EPISODE 9 - Elizabeth in Versailles
Aphra was awakened early the morning after the wedding. Her head was aching from the wine the night before. Several priests were rushing around packing her things as well as Effa’s. John was watching everything was packed and nothing left behind. He told her she could relax for another 20-30 minutes then they will be leaving. She was starting to recall the arrangements that had been agreed to with father Jogues. Nothing extra would be going she could buy whatever she needed at Versailles.
One wagon fully loaded with their belongings. The 20 km trip only took 2 hours to Elizabeth’s surprise. The compound was at least five times the size of the Jesuit Seminaire in Paris. There was a school there as well, so Aphra could start her studies on time at the first of the year. Louis XV had been king for 11 years at this point and was quite comfortable with the power of a king. His court in Versailles was adorned with all the gold inlayed furniture, crystal chandeliers, Italian marble floors, and Greek statues that could be packed in the palace. Elizabeth loved the country, at least this part of the country. Paris seemed so dirty and smelly compared to Versailles.
When the wagon was passing the palace one of the priests told her the story of Louis XIV and the palace he built to unify a fragmented French nobility throughout his reign, besides he loathed Paris. Work had begun in 1664 and finally finished in 1715 just before his death. The palace changed him from being just a king to being the apotheosis of European royalty, the Sun King. Fashions were changed often and expensively to keep all the nobles emulating the rest of the court or risk becoming a laughing stock. There were two smaller palaces on the grounds, the Grand Trianon for the king to escape his rigorous routine and Petit Trianon. Seven years after the death of Louis XIV, Louis XV reopened the palace and took up residence in 1722.
So many people knew her as Aphra in Paris, she decided to go by her first name in Versailles. Bill had put the pain of the death of her Grandmother behind him after almost 15 years. Aphra was so her mother’s name in that it represented her sense of independence. She, on the other hand, did not necessarily want to defy tradition, advance causes, or throw galas to entertain society. She was more the bookworm, sitting room, and quiet walks along a river type. She was always a good student and looked forward to studying at the seminary. She spent a good deal of time walking around the city while Effa and John saw to the settling-in responsibilities. Their quarters were much larger here since the compound was so much larger.
She met one of the servants at the palace and became friends almost at once. Gabrielle was a talker and Elizabeth was a great listener. Elizabeth thought it was faster to have someone tell you what has gone on, than to read it. To say nothing of the fact that either way it’s an opinion with that person’s slant. Gabrielle had worked in the “l’Intante-Reine” wing of the castle, where Louis XV’s first cousin the Infanta Maria Ana Vitoria was housed. She at four was betrothed to a 12 year old Louis XV in 1722. In 1725, when Louis was 15, it was decided that she be sent back to her father Philip V, King of Spain. This of course, outraged the Spanish royal family and they sent back a dowager queen (widow of Luis I), but Louis XV announced his upcoming marriage to Marie Lesczynska, a 22 year old princess of Poland.
Gabrielle didn’t attend Queen Marie, but she had friends who did. They told her that the attempts to provide an heir to the throne were complicated by Louis’ continued poor health. There was a lot of talk around the palace that Louis couldn’t have children. That he was too sick to perform his kingly duties to France. This bit of information tied into things she had heard in Paris about a priest, the abbe de Montgon, had come to arrange the take over of France by Felipe V and his wife Elisabeth Farnese. He had met with the duc de Bourbon and cardinal Fleury, the current Prime Minister. The talk was always hushed so she hadn’t heard everything that had been discussed, but enough to know there was a plot for the King of Spain, Louis XV’s uncle, to take over the throne of France as well. But England would never allow such a powerful concentration of power and would do whatever it took to stop that from happening.
Elizabeth was not a bit interested in the palace of Versailles as such, but there was a royal library that did hold quite a draw. She had always found books better company than most people she had met and as such was willing to maintain any friendship that got her into the library. Gabrielle had a friend that worked in that part of the palace and promised to introduce her to him. The Jesuit compound also had a library, but it was mostly full of religious artifacts and religious scrolls from antiquity. Her interests were more along the lines of world geography and cultures of the world, including world history. She enjoyed the analysis of events and how they fell into predictable patterns and outcomes given a set of conditions prior the event.
The compound was closed up except for a working door that opened into the alley. She often used the secret door to slip away and meet friends from the palace. Tonight was no exception, she was going to meet Gabrielle in a quiet inn in town. As she walked down the street, she heard barking of a big dog. Then a man called out to her asking if this was her dog. She turned in time to have Klondike jump up on her shoulders, of course it knocked her down flat onto the street. Klondike licked her face and she was just as glad since tears were streaming down her face. She hugged Klondike as best she could, considering there was no way to get her arms around the dog. Then three men were standing above her. Bill helped her up and they embraced for several minutes. She forgot sometimes he was her Grandpa but tonight it was obvious they were kin and she had missed him as much as he had her. She looked back at Bear and smiled a smile of thanks for returning safe and sound her Grandpa she loved so much. Then she saw Jaque rolling around in the street with Klondike and stared in wonder that any man could get close enough to Klondike to win him over without being eaten alive. She glanced over to Bill and was told Jaque was a new member of the group. She would have greeted him formally, but the loud noises of him and Klondike made that impossible.
