The Moonbeam

For a short time the premiere illusionist in the Court of Versailles was a strange young woman known only as the Moonbeam. 

Where she came from was a mystery.  She spoke a bit of French with an accent that was clearly English but (like most things about her) somewhat odd.  Of her background nothing was known.  No one could trace her family or where she was trained in the art of illusion.  She herself offered no insight into her past.  All she would say of her history was that she had fallen out of time and that she hoped one day to fall back. 

She may have, she disappeared as abruptly as she arrived.  Where she went was as much of an enigma as where she came from. 

When she was at Versailles, she caught the Queen’s fancy. 

This was something of a surprise to those who knew the light-hearted Antoinette.  While the Moonbeam could perform wondrous feats, changing brandy to spring water and conjuring somersaulting silver rabbits from thin air, she lacked the sort of beauty and gaiety the Queen usually favored in her companions.  In fact most of the people of the court, ladies and gentlemen alike, found that there was something disquieting about the Moonbeam.  There was entirely too much going on beneath the lids of her cloudy grey eyes. 

She often seemed very far away, in her own world but she noticed things and remembered.  No little detail escaped her.  And while she was for the most part silent when she did speak she tended to speak truthfully, no matter how uncomfortable it might be.  Honesty was hardly a trait to make one popular in the Court of Versailles where flattery was the rule of the day.

And yet the Moonbeam captured the heart of the Queen. 

When Antoinette first spoke to the Moonbeam it was to tease, as was her way. 

“Your tricks are delightful, little stranger,” the Queen laughed.  “And you might be pretty enough but your face is pale and wan.  What makes you so solemn?”

“I am far from home, your majesty,” the girl answered.   “And even when I was in my own time and place I did not quite belong.” 

“Well, whatever time and place it is you come from you’ll forget it soon enough now that you are here.  Nothing can compare to the splendor of Versailles.”

“Is that what you have found, your highness?”

“It is indeed.”

“Then you never think of Vienna where you grew up, or your mother the Archduchess?  It seemed to me as if you did, often, as you pretend to smile.”

And for a moment, Antoinette’s mask of frivolity seemed to slip and show a woman who was all alone and clung to pleasure with a desperation born of deep sadness.  Then the mask returned, laughing and gay.

“It is hardly appropriate for you to speak in such a manner to your Queen,” Antoinette chided the Moonbeam.  “But I will allow it this one time, because you amuse me.”

The Moonbeam was, indeed, hardly appropriate and yet after this exchange the Queen made a point of seeking out the company of the odd and improper little foreigner.  They made quite a contrast, these two women.  The Queen in her lavish gowns and high wigs, jewels glittering at her throat, her bosom, at her wrists and fingers.  The Moonbeam wore simple clothes, plain dresses in dark colors.  Her only ornaments were curious items she found around the kitchens and grounds, vegetables from the garden or the discarded corks of champagne bottles.  It was the difference between a majestic palace and a crooked woodland cottage, between an ornate cathedral and a humble, makeshift shrine.

Yet when they were alone in the Queen’s bedchamber there was not such a contrast between the white bodies, blushed with pink that folded together and the blonde heads that nestled side by side.

“How is it that you came here?”  The Queen asked in one of these quiet moments.

“It was a charms accident,” the Moonbeam said with a sigh. 

“A charms accident?  I’d call it a charming accident since it brought you to me.”

“Oh, but charms accidents can be quite dangerous.  My mother was killed in one,” the Moonbeam said and Antoinette’s expression grew sympathetic.

“I am sorry for you, you must be very sad.” 

“I was, for a long time but I still feel close to her.  I think she watches over me, even when I make foolish mistakes.”

“You are devout then?  I’ve never seen you at Mass; I didn’t think you had much religion.”

“No, you’re right,” the Moonbeam said.  “I don’t have much religion though I hope I am devout.”

Antoinette nodded. 

“That makes sense,” she said.  “It shouldn’t, but it does.  I have a great deal of religion, but lack piety.  I go to Mass in my most beautiful gowns.  I take communion, I sing and pray, I pay my tithe then I go to gamble and gossip and see my lovers.  I wish it was not so, but for me it is a matter of survival.  I am a gilded bird in a cage.  I must amuse myself.”

“Could it be another way?”  The Moonbeam asked.  The Queen shook her head. 

“No,” she said.  “It is the way things are.  A Queen is not like other women; she must shine for her people and illuminate the sad dullness of their lives with her beauty and joy.  She must show them a glimpse of what waits in heaven.”

“But wouldn’t you rather give your people something real like work and bread and dignity?”

“What is more real than heaven?  Would you trade your mother’s vigilance for a crust of bread?”

“Where she is, my mother is surrounded by love and kindness, not by riches and splendor.  Wouldn’t it be better to show your people that sort of a heaven?”

Antoinette only laughed. 

“Oh my dear, you would turn the world on its ear if given half a chance. This is all too serious for pillow talk,” she said, snuggling against the girl.  “Tell me instead how beautiful I am.”

“You are beautiful,” the Moonbeam admitted willingly.  “Everything here is beautiful though it is built on misery.  It is wrong, but it makes me sad to think of it going away.  I wish I could change things, I wish I could make you see that you could change things.” 

“Perhaps you will yet, my earnest-eyed little conjurer.”

One day the Moonbeam disappeared, like a bit of thistledown upon the wind.  Whatever charming accident had brought her had been reversed.  She had returned to her proper time and place.

As for Marie Antoinette, she returned to the company of those who flattered her.  Surrounded by those who only saw the shiny surface of things she forgot soon enough that anything else existed.  She laughed and danced, she spent money and flirted and sipped champagne.  She was surprised, truly surprised, when it all fell down.