Duke of Chartres

The Duke of Chartres emerges as a courtier whose intellectual ambition and private conduct both unsettle the roles prescribed for him. At a gathering with the Duchess of Orléans, Monsieur, and Yves de la Croix, he insists that he wants to assist with the dissection of the King’s sea monster, provoking his mother’s disapproval. Later, Marie-Josèphe encounters him in a secluded passage with a woman she believes to be Mlle d’Armagnac rather than Madame Lucifer, revealing a private intimacy at odds with his public position.

Courtly Position and Intellectual Ambition

During a conversation about Yves’s adventures, the Duke interrupts before Yves can answer and offers to assist in dissecting the sea monster. His father, Monsieur, responds with a lightly edged warning: the Duke’s interest in natural philosophy is a forbidden course. The exchange presents the Duke as drawn to an intellectual pursuit that his family regards as incompatible with his station.

The Duchess of Orléans makes that opposition explicit, telling her son that digging into a fish’s entrails is beneath his rank. The Duke replies with pointed bitterness, asking whether she does not wish him to serve the King. Her answer distinguishes service itself from the manner of service: she expects it to suit his position. His intensity is striking enough to contrast with his usual distracted air, suggesting that the question of what he may be permitted to do matters to him more than his family expects.

The Proposed Dissection

Yves declines to give the Duke a practical role in the cutting. He explains that even in an ordinary dissection he would have an underling perform that work, but that he will conduct this one himself for the King. Rather than dismissing the Duke entirely, Yves offers him another way to participate: he can learn by observing and by studying the notes and drawings. Yves then asks whether the Duke can draw, opening a possible route into the project without granting him the hands-on assistance he requested. The evidence does not establish whether the Duke accepts this alternative.

The Masquerade Encounter

Later, Marie-Josèphe hears laughter and footsteps on a threadbare carpet as a masked lady and a masked gentleman climb a staircase. She recognizes the gentleman as the Duke; she thinks the lady is Mlle d’Armagnac and is certain she is not Madame Lucifer. The woman’s hummingbird-colored mask and the man’s goat-or-satyr disguise conceal their faces, but their closeness makes the encounter legible to Marie-Josèphe.

The pair continue up the stairs together, leaving the passageway and the discarded pieces of the woman’s headdress behind. The scene gives the Duke a private life sharply different from the formal disputes over rank and service in the earlier gathering. It also leaves the woman’s identity qualified by Marie-Josèphe’s uncertainty: Mlle d’Armagnac is her recognition, not a confirmed identification.