Breet-a-nee, she iz not 'ere. Ze show, eet aas been can-sealed." This late-breaking news is delivered by a French cabbie idling in his taxi at the entrance of a Paris club called Espace Cardin. Inside, on this drizzly October evening, the world's most obsessed-about pop star is supposed to be taping a French TV special in front of a crowd of adoring, gyrating Parisian partygoers. But outside, the scene now is much more grim, with workmen lugging huge amplifiers and other stage equipment onto waiting trucks while clusters of fans linger under umbrellas looking très misérables. The cabbie didn't have to say a word: it's all too obvious Britney Spears isn't here.

Instead, she's just up the street, ensconced in a suite at the superluxe Plaza Athénée. Spears hasn't left the hotel since she checked in two days ago and began canceling her every public appearance, press conference and interview, leaving some 350 frustrated journalists cursing in a dozen languages. About the only outsiders allowed near her have been the stream of French doctors making the house calls of a million teenage boys' (and dirty old men's) dreams. Britney Spears has the flu. And her sneezes are sending shock waves across France — and beyond.

They're feeling them at Jive Records in New York City, that's for sure. Executives at Spears' label must be watching in horror as their grand plans for the singer's whirlwind two-week European publicity tour — to promote the Nov. 17 release of her fourth album, a pulsating dance disc called In the Zone, on which she moans and groans to a more grown-up and blatantly sexual beat — shiver and cough to a halt. Spears has made only one stop on the tour before Paris, five days and at least one allegedly shaky night in London. Now the rest of her jam-packed itinerary — showcases in Germany and Spain, a much-anticipated appearance in Scotland for the MTV Europe Music Awards — is about to go up like a puff of nasal spray. The singer will spend only one more day in Paris before abandoning the tour entirely and returning to the U.S. to convalesce at her mother's house in Kentwood, Louisiana, the sleepy backwater where Britney was born in 1981.

Of course, from time to time everyone gets the flu. But in this particular case, it's impossible not to wonder if something less viral and potentially more serious (at least to her career) is what's bugging Spears in Paris — something that might be more accurately diagnosed as growing pains. After all, ever since her breakup last year with first love Justin Timberlake, and that much- publicized but never-materialized yearlong hiatus she promised to take, there have been plenty of visible symptoms. Like her tear earlier this year through virtually half the nightclubs in New York City (where she couldn't even light up a cigarette without tabloids making a huge fuss). Those rumors of a fling with the balding 32-year-old Limp Bizkit singer Fred Durst were pretty shocking too. (Durst went on Howard Stern and gallantly described Spears' pubic region to millions of listeners.) Add to all that the legitimate anxiety over her musical staying power (will anyone still buy Britney records now that she's outgrown the plaid skirts and kneesocks?). And throw in all the other stresses and strains of being the world's most scrutinized 21-year-old pop star — the grueling video shoots, the countless interviews, the endless grind of disrobing for magazine covers, not to mention the hurtful backlash from conservative Britney-haters like Kendel Ehrlich, the Governor of Maryland's wife, who announced her desire to "shoot" Spears (while speaking at a domestic- violence conference, of all places) — and it's easy to see why the poor girl got the flu. The only surprise is that she didn't think of it sooner.

She probably needs to get laid," Spears says, rolling her eyes, when asked about that trigger-happy Governor's wife. "These parents, they think I'm a role model for their kids, that their kids look at me as some sort of idol. But it's the parents' job to make sure their kids don't turn out that shallow. It's the parents who should be teaching their kids how to behave. That's not my responsibility. I'm not responsible for your kid."

This provocative sound bite is served up during our first chat, in a hotel in Manhattan on Oct. 21, a few days before Spears begins her publicity swing through Europe — an interview that marks the start of our two-week, worldwide dash to keep up with her. At this point there is no sign of impending illness, but it's clear something isn't quite right. Fidgeting in her chair, doing her best to force a smile, she seems irritable, almost frosty, her normally cottony-soft drawl showing sharper edges. "I don't want to talk about my private life at all," she coolly commands, evidently reversing her long-held policy of discussing absolutely anything with the press, no matter how intimate (like chatting in W magazine last August about losing her virginity to Timberlake or, last week, sobbing about their breakup on U.S. TV). "I used to be a lot more open," she explains, warming slightly. "But I didn't realize that people were going to judge and ridicule every little thing I said. So now I'm trying to keep more things to myself. It's something I'm working on."

