The Nicolas Le Floch affair

by Jean-FranCois Parot

  Nicolas waited for a long time on a bench in the great gallery. At about ten, La Borde came to find him. The most important thing, he said, was to ensure the sick man’s security and tranquillity. The King’s bed having been installed in his real bedchamber,1 visitors and those who usually had access to his person would have to be turned away. They made arrangements with the pages and bodyguards to bar the bull’s-eye antechamber and move back by one room all those reserved for persons of honour, the show bedchamber thus taking the place of the council chamber. La Borde informed Nicolas that the King, in a peaceful moment, had asked for ‘young Ranreuil’ to stay close to him and assist the First Groom. The Duc d’Aiguillon had tried to raise an objection, which the King had dismissed irritably. The comtesse, on the other hand, had been favourably disposed to the idea and surprised by the minister’s hostility towards such a faithful servant. Nicolas dozed for part of the night on a bench in the council chamber.

  Friday 29 April 1774

  Early in the morning, he was woken by La Borde. It had been a very bad night. The King had been extremely restless, and neither dabbing his temples with opium nor any other remedy had succeeded in calming him. The morning passed in anxious expectation. At about nine, Le Monnier, in agreement with the First Surgeon, decided to bleed him. The operation was performed in public, and the three bowls of blood drawn were left on a console table in full view. Nicolas, standing in the shadow of the fireplace, could see, as could everyone present, that the patient did not seem in the least relieved. The two doctors withdrew to the council chamber to discuss the next step. Le Monnier, who had been so optimistic the previous evening, now contemplated calling on his colleagues’ expertise. Nicolas, who had followed them, eavesdropped on a lengthy debate as to who would receive the honour of being consulted. Lorry, the Duc d’Aiguillon’s doctor, and Bordeu, the Comtesse du Barry’s, were chosen. From what the comtesse had been heard saying, Bordeu, who was considered a solid practitioner, seemed ready to be called if the indisposition were to become an illness. The Dauphine’s doctor, Lassone, was added to this council, as were others. Gaspard, the page, came and tugged at Nicolas’s sleeve: he was being asked for in the King’s bedchamber.

  The room needed to be cleared. Too many people were pressing in, and the space was becoming cramped and airless. The King lay on a little camp-bed in the middle of the room, bathed in sweat. He was speaking incoherently, in a hoarse voice, often calling La Borde, whom he finally sent to see Madame du Barry, and demanding that young Ranreuil stay there, ‘above all, above all’. He repeated these words several times, his eyes searching for Nicolas. By midday, the doctors had arrived from Paris, and now they made their solemn entrance.

  They examined the King for a long time, questioning him on his pains. His face was flushed, and he complained of headaches. No one seemed concerned to determine the true nature of his illness, and the Faculty held forth at length on the possibility of a catarrhal fever. The King was still restless and so, after much hesitation, the doctors ordered him to be bled a second time, and possibly even a third. The whole of Versailles was soon buzzing with the news, and the royal family again came running. The secret meetings and intrigues resumed with renewed vigour.

  ‘Bled for a third time!’ said the King. ‘Bled for a third time! So I am ill, after all. It’ll lay me low, I tell you.’ He clung to this idea, questioning the doctors with his eyes. ‘I don’t want it done. Why a third time?’

  In the rooms preceding the patient’s bedchamber, Nicolas watched, appalled, as the secret meetings went on. This bleeding was becoming an affair of State. The doctors, attacked on all sides and drawn alternately to both factions, wavered. What was at stake was clear to everyone. Depending on whether or not they were favourably disposed to the interests of Madame du Barry, one side feared and the other hoped for the verdict. Some described the King as being terrified at the prospect of a third bleeding, which would finally convince him that he was ill, and could have dangerous consequences for a man as weak as he was: specifically, recourse to the sacraments and the sending away of Madame du Barry. They pointed out to those as yet undecided the risks for themselves of making irreconcilable enemies of the King’s mistress and his First Minister. Monsieur de La Borde sided with the comtesse’s faction, as much out of genuine friendship for her as out of concern for his master’s anxieties. The others, arguing that it was important for the King to be at peace with his conscience in the grave situation in which he appeared to be, were using the demands of religion as a pretext for their desire for revenge on Madame du Barry and the Duc d’Aiguillon. Nicolas did not know what to think. In the end, the doctors settled for a second bleeding towards evening. The King almost fainted and asked for vinegar. Deeply worried, he had his pulse taken every moment.

