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The Court Series of French Memoirs 
 
 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
MADAME 
 DE POMPADOUR 
 
 From the Note-book of Marechale D. 
 
 BY 
 
 Jean Louis Soulavie 
 
 Translated from the French by 
 
 E. Jules M6ras 
 
 View l^orft 
 
 
 STURGIS & WALTON 
 
 
 COMPANY 
 
 ) ^■■\ t 
 
 1910 
 
 ■,:/,^ V 
 
 
 t 
 
Copyright 1910 
 By STURGIS & WALTON COMPANY 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1910 
 
 X 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Madame de Pompadour Frontispiece 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 Madame de Chateauroux 12 
 
 Louis XV 48 
 
 Marie Leczinska and the Dauphin 72 
 
 Marie Leczinska 108 
 
 Voltaire 136 
 
 A View of Versailles in the Time of Louis XV . (. 200 
 
 Marechal de Richelieu 236 
 
 X, 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 These Memoirs on Mme. de Pompadour ap- 
 peared for the first time in France in 1802. Pre- 
 sented to the public as being drawn by Soulavie 
 
 from the note-book of the Marechale D^ , it is 
 
 generally admitted that Soulavie's collaboration 
 consisted of scarcely more than the lending of his 
 name and that these Memoirs are the work of 
 someone else, with which no marechale has any- 
 thing to do. 
 
 The author, inspired by all that which, in the 
 eighteenth century, had been written about the fa- 
 vourite and specially by the history of Mme. de 
 Pompadour published in London by Mile. Fouque 
 in 1759, has nevertheless produced a most curious 
 work from which the recent historians of the mar- 
 quise have most freely borrowed. 
 
 In fact, these Memoirs give of Mme. de 
 
 Pompadour a rather faithful picture and very like 
 
 that which the majority of memorialists has left 
 
 vii 
 
viii INTRODUCTION 
 
 to us. They are, as almost all we have relating 
 to her, frankly hostile. For it is one of the ill 
 fortunes of Mme. de Pompadour to be specially 
 known to us through her adversaries, d'Argenson, 
 the Due de Luynes, and Richelieu. 
 
 Her bourgeois origin, her family, the authority 
 which she acquired over the King and which made 
 of the period of her favour a sort of reign, a re- 
 proach which was not spared her by the grand 
 lords of her time and the disgraced ministers, the 
 author of these Memoirs repeats with details, but 
 would pass condemnation on these. For him, the 
 important matter, the unpardonable crime of 
 Mme. de Pompadour, was her hostility to the Jes- 
 uits and the part she had in their expulsion. In 
 this we grasp the design of the author of the Mem- 
 oirs: to disparage and vilify the favourite, to 
 show her as a principle of moral and political dis- 
 organisation in the State. 
 
 That she should solely have in view the omnipo- 
 tence of the royal power and should have treated 
 in like manner both Parliament and rebellious 
 bishop, is a matter which the author does not stop 
 to consider: he is anxious to see in the expulsion of 
 
INTRODUCTION ix 
 
 the order of Loyola but the mean vengeance of a 
 woman and to make of this expulsion the chief 
 thought of Mme. de Pompadour. Moreover, he 
 would consider as good policy the exile of the Par- 
 liaments, if at the same time the marquise had not 
 obtained the exile of the Archbishop of Paris. 
 
 As to the boldness of aim which made of her one 
 of the most daring artisans of the overthrow of 
 French alliances, it is, in his opinion, a detail that 
 may be passed in silence. Was there, however, no 
 lack of courage in breaking with the ancient tra- 
 dition which made of France the enemy of the 
 house of Austria and in raising against herself all 
 the politicians for whom this opposition was a 
 dogma? 
 
 All this will show to what extent it is safe to ac- 
 cept the violent attacks of which Mme. de Pompa- 
 dour is the object in these Memoirs, as well as the 
 fixed determination of their author to lower to the 
 level of mediocre intrigues acts of a higher aspi- 
 ration which had considerable influence on the pros- 
 perity and the destinies of the country. 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Jeanne Polsson was born in 1722, the daughter 
 of a clerk of that name attached to the Department 
 of Supplies of the army, under one of the four 
 Paris brothers who was at the head of It. 
 
 Her mother was noted for her love affairs; 
 MM. Paris and Le Normant long claimed the 
 paternity of the subject of this work. 
 
 There was in Madame Poisson's conduct that 
 freedom which the gay women of this century have 
 inherited largely from the morals which prevailed 
 in France during the Regency of Philippe d'Or- 
 leans. 
 
 M. Le Normant de Tournehem, in spite of the 
 doubt, was so certain of being the father of 
 the young Poisson girl, that he took up, with the 
 greatest care, the duties which this relation im- 
 posed on him: he presided over that child's edu- 
 
 3 
 
4 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 cation with a sort of passion, specially when he saw 
 that she showed great aptitude in the study of the 
 fine arts. 
 
 Mademoiselle Poisson, even in her tender years, 
 had already distinguished herself in music, draw- 
 ing, and engraving; she made such progress that 
 since then the productions of her graver have been 
 favorably compared with some of the prettiest 
 fancy prints. 
 
 At the age of eighteen, people admired in her 
 what is called beauty and a pretty face : her beauty 
 was dazzling, when she was in full attire, accord- 
 ing to the requirements of her position; she would 
 change into a pretty face in a conversation filled 
 with the interesting objects relating to her educa- 
 tion; so that people said of her, in the circle of 
 acquaintances which she formed shortly after her 
 marriage, that she was pretty and beautiful, qual- 
 ities which are hardly ever found in a woman and 
 which even exclude one another, to some extent, 
 reciprocally. 
 
 The affection of M. Le Normant de Tournehem 
 increased with that interesting creature's age; he 
 resolved to marry her in a fashion which would al- 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 5 
 
 low of no doubt as to his loving her as a daughter, 
 which caused her to be surrounded by a crowd of 
 suitors of the better bourgeoisie of the capital. 
 
 The young Le Normant d^Etioles, nephew of 
 the personage who here plays the part of father, 
 was among them. 
 
 The free access to the house, which his near re- 
 lationship gave him, permitted him to see Made- 
 moiselle Poisson; he did not see her often without 
 feeling a real passion for her, which his uncle was 
 far from discouraging. 
 
 The young lover possessed a quiet character, 
 sound judgment, fluent wit and a good heart, and 
 it has since been stated that M. de Tournehem had 
 long conceived the idea of some day placing his 
 daughter in the King's bed and that no one else 
 had appeared to him more suitable than his nephew 
 to endure with patience the metamorphosis of a 
 wife into a mistress of Louis XV. 
 
 The whole difficulty consisted in obtaining per- 
 mission from Father Le Normant, who saw in this 
 marriage several sorts of improprieties. 
 
 The name and birth of Mademoiselle Poisson 
 were not the least of these; Father Poisson, pros- 
 
6 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 ecuted for his management and for his dishonesty 
 in his position and sentenced to be hanged, had 
 taken shelter in foreign lands for some years and 
 although a new judgment had broken the first, 
 his name was blemished in an ineffaceable manner. 
 
 Her mother was a vulgar Paris hourgeoise who, 
 seeing her daughter's pretty face, repeated on ev- 
 ery occasion that she intended, ever since she had 
 given her birth, to make of her un morceau de rot; 
 so that Mademoiselle Poisson, brought up accord- 
 ingly, heard herself called un morceau de roi from 
 her most tender age. 
 
 In spite of these difficulties, the tender affection 
 of M. de Tournehem for the young Poisson girl 
 soon overcame the obstacles which seemed to op- 
 pose themselves to the passion and aims of the 
 nephew. 
 
 All that there was left to do now was to win 
 over the father of the young man: M. de Tourne- 
 hem promised to at once give to the young husband 
 one-half of his wealth and to leave him the other 
 half after his death. 
 
 This generosity prompted the father as to his 
 decision; he feared that this fortune might pass 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 7 
 
 with the girl into another family; and this fear, 
 combined with the earnest and pressing solicita- 
 tions of his son, made him listen to and accept the 
 proposition. 
 
 Mademoiselle Poisson became Madame Le 
 Normant d'Etioles.^ 
 
 However it does not appear that her heart had 
 been consulted in this marriage. M. d'Etioles was 
 short, his face was neither handsome nor impos- 
 ing, she was anything but in love with him, who 
 loved her with a veritable passion which marriage 
 did not moderate : in this case, Madame d'Etioles, 
 very popular in society, did not seem to be in har- 
 mony with his efforts to please her. 
 
 His considerable wealth permitting him to spend 
 much, he spared nothing either in adornments or 
 amusements, to prove to what extent he loved her. 
 
 Although her charms were worthy of inspiring 
 jealousy in a lover, specially to a husband as infat- 
 uated as he was, he granted her all the freedom she 
 desired. 
 
 He was careful to bring together and to enter- 
 tain at his country house the most varied company 
 to be found in Paris; a company of which she was 
 
8 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 always the principal ornament, as much through 
 a natural gaiety as through the charm of her 
 beauty and talents.^ 
 
 There have been at all times, in Paris, women 
 of intrigue or beautiful women who have become 
 in the capital, centres that drew to them, people of 
 learning or those who have opinions. 
 
 It has been assured that Louis XV, who had 
 succeeded in silencing everybody so as to force all 
 his subjects to admiration, feared nothing so much 
 as he did these societies: that of Madame de 
 Pompadour was composed, shortly after her mar- 
 riage, of Voltaire, Cahusac, Fontenelle, Montes- 
 quieu, Abbe de Bernis, Maupertuis and other well- 
 known men. 
 
 The ambassadors who have the gift of seizing 
 a word on the fly came to Mme. d'Etioles; but 
 the most celebrated and the most persistent ad- 
 mirer of her beauty was the gallant Abbe de 
 Bernis, now become through the Influence of his 
 protectress, minister of foreign affairs, in spite of 
 the obstacles long believed to be insurmountable 
 and which he encountered at every step of his prog- 
 ress. 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 9 
 
 In truth, Abbe de Bernis liked neither the Jesuits 
 nor the Sulpiciens; the latter had driven him away 
 from their institutions in his province, and he had 
 reached Paris not knowing to whom to turn to 
 trust his fortune : he had at first lived so obscurely 
 in the capital and in so needy a state that his 
 laundress had been both a mother and wife to 
 him; but he had infinite wit, an attractive figure, 
 an appearance susceptible of distinguished con- 
 quests: Mme. de Pompadour, into whose house 
 he introduced himself, called him her pigeon 
 battUy and he was in her home what is termed in 
 Paris Vabbe de la maison. 
 
 Not that M. de Bernis was not of distinguished 
 birth; but there are in France so many births of 
 that sort and so many poor and idle lordlings that 
 Abbe de Bernis' sole aim was to distinguish him- 
 self by the charm of his wit and of his verse. 
 
 He was born at Saint-Marcel d'Ardeche, of 
 which his father possessed a quarter of the fief, 
 living in legal dispute with another nobleman and 
 ruining himself to uphold an interest of but little 
 consequence. 
 
 As to Abbe de Bernis, who to-day is ashamed of 
 
lo MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 his verse, he can not have forgotten that his stances 
 and his society madrigals were the first rungs of 
 his fortune, at present so dazzling. 
 — The aims which Mme. de Pompadour had on 
 the King^s heart, the advices and the intrigues 
 which were to make her succeed, made her circum- 
 spect and good in the midst of society; she never 
 sent away an admirer wholly disgraced, but the fa- 
 vours which she granted with reserve, successively 
 and by degrees, retained at her disposal influential 
 personages; she said to the most persistent that 
 the King alone could make her unfaithful to her 
 husband, while Binet, her relative, and one of the 
 head valets de chambres to the King, informed 
 that prince that there was in Paris a bourgeoises 
 the most beautiful one in the capital, who had 
 promised her husband eternal fidelity, excepting 
 with Louis XV, a jest at which the good-natured 
 d'Etioles was the first to laugh. 
 
 Louis XV, on his side, hunting in the forest of 
 Senart, one stormy day entered the Chateau 
 d'Etioles and offered to its owner the horns of the 
 stag he had just killed. 
 
 M. d'Etioles placed them in his parlour and it is 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR ii 
 
 assured that they have remained there ever since his 
 wife has realised that present from the King. 
 
 In the meantime, Mme. d'Etioles, raised in the 
 hope of becoming the King's mistress, joined with 
 her husband in laughing at the jest which people 
 did not suspect would be realised; no one as yet 
 saw anything in it but play, but the steps which she 
 was taking were not the less serious : she had con- 
 ceived the plan to enslave the King and this reso- 
 lution compelled her to forget nothing that might 
 facilitate this great conquest. 
 
 The hunt is one of the greatest pastimes of 
 Louis XV. 
 
 She made known to her husband the inclination 
 which she herself felt for that pleasure and that of 
 riding; M. Le Normant was far from opposing 
 the least objection to this: she ordered made for 
 her clothes of refined and exquisite taste, which 
 were always admired; everything was tried to reach 
 the aim she had in view. 
 
 She accompanied the King In all his hunting ex- 
 peditions, not as belonging to his suite, but as a 
 spectator. 
 
 She made a practice of passing the King and of 
 
12 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 meeting him as frequently as possible ; but she had 
 the mortification of seeing that her efforts were for 
 a long time vain and all her advances useless. 
 
 Finally, as she was easily noticeable, because of 
 her figure and face, which were striking, the King 
 passed her so often that he noticed her and asked 
 who she was, without showing either love, or de- 
 sire. 
 
 This eagerness did not escape the piercing eye 
 of a rival who had taken such possession of the 
 King's heart that that prince had become inacces- 
 sible to the Impressions of all the beauties. 
 
 That rival was Mme. la Duchesse de Chateau- 
 roux, nee Mailly, and one of the daughters of 
 the Marquise de Nesle ; ^ she had noticed that 
 Mme. d'Etioles was at all the hunts, that her 
 glances were incessantly turned on the King and 
 that she always strove to display her beauty to 
 his eyes. 
 
 Mme. d'Etioles, like a goddess descended from 
 the sky, appeared in the forest of Senart near the 
 Chateau de Choisy, now dressed in azure in a rose- 
 colored phaeton, and again in rose-colored dress 
 in phaeton of azure; her beauty was dazzling.* 
 
MADAME DE CHATEAUROUX 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 13 
 
 So that the Duchesse de Chateauroux, who al- 
 ready feared the love of change which she knew to 
 exist In the passions of Louis XV, took offence and 
 had her steps followed by clever young men. 
 
 It has been said that Mme. d'Etioles, mingled 
 with the crowd, having dared to display her beauty 
 on the King's passage, Mme. de Chateauroux, who 
 had her pointed out to her because she could not be 
 known by her, took her stand between the King 
 and Mme. d'Etioles like a screen, sought with her 
 feet to find hers and crushed them under the weight 
 of her body, to teach her, by this punishment, to 
 dare show herself to the King; but Mme. d'Etioles' 
 ambition was so patient that nothing could turn it 
 away from its project. 
 
 Mme. de Chateauroux, on her side, taking 
 offence because the King had asked her several 
 questions about Mme. d'Etioles, and wishing to 
 upset at a single stroke all the projects she might 
 have formed, and which she feared her constancy 
 would cause her to carry out, affected the tone of an 
 acknowledged favourite and had her informed 
 that the best thing she could do was to stay away 
 from the King's hunting expeditions, which would 
 
14 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 henceforth become dangerous for her if she con- 
 tinued to show herself there. 
 
 Mme. d'Etioles, who felt too weak to oppose 
 Mme. de Chateauroux, considered herself obliged 
 to obey the crushing orders received; her love 
 seemed to cool, but her ambition and aims became 
 concentrated. 
 
 It will not be considered amiss that we fill the 
 void in her story from this moment to the time 
 when the affair was resumed, by a short recital of 
 the King's amours: this has appeared to us neces- 
 sary for the better understanding of what is to 
 follow. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 Louis XV was fifteen years of age when he mar- 
 ried Princess Marie, daughter of Stanislas Leczin- 
 sky, dethroned King of Poland, and now Due de 
 Lorraine and of Bar; she was then seven years 
 older than he, and although this marriage had 
 been made like all marriages between persons of 
 her rank, without consulting her inclinations and 
 without there being a shadow of possibility that 
 the eyes of a King should ever turn to her, Louis 
 XV lived long with that princess, giving an ex- 
 ample of the most faithful conjugal love. 
 
 The Queen had nothing attractive about her; 
 the difference of age, although not excessive, was 
 a point worthy of consideration : yet a great num- 
 ber of heirs was evidence of the good understand- 
 ing existing between the husband and wife, while 
 at the same time it seemed to assure its contin- 
 uance. 
 
 The King, whom the Cardinal de Fleury had 
 
 15 
 
i6 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 educated in the most rigid maxims of conjugal 
 faith, was rather a credit to his master in scrupu- 
 lously respecting his principles; habit combined 
 with this completed what duty had begun. 
 
 Besides, the Queen possessed good and beautiful 
 qualities, which were sufficient to cover some slight 
 faults which could be noticed in her. 
 
 The King was a long time without any unfa- 
 vourable idea of his wife : some courtiers, cowardly 
 enough to expect from the vices of a King what 
 they did not believe they could secure from the 
 virtues of his youth, tried for a long time to cor- 
 rupt him; the indignation with which he repaid 
 their proceedings covered them with confusion: 
 one of these was praising to him a well-known lady 
 of the Court, with the intention of inspiring him 
 with sentiments for her ; the King replied to him : 
 
 " Do you consider her more beautiful than the 
 Queen?" 
 
 This unexpected reply, repeated at the Court, 
 disconcerting all the projects, it became impossible 
 to speak about the subject. However, such con- 
 stancy was not made to last long at Versailles 
 against the force of example, in the midst of a 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 17 
 
 Court which was daily becoming more corrupt. 
 
 When ten or twelve years had passed without 
 any dislike being noticeable in the King, nor any 
 inclination towards debauch, age and the numerous 
 confinements of the Queen caused in the latter and 
 perhaps in both, a coldness or an indifference with 
 which love could not be reconciled. 
 
 The disproportion of years was beginning to 
 make itself more and more felt; but the esteem 
 which the King had for Marie Leczinska, a just 
 and due esteem, whether he looked upon her as 
 the mother of a large number of dear children, 
 whether he noticed her excellent character and her 
 piety, still continued, and it may be imagined that 
 it was not without a struggle and without extreme 
 repugnance that he thought of swerving from what 
 he owed her. 
 
 But then, as soon as he had cleared the barriers 
 which stopped him, he gave himself up to all the 
 disorders which we are going to simply indicate, 
 and yet, during these disorders, Louis always re- 
 tained for the Queen, outwardly, the most perfect 
 esteem. 
 
 It IS true that the moderation of the Queen per- 
 
i8 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 mitted her rarely to ask a favour; besides, her con- 
 duct had endeared her to the people and had won 
 for her the love of the Court, where one seldom 
 sees rendered to virtue the justice it deserves. 
 
 When the King gave way to his inclinations, 
 when he no longer hid his desires, when he took 
 the tone of a master who wishes to be obeyed. Car- 
 dinal de Fleury, who knew the world and the char- 
 acter of his pupil too well to believe that he wished 
 to constrain himself upon a point about which few 
 men will suffer constraint, thought it well to decide 
 upon the subject on which the King was to set his 
 desires. 
 
 The young monarch had not yet made a selec- 
 tion, but his vague inclinations tended towards a 
 liaison, 
 
 Fleury thought that the most complaisant lady 
 would be the one the King would prefer; he 
 thought also that the least ambitious would be the 
 most suitable to the Court. It is this which made 
 him say: " Well, then, let Mailly be brought to 
 him." 
 
 Few ladies would have objected to accept the 
 call, or rather to fight for it, the King being then 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 19 
 
 the handsomest man of the Court, of the city and 
 perhaps of the kingdom. 
 
 The King little by little became attached to 
 Mme. de Mailly; but never did King's mistress 
 get so little profit from her lover. 
 
 Disinterested to excess, generous of character, 
 she never asked for anything for herself; it was al- 
 ways to strangers that the favours she requested 
 went; charitable, gentle, affable, obliging, her 
 qualities effaced the blemish on her honour; and 
 far from thinking of enriching herself, it was al- 
 ways with a sort of constraint that she received 
 the small presents made to her by the King. 
 
 Louis had lived but a few years, and very mod- 
 estly, with Mme. de Mailly, and without any 
 scandal at Court, when there came one of her 
 young sisters from convent, where she had heard 
 of the position held by Mme. de Mailly at Court. 
 
 Devoured by ambition, having a character the 
 contrary to that of the favourite, with a plan to 
 make herself loved by the King, she wrote to her 
 sister, at Versailles, letter after letter, begging that 
 she be allowed to be her dame de compagnie, her 
 secretary, her reader. 
 
20 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 The good Mme. de Mailly, who had no malice 
 whatever, allowed herself to be caught by the little 
 pensionnmre, who came to establish herself at Ver- 
 sailles and attracted the King, not by her beauty, 
 but because that prince had, in his natural desires, 
 a taste for innocent little girls of tender years. 
 
 The young scamp, who noticed it, schemed so 
 well that the prince became tired of Mme. de 
 Mailly and had a child by the little pensionnaire, 
 whom he caused to be married to M. de Vinti- 
 mille, on condition that he would have no com- 
 merce with her; and the funniest thing about the 
 matter, in the opinion of all, is that the Arch- 
 bishop of Paris, M. de Vintimille, their relative, 
 gave to the couple the most holy benediction. 
 
 The child bom of these amours is the young 
 man whom we call, when he is not about, the 
 Demi-Louis ; he wears his baptistery on his face, 
 as do without exception, all the King's bastards.^ 
 
 It should be known that the princes of the house 
 of Bourbon must be governed imperiously, but 
 With address, by their mistresses and ministers. 
 
 Mme. de Vintimille, who possessed much genius, 
 discretion and imagination, noticed It; she per- 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR ^i 
 
 ceived that particular weakness in the King's char- 
 acter, and she profited so well by her discovery, 
 that the cardinal, preceptor and prime minister, 
 became so jealous of her that he had the weakness 
 to show it and to do so with such spite that the ex- 
 traordinary death of Mme. de Vintimille was at- 
 tributed to him. 
 
 Although the heads of a State think that they 
 have the right to do anything, I do not believe the 
 late M. le Cardinal de Fleury capable of so great 
 a crime : the only reproach made to his policy was 
 too much morality, in a statesman at the head of 
 a kingdom such as France. 
 
 His reputation has, however, received a blow 
 in the minds of many people in the death of Mme. 
 de Vintimille. 
 
 The King, who did not believe him capable of 
 it, was for a long time inconsolable; he hid himself 
 and wept like a child. 
 
 He however returned to Mme. de Mailly who, 
 too little wary, in spite of the example of the past, 
 was already receiving with the same affection her 
 other young sister in the same apartments wherein 
 the deceased had made the King unfaithful. 
 
22 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 Mme. dc la Tournelle had regular features of 
 great beauty; besides this, she was very graceful 
 and possessed the fine manners of the highest 
 rank; the etiquette of the Court, which she care- 
 fully practiced, gave her the air of a great prin- 
 cess, so that the King speaking to her familiarly 
 called her only his grande princesse, 
 
 M. le Due d^Agenois, to-day M. d'Aiguillon, 
 who was distractedly in love with her, was receiv- 
 ing from the Due de Richelieu, to-day Marshal 
 of France, lessons in the intrigue pursued with 
 the King, with an art which the celebrated courtier 
 knew how to direct with so much grace and ad- 
 dress. 
 
 Ingenious audacity had been a success with 
 Mme. de Vintimille to have her plainness over- 
 looked and please the King. 
 
 The beautiful la Tournelle made use of mod- 
 esty, affected a languishing air and an inflammation 
 of the lungs which she did not have. 
 
 She had the coquetry of hiding her pretty face 
 under a haigneuse which the King raised to ad- 
 mire her, and often to kiss her, while the deceiver 
 wounded him with her flashing eyes. 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 33 
 
 After having thus excited the King for several 
 months, seeing that he had fallen in her nets, she 
 played the proud; this King, who did not retreat, 
 attempted to conquer her ; she, on her side, multi- 
 plied the obstacles and offered objections to which 
 the prince replied like a Castilian monarch or like 
 a prince of the Court and of the century of Fran- 
 gois I. 
 
 The time of positive refusal or of favours was 
 about to come, and it was then that the Marquise 
 de la Toumelle offered conditions. 
 
 The first was that she should be a duchesse. 
 
 The second, that her sister Mailly should leave 
 the Court and withdraw to a convent. 
 
 The third, that the King should restore the 
 glory of his crown, by going to the army: she 
 feared that inactivity and the amours of the King 
 might be injurious to his sway, which she wished 
 to render praiseworthy and peaceful. 
 
 The fourth, that she should have a house and 
 that the King should supply all things necessary 
 to her appearance. 
 
 The King granted all she asked for and yet 
 she still resisted him, to the point that she was 
 
24 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 proclaimed mistress although she really was not. 
 
 The Court was at that time of a more reserved 
 tone than that of Louis XIV, to such a degree 
 had the cardinal placed it on a footing of decency 
 and dignity. 
 
 A dangerous illness attacked the King while at 
 the army during the favour of Mme. de la Tour- 
 nelle, then become Duchesse de Chateauroux. 
 
 The bishops and the Jesuits who surrounded the 
 King's bed and Court intrigues gave to this prince 
 born religious, anxieties of conscience which led 
 him to send away from the Court, by lettre de 
 cachet and openly, Mme. de Chateauroux, who had 
 gone to him at the army. 
 
 The Queen hastened to reach Metz, where 
 the King was dying; she had with her Mme. de 
 Flavacourt, one of her ladies, who had as much 
 goodness as her sisters Mailly, Vintlmille and 
 Chateauroux had permitted themselves liberties 
 with Louis XV; so that it was noticed that one of 
 the two sisters, the King's mistress, went away 
 from the Court whenever Mme. de Flavacourt 
 came there with the Queen. 
 
 It was the most beautiful praise that religious 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 25 
 
 courtiers could then give Mme. de Flavacourt; for 
 a long while it was believed that her virtue was 
 affected, but it has been discovered that M. le Due 
 de Richelieu had tempted her with wit, like Satan, 
 and that she had resisted his dangerous insinua- 
 tions. 
 
 The King, cured of his malignant fever and 
 back to Paris, received from Mme. de Chateau- 
 roux a rose, a cockade and a very loving note; 
 the King, who had loved her very much, went 
 to see her at night and reconciled himself with 
 her. 
 
 This event made such an impression on her that 
 she died suddenly. 
 
 The public, which feeds on so many lies and 
 nonsenses, suspected that she had died, as her 
 sister Vintimille, from the effects of poison. 
 
 The King therefore found himself, not without 
 pleasures, but without favourite, for, born with 
 a violent temperament, he gave himself up to pro^ 
 curers who procured for him passing pleasures 
 which did not satisfy his character. 
 
 The King requires enjoyments combined with 
 amusement, solely capable of cheering up his spir- 
 
1^ MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 its, too frequently and naturally steeped in dark 
 melancholy. 
 
 Louis, under these circumstances, listened to a 
 few women who wished to contract liaisons with 
 him; Mme. de Lauraguais amused him a short 
 time, during her sister's favour. 
 
 After the death of Mme. de Chateauroux, while 
 the King seemed to enjoy himself in the charms 
 of inconstancy, she reappeared like a few other 
 women who proved that that prince was neither 
 particular nor delicate In his choice, for he ac- 
 cepted women of all conditions who were brought 
 to him, without even excepting the petites grisettes. 
 
 The Due de Richelieu,^ who shared his mis- 
 tresses with him, when he had enough of them, was 
 the one among his courtiers who served him best; 
 he had near the King a convenient apartment and 
 at the little suppers which he gave him he did not 
 fail to summon the women most liable to sustain 
 his credit. 
 
 Yet a few introductions are cited wherein his 
 hopes were disappointed: I refer to Mme. du 
 Portail and Mme. de la Popeliniere, with whom 
 the King would have nothing to do; the latter, 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 27 
 
 although witty, had affected manners which 
 offended the monarch. 
 
 The first, although beautiful, was very vulgar 
 as to manners and dress. 
 
 Mme. de la Popeliniere ^ was a singer at the 
 Opera and was taken away from the theatre by M. 
 de la Popeliniere, farmer general, a very rich 
 man, who married her; she thought no doubt that 
 she could not too quickly punish him for his folly 
 by giving herself up to love affairs. 
 
 The Due de Richelieu was at the head of her 
 numerous favourites; he had rented in the house 
 of an upholsterer an apartment adjoining hers and 
 had found a means, through a chimney, to make 
 a connecting door which a large linen-dryer con- 
 cealed from sight. 
 
 An unfortunate trouble which occurred between 
 Madame and one of her women revealed this 
 opening, and the poor husband, instead of hiding 
 his shame by concealing his grief, told the singu- 
 lar adventure with all its details. 
 
 In Paris, those who laugh are not on the side of 
 the unlucky husbands; the invention of the chimney 
 was considered so fine that it brought much praise 
 
28 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 to Mme. de la Popeliniere, to whom all the credit 
 was given. 
 
 Her name became so famous that it was given 
 to all sorts of things; it became a fashion to have 
 skirts, fans and head-dresses a la Popeliniere; some 
 went so far as to imitate the chimney a la Popel- 
 iniere, 
 
 As to Madame du Portail, wife of the president 
 of that name, the conversation she had with the 
 King, although it was not carried quite so far as 
 she desired, a thing which she attributed to the 
 excessively respectful love with which she thought 
 she had inspired him, was the cause of a rather 
 amusing adventure. 
 
 Mme. du Portail, pretty, but extremely vain, 
 took it into her head that she had made the con- 
 quest of the King and that only the want of a safe 
 opportunity had prevented him from giving her 
 convincing proof of this. 
 
 She was deluding herself with this delightful 
 idea when at a masquerade ball she saw a man 
 who, by his manners, his size and his voice, so re- 
 sembled the King that her mistake might readily 
 be forgiven her. 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 29 
 
 After having taken off her mask, she began to 
 pursue and harass him : this man, who belonged to 
 the King's guard and who knew her very well, 
 took advantage of her error, and won all the ad- 
 vantages he desired. 
 
 This done, she dared return to the ball, much 
 pleased with the embrace she thought she had re- 
 ceived from the King ; but the garde du corps, who 
 did not consider himself obliged to respect a fa- 
 vour not intended for him and who thought the 
 story too good not to be repeated, followed her in 
 the hall and told it to all who wished to listen. 
 
 Some time after, the same person was involved 
 in a much uglier affair: she was accused, together 
 with her cook and her porter, of having conspired 
 to poison her husband; this charge was not very 
 closely looked Into or the result might have been 
 fatal to her. 
 
 Even the husband consented to hush the affair, 
 but Mme. de Pompadour, who could not forgive 
 her for still having aims on the King, took advan- 
 tage of the scandal and secured a lettre de cachet 
 which sent her into a cloister because of the sus- 
 picions against her. 
 
30 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 Lave alone saw to the liberation of Madame 
 la Presldente, 
 
 There was in the service of Mme. de Pompa- 
 dour a very rich wine merchant, named M. d'Ar- 
 boulin, who had been in love with Mme. du Portail 
 before her misfortune; believing that her present 
 position would render her more favourable to his 
 passion than she had been in her happier days, he 
 made use of his influence with Mme. de Pompa- 
 dour who, satisfied with her triumph, saw nothing 
 dangerous to her favour in a woman forever dis- 
 graced in the public mind; she therefore with an 
 air of commiseration granted the freedom of 
 Mme. du Portail who, separated from her hus- 
 band, rewarded the zeal of M. d'Arboulin and 
 did not conceal her gratitude. 
 
 She lived publicly with him, saying to those 
 who wished to listen that he had all that one could 
 desire in a husband: love and zeal, without having 
 the vices of the great; deceitfulness and impotence. 
 
 Such were the two women who had the honour 
 of being presented to the King and the mortifica- 
 tion of being refused; it is on this occasion that he 
 became attached to Mme. d'Etiole. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 iWhen the King had tired of everything, when he 
 had flown from object to object, he conceived a sud- 
 den disgust for the short flights of this nature. 
 
 He found that, far from giving vivacity to his 
 enjoyments, they would end by perverting them, byi 
 corrupting them. 
 
 One evening when he was about to go to bed, he 
 spoke of the matter to Binet, his valet de chambre, 
 and he informed him that he was tired of seeing 
 new faces so frequently without finding one person 
 worthy of holding him. 
 
 He asked him if he knew of no one who could 
 answer to his wishes and who possessed sufficient 
 merit to make him cease such changes. 
 
 Binet, delighted at the confidence made to him 
 by the King, assured him that he knew a person 
 who would not fail to suit him, that this person 
 was a relative of his, and that she had been in love 
 with the King ever since she had had the good 
 
 31 
 
32 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 fortune of seeing him for the first time, cherishing 
 the tenderest sentiments for the person of His 
 Majesty. 
 
 This reply excited the curiosity of the King, who 
 asked him the name of that person; Binet tried 
 to make him recall that he had seen her while on 
 his hunting expeditions in the woods of Senart and 
 that he had already made inquiries about her. 
 
 The King, who remembered her very well, con- 
 fessed that she had pleased him as much as it was 
 possible to please, in spite of the attachment which 
 then retained him near Mme. de Chateauroux ; he 
 added that he would be delighted to have a secret 
 conference with, her, and that he. charged him with 
 its arrangement. 
 
 Binet, with these instructions, went the next day 
 to Mme. d'Etioles and told her what had taken 
 place; she accepted with an eagerness equal to her 
 ambition and all was settled at once to have her 
 spend the night away from home without her hus- 
 band taking umbrage at it. 
 
 At the appointed hour, Mme. d'Etioles was at 
 the rendezvous; the King, spent the night with her 
 and sent her away the next morning with some 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 33 
 
 coldness: it was even some time before he men- 
 tioned the matter to Binet. 
 
 The grief of the confidant and the anger of the 
 mistress may be imagined. 
 
 After having relied with so much confidence on 
 the power of her charms, after both having 
 laboured for so many years to build a beautiful 
 castle in the air, it seemed to crumble ; to be then 
 reduced to fear that the enjoyment had made on 
 the King's heart no impression suflSicient to re- 
 awaken his desires, what a downfall ! what a dis- 
 grace I 
 
 More than a month had passed in this indiffer- 
 ence when one evening the King, again addressing 
 Binet, laughingly asked him what had become of 
 his relative and what she thought of him. 
 
 Binet told him that Mme. d'Etioles wept 
 ceaselessly, that she thought only of His Majesty, 
 that his image was continually present before her 
 eyes awake or asleep. 
 
 "Is she weeping for her sin?" replied Louis 
 XV. " To speak frankly," added the King, " I 
 feared she might be like the others, solely possessed 
 of ambition or interest, a passion much less noble 
 
34 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 and more condemnable than the ambition of 
 pleasing; besides, I may say that she pleased me; 
 I also wanted to see what effect the marks of my 
 apparent disdain would produce on her.'* 
 
 Binet was too good a courtier and the intrigue 
 in which his personal interest was enlisted was too 
 dear to him not to give the King all the assurances 
 liable to rekindle his passion, and to dispell all 
 his doubts. 
 
