The Queen`s Confession (20 page)

Poor Grandfather! I longed to comfort him. But what could I do? I represented youth—and by its very nature that could only remind him of his own age.

It was almost as though fate were laughing at him. The Abbe de la Ville, whom he had recently promoted, came to thank him for his advancement. He was admitted to the King’s presence, but no sooner had he begun his speech of gratitude than he had a stroke and fell dead right at the King’s feet.

It was more than the King could bear. He shut himself in his apartments, sent for his confessor; and Madame du Barry was very worried.

Adelaide was delighted. When my husband and I visited her, she talked of the evil life the King had led and that ii he were to make sure of his place in Heaven he had better send that putain packing without delay. She was as militant as a general and her sisters were her obedient captains.

I have told him again and again,” she declared.

“The time is running out. I have sent a messenger to Louise to ask her to redouble her prayers. It would break my heart if when I reached Heaven it was to find my beloved father—the King of France—locked out.”

One day soon after the death of the Abbe de la Ville, when the King was riding, he met a funeral procession and stopped it. Who was dead, he wanted to know. It was not an old person this time, but a young girl of sixteen—which seemed equally ominous.

Death could strike at any time, and he was in his middle sixties.

As soon as Easter was over, Madame du Barry suggested that he and she should go and live quietly at the Trianon for a few weeks. The gardens were beautiful, for spring had come and it was a time to banish gloomy thought and think of life, not death.

She could always make him laugh; so he went with her. He went out hunting but felt extremely unwell. Madame du Barry, however, had prepared remedies for him and she kept declaring that all he needed was rest and her company.

The day after he had left I was in my apartment having my lessons on the harp when the Dauphin came in, looking very grave.

He sat down heavily and I signed to my music-master and the attendants to leave us.

“The King is ill,” he said.

Very ill? “

They do not tell us. “

He is at the Trianon,” I said.

“I shall go and see him at once. I will nurse him. He will soon be well again.”

My husband looked at me, smiling sadly.

“No,” he said, we cannot go unless he sends for us. We must wait for his orders to attend him. “

“Briquette!” I murmured.

“Our dearest grandfather is ill and we must wait on etiquette.”

“La Martiniere is going over,” my husband told me.

I nodded. La Martiniere was the chief of the King’s doctors.

“There is nothing we can do but wait,” said my husband.

“You are very worried, Louis.”

“I feel as though the universe were falling on me,” he said.

When La Martiniere saw the King he was grave, and in spite of Madame du Barry’s protestations insisted that he be brought back to Versailles. This in itself was significant and we all knew it. For if the King’s malady had been slight he would have been allowed to stay at the Trianon to recover. But no, he must be brought back to Versailles because

etiquette demanded that the Kings of France should die in their state bedrooms at Versailles.

They brought him the short distance to the palace and I saw him emerge from his carriage for I was watching from a window. He was wrapped in a heavy cloak and he looked like a different person; he was shivering yet there was an unhealthy flush on his face.

Madame Adelaide came hurrying out to the carriage and walked beside him giving orders. He was to wait in her apartments while his bedchamber was made ready—for so urgent had La Martiniere declared was the need to return to Versailles that this was not yet done.

When he was in his room we were all summoned there, and I had to fight hard to stop myself bursting into tears. It was so tragic to see him with the strange look in his eyes, and when I kissed his hand he did not smile or seem to care. It was as though a stranger lay there. I knew he was not sincere, yet in my way I had loved him and I could not bear to see him thus.

He wanted none of us; only when Madame du Barry came to the bedside did he look a little more like himself.

She said: “You’d like me to stay, France!” which was very disrespectful, but he smiled and nodded; so we left her with him.

That day was like a dream. I could settle to nothing. Louis stayed with me. He said it was better we should be together.

I was apprehensive; and he continued to look as though the universe was about to fall upon him.

Five surgeons, six physicians and three apothecaries were in attendance on the King. They argued together as to the nature of his complaint, whether two—or three—veins should be tapped. The news was all over Paris. The King is ill. He has been taken from the Trianon to Versailles. Considering the life he has led, his body must indeed be worn out;

Louis and I were together all the time, waiting for a summons. He seemed as though he were afraid to leave me.

