The Road to Compiegne (17 page)

The Marquise stood by the bedside of her ten-year-old daughter. She did not weep. There was nothing she could do to bring her child back to life.

Alexandrine, in whom all her hopes were centred, had been the only child left to her. And there would never be another; she believed Quesnay was right when he had told her that.

The Mother Superior came to stand beside her. ‘Madame la Marquise,’ she said, ‘this is a great shock to you. Pray let me conduct you from this room, that you may rest awhile.’

‘No,’ said the Marquise, ‘leave me with her. Leave me alone with her.’

When the Mother Superior and the nuns retired, the Marquise went to the bed and took the rigid little body in her arms.

Yesterday this child had been alive and well. Today she was dead. There seemed no reason for this. It was one of the cruellest blows which could have befallen her. A seemingly healthy little girl suddenly taken with convulsions, and within a few hours dead!

‘Why?’ demanded the Marquise. ‘Why should I suffer so?’

The people of Paris would say it was retribution for her sins. She had left this child’s father to go to the King. Was it because of this that she had lost her son and her daughter? Would the people of Paris be right when they said – as she knew they would – that this was the punishment of a sinful woman?

‘No,’ whispered the Marquise, putting her lips against the child’s cold forehead. ‘There was no denying my destiny. It was my fate. It was planned when I was born. Alexandrine, my little love, it would have happened even had we been living with your father in the Hôtel des Gesvres, even if I had never gone to Versailles.’

She sat by the bed, still holding the child, thinking of the future she had planned for her and how different it would be from the reality.

She would never again plan for little Alexandrine, never feel that relief because the child was not beautiful, never say, I wish her to find the peace which was denied me. There would be no future on earth for little Alexandrine.

The Marquise went to Bellevue to mourn her daughter, taking only Madame du Hausset with her. The little girl had been buried with great pomp. It was necessary that this should be so; otherwise it would be thought that the Marquise was losing her power. Deep as the present anguish might be she must constantly bear the future in mind. So the ceremony took place and was all that could be expected for the daughter of the Marquise; and now Alexandrine lay in the Church of the Capucines in the Place Vendôme.

Louis came to visit her at Bellevue.

She was touched, for she knew how he hated the thought of death and sought always to avoid unpleasantness.

‘My dear, dear friend,’ he said, embracing her, ‘I have come to mitigate your sorrow.’

She looked at him with tears in her eyes. ‘Then,’ she answered, ‘you are indeed my dear friend.’

‘Did you doubt it?’

‘I thought that it might be too wonderful to hope that you would come to see me here.’

He himself dried her tears.

‘Come,’ he said, ‘let us walk in the gardens. I want to see the flowers.’

So she walked with him and forced herself to think of matters other than that small figure lying in its tomb. Louis had come to her; he had offered solace in her grief; but he would not expect her to mourn long.

‘We miss you at Versailles,’ he said. ‘Pray come back to us very soon.’

It was a command. It was a necessity. If she did not continue to fight for her place she would surely lose it.

Within two weeks she came out of retirement and returned to Versailles.

Back at Court the Marquise sought desperately to forget the death of her child. She began to consider, more deeply than she had hitherto, this desperate state to which the country was being led by the conflict between Ultramontanes and Jansenites. She could see that revolution was in the air and, although it seemed impossible that these rumblings could shake the great foundations of Versailles, she believed that much which was unpleasant could ensue.

She herself was the most unpopular woman in the Kingdom, and she sought to win the regard of the people by studying affairs and wisely advising the King.

The Dauphin and his party were firmly behind the Ultramontanes; the
Parlement
were for the Jansenites; and the King seemed to be hovering uncertainly between the two – determined that France should not come under the sway of the Papacy, yet equally determined not to become a tool of the
Parlement
.

The Dauphine gave birth to another son during the hot month of August – this was the Duc de Berry – but such was the state of ferment in the country that this event seemed insignificant and the ceremonies, which heralded the birth of a possible heir to the throne, were dispensed with.

It became clear that some determined action would have to take place soon, as Christophe de Beaumont, the Archbishop of Paris, had become firmer in his resolve to suppress all those who did not support Unigenitus. He began by depriving confessors of their power if they failed zealously to carry out the instructions he had laid down. The Jesuits sent one of their number, Père Laugier, to Versailles with orders to preach against the
Parlement
in the presence of the King, and to demand its abolition. The Protestants of France foresaw a return of those conditions which had preceded the Massacre of the St Bartholomew and many Huguenots prepared to leave the country.

The conflict showed itself in several forms and, when the Opera Buffa came to Paris from Italy, quarrels broke out as to the merits of French and Italian music, which were a reflection of the great quarrel as to whether France should stand aloof from the Church of Rome or be governed by it.

