Of the famous Court beauties who held influence over the kings, some possessed, and others affected, a taste for books, and volumes from their collections are eagerly sought for, partly for their associations, and partly on account of the elegance of their bindings. To name three or four of the most beautiful and most famous of these fair bibliophiles will suffice. First comes Diane de Poitiers, whose monogram, interlaced with that of her royal lover, Henri II., is to be found (along with the crescent of the chaste goddess Diana) on many books exquisitely bound by Le Faucheux.
The Marquise de Maintenon, widow of the deformed jester Scarron, who became the wife, if not the queen, of Louis XIV., was a woman of great tact and intelligence. She formed a valuable library; her books were handsomely bound, and stamped with her arms,—a lion rampant between two palm leaves.
The Marquise de Pompadour, whose books (principally dedicated to the menus plaisirs du Roi, like their owner) were bound by Biziaux, Derome, or Padeloup, and decorated with her arms,—azure, three towers argent. Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson was born the daughter of a butcher in 1722, but was created the Marquise de Pompadour, and, what is more singular, a “dame du palais de la Reine” by Louis XV. But she was beautiful exceedingly, and clever, and even Voltaire himself could not resist flattering her:
“Pompadour, ton crayon divin
Devait dessiner ton visage,
Jamais une plus belle main
N’eût fait un plus bel ouvrage.”
Was it her death from small-pox that suggested to Zola that awful closing chapter in “Nana”?
A book-plate was engraved for her, anonymous, but having the above-named arms; it does not appear, however, to have been fixed in her books. La Pompadour died in 1764, and her books were sold in Paris in the following year.