International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1

The Fermier-général had a nephew named Lenorman d'Etioles, a young man of Amiable character, and with the feelings and habits of a gentleman. This was the reputed heir of the immense wealth of the old Fermier-général, according to the established laws, though Jeanne had on her side also some claims to a share of the property. A very simple means was however devised to prevent all after litigation, namely, by arranging a marriage between the two young people. Jeanne, as we have already seen, loved the king, and she married d'Etioles without her feelings in this respect undergoing any change. Versailles was her horizon, the goal to which she aspired. D'Etioles, it is said, became deeply enamored of his young bride; but this passion, which amounted almost to fanaticism, never touched her heart. To use her own words, she "accepted him with resignation, as a misfortune which was not to last long."

The hôtel of the new-married couple was organized upon a lordly footing; the best society in Paris was there to be found, for all those whose company was worth having deserted the salons of the fashionable world for those of Madame d'Etioles. Never until then had such a lavish display of luxury been seen. The young bride hoped by these means to make a noise at court, and thus pique the curiosity of the king. The days passed in fêtes and entertainments of every kind. The celebrated comedians of the day, the popular poets, artists, foreigners of distinction, all had ready access to the splendid mansion of Lenorman d'Etioles, of which the mistress was the life and ornament; every one visited there, in short, except the king.

Ever since the celebrated réunions of the Hôtel de Rambouillet, there have always been in France a succession of circles of beaux esprits, presided over by some queen of fashion. Louis XIV. hated these réunions, saying that the court was spread abroad into all [*illegible] hôtels of Paris. In fact, for many, the [*illegible ] of the Duchesse de Main or of the [*illegible ]ise de Lambert, of Madame de Tencin [*illegible] Madame Géoffrin, possessed far greater [*illegible ]ons than the already superannuated [*illegible ] of Versailles. The French Revolution [*illegible ] its rise in these very circles, for in them they laughed a little at the great powers of the earth, and there philosophy and liberty were allowed elbow-room. Thus, at Madame d'Etioles' might be seen old Fontenelle, who believed in nothing, not even in his own heart; Voltaire, still young, and armed with the keen weapons of his ready wit, prepared to make war upon those whose reign was of this world, above all upon the Jesuits; Montesquieu and Maupertuis, born skeptics and mockers; along with many others of a kindred spirit who had beheld the decline of royalty and religion, when Louis XIV., in the latter years of his reign, had permitted Scarron's widow to make religion fashionable, by cloaking France with the mask of hypocritical piety—a mask soon, however, to be torn aside by Philippe of Orleans in the wild saturnalia of the Regency. The Abbé de Bernis was also a constant visitor at the house of Madame d'Etioles; he was, in the parlance of the time, the Abbé de la Maison—it is true he had no other benefice—but little thought then, either the abbé of the house or the mistress of the house, that within ten years from that time they would reign over France as absolute ministers. There was one other individual of this brilliant circle worthy of a passing notice, and this was an amiable and simple-minded poet, of good appearance and the best temper in the world, named Gentil Bernard.14 Madame d'Etioles used to pet him like a spoiled child. Some said he was her lover. However that may be, Madame de Pompadour, who, whether she had or had not a secret penchant for the poet, never forgot her old friends, procured for him, as soon as she came into power, the appointment of librarian to the king at the château de Choisy, where she built him, at her own expense, a little cottage ornée, named by the poets of the time, the Parnassus of the French Anacreon. This appointment was a complete sinecure, for we know that the king never opened a book, and we are equally assured that Bernard never put his foot inside the library.

We have already named the Abbé, afterward Cardinal, de Bernis; and as he was the only individual who ever succeeded in being admitted into the entire confidence of the royal favorite, a brief notice of his birth, and rise and fall at court, may not be altogether out of place, so closely linked for many years were his fortunes with those of Madame de Pompadour.

Joachim de Pierres, abbé de Bernis, was born at Saint-Marcel, near Narbonne, in the month of May, 1715. His family, which was of the most ancient noblesse, was allied to the king through the house of Rohan; a circumstance, however, which did not prevent it being one of the poorest in the kingdom. As his relatives had nothing to give Joachim, they made him an abbé. Like Bernard, he came when very young to Paris, confiding in his lucky planet, smiling on every one, and reaping a plentiful harvest of smiles in return. He was then a handsome young man, with a bright eye and an animated mouth. In figure he was herculean, and here we find, in contradiction of Buffon's saying, that the style was not the man, no more than it was with Bernard, who was also of large stature.

