The Road to Compiegne Read Online Free PDF Page A

Madame d’Ancenis fiercely, ‘if only His Majesty would dispense with the Marquise and be as he was with Your Majesty in the beginning . . .’
    The Queen’s fingers tightened on the shirt intended for some poor man of Paris, and she forgot this apartment, she forgot the present moment, for she was back in the past; she was arriving for the first meeting with the King at that little place not far from Moret, which had ever since been known as Carrefour de la Reine . She was stepping out of her coach to meet her fifteen-year-old husband, the handsomest young man she had ever seen in her life; she was experiencing the great joy of knowing herself beloved – penniless daughter of an exiled king, nearly seven years older than her husband though she was. Those ecstatic days were long past; and there was no going back. Therefore it was a weakness to brood on them.
    And what were her women talking of? The conversation was becoming dangerous. The Pompadour. The road to Compiègne. These were no subjects for a Queen who upheld the etiquette of Versailles more rigorously than anyone else.
    The softness left her face and her mouth was a firm straight line.
    ‘I pray you,’ she said to the Duchesse, ‘continue with the book.’

    At the château of Bellevue Madame de Pompadour awaited the arrival of the King.
    What peace there was in this beautiful place! She would have liked to come here with only her little daughter Alexandrine and Madame du Hausset, and lie lazily in the shade under the trees in the quietest spot of the garden. That was impossible. She had worked hard to attain her position and must work equally hard to keep it. Never must she relinquish her hold on the King; none could be more fully aware than she was how many were eager to take what was now hers.
    She had driven from Versailles half an hour before, to make sure that all was in readiness for the King’s visit. Fortunately Bellevue was not far from Versailles. Unfortunately it was not far from Paris; thus the people of the capital could comfortably wander out to look at this latest extravagance of the King’s mistress.
    She looked at the gilded clock and noted the time. Very soon the King would be with her.
    She wandered out into the gardens, for the sunshine was inviting. There was no stirring of the wind, and the silence and warmth gave an atmosphere of timelessness to the place. Thus it will be, she thought, long after I am gone. People will come to Bellevue and say, ‘This is the house which was built by the King for Madame de Pompadour.’ They would think of her, the most successful woman of her period, little guessing the whole story.
    ‘Alexandrine,’ she called to the little girl who, in the company of a boy a few years older than herself, was watching the goldfish in one of the ponds.
    Her daughter came running towards her. How ungainly was little Alexandrine! But she was only seven, and there was time for change; all the same she would never be a beauty such as her mother was.
    Perhaps, thought the Marquise, she will find contentment instead of adulation, peace instead of the continual need to excel.
    ‘Ah, my child,’ said the Marquise, kissing her daughter lightly on her cheek. ‘You are looking after your guest?’
    ‘Oh yes, Maman; he thinks the gardens here so good for hide and seek.’
    ‘Do not overheat yourself, my darling,’ said the Marquise anxiously; the sight of this daughter, her only child, always aroused the utmost tenderness within her. How she wished that her father had been Louis instead of Charles Guillaume Lenormant d’Etioles. She would have felt much more at ease regarding the girl’s future if that had been so.
    The gardens seemed no longer so peaceful; she was once more conscious of the need to hold her place, to fight the exhausting disease which every day forced itself upon her notice; the future of her beloved daughter must be assured.
    ‘Maman, is His Majesty coming today?’
    ‘Yes, my dear. But when he