At my elbow, I feel a hand-one determined to guide-the hand of Count Mercy, who tells me I must be a companion for my husband at this time. Remembering how many times the Empress has written me that she now speaks to me through Mercy, I acquiesce.

IN THE DAUPHIN'S apartment, we are quickly joined by the brothers of Louis Auguste and their wives. We six young people sit in silence. I am glad we are all together. We depart to our own chambers only to sleep.

NO ONE TELLS the King of the diagnosis. Day by day he grows steadily more ill. At some point, they must tell him, for he must make confession. When we are visited in our quarantine, I make the argument, on behalf of the King's soul, for telling him of the gravity of his illness. Again and again I am told that there is yet time.

THIS IS THE NIGHT of 3 May, and the King has been ill since 27 April. The Parisians were right to close the amus.e.m.e.nts. Still, my mind cannot embrace the fact that with the King's departure from this life (sure to occur, if not with this illness, then in the future), the role of the Dauphin (and of myself) will change forever. No, I cannot imagine us without Papa-Roi present to make all the decisions while we play. Our ignorance is immense.

I walk to the window and look across the small interior courtyard to another window where a candle burns. Beautiful light, full of hope! As long as it burns, I know the King lives. The signal is prearranged: should he die, someone will snuff out the candle.

My soul feels bleak.

These interior courtyards are barren places where nothing green or pretty is visible. These open squares let in only air, light, odors, temperature; they are forgotten s.p.a.ces, though apparently necessary. Nothing elevates them in the slightest above mere functionality. I find myself irritated with the minds of the architects responsible for this neglect. Hovering above the shaft, a s.n.a.t.c.h of night sky is visible. The night I learned the pleasures of gambling-now a favorite pastime-I entered a little apartment in the interior and coveted it.

Across the way, a single star burns steadily-perhaps the candle, like the star, will continue to glow and never be snuffed out.

FONDLY, I RECALL how my mother called in new tutors for me, corrected my teeth, improved my French, discussed the role of religion in her life, talked to me of the needs and urges of the male body, and in a hundred other ways tried to prepare me for marriage and life at the court of Versailles. Now who will prepare me? Us? In whom can we have confidence, and why have they let us live as though our roles would never change?

For a moment, someone stands beside me. An emissary from the sickroom, because her clothes emanate the terrible decay of that room.

"The King knows," Madame Campan, whose duty it is to read aloud to me at my request, murmurs. "He knows he is dying."

"How does he know?" I ask in the same quiet tone, but everything inside me quakes with fear. Then must I too know the truth?

"He has looked at the flesh of his own hand and arm, brought it close to his eyes, and said without hesitation, 'It is smallpox.'"

I hear the Dauphin burst into tears. He has feared his grandfather, but his sympathy for any human who must face his or her mortality is boundless.

Looking across the way at the lighted candle, I can only say, "The candle still burns."

I think of the very long road that runs from Versailles to Vienna. Probably the Empress has moved to Schonbrunn now because spring is well on its way. As always, of course, I can rely on my mother. But she loves Austria more than she loves France-or me.

Not her love, but the gift of love by the people of France has come to me without stint. It is they who make me secure in my sense of worth. Through Count Mercy I will learn what is best for France and for the Alliance, and Louis Auguste, when he becomes King, will listen to me.

"Now my grandfather must be led to repent," my husband says to someone. "For the du Barry, for all of them."

Will we become King and Queen before we are truly husband and wife? The fact that I cannot a.s.sert my will over even that small rectangle of the marriage bed fills me with a frantic sadness. I have failed, but it is not my failure. My mother criticizes me for my frivolity, but so long as this...reticence...of my husband continues...I have a right to divert myself in whatever ways I can, so long as my virtue is never compromised. The bedside readings by gentle Madame Campan have not sufficed for a long time in soothing my restlessness.

