The Duchesse was told that a gentleman of the Court had come to call upon her.
She received him eagerly, thinking that he brought a message from the King; but when he threw back his cloak she gave a cry of great pleasure, for it was Louis himself.
She flung herself into his arms and wept with joy.
‘Louis . . . my Louis . . . I knew you would come or send for me.’
‘You will come back to Versailles.’
‘I have been so humiliated . . . so cruelly humiliated.’
‘I know.’
She took his hands and kissed them, first tenderly and then passionately. She knew how to arouse his desire for her, a desire which obliterated everything else.
‘I must come back,’ she cried. ‘I cannot bear this separation.’
‘You shall come back.’
‘I shall never be treated with respect again while my enemies remain. Louis, must they remain? Maurepas . . . he is the greatest of them. I have felt very ill at times since I left Metz. Louis, I believe that man tried to poison me.’
‘Oh, no, he would not do that.’
‘Would he not? He hates me because he knows I hate him. Châtillon, he is another. He and his wife have made the Dauphin hate me.’
‘He shall be dismissed from Court – so shall his wife.’
The Duchesse nodded happily. ‘The Bishop of Soissons and that fool of a confessor . . .’
‘We will dismiss them all . . . if you feel you cannot return to Court unless we do.’
She held him to her; her eyes were unnaturally bright as though with fever. She felt that this was her most triumphant moment.
Louis spent the night with her at the Rue du Bac, and before he left he said: ‘You must return at once to Versailles. We are too far apart.’
‘I will return as soon as the Comte de Maurepas brings me a command from you to do so.’
Louis laughed. ‘It shall be as you wish,’ he said.
Her eyes narrowed. ‘I would have Monsieur de Maurepas know that, clever as he thinks he is, he has acted rather foolishly in proclaiming himself my enemy.’
When Louis had gone she called her sister to her.
‘Triumph!’ she cried. ‘Get ready. Soon we shall be back at Versailles. The humiliations of Metz shall be forgotten.’
‘That is good news,’ said her sister. ‘When do we leave?’ She stopped abruptly and gazed at her sister. ‘Are you quite well? You look so strange.’
‘Strange? I?’
‘Your eyes are so brilliant. They look almost glassy . . . and how your cheeks burn!’
The Duchesse turned to her. ‘I have suffered, have I not? Metz! Shall I ever forget it? But now others shall suffer as they made me suffer.’
‘Was His Majesty very loving . . . very demanding?’
‘Is he not always so?’
‘Sister, I should lie down if I were you. You are too excited. I will bring you a cool and soothing drink.’
‘Very well.’ As the Duchesse took her sister’s hand and pressed it, Madame de Lauraguais noticed how feverish she was, and anxiously hurried away for the drink. When she returned it was to find the Duchesse lying in her bed.
Madame de Lauraguais tried to make her drink, but she did not seem to understand; then she knelt by the bed.
‘I am afraid . . .’ murmured Madame de Châteauroux. ‘They will stone me. Make sure the blinds are drawn . . .’
‘The excitement has been too much for you,’ murmured Madame de Lauraguais. ‘Tomorrow you will be better.’
But next day the Duchesse was not better. She had a fever and it was clear that she was very ill indeed.
For two weeks she lay near to death. The people of Paris gathered in the market places and at the street corners to talk of her. All of them said it would be a good thing for France if she never recovered.
Many said that Maurepas had poisoned her.
At every hour of the day messengers went back and forth between the Rue du Bac and the Palace. The King, it was said, was suffering acute misery on account of the favourite.
Madame de Mailly came out of exile to visit her sister and to let her know that she bore her no ill will for her cruel conduct towards her; and the Duchesse was relieved to see her sister, to be able to receive her forgiveness in person.
‘I am going to die,’ she said, ‘and there are so many actions of mine which I wish had never been performed.’
In early December she confessed her sins and was given the last sacraments, and on the 8th of that month she died.
She was quietly buried a few days later in the chapel of Saint Michel in Saint-Sulpice at a very early hour in the morning, on the orders of the King who remembered the manner in which Madame de Vintimille’s corpse had been treated, and wished to spare his beloved Duchesse this last humiliation.
Louis was heartbroken and nothing could arouse him from melancholy.
Even the Queen sent her sympathy, and the people of Paris, who wanted to form processions that they might proclaim their delight in the death of this woman whom they hated, refrained from doing so.
‘She was arrogant and had an evil influence over the King,’ they said, ‘but for all that he loved her. To demonstrate against her cannot hurt her much now, but it would bring great pain to him.’
Hurt Louis! How could they? Was he not their adored young King, Louis le Bien-Aimé?
Chapter IX
MADEMOISELLE POISSON
There was one woman in France who received the news of the death of Madame de Châteauroux with a fatalistic calm. Something had to happen to sever the relationship between the King and Duchesse, she told herself and, although she had not expected this would be brought about by the death of the Duchesse, the cause of the severance was unimportant; it only mattered that the King was free.
When the news was brought to her at the Château d’Etioles she began making her plans. Her life’s ambition was about to come to fruition. It was quite certain that this would happen, but naturally she herself must do all in her power to bring it about.
Madame d’Etioles had been born Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson. Not a very elegant name; but then, her family had been clever rather than elegant.
Her father, François Poisson, had been a man of ideas, determined to make his fortune. There were many ways of making a fortune in Paris if one were not too particular. François was not particular.
He was a butcher – a very successful one – with a genius for getting himself contracts. He very quickly obtained one for supplying the Hôpital des Invalides with meat, but in spite of his prosperity he was not content. Bad harvests had meant a shortage of grain, and a man such as François could discover ways of exploiting situations like that.
Unfortunately when a man kept only just on the right side of the law, one false step could send him tottering onto the wrong side.
François was caught in a grain scandal and there was none who infuriated the hungry people of Paris more than those men who made themselves rich out of the citizens’ miseries. Found guilty it was necessary for him to leave the capital in a hurry before the mob laid hands on him.
This he did, leaving Madame Poisson to fend for herself and the two children – Jeanne-Antoinette and Abel.
Madame Poisson was certainly able to do this. She was a very handsome woman, a little above François socially since she had developed grand ideas from the male friends she continued to entertain after her marriage.