How far to Versailles? Why did they not send for him?
The curtain was drawn again; this time Mme Desbordes. She declared that she had made the chicory water herself and had drunk of it. This to comfort Madame; it was not–as to the last–true.
Madame persisted that she was poisoned. She sat up in bed; the tears lay in her eyes.
“Give me an antidote,” she said through locked teeth. She was not going to die, she told herself; it was too horrible. People did not die like this in the midst of glory. She clenched her hand against her side and demanded an antidote.
Sainte-Foy, the valet de chambre of Monsieur, brought her a draught composed of Jesuit’s bark and pulverised mummy. Monsieur had sent it, he said; the doctor could recommend no better antidote. She drank it, shivering; the eyes were distracted.
Her ladies whispered and sobbed together; there were now so many men and women in the room that she felt the air close and heavy. She implored Sainte-Foy to open the window; the doctor forbade it.
With that she fell back, tossing in the grip of pain, crying out that she was poisoned.
M. Vyelen brought her a glass of oil; she forced it down, shuddering with nausea.
Then after the administration of several horrible nameless drugs she lay in a half-stupor.
The pain had ceased to be localised; it shuddered through her limbs like her very blood and seemed one with the thick air about her.