Then, thought the King, he loved me as he loved no other. Now he is indifferent to me as a person and even antagonistic to me as King. There must be moments when he thinks of being in my place. Does he then look forward to the day when I shall no longer be here?

How sad was life!

If only we could say to time, ‘Stop! Let it be thus for ever.’ Then he would remain young – a young husband, a young father, a young King at the sight of whom the people cried, ‘Long live the Well-Beloved!’ Looking back he saw the road to Compiègne like a riband dividing his life, separating the first half from the second. The sowing, one might say, and the harvest.

Here at the bedside of his son he felt a great desire to be a good man, a good King, beloved of his Court and his people.

But he had grown too cynical. He knew too well these moods of regret and repentance.

They passed as inevitably as time itself.


* * *

Dr Pousse swept through the Dauphin’s apartments like a whirlwind. He did not ignore etiquette; he was merely unaware of its existence. He did not know the difference between a Comte and a Duc; he had no idea how deep a bow was required of him; and if he had known he would not have cared. He had one aim in life, to cure patients of the small-pox. It mattered not to him if they were heir to the lowest eating-house in the Rue des Boucheries or to the throne of France – he saw them only as patients on whom to practise his skill.

There was only one person of whom he approved among those surrounding the Dauphin. This was a quiet young woman dressed in white.

‘You!’ he cried, pointing at her. ‘You will remain in attendance on the patient. The others will do as you say.’

He liked her. She worked without fuss; she would do anything that was asked of her with a quiet efficiency.

‘H’m,’ growled Pousse, ‘when this young man is well again he will owe his recovery to two people: his doctor and his nurse.’

When he barked orders at her she obeyed with speed. They had the utmost trust in each other, these two.

‘Now child,’ he would say, ‘make sure that the patient rests. Nobody is to disturb him, you understand. Not even his papa.’

‘I understand,’ was the answer.

Pousse patted her arm affectionately. ‘A good nurse is a great help to a doctor, child,’ he said.

The Dauphin’s condition was giving the utmost anxiety, and the King came to the sickroom to sit at his son’s bedside.

Pousse approached Louis and, taking hold of a button of his coat, drew him to one side.

The few attendants who had accompanied the King to the sickroom stopped to stare at this unheard-of familiarity, and Pousse was aware of their surprise.

He smiled grimly and allowed his attention to stray temporarily from his patient as he spoke to the King.

‘Now, Monsieur,’ he said, ‘I do not know how you expect me to address you. To me you are simply the good papa of my patient. You are anxious because your son is very ill. But cheer up, Papa! Your boy is going to be well soon.’

Louis laid his hands on the doctor’s shoulders and said emotionally: ‘I know we can trust you. You respect no persons – only the small-pox.’

‘I have a great respect for my old enemy,’ said Pousse, his eyes twinkling. ‘But I have him beaten. I and the nurse have got the better of him this time.’

‘His nurse,’ said the King, ‘is the Dauphine.’

‘The patient’s wife, eh?’ said Pousse; and a slight grin formed on his lips. ‘I have no doubt that I have not addressed her as a lady in her position expects to be addressed. But Papa, I have a fondness for my little nurse that I could have for no grand lady. I shall send the noble Parisiennes to her when their husbands are sick, that they may learn what is expected of them. She is a good girl. And I am shocking you, Monsieur, by my lack of respect for the members of your family.’

‘Save the Dauphin,’ said the King, ‘and you will be my friend for life.’


* * *

There was great rejoicing throughout the Court, for the Dauphin had recovered. This was due, it was said, to the skill of Dr Pousse and the unselfish devotion of the Dauphine.

No one could have been more delighted than the Dauphine. She felt that this illness of her husband had bound them closer than ever; she rejoiced because, since she must always be a little jealous of her predecessor, she could say to herself: Marie-Thérèse-Raphaëlle never nursed him through small-pox at a risk to her own life. Now she had an advantage over that first wife who had commanded the young affections of the Dauphin and had died at the height of his passion after only two years of marriage, so that she was engraved for ever on his memory – perennially young, beautified by distance, an ideal.

