‘Nevertheless,’ she declared, ‘my end is near. I sense these things, and I know it.’
She continued to live gaily, adored by her lover, writing her verses and letters, giving one brilliant entertainment after another.
When the day drew near on which she had prophesied she would die, she saw sceptical looks in the eyes of her friends, and decided to give a great banquet three days before the appointed one. It was the most brilliant of all her entertainments. She read her newest verses to her guests and told them that this was a farewell banquet.
Her lover implored her not to joke about such a serious matter, but her answer was to take a diamond ring from her finger and give it to him.
‘It is worth a small fortune,’ she said. ‘It is yours to remember me by. I have other gifts for you, mon ami. Diamonds and other precious stones. They will be of no use to me where I am going.’
Her guests joked with her.
‘Enough of this talk of death,’ they said. ‘You will give many more parties such as this one.’
Her lover tried to give her back the ring, but she would not take it, and two days later she pressed more jewels on him.
‘Now,’ she said, ‘I want you to go away, for I would be alone.’
He had always obeyed her, and he did so now. She smiled at him fondly, as he said: ‘Au revoir, my dearest.’ But she answered ‘Adieu!’
The next day – that which she had named as her last on Earth – she shut herself in her rooms alone and thought of the past: of all the ambition and the glory which was hers no longer and which she knew she could never regain.
She poured herself a glass of wine and slipped into it a dose of poison.
When her servants came into her room they found her, dead.
Stanislas and his wife came to Versailles from Chambord.
The ex-King of Poland embraced his daughter with tears in his eyes. Queen Catherine watched them with restraint; she had never given way to displays of affection as these two had. She believed herself to be more of a realist than her husband and daughter.
Stanislas, his arm about his daughter, had led her to a window seat, and with arms still entwined they sat down.
‘And how is the King feeling towards you now, dearest daughter?’
‘So loving, Father. It is like a second honeymoon.’
The relief of Stanislas was obvious. ‘How glad I am! I have had some anxious moments. At the time of the dismissal of the Duc de Bourbon . . .’
‘I know, Father,’ said Marie. ‘Louis was very angry then.’
‘The whole Court expected him to take a mistress. Yet he did not.’
‘I could not have borne that,’ said Marie sharply.
Her father put his head close to hers and said: ‘Yet, my child, should it come, you must meet it with fortitude.’
His brow was slightly wrinkled; he was aware of his wife; he did not wish her to be reminded of his own peccadilloes, for he himself had found it impossible to live without women. His wife was a prim woman and he feared that Marie – much as he loved her – might be the same.
‘Louis is young and virile,’ murmured Stanislas. ‘Such matters could be unavoidable.’
Marie laughed. ‘I have something to tell you, Father.’
Stanislas took both her hands in his and kissed them. ‘Again?’ he said.
‘Yes, Father, I am already pregnant.’
‘It is excellent news. We will pray that this time it will be a Dauphin.’
‘Louis is enchanted!’ cried Marie.
‘Keep him so, my child. And remember, the more children a Queen bears, the stronger is her position. There must be many children, for children fall an easy prey to sickness. One son . . . two . . . three . . . You cannot have too many.’
Marie nodded. ‘It shall be so,’ she said. ‘It is what we both wish.’
The babies were brought in, and Madame Première and Madame Seconde kicked their fat little legs and gurgled and screamed to the delight of all who beheld them.
The King joined them, and his pride in his daughters was obvious.
Stanislas, watching Louis and Marie together, prayed that Marie would take the right course when the mistresses appeared – as it seemed inevitable they would.
There he stood, the handsome King of France – his features so beautiful as to be almost feminine; yet there was a certain sensuality beginning to dawn on that handsome face. How graceful he was, how perfect his poise and manners! Even Stanislas could see that Marie seemed rather stocky beside him, lacking his grace, rather like the daughter of a prosperous tradesman than the daughter of a King.
Yet, thought Stanislas, my darling girl has the most important of all qualities a Queen should possess. Already she has produced twins and there is another child on the way.
Let her find content in her children, thought Stanislas, and resignation to accept whatever must come to her. That is the way for Marie Leczinska to remain firmly on the throne of France.
Chapter V
MADAME DE MAILLY
All through France there was rejoicing, for on a September day in the year 1729 the Queen gave birth to the Dauphin.
The child was doubly welcome for the baby who had been born in the year following the arrival of the twins, had been a girl – Louise-Marie, Madame Troisième.
The Queen had come triumphantly through the ordeal. She had shown the people that she could bear children – in 1727, the twins, 1728 Madame Troisième, and now in 1729 the Dauphin. Who could ask more than that?
The bells were ringing throughout Paris and the people were determined to make these celebrations excel those which had taken place in honour of the girls. The fireworks were more dazzling, the illuminations brighter. As soon as darkness fell boats bearing lights passed along the river, and the people danced and sang in the streets.
When the King went to Notre Dame for the thanksgiving service the crowds cheered him as even he had never been cheered before. They were delighted with their King – handsome and gracious, he had again proved his virility. They had not been pleased when such a godlike creature married a plain woman of little importance, yet even the marriage was proving successful. Four children in three years! It was as though Providence had sent the twins as a sign of the fertility of the Queen.
Louis insisted that the little boy should have for his governess the person whom he considered most suited to the task, one whom he had loved all his life: Madame de Ventadour.
And as she took the child in her arms immediately after his baptism by the Cardinal de Rohan, she looked at the little figure with the ribbon of Saint-Esprit wrapped about him, and tears came into her eyes for, as she said, it was as though her dearest one was once more a baby.
The next few years passed pleasantly for the King, and slightly less so for the Queen.
She was being more and more deprived of the King’s society. She realised that she could not mix happily with his friends; Marie found much at Court to shock her.
The King was a faithful husband – though a demanding one. Yet in spite of this, morals at the Court were in the Queen’s eyes outrageous.
One of the leading lights was Louis Armand du Plessis, the Duc de Richelieu, who was notorious for his love affairs and who had papered the walls of his apartments with pictures of the nude female form in attitudes which he considered amusing. The Queen remembered that before she had seen this man – he had been away from the Court on a mission to Vienna – she had heard that two women had fought a duel for his favours. It was said that he had begun his rakish career in his very early youth at the Court of Louis Quatorze, and his first mistress had been the Duchesse de Bourgogne, the King’s mother.