Who was she?
Not the soprano—my husband was too careful of his reputation to risk bedding a performer or harlot. It must be a lady, then.
Did he love her?
I couldn’t imagine so. Not when, on Anastasie’s birthday, he presented her with a pristine white pony and me with a pair of pearl earrings. Kissing my lips, he said, “These jewels scarcely compensate you for bringing my daughter safely into this world. Nor for all that you are to me, my dear heart. A wife and partner, precious and rare.”
As far as I knew, he had been faithful to our marriage bed for seven years—truly an oddity in France. My father, my grandfather, my brother-in-law . . . nearly every man I knew took a mistress. I had only hoped Lafayette would be an exception in this, as he was in everything else. And, as I have said, I had been encouraged in that hope because the Americans he so admired considered adultery to be a scandal . . .
Alas, my husband was a Frenchman, and as the saying went at court, Every great man must have a mistress. Grand-mère sometimes opined, A man without a mistress is the subject of ridicule! She also said the benefit of such affairs was that the wife would be credited with her husband’s best qualities, while the mistress would be blamed for his faults. I knew I should not consider my husband’s taking a mistress to be a comment on my merit. Certainly my father’s infidelities did not reflect Maman’s worth. Nor did my brother-in-law’s adventures tarnish my sister Louise. The women of my family handled these infidelities with grace and delicacy, yet I had conceived of my marriage differently. Thought of it as a fortress against all enemies, one we built together stone by stone. Realizing that he had lowered the drawbridge, my feelings were frightening in intensity, and I feared to dissolve into tears at the slightest provocation. If I should now, whilst Lafayette was in the throes of a new passion, redraw the portrait of myself he kept in his heart as some shrew, fat with child . . . No. I would not allow it. So I forced myself to smile, terrified to betray my inner turmoil even though the effort of restraint left me trembling every time Gilbert departed. I never asked the question: Who is she?
By the time I learned the answer, the talk was on the lips of every person from dirty cutpurses to bejeweled aristocrats. None other than Aglaé d’Hunolstein was said to receive my husband any hour of day or night at the Palais-Royal, in the home of her more regular lover.
It was a humiliation for Philippe, and in a vain attempt at a fig leaf, he told anyone who would listen, I had long since tired of her; Lafayette is welcome to my leavings. I imagined my husband’s satisfaction in tasting sweet revenge. Then again, I could scarcely think Gilbert petty enough to seduce a woman only for revenge. How long had it been going on? Perhaps it was a relationship of duration. It hurt to think he might have feelings for a creature like Aglaé. I had loved Gilbert when he was an awkward boy, and she had laughed at him.
How could he forget?
At least in this, Grand-mère agreed. “Lafayette could do better than that brainless trollop. A mistress should at least be the charming sort with whom a wife enjoys taking tea!”
“Please hush, Grand-mère,” said Louise, alone suspecting the depth of my despair. I dared not ask how many such teas my sister or Grand-mère or Maman had had to endure with women their husbands were bedding. All I wanted was for Gilbert and me to cleave only to each other as God decreed. Yet the world in which I lived decreed this to be unnatural . . .
My mind was filled with spiteful thoughts. Plots of petty revenge upon her . . . upon him . . . truly, I was wretched! Then one day on the way to church, my daughter Anastasie hugged my pregnant belly and asked, “Maman, why are you so sad?”
Her question shamed me. My own sainted mother had kept every manner of distress from me, always restraining her own emotions for my sake. I should do the same. Thus, in confessional I begged God’s pardon for my weakness and ingratitude. The lord had, after all, answered so many of my prayers. My life was filled with riches in every conceivable way: wealth, power, family, children, and a husband who—even with a mistress—never missed an opportunity to show his love.
Wasn’t it vanity to ask for more?
I left that church with sore knees and a humbled heart, determined to be of good cheer.
Unfortunately, this resolution lasted only until, on a rare outing with my father, after which he would make his way to a meeting of the science academy, we glimpsed the two lovers in passing. I saw Gilbert motion to some trinket in a shop display, and Aglaé stroked his cheek. I reeled back from the carriage window, burying my face against the seat, hoping my father would not realize the cause of my distress. In this effort, I failed.