  ‘You keep telling me I’m not ill and I’ll soon be cured. You don’t believe a word of it. You must tell me!’

  At five o’clock, he received a visit from his daughters: they had been called by La Borde, who had thought it only fair, given that Madame du Barry had already been summoned. But Nicolas was upset to see so many people flooding into the room. Apart from the princes, the Gentlemen of the Bedchamber, the servants, the doctors, the surgeons and the apothecaries, an inquisitive crowd kept coming in and out, despite instructions to the contrary. Once again, there was not enough air to breathe. At about ten, the King was showing the doctor his tongue when La Martinière, about to give him something to drink, thought he saw some suspicious red blotches on his face. Without manifesting any surprise, he asked the servants to bring the light closer, on the pretext that the patient could not see his glass. All the quacks present observed the phenomenon with a surprise that was a confession of their own ignorance. Acting as if nothing had happened, they went into the adjoining room to confer. Like a shadow, Nicolas followed them.

  None of them were keen to name the suspected disease openly, instead using convoluted terms to describe it. Some saw in it only a skin rash, others a fleeting attack of smallpox, although they did not dare utter the word. It was La Martinière who spoke up at last.

  ‘What we are observing, gentlemen, is an acute fever, violent headaches, pains in the small of the back, dryness of the skin and a rash on the face. What are we to conclude?’

  Again they all came out with meaningless words.

  The First Surgeon reacted impatiently. ‘What, gentlemen, can your science have failed all of you? Let me tell you, then: the King has smallpox with severe complications. For my part, I consider him lost.’

  A profound silence followed this bombshell.

  ‘That is a very careless comment to make,’ said Monsieur de Duras, First Gentleman of the Bedchamber, who had been following the discussion.

  ‘Monsieur,’ replied La Martinière, ‘my duty is not to flatter His Majesty, but to tell the truth about his health, and what I have just advanced cannot be denied by any of these gentlemen. They all think as I do, but I am the only person to say it because I regard it as a point of honour to present the whole truth.’

  Murmurs rose amongst the gathering.

  ‘So the King is lost?’ said the Duc de Duras. ‘What more can be done?’

  ‘Take care of him and prolong his life as much as is humanly possible, that is all we can do. He tried to tempt nature, but nature wouldn’t listen.’

  ‘All the same,’ said Le Monnier, ‘are we sure it’s that? I was always told that the King had already suffered an attack of smallpox, in 1728! And besides, look at his age!’

  ‘His Majesty’s age has nothing to do with it,’ sighed Lorry. ‘Last January, Monsieur Doublet, Chancellor to the Queen of Spain, uncle of the Marquise de Montesquieu and the Comtesse de Voisenon, died of smallpox at the age of seventy-eight.’

  ‘What makes you conclude that the attack is so severe?’ asked Lassone, the Dauphine’s doctor.

  ‘Alas,’ said La Martinière, ‘the symptoms reveal the most dangerous form, the kind where the rash is confluent. Did you observe the pustule
s, not separated, but joined together? The whole body will swell, especially the head, and there will be a great deal of salivation. This form of the disease is generally complicated by purpura and anthrax and the patient usually dies on the eleventh day after the onset of the disease.’

  A terrifying silence followed this declaration.

  ‘I’m sure we can do something,’ said Le Monnier.

  ‘We can try,’ replied La Martinière, ‘but for a person to recover using ordinary methods is more likely to be due to nature than the efforts of those who treat him!’

  ‘There is much discussion of the treatment,’ said Lassone, ‘and opinions are very divided on the matter. The Germans don’t go in for a great deal of bleeding, whereas Alsahavarius2 prescribed bleeding the patient until he faints.’

