‘What were you doing when you heard the bell?’ Louis asked her.

Victoire looked at Adelaide as though for inspiration. Adelaide said sternly: ‘Go on. His Majesty has asked a question and expects an answer.’

‘I was sitting in my bergère,’ said Victoire, glancing anxiously at Adelaide to see that her answer had met with approval.

‘Sitting,’ said the King. ‘And reading perhaps?’

‘Oh no,’ answered Victoire. ‘I was eating. It was chicken and rice.’ Her eyes sparkled at the memory.

‘And you would rather be there in your bergère now, eating chicken and rice, than taking coffee with your father?’

Victoire looked at Adelaide. ‘Certainly you would not,’ said Adelaide. ‘You appreciate the great honour of drinking coffee which is not only served but prepared by His Majesty.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Victoire.

‘Make the most of the honour,’ said the King. ‘I fear it is all you can enjoy. The coffee itself has grown cold through such delay. And, ah, here is Sophie.’

‘Did you ring for Louise-Marie?’ Adelaide asked her.

Sophie nodded.

Of all his daughters, Louis thought, Sophie was the most unattractive. It appeared that she could not look him straight in the face, for she had an irritating habit of peering at him sideways. Adelaide said it was not at him only that she looked in this way. People frightened her, and often she did not speak a word to anybody for days at a time. Sometimes she threw herself into the arms of her waiting-women and wept, but when she was asked why she did this, she was not sure.

‘Come, my child,’ said Louis now, ‘you would like some coffee?’

Sophie looked at Adelaide. Adelaide nodded, and Sophie said as though making a great effort: ‘Yes, Your Majesty.’

Louis was aware of Adelaide’s eyes on Victoire. Something was afoot, he realised, and wondered what. Evidently Victoire had some duty to perform and Adelaide was reminding her of this.

‘Well, Victoire?’ he asked.

Victoire hesitated, glanced at Adelaide and then said as though she were repeating a lesson: ‘Maman Putain has a very bad cough. It grows worse. Only she keeps it for when she is alone.’

Anger showed momentarily on the King’s face. He resisted an impulse to box the stupid child’s ears. How dared she refer to Madame de Pompadour in his presence as “Madame Prostitute”! It was not only an insult to the Marquise but to himself.

He remembered though that Victoire probably did not understand what she had said; she was clearly obeying Adelaide’s orders, and if he were to be annoyed with anyone it should be with Adelaide.

Anxious as he always was to avoid unpleasantness he attempted to do so now. He looked coldly at Adelaide and said: ‘Your sister presumably refers to some acquaintance of hers. I pray you explain to her that such epithets are not suitable on the lips of a young Princess.’

Victoire was stolidly looking at Adelaide like one who has completed a set task. Sophie, having just enough intelligence to sense that something was wrong, looked from the King to Adelaide.

‘I see,’ said Louis, ‘that it is time I prepared for the hunt. I will say au revoir to my daughters.’

At that moment Louise-Marie appeared. It had taken her all this time to cross the rooms which separated her apartments from those of her sisters because of her deformity.

Louis, gazing sadly at her, wished that she had Adelaide’s looks, for she was a bright little thing, the most intelligent of his daughters. It was so unfortunate that the poor child was deformed. He raised her from her curtsy and embraced her in sudden pity.

‘I am sorry, my child,’ he said, ‘that you have come precisely at the moment when I am about to take my departure.’

‘If Adelaide would ring for us all simultaneously when Your Majesty wishes to see your daughters, I could arrive before you are about to leave.’

Adelaide said sharply: ‘You forget that you are the youngest. You must consider the etiquette of Versailles.’

‘Adelaide’s etiquette,’ Louise-Marie amended with a little laugh. ‘Not “Versailles”. Perhaps Your Majesty would order how it should be done.’

Louis touched her cheek with the back of his hand.

‘My dear,’ he said, ‘do you want me to displease Madame Adelaide?’

He had had enough of the angry looks of Adelaide, the defiance of Louise-Marie, the laziness of Victoire and the stupidity of Sophie.

‘Adieu, my children. We shall meet again soon.’ And when at a sign from Adelaide, they curtsied, he returned by way of the private staircase to his own apartments.

