The Road to Compiegne Read online

  ‘Such a disaster could bring about the dismissal of the Marquise,’ said the Dauphin.

  Louis himself was very apprehensive. He was beginning to wonder whether there was some Divine warning in this loss. She was a young girl. It was true that she had been frail; but she was too young to die.

  His doctors had told him that she had no will to live, that she had refused their medicines; she had refused the food which had been prepared for her; she had turned from all her family and friends to look beyond them into the unknown.

  He dared not think of her unhappiness. There were many who would say that she had died of a broken heart. Twice she had loved, and twice been frustrated. Marriage with the Orléans family had been distasteful to Fleury and therefore had not taken place. Her love for Charles Edward Stuart had been deeper perhaps, but how could the King of France give his consent to their marriage after the defeat of the ’45? That had happened nearly seven years ago. Had she mourned a Prince, who was not even faithful, all that time?

  She died because she had no wish to live. They were tragic words to describe the passing of a young woman. It distressed him and there was only one person who could cure him of sadness such as this; yet the mood which had been engendered by the people of Paris and certain members of his Court led him to doubt whether he should seek that solace.

  Death . . . so close to them all! Who would be its next victim? What if it should strike at him, and he should suddenly pass from this world to the next – an unrepentant sinner?

  He wanted to confess his sins, but he knew that before he could receive absolution he must swear to sin no more.

  The Marquise occupied the suite of Madame de Montespan now, but she was still known as his mistress. He knew that the confessors and the bishops, aided and abetted by the Dauphin and the Church party, would withhold the remission of his sins until he had dismissed Madame de Pompadour from the Court.

  He sent for Adelaide; he embraced her warmly and they wept together.

  The King looked at this vivacious but unaccountable young woman. She was twenty years old and her beauty was already beginning to fade, but he still found her company stimulating.

  From Adelaide he could take comfort which at the moment he felt too apprehensive to take from the Marquise.

  ‘You must fill your sister’s place,’ he told Adelaide. ‘You must be both Adelaide and Anne-Henriette to me now.’

  ‘Yes, Father,’ cried Adelaide; and there was no mistaking the adoration he saw in her eyes.

  ‘You shall have an apartment nearer to mine,’ said the King. ‘We will rebuild a part of the Château. It will mean destroying the Ambassador’s staircase . . . but we will do it . . .’

  Adelaide knelt awkwardly and embraced her father’s knees.

  ‘I will be all that you ask of me,’ she cried; and her eyes were gleaming with triumph; she had already forgotten the death of Anne-Henriette.

  Chapter VI

  COMTESSE DE CHOISEUL-BEAUPRÉ

  Death seemed to be hovering over Versailles that year. The hot summer had come and the King with Madame de Pompadour was staying at his château of Compiègne for a spell of hunting.

  One morning early the Dauphine awoke with a sense of foreboding, perhaps because it had been a restless night. Several times she had awakened to find the Dauphin muttering in his sleep; and when she had spoken to him he had answered incoherently.

  Touching his forehead she had thought it to be over-hot; thus she had spent a very disturbed night; and as soon as the light was strong enough she sat up in bed and studied the sleeping Dauphin.

  His face was flushed, and she had no doubt now that he had a fever. She rose, called his servants and sent for his physicians.

  In a few hours, the news spread through the Palace and beyond. The Dauphin is suffering from small-pox.

  There was scarcely a disease more dreaded – highly contagious, swift in action, it had been responsible for the end of thousands.

  The Dauphine was terrified. She could not imagine her life without her husband; and she was fully aware of the danger in which he lay.

  The physicians told her that she must leave the apartments. Already she may have caught the disease. She must understand that by remaining at her husband’s bedside she was courting death; and even if she escaped death she might be hideously marked for the rest of her life.

  She said firmly: ‘It is my place to be at his side. More than any other I belong here, and here I shall remain.’

