It was a trap; but so shocking that I did not know what to do. Would that I could tell you, Doctor, that I kept my wits about me, and perceived all that was going on, and jumped out of the sedan chair and ran down the gallery to freedom. But in truth, I was perfectly dumbfounded. And at the moment that I found myself in this unfamiliar room, I was taken by a strong contraction, which made me helpless.
By the time that the pangs had subsided, I was lying in that bed; Dr. Alkmaar and the others had pulled me out of the sedan chair. The porters were long since gone. Whoever had arranged this ambush-and I had a good idea of who it was-had either paid them to take me to the wrong room, or somehow talked them into believing that this was what I wanted. I had no way to send out a message. I could scream for help, but women in labor always scream for help. There was plenty of help already in the room.
Dr. Alkmaar was far from being a warm person, but he was reputed competent and (almost as important) loyal. If he spied on me (which was only to be expected) he would tell my secrets to William of Orange, who knows my secrets anyway. Dr. Alkmaar was assisted by one of his pupils (the young man) and by two girls who had no real business being in this room. When I had arrived in the Hague almost nine months before, in a canal-boat with Eleanor and Caroline, William had tried to furnish me with the rudiments of a household, befitting my exalted rank. The Prince of Orange did this not because I desired it but because it is how things are done, and it seemed absurd to have a Duchess in residence at a royal palace who was bereft of servants and staff. He sent me two young women. Both were daughters of minor nobles, serving time at Court, awaiting husbands, and wishing they were at Versailles instead. Since being spied on by members of one’s household is the staple of palace intrigue, I had been careful to have all of my conversations with Eleanor in places where neither of these two girls could possibly overhear us. Later I had moved to Huygens’s house, dismissed them from my service, and forgotten about them. But by some narrow definition of Court protocol, they were still technically members of my household, whether I wanted them or not. My fogged mind, trying to make sense of these events, cast that up as an explanation.
Again refer to plaintext for description of various agonies and indignities. The point, for purposes of this narration, is that when the worst fits came over me, I was not really conscious. If you doubt it, Doctor, eat some bad oysters and then try doing some of your calculus at the moment your insides try to turn themselves inside out.
At the conclusion of one of these fits I gazed down through half-closed eyes at Dr. Alkmaar, who was standing between my thighs with his sleeve rolled up and his armhairs plastered to his skin by some sort of wetness. I inferred that he had been inside me, doing a little exploration.”
“It’s a boy,” he announced, more for the benefit of the spectators than for me-I could tell from the way they looked at me that they thought I was asleep or delirious.
I opened my eyes slightly, thinking that it was all over, wanting to see the baby. But Dr. Alkmaar was empty-handed and he was not smiling.
“How do you know?” asked Brigitte-one of those two girls who made up my household. Brigitte looked like she belonged in a Dutch farm-yard operating a butter churn. In Court dress she looked big and out of place. She was harmless.
“He is trying to come out buttocks-first,” Dr. Alkmaar said distractedly.
Brigitte gasped. Despite the bad news, I took comfort from this. I had found Brigitte tedious and stupid because of her sweetness. Now, she was the only person in the room feeling sympathy for me. I wanted to get out of bed and hug her, but it did not seem practical.
Marie-the other girl-said, “That means both of them will die, correct?”
Now, Doctor, since I am writing this letter, there is no point in my trying to keep you in suspense-obviously I did not die. I mention this as a way of conveying something about the character of this girl Marie. In contrast to Brigitte, who was always warm (if thick-seeming), Marie had an icy soul-if a mouse ran into the room, she would stomp it to death. She was the daughter of a baron, with a pedigree pieced together from the dribs, drabs, fag-ends, and candle-stubs of diverse Dutch and German principalities, and she struck me (by your leave) as one who had issued from a family where incest was practiced often and early.
Dr. Alkmaar corrected her: “It means I must reach up and rotate the baby until it is head-down. The danger is that the umbilical cord will squirt out while I am doing this, and get throttled later. The chief difficulty is the contractions of her uterus, which bear down on the infant with more strength than my arms, or any man’s, can match. I must wait for her womb to relax and then try it.”
So we waited. But even in the intervals between my contractions, my womb was so tense that Dr. Alkmaar could not budge the infant. “I have drugs that might help,” he mused, “or I could bleed her to make her weaker. But it would be better to wait for her to become completely exhausted. Then I might have a better chance.”
More delay now-for them it was a matter of standing around waiting for time to pass, for me it was to be a victim of bloody murder and then to return to life again, over and over; but a lower form of life each time.
By the time the messenger burst in, I could only lie there like a sack of potatoes and listen to what was said.
“Doctor Alkmaar! I have just come from the bedside of the Chevalier de Montlucon!”
“And why is the new ambassador in bed at four in the afternoon?”
“He has suffered an attack of some sort and urgently requires your assistance to bleed him!”
“I am occupied,” said Dr. Alkmaar, after thinking about it. But I found it disturbing that he had to mull it over in this way.
“A midwife is on her way to take over your work here,” said the messenger.
As if on cue, there was a knock at the door. Showing more vitality than she had all day, Marie dashed over and flung it open to reveal a certain crone of a midwife, a woman with a very mixed reputation. Peering out through a haze of eyelashes I could see Marie throwing her arms around the midwife’s neck with a little cry of simulated joy, and muttering something into her ear. The midwife listened and said something back, listened and said something back, three times before she ever turned her colorless gray eyes towards me, and when she did, I felt death reaching for me.
“Tell me more of the symptoms,” said Dr. Alkmaar, beginning to take an interest in this new case. The way he was looking at me-staring without seeing-I sensed he was giving up.
I mustered the strength to lever myself up on one elbow, and reached out to grab the bloody cravat around Dr. Alkmaar’s neck. “If you think I am dead, explain this!” I said, giving him a violent jerk.
“It will be hours before you will have become exhausted enough,” he said. “I shall have time to go and bleed the Chevalier de Montlucon-“
“Who will then suffer another attack, and then another!” I replied. “I am not a fool. I know that if I become so exhausted that you are able to turn the baby around in my womb, I shall be too weak to push her out. Tell me of the drug you mentioned before!”
“Doctor, the French Ambassador may be dying! The rules of precedence dictate that-” began Marie, but Dr. Alkmaar held up one hand to stay her. To me, he said, “It is but a sample. It relaxes certain muscles for a time, then it wears off.”