Louis XIV: A Private Life

1715, Versailles

The bedchamber reeks of boiled linen, vinegar, candle smoke, and the sweet rotting smell that rises when the physicians unwrap the leg and try not to recoil. Tables meant for state now carry instruments, prayer books, folded memoranda, and cups gone cloudy at the rim. This is what kingship looks like when time enters the room and refuses to wait outside with the attendants. They still perform the forms. Curtains drawn back. Greetings made. Reports offered. Yet every motion has acquired that hateful carefulness used around the dying, and I know what it signifies. The Dauphin is gone, the little Duke waits under the care of men who already bow in two directions, and the court has begun polishing my reign into marble, fêtes, gardens, light, anything but will. My body is failing in public even when hidden by brocade. I feel command leaving first in the leg, then in the hours, then in the mouths of others, and once it settles there it will not return easily.