“Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be destroyed.”
Death seemed to be in the air. My charming grandfather changed visibly. He had become much fatter since my arrival yet he was more wrinkled; but the charm remained. I remember how shaken he was once at a whist party. One of his oldest friends, the Marquis de Chauvelin, was playing at one of the tables and, the game having ended, he rose and went to chat with a lady at one of the other tables. Quite suddenly his face was distorted; he gripped his chest, and then . he was lying on the floor.
My grandfather rose; I could see that he was trying to speak, but no words came.
Someone said: “He is dead. Sire.”
“My old friend,” murmured the King; and he left the apartment and went straight to his bedchamber. Madame du Barry went with him; she was the only one who could comfort him; and yet I knew that he was afraid to have her with him for fear he should die suddenly as his friend the Marquis had—with all his sins upon him.
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.”