by Jean Plaidy
‘Only to offer me shelter if I decided to leave your house.’
‘Impudence. Ha! She knows you would not be so foolish.’
‘I left you once,’ Jeanne reminded him.
He strode to her, put his arms about her and held her tightly. ‘Do not even speak of it,’ he cried.
‘Well, I did not agree to go to her,’ she said soothingly.
‘I should think not . . . when Fortune is about to smile on you as she never has before.’
‘And who is Fortune . . . this time?’ she asked.
‘One whose name I will not mention lest you laugh me to scorn for a pretentious old fool. Le Bel is coming to supper with us. I want you to sparkle for him. I want you to dazzle him. Jeanne, this is the most important night of your life.’
She was accustomed to his flights of fancy. She was fond of him; she wanted to please him; so she promised him that she would be as charming as she knew how to be to his friend Le Bel.
‘Le Bel,’ said Louis, ‘you are not attending. What is on your mind?’
‘A thousand apologies, Sire.’ Le Bel helped the King into his coat. ‘My thoughts were with a certain . . . woman.’
‘At your age, Le Bel!’ said Louis smiling.
‘Such a woman, Sire. I have never seen the like before.’
The King yawned. ‘I remember the last one you brought here.’
‘This, Sire, is quite a different type, I can say, with honesty, that neither I nor Your Majesty has ever seen such a beauty.’
‘I fear I am growing tired of such pleasures,’ murmured the King. ‘My doctors advise me to be more moderate.’
‘Yet . . . I should like to show her to Your Majesty.’
‘I am in no mood for more of your grisettes.’
‘Sire, she is no grisette. She is the sister-in-law of the Comte du Barry. The loveliest creature I ever set eyes on. And her husband, I have heard, is quite complacent. He never bothers his wife and is quite happy to know that she is universally adored.’
‘I have rarely known you so eulogistic, Le Bel.’
‘Sire, wait until you have seen her!’
‘I do not think I wish to see her.’
‘I know, Sire, these girls are brought to you, and you are too kind, too courteous to turn them away when they disappoint you. But I should like to show you this one. You would only need to look. I have invited her to my apartments tomorrow night. If Your Majesty would consent to be hidden in the apartment, you could see this woman for yourself, and if you did not like what you saw she would be dismissed and need never know that you have seen her.’
‘This is a new game you have invented for me to play,’ said the King.
‘Sire, does it appeal?’
‘Not overmuch. But I believe that your taste is not what it once was. I do not believe that this creature has anything more to offer than a hundred others. So I will put you to the test.’
‘Tomorrow night, Sire. I’ll wager you will change your mind.’
‘Do not let the woman know she is observed. She should not be warned to be on her best behaviour. I would see her as she really is.’
Le Bel bowed his head.
So Jeanne was taken to that fateful supper party in the company of Jean Baptiste who called himself her brother-in-law. It was a very gay party, and Jeanne, supping for the first time within the Palace of Versailles, was as excited as a child.
She wore a dress which far surpassed in elegance any she had ever had. However, she quickly forgot Jean Baptiste’s instructions about her behaviour and, since the guests kept filling her glass with wine, she very soon became her abandoned self.
Jeanne could, at such times, throw off her ladylike manners as lightly as though they were a cloak Jean Baptiste had wrapped about her. She could become what she once was – what neither he nor the stern nuns of Sainte Aure had been able to eradicate – a lighthearted, generous and vital girl of the lower class of Paris.
Louis was seated on a chair behind curtains through which he could see without being seen and which had been placed over a door so that he could, if the proceedings became tedious, quietly open the door and slip away.
From the first he had thought her very lovely and had determined that for her beauty alone she should spend the night with him; but when he saw her throw aside the manners which had been so clearly grafted on, when he heard that loud and abandoned laughter, the epithets of the streets, the ability to laugh at everything, he found himself watching, alert, while a smile curved his lips.
