Madame Du Barry (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III First meeting between Louis XV. and Jeanne Be'cu?Imme- diate and complete subjugation of the King?He desires a husband to be procured for his new mistress?The " Rout" goes to visit his family?And brings his brother, Guillaume du Barry, to Paris?Contract of marriage between " Comte " Guillaume du Barry and Jeanne "Gomard de Vaubernier"? The " Roue " discovers his family's connection with the Irish house of Barrymore?The religious ceremony, September I, 1768?Wholesale falsification of documents?Guillaume du Barry and Madeleine Lemoine?Madame du Barry at Fon- tainebleau?Letter of Mercy-Argenteau to Kaunitz. A Great deal of conflicting evidence exists in regard to the first meeting of Louis XV. and Jeanne Becu. The general opinion of their contemporaries appears to have been that the lady's charms were brought to his Majesty's notice by the -valet-de-chambre Lebel, the indefatigable purveyor of the Parc-aux-Cerfs, at the solicitation of the "Rout" According to one story, Lebel invited Jeanne, Radix de Sainte-Foy, her lover of the moment, and some other persons to sup with him in his apartments at Versailles, where the King, who had been an unseen spectator of the banquet, " through a secret window made in the dining-room wall," was so enraptured with her beauty and vivacity that he ordered her to be brought to him the following day, or, according to other versions, the same evening.1 1 Dutens's Memolns tfun voyagtur qui se repose (edit. 1806), ii. 36. A more probable solution of the question, however, which attributes the meeting to accident, is to be found in aletter written by Jean du Barry, in 1776, to Malesherbes, then Minister of the Household to Louis XVI. The "Roue" who on the death of Louis XV. had been promptly exiled, was desirous of v...