Joachim passed the winter at Saint-Sulpice, but, like Boufflers a little later, far from singing the Canticles, he employed his time in the more mundane occupation of scribbling love-songs. At the end of the winter he was appointed vicar in a little town of his native department. "Vicar!" said Joachim; "I'll not disturb myself for such a trifle." Shortly afterward he was nominated Abbé de Bernis; but not a step would he budge from the capital. In Paris then he remained, penniless it is true, but without a care or thought for the future, and full of confidence in his lucky planet—a confidence which, it must be said, was not misplaced. His acquaintance with Madame d'Etioles began through an intrigue which he had with a certain marchande des modes, who worked for the future favorite. Having perceived the young girl one night at the theater in company with her lover, Madame d'Etioles summoned her the following morning to her house, and in the course of conversation inquired if that handsome young man she had with her at the theater was her cousin.

"No, madame," replied the milliner; "he is my lover."

"Ah, indeed! he is your lover is he? And what does he do?"

"No great things, madame; he makes verses."

"A maker of verses!" said Madame d'Etioles; "that is amusing. Do not forget my cap, and tell your young poet to come and see me."

In consequence of this invitation Bernis called on Madame d'Etioles, who Received him with all the graces in the world, and from that hour commenced a friendship which lasted for many years, and was the origin of De Bernis' future advancement in the world.

Despite his great acquaintances, our abbé was none the richer; but he laughed gaily at his poverty, and waited for better times. According to all accounts the garret which he inhabited was in a wretchedly dilapidated condition; his furniture consisted of a "bad bed covered with some mules' saddle-cloths, which M. de Ferriol had brought from Constantinople, a rickety table covered with books and papers and faded bouquets, and an old worm-eaten arm-chair." Our abbé's purse was no better garnished than his lodgings; and so well-known was this fact in the world, that Senac de Meilhan tells us, that "when the Abbé de Bernis supped out some one of the party always gave him a crown to pay his coach-hire. At first this gift had been invented as a pleasantry, on the abbé invariably refusing to stay to supper, alleging as an excuse that he had no carriage; but it was a pleasantry which continued for some time."

In society, however, De Bernis was a general favorite, and was everywhere Welcomed with open arms. They doated on Bernard, and they doated also on on Bernis. Voltaire wrote in verse to both, Duclos spoke of their wit, Helvetius gave them suppers, and the women did their best to spoil them.

From Cardinal de Fleury, however, our abbé received a rebuff. Having, in order to humor his relative the Princess de Rohan, who had lately taken him by the hand, applied to the minster for a convent, the latter sternly replied,—

"Monsieur l'Abbé, your debaucheries render you unworthy of the favors of the church. As long as I remain in power you shall obtain nothing."

"Well, Monseigneur," replied De Bernis, "I'll wait."

This repartee was an event; it was repeated and applauded everywhere until it reached the ears of royalty itself.

On Madame de Pompadour coming to power, the Princess de Rohan deigned to write to her in behalf of her dear abbé. "Madame la Marquis," she wrote, "you have not forgotten M. l'Abbé de Bernis; you will deign, I trust, to do something for him, he is worthy of your favors." Apropos of this letter, Madame de Pompadour wrote the following to some minister of the day: "I forgot, my dear Nigaud, to ask you what you have done for the Abbé de Bernis; write me word, I beg of you, as I shall see him on Sunday." Like Voltaire, Madame de Pompadour had the mania of nicknaming her friends and acquaintances; even the king himself figured more than once in her grotesque vocabulary.15

Madame de Pompadour presented her dear poet to the king, with a smile which so charmed Louis XV. that he offered De Bernis, in the first instance, an apartment in the Tuileries, and a pension of 1500 livres a year; and so cleverly did the future cardinal play his cards, by insinuating himself into the good graces of both the king and his mistress, that, after a sojourn of two years at the château, he was appointed ambassador from the court of France at Venice.

