# Chapter 25: The Price of a King's Love
Hello everyone, it's me again! How are you all doing? I hope you're warm, comfortable, and ready to be swept away, because today I'm walking with you through Chapter 25 of *Mistress Of The Sun* — and oh, what a chapter this is. It is a chapter of glitter and gold on the surface, and of quiet terror underneath. It is a chapter where a young woman watches her lover become a legend, and discovers that legend has a price no one warned her about. So settle in, take a breath, and let's go back to the France of Louis XIV — back to the drums, the trumpets, the dust of the arena, and the soft, dangerous whisper of a secret that cannot stay buried.
## When Splendor Returns to the Arena
The story opens on a world still trembling from tragedy. King Henry's death on the jousting field had ended the great tournaments — an entire age of chivalry snuffed out by a single splintered lance. But Louis is not a man who accepts silence or dimness. He wants the thrill back, the roar of the crowd, the flash of steel. So he reshapes it: contestants will now aim their long lances at *rings* instead of one another. Safer, yes. But every bit as thrilling.
The Court buzzes with it. Henriette cradles her little dog Mimi and reports that His Majesty has been practicing with a lance. A new maid of honor confesses she watched him — he missed one ring, but took another. Yeyette notes that he takes tumbling lessons daily; Monsieur Lauzun told her so. And Petite — our Petite — says, "So I've heard," without so much as a blush, earning Henriette's approving nod. It's a small moment, but a delicious one: the secret mistress learning the delicate art of pretending.
When the great day comes, the Queen and Queen Mother settle beneath a gold-and-purple velvet canopy on the east side of the Tuileries. Petite sits with Athénaïs among the maids of honor, surrounded by chattering women speaking of husbands, fathers, lovers, and brothers. They laugh about helping the men into their costumes, the frantic hunt for lost items, the last-minute alterations. They talk of special diets and sleepless nights, of soothing riding sores, and — most romantically of all — of giving their men a scarf to wear, just like the days of chivalry.
"And who, might I ask, is carrying your scarf?" Athénaïs whispers.
"No one," Petite lies, and wonders how much Athénaïs truly knows. Louis insisted on silence, and Henriette has been careful, but suspicion is a weed that grows everywhere at Court. Fortunately, the Queen is not one of the suspicious — she simply cannot believe the King could love a woman of such inferior nobility. Sometimes, Petite's invisibility is her shield.
Then Athénaïs points her fan at a tall cavalier in ancient armor on a stubby mare — the Marquis de Montespan, brother of the young man killed in the duel. Five months have passed since that tragedy ruined so many, including Athénaïs's own fiancé, the Marquis de Noirmoutiers. "And that's *my* scarf tied to his lance," Athénaïs says, "although it's not what you think. He took it from me. He's horribly persistent." Flattering, she admits — but somewhat disconcerting. Listen closely, dear reader, because that persistent marquis will matter later. Much later.
## The Sun King Rises
A clang of cymbals, a blast of trumpets — the procession begins. Mounted pages in gold-embroidered tunics, squires in Roman dress, then the King's two equerries carrying his lance and his shield, emblazoned with an image of the sun.
And then Louis appears.
He rides a chestnut stallion at the head of a Roman squadron, dressed as Emperor of Rome, looking afire with diamonds — tiny tin mirrors, Petite knows, but the crowd does not need to know. His horse's gold-embroidered harness throws off sparks of light. Even his leather ankle boots are gilded. Even his sword is covered in "gems."
"The Sun King!" someone shouts, and the cheers erupt. All winter Louis danced the part of Apollo, and now the nickname has taken root in the hearts of the people.
"Mon Dieu, it's enough to make a girl faint just to look at him," a young woman exclaims, fanning herself violently.
*Indeed*, Petite thinks, with a swell of private pride.
His silver helmet, crowned with gold leaves and crested with flowing scarlet plumes, turns slowly over the crowd. He is searching the faces beneath the velvet canopy — searching for *her*, Petite knows. She waves her lace shawl, hoping he'll see, though everyone in the stands seems to be waving something.
