The empress of ice cream

Carlo

t

For a celebration: bombes, flags, fancies, layer-cakes, and other extravagant ices.

The Book of Ices

‘I intend to hold a ball,’ she told me, one day in early April. ‘Something special. Something they will still be talking about long after Nell Gwynne has been forgotten.’

‘What do you have in rnind.^’

‘A festival of ice,’ she said promptly. ‘A frost fair . . . but in summer. Perhaps at the beginning of June, to celebrate the king’s birthday. Is it possible?’

I considered. ‘It may be. If we take all the ice I collected for the year, and use it in one go.’

‘Can you make the Thames freeze over?’

I smiled. ‘That would be beyond even my resources. But we could lay ice blocks side by side on the grass, and seal them together with water to make a kind of skating pond.’

‘What about a building? A palace of ice?’ i

‘I don’t see why not. Buontalenti once made an ice grotto for the Medici in the midst of summer. He had the sculptors carve beasts out of ice, and trees for them to crouch amongst—’

‘Yes! Let us have beasts, and trees as well,’ she interrupted. ‘And an ice garden, along the banks of the river. Arlington denied me a cofonation: this ball must equal that.’

‘Perhaps a triumphal arch of ice, then, for you and the king to pass beneath.’

I was half joking, but she nodded. ‘And tables of ice to eat at. . .’

‘Frozen fountains . .

‘And fires amongst the ice, and lanterns. As for the food, let it be a feast of ice creams, for those the king and I have honoured with an invitation.’

‘It will cost a fortune,’ I warned.

‘He likes to spend money,’ she said simply. ‘It makes him feel like a king.’

I should have thought it extravagant, ridiculous even, to use up a year’s supply of ice on a single night’s pleasure. And yet there was a part of me that was thrilled. It was intended as her triumph; but it would be mine as well. After this the name Demirco would be as famous throughout Europe, surely, as that of Buontalenti or Varenne.

A spectacle of this nature required an army, and in the king’s name I was able to command one. It was exactly the kind of fantastical, ephemeral illusion that appealed to him. Midwinter in the midst of summer, breathtaking cost, a gift from his favourite mistress, an event that would be talked about across Europe - it had all the right ingredients. I was ordered to spare nothing, no detail or expense. If I ran short of ice, I was to requisition it from those nobles who had already built ice houses, or have it shipped in from France. If I needed anything else, any special talent or expertise, I was to come straight to him.

I think he always remembered the day of his Restoration: riding into London at the head of twenty-thousand soldiers; the people weeping with joy, the streets strewn with flowers, the church bells ringing and the fountains running with wine.

In dark, cold cellars men started to cast the trees, beasts, fountains and other decorations I ordered. Dryden and Marvell were put to writing the masques. Kit Wren put aside the plans for St Paul’s in order to sketch out a great pavilion of ice, a cathedral of pleasure whose carved, glittering facade would excel any wonder the country had ever seen. Hooke and Boyle, those ingenious

men, devised a system of pipes carrying chilled seawater, to be laid

underneath to keep it from melting. And Charles himself chose

the location - Barn Elms, three miles out of London, where a

bend in the river would give the impression of a frozen flood

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plain.

It was impossible to keep an idea like this secret: indeed, Louise did not want it to be - this party was, as she had said, a kind of coronation, and she believed the hatred the public had for her could eventually be turned to support. ‘It will be a circus,’ she said, ‘and the mob loves a circus.’ She ordered the week declared a holiday, and the maypoles decked out. Louis XIV himself sent a glass coach, so that Charles and she might arrive in suitable style.

‘And make us something special,’ she said to me. ‘One particular ice cream, in honour of His Majesty, just as you once made one for me.’

When I look back, that spring was one of the happiest times I had in England. I was with Louise almost daily, planning the details of her ball. I was engaged in a great undertaking, which I knew would make my name. I had mastered the art of making ice creams to such an extent that I probably had no equal in the world. There was even the possibility that, if a lasting peace between Lrance and the Dutch could be negotiated, one day she and I might be free to return to Lrance.

Nor did it disturb my good humour to learn that ^Rochester had been banished from court.

‘He wrote a satire that went too far, even for the king,’ Louise said.

‘What was the subject?’

‘That the king is impotent.’

‘I can see why the king would not want a slander like that to go unpunished.’

On the contrary.’ Looking around to make sure that we were not overheard, she said quietly, ‘Rochester has made similar jokes

before, and not been banished. The difference is that now it is true.’

‘The king cannot perform

‘Only rarely.’

‘That must make things easier for you, surely?’

‘Not exactly.’'she made a face. ‘He does not want to admit it, so he tries . . . And the more he tries, the harder it is. Or not, as the case may be.’

‘But is this just with you?’

‘Apparently not. Wait here. I’ll fetch the poem. A copy was pushed under my door, as usual.’ She went to her music stool and found it.

It was the usual filth, but there was one section in particular that made me draw in my breath.

This you’d believe, hud I but time to tell ye,

The pains it eosts to poor laborious Nelly,

While she employs hands, finders, mouth, and thighs.

Ere she ean raise the member she enjoys.

‘Even Rochester knew he had gone too far this time - he did not mean the king to see it: he handed it to him by mistake, along with another poem. But of course, now that he has been banished people are saying it must be true.’

‘Will it affect your position?’

‘I don’t see why. He relies on me too much to dispense with me now.’

‘I am sure Arlington once said the same,’ I warned. ‘Or Clifford, or Clarendon, or Buckingham, or any of the other ministers he has dispensed with over the years.’

‘Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.’

She was right - to an extent: she had her hands firmly on all the levers of power now; but that did not stop her enemies from

trying one last attempt to dethrone her. Even as we planned the occasion that would celebrate her ascendancy, those she had thrown down were plotting. They knew they could not beat her by themselves; they needed a champion, and they found it in the lovely shape of Olympe de Soisson’s sister, Hortense Mancini, Duchess of Mazarin.

‘The Duchess Mazarin is one of those Roman beauties in whom there is no doll-prettiness, and in whom unaided nature triumphs over all the arts of the coquette. Painters cannot say what are the colour of her eyes; they are neither blue, nor grey, nor yet black, nor brown, nor hazel. Nor are they languishing or passionate, as if either demanding to be loved or expressing love. They simply look as if she has ever basked in love’s sunshine. Her complexion is softly toned, and yet warm and fresh. It is so harmonious that, though dark, she seems of beautiful fairness. Her jet-black hair rises in strong waves above her forehead, as if proud to clothe and adorn her splendid head. She never uses scents.’

Cesar de Saint-Real, Memoires de la Duchesse Mazarin

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