His daughters could do little to relieve his melancholy. Then he remembered that the afternoon would include his being entertained at Bellevue by the Marquise; and his spirits lifted.


* * *

In her apartments the Queen was at prayer. She knelt before a human skull which was lighted by a lamp and decorated with ribbons. She prayed for many things: for the health of her husband and a return to his favour, that her daughters might find good husbands and bring credit to their family and their country, that Madame de Pompadour might be cast aside and the King be made so fearful of the life hereafter that he would return to his wife.

It was alarming to contemplate the power of the King’s mistress. Recently Comte Phélippeaux de Maurepas had been dismissed because he had written scurrilous verses about her. Maurepas was a friend of the Queen and the Dauphin; and his departure was a great loss to them.

‘Holy Mother of God,’ prayed the Queen, ‘show the King the error of his ways.’

She was not asking for a miracle. Louis, in spite of his great vitality – he could ride many a horse to exhaustion and remain in the saddle longer than any of his friends, and she had had unpleasant experience of his uxorious demands – had been subject to frequent fevers and could therefore be made to ponder on sudden death.

In fact she believed that his melancholy was in some measure due to his awareness of the fact that at any moment he might die with all his sins upon him.

She trembled for Louis’ soul, and whenever she had an opportunity let him know this. There were not, of course, many opportunities now. They rarely spoke to each other, except in public. If she wished to approach him on any matter she did so by letter. It was the only way in which she could be reasonably sure of claiming his attention.

She rose from her knees and sent for her favourite ladies, the Duchesse de Luynes, Madame de Rupelmonde and Madame d’Ancenis. They were all soberly dressed, as she was, quiet decorous ladies, kindred spirits of the Queen.

‘I think,’ she said, ‘that we will read together.’

As Madame d’Ancenis went for the book on theology which they read aloud together, the Duchesse de Luynes said: ‘I had hoped that Your Majesty would play for us.’

The Queen could not hide her pleasure. ‘I will play, since you ask me,’ she said. ‘We will read later.’

Her ladies sat round her while she stumbled through her pieces on the harpsichord, a smile of contentment on her face because the music sounded delightful to her ears.

Madame de Luynes, watching her, thought: poor lady, it gives her such pleasure and it is not much for us to endure.

Afterwards they studied the mural which the Queen was painting in one of the small chambers. She showed her delight in this as a child might, not seeing the faults. Madame de Luynes noticed that her painting teachers had been at work on the mural and had to some extent improved it, but it was still a poor piece of work.

The ladies exclaimed at its beauty, but Madame de Luynes knew that the others, like herself, were eager to bring some joy into the Queen’s life and were prepared to suppress a little honesty for the sake of doing this.

She had had her pleasure; now she would return to duty. The book was produced and each lady read a little while the others sat at their needlework.

None attended to the dreary lecture, yet they all sat, their heads on one side, appearing to listen intently.

Each lady’s thoughts were far away. The Queen was thinking of the past, for she had had a letter from her father only this day. These letters from Stanislas, who now ruled the Duchy of Lorraine and who had once been King of Poland, brought the brightest moments to her life. From her father, alone in the world, she had constant love.

To herself she repeated the opening phrase of that letter: ‘My dear and only Marie, you are my other self and I live only for you . . .’

They were no idle words. Her father loved her as did no one else. Often she thought of that day when he had burst in upon her and her mother and told them that she was to be Queen of France. She could never do so without bringing tears to her eyes and, oddly enough, the tears were not for the loss of joys which she had believed she would hold for ever, but because she missed her father, for naturally they could not meet as often as they wished.

So life went on, she was thinking, each day very like the previous one. She with her little court, which was not the King’s Court, lived according to the pattern she had laid down for herself: prayers, interludes with her ladies such as now, playing the harpsichord, doing a little painting, playing cards in the evening and retiring early to bed.

Louis never visited her there now, and for that she was only mildly regretful and very thankful. Another must now suffer those onslaughts of passion. Poor Madame de Pompadour, how was she bearing the strain!

She found that she was speaking her thoughts aloud. ‘I thought the Marquise looked a little tired today.’