An entry by Madame
It is hard to know where to begin, writing this blog. It's far from the first record of Louis's and my relationship. I've been writing about him for years, one way and another, whether fiction in the days before I knew he lived and loved me, or journals in the years of being together. It's four years since we began true contact and two years since we began channelling to let him write his diaries and poems through me.
Should I perhaps get the "how did you learn about him" question out of the way first? The bare facts are that I saw a reproduction of a painting - a very poor reproduction of a portrait done over a decade after his passing - in the library at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, when I was seventeen (or eighteen; I don't remember the date). I wasn't looking for him. I was caught up in English history at the time, and was looking for possible references to his brother-in-law, Charles I.
Yes - my Louis is, or was, Louis XIII of France. Born 1601, died 1643, after reigning thirty-three years to the day and almost the hour.
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| Louis XIII by de Champaigne, c1655. Prado, Madrid. |
I couldn't stop looking at the man in the picture. Kept going back to look at him again once I did manage to turn the page. Such a face ... it wasn't love at first sight, I know that. It took a little while for that to develop, once I learned more about this most contradictory and fascinating man. And what a train of events that set off! A lifetime of learning everything I could about him, two trips to France for his sake, writing a fantasy novel about him, making friends on a writers' site, travelling to America to meet them ... and starting the greatest journey of all, the journey away from doubt and isolation, into the knowledge that my love is returned and always was; that he loved me longer than I knew, and was waiting, from the day he knew I loved him, for the time when we would speak, and our lives would begin anew.
