Mme. de Châteauroux held out her hand, and, while the minister bent over to kiss it, she smiled down on the powdered head with a look in her eyes that he, could he have seen it, would have considered with something like apprehension. "Our friendship is ratified, M. de Maurepas. Au revoir."
"I shall be the first to welcome you at Versailles."
"Thank you. With Maurepas for one's friend, who could dread anything?"
"You flatter me too much. Au revoir."
So, with a final salute, and a grim smile at himself for his undeniable defeat at a woman's hands, Maurepas concluded his task, and, with relief at his heart, crossed the threshold of the dwelling of the favorite of France.
CHAPTER VIII
Deep Waters
The King and his companion returned to Versailles on Friday, as quietly as they had left it three days before; and it was probable that most of the court was unaware that his Majesty had been invisible for any but usual reasons—exclusive hunting, and intimate suppers, somewhere, with some one. The little circle of royal companions who selected what details of gossip might cross the threshold of the Salle du Conseil or the Petits Cours Intérieurs into the Œil-de-Bœuf were extremely discreet. For days Rumor, always with the name of la Châteauroux as a refrain for her verses, flapped over Paris and Versailles, chanting vigorously. Keepers of journals, d'Argenson and the worthy de Luynes, wrote wildly, contradicting one day all that had been said on the day before, and which, in turn, would be falsified to-morrow. Was Madame la Duchesse really to be reinstated, or, like her sister predecessor, to be kept on there in Paris in sackcloth and regret ever after? This question no one definitely answered. Mme. d'Etioles, now and then in the palace, more often away under the close surveillance of her husband, trembled between anticipation and despair. There was another at court in much the same way. This was Richelieu, who, for the first time since his début, living as he did at the very door of the kingdom's adytum, was still outside the pale of knowledge. Daily he scanned the face of Maurepas, a suavely blank space, which hinted tantalizingly at how much lay behind it. The King's demeanor was no less incomprehensible. He was generally sulky; seemed to have settled down into a routine; attended four war councils and two of finance, to Machault's terror, in one week; ate little; drank much; was seen often in unofficial but very private conference with Maurepas; and now and then treated Richelieu with such open and kindly affection that fainting hope revived in the Duke's heart, and he ceased numbering days.
As a matter of fact, la Châteauroux continued to be ill; for a king's favor will not banish malaria in one day. Mme. de Lauraguais was growing intensely anxious to be safe at Versailles again. The Duchess, curiously enough, was infinitely less impatient. Perhaps she knew too well what Versailles meant to experience unmixed joy at the prospect of the return. Not till physical strength was hers again did she care to go into the inevitable maze of intrigue, enmity, and deceit which one entered by the door to the little apartments. Dr. Quesnay, of Méré, a friend of Mme. d'Etioles, none the less a good physician and a bluffly honest man, attended her in Paris assiduously. Under his care the favorite certainly improved, day by day, till, on the 4th of the last month of the year, four messages flew over the road, two from Paris to Versailles, and two from the palace there to the Rue du Bac. And that night the King did not sleep, but was, nevertheless, late to mass on the morning of the fifth, when a new day and a new era dawned for the Œil-de-Bœuf and for the history of France.
The 5th of December fell on Sunday, and proved a day dull enough for all the court. For once their Majesties dined together in the Salle du Grand Couvert, as Louis XIV. would have had them do. But the King did not appear at his consort's salon in the evening. He merely informed her that it was his pleasure that she should hold a special reception two nights later, on the evening of the 7th, at which he would be present; why, he did not explain. Though it would be the evening before the Feast of the Conception, and therefore a time for extra devotions, Marie Leczinska gratefully acceded to her husband's request, delighted at anything which should bring him into her rooms. In the evening Louis supped in the small apartments with a select company of privileged gentlemen, his pages of the Court, Maurepas, and d'Argenson.