His Majesty was telling her that her presence would no longer be required at court. He was suggesting that she retire to a convent.
She walked about the house, seeing afresh every small detail.
‘Well,’ she told herself, as she prepared to leave for her convent, ‘I am not the first. It has happened to many before and so often that it should not surprise me.’
So the glittering du Barry, once the most influential woman of the Court, was robbed of her glory and slipped away into retirement.
The three aunts were excited. Adelaide was wondering how best she could dominate the new King; her sisters watched her, hanging on her words.
They could not help being relieved that their father was dead. Led by Adelaide they had remained in the sick-room until the end, insisting on performing even the most menial tasks, ostentatiously risking infection. They felt now as though they wore halos about their heads; they were convinced that all their mischief-making and backbiting was righteous behaviour. How could it be otherwise when they had taken such risks in their father’s sick-room?
But now the King was dead, the King who had despised his Loque, Coche and Graille; and they, who had risked their lives to nurse him, had had the pleasure of giving him those significant martyred looks as he lay dying, to impress upon him, as they had never been able to during his life, how sinful he was to have laughed at saints such as they were.
‘The next task,’ said Adelaide, ‘is to see that the new King does not make the mistakes of the old.’
Victoire and Sophie looked at each other. ‘Poor Berry!’ said Sophie.
‘He is no longer Berry,’ said Adelaide sharply. ‘He is Louis Seize. Remember that. You must not call him Berry now; and remember too that you must not treat him like a little nephew. He is the King. What we have to do is prevent that wicked wife of his from influencing him and so ruining the country.’
Victoire and Sophie glanced at each other and nodded.
‘I am going to see him,’ said Adelaide.
‘Shall we go too?’ asked Victoire.
‘You may not go. You forget we have so recently been in the sick-room of our father.’
Victoire and Sophie looked astonished: they wanted to say that, if they had nursed their father, so had Adelaide; but they never questioned Adelaide’s decisions.
‘They will need me,’ said Adelaide, ‘and I must go to them.’
Victoire was ready to fly into one of her panics, for, although she and her sisters had been allowed to accompany the Court to Choisy, they had, on account of their recent proximity to the infection, been installed in a house outside the Palace. She knew that fifty people had already caught the smallpox from the King and that several of them had died: for it was a particularly virulent variety which had brought about the end of the King.
Sophie looked from one sister to the other, not knowing what to make of this situation. Adelaide was clicking her tongue in exasperation.
‘Do you not understand that Louis will be completely under the control of that foolish girl? And what will she do? She will bring Choiseul back. She was always a friend of his. At all costs we must stop her.’
Victoire said: ‘It is better for our young King to catch the smallpox and die, than that Choiseul should come back. There would still be Provence. He would be King then.’
Adelaide said sharply: ‘You talk nonsense. I shall have my carriage made ready at once.’
‘The King will be busy with all his new duties,’ suggested Victoire.
‘Not too busy to see his aunt – the aunt who was a mother to him!’
Sophie nodded. ‘We were mothers to poor Berry,’ she said.
Victoire looked sly suddenly. She said: ‘Adelaide, you are pale. Are you feeling well?’
If Adelaide had not been pale before, she was then. All three sisters had been watching themselves and each other for symptoms ever since the King had died.
‘I feel quite well,’ said Adelaide obstinately.
‘Sit down,’ said Victoire.
‘Why, Adelaide, you are trembling,’ put in Sophie.
‘You should rest,’ murmured Victoire, ‘instead of going to see the King.’
Adelaide was looking at them suspiciously. The memory of the sick-room came back to her. She said faintly: ‘I think I will rest before going to see the King.’
That night the news went forth that Madame Adelaide had a mild attack of the smallpox.
Provence was in his apartment alone with his wife. He had dismissed all their friends and attendants because he felt so excited that he was afraid he might betray himself.
Josèphe watched him. She knew the meaning of his excitement, and she shared it.
He said: ‘The death of my grandfather has altered our position considerably. We are only a step away from the throne.’
‘Unless, of course, the King and Queen should have a child.’
‘It is impossible,’ said Provence. He glanced at his wife and looked away quickly. ‘It would seem that there is some curse on our family.’
‘Which,’ said Josèphe, ‘does not seem to have affected your brother Artois.’
‘That we cannot say yet,’ said Provence. ‘We cannot be sure.’
Josèphe thought: If I cannot have a child, neither can Antoinette. She may be beautiful but she cannot have the King’s child for all her beauty.
‘Kings and Queens!’ said Provence. ‘They are unfortunate when it comes to getting children.’
‘Your father had three sons and two daughters.’
Provence turned to her suddenly. ‘If aught should befall Louis, then I should take my place on the throne.’
‘Yes,’ murmured Josèphe; and she saw herself riding into Paris, the people acclaiming her as the Queen, the beautiful Queen – for a little beauty in a Queen went a long way, and she would look handsome enough in royal robes of purple velvet decorated with the golden lilies, a crown on her head.
And it could so easily happen. Only one life stood between Provence and the crown, so how could they help considering the joyful fact that there could never be another life to stand as an obstacle between them, since Louis was impotent?
Provence came close to her and whispered: ‘She may try to deceive us.’
‘The Queen?’
He nodded. ‘Have you not noticed her? Have you not seen her eyes follow children in the gardens, in the Palace – any children? She has but to see them to call them, to stroke their hair; she has bonbons ready to give them; her eyes light up as she listens to their absurd prattle. I doubt not that her head is full of plans.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked his wife.
‘There are times when I think she might stop at nothing to get a child.’
‘If she adopted a child – and that is the only way she could get one – that child could not harm us.’
Her husband looked at her with contempt. ‘Adopt a child! It is not a child she wants – it is an heir. Josèphe, there must not be an heir.’
‘There cannot be an heir,’ she said.
‘With such as she is there might be.’
‘You mean …’
‘There were occasions at the Opéra ball when she disappeared for a while. Do you remember that Swede? She changed after she met him. There might be others. A little manoeuvring … you understand me?’
‘No! She would never foist a false heir on France.’
‘I know not. I know not. But I have seen desperation in her eyes.’ He bent his head and his voice sank to a whisper so that Josèphe could hardly hear. “Watch her,’ he said. “Watch her as you have never before, so that if there is a child we shall know whom to blame.’