It was a louis d’or, seemingly no different from the others. He’d be asked to make thousands, because in the endless rooms and halls of Versailles, candles were never lit twice.įrom his coat pocket he pulled a leather purse and began to flick livres into the bag. Yves would make candles to suit her every fancy, candles she’d never even dreamed of. And one day soon-he hoped-he’d make candles for the queen.įor like himself, Marie Antoinette loved extraordinary things. A rose pink that made old women seem young, a watery gray that reminded him of the ocean.

But in the front of the shop, nestled in boxes and dangling from their wicks, were Yves’s own lovelies: wax candles, their colors like enchantments.

In the back, Maître Orland kept the cheap tallow candles that reeked of hooves. No matter how little bread there was, how few people bought snuffboxes or plumed hats, they all needed light. From under the counter he heaved up the strongbox and lifted its lid to reveal a shining pile of coins: rivulets of gold louis and livres and tiny sous. All he needed now was money for the carriage. Into a canvas satchel he tucked his most precious candles, the ones he’d tinted the hazy apricots and violets of dawn. He pulled the wig on and cocked an admiring eyebrow at his reflection in the window: he was no longer a tradesman’s apprentice. And voilà-there the damned wig was, its long white hair tied back with a black satin bow. Like someone who could be Somebody.Īt least his coat was good, he thought, as he lifted the dove-gray silk from its hook and shrugged it on. And he didn’t want to show up wearing his own hair, looking ridiculous. And he needed the wig for tonight: he alone was to deliver candles for the Comte d’Astignac’s party, which would last until the sun came up.

Yves Rencourt, the chandler’s apprentice, had lost his wig.Īfter the last customer left the shop, he searched through baskets of curling wicks and blocks of beeswax and teetering stacks of bills.

Gita trelease enchantee