 He made him notice specially that interest, that 
 vile passion of mercenary souls, had the less at- 
 traction for her because she happened to be in the 
 most comfortable of circumstances; to which he 
 added that all appearances led him to believe that 
 she loved the King for himself alone, and that all 
 other considerations had no place in her passion. 
 
 *' Well," said the King, " if that is the case, I 
 shall be delighted to see her again." 
 
 The visit met with no hindrances, the King saw 
 her and, this second time, the interview had results 
 very different from the first. 
 
 She so captivated him that it was with extreme 
 impatience that he awaited another visit. 
 
 From that time he saw her every night until the 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 35 
 
 conquest was finally complete and he only lived for 
 her. 
 
 Everyone believes that these happy successes 
 were in part due to her mother's instructions. 
 
 That woman, initiated in all the mysteries of 
 love affairs, an expert in the profession of infidelity, 
 possessed to perfection the art of pleasing. 
 
 Mme. Poisson died shortly after having seen 
 her daughter firmly established as a favourite and 
 the great joy it caused her contributed to the 
 shortening of her day^. 
 
 She had laboured toward that end all her life. 
 
 Mme. d'Etioles, however, could not spend so 
 many nights away from home without causing her 
 husband some anxiety as to her way of living; it 
 was not long before he was informed of his mis- 
 fortune and of the love of him who was responsible 
 for it. 
 
 As he loved his wife too much to be willing to 
 share her with another, this discovery was a veri- 
 table thunderbolt for him. 
 
 Well resolved not to let matters remain as they 
 were, he began to affect the tone of an offended 
 person and to make use of the power of a husband. 
 
36 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 This only hastened the carrying out of the 
 measures taken by the King and Mme. d'Etioles; 
 proud of a protection which was assured her, she 
 boldly threw off the mask and, after having raised 
 the enemies* colours, she did not hesitate to seek 
 a place of refuge at Versailles. 
 
 Poor d'Etioles, abandoned by his wife, and 
 always faithful and in love, cried out and filled the 
 universe with his lamentations. 
 
 He had tried every means to make her return to 
 her duty when he received a notice without lettre 
 de cachet J which banished him to Avignon. 
 
 Compelled to obey, he betook himself to the 
 place of his exile. 
 
 There, still desperately in love with his wife, he 
 gave vent to such violent transports that he con- 
 tracted a fever which put his life in danger; he 
 escaped, however, thanks to the strength of his con- 
 stitution and to the remonstrances of a few friends 
 who succeeded in making him see how foolish it 
 was to die for an ungrateful wife who, far from 
 grieving at his death, would be the first to rejoice 
 at it. 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 37 
 
 Twelve months spent at Avignon gave reflection 
 ample time to produce its effect. 
 
 He calmed down and then laboured to have 
 himself recalled to Paris; this he obtained easily 
 on the promise he made to let matters go on as 
 they were, to be satisfied with everything and not 
 to think of seeing his wife again. 
 
 To this favour, if it may be called one, there 
 were added other advantages sufficiently important 
 to satisfy him; if property and riches can compen- 
 sate for the loss of a person one loves. 
 
 The position given him in the finance depart- 
 ment brought him more than four hundred thou- 
 sand livres a year, besides being granted all he 
 asked for his friends. 
 
 Although he never saw his wife, he still cor- 
 responded with her. 
 
 She had loved the theatres, as much as they 
 had now become indifferent to her; at least she 
 seldom attended there ; when she felt like going to 
 see a play, she did not fail to inform her husband, 
 so as to avoid meeting him. 
 
 Two reasons caused her to do this : one was not 
 
3S MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 to attract the curious attention of the audience on 
 her conduct in such a circumstance; the other might 
 have been the shame of being compared with a 
 husband whom, she had so cruelly treated. 
 
 She had been warned that on the day she would 
 appear, the public would grant applause to her hus- 
 band: then since the favourite knows the natural 
 disposition of the Parisian, why does she not act 
 with greater caution ? 
 
 Mme. d'Etioles seeing herself surrounded by 
 
 enemies from the very day she made her entry at 
 
 Court, as favourite, schooled and fortified herself 
 
 against the dangers which encompassed her. 
 
 jjj To please the King, to study his character, was 
 
 'her foremost occupation; shrewd and crafty as she 
 
 - was, she soon knew him thoroughly. 
 
 Taking advantage of her discoveries, she went 
 about it so well that the King was convinced that 
 he would never find a person with whom he could 
 spend quieter or happier days. 
 
 She had fathomed the King's weakness in notic- 
 ing that, with all the means at her disposal, not 
 one was more sure than that of making him pass 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 39 
 
 the time: she formed a plan in connection with this 
 discovery. 
 
 Kings, much more than other men, are exposed 
 to becoming a prey to sadness and ennui. 
 
 The unfortunate faculty they have of procuring 
 amusements for themselves, the extraordinary 
 eagerness of a crowd of courtiers solely occupied in 
 creating them, soon exhausts the supply, the spring 
 dries up and the ill is without remedy; this is why 
 we see when the middle of their careers is hardly 
 reached that the majority of their pastimes have 
 lost the merit of novelty. 
 
 One must have a very inventive mind to discover 
 some that may have the good fortune of pleasing 
 them; and even more so to restore the charm of 
 novelty to those which enjoyment has already ren- 
 dered flat and insipid, by knowing the manner of 
 diversifying them' with taste and always present 
 them under a new form. 
 
 In these respects, Mme. d'Etloles was without 
 doubt the person needed by the King. 
 
 His natural impatience increased the mortal 
 ennui which devoured him in his idleness and made 
 
 K 
 
40 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 him sigh for pastimes: could he find better than 
 she to fill up the awful void the thought of which 
 tormented him ? 
 
 To the most touching charms of her person, 
 seconded by all that a finished education can give, 
 she combined an art, so necessary at Versailles, the 
 art of trifling in a manner unknown to the King 
 and the Court. 
 
 Her cleverness did not fail to give value to the 
 smallest trifles; no one had so much grace as she 
 in telling a story or the little events of the Court 
 and of the city. 
 
 She sang, she played masterfully on almost any 
 instrument ; she danced with the air and that light- 
 ness of the nymph of which she possessed all the 
 delicacy and agility; she excelled specially in 
 the art of always displaying her attractions at the 
 proper time and of setting them forward only at 
 the favourable moment when they could be best 
 appreciated. 
 
 Her penetration went so far as to discover the 
 moment when each would cease to please: she did 
 not wait for this. 
 
 Already the decorations were changed, and the 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 41 
 
 people were not yet over the surprise and admira- 
 tion which they had excited. 
 M:^ With so much talent to please the King and his 
 intimates, might she become the oracle of the whole 
 Court and there play the character of a new 
 PETRONIUS A REIT RE/ 
 
 ^ No entertainment was reputed such, if it were 
 not of her invention, or if it had not merited the 
 honour of her approbation. 
 
 Everything had to be a la Pompadour at those 
 little suppers which the King liked so much and 
 from which he had banished the stiffness of 
 etiquette, in the midst of a few chosen persons who 
 were then more his friends than his subjects. 
 
 Stripped of all the exterior show of royal 
 majesty, he gave himself up wholly to seeing her 
 give life to this voluptuous company, and diffuse 
 through it the spirit of gaiety, for she was the soul 
 and the life of all these little affairs; in a word, the 
 King had so much reason to believe that she was 
 necessary to the happiness of his days that his heart 
 no longer felt the pleasures of inconstancy. 
 
 The impression was so great that nothing cost 
 
42 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 too much when it was a question of proving his 
 love. 
 
 We have seen the Bourbons spend much in mag- 
 nificence; love has also succeeded at times in mak- 
 ing prodigals of them; but generosity was never 
 one of their personal virtues. 
 
 Louis the ff ell-Beloved is no exception to this 
 general characteristic of his family. 
 
 Naturally inclined to saving, he had not been 
 seen to reward the favours of his mistresses in the 
 manner of a King; to Mme. d'Etioles and to her 
 powerful influence it was left to raise the flood- 
 gates of the royal treasury and to cause its waters 
 to flow over her and hers. 
 
 He first gave her a marquisate with the title of 
 Marquise de Pompadour, 
 
 Poisson, who was her father only because he had 
 married her mother, after having obtained his 
 pardon before his daughter's favour, had been put 
 in comfortable circumstances for the rest of his 
 days. 
 
 Her brother, who was worthy of attention only 
 because he was her brother at least on his mother's 
 side, was made a Marquis de Vandlere.^ 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 43 
 
 The courtiers, by a slight change in this word, 
 always called him M. le Marquis d! Avant-hier 
 (Day before yesterday), a mockery which was the 
 cause of his taking the title of Marquis de Ma- 
 rigny, the King's bounty having placed him in a po- 
 sition to buy the marquisate of that name. 
 
 Before that he had been director and General 
 Superintendent of the buildings, gardens, arts and 
 manufactories of the kingdom, an important post, 
 the pay of which is very large. 
 
 All these dignities did not, however, give him 
 the merit necessary to that place, specially when 
 one considered the circumstances that had brought 
 them to him ; so that old Poisson, his father, could 
 not help saying: " As to my daughter, she has in- 
 tellect, she is beautiful, and she well deserves the 
 King's consideration; but that the King should do 
 so much for my son Charles, is an unpardonable 
 act in my estimation." 
 
 Father Poisson was jealous of him. 
 
 It is true that the King in spite of his love could 
 not help but make fun of Marigny. 
 
 Some courtiers spoke one day, in his presence, of 
 the coming promotion of the chevaliers of orders; 
 
44 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 they named a few whom they thought worthy of 
 being honoured with the cordon bleu, and put 
 young Poisson among them. 
 
 ** No," said the King, " he is too little a poisson 
 (fish) to wear the blue.'* 
 
 Such a sally could hardly be permitted to any 
 one but the King, and never would one have dared 
 to preserve it had any one else said it. 
 
 Mme. de Pompadour had managed to put the 
 King in the humour of giving liberally and he ac- 
 quired that habit. 
 
 It is not seldom that one sees people give away 
 through habit and this habit is the more necessary 
 towards persons of low origin because otherwise 
 one immediately loses all the merit of what one 
 has given, if one present does not bring another 
 and if the last is not the guarantee of the one to 
 follow. 
 
 When one notices the immense disproportion of 
 his prodigalities, and of the object which they fa- 
 voured, one is more inclined to consider them as a 
 weakness of love than as the mark of a royal virtue, 
 of liberality. 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 45 
 
 They were a river whose waters acquired more 
 force from the narrowness of their bed and then 
 rushed on with greater impetuosity. 
 
 She could at her pleasure dispose of the King's 
 purse and she disposed of it pitilessly; besides the 
 enormous sums which came from it to defray the 
 expenses of the style of living into which she had 
 launched him, she drew even larger amounts for 
 herself.^ 
 
 This money, added to that which she secured 
 from the sale of her protection, from the distribu- 
 tion of offices and employment, from a thousand 
 other means which the royal power placed in her 
 hands, was incalculable; a part is to be found in 
 the principal banks of Europe, the rest is more 
 evident since It has been used in buildings and in 
 the acquisition of so much property and so many 
 chateaux. 
 
 In Paris she purchased a palace near the 
 Tuileries, called FHotel d'Evreux ^^ and not finding 
 it worthy of her, she had it torn down to build an- 
 other in Its place. 
 
 It was a terrible annoyance to the Parisians to 
 
46 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 see the palace of a prince in the hands of the King's 
 mistress, and of a mistress come from the scum of 
 the people. 
 
 When the sign on which was the name of the 
 old hotel was taken down to be replaced by that 
 of Pompadour, the walls of the palace were cov- 
 ered with lampoons, with bitter verses, and piquant 
 satires which sufficiently showed the sentiments of 
 the nation; a circumstance came to increase the 
 rage of the people : it broke out. 
 
 Le Coiirs is a place where the nobility and per- 
 sons of note drove in their coaches. 
 
 To enlarge the gardens of the hotel, a part of 
 this beautiful drive was taken, an act which was 
 looked upon as a robbery of the public. 
 
 She was authorised to do this by the King's 
 consent; nevertheless, the populace gathered and 
 fell on the labourers charged with the building of 
 the wall which was to surround the property; it 
 was necessary to call the guard, to protect them 
 from all subsequent insults. 
 
 The palace which she had at Versailles was 
 magnificent: she had not purchased it for herself; 
 residing at the chateau, she had no need of it, but 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 47 
 
 she had to have room for her numerous entourage; 
 besides this the King gave her for life the royal 
 chateau of Creq^. 
 
 There was indecency no doubt in making such 
 use of the property of the Crown; everyone 
 grumbled. 
 
 That was not all : Mme. de Pompadour took the 
 whim one day of having a country house: the 
 King at once gave orders to have built that magnifi- 
 cent house which stands on the road to Versailles, 
 near Sevres and Meudon, which was called Belle- 
 Vue ^^ because of the charming view offered by the 
 horizon and the delightful surroundings: this site 
 had fascinated the senses and tempted the cupidity 
 of the favourite. 
 
 To surround it with gardens, several land- 
 owners were tyrannically forced to give up their 
 land, at whatever price they were offered. 
 
 This oppression must necessarily have crowned 
 the feelings of the people, who already saw only 
 with the greatest regret the enormous sums lav- 
 ished on the favourite. 
 
 Yet there must have been almost insurmountable 
 difficulties in taking incessantly from her lover 
 
48 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 without betraying a mercenary soul possessed by 
 the most sordid interest: the superior genius of 
 Mme. de Pompadour encountered none. 
 
 With a character both insinuating and capable 
 of stooping to everything, with talents suitable to 
 the making of a fortune on the stage or at Court, 
 what did it cost her to affect any character she 
 wished ? 
 
 Without ever seeming to ask, she always ob- 
 tained all and never did any one better act the part 
 of disinterestedness in favour of interest; but if 
 she did not love the King, or if she believed that 
 she loved him, was there not in this a baseness 
 of soul unknown to true passion, to always lay 
 under contribution a person loved; to take ad- 
 vantage of his weakness to obtain from him 
 things liable to blemish his reputation and ruin 
 him? 
 
 She could not excuse herself by pretending 
 ignorance; the knowledge of the motives that made 
 her act, the loud clamours of the people, which 
 must necessarily have reached her, but too clearly 
 told her of the injury she did him, to believe that 
 
LOUIS XV 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 49 
 
 she could know nothing of it; but her heart was 
 without pity as was her love. 
 
 She only had enough compassion to save ap- 
 pearances and if she had had love, this noble pas- 
 sion would not have failed to oppose itself to her 
 aims ; it would have left her less liberty in making 
 use of artifice: however worn that cloak may have 
 been, she always successfully covered herself with 
 it. 
 
 Kings are, of all men, those most subject to 
 being deceived; it would seem that they are born 
 solely to be the dupes of flattery. 
 
 In the matter of love specially, nothing is so 
 easy to deceive them; proud and jealous of the 
 rank they occupy, too often do they attribute to 
 their personal merit the lucky successes that are due 
 only to their station. 
 
 So the King continued his entanglement with 
 Mme. de Pompadour; he had become accustomed 
 to her and the bounties with which he overwhelmed 
 her completed what their relations could not: it 
 is one of the peculiarities of the human heart that 
 the one who gives always increases by giving, the 
 
50 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 degrees of sentiment which he has for the person 
 who receives; it may be noticed here: the more 
 Pompadour received, the more dear she became in 
 the eyes of the King. 
 
 Versailles is, as everyone knows, one of the 
 most magnificent palaces in Europe; but it is the 
 least fit to dwell in. 
 
 It might be thought that it has only been pos- 
 sible to establish its magnificence at the expense 
 of its comfort; nothing is more Inconvenient than 
 the disposition of the apartments, which are few 
 and very mediocre. 
 
 The Queen herself and Mesdames de France 
 are badly off for room there; the chief officers of 
 the Court find themselves compelled to dwell in 
 entresols. 
 
 As to the apartments of Mme. de Pompadour, 
 they were on the ground-floor, immediately below 
 those of the King, to which they were not one bit 
 inferior; a private staircase led from her sleeping 
 room to that of the King, so that they could see 
 one another without being compelled to go through 
 other apartments. 
 
 So many marks of distinction must of necessity 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 51 
 
 have attracted to the one who received them, a 
 multitude of enemies; were it for no other reason 
 than envy in a Court, specially where that passion 
 is capable of producing an effect similar and per- 
 haps a greater one if some personal merit came to 
 give more force to its rancour. 
 
 But there was no necessity of envy entering into 
 this matter: there were well-founded motives 
 of dissatisfaction. 
 
 Let us pass over the scandal; it could not be 
 greater in a Court accustomed for a long time to 
 this sort of thing. 
 
 But could people see without indignation, a 
 family, as vile as it was unknown, take precedence 
 of the most distinguished nobility, and be over- 
 whelmed with countless bounties? 
 
 All France groaned over it and the King's faith- 
 ful friends, those who were most attached to him, 
 were the first to show their vexation. 
 
 The courtiers even, that cowardly crew which 
 at Versailles has not a single decent sentiment, 
 since a slave to the master that governs it, it dares 
 not think otherwise than he, the courtiers, I say, 
 although pride is easily allied to baseness, con- 
 
52 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 sidered themselves offended to creep at the feet of 
 an idol beneath them, and sought to avenge them- 
 selves by increased contempt and hatred against 
 her and against her family; in a word, dissatisfac- 
 tion was general, and Mme. de Pompadour almost 
 became its victim ; the event which it seemed would 
 blight her career and which then created much 
 noise Is too worthy of attention to allow it to be 
 passed in silence : here are a few particulars. 
 
 There was a certain Mme. Sauve, wife of a 
 clerk in the office of M. d'Argenson, secretary of 
 State in the war department, who was in the serv- 
 ice of Mme. de Tallard, gouvernante of Mon- 
 seigneur le Due de Bourgogne, elder son of Mon- 
 seigneur le Dauphin, and who was then but a child. 
 
 One day when the young prince was to be shown 
 to the people who came in crowds to see him, she 
 happened to be away, and the child was put in a 
 cradle exposed within a wire lattice to protect him 
 from the discomfort or danger which might be 
 feared from an eager crowd. 
 
 When the crowd had withdrawn, Mme. Sauve 
 approached the cradle and on raising the prince, 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 53 
 
 she uttered an exclamation caused by a sealed pack- 
 age which she said she found there. 
 
 This package was addressed to the King, who 
 received it from Mme. de Tallard, to whom she 
 had been careful to give it at once. 
 
 It was opened and besides a few verses and 
 grains of wheat which made allusion to the dearth 
 then existing, there was found a letter filled with 
 bitter complaints against the King, against his 
 government and specially against his scandalous 
 life with Mme. de Pompadour. 
 
 He was threatened with a new Ravaillac if he 
 did not change his conduct and if he were not more 
 careful of his people. 
 
 Although the incident caused the King to break 
 out into a violent anger, he was much less sensitive 
 to the contents of the letter than he was to the man- 
 ner in which it had reached him. 
 
 Mme. de Pompadour knew that d'Argenson en- 
 tertained against her a mortal hatred. He had 
 been frank or indiscreet enough to openly express 
 his opinion of her; and it was only by a sort of 
 miracle that in spite of her power, he had succeeded 
 
54 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 in retaining his position and the good graces of his 
 master. 
 
 Suspicion did not fail to fall on him; and she 
 did not fail to tell the King; she had sufficient clues 
 to confirm her suspicions. 
 
 The hatred of d'Argenson was open: Mme. 
 Sauve was not only the wife of one of his clerks, 
 but besides she was suspected of being his mistress ; 
 in a word, she succeeded in making the thing so 
 plausible that the King believed in good faith that 
 he had solved the mystery; he went so far as to 
 give non-equivocal signs of his lively feelings to 
 his minister d'Argenson, but while discrediting this 
 minister, she almost blighted her fortune herself. 
 
 The Queen, the ministers, almost all the Court, 
 took sides against her. 
 
 There was but one opinion : that the whole affair 
 was a ruse of her malice, that she herself, through 
 her agents, had done the deed, to ruin an innocent 
 party whose only crime was not to think better of 
 her than she deserved. 
 
 The clamours, as loud as they were unanimous, 
 shook the King's constancy, in spite of the great 
 partiality he had for her. 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR S5 
 
 Mme. Sauve, who had found the package or 
 who claimed to have found It, was carefully and 
 rigorously examined; the replies she made only 
 served to render the affair more obscure and com- 
 plicated. 
 
 When she was asked how it was possible for 
 anyone to place a package in a cradle enclosed 
 within a wire lattice, near which she was, without 
 her noticing the person who had done so, she re- 
 plied that at the moment when she thought that the 
 package had been slipped in the cradle, she had 
 felt someone press her hand ; but that in the crowd, 
 she had looked on this as the action of a person 
 who sought to approach the cradle as closely as 
 possible, or who seized anything he could, in fear 
 of being thrown down. 
 
 She added that even had there been occasion 
 to fear something extraordinary, the move had 
 been so rapid and the throng so great that it would 
 have been impossible for her to recognise anyone. 
 
 She was answered that so singular a circum- 
 stance as that of feeling one's hand pressed should 
 have caused her anxiety; that in default of pres- 
 ence of mind sufficient to discover the person who 
 
56 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 had done this, she should have called for help 
 from the sentinel, which she had neglected to do. 
 
 Still everything was well, if her conduct had 
 not served to confirm the suspicions existing against 
 her. 
 
 On the very day this had taken place, she said 
 to her servant on going to bed that the person 
 who had slipped the package in the cradle would 
 not be content until she had caused her death, be- 
 cause she must be living in the continuous fear of 
 seeing herself discovered sooner or later and ar- 
 rested ; but that she wished to tear herself from all 
 anxiety on that score and escape from the anguish 
 which tormented her by killing herself. 
 
 The servant used all her eloquence to make her 
 renounce such a design and Mme. Sauve pretended 
 to give in to her remonstrances ; but as soon as she 
 had left, she swallowed some poison: the loud 
 cries she uttered caused the servant to hasten 
 back, and she, seeing what her mistress had done, 
 aroused the entire house. 
 
 At first remedies were resorted to; the counter- 
 poison which was given to her would have ren- 
 dered useless a poison much more strong than the 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 57 
 
 one she had swallowed: thus was her life saved; 
 but something so exaggerated was noticed in her 
 manners, and such affectation, that all together 
 It gave new strength to the suspicions against her ; 
 she was arrested and conducted to the Bastille, 
 from which she never came out. 
 
 It is not known to what examination she had 
 to submit in that prison, what torments she was 
 made to suffer, what knowledge was secured from 
 her, and if she was executed there or not; one 
 thing certain is that she was never heard of from 
 that time. 
 
 Her husband had fled, at the first news of her 
 arrest, but he soon returned after having sufficiently 
 justified himself. 
 
 It is to be believed that M. d'Argenson was 
 wholly innocent, since the storm that threatened 
 him passed over so fast that he regained the King's 
 former confidence. 
 
 Perhaps it is exaggerating suspicion to let it fall 
 on Mme. de Pompadour, but if she was guilty, the 
 suppression of the proceeding against the Sauve 
 woman and the favour which she continued to 
 obtain can only be attributed to the power she had 
 
58 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 over the mind of the King, an ascendency which 
 left him neither the wish to punish nor the power 
 to abandon her. 
 
 However such weakness wherein injustice has 
 so large a part is so unbelievable that one can not 
 resist the desire to believe her innocent. 
 
 This storm had only shaken her to strengthen 
 her, It had barely passed over when the King was 
 more in love with her than ever. 
 
 Soon the entire Court felt the influence which 
 she had on all which was done. 
 
 No mistake was more severely punished than a 
 slightest lack of respect towards a woman whom 
 the King delighted in honouring. 
 
 Thus had she every reason in the world for 
 triumphing, and for congratulating herself for hav- 
 ing discovered and chosen the only way existing to 
 captivate the King and assure his conquest to her- 
 self. 
 
 It is to be wished, for the happiness of humanity, 
 that her secret be better known and her example 
 followed more than it is, without, however, its 
 being put to an evil use. 
 
 However great might be the danger to which 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 59 
 
 men might then be exposed, women would profit 
 infinitely and their designs would always be 
 crowned with success. 
 
 This secret consisted solely in comprehending the 
 humour of the King, and to make it a business to 
 conform to it wholly; to this was due that he no- 
 where else found greater delight than in her com- 
 pany. 
 
 Such a means will always give greater and more 
 powerful advantages than that ordinary obstinacy 
 of wishing to have one's own way. 
 
 Faithful to this maxim, Mme. de Pompadour 
 had made the happy experience of its solidity. 
 
 Hardly had she lived a few years with the King 
 in the position of mistress when she found herself 
 unable to fulfil what Is ordinarily looked upon as 
 the essential point of that position; an ailment to 
 which her sex is subject attacked her with such 
 force that to avoid the dangerous consequences 
 which were to be feared, the King was compelled, 
 by advice of the doctors, to discontinue all com- 
 merce with her, and, however hard the renuncia- 
 tion may have appeared to him, no desire could 
 resist against the thought of his mistress' ailment 
 
6o MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 and against the fear of feeling the effects of its 
 outcome. 
 
 What a triumph for Pompadour in the critical 
 state in which she was. 
 
 She had the pleasure of seeing that her favour 
 was founded on something more solid than the 
 momentary attractions of her person. 
 
 She was then able to know how advantageous 
 it was for her to have been able to bind her slave 
 with so many chains that even when breaking that 
 which seemed the strongest, he was not one step 
 nearer to liberty. 
 
 All the Court and no doubt she herself was 
 astonished to see her still possess the King's heart, 
 under circumstances which naturally might have 
 inspired indifference or disgust. 
 
 Yet many motives could conspire in making him 
 keep his shackles. 
 
 The King's dominant passion for pastimes which 
 could find most satisfaction only with her; the 
 ordinary company of princes where one notices 
 that favour produces presents, these presents a 
 new favour, and these new degrees of favour ad- 
 ditional presents; custom; a certain spirit of con- 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 6i 
 
 tradiction which is pleased to disappoint the ex- 
 pectations of others; the extraordinary side of a 
 thing, and still more perhaps the false pride of the 
 human heart which persists in an error because 
 it fears to give, in renouncing it, an evidence of 
 its weakness, all these foibles explained this moral 
 paradox so that people were no longer astonished 
 to see him in chains. 
 
 Far from having formed the project of freeing 
 himself, the King seemed to cherish his bondage 
 the more. 
 
 M. de Maurepas was one of the first who al- 
 lowed himself to be deceived by appearances; he 
 was also one of its first victims. 
 
 Besides being minister of State, he had more- 
 over the honour of being of the number of inti- 
 mate courtiers in the King's good graces; he had 
 been, as one might say, brought up with him, and 
 hardly had he reached majority, when he was given 
 employment in State affairs. 
 
 On a fete day at Court, Mme. de Pompadour 
 presented to the King a bouquet of white roses, 
 which was told with other news of the day, to M. 
 de Maurepas, while he was dressing; but he began 
 
6se MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 to laugh and said that he had often thought that 
 sooner or later Mme. de Pompadour would make 
 a present of fleurs blanches to the King. 
 
 This allusion was eagerly taken up by some per- 
 sons who happened to be present and it spread 
 through the whole Court. 
 
 The thought was put into verse and it was at- 
 tributed to M. de Maurepas. 
 
 No insult could be more sharp to Mme. de 
 Pompadour, her anger was extreme and the King 
 shared her feelings: from that day M. de Maure- 
 pas lost both his office and his favour, and ac- 
 cording to all appearances he lost them forever; 
 for in nothing is the King's character more decided 
 than in never returning to those whom he has once 
 punished and abandoned. 
 
 The example of Chauvelin can furnish a model 
 of this stern and inflexible character: this able 
 minister whom the King much esteemed, was dis- 
 graced out of kindness for Cardinal de Fleury; 
 vainly did he show that he had done no wrong, 
 he never succeeded in being restored to favour. 
 
 To send away M. de Maurepas was too serious 
 a matter and of too great importance for those re- 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 63 
 
 sponsible for his removal not to colour their con- 
 duct; they dared not declare the real motives; so, 
 some malversation was alleged, some negligence 
 in the department of the navy where he occupied 
 the office of minister and secretary of State. 
 
 The people, who did not admit of there being 
 any truth in that, all murmured the louder on 
 seeing that motives as powerful had been unable to 
 do what was reserved to the animosity of Pompa- 
 dour to accomplish; moreover, at Court, one is 
 much less exposed to become the victim of one's 
 crimes than of one's virtues. 
 
 To hate Mme. de Pompadour was looked upon 
 as a virtue. 
 
 Maurepas was not the only one who gave an 
 example of the danger there was in offending her. 
 
 M. de Resseguier, Knight of Malta and an 
 officer in the King's guards, was still more un- 
 fortunate. 
 
 He had written a quatrain against her wherein 
 the King's weakness was so little spared, that it 
 might have been said with reason that he had been 
 punished for having spoken ill of His Majesty, if 
 on that occasion the King had not boasted to hia 
 
64 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 mistress that he had only avenged a personal insult. 
 
 The contents of this quatrain ^^ practically said 
 that a King who lowered himself to raise from 
 nothingness the vilest person in the world to honour 
 her with his love, could be only susceptible of 
 baseness. 
 
 The Chevalier de Resseguier was at once 
 suspected of being its author. 
 
 On suspicion, his absence from home was chosen 
 to send guards to his house; a search was made 
 and what was sought was found. 
 
 A rough draft full of erasures and in his own 
 handwriting was used against him and served to 
 prove that he was the author of the piece. 
 
 If they had but found a clean copy, although in 
 his handwriting, it would have proved nothing 
 against him; he could have excused himself by 
 saying that it was but a copy; but an original, and 
 an original with corrections was a proof that could 
 not be eluded; he was condemned to spend his 
 days in the narrow iron cage of Mont Saint- 
 Michel: a punishment a thousand times greater 
 than death. 
 
 This cage is a square in which the prisoner can 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 65 
 
 neither stand nor lie down : he can assume no other 
 position than that of sitting and he remains seated 
 continually. 
 
 He spent seven years in this uncomfortable and 
 unhappy state and earnest prayers of the Order 
 of Malta brought no other relief than a transfer 
 to the prison of the Chateau de Pierre-Encize, 
 where he was able to stretch and make use of his 
 limbs. 
 
 He had not long been In his new prison, when, 
 can one believe it! Mme. de Pompadour, priding 
 herself of nobleness of soul, secured his freedom, 
 with permission to return to Malta. 
 
 He lost only the post he had held In the army; 
 and it was generally reported that before leaving 
 the kingdom, he went to Mme. de Pompadour to 
 thank her: a step which made him unworthy of the 
 pity which his sufferings had brought him, even at 
 Court. 
 
 We have said that Mme. de Pompadour hav- 
 ing become an Invalid, was not In a condition to 
 perform her duties; this did not hinder her from 
 being jealous of the King, so little was she dis- 
 posed to do justice to herself. 
 
66 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 A glance, a look, the least sign that a person 
 pleased him, all worried her and although she 
 strove to dissipate her trouble, she always allowed 
 some anxiety to be seen. 
 
 When Mme. de Brionne came to the Court for 
 the first time, it was thought that it was not without 
 the design of pleasing the King, who from then 
 set his mind on that new and young beauty.^^ 
 
 One evening, seeing that charming object, while 
 at supper, he said with some transport, in the pres- 
 ence of Pompadour, that he had never seen so 
 beautiful a person, a statement that threw the fa- 
 vourite into the most cruel anxiety. 
 
 So as to immediately forestall what she feared, 
 she was careful to insinuate to Prince Charles de 
 Lorraine (he is not the Emperor's brother) that 
 the virtue of his nephew's wife was in the greatest 
 danger. 
 
 The prince, very strict In matters of honour, 
 did not rest until he had persuaded his nephew, 
 M. de Brionne, to have his wife leave Court at 
 once. 
 
 The reader has seen, in the course of this his- 
 tory, Mme. de Pompadour busy filling her strong- 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 67 
 
 coffers with all the greediness natural to the condi- 
 tion from which the King had drawn her, since she 
 was the wife of a financier. 
 
 She would have considered herself but half sat- 
 isfied if she had stopped at love. 
 
 She had to betray the baseness of her origin by 
 that pride and that vanity by which it is so easy to 
 recognise her; she had too much intelligence to be 
 ignorant of what there was against her in her own 
 extraction ; and she had not enough to see that the 
 title of mistress to the King, far from covering 
 anything, only gave more prominence to her 
 origin. 
 
 She did not notice that in giving herself so 
 much trouble to place herself in a position which 
 she considered too much above contempt, she only 
 laboured to give a more certain signal at which 
 everyone assembled; either these reflections were 
 beyond her or, what is more reasonable, she was 
 constrained to bend before the natural littleness of 
 her passions. 
 
 It would be an endless tale should we report the 
 evidences which she has given of a pride that has 
 so often been the object of the Court's laughter and 
 
68 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 specially of those of the courtiers who showed the 
 most complacency to conform to it: a few ex- 
 amples will be sufficient. 
 
 Nothing can better show the high opinion 
 she had of herself than the etiquette which she had 
 introduced while in favour in the room wherein 
 she received her visits, when she was at her 
 toilette, where she would never allow any but her 
 own arm-chair. 
 
 It was a sort of favour she granted the King, 
 when he came to see her, to give him a chair; as 
 for the princes of the blood, the cardinals, and a 
 few other persons of highest distinction, not daring 
 to sit down in their presence without offering them 
 a scat, for she did not believe she could do it with 
 impunity, she received them standing and only 
 sat down the moment they withdrew. 
 
 The Marquis de Souvre being one day at her 
 toilette and not finding a chair, sat down on the 
 arm of her arm-chair and continued to converse as 
 before. 
 
 Mme. de Pompadour, enraged at the familiarity, 
 gave vent to an attack of fury and went to com- 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 69 
 
 plain to the King of the outrage suffered at the 
 hands o£ Souvre. 
 
 " Sire,'' said the marquis, " I was devilish tired, 
 and not knowing where to sit, I did the best I 
 could/' 
 
 This unceremonious reply made the King laugh 
 and as he was fortunate enough to be a sort of 
 favourite, the affair was carried no further ; other- 
 wise a sad experience would have been sure to 
 teach him that one does not sit with impunity on 
 the arm of the arm-chair of Pompadour. 
 
 A similar experience happened to Prince de 
 Bauffremont. 
 
 Wishing to give herself the airs of a grande 
 princesse, and have a gentleman in her service, 
 Pompadour chose a young man of one of the best 
 and oldest families of Gulenne, named d'Inville, 
 and everybody was at a loss to decide which of the 
 two surpassed the other, the mistress in vanity or 
 the young nobleman in baseness. 
 
 She had a maitre d'hotel named Collin and she 
 did not think him worthy of waiting on her with- 
 out the decoration of the cordon of some order. 
 
