The Presentation

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
NEVER HAD MADAME DUBARRY LOOKED MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN NOW
See page 96
The Presentation by H. de Vere Stacpoole FRONTISPIECE IN COLOUR BY EARL STETSON CRAWFORD JOHN LANE COMPANY : : NEW YORK MCMXIV
Copyright, 1914 By J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY Copyright, 1914 By JOHN LANE COMPANY


IT was the night of the Duc de Choiseul’s ball, that is to say, the night before the expected presentation of the Comtesse Dubarry at Court, and Versailles was in a ferment, the seething of which reached to the meanest streets of Paris.
France had long been accustomed to the rule, not of kings, but of favourites and ministers, and at the present moment in the year of our Lord, 1770, she was under the rule of the most kind-hearted of women since the harmless La Vallière and the most upright minister since Colbert.
The mistress was Dubarry and the minister de Choiseul.
It was a strange government. To-day Dubarry, who hated Choiseul much more than she hated the devil, would be in the ascendant over Louis the Voluptuous. To-morrow Choiseul would have the long ear of the King, who was, in fact, only the table on which these two gamblers played with loaded dice for the realm of France.
Behind the two gamblers stood their backers. Behind Choiseul, when he was winning, nearly the whole Court of Versailles. Behind Dubarry, when she was losing, only her family, the Vicomte Jean, and a few inconsiderable people who had learned to love her for her own sake.