The Road to Compiegne (43 page)

Why, said some pessimists, he might even marry the Duchesse de Gramont. The lady was irrepressible. The whole Court knew of what had been called the rape of the King. If that could happen to him, might he not be led unresisting into marriage?

Something must be done. A new mistress must be found. She must be so gay, so enchanting, that she would be able to charm the King from his present mood.

Somewhere in France she existed, and it was the desire of every ambitious and pleasure-loving man at Court to find her.

None of the candidates aroused more than a flicker of interest in the King, and then one day Le Bel was cornered by a man who assured him that he would end the search.

This man was a hanger-on at Court, a man who had taken part in many a shady adventure, who lived by his wits and owned an establishment in which he trained beautiful young women to be suitable mistresses for men in high places, and then concluded profitable transactions.

This man was the Comte du Barry.

Chapter XVII

MADAME DU BARRY

J
ean Baptiste du Barry, rake, rogue, adventurer, was feeling very pleased with himself as he left Le Bel. He was by nature an optimist: he could not have succeeded in his way of life if he had not been so. He lived by the expediency of the moment and his unwavering belief in the future.

He was now certain that, although many powerful men at Court – headed by Choiseul – had failed to provide the King with a mistress, he, living on the fringe of the Court, a man with an unsavoury past and a doubtful future, was going to succeed.

‘This time,’ he said to himself, ‘there shall be no failure. The woman is mine. Ha! From Jean Baptiste Comte du Barry, to Louis de Bourbon King of France. Not such a great step for her as some might think!’

Le Bel was not very enthusiastic; du Barry would admit that. He could only believe that the Comte might provide the King with amusement for a night or so.

‘Oh no, no, my friend,’ murmured Jean Baptiste. ‘I will provide him with the successor to Madame de Pompadour.’

He could not prevent himself from laughing aloud. Once before he had come near to success. Had they forgotten that? He certainly had not. But for Madame de Pompadour he would have succeeded too.

He would not count that a great failure. Many men, even at Court, had found a formidable adversary in that woman; but now she was where she could not foil the plans of Jean Baptiste du Barry. And that clever purveyor of woman had a creature to offer who greatly excelled even la belle Dorothée.

Yes, he was certain of that. Jeanne was the most delicious creature who had ever fallen into his hands.

Dorothée also had been delightful after he had trained her.
After
, of course. They all owed so much to Jean Baptiste.

He had secured a meeting between the King and Dorothée as he now proposed to arrange between Jeanne and the King. The King had been delighted with the lovely Dorothée.

‘Perhaps for one night . . . two nights,’ Le Bel had hinted.

One night! Two nights! Girls were well brought up in the establishment of Monsieur le Comte du Barry. La belle Dorothée was no little bird for the
trébuchet
, no candidate for the Parc aux Cerfs. He had meant her to reign at Court, and so she would have done, daughter of a Strasbourg water-carrier though she was, but for Madame de Pompadour.

That woman! She was clever, he would grant that; but she would not have succeeded against the Comte du Barry except for the fact that he could not approach the King, and she was beside him every hour of the day.

She did not do the damage herself. She would not soil her aristocratic hands (aristocratic! snorted Jean Baptiste. Was the daughter of a meat-contractor in Paris so much superior to one of a water-carrier in Strasbourg?). No; others told the King that la belle Dorothée had been the mistress of a man who was suffering from a painful disease, the very mention of which, considering the life he led, could throw the King into a panic.

So that was the end of la belle Dorothée. Perhaps he had asked too quickly for that diplomatic post in Cologne. Well, he had more experience now, more
finesse
; and there was no Madame de Pompadour to sweep a possible rival out of the way. There was only weary Le Bel (showing his age, poor fellow) eagerly looking for someone, anywhere, who could amuse the King.

So Jeanne was going to succeed where Dorothée had failed. Jeanne had the vitality, and when he told her she would be wild with joy. He pondered. Should he try to restrain her? Perhaps. Perhaps not. When he thought of Jeanne in her most abandoned mood and imagined her with the King, he could but hover between hilarious laughter and apprehension. So much depended on the mood of the King.

