Victoire said: ‘It is better for our young King to catch the smallpox and die, than that Choiseul should come back. There would still be Provence. He would be King then.’
Adelaide said sharply: ‘You talk nonsense. I shall have my carriage made ready at once.’
‘The King will be busy with all his new duties,’ suggested Victoire.
‘Not too busy to see his aunt – the aunt who was a mother to him!’
Sophie nodded. ‘We were mothers to poor Berry,’ she said.
Victoire looked sly suddenly. She said: ‘Adelaide, you are pale. Are you feeling well?’
If Adelaide had not been pale before, she was then. All three sisters had been watching themselves and each other for symptoms ever since the King had died.
‘I feel quite well,’ said Adelaide obstinately.
‘Sit down,’ said Victoire.
‘Why, Adelaide, you are trembling,’ put in Sophie.
‘You should rest,’ murmured Victoire, ‘instead of going to see the King.’
Adelaide was looking at them suspiciously. The memory of the sick-room came back to her. She said faintly: ‘I think I will rest before going to see the King.’
That night the news went forth that Madame Adelaide had a mild attack of the smallpox.
Provence was in his apartment alone with his wife. He had dismissed all their friends and attendants because he felt so excited that he was afraid he might betray himself.
Josèphe watched him. She knew the meaning of his excitement, and she shared it.
He said: ‘The death of my grandfather has altered our position considerably. We are only a step away from the throne.’
‘Unless, of course, the King and Queen should have a child.’
‘It is impossible,’ said Provence. He glanced at his wife and looked away quickly. ‘It would seem that there is some curse on our family.’
‘Which,’ said Josèphe, ‘does not seem to have affected your brother Artois.’
‘That we cannot say yet,’ said Provence. ‘We cannot be sure.’
Josèphe thought: If I cannot have a child, neither can Antoinette. She may be beautiful but she cannot have the King’s child for all her beauty.
‘Kings and Queens!’ said Provence. ‘They are unfortunate when it comes to getting children.’
‘Your father had three sons and two daughters.’
Provence turned to her suddenly. ‘If aught should befall Louis, then I should take my place on the throne.’
‘Yes,’ murmured Josèphe; and she saw herself riding into Paris, the people acclaiming her as the Queen, the beautiful Queen – for a little beauty in a Queen went a long way, and she would look handsome enough in royal robes of purple velvet decorated with the golden lilies, a crown on her head.
And it could so easily happen. Only one life stood between Provence and the crown, so how could they help considering the joyful fact that there could never be another life to stand as an obstacle between them, since Louis was impotent?
Provence came close to her and whispered: ‘She may try to deceive us.’
‘The Queen?’
He nodded. ‘Have you not noticed her? Have you not seen her eyes follow children in the gardens, in the Palace – any children? She has but to see them to call them, to stroke their hair; she has bonbons ready to give them; her eyes light up as she listens to their absurd prattle. I doubt not that her head is full of plans.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked his wife.
‘There are times when I think she might stop at nothing to get a child.’
‘If she adopted a child – and that is the only way she could get one – that child could not harm us.’
Her husband looked at her with contempt. ‘Adopt a child! It is not a child she wants – it is an heir. Josèphe, there must not be an heir.’
‘There cannot be an heir,’ she said.
‘With such as she is there might be.’
‘You mean …’
‘There were occasions at the Opéra ball when she disappeared for a while. Do you remember that Swede? She changed after she met him. There might be others. A little manoeuvring … you understand me?’
‘No! She would never foist a false heir on France.’
‘I know not. I know not. But I have seen desperation in her eyes.’ He bent his head and his voice sank to a whisper so that Josèphe could hardly hear. “Watch her,’ he said. “Watch her as you have never before, so that if there is a child we shall know whom to blame.’
When the news came to Antoinette that Madame Adelaide had taken the smallpox, she immediately forgot that the old lady had been far from a friend to her, and was filled with concern.
‘But it is so sad,’ she cried, ‘that she should suffer so quickly for the great sacrifice she made in caring for her father.’
