Crimson velvet heart by Carmel Bird

Crimson Velvet Heart is an unusual, perplexing and enigmatic novel to describe. While it is a story that imagines the life of Princess Marie-Adelaide of Savoy, a shadowy historical figure, it is unusual for an historical novel because it leaves a kind of shimmering and visceral after-taste - even a bad taste in the mouth... The book has been described variously as "visionary", "astounding" and "extraordinary" and these descriptors are apt. 

Carmel Bird is a multi award-winning Australian writer (three times short-listed for the Miles Franklin award and winner of the Patrick White Literary Award). In Crimson Velvet Heart she has wrought, out of the mists of time, a story about the mother of King Louis XV that is both imaginative, grounded in research, conveying love and devotion and somehow delivering an atmospheric power that is quite hard to describe. Partly this may be due to the oddness of the narrative voice. In part, the story is told through the voice of one of the sisters in the convent of Sainte Odile in Paris. As Bird tells us, "Her name is Clare, and she believes herself to be chosen by God to document the life of Princess Adelaide of Savoy." Sister Clare begins her story at its end, four years after the death of Adelaide..."The good sister is a most trustworthy storyteller," states Bird.  Sister Clare calls Marie-Adelaide "her dearest childhod friend"... They spent their childhood together at the college of Saint-Cyr. Despite Marie-Adelaide's capricious nature (which could be described as extremely manipulative and very cruel at times) Clare remains a staunch defender.

War is a constant background to the human story. The young princess was married to secure strategic alliances between countries and to provide a male heir. This was Adelaide's lot. The hardship of multiple pregnancies and still births and loss are par for the course. Court gossip is vicious, behaviour is debauched and alliances are shaky. Adelaide appears to play a strategic game herself but she is enigmatic. She wears a mask.  A parallel love story exists for Clare the narrator - a tale of love and loss and behind that tale is the struggle between Catholicism and Protestantism.  Another underlying influence running throughout the story is the telling of folk tales and fables including the tales of Charles Perrault. Parallels can be drawn between these stories and the court lives of the protagonists. Clare keeps a crimson, heart-shaped velvet pincushion and in it she places a pin for every time she prays for her love just as the old queen's pincushion marked every Protestant conversion. The kestrel is a motif that throughout the story seems to represent the freedom that these women do not have.

The young princess lives in a gilded palace. The thrilling and delightful Versailles with its Hall of Mirrors and enormous menageries and gardens and the constant round of royal parties is a luxurious backdrop, yet poverty is rife, war decimates the population and disease and filth are barely masked by perfumes.  Adelaide herself has a mouthful of rotten teeth and Louis IV has a hideous fistula connecting his mouth to his nose. Medicine and dentistry were at a primitive stage.

Crimson Velvet Heart is an interesting book which leaves us with many questions. Some are very big questions. Was Adelaide a spy - born and trained to be as slippery as her father Victor Amadeus of Savoy? What was the nature of the relationship between Adelaide and Louis IVth? Much is insinuated... the story ends with a very strange dream. What is Bird suggesting really happened? 

Bird brings grotesque and magnificent 17th century France to life and places her protagonists within the historical events in this time of dynastic, religious and imperial  war. Intrigue within and bloodthirsty fighting outside are rife as Louis XIV aims to expand French territory across Europe. The constant warfare subjects his people to poverty whilst he maintains a lavish lifestyle.  On his deathbed he tells his heir..."I have loved war too well; do not copy me in this, nor in the lavish expenditures I have made."  Carmel Bird places this (in part) as an epigraph in the front matter.

At the back of the book, a list of the historical characters accompanied by their birth and death dates and principal relationships and roles is included. A timeline from 1140CE - the birth of Peter Waldo, known as the first Protestant to 1719CE - the death of Madam de Maintenon (the secret wife of Louis 1V) is included. An extensive list of sources is testimony to the extent of Carmel Bird's research.

Crimson Velvet Heart is recommended for those who enjoy books about the lives of historical figures that are both literary and imaginative and underpinned by historical research. 

Themes: 17th century France, Louis X1V, Princess Marie-Adelaide mother of Louis XV.

Wendy Jeffrey