might imagine, but Louis XV. He says: “Judicious people praise his
sensibility, which is the proof of a good character, but they fear for
his health. The common herd are rather pleased than otherwise at this
death; they would like to have the King unsentimental and take another
one to-morrow.” The Marquis d’Argenson writes to Richelieu: “Our poor
master has a look which makes one tremble for his life.” D’Argenson
might reassure himself. Louis XV. was far too feeble to suffer a long
sorrow. His emotions were keen but transitory. There was but one
thing in his character which had any tenacity, and that was ennui. He
belonged to the numerous family of egoists. Some of them weep a good
deal, but console themselves quickly. Nothing was to be changed in the
habits of the master. A few days more and the name of the Duchess de
Châteauroux would be no more spoken. There was but one person who truly
regretted her, and that was Madame de Mailly, the sister to whom she
had shown herself so coldly and pitilessly cruel.
An impression of melancholy and sorrow is what remains from all this.
What, in brief, was the fate of the three sisters chosen by royal
caprice? One of them, the Countess de Vintimille, died in childbed at
the age of twenty-eight, and her death was the direct consequence,
the immediate chastisement, of her fault. Another, the Duchess de
Châteauroux, breathed her last at the age of twenty-seven, the victim
of excessive anguish and humiliation. Her favor, like that of Madame
de Vintimille, had lasted only two years. The third, the Countess
de Mailly, better treated by Providence, since she had at least time
for repentance, lived until she was forty. But her last years were
merely one long immolation. She covered herself with ashes; she wore
a hair shirt; and if, as she was on her way to church, any passer-by
recognized and called her by some insulting name, she would say: “You
know me--well, then, pray for me.”
How ephemeral are the pleasures of courts! How sad its sensual
enjoyments! How dearly one pays for these swift moments of illegitimate
joy and false pride! Ah! I understand why Louis XV. should be
dissatisfied with others and with himself. I understand his exhaustion,
his discouragement, his remorse, and I am not amazed that, in spite of
the clink of glasses, the glitter of chandeliers, and the perfume of
flowers, the boudoirs of Versailles sometimes resembled sepulchres.
SECOND PART
[1745–1768]
[Illustration: MADAME DE POMPADOUR.]
I
LOUIS XV. AND THE ROYAL FAMILY IN 1745
The tragic end of the Duchess de Châteauroux should have inspired Louis
XV. with some sage reflections. It was otherwise. At the end of a few
weeks a new favorite installed herself in the apartment left vacant
by the defunct. Before narrating the long reign of the Marquise de
Pompadour, let us glance at the interior of the royal family at the
moment when this woman, who was much rather a minister in petticoats
than a mistress, and who unhappily personifies a whole epoch, came into
favor.
In 1745 Louis XV. is thirty-five years old. From the physical point
of view he is a model sovereign. His handsome face is characterized
by an expression of benevolent grandeur and gentle majesty. A fine
and sympathetic physiognomy, large blue eyes with an expressive and
profound regard, an aquiline nose, a truly royal way of carrying
his head, the most dignified attitude without the least appearance
of stiffness, manners both elegant and simple, an agreeable and
penetrating tone of voice, all contribute to give an exceptional
charm to this king whom all France surnames the Well-Beloved. He
shows extreme politeness to all who approach him, and one might say
that he seems to solicit the affection of those to whom he speaks.
An accomplished gentleman, he is always calm, always well-bred. He
is never irritated, never raises his voice. His domestics find him
the easiest of masters. One day as he is getting ready to mount on
horseback, somebody fetches him two boots for the same foot. He sits
down quietly and contents himself with saying: “He who made the mistake
is more annoyed than I am.”[17] In general he is reserved, taciturn;
he does not give himself away, but when he concludes to talk, his
conversation is full of ingenious views and judicious remarks; he has
wit and good sense.
In religious matters he is not a hypocrite; he belongs to that numerous
class of Christians who retain both their vices and the faith. He
goes to Mass every day. On Sundays and holy days he is also present
at Vespers, Sermon, and Benediction. As the Marquis d’Argenson says,
he “mutters his Paternosters and prayers in church with customary
decency,” and he is putting off to some future time his perfect
conversion. When he is urged to eat meat in Lent for the sake of his
health, he answers that one ought not to sin on all sides. At another
time he is heard congratulating himself on his rheumatic pains,
because, says he, his sufferings are an expiation for his faults.
