Royal Mistress

Childhood

1749

Jeanne Becu (6 years old)

Bastard. The maids whispered the word to one another behind their hands. The children said it more openly to my face. I was a product of lust between my mother and a local friar. I wasn't even lucky enough to be a bastard with noble blood – it was embarrassing. At least my mother was just as much a whore as I was a bastard- she had the pleasure of working for Monsieur Billard-Dumonceux, her former lover. Through some affection still retained for her he had taken us in when I was but three years old. The irony in his protection laid in the situation that we were installed not into his household, but that of his Italian mistress Francesca. Francesca delighted in me, not knowing my mother had been seducing her benefactor Monsieur Billard before he had even met her – and probably continued to do so under her nose whilst in service. Francesca gave me a taste of the opulence I would so crave in later years, she had lavish taste; our days together were not complete without an evening supper that was fit for royalty itself. Monsieur Dumonceux would be present for this exquisite meal and even at ten years old I watched as Francesca took the most plump and ripe of the strawberries and, taking a bite, would briefly close her eyes in ecstasy before licking her voluptuous red lips. Monsieur Dumonceux could not take his eyes off her, this was how she made her way, how she paid her due. She was devoted to the pleasure of this man – and it seemed to me that for a woman to live in the opulence that my Italian mistress lived the only way was pleasuring men. I was six years old, and I was already a little whore in the making.

1757 (14 years old)

Jeanne Becu

I suppose I ought to be grateful really. My dear Francesca had funded me an education at De Saint-Aure, something my mother would never have been able to afford me. This education took me to the heart of France, the decadent Paris. The city blossomed as I'd approached, I'd been so excited to think this would become my home. The convent was like a stab wound in mother Paris, the gaiety and pleasures of Parisian streets did not cross into the borders of De Saint- Aure. The nuns there, determined to give an education to girls who might otherwise flow down a river of sin and corruption had been more austere with me then my dearest Francesca. Upon arrival I had sobbed to see my pretty clothes been replaced for a sparse, ugly uniform. My fair hair which Francesca had curled around her fingers like gaudy rings was hidden behind a veil. I really had little to do except learn, and so learn I did. I am proficient at music and found a true love of art, the religious instruction I took on board to a degree that I knew would satisfy the nuns, but it never reached the soul of me. I remembered the silks of Francesca's gowns, the fluffiness of her dog and the indulgent life she led and knew myself to be guilty of want and greed.