  She would allow no one to dissuade her and, dressing herself in a simple white dress, she performed all the necessary menial and intimate duties which were required. Her lips were firmly set; she had not wept, but she constantly murmured prayers as she moved about the apartment, and again and again she said to herself: ‘If I do everything for him I shall save him, for I shall do these things better than any other. I must, because I love him so much.’ Then she began to say: ‘I will save him. He shall not die.’ And with that a great peace came to her because she believed that anyone who wanted to succeed so much and who put every effort into her task could not fail.

  Again and again she was warned to leave the sickroom; again she was reminded of the horrors of the disease, of its terrifying results; and she merely smiled wanly.

  ‘What price would be too great to pay for his recovery?’ she asked.

  And after that they knew it was no use trying to dissuade her.

  The news was carried to Compiègne and reached the King when he had returned to the château after the hunt.

  Louis was horrified. ‘I must return at once to Versailles,’ he declared.

  The Marquise ventured: ‘My dearest Sire, there is great danger at Versailles.’

  The King answered sadly: ‘Madame, my son, the Dauphin, lies near to death.’

  The Marquise merely bowed her head. ‘We will prepare to leave immediately,’ she said.

  Death! thought the King. It is like a spectre that haunts me. It hangs over my family – a grey shadow from which we cannot escape. Only in February I lost my dearest daughter; am I now to lose my son?

  He was glad that he had built a road from Compiègne to Versailles. At such a time the covert looks which implied ‘this is the retribution’ would have been intolerable. The people would attribute the illness of the Dauphin to the same Divine wrath to which they had credited the death of Anne-Henriette. No, at such a time he could not bear the sly triumph of his people.

  If the Dauphin were to die, the heir to the throne would be the baby Duc de Bourgogne. And if he, Louis, himself died, there would be another boy King of France. The Dauphin must not die.

  The Marquise sought to comfort him on that journey back to Versailles.

  ‘I have heard,’ she said, ‘that a doctor named Pousse knows more about small-pox than any man living. Would Your Majesty consider sending for him? He is a bourgeois and will know nothing of Court manners and procedure, but since he is considered to have saved more from small-pox than any other doctor, would Your Majesty have him brought to Versailles?’

  ‘We must seize every opportunity,’ agreed the King. ‘No matter what this man’s origins are, let us send for him.’

  ‘I will order him to come without delay,’ said the Marquise.

  * * *

  Louis sat at the Dauphin’s bedside. He had waved aside all those who would have reminded him of the risk he ran.

  My son, he thought. My only son! I wish that we could have been better friends.

  How deeply he regretted those differences which had grown up between them. He tried to remember at what stage they had begun to grow apart. He saw himself going into the royal nurseries in the days of the Dauphin’s boyhood, and he remembered how the little boy would fling himself into his arms.

  Then, thought the King, he loved me as he loved no other. Now he is indifferent to me as a person and even antagonistic to me as King. There must be moments when he thinks of being in my place. Does he then look forward to the day when I shall no long
er be here?

  How sad was life!

  If only we could say to time, ‘Stop! Let it be thus for ever.’ Then he would remain young – a young husband, a young father, a young King at the sight of whom the people cried, ‘Long live the Well-Beloved!’ Looking back he saw the road to Compiègne like a riband dividing his life, separating the first half from the second. The sowing, one might say, and the harvest.

  Here at the bedside of his son he felt a great desire to be a good man, a good King, beloved of his Court and his people.

  But he had grown too cynical. He knew too well these moods of regret and repentance.

  They passed as inevitably as time itself.

  * * *

  Dr Pousse swept through the Dauphin’s apartments like a whirlwind. He did not ignore etiquette; he was merely unaware of its existence. He did not know the difference between a Comte and a Duc; he had no idea how deep a bow was required of him; and if he had known he would not have cared. He had one aim in life, to cure patients of the small-pox. It mattered not to him if they were heir to the lowest eating-house in the Rue des Boucheries or to the throne of France – he saw them only as patients on whom to practise his skill.

