Madame de Pompadour (28 page)

They sent for holy oil, which arrived, and the Cardinal de La Rochefoucauld, but he could not be found, so extreme unction was not administered. The King’s own confessor appeared and the King had another half hour with him, after which he ordered everybody back into his room, and apologized publicly to his wife and daughters for the times when he had wronged her and scandalized them. Turning to the Dauphin he said he was happy to think that France would now have a good ruler. Everybody was in floods of tears. The courtiers, between their sobs, told each other that things looked very bad for the Marquise. The poor Marquise, who had also rushed back from Trianon, was in a state of mind that can be imagined. Of course she could not go and see the
King,
but had to wait in her own apartment, for news. Soon after midnight Quesnay came to her and said that he was out of danger; he could perfectly well go to a ball, if he wanted to. Great was her relief, but now she began to be tormented with fears for her own future. What had all these priests been saying to him? Would he send her away? She longed for a word from him, but no word came.

Meanwhile the man who had attacked the King, one Damiens, was being tortured by the guards to find out if he had any accomplices. All he said was, take care of the Dauphin, and then, that people would soon be talking about him, Damiens, and that he would die in torments like Jesus Christ. Machault ordered wood to be brought and was about to burn him alive then and there. He was prevented from doing so by the Provost of Versailles, who had jurisdiction over criminals arrested outside the palace, and who carried him off to prison.

In Paris, where the news arrived very quickly, people flocked to the churches, and thousands stood all night outside the Hôtel de Ville, waiting to read the bulletins. The Duc de Gesvres lit two great bonfires to keep them from freezing to death. The Princes of the Blood, ambassadors, and presidents of the
Grand’ Chambre
left immediately, in the full moon and terrible cold of that night, for Versailles; the road was covered with coaches. As for the members of the
Enquêtes
and
Requêtes
, who were still on strike, they went at once to church, and then dispatched a letter to Maupeou, the senior President, begging him to assure the King of their love. In spite of differences and irritations between the King and his people he was still the
Bien-Aim
é at this time.

Now, although the King was not much hurt in his body he had received a severe mental shock. He thought he saw in Damiens the instrument of the whole French people, and that this people whom he loved and to whom he felt himself joined, as in marriage, by the sacrament of the coronation, wanted to see him dead. In that case he had no wish, himself, to live. A short time ago, he had found a horrid little poem lying on his hearthrug, ‘You go to Choisy and to Crécy; why don’t you go to St Denis?’ (St Denis was the burial place of the Kings of France.) This, and many another
lampoon,
many another sign of his unpopularity, came back to him as he lay in bed. ‘The body is all right,’ he said, ‘but this’ – touching his forehead – ‘goes badly and does not mend.’

The wound healed, but day after day the King lay in his alcove, behind drawn curtains, speaking to nobody, and brooding. After eight days the curtains were drawn back and the courtiers saw that ‘this superbly handsome man looked at us sadly, as who should say, “here is your King whom an unhappy creature wished to assassinate, and who is himself the unhappiest man in the land”.’ He gave one or two orders; he would see the ambassadors, he said, on Tuesday, instead of, as usual, on Wednesday; apart from that he hardly spoke.

The Marquise, for her part, was living through the worst time of her whole life. Day after day went by with no message from the King. Marigny went to see if he could have a word with him, but the Duc de Richelieu very rudely told him to be off. The Princesses and the Dauphin never left their father’s room for a moment. Madame de Pompadour knew quite well that the faction which wanted to be rid of her, led by d’Argenson and supported, for religious reasons, by the King’s children, would use every means to further this end. It was now or never for them. Machault, whom she had hitherto regarded as her friend, and whom the public regarded as her creature, came to see her, and in a very different manner from his usual one with her, advised her to leave Versailles. He gave her to understand that this was the King’s express wish. He had been talked into doing so by the Dauphin who had assumed a more authoritative manner since the attempt; the courtiers felt that he had suddenly been transformed from a fat, pious nobody into a man who might at any moment become their King. From now on he had a seat in the
Conseil d’Etat
and was altogether more important at Versailles. After the interview with Machault, the Marquise, who was trembling, but otherwise calm and collected, gave orders for her carriages to be kept in readiness, and sent for her trunks. The Elysée was to be prepared to receive her and all her servants, and they were to start packing up at once. While they were doing so, in came Madame de Mirepoix. ‘What is happening here? What are these trunks for?’ ‘Alas, dearest, M. de Machault
says
I must leave and that
he
wishes it.’ ‘I think your
Garde des Sceaux
is betraying you,’ said the Maréchale, ‘and I very much advise you to stay where you are until you get orders from the King himself. Who leaves the table loses the game.’

