Part 18 (2/2)
As mistress, her duties were many: to manipulate and manage Versailles, please and captivate the king, make allies, win over the highest officials and keep control of them, put her own friends in office, attach to her favor every man of prominence,--princes and ministers,--keep in touch with the court, appease, humor, and win the honor of the courtiers, ”attach consciences, recompense capitulations, organize about the mistress an emulation of devotion and servility by means of prodigality of the favors of the king and the money of the state; but what was a more burdensome task,--she must occupy the king, aid and agitate him, fight off constantly, from day to day and hour to hour, ennui.”
This terrible ennui, indifference, enervation, this lazy and splenetic humor of the king, she succeeded in distracting, in soothing, and amusing. She understood him perfectly--therein lie the great secret of the favor of Mme. de Pompadour and the great reason of her long domination which only death could end. She had the patience and genius to soothe the many ills of the monarch, possessing an intuitive understanding of his moral temperament, and a complete comprehension of his nervous sensibility; these gifts were a science with her and enabled her to keep alive his taste for and enjoyment of life. Mme.
de Pompadour is said to have taken possession of the very existence of Louis XV.
”She appropriates and kills his time, robs him of the monotony of hours, draws him through a thousand pastimes in this eternity of ennui between morning and night, never abandoning him for a minute, not permitting him to fall back upon himself. She takes him away from work, disputes him to the ministers, hides him from the amba.s.sadors.
In his face must not be seen a cloud or the slightest trace of care of affairs; to Maurepas, in the act of reading some reports to the king, she says: 'Come now, M. de Maurepas, you turn the king yellow....
Adieu, M. de Maurepas'; and Maurepas gone, she takes the king, she smiles upon the lover, she cheers the man.”
In 1747, two years after her installation, she interested the king in a theatre, and inaugurated the famous representations at the Theatre des Pet.i.ts Appartements; she herself was one of its best actresses, singers, and musicians. All the members of the n.o.bility vied with one another in procuring admission to these performances, as auditors or actors. Her contemporaries say that she was without a rival in acting, for in that art she found opportunity to show her vivacity, her _esprit_ of tone, and her malice of expression, the effect of which was heightened by her voice, graceful figure, and tasteful attire, which became the envy of every court lady.
[Ill.u.s.tration 4: _MME. DE POMPADOUR AND A CLERICAL LOBBYIST After the painting by A. Casanova_ _Her influence and usurpation of power bore heavily upon every department of state; she appointed all the ministers, made all nominations, managed the foreign policy and politics, directed the army and even arranged the plans of battle. She was forced to receive foreign amba.s.sadors and ministers; she had to meet in the Cabinet de Travail and give council to the generals who were her proteges; the clergy went to her and laid before her their plaints, and through her the financiers arranged their transactions with the state. She was the greatest patroness of art that France ever possessed, giving to it the best hours of her leisure; it was her pastime, her consolation, her extravagance, and her ruin._]
Almost all rising young artists and men of letters were encouraged or pensioned by Mme. de Pompadour. Her salon would have become one of the most distinguished of the period, as she was, herself, the most remarkably talented and beautiful woman of her time, had not lack of moral principles and an intense love of power led her to seek the gratification of her ambitions in the much envied position of mistress of the king. To a.s.sist at her toilette became a favor more eagerly desired than presence at the _pet.i.t lever_ of the king. The court became more brilliant, the middle cla.s.s rose, the prestige of the n.o.bility declined; the last became, in general, but a crowd of _cordons bleus_, eager to claim the favor of any of her proteges.
Every n.o.ble house offered a daughter in marriage to her brother, whom she made _intendant_ of public buildings, and who looked with much displeasure upon the actions of his sister.
Mme. de Pompadour made a thorough study of the politics of Europe in relation to the affairs of the nation--a proceeding in which she was aided by her extraordinary intelligence, acute perception of difficulties and conditions, domestic and foreign; by the exercise of these qualities, she put herself in touch with the politics of France, always consulting the best of minds and winning many friends among them. In 1749 she succeeded in ridding herself of her p.r.o.nounced enemy, Maurepas, minister and confidential adviser of the king, and subsequently began her reign as absolute mistress and governor of France.
Her life then became one of constant labor, which gradually undermined her health. Appreciating the mental indolence of Louis, she would place before him a clear and succinct resume of all important questions of state affairs, which she, better than any other, knew how to present without wearying him. Realizing that her power depended upon her influence over the king, and that she was surrounded by men and women who were simply waiting for a favorable opportunity to cause her downfall, she was constantly on the defensive. She considered it ”the business of her life to make her yoke so easy and pleasant, and from habit so necessary to him, that an effort to shake it off would be an effort that would cause him real pain.” Her happiest hours--for she did not love the king--were those spent with her brother, the Marquis de Marigny, in the midst of artists, musicians, and men of letters.
