The Road to Compiegne

Chapter XVI DEATH AT VERSAILLES

At this time there was a great deal of excitement throughout France on account of the Calas affair which had been dragging on for years, and concerning which Voltaire, from his refuge at Ferney in Gex, had been thundering forth his abuse of intolerance.

During the reign of pleasure-loving Louis XV, there had been little persecution of Protestants in Paris and the North, but in the South of France, which was remote from the centre of culture, persecution had gone on, and Protestants were tortured and executed.

The Calas family who were Protestants had become prominent some three years previously. Monsieur Calas was a wealthy merchant of Toulouse; his wife was a noblewoman. They were the happy parents of several children and they might have continued in happy obscurity but for the fact that one of these, Louis, a boy of seven, was greatly loved by a servant of the household who was a Catholic.

This servant believed that, unless she could turn this beloved child into a Catholic, his soul would be lost. This being intolerable to her peace of mind she sought to convert him, so she began by secretly taking him with her to Mass; but later she dared to take him away from his family to a Catholic hairdresser and wigmaker in the town who agreed to hide him from his parents.

The loss of their little son brought great sorrow to the household, who sought for him in vain. But their uncertainty did not last long for, as it was a law of the Catholic Church that any child of seven or over was old enough to proclaim himself a Catholic, Louis did this, to the delight of the Catholic population of Toulouse and the consternation of his parents.

His father was summoned to appear before the Archbishop and ordered to pay certain sums of money for the boy’s keep while he had been in hiding, and to pay for him to be brought up in a Catholic household. Little Louis was then ordered to write a letter to the Archbishop demanding that two of his sisters and a young brother be taken from their home to be educated with him as Catholics.

Louis had an elder brother, Marc Antoine, a stern Protestant and bachelor of law who was debarred from practising because, to do so, he needed a certificate proving that he was a Catholic; and naturally he could not obtain this unless he changed his religion.

The problem which confronted him – either to deny his faith or give up his profession – had so depressed him that he developed unwise drinking habits in order temporarily to relieve his depression.

One of his friends, a certain Lavaysse, was also a member of a Protestant family but, because he had been brought up by Jesuits, he had not found any difficulty in following the career he wanted. Lavaysse had belonged to the Navy in which he had excelled; and a rich relation had left him a plantation in Saint Domingo to which he was about to go.

Before leaving he called at the Calas house to say his farewells. He did not exactly boast but it was natural that the depressed Marc Antoine should compare his own career with that of the successful Lavaysse, and he suddenly left the company, went up to his room and hanged himself.

When his body was discovered, the family was horrified, not only at the loss of their son, but because it was the Catholic custom to take the body of a Protestant suicide – or suspected suicide – and drag it naked on a hurdle through the town. This was considered to be a stigma which would be attached to the rest of the family for years after the event.

The lamentations of the Calas family, when they cut down the body of Marc Antoine, attracted the attention of neighbours, who came into the house to see what was wrong.

‘He has killed himself!’ cried one.

Monsieur Calas, visualising the naked body of his son being subjected to humiliation, cried out: ‘No, no! It was not suicide.’

‘So . . . it was murder!’

One of the neighbours went into the streets and shouted: ‘Citizens, come quickly! Here is a Protestant family who have murdered their son.’

Soon there was a crowd outside the house. They stormed into it, took the body of Marc Antoine, stripped it and dragged it through the streets. They seized every member of the Calas family and forcing them to march through the streets behind the body, they cried: ‘See! Here are Protestants who have strangled their own son.’

The family was thrust into prison, and the Catholic priests concocted a case against them. Marc Antoine had declared his intention of becoming a Catholic, they said, and because of this his family had strangled him. Special services were held to eulogise Marc Antoine, for the priests saw an opportunity of inciting the citizens of Toulouse against the Protestants, and such opportunities were never ignored.

They declared that the Protestants held secret tribunals in which they decided to murder all of their number who expressed the wish to be converted to Catholicism. The people of Toulouse were called upon to show their love of the true faith, which meant that they must demand persecution of the Calas family.

The case of Calas might have been merely another which chained France to the dark ages of intolerance, but for the so-called atheist of Ferney who poured out his scorn for his fellow countrymen. ‘The judgement of this Protestant family,’ declared Voltaire, ‘is all the more Christian in that it is incapable of proof.’

Calas, a man of sixty-four, was broken on the wheel. In the midst of his agony he was asked to confess, but he only declared his innocence and prayed for the forgiveness of his tormentors.

Voltaire, from Ferney on the borders of Switzerland – into which country he could escape should the French authorities decide to regard his outspokenness as treason – followed the case with great attention; he wrote to Madame Calas and asked her if she would swear to him that her husband was innocent.

