edifice would crumble within a few years. But why concern one’s self
about the future? Why be saddened by dismal thoughts and gloomy
presentiments? What the haughty favorite desired was the ability to
retain to her last day, her last hour, her sceptre as queen of the left
hand. The rest troubled her little. It was not Louis XV., it was she
who said: “After me the deluge!”
XII
THE DEATH OF THE MARQUISE DE POMPADOUR
It is a law of Providence that no one can shine without suffering, and
that jealous Fortune avenges herself for all the successes that she
grants. Women are like conquerors: they always expiate their triumphs.
For these queens _à la mode_, these dazzling magicians who appear
like meteors and who live amid a cloud of incense, there is after
all no alternative but death or dethronement. To die or to grow old,
that is the terrible dilemma from which they are unable to extricate
themselves. Women whose attractions have not been more than ordinary
bend to this common law with sufficient resignation. But the celebrated
beauty, the haughty beauty who delights in herself as if her youth
were never to end, secretly revolts against cruel destiny and silently
endures a real martyrdom. Her shrivelled hand tries to retain the
sceptre that is slipping from it. She is unwilling to descend from the
throne whence she has been used to survey a crowd of servile adorers.
As the changes come on gradually, in a manner hardly perceptible, she
has probably failed to notice the precursory symptoms of her decline.
She is told on all sides that she is more seductive, more radiant,
than ever. Then, in this last blossoming of her departing youth, she
experiences that indefinable sentiment, that blending of unquiet joy
and voluptuous melancholy, which takes possession of the soul under the
light of the last bright days of autumn. When one looks at the azure
sky, one cannot realize that winter is so near. But if one drops one’s
eyes, the yellowing leaves that cover the ground or are swept away by
the wind, remind one that the feast of nature is drawing to a close.
The woman who longs most to preserve her illusions concerning the
perpetuity of her youth, finds warning accusations which afflict and
terrify her. The first wrinkles, the first gray hairs; the color which
needs to be touched up, the lips and eyes which call imperiously for
paint; the insolent mirror which nevertheless one cannot break because
it is in opposition to the flatterers, because in its mute language it
brutally declares the truth!
Madame de Pompadour was forty-two years old. Aged prematurely by
the unwholesome emotions of intrigue, vanity, and ambition, she was
suffering both in body and in mind. Incessant palpitation of the heart
disturbed her. Fever was her constant guest. On nearing the end of
her career she looked back sadly over the road she had traversed,
and comprehended at last the inanity of the things in which she had
vainly sought for happiness. But for a true repentance she lacked a
religious faith like that of Mademoiselle de La Vallière. In default of
faith, the Marquise had great courage. She strove energetically against
disease, but she remained worldly and theatrical even in suffering
and death. “She would no longer appear in Paris,” says M. Arsène
Houssaye; “at court she never showed herself except by lamplight, in
the apparel of a queen of Golconda, crowned with diamonds, wearing
twenty bracelets, and dragging after her an Indian robe embroidered
with gold and silver. It was always the divine Marquise of other days;
but presently, when one looked closely, one discovered that it was but
a pastel, still charming, but rubbed out here and there. It was at
the mouth that her beauty began to fade. She had early contracted the
habit of biting her lips, to conceal her emotions. By the time she was
thirty, her mouth had lost all its vivid freshness. It was necessary
to repaint it after every meal and every kiss!”[53] Her eyes had
retained all their brilliancy. But the rest of her person was plainly
aging. She tried in vain to conceal her excessive meagreness under the
skilful devices of the toilette. She was a woman stricken by death.
She fell ill at Choisy, and while there was still time she asked to
be taken back to Versailles in order to die as she had lived, amidst
the evidences of her power. Her friends had an instant of hope, for a
slight amelioration was produced. The poet Favart instantly produced
this stanza:--
“Le soleil est malade,
Et Pompadour aussi;
Ce n’est qu’une passade,
L’un et l’autre est guéri;
Le bon Dieu, qui seconde
Nos vœux et notre amour,
Pour le bonheur du monde,
Nous a rendu le jour
Avec Pompadour.”[54]
Palissot sent the following verses to the Marquise:--
“Vous êtes trop chère à la France,
Au dieu des arts et des amours,
Pour redouter du sort la fatale puissance.
