Madame de Pompadour

by Nancy Mitford

  Choiseul’s contribution to foreign policy was the Pacte de Famille among the Bourbons who reigned over France, Spain, Parma, Naples and the Two Sicilies; it was a Latin and Catholic bloc, fortified by an even closer alliance with the Empire, which was now drawn into the family. Louis XV married the two daughters of Madame Infante to the Emperor Joseph II and the Prince of the Asturias, while three little Archduchesses, in time, became Duchess of Parma, Queen of Naples and Dauphine of France.

  The alliance between France and Spain, so ardently desired for so long, came too late to be of much use; Spain, exhausted by her efforts in the New World, had fallen a victim to the Roman Catholic religion in its most deadening and reactionary form, and had ceased to have much international importance. She was really more of a hindrance than a help to France in the war against England. As the war dragged on, it became obvious that the only course for Louis XV was to make the best peace he could, to build up a navy and perhaps resume the fight when England began to have difficulties with her American subjects. These difficulties were already foreseen by all the European statesmen of the day.

  In 1762 the Empress Elizabeth of Russia died and her successor, Peter III, immediately made peace with Frederick, his hero from an early age. The withdrawal of Russia led to that of Sweden. All the European powers were sick of this apparently inconclusive war in which nearly a million people had perished. An armistice was agreed upon in 1762 and peace on a status quo ante basis was signed (February 1763).

  The fall of Pitt’s government in 1762, and the fact that the new King, George III, seemed in favour of peace, decided the French to open negotiations with England. In September the Duc de Nivernais, ‘crowned like Anacreon with roses and singing of pleasure’, set out for London as plenipotentiary. He very soon changed his tune. Most Englishmen were for continuing the war until they had taken the last inch of colonial territory from France. Nivernais’ first night in England, at a delightful inn at Canterbury, cost him forty-six guineas; this extortion was the innkeeper’s way of showing his patriotism. (When the gentlemen of Kent found it out they boycotted the inn and Nivernais eventually had to come to the rescue of his robber, now reduced to starvation, with a large gift of money.) The journey to London, however, charmed him, he said the country was all cultivated like the King’s kitchen gardens. The Duke of Bedford’s coachman took him, at an amazing speed, to the magnificent bridge of Westminster. Bedford himself had gone as envoy to France and made use of Nivernais’ coaches while he was there – the usual arrangement between ambassadors in those days, who often used to live in each other’s houses. Mirepoix and Albemarle had done so before the war began. Bedford left two houses ready for Nivernais, one in and one just outside London, ‘very ugly but well situated’.

  So far so good. But the smoke of London got on Nivernais’ nerves, the fogs gave him a chronic sore throat and he could not bear the hours spent over the port after every meal. Very soon he took to leaving the table with the women; he would recite verses composed specially for them, or play the violin to them, in the drawing-room. They must have been surprised. Worst of all, Englishmen were extremely awkward to treat with, and things were not made easier by the fall of Havana. The news of this victory arrived when Nivernais was dining with Lord Bute; his fellow guests, unmindful of his feelings, burst into loud cheering.

  Madame de Pompadour wrote: ‘This cursed Havana, petit époux, I feel thoroughly frightened by it. What are the amiable Londoners going to say? The five fans you sent me are really not very pretty, though I admit that they are cheap. Send four more for two or three louis and let me know the total amount … All my little friends send you their love, and so does your wife.’

  The result of Havana was that, before the French could have peace, they had to blackmail the Spanish court into giving up Florida; the negotiations dragged on and Nivernais went to stay with various friends in their country houses. ‘Wednesday to the Marlboroughs who have been begging me to go and will make a great fuss of me.’ He very much enjoyed the fox-hunting, and his hosts enjoyed his company.

  But the affair for which he had been sent was going too slowly for Madame de Pompadour, who wrote: ‘There’s never been such a gloomy petit époux in the world. You begin your letter “My pen is falling from my hand” – no explanation, I thought all must be lost. But it seems, from what M. le Comte tells me, that you were talking of your tiredness. Really! You can rest afterwards but for God’s sake finish now. The post we have just received has upset me very much, I tremble with fright and all our eloquence has not succeeded in reassuring M. de Bedford. Petit époux, how I would love you if you could tranquillize us quickly … As for your fans, they can go to the devil!’

  He replied by sending a project for a treaty; ‘not what I should have wished but the best I can do … This is a cruel country to negotiate with, one needs a body and soul of iron … I am quite done up, can’t see straight, my stomach utterly destroyed, and every evening I have a horrid little cough brought on by the everlasting icy fogs …’ At last, on 10 February 1763, the treaty was signed. It was a personal success for Nivernais who had saved what he could, and more than another would have done, from the shipwreck. But it did not make cheerful reading for Frenchmen. Except for the territory which she still holds there today, France was evicted from India. In Canada she left ‘a fragment of ancient France embedded in Northern ice’ to be governed by Englishmen. Minorca returned to England; the French kept their West Indian islands, but lost Senegal.

