The Road to Compiegne (36 page)

The rest, which accompanied the sudden freedom from responsibilities, had a marked effect on the Marquise. Madame du Hausset hovered about her delightedly, watching her take a little milk.

Even Dr Quesnay, who was not given to optimism, was a little cheered. As for the King, he was certain that she would be well again.

‘You see,’ said the Marquise, ‘all I needed was a little rest. I was overtired, nothing more.’

As she appeared to be on the way to recovery, the King decided to return to Versailles where certain State matters demanded his attention.

‘You must follow me, my dear,’ he said, ‘as soon as you are well enough. But, I beg you, do not leave your bed until you are quite ready to do so.’

He took an affectionate farewell of her and left Choisy for Versailles.

When the Court had left, Madame du Hausset could not hide her relief. ‘Now, Madame,’ she said, ‘you will have a real rest. You will doze and read all through the day and sleep soundly at night.’

The Marquise took the hand of her faithful friend and servant, and pressed it affectionately.

‘First,’ she said, ‘I will make my will.’

So during the days which followed the King’s departure she busied herself with listing her possessions (which were vast) and deciding who should inherit them.

Her only relative was her brother, Abel, the Marquis de Marigny. She thought of her children, both of whom had died, and for whom she had intended to do so much.

Abel should have the greater part of her fortune, although there should be gifts of jewels and such valuable possessions as her pictures to Soubise, Choiseul, Gontaut and others. She wished that her mother had lived. Oh, but it would have been too harrowing for her to see this fatal disease gradually taking a firmer grip on her daughter. Perhaps it was as well that Madame Poisson had died – and little Alexandrine also. Children of women such as herself might not be very kindly treated by the world when there was no one to protect them.

She was a very rich woman. Her income was some million and a half livres annually; she had magnificent establishments at Versailles, Fontainebleau, Paris and Compiègne. She had the
châteaux
of Marigny, St Remy, Aulnay, Brimborin, La Celle, Crécy, and of course the luxurious Bellevue. Petit Trianon, that exquisite
château
in miniature which she and Louis had planned together, was only half finished, and the Marquise knew that she would never entertain Louis in those charming little rooms.

She grew sleepy thinking of her
châteaux
, for each one could recall memories of certain occasions, so that they stood like signposts along the road, each one proclaiming some fresh triumph.

She was thinking now of Bellevue and the night when Louis had come to dine there – it was to be the first entertainment given in the new house. But the people – the angry people – had come marching to Bellevue, and she and her party had been forced to have the lights extinguished and take supper in a small house in the grounds, some little distance from the
château
.

She put her hand to her heart, recalling the terror of that occasion. Surely that heart had not leaped and bounded then as it did now.

She was suffocating.

‘Hausset!’ she called. ‘Hausset, come quickly.’

When the King heard that the Marquise had become desperately ill again, he and the whole Court knew that she was dying.

It was a point of etiquette that only members of the royal family might die in the Château de Versailles, but Louis could not bear the thought of Madame de Pompadour’s being far from him at such a time, so he gave orders that her rooms on the ground floor should be made ready to receive her.

When the news was brought to her that the King wished her to come to Versailles, she was so radiant that even Madame du Hausset believed that she would recover – at least for a time.

‘You see, Hausset,’ she said, clinging to her friend with those arms which made Madame du Hausset want to weep every time she looked at them – for they had once been plump and rounded and were now almost fleshless – ‘you see how he loves me. We belong to each other. He makes me as royal as he is. Hausset, you see how great our friendship is.’

She was carefully wrapped in blankets and carried out to a carriage in which she made a slow journey to Versailles. The people along the road came out to see her pass; they did not greet her with hostile shouts this time; they only looked on in silence.

Even they know, she thought, that this is my last journey.

In her old apartments at Versailles she lay in her bed. The doctors shook their heads over her; they could only pass her over to the priests.

She brooded on her sins and confessed them. Incidents of the past seemed to leap out of blurred pictures and make themselves vividly clear. She saw Charles Guillaume, her husband, imploring her to return to him and their family; she saw herself turning away from his pleas, knowing only her blind ambition. She thought of Alexandrine lying on her deathbed in the Convent of the Assumption, and she remembered Mademoiselle de Romans, crying for her son.

There were many spectres from the past to mock an ambitious woman.

Louis visited her several times a day, and her doctors asked him if he would break the news that she should prepare herself for Supreme Unction, as there was little time left.

He embraced her tenderly. It was their last farewell. She must now forget her King on earth, he told her, and prepare herself to meet an even greater King. And, because of the relationship between them, those who would grant her absolution insisted that they who had committed adultery should show their repentance by never again meeting on earth.

It was inevitable. The moment had come.

‘Farewell, my dearest friend, farewell,’ said Louis with tears on his cheeks. ‘I envy you. You are going to your heavenly rest while I am left to a life which must seem empty because you will no longer be there to charm it.’

For the last time they embraced, and Madame de Pompadour was left to the ministrations of her confessors.

Madame du Hausset signed to her servants to bring the clean clothes to the bed, but the Marquise smiled wanly and waved them away.

‘No,’ she said. ‘It is not worthwhile. There is such a short time left.’

The women looked at each other. They knew that she was right.

The priest came and prayed at her bedside and when he prepared to leave she said: ‘Wait a few more moments and we will go together.’

He took her hand to bless her for the last time; she smiled and closed her eyes.

Before that day was ended she was dead.

That evening her body, shrouded in a white sheet, was placed on a stretcher and carried out of the Château de Versailles to the Hôtel des Reservoirs.

Louis himself insisted on making all the arrangements; he knew well, he said, that it was the last wish of the Marquise that she should be laid to rest in the Church of the Capucines in the Place de Vendôme, where her little Alexandrine now lay beside Madame Poisson.

Two days after her death the body of Madame de Pompadour left Versailles for the last time on its way to Paris.

It was a stormy April day and the rain was falling in torrents as the procession gathered at Notre Dame de Versailles preparatory to leaving for Paris.

With Champlost, one of his
valets de chambre
, beside him, Louis stood on a balcony hatless in the rain, staring after the cortège while it made its way down the Avenue de Paris. Tears flowed down his cheeks, and sobs shook his body, as memories of their long relationship assailed him. It was not easy to picture Versailles without the Marquise.

Champlost stood helplessly beside him, and Louis suddenly laid his hand on his arm. ‘Why Champlost,’ he said, ‘so you witness my grief. I shall never be completely happy again. I have lost one who has been my friend – the best friend I ever had – for twenty years. Twenty long years, Champlost.’

‘Sire, this is a grievous thing which has befallen us, and Your Majesty in particular, but you will catch a fever if you stand here thus, hatless in the rain.’

The King looked up at the sullen skies, and the raindrops and the tears mingled on his cheeks.

‘It is the only mark of respect I can show her now,’ he said.

The
cortège
was passing along the Avenue de Paris, and the King felt he could no longer bear to watch it.

He turned from the balcony and stepped into his private sitting-room. Champlost followed him respectfully.

The dignity of Versailles closed in on the King. Life must go on, even though the Marquise had departed.

Louis suddenly seemed to remember what etiquette demanded of him. He said almost lightly: ‘The poor Marquise is having bad weather for her journey to Paris.’

Chapter XV