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roast piglet. Don't pretend you didn't—I was watching. Also those pastries. Or maybe if you agreed to let him make the incision?
L OUIS : You didn't see the instruments. He showed me his instruments.
Hiding his eyes, shuddering.
I don't like to think about it.
A NTOINETTE : Well then, think about this. Think about what will become of us if we can't produce an heir to the throne, and meanwhile that wretched cross-eyed midget who is married to your brother produces offspring like a rabbit. What then?
L OUIS : I wish you wouldn't talk about the Comtesse d'Artois like that. She can't help the way she looks.
A NTOINETTE : Of course she can't. She's Sardinian.
Yawning.
But if we're not going to create an heir this morning, then let me sleep. I was up till all hours, trying to win my money back from the Marquis de Conflans, that rotten crook.
L OUIS :
Yawns noisily, stretches, and leaps from the bed.
The Queen's wish is my command.
A NTOINETTE : Well then ...
She stares pointedly at the King's erection, tenting the cloth of the royal nightshirt, then makes a pair of scissors of her fingers and holds them aloft.
Snip snip.
Suiting the action to the words.
Snip snip.
L OUIS : Don't tease.
    Â 
    Antoinette sighs and pulls the blankets over her head.
    Â 
L OUIS : Besides, it's not just me. It wouldn't hurt for you to get more sleep, Lassone says.
A NTOINETTE,
her voice muffled, from under the covers:
Ah. I see. All I need to do to become pregnant is get more sleep.
L OUIS : Only another hour or so each night, Lassone says. And less wine, though that hardly makes sense, since you don't take wine to begin with.
He
cocks
his head, listening.
They're coming. Oh, that's so bad, so bad! The tub wheels should be oiled—I can hear them squeaking all the way from here.
A NTOINETTE,
still muffled:
I suppose I could start drinking wine, in order to give it up. Just like my sister Carlotta would always give up liver pudding for Lent.
She laughs, sticks out her head.
I know! Let's put talking pâtés on our pillows, like in "La Belle Eulalie." Then we could escape and no one would know the difference. We could go to Paris, Lou-Lou! We could have fun!
L OUIS : We could have fun.
Suddenly cheerful.
I could oil those wheels!

Staircase of the Ambassadors
    Fifty-eight steps from the centermost of the three gilt-grilled front doors, across the vestibule's rose-colored marble pavement and around a phalanx of dark squat piers supporting a dark low ceiling, to the foot of the staircase. Purposely oppressive, the vestibule—echoey, claustrophobic. "On thy belly shalt thou crawl," the overriding message.
    And then suddenly at the foot of the staircase the whole thing opens wide, like breath expelled after passing a graveyard. The infinite pours in through a massive skylight three stories up.
    No one standing there can resist looking into the face of God, which is to say into the sun. The Doge of Genoa, bringing the Sun King a coffer of precious jewels. The Due de Nevers, imprisoned by the Sun King for baptizing a pig. Jean Racine, suspected by the Sun King of being a poisoner. The Earl of Portland, hoping to convince the Sun King to drive James II as far from England as possible. Bonne, Ponne, and Nonne, the Sun King's hyperactive water spaniels. Dr. Guy-Crescent Fagon with his frightening tools, to let the Sun King's blood.
    Ghosts, all of them. The Staircase of the Ambassadors is no longer there—hasn't been since 1752, when Louis XV ordered it destroyed to make apartments for Adélaïde. It was falling apart, anyway, he claimed: the cast-bronze structure supporting the skylight was beginning to wobble, and rain was beginning to leak through. An ill-advised decision for posterity, though certainly not surprising from the same man who remarked, "
Après moi, le déluge.
"
    In any case, ghosts are often associated with stairways, liking to hover at their head, or to drag noisy things such as chains up and down them. And don't