She was of the streets of Paris no doubt, but she was quite different from any of the little girls who had found their way to the Parc aux Cerfs. She was unique in her character as well as in that perfect face and form.
He was torn between the desire to remain and watch, and to go into the room and send all the others away that he and she might be alone.
Le Bel was right; this girl had something that others of her class lacked. He would amend that: she had something which he had never discovered in anyone before.
He was excited as he had not been for years. He felt happy as he had not been since the death of Madame de Pompadour.
Was he so old? Fifty-eight. Why, in the presence of that girl he could feel twenty!
Louis parted the curtains and stepped into the room.
Everyone about the table rose, except Jeanne. Louis felt exultant. It was characteristic of her that she should not rise.
He ignored them all and went to her.
‘Madame,’ he said, ‘as none of these people will present you to me, may I present myself to you?’
‘Why, of course you can,’ said Jeanne. ‘Do you want to join the party?’
‘Madame is kind,’ he said.
‘Oh, that’s all right,’ said Jeanne. ‘One more makes little difference.’
She was studying him with pleasure. She saw an ageing man who even now was very handsome. He was more distinguished-looking than any man in this room; and he was looking at her with . . . Oh, well, Jeanne knew that look. She had seen it many times before.
Le Bel was stammering: ‘Madame du Barry, you are in the presence of His Majesty.’
‘Well!’ cried Jeanne laughing loudly, ‘I thought I had seen your face somewhere before.’
There was an awed silence in the room. Then the King began to laugh.
‘I am so glad,’ he said. ‘That makes us seem less like strangers, does it not?’
‘Oh, there’s a joke for you!’ said Jeanne. ‘I never thought of the King and me as strangers.’
‘It is a thought which makes me desolate,’ said Louis. ‘We must make nonsense of it by becoming friends.’
‘You’re a nice man, Your . . .’ She turned to Le Bel and Jean Baptiste, and she cared nothing to see that they were positively writhing in their embarrassment. ‘What do I call him?’ she said.
Le Bel began to stammer, but the King took her hand. ‘Call him your friend,’ he said; ‘that would please him more than any other name.’
Jeanne raised her beautiful eyes to the ceiling. She said as though to someone up there: ‘The King is my friend. Well, I never thought to see the day . . .’
‘Nor I,’ said Louis, ‘when I should meet someone who gave me such pleasure merely to look at and listen to.’
Jeanne had turned to the others as though to say: ‘Listen to him!’
But Louis had waved his hand.
‘Madame du Barry and I would prefer to be alone,’ he said.
‘The King has a new grisette,’ said Choiseul to his sister. ‘A very low creature. I give her to the end of the week.’
‘Then clearly we need not bother ourselves about her.’
‘Oh no,’ murmured the Duc. ‘She is of the lowest type. The King’s taste does not improve with age.’
‘Yet,’ said the Duchesse, ‘I have noticed that Louis looks happier than he has for a long time. He was very gay at the promenade today, and he had an air as though he were watching the clock, eager to be gone
to some rendezvous.’
‘I will send for Le Bel and ask him about the woman,’ said the Duc.
‘Do so now; I am less complacent than you. It is due to something I have seen in Louis’ face.’
Choiseul sent for the valet de chambre.
‘Now, Le Bel,’ he said, ‘who is this new little bird who sings. so gaily in the trébuchet?’
‘You refer, Monsieur le Duc, to Madame du Barry?’
‘Madame du Barry! Is she the wife of that disreputable creature who pestered me in the past?’
‘His sister-in-law, Monsieur le Duc.’
‘And you brought her to the King?’
‘Monsieur le Duc, I have my duty to perform.’
‘I wish it would lead you to look a little higher than the gutters of Paris.’
‘Monsieur, she is the sister-in-law of the Comte du Barry. One could hardly describe her as from the gutter.’
‘The Comte du Barry? He is no Comte. He should be forced to abandon a title to which he has no right. I hear the woman is low . . . very low . . .’
‘Very low, Monsieur le Duc.’