Four heralds trumpet: *may the games begin.*
And what a show it is! The spectators grow hoarse. Their shoulders ache from waving scarves, pennants, flags, even inflated pig bladders. But the finest moment is the Course of Heads — a contest rarely seen. A row of paste "heads" is set along the barrier: Turks, Indians, a Medusa, monsters of antiquity. Louis charges them first with a lance, then a javelin, then a sword. One by one, all sixteen fall. The cheers collapse into stunned silence — the kind of silence that means a legend has just been witnessed.
Then comes the tilting at the ring, and Petite's breath catches. She recognizes the horseman — the armor, the stance. "I think that's my brother," she tells Athénaïs. "It's my father's suit of armor he's wearing." The rider charges the post at full speed and pierces the ring cleanly. A cheer goes up. He circles the arena with his visor raised. "It is him!" Petite cries, but her voice drowns in the crowd.
So she climbs down the crude wooden benches and circles to the back of the arena, where a military tent stands for the knights. She hovers with the hopeful crowd, scanning for a familiar face, and spots Lauzun. She runs to catch him.
"My brother is in there. Could you go get him for me?"
Lauzun mocks her — does she know how many sweating men are crammed in that tent? — but she describes Jean precisely: black chain mail, an old-style helmet with a visor, no breastplate, just a leather cuirass. Reluctantly, fingers comically pinched to his nose, Lauzun goes.
Jean emerges drenched. Michel de Tellier has dumped a bucket over him. "If he weren't son of the war minister, I'd thrash him," Jean laughs, wiping his face. "Come, I'm dying of thirst."
## A Brother's Ambitions and a Sister's Secret
The "watering hole" is for men only, so Petite waits by the river while Jean gulps down a mug or two of beer. He returns lighter, happier, full of talk. He and Michel were there last night — the stories Michel tells! It was Michel's idea that Jean come up for the tournament, and Michel who told him about the King's new company of light horse being raised for the Dauphin.
Petite nods. It's no secret — but she notes that the positions are going to high-ranking veterans.
"But with his pull, Michel thinks I might have a chance," Jean says, skipping a stone that strikes a duck.
"That would be wonderful," Petite says, though she knows Michel de Tellier holds little sway with Louis.
Talk turns to the past — to Fouquet, whom Jean guarded at Amboise. "What a complainer," Jean laughs. "He expected a feather bed, rose water in his wash basin. Rose water — in a prison?" Then he pauses. "You know, there was the strangest rumor going around: people said Fouquet tried to bribe you because he'd found out you were 'close' to the King."
"There are lots of rumors at Court, Jean."
"Of course that's ridiculous. The King can have any woman at Court he wants."
Petite says nothing. She picks up a flat stone and skips it across the water — three jumps.
## Jealousy, Tender and Harmless
That afternoon, Louis is distant. He lies beside her on Gautier's bed, staring at the ceiling. When she slips a hand under his shirt and teases that he usually ravishes her, he exhales and says, "I saw you cheering someone during the tournament."
"I was cheering for you."
"This was at tilting at the ring. You were cheering a man on Tellier's team."
Oh — her brother Jean. She smiles, incredulous. "You weren't jealous, were you?" She tells him proudly that Jean got the ring on the first pass, then lays her head on his broad shoulder. "Don't you know how much I love you?"
He kisses her passionately — but all the while she is thinking, *Why don't I just ask?* It pleases Louis to help; he is a generous man.
"And?" he says, sensing her detachment.
She sighs. The light horse brigade for the Dauphin — her brother is a wonderful horseman, and he'd—
"Thy will be done," Louis says with a smile, loosening her laces.
And just like that, the favor is granted. Not through Michel de Tellier's influence. Not through merit alone. Through the quiet, unspoken currency of a king's affection.
## Winter: Rank, Pension, and a Lie Worth Guarding
Winter arrives, and Jean returns to Paris to take up his new position. Françoise fans herself despite the chill — imagine it, the rank of cornette! The old Marquis sputters his congratulations, shrunken with time. Petite raises a glass; Jean looks splendid in his new uniform, a red coat with silver lace edging and a matching silver-edged bandolier — a design Petite helped Louis with.
"I always knew you'd go far, Jean," Françoise beams.
"In truth, I owe this to my friend Michel de Tellier," Jean says.