70 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 Few princesses would have conceived such an 
 idea : but she was of a different condition from 
 those to whom the rights of blood give the most 
 eminent qualities. 
 
 She not only conceived that idea, but her influ- 
 ence with the King succeeded in having it carried 
 out and Collin was made master of accounts of the 
 royal and military order of Saint-Louis. 
 
 This order has been instituted in favor of land 
 and naval officers who have distinguished them- 
 selves by their valor or by the length of their serv- 
 ices. 
 
 Collin, plain servant, and nothing more, had 
 consequently no quality which entitled him to en- 
 ter it. 
 
 It is true that the office of master of accounts did 
 not make him a chevalier of Saint-Louis; but it 
 produced almost the same effect by permitting him 
 to wear the cross and the other insignias of the 
 order. 
 
 So Mme. la Marquise de Pompadour, in whose 
 eyes appearance was always worth reality, had the 
 satisfaction of seeing behind her chair what seemed 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR ^\ 
 
 to be a chevalier of Saint-Louis, with his cross, and 
 a napkin under his arm. 
 
 Had she wished to cast ridicule on the order, 
 she could not have done better than she had done. 
 
 It is thus that the government, to bring discredit 
 on Chinese linen, which was sold to us by the Eng- 
 lish to ruin our own manufactories, ordered under 
 Louis XIV that the executioner should wear a gar- 
 ment made of it every time he hanged someone. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 Her vanity growing with her credit, there was 
 nothing else to content her but the honours of the 
 Louvre ; these honours consist principally in taking 
 the tabouret, in remaining seated in the presence 
 of the Queen, and in being presented to receive a 
 kiss from her. 
 
 It was of this that the ceremony of installation 
 consisted. 
 
 There was a very great indiscretion on the part 
 of Mme. de Pompadour in making such a request ; 
 she should not have overlooked her birth, nor the 
 feelings of the Queen towards her, and she could 
 easily imagine that she would not see her with 
 pleasure. 
 
 However, an excess of kindness did not permit 
 this virtuous princess to oppose the King's will ; all 
 bowed to the orders and to the superior credit of 
 the candidate, all gave way, even Court etiquette, 
 which accords this prerogative to duchesses only; 
 
 7^ 
 
MARIE LECZINSKA AND THE DAUPHIN 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 73 
 
 for she replied to objections that her position of 
 mistress to the King was the basis of her preten- 
 sions, acting on the example of Mme. de Montes- 
 pan, who had obtained the same honours from 
 Louis XIV. 
 
 She assured that there was nothing criminal in 
 her relations with the King; that all amounted to 
 a platonic love, to a communion of mind and senti- 
 ment, and no one was found impolite enough to 
 say that her continency was too little voluntary to 
 be advanced in her favour. 
 
 All, however, was not wholly satisfactory in her 
 success. 
 
 In the midst of her triumph, she underwent 
 mortifications which please so much at courts; she 
 was presented to the Dauphin to be kissed, accord- 
 ing to the rules of etiquette, and the Dauphin, who 
 detested her, while presenting a cheek to be kissed, 
 stuck out his tongue, and gave other evidence of 
 the contempt he had for her. 
 
 La Pompadour could not see it, but was soon 
 informed of it; she almost died with rage, and in 
 her transport, she hastened to the King to tell him. 
 
 She related the shameful way in which she had 
 
74 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 been received, and did not fail to present it under 
 the most hideous features and blackest colours her 
 passion could suggest; lastly she gave the King to 
 understand that she was resolved to leave the 
 Court rather than see herself exposed to such in- 
 sults. 
 
 The King, full of anger against the Dauphin, 
 considered that to fail in respect toward Mme. de 
 Pompadour was to fail toward himself. 
 
 He espoused this quarrel and the next day, when 
 the Dauphin was preparing to pay his court, he 
 sent him orders to betake himself to his chateau of 
 Meudon. 
 
 The Queen, the ministers, almost all the Court, 
 begged in his favour; the King remained unbend- 
 ing, he would listen to no arrangement but on the 
 condition that the Dauphin should go in person to 
 Mme. de Pompadour to deny publicly what was 
 charged against him. 
 
 The Dauphin yielded: he declared in the pres- 
 ence of several persons that what had been re- 
 ported of him was false and that he had not done 
 any of the things imputed against him. 
 
 La Pompadour received this declaration as the 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 75 
 
 most gracious princess might have done; she re- 
 plied to it with the same truth that she had placed 
 no faith on what had been told her on the subject. 
 
 Mme. de Pompadour carried her goodness so 
 far as to engrave the portrait of the Dauphin: 
 such was the ending of this comic scene. 
 
 The Dauphin was condemned for having low- 
 ered himself to such an extent, but those who con- 
 demned him did not perhaps consider the double 
 obligation imposed on him in his capacity of son 
 and subject. 
 
 If there was a mistake in this punishment, it was 
 without doubt much less great in the one who 
 obeyed than in the one who ordered it. 
 
 La Pompadour having thus succeeded in obtain- 
 ing the honours of the Louvre, was not yet sat- 
 isfied: puffed up by her success, she became more 
 enterprising, she thought she could employ her in- 
 fluence in making new endeavours, she took it into 
 her head to be a lady of the palace of the Queen: 
 an honour granted only to ladies most distinguished 
 by birth, rank and dignity. 
 
 The Queen had surrendered without resistance 
 in the matter of honours of the Louvre; but she 
 
^6 yikDPM:E, DE POMPADOUR 
 
 would have seemingly lost all feeling had she 
 seen herself forced, with indifference, to receive in 
 her house a person so disagreeable to her; how- 
 ever, she made no other remonstrances than those 
 which might be reconciled with her extreme com- 
 pliance to the King's will; remonstrances which 
 she thought sufficient, since they were limited by 
 the King's absolute will. 
 
 Therefore laying aside all the other reasons she 
 had, very just reasons, but on that account more 
 liable to displease the King, she contented herself 
 with saying with a courageous sweetness, ** that 
 there would be too much impropriety in her to 
 grant this place to a person who lived in a fraud- 
 ulent separation from her husband, and who did 
 not even dare to approach the altars to receive 
 communion; that she, on her part, had nothing to 
 say on the innocence of her relations and of her 
 liaisons with the King; but that this in no way re- 
 paired the breach which Mme. de Pompadour was 
 making to her reputation, since, although married, 
 she lived as if she were not, and did not fulfil any 
 of the duties of a wife, who should be nowhere but 
 in her husband's house." 
 
 A 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR ^^ 
 
 She added: "That His Majesty might order 
 what he pleased, that she would always make it 
 her duty to obey; but that she hoped that he him- 
 self would have too much consideration for the 
 royal family to do them so great an affront; that 
 the place in question demanded an honour too lit- 
 tle ambiguous and too delicate to have It given to 
 an excommunicated person who did not even lay 
 claim to the general benefit of the Easter com- 
 munion." 
 
 The King, who, on the one hand, hesitated to 
 displease the Queen and to reverse an order once 
 laid down, but who, on the other, could not make 
 up his mind to refuse Mme. de Pompadour, was 
 cruelly perplexed as to what to do; he saw no 
 means to remove the Queen's objection, whose full 
 weight and force he felt. 
 
 Mme. de Pompadour, herself, in spite of the fer- 
 tility of her genius, considered herself without re- 
 sources towards an obstacle which appeared to her 
 insurmountable; what was she to do in this plight? 
 
 In reality, while she continued to live separated 
 from her husband, she dared not go to the altar 
 to receive the Sacrament at Easter, 
 
78 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 Two pressing reasons forbade her to go near 
 it: the fear of being repulsed in a manner but little 
 agreeable, or else the displeasure of hearing the 
 world cry out against the profanation; and what 
 profanation! the most cruel and the most unpar- 
 donable of all : a profanation inspired by pride and 
 carried out by irreligion. 
 
 Such audacity had not proved a success with 
 the Regent. 
 
 The road was then closed to her hopes; if she 
 returned to her husband, to a man of little im- 
 portance, this step would not help her. 
 
 The simple wife of M. d'Etioles could not aspire 
 to the honour of becoming lady of the palace. 
 
 However, the shame she had at her failure, al- 
 ready known by the courtiers, had caused a pleas- 
 ure so extreme to her enemies that it did not a lit- 
 tle increase her grief and anxiety. 
 
 The King expressed all the sorrow at this and 
 the Court all the imaginable joy. 
 
 Yet, however insurmountable the obstacles may 
 have appeared, Mme. de Pompadour finally found 
 a way to raise them : she wrote a letter to her hus- 
 band, M. d'Etioles, a letter in the penitent Magda- 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 79 
 
 len style, in which she assured him: that she had 
 grieved over the injustice of which she had been 
 guilty towards him, and that she sincerely repented 
 of all the irregularity of her life. 
 
 ** I admit my wrongs," she said to him; " I wish 
 to repair them. Already has the capital point of 
 my wrongdoing ceased, all I need do is to make 
 the appearances cease, a thing I ardently wish; I 
 am resolved by my future conduct to efface all ir- 
 regular acts in my past life. 
 
 ** Take me back, and you will see me solely oc- 
 cupied in edifying by the harmony in which I shall 
 live with you, the world which I have been scan- 
 dalizing by my separation.'' 
 
 While she was writing this letter, the Prince de 
 Soubise betook himself to M. d'Etioles and in- 
 formed him that in a few hours he would receive a 
 letter from Mme. de Pompadour, that in truth, 
 he might do what he pleased, there existed no in- 
 tention of forcing his resolution, since on the con- 
 trary it was desired that his reply be wholly free; 
 but that he advised him, as a friend, not to accept 
 the offers contained in the letter; that if he did he 
 would not fail to displease the King ; so that he had 
 
8o MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 better carefully consider what he would do in that 
 circumstance. 
 
 To give more weight to this advice, he was 
 handed an ordinance from the King containing an 
 increase in his remuneration; this increase was 
 very important. 
 
 M. d'Etioles, in whom time and reflection had 
 succeeded in extinguishing his strong passion for 
 his wife; M. d'Etioles, who, having yielded to 
 reason, had at least changed his love for indiffer- 
 ence and contempt; M. d'Etioles, who can not have 
 been ignorant of what all the world knew, I mean 
 that the condition of his wife rendered her as use- 
 less to him as she was to the King; M. d'Etioles, in 
 short, well known in a circle of mistresses, would 
 have been much embarrassed to take her back, even 
 had less entreaties been made, and even if his re- 
 fusal had not been so well paid; besides, perhaps, 
 he was very glad to have a good opportunity to 
 avenge himself in some manner on the King by 
 leaving on his hands the useless and inconvenient 
 piece of furniture which the prince had taken 
 away from him at a time when he might say with 
 reason that he would not have her back. 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 81 
 
 He excused himself from doing what was asked 
 of him only enough to increase the merit of his 
 complacency and to save the too great appearances 
 of his contempt towards a person from whom he 
 might hope and fear all; in a word, Prince de 
 Soubise had reason to be satisfied with his com- 
 mission. 
 
 M. d'Etioles therefore received the letter of 
 Mme. de Pompadour, as foreseen, and answered 
 according to the instructions received. 
 
 First he congratulated her for having returned 
 to sentiments more worthy of her; he then ex- 
 pressed to her the excess of sadness into which he 
 had been plunged by her separation from him ; he 
 said that the wound caused by this separation was 
 too deep to be cured, that however he forgot her 
 wrongs, and sincerely forgave her them, but that 
 he had made the resolution never to live with her, 
 that he would never take her back, and that she 
 was mistaken if she expected him to do so. 
 
 Although worded in terms the most measured, 
 the most polite and the most respectful, the re- 
 fusal was clear and as clear as one might have 
 wished it. 
 
82 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 Armed with this documentary evidence, a copy 
 of the letter she had written and of the answer 
 from her husband, she went to inform of the mat- 
 ter all those who were interested in all that con- 
 cerned her. 
 
 She had sinned, it is true, but she had repented 
 also. She could no longer be reproached for not 
 living with her husband since she was not to blame 
 for not returning to him ; she had offered to do so, 
 but had been refused. 
 
 So that instead of one bishop she found twenty 
 prepared to grant her full indulgence and to con- 
 duct her themselves to the altars to partake of the 
 mysteries of religion through communion. 
 
 The Jesuits alone split in their opinion of the 
 matter, well recalling what had happened in the 
 times of Louis XIV. 
 
 This intrigue, wherein religion was so openly 
 tricked, deceived no one as to the truth ; but it had 
 its full effect, the principal obstacle which pre- 
 vented her from walking in the Queen's entourage 
 was thrown down, and this princess, accustomed 
 to give in, no longer offered any opposition; she 
 contented herself with saying laughingly: 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR S3 
 
 " I did not think it proper to allege my rea- 
 sons and my silence has authorised you to take 
 away my pretext.'* 
 
 All well-intentioned people at Court sighed at 
 this new evidence of the boundless power and am- 
 bition of the marquise; yet it must be avowed that 
 she always acted towards the Queen with all the re- 
 spect and submission due her. 
 
 It was impossible for her to act otherwise; she 
 was acquainted with the feelings of the King and 
 consequently knew that his delicacy would infalli- 
 bly be offended at the slightest shadow of an insult 
 to the Queen, either one way or the other; she was 
 aware that all her influence could not shelter her 
 from his just displeasure, should the Queen hap- 
 pen to complain of her. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 Before succeeding in the matter of her installa- 
 tion in the place of lady of the palace, Mme. de 
 Pompadour had conceived the idea of negotiating 
 with the clergy for an absolution, so as to be able 
 to take communion at Easter and to give the 
 Queen In that respect all the satisfaction that 
 princess might desire, when she asked that Mme. 
 de Pompadour, according to etiquette, should be 
 obliged to prove that she was a Christian and per- 
 formed the duties of her religion. 
 
 To obtain an absolution was not a very difficult 
 matter for Mme. de Pompadour: there was no 
 lack of ecclesiastics in Paris inclined to grant her 
 one; but Mme. de Pompadour did not wish the 
 absolution of an obscure confessor: she knew that 
 people would not fail to say at Court as well as 
 in the capital what had been said of the Regent, 
 in a similar circumstance, when he took commun- 
 ion in his parish, at Saint-Eustache. 
 
 84 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 85 
 
 She was besides very well informed on the gen- 
 eral principles of Christianity and on the obliga- 
 tions imposed on her by religion : she had reason to 
 fear that the people might cry out at the sacrilege 
 on the very day she took communion ; and it is well 
 assured that had she given herself that permission 
 with solemnity and without having a very well- 
 known confessor, a thousand protests, a thousand 
 couplets would have sung of the penitent, the abso- 
 lution, and the tabouret, 
 
 Mme. de Pompadour, who saw rather clearly 
 in that respect, conceived the idea of having a con- 
 fessor in the grand style, to have him en titre, and 
 to take him as the King did, from among the 
 Jesuits, whose most honourable prerogative con- 
 sisted in France in directing the conscience of the 
 Kings, or at least to have the right to do so, and 
 the title as confessors. 
 
 Mme. de Pompadour did not calculate ill on the 
 responsibility attached to an absolution in nego- 
 tiating for it with the Jesuits; through this she 
 transferred to a celebrated, powerful and ac- 
 credited Order, all the culpability resulting from 
 an indulgence of this nature. 
 
86 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 The Prince de Soubise, her go-between, charged 
 himself both with the choice and with the pre- 
 liminary negotiations: he chose for this affair 
 Father de Sacy and went after him at the Central 
 House. 
 
 Father de Sacy was a very remarkable per- 
 sonage in his Society, for the gentleness of his 
 character and for his principles, which were op- 
 posed to severity. 
 
 He was of noble extraction and after having 
 been called to several distinguished offices in his 
 Company, he had become procureur general of 
 the missons. 
 
 Prince de Soubise made him perceive that from 
 the confessional of Mme, de Pompadour to that 
 of the King there was but a step and that his 
 complacency for Mme. de Pompadour was a pre- 
 paratory measure in the direction of the conscience 
 of Louis XV. 
 
 Father de Sacy consented to see Mme. de Pom- 
 padour and to seek for a way to conciliate the re- 
 spect which she expressed for her duties with the 
 practice of religion. 
 
 If this transaction had been possible, Mme. de 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 87 
 
 Pompadour would have opposed to the devout 
 and Jesuistic court of the Queen, composed of 
 Father Griffet, Cardinal de Luynes, the Bishop of 
 Verdun, and M. de Nicolay, another court also 
 Jesuistic and devout, and thus shut off the ever- 
 lasting talk of the Dauphin and of the party of 
 devout persons who incessantly bantered the 
 bourgeois and libertine tone of Mme. de Pompa- 
 dour. 
 
 Therefore did the devout faction feel all that 
 there was of artifice and audacity in the politics 
 of Mme. de Pompadour, and Father de Sacy be- 
 came a new cause of worry for them. 
 
 Father de Sacy himself was not ignorant of the 
 dangers of his position; he frequently saw Mme. 
 de Pompadour, but instead of speaking of solemn 
 confession and of absolution, uncertainties, dis- 
 quieting delays, numerous visits were the sole 
 reasons which the casuist opposed to the entreaties 
 of Mme. de Pompadour. 
 
 The growing ambition of the favourite which 
 made her earnestly wish for a prompt absolu- 
 tion was far from pleased with these evasions. 
 
 Father de Sacy, in truth, refused nothing in his 
 
88 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 conferences, to Mme. de Pompadour; but on the 
 other hand he promised nothing. 
 
 The uncertainty as to whether he would decide 
 favourably or otherwise, to an absolution, griev- 
 ing and irritating the secret and natural impatience 
 of Mme. de Pompadour, she combined all her 
 means and efforts to express her impatience and re- 
 sentment against the delays of the confessor who 
 daily claimed to be restrained by the consideration 
 which he had to observe towards his Order and by 
 the rules of the Church, which he had to weigh 
 scrupulously. 
 
 In the meantime there was a rumour in Paris 
 that Father de Sacy visited Mme. de Pompadour 
 frequently, that he confessed her, and that he had 
 with her conversations that were both secret and 
 serious. 
 
 The rumour became so persistent that it was 
 soon decided throughout the capital that these 
 visits were improper for a man of the cloth. 
 
 All the Jesuits in Paris, all persons distinguished 
 for religious sentiments and piety, blamed the 
 conduct of Father de Sacy; he himself made a 
 statement to his Company as to how far he had 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 89 
 
 gone with Mme. de Pompadour, and he received 
 from his superiors the order to discontinue his 
 visits, to explain to Mme. de Pompadour the 
 duties of a conscientious confessor, in such a cir- 
 cumstance, and to excuse himself as best he could 
 for having trifled with her for so long a time. 
 
 *' The absolution which you desire can not be 
 granted you, Madame,'* said Father de Sacy to 
 her; ** your sojourn at the Court, away from your 
 husband, the public rumours regarding the favour 
 granted you by the King, do not permit you to ap- 
 proach the holy table, nor consequently to receive 
 absolution: the priest who would give it to you, 
 instead of absolving you, would pronounce a 
 double condemnation: yours and his, while the 
 public, accustomed to judge of the conduct of those 
 in prominent places, would confirm it without ap- 
 peal. 
 
 " You wish, Madame, so you have told me, to 
 perform the duties of a good Christian; but ex- 
 ample is the chief of these; and to obtain an abso- 
 lution and deserve it, the first thing for you to do 
 is to return to M. d'Etioles or at least to leave the 
 Court and to satisfy your neighbour since he de- 
 
go MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 dares himself scandalised at your separation from 
 your husband." 
 
 Mme. de Pompadour, on hearing herself told 
 that it was necessary to abandon the King, return 
 to M. d'Etioles and leave the Court to deserve 
 and obtain an absolution which she craved only to 
 triumph over the Queen and Monseigneur le 
 Dauphin's party, as a lady of the palace, suddenly 
 gave vent to all her fury and broke out in abuse 
 against ttie Jesuit, who was of a cool and gentle 
 character: his natural timidity had been the cause 
 of his being careful of both religion and the King's 
 mistress. 
 
 But as the mistresses of our princes are all im- 
 perious and as they desire to find in courtiers, 
 either an expressive hatred to give themselves the 
 pleasure of punishing them, or else a devotion 
 a t'oute epreuve, to make use of it, Mme. de 
 Pompadour, in the madness of her resentment, re- 
 plied in about these terms to Father de Sacy : 
 
 " Father, you are an ignoramus, a knave and a 
 true Jesuit; do you understand me? You have 
 taken advantage of the embarrassment and of the 
 need in which you thought I was. 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 91 
 
 ** You would like, I know it, to see me away 
 from the King; but I am in my position as power- 
 ful as you believe me unsteady and feeble; and in 
 spite of all the Jesuits in the world, I shall remain 
 at Court.'* 
 
 The poor Jesuit, much frightened, was dis- 
 missed at once. 
 
 Mme. de Pompadour later united herself with 
 M. de Choiseul to contrive with him the means 
 which were to hasten the ruin of the Jesuits and 
 obtain it from a weak monarch who loved them. 
 
 By resorting to the sacraments, she had wanted 
 to disarm the Dauphin's party or that of the 
 Jesuits, still powerful at Court : the means she had 
 tried not having been successful, she resolved the 
 ruin of a party which she feared and with which 
 she could not negotiate an agreement. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 The power of the party of devout persons at 
 Court was still balanced by the power of the fa- 
 vourite's party or of free-thinkers. 
 
 Comte de Stainville (since Due de Choiseul), 
 with a character full of daring, independence and 
 ambition, of illustrious birth, but without fortune, 
 sought a way of making one by attaching himself 
 to the favourite. 
 
 The weaknesses of the King for Mme. de 
 Choiseul, his cousin, supplied the opportunity : this 
 lady having communicated to him a confession of 
 love written in the hand of Louis XV and having 
 asked him how she should act in such a circum- 
 stance, M. de Stainville, who had a very sharp eye, 
 judged spontaneously that the actual credit of 
 Mme. de Pompadour was more solid and more 
 profitable for him than that of his cousin, which 
 was yet to be established. 
 
 Stainville therefore asked her to entrust to him 
 
 92 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 93 
 
 that letter of Louis XV so as to quietly think over 
 a reply: Mme. de Choiseul turns over that letter 
 to Stainville, who shows it to Mme. de Pompa- 
 dour, who is consumed with jealousy against Mme. 
 de Choiseul. 
 
 Mme. de Pompadour has the merit of knowing 
 how to appreciate services of this nature and to 
 reward those who have rendered them. 
 
 Flattered at the preference which M. de Stain- 
 ville had shown her in this occurrence, to the 
 prejudice of his cousin, she attached to herself this 
 new creature and promised to assist him in his ad- 
 vancement 
 
 It is known that M. de Choiseul was first sent 
 to Rome as King's ambassador. 
 
 Having reached his post, he received from the 
 cardinals and from the generals of the Order, the 
 customary visits. 
 
 The general of the Jesuits did not fail in his 
 duty : he even haunted the ambassy, so that M. de 
 Stainville having asked him one day If he could 
 not give him some information about a Jesuit 
 father whom he wished to know thoroughly, the 
 general replied to the ambassador that he would 
 
94 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 give him within twenty-four hours all the informa- 
 tion he might desire. 
 
 The next day, he brought him notes so full of 
 particulars about the French Jesuit whom he 
 wished to know, that he was amazed at the quick- 
 ness, and the exactness of the details of the gen- 
 eraFs notice. 
 
 ** Do not be astonished at this, monsieur Pam- 
 bassadeur," replied the Father, " every year our 
 rectors send to the superiors notes on the character, 
 intelligence, knowledge, conduct, and occupations 
 of each one of our Fathers; the superior draws up 
 charts for the Society in France and the French 
 assistant who resides in Rome near me, gives me 
 an account, if needs be, of the life of each member 
 of the Order." 
 
 M. de Stalnville, who aspired to become prime 
 minister, conceived fears of this harmony and as 
 he had since then many things of which to re- 
 proach himself with regard to his relations with 
 this Order, he combined with Mme. de Pompa- 
 dour to destroy it and to deprive the Dauphin, 
 chief of the opposing party, of the support he 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 95 
 
 might expect from an Order so powerful in 
 Europe, and in all the Catholic countries. 
 
 And yet, in proportion as Mme. de Pompa- 
 dour's party fortified itself, the opposing side 
 showed its resentment to her. 
 
 M. de Richelieu was one of those who showed 
 towards Mme. de Pompadour the greatest inde- 
 pendence. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 Madame de Pompadour had such an idea of her 
 influence and of the duties of courtiers towards 
 her that besides the refusal of an absolution which 
 I have just mentioned, she received divers other 
 affronts, namely, one from a peer of France. 
 
 The higher nobility, as well as the Church, have 
 always been secretly indignant at seeing them- 
 selves compelled to show respect to this woman 
 whose sojourn at Court offered all sorts of im- 
 proprieties, from whatever side it might be con- 
 sidered. 
 
 Here is the anecdote relating to M. de Riche- 
 lieu. 
 
 Louis XV finding every day with his favourite, 
 Alexandrine, her daughter ^*, took this child into 
 his friendship and gave her so many proofs of it 
 that Alexandrine called Louis XV her papa. 
 
 The Due de Fronsac, son of Marshal de Riche- 
 
 96 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 97 
 
 lieu, was the nobleman of the Court on whom the 
 King cast his eyes to marry her. 
 
 He went so far as to mention it to the marshal, 
 who replied to that prince: " Sire, I shall ask the 
 consent of the House of Lorraine." 
 
 He was in fact nearly related to it through 
 his second wife, nee Princesse de Guise. 
 
 These words were understood as being a grace- 
 ful refusal; yet it does not appear that the King, 
 much too just, bore any ill will against the due 
 on that account: he continued to share his favour 
 and perhaps was he thought the better of for hav- 
 ing had the strength to resist the attraction of a 
 great fortune in rejecting the mesalliance of Mme. 
 d'Etioles, nee Jeanne Poisson. 
 
 As to Mile. Alexandrine, she much resembled 
 Mme. de Pompadour; she was very pretty and 
 very lively, taking much pride in her mother's 
 favour; this fault was perhaps less that of a child 
 than of the flatteries which surrounded her: she 
 was sent to the convent of the Assomption de 
 Notre-Dame, where she was educated. 
 
 At the same time there was in the convent Mile, 
 de Rohan-Soubise, daughter of the Prince de 
 
98 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 Soublse, to-day married to the Prince de Conde; 
 and a few other young ladies of the highest 
 eminence. 
 
 Either through ignorance, or a great opinion 
 of herself, Alexandrine d'Etioles presumed one 
 day to dispute precedence with that princess: she 
 was soon shown wherein she was in the wrong; 
 but Mme. de Pompadour, who heard of it, simply 
 replied : ** It was a breach of politeness." 
 
 This Alexandrine died in the year 1764 in the 
 same convent. 
 
 The smallpox carried her away between thir- 
 teen and fourteen years of age, at the time her 
 mother was negotiating for her a marriage with 
 one of the princes of the House of Nassau, wish- 
 ing to avenge herself of M. de Richelieu. 
 
 A heart wholly given up to pride, vanity and 
 avarice is hardly ever open to impressions of 
 nature; it would be doing her too much honour to 
 believe her susceptible of it. 
 
 The King was much affected by the loss of 
 Alexandrine, and she pretended to be, but the 
 quarrels and the noise of the Court soon made her 
 forget her grief. 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 99 
 
 If something were able to affect her, It is that 
 that death took away the means of justifying her- 
 self before the world and herself, for her passion 
 to amass wealth; she no longer said that she had 
 a dear child in whose interest she heaped up 
 treasures. 
 
 Although deprived of the pretext used by those 
 whom the thirst for gold masters, to colour their 
 conduct and mask what there is of the odious and 
 criminal in It, she was not less greedy nor less am- 
 bitious. 
 
 The loss of her daughter only served to put in 
 evidence that she was a miser because of avarice, 
 since she refused to her passion nothing which 
 could flatter it, after as before the death of Alex- 
 andrine. 
 
 The Marquis de Marlgny, her brother and 
 heir-apparent to her Immense wealth, would 
 rather tend to appease In her the desire to acquire 
 than to lend her a motive, did she not do all that 
 she does to please herself. 
 
 The contempt she has for him Is caused by the 
 natural Incapacity of his bent, by the impossibility 
 to put to good account the advantages she 
 
loo MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 procures for him, by making proper use of them, 
 and by being a credit to her; and as he responds 
 too badly to her vanity to cause her to love him, 
 people perceive the trouble which the alleged mar- 
 quis gives her. 
 
 She has the continuous grief of seeing him ex- 
 posed to the mockery of the Court and to the in- 
 sults of the universe, she has that of being unable 
 to attribute the contempt with which he is cov- 
 ered only to the lack of all merit which is evident; 
 she had the weakness of believing that her fortune 
 made people envious of her, although it was very 
 true that what she took for envy was but a mixture 
 of contempt and grief in those who- noticed the 
 origin of her power and how she had made abusive 
 use of it. 
 
 She would have earnestly wished to be able to 
 ascribe to that cause the discredit in which her 
 brother was ; but seeing the impossibility of doing 
 this with any shadow of reason, she decided to 
 take sides with those who mocked rather than in- 
 jure her penetration in defending him. 
 
 Yet it is generally believed that he will be her 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR loi 
 
 natural heir, or at least that he will inherit the 
 greater share of her goods. 
 
 Her brother will have the advantage over all 
 the others because he is her brother, and because 
 that title can still lay claim to overcoming the 
 extreme indifference which she has for all others 
 than herself. So as to diminish the shame of 
 the ill use of her fortune by the hope of seeing 
 born to him children more worthy of it, she has 
 made several attempts to marry him, but until 
 now they have all been useless ; she is too particular 
 in the choice of a wife, and this too great delicacy 
 has opposed itself to her plans. 
 
 She would soon succeed in finding among the 
 poor and unknown nobility, some woman in whom 
 the idea of grandeur, riches and favour would 
 have conquered the repugnance of a mesalliance; 
 but that would not come up to the aims of Mme. 
 de Pompadour; she wishes that the family in 
 which she shall place her illustrious brother shall 
 not only be of good nobility, but she further means 
 that it be rich and as distinguished by its rank 
 as by its place. 
 
102 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 With our existing customs, such families are 
 not to be found so easily as she imagines. 
 
 Families distinguished for their refinement are 
 little tempted to expose themselves to the ridicule 
 which such an alliance would bring them. 
 
 In the meantime, M. de Marigny condemns 
 himself to celibacy, but it is to be hoped that he 
 will not end his days in it. 
 
 The curious of our history could not too much 
 deplore the total extinction of the illustrious house 
 of the Poissons. 
 
 From the above facts, one can judge how much 
 the King must have to suffer in secret owing to 
 his favourite and her brother. 
 
 The King is sensitive on matters of etiquette 
 and propriety, the bourgeois tone of Mme. de 
 Pompadour may please him at Choisy or In his 
 small apartments; but I very much doubt If he 
 is not disgusted every time he meets there the 
 Polsson (fish) metamorphosed into a marquis. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 The perpetual opposition which Mme. de Pom- 
 padour met with at Court, specially from the 
 devout faction, embittered her character more 
 and more, both against the Church of France and 
 against the Jesuits; she contracted a secret and 
 profound aversion towards M. de Fitz-James, 
 Bishop of Soissons. 
 
 This prelate having shown great severity 
 against Mme. de Chateauroux, at Metz, when the 
 King had been in danger of death, Mme. de 
 Pompadour saw in each bishop of the kingdom as 
 many Fitz-James and in each one of the King's 
 colds a mortal malady which was to drive her 
 away from the species of throne which she had 
 raised at the Court, next to that of the King. 
 
 She no longer saw in the Dauphin, who was in 
 fact the hope and support of the Jesuits, anything 
 but a prince deeply irritated towards her, who 
 
 103 
 
I04 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 would not fail to cast her into a convent, as soon 
 as she lost Louis XV. 
 
 This woman, ceaselessly tormented by her 
 fears, continuously annoyed M. the Bishop of 
 Soissons, who had received from the Pretender 
 the assurance and even the nomination en titre 
 to a cardinalship. 
 
 The King himself, whom Mme. de Pompadour 
 persistently angered against the events of Metz, 
 refused to recognise this nomination. 
 
 Cardinal de Tencin then negotiated with the 
 Pretender a nomination to that hat in favour of 
 M. de Luynes, Archbishop of Sens; and Mme. la 
 Dauphine, who had a great consideration for that 
 prelate, interesting herself in the success of that 
 promotion, M. de Luynes was named cardinal. 
 
 He is a gracious and enlightened man, cher- 
 ished of the Dauphin and of his wife, and one 
 of the prelates of the Church of France who 
 honour their place by great virtues. 
 
 He is well decided that he will not grant power 
 to any confessor to hear the sins of Mme. de 
 Pompadour, who always goes to Fontainebleau, 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 105 
 
 a city situated in his diocese, if she wishes to do 
 her devotions there. 
 
 One sees now, according to the facts I have re- 
 ported, that, whichever way Mme. de Pompa- 
 dour turns, she only finds ingrates and false 
 friends: vainly does she dispose of the public 
 treasury as she pleases, and of the nominations to 
 dignities and places; people receive her bounties, 
 favours are asked of her for profit, and to obtain 
 others, while she is despised, and people are 
 vexed at a state of affairs which compels one either 
 to step aside or to pay court to have her in one's 
 favour. 
 
 She is well aware of this; that is why she daily 
 adds a new degree to the sharpness of her char- 
 acter. 
 
 The independence of the clergy, of Mon- 
 seigneur le Dauphin and of his party vex her, and 
 many think that she seeks all the enemies which 
 Monseigneur le Dauphin and the clergy may have, 
 to strengthen herself by their support. 
 
 But, the party of free-thinkers is only dar- 
 ing, and without power at Court, the King being 
 
io6 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 born a very religious prince, and worthy descendant 
 in that respect, of Saint-Louis. 
 
 In the capital, there are many men of letters 
 who are called free-thinkers, not because they are 
 minds superior for their genius, but for their dar- 
 ing against the religion of the State ; people place 
 at their head M. de Voltaire, who is, without con- 
 tradiction, a very great poet. 
 
 He had been a frequent caller on Mme. de 
 Pompadour when she was still Mme. Le Normant 
 d'Etioles, and he had had several disagreeable 
 affairs at Court, on account of his opinions, which 
 caused the government some anxiety. 
 
 Mme. de Pompadour, delighted at having at 
 her disposal a man possessed of so much wit and 
 influence, has resolved to place him at the head 
 of a party organised to attack religion, to render 
 it ridiculous, to raise against it all that history 
 may have to offer in the matter of errors or of 
 crimes in ministers of the altars of past centuries, 
 to discredit and harass those of the present. The 
 Church of France, for its part, despises Mme. de 
 Pompadour, and suffers from her ephemeral credit; 
 the clergy unites itself closely with Monseigneur 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 107 
 
 le Dauphin and bewails the weaknesses of the 
 King. 
 
 Mme. de Pompadour, who fears to lose that 
 prince, has resolved to keep the clergy busy with 
 quarrels, and to give it such anxieties that the 
 Church might have enough with its own affairs 
 without meddling with the King's pleasures. 
 
