Chapter XVI: The Death of Marie Leczinska 269 (4)

Taking advantage of her husband’s stay in the country, and protected by one of her relatives, Bivet, valet de chambre to the Dauphin, she makes her way into the palace of Versailles and parades a romantic passion for Louis XV. She says she is menaced by M. d’Étioles’ vengeance and begs the King to shelter her. The monarch is affected and installs her mysteriously in the chamber formerly occupied by Madame de Mailly. Poor M. d’Étioles, on his return to Paris, learns what has befallen him. He faints away at the fatal tidings, and afterwards writes his wife a letter so touching that Louis XV., after reading it, cannot avoid saying: “Madame, you have a very honest husband.” In despair at first, the betrayed husband at last resigns himself. He does not try to contend with a king, and repairs philosophically to the south of France, to make an inspection into finances which is part of his official duties as deputy farmer-general.

At court there is great commotion. It seems impossible to imagine that a woman of the middle classes, _une robine_, as D’Argenson says, can replace a great lady like the Duchess de Châteauroux. The Duke de Luynes writes in his Memoirs, March 11, 1745: “All the masked balls have given occasion for talk concerning the King’s new amours, and principally of a Madame d’Étioles, who is young and pretty. It is said that for some time she is nearly always here, and that she is the King’s choice. If such is the fact, it can hardly be anything more than a case of gallantry, and not of mistress.”

Louis XV., who is fond of mystery, amuses himself at first by being discreet. He conceals his new favorite. “It is not known where she is lodged,” writes the Duke de Luynes, April 23, 1745, “but, nevertheless, I think it is in a little apartment that Madame de Mailly had, and which adjoins the little cabinets; she does not live here all the time, but comes and goes to Paris.”

A few days later, May 5, 1745, the King sets off for the army with the Dauphin. But Madame d’Étioles has the good sense not to rejoin him there. Nor does she remain at Versailles, but withdraws to her château of Étioles, near Corbeil, where Voltaire and the Abbé de Bernis keep her company. Louis XV., much more occupied with his new mistress than with the war, writes her letter upon letter. The Abbé de Bernis counsels the favorite who, with such a secretary, cannot fail to reply to her royal lover in the most charming and gallantly turned epistles. We read in the Memoirs of the Duke de Luynes (June 19, 1745): “Madame d’Étioles is still in the country, near Paris, and has never wanted to go to Flanders. The King is more in love than ever; he writes and sends couriers to her at every moment.”

All France uttered a cry of enthusiasm on learning the victory of Fontenoy (May 11, 1745). But could one believe it? The person first felicitated by Voltaire on account of that glorious day was neither Louis XV. nor Marshal de Saxe, but Madame d’Étioles. Before writing his poem on Fontenoy, the obsequious poet addressed the favorite in these stanzas:--

“Quand César, ce héros charmant,
Dont tout Rome fut idolâtre,
Gagnait quelque combat brillant,
On en faisait son compliment
À la divine Cléopâtre.

“Quant Louis, ce héros charmant,
Dont tout Paris fait son idole,
Gagne quelque combat brillant,
On doit en faire compliment
À la divine d’Étiole.”[27]

France, always maddened by success, is in a real delirium. The Parliament of Paris sends a deputation to Lille to felicitate the King on his victory and entreat him “so far as may be, not to expose in future his sacred person, on which the welfare and safety of the State depend.” All the supreme courts of the kingdom imitate that of Paris, and the first president of the court of taxes exclaims in his address to the King: “Your Majesty’s conquests are so rapid that the point is how to safeguard the faith of our descendants and lessen the wonder of miracles, lest heroes should dispense themselves from following, and people from believing, in them.” But the conquest which chiefly preoccupies Louis XV. is that of his new mistress.

In July, 1745, she proudly displays eighty amorous epistles from the gallant sovereign; the motto on the seal is: _Discreet and faithful_; one of them is addressed: _À la Marquise de Pompadour_, and contains the brevet conferring this title. The new marquise instantly discards the name of Étioles, leaves off her husband’s arms, substitutes three towers in their place, and puts her servants in grand livery. This marquisate enchants Voltaire; he has become the official poet, courtier, and familiar of the favorite, and his complaisant muse thus celebrates the official accession of the new royal mistress:--

“Il sait aimer, il sait combattre;
Il envoie en ce beau séjour
Un brevet digne d’Henri quatre,
Signé: Louis, Mars et l’Amour.
Mais les ennemis out leur tour,
Et sa valeur et sa prudence
Donnent à Gand, le même jour,
Un brevet de ville de France.
Ces deux brevets, si bien venus,
Vivront tous deux dans la mémoire.
Chez lui, les autels de Vénus
Sont dans le temple de la Gloire.”[28]

The democrats, perhaps, are in a trifle too much of a hurry to erect a statue to Voltaire.

III

THE NEW MARQUISE

Louis XV. had had enough of glory. Impatient to meet again the new marquise, he left the army September 1, 1745, and returned to Versailles, where his mistress awaited him in the apartment once occupied by the Duchess de Châteauroux. This change of reign was effected in an official manner. There was no more attempt at mystery. The Marquise de Pompadour was _presented_ September 15, conformably to the rules of etiquette. Every tongue at court was wagging over this scandalous and ridiculous ceremony. Every one wondered how the Queen would look. The King, his wife, and his mistress thus exposed themselves to public view, and the ancient ceremonial became merely a parody. The Princess de Conti, whose debts and prodigalities seemed to condemn her to such complaisant rôles, was the lady who presented her. The Marquise appeared at first before the King, whose countenance betrayed an easily comprehended embarrassment. Then she entered the salon of the Queen and could not hide her confusion.

