CHAPTER XXIV
A WISHED-FOR MIRACLE
The wished-for miracle had happened after all. Yet the news that the King had suddenly fainted, which spread like wildfire through the palace, was at first made light of. “The King,” said the Abbé de St. Victor, “likes to show a touch of human and feminine weakness; he faints as women do, to relieve the ennui of perpetual flattery.” In two or three hours, however, it was known that after being put to bed His Majesty had fainted again and again, that he had scarcely rallied, that the doctors whispered of palsy and a stroke, and that his condition was truly critical. The excitement slowly rose to feverish anxiety, mingled with no little exultation. Versailles was thrilled as Paris and France had been thrilled in 1743, when the King’s dangerous illness at Metz had fired every class into touching demonstrations of passionate loyalty. About midnight the watchers could relate that urgent couriers had been despatched, on what errands no one could precisely say, but it was certain that Monsieur le Dauphin, absent on a hunting expedition, had been summoned to return at once, that mesdames the princesses were being fetched from their convent, that a council of ministers would be held as soon as the Dauphin arrived, that the Archbishop of Paris and the saintly Bishop of Bordeaux, then in the capital, had been invited by the King’s confessor to come to Versailles. Towards dawn the doctors reported that His Majesty had been twice bled, that he had rallied for an hour and then slowly slipped back into virtual unconsciousness. Unless—unless, the whispers ran, a change for the better came soon, France would have a new king.
And Madame de Pompadour? Her name was on every one’s lips. A new king! Would it be the Bastille or Vincennes for the grisette then? Fierce joy throbbed in the Queen’s apartments when the rumour was confirmed that Madame de Pompadour, on hearing of her royal lover’s illness, had at once hurried to his room, but that the door had been shut in her face, by whose orders no one knew, nor whether it was with the King’s consent or not. What was certain was that the King’s confessor had refused to prepare his Sovereign for absolution so long as he remained in mortal sin, and that the Archbishop of Paris and the Bishop of Bordeaux would without doubt presently support the confessor. The dramatic scene at Metz was in fact repeating itself at Versailles. The King must be reconciled to his Queen and wife, must confess his sin, and promise to dismiss the partner in his guilt from his Court and his presence before he could receive the most solemn ministrations of the Church. And when Queen Marie Leczinska’s ladies were aware that their royal mistress had on her own initiative gone to her husband’s sick couch, had been admitted, and had not yet returned, a sigh of thankfulness, exultation, and vengeance went up. The hours of Madame de Pompadour’s supremacy were numbered. A just Heaven had intervened. Madame de Pompadour was doomed.
By nine o’clock next morning the noblesse had flocked, or were still flocking, in crowds from Paris to Versailles, thirsting for news, pining for revenge, on the tiptoe of excitement. The court-yards and stables were blocked with their carriages and every minute brought fresh arrivals. The Œil de Bœuf was filled with officers, nobles, clerics, officials, who overflowed into the Galerie des Glaces, in the noble windows of which chattered groups of eager questioners. In the Œil de Bœuf itself the subdued babble of talk rose and fell, but all eyes were alertly watching the white and gold doors so jealously kept by the Swiss Guards. Beyond was the royal bed-chamber, but what was passing within who could say? The physicians had forbidden the entrée to every one save the King’s valet, a couple of menial servants, the royal confessor, and now the Bishop of Bordeaux. How critical affairs were reckoned to have become could be judged by the presence of the Chevalier de St. Amant, the Duke of Pontchartrain, and the Comte de Mont Rouge, who had dared thus to defy the exile imposed by the sick King.
“I t-tell you,” Des Forges was saying, “he s-saw a d-devil and f-fainted. I d-don’t w-wonder.”
“It wasn’t a devil nor the devil; it was a woman,” the Abbé corrected. “Some women are devils, but all devils are not women. That is logic and truth together, which is rare.”
“Yes, it was a woman,” Mont Rouge added. “A woman in the shape of a vampire.”
“It was only a flower girl,” Pontchartrain laughed, and he threw in a ribald story which set his hearers choking with laughter.
“Well, when he was bled the blood came out black——”
“No, no; purple”—“yellow”—“blue”—corrected half a dozen voices, and each had a witness who had seen the bleeding and could swear to the colour; and so the speculation as to the causes of the King’s illness gaily ran on. The most extraordinary theories were afloat, for that the King had “seen something” was now a matter of common knowledge. But all were agreed on one point—Madame de Pompadour’s fate was sealed. Whether the King recovered or whether the Dauphin succeeded him the grisette was ruined.