“In Lady Dubarry’s house, when I was a boy, but it deeply struck me.”
“Yes, she pretended to be descended from the page who holds the horse. Jeanne Dubarry was the woman chosen by Marshal Richelieu to be the sole feminine ruler over the worn-out monarch Louis XV. and to induce him to shut up the infamous Deerpark, which was the harem ruining the old man. She was an adroit actress and played her part marvellously. She entertained while making sport of him, and he became manly because she persuaded him he was so.”
He stopped as if blaming himself for his imprudence in speaking of his grandfather thus openly before a stranger; but one glance at Gilbert’s frank face encouraged him, for he saw that he could speak all to a man who understood every thing.
“This melancholy, lofty face,” went on the King, referring to the portrait, “was placed in the strange Egeria’s boudoir, where it heard her impudent laughs and saw her lascivious gambols. Merrily she would take Louis by the arm and show him Charles, saying: ‘Old gossip, this King had his neck cut through because he was too weak towards his Parliament. Take warning about your own!’ Hence Louis broke up his Parliament and died peacefully on his throne. Thereupon we exiled the poor woman, for whom we ought to have been most indulgent. The picture was packed away in the lumber room of Versailles and I never thought about it. Now, how comes it here, in my bedroom? why does it haunt me?” He shook his head. “There is some fate in this.”
“Fatality, if the portrait reads no lesson, Sire; Providence if it does. What does it say to your Majesty?”
“That Charles lost his throne from having made war on his subjects, and James the Second for having tired his own.”
“Like me, then, it speaks the truth.”
“Well?” inquired the sovereign, questioning the doctor with his glance.
“Well, I beg to ask for your answer to the portrait.”
“Friend Gilbert, I have resolved on nothing: I will take the cue from circumstances.”