Louis was surrounded by ladies who failed to please him, so perhaps one who was certainly no fine lady would be exactly what he needed. And Jeanne (surely he did not exaggerate when he called her the most beautiful girl in Paris) was experienced. She had entertained so many men in her amatory life that she would surely know how best to please the King. Jeanne was perfect for the role. She was not very young – nearly twenty-five in fact – although they would say she was twenty-two. Even so that was not exactly young. Yet she remained so fresh that it was extraordinary. It was not only because of that perfect skin; it was something within herself, some inner delight in being alive and well, and able to amuse, some perpetual joy which never seemed to desert her whatever befell her. She retained it even during their quarrels, and they had had some violent ones. (He trembled now to remember an occasion when she had packed her valise and left his house. Thank God he had found her and brought her back.) He was sure it had been hers during those days of poverty in Vaucouleurs, and in that depressing de la Garde establishment where she worked for a while. It was Jeanne herself – bubbling over with good spirits, happy to possess life no matter where she lived it.

Perhaps it was this quality in her, rather than her startling beauty, which made her so outstanding, so certainly a person who could bring good fortune to herself and her benefactor.

He pictured himself swaggering about Versailles and Paris. All those who had warned him that he would end up destitute would be forced to eat their words. He would have some surprises to show them at home in Lévignac, where they still looked upon him as a ne’er-do-well, in spite of the letters he wrote to them from Paris.

He was no longer young; he was ready to accept that sad fact, for he was midway between forty and fifty. He may not have accumulated wealth so far, but he had acquired wisdom and experience, and in a matter of months from now his fortune would be made. Jeanne would make it.

There had been a time when he had been rich. That was twenty years ago when he had been clever enough to make a wealthy marriage. The family had thought that Catharine Ursula Dalmas de Vernongrèse would come to the tumbledown old
château
in Lévignac, use her money to renovate the place and buy some of the land which they had lost during previous generations, thus bringing back to the du Barry family the dignity of the past.

It was for this very reason that the marriage had been arranged for their eldest son.

Jean Baptiste had had other ideas. He had married Catharine to win her fortune for himself, not to give it to his family.

He admitted now that he had been incautious, but then he had lacked the experience which he had now acquired. He had tried to double his fortune at the gambling tables and very soon Catharine’s money had gone the way of that of the du Barrys.

That was years ago and, since Catharine was now as poor as his own family, there was no need for them to stay together, so they had parted and Jean Baptiste had come to Paris to make another fortune.

And now, as once he had seen Catharine as the woman who would make him a rich man through marriage, he saw Jeanne who was to bring him to the same happy state through the infatuation of the King.

Catharine had been one of the richest girls in Toulouse; Jeanne was the most beautiful in Paris.

She was his to mould and use to his advantage as Catharine had been. A man grows wiser in twenty years, and this time he would succeed.

Nearly twenty-five years before, in the village of Vaucouleurs, Jeanne Bécu (now known as Mademoiselle Vaubarnier) had been born on an August day in the year 1743.

Jeanne was the illegitimate daughter of Anne Bécu, and no one was sure who was her father. Not that anyone cared very much. Some declared it was one of the soldiers who had been billeted in the village. Anne had a lover among them. Others said it was the cook in the village inn. Anne was often in and out of the kitchens there. Others said that of course it was one of the Picpus monks, for Anne went to the convent regularly to sew for them, and she had been seen behaving with Jean Jacques Gomard – Frère Ange to his community – in a manner which should not be expected between monk and visiting seamstress.

When Jeanne was four years old she accompanied her mother to Paris where Anne had found work as a cook in the house of a beautiful courtesan known as Francesca.

Anne was delighted with her new situation especially when Jeanne, whose beauty was already remarkable, attracted the attention of Francesca’s lover, Monsieur Billard-Dumonceau who, being an amateur artist, desired to paint the child’s portrait.

‘You must lend me Jeanne for a time,’ he told Anne. ‘I will take her to my house, for I am going to paint her. You will have nothing to fear; she will be returned to you safely.’

Anne Bécu had no fear. She looked upon Monsieur Billard-Dumonceau as her benefactor; moreover she had formed a strong friendship with a fellow servant at Mademoiselle Francesca’s; this was Nicolas Rançon. They had become lovers, but because they were both advancing into middle age they were contemplating entering into a more settled relationship.

When the Abbé Arnaud, who called on Monsieur Dumonceau, saw Jeanne, he took her on to his knee and asked her who she was.

Without embarrassment she told him. He said she was the loveliest little girl he had ever seen, and added that it was regrettable that she was without education.