As for the queen, she was in the background, absolutely. ”All the prerogatives of a princess of a sovereign house were, at this time, about 1750, conferred by the king upon Mme. de Pompadour, and all the pomp and parade then deemed indispensable to rank so exalted were fully a.s.sumed by her.” At the opera, she had her _loge_ with the king, her tribune at the chapel of Versailles where she heard ma.s.s, her servants were of the n.o.bility, her carriage had the ducal arms, her etiquette was that of Mme. de Montespan, Her father was enn.o.bled to De Marigny, her brother to be Marquis de Vandieres. The marriage of her daughter to a son of the king and his former mistress was planned, then with a son of Richelieu, then with others of the n.o.bility; fortunately, the girl died.
Mme. de Pompadour gradually ama.s.sed a royal fortune, buying the magnificent estate of Crecy for six hundred and fifty thousand livres; ”La Celle,” near Versailles, for twenty-six thousand livres; the Hotel d'Evreaux, at Paris, for seventy-five thousand livres--and these were her minor expenses; her paintings, sculpture, china, pottery, etc., cost France over thirty-six million livres. Her imagination in art and inventions was wonderful; she retouched and decorated the chateau in which she was received by the king; she made ”Choisy”--the king's property--her own, as it were, by all the embellishments she ordered and the expenditures which her lover lavished upon it at her request.
All the luxuries of the life at ”Choisy,” all the refinements even to the smallest detail, had their origin in her inventions. It was she who planned the fairy chateau with its wonderful furniture, her own invention.
At that time, her whole life was spent in adding variety to the life of the king and in distracting the ennui which pursued him. In her retreats she affected the simplicity of country life; the gardens contained sheepfolds and were free from the pomp of the conventional French gardens; there were cradles of myrtle and jasmine, rosebushes, rustic hiding places, statues of Cupid, and fields of jonquils filled the air with the most intoxicating perfume. There she amused her sovereign by appearing in various characters and acting the parts--now a royal personage, now a gardener's maid.
However, in spite of all cunning study of the sensuous nature of the king, in spite of this perpetual enchantment of his senses, this favorite was obliged to fight for her power every minute of her existence. If hers were a conquest, it was a laborious one, held only through ceaseless activity; continual brainwork, all the countermoves and manoeuvres of the courtesan, were required to keep Mme. de Pompadour seated in this position, which was surrounded by snares and dangers.
To possess the time of the king, occupy his enemies, soothe his fatigue, arouse his wearied body condemned to a milk diet, to preserve her beauty--all these were the least of her tasks. She must be ever watchful, see evil in every smile, danger in every success, divine secret plots, be on guard to resist the court, the royal family, the ministry. For her there was no moment of repose: even during the effusions of love she must act the spy upon the king, and, with presence of mind and calmness, must seek in the deceitful face of the man the secrets of the master.
Every morning witnessed the opening of a new comedy: a gay smile, a tranquil brow, a light song, must ever disguise the mind's preoccupation and all the machinations of her fertile brain. At one time the Comte d'Argenson, desiring to succeed Fleury as minister, almost arrived at supplanting Mme. de Pompadour by young Mme. de Choiseul, who, having charmed the king on one occasion, obtained from him a promise that he would make her his mistress--which would necessitate desertion of Mme. de Pompadour; but, by the natural charms of which age had not robbed her and by bringing all her past experience into play, Mme. de Pompadour once more scored a triumph and remained the actual minister to the king. All this nervous strain was gradually killing her, and, to overcome her physical weakness, her weary senses, her frigid disposition, she resorted to artificial stimulants to keep her blood at the boiling point and enable her to satisfy the phlegmatic king.
Undoubtedly the most disgraceful act of this all-powerful woman was the maintaining of a house of pleasure for the king, to which establishment she allured some of the most beautiful girls of the n.o.bility, as well as of the _bourgeoisie_. These young women supposed that they were being supported by a wealthy n.o.bleman; their children were given a pension of from three thousand to twelve thousand livres, and the mother received one hundred thousand francs and was sent to the provinces to marry; a father and mother were easily bought for the child. Thus was this clandestine trade carried on by those two--the king satisfying his utter depravity, and Mme. de Pompadour making herself all the more secure against a possible rival.
All this time her active brain was ever planning for higher honors and greater power. She aspired to becoming _dame de palais_, but as an excommunicated soul, a woman living in flagrant violation of the laws of morality and separated from her husband, she could not receive absolution from the Church, in spite of her intriguing to that effect.
She did succeed, however, in influencing the king to make her lady of honor to the queen; therefore, in gorgeous robes, she was ever afterward present at all court functions.
She began to patronize the great men of the day, to make of them her debtors, pension them, lodge them in the Palais d'Etat, secure them from prison, and to place them in the Academy. Voltaire became her favorite, and she made of him an Academician, historiographer of France, ordinary gentleman of the chamber, with permission to sell his charge and to retain the t.i.tle and privileges. For these favors he thanked her in the following poem:
”Ainsi donc vous reunissez Tous les arts, tous les gouts, tous les talents de plaire; Pompadour vous embellissez La Cour, le Parna.s.se et Cythere, Charme de tous les coeurs, tresor d'un seul mortel, Qu'un sort si beau soit eternel!”
[Thus you unite all the arts, all the tastes, all the talents, of pleasing; Pompadour, you embellish the court, Parna.s.sus, and Cythera.
Charm of all hearts, treasure of one mortal, may a lot so beautiful be eternal!]
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