by Jean Plaidy
One day when the King was playing cards in Madame du Barry’s room, Chauvelin, one of the most notorious rakes at Court who was standing by Madame du Barry’s chair advising her on her hand, suddenly fell forward.
‘What is wrong with Chauvelin?’ asked the King shrilly.
Several of the men examined him.
‘Chauvelin is dead, Sire,’ was the answer.
Louis stood up and stared at his old friend. Then abruptly he left the apartment.
Madame du Barry followed him, and when they were alone he turned to her, his eyes wide with horror. ‘You know the life he has led,’ he said. ‘And he was struck down without warning!’
He was badly shaken and asked to be left alone.
At such times it was necessary to plan some diversion which would draw the King out of his depression.
Unfortunately it was not easy, for shortly after the death of Chauvelin, the Abbé de la Ville came to thank the King for giving him a post at the Foreign Office, and as he was admitted he had an apoplectic fit in Louis’ presence from which he did not recover. The Maréchal d’Armentières collapsed during a lever and died; and while the King was brooding on this, news was brought that Sorba, the Genoese Ambassador, had died without warning.
Louis, fearful of the life which he believed would follow that on Earth, and knowing that before he could repent he must give up Madame du Barry, fell deeper into melancholy. Give up the only one who could bring him any comfort! He could not do it.
And one day while he was hunting in the Forest of Compiègne a storm arose, and a tree very close to the King was struck by lightning; Louis believed that he had been warned.
Something must be done, decided Madame du Barry. She would arrange that they should leave for Petit Trianon. When they were there together he would forget his fears of death.
In the Petit Trianon Jeanne du Barry awaited the return of the King from the hunt.
She felt a little uneasy, which was strange for a person of her high spirits. The King’s looks had alarmed her when he had set out on the hunt that morning.
She had wanted to ask him not to go, but she had realised that her power over the King was partly due to her lack of interference. It was April, a time of sunshine and showers. The countryside was beautiful, and surely Petit Trianon was the loveliest place to be in at this time of year.
What worried her? It was foolish. It was a little note in the Almanach de Liège which had been pointed out to her.
‘In April a great lady who is the favourite of fortune will be called upon to play her last role.’
She had not liked the sound of that. Yet she reminded herself that she had many enemies who might have inserted it, knowing that it would cause her more apprehension than any of the cruel songs they sang about her.
The King was looking his age; the Dauphine did dislike her so, and the Dauphine would rule France once the King was dead; there was no doubt of that.
‘Poof!’ said Madame du Barry. ‘What is wrong with me? Shall I mope because the King looked less robust this morning, and the month is April?’
There was so much to be happy about. Could a woman ever have been more pleased with life?
She had looked after those she loved; she had done her best to placate her enemies.
Choiseul continued to plague her from Chanteloup.
‘A pox on Choiseul!’ she cried. ‘A pox on these gloomy thoughts!’
But Chon was coming into the room and her face looked drawn.
‘The King has returned from the hunt,’ she said. ‘I fear he is ill.’
Jeanne would allow no one but his servant Laborde to sit with her by his bed, and the King slept fitfully, his hand in hers.
‘I fear,’ she whispered to Laborde, ‘that His Majesty has a fever. If he is no better in the morning we will send for Lemoine.’
Lemoine, First Physician in Ordinary, arrived in the morning.
He examined the King and smiled at the anxious Madame du Barry. ‘It is nothing much,’ he told her. ‘His Majesty has a slight fever, but there is no danger.’
Jeanne du Barry knelt by the King’s bed and kissed his hand when Lemoine had left them. She went on kissing that hand.
Louis touched the golden hair.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘I was afraid . . .’ she said. ‘So much afraid. And now Lemoine says there is nothing to fear.’
‘Ah, Jeanne,’ said the King, ‘how you depend upon me!’
She was more serious than he had ever seen her. ‘You think I am afraid because I should be turned out of the Court!’ She pursed her lips and allowed a coarse epithet to escape. ‘What do I care for the Court! I have riches now. I should never starve. It is not the loss of my King I fear. But the loss of my man.’
And with that she sprang up suddenly and ran from the room.
Louis looked after her. No one had ever behaved thus to him before; but then nobody ever did behave like Jeanne.
He touched his cheeks. There were tears on them. Was it because he was so weak or because he was so moved?
The surgeon La Martinière arrived in the afternoon of that day, and when he had examined the King he said: ‘Sire, you cannot stay at Petit Trianon. We must have you moved at once to Versailles.’
‘But why?’ said the King. ‘I suffer only from a slight fever.’ La Martinière did not answer for a moment. Then he said that the ceilings of the Petit Trianon were too low, and were not suitable; the King needed the large airy State bedroom of Versailles.
Louis turned wearily on his side and said nothing.
Jeanne shook La Martinière by the arm.
‘But why?’ she demanded. ‘Why should he be taken from here? He is not seriously ill. I can nurse him. I and Laborde. It will not be good for him to be moved.’
‘Madame, I am his doctor,’ La Martinière reminded her.