  ‘It is said,’ murmured an apothecary – the doctors immediately glared at him for encroaching on their domain – ‘that horse dung is an excellent medication, which provokes sweating and protects the throat!’

  ‘The devil take all that!’ said La Martinière. ‘We have to apply vesicatories and ease the evacuations with a series of enemas. We must at all costs force the pustules to suppurate then dry out. We have to do everything we can to avoid any reflux of the purulent matter. We must give the patient plenty of cleansing, soothing and fortifying herb teas and apply rose ointment to the pustules. At the very least, we must immediately ease the rash with decoctions of black salsify, lentils and milkweed. It’s equally important to give him lots of thinning and moistening drinks, and by way of sustenance, a plain clear soup to avoid stoking the fever.’

  Immediately the consultation was over, Nicolas went to La Borde and whispered the Faculty’s verdict in his ear. His friend turned pale. The royal family were advised by the doctors to stay away from the King’s bedchamber. Although they had not neglected, in officially announcing his illness, to add that ‘he was wonderfully prepared and that all would go well’, fear of possible contagion immediately spread. The royal family, alone amongst the sovereign houses of Europe, had not adopted inoculation and not one of its members had yet suffered from the disease. The first concern was to force the Dauphin to leave the apartment: it was his wife who dragged him away. All the princes withdrew, except for the Duc d’Orléans, the Comte de La Marche, the Duc de Penthièvre and the Prince de Condé, who, having had the disease, declared that they wanted to continue to see the King. Then Adélaïde, Victoire and Sophie decided that they would be their father’s nurses and installed themselves in his private office and the clock room.

  As for the servants, they could not escape quickly enough. With a weak smile, La Borde urged Nicolas to withdraw: caution demanded it. Nicolas declared that he had been inoculated some years earlier, at the friendly prompting of Semacgus, who – arguing that the epidemic recurred periodically – had persuaded the whole of Monsieur de Noblecourt’s household to undergo this preventive operation. Nicolas had not needed much convincing, having remembered that his father, the Marquis de Ranreuil, a fervent enthusiast for the century’s innovations, had himself been persuaded of the effectiveness of the vaccine by the English officer who had been a prisoner at Guérande. He could therefore stay, much to his friend’s joy. So could Gaspard the page, who declared that he had had the disease when young. The Comtesse du Barry arrived, to be greeted without any haughtiness by the King’s daughters: it was as if the situation had drawn them together. Early in the morning, Nicolas went back up to La Borde’s apartments to clean himself and write two letters informing Monsieur de Sartine and Monsieur de Noblecourt of what was happening and why he was being detained at Versailles.

  Saturday 30 April, Sunday 1 May and Monday 2 May 1774

  The illness was taking its course. The two factions watched each other closely. The day passed without any perceptible deterioration in the King’s condition. While it was light, his daughters did not budge, giving way in the evening to Madame du Barry with a murmured exchange of polite greetings. When night came, the fever made noticeable progress and the King began to suffer a great deal. The next day, Sunday, the debate about the sacraments resumed with renewed vigour. The King’s daughters joined forces with d’Aiguillon’s party, out of concern for their father and to avoid provoking a violent shock whose consequences they dreaded. But the matter was causing increasing scandal, and feelings were running so high that Cardinal de La Roche-Aymon, the Grand Chaplain of France, gave orders to send for Christophe de Beaumont, archbishop of Paris, who alone had the authority to advise the King.

  During their long vigil, Monsieur de La Borde had explained the various aspects of the problem to Nicolas. The archbishop was on his way to Versailles with the sacraments. That would clearly involve the expulsion of the King’s mistress. But, secretly, the prelate owed it to his conscience to take into account the gratitude he felt for the services Madame du Barry had rendered the religious party, through the removal from office of Choiseul, the elevation of d’Aiguillon and the destruction of the parlements. The allies of the archbishop and the friends of the comtesse were openly against the sacraments. On the other side, the ‘Choiseuls’ were urging the King’s officials as hard as they could to adopt their position. This would eliminate from Versailles the woman who had overthrown their great man. So it was that, in all the speculation surrounding the King’s conscience, a strange thing happened: d’Aiguillon’s party joined forces with the religious faction to prevent Louis XV from taking communion, while Choiseul’s party, that of the philosophers and non-believers, were uniting to press for the sacraments. La Borde himself wished only to devote himself to the service of the King, and wanted nothing to do with these intrigues – except that he would not abandon the comtesse’s ship in the hour of danger.

