At the start, people were full of enthusiasm and confidence. The victor of Mahon was esteemed as successful in war as in love. Nothing was dreamed of but mighty feats and conquests. But presently all took on a gloomy look. The convention of Closter-Seven, so imprudently signed by Marshal de Richelieu on September 8, 1757, was the signal for unnumbered catastrophes. “One does not die of grief,” wrote Bernis to Choiseul, December 13 of the same year, “for I am still alive after September 8. Since that epoch, faults have been accumulated in a fashion one can hardly explain, without supposing bad intentions. I have spoken with the greatest force to God and His saints. I excite pulses a little, and then the lethargy recommences; people open big eyes, and that is all there is about it.... It seems to me as if I were minister of foreign affairs in Limbo. Try, my dear count, if you can excite more than I the spirit of life which is becoming extinct in us; for my part, I have dealt all my great blows, and have concluded to be in an apoplexy like the others over sentiment, without ceasing to do my duty like a good citizen and an honest man.” The former abbé of the court become a minister, the once superficial man whom Voltaire used to call “Babet, the-bouquet-holder,” was indignant at the general apathy and carelessness. “It is unexampled,” wrote this friend of Madame de Pompadour, “that so great a game should be played with the same indifference as a game of checkers.... Sensitive, and, if I dare say it, sensible as I am, I am dying on the wheel, and my martyrdom is useless to France.... May God send us some will or other, or some one who will have one for us! I would be his valet de chambre if they liked, and with all my heart.”
As soon as the struggle began, unfortunate France was amazed at the illusions she had cherished. The truth appeared to her. Bernis comprehended that the shortest follies are the best. January 6, 1758, he wrote to Choiseul, then Ambassador to Vienna: “My advice would be to make peace, and to begin by a truce on land and sea. When I shall know what the King thinks of this idea, which I have not found in my manner of thinking, but which has been presented to me by good sense, reason, and necessity, I will inform you. Meanwhile, try to make M. de Kaunitz certain of two things that are equally true; namely, that the King will never abandon the Empress, but that it will never do for him to be ruined with her. Our respective faults have made a hopeless wreck of a great project which was infallible in the first days of September. It is a beautiful dream which it would be dangerous to carry further, but which it might some day be possible to resume with better actors and better combined military plans. The more directly I have been charged with this grand alliance, the more ought people to credit me when I counsel peace.”
Unfortunately, Madame de Pompadour was headstrong, which is one of the attributes of mediocrity of mind. Confounding heroism with obstinacy, she thought that to struggle indefinitely against ill fortune, was to display greatness of soul. The more faults a general of her choice committed, the more inveterately did she uphold him. She was like those gamesters who are checked by no ill luck, and who never give up playing until they are ruined. Public opinion condemned such obstinacy. The French do not know how to support reverses. They overwhelmed Soubise, defeated at Rossbach, with sarcasms, and appeared to be infatuated with the victor. People took the fashion of exalting Frederick the Great and of cursing his enemy, Madame de Pompadour, Cotillion IV., as she was called. Soubise was the scape-goat on whom rained all the jests, chansons, and satires:—
“Soubise dit, la lanterne à la main,
J’ai beau chercher, où diable est mon armée?
Elle était là pourtant hier matin,
Me l’a-t-on prise où l’aurais-je égarée?
Ah! je perds tout, je suis un étourdi;
Mais attendons au grand jour, à midi.
Que vois-je? O ciel! Que mon âme est ravie!