“Dans ces près fleuris
Qu’arrose la Seine,
Cherchez qui vous mêne,
Mes chères brébis.”
It was her charming device for winning the attention and generosity of Louis XIV., and attained its end.
The king awarded her a pension of two thousand livres, and the editor of the Mercure Galant, laying the credit of this good fortune to his own account, straightened out things by continuing to publish Madame Deshoulières’ verses gratis in his columns.
Once more the fine-weather friends flocked about her, and belauded her attractions, personal and intellectual. In these lay no exaggeration, for Antoinette Deshoulières was exceptionally gifted. Her conversation was brilliant, delicate, and sparkling with originality. The poets chanted her praises, and Benserade changed his sobriquet of the “Mendicant Muse” to the “Calliope Française.” Among other well-remembered trifles from her pen, the pretty poem of Les Oiseaux is to be recorded. It is by these charming productions that the memory of Antoinette Deshoulières lives. Her aims in graver poetry and drama fell below their mark. For her, these were the unattainable, and possibly it was failure in this direction which impelled her to a jealousy unworthy of her excellent judgment and native good taste, when she rendered high praise to the Phèdre of Pradon, and criticised in a satirical poem the grand tragedy of Racine on the same subject.
From every point of view it was a lamentable mistake, and laid her open to storms of sarcastic abuse—
“Dans un fauteuil doré Phèdre tremblante