by Jean Plaidy
The Queen’s father, Stanislas, had died; and the Queen had grieved for him ever since.
‘He was the person in the world who loved me best,’ she told her women. ‘I shall mourn him for the rest of my life. My only consolation is that he is happier than I am and would not wish to return to this sad world.’
The King, who had made tentative movements towards a reconciliation with the Queen, left her alone after the death of Stanislas. He wanted to be with those who helped him to forget the proximity of death.
It seemed that Marie Leczinska did not recover from the death of her father. Her health declined each day; her skin grew yellow and her once plump body seemed to be wasting away, although she retained her abnormal appetite. The doctors were nonplussed; they could put no name to her malady but coma vigil.
The Court decided that the next to die would be the Queen.
Choiseul’s brain was busy. When the Queen died he must endeavour to arrange a marriage for the King. Sadly he was beginning to realise that Louis would never accept the Duchesse de Gramont as a wife. The whole Court was laughing about the rape of the King, for Richelieu had naturally made sure that such an opportunity of showering ridicule on Choiseul and his sister should not be missed.
If the Queen should die, and it was impossible to hope for a marriage between the King and the Duchesse de Gramont, Choiseul would attempt to strengthen the bonds between France and Austria. The Archduchess Elisabeth, daughter of Maria Theresa, was highly eligible.
But he would not as much as hint at this matter while the Queen still lived; even with his sister he would not discuss it, because he knew that she had not yet given up all hope of marrying the King herself. Alas, it would be a little more difficult to force the King into marriage than forcing him to accept her for one night in his bed.
Choiseul’s hopes of a royal marriage for his sister were very dim.
He was even a little worried about his own position. The Dauphine was worming her way into the King’s confidence, and he was fully aware that she had some sentimental notion of her duty towards her dead husband which made her work assiduously for his, Choiseul’s dismissal.
A short while ago he would have laughed at the possibility; now he was not so confident.
He often found that the Dauphine shared his conferences with the King, as Madame de Pompadour had done, which was a disconcerting state of affairs, for while he had counted on the support of the Marquise he could count with equal certainty on the opposition of the Dauphine.
Nevertheless he did not waver in his somewhat arrogant attitude, and refused to admit that he considered the Dauphin a worthy adversary.
Then suddenly he ceased to feel anxious concerning the Dauphine.
The trio were in the King’s private apartment and Choiseul had determined to bring to the King’s notice a matter which had long been on his mind.
The Dauphine sat with her back to the window, and thus her face was in shadow. The King was seated at the table with Choiseul opposite him.
They had discussed various State matters, when Choiseul said boldly: ‘Sire, the Dauphin will soon be of an age to marry.’
He did not glance at the Dauphine but he was aware that she was alert.
‘Oh,’ said the King, ‘he is young yet. Not thirteen, I believe. How old is Berry, my dear?’
‘Not quite thirteen,’ said his mother.
‘About three more years before a marriage could be consummated,’ mused the King. ‘And even then . . .’
The Dauphine shot a malignant glance at Choiseul. ‘My son is younger than his years in some matters,’ she said. ‘I would not wish him to be hurried into marriage.’
Choiseul lifted his hands in a characteristic gesture. ‘But, Sire,’ he said, ‘when one considers the marriages of Dauphins one must think of France rather than the age of the bridegroom.’
‘That’s true,’ said the King. ‘Whom have you in mind?’
‘The daughter of the Empress, Sire. Such a marriage would strengthen the bonds between France and Austria. There could be nothing more desirable.’
Choiseul noticed that the Dauphine had clenched her hands and was drumming them impatiently on the table.
‘There is more than one daughter, I believe.’
‘I had in mind the youngest, Marie Antoinette,’ said Choiseul. ‘She is near the Dauphin’s age and, I have heard, very beautiful and charming.’
The King was nodding slowly when the Dauphine rose suddenly from her chair.
‘I should never agree to such a marriage,’ she said.
‘My dear . . .’ began the King in tender reproach.
Choiseul had also risen to his feet. He leaned across the table. ‘Madame,’ he said, ‘I implore you to think of France . . . and waive your prejudices.’
‘I have a wife in mind for my son,’ said the Dauphine, speaking rapidly, almost breathlessly. ‘I would wish to see him allied to a daughter of the House of Saxony. She would be more like himself than this Austrian. The people would not like an Austrian marriage. My son’s cousin is now eight years old . . .’
Choiseul interrupted: ‘It would mean too long a wait before the consummation.’
‘There is time.’
‘Madame, in matters of State there is never too much time.’
The Dauphine turned from Choiseul to the King. ‘Sire,’ she said, ‘I ask you to save my son from this . . . distasteful marriage.’
‘Sire,’ blazed Choiseul, ‘it is fortunate that none but ourselves can hear the words of Madame la Dauphine. Marie Antoinette is admirable in every detail. I implore Your Majesty to give me permission to send the Dauphin’s portrait to the Empress and to beg her to allow us to have that of her daughter.’
‘You go too fast, Choiseul,’ said the King; and as he spoke the Dauphine sank to her chair. She was overcome by a paroxysm of coughing.
