Виктория Холт - The Road to Compiegne

‘And today, Sire,’ she said, ‘you would wish to see? . . .’

Louis considered. ‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘How are they? What do they think of my long absence?’

‘They think, Sire, that you have been away from the Court. That is what I told them. They have been eagerly awaiting an announcement of your return. They have asked me each day. They are well . . . except Louison. She has been unwell.’

‘I am sorry to hear that,’ said Louis, deciding that since she was unwell he would not ask to see her on this visit.

But while he was talking to Madame Bertrand, he heard someone at the door and turning saw Louison herself.

Madame Bertrand rose, stern and forbidding. The girls had no right to come into this room.

Louis saw that Louison had changed; she was less plump and her eyes seemed enormous. Yet she was more beautiful for a smile of happiness was on her face and she cried out: ‘So, my lord, my King, you are well again, and that murderer has not harmed you after all.’

Madame Bertrand was speechless. Only the King, habitually gracious, gave no sign of his dismay that this girl had betrayed her knowledge of his identity.

Louison had rushed to him and thrown herself at his feet, sobbing wildly while she kissed his hand.

‘Get up,’ said Madame Bertrand. ‘Go to your apartments at once.’

Louison, continuing to sob out her joy, ignored the command. Madame Bertrand laid hands on the girl and roughly pulled her to her feet.

‘You have gone mad,’ she said. ‘You do not know what you are saying. You have been suffering from visions.’

‘Do not be harsh with the child,’ said Louis. ‘Now my dear, calm yourself.’

‘I know . . . you are the King,’ sobbed Louison. ‘I saw letters in your pocket. When I heard that this scoundrel had tried to kill you . . . I nearly died.’

‘Come,’ said Louis, ‘you are distraught. Let me take you to your apartments and we will have a little supper there together. You shall tell me of your distress, which you feel no longer. That is how it shall be, eh?’

‘You are back!’ she cried. ‘You are well. Now I no longer wish to die.’

The King signed to Madame Bertrand, and he himself went with Louison to her apartments.

He remained with her for several hours, during which supper was served to them.

When he left, Louison was greatly comforted.

Madame Bertrand was waiting for him when he was preparing to depart.

She was trembling with anxiety. ‘Sire,’ she cried, ‘I had no knowledge of that girl’s wickedness.’

‘It is unfortunate,’ said Louis. ‘But I must blame myself. Carelessly I left my coat in a place where she was able to examine what was in my pockets.’

‘I have done my utmost to preserve Your Majesty’s anonymity.’

‘I know it,’ said the King. ‘I do not wish these girls to leave here and talk of what has happened to them. The Polish Count . . . that was an excellent idea.’ Louis spread his hands and looked regretful.

‘She must be sent away, Sire?’

‘I see no alternative.’

‘She said she would go mad if she never saw you again.’

‘Mad,’ said the King. ‘She was hysterical tonight. I could well believe that there are seeds of madness in such a girl.’

Madame Bertrand was silent, and the King went on: ‘You are a good woman, Madame Bertrand. You do your work well. I do not think it would be wise for me to find our little friend here when next I call.’

Madame Bertrand bowed her head. She understood. That was to be feared with these little girls of the faubourgs; they had never learned restraint; when they wept and tore their hair and talked of suicide, the King found them distasteful. Such behaviour was so alien to the etiquette of Versailles in which he had been bred.

Damiens lay in his cell in the Conciergerie. He had been brought here from Versailles, and in spite of his pain he lay in a state of ecstasy.

His ankles and wrists were fettered; he could not lie down in comfort. He had suffered a great deal of torture since that windy day when, penknife in hand, he had approached the King.

They had tried hard to get a confession from him, but he had laughed in their faces and had told them nothing but the truth.

‘I did it for the sake of the people and the glory of God,’ he continually repeated.

His trial had taken place in the Grande Chambre, where he had conducted himself with dignity. He told them frankly that he had no personal animosity towards the King, that he had merely wished to make a protest about his licentious behaviour and the condition of the people.

They had sentenced him to the most painful death they could conceive; he was to be drawn and quartered on the Place de Grève.

Ten thousand people crowded into the streets of Paris to see the end of Damiens. They were standing on the roofs; they were at every window.

There in the Place de Grève was Damiens, brought from his prison that he might suffer the utmost torment and watch the preparations for his barbarous execution.

So he watched for half an hour while the fire was lighted, the horses prepared and the bench made ready.

The crowd watched in horrified fascination. This was a sentence which had been commonplace in the days of Henri Quatre, when Ravaillac had suffered similarly for having killed that King; nowadays people had become more sensitive, more civilised; the philosophers had changed their ideas; and there were many who were unable to look on at this grisly spectacle.

Damiens groaned as his flesh was torn with red-hot pincers; this form of torture lasted for an hour as the lead was allowed slowly to drip into the wounds so as to cause the utmost pain and prolong the agony.

More dead than alive he was bound by iron rings to the quartering bench, and ropes were attached to his limbs and fastened to wild horses who were then driven in different directions.

But these did not do their work completely, and the executioner, in a sudden access of pity, severed the last quivering limb from the sufferer’s body, which was then burned.

It was a sickening sight and the crowd was a silent one. Some said it was incredible that a spectacle of such barbarity could take place in the year 1757.

The King wished to hear no account of it. It was one of those unpleasant subjects which he always sought to avoid.

When he heard that a certain woman, hoping to please him, had sat close to the scene and watched every detail, he covered his face with his hands and cried out: ‘The disgusting creature!’

Thus ended the affaire Damiens.

And as the crowds were dispersing a carriage rattled through the streets of Paris. In it sat a white-faced, bewildered girl with a woman beside her.

Louison, on her way to a madhouse, would never again see the Parc aux Cerfs, nor the lover whom she had discovered to be the King of France.

The war was going badly for France. Although French soldiers were famed as being the best in the world, their leaders might be said to be the worst. This was largely due to the fact that they had been put in their high places, not because of their ability to fill them, but because, to please some charming person at home, the command had been granted to them.

France needed a strong man at the head of affairs; and the country was being ruled by a woman. She was an intelligent woman, a charming woman; cultured and artistic, no one doubted that she was clever within her limits. But she could not see beyond Versailles; her aim was not to secure France’s position among the European nations but to hold her own in the esteem of the King. Moreover she was quite incapable of understanding the strategy needed in dangerous diplomatic relations with other countries.