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“I – I just cannot.“ were the words which broke the heart of Chevalier Philippe de Lorraine a few days ago - right away, when he got the first chance to speak up to the French prince Philippe de Bourbon, Duc d’Orléans, in private after the ladder’s return from war.
He praid and hoped that his beloved partner would return in one piece. He had also calculated that the prince could have died or got some very serious injuries, but he didn’t expect this! Did he? He feared the bestialized, at times brutal version of Philippe, which he got to know after Philippe’s first war deployment. This version lacked of empathy, which reminded Lorraine too much of Louis XIV, and its aggression was a reminder of the Chevalier’s father. Furthermore Lorraine feared the lost of the Philippe with whom he fell in love long time ago, who had use to be a sensitive, loving, shy soul. And now his angst became reality.
Nevertheless he appeared on a regular basis in the d’Orléans apartment in the castle of Versailles. Because on the one hand, his Philippe let him organized the financial matters and his court since the Duc d’Orléans had went away to war and his employment wasn’t stopped after the prince’s return, and on the other hand, he liked to share time with Petit-Philippe and Liselotte, frequently.
He crossed the antechamber to knock on Liselotte’s door when he recognized that he could watch through a narrow slit in Philippe’s bed chamber due to the fact that its door wasn’t closed properly. The French prince didn’t recognize it or didn’t care about it. The man was busy with commanding his servants with a gruff tone.
Lorraine stopped and observed the scene and what he saw broke his heart again.
His prince stood naked with his back towards him in the middle of his room. Philippe’s raven black hair hung lank, greasy and unkempt down. But the Duc d’Orléans complexion was still like alabaster, but his skin was far away from undamaged. However, all in all his overall appearance was more muscular, but also more wiry. The prince’s body belonged to a warrior and not to a soft fairy-like creature, which Philippe had been as the Chevalier met him for the first time.
Lorraine’s glance wandered from up to down on Philippe’s body. There was a bad oval red burning scar over the prince’s left shoulder, which had an extension to the upper arm. The back, ass and back side of the thighs were spotted with bruises in different sizes and of different ages.
Across Philippe’s left calf ran a long scar of a stitched cutting wound, which turned its colour into a paler red, but had developed a bulge. On the other calf was a burning scar in form of a coin as if something had been cauterized there – this scar seemed to be the oldest one, because it had already the colour of Philippe’s healthy skin.
Then the prince turned himself slightly to the right side and the Chevalier was able to see a huge scar on the thigh of his beloved one. Lorraine was surprised, that the prince didn’t hobble, because the causing slash must had injured the muscle there.
Lorraine wasn’t able to see the rest of the prince’s body. He hoped that there were no other scars and bruises at this side. Ideally, he would storm in the chamber to take his great love in his arms in order to worship whose scarred skin, but with Philippe’s state of mind he was sure that he would only achieve a punch right in the middle of his face.
No wonder that Philippe’s mind was so broken taken into account how bad this man’s body was.
Lorraine wasn’t sure if he had sighed or only exhaled a little bit too loud, but the prince had registered him and the cold, unfeeling glance of the Duc d’Orléans hit him. After this, Philippe snapped at one of his poor servants to close the door properly or to take an entrance fee, if he was presented like this.
The servant, who closed the door, looked pitiful at the Chevalier. Even if no one talked openly about the last events, everybody knew what had happened. No one failed to recognize Philippe’s coldness and everybody was worried about this – except Louis XIV who seemed to cherish the soulless machine, in which Philippe had developed.
Lorraine was fighting that tears wouldn’t swell in his eyes, but he wasn’t sure if he was close to crying because of anger, due to the fact that Philippe hadn’t listened to him and went to war, although the Chevalier tried to stopped him so that he wouldn’t become this insensitive monster, or because of his heartbreak. He didn’t care at the moment and he didn’t plan to cry in front of Liselotte again. After all, Liselotte was already hurt on her own due to the fact that Philippe wasn’t interested in his son at all.
He swallowed the lump in his throat. It was a sunny day outside and he wanted to take Petit-Philippe and Liselotte to a stroll through the park. Now that he was a master of ceremonies at the court of Louis XIV, he was not dependable financially or in other ways to Philippe’s grace alone anymore, hence he allowed himself the thought that there could be a future without the prince. It was definitely not his preferred choice, but if Philippe didn’t want to continue their relationship, then he had to let it be. He could not and would not force his prince, and furthermore he didn’t want to demean himself anymore for this.