She sent kind messages to her aunt, telling her that she would have come to see her had she been allowed to; but although she had had smallpox already, the King would not hear of her visiting the aunts.
Now she looked at her husband with fear. ‘You, Louis, have never had it. What if you should catch it?’
‘Then I should either recover or die.’
‘You speak of it too lightly. I have heard that there is a new treatment whereby a person is inoculated with serum from a mild case of smallpox. The person has the disease but mildly, soon recovers, and then is immune. Louis, I want you to try this.’
Louis shook his head. ‘I have my work. I must not delay carrying on with that.’
‘You will delay, and do worse than delay, if you catch this disease. Louis, to please me, to set my mind at rest, try this new treatment.’
He smiled at her slowly. He also had heard of the treatment, and he liked to try new things.
She was so eager, and when she desired something desperately he found that he wanted to give it to her. He could never forget that it was due to him that they had no children. He knew that her mother was continually writing to her of the need to have an heir – as though it were her fault. When he thought of that he felt that nothing he could do for her would compensate for the difficult position in which he had placed her.
He was determined though that he would not allow her to influence him in his new role. His grandfather had never made any great effort to show him how to be a king, but he had read a great deal of history, and it had occurred to him during the course of his reading that the wives and mistresses of many kings had been responsible for ruining their kingdoms.
That should not happen under his kingship.
When he thought of his new position he felt great desires rising within him. He had ridden through the streets of Paris and seen the squalor there. He wanted it to be said that in the reign of Louis Seize France found her greatness again. When he passed the statue of Henri Quatre on the Pont Neuf he felt as much emotion as he was ever capable of feeling. He said to himself then: One day mayhap they will set my statue on a pedestal to be beside yours; and is it possible, my Bourbon ancestor, that they will be able to say: ‘There are France’s two great Kings’?
But because he had failed to give Antoinette the child for which she longed, and because he had decided that she must not be allowed to interfere too much in politics, he wanted to give way to her on smaller matters.
Now he said: ‘Well, I will allow them to inoculate me with their serum, and we shall see what results there are.’
Antoinette clapped her hands. ‘And I will be your nurse.’
‘I am glad of that, for I will not have any servants to wait upon me who have not already had the disease.’
It was characteristic of Louis that he should be thus careful of the most humble of his servants.
There was a great deal of criticism when it was heard that the King had been inoculated. The people of Paris grumbled; the Court declared the King was mad; but Louis le Désiré was the most popular of Kings, for on the death of his grandfather he had distributed two hundred thousand francs to the poor, and he had declared that it was his intention to restore France to greatness. The people expected miracles; and they saw in this boy, who was not yet twenty, the saviour of their country.
‘Soon,’ said the poor, ‘we shall be driving in our carriages. The rich will not be quite so rich and the poor will be richer. We shall all be of equal richness. Vive Louis le Désiré! ’
And now the frivolous Queen had persuaded him to submit to a new craze. The King, newly come to the throne, was confined to his apartments with the smallpox. The people saw themselves cheated of their hero.
Provence was excited. If Louis died … He and Josèphe were almost delirious at the thought. No need to watch the frivolous Antoinette. She would be of no importance whatever, without Louis.
But Louis did not die. He recovered from his mild attack of smallpox, and having once had the disease, it was said, he would never have it again.
Provence and Artois both submitted to the new treatment. They too suffered mild attacks and quickly recovered.
The people were astonished. This was indeed a revelation – a sign of the good times ahead. Soon the world would be free from that scourge which had visited each country at short intervals and robbed so many of their lives.
The people of Paris, the people of France were in the mood for miracles.
Someone wrote on that pedestal on the Pont Neuf, on which stood the statue of Henri Quatre, ‘Resurrexit.’
The King, hearing of this, looked at Antoinette with worried eyes.
‘I mean to devote myself to my people,’ he said. ‘I mean to do good. I mean to restore morality and justice to France. But if they think that I am Henri Quatre, brought back to serve them, then they are mistaken.’
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