The King hurried to her side. ‘My dear,’ he said, ‘you are ill. You are very ill . . .’
The Dauphine nodded and lay back in her chair, her body still racked by coughing.
The King half turned but did not look at Choiseul. Louis was shaken; he had thought that his daughter-in-law had looked wan for some time, but that that was due to her mourning for her husband. Now he could not meet the expression he feared to find on Choiseul’s face. The Duc would draw his conclusions as to the meaning of this bout of coughing, and he would be unable to hide his satisfaction and triumph.
Here was Death – inescapable Death come to haunt him again. He would read in Choiseul’s eyes that Death was his ally, standing by, eagerly waiting to rid him of an enemy.
‘Send for her confidential woman,’ he said over his shoulder.
Choiseul strode to the door to do his bidding.
The woman came into the room, alarmed.
‘Take the Dauphine to her apartments,’ said the King. ‘I think she should be put to bed, and there she should rest awhile.’
‘Yes, Sire.’
The King went to the woman and laid his hand on her arm.
‘She has had a bad turn. Has she been in this condition before?’
‘There have been occasions, Sire.’
‘Recently?’
‘Yes, Your Majesty.’
‘I was not told.’
‘It was Madame la Dauphine’s desire that none should be told, Sire.’
‘Now take her to her apartments. I will send physicians to her.’
He went to the Dauphine who was lying back in her chair, her eyes half closed.
‘Come, my dear,’ he said. ‘Here is your woman. She will take you to your bed. I shall visit you there.’
The Dauphine rose unsteadily to her feet. The eagerly watching Choiseul saw that her face had that flushed look which he had noticed in the Dauphin’s; he saw too that she had lost a good deal of weight in the last weeks.
He had seen two people look like that recently. One was the Dauphin, the other the Marquise de Pompadour. Was it possible that the pulmonary scourge was
about to afflict her?
When she had gone the King turned to him.
‘Leave me now,’ he said. ‘I wish to be alone, for a great fear has come to me and I have no more heart for business just now.’
Alone the King paced up and down his apartment.
‘Madame la Marquise,’ he murmured, ‘I would that you were with me now. You would know how to comfort me. I have seen you die, my dearest friend, and I have felt the bitter loneliness which followed. I have seen my son die. I did not love him, but at least he was my son, my only son. And today I have seen Death in the face of the Dauphine. Death . . . It is all about me. The Queen is slowly dying, poor woman. Am I to lose all who have lived about me for so many years? Marquise . . . why did you leave me? Who can comfort me now you are gone?’
Was there not some woman – someone who combined beauty with understanding?
If there were, she was hard to find. The little grisettes of the Parc aux Cerfs had lost their power to charm. When he entered the place he sometimes wondered what would happen to him if he died in the midst of his pleasures, with all his sins upon him. He had to face the fact that he was no longer as virile as he had once been. His visits to the Parc aux Cerfs among those young uninhibited creatures often exhausted him.
He wanted a friend who was also a mistress. She must have all the qualities of the Pompadour, and the beauty which had been hers in the first weeks of their acquaintance. But where could he find her? Did she exist?
The Duchesse de Gramont had none of her qualities; Madame d’Esparbès hardly any.
Was it possible that one day he would find her? Could he then settle down to serenity when occasions like this one would not depress him so completely?
Somewhere in Paris, in France, such a woman existed. He would be ready to cherish her for the rest of his life and richly reward the one who brought her to him.
Choiseul had the satisfaction of knowing his enemy grew weaker every day.
The Dauphine was no longer well enough to share the King’s counsels. All through that winter she was seen to be suffering from the complaint which had ended her husband’s life.
The doctors shook their heads over her. One who nursed a patient as she did the Dauphin, insisting on doing every menial task herself, ran great risks of being infected. And this is what had happened. She had survived the small-pox when she had nursed him; but this time she was not to escape.
The doctors were right. With the coming of spring the Dauphine died.
Her passing seemed to bring her great contentment for, as she said, she had no desire to live after her husband had died, and now she was to join him and this had been her greatest wish since he had departed this life.
The next victim, said the courtiers, would be the Queen.
Then, thought Choiseul, we will get the King married again. A new and lively Queen will change everything at Court. She will sweep away melancholy and if she is an Austrian bride she will be my friend. Choiseul had begun to think that he was destined to remain in power for the rest of his life. Even fortune favoured him. As soon as the Dauphine had begun to oppose him she had been stricken with illness and shortly after conveniently removed from his path. That was a sign, he told his sister.
‘And the King shows no indication of his fondness for you?’
The Duchesse declared vehemently: ‘It is that foolish d’Esparbès. She is constantly with him. Her very absurdity makes him laugh.’
‘When a woman makes the King laugh, that is dangerous for that woman’s enemies.’
‘Even though there is ridicule in his laughter?’
‘Louis so desperately seeks laughter that he is prepared to accept any kind. My dearest, I think it is time we arranged the dismissal of that woman. She is a fool, I know. But let us not be too complacent.’
Before he could plan a campaign against her, Madame d’Esparbès visited him and indicated that she wished him to give a command in the Army to a relative of hers.
