Louis grabbed Philippe’s collar. “You would usurp me?”

“Your child is dead. Her mother lies alone, sick, and scared.”

“A lesson in morality. From a man dressed as a woman and who fucks the same way.”

Philippe tossed his head. “Had your Queen the means, she would be here to grieve for her child. And you, without impediment, choose to hide. That’s the only lesson.”

“Oh,” said Louis, letting go of the collar. “I do have an impediment. And I’m looking at him right now.”

Flushed and furious, Philippe took the side corridor and entered the chapel from the rear. He crossed himself half-heartedly and joined Henriette on the pew behind Chevalier.

“How is the King?” Henriette whispered, wiping a tear from her cheek.

Philippe shook his head. “As you’d expect.”

“He should be here.”

“He does not mourn.”

“In public, perhaps.”

“Anywhere. The man does not weep.”

“Not to you, perhaps. It takes a woman to see it. His heart will be full of sorrow.”

“His heart,” said Philippe, “if he has one, is a whole other matter entirely. Is it not?”

Chevalier turned in his seat and gave Philippe a teasing grin. “You look nice, Monsieur,” he said. Then he winked at Henriette. She glared at him until, laughing silently, he turned around again. Then she lowered her head and cried openly.

As Father Bossuet lifted his eyes to Heaven and began to recite the Lord’s Prayer, much was happening within the chapel:

Louise De La Vallière gazed at the tiny coffin, saddened, worried.

Chevalier stared at the coffin, wondering if this was a cover-up.

At the back of the chapel, Montcourt gave Louvois a smile in spite of the somber circumstance.

Even more was happening beyond the chapel’s walls:

Bontemps, in a hooded cloak, rode his horse at a gallop along a rutted, muddy road away from the town of Versailles. For miles they traveled until they reached a small convent tucked up against a hillside. Two nuns stood outside the gate, waiting. Bontemps dismounted, went to the nuns, and opened his cape. There, tucked in safe, was Marie-Therese’s infant daughter. He handed the child to one of the nuns. “Thank you, sisters,” he said.

Laurene sneaked into a narrow hallway in the royal lodge with a document in her hand. She plunged it into her coat just before a guard walked past her.

Fabien appeared in the servants’ quarters and found the chambermaid he’d been searching for, alone and packing to leave. It took little effort to tie the sleeves of a robe around her neck, lift her onto a chair, lash the robe to the beams overhead, and kick the chair away. There. Suicide. Clean and simple. He spotted a flower-embroidered handkerchief on the bed and put it in his pocket.