4 MAY, deep night again. In these long days, we play no cards; we make no music. Sometimes the six of us speak of other deaths, in other lands. I do not tell them about the death of my father, how, as though he had had a premonition, he stopped the coach, descended, hugged my little body one last time. Here, they are not my true family, and my love for my father is too precious to show them.

I have sent for little Elisabeth and Clothilde to stay with us. They are both afraid, and Elisabeth leans close against my body, as close as the wide panniers of my skirt allow. She has a need for my bodily warmth to rea.s.sure her. I have asked that their favorite dogs and cats come with them, and their small hands seem to draw comfort in the act of stroking fur or watching the dogs and cats go about their oblivious play.

Here is an account of the King: he has told the du Barry that she must allow the Duc d'Aiguillon to take her to the chateau at Ruel. I wonder if hope has been with her till this moment. Now, even if he should survive this devastation, if he sends her away and repents, he will not recall her. No doubt she knows the story of the d.u.c.h.esse de Chateauroux, who, thirty years ago, was sent away during an illness from which no one expected Louis XV to recover. When he did recover, he could not have her back, for fear of offending G.o.d.

They say he spoke to the du Barry with dignity, telling her that he must send her away, that he would not have kept her beside him in the sickroom had he known the nature of his illness, that he would always have "tender feelings of friendship" for her.

But she is finished.

I am too sad for the King-his waste of life, his enslavement to pa.s.sion-to feel much triumph over this wanton woman. How I admired her golden beauty and voluptuous figure when I first came here with my little flat chest and naive ways. She is still beautiful. I cannot deny I am glad that her carriage is now departing-I can hear the rattle-from these gates for the last time. I am relieved of an irritation, of a burden. Involuntarily, I breathe more deeply and lift my head.

The days of the du Barry, here, have come to an end.

It is not my victory, but G.o.d's and Nature's triumph.

In the window across the interior court, the candle still burns.

More news: at the permanent departure of that creature, whom he tried in vain to call back, a large tear from each eye rolled down his swollen face.

They say his voice never rose above a whisper like dry leaves rustling, but the urgency in his voice, the urgency and regret when he called for her! She was gone.

Is this gladness or sorrow that I feel?

THEY SAY HIS FACE is covered by scabs, and the fever never abates. I wish that one more time, I could take cooling water to his encrusted lips.

The Abbe Mandoux, my own kind confessor, has wanted to serve the King, but he must wait till he is summoned. The Duc de Fronsac actually lay hold of the priest's shoulders, turned him around, and commanded him to return to his church, Saint-Louis de Versailles. In years gone by, Louis XV laid the cornerstone for that structure. When I think of its cool stone interior and of the mighty organ, it does seem to me a sanctuary, a house of an enclosed G.o.d. I wish that He, like his priest, would come out of His home and try to make His presence known here.

At once, I am ashamed of my impious thought.

But the King is in despair. He needs succor.

7 MAY-it is scarcely daylight but Madame Adelaide is close to my bed.

"The viatic.u.m ceremony," she says to me. Her voice jars in my ears like the clap of a bell. "The King is ready."

"Has the Abbe Mandoux been summoned?"

"At two-thirty this morning."

I hear the drums sounding outside the walls of the chateau and sit up in bed. My ladies are standing behind Adelaide, ready to dress me.

"The bodyguards and the Swiss Guard are lining up now in the courtyard," Adelaide says firmly.

WHEN I SEE my husband, I note that his eyes are red and his face is swollen with his weeping. I embrace him to comfort him, and I touch the shoulders of his little sisters to rea.s.sure them that they are not alone and forgotten. Behind the canopy of the Holy Sacrament, all the Princes and Princesses of the Blood line up in ceremonial parade because the host is to be taken to the King. Carrying lit candles, we walk from the chapel toward the sickroom, between a double row of the Swiss Guard. In his beautiful and holy vestments, the Grand Almoner, a tower of swaying clothes, leads us through the galleries of the chateau, till we reach the bottom of the marble stairs. Here the Dauphin kneels and prays. With all my heart, I pity my husband and his youth. He must not go nearer to his grandfather.

