Four years spent in petty services of this kind was a severe test to the earnestness of purpose of a man fired with lofty ambitions and full of restless energy. Although at times suffering from secret irritation he remained master of himself and steadily refused to compromise his hope of great fortune by yielding to the dictates of present necessities. At last his patience was rewarded in a way worthy of the sacrifices he had made.
There was at this time a celebrated financier, named Paris du Verney, who for years had been organizing a great work, the École Militaire, actually in existence to-day on the Champs de Mars in Paris, but which seemed likely to languish at its beginning owing to the lack of Royal recognition.
Madame de Pompadour
As Paris du Verney had been the financial manager for Madame de Pompadour, and as he had been protected by her, a settled aversion was directed against him by all the members of the Royal family. The disasters of the Seven Years War had notably diminished the influence of the Marquise so that the École Militaire, considered as her work was regarded with an evil eye by the people of France. Nothing less than the official recognition of the school by the King’s visiting it in person, could lift it out of the disfavor into which it had fallen. But how could that indolent monarch
be induced to honor the old financier with a visit? This was the problem that for nine years occupied the mind and heart of Paris du Verney. All his efforts in this regard had however been in vain. The King was indifferent, the Princesses prejudiced; there seemed left no avenue through which approach could be made.
Matters were at this pass when the attention of du Verney was attracted by the young music master of Mesdames, now growing restless under the tedium of his showy but irksome charge. The shrewd mind of du Verney was quick to discover the latent business capacity which lay hidden under the exterior of a gay courtier. He determined to make a final effort for the accomplishment of his project by employing the mediation of the favorite of the Princesses, to whom he promised, if success should crown his efforts, an open pathway to the rapid acquisition of a brilliant and independent fortune.