Having received her reply in the affirmative, Voltaire then brought his genius into play. He was going to have the verdict against Calas reversed; not only that, he was going to put an end to religious persecution in France for all time.

He began by writing letters to Saint-Florentin, Duc de la Vrillière, who was known as the ‘Minister of the lettres de cachet’ because he allowed his mistress to sell them at fifty louis each. Artfully Voltaire suggested that Saint-Florentin must feel as disturbed by this affair as he was. Saint-Florentin, thus brought into the limelight, while protesting that the affaire Calas was a matter for the Justiciary, was made uneasy because he felt that Voltaire was shining a light on the prisons which were full of those who, because some person of influence had wished them out of the way, had received their lettres de cachet.

The campaign was fierce and long. That was what Voltaire intended it should be. The wits and savants took it up; the injustice of the punishment meted out to Monsieur Calas was discussed among the writers and philosophers.

Choiseul watched not without pleasure. He was on the side of Voltaire, eager as ever to see the Church in a subordinate position.

The force of public opinion stirred up by the fiery writings of Voltaire brought about the release from prison of Madame Calas who immediately left Toulouse to find refuge at Ferney.

This took place immediately before the expulsion of the Jesuits; and Choiseul, eager to score a trick against Saint-Florentin, released a certain young man from service in the galleys. This was Fabre, whose father had been sentenced to serve there. Fabre had made possible his father’s escape by taking his place.

When this was discovered there had been a certain outcry and a demand that such a saintly young man should be given his liberty. Saint-Florentin had retorted that Fabre had defied the law and, since he had placed himself in a position to take over his father’s service, he should do so.

Choiseul now stepped in. He had an eye for public approval. The Calas case had aroused deep feeling throughout France and he felt that a large public opinion was in favour of tolerance.

He therefore ordered that Fabre be given his freedom. Saint-Florentin was furious, but he could do nothing against the all-powerful Choiseul.

Meanwhile Voltaire’s pamphlets continued to be received in Paris, and when he heard that the Toulouse Parlement was planning to re-arrest Madame Calas he suggested she go to Paris, which was more liberal-minded than any city in France, and there plead her cause.

While Madame Calas was travelling to Paris, Saint-Florentin made a great effort to discredit Voltaire and with him his ally Choiseul.

He employed a talented writer, Fréron, to write an article, which was supposed to have appeared in an English paper, attacking the King.

Choiseul’s spies however had brought him information that this was about to be launched in Paris; whereupon Voltaire’s venomous pen produced such attacks on Fréron as to make that man quiver with rage and terror, and Voltaire had little difficulty in proving the article to be a forgery.

The Toulouse Parlement meanwhile had busied itself to bring another case against the Protestants; and when a young girl was found dead in a well, her father, a Monsieur Sirven who was a Protestant, was accused of murdering her because, the Parlement declared, it was a custom of Protestants to murder their children.

However, Voltaire’s invective and the knowledge that the all-powerful Choiseul was supporting him, encouraged others to be bold.

It was proved that the only witness in the case was a small child, who had been alternately bribed and threatened to say that she had seen Monsieur Sirven throw his daughter into the well. The truth was discovered to be that the child had been taken from her parents and put into a nunnery to learn to become a Catholic. The child had fretted for her parents and home, and because of this had been ill-treated. When she showed signs of madness she was sent home where, fearful that she should be taken back to the nunnery, she killed herself by jumping down the well.

Voltaire immediately offered refuge to the Sirven family who hastened to cross the mountains of the Cevennes and reached Ferney.

The fiery writer made the most of this and received visitors from all over the world to whom he made the Sirvens tell the story of their wrongs.

His writings had been circulated abroad, and the result was that England and Russia, probably to humiliate France, started to raise funds for the persecuted Protestants in that bigoted country.

Choiseul stepped in. He knew that he was striking a formidable blow at the Jesuits. He demanded that the Parlement of Toulouse give up the papers appertaining to the Calas case, and that it be tried in Paris.

He himself received Madame Calas and her daughters, treated them with the utmost respect, assuring them that he would be their advocate; he even put them into a carriage and had them driven round to see the wonders of the capital.

All Paris was impressed by the dignified demeanour of Madame Calas, and Choiseul knew that he had the people behind him.

All this had happened before the death of the Dauphin, and the Dauphine knew that her husband had been watching the Calas case with the utmost interest.

In the tragedy which had overtaken her she had forgotten that the case was still awaiting judgement.

Now, after the King had told her that he wished to be her friend, the news was brought to her that a verdict had been given in this case in favour of Madame Calas, who was given money and once more allowed to use the family escutcheon. This was tantamount to a declaration that her husband had been wrongfully executed.