Tous les dieux veillaient sur vos jours,
Tous étaient animés du zèle qui m’inspire;
En volant à votre secours
Ils ont affermi leur empire.”[55]
Madame de Pompadour did not allow herself to be deceived by these
fallacious hyperboles. All this mythology did not mislead her. She
understood very well that there was nothing in common between her and
the sun, and felt herself already invaded by the chilly shadows of
death.
“It will come at the predestined day; it will come,” as Bossuet said,
“this last illness when, amidst an infinite number of friends, doctors,
and attendants, you will find yourself without assistance, more
forsaken, more abandoned, than the pauper dying on the straw without a
sheet for his burial! For of what avail are these friends in this fatal
malady? Only to afflict you by their presence; these doctors? only to
torment you; these attendants? only to run hither and thither about
your house with useless zeal. You need other friends, other servants;
these paupers whom you have despised are the only ones capable of
assisting you. Why did you not think in time of providing yourself
with such friends as would now hold out their arms to receive you into
everlasting tabernacles?”[56]
Even on her death-bed Madame de Pompadour, always the slave of the
man whose mistress she was called, feared the King more than God
himself. They say she sent to Louis XV. to ask if he desired her to go
to confession. The King replied affirmatively. A priest from Paris,
the curé of the Madeleine, administered the last sacraments to the
dying woman. When he was about to withdraw, it is pretended that she
retained him with a last smile, and said: “One moment, Monsieur the
Curé, we will go away together.” A few minutes before she had caused
her will to be read to her, which commenced thus: “I, Jeanne Antoinette
Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour, wife separated from the property of
Charles Guillaume Lenormand d’Étioles, equerry, have made and written
my present testament and ordinance of my last will, which I wish to
be executed in its entirety. I recommend my soul to God, entreating
Him to have pity on it, to pardon my sins, to grant me the grace to
do penance and to die in dispositions worthy of His mercy, hoping to
appease His justice by the merits of the precious blood of Jesus Christ
my Saviour and by the powerful intercession of the Blessed Virgin and
of all the Saints in Paradise. I desire that my body shall be taken to
the Capuchins of the Place Vendôme, at Paris, and buried in the vault
of the chapel conceded to me.” As one sees, the Marquise was not so
faithless as the Encyclopedists claimed. The poor woman had learned for
herself what earthly kings are. Perhaps, at the last hour, she turned
her eyes toward the King of Heaven.
She breathed her last April 15, 1764. It was long since Louis XV. had
ceased to love her. He merely tolerated her. If he had kept her at
court, it was only lest her disgrace should make her die of chagrin.
This premature death was rather a release from embarrassment than an
affliction to him. It is said that, seeing from one of the windows of
Versailles the carriage starting which was to carry her coffin to Paris
during a frightful storm, he said tranquilly: “The Marquise will not
have good weather for her journey.” Then, calmly drawing out his watch,
he calculated at what hour the funeral would reach its destination--and
that was all.
Madame de Pompadour’s existence had been like a parody of real
greatness. It was the same with her obsequies. A Capuchin had been
appointed to make the funeral oration. He extricated himself from this
heavy task like a man of wit. “I receive,” said he, “the body of the
very high and powerful lady, the Marquise de Pompadour, lady of the
Queen’s palace. She was at the school of all virtues, for Her Majesty
is a model of goodness, of modesty, of indulgence.” And thus he went
on for a quarter of an hour, making a well-deserved eulogy of the
Queen. Marie Leczinska, always so charitable, was struck by the extreme
promptness with which the too celebrated favorite was forgotten. “No
one has anything more to say here of her who is no more,” she remarked
to President Hénault, “than if she had never existed. Such is the
world; truly it is worth while to love it!”
Once dead, Madame de Pompadour seemed unworthy even of hatred. Still,
the men of letters and the artists who had formerly been protected
by her, regretted her somewhat. Voltaire, while remembering with
bitterness that she had sustained Crébillon, wrote to M. de Cideville:
“I have been much afflicted by the death of Madame de Pompadour. It
is ridiculous that an old scribbler on paper, who can scarcely walk,
should be still living, and that a beautiful woman should die at forty
in the midst of the finest career in the world. Perhaps if she had
tasted the repose that I enjoy she would be living still.” Diderot
was more severe. He had to give a description of the Salon of 1765,
where a picture was exhibited which Vanloo had painted during Madame
de Pompadour’s illness, and which represented the afflicted Arts
addressing themselves to Destiny to obtain the preservation of her
life. “Vanloo’s suppliants,” said the critic, “obtain nothing from
Destiny which is more favorable to France than to the Arts. Madame de
Pompadour died at a moment when she was thought to be out of danger.
