Виктория Холт - Louis the Well-Beloved

She was by no means ugly, and she was good. He was contented; and in that moment he told himself that he would rather have Marie Leczinska for his wife than anyone else in the world.

After the banquet a play of Molière’s was performed before the King and Queen to the satisfaction of everyone except Voltaire who, having been brought to Court by Madame de Prie, had written an entertainment of his own and was acutely disappointed that preference should be shown to a dead writer when a living one had his reputation to establish.

* * *

The next day all noticed the change in the King. He was ecstatically happy, completely contented. The courtiers smiled fondly at him and knowledgeably at each other. The marriage was a success.

Exuberantly, and with the Queen smiling beside him, Louis called for his barbers.

‘Cut off these curls,’ he said. ‘I am no longer a child.’ So the lovely hair was shorn, and Louis gave no regretful glance at the soft auburn curls lying on the floor by his chair. They set the wig on his head. It had the desired effect. He might have been eighteen or nineteen – nearer the age of his bride.

* * *

The next days were given to celebrating the marriage. There were firework displays, illuminations, dancing in those streets which but a short while ago had been the scene of bread riots. There was free wine, which meant that the people could forget their miseries for a while.

‘Our little Louis is a husband,’ they said to one another. ‘Soon he will dispense with his ministers and rule alone. God bless him! That will be a happy day for France.’

Louis was their hero; it was the First Minister and his mistress, and also their creature, Pâris-Duverney, whom they had made Minister of Finance, who were the villains.

Even Voltaire was happy. Madame de Prie had presented him to the Queen, and one of his entertainments had been played; moreover a pension had been granted him; so all his dissatisfaction with the proceedings was over and he had nothing but praise for all.

There were deputations to be received from the merchants; as usual on such occasions the women from Les Halles were prominent. It was they who, in their best clothes, sent a deputation carrying a basket of truffles. ‘Eat a great many of them, Your Majesty,’ said their spokeswoman; ‘and implore his Majesty to do likewise, for they will help you to get children.’

Marie graciously accepted the truffles and assured the women that she would do her duty, and that she prayed, as earnestly as they did, that before long she and the King would give them a Dauphin.

Meanwhile Louis, exploring the road of conjugal adventure, was becoming more and more pleased with Marie. This was his first experience with a woman, and he was finding in himself a hitherto unsuspected sensuality. Unlike many young men of his Court he had in the care of Fleury been kept innocent and almost ignorant of love-making. Now he was exulting because he had discovered an avenue which seemed to him to offer even greater excitement than hunting or gambling.

He felt deeply grateful to the Queen – his partner in this bliss; their mutual ecstasy clothed her with a beauty which seemed dazzling to him. Beside her, all other women seemed dull, lacking perfection.

If any of his courtiers referred to the beauty of another woman, he would say sharply: ‘She is well enough, but compared with the Queen she seems almost unattractive.’

Fleury was delighted with this state of affairs. He could congratulate himself that he had been wise in not allowing the King to indulge in love affairs before his marriage. The de la Tremouille affair had presented a danger, he was ready to admit, but that had been safely overcome; and now here was Louis, passionately in love with his Queen – the very best way in which to ensure a fertile union.

It was not necessary to wait for his spies to tell him how often the King spent the night with the Queen, because this happened every night.

Villeroi had instilled in the King his respect for Etiquette and this was not forgotten even in the first heat of passion. The ceremonies of the lever and coucher were conducted as carefully as they had been in the days of Louis Quatorze. The Queen would be helped to her bed first, and the King’s coucher would take place in his own bedroom. When he was installed in his bed and those privileged noblemen who had assisted at the coucher had been dismissed, the King would make his way across the Galerie des Glaces to the Queen’s bedroom, accompanied only by his valet de chambre.

His sword would be set beside the Queen’s bed, and the Queen’s lady-in-waiting would draw the curtains about the bed, shutting her in with her husband, before she retired.