But it would appear that the Queen of the Adriatic did not suit the inclinations of our abbé; he sighed for Versailles, and the petits soupers of Louis XV. After a very short sojourn in Venice he demanded his recall from Madame de Pompadour, and on his return composed an epistle to his fair protectress, the opening lines of which we give as a fair specimen of his powers of versification:—

  On avait dit que l'enfant do Cythère  Prés du Lignon avait perdu le jour;  Mais je l'ai vu dans le bois solitaire  Où va rever la jeune Pompadour.  Il etait seul; le flambeau qui l'éclair  Ne brillait plus; mais les près d'alentour  L'onde, les bois, tout annonçait l'amour.

For the space of ten years the Abbé de Bernis was the shadow of Madame de Pompadour; he followed her everywhere, sometimes even too far. Louis XV. would meet him in all parts of the palace, in the private as well as the state apartments, which would make him say sometimes,—"Where are you going, Monsieur l'Abbé?" Our abbé would bow and smile, but say nothing. True to his character of abbé, he would listen at all the doors, saying that the chateau of the Tuileries was for him but one huge confessional. He ended, however, by knowing all things, and by sitting in council with the king and his mistress; and a precious trio it must be owned they made.

But evil times were coming on our abbé. In the ministry he was assailed by showers of chansons and epigrams. The Count de Tressan, above all, overwhelmed him with a violent satire. He could no longer hold his ground. Every one began to grow tired of him, even the fair president of the council; this was the coup de grace. The Duc de Choiseul, after replacing him in the good graces of Madame de Pompadour, succeeded also to his portfolio as minister. As some compensation, however, they gave him the cardinal's hat; a circumstance which elicited from some wit of the day the following couplet:—

  On dirait que Son Eminence  N'eut le chapeau de cardinal  Que pour tirer sa révérence.

Shortly afterward he was appointed Archbishop of Alby; but, according to custom, he never appeared in his diocese. In 1769 he departed for Rome, being nominated ambassador at the conclave for the nomination of Clement XIV., that priest so gay, so gentle, and so witty, who has written that sad people are like shrubs which never flower. Pope and cardinal understood each other admirably well. Our cardinal never returned to France; he had found in Rome a second fatherland, as sweet to his old ago as France had been to his youth. He inhabited a magnificent palace, which was for a length of time the hospitable refuge for all French travelers. All had ready welcome, from the humble priest and poor artist to the Princes and princesses of the blood royal. To use his own words,—"He kept an auberge of France in a square of Europe." He died in 1794, faithful to his God and to his king, and bitterly denouncing the French Revolution, which had despoiled him of his half million of francs per annum, and had swept disdainfully away all the pretty artificial flowers of his most artificial poetry. He died solitary and poor,—a strong contrast to the style in which he had lived. But to return.

Madame d'Etioles passed in the eyes of the world as a perfect model of a virtuous wife. She swore eternal fidelity to her husband, unless Louis XV. should fall in love with her,—a reservation her husband was the first to laugh at. At first this strange condition was spoken of as an excellent joke in the house; from thence it spread abroad, and finally reached Versailles. But the king, wishing to joke in return, contented himself by saving,—"I should like very much to see this husband."

M. d'Etioles possessed an abandoned château in the forest of Senart; Madame d'Etioles having learned that the king frequently hunted in the forest, persuaded her husband to have the chateau newly furnished, and put into a habitable state, alleging that the physicians had recommended a change of air for her vapors. The husband, suspecting nothing, had the château re-furnished an decorated in the most superb style. Once installed in her new abode, Madame d'Etioles gave orders for the building of three or four carriages of a most fairy-like lightness and elegance of form, in which she might drive away her vapors. According to her expectations, she frequently met the king in the forest; at first Louis XV. passed her by without bestowing the slightest attention, either on her or her equipage: afterward he remarked her or her equipage; afterward he remarked her horses,—"What a pretty phaeton!" said he, on meeting her for the third time. At length he remarked the lady herself, but it was merely to bestow a passing remark upon her beauty.

