Chapter One

Louis awoke to the clatter of Bontemps, his valet, putting away his
folding bed, as he did every morning. A frigid wind blustered in through
the open windows of his bedchamber, and Louis greeted it with none of his
former pleasure. Once, it would have invigorated him. Now, he imagined the
wind as death's frustrated caress.



Another metallic click, a sigh, and he heard Bontemps retreating. Louis
arranged in his mind the day to come. The order in his days was his only
remaining comfort. He had made Versailles into a great and precise clock,
and though he was king, he was carried along by its mechanisms as surely
as his lowliest servant or courtier. More certainly, in fact, since a
servant might slip briefly away and steal a private moment, encounter a
mistress, take a nap. This was his only private moment, in bed, pretending
to be asleep. It gave him time to think and to remember.



The Persian elixir had given him new life and a body that felt younger
than it had in thirty years, but it had robbed him of everything else.
Gone were his brother Phillipe; his son Monseigneur; his grandson, the
duke of Burgundy, and his wife, the duchess Marie-Adelaide, whose death
had broken his heart. It was as if God were sweeping clean the line of
Louis XIV. The dust had also claimed almost all of his old friends and
companions. But worst of all was the loss of his wife, Maintenon.



Now he had only France, and France was a restless, thankless mistress. He
knew-though his ministers tried to keep it from him-that there were
whispers against him now. As the years passed and he grew stronger