Well! what remains of this woman who exhausted us of men and money,
deprived us of honor and energy, and upset the political system of
Europe? The treaty of Versailles, which will last as long as it can;
Bouchardon’s Amour, which will always be admired; several stones
sculptured by Guay, which will astonish future antiquaries; a good
little picture by Vanloo, which will be looked at sometimes; and a
pinch of dust.”
XIII
THE OLD AGE OF MARIE LECZINSKA
When the eyes have been fatigued by the glow of artificial lights, they
willingly repose on soft and real daylight. After the haughty favorite,
one likes to contemplate the good Queen. Comparisons made between the
mistress and the legitimate wife are always to the advantage of the
second. To one the agitations of a troubled conscience, to the other
peace of heart; to one contempt, to the other respect; scandal to
one, edification to the other. The Memoirs of the Duke de Luynes and
of President Hénault make us acquainted with the qualities of Marie
Leczinska, just as those of Madame du Hausset lay bare the moral plague
spots of the Marquise de Pompadour. A solitary conclusion may be drawn
from reading all of them; namely, that the Queen, neglected as she
was, and in spite of the hidden rôle which contented her modesty, was,
notwithstanding, less unhappy than the all-powerful favorite, who
disposed of the monarchy as if it were a pension list. Each of them had
her chagrins, but God gives us strength to endure the ills He sends
us, while those we create for ourselves are intolerable. The heaviest
chains are those we forge with our own hands. The list of suicides
is a proof in support of this observation. Is there, for example, an
affliction more profound than that of a mother who loses her child?
Very well! you never hear that a woman has taken her life because she
has had a grief like that. On the other hand, how many suicides there
are among the victims of pride and sensuality! Religion alleviates the
sorrows which are in the nature and order of things. But griefs which
are in revolt against Providence, afflictions voluntarily created by
criminal caprices, or insensate ambitions, have in them something
inconsolable and incurable. Madame de Pompadour vainly sought an asylum
for her soul.
The Queen found at the foot of altars such a strength that after
kneeling before the image of our Saviour Jesus Christ, she could, on
rising, drink the cup of bitterness without its leaving a trace upon
her lips.
While the guilty mistress beheld with such spite and vexation the
departure of her youth, the virtuous wife experienced neither pain
nor regret at growing old. It is the privilege of honest women to
accept the laws of our common destiny without a murmur, and not to
attempt a foolish struggle against nature in the hope of repairing
the irreparable ravages of years. The Marquise loaded her face,
withered by anxieties, with rouge and powder, and exhausted all the
science of a desperate coquetry in the effort to keep up an illusion.
Marie Leczinska, on the contrary, did not entertain for a moment the
thought of rejuvenating herself. Casanova, who was present at one
of her dinners at Fontainebleau, represents her as “without rouge,
simply dressed, her head covered with a large cap, old-looking and
devout in aspect.” This wholly Christian simplicity was not without
its charm. The Queen possessed not merely goodness but wit, and her
qualities were reflected on her spiritual countenance without the least
pettiness, venerable with no touch of moroseness. While Louis XV. and
his mistresses were so sad, so disillusionized, so disenchanted with
everything, though surrounded by all their voluptuous pleasures, Marie
Leczinska never uttered a complaint. Gaiety was in reality the basis of
her character, not that factitious, turbulent, ephemeral gaiety which
vice knows for a moment, but that soft, continuous, unaffected, equable
gaiety imparted by a serene disposition and a conscience in repose.