One day when he is sending alms to a poor man, he exclaims: “Let this
poor man ask God to show mercy to me, for I greatly need it.” When the
feasts of the Church draw near, they occupy his mind and disturb it;
when he dares not communicate, through fear of sacrilege, his soul is
filled with sadness, and the flatteries of his courtiers cannot give
peace to his conscience.
His remorse takes the form of ennui. Dissatisfied with himself, he
often reflects that he is endangering his salvation for so-called
pleasures from which he frequently gains nothing but physical and moral
fatigue, which are still harder to endure. Egotism does not prevent him
from yielding to disgust. As is remarked by M. Capefigue himself, great
admirer as he is of royal pleasures, the capital defect of the King’s
character is to allow the immense ennui which consumes him to become
too evident. “He suffers the terrible chastisement imposed by satiety,
that cold branding of both soul and body; he experiences the emptiness
and impotence of sensuality.”
Such also is the conclusion of the Goncourts in their fine work, _Les
Maîtresses de Louis XV._ “Ennui,” they say, “is the sovereign’s evil
genius. It strikes with impotence all his fortunate natural endowments;
it ages, disarms, extinguishes his will, it stifles his conscience as
well as his kingly appetites. Ennui is the private torturer of his
sluggish existence, of his heavy hours.... So true is this that the
story of a king’s amours is also the story of the ennui of a man.”
The Memoirs of the Duke de Luynes fully confirm this appreciation.
He says in them: “The King’s temperament is neither gay nor lively;
it is even hypochondriacal. Details concerning maladies, operations,
very often matters that concern anatomy, and questions about where one
expects to be buried, are, unfortunately, the subjects of his ordinary
conversation.” “Where would you like to be buried?” he asks M. de
Souvré one day. “At Your Majesty’s feet,” replies the courtier, who
is noted for his frankness. Louis XV. remains pensive, because he has
just been reminded that kings are not immortal. How well these profound
words of Pascal apply to Louis XV.: “It does not require a very lofty
soul to understand that there is no true and solid satisfaction here
below, that all our pleasures are but vanities, that our woes are
infinite, and that in fine death, which threatens us every instant,
must put us in a few years, and perchance in a few days, in an eternal
state of happiness, or misery, or annihilation. Between us and heaven,
hell or nothingness, there is, then, nothing but life, which is the
most fragile of all things in the world; and heaven being certainly not
for those who doubt whether their soul is immortal, they have nothing
to expect but hell or nothingness. Nothing is more real than this, nor
more terrible. Do all that the brave demand of us, and yet there is
the end which awaits the most beautiful of lives.” Here is the secret
of the King’s implacable sadness. Like all men who have but half a
religion, he finds in it not consolations, but terrors. The feasts of
the Church are not joys but tortures to him.
His monarchical faith is like his religious faith; it disturbs rather
than reassures him. He feels himself unworthy to be the anointed of the
Lord. His conscience as a king troubles him as much as his conscience
as a Christian. He esteems neither himself nor those who surround him.
He willingly agrees with his minister of foreign affairs, the Marquis
d’Argenson, a monarchist who talks like a republican, that “Numerous
and magnificent courts, the bait of fools and the wicked, will never
make the splendor of royalty. There will always be display enough
in decency.... Be persuaded that the greatest vice of monarchical
governments is what is called the court. To begin with the monarch, it
is from him that all vices are drawn, and from him that they spread as
from the box of Pandora.” But do not exaggerate, do not force the note.
Recollect especially that republican courts--and there are such, for
democrats in power also have their courtiers--are neither more rigid
nor more moral than those of kings and emperors.