‘Such a woman could not possibly amuse His Majesty for more than a night or two.’
‘She could not, Monsieur le Duc.’
Choiseul bowed his head. ‘Very well. But Le Bel, you could consult me before you bring these very low creatures to the attention of His Majesty.’
‘In future, Monsieur le Duc, that is what I will do.’
Le Bel retired. He was more perturbed than he would have wished Choiseul and his sister to see. He had not for years known the King so pleased with a woman.
Choiseul was not the only member of the Court who was disturbed.
Richelieu, who knew from personal experience how attractive Jeanne could be, had been ready enough to see her brought to the King for a few nights; he would not have objected to her staying in the secret apartments of Versailles for a week – but no longer.
It was incredible that Louis could become so infatuated. Admittedly the girl possessed rare beauty, but her speech belonged to the faubourgs and nowhere else; yet since it issued from those charming lips the King seemed to find every word she uttered comparable with the wit of a Richelieu or a Voltaire.
He was quite enraptured. She had already been presented with many precious jewels; and the whole Court was expected to make much of her. She appeared at the intimate supper parties in the petits appartements, although of course, never having been presented, she must not appear in the State apartments.
At these parties the King was as merry as he had been in those days when Madame de Pompadour had been there to gratify all his wishes and to provide him with elegant and witty entertainment.
It was an extraordinary phenomenon, but the fifty-eight-year-old Louis was in love, as he had not been since the days of his boyhood.
Madame de Pompadour had been his dear friend, but she had never enjoyed the health which was clearly Madame du Barry’s. She was not a sensual woman as Madame du Barry was. It was obvious that this young woman of the outstanding beauty and vitality was as experienced as the King himself in the art of making love.
Richelieu sought to point out to Louis – in a perfectly respectful manner – that he was behaving like a callow youth.
‘It is impossible for me to see, Sire,’ he said, ‘why you should feel so enamoured of this woman. Oh, she is beautiful, but so are many others.’
‘You must be blind,’ said the King, ‘if you compare her beauty with that of others.’
‘Yet,’ murmured Richelieu, ‘it is said that love makes us blind.’
The King was too happy to be irritated, and that gave Richelieu the courage to go on.
‘What has she, Sire, which others lack?’
‘The secret of making me forget I am an old man. She, so young, has taught me much I did not know before.’
‘Your Majesty was never in a brothel, that is obvious,’ said Richelieu with some asperity.
And still Louis did not reprove him.
‘I know,’ he said, ‘I am not the first. I believe I have succeeded Sainte-Foix.’
‘Your Majesty succeeded Sainte-Foix as you succeeded Pharamond.’
The King merely laughed at this allusion to one of the first Kings of the Franks, who lived in the fifth century.
Then it was clear to Richelieu that Louis did not care how many lovers Madame du Barry had had; he did not care how humble were her origins. He was so happy that he had found a woman who possessed all that he sought, a woman who could make him laugh again, forget he was fifty-eight years old; a woman who could make him feel young and gay because he was in love.
Choiseul’s uneasiness grew. He had seen how precarious his position had become during the King’s friendship with the Dauphine; he was not prepared to allow another woman to come between him and the King.
How wise Madame de Pompadour had been to keep him supplied with uneducated little beauties while she remained his friend and adviser. But what was this woman, more than an uneducated grisette? The King must be in his dotage.
As for the Duchesse de Gramont, she was furious.
‘If he keeps this woman with him,’ she declared, ‘every Court lady will consider herself to be insulted.’
Choiseul was not the man to let himself be easily defeated. He could use his tremendous energies to discredit a woman such as Madame du Barry, as readily as he would to settle some political dispute.
‘She is clearly a wanton,’ he told his sister. ‘Du Barry keeps what is tantamount to a brothel. It should not be difficult to discover such facts about her that the King will have to dismiss her from Court.’
‘Then let us immediately begin our search,’ cried the Duchesse.
