Виктория Холт - The Road to Compiegne

‘There has been a mistake,’ she said. ‘This is not meant for me.’

‘You are Mademoiselle de Romans?’

‘Yes . . . I am.’

‘Then this is addressed to you.’

She seemed as if she would faint, and two of the guards caught her and helped her to a chair.

One of her servants had appeared, white-faced, in the doorway.

‘Madame . . .’ she screamed. ‘They are upstairs . . .’

But one of the guards said to her peremptorily: ‘Bring something to revive your mistress. She is fainting.’

She felt consciousness coming back. She understood. The Marquise had done this. Oh, she had been a fool . . . a fool to boast of what was to be hers and the boy’s. How could she have so far forgotten the obvious feelings of the Marquise! Powerful ministers had fallen before this woman; yet she, who was a simple woman from Grenoble, had set herself against her.

She had not wished to do that. She would never have attempted to oust the Marquise from the unique position she occupied at Court.

All she had asked for was recognition for her son.

And now . . . exile.

The two men who stood over her felt compassion for her. She was so beautiful, and because she was tall and would have seemed so composed, so able to take care of herself, she seemed the more pitiable.

‘Madame,’ one of them murmured, ‘it is a very pleasant convent. They’ll look after you well there.’

‘But,’ she began, ‘my son . . .’

‘Come, Madame.’ The guards exchanged glances. ‘We ought to be going. Orders are for us to conduct you there. We have a carriage waiting.’

‘Let me write a reply to the King.’

‘Our orders are to take you there at once.’

‘I shall write to him from there.’

‘That’s right,’ soothed one of the guards.

‘I will go upstairs and get my son.’

‘Look here, Madame,’ said one of them.

But she had slipped past them and run up the stairs. They followed her as though they feared to let her out of their sight.

Two of her servants were in the nursery; they stared at her, with blank expressions which, while they told her nothing, filled her with a sudden fear which was so intense that she could not face it.

She ran to the cradle. It was empty.

‘My son . . .’ she cried. ‘My baby . . .’

The guards were at her side. ‘Madame,’ said one of them, taking her arm gently, ‘you couldn’t take the little boy to the convent, you know.’

‘Where is my son . . . where . . .where . . . where ?’

‘Look, Madame, he is being taken great care of. We can assure you of that.’

‘I want him,’ she sobbed. ‘I want my baby.’

The guards merely shook their heads and lowered their eyes. They were ashamed of the tears they feared they would shed.

But Mademoiselle de Romans would not have seen them; she had flung herself down beside the cradle and was crying for her baby.

The Seven Years War was over, peace had come at last, and the French were now at liberty to lick their wounds and look about them, to see what the long struggle, the loss of fighting men and materials, the crippling taxation, had brought them.

They could only see it as shattering defeat.

Canada was now completely in the hands of the British, and French interests in India had also been lost to Britain.

Choiseul’s plan to placate the French with his Family Compact had proved to be disastrous to the Spanish, for with great delight, as soon as it was announced, Pitt had declared war on Spain, as a result of which she had been beaten by Portugal, Britain’s ally, and Havana and Cuba had now passed into British possession. The French Navy was almost completely annihilated.

Pitt however, failing to receive the support of the Duke of Newcastle and the rest of the Whigs, was forced to resign; Lord Bute, who took his place, lacked his genius, and thus in making peace the advantages to the British were not as great as they might have been.

However, Pitt was still in a position to demand the demolition of Dunkirk as a matter of principle and as an ‘external monument of the yoke imposed upon France’.

But Bute’s anxiety to end the war as quickly as possible led him to restore Martinique to France, and Cuba and the Philippines to Spain.

Frederick of Prussia had been left to fight Austria alone, but when he broke into Silesia there was peace between these two countries and a treaty was signed at Hubertsburg.

Britain was the only country which had come victoriously out of this long war. She had the whole of North America, a large slice of India, and a mastery over the trade of the world which was what she had always sought. Maria Theresa had gained a little but she was still receiving the subsidies from France which Choiseul’s pro-Austrian Ministry had voted her. Frederick had Silesia, but he must return to Berlin which had been plundered by the Russians, so that much of the city’s riches had been lost, and its population decreased.

But France? asked the suffering population of that sorrowful country; what had France to show for the Seven Years struggle? A lost Empire and Navy. An Army which had suffered so many defeats that it no longer believed in its power.

If the peace which had followed the War of the Austrian Succession was the ‘stupid peace’, this was ‘the disgraceful peace’.

Celebrations were ordered. France was at peace. Let the people rejoice. Let them look forward to better days ahead. A new statue of the King was set up close to the swing bridge of the Tuileries in the newly constructed Place Louis XV.

The people refused to celebrate. The weather was bad in any case, and the bunting was ruined by the teeming rain and torn down by the wind. It was as though the elements themselves were laughing at the French for being such fools as to pretend to rejoice.

Each morning new placards were discovered about the newly erected statue, and each was more malicious than the last.

Choiseul was closeted with the King and the Marquise in the Château de Choisy. The King looked depressed. No wonder, thought the Duc. The people of Paris grew more and more disrespectful every day. Only yesterday a placard had been affixed to the new statue, and on it was written:

By order of the Royal Mint it is declared that a poorly struck Louis shall be struck again.

Ominous words, and the King, for all his show of indifference, heartily disliked being made aware of the hatred of his subjects.

The Marquise looked haggard. She was finding it more and more difficult to disguise her illness. The Duc knew – he had his spies everywhere – that she had to add more and more padding as the weeks passed for she was losing flesh fast. Her carefully applied cosmetics were a great help to her, but in the harsh morning light even they failed her.

His spies had told him that it was not only occasionally that she spat blood. The haemorrhages were becoming more and more frequent; they were accompanied by painful headaches which, when she retired to her apartments, forced her to spend hours on her bed.

The Marquise had been a good friend to him, Choiseul was thinking. As long as she lived that friendship must last. But he did not think it would be of much longer duration.

Then, dearest sister, he thought, the Choiseuls will be in complete command.

Glorious plans were waiting to be carried out. The Duchesse de Gramont should slip naturally into the place occupied by the Marquise. No, it would be an even more advantageous place because his sister would be ready to take on the dual role of mistress and friend. And when the Queen died, who could say what further glories might not await her? Madame de Maintenon was a shining example to all clever women; and when a clever woman had a strong brother behind her, a doting brother holding the reins of power firmly in his hands, who could say what might not happen?