“On ne trace que sur le sable
La parole vague et peu stable
De tous les seigneurs de la cour;
Mais sur le bronze inaltérable
Les Muses ont tracé le nom de Pompadour
Et sa parole invariable.”[32]
Pastorals, opera ballets, comedies, succeeded each other quickly. (The complete list may be found in the opuscule of M. Adolphe Julien.) The usual spectators were those of the actors and actresses who were not playing, Marshal Saxe, Marshal de Duras, all the ministers, President Hénault, the Abbé de Bernis. The King did not have a fauteuil. He sat in an ordinary chair and, according to the Duke de Luynes, he seemed to be amused.
The Marquise was charming in the ballet of Almases. She had a splendid costume: a low-cut corsage of pink taffeta trimmed with silver wire, a petticoat of the same, pinked out with silver, opening over a second petticoat of white taffeta pinked out and embroidered in rose color; the mantle draping the whole was of white taffeta glazed with silver and embroidered in flowers of their natural color.
The first dancer of the troupe was the Marquis de Courtenvaux; the second, Count de Langeron. Others were the Duke de Beuvron and Count de Melfort, to whom were adjoined a ballet corps composed of young boys and little girls. Mesdemoiselles Gaussin and Dumesnil, of the Comédie-Française, gave advice to the actresses.
Under the title of Comédies et ballets des petites apartements, a collection was published, bearing on its title-page a notice that it was “Printed by express command of His Majesty.” Many were displeased by this, especially the courtiers who were not admitted to the much-envied entertainments. The Marquis d’Argenson, who for some time had ceased to be minister of foreign affairs, wrote March 1, 1748, in his Danubian peasant style: “They have just published a very ridiculous collection of the divertisements of the theatre of the cabinets or small apartments of His Majesty,—wretched and flattering lyrics; one finds in it dancing and singing actors, general officers and buffoons, great court ladies and theatre girls. In fact, the King spends his time nowadays in seeing the Marquise and the other personages trained by all these professional actors, who familiarize themselves with the monarch in an impious and sacrilegious fashion.”