The Road to Compiegne

Chapter VI COMTESSE DE CHOISEUL-BEAUPRÉ

Death seemed to be hovering over Versailles that year. The hot summer had come and the King with Madame de Pompadour was staying at his château of Compiègne for a spell of hunting.

One morning early the Dauphine awoke with a sense of foreboding, perhaps because it had been a restless night. Several times she had awakened to find the Dauphin muttering in his sleep; and when she had spoken to him he had answered incoherently.

Touching his forehead she had thought it to be over-hot; thus she had spent a very disturbed night; and as soon as the light was strong enough she sat up in bed and studied the sleeping Dauphin.

His face was flushed, and she had no doubt now that he had a fever. She rose, called his servants and sent for his physicians.

In a few hours, the news spread through the Palace and beyond. The Dauphin is suffering from small-pox.

There was scarcely a disease more dreaded – highly contagious, swift in action, it had been responsible for the end of thousands.

The Dauphine was terrified. She could not imagine her life without her husband; and she was fully aware of the danger in which he lay.

The physicians told her that she must leave the apartments. Already she may have caught the disease. She must understand that by remaining at her husband’s bedside she was courting death; and even if she escaped death she might be hideously marked for the rest of her life.

She said firmly: ‘It is my place to be at his side. More than any other I belong here, and here I shall remain.’

She would allow no one to dissuade her and, dressing herself in a simple white dress, she performed all the necessary menial and intimate duties which were required. Her lips were firmly set; she had not wept, but she constantly murmured prayers as she moved about the apartment, and again and again she said to herself: ‘If I do everything for him I shall save him, for I shall do these things better than any other. I must, because I love him so much.’ Then she began to say: ‘I will save him. He shall not die.’ And with that a great peace came to her because she believed that anyone who wanted to succeed so much and who put every effort into her task could not fail.

Again and again she was warned to leave the sickroom; again she was reminded of the horrors of the disease, of its terrifying results; and she merely smiled wanly.

‘What price would be too great to pay for his recovery?’ she asked.

And after that they knew it was no use trying to dissuade her.

The news was carried to Compiègne and reached the King when he had returned to the château after the hunt.

Louis was horrified. ‘I must return at once to Versailles,’ he declared.

The Marquise ventured: ‘My dearest Sire, there is great danger at Versailles.’

The King answered sadly: ‘Madame, my son, the Dauphin, lies near to death.’

The Marquise merely bowed her head. ‘We will prepare to leave immediately,’ she said.

Death! thought the King. It is like a spectre that haunts me. It hangs over my family – a grey shadow from which we cannot escape. Only in February I lost my dearest daughter; am I now to lose my son?

He was glad that he had built a road from Compiègne to Versailles. At such a time the covert looks which implied ‘this is the retribution’ would have been intolerable. The people would attribute the illness of the Dauphin to the same Divine wrath to which they had credited the death of Anne-Henriette. No, at such a time he could not bear the sly triumph of his people.

If the Dauphin were to die, the heir to the throne would be the baby Duc de Bourgogne. And if he, Louis, himself died, there would be another boy King of France. The Dauphin must not die.

The Marquise sought to comfort him on that journey back to Versailles.

‘I have heard,’ she said, ‘that a doctor named Pousse knows more about small-pox than any man living. Would Your Majesty consider sending for him? He is a bourgeois and will know nothing of Court manners and procedure, but since he is considered to have saved more from small-pox than any other doctor, would Your Majesty have him brought to Versailles?’

‘We must seize every opportunity,’ agreed the King. ‘No matter what this man’s origins are, let us send for him.’

‘I will order him to come without delay,’ said the Marquise.

Louis sat at the Dauphin’s bedside. He had waved aside all those who would have reminded him of the risk he ran.

My son, he thought. My only son! I wish that we could have been better friends.

How deeply he regretted those differences which had grown up between them. He tried to remember at what stage they had begun to grow apart. He saw himself going into the royal nurseries in the days of the Dauphin’s boyhood, and he remembered how the little boy would fling himself into his arms.

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.

The service over, the drive back began, and again that sullen silence was encountered. The King’s carriage passed, and as the Queen’s came near to the Pont-du-Jour a man with haggard face and ragged coat broke through the guards and leaped on to it.

He threw a piece of black bread into the Queen’s lap and shouted: ‘Look, Madame! This is the sort of bread we are asked to pay three sous the pound for!’

