Dont tout Paris fait son idole,
Gagne quelque combat brillant,
On doit en faire compliment
À la divine d’Étiole.”[27]
France, always maddened by success, is in a real delirium. The Parliament of Paris sends a deputation to Lille to felicitate the King on his victory and entreat him “so far as may be, not to expose in future his sacred person, on which the welfare and safety of the State depend.” All the supreme courts of the kingdom imitate that of Paris, and the first president of the court of taxes exclaims in his address to the King: “Your Majesty’s conquests are so rapid that the point is how to safeguard the faith of our descendants and lessen the wonder of miracles, lest heroes should dispense themselves from following, and people from believing, in them.” But the conquest which chiefly preoccupies Louis XV. is that of his new mistress.
In July, 1745, she proudly displays eighty amorous epistles from the gallant sovereign; the motto on the seal is: Discreet and faithful; one of them is addressed: À la Marquise de Pompadour, and contains the brevet conferring this title. The new marquise instantly discards the name of Étioles, leaves off her husband’s arms, substitutes three towers in their place, and puts her servants in grand livery. This marquisate enchants Voltaire; he has become the official poet, courtier, and familiar of the favorite, and his complaisant muse thus celebrates the official accession of the new royal mistress:—
“Il sait aimer, il sait combattre;
Il envoie en ce beau séjour
Un brevet digne d’Henri quatre,
Signé: Louis, Mars et l’Amour.