"That was kind of him," Petite says, hiding her surprise neatly. Michel had nothing to do with it.
"And imagine: a pension of four thousand livres," Françoise says, incredulous. "Now we'll finally be able to save toward your sister's dowry."
"I have a few prospects in mind," Jean says.
"Good," Petite says, faint-hearted.
## Easter Sunday: The Truth Arrives
At the stairwell entrance to Madame's suite, Jean stops her, takes her by the elbow, and steers her outside toward the porticoes. She has no wrap, no boots — it's cool and wet — but he doesn't care.
"Why didn't you tell me?" he hisses.
She studies his eyes. He knows.
He finally went to thank Michel de Tellier for the promotion — and Michel said he had nothing whatsoever to do with it. And then he told Jean the truth.
Petite looks away, her heart leaping like a hunted rabbit. All her childhood, her mother lectured her on chastity. "I'm sorry."
Jean laughs. She looks up, bewildered — why is he smiling?
"Have you any idea what position this puts me in?" he asks, cocking his hat.
"Jean, it's not like that."
"Not like what? We're talking about the *King*."
"Be careful what you say," she whispers, noticing Athénaïs on the arm of her new husband — the persistent Marquis de Montespan.
"Listen: I'm head of our family. Don't think I don't understand the ramifications. You've been sullied — that doesn't come free."
"I'm serious, Jean," she says, offended by his tone.
"I guess I don't need to find a husband for you now. Mother's constantly onto me about it. She's driving me crazy."
"Jean, if you value your new position, I advise you to listen to what I'm saying." She keeps her voice low. "Nobody must know." She glances over her shoulder. "Especially Mother. She'd tell the Marquis, and then..."
And then the world would know.
## A Secret That Grows
All through the holy season, Petite prays for her courses to come. Despite their abandon, she and Louis had been careful — most of the time. *Perhaps royal seed is different*, she thinks, as days turn to weeks. Then, after the Feast of the Ascension, she is sick. At Pentecost, Clorine must loosen her corset laces.
"You shouldn't be riding," her maid scolds.
Petite feels a sick despair — and yet, at the same time, she cannot help thinking it is a most wonderful thing. Their seeds have mingled. She is carrying his child.
Louis looks at her in amazement. "Truly?"
She nods, smiling uneasily. She had put off telling him. Everything will change now.
He embraces her carefully, as if she might break.
"What are we going to do?" she asks.
He seems strangely at a loss. "My mother must not find out."
"Or the Queen," Petite says, chagrined that the Queen Mother is more of a concern than his wife.
"Or the Queen," Louis echoes with a wince. He sits her down, takes her hand. "I'll talk to Colbert tonight."
She is taken aback. Monsieur Colbert — the new minister of finance, a humorless, dutiful man who keeps lists. "His wife is about to have their fifth child. He'll know what to do."
"Louis—" Petite pauses. She'd had a daydream, a foolish one — a little cottage in the woods at Versailles, raising the baby herself. She could be happy with a simple life. "Is there no way that I could... keep the child? I'm serious."
"You know that's not possible, Louise."
"But why?" This is not how she imagined this conversation.
He opens his hands in frustration. "You don't understand the dangers. This isn't just any child. You'd be found out, and the baby—" He shakes his head. "He could be spirited away."
*He.* Petite smiles. They will have a son. She thinks so too.
Then Louis speaks of darker things — that the blood of a prince is believed to have magical qualities. Only a superstition, of course, but that doesn't make it less powerful. People believe what they will. Even her birth secretions will have to be guarded; the after-burden can be sold for a high price. Disgusting, but it happens. One learns to be realistic.
She remembers the care taken with the Queen's placenta.
"So you see? It's just not possible for you to keep the baby. He must be carefully hidden away." He opens his arms. "You're not to worry: Monsieur Colbert will find a good home for him... and a house for you," he says, stroking her hair. A hideaway for her confinement. "I'll see to it that you have everything you need."
*Everything you need...*
Petite listens to the beating of Louis's heart. She needs *him* — now more than ever. She had half imagined him immortal, but now she cannot afford that luxury. Too much is at stake.
She looks up. "What would become of me if you were to die?"
Or be killed — the common fate of kings. Without Louis, she would be at the mercy of the queens.