 She has resolved to live and to die mistress of 
 Louis XV; she has resolved to make use of arti- 
 fice and strength, of duplicity and truth, to sustain 
 her : woe to parties and to individuals who dare to 
 oppose the pleasures of the King and of Mme. de 
 Pompadour! 
 
 It is assured that no one knows the nature of 
 the consequences of independence from all re- 
 ligion in which affect to live the infidel men and 
 writers, protected by Mme. de Pompadour. 
 
 M. de Choiseul later has joined the party. 
 
 Yet, he fears the anger of Louis XV, always 
 religious and devout in the midst of his pleasures, 
 to the extent that he prizes as much his descent 
 from Saint-Louis, because he knows him to be in 
 Heaven, as he does that from his father, which 
 gave him the most important crown in the world. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 In proportion as Mme. de Pompadour ap- 
 peared to acquire power over the King's mind, the 
 Queen's court surrounded itself with dark and 
 heavy clouds. 
 
 Sulking was indulged in with mucH bitterness 
 and resentment, but in secret. 
 
 The first Dauphine had brought from Madrid 
 a character proud and serious, as well as polite- 
 ness and Castilian formalities; her ambitious 
 mother had educated her to be the instrument of 
 her will, when she should be Queen of France, 
 and history will no doubt some day tell all that 
 that woman did to give crowns to the children of 
 Philip V, born of the second marriage with her. 
 
 The young Dauphine, in the short time that 
 she lived, soon forgot the instructions of her 
 mother which tended to take possession of the 
 Dauphin's mind, and to dominate it j she became, 
 
 io8 
 
4 T>ft -WK- 
 
 MARIE LECZINSKA 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 109 
 
 not the ruler, but the friend of the Dauphin, who 
 cherished her dearly. 
 
 The King, on the death of his daughter-in-law, 
 called for her casket, which Monseigneur le 
 Dauphin had dared neither to examine, refuse, 
 nor conceal from his father's eyes; there were 
 found In it the instructions of the Queen of Spain, 
 besides a code in which mother and daughter were 
 to correspond. 
 
 In her correspondence with her. It was found 
 that the young Dauphlne had totally forgotten the 
 interests of her mother and of her brothers to 
 attach herself solely to her husband. 
 
 The King, who is good, was touched by this 
 devotion, and he showed to several noblemen 
 fragments of these letters, saying: "See what a 
 good Frenchwoman she was ! Ah ! how I pity my 
 son ! " 
 
 And yet the virtuous and good household of 
 the Dauphin and his wife was a bitter and living 
 criticism of the King's life, separated from his 
 wife. 
 
 The Queen is no longer young nor beautiful; 
 
no MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 she has however some charms left and much per- 
 sonal merit. 
 
 The second Dauphine, Saxon by birth, brought 
 to France a character deep, ambitious, and capable 
 of very extended views; she had received a more 
 varied and careful education than the princesses; 
 she was learned, without having the awkwardness 
 which learning gives to women. 
 
 She lived very retired with her husband, show- 
 ing herself but little at the Court wherein the fa- 
 vourite wished to dominate as a sovereign. 
 
 The King's daughters showed a particular at- 
 tachment to their mother and to their brother; 
 they were, as the former, in a state of opposition 
 with Mme. de Pompadour's party : they seemed to 
 be annoyed by the deference which the affection 
 which they bore towards their father compelled 
 them to have for Mme. de Pompadour, as well 
 as by the credit which she enjoyed and by the 
 nullity in which lived the Dauphin of France. 
 
 There is no expression against the favourite that 
 this party did not use in its secret meetings when 
 it considered that it could dispose of no ofHcc 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR in 
 
 without obtaining It through Mme. de Pompa- 
 dour. 
 
 The favourite maintained the King In the 
 repugnance which nature had given him, to cede 
 a portion of his authority to his son; and seeing 
 in the reign of that prince, the end of her credit 
 and perhaps of her liberty, the Dauphin of France 
 was for her a personage whose tastes, disposi- 
 tions, principles and attachments she ceaselessly 
 studied, so as to oppose him In secret. 
 
 It is this woman, clever and wicked, who has 
 but too well succeeded In giving this prince the 
 reputation he has of being narrow-minded and 
 of having an excessive leaning toward religion, 
 two things but little compatible, in their detail, 
 with his august birth. 
 
 There were distinguished, outside the royal 
 family. In the Queen's and Dauphin's party, the 
 Due de Luynes, his wife, M. de NIcolay, Bishop 
 of Verdun, Cardinal de Luynes, and specially 
 Mme. de Marsan, a professional bigot, whom the 
 condition of things did not permit to be forgotten 
 when It became necessary to attend to the educa- 
 tion of the children of the Dauphin. 
 
112 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 At the death of Mme. le Duchesse de Tallard, 
 governess of the prince's children, who has acted 
 a part at Court, Mme. la Comtesse de Marsan 
 was in fact chosen to succeed her. 
 
 Mme. de Tallard was fond of gambling and 
 of sitting up late, had wit, dignity and nobility of 
 expression; she named as her executor Chauvelin, 
 former keeper of the seals, and distributed before 
 her death her jewels and her snuff-boxes: she took 
 on that day the handsomest of her diamonds, 
 placed it on her finger and as her chamber maid 
 wished to take it from her to put it in a safe place : 
 " I am to die soon," said she to her, " and I have 
 bequeathed in my will to M. Chauvelin the dial- 
 mond that I shall wear when I die." 
 
 Mme. de Tallard had made in her place 
 115,000 livres in King's rentes, because at each 
 new child, the salary was increased 35,000 livres. 
 
 This increase was stable, even after the educa- 
 tion: she was separated from her husband by 
 mutual consent, spent a great amount, and owed 
 enormously. 
 
 Malice, perhaps calumny, pursued her even 
 after death. 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 113 
 
 As to the Comtesse de Marsan, she never ceased 
 to show to the Jesuits, to the Sulpiciens, to the 
 devout, and to the party of Monseigneur le 
 Dauphin, the tender and devoted zeal for which 
 she is well known. 
 
 If devotion had not put into her head too much 
 narrowness, and banished many designs and con- 
 siderations to make of the children of France 
 princes worthy of their illustrious birth, there is 
 no doubt but that her zeal and attachment would 
 have made real men of the grandchildren of 
 Louis XV. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 We are very near, I fear, to the deepest con- 
 spiracies. 
 
 The King of France, the gentlest of princes, the 
 most lovable in his person, is attacked by a mon- 
 ster: all in France are alarmed. 
 
 We owe to our King that which every good 
 Frenchman owes him in such a circumstance. 
 
 But we also owe to his successors the lessons of 
 history. What circumstances accompany this as- 
 sassination abroad? 
 
 What other circumstances accompany it within ? 
 
 What documents, in the trial of the monster 
 who armed himself with a poniard, deserve re- 
 flections? 
 
 And what parts of that case deserve to be cast 
 aside as illusory or worthless for history? 
 
 Condition of France abroad, 
 
 England, seeing our negotiations begun with 
 
 114 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 115 
 
 Marie-Therese for an alliance, was fearful of this 
 continental coalition. 
 
 The King of Prussia saw in it the evident proj- 
 ect of his destruction. 
 
 The Protestant countries figured on the in- 
 crease of power of the Catholic courts. 
 
 England saw in it a conspiracy against her com- 
 merce, against its constitution, against the power 
 of the House of Hanover, established on the 
 throne of the Stuarts. 
 
 Condition of France within. 
 
 Within, the Court of France and the Parha- 
 ments had had dangerous discussions on the royal 
 authority and on that of the tribunals : the Higher 
 Chamber only obeyed the King; the other cham- 
 bers were dissolved and minds were in the greatest 
 state of excitement. 
 
 The party of the Jesuits and that of the Jan- 
 senists had abandoned themselves to scandalous 
 quarrels. 
 
 At the Court, there was seen a dissension of 
 the same character: the devout party of the 
 Dauphin and the party of the favourite were al- 
 most at open war. 
 
ii6 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 It is In this conjuncture that Louis XV Is struck 
 by a poniard. 
 
 What a lesson for governments! Let them 
 learn that, in strifes of this nature, it is at them 
 that the outside enemy, who prepares them for 
 us, principally aims. 
 
 The more one studies the papers of the trial 
 of the parricide Damiens, of which the govern- 
 ment has permitted the publication, the more one 
 finds that the Court of France has tied the hands 
 of the judges, and has only allowed them to In- 
 vestigate the necessary formalities to punish this 
 attack and to hide its sources. 
 
 I asked one of the judges of the King's assas- 
 sin, a peer of France, to give me the notes he has 
 collected; he confirmed the opinion expressed in 
 the preceding observations : the reader will be able 
 to judge of this, for I shall report word for word 
 the notes I have from him. 
 
 But it is not in the papers which have served 
 in this trial that one finds what history seeks in 
 these circumstances: it is precisely in the pieces 
 that have been neglected that one must seek the 
 truth that interests. 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 117 
 
 The interests of history and of truth are fre- 
 quently in opposition with the interests of govern- 
 ments. 
 
 I shall therefore report a paper which they are 
 very careful not to use in Parliament, for it does 
 not judge matters concerning kings; it determines 
 at our expense our respective quarrels; kings judge 
 them with armies. 
 
 The paper of which I speak therefore relates 
 to the secret practices attributed to England in 
 this cruel circumstance, or rather of the party 
 furious against us which has taken the upper hand 
 in that island. 
 
 Two weeks after the attack on Louis XV, 
 there appeared before the minister of Foreign 
 Affairs the naval captains Imbert and Duperier, 
 who declared that they had information to give 
 on the causes of the attempt on the life of 
 Louis XV. 
 
 These officers, made prisoners of war by the 
 English and taken to London from where they 
 escaped, returning to France with a man attached 
 to the director of the main post-office of London, 
 declared having heard from the Englishman that 
 
Ii8 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 the party opposed to France had resolved to ruin 
 that kingdom, instead of waiting to see England 
 ruined by France united to Austria. 
 
 They said that the English emissaries and the 
 men who were secretly devoted to England for 
 money, kept up the dissensions which existed be- 
 tween the Jansenists and the Molinists in the 
 clergy, between the body of the clergy and the 
 Parliaments, between the party of the King*s 
 favourite and the Dauphin's party; and that when 
 minds would be well excited, well inflamed and 
 well distracted, when specially dissension should 
 be well established in the royal family, then the 
 King would be killed, while the Dauphin of 
 France, inclined towards peace, and enemy of war 
 and of the actual alliance, once become King, 
 would let England and Prussia breathe. 
 
 According to this Englishman, the coalition 
 was such against Prussia, that excepting for a 
 miracle or for an unexpected success, this power 
 was about to be annihilated, without there being 
 in it any other profit for France than that of seek- 
 ing to please Marie-Therese, while England, in 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 119 
 
 spite of the taking of Minorca, would make France 
 repent the present war. 
 
 These are the most reasonable things known 
 about the resentment of the enemies abroad re- 
 garding the change of principles of our diplomacy. 
 
 But one can well see that the Parliament of 
 Paris can not settle a procedure of this nature; 
 and the statement of an Englishman would not 
 suffice to determine our judgment, if other proofs 
 and considerations did not at the same time per- 
 suade us that the outside enemy knows different 
 routes for reaching his goal, a change of reign 
 and the overthrow of the credit of Mme. de Pom- 
 padour and of her new policy. 
 
 Let us see what was taking place in the Higher 
 Chamber, to which the King, by letters patent, 
 confided the trial of the monster Damiens. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 The notes which I place by the side of my nar- 
 rative were given to me by a scrupulous preserver 
 of the anecdotes of the Court; he was a judge in 
 this case; he is naturally timid, his mind is exact; 
 his narration, I think, will be believed. 
 
 Yesterday, January 4, 1757, the King, after 
 dinner, returned from Trianon to see Madame 
 Victoire, who was not very well. 
 
 He had given orders at half-past five to return 
 to Trianon, his coaches awaited him at the door 
 of the new salle des gardes. 
 
 The King came down at six oVlock, preceded 
 by M. de Montmirel, having on his right and on 
 his left M. de Brionne and M. le Premier, in front 
 M. de Baudreville, an equerry. 
 
 Monseigneur le Dauphin was at his side, on 
 the left, and M. le Due d'Ayen behind him. 
 
 There are several steps from the salle des 
 gardes to the courtyard, he was at the bottom of 
 
 120 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 121 
 
 the last step, when feeling himself struck on the 
 right side, he said: "Someone has struck me a 
 sharp blow with his elbow." 
 
 At the same time there was seen a man of about 
 forty-five years, dressed in brown, with a brown 
 coat, who had his hat on his head. 
 
 *' Do you not see the King? " asked Monseig- 
 neur le Dauphin. 
 
 A garde du corps threw down his hat. M. Did- 
 reville. King's equerry attached to Monseigneur 
 le Dauphin, seized the wretch by the shoulders. 
 
 The King having put his hand to the place 
 where he had been struck, which was between the 
 fourth and fifth rib, withdrew It covered with 
 blood. 
 
 ** I am wounded,'' said he, " and this is the man 
 who struck me "; seeing him under arrest, he said: 
 *' Hold him and see that he be not killed." 
 
 There was a lapse of about six seconds from 
 the moment the blow had been struck to that when 
 the King's equerry seized the wretch. 
 
 He might have taken advantage of that time 
 to escape in the midst of the men and horses; but 
 either through astonishment at the horror of his 
 
122 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 crime, or indifference to his own life, he did not 
 flee. 
 
 As soon as it became known that the King was 
 wounded, the scoundrel was handed over to the 
 gardes du corps, then to the provostship, who 
 kept him inside with forty men of the regiment of 
 the guards. 
 
 In the meantime the King was losing much 
 blood; he ascended the stairs again without assist- 
 ance. 
 
 He was to sleep at Trianon, so that there was 
 at Versailles no linen for him, nor sheets for his 
 bed, nor valet de chambre to wait on him, nor 
 even to bind his wound. M. de la Martiniere, 
 his head surgeon, who had come to Versailles, had 
 returned to Trianon. 
 
 The King was laid on a mattress, without 
 sheets; all those who were about him undressed 
 him. 
 
 M. Hevin, surgeon to Mme. le Dauphine, was 
 called to bind the King's wound, who at that 
 moment had a choking fit, and M. Hevin bled him. 
 
 M. de la Martiniere having arrived, probed 
 the wound ; his probe entered as far as the rib ; he 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 123 
 
 demonstrated to the King that the opening was 
 not downward, but slightly upward, and although 
 four inches long it had not done much injury; a 
 matter which was again verified so as to leave no 
 doubt. 
 
 Here are the fortunate circumstances of this 
 grievous event: the King wore winter clothes, con- 
 sequently thicker; then it was discovered that his 
 shirt by chance had a quadruple fold at the place 
 he was struck. 
 
 The King was bled, that same evening, a second 
 time; the night was not very good, the less so as 
 the King usually lies on his right side, which is 
 that of the wound, and he was obliged to turn on 
 the other side; however, he slept. 
 
 The weapon used by the wretched assassin was 
 a knife having on one end an ordinary blade, and 
 on the other a sort of stilleto shorter and narrower 
 than the blade of the knife. 
 
 Fortunately, he gave the preference to the 
 stilleto end, a fact which made the wound much 
 less deep and not dangerous. 
 
 In these sad circumstances, the King showed 
 much firmness, calmness and religion. 
 
124 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 The Queen, who thought that he had left for 
 Trianon, was not informed of the matter at first, 
 excepting that she was told that he had fainted; 
 she hastened to him and it was the King himself 
 who told her: "Madame, I am wounded.'' 
 
 The Queen, knowing nothing, knew not what to 
 reply to these words. 
 
 The King repeated them and one can imagine 
 the shock and the grief of that virtuous princess. 
 
 Monseigneur le Dauphin confirmed the cruel 
 news to the Queen, and the King asked for a 
 priest. 
 
 Abbe de Raigecourt, one of his chaplains, being 
 about, he had him called in and asked for the 
 holy oils. 
 
 Abbe de Raigecourt brought them to the council 
 chamber; but the King not being in a condition to 
 confess, the abbe made him an exhortation ap- 
 propriate to his situation. 
 
 Father Desmarets, confessor to the King, was 
 at Paris; Madame proposed that in the meantime 
 Abbe de Soldini, almoner of the Grand Commun, 
 a virtuous and much esteemed man, be sent for. 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 125 
 
 This abbe having arrived, remained three- 
 quarters of an hour with the King under the cur- 
 tain of his bed; he spent part of the night there, 
 during which the King recalled him several times. 
 
 Father Desmarets having, arrived that night, 
 the King was with him a long time. 
 
 The assassin was kept for a few hours in the 
 guard room; since he was transferred to the 
 prison, he has been questioned several times by 
 the provost-marshal. 
 
 He seems firm and determined, not fearing 
 death. 
 
 What is known or what the authorities wish 
 should be known of his replies as yet only show 
 a spirit of fanaticism. Masters of Requests have 
 been selected to question him juridically. 
 
 The King however has said that he forgave him 
 with all his heart; that he did not wish to meddle 
 with the case, that he gave all his powers to Mon- 
 seigneur le Dauphin; that he hold the council 
 deemed necessary, that he would give his opinion 
 there, and that he consequently declared him his 
 lieutenant (these terms, these expressions, and that 
 
126 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 confidence in a prince so jealous of his authority 
 announce how far he was from believing the hor- 
 rors reported in this circumstance). 
 
 Monseigneur le Dauphin, in truth, has long 
 since sat at the council of dispatches, but he does 
 not give his opinion there; several meetings have 
 taken place on the present case, in which he 
 opined with much wisdom on all the questions re- 
 lating to it; but when other matters were taken 
 up, he replied that he could give no decision, as 
 he had power only in what concerned the attempted- 
 assassination. 
 
 At the council meetings, it is always the King 
 who decides or who is supposed to decide, although 
 he leaves it to the majority, as the late King al- 
 ways did. 
 
 Monseigneur le Dauphin, as lieutenant of the 
 King, has the same power to decide on that which 
 relates to the present case; it is that power that 
 he has declined to stretch. 
 
 He takes the opinions, as in his capacity of 
 head of the council; he opines and does not wish 
 that questions passed should became a decision 
 until the King has so ordered, while he actually 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 127 
 
 decides in the wretched affair which interests us 
 all. 
 
 This morning he approached the King^s bed 
 and asked him affectionately if he suffered; the 
 King replied to him : ** I should suffer much more, 
 my son, had such an accident happened to you.'' 
 
 A new evidence of the true sentiments of the 
 King on the filial virtues of Monseigneur le 
 Dauphin. 
 
 The city of Paris sends here three or four times 
 a day for news of the King and M. le Due de 
 Gesvres sends some four times a day to the 
 Mayor. 
 
 The day the King was attacked, as soon as the 
 news became known in the city, and M. de 
 Gesvres was leaving for Versailles, there gathered 
 in his courtyard and at the door a great multitude 
 of people to hear about the King, and they re- 
 mained there until five o'clock in the morning in 
 spite of the sharpness of the cold, to await the 
 arrival of the second messenger. 
 
 M. de Gesvres caused fires to be lit for them 
 in his courtyard and in the street. 
 
 The theatres were ending their performances 
 
128 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 when the news came; but since Twelfth-day, there 
 have been no more performances. 
 
 M. le Due de Gesvres and M. le prevot des 
 marchands (the mayor) both affirm that conster- 
 nation in Paris was very great and that it lasted 
 a long time. 
 
 Monseigneur, the archbishop, at once orders 
 forty hour prayers; there are novenas at Sainte- 
 Genevieve, where there is a tremendous affluence 
 of people; it is not without difficulty that the 
 town-council which goes there every day can enter. 
 
 The churches are full, the affection and the 
 anxiety of the people is as great as in 1744 during 
 the King's illness. 
 
 A non-equivocal proof of these sentiments, is 
 that, in spite of the usage of the suppers on the 
 eve of Twelfth-day, and of eating cakes, drinking 
 and shouting: '* The King drinks ! " not in a single 
 tavern of Paris, was this joyous cry heard ; I have 
 this information from M. le prevot des marchands. 
 
 There were none even in the private houses, and 
 the cook-shop keepers who sell a turkey at this 
 time to every bourgeois were much astonished to 
 see their year's supply left on their hands. 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 129 
 
 The city clerk having come here to testify to 
 the King the joy of the city over his improved 
 health, M. le Due de Gesvres took him to His 
 Majesty's apartments. 
 
 The chief-clerk of the Parliament of Rouen had 
 just reached there. He came to assure His 
 Majesty of the fears, the respect and of the attach- 
 ment of that body. 
 
 M. de Richelieu had already announced two or 
 three times to the King the deputy from Rouen; 
 finally M. de Gesvres having mentioned the mat- 
 ter to His Majesty, as he spoke of the one from 
 Paris, the King permitted both to enter. 
 
 They were admitted within the baluster; the 
 clerk from Rouen delivered a rather long address; 
 the King did not interrupt him, but sat up in bed, 
 and when the speech was finished he said to the 
 deputy : 
 
 " I am quite well; tell my Parliament to think 
 of giving me evidence of its obedience." 
 
 Immediately after, the deputy from the city of 
 Paris appeared; the King replied to him in the 
 presence of the Rouen deputy: 
 
 *' Tell my good city of Paris that I am much 
 
130 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 pleased at its zeal and affection and assure It of my 
 protection and friendship." 
 
 Everyone knows that at that time the Parlia- 
 ments were In a sort of state of disobedience. 
 
 The news of the King's injury has created a 
 total change In the public mind. 
 
 The Etats of Brittany have written to M. de 
 Saint-Florentin that there would be no more 
 trouble from them; that they wished to obey all 
 that the King might wish of them, and to do noth- 
 ing but give evidence of their fidelity, their attach- 
 ment and their respect, by sacrificing their goods 
 and even their lives in his service. 
 
 They are sending four deputies who are to ar- 
 rive to-morrow; this happy change does credit to 
 the sentiments of the Breton nobility of whom the 
 greater part of the Etats is composed. 
 
 At the same time it can not be denied that M. le 
 Due d*Aiguillon and Monseigneur the Bishop of 
 Rennes, who are acting in concert, have cleverly 
 profited by the circumstances and by the Impression 
 they have made. 
 
 Everybody agrees that M. d'Aiguillon, since he 
 has been in Brittany, has acted with the greatest 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 131 
 
 care and with all the intelligence and ability pos- 
 sible, as well in matters relating to the military as 
 in those concerning the interior of the province; 
 his facility for work, the time he devotes to it, his 
 politeness, have earned him the esteem and friend- 
 ship of all Brittany. (I am writing on Sunday, 
 January 9, 1757.) 
 
 Monseigneur le Dauphin has to-day given an 
 evidence of goodness, the news of which will be 
 agreeable to the Bretons. 
 
 There is a prodigious attendance at his dinner, 
 since he began to dine in public. 
 
 In the midst of the crowd he perceived M. le 
 Marquis de Poulpri, a man of quality from Brit- 
 tany, whom he knows but slightly, and to whom 
 he had perhaps never spoken; he asked him if he 
 had received news from Brittany. 
 
 M. de Poulpri having replied that Monseigneur 
 must be informed of it: '* It is for that purpose 
 that I have called you," replied Monseigneur de 
 Dauphin, ** to tell you of the very great pleasure 
 with which I have heard of the conduct of the 
 Etats. I trust that I shall never forget it, and I 
 big you to so inform them." 
 
1:^2 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 The premier president and all the chief justices 
 came again to-day to inquire about the King. 
 
 Two or three of the councilors of the Higher 
 Chamber, some of those who have resigned, have 
 asked to be admitted, by special warrant, among 
 the judges of the attempted assassination. 
 
 It does not seem that this sort of proposition 
 will be accepted; the King is still angry at their 
 disobedience. 
 
 There are now twenty-five judges at the Higher 
 Chamber, namely: ten presidents, twelve councilors 
 and three honorary: among these judges there 
 are four clergymen who can not sit at criminal 
 cases, even those of the King, because of the 
 canons of the Church which forbid them to judge 
 criminals; that leaves twenty-one, which is a more 
 than sufficient number. 
 
 It is but too true that the wretched assassin, 
 while he was still in the small guard room, down- 
 stairs, said: ** Let care be taken of Monseigneur le 
 Dauphin.'* 
 
 These words were heard by everybody. 
 
 M. d'Armentieres, who was passing in that room 
 at the moment, told me that he had heard them; 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 133 
 
 it is claimed that he added: ** If you are interested 
 in him ; '' but I am not so sure of the last words. 
 
 It was in this room that his feet were put near 
 the fire in the hope of making him speak, and as 
 he moved his legs, the fire tongs were used to hold 
 them still, and as these were hot they burned him 
 in such a manner that he would be crippled should 
 he live. 
 
 This brought on a fever and it was feared that 
 he might die at any moment. 
 
 All those who were present at the awful attempt 
 were called to testify. 
 
 The faculty of medicine and of surgery were 
 also called, as having examined the wound, and 
 all the depositions were written down as if they 
 were essential; they found the prisoner in a condi- 
 tion which assures an early death. 
 
 He is on a bed, with irons on his hands only, 
 because none can be put on the feet owing to the 
 wounds. 
 
 The sheets in which he lies have been sewn; in 
 spite of that he threw himself out of the bed to-day 
 and injured himself. 
 
 He is carefully watched, and in the room there 
 
134 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 are provost guards. The outside of the prison is 
 guarded by thirty soldiers of the guard and twenty 
 Swiss. 
 
 M. le Due de Biron answers, on his life, that 
 he will not be carried away. He went to see him 
 yesterday and the commanding officer went into the 
 room with him to make sure that nothing had hap- 
 pened to the prisoner. 
 
 This scoundrel is from Artois; he at first gave 
 his name as Damiens ; ^^ he first went to the Jesuit 
 college, performing the duties of those valets who 
 are called college-fags, and he recognised several 
 of those who were students In that college; after 
 that he had fourteen or fifteen masters, etc.; at 
 times he called himself Febore and again Flamand. 
 
 He bore the latter name when he was in the 
 service of Mme. de Sainte-Reuse. Mme. de Sainte- 
 Reuse was pleased with the Intelligence of that 
 servant who worked very well and who wrote a 
 good hand. 
 
 However, M. de Marlgny, who often visited at 
 that house, Impressed by his wicked countenance, 
 advised Mme. de Sainte-Reuse to discharge him 
 and she followed his advice. 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 135 
 
 Some time after this, having gone to the Opera, 
 this wretch came to ask her for alms, at the door 
 of her coach, in a very arrogant manner : she closed 
 the coach-window, but the scoundrel broke it with 
 stones; and since then, when M. de Marigny went 
 to visit Mme. de Sainte-Reuse, he threw stones at 
 the windows, so that M. Berryer had to be in- 
 formed and he sent a guard. 
 
 Some time passed and nothing was heard of him. 
 
 During the last voyage from Fontainebleau, M. 
 de Marigny received a letter from him in which 
 he stated that he was dying of hunger and that in 
 despair he had attempted to drown himself, but 
 had been taken out of the water. 
 
 Yet there were found on his person twenty-four 
 or twenty-five gold louis and five or six in silver. 
 
 He was asked where he had obtained that 
 money; he replied that he had sold some property 
 which he owned in his country and that he had re^ 
 ceived seven or eight hundred livres for it. 
 
 Besides what he said regarding Monseigneur le 
 Dauphin, it has been noticed that, in his replies, 
 he almost always made use of the word we, and 
 in the first moment, when he was asked whether he 
 
136 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 had accomplices, he said: ** If I have any they arc 
 not here." 
 
 I have spoken of the knife which he used: it is a 
 veiT ill-made weapon, whose real blade is neither 
 pointed nor sharp, and which would be hard to use 
 for ordinary purposes. 
 
 I speak according to the words of one who saw 
 it and examined it. 
 
 It was doubted, at the beginning, if the kind of 
 penknife which is at the other end of the handle, 
 and four inches long, was the real weapon of which 
 he made use in the commission of his crime; and 
 some were so certain that he had another, that a 
 careful search was made of the courtyard. 
 
 This closed and bloodless penknife in his pocket 
 gave good reason to doubt ; yet nothing was found, 
 and the comparison of this instrument with the 
 opening in the clothes proves that he made use of 
 no other weapon. 
 
 The Paris theatres re-opened yesterday, January 
 10, and the King began to play to-day. 
 
 The deputies of the Etats of Brittany having 
 arrived this morning, the King, the curtains at the 
 foot of his bed being opened, received them, in- 
 
VOLTAIRE 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 137 
 
 troduced by M. le Due de Penthievre and M. de 
 Saint-Florentin. 
 
 M. the Bishop of Quimper (Annlbal de Guille) 
 addressed him; the speech was very touching; the 
 deputies then spoke outside of the baluster. 
 
 " I did not need this evidence to be assured of 
 the affection of my subjects from my province of 
 Brittany," said the King; ** their sentiments have 
 reached my heart; you may tell them so." 
 
 The deputies from Brittany went yesterday, the 
 loth, to visit the Queen; she told them that she 
 had heard with pleasure of the conduct of the 
 Etats of Brittany and that she was deeply touched 
 by it. 
 
 The King, wishing to give a token of kindness 
 to the Bretons, yesterday received in his dressing 
 gown, M. de Morand, chevalier of Saint-Louis. 
 
 This M. de Morand was a deputy of the nobil- 
 ity; he is a colonel of the regiment of the Queen's 
 
 dragoons. 
 
 It is to-morrow, the 15th, that letters patent 
 for the transfer of the criminal proceedings against 
 the wretched assassin will be served on the Higher 
 Chamber. 
 
138 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 They might have been sent before, but it was 
 desired that the case be taken up at once and not 
 interrupt the investigation of this terrible crime 
 which is being continued. 
 
 A crime committed at Court is within the 
 province of provostship. 
 
 The provost-marshal must judge the criminal; 
 the provostship is a tribunal that has a great 
 number of officers, and the letters patent are only 
 needed because it is taking away the criminal from 
 the natural jurisdiction to transfer him to the 
 Higher Chamber. 
 
 The rule, then, is that the prisoner be conducted 
 to the Conciergerie; but this one, guilty of lese- 
 majeste, will be conducted to the Montgommeri 
 tower, wherein once was the wretched Ravaillac. 
 
 He always will be under the eyes of sergeants 
 of the guards, who will eat in the same place as the 
 prisoner. 
 
 Orders have been received that he should be 
 given to eat only the same sort of food that they 
 themselves are to have; to make sure that he be 
 not poisoned. 
 
 There is even a question of another measure for 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 139 
 
 the food of the sergeants and of the soldiers of the 
 guards appointed to watch this wretch. 
 
 The inquiry of such a case in the Higher 
 Chamber is always done by four persons, who are 
 the premier president, another chief justice, the re- 
 porter, and another councilor called EvangelistCy 
 who, with the greatest exactness, must examine the 
 papers of the proceeding; the clergymen councilors 
 may sit at the inquiry of a criminal case, but when 
 the opinions demand death, they withdraw. 
 
 The meeting being in the Higher Chamber, not 
 only the presidents and honorary councilors may 
 be present, but even four masters of requests; five 
 can not be present, and when a fifth one comes, the 
 youngest withdraws. 
 
 Besides the inquiries already made here by the 
 provostship, there has been further informa- 
 tion which M. le Prince de Croy has sent from 
 Arras. 
 
 As his zeal for all which concerns the person 
 and the service of the King is boundless, he went 
 to Arras and made careful inquiry of everything 
 which related to the assassin, and has sent here a 
 report full of details and very clearly expressed. 
 
140 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 This scoundrel has been educated at a college 
 in Bethune; he has held thirty or forty different 
 places; discharged from all, among other masters, 
 he was in the service of a wealthy tradesman, at 
 present in Petersburg, named M. Michel, from 
 whom he stole two hundred louis. 
 
 He was arrested: one hundred and sixty louis 
 were recovered, and his master, seeing that he 
 could not hope to find the difference, did not want 
 him hanged and discharged him. 
 
 The wretch enlisted three times and deserted as 
 often. 
 
 He has a wife and daughter, who have been 
 taken to Paris. 
 
 At a meeting of the 12th, at the beginning of 
 which M. de Duras was received duke and peer 
 of France, there were only about sixty judges, 
 among whom twenty princes of the blood, that is 
 to say all, excepting M. le Comte de Charolais, 
 who fears to stay any length of time indoors, being 
 subject to attacks of dizziness. 
 
 I do not mention the legitimated; it is known 
 that, although they have the honours of the princes 
 of the blood, they have not in Parliament the dis- 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 141 
 
 tinction of superseding the bar; for that reason, 
 they are not to be found there. 
 
 There were on the same day, twenty peers of 
 France, but there were only nineteen of them left; 
 M. le Marechal de Richelieu having been obliged 
 to testify as a witness of the attack, withdrew after 
 the reception : it is a homage rendered to law which 
 does not permit to be both witness and judge. 
 
 There were twelve chief justices, including two 
 honorary, three masters of requests, and the others 
 were, honorable councilors, presidents and honor- 
 ary councilors of inquests and requests, or council- 
 ors of the Higher Chamber. 
 
 Immediately after the reception, without leav- 
 ing the place, the meeting continued in the lower 
 seats. 
 
 The councilors and the honorary are th^n in 
 the upper seats, only in the left section on enter- 
 ing, which makes it to the right of the King's seat. 
 
 The seats to the left can not be filled, because 
 there is a sort of cover above the chief justice's 
 chair, which would totally hide those who would 
 be to the left of the King's seat. 
 
 They began by speaking of the criminal case; 
 
142 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 the reporter of the case is M. Severe, the second re- 
 porter is M. Pasquier, and that position Is termed 
 VEvangeliste, 
 
 The matter of examining the father, brother and 
 sister-in-law, sister and brother-in-law, wife and 
 daughter of the scoundrel Damiens, was taken up. 
 
 All these relatives had been arrested and taken 
 to the Bastille; but it was necessary to issue de- 
 crees to be able to question them juridically. 
 
 Hardly had M. Severe begun to speak, when 
 M. le Prince de Conti proposed that before any- 
 thing else there should be a reading of the pro- 
 ceedings made at Versailles by the provostship of 
 the chateau; this proceeding is extremely long and 
 well done. 
 
 M. le Prince de Conti insisted on this reading 
 and it was given by M. Pasquier with the assistance 
 of M. Titon. 
 
 The following were read : the evidence of all the 
 witnesses, the letter for the King, dictated by the 
 wretch to M. Blot, provost officer, the list of seven 
 names dictated since by the same wretch to the said 
 Blot, both papers being signed by the said 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 143 
 
 Damiens; and the different examinations without 
 omitting one. 
 
 This reading lasted almost four hours, including 
 the proceedings made in Paris, since Damiens has 
 been taken to the Montgommeri tower. 
 
 In this part, is an examination which received 
 the praise it deserved, being done with much art 
 and method. 
 
 These various papers being read, M. Severe 
 made the report of the reasons existing for issuing 
 a writ against the relatives of Damiens. 
 
 These reasons having been examined in detail, 
 seven writs were issued. 
 