Voltaire was exultant. He had proved the power of the pen. From that year, 1765, there were to be no more persecutions of Protestants in France.

When the Dauphine heard the way events were moving she made up her mind.

This was a further blow at that bigotry which the Dauphin had supported. Voltaire, who was called an atheist, Choiseul, who went to church merely because etiquette demanded that he should, had struck a blow against all that the Dauphin had worked for.

If she had had any doubts before, the Dauphine was now determined. She was going to stop grieving for her husband, and work as he would have worked. She would not rest until she had driven the Duc de Choiseul from the position he now held.

Having quickly become aware of the Dauphine’s animosity, the Duc de Choiseul was uneasy. He sought out his sister and suggested that they take a turn in the gardens, explaining to her that what he had to say should be said out of doors.

When they paused by the fountain, he said:

‘I feel apprehensive about the Dauphine.’

‘That little fool!’

‘Yes,’ murmured Choiseul.

‘I always thought her mild as milk,’ said the Duchess de Gramont. ‘Now she is not even that. She is weak as water.’

‘Have you noticed the King’s affection for her?’

‘The King!’

Choiseul laughed merrily. ‘He has not decided to make her his mistress, if that is what you are thinking,’ he said. ‘But he is going through a dismal period. He still thinks of the Marquise and imagines he needs comforting. The Dauphine, like the virtuous widow she is, mourns for her husband. So they put their heads together and become maudlin over their lost loved ones. It makes a bond.’

‘Bah!’ said the Duchesse. ‘He’ll be tired of that in a week or so.’

‘Perhaps, but a great deal can happen in a week or so. And since Madame Calas has been re-instated she has determined to attack me.’

‘As a gnat might try to attack a bull.’

‘There are small insects whose sting contains poison, remember.’

‘What do you propose to do?’

‘Curb the King’s love for his little daughter-in-law. Wipe the scales of pity from his eyes. Let him see her as she really is. In other words bring back the healthy contempt he has always had for her and the now sainted Dauphin.’

‘How will you do this?’

‘Give him another little friend.’

‘And you have chosen her?’

‘We both chose her long ago. Tell me, has he shown any interest?’

‘But little. The only woman he seems to be interested in now is young Etiennette Muselier. I heard she was pregnant.’

‘Such a woman need not disturb us.’

‘No, but she satisfies him in his present mood.’

‘And he shows no interest in you?’

‘No more than he does any other at Court. That Esparbès woman is very alert.’

‘We must certainly watch her. I believe at this moment that Louis could be lured into a liaison and continue it through habit. You know it was largely habit with Pompadour.’

‘What do you suggest?’

‘This. Tonight I will do my utmost to see that he drinks deep. After the coucher be ready to slip up to his bedchamber by way of the private staircase.’

‘And Le Bel, Champlost and the rest?’

‘Leave them to me. Le Bel is the only one we need consider. I will tell him that I have heard of a beautiful creature who would interest the King. While he is off on the hunt, you will slip into the royal bedchamber.’

‘And then?’

Choiseul burst into loud laughter. ‘Then, sister, the matter will be in your capable hands.’ He was serious immediately. ‘And remember this. We must lure him from the Dauphine. I mean to relegate her to obscurity. In a short time, if we work together, she will have no more power at Court than the Queen. If she is allowed to gain influence with the King she will frustrate all my plans. Tonight, sister, you must succeed.’

‘Never fear, brother. You remember when we were both young and talked of making our fortunes, when we planned in our poverty-stricken château . . .’

‘Which,’ mused the Duc, ‘you called Château Ennui.’ She nodded and went on: ‘I always said that when I wanted something I would get it.’

Choiseul smiled fondly at his sister. He did not see that she was big, raw-boned, coarse-complexioned and lacking in those feminine charms which the King found so appealing; he only saw the woman he most admired in the world and who he believed could not fail.

Louis lay drowsily in bed. The coucher was over, the curtains drawn.

He felt desolate. Today he had seen a funeral pass when he was out hunting. Funerals had a morbid fascination for him. Often he would stop a cortège and ask what had caused the death.

Today he had received an answer which had made him very uneasy: ‘Hunger, Sire.’

He had galloped quickly from that spot, but the hunt had been spoiled for him.

He was growing old, he supposed. He could not pass over what was unpleasant as easily as he once had. It was due to these deaths around him. The Marquise. His own son.

It was small wonder that he had needed little persuasion to drink too heartily.

He was not sorry that he had. It might be conducive to sleep.

He was aware of a movement in the room, a rustle of the bedcurtains.

‘Who is there?’ he demanded.