The Queen stared at the bread on her lap while the man was dragged from the coach.

The horses were whipped up, a sullen murmur broke from the crowd. The King and the Queen heard the words: ‘Three sous the pound for bread we cannot eat! Bread . . . bread . . . give us bread . . .’

It seemed that there could not be a royal visit to the city these days without some such demonstration.

When the Infanta, Louis’ eldest daughter, arrived at Versailles on a visit, he was delighted.

She would comfort him, he said, for the loss of his dear Anne-Henriette. Adelaide, observing the affection between them, was jealous, for since the death of her sister she had felt herself to be firm in the role of the King’s favourite daughter.

It was difficult however to compete with the fascinating and worldly Infanta. Louis revived a pet name of her babyhood and referred to her as his Babette. Babette was wiser than Adelaide and immediately consolidated a friendship with the Marquise, which pleased the King.

She now had a son and daughter and was therefore to be allowed to spend a year at Versailles. ‘My home,’ she said, ‘for which I have never ceased to long.’

In the first weeks of her return the King was so delighted with her that he forgot his depression; but once she had charmed him, Babette could not help showing that there were ulterior motives in this great show of pleasure in being with her father.

‘I am your daughter,’ she told Louis, ‘your eldest daughter. And I am condemned to spend my days in that dismal hole of Parma!’

Louis promised that, if he could do anything at any time to raise her state, he would do so.

She was dissatisfied. Her ambitions were limitless. Now she had children for whom to plan, she wanted a throne for her son and nothing less than the Imperial crown for her daughter.

Young Joseph, son of Maria Theresa, was the husband she needed for her child. Imperiously she suggested that, if need be, France should go to war to bring about this marriage.

Louis might listen to his daughter’s plans with an indulgent smile, but he began to grow a little restless in her company.

He was heading for one of those moods of melancholy from which it seemed only the Marquise could save him.

But many were speculating as to the change in the relationship between the King and the Marquise who, they noted, was now significantly installed in the rooms which had once belonged to Madame de Montespan; could that mean that nothing but friendship existed between her and the King?

It was said that young girls – often of the lower classes – were brought to his apartments in secret.

Could such a state of affairs go on?

Quite clearly it was time some enterprising and ambitious person brought to the notice of the King a woman who could take the all-important role of maîtresse-en-titre which Madame de Pompadour seemed so gracefully to have abandoned.

The Comte d’Argenson believed that he could bring about the dismissal of the Marquise, and he discussed the matter with his mistress, the Comtesse d’Estrades. The Comte, who was a younger brother of the Marquis d’Argenson, the diarist, was at this time Minister of War and in high favour with the King; he feared the Marquise, and moreover, should a new mistress reign in her place, like most of those about the King he realised what great advantage could come his way if she were a protégée of his.

It was his scheming mistress who called his attention to the very pretty, frivolous and newly married Comtesse de Choiseul-Beaupré.

The Comtesse d’Estrades called on the young lady to discover whether she would be amenable, and the two ladies began by discussing the Marquise.

‘It seems,’ said Madame d’Estrades, ‘that the woman grows older as one watches her.’

‘Indeed!’ cried Madame de Choiseul-Beaupré. ‘She must be quite ancient. What the King finds to admire in her it is beyond my wits to discover.’

‘The King,’ her companion added, ‘is a man of habit. So long has he been making his way to the woman’s apartments that it has become a ritual. Someone should break him of an unnecessary habit.’

‘Is it true,’ asked the young woman, ‘that he no longer sleeps with her?’

‘That is said to be the case.’

‘If His Majesty fell in love with someone else she would doubtless be dismissed.’

‘There is a great opportunity for some clever woman.’

The Comtesse d’Estrades eyed her companion speculatively. The shaft had struck home. Madame de Choiseul-Beaupré was twittering with excitement.

The King’s mistress! Someone like Madame de Montespan. What glory had come to her! It was true though that she had been displaced eventually by Madame de Maintenon, who had even married Louis Quatorze.

But Louis Quinze had a wife; still perhaps the Queen would die. Madame Anne-Henriette had died, and the Dauphin had recently come very near to death.

The young Comtesse felt almost giddy, contemplating the power which had come to the Nesle sisters. Only Madame de Mailly had suffered; the other two had died, but the King had doted on them even as he had doted on Madame de Pompadour.

‘How . . . would it be possible?’ she asked.

