Виктория Холт - The Road to Compiegne

The Dauphin, who had nothing to fear from an inquiry into his private life, threw himself wholeheartedly into the defence of the Jesuits.

He demanded an interview with the King and Choiseul.

Choiseul ignored the Dauphin; he knew that they could never be anything but enemies, and that it was useless to try to placate him.

He said to the King: ‘Sire, if you do not suppress the Jesuits you must suppress Parlement . And to suppress Parlement at this time would mean one thing: revolution.’

The Dauphin intervened. ‘Why should we not suppress Parlement ? Why should we not set up Provincial Estates? They would be selected from the nobility.’

‘And the clergy?’ murmured Choiseul.

‘Members of the clergy and the nobility,’ insisted the Dauphin.

Choiseul again addressed himself to the King. ‘Sire, whatever form the Dauphin’s Provincial Estates took, it could only consist of men . One visualises their uniting, and standing together. They would be so powerful that they would usurp the power of the throne itself.’

‘Any who dared do that would be exiled,’ cried the Dauphin vehemently.

Choiseul burst into loud laughter. ‘Sire,’ he said turning to the King, ‘is it possible to exile the entire nation?’

‘Monsieur de Choiseul is right,’ said the King. ‘There is no way out of this impasse but exile for the Jesuits.’

The Dauphin turned on Choiseul with blazing eyes. ‘You have done this . . . you . . . with your schemes, with your ambitious dreams. You are an atheist . . . for all you make a show of attending sacred ceremonies. I wonder there is not some sign from Heaven . . .’

The expression on Choiseul’s pug-dog face was insolent in the extreme. ‘A sign from Heaven?’ he said, looking about him, out of the window and up at the sky. ‘I am no atheist, Monseigneur, but in the King’s cultured Court we have grown away from superstition. Perhaps that is why, in those circles which lag behind us intellectually, we are mistaken for atheists.’

‘Choiseul,’ spluttered the Dauphin, ‘you forget . . . you forget to whom you speak . . .’

‘I do not forget,’ said Choiseul becoming suddenly heated as the Dauphin, ‘that I may one day be unfortunate enough to be your subject, but I shall never serve you.’ He turned again to the King, his face white with the suddenness of his emotion. ‘Sire, have I your permission to retire?’

‘You have it,’said the King.

When he had gone, the Dauphin and the King faced each other, and Louis felt an unsuppressible distaste for this earnest son of his who even now, he believed, was supporting the Jesuits, not from any political angle but because he believed himself to be a representative of Holy Church.

The French would have a very bigoted King when this young man came to the throne. Indeed, thought Louis, I must live for a very long time; this poor son of mine has so much to learn.

‘You . . . Your Majesty heard the insolence of that fellow!’ the Dauphin stuttered. ‘I . . . I shall never forgive him.’

Louis shook his head sadly. ‘My son,’ he said, ‘you have so offended Monsieur de Choiseul that you must forgive him everything.’

With that the King turned and left the Dauphin, who could only stare after his departing figure in utter bewilderment.

By the end of that year which had seen the death of the Marquise, the Society of Jesuits was disbanded and no Jesuit could live in the Kingdom of France except as a private citizen.

The people of Paris went wild with joy; the Queen, the Dauphin and the Princesses were desolate; and the feud between Choiseul and the Dauphin grew.

To console the Dauphin the King decided to grant his son’s lifelong ambition. The Dauphin had always wished to be a soldier and, although this had been denied him in time of war when his obvious aptitude for the life might have been some use to his country, he was now given his own regiment – known as the Royal Dauphin’s Regiment – and threw himself with zest into his new life.

He spent weeks in camp with his soldiers and showed that he might have made a great career for himself in the Army. His austerity endeared him to his men, for they saw in him a leader always ready to share their discomforts.

During the manoeuvres the weather was bad and the Dauphin, unaccustomed to hardship, developed a particularly virulent cold. This he ignored, but the neglected cold persisted, and at the beginning of October, when the military operations were concluded and he had joined the Court at Fontainebleau, the royal family was astonished to see how ill he was.

He had been plump but now he had lost all his spare flesh. It was believed that this was due to the violent unaccustomed exercise, but when the cough persisted, there were many who remembered the sickness of Madame de Pompadour and remarked that it would be strange if her old enemy the Dauphin should be similarly stricken.

Marie-Josèphe was very worried when she saw him.

‘You must go to bed for a while,’ she insisted. ‘And you must let me nurse you. I was once told I was a good nurse.’

‘I remember the occasion well,’ said the Dauphin with feeling.

‘Then you will not hesitate to place yourself in my hands?’

He said gently: ‘Then I was ill, Marie-Josèphe. Now I merely have a cold which I cannot throw off.’

‘The doctors shall bleed you,’ she said.

She found him docile; it was as though he wished to please her, to make up for the anxiety he had caused her.

She thought: he has changed. He is more gentle. He knows how I suffered, and he wants to make up for the misery he has caused me with that woman.

She wondered about the woman, but she did not ask.

She felt that there was something very precious about this period in her life and she would not have it spoilt in the smallest degree. She would try to forget the existence of Madame Dadonville and her little Auguste; and she would pray that the Dauphin would also forget.

She put on a simple white dress, thinking of that time when she had nursed him safely through the small-pox, when they had been so close together and she had believed that the bond between them was inviolate for ever.

I am happy, she thought; happier than I have ever been because when he is sick he comes to me. And I am a good nurse. Dr Pousse said so. Once again I will bring him back to health – and now that we are older, more mellow, the happiness we shall regain will last for the rest of our lives.

Marie-Josèphe sat at her husband’s bedside. She was very worried because he did not get well. The cold persisted and it had grown worse.

‘He suffers from pleurisy,’ said the doctors and they bled him again and again.

An ulcer had appeared on his upper lip. It was a malignant growth and no ointments would cure it, and although at times it seemed about to heal it always broke out again.

There came a day when he took the Dauphine’s handkerchief to hold to his mouth after a fit of coughing, and when he handed it back to her it was stained with blood.

She remembered the sickness of Madame de Pompadour, and that she had seen the comely figure waste away almost to nothing. Thus was the Dauphin wasting before her eyes.

But she would save him. She was determined to; she loved him as she loved no one else in the world, and she would fight with all her skill to save him.

She remembered that wedding night when he had cried in her arms for the loss of his first wife. She had known at that time that he was a good man, a man of sensibility and deep feeling; then she, a frightened child, had become a woman determined to win what she desired, determined to hold it. And what she had desired was the love of her husband.