I was praying silently that dear Grandfather would soon be well; I know Louis was too.

In the Oeil de Boeuf, that huge anteroom which separated the King’s bedchamber from the hall and which was so called because of its bull’s-eye window, the crowds were assembled. I hoped the King did not know, for if he did he would know too that they believed he was dying.

There was a subtle difference in the attitude of those around us towards myself and my husband. We were approached more cautiously, more respectfully. I wanted to cry out:

“Do not treat us differently. Papa is not dead yet.”

News came from the sickroom. The King had been cupped but this had brought no relief from his pain.

The terrible suspense continued through the next day. Madame du Barry was still in attendance on the King but my husband and I had not been sent for. The aunts, however, had decided that they would save their father;

and they were certainly not going to allow him to remain in the care of the putain. Adelaide led them into the sickroom although the doctors tried to keep them out.

What actually happened when they entered the sickroom was so dramatic that soon the whole Court was talking of it.

Adelaide had marched to the bed, her sisters a few paces behind her, just as one of the doctors was holding a glass of water to the King’s lips.

The doctor gasped and cried, “Hold the candles nearer. The King cannot see the glass.”

Then those about the bed saw what had startled the doctor. The King’s face was covered in red spots.

The King was suffering from smallpox. There was a feeling of relief because at least everyone knew now what ailed him and the right cures could be applied; but when Bordeu, the doctor whom Madame du Barry had brought in and in whom she had great faith, heard how pleased everyone was, he remarked cynically that it must be because they hoped to inherit something from him.

“Smallpox,” he added, ‘for a man of sixty-four and with the King’s constitution is indeed a terrifying disease. “

The aunts were told that they should leave the sickroom immediately, but Adelaide drew herself up to her full height and looking her most regal demanded of the doctors: “Do you presume to order me from my father’s bedchamber? Take care that I shall not dismiss you. We remain here. My father needs nurses and who should look after him but his own daughters?”

There was no dislodging them and they remained—actually sharing with Madame du Barry the task of looking after him, although they contrived not to be in the apartment when she was there. I could not but admire them all. They worked to save his life, facing terrible danger; and they were as devoted as any nurses could be. I have never forgotten the bravery of my Aunt Adelaide at that time—Victoire and Sophie too, of course: but they automatically obeyed then-sister. My husband and I were not allowed to go near the sickroom. We had become too important.

The days seemed endless, like a vague dream. Each morning we arose wondering what change in our lives the day would bring. The fact that the King was suffering from smallpox could not be kept from him. He demanded a mirror to be brought to him and when he looked into it he groaned with horror. Then he was immediately calm.

“At my age,” he said, ‘one does not recover from that disease. I must set my affairs in order. ” Madame du Barry was at his bedside but he shook his head sadly at her. It grieved him more than anything to part with her, but she must leave him … for her own sake and for his.

She left reluctantly. Poor Madame du Barry! The man who had stood between her and her enemies was fast losing his strength. The Ring kept asking for her after she had left and was very desolate without her. I felt differently towards her from that time. I wished I had been kinder to her and spoken to her now and then. How sad she must be feeling now, and her sorrow would be mingled with fear, for what would become of her when her protector was gone?

He must have loved her dearly, for while his priests were urging him to confess he kept putting it off, for once he had confessed he would have

to say a last goodbye to her, for 149 only thus could he receive remission of his sins; and all the jb time he must have been hoping that he would recover and be able to send for her to come back to him.

But in the early morning of the 7th of May the King’s condition worsened so much that he decided to send for a priest.

From my windows I could see that the people of Paris had come to Versailles in their thousands. They wanted to be on the spot at the moment when the King died. I turned shuddering from the window; to me it seemed such a horrible sight, for sellers of food and wine and ballads were camping in the gardens and it was more like a holiday than a sacred occasion. The Parisians were too realistic to pretend that they were mourning; they were rejoicing because the old reign was passing and they hoped for so much from the new.