 Then came the question of a formal charge to 
 be brought against a lawyer, for speeches awful 
 to repeat, delivered by him at a meal, with ten 
 or twelve persons ; speeches which however seemed 
 to come from a furious but little educated man. 
 
 This matter was much debated: the votes had 
 to be counted; the majority voted against a writ 
 of arrest and for the continuation of the inquiry. 
 
 Yet this decree appeared the more just as too 
 frequent examples can not be made against speeches 
 
144 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 that are unfortunately repeated to excess, and 
 which according to that of the lawyer assuredly 
 deserved serious punishment. 
 
 Immediately after the report of M. le Prince dc 
 Croy was mentioned. It contained all the par- 
 ticulars which he secured at Arras, where he went 
 expressly, and in all Artois, on the conduct of the 
 wretch, while he lived in that province, just before 
 he came to Versailles : it was then after four o'clock 
 in the afternoon, and deliberation was postponed 
 to the next meeting, which was set for Saturday 
 the 19th. 
 
 The attendance of the peers at these sittings is 
 secured without summons, invitation or notice. 
 
 They had been invited by M. le Due de Duras, 
 that day Saturday the 12th, and inquiry was made, 
 on the same Saturday, at the end of the meeting, 
 of M. le Due d'Orleans, the hour at which he 
 would be at the Palais on the following Saturday 
 the 19th. 
 
 The hour assigned was eight o'clock in the 
 morning and all the peers unanimously agreed to 
 be there at the appointed time. 
 
 M. le Prince de Conti made new entreaties to 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 145 
 
 fathom the causes of the attack and that the ac- 
 complices of Damiens be sought 
 
 This prince wanted specially an inquiry to be 
 made in Flanders so as to stop the evil at its source ; 
 he remarked that France should not be left in un- 
 certainty on the cause of an attempt of this nature. 
 
 He impressed on the meeting the deficiency of 
 the proceedings, on what the culprit had done in 
 Flanders, and the necessity of making researches 
 there; adding that the wretch could not have con- 
 ceived his infamous project from the 31st of 
 December to the 5th of January; that it was es- 
 tablished that he had said in Flanders that if he 
 came to Paris and perished there, the foremost 
 person in the world would perish also; and that it 
 was not in five days that accomplices had taken 
 confidence in that man, in a matter of such con- 
 sequence. 
 
 Lastly the Prince de Conti said: "Remember 
 that it would be a very poignant remorse for judges 
 if the criminal, at his death or under the torture, 
 should reproach their inactivity, by naming accom- 
 plices in a country where reason alone should 
 cause them to be sought; I should succumb to the 
 
146 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 bitter grief caused me by another attack which 
 might arise from a motive which I might have left 
 unknown and existing." 
 
 Forty-five votes against twenty-one were of the 
 opinion not to make an investigation in Flanders, 
 and that the affair must be ended. 
 
 It was added that the health of the wretch was 
 declining and that it was much to be feared that 
 he might die before the end of the inquiry. 
 
 The Prince de Conti, after the decision, re- 
 marked that his attachment for the King's person 
 and for the tranquillity of the State was the cause 
 of his proposition ; he said that he saw with bitter- 
 ness that it had not been adopted, that he persisted, 
 in spite of the majority, in believing that his 
 opinion was the good one, and that it was regret- 
 table for the State and for the King that it should 
 not have been followed. 
 
 In the second meeting which took place day be- 
 fore yesterday, 19th February, it was first proposed 
 to read the inquiry made on that singular speech 
 of little d'Escoufflet, pensionnaire at Saint- 
 Joseph's. 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 147 
 
 M. le Prince de Conti again interrupted that 
 proposition, to ask that first of all should be read 
 the report of M. de Croy of which I have spoken 
 above. 
 
 It was urged, at that moment and later in the 
 course of the sitting, that this report was not only 
 extremely long, but that it did not form a part 
 of the proceeding, being unaccompanied by any 
 legal form; that it was only the result of the zeal 
 and attachment of the Prince de Croy for the 
 King's person, but that regularly it could not serve 
 in evidence in justice ; that it was composed of four 
 parts which had been sent successively by M. de 
 Croy, in proportion as he made discoveries, but 
 that these four parts were not immediately de- 
 pendent one on the other, that they had to be ar- 
 ranged to be put to use, that this arrangement had 
 been made by an accurate extract made by M. 
 Pasquier, that the reading of this extract would 
 suffice, inasmuch as the facts contained in the re- 
 port could hardly shed interesting light on the 
 causes of this attack, since the wretch who had 
 committed it had been during all that time busy 
 
148 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 in hiding to avoid the prosecution of justice, on the 
 occasion of his theft from M. Michel, one of his 
 masters, a prominent tradesman. 
 
 This M. Michel has lately arrived from Peters- 
 burg, He must be a strong and vigorous man; 
 he made this trip in the space of eighteen days, by 
 means of sleighs and postchaises, all alone and 
 without servants. 
 
 M. Pasquier added to these reasons that he had 
 made his extract from the original of the report 
 of M. de Croy, but that he no longer had that 
 original, that he only had a copy of it which was 
 not even certified true. 
 
 But le Prince de Conti still persisting on its 
 being read, it was necessary to deliberate. 
 
 It would have taken a little more than three 
 hours for that reading, had it been decided on at 
 first. 
 
 More than two hours were taken up to decide 
 whether it should be done or not. 
 
 Several of the speakers were very long in their 
 speeches; some expressed opinions on the time to 
 read the document, on the necessity or uselessness 
 of that reading, on the preference of the extract 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 149 
 
 to the paper itself, on the necessity of rendering It, 
 as a matter of form, a part of the papers in the 
 case before reading it. 
 
 The opinions had to be counted several times; 
 finally it was resolved to postpone the delibera- 
 tion on that article until after the reading of the 
 papers essential to the case. 
 
 They finally reached the report and the inter- 
 rogations on the Saint-Joseph affair, a very 
 singular affair and which seemed to demand a 
 writ of arrest against the pensionnaire d'Escouf- 
 flet, who is no longer at Saint-Joseph's and has 
 been placed in a convent at Saint-Germain, the 
 Paris convents having refused to receive her. 
 
 However, there was issued only a summons to 
 appear and be heard; then they spoke of remarks 
 heard, eleven years before, by a man actually in 
 Paris, and aged eighty-five. The expressions con- 
 tained in the remarks are frightful, but have no 
 immediate part in the present affair. 
 
 It was added that the investigation of this affair 
 might interest politics, but contained nothing to 
 clear the present case. 
 
 M. Severe and M. Pasquler then rendered an 
 
150 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 account of the result of the examination of the 
 persons summoned at the preceding meeting. 
 
 There was proposed also the affair of the lawyer 
 of which I have spoken, on which the attorney 
 general had given his final decision, and which 
 through this form was joined to the case; the 
 licence of the speech seemed to demand a warrant 
 of arrest; yet they only decided a continuation of 
 the inquiry. 
 
 There were also read two examinations of the 
 assassin: one of a few days before, and already 
 mentioned, an examination which appears of but 
 little interest, the criminal always saying that he 
 did not wish to reply, but which it was necessary 
 to see again. 
 
 The second examination had taken place the day 
 before, i8th of this month; this examination was 
 based on the report of M. de Croy; it contains 
 various replies: it had lasted seven hours. 
 
 Finally it was again proposed to read the re- 
 port of M. de Croy: it was three o'clock in the 
 afternoon, the sitting had continued since eight 
 o'clock. 
 
 The cold compelled an adjournment. 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 151 
 
 It was agreed to postpone the meeting to the 
 following Friday, so as to have another on Satur- 
 day, if necessary. 
 
 The sitting of to-day, at the Parliament, began 
 at a quarter after eight. 
 
 Throughout the entire meeting the question of 
 the criminal proceeding was continued. 
 
 It had been decreed in the last meeting to con- 
 tinue the inquiries on the Saint-Joseph affair. 
 
 A report was rendered on the matter to-day. 
 
 The more it is looked into, the more singular it 
 appears, and one can hardly doubt but that the 
 little d'Escoufflet girl spoke, on Tuesday, the 5th, 
 the day of the attempt, before four o'clock in the 
 afternoon. 
 
 These words : The King is assassinated or will be 
 which are considered a lie, a thoughtlessness, the 
 remark of a child, as well in her personal examina- 
 tion as in several others, are well worthy of atten- 
 tion: and so as to be better informed as to the 
 truth, if it is possible to be, and go back to that 
 which gave occasion to the words, the little girl has 
 been ordered arrested. 
 
 The affair being to-day in order by the speech 
 
152 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 for the crown of M. le procureur general, it was 
 then voted with regard to the two sisters of little 
 d'Escoufflet and a pensionnaire at Saint-Joseph's 
 named Geoffroy and who was a very intimate 
 friend of that little girl. 
 
 There were different opinions: the one which 
 prevailed was that of M. Pelletier de Rosambo, 
 to postpone all proceedings against the different 
 persons until it should be seen, by the examination 
 of little d'Escoufilet, if there were cause to decide 
 otherwise. 
 
 After this affair account was rendered of sev- 
 eral speeches of the attorney general on the occa- 
 sion of different reports made to him by letters or 
 various notices tending to prove speeches which 
 gave reason to suspect the formation of some plot. 
 
 These discussions were very long; some ap- 
 peared to deserve attention, others to be of no con- 
 sequence. 
 
 One of the last affairs, on which much speaking 
 was done informally, was the statement made by 
 Abbe la Chapelle, a man eighty-five years of age, 
 known by M. Zalusky, grand referendary of 
 Poland, a statement that has no immediate connec- 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 153 
 
 tion with the attack, but which may still give rise to 
 suspicions. 
 
 The difficulty was to put in order the informa- 
 tion which might be secured on this affair. 
 
 M. le Prince de Conti said that he knew the 
 grand referendary very well, because his grand- 
 father or his granduncle had been much attached 
 to the interests of M. le Prince de Conti, grand- 
 father of the present one, at the time of his appoint- 
 ment; that it would be a genuine grief for M. 
 Zalusky if he received a summons to testify to the 
 knowledge he possesses. 
 
 Other expedients were therefore sought and 
 M. le Prince de Conti even offered that the denom- 
 ination be entitled with his name. 
 
 There is little probability that the researches 
 produce useful information; but nevertheless they 
 will not be neglected, it being intended that noth- 
 ing be forgotten in so important an affair. 
 
 It Is because of this principle, which is uniform 
 in all the assembly, that other suggestions have 
 been made that are not clothed in legal form, but 
 which may deserve to be examined. 
 
 One of MM. les Conseillers also said that two 
 
154 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 persons unknown to him, but who appear to him to 
 b^ honest, had notified him that they knew in 
 Normandy two other persons who had some 
 knowledge on the causes of the attack, and added 
 that the names of the two Normandy persons 
 had been supplied him. 
 
 The uncertainty of this notice consequently pre- 
 vented action ; but it was agreed that all those who 
 should hear of anything concerning the said at- 
 tempt should communicate to M. le procureur 
 general all the papers, letters and notices received 
 by them, so that he might make use of them ac- 
 cording to his prudence and knowledge, setting 
 aside all that he considered worthless, inasmuch as 
 the prolongation of the inquiry only serves to de- 
 lay the final judgment, endanger the life of the mis- 
 erable assassin, who is seen to grow thinner daily, 
 and from whom it is expected to secure information 
 through torture ; and finally because all these delays 
 gave rise to many arguments, conversations and 
 speeches which were already too numerous, and 
 that it was important to end and efface as much as 
 possible the Ideas and the memory of such an 
 attempt 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 155 
 
 The sitting has been postponed to Wednesday 
 next, 9th of this month. 
 
 The meeting began to-day, a little after eight 
 o'clock. 
 
 M. le Due d'Aiguillon, who has shortly re- 
 turned from Brittany, was present. 
 
 The first affair taken up was that of the eighty- 
 five-year-old priest, named la Chapelle, who, it 
 was claimed, had revealed to the grand referen- 
 dary of Poland, M. Zalusky, projects of a con- 
 spiracy against the King's life: knowledge of these 
 statements had been obtained from a saddler of 
 Paris, which furnished the occasion to investigate 
 the source. 
 
 The referendary who appears to be on very 
 friendly terms with M. le Prince de Conti had 
 permitted that mention be made of the speech of 
 that Abbe la Chapelle, but he did not wish to be 
 compromised in the affair. 
 
 The matter was traced back to its source and 
 the discovery made that it was but the reviving of 
 a discourse which the said Abbe la Chapelle claims 
 to have heard eleven years ago, a discourse which 
 might have unseasonably compromised some for' 
 
156 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 eign powers, without any useful result; this con- 
 sequently caused this matter to be dropped. 
 
 Then, the reporter gave an account of the ex- 
 amination made in the Saint-Joseph affair, as a 
 result of the last meeting. 
 
 The old evidence had to be re-read. 
 
 I have already twice spoken of this affair and 
 I have said that the one who said on Wednesday, 
 January 5th, on returning to the convent: " The 
 King has been assassinated or will be this evening,*' 
 is a pensionnaire aged thirteen and a half years, 
 named d'Escoufflet; that another pensionnaire, 
 named Geoffroy, of the same age and intimate 
 friend of the former, is the one to whom she whis- 
 pered what I have reported, requesting her not to 
 mention it to anyone, as she would be scolded, her 
 sister having forbidden her to speak of the matter. 
 
 The important question in all this affair is to 
 know whether the words were uttered on Wednes- 
 day, the 5th, or on Thursday, the 6th. 
 
 Little d'Escoufflet has two sisters, one of them 
 married to the adjutant of the Invalides, named 
 M. de la Coudre; and the other a pensionnaire at 
 the Petites-Cordelieres, who is known by her 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 157 
 
 maiden name, but who is said to be married and 
 separated from her husband. 
 
 In the course of the examinations and evidence, 
 it appears that the sister with whom Httle d'Escouf- 
 flet went out visiting and who so earnestly re- 
 quested her to be silent, is Mme. de la Coudre, 
 although mentioned in the various testimonies of 
 the little girl only as my sister. 
 
 It had already been proposed at the last meeting 
 to issue a warrant of arrest against Mme. de la 
 Coudre : the opinions were divided, and a majority 
 of votes decided on a summons to be heard. 
 
 At this meeting, the evidence seemed so strong 
 that a warrant of arrest was almost unanimously 
 decided on. 
 
 Some difficulty was experienced in coming to 
 this decision, because Mme. de la Coudre is three 
 months with child. 
 
 The question also came up to issue a warrant of 
 arrest against little Geoffroy, on the ground that, 
 through the speech of little d^Escoufflet, she had 
 knowledge of the plot against the King as early 
 as Wednesday, the 5th, at half-past three or half- 
 past four, for there are variations as to the time, 
 
15S MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 but that this makes no difference; and that she 
 only mentioned it on the 12th, when questioned. 
 
 Sentiments were much divided with regard to 
 little Geoffroy and the motion only passed with 
 a majority of thirty-one to twenty-seven to issue a 
 writ of arrest. 
 
 It might seem, by this calculation, that there 
 were but fifty-eight judges, but it must be remarked 
 that, when the votes are counted, the brothers-in- 
 law, the father and the son, make but one vote 
 when they are of the same opinion. 
 
 To give an example of this, M. le premier presi- 
 dent and M. de Maupeou, his son, make but one 
 vote; M. le Due d'Orleans, M. le Prince de Conti 
 and M. le Comte de la Marche make but one vote; 
 M. le Prince de Conde and M. le Prince de Soubise, 
 his father-in-law, make but one vote; as do also 
 M. le Due d'Uzes and M. le Due d'Autin. 
 
 The length of all these discussions and the ex- 
 cessive cold was the cause of the session being sus- 
 pended to enable the members to get warm: the 
 interruption lasted about a half hour. 
 
 They then brought up a very mixed-up affair 
 and of great detail: it is with regard to the exam- 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 159 
 
 ination of a scoundrel, a soldier of the guard, 
 called Fricard, arrested at Montdidier and con- 
 victed of murder. 
 
 The trial of this man for his crime, was begun, 
 and he has been transferred from the prisons at 
 Montdidier to those of la Conciergerie. 
 
 It is this wretch who has testified against several 
 persons among whom it appears that there is one 
 who is the chief of five others, whom it seems took 
 at least a part in the project of assassinating the 
 King. 
 
 A letter written to one of these five, named 
 Andouet, was mentioned, a letter not reported, but 
 which the scoundrel Fricard claims to be very 
 strong; a letter sought for but not found: in spite 
 of that, as it is seen by the evidence, that a poniard 
 was purchased, and as precautions even the most 
 useless must be taken in such a case, five persons 
 were ordered arrested by means of three warrants, 
 because there was but one for three who are not 
 named, and who are only called certain individuals. 
 
 After such long discussions it seemed as if the 
 meeting might be adjourned, inasmuch as it had 
 been agreed that another meeting should be held 
 
i6o MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 on Friday, so that an account of the examination 
 of Mme. de la Coudre might be rendered as well 
 as that of any other knowledge which might in the 
 meantime reach the attorney general and of which 
 he will form a speech for the Crown, if he deems 
 it necessary. 
 
 But M. le prince thought It well to bring for- 
 ward a proposition which caused long discussions : 
 filled with a desire to seek the least detail relative 
 to the causes of the attempt, he said that the ser- 
 geants of the French Guards, who are entrusted 
 with the keeping of the prisoners, and four out of 
 twelve of whom are always, during twenty-four 
 consecutive hours, in his room, can and must have 
 heard all his statements, and consequently are in 
 a position to give information on the accomplices, 
 if he spoke. 
 
 This proposition had some ground, because M. 
 le Due de Biron had said, at another meeting, that 
 an exact memorandum was kept of all that was 
 said by this scoundrel, a memorandum filled with 
 many impious remarks and others very obscene. 
 
 M. le Prince de Conti proposed at the same time 
 that the different masters whom the assassin had 
 
 .'!« 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR i6i 
 
 served be questioned, even preferably those who 
 had employed him long before his crime. 
 
 These two propositions were not in order for 
 deliberation : the procedure requires that delibera- 
 tion be taken only on a speech for the Crown of the 
 attorney general; so that it was first necessary to 
 consider if they should be discussed by ordering 
 the usual form to that effect 
 
 Then, as I have said elsewhere, the first speakers 
 are the presidents, beginning with the oldest; then 
 the dean, the councilors who are in the benches of 
 the peers, the others with the honoraries, accord- 
 ing to their place; then the peers, beginning with 
 the last and on to the first, and ending by the 
 princes of the blood. 
 
 It was resolved almost unanimously that nothing 
 could be done either in one case or the other, and 
 that with regard to the sergeants, M. le Due de 
 Biron was instructed to gather together all the re- 
 marks of the wretch, and to communicate them to 
 M. le procureur general that a distinction be made 
 between those which were useful, from those 
 which were impious, scandalous, obscene or indif- 
 ferent. 
 
l62 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 The same was decided, relative to the masters 
 whom the scoundrel served, that it was the part of 
 the attorney general, to draw from them the in- 
 formation he might deem necessary. 
 
 The meeting closed with a proposition made by 
 M. le Due de la Force to make a report, at a 
 meeting, on. the three letters already mentioned, 
 and which appeared to give some information con- 
 cerning the horrible attempt. 
 
 The question also came up whether a confessor 
 should be given to Damiens. 
 
 In the strict observance of jurisprudence, none 
 are given to criminals except after their trial; 
 formerly none were supplied at all; it was only in 
 1397 that a monk who had falsely accused the 
 Due d'Orleans of having cast a spell on King 
 Charles VI, his brother, having been condemned to 
 death, he was permitted to confess before the ex- 
 ecution; and it was only on this occasion that con- 
 fessors were allowed to criminals condemned to 
 death, which, prior to that time was not done in 
 France. 
 
 The inconvenience of advice which may be given 
 by indiscreet confessors and of the news from out- 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 163 
 
 side which they may transmit to the criminals, has 
 caused it to be resolved that a confessor be supplied 
 only after judgment has been pronounced. 
 
 The usage of Paris requires that four doctors 
 of the Sorbonne be destined to these sad duties. 
 
 However, in the hope that M. le cure de Saint- 
 Paul, a wise and experienced man, and having the 
 particular confidence of the government, might be 
 able to give Damiens useful advice, not only as 
 regards his salvation, but for the disclosure of the 
 accomplices of his crime, it has been determined to 
 appoint him as confessor. 
 
 These motives have at least been given to the 
 public and as examples are cited the appointment 
 of a confessor before judgment, to hear a wretch 
 who had murdered one Andrieux: and again the 
 two doctors of the Sorbonne, sent to Ravaillac be- 
 fore his trial. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 This appointment of a confessor for Damiens 
 before his condemnation and specially of a Jan- 
 senist confessor, who was said to be a confidant of 
 the government, was not without inconvenience. 
 
 The Molinists, however affected they may have 
 been by Damiens' horrible attempt on the sacred 
 person of Louis XV, said then that the tribunal of 
 a confessor is independent of all human considera- 
 tion and could not become an instrument of tem- 
 poral police. 
 
 The Molinists of the Sorbonne arose even 
 against the special choice of a Paris priest to con- 
 fess Damiens, and on the remonstrances made by 
 MM., the doctors of the house, to M. le premier 
 president, and to M. le procureur general, with re- 
 gard to the appointment of M. Gueret, curate of 
 Saint-Paul, to prepare Damiens for death, against 
 usage and their right, M. de Marcilly, doctor of 
 the house, was invited to join as second to the 
 
 164 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 165 
 
 priest; and the confession was delayed until after 
 the sentence. 
 
 On Monday, March 28th, the day of the ex- 
 ecution, the two confessors, Jansenist and Molinist, 
 presented themselves to the criminal as early as 
 eight o'clock. 
 
 They were then told that they could not speak 
 with him before eleven o'clock, so these gentle- 
 men withdrew. 
 
 At the hour mentioned, they again presented 
 themselves, and M. le cure de Saint-Paul, who had 
 already had several private conferences, spoke to 
 him for an hour. 
 
 Then M. de Marcilly, on his request, was per- 
 mitted to enter and speak with him; this he did 
 for about three-quarters of an hour. 
 
 After a half hour's conversation, in the presence 
 of M. le cure de Saint-Paul, M. de Marcilly re- 
 quested him to leave him alone with Damiens a 
 few moments more. 
 
 A quarter of an hour had hardly passed when 
 an officer of justice entered and said: '' It is time, 
 justice is ready, it is time to go." 
 
 The criminal, having reached Notre-Dame, 
 
i66 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 made apology, with the sentiments of a true 
 penitent. 
 
 This done, the executioner approached M. 
 TAbbe de Marcilly and asked him if the criminal 
 would go to the Hotel de Ville to make his state- 
 ment. 
 
 The doctor answered him: " Damiens will him- 
 self tell you what he will do." 
 
 Having reached la Greve, Damiens asked in 
 reality to go up and there declared : " that he came 
 to say that he persisted in his statements, that he 
 asked God's forgiveness for having lived in a 
 state of disobedience to the Church, for all the 
 blasphemies he had uttered against it, against its 
 decisions, and for all his abusive and slanderous 
 speeches against its ministers and specially against 
 M. I'Archeveque de Paris, whose doctrine he re- 
 spected as being that of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Questioned by M. le premier president Mole 
 on the motives of his attack, he said that he in- 
 tended to avenge the honour and the glory of the 
 Parliament and that he thought by this attempt to 
 render an essential service to the State. 
 
 On the evidence given by him against the valet 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 167 
 
 de chambre or steward of M. le Marquis de Fer- 
 riere, one of the commissaries urged him on the 
 necessity of retracting if the said evidence was false. 
 
 " I know/' he said, " that I have committed a 
 great crime in attempting to take the King's life: 
 I know also that I should commit a greater one in 
 falsely accusing an innocent person; being about to 
 appear before God, I declare that I persist in my 
 statement and I ask to be allowed to sign the 
 present one." 
 
 The commissary said : " That is not necessary. 
 You see, gentlemen, that the man has lost his 
 head." 
 
 Having descended to the place of execution, and 
 after the pains of torture, he again declared to 
 MM., the confessors, that he persisted in his 
 statement and that he would have to reproach him- 
 self if, about to be judged by God, he spoke against 
 truth. 
 
 The clerk who was near the scaffold approached 
 him and asked him^ if he had no ulterior declara- 
 tion to make. 
 
 ** No," replied he in firm and deep tones, ^* I 
 have nothing more to say excepting that I should 
 
i68 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 not be in this plight had I not served members of 
 Parliament," words which were heard by a great 
 number of persons and which are public in Paris. 
 
 The clerk withdrew without writing anything 
 and looking crestfallen. 
 
 The drawing by the horses, the tearing of the 
 flesh and melting of the lead in the wounds being 
 ended, the confessors withdrew to the room of the 
 concierge to refresh themselves, and there M. 
 FAbbe de Marcilly said to M. le cure de Saint- 
 Paul: ** Did you hear. Sir, what that criminal just 
 said?" 
 
 The curate turned away his head and answered 
 by the single word : " Ah ... I " 
 
 The Jansenist party, on its part, arose against 
 the project of the Jesuits which inclined to impute 
 Damiens' attempt to the magistracy. 
 
 The two parties were therefore seen embittered 
 one against the other, each attributing this crime 
 to the other. 
 
 At Court, the crime was used as an object of 
 ambition; some were induced to believe that the 
 Jesuits seeing in power the mistress of a King who 
 was mortally opposed to them while she was the 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 169 
 
 friend of irreligion, and seeing her rule despotically 
 at Versailles, had resolved to end an unfavourable 
 reign by an assassination. 
 
 This party which accused the Jesuits, which was 
 the one to which soon went the Comte de Stain- 
 ville, since Due de Choiseul, persuaded, it is said, 
 Louis XV that his son had been the centre of the 
 opposing and regicide party which armed by the 
 strangest mystifications the hand of Damiens, 
 whose imagination had been excited by the same 
 party, so that the enemies of Monseigneur le Dau- 
 phin have not ceased to secretly torment the impres- 
 sionable mind of Louis XV: and since then, they 
 accuse that monarch with having tacitly consented 
 to or even ordered the poisoning of Monseigneur 
 le Dauphin, by M. le Due de Choiseul as well as 
 the destruction of the Jesuits over which presides 
 with so much zeal the favourite minister of Mme. 
 de Pompadour. 
 
 It was further said that the latter acted in the 
 circumstance, at the prompting of an ambition 
 anxious to continue her favour, which a second at- 
 tack on Louis XV might overthrow. 
 
 The Jansenist party, when in turn accused of 
 
170 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 having caused the attempt, replied as follows to 
 the Jesuits : 
 
 " We have attempted to assassinate him, you 
 say, then it would be to give ourselves a less fa- 
 vourable reign than that of the King, since it is 
 known that Monseigneur le Dauphin is principally 
 devoted to the Jesuits, who are only awaiting his 
 reign to crush us completely." 
 
 These disputes, these respective accusations of 
 two parties so embittered, show at least to what 
 degree of discord and hatred they had reached, 
 since they accused one another with the attack on 
 Louis XV and, since then, with the death of Mon- 
 seigneur le Dauphin, of which they charge each 
 other reciprocally. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 Louis XV, finding himself in the midst of a 
 Court wherein the factions treated each other thus, 
 seeing at least that its outcome had been a crime 
 which might have killed him, was quite astounded. 
 
 His natural melancholia changed into an in- 
 dolence of character, into a sort of incapacity of 
 action. 
 
 He did nothing but through his favourite, he 
 no longer thought but through his ministers, all 
 things looked black to him. 
 
 He became more gloomy, more absent-minded, 
 more taciturn and more false than usual. 
 
 It was this man frozen with terror who had to 
 be amused; It became necessary to entertain a 
 King which this blow had rendered absolutely In- 
 amusable. 
 
 He Is known to have a certain secret corre^ 
 spondence *^ which since the attack has become his 
 sole resource to emerge from his general Indif- 
 
 171 
 
172 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 ference; it is kept by the abbe and the Comte de 
 Broglie, and by emissaries abroad. Men of merit 
 are its agents. 
 
 The two brothers give to the King regularly 
 every Sunday a memorandum of what is taking 
 place in foreign countries; the King claims to 
 know what is said daily in the cabinet and in the 
 offices of the ministers of all governments ; he goes 
 farther, he believes that he will know in future all 
 attacks against him in foreign lands. 
 
 It is claimed that the King considers as necessary 
 to his safety the simultaneous existence of a visible 
 political minister and of a secret one, and that he 
 is never more pleased than when he sees them with 
 a difference of opinion or principles. 
 
 The King then believes that he knows both sides 
 of the question and could only know it through this 
 means. 
 
 The Due de Choiseul is furious ; Mme. dc Pom- 
 padour frets and fumes against secret correspond- 
 ence. 
 
 As to the King, his impassibility is such that if 
 he considered it necessary to his visible authority 
 to sacrifice the two Broglies, he would sacrifice 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 173 
 
 them openly and would continue them his friend- 
 ship in secret until the time had come to strike the 
 Due de Choiseul when he no longer required the 
 latter to carry out certain operations which this 
 due has induced him to prepare, to combine, and 
 to carry out. 
 
 Whatever the cause, the position of the Court 
 is terrible. It is divided into the Jesuitical party 
 of the Dauphin and in the party of the Due de 
 Choiseul, and of Mme. de Pompadour, fiercely 
 against the Jesuits ; and it is assured that the source 
 is in the imprudence of Mme. de Pompadour. In 
 the clergy the same parties show themselves. 
 
 The Parliaments present the same internal dis- 
 sension. 
 
 The educational bodies are also divided; the 
 union of parties no longer exists as in the glorious 
 years of Louis XIV who, before becoming the in- 
 strument of Mme. de Maintenon and of the 
 Jesuits, was everybody's grand monarque instead 
 of setting us at variance. 
 
 To reign by divisions is a political monstrosity; 
 to make use of all institutions for the glory of the 
 King is the first of policies and if Louis XV had 
 
174 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 confessed the services of all, he would have been 
 served by all with zeal and with the emulation 
 which the proximity of opposite factions spurs on; 
 but the King who establishes two political min- 
 istries protects but one: the other is a mere figure- 
 head. 
 
 From this point of view, his control over the 
 actions of Mme. de Pompadour, protegee of 
 Marie-Therese, and his control over the actions 
 of M. le Due de Choiseul, who is here the tool of 
 the same princess, are an institution both singular 
 and useful which may amuse, instruct, annoy, or 
 become the voucher that our interest is or is not 
 sacrificed in such a Court: the fact remains that 
 the King is wild over this secret commission and 
 occupies himself with it more than he do-es with 
 the department of Foreign Affairs, where there 
 are but timid agents who dare not assert either the 
 affirmative or the negative, but many becauses, ifs, 
 and some perhaps, while the correspondence of the 
 Comte de Broglle which is the centre of activity 
 of one hundred secret agents, is daring, penetrat- 
 ing, ingenious and fertile in projects; it alone can 
 arouse the prince from his apathy and general uni- 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 175 
 
 formlty of goodness, from his general tolerance 
 and present incapacity. 
 
 I have it from good and direct source that M. 
 le Due de Choiseul, in spite of all his intelligence 
 and the singular activity for which he is noted, re- 
 ports but late to the Council all important hap- 
 penings of Petersburg, London or even Madrid. 
 
 The King, who feels strong through the secret 
 ministry of the two Broglies, and who allows any- 
 thing to be said or done, has the hardihood to 
 say in presence of the Council, when le Due dc 
 Choiseul has spoken : " But, by the way, Monsieur 
 de Choiseul, tell me something about the happen- 
 ings at Vienna and at Madrid regarding this 
 matter. . . ." 
 
 And the poor duke remains silent and sheepish ; 
 the news reaches him ten days later. At other 
 times, the King makes wagers In the Council and 
 says to M. le Due de Choiseul : " Let us wager, 
 Monsieur le due, that such a thing will oecur in the 
 cabinet of Saint-James.'' 
 
 ** Ah ! Sire," replies the duke, ** I may assure 
 Your Majesty that the matter is not being con- 
 sidered." 
 
176 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 " Not being considered! '* says the King, " take 
 this and read it I '* 
 
 And then taking from his pocket into which 
 neither Mme. de Pompadour nor young girls have 
 yet put their hands, the King makes M. le Due dc 
 Choiseul read aloud and always in the presence of 
 the Council, a secret dispatch which contains a 
 fully detailed account of what has taken place at 
 Saint-James as well as the orders given in the mat- 
 ter, and M. le due has the mortification of seeing, 
 in the hands of the King a deciphered letter with 
 its code which he can neither read nor understand 
 as in his offices. 
 
 Happily that MM. de Broglie are as yet 
 neither suspected nor reputed of such depth in 
 politics, using only in these labours persons but 
 little known, following the example of Louis XIV, 
 who had, as his successor has, secret agents in all 
 the Courts. 
 
 It is assured that the expense is enormous, but 
 if it serves the King to hasten the end of a war, 
 or to prevent a new one, one sees how economical 
 it is instead of expensive to the State. 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 177 
 
 This secret commission has, however, a but little 
 known advantage. 
 
 It is unfindable for the Foreign powers, so in- 
 terested in buying our diplomacy, so much so that 
 they sacrifice, as we do, millions to win to them- 
 selves our clerks and our departments, and the 
 mistresses of our ministers, and the lovers of these 
 mistresses and the mistresses of these lovers, etc. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 The secret correspondence then occupies the 
 King, whose apathy increases with his years ; Mme. 
 de Pompadour works in another manner, in these 
 circumstances, to cheer the King in his melancholy. 
 
 David calmed the furies of Saul with his music; 
 Mme. de Pompadour has imagined one to arouse 
 Louis XV from his misanthropy. 
 
 During Holy Week, Mme. de Pompadour in- 
 vited the King, for some years past, to come to her 
 apartments to attend some brilliant concerts which 
 she arranged for him. 
 
 In the grand motets, were heard voices selected 
 among the high talent of the capital, united to 
 the musicians from the theatre des petits cabinets, 
 
 Mme. de Pompadour, Mme. le I'Hospital, Mile. 
 Fel, M. d'Ayen fils, Jeliotte, a celebrated musician, 
 M. le Viconte de Rohan, and Mme. de la Salle 
 sang; one noticed Mme. Marchais, who was al- 
 ways present at these affairs. I was present, a few 
 
 178 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 179 
 
 years ago, at the apening of the opera hall of the 
 chateau and since that time I have seen rather 
 closely and often the amusements which the mar- 
 quise prepared for the King. 
 
 TwO' ballets by Bernard, a prologue, an enter- 
 tainment were a part of the opening programme; 
 Mme. Marchais, a woman of very pleasant face, 
 represented a pleasure in the Forges de Lemnos; 
 Mme. le Duchesse de Brancas played Astraea; M. 
 d^Ayen was the god Vulcan; Time was represented 
 by M. de la Salle. 
 
 I earnestly begged His Majesty to allow me to 
 be but a plain spectator. 
 
 In another play, for example, in Adonis, the 
 M. d'Ayen who played Vulcan was Adonis; Mme. 
 Marchais acted Love ; Mme. la Duchesse de Bran- 
 cas, Diana; and Mme. de Pompadour, Venus. 
 
