Виктория Холт - The Road to Compiegne

Once she said to Madame Bertrand: ‘If this is what happens to you when you are dead, and people only knew it, everyone would long for death.’

Madame Bertrand was shocked. She hastily crossed herself. There, she thought, is one who must be watched a little more carefully than most.

After the King’s visit, Louison said to Madame Bertrand: ‘Ma Mère,’ (the girls regarded Madame Bertrand as their Mother Superior and addressed her as such) ‘I noticed that my lord was wearing the cordon bleu today.’

‘Your eyes are a bit too sharp, my child,’ retorted Madame Bertrand.

‘But it was the cordon bleu. I am sure of it.’

‘Well, what if it was?’

‘I wonder who he is, to wear the cordon bleu.’

Madame Bertrand made a sudden decision then; she believed that a girl as sharp as Louison might garner too much information, put two and two together and make the discovery. She decided therefore to put her on a false track.

‘He is a great gentleman, very rich, very important,’ she said.

‘As I know,’ murmured Louison demurely.

‘I will tell you something more. He comes from Versailles.’

Louison nodded. She had guessed it.

‘And,’ said Louison, ‘he is a great friend of the King’s.’

Madame Bertrand looked at her sharply. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘Because he is so distinguished that even the King must notice him and make him his friend.’

‘He is a Polish Count,’ said Madame Bertrand quickly. ‘He is a member of the Queen’s family. As you know, the Queen is Polish.’

Louison nodded, and Madame Bertrand saw that one of the other girls, had appeared and was listening to the conversation.

From that day the girls referred to their benefactor as the Polish Comte.

Madame Bertrand reluctantly confessed to Le Bel what had happened; and Le Bel informed the King.

Louis was amused, and was content to be regarded as a member of his wife’s household, perhaps even a relative of hers.

* * *

There came a day when the King arrived at the Parc aux Cerfs and spent the few hours he was there with a girl who was not Louison.

At such times she was desolate.

It was useless for Madame Bertrand to try to keep the girls apart in order that they should not know that one enjoyed more favour than another. They were always aware when the King was in the house; the manners of Madame Bertrand seemed to change. There was an atmosphere of ceremony about the place which was impossible not to sense at once.

Particularly was Louison aware of this and could be sure that he was in the house, although she had not heard his arrival.

She crept out of her apartment. She could hear the sound of voices coming from the rooms of another girl. That was his voice.

If only, she thought, this were my house, only mine; and he came regularly to see me . . . only me.

She felt so wretched, she could not stay in her own rooms, and she crept down the staircase to the small reception hall.

Now she had no doubt that he was in the house, for he had taken off his coat and it lay on a table.

She went to it and let her fingers caress the fine cloth. She lifted it to her lips and, as she did so, she heard the rustle of paper in a pocket.

Louison was by nature curious and, during her stay in the Parc aux Cerfs, she had learned to read a little. She put her hand in the pocket and felt what she was sure were letters. She looked about her.

No one would see her if she took those letters from the pocket and read what they contained. Furtively she touched them. He would not be pleased if he knew that she had read his letters, and Madame Bertrand, if she discovered, might feel it her duty to tell him.

Louison knew this, yet she found the temptation irresistible.

There were two letters. Her eyes glanced over them and somewhat stumblingly she tried to read the contents.

They both began ‘Sire’, and there were references to ‘Your Majesty’.

‘Your Majesty’s most humble servant,’ she read.

They were addressed to the King. One was signed with a name which was not unfamiliar to her: D’Argenson. He was an important minister, and he signed himself ‘Your Majesty’s humble servant’.

Louison thrust the letters back into the pocket.

She had made a great discovery. The owner of the Parc aux Cerfs, her lover, was not a Polish Comte; he was the King of France.

Hastily she ran back to her own apartments. She shut herself into her room. Although she was uneducated she was intelligent. She pictured herself falling to her knees when he next came, calling him Sire and telling him that she was His Majesty’s humble servant.