‘But the very knowledge that you are moving him to Versailles will upset him. Don’t you see that? It will make him think he is very ill.’
‘Madame, the King is very ill.’
‘Nonsense! Monsieur Lemoine says . . .’
‘I say that the King is ill and that he must go to Versailles.’
‘And if I do not agree? . . .’
La Martinière smiled and said quietly: ‘I repeat, Madame, I am the King’s doctor.’
A servant came to announce that the carriage was already at the door.
‘Very good,’ said La Martinière. ‘His Majesty must have a heavy cloak over his dressing-gown. Orders have already gone to the Château that his bed is to be prepared.’
He went from the room, passing Jeanne as though she were not there. Jeanne turned to Chon who had been in the room and had heard the conversation between the King’s mistress and his doctor.
‘You . . . you heard what he said?’ stammered Jeanne.
Chon nodded. It was significant. It pointed to two facts. The King was ill – ill enough for death to be feared; and Jeanne had already lost the importance which had been hers yesterday.
The tension in the Château was increasing. Messages were sent to Choiseul at Chanteloup – messages of hope. The Barriens were alarmed, knowing they would automatically fall with the King.
News spread through the Palace. The King had been bled once . . . twice . . . and there was talk of a third bleeding.
It could not be long now before Madame du Barry was dismissed, for the King must make his peace with God, and the priests would not allow him to do that while his mistress was with him.
Doctors were arriving at Versailles from all over France, and there were now fourteen of them about the King’s bedside. They were waylaid by those who were eager for news as they bustled in and out of the State apartments.
And then, as La Martinière bent over the King, he noticed the rash and recognised it for what it was.
He said nothing to the King but beckoned to the doctors who were present. They came forward one by one to examine the King; they said nothing, but the
looks they gave each other were significant.
La Martinière led them away from the bed.
‘I think,’ he said, ‘that the family should be informed that the King is suffering from small-pox.’
The Dauphin received the news very solemnly. He did not show that it filled him with apprehension.
His sprightly wife watched him in exasperation. One would have thought a young man of Louis’ age would have wanted to be King. What sort of man had she married? He was gauche, preferring his locksmith’s to feminine company. He was impotent, so what chance had they of providing an heir to the throne?
Contemplating the future, even the frivolous Dauphine felt faintly uneasy.
Marie Antoinette sent all her attendants away because she feared they might sense this fear which had come to herself and her husband. They must not be allowed to know that it existed; she was determined on that.
She went to her husband and laid her hand on his shoulder.
‘You will have to do your best when it comes,’ she said.
He grunted, but she knew him well enough now to understand the emotion behind the grunt.
‘There will be two of us,’ she said with a smile which illumined her face.
He stood up abruptly and, brushing past her, went to the window. ‘We are too young to be King and Queen of France,’ he said. ‘We have too much to learn.’
She watched him standing at the window, looking along the Avenue towards the sullen city of Paris.
Adelaide rang for Victoire, and Victoire rang for Sophie.
When her two younger sisters stood before her, Adelaide said: ‘I have news for you. Our father is suffering from small-pox.’
Victoire opened her mouth, and Sophie, watching her, did the same. They kept their eyes on Adelaide’s face, for they knew that she would tell them what they must do.
‘We shall nurse him,’ she said.
Victoire began to shiver then because she feared the smallpox. Sophie, looking from one sister to the other, was uncertain what to do.
‘There is danger,’ cried Adelaide, ‘but we will face it. We will nurse him as our brother’s wife nursed the Dauphin through small-pox.’
‘Our brother was younger than our father is, when he recovered his health,’ said Victoire.
‘I shall nurse him. I shall see that he grows well again.’ Adelaide took a step closer to her sisters. ‘We shall not stay in the room while that putain is there. If she appears we shall tiptoe out without a word. You understand me? There is no room in the King’s bedchamber for that low woman and the Princesses of France.’
A hasty meeting of priests took place in the Château.
What should be done now? The King had contracted smallpox. Small-pox at sixty-four! Consider the life he had led. What were the chances of his survival?
‘The last rites should be performed. The King should be shrived,’ was one opinion.
‘We cannot do that until Madame du Barry is sent away.’
‘Then she must be sent away.’
‘Have you forgotten that we owe the dismissal of Choiseul to the favourite? Choiseul abolished the Jesuits. Choiseul was the enemy of the Church party. How can we have the favourite sent from Court when she is the enemy of Choiseul?’
‘But the King should receive the last rites . . .’
They were in a quandary.
They could only wait. Everything depended on the sick King. If he recovered, those who had sent Madame du Barry away would be very unpopular. They must remember Madame de Châteauroux at Metz.
So the men of the Church waited.
Louis stirred in his bed and asked for Madame du Barry.
‘Let her come to me without delay.’
The message was brought to her by La Martinière himself.
‘You know, Madame,’ he said, ‘from what disease he is suffering?’
She nodded.
‘You run great danger from contact with him. You know that?’
‘Of course I know it,’ she answered.
