She made little attempt to ape their manners. She was herself – bold, brazen, handsome, vulgar and very much in love with life.

There was an anxiety however which was ever present. Louis was ageing and, if he should die, what would become of Madame du Barry? It was so natural that a woman in her delicate and yet so greatly influential position should have made many enemies. Of all the tasks which she must accomplish, that of keeping the King alive was of paramount importance. Moreover she was fond of him. Vulgar and acquisitive she might be, but she was good-hearted and, when one had known poverty such as she had, gratitude towards those who had made life easy could never be forgotten.

So now she was studying her lover with tender solicitude.

‘You are tired to-day,’ she said. ‘Your little visitor was too much for you last night.’

Louis smiled at the recollection of last night’s little visitor.

‘Nay, ’twas not so,’ he said.

‘And you found her charming, eh?’ murmured du Barry, smiling with pleasure, for the King’s enjoyment of the charming little girls whom she brought to him from time to time was a compliment to herself. She was too wise to expect him to remain faithful to her. Louis had so long practised promiscuity that it would have been unnatural for him to do otherwise. Therefore his whims must be gratified and, although he must take pleasure in other women, the shrewd du Barry was determined to see that she shared in that pleasure. Accordingly she had made it one of her tasks – when she imagined his passion for herself was declining – to bring him young girls to stimulate his erotic desires. She was not only indulgent mistress and shrewd adviser; she was procuress as well.

‘All the same,’ she went on tenderly, ‘you must have a quiet night to follow – with only your loving du Barry for company.’

He smiled at her again; she was amusing; she was clever; and he was fond of her. He often laughed to think of her in her sumptuous apartments in the great Palace of Versailles, with the little staircase he had built to connect her apartments with his, and the apartments of his three prudish daughters separated from hers only by a few rooms. He was content that she should be the reigning star of his Court. He was too old for ambitions; he had never been like the preceding monarch, his great-grandfather Louis Quatorze, Grand Monarque, le Roi Soleil, with his ambitions to build a great Empire the centre of which was flamboyant, brilliant, autocratic Versailles, and in truth the King himself. ‘L’état c’est moi,’ had said that ambitious Louis; and it was true that much glory had been brought to France in his name, yet it was the predominance of literature and art which would make that reign for ever memorable. Racine, Molière, Corneille, La Fontaine, Boileau! What bright stars to illuminate a glorious reign of more than seventy years! Le Roi Soleil was one of the fortunate Kings of France. He had been as handsome as a god, adored, and doubly blessed, for although he had come to the throne when he was a boy of four, the affairs of the country had been in the capable hands of Cardinal Mazarin. The Court had sparkled with genius. La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyère, Pascal, Poussin – one could go on indefinitely recalling such great names. More fortunate still, Louis Quatorze had lived in an age when men were more ready to accept the divine rights of Kings to rule. Although he himself had been called Bien-Aimé, there was not the same tolerance shown to Louis Quinze as there had been for Louis Quatorze, and for all his preoccupation with pleasure he was fully aware of this.

The position of France in the world had deteriorated rapidly in the years of his reign. England was in command of the seas, and England was the perennial enemy of France. France was losing control of her colonies, and Louis was indifferent. He was too old for anything but indifference. He had given himself up to pleasure; he had been ruled by women and he could not break the habit. Now that he was getting older there were periods of alarm when he surveyed his past life and, during these periods, he would be overcome by the urgent need for repentance. Then he would shut himself away from his pleasures and try to live like a monk. But as soon as his health improved he would send for Madame du Barry, and she would continue her task of pandering to his pleasure and helping him to forget the need for repentance.

There they lived – he and du Barry – in the utmost splendour; yet he was aware of impending doom. They might shrug it aside, but ever in the background of their minds was his fear of being called upon to expiate his sins in hell, and her fear of the loss of power which his death would mean to her.

Du Barry was not worried about her soul. She was young still and fear of the future life was a malaise which did not attack until middle-age.

She said to him now: ‘When are you going to dismiss Choiseul? Has not the man governed you long enough?’

‘There is time … there is time …’ murmured the King wearily.