He smiles. "Are you plotting?"
"I'm serious."
He frowns in thought. "Your brother needs a rich wife," he says at last. "That way, you will always be taken care of — no matter what happens to me."
"Nothing's going to happen to you," Petite says quietly, keeping the Devil at bay.
## The Wedding of Convenience and Splendor
The wedding takes place at the Church of the Assumption. Over sixty of the most noble men and women of France are present — even the King, even the Queen, even the Queen Mother. The bride's family insisted.
Petite sits beside her mother and stepfather on crimson velvet chairs. "Soon it will be you," Françoise whispers consolingly as Jean and his bride approach the high altar. Petite bows her head at the organ's swell. Before her glows the statue of the Virgin in the light of six massive candles. She feels light-headed, fatigued to the core — three months along now, and she remembers women saying the first is the hardest. The air reeks with the sweet scent of strewn flowers. *With child.* She will never marry. Never wear the bridal wreath.
Jean, well-shaved and in military attire, rocks nervously on his heels beside his bride. Gabrielle Glé — a plump brunette with a cupid's mouth — stands stiffly encased in white satin, a high ruff reaching her ears, a wreath of tiny pink roses atop her dark curls.
"She is comely," Françoise says, fussing with the gauze shawl Petite gave her the year before.
Petite nods, watching Gabrielle bow for the priest's blessing. Privy to the secret — a secret the family vowed to keep on pain of exclusion from all material benefits — they had bargained hard with Louis. The Vallière property near Reugny must be designated a Marquisate, giving Jean the title. Jean must be named captain-lieutenant of the Dauphin's Light Horse. Gabrielle herself must be made maid of honor to the Queen, given the privilege of sitting at the head table with the royal family, and the right to ride in the royal coach.
"And so rich," Françoise says with awe. "She has three country manors. Jean is going to take me to visit each one of them."
And there the chapter closes — a triumphant wedding, a proud mother, a beaming bride, and at the center of it all a pale young woman in crimson velvet, holding a secret that has already begun to grow, watching her own future being bargained away in exchange for her brother's fortune.
## Reader's Impressions & Star Rating
What strikes me most about this chapter is how seamlessly it braids the spectacular and the intimate. The Course of Heads, the Sun King's emergence, the roar of sixteen thousand spectators — this is pageantry at its most cinematic. Yet the chapter's real power lies in the small, human tremors: a jealous king staring at a ceiling; a brother laughing at the sister he has just learned is "sullied"; a maid quietly loosening corset laces. Petite's daydream of a cottage in the woods is heartbreaking precisely because it's so modest — she doesn't want a throne, she wants a cradle. And Louis's answer — "Thy will be done" for a brother's career, but "not possible" for a woman's motherhood — lays bare the brutal asymmetry of their love. I felt the cold portico wind on Easter Sunday. I felt the hot shame of Jean's laughter. And I felt that final, muffled dread at the altar: the bridal wreath that will never be hers. This is Sandra Gulland at her finest — history glittering, and underneath, a heartbeat of grief.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ **Rating: 4.8 / 5 Stars**
## Next Chapter Prediction
The wedding is the hinge, and the door it opens is dark. Gabrielle Glé is now a maid of honor to the Queen, which means the secret of Petite's condition has just gained a permanent resident inside the royal household — one who is only bound by a family bargain that can be broken by a whisper. I predict the next chapter will bring Petite's confinement: the hidden house, the hushed arrangements through Colbert, the growing physical weight of a pregnancy she must hide while standing upright in gowns and bowing in anterooms. I also expect the Queen Mother and the Queen to edge closer to the truth — perhaps through gossip, perhaps through Petite's own body betraying her. And I suspect we will see the first flicker of the darker, more calculating Athénaïs de Montespan, whose persistent marquis has already begun circling the story's edges. The child will be taken. The question is whether Petite's heart survives it — and whether Louis's "everything you need" will turn out to be nothing at all.
To listen free the next reviews chatpers, please access website novelsaudio.com and search keyword: Mistress Of The Sun free digital audiobook or click the link in the description of this video or if you want to listen or read full the Mistress Of The Sun free digital audiobook please access website novelsaudio.com