The court of Louis XV - Imbert de Saint-Amand

		PAGE
Introduction		[1]
FIRST PART
[1715–1744]
CHAPTER
I.	The Infanta Marie Anne Victoire, Betrothedof Louis XV	[13]
II.	The Marriage of Marie Leczinska	[23]
III.	The Disgrace of the Marquise de Prie	[31]
IV.	The King Faithful to the Queen	[39]
V.	The Favor of the Countess de Mailly	[46]
VI.	The Countess de Vintimille	[53]
VII.	The Disgrace of the Countess de Mailly	[59]
VIII.	The Reign of the Duchess de Châteauroux	[68]
IX.	The Journey to Metz	[75]
X.	The Death of the Duchess de Châteauroux	[84]
SECOND PART
[1745–1768]
I.	Louis XV. and the Royal Family in 1745	[97]
II.	The Beginnings of the Marquise de Pompadour	[116]
III.	The New Marquise	[125]
IV.	Madame de Pompadour’s Theatre	[133]
V.	The Grandeurs of the Marquise de Pompadour	[147]
VI.	The Griefs of the Marquise de Pompadour	[156]
VII.	Madame de Pompadour, Lady of the Queen’s Palace	[168]
VIII.	Madame de Pompadour and the Attempt of Damiens	[180]
IX.	Madame de Pompadour and Domestic Politics	[193]
X.	Madame de Pompadour and the Seven Years’ War	[201]
XI.	Madame de Pompadour and the Philosophers	[214]
XII.	The Death of the Marquise de Pompadour	[225]
XIII.	The Old Age of Marie Leczinska	[233]
XIV.	Marie Leczinska and her Daughters	[245]
XV.	The Dauphiness Marie Josèphe of Saxony	[258]
XVI.	The Death of Marie Leczinska	[269]

THE COURT OF LOUIS XV.

INTRODUCTION

If you want romance, said M. Guizot one day, why not turn to history? The great author was right. The historical novel is out of fashion at present. People are tired of seeing celebrated people misrepresented, and they agree with Boileau that

“Nothing is so beautiful as the true, the true alone is lovely.”

Are there, in fact, any inventions more striking than reality? Can any novelist, however ingenious, find more varied combinations or more interesting scenes than the dramas of history? Could the most fertile mind imagine any types so curious as, for example, the women of the court of Louis XV.? The eternal womanly, as Goethe said, is all there with its vices and virtues, its pettiness and its grandeur, its weakness and its strength, its egotism and its devotion. What an instructive gallery! What diverse figures, from such a saint as Madame Louise of France, the Carmelite, to Madame Dubarry, the courtesan! In the Countess de Mailly, we have the modest favorite; in the Duchess de Châteauroux, the haughty favorite; in the Marquise de Pompadour, the intriguer, the female minister, the statesman; in Queen Marie Leczinska, the model of conjugal duty and fidelity; in the Dauphiness Marie Antoinette, the resplendent image of grace and youth, of poesy and purity; in the six daughters of the King, Madame the Infanta, so tender toward her father; Madame Henriette, her twin sister, who died of chagrin at twenty-four because she could not marry according to her inclination; Madame Adelaide and Madame Victoire, inseparable in adversity as well as in happier days; Madame Sophie, gentle and timid; Madame Louise, Amazon and Carmelite by turns, who cried in the delirium of her last agony: “To Paradise, quick, quick, to Paradise at full gallop!”

History is the resurrection of the dead, but this resurrection is not an easy matter. To withdraw one’s self from the present in order to live in the past, to display characters, to make audible the words of all these personages who are sleeping their last sleep, to rekindle so many extinct flames, evoke so many vanished shades, is a work that would need the wand of a magician. History interests and impassions only when it penetrates the secret of souls. To make it a painting, in animated tones and warm colors, and not an insignificant monochrome, it is necessary that men and things should reappear as in a mirror that reflects the past.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION