Louis the Well-Beloved (25 page)

So during those months Madame de Vintimille was constantly at the side of the King. Her arrogance and outspokenness endeared her to him, for he admired her alert mind and he appreciated her sincerity.

She was clever and there was no doubt that she brought a brilliant mind to the study of state affairs. Louis found that with her beside him the position of King in such times, although bringing with it its anxieties, was a very interesting one.

Although there were often quarrels, she meant more to him than had any woman he had so far known and he was very much looking forward to the birth of their child.

‘You are sour and spiteful,’ Louis told her on one occasion. ‘There is one thing which would cure you: You should have your head cut off. You have such a long neck. It would suit you. Your blood should be drained off and lambs’ blood substituted.’

‘What nonsense you talk!’ snapped Madame de Vintimille. ‘Of what use should I be to you, headless? And if you want a woman who mildly agrees with you on all occasions, pray say so, and I will return to the Abbaye de Port Royal.’

Louis laughed at her. ‘You would die rather. Ah, now I know a way of revenge: Send you back to your convent.’

‘Very well, send me back and I’ll send you back to boredom.’ It was a good answer and it delighted him.

‘I shall never send you away,’ he said. ‘For ever you shall remain here at my side.’

Then she smiled, thinking of the honours that should be given to this son of hers whom she could feel moving within her.

It was August of the year 1741, and Madame de Vintimille had made all the necessary preparations for her confinement. She wanted the birth of her child to be of as much account as the birth of a Dauphin. That self-willed boy in the royal nursery was now twelve years old, apt to strut, full of his own importance.

A few days before the child was due to be born, while she was staying at Choisy, she felt suddenly so exhausted that she retired to her bed and when her women saw how drawn she looked, they were alarmed. Had her pains started? No, she told them, they had not. She merely felt very weary. She would rest and be quite well in the morning.

Her women noticed that she had started to shiver, and that her hands were burning.

‘Madame has a fever,’ said one.

‘It is to be hoped not . . . at such a time.’

‘Oh, she will recover. She has determined to have a healthy child – so how could it be otherwise?’

But during the night there was consternation among her servants, for she was slightly delirious and seemed to think she was plain Mademoiselle de Nesle living in a convent.

In the morning the King called on her, and was horrified at the sight of her; she did not even know him.

‘She must not stay here,’ he said. ‘She must be brought to Versailles. There she will have the best of attention. There her child shall be born.’

So a litter was improvised and Madame de Vintimille left Choisy for Versailles. When she was brought to the château the Cardinal de Rohan hastened to put his apartments at her disposal, and thither she was taken while the King summoned his doctors.

She lay for a week, burning with fever in this state of exhaustion, and at the end of that time her child was born.

It was a boy. Naturally, said the Court. How could it be otherwise when Madame had decided it should be so? Now she would recover.

But she continued in a state of semi-oblivion, and it was necessary for others to look after the introduction into the world of this boy for whom his mother had planned so much. Had she been conscious she would not have been pleased by that reception. The Comte de Vintimille made a protest that the child, whom they were attempting to baptise as his, was certainly not his son. Louis however commanded that he should withdraw that protest. Monsieur de Vintimille did so, somewhat sullenly, but his important relations, the Cardinal de Noailles and the Marquis de Luc were present at the baptism.

Still Madame de Vintimille did not recover; instead her fever grew worse, and less than a week after the birth of her son, she died.

Louis was bewildered. She had seemed so full of life, and their tempestuous relationship had been of such short duration. He could face no one; he wanted to be alone with his grief. He wept bitterly, reliving scenes from their life together. Mass was said in his bedroom, for he could not face his friends in the first agony of this sorrow.

The Queen came to his apartment. Gently she expressed her sympathy.

‘I know,’ she said, ‘what regard you had for Madame de Vintimille.’

The King gazed at her with leaden eyes.

‘Louis,’ she went on, ‘you must not give way to your grief in this way. You have your duties.’

