This shared love of animals, of botany and of cooking was mutually enjoyable. She was to him the most satisfactory person at Court.

But Madame du Barry had been warned by her friends that Madame de Pompadour had kept her place by finding young girls who would please the King. Jeanne had always known that she would be a fool to ignore her successful predecessor’s example, so occasionally she procured a beautiful young woman whom she presented to Louis.

As for Louis, he was not greatly interested but, since his dear Madame du Barry had taken such pains for his pleasure, he felt it would be a breach of etiquette to explain that he was feeling his age and found her adequate to meet his needs.

So occasionally Madame du Barry would archly leave him alone with some little friend of hers – always making sure that the companion of the evening should be possessed of more beauty than brains.

Marie Antoinette and the Dauphin were as tiresome towards Madame du Barry as the Dauphin’s father and Marie-Josèphe had been towards Madame de Pompadour. The flighty young Dauphine had refused to acknowledge Madame du Barry by not speaking to her at receptions, thus creating a very awkward contretemps because, until spoken to by the Dauphine, Madame du Barry herself must not, according to the demands of etiquette, make any remarks.

The Dauphine had been very obstinate, and only stern admonitions from her mother, the Empress (strained relations with France were imminent at that important time when the division of Poland was being considered) forced the frivolous young woman to fall in with the King’s wishes. As a result she made the comment ‘Il y a bien du monde aujourd’hui à Versailles’, which was soon quoted in various intonations throughout the Court – that pointless comment which had to be spoken to prevent strained relations between two countries!

The Dauphin was a disappointment to his grandfather – a great shuffling boy without any Court graces, spending more time making locks or with his workmen who were engaged in building operations, than in more courtly occupations. He had scarcely a word to say, and had a distressing habit of grunting when spoken to – and escaping from polite society as soon as it was possible.

Louis much preferred the Dauphine, although he was very annoyed with her over her attitude to Madame du Barry.

His daughters, led by Adelaide, had done a great deal to magnify the trouble between the Dauphine and Madame du Barry; Louise-Marie, the youngest, had now achieved an ambition, which had long been hers, and gone to Saint-Denis to become a Carmelite. Perhaps it was as well. One more daughter away, in a place where she was unable to plague her family and remind her father that he had not fulfilled his duties towards his daughters!

One day when the King was playing cards in Madame du Barry’s room, Chauvelin, one of the most notorious rakes at Court who was standing by Madame du Barry’s chair advising her on her hand, suddenly fell forward.

‘What is wrong with Chauvelin?’ asked the King shrilly.

Several of the men examined him.

‘Chauvelin is dead, Sire,’ was the answer.

Louis stood up and stared at his old friend. Then abruptly he left the apartment.

Madame du Barry followed him, and when they were alone he turned to her, his eyes wide with horror. ‘You know the life he has led,’ he said. ‘And he was struck down without warning!’

He was badly shaken and asked to be left alone.

At such times it was necessary to plan some diversion which would draw the King out of his depression.

Unfortunately it was not easy, for shortly after the death of Chauvelin, the Abbé de la Ville came to thank the King for giving him a post at the Foreign Office, and as he was admitted he had an apoplectic fit in Louis’ presence from which he did not recover. The Maréchal d’Armentières collapsed during a lever and died; and while the King was brooding on this, news was brought that Sorba, the Genoese Ambassador, had died without warning.

Louis, fearful of the life which he believed would follow that on Earth, and knowing that before he could repent he must give up Madame du Barry, fell deeper into melancholy. Give up the only one who could bring him any comfort! He could not do it.

And one day while he was hunting in the Forest of Compiègne a storm arose, and a tree very close to the King was struck by lightning; Louis believed that he had been warned.

Something must be done, decided Madame du Barry. She would arrange that they should leave for Petit Trianon. When they were there together he would forget his fears of death.


* * *

In the Petit Trianon Jeanne du Barry awaited the return of the King from the hunt.

She felt a little uneasy, which was strange for a person of her high spirits. The King’s looks had alarmed her when he had set out on the hunt that morning.

