# Chapter 10: The Visitation — When the Poacher Became the King
Hello everyone, it's me again! How are you all doing? Today I will continue to walk with you and review Chapter 10 of "Mistress Of The Sun free digital audiobook." This is the chapter where a royal visit turns every candle in the château into a witness, where a girl’s heart learns that the poacher she once met is not merely a man—he is the King. So settle in, and let’s step into the crowded salle des états, where pride, poverty, and destiny all sit down to the same disastrous feast.
The chapter opens with the arrival of a carriage, a footman bowing deeply, a stepping board lowered, and a young man emerging in a brown justacorps and breeches, his cloak flung over one shoulder. All Petite and Nicole can see at first is the top of his tricorn hat with its red cockade. “That must be the King,” Petite says. “Everyone is bowing.” Nicole breathes, “Be still my heart.” And already the air changes. Something enormous has entered the château, something that makes even the walls feel smaller.
But before we meet the King face-to-face, we are pulled into the sour, aching mind of Gaston, the Duc d’Orléans. He shows his nephews Louis and Philippe, and the Queen Mother, to the three upholstered armchairs in the vast salle des états. Everyone else—even Gaston himself—must sit on stools. And this infuriates him. In his own château, before more than a thousand local gentry dressed in outdated finery, he must perch like a lesser man. That it isn’t truly his château makes it worse. That he has no legitimate male heir means everything will return to the Crown when he dies. Everything. His temper has been foul, and he thinks, perhaps only half-jokingly, that he might as well die now, before the performance.
Ah yes, the performance. His overwrought daughters have been rehearsing for weeks, and he is sick of their tantrums and tears. The violinists gather their instruments. Gaston braces himself. He could not find good musicians in the province; Roma with pipes and tabors could be had for a sou, but his guest is the King, his nephew, and Roma simply will not do. The expense of this visit is crushing him. Economies have become his grief. He counts candles, foodstuffs, bales of hay, bushels of oats, pennies spent on shoeing and nailing, the cost of sixteen running dogs and five greyhounds. The stabling alone for the King is costing him a small fortune.
“We should begin, Your Highness?” Monsieur de Gautier prompts. “You know: the performance.”
Gaston groans as a footman in shabby livery helps pull him to his feet. His eldest daughter by his first marriage—la Grande Mademoiselle, the old, bossy, rich one—insists it is the damp air at Blois that makes his bones ache. She persuaded him to take powdered St. John’s wort, which helps, he admits, but it makes him fart, so he refrained for the Visitation. The Visitation. Mon Dieu, you would think it was the Lord Jesus himself the way everyone carries on. Louis is King, true, but he is also Gaston’s twenty-year-old nephew, the one who bagged all the pheasants the Duke had been cultivating for two and a half years, the one over whom his daughters swoon. Was the boy so good-looking? He is fit, certainly, but what twenty-year-old isn’t? A bit of a bumpkin, in Gaston’s view—not unlike the dolt his father had been, always on about horses and hounds.
It irks him. It does. Gaston himself might have been king several times over. Were it not for the smallest turn of fate—his hapless brother finally getting his wife with child after twenty-three years, which was suspicious in itself—Gaston would have been the one in the armchair, everyone bowing and scraping, turning themselves inside-out to please. But no. He is merely the old uncle on the stool, pulled to his feet by a perspiring footman in worn-out livery. His life is coming to an end—he is sure of it—and what has it all amounted to? Daughters.
Then we slip behind the makeshift curtains with Petite and Nicole. Princess Marguerite asks through clenched teeth for her tucker, unable to move her jaw lest the white lead paste covering her face flake. “I couldn’t find it,” Nicole says, adjusting the Princess’s lace petticoat. The kitchen boys’ ballet is ending; the girls will go on next. Marguerite insists she must have a dozen tuckers. Nicole cheerfully calls it a mystery. Petite peeks out. The vast room is crowded. She spots her mother standing off to one side beside the Marquis. Where is the royal family? If only she could see better through the swarms of servants.
Mercy! The Queen Mother is sitting directly in front with the Duke’s eldest daughter, la Grande Mademoiselle. As the big princess talks, the Queen Mother frowns down at her hands. Petite wonders if it is true that she wears pigskin gloves at night to keep them soft. Where is the King? Petite thinks he might be the man standing behind the Queen Mother with Philippe. With all the people moving to and fro, she only gets glimpses. She thinks it must be the King because of the brown justacorps he is wearing.
Nicole whispers, “Do you think the King’s brother paints his face?” Petite nods. Philippe—known by the title “Monsieur”—is stylishly adorned in a beribboned periwig and ruffled petticoat breeches. “He’s powdered,” Petite says, watching as he turns to address the Duke. She wonders if he uses powder of ground-up pearls, which, though dear, is said to be best for the skin. Nicole says she didn’t expect the Queen Mother to be so old, or the King so well made. “Oh là là, his legs.” So that is the King. He stoops down to say something to his mother. “His demeanor is so—” “So manful,” Nicole sighs. “So noble,” Petite says. He looks up, and she gasps. It is him. “What’s wrong?” Petite puts her hands over her heart. Her poacher is the King.