‘We could tell His Majesty that you are indisposed, that you had felt the need to go to Petit Trianon to rest.’
She swung round and faced him, her hands on her hips, all Court veneer suddenly thrown off.
‘What do you take me for?’ she demanded. ‘He would know then, would he not, what was wrong with him? He must not be told. He must not guess. Once he knows, he will die. Do I not know him better than any of you? He has thought often of sickness and death – too often. It was always my pleasure to put an end to those thoughts. If he knows he has small-pox, that will be the end of him. Believe me.’
‘Then Madame,’ said La Martinière, ‘what do you propose to do?’
She stood up to her full height. Never had she looked more beautiful, never had she shown more clearly that she came from the streets of Paris.
‘I’ll tell you what I shall do. I shall go in there . . . And I shall be with him. I shall nurse him. I . . . and I alone. Because, Monsieur, that is what he will want. That is what he will expect. And if it is not done, he will know the reason why.’
With that she stalked from the room.
And when La Martinière returned to the King’s bedroom he found Madame du Barry seated at the bedside. The King had his hand in hers; she was laughing, telling him some joke, and her cheek was against his.
There were occasions when she was forced to rest, and when she announced that she would retire the three Princesses informed by their spies glided into the room like three white-clad ghosts. They said nothing as they passed Madame du Barry; indeed they looked beyond her as though they did not see her.
She thought of them – careless of their safety as they tended their father.
She remembered what she had heard of the wildness of Madame Adelaide, and she felt tender towards her now as she, with her docile sisters, undertook all the menial tasks of the sickroom.
Louis was amused. He looked forward to the periods when Madame du Barry would take over the duties of the sickroom and Loque, Coche and Graille would tiptoe out in single file.
Did ever a man have three such daughters? he asked himself. He was sure now that they were a little mad.
But on the eighth day he looked at his hands and saw the spots there.
He held them up to the light and called to his physicians.
‘Look,’ he said.
The doctors nodded sombrely.
‘It is no surprise to you, I see,’ said the King. ‘Yet you have been telling me that I am not ill, and that you will cure me. Yet you know that I suffer from the small-pox!’
The doctors were silent, and Louis continued to stare at his hands in despair.
From the moment that there was no longer any need to keep this matter secret, the news spread through the Château; it spread through Versailles to Paris, and throughout France.
The King has small-pox. He is sixty-four. Consider the life he has led! This is the end.
And in the Château itself many hastened to assure the Dauphin and the Dauphine of their loyalty.
So the moment has come, thought Louis. I am more fortunate than some. I have time to repent.
He commanded that the Archbishop of Paris should be brought to him, and when the man arrived he said: ‘I have a long journey before me and I must be prepared.’
‘Sire,’ said the Archbishop, ‘you should make your peace with God; but before you confess your sins, I must remind you that there is one, who has shared so many of them with you, whose presence at Court is an affront to God.’
‘You refer to the one who has given me my greatest comfort.’
‘I refer, Sire, to the woman who impedes your way to salvation.’
‘Who is that at the door?’ asked Louis.
‘It is Madame du Barry herself, Sire.’
The King saw her hurrying to the bedside. There was an infinite sorrow in her face; he had never seen her so drawn and haggard.
‘You must not come too near,’ he said. ‘It is the smal
lpox.’
She nodded.
‘You knew?’ he said. ‘You have nursed me all these days . . . knowing?’
‘I did not wish you to know. I am furiously angry with those who told you.’
‘My own observation told me,’ he replied. ‘You see it has spread to my hands. My dear, this is our last meeting.’
‘No,’ she said.
‘You must go away from Court,’ he insisted. ‘There is no place for you here now.’
‘While you are here, my place is here.’
‘I am so soon to leave.’
‘You’re a liar,’ she said half smiling.
He smiled with her.
‘Dearest,’ he begged her, ‘go now. Go away from the Court. You should not be near me. I trust your wonderfully good health has saved you. You have a long life before you. And I am about to go. I must make my peace with God. I have so many sins to account for.’
She did not speak. He must receive the last rites. He must confess and be forgiven. She knew that death had given her the congé which Choiseul had attempted and failed to give.
She shook her head and the tears, spilling from those beautiful blue eyes, rolled down on to her cheeks.
‘If I recover,’ said Louis, ‘the first thing I shall do is to send for you.’
She put her fingers to her lips in an attempt at gaiety. Do not let them hear you say that, she was warning him; they will never grant you absolution if they do.
But she would never come back. She knew it as he did. He was dying.
‘Go now, my dear one,’ he said again, ‘and have the Duc d’Aiguillon sent to me. He and his Duchesse are your friends.
I want you to go to their château at Rueil. You will be safe there. You need to be safe.’
‘Goodbye, my King,’ she sobbed.
Then she turned and left him.
So this is the end, he thought.
And his thoughts went back over his life. He thought of another old man who on his death-bed had held a five-year-old child in his arms and told him he would soon be King. That old man was Louis Quatorze, and he himself had been the five-year-old boy.