Sex with Kings by Eleanor Herman

and turned up in London, she obtained papers from the revolutionary government to sail to England to identify the items. At a time when thousands were trying to escape France by any means to avoid the guillotine, Madame du Barry sailed back to France. She returned to her château to soak in scented baths and meet with her dressmaker.
    But shortly after her return Madame du Barry was taken prisoner, found guilty of trumped-up charges of treason and espionage, and sentenced to be guillotined. She made a bargain with her executioners—she would tell them where all her valuables at Louveciennes were hidden in return for her life. For three hours they dutifully recorded her statements about jewels buried in the garden, silver concealed in the pond, paintings secreted in the old mill.
    And then they sent the man to cut her hair and bind her hands. Fainting, this king’s darling was loaded onto a tumbrel with other prisoners. Moaning and sobbing, she was forcibly dragged up the steps to the guillotine, crying, “You are going to hurt me! Please don’t hurt me!” 15
    As her shorn head fell into the basket, a cry went up of “Vive la révolution!” The most beautiful woman in Europe, the last great maîtresse-en-titre, was dumped in an unmarked grave beside other victims of the French Revolution.

“Take that woman away out of my sight”
    While touring Italy in 1796 Wilhelmine Rietz, countess of Lichtenau, was informed that her lover of twenty-six years, King Frederick William II of Prussia, was dangerously ill. A high-level official wrote her that “only the presence of Countess Lichtenau could perhaps save the King, who was anxious to see her.” 16 She set out at once for Berlin.
    Upon her return, Wilhelmine found the king greatly altered by his severe illness. Upon seeing his beloved companion, however, he began to feel better at once. She nursed Frederick William faithfully, arranging for plays to be performed in his sickroom, instructing the cooks to prepare his favorite meals. The pain-ravaged king was irritable unless his countess was by his side. Most courtiers agreed that she prolonged his life.
    But after eighteen months of gradual recuperation his condition worsened, and it became obvious to all that he was dying. Wilhelmine’s friends recommended that she flee the country with her jewels worth 50,000 crowns, and her drafts upon the Bank of England, worth another £120,000. But Wilhelmine was literally faithful until death. She wanted to be there, at her lover’s side, at the moment of passing. Only then would she look to her own concerns.
    Frederick William’s legs swelled horribly. Plays and music were no longer appropriate diversions for the dying man. Wilhelmine brought in courtiers whose conversation amused him. She read to him from books he found interesting. As the king’s agonies increased, Wilhelmine fell into convulsions. The doctors in attendance advised her to return home and get some rest. They would notify her if the king either improved or deteriorated. Drained, Wilhelmine complied. When she approached the crown prince, Frederick William’s twenty-seven-year-old son and heir, he cried, “Take that woman away out of my sight.” 17 It was a sign of things to come.
    The crown prince had word sent to Wilhelmine that his father was doing well to prevent her from returning. And so King Frederick William II, at the last, strode into the abyss without her hand in his.
    Wallowing in a bed of sorrow, Wilhelmine soon learned that additional blows awaited her. Friends disappeared overnight. No one called to console her. Her own servants abused her. Worse, the new king sent agents to search her house for state papers and demanded the keys to her desk and cupboards. The papers so sought after proved to be romantic poems, songs, and love letters.
    Nonetheless, three days after the king’s death she was put under house arrest. Her ailing