I wonder if the King's thoughts turn at all to the yoke settling upon his grandson, kneeling on the hard marble. When asked, once, what he thought might be the future of France, the King muttered, "After us, the deluge."

The confession of the King is extended, and it is only after a long wait that the Grand Almoner reappears to make public the repentance of the King, who has humbly agreed to his humiliation.

"The King instructs me to convey to you that he asks pardon for his offenses and for the scandalous life that he has lived before the people."

THE MINUTES, and hours, and days drag on. They say he is turning black, that his body decomposes, and yet he lives. I believe it is 9 May today, and we have been told, once again, that the condition of the King is worsening. They say his swollen head resembles that of a Moor. The sight of his gaping mouth terrifies all those who see him, and the stench in the room is unbearable.

Yet we bear what we must-that is what the Empress used to say to me.

10 MAY. I glance wearily at this endless afternoon. It is but three o'clock, and I have just requested that the curtain be set aside for a quarter of an hour. Though the sun is shining brightly, I hear strange thunder in the distance.

It is a sound composed of many small sounds, each very much like the other. I remember the roar of love rising for me from the voices of thousands of throats-at Strasbourg when I first came to this country, and again, when the Dauphin and I, all dressed in gleaming white, entered Paris. The sound grows-not human voices, but something rumbling and building like thunder. The sound is bearing down upon us!

Suddenly I am on my feet, and the Dauphin beside me.

"It is the sound of people running!" I exclaim.

Together we fall to our knees.

The terrible noise of feet, running, running, grows louder and louder.

The door to our little chamber bursts open, and the Comtesse de Noailles runs forward to greet us-to congratulate us in our new ident.i.ties.

Together the words tumble from our mouths as we kneel. "Dear G.o.d, guide us and help us. We are too young to reign!"

The room is aswirl with men and women who want to congratulate us. Because of the brightness of the day, we did not notice that the candle had been snuffed out. The guards draw their swords and declaim in unison, "The King is dead, long live the King!"

The sunlight plays all silvery on their blades, held aloft.

Act Three.

THE FIRST GIFT OF THE NEW KING TO HIS WIFE.

They tell me that the body of Louis XV has been wrapped, disinfected with spices and alcohol, and bundled off to be sealed in his tomb. The carriage has traveled at breakneck speed, as though he were going on a hunt, and the peasants who have seen the coach rattling past have cheered the pa.s.sage of his corpse.

It is a terrible image, one fit for the pen of the caricaturists. One that fills me with horror. I do not know how the King, who was once admired and loved, could have fallen so far in the estimate of the French people, who are so naturally disposed to love their sovereigns. It is the people, not the n.o.bles, whose spiritual lives include the monarchy as appointed and blessed by G.o.d. But the people jeer their pa.s.sing king.

I think it must be a reaction to the long anxiety during his illness. They express their inappropriate relief that his suffering is over, and that the monarchy is renewed and born again with my husband and myself.

Our own carriage has been at the ready for days. Just as rapidly as the old King must be taken to the tomb of his ancestors at Saint-Denis, so must we be conveyed to healthy environs, to the chateau at Choisy.

The six of us stir from time to time as our coach hurries away from the pestilence. It is as though we have been asleep during the illness of the King. Now it is time to awake and to be young again.

"Does Her Majesty think of the benign Hilda, the hippopotamus, or the armored Clara, the rhinoceros?" the young Comte d'Artois asks.

"Why do you ask?" I say, startled.

"Because I see a slight curl at the corner of the pretty mouth of Her Majesty."

Although he takes care to address me in the third person, with proper t.i.tles, his tone is as boyish and free as ever. He is only seventeen. I am very glad for his youth, and his gay countenance is an antidote to the image of the old King's mask of black suffering.

