It was a point of etiquette that only members of the royal family might die in the Château de Versailles, but Louis could not bear the thought of Madame de Pompadour’s being far from him at such a time, so he gave orders that her rooms on the ground floor should be made ready to receive her.
When the news was brought to her that the King wished her to come to Versailles, she was so radiant that even Madame du Hausset believed that she would recover – at least for a time.
‘You see, Hausset,’ she said, clinging to her friend with those arms which made Madame du Hausset want to weep every time she looked at them – for they had once been plump and rounded and were now almost fleshless – ‘you see how he loves me. We belong to each other. He makes me as royal as he is. Hausset, you see how great our friendship is.’
She was carefully wrapped in blankets and carried out to a carriage in which she made a slow journey to Versailles. The people along the road came out to see her pass; they did not greet her with hostile shouts this time; they only looked on in silence.
Even they know, she thought, that this is my last journey.
In her old apartments at Versailles she lay in her bed. The doctors shook their heads over her; they could only pass her over to the priests.
She brooded on her sins and confessed them. Incidents of the past seemed to leap out of blurred pictures and make themselves vividly clear. She saw Charles Guillaume, her husband, imploring her to return to him and their family; she saw herself turning away from his pleas, knowing only her blind ambition. She thought of Alexandrine lying on her deathbed in the Convent of the Assumption, and she remembered Mademoiselle de Romans, crying for her son.
There were many spectres from the past to mock an ambitious woman.
Louis visited her several times a day, and her doctors asked him if he would break the news that she should prepare herself for Supreme Unction, as there was little time left.
He embraced her tenderly. It was their last farewell. She must now forget her King on earth, he told her, and prepare herself to meet an even greater King. And, because of the relationship between them, those who would grant her absolution insisted that they who had committed adultery should show their repentance by never again meeting on earth.
It was inevitable. The moment had come.
‘Farewell, my dearest friend, farewell,’ said Louis with tears on his cheeks. ‘I envy you. You are going to your heavenly rest while I am left to a life which must seem empty because you will no longer be there to charm it.’
For the last time they embraced, and Madame de Pompadour was left to the ministrations of her confessors.
Madame du Hausset signed to her servants to bring the clean clothes to the bed, but the Marquise smiled wanly and waved them away.
‘No,’ she said. ‘It is not worthwhile. There is such a short time left.’
The women looked at each other. They knew that she was right.
The priest came and prayed at her bedside and when he prepared to leave she said: ‘Wait a few more moments and we will go together.’
He took her hand to bless her for the last time; she smiled and closed her eyes.
Before that day was ended she was dead.
That evening her body, shrouded in a white sheet, was placed on a stretcher and carried out of the Château de Versailles to the Hôtel des Reservoirs.
Louis himself insisted on making all the arrangements; he knew well, he said, that it was the last wish of the Marquise that she should be laid to rest in the Church of the Capucines in the Place de Vendôme, where her little Alexandrine now lay beside Madame Poisson.
Two days after her death the body of Madame de Pompadour left Versailles for the last time on its way to Paris.
It was a stormy April day and the rain was falling in torrents as the procession gathered at Notre Dame de Versailles preparatory to leaving for Paris.
With Champlost, one of his valets de chambre, beside him, Louis stood on a balcony hatless in the rain, staring after the cortège while it made its way down the Avenue de Paris. Tears flowed down his cheeks, and sobs shook his body, as memories of their long relationship assailed him. It was not easy to picture Versailles without the Marquise.
Champlost stood helplessly beside him, and Louis suddenly laid his hand on his arm. ‘Why Champlost,’ he said, ‘so you witness my grief. I shall never be completely happy again. I have lost one who has been my friend – the best friend I ever had – for twenty years. Twenty long years, Champlost.’
‘Sire, this is a grievous thing which has befallen us, and Your Majesty in particular, but you will catch a fever if you stand here thus, hatless in the rain.’
The King looked up at the sullen skies, and the raindrops and the tears mingled on his cheeks.
‘It is the only mark of respect I can show her now,’ he said.
The cortège was passing along the Avenue de Paris, and the King felt he could no longer bear to watch it.
He turned from the balcony and stepped into his private sitting-room. Champlost followed him respectfully.
The dignity of Versailles closed in on the King. Life must go on, even though the Marquise had departed.
Louis suddenly seemed to remember what etiquette demanded of him. He said almost lightly: ‘The poor Marquise is having bad weather for her journey to Paris.’
Chapter XV
MARIE-JOSÉPHE
The death of Madame de Pompadour left the King desolate. He could find little comfort, and the intimate suppers which had once been so much a feature of life at Versailles became gloomy affairs, continued from habit rather than because they gave any particular pleasure. It was the Marquise who had arranged the entertainments, who had chosen the guests, who had given all her time to making sure that the King was continually entertained. And how could any of those uneducated little girls at the Parc aux Cerfs, however passionate, however voluptuous, make him forget for more than an hour or two all that he had lost with the passing of the Marquise.
Sometimes he would say: ‘That will amuse the Marquise. I must tell her . . .’
Then he would stop abruptly and turn away.
The Duchesse de Gramont was eagerly waiting to offer him comfort, but Louis turned from her in disgust, and Choiseul, fearing his sister’s impatient exuberance, was forced to warn her to be very careful.
‘Time,’ murmured the Duc, ‘it is time he needs. Give him a month or two to mourn her and he will be tired of mourning.’
Meanwhile the King found a certain solace in the study of foreign affairs. He had little trust in any of his ministers; even Choiseul, he realised, was chiefly concerned with the well-being of Choiseul rather than that of France.
Perhaps one day, thought the King, it may be possible to retrieve our lost fortunes. If he could do that it might be that he would regain the affection of his people. He considered now what a victorious end to the Seven Years War might have meant. If France had emerged triumphant over her enemies, would the people perhaps have spoken his name with the respect they always showed to that other Bourbon, his ancestor, Henri Quatre?
He felt an enthusiasm which he had not known for years and which dulled the pain he experienced in the loss of the Marquise. He chose his secret agents – his, entirely his, unknown to anyone, even Choiseul – and dispatched them to the various Continental capitals. Their letters were seen by no one but himself.
He had come to a decision; his object should be the election to the Polish throne of a French Prince.
His grand-daughter Isabelle was betrothed to Joseph, heir to the Imperial throne. Madame Première, his daughter Louise-Elisabeth, had been right to insist on that betrothal. Poor Madame Première had died a few years before of the small-pox. The King did not wish to think of her. Death always depressed him deeply and his main desire was to escape from the memory of that more important death.