Free The Road to Compiegne by Jean Plaidy Page B

tears. Victoire sat in her bergère and was more melancholy than usual. Sophie watched first Adelaide then Victoire as though to decide how long it was necessary for her to mourn her sister.
    Louise-Marie was heartbroken. She did not storm nor weep, she simply said: ‘If they had left me a little longer at Fontevrault I should never have known Anne-Henriette. Oh, why did they not leave me at Fontevrault?’
    And Sophie suddenly ceased to wonder how much Adelaide expected her to mourn her sister, and ran away into a quiet corner to cry alone.

    In the streets of Paris the death of Madame Seconde was freely discussed.
    The verdict was that the loss of this beloved daughter was God’s vengeance on the King for his dissolute way of life.
    ‘How could it be otherwise?’ the people asked each other in the cafés and the markets. ‘God would punish him for his neglect of his people and his absorption with the Marquise. This is his just reward.’
    ‘This is the result of offending God and displeasing the people. God has taken from him the daughter he loved best.’
    The Church party encouraged such observations. The sooner the King was made to realise how offensive was his conduct in the eyes of God – and the Church party – the better.
    There was hope in the apartments of the Dauphin.
    ‘Such a disaster could bring about the dismissal of the Marquise,’ said the Dauphin.
    Louis himself was very apprehensive. He was beginning to wonder whether there was some Divine warning in this loss. She was a young girl. It was true that she had been frail; but she was too young to die.
    His doctors had told him that she had no will to live, that she had refused their medicines; she had refused the food which had been prepared for her; she had turned from all her family and friends to look beyond them into the unknown.
    He dared not think of her unhappiness. There were many who would say that she had died of a broken heart. Twice she had loved, and twice been frustrated. Marriage with the Orléans family had been distasteful to Fleury and therefore had not taken place. Her love for Charles Edward Stuart had been deeper perhaps, but how could the King of France give his consent to their marriage after the defeat of the ’45? That had happened nearly seven years ago. Had she mourned a Prince, who was not even faithful, all that time?
    She died because she had no wish to live. They were tragic words to describe the passing of a young woman. It distressed him and there was only one person who could cure him of sadness such as this; yet the mood which had been engendered by the people of Paris and certain members of his Court led him to doubt whether he should seek that solace.
    Death . . . so close to them all! Who would be its next victim? What if it should strike at him , and he should suddenly pass from this world to the next – an unrepentant sinner?
    He wanted to confess his sins, but he knew that before he could receive absolution he must swear to sin no more.
    The Marquise occupied the suite of Madame de Montespan now, but she was still known as his mistress. He knew that the confessors and the bishops, aided and abetted by the Dauphin and the Church party, would withhold the remission of his sins until he had dismissed Madame de Pompadour from the Court.
    He sent for Adelaide; he embraced her warmly and they wept together.
    The King looked at this vivacious but unaccountable young woman. She was twenty years old and her beauty was already beginning to fade, but he still found her company stimulating.
    From Adelaide he could take comfort which at the moment he felt too apprehensive to take from the Marquise.
    ‘You must fill your sister’s place,’ he told Adelaide. ‘You must be both Adelaide and Anne-Henriette to me now.’
    ‘Yes, Father,’ cried Adelaide; and there was no mistaking the adoration he saw in her eyes.
    ‘You shall have an apartment nearer to mine,’ said the King. ‘We will rebuild a part of the Château