Choiseul insolently refused this; whereupon she told him to beware. ‘Very soon,’ she said, ‘you will use all your efforts to please me. Everything I ask, you will be eager to give me.’
‘That,’ said Choiseul, ‘is an interesting prophecy. How long, I wonder, before we shall know whether it is to be fulfilled?’
She swept angrily away, and when he was alone some of Choiseul’s bravado deserted him. He believed she must feel very sure of herself to speak as she did. Could it be that the King, out of sheer boredom, was going to give her what she was clearly demanding and have her accepted at Court as maîtresse-en-titre?
He must be stopped at once.
Choiseul considered the methods which had been used so successfully by Madame de Pompadour, and he proposed to use similar ones. He was quite unscrupulous and immediately drew up an account of what he believed had happened when the King spent the night with Madame d’Esparbès. This he took to the King and told him that it had been written by a friend of Madame d’Esparbès whom she had secreted in a closet next to the bedchamber. In this account it was stated that the King had failed as a lover in spite of the use of an aphrodisiac.
Louis, who was almost as terrified of impotence as he was of death, was furiously angry.
So, thought Choiseul slyly, his guess had not been far from the truth, for only if this was so could the King be quite so furious.
‘I cannot be blamed for growing old,’ he said coldly, ‘but I could be blamed if I continued to receive people who allowed such foolish gossip to be circulated about my Court.’
Choiseul bowed his head.
He could not resist an open rebuff to Madame d’Esparbès. Passing her on the staircase in the ceremonial promenade, he said to her in a loud voice so that all could hear: ‘Well, ma petite, and how does the affaire progress?’
The King, who heard this, was horrified and it was noticed how coldly he received Madame d’Esparbès.
Everyone knew that that lady need no longer be feared as a rival for the position of maîtresse-en-titre. All except the lady herself were certain of her downfall. She however was surprised when, immediately after the promenade, a letter was brought to her apartments. She was to leave Court at once for the estates of Monsieur d’Esparbès, her husband’s father, since her presence was no longer required at Court.
Bewildered and powerless to protest or even to ask the reason for her dismissal, she departed.
During the following summer Marie Leczinska died.
Louis, who had certainly not loved her, was very sad as he went to her room and quietly kissed her cold forehead.
Yet another death! This was not going to relieve the depression.
The King would sit at the table in the petits appartements and say nothing; and since the King was silent, so were the guests.
What a contrast to those days when Madame de Pompadour had dominated the company and gaiety and wit had prevailed!
The King closed the Parc aux Cerfs. He had no heart for such pleasures, he told Le Bel. Moreover, as Death seemed to have become a permanent guest at the Château, he was considering living a reformed life.
‘For who knows, my friend,’ he said, ‘where Death will strike next?’
Le Bel said: ‘It will not be Your Majesty. Your Majesty has surely discovered the secret of eternal youth.’
‘Do not think to please me with such blatant falsehoods,’ said the King abruptly.
And Le Bel looked solemn. He saw great profits lost to him, and he sighed for the days when it was his duty to search Paris and Versailles for charming girls to please the King.
The Court too was solemn. A repentant King meant a dull Court. Who knew what would happen in the King’s present mood! He might people the Court with priests and insist that religious services take the place of balls and banquets.
Louis might feel the need to repent. His friends did not. For them it was more than probable that there were many years of delicious sin on Earth left to them before they began to consider preparing themselves f
or the life to come.
Why, said some pessimists, he might even marry the Duchesse de Gramont. The lady was irrepressible. The whole Court knew of what had been called the rape of the King. If that could happen to him, might he not be led unresisting into marriage?
Something must be done. A new mistress must be found. She must be so gay, so enchanting, that she would be able to charm the King from his present mood.
Somewhere in France she existed, and it was the desire of every ambitious and pleasure-loving man at Court to find her.
None of the candidates aroused more than a flicker of interest in the King, and then one day Le Bel was cornered by a man who assured him that he would end the search.
This man was a hanger-on at Court, a man who had taken part in many a shady adventure, who lived by his wits and owned an establishment in which he trained beautiful young women to be suitable mistresses for men in high places, and then concluded profitable transactions.
This man was the Comte du Barry.
Chapter XVII
MADAME DU BARRY
Jean Baptiste du Barry, rake, rogue, adventurer, was feeling very pleased with himself as he left Le Bel. He was by nature an optimist: he could not have succeeded in his way of life if he had not been so. He lived by the expediency of the moment and his unwavering belief in the future.
He was now certain that, although many powerful men at Court – headed by Choiseul – had failed to provide the King with a mistress, he, living on the fringe of the Court, a man with an unsavoury past and a doubtful future, was going to succeed.
‘This time,’ he said to himself, ‘there shall be no failure. The woman is mine. Ha! From Jean Baptiste Comte du Barry, to Louis de Bourbon King of France. Not such a great step for her as some might think!’
Le Bel was not very enthusiastic; du Barry would admit that. He could only believe that the Comte might provide the King with amusement for a night or so.
‘Oh no, no, my friend,’ murmured Jean Baptiste. ‘I will provide him with the successor to Madame de Pompadour.’