"You are right," I tell him. "I was thinking how lucky we are to be young and together in this carriage. And when I think of youth, I think of the patron saints of my childhood, St. Hilda and St. Clara." Wickedly, I cross myself.

The whole carriage, even the somber new King, bursts into laughter.

Soon we are punching one another with the points of our elbows, and giggles erupt from us at the slightest witticism. We are free.

AT THE CHTEAU de Choisy, the King and I take a private walk in the gardens. We are full of the good that we hope to do for our people. As we walk among the fragrant rosebushes, we speak of the need for advisors, and the King mentions that his late father, the Dauphin who never became king, had a great respect for the Comte de Maurepas, now long in exile for writing scurrilous verses about Madame de Pompadour. The King worries a perfect pink rose from a bush and gives it to me. Unused to picking roses, his thick fingers struggle a moment with the wiry stem.

Of course I p.r.o.nounce no criticism of the King, but I say, "Maurepas has paid a high price: many years of exile."

When I bury my nose in the petals of the flower, the aroma of perfect sweetness refreshes me and replaces the stale and pestilential air of the galleries of Versailles. On our wedding day, Louis Auguste sent me a single pink rose by little Elisabeth.

"The people have faith that I will never betray my moral duties," the King says proudly. "There will be no scandals of mistresses and Favorites. I will not repeat the mistakes that tarnished the reign of Louis XV."

I reply, "We will keep the confidence they bestowed on us in Paris." Unused to interfering directly, I hesitate before speaking.

"Would it be appropriate," I ask, "to recall Prince Louis de Rohan from his position as amba.s.sador to Vienna? His immoral behavior has long fretted my mother. Because of his gossip about me, I count him a personal enemy. My mother would regard his being recalled as a mark of your consideration for both her and her innocent daughter."

"Nothing will be easier to do," my husband gallantly replies.

Breathing in the aroma of the rose, my own confidence bestirs itself-that perhaps now the King will more strongly feel a man's urges, that he will know me in the biblical sense, and that we shall produce an heir. The people need to have a sense of next.

I admire the blue cornflowers as we pa.s.s and wonder if it was their abundance and satisfying color that caused Louis XV to select this color for the livery here at Choisy, where one visited only by invitation.

Suddenly, the King stoops and picks a handful of cornflowers, to which he adds white Queen Anne's lace, and yellow-eyed daisies, and lavender clover, one of which he s.n.a.t.c.hes right out from under a b.u.mblebee. Then he takes the pink rose from my hand, adds it to the group, and returns it to me.

"To you who love flowers so much," he says, "I will give a whole bouquet."

Because he is flushed with the pleasure of his gallant gesture, I lean forward, stand on tiptoe, and kiss his cheek. "Your Majesty is my delight," I reply. "With all my heart, I thank you."

"Do you like the little house, the Pet.i.t Trianon?" he asks.

Small and square, made of stone, with large windows on every side, the smaller of the two structures referred to as Trianon sits not far from the large one, both being situated at the foot of the immense formal gardens of the Chateau de Versailles.

"Nothing could be more exquisite in its proportions than the Pet.i.t Trianon," I reply, recalling that the late King had it built for Madame de Pompadour, who despite her poor morals had exquisite taste.

"The du Barry was rarely there," the King adds. "As my first act as king, I intend to give it to you. Really give it to you, in your own name."

I am astonished. Not even queens hold property in their own names.

"I shall have a new key made for it, with your name on it. The Pet.i.t Trianon is the bouquet I will give you, as your own private retreat, to do with exactly as you please, a haven from the etiquette of the court."

I cannot speak. I am completely surprised, and enrapt with delight I kiss him again, seeking his lips.

"And may I have my own livery there?"

"You may do exactly as you please."

I had hoped that one day I might have a private apartment within the Chateau de Versailles. He has given me much more-a private house, almost in the country, and the land around it-the Pet.i.t Trianon.

MARIA THERESA TO MARIE ANTOINETTE.