Louis fell in love with Marie. It was not a mere infatuation of an hour, like most of his affairs. He fell completely and foolishly in love with her. And he never fell out of love with her as long as he lived.
Lebel was in despair. He had hoped Marie might amuse the king. He had had no shadow of an idea that the affair would go further. By reason of his privileges as an old servant, he actually ventured to remonstrate with Louis.
"Sire," he protested, "she is not even legitimate. The birth records attest that."
"Then," laughed the king, "let the right authorities make her so."
Accordingly, messengers were sent posthaste to her babyhood home, and a new birth certificate was drawn up; also a certificate attesting to her mother's legal marriage to a wholly mythical Monsieur de Gomard de Vaubernier and to several other statements that made Marie's legitimacy as solid as Gibraltar.
"Also," pleaded the valet, "she is neither a wife nor a woman of title."
"We can arrange both those trifles," the king assured him.
And, with charming simplicity, the thing was done. Jean sent for his worthless elder brother, Guillaume, Comte du Barry, who was at that time an army captain. And on September 1, 1768, Marie and Guillaume were duly married. The lucky bridegroom received enough money to pay all his debts and to make him rich. Then he obligingly deserted his new-made wife at the church door, according to program, and wandered away to spend his fortune as might best please him. Thereby, Marie Becu became Madame la Comtesse du Barry, without having her cur of a husband to bother about.
A list of her possessions and their values—duly set down in the marriage contract, which is still on file—shows the state of Marie's finances at this time. I copy it for the benefit of those who may be interested to learn of a useful life's by-products. At twenty-two—in 1768—so says the contract, Marie was the sole owner of:
One diamond necklace, worth sixteen hundred dollars; an aigret and a pair of earings in clusters, worth sixteen hundred dollars; thirty dresses and petticoats, worth six hundred dollars; lace, dress trimmings, caps, et cetera, worth twelve hundred dollars; six dozen shirts of fine linen, twelve complete morning dresses, and other articles of linen, et cetera, worth four hundred dollars.