  There was only one person of whom he approved among those surrounding the Dauphin. This was a quiet young woman dressed in white.

  ‘You!’ he cried, pointing at her. ‘You will remain in attendance on the patient. The others will do as you say.’

  He liked her. She worked without fuss; she would do anything that was asked of her with a quiet efficiency.

  ‘H’m,’ growled Pousse, ‘when this young man is well again he will owe his recovery to two people: his doctor and his nurse.’

  When he barked orders at her she obeyed with speed. They had the utmost trust in each other, these two.

  ‘Now child,’ he would say, ‘make sure that the patient rests. Nobody is to disturb him, you understand. Not even his papa.’

  ‘I understand,’ was the answer.

  Pousse patted her arm affectionately. ‘A good nurse is a great help to a doctor, child,’ he said.

  The Dauphin’s condition was giving the utmost anxiety, and the King came to the sickroom to sit at his son’s bedside.

  Pousse approached Louis and, taking hold of a button of his coat, drew him to one side.

  The few attendants who had accompanied the King to the sickroom stopped to stare at this unheard-of familiarity, and Pousse was aware of their surprise.

  He smiled grimly and allowed his attention to stray temporarily from his patient as he spoke to the King.

  ‘Now, Monsieur,’ he said, ‘I do not know how you expect me to address you. To me you are simply the good papa of my patient. You are anxious because your son is very ill. But cheer up, Papa! Your boy is going to be well soon.’

  Louis laid his hands on the doctor’s shoulders and said emotionally: ‘I know we can trust you. You respect no persons – only the small-pox.’

  ‘I have a great respect for my old enemy,’ said Pousse, his eyes twinkling. ‘But I have him beaten. I and the nurse have got the better of him this time.’

  ‘His nurse,’ said the King, ‘is the Dauphine.’

  ‘The patient’s wife, eh?’ said Pousse; and a slight grin formed on his lips. ‘I have no doubt that I have not addressed her as a lady in her position expects to be addressed. But Papa, I have a fondness for my little nurse that I could have for no grand lady. I shall send the noble Parisiennes to her when their husbands are sick, that they may learn what is expected of them. She is a good girl. And I am shocking you, Monsieur, by my lack of respect for the members of your family.’

  ‘Save the Dauphin,’ said the King, ‘and you will be my friend for life.’

  * * *

  There was great rejoicing throughout the Court, for the Dauphin had recovered. This was due, it was said, to the skill of Dr Pousse and the unselfish devotion of the Dauphine.

  No one could have been more delighted than the Dauphine. She felt that this illness of her husband had bound them closer than ever; she rejoiced because, since she must always be a little jealous of her predecessor, she could say to herself: Marie-Thérèse-Raphaëlle never nursed him through small-pox at a risk to her own life. Now she had an advantage over that first wife who had commanded the young affections of the Dauphin and had died at the height of his passion after only two years of marriage, so that she was engraved for ever on his memory – perennially young, beautified by distance, an ideal.

  As for Dr Pousse, he received a life pension for his services.

  The Marquise de Pompadour added her congratulations to those of the Court, but these were received coldly by the Dauphin and, because she deplored his determination to regard her in the light of an enemy, she decided that she would be more ostentatious than any in the general rejoicing.

  So she planned a fête at Bellevue.

  The entertainment was to be more lavish than anything hitherto achieved. Fireworks were always popular and could be very effective; the Marquise planned a lavish display with a pageant to symbolise the Dauphin’s recovery.

  There was to be a Dolphin (the Dauphin) among sea-serpents and other monsters of the deep, which were to breathe fire over the Dolphin. The fire, explained the Marquise, was to represent the small-pox. Apollo would appear to smite the fire-breathing monsters, and the Dolphin would then be seen among charming nymphs.