The King often made his way to the apartments of Madame de Pompadour; the Petite Morphise and the visitors to the
trébuchet
could give him only very temporary relief from his anxieties; it was the company and opinion of the Marquise that he ardently sought.

When de Maupéou, the chief-President of the
Parlement
, asked for an audience the Marquise was firmly behind the King’s agreement to see him and, as a result of this meeting, the
Parlement
was recalled to Paris. Louis had seen that the state of unrest could not be continued and that he would be wiser to recall his
Parlement
than to place himself firmly on the side of Rome. The quarrel between King and
Parlement
was patched up, the conditions being that silence be maintained on the matter of the Bull Unigenitus and that the magistrates should deal appropriately with any who refused to keep that silence.

Thus Louis had adroitly kept his position between the two antagonists. He had recalled his Parliament to power and at the same time had made no quarrel with the clergy by renouncing the Bull.

It was a masterly stroke, and Louis was aware that his dear friend the Marquise had been instrumental in helping him make it.

With the
Parlement
recalled, the Ultramontanes were not prepared to maintain silence over the Bull, and cases of the sacrament’s being refused to dying Jansenites again began to disturb the people.

Then Louis acted with strength. Christophe de Beaumont received his
lettre de cachet
which ordered his immediate retirement to his estates at Conflans.

This was one of the biggest blows yet struck at the Ultramontane party; the Dauphin was filled with rage, the Queen with sorrow. They both believed that Madame de Pompadour was responsible, and they declared that it was not even a matter of principle with her, which might have been more forgivable; the woman was merely afraid that the domination of the Church would mean her dismissal.

The Bishop of Chartres came to Versailles to protest to Louis about the exile from Paris of Christophe de Beaumont.

‘Sire,’ he said passionately, ‘surely a bishop should reside in his diocese.’

Louis looked at him coldly and replied: ‘Then I suggest you go to yours without delay.’

The
Parlement
then announced that the Bull Unigenitus was not a rule of faith, and the clergy were forbidden to treat it as such.

With the Archbishop in exile and the
Parlement
in Paris the tension relaxed.

At this time Madame Adelaide had become astonishingly subdued, and her cunning Mistress of the Robes, the Comtesse d’Estrades (the woman who had failed to replace Madame de Pompadour with the Comtesse de Choiseul-Beaupré), determined to exploit this situation. Certain suspicions had been aroused and, recalling an occasion when, during a theatrical performance at Fontainebleau, Madame Adelaide had fainted, Madame d’Estrades believed she knew the reason for the change in the Princesse.

‘I was overcome by the heat; it was unbearable,’ Madame Adelaide had moaned.

But, reasoned Madame d’Estrades, the other ladies had not been overcome by the heat.

Madame Adelaide’s very full skirts could be concealing. Was it possible that the King’s beloved daughter was about to bring scandal to the Court?

She was not of course the only one to notice this change in Adelaide; and when the latter left Versailles for a month or so there were many to suggest the reason.

‘Was it not inevitable?’ asked certain members of the Court. ‘Adelaide was adventurous; the King refused to arrange a marriage for her, and it was, if one considered all the circumstances, only to be expected. But a scandal! Particularly if . . .’

But it was unwise to continue with such a conjecture.

Others said: ‘They say it was the Cardinal de Soubise. He and Adelaide have become very friendly indeed.’

‘The Cardinal de Soubise! But that is very shocking.’

‘Yet not so shocking as . . .’

Eyebrows were lifted; fingers were put to lips; that was something which might be
thought
, but which it would be more than one’s position – perhaps one’s life – was worth to put into words.

So Adelaide returned to Court, a little less vivacious, a little cautious, not quite the hectoring princess who had amused them before.

The King’s attitude appeared to have changed. It was clear that he no longer felt the same affection for her. Perhaps she herself was more unbalanced than she had been; perhaps she had ceased to be very young, and that outrageous behaviour which was amusing in a young person could become exhausting and wearying in an older one.

Louis revived old nicknames for his daughters. Adelaide was ‘Loque’, Victoire ‘Coche’, Sophie ‘Graille’ and Louise-Marie ‘Chiffe’. When they were children these unflattering names had been given affectionately; now it seemed that the affection had been withdrawn and they expressed Louis’ growing contempt for his daughters.

The attitude of the King could not fail to have its effect on the Court, and many were becoming not quite so respectful to Madame Adelaide as they had once been.

The King made a habit of inviting her to play on various instruments for the amusement of himself and a few friends. Like her mother, Adelaide was no musician and, also like her mother, she believed she performed excellently.

Adelaide would sit at the instruments, playing with vigour and producing a great deal of noise, while the King applauded with apparent enthusiasm; and the more inharmonious the sounds produced, the louder was the applause. The courtiers followed the example of the King and applauded with him, while Adelaide smiled complacently, refusing to believe that she was not a great musician.