But Marie Leczinska, good and indulgent even to exaggeration, reassured her by a gracious reception. Naming one of the few aristocratic women with whom Madame de Pompadour was connected, she said: “Have you any news of Madame de Saissac? I have been much pleased to see her sometimes in Paris.” The Marquise, touched and grateful, know not what to answer. She reddened and stammered out: “Madame, I have the greatest passion to please you.”

The Abbé de Bernis celebrated thus the new queen of Cythera:--

“Tout va changer: les crimes d’un volage
Ne seront plus érigés en exploits.
La Pudeur seul obtiendra notre hommage,
L’amour constant rentrera dans ses droits.
L’exemple en est donné par le plus grand des rois,
Et par la beauté la plus sage.”[29]

The choice of Louis XV. was thenceforward settled. The gallant monarch was about to plume himself on fidelity.

What do you think of this modesty and this discretion? As Sainte-Beuve says, these poets have a way of taking things which belongs to them alone.

There was plenty of adulation, but there was also plenty of fault-finding. The great ladies could not get used to seeing a _bourgeoise_ occupy the post of King’s mistress. They observed with malevolent and ever alert attention this improvised marquise who tried to give herself airs of nobility and grandeur. They recalled the fact that her grandfather had been provision-contractor for the Hôtel des Invalides. She is the granddaughter of a butcher, said they; they jeered pitilessly about meat and fish; they found her awkward in her part, like a grisette disguised as a marchioness. Exasperated at seeing at Versailles a royal mistress not of his choosing, the Duke de Richelieu tried, says Duclos, “to make the King consider her on the footing of a _bourgeoise_ out of place, a passing gallantry, a simple amusement not adapted to remain worthily at court.” If anything in her manners or her language was not perfectly well-bred, the favorite became the butt of sarcasm as soon as her back was turned. Louis XV. used to say: “It will amuse me to educate her.”

Madame de Pompadour had at all events the good sense to maintain a humble and submissive attitude when she appeared before the Queen. The rank and virtues of Marie Leczinska intimidated her. Here is a curious passage which occurs in the Memoirs of the Duke de Luynes: “Day before yesterday, as she was returning from Mass, Madame de Pompadour said to Madame de Luynes that she was in the keenest anxiety and most bitter sorrow; that she knew somebody had frightfully aspersed her to the Queen; and, without explaining to what she referred, said she hoped greatly that the Queen would not believe it, and that she begged her to speak about it to her. Madame de Luynes instantly gave an account of this to the Queen.” Here is the letter written to Madame de Pompadour by the Duchess de Luynes: “I have just been speaking to the Queen, Madame, and I earnestly entreated her to tell me frankly if she had anything against you; she answered in the kindliest way that she had not, and that she was even very sensible of your efforts to please her on all occasions; she even desired me to write and tell you so.”

This is the reply of the Marquise: “You bring me to life again, Madame; for three days I have been in unheard-of pain, as you will believe without difficulty, knowing as you do my attachment to the Queen. They have made frightful accusations against me to Monsieur and to Madame the Dauphiness, who have been kind enough to allow me to prove the falsity of the horrors they accuse me of. I had been told some days ago that the Queen had been prejudiced against me; think of my despair, who would give my life for her, who find her goodness to me every day more precious. It is certain that the kinder she is to me, the more will the jealousy of the monsters of this place be employed in abusing me, unless she is so good as to be on her guard against them and will kindly let me know of what I am accused. It will not be difficult for me to justify myself; the tranquillity of my soul on this subject assures me as much. I hope, Madame, that your friendship for me, and still more your knowledge of my character, will be the guarantees of what I am writing you. Doubtless you must be annoyed by such a long story; but my heart is so full that I cannot conceal it from you. You know my sentiments toward you, Madame; they will end only with my life” (February, 1746).

We read again in the Memoirs of the Duke de Luynes (March, 1746): “Madame de Pompadour, who knows the Queen loves flowers, is so attentive as to send her bouquets as often as possible; she continues to seek every occasion to please her.”

The Queen may have reflected that, after all, since a mistress was inevitable, this one was better than another. Since he had been directed by Madame de Pompadour, the King seemed in a less sombre temper and looked a little less bored. But he lost in the favorite’s society the needful energy to continue the successes of the French arms, and sign a really glorious peace.

While Louis XV. was thus wasting away in futilities, Marshal Saxe conquered all Belgium. Louis XV. never made his appearance at the army from May 4 to the middle of June, 1746. After having made a triumphal entry at Antwerp he hastened back to Versailles, apparently to be present when the Dauphiness was delivered, in reality to see Madame de Pompadour again. The Dauphiness died prematurely in July. D’Argenson says she had become as good a Frenchwoman as if she had been born at Versailles. She was regretted, but the hurly-burly of festivities soon began again, and Louis XV., after a very short mourning, resumed his accustomed diversions and pretended pleasures.

The successes of his troops were as brilliant as they were rapid. Never had France held better cards. It was a magnificent occasion to complete national unity in the North. But though they had known how to conquer they knew not how to profit by the victory. The King did not comprehend his mission. He was thinking more about Madame de Pompadour than about the war, and while his soldiers were fighting so bravely, he, wholly given up to frivolous trifles, was amusing himself, or, better, he was trying to do so. This nonchalance became fatal. All the fruits of the war were lost by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (October 18, 1748).