Took her long enough. She's been performing in front of cameras since she was 11, as the youngest member of the Disney Channel's Mickey Mouse Club (in which she rubbed big ears with future pop rival Christina Aguilera and future ex-boyfriend Timberlake). She's been a top pop force since she was 18, when her debut album, 1999's … Baby One More Time, sold 10 million copies (followed a year later with her 9 million-selling Oops! ... I Did It Again). Despite all that early exposure, she seems at times to have acquired not a shred of media savvy. That lip-lock with Madonna on MTV, for instance? She claims she was shocked — shocked! — by the attention it stirred up. Likewise the clamor over all those racy magazine covers (posing topless for Rolling Stone and bottomless for Esquire). "People make such a big deal out of it," she says, sounding genuinely puzzled. "I honestly don't get it. It's weird. To me, the human body is beautiful."

It's theoretically possible that this wide-eyed cluelessness is sincere. O.K., maybe not — some of that eye-batting innocence has to be an act. But even so, she's no Madonna, the virtuosa media manipulator whose current reinvention of herself seems to be as Spears' mentor, video co-star, and Cabala buddy. "Oh, she's totally sincere," insists her 26-year-old brother, Bryan, who runs the financial end of Spears' licensing empire (now moving from dolls to more grown-up goods like cosmetics). "She really doesn't understand the power she has. But then none of us in the family really understands it. I mean, to me, she's just my little sister — why would anyone put her on a magazine cover? It's only when I step back and think about what she's done over the last four years that I go 'Oh, my God!'"

Spears has been experiencing some oh-my-God moments of her own lately — the sort of awkward self-examination of personal sexuality that many 21-year-old girls go through as they cross the threshold into womanhood. Except in Spears' case, of course, she's crossing it while the press snaps thousands of increasingly explicit pictures. "I'm really kind of over these magazine shoots," she says. "Not that I regret anything I've done, but I'm tired of the reaction they get." That Esquire shoot, it turns out, was a nightmare. (She claims the magazine gave her photo approval and then ran pictures without her blessing — something Esquire denies.) Even worse were those "retarded" wardrobe suggestions ABC made for the promo spots for Britney Spears: In the Zone, her Nov. 17 U.S. network special, which she'll be taping just hours from now. "It was really obnoxious," she says with a snort. "They wanted me to take my clothes off. It was all about my body, you know?" Can't imagine what ABC was thinking.

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nginx/1.14.0 (Ubuntu) That TV special, by the way, is one place where she might have picked up the flu. "I spotted a lot of people sneezing and coughing during the rehearsals," reports its director, Nick Whitham. "Something was definitely going around." Watching the taping from the wings, though, one hardly notices. Spears sure looks hearty enough, prancing up and down the stage at Manhattan's Gotham Hall, lip-synching songs from In the Zone while peeling off layer after layer of ever-tighter clothing. Her eight leather-clad backup dancers seem pretty robust too, particularly in a routine for a tune called Toxic, during which they blindfold Spears, roll her around the studio on an ottoman and run their hands — among other things — over her half-naked body. (Come to think of it, that guy who licked Spears' face does look a tad peaked.) "More mature and more sensual" is how Jive Records president Barry Weiss describes Spears' new sound. Her act has indeed come a long way since the days when her best move was skipping around in a skimpy schoolgirl outfit. Her music has evolved (thanks, in part, to techno and hip-hop infusions from Moby, RedZone, Ying Yang Twins and R. Kelly, who collaborated with Spears on some of the songs), and her lyrics are clearly crafted for older ears ("Would you undo my zipper, please").

"I think all my albums have been a little sexy," Spears says, "but with this one I'm dealing with stuff that I haven't really dealt with before. Not in a graphic way. On the contrary. The song called Breathe on Me isn't about any actual physical connection with anybody — it's breathe on me. Touch of My Hand is probably the one song that's a little graphic. It's about indulging in yourself, taking off your clothes and feeling kind of good. But there's nothing about it I would personally find distasteful."

England welcomes spears to its shores as if she were the little American sister the Spice Girls should have had. Certainly the Fleet Street boys give her the royal treatment, sticking by her side from the moment she arrives on Oct. 24. And Spears, for her part, does her best to keep the local press hopping. She throws a party for herself at the Rex Cinema + Bar in Soho, records a session for a TV show called CD:UK, checks out the exclusive Players Club in East Ham, and — if the tabs can be trusted — gets so zonked at the Boujis club in South Kensington she has to be carried out, half-conscious, by her bodyguard and plopped into a waiting car. All in all, not bad for her first 48 hours in town.

