At the first, the King was seen between his two daughters, the favorite and the courtiers most liked. They laughed and made light of the affair.
Suddenly appeared at Versailles the stern and austere countenance of the eldest daughter, the Princess Louise, Lady Superior of St. Denis, come to console her father.
She stalked in, pale and cold as a statue of Fate. Long since she had ceased to be a daughter to her father and sister to his children. She resembled the prophets of woe who come in calamities to scatter ashes on the gold and jewels. She happened in at Versailles on a day when Louis was kissing the hands of Countess Dubarry and using them as soft brushes for his inflamed cheeks and aching head.
On seeing her, all fled. Her trembling sisters ran to their rooms; Lady Dubarry dropped a courtsey and hastened to her apartments; the privileged courtiers stole into the outer rooms; the two chief physicians alone stayed by the fireplace.
“My daughter,” muttered the monarch, opening his eyes which pain and fever had closed.
“Your daughter,” said the Lady Louise, “who comes from God, whom you have forgotten, to remind you. Pursuant to etiquette, your malady is one of the mortal ones which compels the Royal Family to gather around your bedside. When one of us has the small pox, he must have the Holy Sacrament at once administered.”
“Mortal?” echoed the King. “Doctors, is this true?”
The two medical attendants bowed.
“Break with the past,” continued the abbess, taking up his hand which she daringly covered with kisses. “And set the people an example. Had no one warned you, you ran the risk of being lost for eternity. Now, promise to live a Christian if you live: or die one, if die you must.”
She kissed the royal hand once more as she finished and stalked forth slowly.