It must always be remembered that a real difference exists between the
royalty of Louis XIV. and that of Louis XV. Louis XIV. performed his
kingly duties with the facility of a great actor playing his part, or,
better, with the dignity of an officiating priest. Louis XV., on the
contrary, in spite of his noble bearing and the successful beginnings
of his reign, is almost ashamed of his royal dignity. He does not like
what is grand; what he prefers are small apartments, little suppers,
petty conversations. At times the monarch is not even a private
gentleman; he is a bourgeois who makes up his own kitchen accounts,
who saves candle-ends, who haggles with his domestics, who leads a
mean and grovelling existence. It is not he who would have chosen the
haughty device of the Sun King: _Nec pluribus impar_. The beams of
the royal star dazzle his eyes. What pleases him is not the splendid
glittering Gallery of Mirrors, but smart residences, little dwellings
hid in verdure; Choisy for example, where, as the Duke de Luynes puts
it, he is almost like a private person who takes pleasure in doing the
honors of his château.
But neither let us forget that from time to time Louis XV. has inklings
of greatness, dreams of glory and power. He is not the sluggard king
that badly informed historians portray. Military instincts revive
in him. The pride of his race awaked. “The King amidst his troops,
becomingly uniformed in white or blue or jonquil, his hat placed
coquettishly above his ear, the white cord, the shoulder-knot on his
coat, himself starts the gay speeches, the tales of gallantry. The
nobleman goes to battle in ruffles and powdered hair, with perfume
on his Brussels lace handkerchief; elegance has never done harm to
courage, and politeness is nobly allied to bravery.”[18]
1745 is a triumphant year, the year of Fontenoy, one of our greatest
national victories. There Louis XV. and the Dauphin behave like sons of
Henri IV. Voltaire’s enthusiasm when he celebrates this great day is
not made to order, and the advocate Barbier is sincere in exclaiming
that the reign of Louis XV. is the finest in all French history.
Nor let us believe that this monarch, over-lauded by his contemporaries
but too much decried by history, is as indolent as people like to
say. On the contrary, he works, and works a great deal. He not merely
presides with the greatest regularity at the ministerial council, but
he busies himself in a very special way with military and diplomatic
affairs. If he readily agrees with what is proposed by his ministers
without troubling himself to contradict them, it is because apart from
official politics he has a secret policy whose springs he personally
controls.[19] His intentions are good, he loves France sincerely. What
then will ruin him? Two defects which are nearly always inseparable:
sensuality and indecision.
Sensuality enfeebles, enervates; the man who is its victim can no
longer either act or will. In the end he arrives at that commonplace
benevolence, that insignificant good nature, that absence of character
and energy, those inconsistencies and hesitations which rob sovereigns
as well as private individuals of the very notion of just ideas and the
courage of salutary resolutions. Louis XV. comes from the arms of his
mistresses without force enough left to be a king.
Distrust and timidity form the basis of his character. “He knows he is
badly served,” says M. Boutaric; “absolute master, he has only to speak
to be obeyed, and, fortified by conscience, he can command, but he is
so timid, let us say the word, so pusillanimous, that after having
carefully sought the best way and seen it clearly, he nearly always
decides, although with regret, for the worst which is proposed to him
by his ministers or his mistresses. It is of public notoriety that when
the King proposes anything in council, his opinion is always combated,
and that, after making a number of objections, the prince always ends
by adopting that of his counsellors, knowing, meantime, that he is
doing wrong, and muttering to himself, ‘So much the worse; they would
have it.’” Thus he illustrates those lines of Horace:--
“Video meliora proboque,
Deteriora sequor.”
[Illustration: JEANNE D’ALBRET]
There are moments when, to use the expression of Duclos, he affects to
regard himself as a disgraced prince of the blood without any credit
at court. One day when the Queen is complaining of the opposition made
to one of her recommendations by a minister, he says: “Why don’t you
do as I do? I never ask anything of those people.” In spite of his
omnipotence he feels himself always under the necessity of employing
subterfuges and underhand expedients. According to a man who knew him
well and saw him every day, Le Roy, master of the hounds, he considered
dissimulation the most needful quality for a sovereign. “His hobby,”
says the Marquis d’Argenson, “is to be impenetrable.” Another of his
defects is to consider that very honest men are generally not very
able. Hence the great number of disreputable men whom he intrusts with
most important positions. With such a system he is doomed to perpetual
fluctuations, to that variability which is the sign of weakness. He
will hesitate between peace and war, between a Prussian and an Austrian
alliance, between the Parliamentarians and their enemies, between the
Jesuits and the Jansenists. He has a horror of the philosophers, and
he will make Voltaire a gentleman of the chamber and lodge Quesnay
in an entresol of the palace of Versailles. He sincerely believes in
the truth of the Catholic religion, and he will take as his mistress,
counsellor, and directress the friend of the Encyclopedists. By
conviction and principle he is essentially conservative, and he will be
the precursor of the Revolution.