‘If a young lady were pretty enough, charming enough, amusing enough and eager enough . . . there would be many to help her. Perhaps Son Excellence himself. I can vouch for Monsieur d’Argenson. They discuss the charms of women with the King. They would whet his curiosity and then . . . a little supper party. After that it would rest with the lady herself. The King is affectionate, courteous, helpful . . . and you must admit, extremely handsome.’

‘I do admit that,’ said the young Comtesse clasping her hands together and looking into a future which seemed to her glorious.

Louis was interested in the accounts he heard of the pretty young Comtesse.

He had been told that she was deeply in love with him and that her greatest wish was to have an opportunity of proving to him the depth of her affection.

Louis was bored. He needed a diversion and, since the Comtesse so earnestly desired an interview, he declared it would be churlish to deny it.

The interview was arranged and was very successful. The King found the Comtesse not only charming but a passionate companion. Clearly one such interview could not satisfy him.

The young girls who had been brought to him were amusing for a very short time. For intellectual companionship he relied on the Marquise. He now felt how charming it was to combine lust with Court manners; the Comtesse had come at the right time to supply a needed change.

The news of the King’s latest love affair was not yet spread about the Court. The power of the Marquise was great and it was very necessary that she should remain in ignorance of what was happening until the time when the Comtesse could demand her dismissal.

D’Argenson and his friends chuckled together, dreaming of the day when the Marquise would receive her lettre de cachet.

Quesnay, the doctor who had worked for Madame de Pompadour and had often attended the King, was also a friend of d’Argenson and Madame d’Estrades.

When he heard of the plot to destroy Madame de Pompadour he was deeply distressed.

‘Have no fear,’ d’Argenson told him. ‘It shall make no difference to you. You shall not lose your place.’

The doctor shook his head. ‘I have worked for Madame de Pompadour in her time of prosperity,’ he answered gravely. ‘If she is dismissed from Court I shall go with her that I may work for her in her adversity.’

Such loyalty filled the plotters with dismay.

It was very necessary, they decided, that Madame de Pompadour should be quickly vanquished while the passion of the King for the Comtesse de Choiseul-Beaupré was at its height.

At the same time they bore in mind the need to act with the utmost caution.

Madame de Choiseul-Beaupré herself believed she knew how to bring this about. Her husband’s cousin, the Comte de Stainville, had recently come to Court.

‘He is the cleverest man I know,’ she declared. ‘He hates the Pompadour. He will tell me what I ought to do.’

The Comte de Stainville was a young man with a face somewhat resembling that of a pug-dog; but his appearance was all that was unattractive about him. Brilliant, witty, charming and belonging to one of the noblest families in Lorraine, he seemed made for distinction. He was a patron of the arts, entertained lavishly, gambled excessively – and was, undoubtedly one who was certain to make his way at Court.

When he was very young he had rarely been seen at Versailles. He had belonged to the Army and had had a great love for Paris itself, and thus had not often visited Versailles.

He seemed suddenly to have come to the conclusion that his talents were more suited to a political life than a military one, although at the time of the Peace he had become a Lieutenant-General.

Like many an ambitious man he had cast a wary eye on the Marquise, and he had decided that he could climb to power more easily if she were not continually at the King’s elbow advising him what to do.

He enjoyed writing verses, and what more natural than that these verses should be concerned with Madame de Pompadour.

He was very interested therefore when his cousin’s wife asked if she could see him very privately because she had something of the utmost secrecy and importance to convey to him and was eager for his advice.

He granted her an interview. He thought her physically attractive and mentally repulsive.

‘Well, my child,’ he said, ‘what is this secret matter?’

‘I am loved by the King,’ she said.

He raised his eyebrows and smiled at her cynically.

‘You do not believe me, I see,’ she said. ‘The King tells me he loves me. Madame de Pompadour is going to be dismissed from Court. I shall ask it, and the King has already said that he can deny me nothing.’

He continued to study her in silence, and she stamped her foot impatiently. ‘So you still do not believe me. Look at this. It is a note from the King which le Bel brought me today. Read that and then say whether you believe me.’

The Comte de Stainville took the letter and languidly read it.

The King was certainly enamoured of the woman, to write to her so indiscreetly, and there was no doubt that the letter was from the King. What a situation! Poor Madame de Pompadour, her days were certainly numbered.

So this woman, who had managed to arouse such passion in the King, was going to demand the dismissal of the Marquise as the price of further favours. It had been done before. Madame de Châteauroux had caused good Madame de Mailly to be dismissed.

