and presently Madame du Barry entered the King's bedchamber for the last time. She left the presence bathed in tears.
The poor woman, a good-natured, light-hearted, amiable, easy creature, loved Louis XV. as a daughter loves a father.
Madame d'Aiguillon packed her into her travelling coach along with Mademoiselle du Barry the elder, and carried her away to Rueil to wait events.
Hardly was she outside the Palace precincts ere the King asked for her again.
"She is gone," he was told.
"Gone?" muttered the King; "then it is high time for me to go too. Bid them offer up prayers to St. Geneviève.
Monsieur de Vrillière wrote at once to the Parlement, which in cases of supreme importance, possessed the right of opening or not opening the time-honoured reliquary.
May 5th and 6th passed without a word being spoken of confession, viaticum or extreme unction.
The Cure of Versailles came to the Palace with a view to preparing the King for the pious ceremony; but he encountered the Due de Fronsac, who gave him his word as a gentleman of birth that he would pitch him out of the window at the first syllable he might utter on this subject.
"If I am not killed by the fall," was the Curé's answer, " I will come in again by the door, as I have the right to do."
However on the 7th, at three o'clock in the morning, it was the King himself who peremptorily demanded the Abbé Mandoux to be sent for, a poor priest who knew nothing of Court intrigues, a simple-minded ecclesiastic who had been made the King's Confessor, and who was blind.
His Majesty's confession lasted seventeen minutes. This ended, the Dues de la Vrillière and d'Aiguillon were for still deferring the viaticum; but Lamartinière, the bitter enemy of Madame du Barry, who had introduced Lorry and Bordeu to the King's favour, approaching his Royal master:
"Sire," said he, " I have seen your Majesty in many difficult straits, but never have I admired your conduct so highly as I do to-day. If you follow my advice, you will complete forthwith what you have so well begun."
The result was the King had Mandoux recalled, and received absolution at his hands.
As for the proposed public and conspicuous act of repentance that was solemnly to annihilate Madame Du Barry, this was not so much as mentioned. The grand Almoner and the Archbishop had together drawn up the following form of declaration which was made in the presence of the viaticum:
"Albeit the King is accountable for his conduct to God alone, he hereby declares his repentance for having been the occasion of scandal to his subjects, and his desire to live henceforward only for the maintenance of true religion and the happiness of his subjects."
The Royal family, including Madame Louise, who had quitted her Convent to attend upon her father, assembled at the foot of the staircase to receive the blessed sacrament.
While His Majesty was receiving the consolations of Religion, the Dauphin, who was not allowed to see his father as he had not had the smallpox, was writing to the Abbé Terray in the following terms:
"To the Controller General,
"Sir,—I beg you to see to the distribution amongst the poor of the different parishes of Paris of two hundred thousand livres for prayers for the King's recovery. If you think the sum excessive, deduct it from our allowances, Madame la Dauphine's and mine.
In the course of May 7th and 8th the disease went from bad to worse. The King felt his body literally falling to pieces as he lay. Deserted by his courtiers, who dared not stay beside this living corpse, he had none to watch over him but his three daughters, who never left his side for an instant.
The King was appalled and conscience stricken. In this horrible corruption which was destroying him bodily he saw a direct punishment from Heaven. In his eyes the invisible hand that was disfiguring his person with loathsome plague spots, was the hand of God. In a delirium that was more of the mind than of the body, and the more dreadful for that very reason, he saw the flames of the burning pit, and screamed for his Confessor, the poor blind Priest, his only hope and refuge, to hold the crucifix betwixt him and