As for Dr Pousse, he received a life pension for his services.

The Marquise de Pompadour added her congratulations to those of the Court, but these were received coldly by the Dauphin and, because she deplored his determination to regard her in the light of an enemy, she decided that she would be more ostentatious than any in the general rejoicing.

So she planned a fête at Bellevue.

The entertainment was to be more lavish than anything hitherto achieved. Fireworks were always popular and could be very effective; the Marquise planned a lavish display with a pageant to symbolise the Dauphin’s recovery.

There was to be a Dolphin (the Dauphin) among sea-serpents and other monsters of the deep, which were to breathe fire over the Dolphin. The fire, explained the Marquise, was to represent the small-pox. Apollo would appear to smite the fire-breathing monsters, and the Dolphin would then be seen among charming nymphs.

The Dauphin had lost none of his dislike for the Marquise during his illness; indeed he had emerged from his ordeal even more puritanical. He was not to be wooed by such pageants. However he could not refuse the invitation to Bellevue and, while the pageant given in his honour was in progress, he sat, watching it, surrounded by his friends.

‘The Dolphin bears some resemblance to yourself,’ said those companions, who greatly feared a friendship between the King’s son and the King’s mistress, ‘but how hideous the creature is! It is a caricature, meant to bring ridicule on Your Highness.’

‘Look at the sea-monsters! They breathe fire. They are meant to represent the people. This is monstrous. The people love the Dauphin. Madame Catin will never persuade the Court otherwise, however much she tries.’

‘Depend upon it the lady is trying to make the Dauphin look a fool while she pretends to honour him. This is a trick worthy of her.’

The Dauphin listening allowed himself to grow more and more furious with the Marquise.

When the pageant was over he abruptly left Bellevue for Versailles, and everyone knew that this attempt of the Pompadour to placate the Dauphin had been a miserable failure, because the Dauphin was determined not to be placated, and was going to carry on the war against the Marquise until his or her death or her dismissal from Court.

All waited for the retaliation to what he chose to consider as an insult to his dignity.

It came a few days after the fête at Bellevue, when the Marquise, attending a reception in the Dauphin’s apartments, was kept standing – for she could not sit without the Dauphin’s permission – for two hours.

Never before this had the Marquise allowed the Court to observe her physical weakness. This time it was impossible to do otherwise. She was almost fainting with fatigue at the end of two hours.

The King was annoyed when he heard what had happened, for he knew that, in arranging the fête, the Marquise had had no thought but to win the Dauphin’s friendship. That burst of affection, which he had felt for his son when he had thought he was dying, was petering out. He felt irritated with the self-righteous attitude of his son towards his father’s mistress.

There was only one way of preventing the repetition of such an occurrence. That would be to bestow the highest honour at Court upon the Marquise – the tabouret – which would enable her to sit in the presence of royalty.

The King hesitated. To bestow such a high honour on the Marquise would cause a rumble of discontent through the Court. He was unpopular in Paris; he did not wish that unpopularity to extend to his immediate circle.

A tabouret for the Marquise! He must brood for some time on such a matter for, dear as she was, he must remind himself of her origins.


* * *

There must be an official celebration of the Dauphin’s recovery, which would necessitate another journey into Paris.

There would be the ceremonial drive from the Château into the city, and the thanksgiving service at Notre Dame. The King’s ministers, knowing the trend of opinion in Paris and the fast continued growth of the King’s unpopularity, hastily reduced the price of bread, hoping that by so doing they could ensure a loyal greeting from the Parisians.

Louis set out without any enthusiasm for the journey. Heartily he wished that he was taking the road to Compiègne instead of the one through Paris.

The Queen in her carriage came behind him. She had no such fears, for she knew that the people regarded her as a poor ill-used woman, and that the more they hated the King, the greater was their sympathy for her.

A few people at the roadside shouted ‘Vive le Roi!’ as the King drove by, but that happened outside the city; as soon as they entered the streets of the capital there was nothing but sullen silence.