‘I want you to help me, cousin,’ she was saying. ‘I am going to answer this letter. And I want to make my intentions clear. The Pompadour has become a habit and . . . I dare say one should be careful how one asks a man of habits, like the King, to rid himself of the creature.’

‘One would need to be very careful,’ said the Comte.

‘You are clever with words. You would know how to express what I want to say.’

‘I have an idea,’ said the Comte. ‘Leave this letter with me and I will compose a reply for you. The reply should not be delivered immediately. His Majesty must not think that you are too eager.’

She nodded. ‘And you will do this for me?’

‘Certainly I will, little cousin. You may safely leave this matter in my hands.’

She nodded briskly. She had no doubt that her future would be brilliant, with men such as Monsieur d’Argenson and her kinsman Stainville to guide her. All she had to do was smile and be pleasant, accept homage and jewels, grant favours; and these brilliant men would look after all else.

The Comte de Stainville read and re-read the letter. He was very thoughtful.

His cousin had married an extremely pretty woman but an excessively foolish one.

Poor little Comtesse! She had reached the King’s bed, but how long would she hold her place in it? One week? Give her two. Perhaps, with great good fortune, three.

Could she achieve the dismissal of Madame de Pompadour in such a short time? Perhaps. The King’s passion was intense, even though, Stainville was sure, with such a partner it must be brief.

He would be short-sighted indeed to entangle himself with such a fool as his silly little kinswoman. Alliance with the Marquise would be a very different matter. She might be past her first youth, but she was still a very beautiful woman; as for diplomacy and sound good sense, knowledge of the world, intelligence – the Comtesse was a fool to imagine she could compete in those fields. When he considered the Marquise he wondered whether every woman at Court would not be foolish to compete with her.

She was passing through what could be the most difficult stage of her career. She had become the King’s friend and had abandoned the role of mistress. That was a very bold and dangerous step to have taken – though a necessary one, he could well believe – and a woman would need a great deal of courage to take it.

But added to her other qualities the Marquise was possessed of great courage.

He made up his mind.

He sent a messenger to the apartments of Madame de Pompadour asking if she would see him immediately on a matter of great importance.

Madame de Pompadour coolly surveyed the Comte de Stainville.

She knew that he was the author of damaging verses, and she believed him to be her enemy. She gave no sign of this, but received him with the utmost graciousness. He admired her more than ever and congratulated himself on his astuteness in taking the line he had decided upon.

‘Madame,’ he said, ‘knowledge has come to me which could deeply concern your welfare.’

‘Yes, Monsieur le Comte?’

‘It is a letter, in the King’s handwriting, to . . . a certain lady.’

‘You wish to show me this letter?’

‘I do not carry it with me. I felt it to be too important a document.’

‘Why . . . do you tell me of this?’

‘Because I felt it was a matter on which you should be informed.’

‘I should understand better if you showed me the letter.’

‘I may find it in my power to do so.’

‘You are . . . asking some . . . reward for this document?’

‘Madame,’ he said, ‘it would be enough reward for me if I might consider you my friend.’

‘Have your sentiments towards me changed then, Monsieur le Comte? Oh, forgive me. Am I too blunt? You see, this information you offer me . . . it seems so unaccountable, coming whence it does.’

‘I understand,’ he told her. ‘There have been differences between us in the past. But it has occurred to me that, in the future, these differences might be smoothed away.’

‘I am delighted to hear you say this. I have no wish to be your enemy, Monsieur de Stainville.’

‘Perhaps we may be friends. Perhaps we may work together. You, Madame – if you will forgive my impertinence in expressing myself so freely – are an extremely intelligent woman. I believe I myself am not without that valuable asset. We are alike in our ambition, which is to serve His Majesty with zeal and prevent his falling a prey to . . . worthless people.’

‘I see, Monsieur de Stainville, that we are indeed of one mind.’

‘I am deeply grateful for this interview, Madame. Perhaps I may be allowed to see you tomorrow, when we may discuss this matter further.’

She bowed her head in assent, although he was aware of a fierce curiosity within her to understand more of what he was hinting.

He had frightened her. That was what he wanted. She must be made to realise the significance of this matter. He wanted her to remember in the future what he had done for her. To have produced the letter immediately would have made the affair of less importance. Let her spend hours of uncertainty. Let her doubt his motives. When she realised that he was truly eager to set himself on her side, she would be all the more appreciative.

