For Your Consumption

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A little bit more of Queen Killer in the Pink Satin Sash. You know, the title is a little weird but it does have a ring to it, doesn't it?

I wrote the first part of this two ngihts ago and edited it yesterday (I always reread what I wrote the previous night before moving on). I wrote half of the second bit last night, the other half today. I went back over it today. So obviously, this hasn't been greatly refined, but honestly, it probably won't change much. I don't do a lot of revising.



Monsieur de La Motte arrived on a crisp day at the beginning of November. The carriage he had rented was shabby, with peeling paint and a scruffy driver who acted as though he was drunk even though Madame de La Motte suspected that he was actually quite sober. She heard the sound of the carriage coming up the drive and told Rosalie to look out the window and see what impudent rascal was arriving uninvited right at supper time.

“I may be wrong,” Rosalie answered, “but I think it’s your husband.”

“Of all the impudent rascals in the world, I didn’t expect it to be him,” Madame answered with a frown. “Jealous fool.”

Rosalie merely set down her sewing and hurried out of Madame de La Motte’s bedroom, through the sitting room, out to the hall, and down the stairs, her footsteps quick but quiet with the practiced gait of a lifelong maid. Madame de La Motte sighed over her tea. She had learned the same unobtrusive way of hurrying when she was a servant.

She decided that she did not want to go to him, so she sat and waited with her tea at her side, looking across the room at Rosalie’s sewing where it was draped across the chair. Rosalie’s stitching was superb, better than Madame had achieved after working for two years for milliners and seamstresses.

Rosalie pushed open the door to the sitting room, remarking quietly to someone over her shoulder that Madame de La Motte was in the other room. She pushed the door open gently and pushed her head in. Madame de La Motte looked up and could see her husband in the other room, standing ramrod straight and tapping his thigh with one forefinger. A curl of Rosalie’s hair came loose from her mobcap.

“He’s here, Madame,” she said.

“I can’t imagine why,” Madame de La Motte said pointedly. “Can you think of why he might be here, Rosalie?”

“I wouldn’t presume to guess, Madame,” Rosalie said, but the flush to her cheeks was enough to tell Madame de La Motte who had sent a letter to Monsieur de La Motte telling him to come to the Marquise’s home in Paris. Madame de La Motte had certainly implied to the Marquise that she would invited her husband to join her in Paris, but she had never actually had any intention of calling him back from his army garrison in Lunéville. She preferred him to be in Lunéville for many reasons, not least of which was his distance from herself.

She got up from her seat as Rosalie opened the door and stood aside.

Monsieur de La Motte was well-built and had a powerful, brisk air that made it seem as though he was about to perform a dazzling physical feat at any moment. His uniform was a little worn and crumpled, his boots a little dirty. He had not worn a wig or powdered his hair, completing the heroic picture. Madame de La Motte stiffened slightly as he gave a perfunctory bow.

“Jeanne,” he said.

His eyes glided back towards Rosalie, who was quick to leave the room and close the door behind with an inconspicuous snap. Monsieur de La Motte smiled genially and clasped his hands behind his back.

“So, here we are, thrown upon the mercy of an old woman.”

“I suppose so,” Madame de La Motte said. “Did you have a good journey?”

“It was fair,” he said indifferently. “The carriage smelled like piss, but what could I do with only a few francs to my name? I got an urgent letter from my wife telling me to resign my post in Lunéville and come to Paris at once to join her at her benefactress’s home. Yet I was in Lunéville, practically penniless.”

Madame de La Motte shrugged her shoulders. She never knew what to say to her husband anymore. Everything that came to mind seemed rude or vindictive. She suspected that Rosalie had had a reconciliation in mind when she came up with this charade. But Rosalie simply did not understand; reconciliation was not possible. Bare civility was a stretch.

“You’ll be glad to know that the Marquise is doing much better.”

“Why would I be glad to know that?” Monsieur de La Motte demanded. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Have I ever shown any signs of caring about her?”

“No, you’ve never shown any signs of caring about anything at all.”

“I care very much about certain things.”

“Money.”

“For starters,” he agreed.

“Well, I hope that you have money one day, then,” she said, “because if that is all you need to be happy, then you can take your money and leave.”

“I hope that we aren’t expected to sleep in the same room.”

“I wouldn’t allow that, monsieur.”

“Nor would I.”

“We’re agreed on something, then.”

“Just the one thing,” Madame agreed.

“I suppose that I will see you at supper.”

“I suppose that you will, if you aren’t too busy flirting with other women. I won’t hold my breath, monsieur.”

“I won’t expect to meet your eyes, then, because I know you will have some lover on the side who will have all of your attention. What is this I’ve heard about a Monsieur Beugnot?”

“I don’t know, you tell me what you’ve heard. It should be entertaining, much more lurid than reality, I’m sure. The only Beugnot I am aware of knowing is a venerable old magistrate from Bar-Sur-Aube, our hometown. You must remember him. He took a liking to me and loaned me money. You surely remember all of that?”

“What about his son?”

“What about his son?”