He looked at her most angrily. ‘She was young . . . She had more vitality than the rest of us. Why . . .
why
? . . .’

‘God has his reasons,’ said the Queen significantly.

Louis looked at her in horror. Then he said: ‘I thank you for coming. I should be happier alone.’

Marie left him, but she had set him thinking. Was this God’s vengeance, his punishment for the sin he and Madame de Vintimille had committed? Then he forgot his own fears in the contemplation of his mistress, struck down without time for repentance. What was happening to her now? He was left; he had time to repent. But what of her?

He felt full of remorse. I should not have made her my mistress, he told himself, forgetting her determination to fill that position. Had I not, she might have returned to her convent – innocent as she came from it. Here was an added lash with which to torment himself.

There was another visitor. It was the Comtesse de Toulouse, who embraced him with that half-sensuous, half-motherly affection which she never failed to offer on every possible occasion.

‘My beloved Sire,’ she murmured; ‘what can I say to you? How can I comfort you?’

There was comfort in weeping in the motherly arms of Madame de Toulouse.

Madame de Mailly came to him. She stood at some distance, looking at him, and suddenly he knew that, of all the sympathy which had been offered to him, this of his discarded mistress was the most sincere.

‘So,’ he said shamefacedly, ‘you have come back.’

‘Yes, Louis,’ she answered, ‘as I always should if I thought I could be of use to you.’

‘You are welcome,’ he told her.

Madame de Toulouse was not very pleased to see Madame de Mailly welcomed back, but she was too wise to show this.

‘Between us,’ she said, ‘we will make you happy again.’

‘I cannot bear to be here . . . near her death-bed,’ said Louis.

‘Then we will go away,’ said Madame de Toulouse. ‘We will leave at once. Let us go to Saint-Léger. There we can be at peace.’

‘Thank you, my dear ones,’ said the King.

At Saint-Léger he continued to mourn.

He would sit for hours brooding over his brief love affair with that remarkable woman. He told himself that there could never be anyone like her; and although the motherliness of Madame de Toulouse and the unselfish devotion of Madame de Mailly comforted him they could not bring him out of his melancholy.

He felt sick with horror when he heard that, when the corpse of his beloved mistress had been taken, wrapped in its shroud, from the Palace, a mob of people in the streets had seized it and mutilated it.

The people remembered their sufferings, and they believed that the extravagances of King’s mistresses added to these. They did not blame their handsome King who, in their eyes, could do no wrong; but with bread scarce and large families to be fed, there must be a scapegoat.

Louis’ grief subsided into melancholy. Madame de Mailly would have given him comfort which she well knew how to give, but he denied himself this.

From now on, he had decided, he would change his mode of life. He was going to live virtuously. Her death had shown him what he must do. Had she not always influenced his actions?

‘Glad I am, my dear,’ he said to Madame de Mailly, ‘of your friendship, but the relationship between us must not go beyond that. From now on I shall abstain from all fleshly pleasures. I hope that by so doing I may expiate her sins . . . and my own.’

Thus passed several weeks at Saint-Léger.

Chapter VII

DUCHESSE DE CHÂTEAUROUX

A
penitent King, in the eyes of such rakes as the Duc de Richelieu, meant a dull Court. Moreover ambitious men, such as the Duc had time to be when he was not indulging in his amours, had always dreamed of promoting some woman of their choice to the position of King’s mistress, thus ensuring special favours for themselves.

The celibacy of a man such as Louis could not be of long duration. Louis did not know himself if he imagined it could be. But Louis, in many ways, was taking a long time to grow up. His natural innocence was so deep-rooted that only a long life of depravity could destroy it.

Louis had a fondness for the Nesle girls. The Marquis de Nesle had had five daughters; the family was of the old nobility and, like so many in that category, had outlived its wealth. It seemed strange that these women should appeal in a sensual way to the King. Neither Madame de Mailly nor Madame de Vintimille had been beauties; yet for years the former had remained the King’s only mistress, only to be displaced by her ugly sister.