The House of de Mailly

by Margaret Horton Potter

"Gentlemen, we shall have need of you—later. Meantime you will remain in this room. While you are here we forbid you in any way to address any of those about you. And upon those who have, we know not how, been admitted here, we also impose silence. Hereafter this night must be by all of you forgotten. Any violation of my command will mean—understand well, messieurs and mesdames—will mean—imprisonment—for life."

With these final words the King, after glancing solemnly around the semicircle of mute figures, rose slowly and moved towards the bedroom door. As he opened it all behind him saw Falconet, the royal physician, turn and face his Majesty, whispering something. Louis started back for a second, and covered his face with his hands. Then, turning about, he raised one hand in a summons that was understood by all those who stood in the adjoining room. The little party moved forward into the sleeping-chamber of her who had ruled Versailles. Maurepas and d'Argenson stood aside for Deborah and her husband to enter; then they followed, with Quesnay close behind. Antoinette Crescot, waiting to be last, saw Richelieu, whose face had grown ghastly white, falter to the threshold of the door. There he stopped, hesitating, struggling with himself. Finally, with an effort that cost him all that remained of his nerve force, he stepped quickly into the bedroom and halted just inside, his back to the wall. Antoinette, who had sent one glittering look, like a dart, through the man in front of her, followed him into the bedroom, and passed him, as he stopped beside the wall.

Around the great bed of the third of the de Nesle sisters stood those who had just entered into that room, the spell of the hour, the flickering candle-light, and the terrible scene before them weaving a spell of slow fear about them all. The heavy velvet bed-curtains had long ago been pulled down, to give madame air in her agony. Up near the pillows, to the left, her face hidden in her hands, utterly exhausted with the horror of what she had seen, knelt Mme. de Flavacourt. At the other side was Père Ségand, the confessor, who had administered the last sacrament two hours before. Beside him stood Quesnay's superior, M. Falconet. Directly behind was the King, his eyes, like those of the rest, fixed upon the face of the woman he had loved.

Marie Anne de Mailly-Nesle lay rigid on her bed. Her golden hair, shaken free from powder in the last four hours, framed, in shining waves, her face. That face! Dusky, wrinkled, gray; the eyes, half-open, catching the candle-light, and glittering, glassy black, beneath their frozen lids; the shapeless lips, two drawn, gray lines, from beneath the upper of which the white teeth peered forth; was this visage that which once had been the peerless countenance of the most superb woman of her time?* And one thing more there was, which seemed a mark put on her by some master will to stamp the life which she had led unmistakably on her in death. Below the left corner of her mouth, unloosened in her life-struggles, was a black patch, cut in the shape of a crescent, named by the Court fop who had originated it, the "coquette."

* Description taken from a medical report of the coma produced by the amanita muscaria.

And so, through these December midnight hours, the little circle remained about that bed, gazing, in tremulous fascination, at what lay before them. Maurepas knew, now, why they had been admitted here. Who, ever after, would voluntarily gossip of such a scene as this? Who would willingly recall it to memory? Prudent-wise with a terrible wisdom was this King of theirs become! Maurepas, standing here, recalled, even as Claude was doing, another death which had taken place in this palace of Versailles: that of little Pauline Félicité de Vintimille, sister of this woman, seventeen years old, a mother, who had also left her bright world behind because of the unhallowed infatuation of the unapproachable man who stood here now—Louis Bourbon, King of France.

Long, endlessly long, was the train of hapless recollections called up by this scene; and when at last a whisper fell upon the silence, its words were an echo of other thoughts. Antoinette Crescot, forgetting everything save the unknowable face of her former mistress, muttered, softly, half to herself, "Is she dead?"

And in the room six, like her, waited for some reply. It came; not from the lips of Quesnay or of Falconet, but as an articulate breath from Deborah de Mailly, "Not yet—not yet—but soon."

Again the silence and the chilling spell, to be broken, this time, by the voice of the little golden clock from the mantel across the room. Two strokes rang out. The winter dawn was yet many hours away. Then, as if she had been waiting for a sound, the corpse-like figure on the bed suddenly, without apparent effort, sat up. The sightless eyes opened and were turned towards him whose scene this was. Louis shuddered under the look. Mme. de Châteauroux stretched out her gray lips in a long, slow smile. Then, in the voice of one speaking from the hereafter, she said, audibly, with uncanny lack of expression, "Thou—knowest—if—I have—wished—thy—glory."

It was the end. Père Ségand caught the body as it fell, and laid it gently upon the pillow and sheet. Then, high over her, he raised the crucifix that hung suspended from his waist. Those in the room sank to their knees. Mme. de Flavacourt's sobs were the only ones heard. Minutes passed, and Deborah felt hot drops from her eyes trickle slowly down her clasped hands and fall to the floor. Then came to her ears the tones of a hard, monotonous voice, in which all tears had long since been petrified to stone.