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Alexandrine. This was a reproach for the Marquise. Had the pleasant intimacy of the afternoon been part of a plot to wring a promise from him? Was she a place-seeker like the rest? Had he been mistaken in thinking that she offered him disinterested friendship?
    ‘I have seen him,’ she said lightly. ‘Sire, may I have your opinion on the English garden I am intending to have made here? I was wondering who would be the best man to take charge of such operations.’
    The King’s expression cleared. It was only a momentary darkening of the perfect sky. But, thought the Marquise trying to quieten her fluttering heart, how quickly a storm could blow up.
    One must choose carefully each word, each act.

    The King and his intimate friends were preparing to leave Versailles for the château of Choisy. Louis was thoughtful, for Choisy had many memories for him. Now he was thinking of Madame de Mailly, his first mistress, who had loved him so dearly. Poor Madame de Mailly, she was still living in Paris – he believed in the Rue St Thomas du Louvre. He did not ask; her existing state made an unpleasant subject. He had heard that she lived in great poverty and found it difficult to find food even for her servants.
    And once he had loved her. She had been the first of his mistresses, and in the early days of his passion he had thought he would love her to the end of his life. But her sisters, Madame de Vintimille and Madame de Châteauroux, had supplanted her; it was strange that those two, such vital human beings, should both now be dead, and poor little Louise-Julie de Mailly living in pious poverty in his detested city of Paris.
    It was for Madame de Mailly that he had acquired the Château de Choisy – a charming dwelling, beautifully situated in a sheltered position overlooking the wooded banks of the Seine. He remembered the pleasure he had had in reconstructing it. Now it was a château worthy of a King of France with its blue and gold decorations and its mirrored walls.
    There he could live in comparative seclusion with his intimate friends, headed by the Marquise. They would hunt by day and gamble in the evening. Everything about Choisy was charming; even the servants fitted perfectly into the blue and gold surroundings. Their livery was blue – of the same azure delicacy as that which was so prominent in the château decorations. He himself had designed the blue livery for Choisy as he had the green for Compiègne.
    Thinking of the delights of the château he was impatient to be off.
    ‘I am ready,’ he said to the Duc de Richelieu, First Gentleman of the Bedchamber.
    Richelieu bowed. ‘The Marquise and the Court, Sire,’ he said, ‘are assembled in readiness, knowing Your Majesty’s impatience for your azure Choisy.’
    ‘Then let us go.’
    ‘To Choisy,’ murmured the Duc, ‘most delightful of Your Majesty’s châteaux . . . made to reflect our pleasures . . .’ He gave the King that lewd look which could be said to hold a glint of insolence. ‘Alas,’ he went on, ‘there are some of us who lack the prowess of Your Majesty.’
    The King smiled faintly, pretending he did not see the allusion to the Marquise.
    He turned to the Marquis de Gontaut and murmured: ‘Son Excellence should not feel envious of others who lack his years. Would you not say he has had his day?’
    Richelieu (universally called, somewhat ironically, Son Excellence since his return from his embassy in Vienna), turning his eyes to the ceiling, murmured: ‘Sire, I did not express self-pity. I cannot reproach myself or my fate, for I have found the secret of perpetual pleasure, which does not flag through experience, but gains from it.’
    ‘I trust you will share your secret with us.’
    ‘With none other than Your Majesty.’ Richelieu put his lips close to the King’s ear. ‘Variety,’ he whispered.
    ‘I shall insist,’ said Louis, ‘that you share this secret with no other. I would not have the morals of my Court worse than