Madame d'Etioles, however, was not to be repelled; she continued to pass before the eyes of the royal sportsman: "sometimes as a goddess from Olympus, sometimes as an earthly queen; at one time she would appear in an azure robe seated in a rose-colored phaeton, at another in a robe of rose color in a phaeton of pale blue."16

In after days, Madame de Pompadour recalling to mind all these follies—serious though for her—said to the Prince de Soubise—"I can imagine myself reading a strange book; my life is an impossible romance, I cannot believe in it."

At Etioles, private theatricals were the fashion; Madame d'Etioles was the Clairon, the Camargo, and the Dangeville of the troop, which counted among its members some of the most illustrious personages of the day. Marshal de Richelieu, who was to be found wherever gallantry flourished, was an assiduous and constant spectator at these réunions. Madame d'Etioles, it is said, endeavored on more than one occasion to entice the king behind the scenes; but Louis, kept constantly in view by Madame de Chateauroux, never once left the royal box.

Two summers thus passed away without Madame d'Etioles obtaining aught from the king save a cold and distant glance, or a passing word or two; and this, for a woman of her ambition, was not sufficient. She returned to Paris at the close of the summer season, determined to change once more her plan of attack. A good opening was now before her, for Madame de Chateauroux was dead, the throne of the favorite vacant; not an hour was to be lost, for, with Louis XV. who could tell how soon a successor might be appointed?

The wished-for opportunity at length presented itself. In the month of December, 1744, a series of magnificent fêtes were given at the Hôtel de Ville; the women were masqued. In the course of the evening Madame d'Etioles succeeded in approaching the king,—

"Sire," she said, "you must explain to me, if you please, a strange dream. I dreamt that I was seated on a throne for an entire day; I do not affirm that this throne was the throne of France, yet I dare assert that it was a throne of purple, of gold, and of diamonds: this dream torments me—it is at once the joy and torment of my life. Sire, for mercy's sake, interpret it for me."

"The interpretation is very simple," replied the king; "but, in the first place it is absolutely necessary that that velvet masque should fall."

"You have seen me."

"Where?"

"In the forest of Senart."

"Then," said the king, "you can divine that we should like to see you again."

About a month or two after this interview, according to some biographers, Madame d'Etioles, being determined by a coup de main to attain her grand object, namely, the securing a permanent footing at Versailles, arrived one morning at the palace in a state of violent agitation, and demanded an audience of the king. One of the gentleman ushers, a certain M. de Bridge, who had been a guest at Etioles during the festivities of the preceding season, conducted her into the presence of Louis XV.

"Sire," she exclaimed, "I am lost; my husband knows my glory and my misfortune. I come to demand a refuge at your hands. If you shelter me not from his anger he will kill me."

From that hour she took up her residence at Versailles to quit it no more.

We know that Louis XV. passed his life in a state of constant lassitude and ennui, from which it was almost impossible to arouse him; indolence, indeed, may be said to have been the predominant trait in his character: he hated politics and political matters, and all allusions to state affairs were most irksome to him.

"Your people suffer, sire," said the Duke de Choiseul to him one day, after a long political harangue.

"Je m'ennuie!" replied the king.

By skillfully and constantly varying the amusements of her royal lover, with hunting-parties, promenades, fêtes, spectacles, and petits soupers, Madame d'Etioles was enabled to strengthen her empire over the heart of Louis XV., by making him feel how necessary she had become to his happiness. One striking advantage she had over her predecessors, and this was, the art she possessed of being able to metamorphose herself at all hours of the day. No one could better vary the play of her physiognomy than Madame de Pompadour. At one time she would appear languishing and sentimental as a madonna; at another, lively, gay, and coquettish, as a Spanish peasant girl. She possessed also, in a marvelous degree, the gift of tears: none knew better than she did when to weep, or how many tears it was necessary to shed. As a poet of the time has said, "She wept with so much art that she was enabled to give to her tears the value of pearls." Those who had seen her in the morning, superb, imperious, a queen in all the splendor of power, would find her in the evening, gay, whimsical, capricious, presiding over one of these petits soupers with all the exuberant and madcap gayety of an actress after the theater. The Abbé Soulavie, who saw her often, has left us a well-studied portrait of the favorite;—

"In addition to the charms of a beautiful and animated countenance, Madame de Pompadour possessed also, in an eminent degree, the art of transforming her features; and each new combination, equally beautiful, was another result of the deep study she had made of the affinity between her mind and her physiognomy. Without in the least altering her position, her countenance would become a perfect Proteus."