“Oh! how well the word feebleness,” exclaims D’Argenson, “expresses the
passions of certain men endowed with good nature and facility. They
see and approve the best and they follow the worst. Their virility
is but a prolongation of childhood. Frequently they mistake the
shadow of pleasure for pleasure itself. Youthfulness, childishness,
self-love without pride, their acts of firmness are but obstinacy and
revolt.... With this sad character a prince thinks he governs well
when he simply does not govern at all. Every one deceives him, and he
is the chief of his own betrayers. He has mistresses for whom he has
no predilection, and absolute ministers in whom he does not confide.
All the defects of which foreigners accuse Frenchmen are found in
him; contrasts everywhere, the effects of a too frivolous imagination
which overmasters judgment; wasted talents, good taste which nothing
can satisfy, exactness in little things, inconstancy and lack of
enthusiasm in great ones ...; memory without remembrance; patience and
calm, promptitude and kindness, mystery and indiscretion, avidity for
new pleasures, disgust and ennui, momentary sensibility succeeded by
general and complete apathy ... total, a good master without humanity.”
Having thus drawn the portrait of Louis XV., D’Argenson says in
speaking of the Queen: “She attracts by certain attentions, she repels
by making her friendship too common. Her rank is a rallying signal
and, since the King has declared mistresses, those who inveigh against
scandal attach themselves to her for the sake of displeasing the King
and the favorite. Their murmurs are proportioned to the royal patience.”
In 1745 Marie Leczinska, who is the King’s senior by seven years, has
arrived at the age of forty-two. When her tenth child was born, July
15, 1737, Madame Louise, who was one day to become a Carmelite, some
one asked the King, who already had six living children, if the little
princess should be called Madame Seventh. He answered: “Madame Last.”
Thenceforward the Queen was neglected. Her husband has treated her with
frigid politeness, but has always kept her at a distance; he never
speaks to her except before witnesses. On New Year’s day he gives her
no presents. Not the least intimacy, the slightest unconstraint. The
short daily visits he pays her are matters of decorum, formalities of
etiquette. The Queen eats by herself. Between her apartments and those
of the King there is a barrier which she never crosses. The familiar
life and the cabinet suppers are not for her. Separated from each other
by the Peace Salon, the Gallery of Mirrors, and the Council Chamber,
each of the spouses has a life apart.
Marie Leczinska is the only person who maintains at Versailles the
ceremonious representation of the court of the great King, not
through pride, but out of respect for principles. By eleven o’clock
in the morning she has already heard one Mass, seen the King for an
instant, received her children and the little entries; at noon the
state toilette and the great entries. At one o’clock Marie Leczinska
hears a second Mass. At two o’clock she dines in public,[20] served
by her maid of honor and four ladies in full dress. A low balustrade
separates her from a crowd, always curious to be present at this
repast and to contemplate the features of a justly honored queen.