"A combination of jet lag, exhaustion and the odd cocktail," is how Spears' people explained the Boujis wooziness in the pages of the Evening Standard — although her reps now claim they were misquoted and that the whole thing never happened. In any case, Spears was well enough by Oct. 27 to guest-star on the V Graham Norton show, a bawdy late-night chat program hosted by a flamboyantly gay Irishman. Not exactly the sort of telly aimed at Spears' more established fan base of 10- to 14-year-old girls. "We're hoping to pick up a gay audience with this album," says Larry Rudolph, the New York City-based manager who's been guiding Spears since she was 15. "You know, in the same way Madonna and Cher appeal to a gay audience? So we're doing appearances at gay clubs and things like that."

The audience tonight at Graham Norton doesn't look all that gay — although some folks sure do seem happy, having apparently popped into a pub for a pint or two before attending. Still, everybody behaves impeccably, Spears included. She laughs gamely at the male dancers in schoolgirl skirts spoofing her old ... Baby One More Time video and barely blushes when Norton shows her a website of a Spears look-alike who turns out to be a man. On the whole, the appearance goes very well. Spears proves she's a good sport, holds her own bantering with her clever host, and maybe even wins over a new fan or two old enough to stay up past 10 p.m.

You've got to shake hands, kiss babies, press the flesh." Jive Records' Barry Weiss is on the phone to London from his office in New York City, explaining the importance of worldwide publicity tours for the launching of a major new release. "It's standard procedure, really. Rudimentary stuff. Every superstar does it."

But there are no standard procedures for the far-from-rudimentary predicament Weiss and his label will find themselves in a few days later. On Oct. 28, Spears lands in France — where a horde of journalists, photographers, radio crews and TV producers (not to mention fans) are waiting to get their flesh pressed — and instantly collapses into bed. "Exhaustion" is the first diagnosis released to the press (a loaded word in show business, hinting at other underlying medical conditions, like way too much partying), but Spears' publicists later amend it to "flu" and then change it again to the more elaborate "flu and a severe throat infection." By any other name, though, it's costing a bundle. Press tours don't come cheap — $200,000 to half a million dollars, according to industry insiders. More expensive flu damage may come later, if the lost publicity ends up slowing sales of the new CD in Europe. And frankly, these days Spears could use a little extra sales help from every continent: her last album, 2001's Britney, sold 4 million copies — hardly a flop but still less than half the numbers each of her previous CDs racked up.

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nginx/1.14.0 (Ubuntu) "To tell you the truth, I am concerned," admits Bryan Spears, pointing out yet another potentially serious post-flu problem — one that's already starting to turn up on the Internet and in gossip columns, and even sneaking into some magazine articles. "I'm worried people aren't going to believe that she was really sick. She had a 104° fever. But I'm sure some in the media are going to raise questions about it and try to turn it into something else. You know how it works."

I'm feeling much better," spears cheerfully announces, swatting away the hair curler dangling down her brow as a stylist and a makeup artist knock elbows trying to get at her head. It's Monday, Nov. 10, and she's back in a New York City hotel — the very one where this global saga began — preparing for tonight's crucial album-launching showcase on MTV's Total Request Live. And she does appear to be her perky old self again, if not entirely recovered. Her nose is a little stuffy and her eyes slightly watery, but after a week in her mom's care, the flu, at least, is under control. "I never, ever get sick," she says, "so when we got to Paris I thought I was dying. My fever was so high I was out of my head. Finally I was like, 'This is silly, I just need to go home.'"

Spears says her label was "not happy, not happy at all" with her decision to cut the tour short, "but sometimes you just have to say, 'No, I'm not doing that — I have to get some sleep.'" Excessive partying and too much work, she insists, had nothing to do with her collapse. "It was the flu," she states, flatly. "My assistant was sick before me, so there was something going around. And I really didn't do a lot of partying. I went out one night with the dancers and there was this nice get-together for Planet Hollywood. But what do you do when you party? You sit there having hors d'oeuvres for an hour and then leave. It wasn't wild or anything."

Maybe she's right. Perhaps it was merely a bug. But it's not hard to imagine a relapse — if not another flu, then some other costly public hiccup — as Spears ticks off some of what's on her to-do list now that she's back on her feet: resume hyping In the Zone; shoot another video; brainstorm with her "creative people" for the full-fledged performance tour she plans to kick off next March (she's organizing a group trip to Vegas for "inspiration"); work on her next album ("I'm already writing songs"); and, if she can squeeze it in, start her own record label ("Maybe by next year").

But this well trained, media-driven Mouseketeer wouldn't have it any other way. "I've never liked to chill out," she says, ignoring the army of beauticians, bodyguards and publicists buzzing around the room in preparation for tonight's big event. "I tried taking a break once. I announced that I was taking a year off. It lasted three weeks. I have so much energy, I need to be working all the time. It feels normal to me," she says, sniffling into a tissue. "It feels healthy."

• BENJAMIN SVETKEY
• Britney Spears flees Europe