In the King’s apartments the Abbe Maudoux waited upon him; I heard the remark passed that it was the first time for over thirty years when he had been installed as the King’s confessor that he had been called to duty. In all that time the King had had no time for confession. How, it was asked, will Louis XV ever be able to recount all his sins in time?

I wished that I could have been with my grandfather then. I should have liked to tell him how much his kindness had meant to me. I would have told him that I should never forget our first meeting in Fontainebleau when he had behaved so charmingly to a frightened little girl. Surely such kindness would be in his favour; and although he had lived scandalously, none of those who had shared his debauchery had been forced to do so, and many had been fond of him. Madame du Barry had shown by her conduct not merely that he was her protector but that she loved him. She had left him now, not because she feared his disease but in order f to save his soul.

News was brought to our apartment of what was happening in the chamber of death. I heard that when the Cardinal de la Roche Aymon entered in

full canonicals bringing with 150 him the Host, my grandfather took his nightcap from his head and tried in vain to kneel in the bed, for he said:

“If my God deigns to honour such a sinner as I am with a visit, I must receive him with respect.”

Poor Grandfather, who had been supreme all his life a King from five years old now would be denuded of all his worldly glory and forced to face one who was a greater King than he could ever have been.

But the high dignitaries of the Church would not allow absolution merely in return for a few muttered words. This was no ordinary sinner; this was a King who had openly defied the laws of the Church and he must make public avowal of his sins; only thus could they be forgiven.

There was a ceremony in which we must all take part that his soul might be saved. We formed a procession, led by the Dauphin and myself with Provence, Artois, and their wives following us. We all carried lighted candles and followed the Archbishop from the chapel to the death chamber, lighted tapers in our hands, solemn expressions on our faces, and in my heart, and that of the Dauphin at least, a sorrow and a great dread.

We stood outside the door but the aunts went inside; we could hear the tones of the priests and the King’s responses;

and we could see through the open door that Holy Viaticum was being given to him.

The Cardinal de la Roche Aymon then came to the door and said to all who were assembled outside:

“Gentlemen, the King instructs me to tell you that he asks God’s pardon for his of fences and the scandalous example be has set his people, and that if his health is restored to him he will devote himself to repentance, to religion, and the welfare of his people.”

As I listened I knew that the King had given up all hope of life, for while he lived he would cling to Madame du Barry, and what he had said meant that he had dismissed her for the time that was left to him.

I heard him say in a slurred voice so different from the clear and musical tones which had enchanted me on my arrival:

5l I wish I had been strong enough to say that myself

That was not the end. It would have been better if it had been. But there were a few days of horror left. My fastidious grandfather 1 I hope he did not know what happened to the handsome body which had once charmed so many. Putrefaction set in before death and I heard that the stench from the bedchamber was horrible. Servants who must wait on him retched and fainted in that room of horror. His body was blackened and swollen, but he could not die.

Adelaide and her sisters refused to leave him. They performed the most menial tasks; they were with him throughout the days and nights, and they were on the verge of exhaustion, but still they would not allow anyone to take their places.

My husband and I were not permitted to go near the;

sickroom, but we must remain at Versailles until the King was dead.

As soon as he expired we should leave Versailles with all speed, for the place was a hotbed of infection. Already some of the people who had crowded in the Oeil ds Boeuf when the King had been brought over from the Trianon had taken sick and died. In the stables everything was c? ready for us. We were to leave for Choisy the moment thei King died; but etiquette insisted that we be at Versailles until that moment. In one of the windows a candle was burning; and this was meant to be a signal. When the flame was snuffed out that would be a sign to all that the King’s life was over. i) My husband had taken me to a small room and there we y sat in silence. ‘:j Neither of us spoke. He had imbued me with his sense of foreboding. He had always been serious, but never quite so much as at this time. And then suddenly as we sat there we heard a great tumult. We half rose, looking at each other. We had no idea what it could be. There were voices—raised, shouting, it seemed—and this overwhelming clamour. The door was flung open suddenly. People were running in, surrounding us.