  The Dauphin had lost none of his dislike for the Marquise during his illness; indeed he had emerged from his ordeal even more puritanical. He was not to be wooed by such pageants. However he could not refuse the invitation to Bellevue and, while the pageant given in his honour was in progress, he sat, watching it, surrounded by his friends.

  ‘The Dolphin bears some resemblance to yourself,’ said those companions, who greatly feared a friendship between the King’s son and the King’s mistress, ‘but how hideous the creature is! It is a caricature, meant to bring ridicule on Your Highness.’

  ‘Look at the sea-monsters! They breathe fire. They are meant to represent the people. This is monstrous. The people love the Dauphin. Madame Catin will never persuade the Court otherwise, however much she tries.’

  ‘Depend upon it the lady is trying to make the Dauphin look a fool while she pretends to honour him. This is a trick worthy of her.’

  The Dauphin listening allowed himself to grow more and more furious with the Marquise.

  When the pageant was over he abruptly left Bellevue for Versailles, and everyone knew that this attempt of the Pompadour to placate the Dauphin had been a miserable failure, because the Dauphin was determined not to be placated, and was going to carry on the war against the Marquise until his or her death or her dismissal from Court.

  All waited for the retaliation to what he chose to consider as an insult to his dignity.

  It came a few days after the fête at Bellevue, when the Marquise, attending a reception in the Dauphin’s apartments, was kept standing – for she could not sit without the Dauphin’s permission – for two hours.

  Never before this had the Marquise allowed the Court to observe her physical weakness. This time it was impossible to do otherwise. She was almost fainting with fatigue at the end of two hours.

  The King was annoyed when he heard what had happened, for he knew that, in arranging the fête, the Marquise had had no thought but to win the Dauphin’s friendship. That burst of affection, which he had felt for his son when he had thought he was dying, was petering out. He felt irritated with the self-righteous attitude of his son towards his father’s mistress.

  There was only one way of preventing the repetition of such an occurrence. That would be to bestow the highest honour at Court upon the Marquise – the tabouret – which would enable her to sit in the presence of royalty.

  The King hesitated. To bestow such a high honour on the Marquise would cause a rumble of discontent through the Court. He was unpopular in Paris; he did not wish that unpopularity to extend to his immediate circle.

&n
bsp; A tabouret for the Marquise! He must brood for some time on such a matter for, dear as she was, he must remind himself of her origins.

  * * *

  There must be an official celebration of the Dauphin’s recovery, which would necessitate another journey into Paris.

  There would be the ceremonial drive from the Château into the city, and the thanksgiving service at Notre Dame. The King’s ministers, knowing the trend of opinion in Paris and the fast continued growth of the King’s unpopularity, hastily reduced the price of bread, hoping that by so doing they could ensure a loyal greeting from the Parisians.

  Louis set out without any enthusiasm for the journey. Heartily he wished that he was taking the road to Compiègne instead of the one through Paris.

  The Queen in her carriage came behind him. She had no such fears, for she knew that the people regarded her as a poor ill-used woman, and that the more they hated the King, the greater was their sympathy for her.

  A few people at the roadside shouted ‘Vive le Roi!’ as the King drove by, but that happened outside the city; as soon as they entered the streets of the capital there was nothing but sullen silence.

  The service over, the drive back began, and again that sullen silence was encountered. The King’s carriage passed, and as the Queen’s came near to the Pont-du-Jour a man with haggard face and ragged coat broke through the guards and leaped on to it.

  He threw a piece of black bread into the Queen’s lap and shouted: ‘Look, Madame! This is the sort of bread we are asked to pay three sous the pound for!’

  The Queen stared at the bread on her lap while the man was dragged from the coach.

  The horses were whipped up, a sullen murmur broke from the crowd. The King and the Queen heard the words: ‘Three sous the pound for bread we cannot eat! Bread . . . bread . . . give us bread . . .’

  It seemed that there could not be a royal visit to the city these days without some such demonstration.