Louis XV. seized with small-pox.--Flight of the courtiers.--The Marchioness du Pompadour.--Her dissolute character.--Debauchery of Louis XV.--He squanders the public revenue.--Remorse of the king.--The lamp at the window.--Death of Louis XV.--Indecent haste of the courtiers.--Emotions of the young king and queen.--Homage of the courtiers.--Burial of Louis XV.--The king and queen leave Versailles.--The coronation.--Enthusiasm of the people.--Maria's grief.--The king's estrangement.--The little peasant boy.--Becomes a monster of ingratitude.--The queen's traducers.--The Heron's Plume.--Vile slanders.--Profligate character of De Lauzun.--Execution of De Lauzun.--A life of pleasure.--Maria's imprudence.--Night adventure in a hackney-coach.--The gardens of Marly.--Their unrivaled splendor.--Maria's visits to Marly.--Heartless gayety.--Sunrise at Marly.--More food for slander.--Simple habits of the queen.--Horror of the courtiers and dowagers.--Sleigh riding.--Blind man's buff and other games.--Dramatic entertainments.--Increasing affection of the king.--Efforts to alienate the king's affections.--Agitation of the queen.--Maria's children.--Royal visitors.--Extravagant expenditures.--Rising discontents.--La Fayette and Franklin.--The people begin to count the costs.--Letter from the Empress Catharine.--The clouds thicken.
In the year 1774, about four years after the marriage of Maria Antoinette and Louis, the dissolute old king, Louis XV., in his palace at Versailles, surrounded by his courtiers and his lawless pleasures, was taken sick. The disease soon developed itself as the small-pox in its most virulent form. The physicians, knowing the terror with which the conscience-smitten monarch regarded death, feared to inform him of the nature of his disease.
"What are these pimples," inquired the king, "which are breaking out all over my body?"
"They are little pustules," was the reply, "which require three days in forming, three in suppurating, and three in drying."
The dreadful malady which had seized upon the king was soon, however, known throughout the court, and all fled from the infection. The miserable monarch, hated by his subjects, despised by his courtiers, and writhing under the scorpion lash of his own conscience, was left to groan and die alone. It was a horrible termination of a most loathsome life.
