Six years of such intoxicating life and then—­the end.  Louis is lying on his death-bed and, with fear in his eyes and a tardy penitence on his lips, is saying to her, “Madame, it is time that we should part.”  And, indeed, the hour of parting had arrived; for a few days later he drew his last wicked breath, and Madame du Barry was under orders to retire to a convent.  But her grief for the dead King was as brief as her love for him had been small; for within a few months, we find her installed in her beautiful country home, Lucienne, ready for fresh conquests, and eager to drain the cup of pleasure to the last drop.  Nor was there any lack of ministers to the vanity of the woman who had now reached the zenith of her incomparable charms.

Among the many lovers who flocked to the country shrine of the widowed “Queen,” was Louis, Duc de Cosse, son of the Marechal de Brissac, who, although Madame du Barry’s senior by nine years, was still in the prime of his manhood—­handsome as an Apollo and a model of the courtly graces which distinguished the old noblesse in the day of its greatest pride, which was then so near its tragic downfall.

De Casse had long been a mute worshipper of Louis’ beautiful “Queen,” and now that she was a free woman he was at last able to pay open homage to her, a homage which she accepted with indifference, for at the time her heart had strayed to Henry Seymour, although in vain.  The woman whose beauty had conquered all other men was powerless to raise a flame in the breast of the cold-blooded Englishman; and, realising this, she at last bade him farewell in a letter, pathetic in its tender dignity.  “It is idle,” she wrote, “to speak of my affection for you—­you know it.  But what you do not know is my pain.  You have not deigned to reassure me about that which most matters to my heart.  And so I must believe that my ease of mind, my happiness, are of little importance to you.  I am sorry that I should have to allude to them; it is for the last time.”

It was in this hour of disillusion and humiliation that she turned for solace to de Cosse, whose touching constancy at last found its reward.  It was not long before friendship ripened into a love as ardent as his own; and for the first time this fickle beauty, whose heart had been a pawn in the game of ambition, knew what a beautiful and ennobling thing true love is.

Those were halcyon days which followed for de Cosse and the lady his loyalty had won; days of sweet meetings and tender partings—­of a union of souls which even death was powerless to dissolve.  When they could not meet—­and de Cosse’s duties often kept him from her side—­letters were always on the wing between Lucienne and Paris, letters some of which have survived to bring their fragrance to our day.