“ Les Travaux d’Hercules. Hercules represents Louis, of course.”
Of course. So much for not talking about the king. And these labors of Hercules-Louis would inevitably include revoking the Edict of Nantes and outlawing the Huguenots, because college ballet, like court ballet, referred to real people and events. The people and events were always veiled under layers of allegory and symbol, but recognizable to the educated audience that easily read the code of Greek and Roman heroes and their myths.
“Is the ballet your creation, Père Jouvancy?”
“The livret, yes.” The priest picked up the blond wig from his desk and draped it on his fist. It looked like it had caught mange from someone’s lap dog. He frowned at it and looked at Charles’s thick, springy hair. “Nearly a match,” he murmured.
Charles involuntarily pressed his skullcap more firmly onto his head with his left hand and winced as his old shoulder wound twinged. Yesterday’s wet, cold hours in the saddle had taken their toll.
“Are you hurt, Maître du Luc?”
“Just an old war souvenir, mon père.”
Jouvancy studied him with a gravity Charles had not seen until now. “Where were you wounded?”
“At the battle of St. Omer.”
“Ah, the Spanish Netherlands. Perhaps, then, you’ve come to this life as our St. Ignatius did?”
“In a small way, mon père. As I am a much smaller man. In the year when I was recovering, someone gave me the story of his life to read and—well—here I am.” Wanting to turn the conversation, he said, “Who is dancing the role of Hercules?”
“Philippe Douté,” Jouvancy said, with a worried sigh. “Our best dancer, who has longed for the starring role in the ballet since he was in the little boys’ grammar class. But, I don’t know why, lately he has not been as attentive as he should be. And last Friday he was so preoccupied and almost discourteous that Beauchamps threatened to replace him, even at this last minute.” The rhetoric professor picked up a wide, feathered hat, put it on the blond wig, and studied the effect. The mange still showed. “Which I truly pray does not happen, because this is Philippe’s last year, and he is a bright, good boy, one of our best. He is also my nephew, I should tell you, so I am not unbiased. But even though he is presently as secretive and sullen as a thwarted courtier, he is a talented dancer and a good scholar. Ah, well, sixteen is a terrible age, all teachers know that.” He smiled at Charles. “Especially those, like you, who are not so very far from it.”
“Twelve years from sixteen, mon père,” Charles said, trying not to let his irritation make him sound as young as Jouvancy was making him out to be. In spite of his impressive size, people often thought him younger than he was. He supposed the time would come when he would enjoy that, but it had not come yet.
“Oh, I am not impugning your maturity, Maître du Luc,” Jouvancy said earnestly. “Far from it.” He considered Charles gravely. “I suppose it is your—enthusiasm, I must call it—the impression you give of throwing yourself into things, that makes one think of you as younger than you are.” He eyed Charles for a moment. “As I watched you last night at your supper, I found myself thinking what a bad courtier you would make.”
Panic lurched in Charles’s stomach. Jouvancy was all too shrewd, and Charles could ill afford to be as transparent as the rhetoric master seemed to find him.
“Or what a good actor, perhaps?” he suggested lightly.
Jouvancy blinked. “Well, yes, that, too, I suppose. But I hope you were not acting and that you are indeed glad to be with us.”
“Assuredly I am glad, mon père! Glad and grateful. I was merely pointing out another way to read the evidence—always a danger of being devoted to rhetorical logic, don’t you find?”
“Yes, true, there is that.”
He tried the hat on the brunette wig and Charles watched in silence, giving the tension he had created a moment to settle. Then he asked what tragedy they were playing with the ballet.
“Clovis—the Frankish king, you know. Though the tragedy seems hardly to matter these days, now that men use their Latin so little, once they leave school. And most women, of course, never learn any.” Jouvancy’s jaw set stubbornly. “But our syllabus requires Latin drama. And—” He stabbed the air with his wig-draped fist and the hat cocked itself at a rakish angle. “—the audience must sit through the Latin if they want to see the ballet, since we have the good sense to alternate the tragedy acts with the ballet parts. And, of course, Clovis has some good swordplay. That always helps hold their interest.”
“Is this Clovis one of yours?”
Jouvancy nodded proudly.
“I look forward to it,” Charles said sincerely. Europe’s vernacular languages might be shouldering Latin aside in many areas of modern life, but Jouvancy’s elegant tragedies were still in demand by rhetoric masters throughout the Jesuit college system. Which pleased Charles deeply, since he loved Latin for itself and the rhetoric master’s Latin was exquisite.
“You’ll be sick of play and ballet both before August the seventh,” Jouvancy said, but his brown eyes danced. “To work, then, while your enthusiasm lasts, Maître du Luc!” He draped the wig over the sugar cone and opened the ballet livre.
Chapter 4
A bell clanged, and Charles looked up hopefully from the livret in his lap. He’d had more than enough of Hercules-Louis’s anti-Huguenot labors.
“ . . . And then,” Père Jouvancy prattled on happily, “the ballet’s fourth and final part.” Ballets had parts and entrées where plays had acts and scenes. “The crown of everything that has gone before! This part’s first entrée has Hercules throwing down the giants trying to scale heaven—a compliment to Louis’s piety in destroying the Huguenots, of course. In the second entrée, Hercules razes Troy—that is Louis destroying the nests of heresy. Huguenot churches,” he added helpfully, as though Charles might not get it.
Charles kept his eyes on the livret and said nothing.
“And the third entrée—Hercules helping Atlas hold up heaven—that is Louis defending true religion. And then the last entrée and the best!” Jouvancy’s face was as gleeful as a rule-breaking boy’s. “We have a new machine for that one. It’s a seven-headed Hydra representing the Huguenots’ false religion, and the Opera workmen have made it wonderfully dragonish and horrible! Hercules defeats the monster and sends it back to hell, as our crowning compliment to the king and the revocation of the Edict of Nantes!” Fortunately for Charles, Jouvancy rushed on without waiting for a reaction. “Then comes the tragedy’s last act and the ballet’s grand finale—with both casts onstage, of course. And after that, we have the dear old philosopher Diogenes—that’s Père Montville—descending from the heavens with his lantern. If that cloud machine can be stopped from creaking like the gates of hell! Diogenes brings the boys receiving the laurel crowns and the rest of the prizes onto the stage. And then, grace au bon Dieu, we can all breathe!” He threw himself back in his chair and beamed at Charles. “But we cannot breathe yet, because that was the warning bell for afternoon classes. We must hurry.”
He started for the door and Charles got slowly to his feet, staring at the livret in his hand.
“Maître du Luc? Is something wrong?”
“No. That is—I beg your pardon, mon père, I was just thinking.” He put the livret on the desk and joined Jouvancy at the door.