Soubise, Bernis, Gontaut and Marigny all gave the same advice, and between them they prevailed on her to stay until she heard directly from the King. They said he would be very angry with her if she went of her own accord, without waiting for his instructions. Her real friends had never been so good to her. The Duchesse de Brancas hardly left her, nor did Dr Quesnay; Bernis and the other men came in twenty times a day to see how she was and to try to reassure her. She was extemely courageous and nobody could have guessed what she was suffering.

As for d’Argenson, the cards were on the table. Madame de Pompadour sent for him; he kept her waiting for hours and when he came was perfectly insulting. She said that the King must be prevented from seeing seditious matter found in the mails; nothing could be worse for him, at present, than to read such stuff. D’Argenson replied that it was his plain duty to show the King everything. After a sharp interview: ‘Monsieur, you are going too far. It would be pointless to prolong this conversation. I see quite plainly that you hope and think I shall have to leave the Court and therefore that you can say what you like to me. I have not seen the King for five days. It is possible that I shall never see him again, but if I do you can be quite sure that either you or I will have to go.’

‘Madame, is this all?’ said d’Argenson, and left the room. He was so sure which way the land lay that he wrote a letter to Madame d’Estrades telling her to cheer up, she would soon be back at Versailles, and then he and she would run the gambling den together. When he had gone, Bernis came to see Madame de Pompadour and found her in a characteristic attitude, standing, by the fire, her hands in her muff: she was gazing absently out of the window. ‘You look like a pensive sheep,’ he said. ‘It’s the wolf who has made the sheep pensive,’ she replied.

And still the days went by, and still no word from the King.

He was up now, in his bedroom, his hair curled and powdered,
and
walking about with a little stick. He hardly spoke – when the ambassadors came to see him the interview took place in perfect silence – but he had more or less returned to normal life. It was noticed that the Dauphin never left his side and that they were friendly and affectionate together. But no chat, no gossip and no jokes with the men around him, who were beginning to feel the strain.

On the eleventh day the King was in his room with the Dauphin and the Dauphine, the tall Duchesse de Brancas, Messieurs de Croissy, Fontanieu, Champcenetz and Dufort de Cheverny. Everybody else had gone off to dine, and the palace, as always at this hour, was utterly deserted. It was rather late and they were all hungry, waiting to be dismissed, but the King did not give the signal. He was wandering about in his dressing-gown and nightcap, leaning on his stick, in the sad silence to which they were becoming accustomed. At last he gave a sign to the Dauphine, who curtseyed and went out. Madame de Brancas was going to follow when the King told her to wait. The Dauphin looked up, very much surprised. ‘Lend me your cloak, will you?’ the King said to Madame de Brancas. She took it off and gave it to him; he put it around his shoulders, walked a few steps in it, said good-bye to her and left the room. The Dauphin made a move as though to follow him and the King said: ‘No – don’t come with me.’ So the Dauphin went to join the Dauphine at dinner.

The gentlemen-in-waiting looked at each other with a wild surmise. Hungry as they were they agreed that it would be impossible to dine, it was all too interesting. They settled down to await developments. A good long time went by before the King returned, and when he did he was a different man; calm, agreeable, chatting away, laughing about his feminine cloak. He would dine now, he said, and advised the others to do the same. It was not difficult to guess that he had been to see the Marquise. In that one interview she had managed to put his mind completely at rest.