“Rumor has is—“

“I have no intention of hearing you repeat rumors to me,” she said. “I’m sure you have better things to do than blather at me, monsieur. Please go.”

His face darkened in anger, but he turned on his heel, wrenched open the door, and left, striding through the bedroom door and then through the sitting room door without closing either behind him. Rosalie was startled from her seat as Monsieur de La Motte clattered down the stairs and could be heard yelling at the filthy man who had driven him to Paris. Rosalie got up tentatively and came to the door.

“If I ever need someone to meddle in my affairs, Rosalie, I will be sure to remember not to ask you, because you’re a miserable failure at it. If you’re going to try to fix things, go about it properly and find out what’s broken first.”

Rosalie’s eyes were huge.

“What’s broken, madame?”

“Many things,” Madame de La Motte muttered. “I don’t really care to talk about it right now. I’m not going down to supper. I have a headache. Relay my apologies to the Marquise and all her guests.”

Rosalie nodded.

“Yes, Madame.”



Madame and Monsieur de La Motte avoided each other as best as they could. When they passed each other they pretended the other was a ghost and when they were seated next to each other at the supper table, they treated each other as distant acquaintances, never meeting eyes and speaking only to the person on their other side. Very few people noticed, and if they did, they decided it was tactless to mention the La Mottes’ problems. The Marquise was becoming more and more ill and hardly noticed anything at all.

The Marquis returned a week after Monsieur de La Motte arrived, and Madame de La Motte heard his dreaded voice, sometimes in the hall and sometimes outside as he enjoyed his wife’s formal English gardens as he cahtted chatted with Monsieur de La Motte or his male friends. The sound of his voice made Madame shiver slightly with memories that were not so far bygone that she could easily forget them. They were still vivid in her mind.

Madame de La Motte had managed to avoid the Marquise thoroughly until the day that Mademoiselle de Passy arrived after receiving a forlorn letter from her father telling her of her mother’s grave illness. When the young lady climbed down from her elegant chaise, she was wearing a trim blue riding gown with a matching, plumed hat. Her hair was not quite as high as court regalia would require, but it was high enough that she had to duck her head as stepped out and onto the cobbles before her parents’ old home.

“Mademoiselle!” cried Madame de La Motte as she rushed from the front of the house, ignoring the servants who gaped.

“Jeanne, mon cherie!” cried Mademoiselle de Passy. She looked just as she always had, delicately pretty with gorgeous large eyes. She clasped Madame de La Motte’s hands and kissed her on both cheeks. “How good to see you! I didn’t know that you had come here. Papa said nothing of it in his letter.”

“I’ve seen very little of your father over the past few weeks. I imagine that he doesn’t even know I’m here. How is everyone at court?”

“Oh, obsessive,” said Mademoiselle lightly. “Can you imagine the way that puce took the entire court by storm? One day, no one had heard of it, the next day it’s the only color that any lady would be caught dead wearing!”

“How are the king and the queen?”

“Oh, very well, I suppose. I don’t see much of the king. He’s a wonderful fellow, but a little bit dull if truth be told. I think I expected him to be different from everyone else, but he really isn’t, he’s just like any other near-sighted dullard.”

“How terribly rude of you!” Madame de La Motte laughed, leading the way into the house. “What about the queen?”

“She’s simply as sweet as a woman can be, but very selfish,” Mademoiselle de Passy reported. “But you can’t repeat what I’ve said about the king and queen! I only say it because I know you are very discreet.”

“Of course.”

“But how is Maman?”

“She’s doing rather poorly. And what about Doctor Franklin?’

“I should think he’s doing very well; anything American is fiendishly fashionable. How long has Maman been abed?”

They stepped inside the house.

“A few weeks now. Have you heard anything about my suit? Any whispers of my name about court? I certainly hope that my efforts haven’t been fruitless.”

“I haven’t heard even a whisper of your name. You know that access to the queen is very tightly restricted by the Polignac set.”

“But there are other people at court.”

“It’s the queen who holds the key to royal favor, you know.”

“No one has said my name, though?”

Mademoiselle de Passy shook her head sadly as she handed a light cloak and her parasol to a maid, who scurried away. Mademoiselle was moving towards the stairs when she stopped and her face brightened with a smile.

“Papa!”

Madame de La Motte started and backed away as Mademoiselle hurried into her father’s arms. The wall didn’t seem to be far enough away from him as Madame de La Motte pressed her back against it. She wished she could get further away. Then he saw her as her let go of his daughter. He showed no guilt in his face at all.

“Bonjour, Jeanne. I haven’t seen your lovely face in this house for years. What a pleasure.”

“Your wife is very gracious to me,” Jeanne said. “And you, monsieur, I have to thank you for allowing her to be so gracious.”

“Anything for my wife,” he said earnestly. “Poor woman. I’m afraid she isn’t doing very well at all.”

He turned to his daughter.

“The doctors aren’t hopeful.”

Father and daughter ascended the stairs, leaving Madame de La Motte feeling as though she’d been pricked all over by pins.