Виктория Холт - The Road to Compiegne

The King was silent. Anxiety touched the Marquise. Was this after all the moment to pursue the subject? Was she coming near to irritating the King?

‘I have a fondness for the young Comte,’ she said. ‘His appearance delights me.’

The King did not smile, and she was not sure whether he understood her meaning. His illegitimate son was amazingly like him; there were the same deep blue eyes, the auburn curls. Louis at ten must have looked very like young Monsieur de Vintimille, the Comte de Luc.

The Marquise continued: ‘He is so like his father.’

The King stopped. His brows were drawn together. Was it against the light or was it a frown? Then he spoke. ‘His father?’ he said. ‘Did you then know Monsieur de Vintimille well?’

It was as though a cold wind had suddenly sprung up to spoil the warm sunshine of the peaceful gardens. Fear touched the Marquise. She had irritated the King. He was not going to accept the boy as his son; he was not prepared to discuss the desirability of a marriage between him and Alexandrine. This was a reproach for the Marquise. Had the pleasant intimacy of the afternoon been part of a plot to wring a promise from him? Was she a place-seeker like the rest? Had he been mistaken in thinking that she offered him disinterested friendship?

‘I have seen him,’ she said lightly. ‘Sire, may I have your opinion on the English garden I am intending to have made here? I was wondering who would be the best man to take charge of such operations.’

The King’s expression cleared. It was only a momentary darkening of the perfect sky. But, thought the Marquise trying to quieten her fluttering heart, how quickly a storm could blow up.

One must choose carefully each word, each act.

* * *

The King and his intimate friends were preparing to leave Versailles for the château of Choisy. Louis was thoughtful, for Choisy had many memories for him. Now he was thinking of Madame de Mailly, his first mistress, who had loved him so dearly. Poor Madame de Mailly, she was still living in Paris – he believed in the Rue St Thomas du Louvre. He did not ask; her existing state made an unpleasant subject. He had heard that she lived in great poverty and found it difficult to find food even for her servants.

And once he had loved her. She had been the first of his mistresses, and in the early days of his passion he had thought he would love her to the end of his life. But her sisters, Madame de Vintimille and Madame de Châteauroux, had supplanted her; it was strange that those two, such vital human beings, should both now be dead, and poor little Louise-Julie de Mailly living in pious poverty in his detested city of Paris.

It was for Madame de Mailly that he had acquired the Château de Choisy – a charming dwelling, beautifully situated in a sheltered position overlooking the wooded banks of the Seine. He remembered the pleasure he had had in reconstructing it. Now it was a château worthy of a King of France with its blue and gold decorations and its mirrored walls.

There he could live in comparative seclusion with his intimate friends, headed by the Marquise. They would hunt by day and gamble in the evening. Everything about Choisy was charming; even the servants fitted perfectly into the blue and gold surroundings. Their livery was blue – of the same azure delicacy as that which was so prominent in the château decorations. He himself had designed the blue livery for Choisy as he had the green for Compiègne.

Thinking of the delights of the château he was impatient to be off.

‘I am ready,’ he said to the Duc de Richelieu, First Gentleman of the Bedchamber.

Richelieu bowed. ‘The Marquise and the Court, Sire,’ he said, ‘are assembled in readiness, knowing Your Majesty’s impatience for your azure Choisy.’

‘Then let us go.’

‘To Choisy,’ murmured the Duc, ‘most delightful of Your Majesty’s châteaux . . . made to reflect our pleasures . . .’ He gave the King that lewd look which could be said to hold a glint of insolence. ‘Alas,’ he went on, ‘there are some of us who lack the prowess of Your Majesty.’

The King smiled faintly, pretending he did not see the allusion to the Marquise.

He turned to the Marquis de Gontaut and murmured: ‘Son Excellence should not feel envious of others who lack his years. Would you not say he has had his day?’

Richelieu (universally called, somewhat ironically, Son Excellence since his return from his embassy in Vienna), turning his eyes to the ceiling, murmured: ‘Sire, I did not express self-pity. I cannot reproach myself or my fate, for I have found the secret of perpetual pleasure, which does not flag through experience, but gains from it.’

‘I trust you will share your secret with us.’

‘With none other than Your Majesty.’ Richelieu put his lips close to the King’s ear. ‘Variety,’ he whispered.

‘I shall insist,’ said Louis, ‘that you share this secret with no other. I would not have the morals of my Court worse than they already are. Let us go.’

They left the King’s bedchamber and, as they came into the Oeil-de-Boeuf, the King stepped on a paper which lay directly in his path.

He paused to look at it. Richelieu stooped to pick it up. He glanced at it and was silent. He would have screwed it up had not the King held out his hand for it.

‘I see,’ said Louis glancing at it, ‘that it is addressed to me.’

‘Some foolish lackey has put it there,’ said the Duc.

Louis read:

Louis de Bourbon, once you were known in Paris as Louis the Well-Beloved. That was because we were then unaware of your vices. You are now going to Choisy to be with your friends. It is the wish of your people that you were going to Saint-Denis to be with your ancestors.

Louis stood still for a few seconds. So, he was thinking, there were some among his people who hated him so much! It was incredible that such a short time ago he could do no wrong in their eyes. He thought fleetingly of his return to Paris after he had been with the Army in Flanders; he could still hear the applause of the people ringing in his ears; he could see the smiling faces of the crowd, the adoration they had shown for their handsome King. Then they had blamed his mistresses for his extravagances, his Ministers for his State policies. Now they blamed the Marquise de Pompadour for everything; but they blamed Louis also.

