Madame de Pompadour was born with noble instincts; her bitterest enemies have never denied that she possessed the most refined taste in all matters connected with the arts or letters. She sought to make of Louis XV. an artist-king; and it must be said to her praise that she ever strove to rouse him from his habitual indolence and lassitude by leading his inclinations into healthy channels. But, unfortunately, Louis XV., unlike his predecessor, could never understand that great monuments often make the glory of kings.
The petits soupers of Versailles would occasionally shed a ray of sunshine, or rather lamp light, over Louis the Fifteenth's habitual ennui. After supper, chansons, sallies, and repartee, would be the order of the night. Occasionally at these supper-parties some brilliant things would be said. One evening, when some one sang a complaint upon the misfortunes of our first father Adam, the king improvised the following couplet worthy of the best chansons of Collé:—
Il n'eut qu'une femme avec lui,
Encor c'etait la sienne;
Ici je vois celles d'autrui,
Et ne vois pas la mienne.
Louis XV. had, as we see, his moments of poetical inspiration. Anacreon could not have sung better than this.
Madame de Pompadour, born in the ranks of the people, and seating herself unceremoniously on the throne of Blanche of Castille—Madame de Pompadour, protecting philosophers and suppressing Jesuits, treating the great powers of the earth with the same sans façon as she did artists and men of letters,—was one of the thousand causes, petty and, trifling in themselves, which eventually accelerated the great French Revolution. Madame Dubarry but imitated her predecessor when she called a noble duke a sapajou (ape). The mot is pretty well known: "Annoncez le sapajou de Madame la Comtesse Dubarry," said a great lord of the court of Louis XV. one day. It would be a curious and most amusing task to enrich the French peerage with all the sobriquets bestowed by the mistresses of Louis XV. as titles of nobility upon the courtiers of Versailles. More than one illustrious name, which has been cited by France with pride, has lost its luster in the tainted atmosphere of Versailles.
"Not only," said Madame de Pompadour; one day to the Abbé de Bernis,—"not only have I all the nobility at my feet, but even my lap-dog is weary of their fawnings." In short, Madame de Pompadour reigned so imperiously, that once at Versailles, about the conclusion of dinner, an old man approached the king, and begged him to have the goodness to recommend him to Madame de Pompadour. All present laughed heartily at this conceit; except, however, the marchioness.
Madame de Maintenon had not more difficulty in amusing Louis XIV. when grown old and devout, than had Madame de Pompadour in diverting his successor, who, though still young, seemed like a man who had exhausted all the pleasures and enjoyments of life. About the time when the marchioness used to transform herself into milkmaids and peasant girls, she commenced building a very romantic hermitage in the park of Versailles, on the outskirts of the wood near the Saint Germain's road: viewed from without it seemed a true hermitage, worthy in all points of an anchorite's abode; but within it was a dwelling more suited to some old roué of the Regency. Vanloo, Boucher, and Latour had covered the walls and ceilings with all the images of pagan art. The garden was a chef d'oeuvre; it was a grove rather than a garden; a grove peopled with statues, intersected by a multitude of winding paths and alleys, and abounding with a number of arbors, recesses, and "shady blest retreats." In the middle of the garden there was a farm—a true model-farm—with its cattle, goats, and sheep, and all the paraphernalia of husbandry. The marchioness presided daily at the construction of this hermitage.
"Where are you going, marchioness?" Louis XV. would say on seeing her going out so frequently.
"Sire," she would reply, "I am building myself a hermitage for my old age. You know I am rather devout: I shall end my days in solitude."
"Yes," replied the king, "like all those who have loved deeply, or who have been loved deeply."