It was not long before they had discovered a very important piece of information. The woman was not Madame du Barry at all; she was Mademoiselle Bécu, Rançon, Lange, Beauvarnier or Vaubarnier.
This was the most damaging evidence against her, because the King had emphatically declared, after the death of the Queen, that he would have no mistress at Court who was not a married woman. He had no intention of allowing any woman to lure him to marriage, as Madame de Maintenon had lured his great-grandfather.
The first step was to summon Le Bel.
Le Bel had changed since Jeanne had come to Court, for he realised that by bringing her to Louis’ notice he had incurred the annoyance of the all-powerful Duc de Choiseul and his sister, and Le Bel knew very well what that could mean.
Both Choiseul and his sister left Le Bel in little doubt that they considered the offence he had committed a major transgression against Court etiquette, against the King and, most heinous of all, against themselves.
‘Idiot!’ cried Choiseul. ‘You are more than an idiot, you are a knave.’
‘I trust I have not deeply offended you, Monsieur le Duc,’ began Le Bel.
‘Do not look at me in such alarm. I am wondering what His Majesty will say when he hears what you have done.’
‘I . . . Monsieur . . I but obey His Majesty’s orders.’
‘Not content,’ went on the Duc turning to his sister, ‘with bringing a common prostitute to His Majesty’s notice, this man has brought one who is also an unmarried woman.’
‘It is unforgivable.’
‘Monsieur le Duc . . . Madame la Duchesse . . . there has been some mistake. This woman . . . she is the sister-in-law of the Comte du Barry. She is married to his brother . . .’
‘Married to the brother of the Comte du Barry!’ snorted Choiseul. ‘I tell you this woman is Jeanne Bécu, or Rançon or Lange or Beauvarnier or Vaubarnier. A pleasant type, to need so many names! But there is one title to which she has no right. She has never been married, and you . . . idiot, dolt, knave, have offended against the King’s strict rule.’
‘Monsieur le Duc,’ cried Le Bel trembling, ‘if this is so . . .’
‘If this is so? It is so. I have made it my business to discover the truth about this woman. She is
an unmarried woman, and if you value your position at Court you will get rid of her . . . quickly, and extricate the King from this impossible situation into which you have thrust him.’
‘I will do all in my power . . .’
‘It is to be hoped, for your sake, that you will,’ said the Duchesse slyly.
‘And with all speed,’ added Choiseul.
Le Bel immediately called on Jean Baptiste.
‘What is wrong?’ asked Jean Baptiste. ‘You look as if you have lost a fortune.’
‘Worse! I am in danger of losing my place at Court.’
‘What is this? Calm yourself.’
‘Jeanne is not Madame du Barry. She is not married.’
‘But, Monsieur Le Bel.’
‘It is useless to lie,’ said Le Bel firmly. ‘The Duc de Choiseul has his spies everywhere. He knows she is not married to your brother.’
Jean Baptiste was taken aback. ‘Well?’ he said.
‘You fool! You’ve deceived the King. Do you not know that he does not take unmarried mistresses?’
‘We will get her married.’
‘The point is that she was not married when you said she was.’
‘A trifle.’
‘It will be the end of her chances at Court.’
‘Listen,’ said Jean Baptiste, ‘I will get her married immediately. I have a brother who is a bachelor. He will marry her and that will allow us to snap our fingers in the pug’s face of Monsieur le Duc.’
Le Bel hesitated. He greatly feared Choiseul, and wished that he had never brought Jeanne to Court. He could only win back the Duc’s approval by ridding the Court of her.
He made up his mind that he would do what the Duc wished him to.
He said firmly: ‘I must go to the King at once and tell him the truth.’
Le Bel begged for a private audience.
Louis looked at him with some concern. The man had changed visibly in the last week or so. He seemed furtive, afraid.
‘What ails you?’ asked Louis. ‘You will have to take better care of your health. You remind me of that man who dropped dead a week or so ago. You remember the one I mean. He had your looks. Take care, Le Bel.’