Виктория Холт - The Road to Compiegne

Accompanied by Victoire and Sophie, Adelaide went out to insist on Anne-Henriette’s return to the Palace.

Anne-Henriette allowed herself to be led to Adelaide’s own apartments, where a huge fire warmed one of the smaller rooms.

‘Why, you are shivering,’ she cried, taking her sister’s hands. ‘How could you let yourself get so cold!’ Adelaide shook her head in admonishment, and Victoire and Sophie did the same.

But on this occasion Anne-Henriette did not smile at them; she lay back in the chair into which Adelaide had pushed her, and her eyes were glazed.

She felt so tired that she was glad to rest; there was a pain in her chest which made it difficult for her to breathe, and the faces of her sisters swam hazily before her. She was not entirely sure who they were. For a time, when she had been in the gardens by the ornamental pool, she had thought that her twin sister, Louise-Elisabeth, was with her and that they were waiting for a summons for one of them to go to their father who would tell the one who was called that she was to go to Spain as a bride.

She had imagined that the call had come to her and it was she who was going to Spain. The Duc de Chartres was heart-broken; but then she was not sure whether it was the Duc de Chartres or Prince Charles Edward Stuart.

‘Not for me,’ she murmured. ‘I am unlucky for lovers . . .’

‘What are you saying?’ asked Adelaide.

‘What is she saying?’ whispered Victoire to Sophie; and Sophie as usual looked to Adelaide to supply the answer.

‘It does not matter,’ said Anne-Henriette, ‘I am unlucky for lovers. But it is no longer of any consequence.’

Louise-Marie, the youngest of the sisters, came slowly into the room. She walked with some difficulty but her face was vivacious; yet when she looked at her eldest sister the smile left her face.

‘Anne-Henriette,’ she cried and hastening to her sister she took her hand, ‘what is wrong? Her hands are burning,’ she cried, turning to Adelaide. ‘She has a fever. Call her women. Call them at once. Let her bed be warmed. She should be in it, for our sister is very ill.’

Adelaide resented the interference of her youngest sister and haughtily raised her eyebrows, but Louise-Marie cried: ‘This is no time for etiquette. Our sister is ill . . . so ill that she frightens me.’

Adelaide then commanded Victoire to go to Anne-Henriette’s apartments at once and warn her women.

‘Now,’ said Louise-Marie, ‘we will take her there. Anne-Henriette, sister, do you not know me?’

Anne-Henriette smiled so patiently that Louise-Marie thought hers was the sweetest smile she had ever seen.

‘You see,’ said Anne-Henriette, swaying in the arms of her sisters, ‘there was no lover for me. I brought bad luck to lovers. But do not let it concern you. It is of no significance now.’

‘Her mind wanders,’ said Adelaide.

‘No,’ said Louise-Marie. ‘I think I understand.’

Then she began to weep quietly, and the tears ran unheeded on to the satin of her gown.

Anne-Henriette was unaware of her sisters as she was half carried from the room.

Louis looked at the Marquise and his face was blank with sorrow.

‘She . . . so young . . .’ he said. ‘My little Anne-Henriette . . . dead.’

‘She has been ill for some time,’ said the Marquise. ‘She was never as healthy as we could have wished.’

‘I cannot imagine what life will be like without her.’

‘My dearest,’ said the Marquise, ‘we must bear this loss as best we may. You have lost one whom you loved and who loved you; but you are surrounded by others who love you no less and who, I know, are loved in return.’

The King allowed his mistress to take his hand and kiss it gently.

He looked at her, so elegant, so charming. And he thought: she is part of my life. My joys are hers, my sorrows also. How could I endure this tragedy if my dear Marquise were not here to comfort me?

Seated before her illuminated skull, the Queen prayed for her daughter’s soul. She prayed also that this tragedy might turn the King’s thoughts from debauchery to piety. It should be a reminder to him that death was ever ready to strike. It had carried off this young girl; perhaps it was not so very far from her father. Perhaps he would ask himself whether he should not seek a remission of his sins while there was yet time.

‘If he should do this,’ she told the Dauphin, ‘the death of Anne-Henriette will not have been in vain.’

The Dauphin nodded; he was regretting the death of his sister. He loved her gentle disposition, and Marie-Josèphe often said that her sister-in-law was the best friend she had ever had. He remembered too that she had been a useful member of that little community which gathered in his apartments and won certain privileges from the King for the Church party. Often some little post would be asked for one of its members, and there could not have been an advocate more likely to succeed with the King than his beloved Anne-Henriette.

‘Her death is a great loss to me,’ he told his mother; ‘it is perhaps a great loss to the Church.’

The Queen understood and agreed. Her grief at her daughter’s death did not go as deep as that felt by other members of the family. She had often fought against the jealousy she had felt for her daughters, whom their father loved so much more than he did their mother. There had been times, Louis having summoned his daughters to the petits appartements to share an intimate supper with him, when she had knelt for hours in prayer, trying to quell the turbulent jealousy which possessed her.

She would never forget her coming to France and those first months of the King’s undivided attention, when they had been lovers and she had appeared to him to be the most beautiful woman in the world.

It was not easy even for the most virtuous of women to love others – even though they were her own daughters – who could please the King as she so longed to do, and never could.

Adelaide violently mourned her sister and shed stormy tears. Victoire sat in her bergère and was more melancholy than usual. Sophie watched first Adelaide then Victoire as though to decide how long it was necessary for her to mourn her sister.

Louise-Marie was heartbroken. She did not storm nor weep, she simply said: ‘If they had left me a little longer at Fontevrault I should never have known Anne-Henriette. Oh, why did they not leave me at Fontevrault?’

And Sophie suddenly ceased to wonder how much Adelaide expected her to mourn her sister, and ran away into a quiet corner to cry alone.

In the streets of Paris the death of Madame Seconde was freely discussed.

The verdict was that the loss of this beloved daughter was God’s vengeance on the King for his dissolute way of life.

‘How could it be otherwise?’ the people asked each other in the cafés and the markets. ‘God would punish him for his neglect of his people and his absorption with the Marquise. This is his just reward.’

‘This is the result of offending God and displeasing the people. God has taken from him the daughter he loved best.’

The Church party encouraged such observations. The sooner the King was made to realise how offensive was his conduct in the eyes of God – and the Church party – the better.

There was hope in the apartments of the Dauphin.

‘Such a disaster could bring about the dismissal of the Marquise,’ said the Dauphin.

Louis himself was very apprehensive. He was beginning to wonder whether there was some Divine warning in this loss. She was a young girl. It was true that she had been frail; but she was too young to die.