Louis the Well-Beloved (10 page)

Orléans remained the most important minister in France. It was not forgotten that should the King die without an heir he was next in the line of succession. His greatest rival was the Duc de Bourbon, who yearned to step into his shoes.

Bourbon was far from brilliant. He was thirty-one and his mother was one of the bastards of Louis Quatorze; he could therefore claim to be grandson of the old King, which he never forgot nor allowed anyone else to forget. He was possessed of great wealth and Chantilly was one of the most luxurious houses in France. He devoted much of his time to eating and making love; the rest he spent in asking himself why he should not one day oust Orléans from the post he held and occupy it himself.

He was in continual fear that the King would die and Orléans take the throne, thus frustrating his own ambitions.

Extremely ugly, he had little to attract women but wealth and his titles; and it was largely due to his mistress, Madame de Prie, that ambition had been born in him. Tall and gaunt, his legs were so long and fleshless that he looked as though he were walking on stilts. Being so tall he had formed a habit of stooping, which had made him round-shouldered and, as though he were not unprepossessing enough, when he was young he had had an accident while riding, and this had resulted in his losing an eye.

Yet Madame de Prie, one of the loveliest women at Court, had become his mistress, and it was Madame de Prie’s ambition to be the power behind the throne.

Louis she did not consider – he was but a child. She determined that her lover should take the place of Orléans as first minister of France; and as the King was not yet fourteen that would mean that the Duc de Bourbon would be, in all that mattered, ruler of the country.

Bourbon, recently widowed, allowed Madame de Prie to dominate him. This woman, wife of the Marquis de Prie and daughter of a very rich financier, was a born schemer; and although Bourbon would have preferred to feast with her and to make love, he allowed himself to listen to her schemes and to agree with them.

Orléans knew what they planned. He was as determined to foil the schemes of Madame de Prie as she was to carry them out. The possible death of the King held no such qualms for him; for if Louis died, he would take the throne, and when he himself died there was his son, the present Duc de Chartres, to succeed him.

It was true that the Duc de Chartres was more interested in religion than in politics. What did that matter? The Duc d’Orléans did not see how his family could fail to remain in power to the detriment of the Bourbons.

One evening, reviewing this situation and enjoying a great deal of satisfaction from it, he sat in his room in the lower part of the château – for he occupied those apartments which had been used by the Dauphins. Very soon he would go to the King’s apartments and present him with certain papers to sign, but it was not yet time to do so and he grew drowsy.

He was vaguely depressed. It was so quiet in his quarters that he seemed to slip into a dream of the past. He was thinking of his daughter, the Duchesse de Berry, who had recently died – he had loved her passionately and her death had overwhelmed him with grief – when a page came to tell him that the Duchesse de Falari had called to see him.

The Duchesse was one of his mistresses, who had lodging in the Palace. He had kept but a few at Versailles since the orgy in the park, after which life at the château had been so staid.

He had asked that she be brought to him, for it seemed that, in his present mood, she, who was noted for her vivacity, was the sort of companion he needed.

‘Come, my dear,’ he said. ‘Sit down awhile with me. I was feeling a little depressed. I am sure you will cheer me.’

‘Depressed!’ cried the Duchesse. ‘But why so? What is there to depress you, Monsieur le Duc . . . you, who are said to be next to the King in all but name?’

‘Ah,’ replied Orléans, ‘such a remark would at one time have pleased me greatly. Alas, I must be growing old, for my thoughts tonight have strayed beyond affairs on Earth.’

The Duchesse looked at him in alarm and he went on: ‘Do you believe that there is a life after death?’

The Duchesse was now quite startled. This was the man who had taken Rabelais to church that he might amuse himself during Mass!

‘You are ill?,’ she said.

‘I asked a question.’

‘Do I believe in a life after death?’ she mused. ‘Yes, I do.’

‘Then why do you live as you do here on Earth?’

‘Before I die,’ she answered, ‘I shall repent. That is the way of the world. Were I to repent now, I must reform my ways. Oh, what a dismal prospect! Do you not agree?’

He did not answer. ‘Do you not agree with me?’ she repeated.

Then she saw that he had slipped sideways in his chair.

She bent over him in alarm and understood. She rushed out of the apartment calling for help; but by the time it arrived the Duc d’Orléans was dead.

Louis wept bitterly. His genial Uncle Philippe . . . dead! Life was too cruel. He had been taken from Madame de Ventadour; Papa Villeroi had been torn from him, and now Uncle Philippe was dead. There was only one to whom he could turn: Fleury. His tutor now occupied first place in his affections; and Fleury was there to comfort and advise.

The shrewd Bishop of Fréjus was determined one day to be France’s Premier Minister, but he was clever enough to see that the time had not yet come. He would wait until an occasion arose when he would have the King solidly behind him, and when the King’s support would count for something.