People had believed that Louis XV., who was master of all Belgium, of two Dutch provinces, of Savoy, and the county of Nice, would claim to retain at least a part of his conquests. But, to the general surprise, he declared he would not treat as a merchant, but as a king. This more than amazing phrase signified that France would demand nothing, nothing for so many dearly bought victories, nothing for the five hundred thousand men she had sacrificed, nothing for the twelve hundred millions added to the national debt. Louis XV. restored all the conquered cities and territories. He engaged not to rebuild the fortresses of Dunkirk; he recognized the English succession in the Protestant line and carried complaisance toward the vanquished of Fontenoy to the point of expelling the Pretender, the heroic Charles Edward, from France. Add to this that the French navy, like that of Spain, was half ruined, and that the time was not far distant when the sailor might salute the ocean as Britannic. It is true that the Infant Philip, married to the eldest daughter of Louis XV., obtained the duchies of Parma and Plaisance. But this was but a petty advantage considered as a recompense for so many sacrifices of men and money.

As might have been expected, the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle was profoundly unpopular. “As stupid as the peace,” people said in Paris. The odium of it was cast upon the woman who, to play her part as queen of the left hand, had meddled with diplomacy, finances, and the army.

In 1746 Voltaire had written to Louis XV.:--

“Grand roi, Londres gémit, Vienne pleure et t’admire.
Ton bras va décider du destin de l’Empire.
La Sardaigne balance et Munich se répent,
Le Batave, indécis, au remords est en proie;
Et la France s’écrie au milieu de sa joie:
‘Le plus aimé des rois est aussi le plus grand!’”[30]

Everything was greatly changed in 1748; London no longer groaned, and Vienna did not admire. There was neither repentance at Munich nor remorse at Batavia, and very little was said about the greatness of the best beloved of Kings. The situation already contained in germ the disasters of the future Seven Years’ War. France, which loves success, no longer compared Madame de Pompadour to _la belle Gabrielle_. But the favorite had one grand consolation under the rain of sarcasms and satires; her theatre of the little Cabinets of Versailles was succeeding very well; and if she was hissed as a political woman, she was warmly applauded as an actress.

IV

MADAME DE POMPADOUR’S THEATRE

“I have seen all that is done under the sun, and beheld that all is vanity and vexation of spirit. I have said within myself: Let us take all manner of delights and let us enjoy our possessions; and I have recognized that this too is vanity. I have condemned the laughter of folly and I have cried unto joy: Why dost thou deceive us vainly?”

What the Preacher thought, Louis XV. thought also. Like Solomon, he was bored. His ennui was the terror of Madame de Pompadour. The problem she had to solve was how to entertain a man who could no longer be amused. The favorite trembled. Here was her favor barely begun, and already she beheld symptoms of indifference and lassitude in her royal lover. D’Argenson writes in 1747: “The Pompadour is about to be dismissed. The King will live with his family.” The Marquise was afraid lest the sovereign, who really had a badly understood but sincere religion at bottom, might some day conclude to be truly devout. Hence she desired at any cost to divert him from serious ideas and plunge him, in his own despite, into the vortex of false pleasures whose emptiness and poverty he knew so well.

Even amid the splendors of Versailles, the new Marquise regretted her successes as a private actress. The echo of the applause she had become accustomed to in the parlor theatres of M. Lenormand de Tournehem, at Étioles, and of Madame de Villemur, at Chantemerle, still resounded in her flattered ears. Those who are habituated to the emotions and vanities of the stage cannot easily do without them. Madame de Pompadour was homesick for the footlights and the boards. To play in comedy is such a fine occasion for a pretty woman to shine! To see all eyes fixed on her; to put beauty and her toilettes in the best lights; to be greeted when she appears by a murmur of admiration; to receive when the play is ended the rain of flowers and garlands that tumble at her feet; and at last, when the actress resumes the _grande dame_ and re-enters the drawing-room, to glean compliments, madrigals, and enthusiastic plaudits afresh,--what a triumph for a fashionable woman, what exquisite joy for a coquette!

Women of the highest social rank are often jealous of actresses. It annoys them to perceive that they have not that order of charms which comediennes possess. They envy them the privilege of attracting the attention of a whole theatre, of being the object of all regards, the subject of all eulogies, and the ability to say to a lover after a triumph: “I have played only for you, I have thought of you alone; these flowers that have been thrown to me I give to you.” They envy them the excitement of those noisy ovations, in comparison with which all the flatteries of society seem tame. They envy them above all that faculty of metamorphosis which transforms the same woman into a shepherdess or a queen, a nymph or a goddess, so that a man while adoring a single beauty, but a beauty incessantly changed and transfigured, finds himself at once faithful and inconstant.

This is why Madame de Pompadour wanted to play comedy at Versailles. Little by little she accustomed Louis XV. to this idea. Holy Week was always a sad time for the monarch, who was tortured by remorse and ashamed of playing so badly his part as eldest son of the Church. The favorite conceived the notion of enlivening this dreaded week by interludes, half religious, half profane. Accompanied by actors and amateurs, she sang pieces of sacred music. This Lent _à la Pompadour_, this mixture of church and opera, this exchange of religions for chamber, not to say alcove, music, was very acceptable to such a character as Louis XV. and a devotion as inconsistent and spurious as his. The courtiers, of course, went into ecstasies over the charming voice of the Marquise. They reminded the King of the triumphs of the little theatres at Étioles and Chantemerle, and pitied him for not having seen comedy played by so remarkable an actress. Sacred music had served its time; another sort was now in order.

