When the news came to Antoinette that Madame Adelaide had taken the smallpox, she immediately forgot that the old lady had been far from a friend to her, and was filled with concern.
‘But it is so sad,’ she cried, ‘that she should suffer so quickly for the great sacrifice she made in caring for her father.’
She sent kind messages to her aunt, telling her that she would have come to see her had she been allowed to; but although she had had smallpox already, the King would not hear of her visiting the aunts.
Now she looked at her husband with fear. ‘You, Louis, have never had it. What if you should catch it?’
‘Then I should either recover or die.’
‘You speak of it too lightly. I have heard that there is a new treatment whereby a person is inoculated with serum from a mild case of smallpox. The person has the disease but mildly, soon recovers, and then is immune. Louis, I want you to try this.’
Louis shook his head. ‘I have my work. I must not delay carrying on with that.’
‘You will delay, and do worse than delay, if you catch this disease. Louis, to please me, to set my mind at rest, try this new treatment.’
He smiled at her slowly. He also had heard of the treatment, and he liked to try new things.
She was so eager, and when she desired something desperately he found that he wanted to give it to her. He could never forget that it was due to him that they had no children. He knew that her mother was continually writing to her of the need to have an heir – as though it were her fault. When he thought of that he felt that nothing he could do for her would compensate for the difficult position in which he had placed her.
He was determined though that he would not allow her to influence him in his new role. His grandfather had never made any great effort to show him how to be a king, but he had read a great deal of history, and it had occurred to him during the course of his reading that the wives and mistresses of many kings had been responsible for ruining their kingdoms.
That should not happen under his kingship.
When he thought of his new position he felt great desires rising within him. He had ridden through the streets of Paris and seen the squalor there. He wanted it to be said that in the reign of Louis Seize France found her greatness again. When he passed the statue of Henri Quatre on the Pont Neuf he felt as much emotion as he was ever capable of feeling. He said to himself then: One day mayhap they will set my statue on a pedestal to be beside yours; and is it possible, my Bourbon ancestor, that they will be able to say: ‘There are France’s two great Kings’?
But because he had failed to give Antoinette the child for which she longed, and because he had decided that she must not be allowed to interfere too much in politics, he wanted to give way to her on smaller matters.
Now he said: ‘Well, I will allow them to inoculate me with their serum, and we shall see what results there are.’
Antoinette clapped her hands. ‘And I will be your nurse.’
‘I am glad of that, for I will not have any servants to wait upon me who have not already had the disease.’
It was characteristic of Louis that he should be thus careful of the most humble of his servants.
There was a great deal of criticism when it was heard that the King had been inoculated. The people of Paris grumbled; the Court declared the King was mad; but Louis le Désiré was the most popular of Kings, for on the death of his grandfather he had distributed two hundred thousand francs to the poor, and he had declared that it was his intention to restore France to greatness. The people expected miracles; and they saw in this boy, who was not yet twenty, the saviour of their country.
‘Soon,’ said the poor, ‘we shall be driving in our carriages. The rich will not be quite so rich and the poor will be richer. We shall all be of equal richness. Vive Louis le Désiré! ’
And now the frivolous Queen had persuaded him to submit to a new craze. The King, newly come to the throne, was confined to his apartments with the smallpox. The people saw themselves cheated of their hero.
Provence was excited. If Louis died … He and Josèphe were almost delirious at the thought. No need to watch the frivolous Antoinette. She would be of no importance whatever, without Louis.
But Louis did not die. He recovered from his mild attack of smallpox, and having once had the disease, it was said, he would never have it again.
Provence and Artois both submitted to the new treatment. They too suffered mild attacks and quickly recovered.
The people were astonished. This was indeed a revelation – a sign of the good times ahead. Soon the world would be free from that scourge which had visited each country at short intervals and robbed so many of their lives.
The people of Paris, the people of France were in the mood for miracles.
Someone wrote on that pedestal on the Pont Neuf, on which stood the statue of Henri Quatre, ‘Resurrexit.’
The King, hearing of this, looked at Antoinette with worried eyes.
‘I mean to devote myself to my people,’ he said. ‘I mean to do good. I mean to restore morality and justice to France. But if they think that I am Henri Quatre, brought back to serve them, then they are mistaken.’
‘Why should you not be?’ demanded Antoinette.
‘There was never a King of France less like great Henri than myself.’
The depression touched him; it touched her then. Both were thinking of France’s greatest King – the libertine who had scattered his seed all over France, so that in villages and towns it was possible to recognise traces of the bold features.
And to this King, who could not even give his wife a child, the people were attributing the qualities of Henri Quatre.
‘There are times,’ said the King, ‘when I feel that the whole universe has fallen upon my shoulders.’
Everywhere were pictures of the new King and Queen. Whenever and wherever they appeared in public cheering crowds followed them.
They had taken up temporary residence in the Château de la Muette in the Bois de Boulogne, and the crowds remained outside the railings from early morning until late at night, chattering excitedly, talking of the end of the bad old days and the beginning of the good ones; demanding of each other whether it was not the pleasantest sight in the world to see this young pair together – she not yet nineteen, he not yet twenty – their new King and Queen. Two loving people to set an example to all married couples. How different from disgusting old Louis with his young girls, his Parc aux Cerfs, his de Pompadours and du Barrys to spend the public money.
Louis, full of ideals, determined to make the lot of his people happier than it had been under his grandfather, began by throwing open the gates of the Bois de Boulogne, so that the citizens of Paris could come and go at their will; and thus they saw the King and Queen constantly. They crowded about them, cheering and applauding.
The people now felt that they were closer to their new sovereigns. How different was young Louis from old Louis who remained at Versailles and never set foot in Paris if he could help it. He knew, the old villain, what his reception would be when he did, for the Parisians had never hidden their feelings.
One day Antoinette was riding in the Bois, and the King came out to meet her. The crowd, looking on, saw the lovely young girl dismount from her horse and, with charming grace, run towards her husband. Whereupon Louis laid his hands on her shoulders and before them all tenderly kissed his Queen. The people cheered; some wiped their eyes. ‘This,’ they cried, ‘is a lesson to us all. Now we shall see a new morality in France.’