The Road to Compiegne Read Online Free Page A

and said: ‘Your sister presumably refers to some acquaintance of hers. I pray you explain to her that such epithets are not suitable on the lips of a young Princess.’
    Victoire was stolidly looking at Adelaide like one who has completed a set task. Sophie, having just enough intelligence to sense that something was wrong, looked from the King to Adelaide.
    ‘I see,’ said Louis, ‘that it is time I prepared for the hunt. I will say au revoir to my daughters.’
    At that moment Louise-Marie appeared. It had taken her all this time to cross the rooms which separated her apartments from those of her sisters because of her deformity.
    Louis, gazing sadly at her, wished that she had Adelaide’s looks, for she was a bright little thing, the most intelligent of his daughters. It was so unfortunate that the poor child was deformed. He raised her from her curtsy and embraced her in sudden pity.
    ‘I am sorry, my child,’ he said, ‘that you have come precisely at the moment when I am about to take my departure.’
    ‘If Adelaide would ring for us all simultaneously when Your Majesty wishes to see your daughters, I could arrive before you are about to leave.’
    Adelaide said sharply: ‘You forget that you are the youngest. You must consider the etiquette of Versailles.’
    ‘Adelaide’s etiquette,’ Louise-Marie amended with a little laugh. ‘Not “Versailles”. Perhaps Your Majesty would order how it should be done.’
    Louis touched her cheek with the back of his hand.
    ‘My dear,’ he said, ‘do you want me to displease Madame Adelaide?’
    He had had enough of the angry looks of Adelaide, the defiance of Louise-Marie, the laziness of Victoire and the stupidity of Sophie.
    ‘ Adieu , my children. We shall meet again soon.’ And when at a sign from Adelaide, they curtsied, he returned by way of the private staircase to his own apartments.
    His daughters could do little to relieve his melancholy. Then he remembered that the afternoon would include his being entertained at Bellevue by the Marquise; and his spirits lifted.

    In her apartments the Queen was at prayer. She knelt before a human skull which was lighted by a lamp and decorated with ribbons. She prayed for many things: for the health of her husband and a return to his favour, that her daughters might find good husbands and bring credit to their family and their country, that Madame de Pompadour might be cast aside and the King be made so fearful of the life hereafter that he would return to his wife.
    It was alarming to contemplate the power of the King’s mistress. Recently Comte Phélippeaux de Maurepas had been dismissed because he had written scurrilous verses about her. Maurepas was a friend of the Queen and the Dauphin; and his departure was a great loss to them.
    ‘Holy Mother of God,’ prayed the Queen, ‘show the King the error of his ways.’
    She was not asking for a miracle. Louis, in spite of his great vitality – he could ride many a horse to exhaustion and remain in the saddle longer than any of his friends, and she had had unpleasant experience of his uxorious demands – had been subject to frequent fevers and could therefore be made to ponder on sudden death.
    In fact she believed that his melancholy was in some measure due to his awareness of the fact that at any moment he might die with all his sins upon him.
    She trembled for Louis’ soul, and whenever she had an opportunity let him know this. There were not, of course, many opportunities now. They rarely spoke to each other, except in public. If she wished to approach him on any matter she did so by letter. It was the only way in which she could be reasonably sure of claiming his attention.
    She rose from her knees and sent for her favourite ladies, the Duchesse de Luynes, Madame de Rupelmonde and Madame d’Ancenis. They were all soberly dressed, as she was, quiet decorous ladies, kindred spirits of the Queen.
    ‘I think,’ she said, ‘that we will read together.’
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