But wait. He had not wished to be recognised as the King so he must never know that she had discovered his identity.

Louison was wise enough to realise that his secret must be hers also.

That winter was one of the coldest within the living memory of Frenchmen. Even the rivers were frozen; and people were dying, not only in Paris but in the countryside, of cold and hunger.

The war was an added burden. The price of bread soared and taxes were levied on all food entering Paris.

Public opinion was against the war. Frenchmen refused to accept the Austrians as allies. It was said in the streets that the Marquise had persuaded the King to this alliance because of her friendship with Maria Theresa, who had flattered her by calling her ‘dear friend and cousin’. Louis was reputed to have been further seduced into this unnatural alliance by his desire for a marriage between his grand-daughter – Madame Première’s child – and Joseph, the son of Maria Theresa.

Machault and d’Argenson had strenuously opposed the Austrian alliance. Machault had proved himself a zealous Finance Minister when he had succeeded Orry in that post. He had planned necessary reforms, but the clergy had declared him to be impious when he had endeavoured to close many convents and prevent new ones being founded, when he had stated that the development of trade and agriculture was of more importance to the nation. Louis had been unwillingly obliged to relieve him of that post and transfer him to the Ministry of Marine; and the transfer put an end to financial reform in France. Louis had great respect for this man; yet he had acted against his advice in this matter of the Austrian alliance.

D’Argenson, who was now Minister of War, had long been a favourite of the King’s. He was every inch a courtier and quite different from the diarist, his far from handsome brother the Comte d’Argenson who was known as d’Argenson le bête, to distinguish him from his handsome younger brother, the Marquis.

Since blame for the war could not be laid on the shoulders of the ministers, the unpopularity of the King increased.

It had been impossible to keep completely secret the existence of an establishment such as the Parc aux Cerfs. It might have been advantageous, from the King’s point of view, if no attempt at secrecy had been made, for what the people did not discover concerning this place they made up for in their imaginations.

There were too many mothers, who could not feed their families, seeking to place their daughters in a home where they could be sure of food and warmth. Many of these young girls were destined for prostitution; indeed many had been brought up with this career in view. How much better for them to be inmates of the King’s private brothel, in which they were well treated, and when they left, were given a dowry.

Thus, while the citizens of Paris screamed their disapproval of the Parc aux Cerfs, many were seeking admission for their daughters, and it was because they could not find it that their anger against the King increased.

Wild stories were circulated throughout the capital.

‘Citizens, guard your children,’ was the cry. ‘They are being spirited away to pander to the lust of a lecherous old man.’

‘He insists on youth. They say he prefers ten-year-olds. Ten-year-olds! Is it not a scandal?’

‘How much does it cost, think you, to maintain such an establishment? Millions! Oh, my friends, while you are crying out for a few sous’ worth of bread Louis is wasting millions on his pleasures.’

Never had the King been so unpopular. He avoided going to Paris even on State occasions. Adelaide had grown more hysterical than ever and was constantly on the alert for would-be assassins. She tried to revive a medieval law which allowed only those who could prove that their nobility went back over three hundred years to approach the King.

Adelaide was scoffed at and assured that the ancient nobility were no more to be trusted than any others.

Meanwhile the rumours persisted. There were by now nearly two thousand girls established in the Parc aux Cerfs, it was said. The King bought them as might any Sultan.

He had cornered the wheat in order to find the money for these transactions.

‘Citizens, the higher the price he demands for his wheat, the more money he has at his disposal to buy his girls.’

The King ignored these rumours. He continued to find intellectual pleasure in the apartments of the Marquise, and that of a physical nature in the Parc aux Cerfs.

* * *

In the cafés, the state of the country was freely discussed. The war was deplored; the price of bread considered; the dismal prospect contemplated of a city in which it was no uncommon thing for people to faint in the streets from hunger, and die on the cobbles.