Rooms were readied for the new guests and Bill felt that finally since they left Philadelphia he could relax and enjoy life again without the fear of the night. Klondike was like a puppy with Aphra back in his life, always wanting to play and run. Jaque too seemed at peace with the world, content to watch Aphra and Klondike play in the courtyard of the Jesuit compound. Only Bear seemed restless and would spend hours sharpening an already razor sharp edge of the hatchet. Only now he had a cannon to clean and seemed to enjoy the change of pace. Bill would talk to Bear in the evenings about events in the past, but it was obvious to Bill Bear wasn’t happy talking about past deeds. Bear always said women and children talk of the deeds of great warriors. Bill worried about Bear getting depressed. Up to now there had been more than enough action to keep him fit and well oiled in war, but now it looked like nothing was required of him and idleness was a curse to his spirit. Bill knew he couldn’t have Bear running around in taverns killing hundreds of men over time and still have the safety of a Jesuit compound to hide behind. The Buerer family had agreed to 3 years of support for the Mohawks regardless of when Big Bear returned so Bill couldn’t just let him go home without hearing about it from the family. The idea of staying and going to parties at the palace and listening to endless accounts of minutia gave Bill a headache and he was sure it would be even worse for Bear.
Aphra’s classes had started on time on the third of January 1727 and she loved the open discussions that went on. Of course the current politics of Spain, England, and France were discussed in depth, but more interesting to Aphra were the other historical topics. Her mother was the consummate teacher and learner, but Aphra was the political one. Several of the Jesuit priests were knowledgeable in all things of the world, at least it seemed so to Aphra. Bill encouraged her to study hard and try to grasp the essential facts being presented then rearrange them so they make sense. Seafoam spent hours telling Bill about her studies.
One Sunday morning she asked him if he had ever heard of the Kabbalah. He said it was an ancient Jewish doctrine of some sort, but only years of study could make a person understand it to any meaningful extent. She went on to tell him that it is QBHL in Hebrew, from the root QBL Qibel meaning “to receive”. The Qabalah was first taught by God himself to a select group of angels. After the fall they shared it with the disobedient children of earth. Adam shared it with Noah who shared it with Abraham who let a small proportion ooze out to the Egyptians, who along with other Eastern nations, incorporated it into their philosophical systems. Moses was taught it during the forty years of wandering in the desert by an angel. The goal of the Kabbalah is to obtain the complete understanding of God, the universe and their interrelationships. This done by studying the symbols and analogies of the Jewish holy books. To Jewish mystics, every letter in the Jewish alphabet is a channel to the life force of God and possessed sacred meaning. Hebrew numbers are also represented by letters, so names and words had numerical values. Finding associations of words with the same value revealed a complex series of hidden meanings beneath the text of the Torah, the book of law attributed to Moses. In fact, the entire Torah can be considered a single long word spelling out one of the names of God. After a while Aphra started talking about the God of Israel as YHWH and at that point, all the talk about Shekhinah, seven heavens, Merkabah mysticism, and Shamanism began to make Bill’s head ache. He couldn’t believe the detail that Aphra was able to recite. He sat as in a daze for some time as if in a trance only a small part of him still attached to that place in the compound. In the distance he heard her still talking about the Kabbalah being the secret doctrine of the Rosicrucians that describes the Messianic Kingdom as a period of forced conversions of the Gentiles to Judism. Bill started to return to earth as he heard that Sir Isaac Newton, with his preoccupation with apocalyptic interpretation of near extinction of protestantism in Europe. While member of the Royal Society of England, he revealed that the Rosicrucians planned to “bring Jesus down” to earth in 2000 AD. Bill shook himself awake at the point where she was talking about how the masons coveted Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, site of Solomon’s Temple, because the organization established by Hiram Abiff had built the temple 3000 years ago. He asked her if she was able to put all those facts together yet and make sense of the whole thing. She said no and he seemed relieved. There was something haunting about a 13 year old girl with a 39 year old mother talking about 7 heavens, 13 colonies, 9 tribes of New England, 3 clans of Mohawks, and the 11 mysteries of the old world that made Bill cringe. He seemed relieved when Jaque and Klondike rounded the corner being chased by Bear, pretending to be a bear. Aphra had managed to give him a headache as well as make him uneasy about the things she was learning in the Jesuit college. He would have to ask if there was a less stringent curriculum available for young people, even though he knew that she would never agree to a child’s education now that she knew this one was going on in the compound. The entire time she was relaying all those facts she was alive for the first time since Philadelphia and her eyes were bright and shiny. Seafoam (Elizabeth Aphra Buerer) was only 13 but she had the mind of a woman much older and knowledge usually reserved for priests and royalty.
Klondike and Jaque were together all the time these days as they investigated the grounds of both the Jesuit compound and the Palace of Versaille. Jaque “the fist” LaBelle had taken to wearing an eye patch, making him look more like a pirate than pirates look. Jaque wanted to go to Paris with Klondike and look up Jean de Calle because he had left most of his personal belongings with a servant at Jean’s house before leaving for Marseille. Bill couldn’t think of a good reason to say no but wanted to anyway. Any man that could trap Klondike once could do it again, maybe thinking he could resell Klondike to the “King” if word about the death of the King hadn’t made it back to Paris yet. Jaque asked Bear if he wanted to come but Bear said no. Bear and some Jesuit priests were going to have a shoot out for best marksman in Versaille, there were going to be the best shots from the Palace as well.
TO BE CONTINUED