MARIE ANTOINETTE
CHAPTER XCIII.
LE ROI EST MORT, VIVE LE ROI!
It was the evening of the tenth of May, 1774. The palace of Versailles, the seat of royal splendor, was gloomy, silent, and empty. Regality, erst so pleasure-loving and voluptuous, now lay with crown all dim, and purple all stained, awaiting the last sigh of an old, expiring king, whose demise was to restore to it an inheritance of youth, beauty, and strength.
In one wing of the palace royalty hovered over a youthful pair, as the genius of hope; in another it frowned upon the weak old king as the implacable angel of death.
Louis the Fifteenth was balancing the great account of his life—a life of luxury, voluptuousness, and supreme selfishness. Yielding to the entreaties of his daughters, he had sent for the Archbishop of Paris; but knowing perfectly well that the sacraments of the church would not be administered under a roof which was polluted by the presence of Du Barry, the old libertine had banished her to the Chateau de Ruelles.
But Monseigneur de Beaumontr required something more than this of the royal sinner. He exacted that he should make public confession of his scandalous life in presence of the court to which he had given such shameful example. The king had struggled against such open humiliation, but the archbishop was firm, and the fear of death predominating over pride, Louis consented to make the sacrifice.
For three days the courtiers had hung about the anteroom, afraid to enter (for the king's disease was small-pox), yet afraid to take flight, lest by some chance he should recover. But now the doors of the royal apartments were flung wide open, and there was great trepidation among the crowd. The archbishop in his canonicals was seen standing by the bed of state; on one side of him stood the grand almoner, and on the other the minister, the Duke d'Aiguillon. At the foot of the bed knelt the daughters of the king, who in soft whispers were trying to comfort their miserable father.
"The king wishes to bid adieu to his friends!" cried the Duke d'Aiguillon, in a loud voice.
Here was a dilemma! Everybody was afraid of the small-pox, for the handsome Marquis de Letorieres, whom Louis had insisted upon seeing, had just died of the infection, and nobody desired to follow him. And yet the king might outlive this attack, and then—what?