The revelation lands like a thunderclap. The man she met in the woods, the man who could have been a criminal, a gamekeeper, a stranger, is Louis. The King. And Petite is not dreaming.
Then we shift into la Grande Mademoiselle’s sharp, horrified point of view. She cannot believe what she is seeing. The set is magnificent. The river waves are convincing, cleverly created by two men waving a painted cloth. The sound of thunder—cannon balls rolled down tin-covered stairs—is so frightening it makes the hounds bark. The kitchen boys’ ballet is vigorous and charming. Her half-sisters, however, simply cannot dance. They step all over themselves performing a simple branle. Marguerite, who is supposed to be the star, is the worst. Why is her face covered in white paste? And where is her tucker? She looks like a harlot. And those maids of hers: one brawling and brazen, the other thin and limping, stumbling around as if in a dream. What has come over them all?
La Grande Mademoiselle is relieved when the performance finally ends and platters of food are carried in—or so she thinks, for nothing could have been as shocking as her half-sisters’ comportment at the table. Or rather, their lack of it. Marguerite, the eldest, wipes her nose with the tablecloth, then gobbles down five raw oysters with loud smacking sounds. The two younger princesses are even worse, fidgeting as they eat, poking at their teeth and sticking fingers in their ears. Hadn’t her stepmother taught them anything? There is a clump of hardened something on her knife, and her lap cloth is frayed. And where had the staff come from? Every single walleyed one of them has some sort of twitch, serving up platters with their thumbs in the soup. Is this her father’s idea of a royal banquet? La Grande Mademoiselle wishes she could disappear.
Meanwhile, Gaston looks down at his plate. Is that even fish under the heavy sauce? It is Friday, a fast-day, and the King’s maître d’hôtel insisted that he send to the ocean ports for sole, sturgeon, turbot, even limandes. As if river fish weren’t good enough! Gaston cautiously takes a bite. It is chewy, so perhaps it is cuttlefish. He can’t be sure. The light from the tapers is too dim to see by. Perhaps he should have allowed his bumbling chief steward to order more candles. Years ago they had lived in light. Now things have changed. Now he has “economies”—and all because of his nephew the King. The minute Louis was born, the minute it was known that Gaston, the Duc d’Orléans, son of Henry the Great, was no longer first in line for the throne, the laborers building his new wing quit. They knew there would no longer be sufficient funds for their pay.
The silence at the tables is deafening. All that can be heard is the sound of guests pushing food around their metal plates. Perhaps, Gaston thinks, he should not have dismissed the violinists. A little music—even bad music—might have helped, despite the expense. The Queen Mother, seated in the place of honor on his right, seems to be studiously avoiding him. Well. Gaston sighs. Could he blame her? It had likely not been wise to doubt the King’s paternity so publicly all those twenty years ago. But having witnessed the baby emerging and seeing in the infant’s genitalia his own downfall, was it not understandable that he’d had something of a lapse in judgment? He’d meant only to make a witticism, something clever to amuse the few who had dared to join him that evening. Of course he’d ordered his cellarer to bore his final cask of Italian white Trebbiano—the costly muscatel would be his last, after all. He could not remember saying the offending words, but the next morning he was being quoted everywhere: *I can vouch that the Dauphin came out of the Queen, but I cannot vouch for who put him in there.*
It was a clever remark, was it not? Pity that the Queen Mother took it personally. In truth he had always loved his brother’s Spanish wife. Indeed, they had once mildly flirted. Her intoxicating beauty—sensual and yet virtuous, an irresistible mix—was wasted on his effeminate dolt of a brother, God rest his soul. No, there was to be no justice in this life. After that comment, the Queen Mother, his sweet Señora Anne, no longer blessed him with her lovely smiles. Even now, Gaston glances again at the Queen Mother. She has taken a bite and seems to be chewing for a long time. Perhaps she partook of the same cuttlefish. Gaston wonders if she has problems with her teeth. She is still a beauty, in spite of her girth, her sober demeanor. Once she had been slender, and oh, so gay.
“Your Highness,” he says finally, addressing her, “tomorrow evening I have arranged to have a troupe of actors perform a comedy.”
“I’m afraid that we won’t be here,” the Queen Mother says evenly.
Everyone stares. Gaston’s wife at the far end of the table stops chewing. “We must depart for the south,” the Queen Mother announces to them all, placing her serviette on her plate.
“But… but we were told you would stay at Chambord for three nights,” Gaston protests, stuttering. “I’ve planned entertainments for you every afternoon, and—”
“There has been a change of plans,” says the Queen Mother, rising.
Gaston leaps to his feet. There is a loud scraping of chairs and hurried bows as the royal party rapidly takes its leave. “No dessert?” the Duchess asks, bewildered. “I will see to their coaches, Your Highness,” the dance master tells Gaston, rushing after the royal guests. And just like that, the great Visitation collapses into humiliation and haste.