What an expression of soundness, of moral wellbeing! What patience
with life, what sympathetic serenity! The Queen is interested in
many things; she is fond of honest amusements. Unlike Louis XV.,
who is bored by everything, she has a taste for music; she paints a
little, she embroiders, she plays the guitar, the hurdy-gurdy, the
harpsichord; she willingly takes part in games of chance. President
Hénault introduces us into the cabinet, whither she withdraws after
having dined alone in public, in accordance with the formalities of
etiquette: “Here,” he says, “we are in another climate; this is no
longer the Queen, but a private person. Here one finds work of all
descriptions, tapestry, arts of every sort, and while she is working
she kindly tells us what she has been reading; she mentions the parts
that have impressed her and appreciates them.”
Look at Latour’s pastel, so admirably described by Sainte-Beuve. “It
is a half-length portrait of the Queen. She holds a closed fan in one
hand; she turns toward the spectator like some one who is thinking, and
who is going to say something arch, some innocent piece of slyness. Her
hair is slightly powdered; on her head she wears a point of black lace,
a sort of little fichu called a _fanchonnette_; a mantelet of pale
blue silk, with puffings or ribbons of grayish white, the shades are
so blended that they lose themselves in each other. A tranquil harmony
pervades all the tones. The lips delicate, somewhat thin, turning
up at the angles; the eye small and brilliant; the nose a trifle
saucy,--everything in this countenance breathes gentleness, subtlety,
archness. If you know neither her rank nor her name, you will say that
this middle-aged person can certainly make a sound and appropriate
repartee; that she has the grain of salt without bitterness.”
How many times, at Versailles, I have stopped for a while in the
Queen’s bedchamber,[57] in that chamber which was occupied by Marie
Leczinska from December 1, 1725, the day of her arrival at the palace
of Louis XIV., until June 24, 1768, the day of her death! At the back
of the former alcove, on the right, over a door which led to the small
apartments of the Queen,[58] now hangs Nattier’s fine portrait of
Marie Leczinska. The wife of Louis XV. is sitting down, dressed in a
red gown bordered with fur, her arm leaning on a pier-table, on which
lie the crown, the royal mantle, and a New Testament. There is nothing
studied, nothing theatrical, in either the pose, the countenance, or
the costume. It is a blending of kindliness and dignity. It is a queen,
but a Christian queen.
After the pencil, the pen; after Nattier, Madame du Deffand. Listen to
the famous Marquise, ordinarily so sarcastic:--
“Thémire has much wit, a sensitive heart, a kindly disposition, an
interesting face. Her education has imprinted in her soul a piety so
veritable that it has become a sentiment, and one which serves her to
regulate all others. Thémire loves God, and next to him all that is
lovable; she knows how to bring solid matters and agreeable ones into
harmony. She occupies herself with each in turn, and sometimes combines
them. Her virtues have, so to say, the germ and pungency of passions.
To admirable purity of manners she joins extreme sensibility; to the
greatest modesty a desire to please which would by itself achieve its
object. Her discernment makes her penetrate all caprices and understand
all follies; her goodness and charity make her endure them without
impatience, and rarely permit her to laugh at them.... The respect
she inspires is based rather on her virtues than her dignity. One has
entire freedom of mind when with her; one owes it to the penetration
and delicacy of hers. She understands so promptly and so subtly that
it is easy to communicate to her whatever ideas one desires, without
infringing the circumspection demanded by her rank. One forgets, on
seeing Thémire, that there can be other grandeurs, other elevations,
than those of her sentiments; one almost yields to the illusion that
there is no interval between her and us than that of the superiority of
her merits; but a fatal awakening acquaints us that this Thémire, so
perfect, so amiable, is the Queen.”
No one was a more faithful friend than Marie Leczinska. The little
circle amidst which she lived displayed as much affection as respect
for her. After supper she went almost every evening to the apartment
of the Duchess de Luynes, her lady of honor. There she met, besides
the Duke and Duchess, Cardinal de Luynes, the Duke and Duchess de
Chevreuse, and President Hénault. This was a time of recreation and
pleasant talk. The learned president shone there by his wit. One day he
offered the Queen the manuscript of his _Abrégé chronologique_.
She returned it with the following words: “I think that M. Hénault,
who says so many things in so few words, can hardly like the language
of women who talk so much to say so little.” In lieu of signature, she
had written: _Devinez qui_ (Guess who). The gallant author replied
at once:--
“Ces mots tracés par une main divine
Ne peuvent me causer que trouble et qu’embarras.