It was three days later when he gave her the letter which the King had written to the Comtesse de Choiseul-Beaupré. By that time she was in a state of nervous exhaustion, for all that Stainville had told her confirmed her suspicion that the King was enamoured of a woman of the Court, and that this woman and her enemies were working for her own dismissal.

With the letter in her hands she was exultant. She knew now how to act.

She went immediately to the King’s apartment.

‘How are you, my dear?’ he asked. ‘You look strange. Has something upset you?’

‘This,’ she said, ‘has been shown to me.’

Louis read it and flushed angrily, immediately presuming that the Comtesse de Choiseul-Beaupré, boasting of her conquest, had shown his letter to Madame de Pompadour.

The Marquise said slowly: ‘I recall the Comtesse de Choiseul-Beaupré – an extremely handsome creature, but clearly frivolous and not to be trusted.’

‘As usual you are right,’ said the King. He put the letter into a drawer. She knew that he would choose an opportunity to destroy it.

‘I trust,’ said the Marquise gently, ‘that you will not be too angry with the Comtesse. She is young and foolish.’

‘My dear, I fear I have been made to appear the foolish one.’

‘If that were possible it would be . . . quite unpardonable.

You know, my dear Sire, that you may trust my discretion in all things.’

‘I do, I do!’ cried Louis. ‘There are times when I believe you are the only person in the Court of whom I could say that.’

He went to a desk and began to write. She looked over his shoulder as he did so.

It was an order to Madame de Choiseul-Beaupré instructing her to leave Fontainebleau before the next morning.

He would not see her again.

The Marquise smiled serenely. But she was fully aware that she had emerged from a very dangerous situation. Oddly enough she had that strange Comte de Stainville to thank for it. She would not forget what he had done. He was a brilliant man, and she would see that he received his dues. Moreover it was comforting to know that she had, as a friend, one who might prove to be a brilliant statesman.

She did spare a little pity for Madame de Choiseul-Beaupré; but not very much. The silly little creature would never have been able to hold her position at Versailles. Little idiot! Did she not realise all the anxiety and exhaustion which went into maintaining the role of King’s mistress?

She was more sorry for her when she heard that she was already pregnant. The Comtesse was not allowed to see the King again; her glory had been very brief, as her life was to be. She died nine months later in childbirth.

The King felt he must make amends for the pain he had caused his dear friend by the affair of the Comtesse de Choiseul-Beaupré. Recently the Dauphin had required the Marquise to stand for two hours at a reception. Louis made up his mind that Madame de Pompadour should never again suffer such discomfort and indignity.

To the delight of her friends and the consternation of her enemies, Louis declared his intention of bestowing on Madame de Pompadour the tabouret.

Now she had the right to sit at the Grand Couvert and any Court ceremony; she was to have the privileges of a Duchesse and to be known as the Dame, Duchesse, Marquise de Pompadour. Never before had such an honour been accorded to one who was not of the nobility.

The delighted Marquise immediately ordered that her ducal coronet should be displayed on all possible occasions.

D’Argenson and his mistress, Madame d’Estrades, were apprehensive, and terrified lest the part they had played in the affaire Choiseul-Beaupré should be discovered by the Marquise.

No one however was more furious than the Dauphin, who had the temerity to reproach his father.

‘Never, never,’ he cried passionately, ‘has such a low-born person been so elevated.’

‘That may be the reason,’ retorted the King coldly, ‘why we have so many dullards at Court.’

‘I shall refuse to speak to the woman – Duchesse though she may be.’

The King shook his head sadly. ‘You should pray,’ he told his son, ‘that I may live for a long time. You have so much to learn before you could be King of France.’

With that he dismissed his son, but the coldness continued between them. It had never been so marked, and everyone at Court was aware that the rift had been widened; they wondered whether it would ever be bridged while Madame de Pompadour remained at Court.

The Marquise herself was enjoying a new vitality. She had come through a battle with great honours; yet she did not forget that, had her enemies been more subtle, she might so easily have lost it.

She believed now that she could measure the King’s affection for her. This affair had taught him a great deal. He would not again think of lightly abandoning her in favour of a pretty woman. He had learned that he could trust the Marquise as he could few others. They had passed into a new phase of their relationship.

The Marquise did not forget the man who had been of infinite help to her. She was ready now to cultivate the astute Comte de Stainville. Some service should be done for him; and she looked forward to a time when she and this man, who her intuition and experience told her would be a worthy ally, should be working together to their mutual advantage.