  Nicolas wandered the great apartments in despair. He was looking, unseeing, at the splendours around him when he heard the sound of weeping behind him. Turning, he found himself face to face with Madame Adélaïde, her face swollen, her eyes red, dabbing her mouth as if this exercise was the one panacea to assuage her grief. He bowed to her. She was no longer the haughty, beautiful young woman he had met fourteen years earlier while hunting in the great park, but an ageing woman whose creased face lit up when she saw him.

  ‘Ah, young Ranreuil, as Father always says.’

  She again burst into tears. Nicolas did not know what to do. She seized his hands as if clutching a branch for support.

  ‘Monsieur, I ask you,’ she implored, ‘what should we do? You who are a faithful and loyal servant of His Majesty, what should we do?’

  ‘About what, Madame?’

  She could not have looked more scandalised if he had insulted her. ‘Do you not think it is time, Marquis, to lead the King to the idea of the sacraments? The Duc d’Orléans has been urging me to make up my mind. He told me we had to talk to the doctors.’

  Nicolas, who had just read the latest bulletin on the King’s condition, had judged it anything but reassuring. ‘And what did they reply, Madame?’

  ‘That ever since the illness started they had been suggesting the sacraments to the high officials, but that no one was willing to comply …’ – and here she sobbed – ‘… for fear of displeasing the Duc d’Aiguillon, who has his eyes on them. They also consider that, while the King’s wounds are suppurating, he might have an extreme reaction to strong emotion.’

  ‘In other words, Madame, it is important not to act in haste.’

  ‘Yes, I think you’re right. We risk putting our father in danger. I insist on the archbishop being watched. He must not be left alone when he is in the bedchamber, in order to prevent him saying anything that might frighten the King.’

  ‘Madame, I think it is in the hands of God, and I am sure that His Majesty will know what it is right to do when the moment comes.’

  She thanked him with a weak smile and walked quickly to an adjoining room, where her sisters awaited her. Nicolas noted with a touch of pity that the heel of one of her slippers was coming away and that she limped as she walke
d.

  The next day the archbishop arrived with ceremony. According to rumour, he was suffering from kidney stones and had given up two large ones the day before. In anticipation of a new attack, he had brought his bathtub with him. Having been kept waiting for quite a while in the guardroom – much to his annoyance, given the pain he was in – he was greeted by the Maréchal de Richelieu, who detained him with idle chatter in the bull’s-eye antechamber. Pinned down in a corner of the room with the maréchal’s scent in his nostrils, he was subjected to an all-out attack designed to keep him away from his duty. The maréchal’s loud voice attracted onlookers, who wished to see this indecent comedy for themselves.

  ‘Archbishop,’ the maréchal was saying, ‘if you are so keen on hearing confession, come with me and I swear you’ll hear some juicy stuff, if you’re at all curious about my pretty sins! But don’t say anything to His Majesty – you’d kill him as cleanly as if you’d shot him with a pistol, and for no valid reason would be aiding the return in triumph of someone who would do great harm to your Church.’

  Alarmed by what he heard, Christophe de Beaumont finally managed to free himself. He caught only a brief glimpse of the King’s daughters, but, entering the monarch’s bedchamber, saw a woman bending over the bed. At the sight of him, Madame du Barry let out a cry and fled in fright towards the great recess, where she disappeared through a concealed door in the panelling. In the presence of the Duc d’Orléans, the King asked the prelate about his ailments, then turned his back on him. Christophe de Beaumont withdrew. As he crossed the King’s study, he caught his foot in the carpet and stumbled. Nicolas ran to catch him before he fell. The archbishop looked at him with his bloodshot eyes. He had aged a great deal since their last encounter. His face was grey and the great lines of bitterness were etched even deeper around his sagging mouth.