Toward six in the evening she plays the game of loto then in fashion,
the _Cavagnole_. When the King is present, she never sits down
until he bids her do so, and ’tis a wonder if the pair exchange a few
syllables. At ten the Queen withdraws, and after supper she sees a very
restricted circle: the Duke and Duchess de Luynes, Mesdames de Villars
and de Chevreuse, Minister Maurepas, Cardinals de Tencin and de Luynes,
President Hénault, Moncrif, and sometimes old Fontenelle. On Sundays
the presentation of ladies takes place. It is also the day chosen for
the taking of tabourets. The ceremonies occur in the room called the
Queen’s Salon,[21] contiguous to the sleeping-chamber. The sovereign’s
chair is placed at the back of the room on a platform covered by a
canopy.[22] “By a few words, a nod, a glance, a smile, Marie Leczinska
knows how to encourage the lady presented, whose embarrassment soon
yields to a gentle confidence as the Queen addresses to her one of
those remarks which remain engraven in the heart.”[23]
To sum up, neglected as she is by her husband, the Queen is happier
than he, because she has the great boon, the supreme good, which he has
not: peace of heart. “What comparison is there,” says a great preacher,
“between the frightful remorse of conscience, that hidden worm
which gnaws incessantly, that sadness of crime which undermines and
depresses, that weight of iniquity which crushes, that interior sword
which pierces and which we cannot draw out, and the amiable sadness of
penitence which works salvation?”[24] This expression “amiable sadness”
is most applicable to the Queen. Doubtless she suffers profoundly at
seeing Louis XV. throw himself down the declivity of scandal. But,
far from recriminating, she offers her sufferings to God. Gentle and
pious victim, she finds ineffable consolations at the foot of the
altar. Instead of avenging herself on the King by reproaches and bitter
speeches, she prays for him. Her calmness, resignation, charity, her
Christian virtues, and exquisite affability, make her the object of
universal veneration. She is called nothing but the Good Queen.
The Dauphin[25] is not less esteemed than his mother. In 1745 he is
sixteen years old. He is a pious, well-taught, well-intentioned young
man. He has made serious studies. His favorite reading is Plato,
Cicero, Tacitus, Lucretius, Horace, Virgil, Juvenal. He knows by heart
the finest passages of the philosophers and poets of antiquity. For
him were made those magnificent editions of the Louvre, _Ad usum
Delphini_, one of the most precious monuments of contemporary
typography.
Full of respect for his father, he never speaks to him but in the
tone of profound submission. He effaces himself, he holds himself in
restraint. He says: “A Dauphin should employ one half his mind in
concealing the other half.” Louis XV. is suspicious; it is well not to
offend him.
The Dauphin marries at Versailles, February 23, 1745, an Infanta of
Spain, daughter of Philip V., Marie Thérèse Antoinette Raphaelle,
younger sister of that Infanta Marie Anne Victoire whom Louis XV. was
to have married. The affront of sending back that princess is thus
repaired. The marriage festivities are splendid; no such pomp had ever
been seen. “As the King has need of money,” writes Barbier, “especially
for the very considerable expenses of the Dauphin’s marriage, a great
many tontines are raised.” The day that the Dauphiness arrived at
Étampes, the King, who went to meet her, said: “Here is a good day’s
work done.” She replied: “Sire, this is not what I dreaded most; I
flattered myself you would receive me kindly. I am more afraid of
to-morrow and the next day; everybody will be looking at me, and I
shall perhaps find less favorable dispositions.” The new Dauphiness
is not pretty, but she is sympathetic. Her amiability wins everybody.
She says to Madame de Brancas that she does not understand how one can
become angry, and that if any possible case arose to make it necessary,
she would beg some one the day before to do so in her stead.
This marriage diverts the King, who no longer thinks of the poor
Duchess de Châteauroux, who has been dead two months. Pleasures tread
on each other’s heels. The court is dazzling. How superb are these
Versailles festivities, the last term of elegance and luxury! What
a magnificent masked ball[26] in the radiant Gallery of Mirrors,
glittering sanctuary of ecstasy and apotheosis, modern Olympus which
seems made for goddesses and gods! Imagine that aristocratic crowd
which swarms up the Ambassadors’ Staircase, streams through the grand
apartments of the King, the halls of Venus, Diana, Mars, Mercury, and
Apollo, the War Salon, to be present at the fairy-like ball given
in the gallery under the vaulted ceilings decorated by Lebrun’s
magic brush! Fancy the animation, the tumult of good company, the
harmonious orchestras, the witty or gallant conversations, the bright
eyes glowing behind their masks, the colossal mirrors reflecting the
richest and most varied costumes: fabulous divinities, great lords and
châtelaines of the Middle Ages, Watteau’s shepherds and shepherdesses;
chandeliers innumerable, pyramids of candles, baskets of flowers, a
rain of diamonds and precious stones, and, to heighten still more
the bewildering charm, the mysterious presence of that monarch, the
handsomest man in all the kingdom, who hides his royalty under the
folds of his domino!