She told him, quite truly, that Damiens was mad, that he was not the instrument of any party or conspiracy, let alone of the French people as a whole, and that he had acted entirely on his own. The country was appalled by the attempt, she said, the Parisians would tear Damiens limb from limb if they could get hold
of
him, and nobody had been more sincerely shocked than the Magistrates. She spoke in her sensible downright way and the King believed her. Next day he got up, dressed, went out hunting and supped as usual with Madame de Pompadour. Marigny was there, treated more like a brother-in-law than ever. The good Barbier, in his diary, says: ‘The King is beginning to amuse himself again, far the best for him and for us.’

D’Argenson and Machault were dismissed. ‘Monsieur d’Argenson, your services are no longer necessary. I order you to resign your various charges and to go and live on your estate at Ormes.’ D’Argenson was in his bath when this intimation arrived. He quickly dressed and went to Paris, where a typically eighteenth-century scene took place. He found his wife, as usual, chatting to M. de Valfons. ‘Don’t go,’ he said to Valfons, ‘at such terrible moments it is better to be three.’ He told them the news. Madame d’Argenson said that she would, of course, go with him to Ormes and M. de Valfons said he would, of course, come too, but d’Argenson would not hear of such sacrifices. Madame d’Argenson was a delicate woman, country air would be very bad for her, she must stay in Paris within reach of her doctor; and Valfons must stay within reach of her. That afternoon d’Argenson set forth, alone. At the city boundary he was met by Madame d’Estrades and they drove away to exile together. They both became very thin, with the boredom of country life. Not until after the death of the Marquise was d’Argenson allowed to go back to Paris; and then he only went there to die.

Machault’s dismissal was couched in far more friendly terms. ‘Monsieur de Machault, although certain of your probity and the honesty of your motives, circumstances oblige me to ask you for my seals and for your resignation as Minister of the Marine. You can rely upon my protection and friendship. You can ask favours for your children at any time at all. You had better stay at Arnouville for the present. You will keep your salary and your honours.’ Machault, in exile, became very fat. He was nearly recalled to office by Louis XVI, but in the end was passed over, and he died in prison during the Revolution.

Were these two men sent away for crossing Madame de
Pompadour
or was it a matter of policy? During the days when the King lay behind his curtains he must have been pondering on public affairs, and on the war which was beginning. D’Argenson and Machault had always been publicly pro-Frederick, they disliked the
renversement des alliances
and were most half-hearted about the mobilization. It would have been very difficult to conduct the war efficiently with them at the head of affairs; they would have had to go sooner or later. Furthermore, Machault was at daggers drawn with the Magistrates and the King was anxious to come to a settlement with them. But the public thought they had been sacrificed to feminine spite.

The
Conseil d’Etat
was left a very much reduced and not very brilliant body. It consisted of the Dauphin; Paulmy, d’Argenson’s nephew; Rouillé, who was in his dotage; the Maréchal de Belle-Isle, an excellent war minister but also rather old; Bernis, and St Florentin, an authority on Court usage and procedure.

M. de Stainville, having done so well at Rome, was now promoted to the Vienna embassy; he came to Versailles to pay his court to the King and congratulate him on his escape. He had hardly been in the palace a week before giving further proof of his adroitness. He asked the Marquise if she really thought it wise to leave foreign affairs in such incompetent hands as Rouillé’s. She said she and the King were both longing to get rid of him, but they were afraid of killing M. Rouillé who seemed very near to apoplexy as it was; he slept all through every council. The King thought that the shock of a dismissal might finish him.

Stainville said: ‘Shall I get you his resignation?’ The Marquise replied that nothing would be better received but that it was impossible. Madame Rouillé loved the Court as only a bourgeoise could love it, and she would never allow her husband to resign. Stainville went straight off to see Madame Rouillé. He pointed out to her that if her husband went on working it would probably kill him and then she would have to leave Versailles. If he resigned, on the other hand, they could keep their apartment and Rouillé would be given the rich sinecure of the
Surintendance des Postes
. It worked like a charm. He went with Madame Rouillé to her husband’s office and came away with the resignation.