The Road to Compiegne (55 page)

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 smallpox.’

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.

For fifty-nine years he had been King of France. And what had he made of those years? What was he leaving behind him?

Now that he was dying events took on a greater significance. Was that because now he forced himself to look at them, whereas previously he had always turned away?

Vividly he remembered that period of riots in Paris, when the people had said he stole their children so that he – or his favourites – might bathe in their blood. How he had hated the people of Paris then! That was when he had built the road from Versailles to Compiègne, so that he could avoid visiting his capital except on State occasions.

The road to Compiègne! It should never have been made. He should have gone back to Paris . . . again and again. He should have won the love of the people of Paris, not their hatred. Won it? There was a time, when they had called him Well-Beloved, when it had been his. He should have served his subjects. Instead of fine
châteaux
, instead of extravagant
fêtes
, instead of establishments such as the Parc aux Cerfs, there should have been bread for the people, abolition of unfair taxes – a happy country.

He saw his life winding back behind him like a road he had traversed . . . the long and evil road to Compiègne.

And what of the legacy he had left to his grandson? Poor, shuffling,
gauche
Louis XVI! How would he ride the storm which his grandfather, so concerned with his pleasures, had been too selfish to prepare for?

He had seen trouble ahead. He had smelt revolution in the air like the smell of smoke from a distant fire. There had been occasions when it had seemed very near.

But he had always consoled himself.

There is trouble brewing, he had thought. It will come some time. The people are changing. They no longer believe in the Divine Right of Kings. The philosophers, these writers – they are bringing new ideas to the people.