Madame de Pompadour achieved her purpose. A theatre was constructed for her at Versailles,--a miniature theatre, an elegant little place, a perfect gem.[31] The spot chosen was the gallery contiguous to the former Cabinet of Medals, a dependence of the King’s small apartments (room No. 137 of the _Notice du Musée de Versailles_, by M. Eudore Soulié). Nearly one-third of the orchestra was composed of amateurs belonging to the most illustrious families, the other two-thirds being professional artists. The chorus singers were selected among the King’s musicians. The dancers were boys and girls from nine to thirteen years at most, who, on reaching the latter age, were to enter the ballet corps of the opera, the Théâtre Français, or the Comédie-Italienne (the little girls distinguished themselves later on in choregraphic shows and gallantry). Celebrated painters, Boucher at their head, supplied the decorations. The _mise en scène_ and the costumes were of incomparable elegance. As to the actors and actresses, they bore such names as the Duke de Chartres, the Duke d’Ayen, the Duke de Duras, the Duke de Nivernais, the Duke de Coigny, the Marquis d’Entraigues, the Count de Maillebois, the Duchess de Brancas, the Marquise Livry, the Countess d’Estrades, Madame de Marchais, and finally, the principal actress, the Armida of all these enchantments, the Marquise de Pompadour. The Duke de La Vallière was chosen as director of the troupe; as sub-director _l’historiogriffe_ of cats, Moncrif, academician and reader to the Queen; as secretary and prompter, the Abbé de La Garde, librarian to the Marquise. Madame de Pompadour drew up the regulations for the players. As approved by the King, they contained ten articles:--

“1. In order to be admitted as an associate, it will be necessary to prove that this is not the first time that one has acted, so as not to make one’s novitiate in the troupe.

“2. Every one shall choose his own line of characters.

“3. No one may choose a different line from that for which he has been accepted, without obtaining the consent of all the associates.

“4. One cannot, in case of absence, appoint his substitute (a right expressly reserved to the Society which will appoint by an absolute majority).

“5. On his return, the person replaced will resume his own line.

“6. No associate can refuse a part appropriate to his line under pretext that such a part is unsuitable to his manner of acting or too fatiguing.

“7. The actresses alone have the right to select the pieces to be represented by the troupe.

“8. They shall also have the right to fix the day of representation, the number of rehearsals, and the days and hours when they shall occur.

“9. Each actor is bound to be present at the precise hour appointed for the rehearsal under penalty of a fine which the actresses alone shall determine among themselves.

“10. To the actresses alone a half-hour’s grace is accorded, after which the fine they will have incurred shall be decided by themselves only.

“A copy of these statutes will be given to each secretary, who shall be bound to fetch it to each rehearsal.”

Madame de Pompadour was quite right in drawing up a severe code of regulations, for it is not an easy thing to establish discipline in a troupe composed of society people, where the intrigues of the courtier are added to the vanity of the actor. What petty jealousies, what mean vanities! What manœuvres to obtain this or that part, what solicitations and cabals to ensure merely a spectator’s place in the cœnaculum!

Louis XV. occupied himself seriously with such trifles. The direction of this miniature theatre gave him no fewer cares than the government of France. He reserved to himself the right of selecting the spectators, and it was a signal favor to have been thus chosen. Notwithstanding their ardent desire to be among the privileged persons, neither Marshal de Noailles, the Duke de Gesores, nor the Prince de Conti were admitted to the opening of the theatre. It took place January 17, 1747. _Tartuffe_ was given. Madame de Pompadour played Dorine. The first theatrical season of the little cabinets lasted until March 17.

After having secured applause as an actress in _Tartuffe_, _Les Trois Cousines_, and _Le Préjugé à la Mode_, the Marquise triumphed as a cantatrice in _Erigone_: “Madame de Pompadour sang very well,” says the Duke de Luynes; “her voice has not much volume, but a very agreeable sound; she knows music well and sings with much taste.”

The second theatrical season lasted from December 20, 1747, to March 30, 1748. The first representation comprised a comedy, _Le Mariage fait et rompu_, and a pastoral, _Ismène_, the words by Moncrif. Voltaire’s _Enfant prodigue_ was given December 20, to the author’s great joy. Madame de Pompadour had promised Gresset to produce _Le Merchant_. She kept her word. The play required two months of study. It was given February 6, 1748, Madame de Pompadour playing Lisette. The Duke de Nivernais was excellent as Valère, and the Duke de Chartres took the part of Géronte. The grateful Gresset thanked the Marquise thus:--

“On ne trace que sur le sable
La parole vague et peu stable
De tous les seigneurs de la cour;
Mais sur le bronze inaltérable
Les Muses ont tracé le nom de Pompadour
Et sa parole invariable.”[32]

Pastorals, opera ballets, comedies, succeeded each other quickly. (The complete list may be found in the opuscule of M. Adolphe Julien.) The usual spectators were those of the actors and actresses who were not playing, Marshal Saxe, Marshal de Duras, all the ministers, President Hénault, the Abbé de Bernis. The King did not have a fauteuil. He sat in an ordinary chair and, according to the Duke de Luynes, he seemed to be amused.

The Marquise was charming in the ballet of _Almases_. She had a splendid costume: a low-cut corsage of pink taffeta trimmed with silver wire, a petticoat of the same, pinked out with silver, opening over a second petticoat of white taffeta pinked out and embroidered in rose color; the mantle draping the whole was of white taffeta glazed with silver and embroidered in flowers of their natural color.

The first dancer of the troupe was the Marquis de Courtenvaux; the second, Count de Langeron. Others were the Duke de Beuvron and Count de Melfort, to whom were adjoined a ballet corps composed of young boys and little girls. Mesdemoiselles Gaussin and Dumesnil, of the Comédie-Française, gave advice to the actresses.

