and then if that fails, sell the separate stones first rather than the entire piece. Always avoid selling the entire piece as it would likely be recognized by the giver on someone else and this would, even if you have ended the affair, embarrass or offend him. Especially if he could have covered the debt happily. Sell the original piece whole only if it is a historically important piece of jewelry.
She sat back. Do not keep the setting and have the original stones replaced with paste, as no one is fooled by this. Either restore the setting as you are able or reset the stones remaining. Take these with my blessing. Let them remind you of all I have told you.
The hairdresser and his assistant arrived then and began to heat their tongs, playful, speaking of new styles, admiring our clothes and hair and the earrings as I placed them in my ears. As I examined them, I could tell they were not new; they had been hers.
There was an affair she was ending or had ended. There was no hope. But who? I wondered. But as I admired the earrings in the mirror, I knew them.
The Empress, that day at Compiègne, waiting for her hairdresser and fiddling with the emerald leaf she had from the Emperor. These were a match, I was sure of it. They were a set, and he had split it between them.
§
In Italy, when we go to the opera, we watch the opera, she said to me, as we exited the victoria and the coachmen helped us down. In Paris we watch one another, and she gestured a little at the crowd outside the theater.
We entered and ascended the stairs of the Théatre-Italien. A hush descended over the crowd along the stairs and ahead of us; people turned to stare and whisper. It was a strange, quiet procession she and I made. I remembered when I’d first seen her move through the crowd at the Exposition, thinking it was her beauty that made people stare, but it was also envy, fury, spite.
In her private box she cast an eye over the people entering the other boxes, who were themselves looking up to see her. Then she sat back, drew her wrap closer, and smiled at me.
Have you ever been to the opera? she asked me. You may speak freely until we are joined.
Yes, I said.
You were perfect as we entered, she said. Perfect, perfect.
Thank you, I said. This word, her highest praise.
Tonight is Verdi, she said. Il Trovatore. It is about a wandering troubadour. Do you know what a troubadour is?