As yet, none of my party had abandoned
me; the situation of affairs was not, up to the present, sufficiently
clear to warrant an entire defection. The good Genevieve
Mathon, whom chance had conducted to Versailles during the last
week, came to share with Henriette, my sisters-in-law, and my
niece, the torments and uncertainties which distracted my mind.
We were continually in a state of mortal alarm, dreading every
instant to hear that the king was aware of his malady, and the
danger which threatened, and our fears but too well proclaimed
our persuasion that such a moment would be the death-blow to our
hopes. It happened that in this exigency, as it most commonly
occurs in affairs of great importance, all our apprehensions had
been directed towards the ecclesiastics, while we entirely
overlooked the probability that the abrupt la Martiniere might,
in one instant, become the cause of our ruin. All this so entirely
escaped us, that we took not the slightest precaution to prevent it.
No sooner was the news of the king being attacked with small-pox
publicly known, than a doctor Sulton, an English physician, the
pretended professor of an infallible cure for this disease, presented
himself at Versailles, and tendered his services. The poor man
was simple enough to make his first application to those medical
attendants already intrusted with the management of his majesty,
but neither of them would give any attention to his professions of
skill to overcome so fatal a malady.
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