C’est trop oser si mon cœur les devine;
C’est être ingrat que ne deviner pas.”[59]
Another time, Fontenelle, then ninety-two years old, had addressed
these verses to the President:--
“Il fallait n’être vieux qu’à Sparte,
Disent les anciens écrits.
Grand Dieu! combien je m’en écarte,
Moi qui suis si vieux dans Paris.
O Sparte! ô Sparte! hélas! qu’êtes-vous devenue?
Vous saviez tout le prix d’une tête chenue.
“Plus dans la canicule on était bien fourré,
Plus l’oreille était dure et l’œil mal éclairé,
Plus on déraisonnait dans sa triste famille,
Plus on épiloguait sur la moindre vétille,
Plus on avait de goutte et d’autre béatille,
Plus on avait perdu de dents de leur bon gré,
Plus on marchait courbé sur sa grosse béquille,
Plus on était, enfin, digne d’être enterré,
Et plus dans ses remparts on était honoré.
“O Sparte! ô Sparte! hélas! qu’êtes-vous devenue?
Vous saviez tout le prix d’une tête chenue.”[60]
After reading these verses, the Queen wrote to President Hénault: “Say
to Fontenelle that a head like his ought to find Sparta everywhere.”
The old man, very much flattered, responded by the following quatrain:--
“Les ans accumulés me poussent trop à bout.
Je ne puis plus, hélas! trouver Sparte partout,
Mais vous, le modèle des reines,
Vous devez bien trouver partout Athènes.”[61]
The kindly, affectionate character of Marie Leczinska is fully
displayed in the simple and friendly letters she addressed to the
Duchess of Luynes, her lady of honor. We cite several of them taken at
hazard:--
“December 22, 1750.--Nothing could give me a greater pleasure than your
letter, if I did not expect one still more sensible in four weeks,
that of seeing you. Nevertheless, it is true, that to give me news of
yourself sometimes, if you can do so without injuring yourself, would
help to alleviate a time which already seems very long to me. All I
ask of you is not to be thankful for my friendship; it is wholly due
to you. Your letter affected me to tears. Yes, God will preserve you
as long as I live; I ask it of Him with all my heart. When I write to
M. de Luynes, I say: ‘I embrace Madame de Luynes,’ but since it is to
you for him, I think it more honest to beg you to take the trouble for
me. And Monseigneur, what would he like? I think it would be better to
enclose all in the benediction I ask for him.”
The Duke de Luynes had once sent the Queen a casket as a New-Year’s
gift. Marie Leczinska thanked him in the following note, dated January
1, 1751: “It is useless to say the casket is charming, new in style,
in a word, nothing so pretty in the world; one knows all that. But
what one doesn’t know is that I am like a child with a plaything that
pleases it. It pleases me with the same candor, except that the
gratitude proceeds from a person who knows the world a little, and
even at her own expense, and whom God has granted the grace of having
amiable and estimable friends wholly corrupt though she is.”
Among other things the casket contained a pair of spectacles of which
the good Queen’s eyes stood in need. “Here I am gay for the whole day
from Madame de Luynes’ good-night,” she wrote to the Duke, January
2, 1751. “Do you know what I was doing when I received Monseigneur’s
letter? I was with ... guess who? ... my fine new spectacles (_les
beaux yeux de ma cassette_). Never did _l’Avare_ love his own
so much. I am hurrying to get to High Mass. I embrace Madame de Luynes,
I bow before Monseigneur, and I wish you good-day.”
The Duchess’s shortest absences seemed like an eternity to Marie
Leczinska. At such times she wrote letter on letter to her lady of
honor, saying that long correspondences are the delights of friendship.
Here is a letter which shows what a tender friend the Queen was. On
receiving this heartfelt epistle, the Duchess de Luynes must have been
profoundly affected:--
“January 23, 1751.--Do you know what pleasure I gave myself last
evening? I went to surprise M. de Luynes in his apartment; I found him
just as he had finished his supper with Monseigneur (the Bishop of
Bayeux), in his pretty little room. I cannot tell you what joy I felt
in seeing your apartment again; I rested there a moment in order to
preserve it, for, not finding you there yet, I began to be afraid of
what might succeed it. Pleasures which are only imaginary need to be
taken care of. I impatiently await the real ones.”