Later, down in the servants’ quarters, Nicole tells Petite, “What a muddle.” Her pewter plate is heaped with desserts. Indeed, there is food in abundance. The basement table for the upper staff is covered with dishes, but already the fish smells off, in spite of the richly spiced sauce. The sweets, on the other hand, are tempting: bowls of melting crème glacée, platters of biscuits au chocolat, a vast compote de prunes grillées. Nicole starts to say more, but is drowned out by the parade of servants filing by, en route to the basement kitchens balancing trays of dirty dishes. “I told Princess Marguerite that it’s not too late,” she continues when it is quieter. “She could run away to Chambord, join the King’s entourage as a maid, and then, when he tries to deflourish her, reveal herself as a princess and demand he make an honest woman of her.”
“You must stop reading those romances,” Petite says. She is too elated and confused to care about the Princess, frankly. All she can think of, with a dizzying pang, is her last glimpse of the King. As the royal party prepared to depart, she and Nicole emerged from the service entrance. The King had turned. His eyes—she is sure of it—had lingered, for a long moment, on her. Did he recognize her? Did he remember?
The château falls into gloom after the King’s departure, as if a spell has been cast. Even the announcement that a treaty has been signed with Spain is met with indifference. For the first time in more than twenty years there will be peace—but likely to be sealed by the King’s marriage to the Spanish Infanta. The Duke’s humors go out of balance after the abrupt departure of the royal party, and on the twenty-seventh of January he comes down with a fever. Two celebrated doctors from Paris are sent for, but after only one week the priests are called in.
“We’re going to need mourning gowns,” Princess Marguerite informs her waiting maids. “A seamstress is coming this afternoon.”
Petite’s eyes fill: the Duke is dying? She feels she has come to know him personally, albeit indirectly. She has been spending time in the château library, and on a number of occasions she has come across the Duke’s notations in the margins: *Ha ha! Preposterous! The fool!* “I’m so sorry. That’s…” The words *sad* or *terrible* or even *awful* seem too pedestrian for a man like the Duke, the son of King Henry the Great. “Tragic,” she says with feeling, recalling the devastation of her own father’s death.
“I know,” Princess Marguerite agrees. “Once he dies, we won’t be able to live here anymore—because we’re only girls,” she adds with disdain. Without a male heir, all the Duke’s property reverts to the Crown.
The final scene is haunting. The Duc d’Orléans’s bedchamber smells of incense, pigeon feathers, and caudle, a warm sickbed gruel mixed with ale. The shutters have been fastened, the drapes drawn, and the fire and candles lit. To prevent his soul from escaping, five dead pigeons—messengers to the spirit world—have been placed at the foot of his bed, a massive piece of furniture hung with faded embroidered cloth. Squeezed between a curio cabinet and a trunk, Petite and Nicole stand behind the three princesses at the periphery of the room, watching as the Abbé comes to administer the last rites. The old Duke’s world is shrinking to candlelight, incense, and the whispers of prayers. And for Petite, standing in the shadows, the future feels as fragile as a flame.
Reader's Impressions & Star Rating
What a chapter! I was completely swept up by the sharp contrast between royal spectacle and private humiliation. The Visitation should be a grand triumph, but instead it becomes a comedy of errors and a quiet tragedy of pride. Gaston’s bitterness is almost funny until it becomes painfully human—he is a man who might have been king, reduced to a stool, counting candles while his legacy slips away. The banquet scene made me wince and laugh at the same time, especially the thumbs in the soup and “No dessert?” after the Queen Mother’s icy announcement.
But the heart of the chapter is Petite’s realization: her poacher is the King. That moment is electric. The way her hands fly to her heart, the way Nicole sighs over his legs, the way Petite gasps—it is romantic, terrifying, and dizzying all at once. And then the King’s lingering glance at the service entrance? Perfect. It leaves a spark burning in the reader’s mind.
The shift into the Duke’s deathbed is beautifully eerie. The dead pigeons, the dark room, the Abbé—it feels like a doorway closing on one era and opening onto another. Petite is still a maid, still invisible to most, but the King has seen her. And that changes everything.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 4.8 / 5 Stars
Next Chapter Prediction
After the Duke’s death, Blois will no longer be a home for the princesses, and Petite’s position there will become uncertain. I predict the household will begin to dissolve, forcing Petite to leave the château and seek a new place—perhaps in Paris, perhaps even at court. The King’s marriage to the Spanish Infanta may be looming, but Louis’s lingering look at Petite suggests he has not forgotten her. I think the next chapter will bring a separation, a journey, and a new set of dangers. Petite may be pushed toward a convent, a marriage, or service in another noble household, but fate seems determined to draw her closer to the Sun King. The poacher is a king, and the girl who once dared to meet him in the woods is about to be pulled into a world far more dazzling—and far more dangerous—than she can imagine.
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