The curtains were drawn aside, and a far from charming woman looked down at him. She was smiling lasciviously. He thought her most unattractive, her hair loose, her dressing-gown open to disclose the flimsy bedgown.

‘Madame de Gramont,’ he said coolly, trying to emerge from the fumes of alcohol which made him feel so drowsy, ‘what do you want?’

‘I found it impossible to stay away any longer, Sire.’

She had come closer.

‘You have a request to make?’

He heard her throaty laughter, and perhaps because she believed he was going to command her to go away, and she was determined to stay, she leaped upon him and seized him in her strong arms.

He thought wildly for a moment that she had come to assassinate him, but Madame de Gramont was making her intentions clear; those suffocating hugs were meant to portray affection, those great masculine hands, desire.

‘I pray you,’ he began, ‘in the morning . . .’

But she was a determined woman, and he struggled a little, but not very much. It was a piquant situation, quite unique in his experience, and he felt too languid to do anything but allow himself to rise to the occasion.

The King was still a little bewildered in the morning, and at the lever he whispered to the Duc de Richelieu, who was handing him his shirt: ‘Last night I was ravished in my bed. I must tell Choiseul to keep his sister in better order.’

Richelieu was alert. ‘Could not Your Majesty have called for help?’

‘The attack came so suddenly, and she was so overpowering. There seemed no alternative but to submit.’

This was serious, thought Richelieu. Choiseul had his hands firmly on the reins of Government; if his sister took the place of Madame de Pompadour there would be a sphere of influence about the King which it would be impossible to penetrate. Richelieu was not without his ambitions.

He would seek out that enchanting little Esparbès. Gramont could stand little chance against that dainty creature, and the rape of the King could only succeed if it were accompanied by indifference in an intoxicated victim and an element of surprise.

Madame d’Esparbès was plump and frivolous, petite and very feminine.

‘Was there ever a woman made in more direct contrast to the ravisher of Your Majesty?’ whispered Richelieu.

Louis watched the young Comtesse; she was leaning her arms on the table, peeling cherries. They were very white, and perfectly formed; it was said that Madame d’Esparbès had the most beautiful arms at Court.

Louis felt listless, but he realised that he must do something to escape from the Duchesse de Gramont. He could dismiss the woman from Court, but that would offend Choiseul, and he looked upon the Duc as the most clever of his ministers and one whom he could not afford to do without.

The simplest way, Louis supposed, watching the plump tapering fingers with the cherries, was to install someone else in that place which Madame de Gramont coveted.

Inwardly he shivered. It had been an unusual experience and for that he did not entirely regret it. But robbed of the element of surprise and novelty it could only have been repulsive; and he must find immediate protection from that rapacious woman.

Madame d’Esparbès was giving him one of her dewy smiles. She was a sensual little animal; he had heard of her adventures with others. He believed that she would be quite amusing.

He returned the smile and with a gesture invited her to change her place for the one beside him.

When supper was over he had made arrangements that she was to come to his bedroom immediately after the coucher.

Le Bel would stand on guard so that, should unwelcome visitors approach, they could be told that the King was engaged.

Thus he felt safe from the attentions of the Duchesse, and he was mildly pleased to have the kittenish d’Esparbès nestling against him.

‘Oh, Sire,’ she cried, ‘tonight I have reached the summit of my dreams.’

‘I know,’ said the King, ‘that you are a lady of great experience. I believe you have slept with every one of my subjects.’

Madame d’Esparbès dimpled. ‘Oh, Sire!’ she murmured.

‘There is the Duc de Choiseul, for one,’ pursued the King.

‘But Sire, he is so powerful.’

‘And the Duc de Richelieu is another.’

‘He is so witty, Sire.’

‘Monsieur de Monville also.’

‘Such beautiful legs!’

‘I agree that Choiseul has power, Richelieu wit, and Monville shapely legs. But what of the far from prepossessing Duc d’Aumont?’

‘Oh, Sire, he is so devoted to Your Majesty.’

The King began to laugh. Madame d’Esparbès laughed with him. This was success. Anyone who could make the King laugh, especially during this period of depression, would be welcomed to share his company.

But neither the rivalry between the Duchesse de Gramont and Madame d’Esparbès, nor the antagonism which existed between the Dauphine and the Duc de Choiseul could enliven the ennui into which the King had fallen – and the Court with him. The intimate supper parties were dull affairs. There were no private theatrical performances; the Marquise was sadly missed, not only by the King.

Louis was continually reminded that he was growing old. He could not stop talking of death, and when any member of the Court died, he wanted to hear all the details. If the deceased were younger than he was, the Court could be prepared for hours of gloom.

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 for 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.