Under the title of _Comédies et ballets des petites apartements_, a collection was published, bearing on its title-page a notice that it was “Printed by express command of His Majesty.” Many were displeased by this, especially the courtiers who were not admitted to the much-envied entertainments. The Marquis d’Argenson, who for some time had ceased to be minister of foreign affairs, wrote March 1, 1748, in his Danubian peasant style: “They have just published a very ridiculous collection of the divertisements of the theatre of the cabinets or small apartments of His Majesty,--wretched and flattering lyrics; one finds in it dancing and singing actors, general officers and buffoons, great court ladies and theatre girls. In fact, the King spends his time nowadays in seeing the Marquise and the other personages trained by all these professional actors, who familiarize themselves with the monarch in an impious and sacrilegious fashion.”

In October, 1748, France had lost, by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, an opportunity to enlarge its dominions. Louis XV. consoled himself by enlarging, if not the realm, at least the theatre of the little cabinets. A new hall was constructed in the space containing the great staircase of the Ambassadors,[33] care being taken to injure neither the marble nor the pictures. The new theatre was movable. Fourteen hours were necessary to strip it, and twenty-four to set it up again. It was opened November 27, 1748, by the _Surprises de l’amour_, a play due to the collaboration of Gentil-Beniard, Moncrif, and De Rameau. The hall was a masterpiece of elegance. But Louis XV. was not amused. He yawned. The grand opera of _Tancred_ was given December 10, Madame de Pompadour singing the part of Herminie. Two days later Quinault’s _Mère coquette_ was played. The really indefatigable Marquise took the part of Laurette. She made a success, even according to D’Argenson, her implacable enemy, who wrote, not without vexation: “The King, who was said to be tired of the favorite sultana, is more insane than ever about her. She has sung and played so well in the last ballets at Versailles that the King praised her publicly, and caressing her before everybody, said to her that she was the most charming woman in France.”

The beginning of 1749 was signalized by the great quarrel between the dukes of Richelieu and La Vallière. The Duke de Richelieu was one of the four first gentlemen of the chamber who, in virtue of their charge, had the grand apartments of the King under their jurisdiction. Now the new theatre was constructed in the space occupied by the great stairway of the Ambassadors, which was considered an integral part of the grand apartments. Consequently, the first gentlemen of the chamber claimed that the right to direct the theatre appertained to that one of themselves who was on duty, and that the Duke de La Vallière infringed upon this right. The Duke d’Aumont, who was on duty in 1748, raised the question, but somewhat timidly. Madame de Pompadour mentioned the matter to Louis XV., who contented himself with replying: “Let His Excellency” (the title he gave Richelieu) “come. You will see something quite different.”

His Excellency made his appearance at the beginning of 1749, and as soon as he took up his functions he began a desperate struggle against the Duke de La Vallière.

“He made nothing of thwarting little Pompadour,” wrote D’Argenson, “and treating her like an opera girl, having had great experience with that sort of women and with all women. Mistress as she is of the King and the court, he will torment and tire her out.”

But Richelieu went too far. Some days later, D’Argenson wrote in his journal: “M. de Richelieu is too much attached to the trifles of the ballet theatre. They say he has behaved like a fool; he was too open in his antagonism to the mistress, and she has regained the upper hand. People consider her to count for as much or more than Cardinal Fleury in the government. Woe to any one who dares to pit himself against her at present! She unites pleasure to decision, and the suffrages of the principal ministers to the force of habit which is constantly gaining strength in a mild and affectionate monarch. But woe to the state governed in this way by a coquette! People are exclaiming on all hands. It is kicking against the pricks to revolt in any wise against her. Richelieu has found that out; he ought to give up this trifling business of the ballet stage in order to pursue greater, more important, and more virtuous matters. It would have been enough for him to absent himself from these operas and to do so from pride, as soon as his charge was injuriously affected by them. The instructions he gave the musicians were thus worded: ‘Such a person will be present at such an hour to play in Madame de Pompadour’s opera.’ He was worsted at every step. The real friends of those who made any pretensions advised them strongly to make their way by means of Madame the Marquise; homage must be paid to her.”

Like the majority of men too much favored by women, Richelieu resembled a spoiled child. He was stingy, proud, and wilful. However, he ended by yielding. When this quarrel of etiquette was at its height, Louis XV. carelessly asked him this simple question: “Richelieu, how many times have you been at the Bastille?”--“Three times,” responded the audacious courtier. But he promised himself not to go a fourth time. He submitted, therefore, and the Duke de La Vallière, who remained director of the troupe, was rewarded for his patience by the blue ribbon.

The third theatrical season ended March 22, 1749; it had cost at least a hundred thousand ecus. Louis XV., who was not always prodigal, began to find the expenses excessive. He did not get his money’s worth in amusement. The fourth and last theatrical season of the little cabinets lasted from December 26, 1749, to April 27, 1750.

Madame de Pompadour had successfully attempted comedy, opera, and ballet. She wanted to add another gem to her crown. After Thalia, Euterpe, and Terpsichore, it was now the turn of Melpomene. February 28, 1750, the Marquise played the part of Alzire. Voltaire, enraptured, went to thank her for her interpretation of his work, as she was at her toilette, and addressed her in this not very original impromptu:--

“Cette Américaine parfaite
Trop de larmes a fait couler.
Ne pourrai-je me consoler
Et voir Venus à sa toilette?”[34]

The King began to be bored by these incessant spectacles. He decided that there should be no more comedies, ballets, music, and dancing at Versailles, and that hereafter the representations should take place at the Château of Bellevue. The stage of this château was very small, and did not admit of a brilliant _mise en scène_. The number of spectators had to be greatly restricted. Accustomed to a real theatre, splendid decorations, and a numerous audience, the actors and actresses no longer showed the same enthusiasm. The hour of decadence had come. However, Jean Jacques Rousseau’s _Devin du Village_ was very successfully played in 1753. Madame de Pompadour took the part of Colette. The next day she sent fifty louis to Jean Jacques, who thanked her in the following letter:--

“Paris, March 7, 1753.--Madame: In accepting this present, which has been sent me by you, I believe I have testified my respect for the hand from which it came, and I venture to add that of the two proofs you have made of my moderation, interest is not the most dangerous. I am with respect, etc.”