At the present time he would have too many against him if he stepped forward into the position he coveted. He summed up the qualities of the Duc de Bourbon who, he guessed, would immediately do his utmost to step into the place vacated by Orléans, and decided Bourbon was no very formidable rival.

Let Bourbon take the place he coveted; let him hold it . . . for a while, until the time was ripe for Fleury, Bishop of Fréjus, to become the power behind the throne.

Bourbon lost no time in coming forward, prodded as he was by his indefatigable and most ambitious mistress. The Duc de Chartres (now Orléans), but twenty years of age and devoted to theology, was not a suitable person for the post, he declared; therefore, as Prince of the Blood Royal who had, he was always ready to point out, family connexion with great Henri Quatre, it was for him to step into the breach.

Would the King accept him?

The King, mourning his beloved Uncle Philippe and prompted by Fleury, gave the required answer.

The most important lady of the Court was now Madame de Prie. Gaily she gave herself to the task of governing France.

She realised however that her favours came from her lover, and was determined that he should not marry a lady who was as eager for power as herself; so her first task was to find a suitable wife for him. She should be the most insignificant woman in the world.

She confided her plans to her lover, who was so besottedly enamoured of her that he agreed with all she suggested.

‘Will you marry the lady I have found for you?’ she asked him.

‘If you command it,’ he told her.

‘Then prepare yourself – for I have found her.’

‘Pray tell me her name.’

‘It is Marie Leczinska, daughter of Stanislas.’

‘What! The exiled King of Poland?’

‘Exactly. Why should you not have a King’s daughter? As an exile he will be glad of any match. She is very plain, but I shall be there to compensate you for that.’

‘You have enough beauty to satisfy any man,’ he told her.

‘That is why you shall have the plainest wife in the world.’ Bourbon grimaced.

‘Plain, homely, humble, she will be delighted to marry a royal Bourbon. She is exactly the wife I have been seeking for you. She will never interfere with us. Is that not what we seek?’

‘It is.’

‘You may leave it to me,’ Madame de Prie told him. ‘I shall see that a marriage is arranged.’

In the scandal which ended in the dismissal of the Duc de la Tremouille, Bourbon forgot his suggested marriage with the King of Poland’s daughter. The Duc de la Tremouille was the leader of a little group of young men which included the Duc d’Epernon, son of the Comtesse de Toulouse, the young Duc de Gesvres, and another boy who, although only fifteen, was already a secretary of state. This last was de Maurepas – far more clever than any of the others but, because he was not of such high birth, less prominent.

Fleury, anxious that Louis should not become interested in women, had encouraged the King’s friendship with these young men, not at first realising that in their languorous habits, their fondness for lying about on cushions, doing a little fine embroidery, talking scandal and eating innumerable sweetmeats, lay danger.

The Court was horrified. Was Louis to become another Henri Trois to be ruled by his
mignons
? Louis was fourteen – strong and healthy, apart from those occasional bouts of fever which seemed to attack him from time to time; he was capable of begetting children. What was the Duc de Bourbon thinking of, what was Fleury thinking of, to allow such dangers to come within the range of the King?

Bourbon acted promptly. He ordered de la Tremouille’s guardian to get the young man married and remove him from Court; so the little coterie was scattered.

Louis allowed them to go without comment. He was now becoming accustomed to losing his friends.

Shortly after the dismissal of de la Tremouille Louis became ill with fever, and once more alarm spread through Paris.

When Madame de Prie heard the news she hurried to her lover.

‘What will happen to us if the King dies?’ she demanded.

Bourbon regarded her in perplexity.

‘I will explain,’ said the strong-minded woman. ‘Young Orléans will take the throne. Then, Monsieur le Duc, you will be dismissed from your office.’

Bourbon nodded. ‘The King must not die,’ he declared.

‘Indeed not! And there must be no more shocks such as this.’

‘How can we prevent his taking these fevers?’

‘We cannot. Therefore he must produce an heir to the throne. If he died then, you would still continue in your position.’

‘But the Infanta is only a child. There can be no heir for years.’

‘Not if he is going to wait for the Infanta.’

‘But indeed he must wait for the Infanta. How else?’

‘By taking another wife, of course.’

‘He is betrothed to the Infanta.’

‘A child of eight! It is quite ridiculous. That boy has become a man, I tell you. What is going to happen if you keep him unmarried? There will be a mistress before long. A mistress! Imagine that. How many ambitious women do you think there are in this Court simply waiting to leap into his bed? And then, what of us? Or what if he should have a friend . . . a
mignon
like de la Tremouille? The position would be the same. We are here, my dear friend, at the head of affairs. We must not be so foolish as to allow others to push us aside.’

‘But an heir . . . it is impossible!’

‘Nothing is impossible if we decide otherwise. The King must be provided with a wife, and that silly little child sent back where she belongs – to her own country.’

‘You would make war with Spain!’