Du Barry could be tenacious where her enemies were concerned. The great politician, Choiseul, caused her some anxiety. For twelve years he had held undisputed power; he was not, however, the man to bow to the will of one such as du Barry, and she knew that she dared not allow a man who did not do so to remain in such a position. It was in her circle that the plot against him had been launched. With the Duc d’Aiguillon and the Abbé Terray she had assured the King that Choiseul must go, and that he could be replaced by another more able than himself.

‘Think of what harm this man can do to you,’ said du Barry. ‘Have you forgotten the Guiana settlement? What a fiasco! Think of all those settlers who died because they had been sent out to the new country lacking all that they would need. Equinoctial France did not remain French long, Louis. Everywhere the English triumph over us. And why? Bad management at home! And who manages affairs at home? It is Choiseul. It is always Choiseul! You know you would have rid yourself of the fellow long ago but for his pretty wife who cleverly remains virtuous and rejects the royal advances. And what impudence is this! To reject France!’

‘My dear, you grow too vehement.’

‘And so I shall when any woman thinks herself too good for the bed of France. But she’ll come fast enough, Louis, my bien-aimé … once Choiseul is in disgrace.’

‘There may be something in what you say,’ said Louis indolently. ‘But do not forget that he arranged this marriage with Austria.’

‘Marriages as good could have been arranged, and think you not that Aiguillon could not have arranged the marriage had you wished him to ?’

Louis was silent. He was thinking of his grandson the Dauphin, Duc de Berry. He was often sad when he thought of the boy.

‘How will he fare as a husband, think you, my dear?’

‘Berry?’ Du Barry laughed, rather loudly, raucously, the laugh of the market places of Paris. ‘He’ll grow up.’

‘He’ll be King of France one day ….’

‘That day is far distant,’ said du Barry fiercely.

The King smiled at her, half tenderly, half compassionately. He was very fond of her; he relied on her. What will become of her when I’m gone? he often wondered. But he did not want to think of when he was gone. When he did so he found himself veering towards one of those periods of repentance. He hated them; and in any case he always left them to plunge more violently than ever into debauchery.

‘The Kings of France,’ went on du Barry lightly, ‘have given a good account of themselves with women.’

‘So good,’ said Louis, ‘that mayhap for that reason there must be the occasional exception.’

‘Nay, he’ll grow up.’

‘He’s quite different from his brothers, Provence and Artois. Sometimes I think it is a pity that one of them was not the eldest.’

‘It is often seen that there is depth in these quiet ones,’ soothed du Barry. ‘I have heard that the little Austrian is quite charming; in fact, a regular little beauty. Put them to bed together and, mark my words, France, there’ll be no need to complain of the Dauphin’s lack of virility.’

‘The boy gives me great cause for alarm,’ said Louis.

Du Barry was uneasy. She must continually guard the King from unpleasant thoughts, and she knew from experience that thinking of his young grandson could often lead him to repentance. She was afraid of these fits of repentance which resulted in her banishment from his presence, and could so easily bring about her banishment from his life.

‘It is long since I saw him,’ said the King. ‘Send for him, my dear, and I will have a word with him about this marriage.’

‘Bien-Aimé, you are feeling tired after last night’s little gallantry.’

Louis, still smiling, said firmly: ‘Send for the boy, my dear.’

Du Barry, frowning lightly, went to the door. She called to a waiting page. ‘Go at once to the Dauphin’s apartment and bring him here. It is His Majesty’s command.’

Louis was staring at his ringed hands, not seeing them but thinking of the past. An old man’s habit, he mused, thinking of the past and wishing it had been different. If he had been more like his great-grandfather, Louis Quatorze, would France have been in its present state of unrest? Six years ago, when there had been great agitation against the Jesuits, he had tried to stand aloof. He had felt that his parliament was striking at him through the Jesuits. He had then begun to wonder whether the monarchy, which had seemed to stand so firm in the reign of his predecessor, had not begun to shake a little. He would never forget a letter – an anonymous one – which had been addressed to him and Madame Pompadour, and which declared: ‘There is no longer any hope of government. A time will come when the people’s eyes will be opened, and peradventure that time is approaching.’ Jean Jacques Rousseau was writing perniciously against the monarchy. François Marie Arouet de Voltaire was another of those philosophers who made uneasy reading. The memory of that anonymous letter, like the thoughts of hell-fire, often crept up on the Well-Beloved like assassins in dark and lonely places.