 I looked straight Into the King's eyes, to see 
 If that Venus spoke to his heart; It seemed to me 
 that His Majesty's eyes were dull and expression- 
 less ; therefore he became more and more disgusted 
 with her daily, and yet such were the ties which 
 bound him to her that this good prince was never 
 able to send her to her husband or to a convent. 
 
i8o MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 What a celebration the Court and capital would 
 have had had he done so! 
 
 After a few years, the King tired of this sort 
 of amusement, and after Damiens' attack, it was 
 much more difficult to make him enjoy them. 
 
 However, Mme. de Pompadour was growing 
 thin; the indisposition rendered her daily more 
 disagreeable- to the King, her muscles lacked solid- 
 ness, her skin was livid and shiny; and the King 
 had a terrible temperament and an imagination 
 alive with desires. 
 
 Mme. de Pompadour thought of a singular 
 stratagem. ^"^ 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 A great number of the women of the Court and 
 of the city aspired to the King's conquest in this 
 circumstance. Several noblemen were also busy 
 securing persons apt to captivate him. Mme. de 
 Pompadour, noticing this eagerness, resolved to 
 supply young ladies to the King provided that they 
 be dependent on her.^^ 
 
 A young courtier showed one day to the King 
 a miniature portrait which had been made with this 
 aim in view. It was that of a young person 
 extraordinarily beautiful, and a thousand times 
 more beautiful than the most beautiful one can 
 imagine^ according to the wording of a secret bul- 
 letin of that time, addressed to Mme. le Mare- 
 chale d'Estrees. 
 
 To become enamoured at sight of the portrait 
 of a beautiful person is a thing found in so many 
 novels that I fear to give to these historical 
 memoirs an appearance of fiction, if I said that 
 
 i8i 
 
i82 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 the King fell In love on seeing it. *' I can not 
 imagine/* said Louis XV, " that nature has pro- 
 duced so beautiful a child. This portrait can be 
 but ideal." Delighted at his first success, the 
 courtier assured that the young lady really existed ; 
 and studying to arouse the curiosity of the mon- 
 arch and to excite his desires, he added that he 
 could show the young lady and the portrait side 
 by side to convince the King that he had not de- 
 ceived him. 
 
 This portrait represented a young person who 
 was about twelve years of age. Her name was 
 
 Mile. , nee de ; ^^ the regularity of her 
 
 features, the ingenuousness expressed in her face, 
 the freshness of her complexion, which could only 
 be compared to that of a rose, united to make an 
 accomplished beauty of her. 
 
 The King had no sooner seen her than he con- 
 fessed that the painter of the miniature, far from 
 1 having flattered her, had not rendered her justice. 
 
 The charms of childhood, the beauty of her 
 form, her timidity inspired by the presence of 
 the monarch, combined to increase the desires of 
 Louis XV, whom so many orgies had already in- 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 183 
 
 clined to debauchery. The innocence he had ex- 
 pected, he found, and it has since then become 
 known that he acquired a taste for presiding at 
 such educations and that he promised himself to 
 multiply them. 
 
 If beauty could have given a rank at Court, 
 
 Mile. would have obtained the first there; 
 
 but the King who at that time still had a re- 
 mainder of human respect, feared that in pro- 
 ducing Mile. in broad daylight, he might 
 
 acquire the disapproval of the Court, owing to the 
 great disproportion of age and the special impro- 
 priety of his taste for a mere child. The inexpe- 
 rience and artlessness of the answers and the re- 
 marks of Mile. were not without 
 
 disadvantage. 
 
 The King resolved to keep her in a sort of 
 private life, to exhibit her some day to the public, 
 if he thought it proper, attending to her educa- 
 tion and bringing her up by degrees to the favour 
 to which he destined her, according to circum- 
 stances. 
 
 Mme. de Pompadour, always a silent observer 
 of all these events, appeared not to know of the 
 
i84 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 King's secret intrigue. Notified by Binet and by 
 those of the interior of the small apartments, of 
 all that was going on, she was fully resolved to 
 favour this liaison in secret, to hold together and 
 direct its wires. 
 
 To succeed in this it was necessary to procure 
 to the King some favourable quarters, and to 
 avoid the inconveniences of publicity by facilitat- 
 ing the interviews of the King and Mile. , a 
 
 thing rather diificult to do, because of the large 
 following of people ordinarily attracted by the 
 visits of a King of France who does not know, like 
 Henri IV, the delights of incognito: but Mme. dc 
 Pompadour drew the King out of embarrassment 
 by shrewdly saying that she was tired of her little 
 house called VErmitage,^^ 
 
 She carried her delicacy so far as to leave the 
 prince in the belief that she was ignorant to what 
 use he might put that house. On the other hand, 
 she assured M. le Prince Soubise that she was 
 
 without anxiety with regard to Mile. , who 
 
 was of an age still incapable of ambition, while 
 she would keep away from the King both the evil 
 company and the dangerous ambition of intriguers, 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 185 
 
 as if she were not the person most out of place at 
 Court in both respects. 
 
 L*Ermitage of Mme. de Pompadour had been 
 built for some years at the expense of the royal 
 treasury to serve for the pleasures of the King 
 and of his favourite. The people, by whom she 
 was hated and despised, on seeing this building 
 erected, had complained loudly. The building 
 and the garden took up a large space in the park 
 of Versailles, on the Saint-Germain road, and the 
 people had never patiently endured an encroach- 
 ment on its walks or pleasure grounds. 
 
 It has not been said that the King was informed 
 of the aims and official solicitude of Mme. de 
 Pompadour : the King, however, could hardly sup- 
 pose that his favourite was ignorant of the de- 
 tails of a liaison which was known by all the Court; 
 but he was grateful to her for having sought to 
 oblige him with good grace, and for her delicacy 
 and prudence; so that in proportion as the King 
 lost his sensual inclinations for Mme. de Pompa- 
 dour, his friendship for her seemed to increase. 
 
 He therefore accepted the restitution of 
 PErmitage with the more eagerness as there was 
 
i86 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 in the environs no premises more fitted to carry 
 
 out the plans he had for Mile. . Such was 
 
 the origin of the famous Parc-aux-Cerfs.^^ 
 
 The imagination can not conceive anything so 
 agreeable as Mme. de Pompadour's little house. 
 The artist who planned and carried out its em- 
 bellishment had continued the rustic appearance 
 which it possessed from nature. Outside, it re- 
 sembled to some extent the house of a farmer; 
 the interior was in exquisite taste, analogous to the 
 idleness and to the sensual pleasures of a great 
 monarch. 
 
 The furnishings of the rooms was of fine 
 chintz; landscapes, young lovers; Tircises, shep- 
 herdesses, an old hermit, and divers other figures 
 of a kindred character, painted by the foremost 
 painters of Paris, were its ornaments. The 
 gardens had not the monotonous and symmetrical 
 appearance of the parks of royal houses planned 
 by Le Notre. 
 
 A long straight line and the sentiment it in- 
 spires does not please lovers. Tortuous paths, 
 thickets, are favourable to solitary reveries and to 
 love. 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 187 
 
 There was to be seen in the gardens of 
 I'Ermitage a grove of roses in the middle of which 
 there arose a white marble Adonis. The bowers 
 of myrtle and jessamine were to be admired, the 
 fountains, the terraces and the alleys of verdure 
 arranged in the latest style. 
 
 It was in this house that Mme. de Pompadour 
 had already perfected herself in the art of gal- 
 lantry. If the King made an appointment with 
 her, she went before him, and Louis came upon 
 her disguised, now as a milkmaid, and now as a 
 gray nun; at other times as an abbess and as a 
 farm girl, offering warm milk to the King. 
 Some days she dressed as a woman gardener or as 
 a peasant, and on others as a shepherdess, so hard 
 had it become to amuse a King devoured by mel- 
 ancholia. 
 
 When this game of artifice had become worn 
 out, she found it pleasant to occupy the prince 
 with the education of children just out of the 
 hands of nature, to make of them the object of 
 his pleasures. Entertaining a prince of this 
 character had become the most difficult part of the 
 favourite's occupation. 
 
i88 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 Mile. having succeeded to Mme. de Pom- 
 padour in this delightful place attracted during a 
 few months the attention and the taste of the 
 monarch. She was lively both in mind and in 
 manner; and showed ease in grasping and under- 
 standing all things. The King paid her frequent 
 visits; but her life was very much retired and but 
 few ladies of the Court had access to her. The 
 entree to I'Ermitage was a mark of the friend- 
 ship or of the confidence of the King. 
 
 One day, Mile. said to the king with a 
 
 mocking smile: '* On what terms are you now with 
 the old coquette?" The King, quite certain that 
 she had not asked that question of her own accord, 
 thought himself insulted, frowned, bit his lips, and 
 
 severely looking at Mile. , he ordered her 
 
 to tell him at once who had prompted her to speak 
 
 in that manner. Mile. , in fright, named 
 
 Mme. la Marechale d'Estrees. 
 
 This lady had long lived in the greatest inti- 
 macy with Mme. de Pompadour; but the respec- 
 tive affection of the women being naturally not 
 solid, quarrels separated them, and the King, hav- 
 ing heard that Mme. d*Estrees wished to com- 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 189 
 
 mence an intrigue to ruin Mme. de Pompadour, 
 who was odious to all the Court of France and to 
 the nation, commanded Mme. d'Estrees to with- 
 draw to one of her estates. 
 
 As to Mile. , the King was too much at- 
 tached to her not to pardon her inexperience; he 
 continued his habits with her until she bore him a 
 child, and he then married her to a gentleman 
 with whom she lived honorably.^^ 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 Yesterday I went to call on M. the Archbishop 
 of Paris; I asked him alms for an impoverished 
 Breton gentleman who does not wish to lower him- 
 self to the extent of asking for them himself. 
 Day before yesterday I had made my request in 
 writing. M. de Beaumont took from his desk 
 a roll of double louis and a voucher of two thou- 
 sand ecus for the unfortunate Breton, to be cashed 
 at his agent's. 
 
 I spoke to him of the sensitiveness of the 
 Breton; he took my letter and threw it into the 
 fire. Suddenly, he seized, with his known vivac- 
 ity, the bellows which hang at the side of the 
 ^replace, and he uttered these words as he blew 
 the fire : " What a good work it would be if 
 Mme. de Pompadour could thus be consumed! 
 she will pervert our King, she will destroy all 
 sentiment of piety and of chastity at Court: she 
 will be the ruin of religion in the kingdom. It 
 
 190 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 191 
 
 IS she who Is so bitterly pursuing the Jesuits." 
 The hatreds of the two parties can only end by 
 some great event. 
 
 Of all the places which the King confides to 
 his subjects, there is none of so great importance in 
 the kingdom as the Archbishopric of Paris, whose 
 prelate is in fact the primate of the Gauls. M. 
 de Beaumont is consulted from one end of France 
 to the other; he is the mind of the clergy; he has 
 more than 800,000 livres of revenue; if he wishes, 
 he may cause the greatest embarrassment at 
 Court : his place may be a means of ambition for 
 him; it is independent and for life. 
 
 The King is willing to see M. de Beaumont 
 a cardinal; but he demands his resignation from 
 his archbishopric. M. de Beaumont, on the con- 
 trary, wishes to be at one and the same time 
 Cardinal and Archbishop of Paris; this is not 
 wanted. This is the secret of our unfortunate 
 troubles; and what suffers? The State and re- 
 ligion. 
 
 Can one imagine the power of a man who has 
 the following : first, a council ; second, several hun- 
 dreds of priests in and out of Paris, subject to 
 
192 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 his orders and to his appointments; third, an in- 
 finite number of priests without benefices, and who 
 expect some from him; fourth, Molinist monks, 
 jealous to please him as head of party? 
 
 It is with this militia that M. the archbishop, 
 whose heart is of gold and his head as hard and 
 as unbending as marble, has given and will give 
 causes to worry. M. de Beaumont, because of 
 his violent character and virtuous heart, will of 
 necessity have a chapter to himself in the history 
 of Louis XV. 
 
 Mme. de Pompadour and M. de Beaumont 
 detest one another cordially and do not conceal it. 
 M. de Beaumont sees in her the enemy of religion, 
 of the Church, of its ministers and specially of 
 the Jesuits. She is the protectress of the incredu- 
 lous, the atheists and the economists; she is the 
 enemy of the Queen, of the Dauphin and of all 
 the friends of M. de Beaumont. 
 
 Mme. de Pompadour, on her part, sees in M. 
 de Beaumont the natural enemy of all that she 
 loves ; but what shocks her most. Is to foresee that 
 being much younger than the King, and being 
 destined to close his eyes, the Archbishop of Paris, 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 193 
 
 interested in profiting by the terrors of the dying 
 King to submit him to his faith, will drive away 
 the concubine, as M. de Fitz-James drove away 
 Mme. de Chateauroux: the Metz scene gives her 
 constant anxiety. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 Vainly did Mme, de Pompadour conceal her 
 movements and intrigues to amuse the King. He 
 finally conceived for her a secret contempt and 
 great indifference. The murmurs of the Queen's 
 party and of that of Monseigneur le Dauphin 
 were proportionate to the patience of a monarch 
 who thought he was controlling Mme. de Pompa- 
 dour when she in reality controlled him. 
 
 It was seen for a long time past, that their 
 relations would be ended by some outbreak. The 
 friends of the favourite fearing a quarrel and a 
 scandal, gave her all the necessary advice towards 
 the preservation of her influence. They per- 
 suaded her to place herself at the head of the 
 arts and to amuse the prince with them; it was 
 specially ChoiseuPs advice, when they began to 
 insinuate themselves into the King's confidence; 
 but Louis XV is not born artistic as was Louis 
 
 194 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 195 
 
 XIV, and besides he does not love his good city 
 of Paris, which it is intended to beautify, in fol- 
 lowing this project of reviving the arts. 
 
 The King forgets no insults; he feels all af- 
 fronts deeply, and specially those he conceals. 
 When at the beginning of the scandalous favour 
 of Mme. de Pompadour, he was greeted by mourn- 
 ful silence at the Opera, he experienced a cruel 
 displeasure. It was a long time after this before 
 he re-visited his capital, where he was received, 
 specially the first time, with cries of ''Five le 
 Roi! '^ mingled with the request: ** Bread! 
 Bread ! '* which he had allowed or caused to be 
 advanced in price; so that since then he has made 
 up his mind to visit his proud capital as little as 
 possible. 
 
 He therefore did not respond to the project 
 proposed to Mme. de Pompadour, to beautify 
 his good city, which returned indifference for in- 
 difference. Yet, it was perfectly clear that he 
 would have brought back the Parisians to him had 
 he done something to beautify their home. 
 
 I shall briefly explain what I have heard on 
 this matter from Marigny, who would have asked 
 
196 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 for nothing better than to caity out the plan, had 
 he been permitted to do so. 
 
 The reports of travellers in London had in- 
 formed us that the religious revolution in that 
 country had caused the monks to leave, and the 
 English had converted their churches and their 
 gardens into superb squares; it is thus that they 
 call public places made attractive by grass plots 
 and statues. 
 
 In France, it was proposed, so as to surpass the 
 English, to make of all the Benedictine convents, 
 one single convent, to reduce the Capuchins to 
 one single building and to change the gardens 
 and vast wastes of the convents into public places 
 useful towards the circulation of air and to the 
 movements of commerce. 
 
 Paris gets its foul smells in the atmosphere in 
 Summer only from the crowding of the common 
 people and its filth; but M. the Archbishop of 
 Paris and the religious orders themselves objecting 
 to this concentration for the benefit of the public, 
 appeared to entail difllculties which Mme. dc 
 Pompadour did not attempt to combat. 
 
 It was suggested to embellish the gallery of the 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 197 
 
 Louvre, and to place in it productions of all the 
 schools. At once there arose against this project 
 the cries of the painters who predominate. They 
 are moved by a base jealousy that has always tor- 
 mented that class of people of merit; so that 
 Mme. de Pompadour did not insist on this point 
 any more than she did on the others. 
 
 A plan even more sublime was presented to him, 
 that of rebuilding the Cite of Paris, whose filthy 
 and disgusting alleys still represent the Lutece of 
 the Franks. 
 
 This is how he was made to understand this 
 operation. First of all, a general plan of the 
 quarters was put before his eyes, combined with 
 the disposition of the great buildings that are 
 to be preserved, such as the church of Notre- 
 Dame; covered sidewalks were to be built, with 
 balconies above, for the first story of the houses. 
 
 Wealthy companies were to buy large squares 
 of houses with streets about them, and raze the 
 old buildings to rebuild according to the plan; by 
 buying at ridiculously low prices, they sold the 
 rebuilt houses and were, by doing away with six- 
 teen churches to be found there, to make immense 
 
198 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 profits, dependent of the speculation on the quar- 
 ters and the plan of reconstruction; but In view 
 of the foreseen opposition of the Chapter of 
 Notre-Dame and of the clergy, the King did not 
 approve of this operation. 
 
 It has been suggested that the houses on the 
 bridges and quays be demolished, and to open a 
 street which would make that of Tournon come 
 to that of Seine, from which would result a 
 street that would be among the most beautiful and 
 straightest in the capital, which would place the 
 Mazarin College opposite the Luxembourg. 
 The King was insensible to this project. 
 
 It was proposed to him to at least cover the 
 palace of the Louvre, which is one of the hand- 
 somest monuments of modern architecture, and 
 which is not even covered with thatch; but again 
 there appeared a man of the trade who, jealous 
 of the beautiful simplicity of that edifice, crossed 
 the plan of Its Improvement; this Inferior genius 
 wishes this palace to be ruined so as to set off his 
 own monuments. 
 
 Painters and architects all have a vanity so ex- 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 199 
 
 elusive, so egotistic, and I may add so criminal, 
 that they would willingly destroy the master- 
 pieces of their predecessors in architecture in 
 favour of their own productions. 
 
 There is not one beautiful edifice conceived in 
 France by an architect of the times of Louis XIV 
 which, if you confide its care and its completion 
 to one of our subalterns, does not run the risk of 
 being re-modelled or rather spoiled by the new 
 ideas of that artist. And yet it is claimed that 
 the beauties and rules agreed upon in architecture 
 are those of all times and of all places. This 
 sickness of destruction is in truth common to the 
 architects of all countries; each architect of Saint- 
 Peter at Rome has altered the nature of aims and 
 designs of his predecessor. 
 
 To this plan, others have been proposed, that 
 of selecting at all corners of Paris, and at equal 
 distances, blocks of houses, surrounded by four 
 streets; the result of the taking away of these 
 isolated blocks would form public places which 
 would cost only the purchase amount of the 
 ground, for which besides, the owners of the build- 
 
20O MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 ings fronting on these, would be compelled to con- 
 tribute in view of the increase of value of their 
 property. 
 
 These easy constructions, not expensive, would 
 change the capital, still so Gothic and so barbaric 
 in the oldest quarters, into a city which could not 
 be compared to any other in Europe. 
 
 In this case, the interest which the public 
 health inspires was set forth; it was shown that 
 the illnesses which, every Summer, cause ravages in 
 Paris, are due to the filth of such and such a 
 quarter, vile sewers, artisans' houses, crowded to- 
 gether, and from the stagnation of air in streets 
 that are muddy or damp in all weather, when 
 they are narrow and the houses there arc four or 
 five stories high ; so that the city of Paris is still 
 the Lutece of the ancients, or city of uncleanli- 
 
 ness. 
 
 The King was not more sensible to this project; 
 
 and Mme. de Pompadour, who would willingly 
 
 have amused him with demolitions and rebuild- 
 
 ings, specially with the creation of the squares 
 
 francais, which^ without construction, would give 
 
 to his capital a form which no one can imagine, 
 
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MADAME DE POMPADOUR 201 
 
 has been unable to induce him to please the Pa- 
 risians, who are very fond of these sorts of de- 
 structions and new edifices, and above all have the 
 vanity to wish that the sovereign should do some- 
 thing for them and for the beauty of their home. 
 
 It has been proposed to go to the expense of 
 another Hotel-Dieu, to leave a bed to each patient; 
 this plan is not ripe; the poor lack an advocate at 
 Court. 
 
 In truth, the King has secured for himself, at 
 Choisy, a pretty hunting house; he has consented 
 to build Belle-Vue for his pleasures, and the 
 church of Sainte-Genevieve as an act of piety. 
 
 The project of the Ecole Militaire has suc- 
 ceeded, because Mme. de Pompadour has inces- 
 santly placed before his eyes the necessity of dis- 
 tinguishing himself by a monument, mentioning 
 as examples the Invalides, the VaUde-Grdce, 
 Saint'Cyr, the Tuileries, the Louvre, Versailles, 
 etc., which are great and beautiful monuments 
 which remind us of the ancestors of our Kings. 
 
 Mme. de Pompadour, who is afraid, she says, 
 to be thrown In the common sewer, either by the 
 clergy, by Monseigneur le Dauphin, or by the pco- 
 
202 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 pie of Paris, has laboured to assure herself of 
 burial; so as to deserve it, she cherishes the re- 
 construction of a church; which would you say? 
 that of Madeleine Penitente; but the King who 
 is secretly ashamed of his libertine life, informed 
 that the favourite had the ambition to secure a 
 distinguished burial (when Mme. de Mailly, re- 
 penting of having been his first mistress, wanted 
 to be buried in the cemetery of the Innocents, and 
 even under the sewer) not wishing to leave a 
 monument for posterity, which preserve the 
 memory of the impropriety of his attachment for 
 a woman detested by all, secretly crosses Mme. 
 de Pompadour's project in that respect, and if 
 she does not change her mind, I am quite sure 
 that if the King survives her, orders will be given 
 so that the remains of Madame be very humbly 
 deposited in an unknown spot, if not ignoble or 
 mean; and if a word from someone can influence 
 this act, I promise that it will be uttered. 
 
 The King was more favourable towards Mme. 
 de Pompadour's plan relating to the porcelain 
 manufactory of Sevres. When Mme. de Pom- 
 padour was declared the favourite, porcelain in 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 203 
 
 France was but a grotesque and clumsy imitation 
 of faces, flowers and personages of Japan porce- 
 lains; our efforts stopped there. Mme. de Pom- 
 padour felt how worthy it was of France to have 
 a porcelain manufactory, as she has those of 
 Gobelins, Savonnerie, of mirrors, etc. 
 
 Chemists to improve the paste, painters of 
 flowers and of landscapes for the ornamentation, 
 sculptors to create the most beautiful shapes were 
 called to perfect this art. The French are so in- 
 genious! All the arts vying with one another 
 combined to create this one in a short time. We 
 had pieces of porcelain and services superior to 
 those of Saxony. 
 
 The King, this time, was sensible to the 
 progress of an art which permitted him to secure 
 from its manufacture table services worthy of 
 being presented to sovereigns. 
 
 The manufactory was established at Vincennes; 
 the King had it removed to Sevres, he asked to be 
 one of its stockholders, and he enjoyed visiting 
 it frequently. 
 
 Before this establishment which has given birth 
 to so many other manufactories, France purchased 
 
204 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 yearly from the Saxons or from the Chinese from 
 four to five hundred thousand livres worth of 
 porcelains. 
 
 At the time this article is being written, the 
 foreigner buys our porcelains for a greater 
 amount, which supports our workmen, enriches 
 the heads, and increases the opinion which for- 
 eigners have conceived of our capacity for un- 
 dertaking all and perfecting all; therefore we 
 shall render to Mme. de Pompadour the acknowl- 
 edgment due to truth, regarding the protection 
 she granted this art. 
 
 Why have we no greater number of acts to 
 quote to her credit? The following article is 
 also in her praise. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 If nothing ever amused the King, people will 
 ask why he kept for so long and until her death 
 a woman of that sort, while he dismissed his most 
 favourite ministers. 
 
 Those who are acquainted with the Inside of 
 Court life know that the King is informed of all 
 the intrigues existing in France against him and of 
 all the dissatisfaction of the public against his 
 reign. 
 
 The King is secretly satisfied that Mme. de 
 Pompadour passes in the public mind as the sole 
 cause of all the misfortunes of the State. It has 
 even been assured that she made the King com- 
 prehend that it was expedient that all the dis- 
 satisfaction of the people should fall on her, sub- 
 ject to her finding an honourable shelter, should 
 destiny condemn her to survive the King. 
 
 For several years, the Parliaments bored the 
 Court with their endless complaints and remon- 
 
 205 
 
2o6 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 strances. It is in the interest of the King, ac- 
 cording to this policy, that their debates be 
 directed against the favourite if needs be. 
 
 In the ancient clergy, in the prelates named 
 by a pious man, M. de Mirepoix — it sees only 
 censors of the prince's conduct, it is therefore ex- 
 pedient that their hatred should strike a woman 
 who has influenced Louis XV. 
 
 In the country everybody complains that the 
 Court oppresses the State, despises the people, 
 overwhelms them with taxes which can no longer 
 be collected but by exactions; it is well, under the 
 circumstances that a single head be the object of 
 the maledictions of the plowman. 
 
 Mme. de Pompadour told the King that she 
 felt relieved to see that she lightened his troubles; 
 she told him that the discontent of the people, the 
 day she should leave the Court, would fall back 
 on the monarch exclusively, seeing that the Dau- 
 phin is esteemed and that the Queen is null and 
 respected. 
 
 These observations have induced Louis to keep 
 a mistress whom he can not bear in her person, 
 who has made use of all means of pleasing, who 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 207 
 
 has passed the age of thirty-six, who has not been 
 beautiful, pretty, agreeable, nor interesting for 
 more than ten years. 
 
 Besides, these rumours of the people, of the 
 clergy, of the Parliaments are nothing in compari- 
 son with the effects of the general dissatisfaction 
 on account of the tax. 
 
 The French are not even the farmers of their 
 possessions; the fiscal art has so multiplied, in- 
 creased, varied, shaded into a thousand forms the 
 tax and the Court increases its expenses to such an 
 extent that the King has so far lost the affection 
 of his subjects, that he may never recover it; sad 
 and dangerous position, for every day the peri- 
 odical payment of the tax augments the clamour, 
 the fears and the protests. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 Monsieur le Due de Choiseul, whom we see 
 surrounded by so much power, having affected to 
 take pattern upon the tone of Mme, de Pompa- 
 dour, IS In league at Court with the same parties 
 as she and shares with her the dangers of the 
 hatreds which they both have created for them- 
 selves as much through their principles as through 
 their political operations. 
 
 Mme. de Pompadour and M. le Due de Choi- 
 seul have equally protected the free-thinkers of 
 their time and they have given life to the party of 
 the incredulous which before had never dared to 
 expose their dangerous opinions. 
 
 Both have protected the enemies of the Jesuits 
 in secret, and prepared and accomplished the de- 
 struction of their order: they will not rest until 
 they have succeeded in destroying it in all Europe. 
 Both have perverted the exterior policy of the 
 House of Bourbon and disgraced the dearest 
 
 3o8 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 209 
 
 maxims of Henri IV, of the great Cardinal de 
 Richelieu, of Louis XIII and of Louis XIV. 
 
 Both together have combined to make of the 
 King an insignificant prince, with the exception 
 of the resolute character which they have devel- 
 oped against Frederick II, whom they have suc- 
 ceeded in making an enemy of France. Both 
 have been the instruments of Marie-Therese, to 
 perform here the changes which her policies 
 wished to perform. 
 
 Both have detested the posterity of Louis XV 
 and the due has dared to make use of expres- 
 sions, and even to write letters which I have seen, 
 written throughout in his hand, which show that 
 he had a secret and sovereign contempt for the 
 royal family. 
 
 Both would have been equally odious to the 
 whole of France as they are to one-half of the 
 powers of Europe, if both had not granted to 
 their creatures, to the tattlers, to the dangerous 
 intriguers of the Court and of the city, pensions 
 whose total sum amounts to eleven millions 1 
 
 Eleven millions! to reward yearly the silence 
 and the tranquillity of the enemies of M. de Choi- 
 
2IO MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 seul and of Mme. de Pompadour, that is to say, 
 to silence all the French who are attached to the 
 religion of their fathers, and to the exterior policy 
 of the House of Bourbon. 
 
 The eleven millions are not however sufficient 
 to hush up the resentment of the public. A dull 
 complaint is heard from every corner of France, 
 a nation prouder and better educated than any 
 other in Europe, at what is going on to support a 
 war (that of Seven Years) which covers us with 
 ignominy. 
 
 No power, no passion, can neutralize the anx- 
 ieties caused by the degradation to which the Due 
 de Choiseul and Mme. de Pompadour have led 
 us, by a war of which we neither see the end nor 
 the outcome, to ruin the King of Prussia, after 
 having ruined ourselves in 1741 to help him 
 place himself on a level with the great powers. 
 
 All that may be done to palliate this actual 
 position of the monarchy and the parties of M. 
 de Choiseul and of Mme. de Pompadour, will 
 only tend to increase the just resentment against 
 their union ; besides they have both in the Dues de 
 Richelieu and d'Aiguillon active enemies who 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 211 
 
 will not forget them under the circumstances and 
 who are secretly devoted to Monseigneur le 
 Dauphin. 
 
 Few people know the cause of these dangerous 
 disputes. They date from the fatal time of the 
 attempted assassination of Louis XV, an epoch 
 which was the source of so many other occur- 
 rences which have not ceased to give anxiety to 
 the state. M. d'Aiguillon, who was at his post, 
 hastened to appear at Versailles and took his seat 
 in Parliament, as a peer, to judge the scoundrel 
 and play a character at the Court. 
 
 M. le Due de Choiseul, at that time Comte de 
 Stainville, had already left Rome and was then 
 at Venice; he hastened to Paris also, to turn the 
 events to account; he owed his rise to the fa- 
 vourite, whose power was in danger at Versailles 
 on the day of the attack. 
 
 The due and the comte being at the chateau, 
 were among the first to express the two most dan- 
 gerous opinions for two courtiers. The due said 
 aloud with his well-known tone: ** That the 
 fanaticism of the demoniacs of the Parliament 
 had armed the hand of the parricide and that 
 
212 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 there were good proofs of this." The comte re- 
 plied that he brought from Rome proofs wholly 
 contrary to this; he said that the Jesuits, and the 
 Jesuits of Silesia, were not strangers to it. 
 
 The first by his statement indirectly paid his 
 court to Monseigneur le Dauphin and the latter 
 to the favourite who had just declared war on 
 Frederick. 
 
 The Due d*Aiguillon is the friend of Mon- 
 seigneur le Dauphin and the Comte de Stainville 
 has resolved to depend upon the favourite and on 
 the Parliaments to support his elevation and the 
 stability of his power. The opposite systems of 
 these two ambitious men have begun and will con- 
 tinue the desolation of the monarchy. 
 
CHAPTER XX I 
 
 Marshal de Richelieu and Mme. de Pompa- 
 dour hated one another and did not conceal it. 
 Mme. de Pompadour hated that courtier because, 
 wholly occupied also with helping the King pass 
 the time, he had succeeded as she had in insinu- 
 ating himself in his good graces and in obtaining 
 his favour. However, the idea that they could 
 render one another very good and very bad serv- 
 ices induced them finally to affect a consideration 
 and even a reciprocal friendship. 
 
 This agreement of interests had been in exist- 
 ence for some time, when hatred on the one side 
 and jealousy on the other tightened the bonds of 
 their alliance. Marshal d'Estrees was the sorry 
 object of this hatred and jealousy, the result of 
 which was the recall of the general, at a time 
 when he was occupied in following up a victory 
 which he soon saw crowned with the most brilliant 
 
 successes. 
 
 213 
 
214 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 These are the causes of M. d'Estrees' disgrace. 
 Marshal de Richelieu, who succeeded him in the 
 command, lost all that his predecessor had won 
 in less time than he had taken to conquer it. It 
 has been generally reported that the latter when 
 commandant in chief, in gratitude for the service 
 rendered him by Mme. de Pompadour, sought to 
 reward her bounty in a manner as satisfactory to 
 her avarice, as the recall of M. d'Estrees had 
 been to her vindictive mind. 
 
 This reward consisted in closing his eyes on 
 the irregularity of the traffic which she carried 
 on in the line of food for the army. She ap- 
 pointed the commissaries, the clerks, and gener- 
 ally all those who were employed in this depart- 
 ment; and she always appointed those who had 
 given most, without inquiring if they were the 
 most worthy for the offices. 
 
 However, it is known that after having lost 
 the command of the army in Germany, the recep- 
 tion of Marshal d'Estrees at Court was most gra- 
 cious on the part of the King, who could not help 
 but render him the justice which his services de- 
 served. 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 215 
 
 The King gave him to understand that he 
 would be delighted to have him go and see Mme. 
 de Pompadour. The marshal did so and she 
 affected a face composed of what sweetness has 
 most gracious and falseness most deceitful. 
 
 On greeting her, M. d'Estrees made her a deep 
 bow and said: *' It is by order of the King that 
 I come to bow to you : I am perfectly aware of 
 the sentiments you have for me, but I have too 
 much confidence in the justice of the King, my 
 master, to believe myself obliged to fear them." 
 Hardly had he finished this speech when, without 
 awaiting a reply, M. d'Estrees returned to the door 
 and went out. Mme. de Pompadour was never 
 so embarrassed, the military tone of the general 
 amazed her; from that time on she was reduced 
 to raising against him the unpleasant affairs known 
 to the public. 
 
 The sacrifice of M. d'Estrees in circumstances 
 so critical, had been preceded by that of one of the 
 King's principal ministers. I refer to M. d'Ar- 
 genson, another victim of the malevolent genius 
 who presided at all the deliberations of the Court. 
 
 I have held back until this moment the narra- 
 
2i6 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 tion of what happened at the chateau, in the 
 favourite's apartments, at the time of Da- 
 miens' attack. Consternation there was gen- 
 eral, the King believed himself lost, the Holy- 
 Sacrament was exposed in Paris and at Versailles. 
 The King, who had become converted in 1744 
 at Metz, again became converted on the day of 
 the crime. 
 
 It may be imagined that Mme. de Pompadour 
 did not fail to hasten to the King's side to prove 
 her tender attachment by her tears. But all 
 respectable persons, all the ecclesiastics who sur- 
 rounded the prince, gathered together to repel 
 her. 
 
 The King was confided only to the cares and 
 tenderness of his family, and M. d'Argenson, the 
 minister, finding the opportunity to satisfy his 
 hatred for Mme. de Pompadour^ distinguished 
 himself among those who repelled her when she 
 dared present herself at the King's door. 
 
 The triumph of the priests and of the minister 
 were not of long duration. Mme. de Pompa- 
 dour, furious at not having been able to act her 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 217 
 
 part, purposed to avenge, if possible, the affront 
 done her with so much audacity. 
 
 The wound being very different from what had 
 been expected, the very next day ceased to give 
 anxiety as to its outcome. At the end of two or 
 three days, the King, almost cured, was able to be 
 up and around and as he had done in 1744 he 
 resumed his mode of living. 
 
