The Road to Compiegne (54 page)

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.’