Gates of Gold

Nightfall at Versailles

Four days later, Princess Marie-Adélaïde is still no better. The doctors have bled her again and again, dosed her with My Lady Kent powder, and placed her in warm baths. But the fever only worsens, breaking her skin out in an angry red rash. Finally, the priest arrives to give her last rites.

The princess is settled into her canopied bed, its frame nearly touching the tall ceiling. Ordinary people file past a banister to see her one last time. Three doctors, including Dr. Fagon, surround the bed, pacing and murmuring. Cécile stands crowded behind the banister with everyone else, staring across the ornate apartments. Here, as future queen, Marie-Adélaïde had once given birth to her children in front of the court. Now she is suffering and dying in front of it, too. Cécile cannot imagine what it must be like to live this way. Every private, painful moment unfolds in front of an audience.

A hush falls over the room as someone calls for silence, announcing that the princess is speaking. Marie-Adélaïde’s voice drifts out, faint and raspy, trying to make light of her situation as she always did: “Today, a princess. Tomorrow, nothing.” Grief tightens Cécile’s throat. Courtiers and commoners alike dab at their eyes, and the room falls eerily silent. Cécile cannot bear to stay until the end. Françoise agrees to watch the dogs so Cécile can slip away in tears.

That night, word spreads through the palace that Marie-Adélaïde has died at half past eight. To avoid the spreading contagion, the king and Madame de Maintenon plan to leave for Marly at once. Madame gathers Cécile and the dogs to prepare for the journey.

In the courtyard, under a still and starless sky, the dogs circle Cécile’s skirts. She waits beside Françoise and Madame for the coach. They watch the king climb heavily into his carriage with Madame de Maintenon. Madame says, her voice wavering, that the king needs to be alone with his grief. She adds that no one ever brought him so much joy. He and the princess shared games of pall-mall, masked balls, and drives together, and she was everything to him.

Madame touches a handkerchief to her eyes, then turns to face Cécile fully. She says that Cécile reminds her so much of the princess, with the same spring in her step. Looking into the past, Madame recalls that Marie-Adélaïde was only twelve, Cécile’s own age, when she came to court amid great fanfare. The hopes of many countries rested on her future as queen of France. She married at fourteen. Madame reflects that life is so very, very short, and she will never understand it. Françoise, her white makeup streaked with tears, agrees. Madame continues, choosing to stay strong for them both: “God gives and He takes. In the middle of it all, I try to trust that some good will come of our disaster, impossible as it seems.” Their coach, drawn by eight horses, clatters toward them, and they set off for Marly.

Cécile still cannot grasp that Marie-Adélaïde is gone. She realizes she never once saw the Duc de Bourgogne at his wife’s bedside. She asks Madame where the prince has been all evening. Madame explains that doctors sent him away days earlier, fearing contagion. They worried that a man who loved his wife so deeply would not survive witnessing her final hours. Cécile shudders, remembering the prince’s own words by the fire at Marly. He had vowed that if Marie-Adélaïde died, he would follow her to the grave within the week. She doesn’t need to remind Madame of this; some things are better left unspoken.

In the week that follows, Madame is so overcome with grief she can hardly speak. She keeps almost constant company with the king and Madame de Maintenon instead. As always, Cécile reads Madame’s letters for spelling errors. Reading them helps her understand events nearly as impossible to believe as her own rise to court. Madame writes to family and friends across Europe, insisting the doctors killed the princess. Cécile wishes more than ever that Papa had been there. He would never have allowed her to be bled so many times. He might have kept her sitting up in bed, sipping tea, rather than watching her slip toward death’s edge.

Then one day, Cécile reads the worst letter yet. The prince has died as well, following his wife just as he vowed he would. Madame writes that this is a horrible loss for the entire kingdom, for the prince was virtuous, just, charitable, and good. He never harmed anyone in his life. The sadness settling over Marly is beyond anything words can describe.