‘He has gone on a holiday! But he did not ask if he might go.’
‘He has gone for a long, long holiday, Sire. And I thought it best that you should not be grieved by sad farewells.’
Louis, looking into his uncle’s face, understood.
Tears came to his eyes; he had loved the old man who had flattered him so blatantly.
But Orléans was embracing him. ‘Dearest Majesty,’ he said, ‘you grow too old for such companionship; you will find the greatest pleasure in life awaiting you.’
Louis turned away. He wept all that night for the loss of poor Papa Villeroi. But he knew it was useless to demand his return. He must wait for that glorious day when it would be his prerogative to command.
There was little time for grief. Life had changed abruptly. Louis had a new Governor, the Duc de Charost; life at Versailles became staid, as it had been during the last years of Louis Quatorze. But the King passed from one ceremony to another.
In the autumn he was crowned at Rheims, and immediately after the coronation there was another ordeal to pass through which was very distasteful to him.
Many had come into Rheims to see the twelve-year-old boy crowned King of France; and among them were the maimed and the suffering. They were encamped in the fields close to the Abbey of Rheims awaiting the arrival of the King. Louis, seeming almost supernaturally beautiful in his coronation robe of cloth of gold, his dark-blue eyes enormous in his rather delicate face, his auburn hair hanging in natural curls over his shoulders, must walk among those sick people; he must stop before each, and no matter if their bodies were covered with sores, he must place the back of his hand on their cheeks and murmur that as the King touched them so might God heal them.
Watching him, the hearts of the sick were uplifted, and emotion ran high in the fields of Rheims. This boy with his glowing health and his beautiful countenance was chosen by Providence, they were sure, to lead France to greatness.
Louis longed to be at peace in Versailles, but before returning there he must be entertained at Villers-Cotterets by the Duc d’Orléans and, because the Bourbon-Condés could never be outshone by the rival house of Orléans, he must be similarly and as lavishly entertained at Chantilly.
Next February the King embarked upon his fourteenth year and he was considered to have reached his majority. More festivities there must be to celebrate his coming of age; and in honour of this was held the lit de justice in the Grande Chambre where he solemnly received the Great Seal from the Regent.
Orléans remained the most important minister in France. It was not forgotten that should the King die without an heir he was next in the line of succession. His greatest rival was the Duc de Bourbon, who yearned to step into his shoes.
Bourbon was far from brilliant. He was thirty-one and his mother was one of the bastards of Louis Quatorze; he could therefore claim to be grandson of the old King, which he never forgot nor allowed anyone else to forget. He was possessed of great wealth and Chantilly was one of the most luxurious houses in France. He devoted much of his time to eating and making love; the rest he spent in asking himself why he should not one day oust Orléans from the post he held and occupy it himself.
He was in continual fear that the King would die and Orléans take the throne, thus frustrating his own ambitions.
Extremely ugly, he had little to attract women but wealth and his titles; and it was largely due to his mistress, Madame de Prie, that ambition had been born in him. Tall and gaunt, his legs were so long and fleshless that he looked as though he were walking on stilts. Being so tall he had formed a habit of stooping, which had made him round-shouldered and, as though he were not unprepossessing enough, when he was young he had had an accident while riding, and this had resulted in his losing an eye.
Yet Madame de Prie, one of the loveliest women at Court, had become his mistress, and it was Madame de Prie’s ambition to be the power behind the throne.
Louis she did not consider – he was but a child. She determined that her lover should take the place of Orléans as first minister of France; and as the King was not yet fourteen that would mean that the Duc de Bourbon would be, in all that mattered, ruler of the country.
Bourbon, recently widowed, allowed Madame de Prie to dominate him. This woman, wife of the Marquis de Prie and daughter of a very rich financier, was a born schemer; and although Bourbon would have preferred to feast with her and to make love, he allowed himself to listen to her schemes and to agree with them.
Orléans knew what they planned. He was as determined to foil the schemes of Madame de Prie as she was to carry them out. The possible death of the King held no such qualms for him; for if Louis died, he would take the throne, and when he himself died there was his son, the present Duc de Chartres, to succeed him.
It was true that the Duc de Chartres was more interested in religion than in politics. What did that matter? The Duc d’Orléans did not see how his family could fail to remain in power to the detriment of the Bourbons.
One evening, reviewing this situation and enjoying a great deal of satisfaction from it, he sat in his room in the lower part of the château – for he occupied those apartments which had been used by the Dauphins. Very soon he would go to the King’s apartments and present him with certain papers to sign, but it was not yet time to do so and he grew drowsy.
He was vaguely depressed. It was so quiet in his quarters that he seemed to slip into a dream of the past. He was thinking of his daughter, the Duchesse de Berry, who had recently died – he had loved her passionately and her death had overwhelmed him with grief – when a page came to tell him that the Duchesse de Falari had called to see him.
The Duchesse was one of his mistresses, who had lodging in the Palace. He had kept but a few at Versailles since the orgy in the park, after which life at the château had been so staid.
He had asked that she be brought to him, for it seemed that, in his present mood, she, who was noted for her vivacity, was the sort of companion he needed.
‘Come, my dear,’ he said. ‘Sit down awhile with me. I was feeling a little depressed. I am sure you will cheer me.’
‘Depressed!’ cried the Duchesse. ‘But why so? What is there to depress you, Monsieur le Duc . . . you, who are said to be next to the King in all but name?’
‘Ah,’ replied Orléans, ‘such a remark would at one time have pleased me greatly. Alas, I must be growing old, for my thoughts tonight have strayed beyond affairs on Earth.’
The Duchesse looked at him in alarm and he went on: ‘Do you believe that there is a life after death?’
The Duchesse was now quite startled. This was the man who had taken Rabelais to church that he might amuse himself during Mass!
‘You are ill?,’ she said.
‘I asked a question.’
‘Do I believe in a life after death?’ she mused. ‘Yes, I do.’
‘Then why do you live as you do here on Earth?’
‘Before I die,’ she answered, ‘I shall repent. That is the way of the world. Were I to repent now, I must reform my ways. Oh, what a dismal prospect! Do you not agree?’
He did not answer. ‘Do you not agree with me?’ she repeated.
Then she saw that he had slipped sideways in his chair.
She bent over him in alarm and understood. She rushed out of the apartment calling for help; but by the time it arrived the Duc d’Orléans was dead.
Louis wept bitterly. His genial Uncle Philippe . . . dead! Life was too cruel. He had been taken from Madame de Ventadour; Papa Villeroi had been torn from him, and now Uncle Philippe was dead. There was only one to whom he could turn: Fleury. His tutor now occupied first place in his affections; and Fleury was there to comfort and advise.