She had wanted to ask him not to go, but she had realised that her power over the King was partly due to her lack of interference. It was April, a time of sunshine and showers. The countryside was beautiful, and surely Petit Trianon was the loveliest place to be in at this time of year.

What worried her? It was foolish. It was a little note in the Almanach de Liège which had been pointed out to her.

‘In April a great lady who is the favourite of fortune will be called upon to play her last role.’

She had not liked the sound of that. Yet she reminded herself that she had many enemies who might have inserted it, knowing that it would cause her more apprehension than any of the cruel songs they sang about her.

The King was looking his age; the Dauphine did dislike her so, and the Dauphine would rule France once the King was dead; there was no doubt of that.

‘Poof!’ said Madame du Barry. ‘What is wrong with me? Shall I mope because the King looked less robust this morning, and the month is April?’

There was so much to be happy about. Could a woman ever have been more pleased with life?

She had looked after those she loved; she had done her best to placate her enemies.

Choiseul continued to plague her from Chanteloup.

‘A pox on Choiseul!’ she cried. ‘A pox on these gloomy thoughts!’

But Chon was coming into the room and her face looked drawn.

‘The King has returned from the hunt,’ she said. ‘I fear he is ill.’


* * *

Jeanne would allow no one but his servant Laborde to sit with her by his bed, and the King slept fitfully, his hand in hers.

‘I fear,’ she whispered to Laborde, ‘that His Majesty has a fever. If he is no better in the morning we will send for Lemoine.’

Lemoine, First Physician in Ordinary, arrived in the morning.

He examined the King and smiled at the anxious Madame du Barry. ‘It is nothing much,’ he told her. ‘His Majesty has a slight fever, but there is no danger.’

Jeanne du Barry knelt by the King’s bed and kissed his hand when Lemoine had left them. She went on kissing that hand.

Louis touched the golden hair.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘I was afraid . . .’ she said. ‘So much afraid. And now Lemoine says there is nothing to fear.’

‘Ah, Jeanne,’ said the King, ‘how you depend upon me!’

She was more serious than he had ever seen her. ‘You think I am afraid because I should be turned out of the Court!’ She pursed her lips and allowed a coarse epithet to escape. ‘What do I care for the Court! I have riches now. I should never starve. It is not the loss of my King I fear. But the loss of my man.’

And with that she sprang up suddenly and ran from the room.

Louis looked after her. No one had ever behaved thus to him before; but then nobody ever did behave like Jeanne.

He touched his cheeks. There were tears on them. Was it because he was so weak or because he was so moved?


* * *

The surgeon La Martinière arrived in the afternoon of that day, and when he had examined the King he said: ‘Sire, you cannot stay at Petit Trianon. We must have you moved at once to Versailles.’

‘But why?’ said the King. ‘I suffer only from a slight fever.’ La Martinière did not answer for a moment. Then he said that the ceilings of the Petit Trianon were too low, and were not suitable; the King needed the large airy State bedroom of Versailles.

Louis turned wearily on his side and said nothing.


* * *

Jeanne shook La Martinière by the arm.

‘But why?’ she demanded. ‘Why should he be taken from here? He is not seriously ill. I can nurse him. I and Laborde. It will not be good for him to be moved.’

‘Madame, I am his doctor,’ La Martinière reminded her.

‘But the very knowledge that you are moving him to Versailles will upset him. Don’t you see that? It will make him think he is very ill.’

‘Madame, the King is very ill.’

‘Nonsense! Monsieur Lemoine says . . .’

‘I say that the King is ill and that he must go to Versailles.’

‘And if I do not agree? . . .’

La Martinière smiled and said quietly: ‘I repeat, Madame, I am the King’s doctor.’

A servant came to announce that the carriage was already at the door.

‘Very good,’ said La Martinière. ‘His Majesty must have a heavy cloak over his dressing-gown. Orders have already gone to the Château that his bed is to be prepared.’

He went from the room, passing Jeanne as though she were not there. Jeanne turned to Chon who had been in the room and had heard the conversation between the King’s mistress and his doctor.