It was the reference to the tomb of his ancestors which momentarily unnerved him. They wished him dead. He was afraid of death, afraid of dying suddenly, before he had had time to repent.

They had spoilt his sojourn at Choisy. While he was there in those delicately blue, gold-mirrored rooms, he would now and then be reminded of his ancestors who had once lived as luxuriously as he was living now, but whose corpses now lay in the tomb at Saint-Denis.

His dislike of Paris was intensified. How glad he was that a road was being built to skirt the city.

Never would he enter his capital unless forced to do so. He had said that he would not, perhaps in a moment of pique; but events such as this strengthened his determination.

He screwed up the paper.

‘Come,’ he said; ‘to Choisy.’

In the Dauphin’s apartments on the ground floor of the Palace of Versailles his friends were assembling in accordance with their custom.

It could be said that there were three courts at Versailles: the King’s, the Queen’s and the Dauphin’s.

Young Louis was in his twenty-third year; and his character was entirely different from that of his father. In appearance he was more like the Queen. He lacked Louis’ good looks and courteous manners, was too plump, and took little exercise; he was extremely pious and more than a little self-righteous.

For this reason he had a great dislike of Madame de Pompadour, which, even had she not possessed such influence with the King, he would still have retained. It was shocking, he thought, to see a relationship, such as that which existed between his father and the woman, allowed to be carried on openly; and that she, not highly born, should be more or less First Minister of France was scandalous.

It was natural that the woman should be ranged against him. He wanted to see a return to power of the Jesuits, for he believed that the Church should hold sway over the State. She was bitterly opposed to such a policy because a Court in which the Church reigned supreme would very soon make the position of a woman such as herself intolerable.

Watching his guests – who treated him on such occasions as though he were already King of France – he felt a deep resentment against his father. He had forgotten the days of his childhood when the greatest pleasure he could experience was a visit from his kindly and handsome father. The King was no longer proud of his son. In fact he saw the Dauphin through cynical eyes and had accused him of dreaming of the day he would be King, as he sat with a theological book before him.

‘You like people to think you read serious books,’ the King said smiling, ‘far better than you like reading them. Why, my son, you are even lazier than I am!’

This was disconcerting, especially as there was an element of truth in the remark.

But the Dauphin knew what he wanted. He wanted to form a court in which the utmost decorum was practised. Such people as the treacherous Richelieu could have no place in his court. If men had mistresses, no one should know about it, although the Dauphin deeply deplored the fact that any man should take a mistress.

He had been very fortunate in his wives. Both had been physically unattractive women but what they lacked in beauty they made up for by their devotion to duty. Bitterly he had mourned the death of his first, Marie-Thérèse-Raphaëlle, who had died in childbirth after two years of marriage; but Marie-Josèphe of Saxony, his present wife, was as virtuous as her predecessor. She was now pregnant and he had great hopes that she would present him with a son this time. Her first child had been a girl, but they felt that they, both deeply conscious of their duty to the State, would have many children.

When his sisters, Anne-Henriette and Adelaide, arrived, the Dauphin and Dauphine greeted them with the utmost affection. They had decided that while the approval of the Queen could help them very little, these two girls could be very important to their schemes.

The King had a great affection for his daughters and it pleased the Dauphin to make use of them as spies who were welcomed into the other camp.

‘My dearest sister,’ murmured the Dauphin, ‘I pray you sit beside me and tell me your news.’

Adelaide was loquacious as usual, Anne-Henriette silent. The latter seemed more fragile than ever beside the Dauphin. It was as though she still hankered after Charles Edward Stuart, which was foolish of her. Yet, thought the Dauphin, her listlessness was to his advantage. She was ready to do and say all that was asked of her, because she did not seem to care what happened to her.

In his two sisters he had two allies, and for two entirely different reasons; the diffidence of Anne-Henriette and Adelaide’s love of intrigue were equally advantageous to the Dauphin’s party. And it was odd that their great love of their father enabled him to use them to work against him. The fact was that these two Princesses were above all jealous of Madame de Pompadour’s influence with their beloved father.

‘Maman Catin grows more unhealthy every day,’ Adelaide told him delightedly. ‘I am sure she cannot live long. Oh, what a good thing it would be for France and the King if she were dead! I cannot think why – since so much good could come of it – someone does not . . .’

The Dauphin laid a hand on her arm. ‘You are overheard. Be careful what you say.’

‘What do I care!’ cried Adelaide. ‘I say what I mean.’

‘If anything should happen to her, and it was remembered that you had uttered such words . . .’

‘Our father would never blame me for anything.’

‘You are becoming too excited, Adelaide,’ said Anne-Henriette soothingly.

‘What our father needs, since he must have mistresses, is a new one every night. The next morning they should be decapitated.’

‘What our father needs,’ said the Dauphin reprovingly, ‘is to return the affection of the Queen and live with her honourably as befits his state.’

Anne-Henriette nodded; and at that moment the Curé of Saint Etienne-du-Mont was brought to the Dauphin and introduced to him. The Dauphin received him with pleasure, for this man, who was a canon of Sainte Génévieve, had already made a name for himself by refusing the sacrament to Jansenites. Fearlessly he had proclaimed his Ultramontane opinions and had been on the verge of arrest, which could have resulted in imprisonment and deprivation of his office; but there were powerful men of the Church to uphold such as he, and the outcome of the struggle was by no means certain. His Archbishop had intervened and the Curé went free. Such men looked forward eagerly to the day when the Dauphin became King of France and they would have the support of the crown.