The Queen`s Confession by Victoria Holt Page B

of the three; and the third was the ugliest. But they were my aunts and I must try to love them, so I went first to Madame Adelaide and kissed her. She then made a sign for Madame Victoire to step half a pace forward, which she did, and I kissed her. Then it was Madame Sophie’s turn. They looked like two soldiers on parade, Adelaide being the commanding officer. I wanted to laugh but I knew I dared not. Then I thought what fun it would have been if I could have gone to my room in the Hofburg with Caroline and told her about these new relations of mine, imitating them all in turn. I could have acted each of the three weird sisters—and the Dauphin.
    The King said I should meet the rest of the family later, and, taking my hand, he himself helped me into his carriage, where I sat between him and the Dauphin. The trumpets blew and the drums rolled and we started on the road towards the town of Compiegne where we were to stay the night before we continued our journey to Versailles.
    The King talked to me as we rode along and his soft voice was like a caress. He did caress me too, patting my hand and stroking it. He told me he loved me already, and
     
    that I was his dear granddaughter and he counted this one of the happiest days he had ever known because it had brought me into the family.
    I felt the laughter bubbling up inside me. I had been dreading this meeting for I had always heard this man spoken of with awe. He was the greatest Monarch in Europe, my mother had said. I had imagined him stem and forbidding, and here he was, holding my hand, behaving almost like a lover, saying such charming things as if I had done him a great honour by coming to marry his grandson—not as if, as my mother had impressed on me, a great honour had been done to me. While the King chatted and behaved as if he were my bridegroom, the Dauphin sat beside me sullenly silent.
    Later I was to learn a great deal about this King who was always charmed by youth and innocence, qualities which I undoubtedly possessed. He might have been wishing I was his bride, for he could never see a pretty young girl without contemplating seducing her. As for the Dauphin, he could never see a young girl without wanting to run away from her;
    but my imagination was adding drama and producing a situation which did not exist. It was not, as I wildly believed, that the King had fallen in love with me; nor that the Dauphin hated me. It was nothing so dramatic. I had a great deal to learn of the ways of the French in general, and in particular of the family of which I was now a member.
    When we arrived at Compiegne the King told me he wished to present me to some of his cousins, the Princes of the Blood Royal. I replied that I enjoyed meeting all people and that the members of my new family were of particular interest to me.
    “And you will be of particular interest to them,” he replied with a smile.
    “They will be charmed and delighted and we shall have them all envying poor Berry here.”
    The Dauphin, who was the Due de Berry, half turned away from us as though to say they were welcome to me; at which the King pressed my hand gently and whispered: “He is overcome by his good fortune, poor Berry!”
     
    I was taken to the Ring’s apartment, and there I met the Princes, the first of whom was the Due d’Orleans, a grandson of the King’s uncle;
    then there was the Due de Pen-thievre, grandson of Louis XIV (I later heard that his grandmother was Madame de Montespan, who had been that King’s mistress), and after that the Princes of Conde and Cond. They all seemed very old and uninteresting; but there were some young members of the family who were presented to me that day, and one of these was the Princesse de Lamballe. She was twenty-one, which seemed old to me, but I was immediately interested in her and felt I could be fond of her, for I was desperately looking for a friend in whom I could confide. She was already a widow and had had a very unhappy marriage,