 One of his first visits was the one he made to 
 Mme. de Pompadour. She received him in a 
 manner most apt to cause pity. Her eyes full of 
 sorrow, her face wet with tears, announced a dis- 
 tress that could not fail to produce the effect she 
 expected. 
 
 After having congratulated him again and 
 again on his fortunate return to health, she broke 
 out into bitter complaints on the conduct of others 
 towards her. She ended by saying: "That since 
 it was forbidden her to see him in the time when 
 her duty demanded It most, and when he himself 
 had the greatest need of it, she could not do better 
 than to withdraw in time to deprive her enemies 
 of the malicious joy of repeating such an outrage." 
 
2i8 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 This threat to withdraw, a threat which this 
 woman hardly makes but when she is assured not 
 to be taken at her word, had all the possible effect 
 on the King's mind. He resolved to give her 
 most striking satisfaction, and to grant her what 
 she would have been unable to get or have dared 
 to ask. He began by exiling the over-conscien- 
 tious bishop, with three or four courtiers who had 
 shown an excess of eagerness in forbidding her 
 the door. M. d'Argenson was disgraced and 
 obliged to resign his charge. 
 
 It might be believed that in appointing as his 
 successor the young Marquis de Paulmy d'Ar- 
 genson, his nephew, the King had the intention of 
 mitigating the grief and the disgrace, but it was 
 nothing of the sort. The nephew does not re- 
 semble the uncle. 
 
 The King was pleased with M. de Paulmy, 
 because he had always acted very properly to- 
 wards Mme. de Pompadour; the uncle, on the 
 contrary, had made no mystery of the contempt 
 he felt for her. She had long awaited the oppor- 
 tunity of making him bear the burden of her 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 219 
 
 resentment and none could be more favourable 
 than this. 
 
 M. de Paulmy d'Argenson did not long hold 
 his uncle's position; force of circumstances has 
 just driven him from it for having shown too 
 much zeal in serving the hatred of Mme. de 
 Pompadour against M. d'Estrees; her favour 
 was unable to protect him, so true is it that as 
 soon as matters at Court have taken an lU-regu- 
 lated course, the credit of even the most power- 
 ful is no longer of any use; this happens often 
 when all is directed by the caprice of a woman 
 such as the celebrated marquise. 
 
 To oppose her views, to contradict her, this is 
 the sure way to find disgrace; to follow her will 
 blindly, is to expose one's self to the same danger, 
 because the results of an action are always put 
 down against those who perform that action and 
 rarely against those who order it. Such was the 
 case of young Paulmy d'Argenson; the poor man 
 fell for having obeyed. 
 
 Seconded by M. Rouillier, he went so far in the 
 interest of Mme. de Pompadour as to take sides 
 
220 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 with M. de Maillebois against M. le Marechal 
 d'Estrees. The latter having justified himself in 
 the manner he did, it was necessary to sacrifice 
 them both to the clamours and to the vengeance of 
 the public, which often dictates to the most des- 
 potic power by obliging it to temporise and to re- 
 tain the measures which it seems to prescribe to the 
 King. 
 
 But that which has most astonished the world, 
 is that M. de Machault, Keeper of the Seals, was 
 dismissed from office at the same time and day 
 as old d'Argenson. He was at the head of a 
 party opposed to the last named minister and 
 everyone knew that he was one with Mme. de 
 Pompadour. 
 
 It is true that he exhibited some warmth in the 
 remonstrances he made relating to the excessive 
 expenses required by the King's little suppers, to 
 which had been adjoined the department of 
 pleasures. Those who find more pleasure in 
 fathoming matters than in carelessly skimming the 
 surface, thought they saw in those contrary dis- 
 graces the evidence of shrewd politics with which 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 221 
 
 Mme. de Pompadour has always been credited. 
 
 I am going to enter into a few details as regards 
 the secret causes of Mme. de Pompadour's con- 
 duct in sending away M. de Machault, her fa- 
 vourite minister, and M. d'Argenson, her acknowl- 
 edged enemy. 
 
 You are acquainted with the dispute set up be- 
 tween the clergy and the Parliament with regard 
 to their respective prerogatives and on the use of 
 their rights. The clergy claims to have the right 
 to refuse communion to the dying, and the Parlia- 
 ment claims to have the right to order them to 
 administer it. The scenes relating to these dis- 
 cussions are most disgraceful and cause the King 
 the greatest solicitude. 
 
 The clergy refuses to believe the King compe- 
 tent to judge the dispute; the Parliament looks 
 upon the clergy as rebellious to all laws. Whose 
 side shall the King take under the circumstances? 
 If he took that of the clergy, the Parliament would 
 at once take up more embarrassing matters; if he 
 took sides with the Parliament, the clergy would 
 stir up a fanatical multitude. If the people re- 
 
222 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 fused to serve the clergy against the Parliament, 
 there would result an injury to religion which the 
 Court wished to avoid. 
 
 There were in this quarrel four things to be 
 considered: the King, the clergy, the Parliament 
 and the populace, the eternal instrument of all that 
 stirs it up and pays It. The alternative and even 
 all the chances were terrible, the choice of means 
 was impossible. 
 
 The King was in the most cruel embarrassment ; 
 It was Mme. de Pompadour who had the clever- 
 ness to cut the knot which she called Gordian. 
 She advised the prince to hold the scales between 
 the two parties without declaring himself either 
 for the one or the other, but reserving the oppor- 
 tunity to cast the weight on the most expedient 
 side. In the meantime the King was to leave to 
 the clergy and to the Parliament their bones to 
 gnaw as a pastime to which they seemed so at- 
 tached. 
 
 It was owing to these resolutions that the Parlia- 
 ment and the Archbishop of Paris, leaders of the 
 disturbances, were exiled in 1757, the one one way, 
 the other another, which gave the King a reputa- 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 22^ 
 
 tlon for neutrality, which also had its particular 
 effects. M. d'Argenson, leader of the clerical 
 party at Court, and M. de Machault, leader of 
 the opposite party and favourable to the Parlia- 
 ment, were also dismissed. 
 
 M. de Machault, since his famous edict which 
 prevented ecclesiastics from acquiring property, 
 was odious to the first order of the State. He 
 had therefore become dear to the Parliament, 
 which was then striving to curb it and as the clergy 
 could not bear Mme. de Pompadour, M. de 
 Machault became a faithful servant to whom she 
 could accord entire devotion. 
 
 M. d'Argenson, for contrary reasons, was at 
 that time of discord the head, at Court, of the 
 opposite party; and as both were accused, as it 
 was called, of fighting in council with coups de 
 Clerge and coups de Parlement, the necessary re- 
 sult of Mme. de Pompadour's system was that both 
 should be dismissed. 
 
 She did not In the least scruple at sacrificing 
 M. de Machault, her friend, so as not to deprive 
 herself of the sweetness of vengeance by ruining 
 M. d'Argenson, her enemy, because at Court one 
 
224 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 could not subsist without the other, without injur- 
 ing the system of neutrality to which all was 
 adapted. 
 
 The difference of the treatment of these two 
 ministers sufficiently shows the different motives 
 existing, In depriving both of their offices. M. 
 d'Argenson was sent away without any of the 
 marks of kindness that serve to mitigate the rigours 
 of a disgrace. Yet few sympathised with him in 
 his misfortune. Besides there being In him some- 
 thing austere and forbidding, his character was 
 unfeeling. He was recognised as one of the great- 
 est zealots of arbitrary power. This explains 
 why people were not sorry to see him endure re- 
 verses although it was known that he hated Mme.. 
 de Pompadour. 
 
 M. de Machault, on the contrary, was con- 
 tinued in a large pension and he was granted what 
 is called military honours. As he possessed more 
 probity than his rival, he was more pitied, and the 
 protection which he always accorded to the Parlia- 
 ment served to efface what might have been 
 objected to in his complacency for the King's 
 mistress. 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 225 
 
 We have noticed that everybody was of the 
 opinion that the Marquise de Pompadour had in- 
 fluenced the King. This thought resulted for her 
 in the outcome that she must naturally have ex- 
 pected; she was treated with contempt by both 
 parties; both felt that they had become the play- 
 thing of her ambition, without her having any 
 consideration for either. 
 
 Even those who had sided with neither party 
 and in general all those who loved the King and 
 the State did not much admire the plan followed. 
 They saw in this system of neutrality much more 
 of the ruse of a weak woman than of male and 
 prudent courage. 
 
 They admitted that the invention was fine, and 
 that it was well superintended to reach the goal 
 intended of neutralizing the people of whom the 
 Parliament and the clergy wished to dispose in 
 imitation of one another ; but moreover, they only 
 looked on it as a dangerous palliative which, far 
 from removing the evil, only served to keep it in 
 a state of covered fermentation which might soon 
 produce a new and much more violent eruption 
 than the first. 
 
226 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 Besides, it seemed shameful on the King's part 
 to have, for two interested reasons, neglected to 
 re-establish a peace which could not be too soon 
 signed, had the happiness of the people been as 
 much at heart as their money. 
 
 Let us speak frankly with regard to propriety; 
 this conduct was nothing better than that of a sub- 
 ordinate mischief-maker who goes about sowing 
 petty hatreds and disputes to profit by them. 
 
 Under these circumstances, all conditions and 
 all classes of the people were in accord In their 
 dislike of Mme. de Pompadour; the Parisians, 
 specially, never missed an occasion to give her the 
 most obvious evidence of their hatred. 
 
 Every time she went to Paris, the populace ran 
 in crowds behind her coach, overwhelming her with 
 reproaches and insults. Things went so far that 
 for some years she has not dared to return there 
 except incognito. The provinces, fallowing the 
 example of the capital, detested her. 
 
 The people never like the mistresses of their 
 Kings; they believe that the supreme rank which 
 they occupy makes decency and deportment an 
 inviolably duty to them and that they are wholly 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 227 
 
 inexcusable when they set a bad example. So that, 
 when at Court, the King and princes set a scan- 
 dalous example, the dissatisfaction of the people 
 must necessarily break out, and it lets fall all the 
 bitterness of its hatred on the person whom it 
 considers the author of this dissoluteness. 
 
 The Frenchman, however, does not expect to 
 find In his Kings enemies of intrigue: perhaps he 
 does not even wish them to be. 
 
 The Frenchman has never been a Jansenist by 
 nature ; but he is so in opinion, and would like that 
 this intrigue should remain within its just limits, 
 and that it should not offend the rules of pro- 
 priety nor national customs: otherwise the people 
 form an opinion which becomes the never-dying 
 worm of Kings when they have a conscience and 
 feeling. 
 
 It must even be said that this opinion is a guar- 
 antee of public morality which has no greater 
 plague than the vices of the courtiers which al- 
 ways tend to the ruin and the degradation of 
 nations. 
 
 Besides this general motive of the people's 
 hatred, there were several others that embittered 
 
228 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 them towards the marquise; the lowness of her 
 origin and her state of married woman, taken by 
 force from her husband, in spite of a right which 
 has always been looked upon as sacred among 
 polite peoples. 
 
 The subsequent consent, tacit or forced of the 
 husband, did not mend the evil ; it proved at most 
 the abuse of a despotic power or the abuse of its 
 stratagems ; and yet it must be said, to describe the 
 actual state of our morals, that several courtiers 
 spoke against the King's conduct only because he 
 had not stolen their wives. 
 
 It was besides with extreme displeasure that peo- 
 ple saw the Queen and Mesdames de France 
 obliged to be content with a set maintenance, al- 
 though proportionate to their rank, while the 
 marquise rolled in immense and scandalous wealth 
 and could dispose at will of the favours of the 
 King and the treasures of the State. 
 
 The same grief was felt when it was considered 
 that the same servile dependence attached all to 
 her caprices. 
 
 The ablest ministers, the greatest generals of the 
 army, were either vilely submissive, or unjustly 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 229 
 
 sacrificed to her vanity and to her vengeance ; and 
 she who had been drawn from the mire in a 
 manner equally scandalous and unpardonable, 
 proved by her conduct that she always took the act 
 of governing the King for that of governing the 
 Kingdom. 
 
 But one of the greatest reproaches to be made 
 against her was the unheard-of traffic she made 
 of offices and the profit of which was all for her. 
 
 This traffic tended visibly towards perverting 
 the nation which henceforth was no longer ill 
 served but by subjects solely occupied in drawing 
 all possible interests from their purchase. She had 
 already ruined the Kingdom wholesale by a bad 
 administration and she now sold it daily at retail 
 to the highest bidder. 
 
 It is known that she wanted tO' buy from the 
 King of Prussia the principality of Neufchatel, 
 one of the provinces of Switzerland. The negotia- 
 tions were begun, conducted and closed in the 
 matter, and the money even passed into the hands 
 of that monarch in the time of a war with France, 
 a thing which can only be looked upon as a sort 
 of treason, if the right had not been reserved to 
 
230 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 make the contract public as soon as the circum- 
 stances would allow. 
 
 It must be admitted that we lack the acts and 
 the evidence of the facts to legally prove this ac- 
 cusation; but, however that may be, the motive 
 of the purchase is known; Mme. de Pompadour, 
 aware of the hatred she had drawn to herself and 
 the danger to which she would be exposed if the 
 King, chancing to die, left her to the mercy of her 
 numerous and powerful enemies, and of his son, 
 had taken the wise precaution to secure for herself 
 a safe place of refuge. 
 
 Her intention is to flee at the first assurance 
 that the King is dangerously ill and to withdraw 
 to a domain ; but who knows if, deprived as she is 
 of children and of the hope of having any, she will 
 not allow herself to be influenced by the example 
 of Flora and if she has not already resolved to 
 imitate that celebrated Roman woman by securing 
 to France a province which she may leave to it 
 after her death. 
 
 Mme. de Pompadour knows what Mme. des 
 Ursins attempted in a matter of that sort. How- 
 ever, although it is quite true that ambition and 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 231 
 
 ruse are essential parts of her character, it would 
 be wrong to believe that through such mean qual- 
 ities no virtue is seen to shine ; it is in vain that one 
 would imagine that she has accomplished all that 
 she has, without merit, without a single admirable 
 quality which could speak in favour of her evil 
 ones, conceal them and aid them the more easily 
 to accomplish their end. 
 
 First of all it is incontestable that, in spite of its 
 efforts to find things of which to reproach her, the 
 world has been unable to impute to her any of 
 those coarse intrigues which the sole name of 
 King's mistress causes one to suspect, and of which 
 it was perhaps expected that this history was filled ; 
 but truth has within it a pleasure too lively and 
 sublime tKat one should not be easily consoled in 
 having made a mistake in one's conjectures. 
 
 With the exception of the downfall caused by 
 the King, she could not be blamed for aught she 
 had done since then against her virtue, yet she is j 
 no better for all that. She may, it i§ true, pride 
 herself of this to her lover, but the world will not 
 esteem her the more for it. 
 
 It is but too well known that it is neither to a 
 
232 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 natural unfeellngness, nor to the fear of the out- 
 come of an irregular life that she owes this chas- 
 tity, but rather to the interested passions of which 
 she was the plaything. These passions so mas- 
 tered her that she had become insensible to the 
 feelings of love, and incapable of intrigue, which 
 is so often mistaken for love, of which it uselessly 
 usurps the name. 
 
 Yet these are attachments over which nature, 
 that powerful mother of both, has a power much 
 more real than over the criminal inclinations which 
 draw it; she might perhaps be pardoned had she 
 been able to make use of the pretext that she 
 loved the King, but he is perhaps the only being 
 who honours her with the belief that she loves him, 
 or that she loves anyone but herself. 
 
 Besides, it is not believed that amours of ca- 
 price or of passage, and a few other amours re- 
 quired by circumstances and of policy contradict 
 this article. I have written their story in only 
 fifty pages, under the title of the Galanterie de la 
 Cour de Pekin; by that title I may be recognised. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 One should not be astonished at the great ani- 
 mosity which has divided minds in the circum- 
 stances from which we issue (in 1757). 
 
 Louis XV received a badly sealed letter which In- 
 formed him that M. the Archbishop of Paris, had 
 contributed to the attack of Damiens. This letter 
 had been addressed by a Parisian to another Paris- 
 ian, and it had been badly sealed so that it might 
 inspire curiosity at the postoffice from which it was 
 directly sent to Louis XV. He periodically re- 
 ceives notes on all curious matters on which un- 
 sealed letters can supply him with information, 
 and this letter was entirely unsealed. 
 
 Louis XV was furious, not against the Arch- 
 bishop of Paris, but against his enemies, for he 
 looks upon this prelate as a personage most in- 
 capable of a crime such as the one imputed to him. 
 So that, instead of making use of the letter, he 
 himself sent the original to M. de Beaumont with 
 
 233 
 
234 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 a note in his own hand, in which he states that he 
 wishes to give him new proof of the esteem he has 
 for him by sending him the letter which has 
 reached him attacking his honour, in which he 
 has never doubted for a moment. 
 
 M. the archbishop, on receiving this letter, was 
 as if struck by a thunderbolt ; he was not ignorant 
 of the strange rumours circulated by the enemies 
 of the Jesuits, whose protector he was, and who 
 attributed to the members of this Order the at- 
 tack of Damiens, so that he at once left for 
 Versailles to thank Louis XV. 
 
 Having reached his apartment, he was about 
 to throw himself at his feet and burst into tears, 
 when the King, stopping him, said: *' Monsieur Y 
 archeveque, learn to recognise your enemies and 
 to soften them by a character of goodness; your 
 good qualities are sufficient; you have my entire 
 esteem; I have of you the best opinion in the 
 world/* After which the King turned his back 
 on him: it is from the archbishop himself that I 
 have this fact and he does not lie. 
 t The enemies of Mme. de Pompadour, on their 
 part, did not let pass so happy an opportunity to 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 235 
 
 irritate the favourite whose imagination, when the 
 preservation of her credit is in question, is so in- 
 fluent and dangerous. 
 
 The archbishop was therefore led to believe 
 that Mme. de Pompadour, by whom he knew him- 
 self to be detested, had concocted and carried out 
 all that related to the letter. 
 
 M. de Beaumont, who should have published 
 his charge regarding the deliverance of the King 
 from assassination by Damiens, a few days after 
 the 5th of January, 1757, the day of the attack, 
 published it only at the beginning of the follow- 
 ing March, with all the imprudent allusions I am 
 about to indicate. 
 
 The prelate first of all represented Louis XV, 
 as the last scion of the posterity of Louis XIV, 
 spared by Providence in a circumstance when the 
 French had seen the remainder of the royal family 
 dwindle away. He showed the monarch vir- 
 tuous, timid and bashful in his youth, penetrated 
 with the fear of God during his illnesses and im- 
 ploring the ministry of the Church to be saved. 
 He draws a touching and pathetic portrait of the 
 dispositions of the dying prince at Metz; but in 
 
236 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 speaking of the cause of the Damiens attack, he 
 attributes it to the errors of the times, to scandals 
 in all states and conditions, and to the introduc- 
 tion in the writings and in the minds of a multi- 
 tude of principles which excite subjects to diso- 
 bedience and to rebellion against the sovereign. 
 
 The Jansenists attributed the attack to his 
 party; he attributed it to philosophy; to the party 
 of Mme. de Pompadour. He ends his charge by 
 formally saying that '' The justice of God had 
 permitted the production of a monster that dis- 
 honoured the century and brought sorrow to the 
 nation/* 
 
 Lastly, the archbishop carried imprudence, after 
 these assertions, to the point of saying that " This 
 attack had been committed by treason and by de- 
 sign premeditated in the palace.** 
 
 Commentaries full of malice explained to Mme. 
 de Pompadour that the Archbishop of Paris wished 
 thus to throw to the other side the causes of the 
 crime of Damiens and attribute them to irre- 
 ligion, to the opinions which she protected and to 
 the independence which she favoured. Besides 
 she could not pardon the archbishop for daring 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 237 
 
 to address the King, sufficiently frozen with ter- 
 ror, in touching, persuasive and religious language 
 to try to convert him. 
 
 The King had great esteem for his archbishop ; 
 she feared that the charge might not be sufficient 
 to have him sent away: it was at least the opinion 
 which the favourite had of the power of this 
 charge. The King besides had never ceased to 
 express some slight desire of a conversion. 
 
 It is in consequence of all these circumstances 
 that Mme. de Pompadour obtained from the 
 King, a short time after, that he exile M. the 
 Archbishop of Paris, and she went about it in such 
 a manner that the prince, feeble monarch, deter- 
 mined to do so. 
 
 The King, however, sent to him M. de Riche- 
 lieu, who was much on the side of the prelate to 
 urge him to yield in some matters for the good of 
 peace, in a moment when he was most virulent 
 about the famous billets de confession which he 
 demanded of the dying before the Viaticum could 
 be administered to them. I know that on that 
 occasion the inflexible prelate replied to M. de 
 Richelieu : " Let a scaffold be erected in the middle 
 
238 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 of my courtyard and I shall mount it to uphold 
 my rights, fulfil my duties and obey the laws of 
 my conscience/' The prelate was so excited that 
 he would have done as he said. 
 
 The marshal replied by a hon mot which he 
 has been careful to spread; he said to him that his 
 conscience was hut a dark-lantern which lightened 
 no one hut himself; but the prelate was more and 
 more inflexible, and M. de Richelieu reported this 
 to the King, who had hoped much from the nego- 
 tiation of the courtier, naturally quite clever in 
 these sorts of affairs. 
 
 After this Louis XV abandoned the prelate to 
 his council which Mme. de Pompadour had won 
 over one by one to cause him to be exiled, a meas- 
 ure preceded by the secret warning, and in friendly 
 style, which the King had given him that he 
 wished to exile him, while the orders of exile 
 against the opposing party, those of the magis- 
 trates of the Parliament, had the form of a sort 
 of disgrace and showed the great displeasure of 
 the King. 
 
 One now sees how small this woman is in af- 
 fairs; how her small passions influence the great 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 239 
 
 affairs of the State; one sees the crimes she com- 
 mits to maintain her authority. 
 
 It is the first time with the exception of the 
 Regency that in France the State treats its friends 
 as it would its enemies. 
 
 It is not by such a punishment that the preten- 
 sions of the prelate and his ridiculous and unjust 
 refusal of the sacraments to the dying, should 
 have been checked. 
 
 The King, in treating in a uniform manner both 
 the magistracy indocile by profession, through 
 principle and sentiment, and monseigneur the arch- 
 bishop who was at all times the foremost of his 
 servants, has committed a great fault which will 
 not be rectified; he has put on the same level 
 against himself and on the same footing his friends 
 and his foes. 
 
 Since then the prelate and the magistracy have 
 been recalled; but M. de Choiseul and Mme. de 
 Pompadour have destroyed the Jesuits in the same 
 spirit, and to destroy them, they have restored the 
 Parliaments which had been humiliated, dissolved 
 and exiled. 
 
 The Jesuits crushed, dissolved and exiled also 
 
240 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 have had friends who have employed MM. 
 Maupeau and Terray to destroy the Parliaments 
 and M. de Choiseul. 
 
 The destroyed Parliaments will no doubt in turn 
 find other powers which will secure their recall, 
 and you will see that if they return they will avenge 
 themselves; sad result of the foolish policy of 
 Mme. de Pompadour, who treated the friends and 
 enemies of the State in the same manner; or rather 
 sad result of the elevation of this wicked grisette 
 by the side of a great monarch whom she causes 
 to espouse her interests and to sign, through the 
 medium of the ministers whom she establishes 
 or exiles, the measures dictated by the views of a 
 little bourgeoise of the capital. 
 
 It Is the clergy which first fathomed the aims 
 of the favourite and which first made them known ; 
 hence the lively feeling against it, and the re- 
 sentment of the enemies which Mme. de Pompa- 
 dour has raised at the Court of Louis XV. 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 The most grave objection to the power of the 
 marquise consists in the absolute dependence of 
 the ministers on her. It is she who selects them, 
 who advances them and dismisses them according 
 to her whims ; and one feels how much an authority 
 coming from so impure a source must permit it- 
 self acts contrary to the interests of the State. 
 
 This woman is odious to all the Bodies; the 
 Church specially has in horror a concubine at the 
 head of affairs, who aspires to take possession of 
 the list of benefices. 
 
 The nobility, which is well considered in France 
 only when it occupies the first places of the State, 
 can obtain them only through her; in short, 
 she is supposed to sell positions, posts and places. 
 
 The King, who feels all the weight of his chain, 
 keeps silent; he sees his finances in disorder; he 
 sees them abandoned to pillage, and he signs ar- 
 bitrary orders to count to the marquise the one 
 
 241 
 
242 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 hundred thousand ecus, the five hundred thousand 
 francs, as we spend in our houses a gold louis or a 
 pistole. 
 
 And yet the King himself, lastly was presented 
 with a singular petition at the chase from which 
 he was returning in a phaeton with Mme. de Pom- 
 padour. 
 
 In this petition an investor asked the King, in 
 order to assist manufactories which he desired to 
 establish in the name of the State, that Mme. de 
 Pompadour lend to the King fifty millions to 
 launch successfully this great royal enterprise; the 
 King smiled at this and Mme. de Pompadour 
 showed great anger. 
 
 It was since this singular circumstance that she 
 more than ever surrounded this prince with her 
 small creatures, so well prompted that they were 
 forbidden to tell him anything except what she 
 wished him to know. No truth capable of an- 
 noying her can any more reach the King except 
 in a round-about way. 
 
 The Court saw an example of this one day which 
 it enjoyed very much. A short time before the 
 death of the marquise, the King went to Paris, 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 243 
 
 contrary to his custom, for he has developed an 
 extreme repugnance against that good city because 
 of the insults to Mme. de Pompadour, who is de- 
 tested there. On that day, the assembled people 
 again followed the King's coach, but in a manner 
 very different from the usual one. They no longer 
 shouted: " Vive le Roi! " the air was filled with 
 but one cry: *' Bread, Sire, bread! " The guard 
 was unable to intimidate them, for the frenzied 
 crowd compelled it to withdraw. 
 
 The King, back at Versailles, and cut to the 
 quick, was speaking of this reception with bitter- 
 ness mingled with sadness; for he knows that he 
 is suspected with being at the head of a wheat 
 traffic for his own profit. 
 
 It was then that a creature of the marquise ad- 
 dressed the King and said that she was much as- 
 tonished at the unreasonableness and injustice of 
 a people who cried famine when they were seated 
 on a great pile of wheat at the market. The same 
 person added that it was at a very moderate price. 
 
 The good Marquis de Souvre was unable to hear 
 this irony with calmness; he took his gloves, his 
 hat, and made believe to go to the door hurriedly. 
 
244 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 J: *' Where are you going?" asked the King. 
 
 " Sire," replied Souvre, " if you will allow me, 
 I am going to have my rascal of a steward hanged 
 because he charges me for my bread double the 
 price which this honest man tells you that it is 
 worth." This reply, which made those present 
 laugh, was unable to attract the King's attention. 
 
 We have seen until now that if Mme. de Pom- 
 padour had succeeded at Court as mistress to the 
 King, she had been much less successful there in 
 playing the State swoman. 
 
 Our century, however, presents the picture of 
 two empires governed in a superior manner by sev- 
 eral women ; in Russia by the two Catherine Annas 
 and by Elizabeth; and in Germany by Marie- 
 Therese. 
 
 What Mme. de Pompadour does not know. Is 
 the art of governing and of choosing those best 
 fitted for it, for it is precisely the man most unfit 
 for such and such an ofiice whom she has the faculty 
 of choosing, to the misfortune of the Kingdom. 
 
 She has been reproached and with reason of 
 labouring towards the destruction of all our silk 
 manufactories. The provinces of the South, along 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 245 
 
 the Rhone specially, can pay their taxes only with 
 their harvests of silks and cocoons. These silks 
 and cocoons go to Lyons to quicken the commer- 
 cial centre of France. 
 
 All the courts of Europe and all the nobility 
 which exists in the universe dresses itself with 
 those rich and beautiful stuffs manufactured at 
 Lyons ; but now it happens that English lords who 
 travel In France have come here and have brought 
 with them pretty calicoes which they claim beau- 
 tify and rejuvenate those who wear them for 
 neglige. 
 
 Mme. de Pompadour therefore wears nothing 
 but negliges of calico; our French manufactories 
 no longer dress Mme. de Pompadour ; the fashions 
 which come from her boudoirs ruin our industries, 
 and the genius of our arts to the depths of our 
 provinces. 
 
 What has become of the ministers of Louis 
 XIV, of that King so proud of his manufactories 
 both royal and private created by Colbert! The 
 English dared to send us their Indian cotton goods ; 
 the King had them confiscated. He did more; 
 he had them sent to the executioner, with orders 
 
246 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 to dress himself in them. All the ladies were 
 frightened at this. 
 
 There was in France a secret pleasure among 
 the financiers and the smaller bourgeoisie in see- 
 ing a little grisette seated by the side of the King; 
 but her affectation to thus dress herself in her 
 neglige, made of foreign stuffs, and specially of 
 English stuffs, has deprived her of the esteem .of 
 all the manufacturers who now express themselves 
 as the others about this celebrated woman. 
 
 Yet justice is due to say that she does not 
 love the English, nor specially the arrogance of 
 their ambassadors, who affect a certain tone to- 
 wards her. They treat her as a clerk of foreign 
 affairs and Louis XV is distressed at this. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 It is impossible to imagine what trouble this 
 woman gave the State to save her from the insults 
 of the Paris populace. What do I say, of the pop- 
 ulace ? I should rather say of the best bourgeoisie 
 and of all the Parisians and of all France. 
 
 The pit of our theatres is in Paris a House of 
 Commons comparable in some respects to that of 
 London! If this House could speak I If it had 
 the right to make simple remonstrances I but it has 
 only hands, that is all it possesses, and it uses them 
 for applauses that are frequently severe lessons; 
 for the pit by suspending or bestowing them un- 
 seasonably, disposes of blame and of praise with 
 much equity or at least with fitness. 
 
 What a nation! it makes itself heard with ap- 
 plause granted or refused, or affected, or ill-timed. 
 
 In 1750, Mme. de Pompadour was at the Opera 
 and was able to notice the opinion which the public 
 had already conceived regarding her person. Op- 
 
 247 
 
248 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 posite her was her husband, M. Le Normant 
 d'Etioles; and could one imagine which secured 
 the marks of approval, the King's favourite or 
 the husband? 
 
 It was not she who sees at her feet the great, 
 the prelates, the ambassadors, the generals, and 
 this procession of ministers whom she makes and 
 unmakes; it was the good-natured d'Etioles who 
 was the object of the pit's applause. 
 
 Ah! the poor dear man, how disconcerted he 
 was; I studied him carefully, through my glasses, 
 on this occasion; he paled, blushed and darkened 
 at a reception which he had no right to expect. 
 
 As the marquise's box was on the same side as 
 mine and as I could not see her well, I questioned 
 several people in opposite boxes who were able to 
 observe her. Mme. de Pompadour's face was 
 brazen; all that was noticed was that she bit her 
 upper lip for quite some time. 
 
 She bore the insult as she would have done a 
 fine harangue or else a long flattery. Since this 
 event, Mme. la Marquise has never failed to in- 
 form her husband of the plays or concerts she was 
 to attend; it is the tacit and acknowledged order 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 249 
 
 not to be present himself, to avoid troubles of 
 this nature. 
 
 The good-natured d'Etioles submits to this be- 
 cause of Louis XV; yet when he demands that his 
 wife use her influence in an affair, which is an ex- 
 tremely rare thing, and always of indispensable 
 justice, or when he wishes to prevent her from do- 
 ing something which is not in the order, relatively 
 to the interests of the family, he says to Abbe 
 Boyle, who is their go-between : " Tell my wife that 
 I shall go to the chateau, that I have resolved to 
 do so, and that I shall make the vaults and ceilings 
 resound with the equity of the things I ask and 
 demand.'' 
 
 Poor d'Etioles, at the beginning, did not know 
 what to call her. Mile, Poisson? She was his 
 legitimate wife, he had had a child by her, and she 
 was not a demoiselle, although no longer his wife. 
 Mme. d'Etioles? She had punished at the be- 
 ginning an imprudent fellow who had neglected to 
 name her according to her new title. My wife? 
 This term was reserved by M. Le Normant 
 d'Etioles for the occasions of a threat. 
 
 One day she wished to have again the superb 
 
250 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 portrait by La Tour which he had of her. '* Go 
 tell my wife to come and get it herself,'* he sent 
 word by Abbe Boyle. 
 
 This abbe has supplied me with other details 
 and circumstances which I have reported in this 
 chapter. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 Abbe Boyle has just told me divers very pi- 
 quant anecdotes about the interior of the Court, 
 about the King, about Mme. la Marquise, about 
 the Due de Choiseul; it is from him that I have 
 some of those included in this chapter. 
 
 Only a short time ago was the long-wished-for 
 peace signed between the King and the King of 
 England, and I do not know if Mme. de Pompa- 
 dour has not herself had the abbe tell me the 
 following. 
 
 One can not imagine the arrogance and the tone 
 which our cabinet is allowing the King of England 
 to affect. M. Bedford disputed the ground foot 
 by foot on the etiquette and on the titles, to the 
 point that it is not Louis XV who, in the treaty, 
 is named Kin^ of France, but in truth the King 
 of England; it is altogether incomprehensible, it 
 is the world upside down. Louis XV is qualified 
 only as Most Christian King, while in his qualifi- 
 
 251 
 
252 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 cations, the King of England accumulates all his 
 titles of King of different crowns. 
 
 Mme. de Pompadour became furious against 
 M. de Choiseul, who permits in a document so 
 solemn such a blunder, or such pretension. She 
 told him that the treaty degraded the King and the 
 French monarchy and it was necessary to recover 
 from the English the title of King of France^ 
 sword in hand, since their King usurped it and 
 proceed, if needs be, to that island inhabited by 
 regicides, to avenge the honour and the inde- 
 pendence of the Crown to thus force England as 
 well as her prince to respect the King. 
 
 M. le Due de Choiseul replied to her that there 
 was in Europe an acknowledged form which did 
 not easily permit to one of the contracting powers 
 any changes in its favour; he said that precedence 
 was one of the thorns of the ministry of Foreign 
 Affairs and that usage granted to the King of Eng- 
 land the title of King of France, 
 
 " I should have tolerated it for the peace of 
 1748,'' replied Mme. de Pompadour; " the King 
 wished a treaty at all cost, but to-day must we lose 
 our colonies, titles and honour? To whom at 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 253 
 
 least does precedence then remain? To the King 
 of England, according to ancient usages and dip- 
 lomatic etiquette? Say rather to the King of 
 France, since, according to the form which you 
 quote, it thus calls the King of England; for it can 
 not be said that a king who is but half a king, such 
 as that of the English, and who has in reality but 
 eight millions of subjects, can raise himself either 
 to the rank, or even less above a monarch who has 
 twenty millions subject to his authority, without 
 some French objections. What will all Europe 
 and the Parisians say of us if we permit that in a 
 treaty the King of England take from Louis XV 
 his title of King of France and bestow on him 
 that of Most Christian King? If I advise you, 
 Monsieur, to make a change, and to add to that 
 title of Most Christian King, that of King of 
 England, do you believe that on reading that 
 treaty, there would not be an uproar? Would 
 you permit the signing of a treaty thus worded? " 
 
 " Louis XIV had permitted it," said Choiseul. 
 