With intuitive tact, Madame de Pompadour very quickly perceived, that in order to amuse a king who took neither interest nor pleasure in arts and letters, other and more material enjoyments were necessary. She commenced, then, by transforming herself into an actress. The king was there like a wearied spectator of life; she felt, that in order to interest and enliven him, it was necessary to diversify frequently her character, and the spirit of her character. Twenty times a day would she change her dress, her appearance, and even her manner of walking and speaking; passing from gayety to gravity, from songs and smiles to love and sentiment. With syren-like voice, and a heart as light as the bird of the air, she would invent a thousand graceful blandishments for the amusement of her royal lover. Her beauty, which was marvelous, served her well in all these metamorphoses. She dressed, too, with exquisite art. Among the many costumes which she has invented, we may cite one which made quite a furore in its day, and this was the negligé a la Pompadour; a robe in the form of a Turkish vest, which designed with peculiar grace the contour of the figure. She would frequently pass entire mornings at her toilet in company with Louis XV., who would stand by giving his opinion and advice respecting the different costumes she adopted. The king, however, grew tired at length of having but one comedian. In vain would she disguise herself sometimes as a farm-girl, sometimes as a shepherdess; at one time as a peasant-girl, at another as a nun, in order to surprise him, or rather, to allow herself to be surprised by him in some one or other of the many turnings and windings of the park of Versailles. The king had at first been charmed by the novelty of the amusement, but by degrees he discovered that it was always one and the same woman under a thousand different disguises.

Perceiving that the king began to grow tired of this species of comedy, she had a theater constructed in the medal-room of the palace, she herself nominating the actors and actresses whom she considered worthy of performing with her on a stage which was to have but the king and a few favorite courtiers for audience. The Duc de Vallière was appointed stage-manager and director; for prompter they took an abbé, most probably the Abbé de Bernis; the company consisted of the Duc d'Orleans, the Duc d'Agen, the Duc de Nivernais, the Duc de Duras, the Comte de Maillebois, the Duc de Coigny, the Marquis d'Entraigues, the Duchesse de Brancas, the Comtesse d'Estrade, and Madame d'Angevilliers. The theater opened with a pièce de circonstance, by Dufresny the poet, entitled Le Mariage fait et rompu, in allusion to the marriage of Madame de Pompadour with M. d'Etioles. The little troupe commenced with comedy, but soon descended to opera and ballet. In song and dance, as well as in the representation of the passions, Madame de Pompadour was the only actress of real talent. In the characters of peasant-girls she was unsurpassed; but her chef d'oeuvre was the part of Collette in Rousseau's Devin de Village, which she played with a naïveté and tenderness that won all hearts.

Nothing was more difficult than to gain admission to this theater of dukes and duchesses, the tickets of admission for which were given by the king alone; and it must be said that Louis showed himself a much more rigorous janitor of his theater than he was of his palace: consequently it was no slight favor for Voltaire, who had for a length of time aspired to the pleasures of Versailles, to see his Enfant Prodigue played on the boards of the court theater. Voltaire had, like all men the weakness of wishing to govern the state; intoxicated with literary successes, he now aspired to political honors. He hoped to become minister or ambassador through the favor of Madame de Pompadour; and with a little more tact he might have become ambassador, minister, or even cardinal, had he wished it, but at the very moment when he fancied he had attained the object of his ambition, he lost it forever by writing the famous lines, commencing,—

  Pompadour, vous embellisez  La cour, le Parnasse, et Cythère.

These verses, as we know, provoked a little remonstrance from the queen and her daughters: all was lost for Voltaire, despite the goodwill of Madame de Pompadour, who, for the rest, seeing that the cause was a bad one, cared not to risk her own favor by imprudent attempts. Voltaire never pardoned the marchioness her lukewarm intercession; and like a true poet, revenged himself by a succession of madrigals, chansons, and rhymes, without number,—all leveled, though in a playful way, at the head of the favorite.