The king read this letter to Madame de Pompadour, and then, turning upon his heel, said,
"I wish to hear no more about it. Things will last as they are as long as I shall."
On another occasion, Mirabeau the elder remarked in the drawing-room of Madame de Pompadour,
"This kingdom is in a deplorable state. There is neither national energy nor money. It can only be regenerated by a conquest like that of China, or by some great internal convulsion. But woe to those who live to see that. The French people do not do things by halves."
Madame de Pompadour herself was fully aware of the catastrophe which was impending, but she flattered herself that the storm would not burst during her life. She often said, "Après nous le déluge"—"After us comes the deluge."
The indications of approaching ruin were so evident that they could not escape the notice of any observing man. Even Louis XV. himself was not blind to the tendency of affairs, and only hoped to ward off a revolution while his day should last.
Lord Chesterfield visited France in 1753, twenty years before the death of Louis XV., and wrote as follows to his son:
"Wherever you are, inform yourself minutely of, and attend particularly to the affairs of France. They grow serious, and, in my opinion, will grow more so every day. The French nation reasons freely, which they never did before, upon matters of religion and government. In short, all the symptoms which I have ever met with in history previous to great changes and revolutions now exist and daily increase in France."
The great difficulty of raising money and the outrages resorted to for the accomplishment of that purpose alarmed the courtiers. One night, an officer of the government, sitting at the bedside of the king conversing upon the state of affairs, remarked,