 " It Is not believable that Louis the Great ever 
 permitted the successor of Henry VIII, execu- 
 tioner of the queens of England; the successor of 
 
*S4 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 Mary, who drenched the island with the blood of 
 Protestants ; of Elizabeth, who drenched it with the 
 blood of Catholics, and caused to be beheaded a 
 dowager Queen of France, her sister, the reigning 
 Queen of Scotland; or Cromwell, the assassin of 
 Charles I ; of William, the usurper of the throne 
 of a legitimate prince, to take towards him, in a 
 treaty, the tone of superiority and of precedence. 
 I have studied my history quite well. The 
 blood of the House of Bourbon is august; the 
 blood of the Kings of England is ignoble and bar- 
 barian. The English people are of all people the 
 most ferocious. Nothing must be left undone to 
 change so humiliating an etiquette. The simple 
 comparison of a King of France and of a King of 
 England would be insulting. Can ferocity and 
 civilisation be compared? 
 
 " When Louis XIV read the law to the Eng- 
 lish, he was unable to change the etiquette; we 
 receive it now, and the occasion is not favourable ; 
 the treaty contains articles much more disagreeable. 
 It Is due to the necessity of circumstances, but these 
 circumstances will change, I have promised the 
 King." 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 When Mme. d'Etioles had succeeded in attract- 
 ing the attention of the monarch towards her, she 
 might have been called one of the very beautiful 
 women of the capital, and perhaps the most 
 beautiful. 
 
 There was In the ensemble of her countenance 
 such a mixture of vivacity and tenderness, she was 
 so much what is called at the same time a pretty 
 woman and a beautiful woman that the combining 
 of these opposite qualities made of her a sort of 
 phenomenon. 
 
 It is not so much of the form of her face that 
 I wish to speak as of the use she could make of 
 it and of the mobility of her features. 
 
 That woman had so well studied her face that 
 she could affect any expression at will. 
 
 Did she wish to impress the King? She gave 
 herself the forms of beauty, by solely retaining the 
 proper calmness and the peaceable and sedate air 
 
 255 
 
256 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 of her face, and this calmness was necessary to the 
 development of the beautiful forms which she com- 
 bined and which were very numerous. 
 
 Did she wish to heighten the imposing calm and 
 representative tone by some enticement ? She had 
 recourse to the astonishing mobility of her eyes 
 and of her entire countenance and to those natural 
 movements which good connoisseurs call vivacity; 
 and that addition gave a new value to the beauty 
 of her divine face. Mme. de Pompadour thus was 
 a beautiful woman simply, and at will ; or beautiful 
 and vivacious together or alternately, which was 
 due to the lessons which her mother caused to be 
 given her by comedians, by celebrated courtesans, 
 by preachers and by advocates. 
 
 That diabolic woman had sought in all the arts 
 which demand a great and varied physiognomy, 
 special lessons to truly make of her daughter a 
 morceau de rot, a morsel which subjugated a 
 feeble prince who was already called in Mme. 
 d'Etioles' intimate circle: le Rot Petaud; in short, 
 to make of her a woman so bewitching that, with- 
 out wishing it, she had in her youth rendered 
 her husband madly in love with her person, as. 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 257 
 
 designedly, she had inspired the same sentiments 
 in the King. 
 
 Besides all the attractions of a beautiful face 
 and of a face full of vivacity, Mme. de Pompadour 
 still possessed to a supreme degree the art of giv- 
 ing herself another sort of face. 
 
 The languishing and sentimental tone which 
 pleases so many individuals or which at least is 
 pleasant to all men without exception, in many 
 circumstances, Mme. de Pompadour knew how 
 to affect, when needed; so she had what people 
 at Court have least, the gift of tears; but this gift 
 the lady used but as clever comedians do in the 
 presence of a public observant of the impression 
 they experience. Louis XV, in this respect, was 
 the public of Mme. de Pompadour. 
 
 How then could a null and apathetic King re- 
 sist the power of such an actress, when that dan- 
 gerous woman was, according to circumstances, 
 and even at will, beautiful and pretty at one and 
 the same time; or else, beautiful and pretty in 
 part, and at the same time remarkable for her 
 vivacities or her languidness? According to cir- 
 cumstances her face could assume a different 
 
2S8 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 character : she was at will superb, imperious, calm, 
 roguish, lively, sensitive, inquisitive, attentive, ac- 
 cording as she gave to her glances, to her lips, to 
 her forehead, such or such a variation or expres- 
 sion; so that, without changing the attitude of 
 her body, her pernicious face was a perfect 
 Proteus. 
 
 What a pity that with so much beauty there 
 should have been in the middle face and in the 
 centre of so many different expressions a dis- 
 gusting habit! Mme. de Pompadour had pale 
 and faded lips, a defect due to excessively bit- 
 ing them, which had broken the imperceptible 
 veins, from which resulted a yellowish and dirty 
 colour which appeared on them when she did not 
 bite them or when she had not bitten them for 
 some time. 
 
 As long as the Court has been willing to believe 
 that Mme. de Pompadour had colour in her face, 
 she did not use rouge in an apparent manner: she 
 was content with a shade ; then she had the weak- 
 ness to speak much ill against rouge and against 
 the ladies of the Court who " illuminated '* their 
 looks. 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 259 
 
 Her eyes have received from nature such vi- 
 vacity that it seems that a light detaches itself 
 from them when she casts a glance. Her eyes 
 are chestnut, her teeth very beautiful, as well as 
 her hands. 
 
 As to her figure, It Is slender, well proportioned, 
 of medium size and faultless. She knows all this 
 so well that she Is most careful to help It by all the 
 aids of art. 
 
 She Invented negliges which fashion has adopted 
 and which are called dresses a la Pompadour, the 
 shapes of which are such, that they resemble jack- 
 ets in the Turkish style, are tight about the neck 
 and are buttoned below the wrist ; they are adapted 
 to the roundness of the bust, and fit closely about 
 the hips, making prominent all the beauties of the 
 figure, by appearing to want to conceal them. 
 
 It Is known besides that she disguises herself 
 as a peasant, milkmaid, grey nun, farm-girl, or 
 garden-maid, to surprise and incite the King. 
 
 As to the habits, to motions, and bearing of her 
 body, as lady to the Queen, she has been only and 
 can only be a grisette, for her tone is bourgeois. 
 
 M. de Maurepas made her say it : he did more, 
 
26o MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 he said in his songs that she was raised a la 
 grivoise. 
 
 The King, shocked by her first Improprieties, 
 was obliged to tell his courtiers: " It is an educa- 
 tion to be made, I feel it, but I must have a 
 woman, were it only to curb the Intriguers : and In 
 a finished education, one could not find the other 
 charms which I have noticed in her/' 
 
 It has become known through the King and M. 
 le Normant that she had boldnesses of another 
 character; but as I am taking measures so that 
 these anecdotes may be published at the proper 
 time. It Is useless for the public to go Into these 
 details; they could only be of use to the King's 
 Mercury. 
 
 As to the soul affections of the marquise, It is 
 known that she Is interested only In the present; 
 the future sometimes interests her very much; but 
 as she does not believe In the future life, she cares 
 little about what may be said or written of her 
 after her death. 
 
 She has an adage, always on her lips; It Is this: 
 " After us the deluge/' 
 
 Engrossed in the present, hungry for praise. 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 261 
 
 homage, respect real and pretended, natural or 
 forced submissions, she may be seen taking part in 
 a conversation in a fashionable salon, or taking her 
 place at a table on arriving at a circle, with the 
 imposing air of an exacting woman who seems to 
 say to you on entering: "Here I am, it is I.'* 
 That is the portrait I made of her twelve years 
 ago. 
 
 This is the one I made of her in 1758, when 
 she was said to be 37 or 38 years of age. What 
 decrepitude! What degeneration in the form! 
 What vileness in her face ! She habitually enjoys 
 covering her face with a layer of white and rouge ; 
 her vivacity is no longer but a grimace, a kind of 
 sardonic laugh, and her primitive languidness a 
 state of despondency. 
 
 She imagines, as the ladies of the Court, that 
 with a dazzling layer of rouge she will alter the 
 lined forms of her face: she still possesses large 
 and beautiful eyes, but what a glance comes from 
 those two vaults! how she combines all that is 
 necessary to appear a wicked woman! The ex- 
 treme thinness of Mme. de Pompadour, her 
 leaden complexion, greasy, shiny and livid, were 
 
2^2 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 notices which she received from nature that the 
 machine was wearing out. 
 
 She was from that time much more wicked, 
 more uneasy in society, and more exacting in the 
 services and the homages which she received. 
 
 She no longer came to Paris. At Court she 
 dared not show herself with so much audacity; 
 she covered her face with white, red and black; 
 the study of her looks, her toilette, her dress 
 daily became longer and more complicated. 
 
 She saw illness coming from afar, and she 
 found nothing in her reason, nor in her soul, which 
 prompted her towards resignation. 
 
 Her illness is long and painful, and If It Is a 
 poison, as it is whispered, It Is a very slow one. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 We should rejoice at the death of no one. In 
 speaking of the death of Mme. de Pompadour, it is 
 only permissible to rejoice at the deliverance of 
 the King and of his kingdom. 
 
 How little was Louis XV by the side of Mme. de 
 Pompadour! and if he had known it! He is so 
 careful of the proprieties that he would have shat- 
 tered his fetters fifteen years ago. 
 
 The public which loves to attribute the death of 
 the prominent to secret causes has always said 
 that the marquise was the victim of a plot. 
 
 It is more natural to attribute her slow fever 
 to her perpetual constraint, to the affronts which 
 she or hers receive in the capital, to the vexations 
 which she has experienced in the destruction of the 
 Jesuits, at her present standing with M. le Due de 
 Choiseul, to the shameful treaty concluded with 
 England, to the humiliation of France, to the 
 state of the finances, to the sarcasms which come 
 
 263 
 
264 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 from Berlin, to the victories and to the tone of 
 the King of Prussia which grieve her, to the new 
 disturbances which arise in the Parliaments, and. 
 at her perpetual fear of the King's death and of 
 having to go and rot in a convent by order of the 
 Dauphin when it comes. 
 
 She has been Queen of France: Louis XV has 
 been but the titulary and the guardian of the 
 crown. The fear of losing her power and of 
 again becoming a bourgeoise of Paris has always 
 tormented her. 
 
 She finally saw in every Jesuit, after she had 
 succeeded in destroying the order, only an assassin 
 or a poisoner. 
 
 She did not have the satisfaction of seeing Mon- 
 seigneur le Dauphin die ; but M. le Due de Choi- 
 seul has had the anguish to hear himself men- 
 tioned as the author of this deplorable loss, and 
 as the author of the death of the Queen, of the 
 Dauphine and even of that of Mme. de Pompa- 
 dour. 
 
 Many variations have been seen in public opin- 
 ion with regard to the attack on Louis XV. 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 265 
 
 The Jesuits did not fail to attribute it to the 
 Parliaments and the Parliaments to the Jesuits and 
 to the Clergy. 
 
 An opinion could at least be chosen in these 
 contradictory accusations which, at bottom, prove 
 nothing but the animosity of factions. But on 
 the death of the Queen, of the Dauphine and of 
 the son of Louis XV, almost everybody united, 
 without a proof, to accuse le Due de Choiseul; 
 and this minister who heard this, who has heard 
 the rumours, appears a simple observer of the 
 atrocious accusation without his having punished 
 any one. 
 
 At the archbishopric there is but one voice 
 against him in that regard. The archbishop 
 avenges himself with devout suavity. 
 
 The Jesuits, furious at what happens to them, 
 attribute these crimes to M. le Due de Choiseul 
 and to his sister, le Duchesse de Grammont. The 
 Due de Choiseul has overthrown the Jesuits; the 
 Jesuits wish to overthrow the duke. 
 
 At Court, comments are made, people read, 
 shout hurrahs. They are uttered In the duke's 
 
266 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 antechamber, between one's teeth. These ru- 
 mours are no doubt as mortifying as ill founded, 
 but why is M. de Choiseul a party leader? 
 
 If the marquise lived, she would no doubt be 
 accused also. The crime is much more analo- 
 gous to her character than to that of the Due de 
 Choiseul. Then it would not have been said that 
 the King had permitted the destruction of the 
 Jesuits and that of his son only as a punishment of 
 Damiens' attack and to prevent a repetition. 
 
 Then it would have been said that the future 
 and not the past was the cause of this perfidy. 
 It would have been said : " Mme. de Pompadour 
 did not wish to be sent into a convent by the 
 Dauphin on his coming to the crown." Mme. de 
 Choiseul takes the matter in high style: with 
 haughtiness and contempt. For my part, I can 
 not accuse M. de Choiseul, although he profits 
 much by the death of the Dauphin. I can not 
 conceal that the devout party has so well spattered 
 him that it will be difficult for him to efface the 
 opinion which it continues to spread. The loss of 
 its dear Jesuits has also embittered it. 
 
 At the present writing, they are committing fol- 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 267 
 
 lies in Brittany for M. d'Aiguillon. At Paris, 
 people will commit some against M. de Choiseul 
 if he does not take care, and this before long. 
 Just as M. de Choiseul will also commit some in 
 Brittany and Paris against the Due d'Aiguillon. 
 
 Only one of the parties aims at surpassing itself 
 in quickness to reach the goal they have in view. 
 
 It is time to end these Memoirs ; the years that 
 are to follow will give other pictures: MM. 
 d*Aiguillon and de Choiseul have in their oppo- 
 site characters and principles the wherewithal to 
 keep busy the Court, the capital, France and Eu- 
 rope. 
 
 They will put the universe in motion, because 
 they each have the power which stirs men and 
 empires. 
 
 M. de Choiseul has on his side the free-thinkers, 
 the Parliaments, the political bishops, the Jan- 
 senists and the King whom he subjugates ; he has 
 aims on the Dauphin's children; he wishes to or- 
 ganize a clergy of his own. 
 
 M. d'AiguiUon has possessed himself of the 
 minds of the King's daughters, of the Dauphin 
 when he lived, of the ex- Jesuits, of the Archbishop 
 
268 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 of Paris, of the Sulpiciens, of the devout persons 
 of the Court and of the city, of the Molinists, of 
 the grand council and of the pious bishops. 
 
 He wishes to take possession of Louis XV, who 
 is already wavering between the two parties, and 
 whose inclination will lead him to attach himself 
 to the most religious, to the most devoted to his 
 authority, and to the one which will leave him in 
 peace with his mistresses. 
 
 This is the state of the Court of France in Jan- 
 uary, 1765. 
 
 WILL OF MADAME LA MARQUISE DE POM- 
 PADOUR DATED NOVEMBER 15, 1757. 
 
 In the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy 
 Ghost. 
 
 " I, Jeanne- Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour, 
 wife j udicially separated from Charles Guillaume Le Normant, 
 equerry, have made and written my present testament and dis- 
 position of my last will, which I wish carried out in its 
 entirety. 
 
 " I rec6mmend my soul to God, begging Him to have pity 
 on it, to forgive my sins, and to grant me the grace to repent 
 of them and to die in dispositions worthy of His mercy, hoping 
 to appease His justice by the merit of the precious blood of 
 Jesus Christ, my Saviour, and by the powerful intercession of 
 the Holy Virgin, and of all the Saints in Paradise. 
 
 " I desire that my body be carried to the Capucines of the 
 place Vendome in Paris, without ceremony, and that it be 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 269 
 
 buried in the cellar of the chapel which has been granted to 
 me in their Church. 
 
 " I leave to M. Colin, in recognition of his at- 
 tachment to my person, a pension of 6,000 livres 
 
 " To M. Quesnay, four thousand livres 4,000 livres 
 
 ** To M. Nesmes, three thousand livres 3,000 livres 
 
 "To Lefevre, huntsman, twelve hundred livres... 1,200 livres 
 
 " To my three women, to Mile. Jeanneton, to my three 
 valets de chambre, cooks, officers, steward, butler, porter, the 
 income at ten per cent of a fund of five hundred livres ; .and 
 to make my instructions more clear I shall quote an example. 
 
 " Mile. Labbaty has been in my employ for twelve years ; 
 if I should die at this moment she would receive 600 livres 
 of life-annuity, being twelve times fifty, at ten per cent of 
 500 livres of Funds, seeing that for every year of service she 
 will be increased 50 livres more. 
 
 " I leave to my footmen, coachmen, doormen, chair-carriers, 
 porters, gardeners, women of the wardrobe and of the poultry- 
 yard, the Funds of 300 livres, of which they will be paid the 
 income, following the same method explained in the preceding 
 clause. 
 
 "I leave to the remainder of my servants who are not in- 
 cluded in the two above clauses, 150 livres in Funds, from 
 which they will receive a pension in the manner explained 
 above. 
 
 " Further, I order that all pensions and foundations made 
 in my lifetime be continued in their entirety. 
 
 "Further, I give to my two chamber-maids all that which 
 belongs to my wardrobe, in the line of clothes, linens, in- 
 cluding laces. 
 
 " Further, I give to my third chamber-maid a present of 
 3,000 livres, exclusive of her annuity; and to the woman of 
 the wardrobe serving me daily, 1,200 livres as a present, 
 exclusive of her annuity. 
 
270 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 " Further, to my three valets de chambre, each 3,000 francs 
 as a present, idem. 
 
 "I pray the King to accept the gift which I make to him 
 of my residence in Paris, as a palace for one of his grand- 
 sons. 
 
 " I desire that it be for Monseigneur le Comte de Provence. 
 
 "I also pray His Majesty to accept the gift which I make 
 to him of all the stones engraved by Gay, be they in bracelets, 
 rings, seals, etc., to augment his collection of engraved gems. 
 
 " As to the remainder of my furniture and real estate, 
 goods of any nature and in any place they may be, I give 
 and bequeath them to Abel Frangois Poisson, Marquis de 
 Marigny, my brother, whom I appoint and institute my 
 residuary legatee ; and in case of death, I name in his stead 
 and place M. Poisson de Malvoisin, sergeant-major in the 
 army, at present chief of brigade of Carabineers, and his 
 children. 
 
 " I appoint as executor of my present testament M. le 
 Prince de Soubise, to whom I give the power of acting and 
 of doing all that will be necessary for its entire execution 
 and he may see to the exact payment of all the life annuities 
 by me bequeathed. 
 
 " However painful may be for M. de Soubise the trust 
 which I give him, he must look upon it as a positive proof 
 of the confidence with which his honesty and virtue have 
 inspired me. 
 
 " I beg him to accept two of my rings, one my large aqua- 
 marina coloured diamond, the other one engraved by Gay, 
 representing friendship; I flatter myself that he will never 
 part with these and that they will remind him of the person 
 in the world who has had for him the tenderest affection. 
 
 " Done at Versailles the 15th November, 1757. 
 
 ''Signed: Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, 
 " Marquise de Pompadour.'' 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 271 
 
 On the back is mritten: 
 
 " I entail to Abel Frangois Poisson, my brother, Marquis 
 de Marigny, my land of the Marquisat-Pairie of Menars and 
 its appendages, such as it is on the day of my death, and to 
 his male children and grandchildren, and always to the elder. 
 
 " Should he have only daughters, the entail will not take 
 place, and the land will be divided among them. 
 
 " In the event of my brother's death, without posterity, I 
 appoint in his stead and place and on the same conditions, 
 M. Poisson de Malvoisin, at the present time chief of brigade 
 of Carabineers. 
 
 " At Versailles, the 30th March, 1761. 
 
 ''Signed: Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, 
 " Marquise de Pompadour." 
 
 CODICIL OF MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 "It is my will to give, as a mark of friendship, so that 
 they may remember me, to the following persons : 
 
 " To Mme. du Roure, the portrait of my daughter, in a 
 box ornamented with diamonds, 
 
 "Although my daughter has not the honour to belong to 
 her, she will remind her of the affection I had for Mme. du 
 Roure. 
 
 "To Mme. la Marechale de Mirepoix, my new watch with 
 diamonds. 
 
 "To Mme. de Chateau de Renaud, a box with a portrait 
 of the King, ornamented with diamonds, and which was to be 
 delivered to me one of these days. 
 
 " To Mme. la Duchesse de Choiseul, a silver box orna- 
 mented with diamonds. 
 
 " To Mme. la Duchesse de Grammont, a box with a dia- 
 mond butterfly. 
 
 " To M. de Due de Gontault, a pink-coloured wedding- 
 ring studded with diamonds, entwined with a green bow, 
 and a box of carnelian which he always liked very much. 
 
272 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 "To M. le Due de Choiseul, an aqua-marina coloured dia- 
 mond and a black box. 
 
 "To M. le Marechal de Soubise, a ring by Gay, represent- 
 ing friendship; this is his and my portrait during the twenty 
 years I have known him. 
 
 " To Mme. de Vamblemont, my necklace of emeralds. 
 
 "If I have forgotten any of my servants in my will, I beg 
 my brother to make provisions for them, and I confirm 
 my testament; I hope that he will consider good the codicil 
 which friendship prompts me to add and which I have caused 
 to be written by M. Colin, having only the strength to sign it. 
 
 "At Versailles, the isth April, 1764. 
 
 "Signed: 
 
 " La Marquise de Pompadour." 
 
 Note. — The originals of the said testaments 
 and codicils have been deposited with M. Baron 
 the younger, notary, as per act of the i6th April, 
 in which act M. Colin declared that Mme. de 
 Pompadour, after having dictated and signed the 
 provisions above mentioned, has charged him 
 verbally to distribute to some poor the money he 
 may find in the desk-shaped table belonging to 
 Madame, for which distribution he would find in 
 the same table a list alphabetically arranged, of the 
 names of those to whom Madame intends that the 
 money should be given. 
 
 Further, to generously reward the physicians, 
 surgeons, apothecaries and assistant-apothecaries 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 273 
 
 to the King, who have seen and cared for her dur- 
 ing her illness. 
 
 Finally, that she desired that 3,000 livres be 
 given to Mme. Bertrand, her nurse, because she 
 was much pleased with her. 
 
NOTES 
 
 1. Mme. de Pompadour was fifteen years and two months old 
 
 when on Thursday, March 9, 1741, at the Church of 
 Saint Eustache, she married Charles Guillaume le Nor- 
 mant, Lord of Etioles. 
 
 2. Marvelous qualifications had given to Mme. de Pompadour 
 
 all the charms and accomplishments which could make 
 of a woman the perfect model of her sex. 
 
 She sang well, played the harpsichord, danced with 
 wonderful grace, rode horseback as but few women can, 
 engraved, etc. 
 
 3. Louis de Mailly, marquis de Nesle, had by Armande 
 
 Felicie de la Porte-Mazarin five daughters who suc- 
 ceeded one another in the favor of Louis XV. 
 
 The oldest, Louise Julie, who was the King's first 
 mistress, had been married at sixteen to her cousin de 
 Mailly, comte de Rubempre; she was disgraced Nov. 2, 
 1742 and retired to a convent. 
 
 Pauline Felicie, two years younger and who succeeded 
 her, had married the Marquis de Vintimille and died 
 suddenly bearing a son to the King. 
 
 After a few months of sorrow, the youngest of the 
 Nesle sisters, Marie Anne, in 1734 Marquise de la Tour- 
 nelle, became in turn mistress to Louis XV. 
 
 Lady of the Queen's palace (1742), and made Duchesse 
 de Chateauroux in March, 1744, disgraced during the 
 illness of the King at Metz, she died suddenly at the 
 time she was returning to royal favor. 
 
 Of the two other daughters of the Marquis de Nesle, 
 one, Diane Adelaide, born in 1714, had married in 1742 
 
 275 
 
2y6 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 the Due de Lauragtiais; the other, Hortense, had the 
 same year married Frangois Marie de Fouilleux, Mar- 
 quis de Flavacourt. 
 
 4. Choisy-le-Roi, which to-day only shows to the tourists 
 
 its factory chimneys and the dull streets of a labouring 
 town, was, at the time of Louis XV, a rather lively place. 
 
 The chateau, of which Louis XV had, in the time of the 
 Nesle sisters, made his little house and hunting rendez- 
 vous, had been built by the Grande Mademoiselle, daugh- 
 ter of Gaston d'Orleans. It belonged to the Due de la 
 Valliere when Louis XV, attracted by its close proximity 
 to the hunting grounds of the Senart forest, made its 
 acquisition in 1739. His first care as owner was to 
 change the name of the village to Choisy-le-Roi from 
 that by which it was then known of Choisy-Mademoi- 
 selle. 
 
 The Revolution marked the end of the chateau of 
 Choisy. 
 
 5. The child born to Louis XV and Mme. de Vintimille oc- 
 
 cupied the attention of the King but a few months only, 
 just the duration of the grief caused to the King by the 
 death of the mother. He was brought up at Versailles, 
 was given the title of Comte de Luc, received a pension 
 from the King and the ownership of the regiment of 
 Royal Corse. He died during the First Empire. 
 
 6. Louis Armand Frangois du Plessis, Due de Richelieu, 
 
 grand-nephew of the great cardinal, widower in 171 1 of 
 Anne Catherine de Noailles, had married in 1744 Eliza- 
 beth Sophie de Lorraine, daughter of Prince de Guise. 
 
 7. Therese des Hayes, daughter of Marie Anne Carton-Dan- 
 
 court and of Samuel Boulerion des Hayes, had married 
 the former-general Alexandre Jean Joseph le Riche de 
 la Popeliniere and was then thirty years of age. 
 
 8. It was not without stupefaction that the public saw the 
 
 favourite's brother raised to the rank of marquis. 
 
 9. The following is as according to the record published by M. 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 277 
 
 Le Roi, an exact statement of expenses of the House- 
 hold of Mme. de Pompadour at Versailles: 
 
 " Nesme, head steward, 8,000 livres ; Collin, in charge 
 of the servants, 6,000; Quesnay, physician, supplied with 
 all, 3,000; Sauvant, 2,000; Gourbillon, 1,800; Aunay, 200; 
 Treon, 150; Neven, 100; Duhausset, chamber-maid, 150; 
 Courtaget, 150; Jeanneton, housekeeper, 400; Duguesnay, 
 wardrobe maid, 100; Lignes, maitre d'hotel, 600; Bensit, 
 chef, 400; Charles, assistant, 400; two kitchen boys, 400; 
 Pastry-cook, 400; Rotisseur, 400; Waiter, 200; Two 
 kitchen boys, 400; Chef of servants' quarters, 400; Other 
 chef of servants' quarters, 400; Assistant, 200; Waiter 
 of servants' quarters, 150. 
 
 "Butler, 400; Butler's boy, 150; Outrider, 800; Head 
 porter, 600; Four lackeys, 1,800; Torch-bearers, 300; Two 
 negroes, 1,800; One janitor, 400; Two chief carriers, 
 1,120; Two other carriers, 770; Three coachmen, 2,575; 
 Three post-boys, 1,566; Four grooms, 1,766; Three em- 
 broiderers, 1,500; The residence porter, 400." 
 10. This hotel d'Evreux is no other than the present Palais 
 de I'Elysee whose gardens, in the days of Mme. de Pom- 
 padour, took up a part of the Champs-Elysee (avenue 
 Gabriel). Built in 1718 by the architect Molet for 
 Comte d'Evreux, this residence became on the death of 
 the marquise the property of her brother the Marquis 
 de Marigny. Purchased by Louis XV to make of it 
 the hotel of the ambassador extraordinary, it served 
 for a time as a repository of the Crown. It was finally 
 acquired in 1773 by M. de Beaujon who, before living 
 in it, made complete alteration and turned it into one 
 of the most sumptuous residences of Paris. Seques- 
 tered as belonging to the Duchesse de Bourbon at the 
 time of the Revolution, the Elysee became a sort of 
 Tivoli where for some years public fetes were given. 
 
 Since then, it has been inhabited in turn by Prince 
 Murat under the First Empire, by the Duchesse de 
 
278 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 Berry during the Restauration, by the prince-president 
 at the time of the coup d'Etat of December and has 
 finally become under the third republic the presidential 
 residence. 
 II. Mme. de Pompadour, tired of her Celles residence, had 
 Bellevue built in 1748 on a piece of property of the 
 Sevres warren, whose site had charmed her. L'Assur- 
 ance and de I'lsle, her architects, were entrusted with 
 the work. The plan they imagined so pleased the 
 King that he himself undertook the watching of its exe- 
 cution. 
 
 Eight hundred workmen were employed on the work 
 and on the occasion of the completion the architect 
 L'Assurance received the cordon of Saint-Michel. Fi- 
 nally, on the 25th November, 1750, the King and his 
 suite, dressed in scarlet, came to Bellevue to inaugurate 
 the favourite's new residence, but the celebration was a 
 failure : the chimneys smoked, the plasters were not dry 
 and everybody had to go and sleep at Brimborion. 
 
 At Bellevue, the mode of living had that bourgeois sim- 
 plicity which Louis XV so enjoyed ; but few visitors were 
 received there. The hunt in the woods of Meudon and 
 comedy were the favourite pastimes of the favourites. 
 And on the stage of Bellevue were seen the plays then 
 in vogue of La Chaussee, Dancourt and Moncrif. In a 
 performance of Rousseau's, " Devin du Village," Mme. 
 de Pompadour triumphed in the character of Collin. 
 
 Mme. de Pompadour soon tired of Bellevue; in 1757, 
 hardly seven years after its construction, she sold it to 
 the King for the sum of 325,000 livres. 
 
 Bellevue had a sad ending. The Convention estab- 
 lished a garrison there; all was given up to plunder, the 
 orange trees were transported to the Tuileries, the park 
 was devastated, the magnificent salons served as offices 
 for the chief of division. In this way, the chateau 
 was not long in falling to ruin. It was sold in the 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 279 
 
 year V, to a certain M. Testut who demolished it. The 
 park after having passed through various hands, was 
 cut up in 1823. 
 
 12. The chevalier was imprisoned not at Mont Saint-Michel, 
 
 but in the Bastille and later at Pierre-Encize, not seven 
 years, but twenty-two months. 
 
 13. Mme. de Pompadour was obliged to keep close watch on 
 
 the King. What she feared was that he should contract 
 a genuine passion for some one of the inmates of the 
 Ermitage or, which would have been much more serious, 
 for a lady of quality. 
 
 Mme. de Pompadour lived in continual alarm since 
 she had ceased to share the King's couch. 
 
 14. Alexandrine Jeanne Le Normant d'Etioles, daughter of 
 
 Mme. de Pompadour, baptised at Saint Eustache, Au- 
 gust 18, 1744, died at the Couvent des Dames de I'As- 
 somption in 1754. 
 
 15. A full account of the trial of Damiens may be found in 
 
 a volume somewhat rare to-day: "Pieces originales et 
 procedure du proces fait a Robert Frangois Damiens" 
 Paris, 1757. The motives which prompted Damiens' at- 
 tack on the life of the King which to-day appears very 
 insignificant have never been brought to light. The 
 Jesuits having accused the Parliament, when the Par- 
 liament had everything to lose by the death of Louis 
 XV, since the Dauphin was the tool of the Jesuits, the 
 Parliament turned the accusation against them. 
 
 16. Louis XV's foreign policy was essentially conservative 
 
 and specially tended towards the maintenance of the 
 European equilibrium such as he had found it at the 
 beginning of his reign. 
 
 For particulars of the secret correspondence see the 
 Due de Broglie's: " Le Secret du Rot" Paris, 1878, 2 
 vol. 
 
 17. Feeling the time approach when she would no longer 
 
 hold the King by the bounds of passion, Mme. de Pom- 
 
28o MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 padour sought artificial means to continue to deceive 
 the desires of Louis XV. (Memoires de Mme. du Haus- 
 set.) 
 
 1 8. Mme. de Pompadour, thanks to her police, was kept 
 
 posted with regard to all the acts and movements of 
 the King. As soon as she saw the beginning of a liaison 
 that threatened to become dangerous, she made use of 
 all possible means to break it. 
 
 19. The King's young mistress referred to and whom the 
 
 author does not name is Mile. O'Morphy or Murphy, 
 ordinarily called la Morphise by contemporary writers. 
 According to some reports the King was struck by the 
 beauty of la petite Morphise who it is said had served 
 as a model for a "Holy Family,'' painted by Boucher 
 and destined to the Queen's private chapel. Mile. 
 O'Morphy was the youngest daughter of a dealer in 
 cast clothes ; the older daughters were all given to love 
 affairs but did not acquire the notoriety of their younger 
 sister. On occasion they also posed in painters' stu- 
 dios. 
 
 20. Among all the properties purchased by Mme. de Pompa- 
 
 dour during her favour, she liked none so much as the 
 Ermitage at Versailles, It was originally an irregular 
 quadrilateral of 14,000 French acres, situated north of 
 Versailles, between the Fountain of Neptune and the 
 Saint-Germain road. In 1746, when Mme. de Pom- 
 padour became its owner, all that was there were trees 
 in quincunx, a vegetable garden and a gardener's house. 
 She intrusted one of her architects, L'Assurance, with 
 the erection of a house and the tracing of a garden. 
 On one side there was a park in the French style, on 
 the other a botanical garden and a vegetable garden, 
 separated by a stone balustrade. The gardens were 
 filled with statues evoking love and beauty; the dwell- 
 ing house was built against the inclosure wall, on the 
 
MADAME DE POMPADOUR 281 
 
 side of the Saint-Germain road. All was ready in two 
 months. 
 
 After the death of Mme. de Pompadour in 1764, the 
 Ermitage, which should have gone to her brother, the 
 Marquis de Marigny, passed into the hands of M. de 
 Maurepas, and, after the death of the latter, in 1782, 
 it became the property of Mesdames Adelaide and Vic- 
 toire, daughters of Louis XV, who occupied it until the 
 Revolution. The Ermitage was sold as national prop- 
 erty September 27, 1793, for the sum of 262,000 livres. 
 It passed into various hands and finally disappeared 
 obscurely. 
 
 21. The statement that the house of the Parc-aux-Cerfs was 
 
 the same as the Ermitage is wholly inaccurate. The 
 mystery of the site of that building has never been 
 satisfactorily solved. Some writers have said that it 
 was rue d'Anjou, others rue Saint Mederic and others 
 still avenue de Saint Cloud. It is probable that there 
 was no hotel du Parc-aux-Cerfs, there was perhaps 
 several small houses, the greater number of which were 
 situated in the quarter of that name, at that time dis- 
 tant and solitary, and where the King during more 
 than fifteen years, had intimate relations with various 
 beauties and during variable periods. All stories re- 
 garding the Parc-aux-Cerfs must be considered as 
 grossly exaggerated. 
 
 22. The woman who caused the most anxiety to Mme. de 
 
 Pompadour was perhaps Mile, de Romans (Anne Cou- 
 pler, called de Romans). The King had contracted a 
 violent passion for her. 
 
 " Mile, de Romans was charming," says Mme. du 
 Hausset, " Madame de Pompadour knew that the King 
 saw her and confidants brought her alarming reports 
 of their frequent meetings." 
 

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