In the morning the King must leave the Queen’s bed and return to the great state bed in the Louis Quatorze bedroom for the ceremonial lever. This was an occasion when rivalry ran high for the privilege of handing him his garments which were passed from hand to hand – in order of the status of those present – until they reached the King himself.

It was a delightful existence. The King and Queen were never seen without each other those days. The Queen rode out hunting with him, and sat beside him when they picnicked in the woods all through the summer. The idyll went on into the winter when sledging parties took the place of picnics. The people gathered to see the King and Queen, gliding over the ice in a sledge made to look like a great sea-shell decorated with Cupids, their arms about each other – a charming enough pair of lovers to delight Gallic eyes.

‘Good days are coming,’ the people told each other. ‘Give him a little time to be young and in love, let him prolong his honeymoon a little longer; then it will be for him to cast off his mercenary ministers and govern us himself. He is good and kind, and he will understand our sufferings. Long live our little Louis!’

Louis was not aware of the people; he was only conscious of the charms of his Marie and the delights of requited love.

Marie’s pleasure was complete when her father came to Fontainebleau for, gay as he had outwardly been, she had always before been conscious of the cloud over his happiness. He would constantly yearn for the throne he had lost. But now, he assured her, nothing on Earth could give him greater joy than to see her the beloved wife of the King.

He and her mother stayed with Marie for three days at Fontainebleau. Even Catherine was contented. There need no longer be the depressing business of fighting poverty. Were they not father- and mother-in-law to the greatest King in Europe? The splendour of the French Court dazzled them; and to see Marie in the centre of it – not only Queen of France but so loved by the King – made them feel as though they were dreaming and so much sudden good fortune could not possibly be theirs.

Louis was gracious to them; artlessly he seemed to thank them for having produced one so perfect as his Queen. Instead of the Château de Saint-Germain they were to have the Château de Chambord which he was having refurnished and made ready for them. Meanwhile they would take up their residence at the Château de Bourron.

Before he left for Bourron, Stanislas and Catherine embraced their daughter with great fervour.

‘Do not forget,’ Stanislas said, ‘that it is the Duc de Bourbon who rules France. In no way antagonise him. Remember too all that you owe to Madame de Prie.’

‘I can never forget it,’ murmured Marie.

‘They are your friends; the King loves you. There is only one thing I need to make my contentment complete. That is a Dauphin for France.’

And Marie, as astonished by her sudden good fortune as her parents were, had no doubt that, as so much had been granted her, this would not be denied.

It was during the winter that Louis first took Marie to Marly, that delightful château which Louis XIV had built between Versailles and Saint Germain.

Marie was delighted with Marly, perhaps because it was so beautiful, set among the woods with its view of the river, perhaps because at that time she was in love with life.

There was good hunting to be had in the surrounding country and each day the King and his bride rode forth, returning in the evening to cards and other entertainments.

Always in attendance were the Duc de Bourbon and Madame de Prie. The latter had been installed as the chief of Marie’s ladies-in-waiting; and it became a regular routine that whoever wished to approach the King or Queen could only do so through the good graces of Madame de Prie.

Had Louis and Marie not been so absorbed in each other they would have noticed that the Queen of the Court was not Marie, but Madame de Prie, who, while she insisted on everyone’s observing the strictest Etiquette, did no such thing herself.

She would go in and out of the Queen’s apartment without being announced. She advised the Queen not only on what to do but what to wear; and remembering her father’s advice and her own gratitude, Marie willingly accepted these suggestions.

Recklessly, during those weeks at Marly, Marie gambled at the instigation of the King. It seemed a great joke to him when counting their debts they discovered them to be 200,000 livres.

‘200,000 livres!’ cried Marie. ‘Why, it is a fortune. In the days at Wissembourg we could have lived on that for a very long time.’

That delighted Louis. He proudly told her that she need not now feel the least concerned about losing 200,000 livres. They would play as recklessly tomorrow night just to prove it.