Snippet #1
The first excerpt I’m making available from La Maupin, Mistress of the Sword is the rough draft of either the prologue or the first chapter as of March 2025, I haven’t decided which. It takes place in the fall of 1690, just before La Maupin’s debut with the Paris Opéra. The next chapter starts eight years earlier in the summer of 1682, and it takes us nine chapters to get back to this point.
The idea is to start the reader off with an introduction to the characters and setting that gives them a taste of what’s to come. If this were a four act TV drama, we’d call it a “teaser”. For a five act opera, it would be a “prologue”. However, the problem with calling it a prologue is that a goodly number of modern readers seem to disdain prologues. Apparently, they want to skip over the boring world-building info dump and get “right to the action”.
That doesn’t work with the “teaser” approach of bringing a piece of the action right to the beginning of the tale. So, maybe I’ll call it chapter 1, or not label it a prologue, just let it go by its name, I dunno. In any event, without further ado, here is the opening of the story….
In the Place des Victoires
The Place des Victoires was cold and dark when the “Chevalier de Raincy” arrived there that bleak November night, in the year of Our Lord 1690. The tall, young cavalier paced back and forth before the statue of His Majesty, the King in the middle of the plaza, eyeing the approaches, one hand gently resting on the hilt of his rapier, the other jauntily swinging the walking stick that tap-tapped upon the cobbles as he paced.
No! No. This isn’t right, thought Mme. Maupin, critiquing the rôle. Pacing, fingering his weapon—that makes him appear too nervous. He should be nonchalant, at ease. It is his prey who should be nervous. Not he.
With that, de Raincy ceased his pacing and turned to face the Rue la Feuillade, the street from which his target would approach, on his way home from the opera. He rested both hands on the head of his walking stick, his feet wide, his stance balanced and ready. The villain would not see him until he was well into the plaza. The lantern light from the Rue du Reposoir was not directly behind him. Its light and that from Mont-martre and Petits Champs only barely lit him. The stage was dark; the scene set. De Raincy’s entrance would have the desired impact.
Here comes the other player in the night’s drama, observed La Maupin, as a rather inebriated fellow entered the Place des Victoires. Drink robbed his swagger of its arrogance and sure-footedness. He hummed the tune of one of the songs from Cadmus et Hermoine—hardly doing it justice, she critiqued. Soon enough, he would catch sight of his castigator.
De Raincy awaited with a casual air, belying the barely-restrained anticipation beneath. La Maupin smiled approvingly; de Raincy with self-assurance. Dumesnil plodded onward, not yet even aware of his rôle. La Maupin drummed her fingers impatiently on the top of her cane, then caught herself. De Raincy clasped the walking stick firmly and stood slightly taller.
Dumesnil was nearly upon the cavalier, and still had not noticed him. De Raincy’s wine red costume was nearly black in the nighttime lighting. Time to act, she determined.
De Raincy grasped his stick in his left hand and stepped forward, startling Dumesnil.
“Hold!” spoke the cavalier, gently laying his stick across the singer’s chest.
“What? Who?” Dumesnil blurted his line.
De Raincy lowered the stick, but as Dumesnil began to take a relaxing breath, the cavalier stepped back a pace. Turning, he drew his rapier and pressed its point into the stock around the singer’s throat.
Dumesnil, stepped back, aghast. “But sir, noble lord, what have I done, that you treat me so?”
“You are a braggart, a bully and a thief,” declared de Raincy, “Equip yourself.” And with that, he gestured with the tip of his rapier at the sword at Dumesnil’s hip.
Dumesnil had but to see de Raincy’s stance—rapier pointed his way, left hand still holding the walking stick, curled high behind him—to realize that, though perhaps much younger, his assailant was far more experienced with arms.
“Noble lord…” he said, failing to conceal his fear as he spoke, “I assure you: I meant no offense by whatever action I….” He paused, mind racing as he reached for a line. “Ah!” he continued. “Perhaps it was not even I? A case of mistaken identity, no?”
“Oh, I know you, Louis Gaulard Dumesnil; know you for the arrogant coward you are….”
“I assure you, noble lord, we have not met! Truly, it is some other! I do not know you! Please, m’lord.”
“You do not?” replied de Raincy as la Maupin repressed a grin. “Your sword, sir! To your sword.”
“No, noble lord!”
“Very well then, coward. You insult, assault and offend the ladies, but lack the courage to defend yourself,” quoth the cavalier, and with that he shot his rapier into its scabbard and then, on the next beat, swept his hand up to take the stick still held high in his left hand into the right and dropped its tip to the same point at Dumesnil’s throat.
The singer swallowed hard.
“If you will not equip yourself, then I shall merely thrash you, coward.”
With that, he took an advancing step while swinging the stick and sweeping it down hard on Dumesnil’s shoulder. Then—one, two—another blow and another, each in a long arc as if he were wielding a saber.
Dumesnil covered his face with his arms and hunkered down beneath the blows the other rained upon him. The thrashing stopped only as the singer collapsed, panting and weeping, upon the cobbles of the Place des Victoires.
De Raincy passed the walking stick to his left hand, straightened his collar and stock and turned to go. But then, thought Maupin, and de Raincy turned back. Hanging around Dumesnil’s neck was the gaudy pendant oignon watch she knew he prized so. De Raincy snatched it from his neck, bursting the catch, then retrieved the snuffbox from his pocket.
De Raincy exited the Place, and the little drama drew to a close. La Maupin returned home, humming a jaunty air.
But, who, one might ask, were the players in our little spectacle?
And there you have it, the opening chapter, teaser, prologue of La Maupin, Mistress of the Sword. I'd love to hear what you think of it or how you feel about prologues and what I should call this one, or what you'd like me to talk about here or in my mailing list, assuming I can get my act together on doing the newsletter regularly. Just click on this link to send me an email, with a subject line mentioning “La Maupin feedback”. Please note: I will be building a La Maupin interest mailing list, and if you send me mail this way, I’m likely to add you.