The _Devin du Village_ was the Swan Song. Madame de Pompadour no longer pleased Louis XV. as an actress. Hence she closed the Bellevue theatre, and her ambition became, if not to amuse, at least to interest, as a political woman, the master whose mistress she was said to be.

V

THE GRANDEURS OF THE MARQUISE DE POMPADOUR

Louis XV. had made his mistress what one might call a vice-queen. She had the power, luxury, riches, and adulations of royalty; everything, in fact, except its moral prestige. Surrounded by a court of ministers, prelates, and nobles, she throned it in the midst of pomp and opulence. She was the type of the woman _à la mode_, elegant, coquettish, absolute, always on show, insatiable for praise and success, thirsting for dignities, pleasures, and money; playing not merely the great lady, but the sovereign, having her courtiers, her creatures, her poets, reigning alike over the King and the kingdom.

M. Arsène Houssaye has said with justice: “Louis XV. had three prime ministers: Cardinal Fleury, the Duke de Choiseul, the Marquise de Pompadour.” But the Marquise was not an ordinary prime minister; she was a prime minister doubled with a mistress. To a woman invested with this exaggerated rôle, a display of power was necessary. The favorite set herself to create around her a sort of decorum, etiquette, and factitious grandeur. Like little women who wear enormously high heels, she made herself a pedestal. Madame d’Étioles had disappeared; nothing remained but the Marquise de Pompadour. To be a marchioness did not satisfy her, and she demanded and obtained the tabouret and the honors of a duchess. She had a box at the court theatre with a grating behind which she shut herself up tête-à-tête with the King. In the chapel a gallery in the grand tribune was reserved for her and her suite. People waited on her stairway at the hour of her toilette just as they await a ministerial audience in an ante-chamber. She used to say to the ministers: “Continue; I am satisfied with you,” and to the foreign ambassadors: “Observe that on Tuesdays the King cannot see you, gentlemen, for I think you will hardly follow _us_ to Compiègne.”

One of the cabinets in her apartment was full of petitions. Solicitors approached her with respectful fear. The ducal mantle and velvet cap figured on the panels of her carriages. A nobleman carried her mantle and awaited her coming in the ante-chamber. A man of illustrious birth, a Chevalier d’Hénen, of the family of the Princes de Chimay, rode at her carriage door as equerry. She was served at table by a Chevalier of Saint Louis, her steward Colin, a napkin under his arm. Her chambermaid was a woman of quality, Madame du Hausset, who has left such curious Memoirs. The all-powerful favorite had not forgotten her family. Her father was ennobled in 1747. Her brother, Abel Poisson, became successively Marquis de Vandières, Marquis de Marigny, Marquis de Ménars. The marquisate not contenting him, he obtained a place created for Colbert, that of superintendent of crown buildings. He was as a patron of artists a Mecænas, an _arbiter elegantiarum_. The King, who treated him as his brother-in-law, gave him the blue ribbon and put him on an equality with the greatest nobles of the realm. Young Alexandrine, the daughter of Madame de Pompadour and M. de Étioles, was brought up at Paris in the convent of the Assumption.

The nuns showed her the greatest attention. She was addressed by her baptismal name, as was then the custom for princesses of the blood, and she was expected to make one of the most brilliant marriages in France. Madame de Pompadour desired pomp even in death. She bought a splendid sepulchre in the Capuchin convent in the Place Vendôme, Paris, from the Trémoille family. There she built a magnificent mausoleum, where her mother was interred and where she reserved a place for herself.[35]

The favorite had not simply power, but beauty; beauty, that supreme weapon. A veritable magician, she transformed herself at will. As mobile as the clouds, as changeful as the wave, she renewed and metamorphosed herself incessantly. No actress knew better than she how to compose an attitude or a countenance. In her whole person there was an exquisite grace, an exceptional charm, a taste, an elegance which amounted to subtlety. La Tour, the pastel painter, is he who has best reproduced her animated, spirituelle, triumphant physiognomy, the eyes full of intelligence and audacity, the satin skin, the supple figure, the general harmony, the charming and coquettish whole.

All the splendors of luxury were like a frame to the picture. A new Danaë, the Marquise disappeared under a shower of gold. It is known exactly what she cost France from September 9, 1745, the time when her favor began, until April 15, 1764, the day of her death. M. Le Roy has discovered an authentic document,[36] containing an account of the favorite’s expenses during this period of nearly twenty years. The total is 35,924,140 livres. In this list of expenses is found the pension granted to Madame Lebon for having predicted to the Marquise, then only nine years old, that she would one day be the mistress of Louis XV.

Nothing seemed fine enough for Madame de Pompadour, either in dress, lodgings, or furniture. At Versailles she secured for herself on the ground floor, on the terrace looking toward the parterre on the north, the magnificent apartments occupied by the Duke and Duchess de Penthièvre.[37] (Part of the ministry of foreign affairs is established there at present. The minister’s study is the same as that of Madame de Pompadour. Her bedchamber is now the thirteenth hall of the marshals, her ante-chamber the hall of famous warriors.)

