The customary midday service in the chapel at the palace that morning was unusually crowded. Mansart’s dignified and classical architecture in all its frigid splendour is best viewed to-day by the visitor from the royal tribune, and it is with difficulty that the cold and empty desolation condescends to conjure up for the imagination the historic share of this chapel in the grand age of the French monarchy. For under Louis XV.—sensualist and bigot—the homage of attendance at the rites of the religion of the Sovereign and the national Church was as profitable, nay, as obligatory, as obedience to the inflexible conventions of Court etiquette and the good breeding of the Faubourg St. Germain. So, indeed, it had been under Louis XIV. and the ascetic pietism of Madame de Maintenon; so it continued to be under Louis XV. and the genial culture of Madame de Pompadour and the libertinism of Madame du Barry. But, André, like every one else in the congregation that morning, was not thinking of this curious paradox as his eye scanned the dévots worshipping beside the men and women who patronised Voltaire and laughed at miracles in polished epigrams that dissolved the central truths of the Christian faith into a riddle for the vulgar. He saw the King, the Queen, and the crowd of courtiers, he saw Madame de Pompadour, who as yet had not gained, as she did later, the seat she coveted in the grand tribune. He was asking himself, as he mechanically rose from or fell on his knees, where was the Duke of Pontchartrain and what had the King said to him?
André, alike with the foes of his own order, knew that a crisis had been reached. The next forty-eight hours must settle decisively the great battle between the Court and the maîtresse en titre. And the decision rested with the royal figure kneeling devoutly on his crimson faldstool, with that man of the soft, impenetrable, bored eyes, who broke all the Ten Commandments, yet said his prayers with the same absorption as the most fanatical dévot. Yes; Louis’s worship was watched with feverish interest by every man and woman present.
“He is in a great rage,” the Comtesse des Forges whispered, as she crossed herself; “he never says all the responses unless he is truly angry.”
The Abbé de St. Victor tittered gently, rather because the licentious love story he had had stitched into his service-book had reached an amusing dénoûement. “To be sure,” he whispered back behind his lace handkerchief, “and he never is so polite to the Queen as when he is hopelessly in love with another woman.”
“Poor Pontchartrain,” whispered the Duchess, “always kisses me with passion half an hour before he kisses Françoise. All well-bred men are like the King in that, I suppose. It is the kiss of peace,” she pouted at the High Altar.
The Abbé tittered again with dulcet decorum, but, seeing Denise’s eye on him, prayed for the rest of the service with exemplary fervency and finished his love story at the same time.
When the congregation broke up, the Queen’s antechamber was the general meeting-place of the noble rebels, and Denise, lingering without, marked with surprise Madame de Pompadour’s sedan chair stop in the gallery. Madame de Pompadour had her chair just because it was the privilege of mesdames of the blood-royal, but to return this way was a fresh outrage.
Denise was still more surprised when she was addressed.
“I beg you,” said the lady, “to present my humble duties to her Majesty and to pray her to do me the honour of accepting these flowers.” She tendered a magnificent bouquet.
Denise looked her up and down. “The gentleman-usher of the week, Madame,” she replied, making a motion with her fan, “conveys messages to her Majesty.”