‘Bah!’ said the Duchesse. ‘He’ll be tired of that in a week or so.’
‘Perhaps, but a great deal can happen in a week or so. And since Madame Calas has been re-instated she has determined to attack me.’
‘As a gnat might try to attack a bull.’
‘There are small insects whose sting contains poison, remember.’
‘What do you propose to do?’
‘Curb the King’s love for his little daughter-in-law. Wipe the scales of pity from his eyes. Let him see her as she really is. In other words bring back the healthy contempt he has always had for her and the now sainted Dauphin.’
‘How will you do this?’
‘Give him another little friend.’
‘And you have chosen her?’
‘We both chose her long ago. Tell me, has he shown any interest?’
‘But little. The only woman he seems to be interested in now is young Etiennette Muselier. I heard she was pregnant.’
‘Such a woman need not disturb us.’
‘No, but she satisfies him in his present mood.’
‘And he shows no interest in you?’
‘No more than he does any other at Court. That Esparbès woman is very alert.’
‘We must certainly watch her. I believe at this moment that Louis could be lured into a liaison and continue it through habit. You know it was largely habit with Pompadour.’
‘What do you suggest?’
‘This. Tonight I will do my utmost to see that he drinks deep. After the coucher be ready to slip up to his bedchamber by way of the private staircase.’
‘And Le Bel, Champlost and the rest?’
‘Leave them to me. Le Bel is the only one we need consider. I will tell him that I have heard of a beautiful creature who would interest the King. While he is off on the hunt, you will slip into the royal bedchamber.’
‘And then?’
Choiseul burst into loud laughter. ‘Then, sister, the matter will be in your capable hands.’ He was serious immediately. ‘And remember this. We must lure him from the Dauphine. I mean to relegate her to obscurity. In a short time, if we work together, she will have no more power at Court than the Queen. If she is allowed to gain influence with the King she will frustrate all my plans. Tonight, sister, you must succeed.’
‘Never fear, brother. You remember when we were both young and talked of making our fortunes, when we planned in our poverty-stricken château . . .’
‘Which,’ mused the Duc, ‘you called Château Ennui.’ She nodded and went on: ‘I always said that when I wanted something I would get it.’
Choiseul smiled fondly at his sister. He did not see that she was big, raw-boned, coarse-complexioned and lacking in those feminine charms which the King found so appealing; he only saw the woman he most admired in the world and who he believed could not fail.
Louis lay drowsily in bed. The coucher was over, the curtains drawn.
He felt desolate. Today he had seen a funeral pass when he was out hunting. Funerals had a morbid fascination for him. Often he would stop a cortège and ask what had caused the death.
Today he had received an answer which had made him very uneasy: ‘Hunger, Sire.’
He had galloped quickly from that spot, but the hunt had been spoiled for him.
He was growing old, he supposed. He could not pass over what was unpleasant as easily as he once had. It was due to these deaths around him. The Marquise. His own son.
It was small wonder that he had needed little persuasion to drink too heartily.
He was not sorry that he had. It might be conducive to sleep.
He was aware of a movement in the room, a rustle of the bedcurtains.
‘Who is there?’ he demanded.
The curtains were drawn aside, and a far from charming woman looked down at him. She was smiling lasciviously. He thought her most unattractive, her hair loose, her dressing-gown open to disclose the flimsy bedgown.
‘Madame de Gramont,’ he said coolly, trying to emerge from the fumes of alcohol which made him feel so drowsy, ‘what do you want?’
‘I found it impossible to stay away any longer, Sire.’
She had come closer.
‘You have a request to make?’
He heard her throaty laughter, and perhaps because she believed he was going to command her to go away, and she was determined to stay, she leaped upon him and seized him in her strong arms.
He thought wildly for a moment that she had come to assassinate him, but Madame de Gramont was making her intentions clear; those suffocating hugs were meant to portray affection, those great masculine hands, desire.
‘I pray you,’ he began, ‘in the morning . . .’
But she was a determined woman, and he struggled a little, but not very much. It was a piquant situation, quite unique in his experience, and he felt too languid to do anything but allow himself to rise to the occasion.
The King was still a little bewildered in the morning, and at the lever he whispered to the Duc de Richelieu, who was handing him his shirt: ‘Last night I was ravished in my bed. I must tell Choiseul to keep his sister in better order.’
Richelieu was alert. ‘Could not Your Majesty have called for help?’
‘The attack came so suddenly, and she was so overpowering. There seemed no alternative but to submit.’
This was serious, thought Richelieu. Choiseul had his hands firmly on the reins of Government; if his sister took the place of Madame de Pompadour there would be a sphere of influence about the King which it would be impossible to penetrate. Richelieu was not without his ambitions.
He would seek out that enchanting little Esparbès. Gramont could stand little chance against that dainty creature, and the rape of the King could only succeed if it were accompanied by indifference in an intoxicated victim and an element of surprise.
Madame d’Esparbès was plump and frivolous, petite and very feminine.
‘Was there ever a woman made in more direct contrast to the ravisher of Your Majesty?’ whispered Richelieu.
Louis watched the young Comtesse; she was leaning her arms on the table, peeling cherries. They were very white, and perfectly formed; it was said that Madame d’Esparbès had the most beautiful arms at Court.
Louis felt listless, but he realised that he must do something to escape from the Duchesse de Gramont. He could dismiss the woman from Court, but that would offend Choiseul, and he looked upon the Duc as the most clever of his ministers and one whom he could not afford to do without.
The simplest way, Louis supposed, watching the plump tapering fingers with the cherries, was to install someone else in that place which Madame de Gramont coveted.
Inwardly he shivered. It had been an unusual experience and for that he did not entirely regret it. But robbed of the element of surprise and novelty it could only have been repulsive; and he must find immediate protection from that rapacious woman.
Madame d’Esparbès was giving him one of her dewy smiles. She was a sensual little animal; he had heard of her adventures with others. He believed that she would be quite amusing.
He returned the smile and with a gesture invited her to change her place for the one beside him.
When supper was over he had made arrangements that she was to come to his bedroom immediately after the coucher.
Le Bel would stand on guard so that, should unwelcome visitors approach, they could be told that the King was engaged.