The favorite bought a superb house in the city communicating by a passage with the apartments of the palace (it is now the hôtel des Réservoirs). In 1748 she acquired the château of Ciécy and the estate of Aunay, and in 1749 the château of La Celle, near Versailles. In 1750 she inaugurated, on the hill commanding the Seine, between Sèvres and Meudon, that enchanting abode of Bellevue, where all the arts rivalled each other to create a magic entity. The ante-chamber with statues by Adam and Falconnet; the dining-room with paintings of game and fish by Oudry; the salon decorated by Vanloo; the apartment of the Marquise, hung with Boucher’s glowing pictures; the park with its parterres of rare flowers, its fine trees, grottos, and fountains, its statues by Pigalle and Coustou, its varied perspectives, its immense horizons,--all made of Bellevue a real palace of Armida. At Versailles, the Marquise obtained from the King a portion of the little park wherein to construct a gem of architecture, which she called the Hermitage; it cloaked extreme elegance under an appearance of simplicity. It had fine Persian hangings, panelled wainscotings decorated by the most skilful painters, thickets of myrtles, lilacs, and roses. This habitation is no longer in existence; a part of its site is occupied by the rue de l’Ermitage at Versailles. The Marquise had a house at Compiègne and a lodge at Fontainebleau. At Paris she bought, for seven hundred and thirty thousand livres, the hôtel d’Evreux, which is now the Élysée.

At the Trianon her apartment was on the same floor with that of Louis XV. At Clécy she received as if in a royal château. The King’s visits to this splendid residence used to last three or four days, and cost about one hundred thousand livres.

A woman so influential could not fail to have a swarm of flatterers. The resources of fawning and hyperbole were exhausted in her favor. The most exaggerated of her sycophants was Voltaire--Voltaire to whom the republicans are nowadays raising statues. He treated the Marquise as a superior being, a goddess, and pushed his flattery to absurdity, to platitude. In 1745, the moment when the reign of the favorite began, he sent her this compliment:--

“Sincère et tendre Pompadour
(Car je peux vous donner d’avance
Ce nom qui rime avec l’amour
Et qui sera bientôt le plus beau nom de France),
Ce tokai dont Votre Excellence
Dans Étioles me régala,
N’a-t-il pas quelque ressemblance
Avec le roi qui le donna?
Il est, comme lui, sans mélange;
Il unit, comme lui, la force à la douceur,
Plaît aux yeux, enchante le cœur,
Fait du bien et jamais ne change.”[38]

In 1746, when Marshal de Lowendal had just taken Berg-Op-Zoom, it was Madame de Pompadour whom Voltaire felicitated on the victory, in strains like these:--

“Les esprits, et les cœurs, et les remparts terribles,
Tout cède à ses efforts, tout fléchit sous sa loi,
Et Berg-Op-Zoom et vous, vous êtes invincibles;
Vous n’avez cédé qu’à mon roi.
Il vole dans vos bras du sein de la Victoire,
Le prix de ses travaux n’est que dans votre cœur.
Rien ne peut augmenter sa gloire,
Et vous augmentez son bonheur.”[39]

The Marquise rewarded Voltaire at the end of the same year by producing the _Enfant prodigue_ in the theatre of the little cabinets, and taking the part of Lise herself. It was then that the poet, beside himself with joy, addressed the beautiful actress the following lines, which exasperated the daughters of Louis XV. and dissatisfied the King himself:--

“Ainsi donc, vous réunissez
Tous les arts, tous les dons de plaire;
Pompadour, vous embellissez
La cour, le Parnasse et Cythère.
Charme de tous les yeux, trésor d’un seul mortel,
Que votre amour soit éternel!
Que tous vos jours soient marqués par des fêtes!
Que de nouveaux succès marquent ceux de Louis!
Vivez tous deux sans ennemis
Et gardez tous deux vos conquêtes!”[40]

So many madrigals were not enough. Both verse and prose were needed. In addressing to the Marquise a copy of the _Précis du siècle de Louis XV._ Voltaire inserted in it a passage, gravely congratulating her upon that treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle which had so grievously offended the national sentiment:--

“It must be owned that Europe may date its felicity from the day of this peace. People will learn with surprise that it was the result of the urgent counsels of a young lady of high rank, celebrated for her charms, her singular talents, her wit, and an envied position. It was the destiny of Europe in this long quarrel that a woman began it and a woman ended it. The second has bestowed as many benefits as the first caused harm.”

Can one be surprised, after this, that Madame de Pompadour should have been persuaded of her own merit, wit, and even genius; that she cherished strange illusions concerning her rôle and her character; that she took herself seriously, even tragically; that she regarded any adverse criticism of her as high treason against beauty and majesty?

With such an array of luxury and power, such a mass of riches, jewels, objects of art, such a court of ingenious and amiable courtiers, with all that could soothe her vanity, coquetry, and pride, with the ability to realize all her fancies and caprices, one might perhaps think the favorite was happy. Well! no.

VI

THE GRIEFS OF THE MARQUISE DE POMPADOUR

“I pity you much, Madame, while all the world envies you.” The person who addressed this just remark to the Marquise de Pompadour was her inseparable confidant, her lady’s maid, Madame du Hausset, the woman to whom she told everything, whom she always kept near her, and to whom she said: “The King and I rely on you so fully that we pay no more attention to you than to a cat or dog, but go right on talking.” The Marquise recognized the truth of her confidant’s melancholy words: “Ah!” she answered, “my life is like that of a Christian: a perpetual combat.” Strange comparison! Most inexact comparison! for the Christian combats for God, while the favorite was combating for the devil. This, in fact, was the cause of her sadness. The love of God consoles one for all sacrifices; but woe to the woman who makes herself the slave of a man! Madame de Pompadour placed no confidence in Louis XV., and she was right. The Maréchale de Mirepoix said to her one day: “It is your staircase that the King likes; he is used to going up and down it. But if he found another woman to whom he could talk about his hunting and his affairs, it would be all the same to him at the end of three days.”

Listen to Madame du Hausset. She says in her Memoirs: “Madame experienced many tribulations amidst all her grandeurs. Anonymous letters were often written her containing threats to poison or assassinate her; but what affected her most was the dread of being supplanted by a rival. I never saw her in greater vexation than one evening on her return from the salon of Marly. On entering, she spitefully threw down her muff and mantle, and undressed with extreme haste; then, sending away her other women, she said to me after they went out: ‘I don’t believe anything can be more insolent than that Madame de Coaslin. I had to play _brelan_ at the same table with her this evening, and you cannot imagine what I suffered. The men and women seemed to take turns in coming to examine us. Two or three times Madame de Coaslin said, looking at me: “_Va tout_,” in the most insulting manner, and I thought I should be ill when she said in a triumphant tone: “I have played kings!” I wish you had seen her courtesy on quitting me!’” Thereupon Madame du Hausset inquired what the master’s attitude had been. “You don’t know him, my dear,” replied the Marquise; “if he were going to put her in my apartment this evening he would treat her coldly before people, and me with the greatest affection.” The favorite was in constant alarm and anxiety. She believed in neither the loyalty, the love, nor the friendship of the King. Thus, as has been wittily said by M. Paul de Saint-Victor: “She spent her life in the attitude of Scheherezade, sitting beside the bed where the caliph slept, his sabre at hand. Like the head of the sultana, her favor depended on a caprice of the master, on the gay or tiresome story which she was about to tell him. And what happens in the thousand and one nights of the harem from which she is excluded? Who knows whether a firman scrawled by a grisette may not exile her to-morrow to the depths of a province?” In spite of her knowledge of frivolous trifles and her array of seductions, the Marquise could not succeed in diverting Louis XV. It is again Madame du Hausset who tells us as much: “The King was habitually very dismal and liked everything which recalled the thought of death, even though he feared it very much.” This melancholy humor of the monarch distressed his mistress. “What a singular pleasure,” said she, “to occupy one’s self with things the very notion of which ought to be banished, especially when one leads such a happy life!” Madame de Pompadour did not reflect when she talked like this. She forgot that a debauchee can never be happy long. The sovereign and his favorite were both suffering from the same malady; their consciences were not at rest. To both of them might be applied the verses addressed by Lucretius to the Epicurean youth of Rome, which we translate as follows: “They inhale sweet perfumes; they deck themselves with wreaths and garlands; but from the middle of the fount of pleasures rises bitterness, and sharp thorns pierce through the flowers; remorse rebukes them from the depths of their soul and reproaches them with days lost in idleness.”

Of what use then were luxury and splendor to her? The Marquise was greeted by adulations in all her châteaux, all her houses. Nowhere did she find esteem. To tell the truth, all this array of factitious grandeur, all this pretence at decorum, was but a parody. Do what she might, the mistress of Louis XV. was in reality nothing but the first kept woman in the kingdom. Loaded and overwhelmed with proofs of royal munificence, she never called herself satisfied; ambition, like sensual pleasure, is insatiable. The love of money and the love of flattery never say: “It is enough!”

The sumptuous abodes the favorite found means to acquire were, after all, but monuments of her shame. Her house at Paris (now the Élysée) was styled the palace of the queen of courtesans, _ædes reginæ meretricum_. When the equestrian statue of Louis XV., with its four allegorical figures sculptured by Pigalle, was set up in the Place Louis XV., the crowd pointing out to each other these emblems of Force, Prudence, Justice, Love of Peace, said they were the four most famous mistresses of the monarch: Mesdames de Mailly, de Vintimille, de Châteauroux, and de Pompadour, and a paper containing these verses was posted on the statue itself:--

“Grotesque monument, infâme piédestal;
Les Vertus sont à pied, et le vice à cheval.”[41]

The honors heaped on her family by the all-powerful Marquise were not taken seriously. When her mother, Farmer-General Lenormand de Tournehem’s mistress, died, this quatrain was circulated:--

“Ci-gît qui, sortant d’un fumier,
Pour faire sa fortune entière,
Vendit son honneur au fermier
Et sa fille au propriétaire.”[42]

When her brother, Abel Poisson, metamorphosed into Marquis de Marigny and superintendent of the crown buildings, had received the blue ribbon of the Holy Spirit, people said the fish was turning blue.

In 1754 Madame de Pompadour had the misfortune of losing her only daughter, Alexandrine d’Étioles, who was only eleven years old. She would have liked to marry her to young De Vintimille, who passed as the son of Louis XV. One day she brought the two children together, as if accidentally, at Bellevue, and showing them to the King, said to him: “That would be a fine couple.” Louis XV. received this overture more than coldly. Madame de Pompadour said afterwards to Madame du Hausset: “If he were a Louis XIV., he would make a Duke du Maine of the child, but I do not ask so much as that; a position and a ducal title is very little for his son, and it is because he is his son that I prefer him, my dear, to all the little dukes of the court. My grandchildren would share a resemblance to both grandfather and grandmother, and this blending which I expect to see will one day be my happiness.”--“Tears came to her eyes in saying these words,” adds Madame du Hausset.

Sainte-Beuve has poured witty contempt on this adulterous dream. “It seems to me,” says the prince of critics, “that one lights unexpectedly on the perverted but persistent bourgeois vein in this wish of Madame de Pompadour; she brings ideas of affection and family arrangements even into her adulterous combinations. She has sentiments; she thinks of herself already as a most affectionate grandmother. A picture, which I would call a Greuze-Pompadour, might be made of this scene, the Marquise tearfully pointing out the two children to the King.”