  The Duke went back to Versailles, taking with him his portrait by Allan Ramsay, spitting blood and in a sad state, ‘une espèce de courbature générale’. However, his wife, his mistress, and the good air of France soon got him quite right again, and in his letters he stopped talking of his own health. He could now only think of the Marquise, whose appearance had been a shock to him. She was evidently very far from well.

  20

  The End of a Dream

  MADAME DE POMPADOUR’S HEALTH WAS failing and her spirits were very low. Two deaths in the royal family, which she now regarded as her own family, had recently saddened her and the King. In 1759 Madame Infante died, crying ‘Au Paradis-vite-vite-au galop!’ and in 1761 they lost the ten-year-old Duc de Bourgogne. He had endured the most cruel sufferings with extraordinary resolution. This child made a deep impression on all who knew him, and his mother, the Dauphine, was well aware that her other sons were of inferior stuff. Voltaire wrote: ‘The King has many trials. People are not sorry enough for him and though he is loved, he is not loved enough. Come, come, Messieurs les Parisiens, may God preserve him for you and also Madame de Pompadour. She has never done anything but good and you are not grateful.’

  The Seven Years’ War, with its defeats and humiliations, had been a torment to the Marquise. She had put a brave face on it, the courtiers never saw her gloomy, nor did the King. She laughed and joked as she always had and they often thought she minded nothing. But her maid tells a different story. She could not sleep and she cried when she was alone. She worried far more than the King. His nerves were more solid than hers; the hunting took his mind off political matters for hours every day and made him sleep at night. Madame de Pompadour sat indoors, wrote letters and brooded; it was very bad for her. She had longed so much for France and her King to come out of the war covered with glory, and all had ended in ruin and shame. ‘If I die,’ she said, ‘it will be of grief.’

  To try and cheer her up, the King now put in hand a scheme, which they had long been considering, for a little country house in the gardens of Trianon. It was to be called the Petit Trianon and was intended to take the place of the Hermitage. They would be able to sleep there and occupy themselves with the farm which amused them more and more. The farm buildings, cowsheds, hen runs and so on were already there. The palace of Trianon was no good for their purpose as, by Court usage, too many people had the right to go there with the King and too much etiquette had to be observed. Gabriel’s plans for the small house were all ready; he sta
rted building in 1762 and it went up very quickly, but the Marquise only lived long enough to see the outside walls.

  In 1763 Madame de Pompadour seems to have considered retiring from the Court to the Château of Ménars. She went there twice, without the King, an unprecedented absence and one that was much remarked on. She may have felt that she could not continue the struggle to keep his affections much longer. ‘My life is like that of the early Christians – a perpetual combat.’

  At this time the King had a new liaison, rather more disquieting than his usual commerce with little girls in the Parc aux Cerfs. His mistress was a lovely young woman, with long black hair, called Mlle Romains, the daughter of a lawyer from Grenoble. The King had first seen her walking in the gardens at Marly. She refused to be put in the Parc aux Cerfs and he bought her a little house at Passy, where she gave birth to a son. Madame de Pompadour went, disguised, to see her as she sat feeding her baby in the Bois de Boulogne; she and it were both smothered in beautiful lace, the black hair held by a diamond comb. The Marquise was greatly cast down after this outing.

  ‘One must admit’, she said, sadly, ‘that the mother and child are beautiful creatures.’ But Madame de Mirepoix, as usual, consoled her in her sensible way: ‘The King doesn’t care a bit for his children, he has got too many and he won’t want to be bothered with this mother and son. He never pays the slightest attention to the Comte du Luc, who is the dead spit of him – never speaks of him and I’m sure will do nothing for him. Once again, you must realize we are not under Louis XIV.’ She was not quite right about this. He very soon got tired of Mlle Romains, as usual, but he did recognize her son, who grew up as the Abbé de Bourbon, was adopted by Mesdames, but died of smallpox in his early twenties.

  Peace was celebrated by the opening of the Place Louis XV (Place de la Concorde). As long ago as 1748, the King, after considering over sixty plans for this Place, and after much careful thought as to its position in Paris, had settled on a piece of waste land between the river, the Tuileries gardens and the Champs Elysées. He commissioned Gabriel to design the Place, and to build the two splendid blocks that contain today the Hôtel Crillon and the Ministère de la Marine. There was always a great deal of talk at Versailles about the plans, which were shown to all visitors. Old Stanislas never thought much of them. He had conceived the idea of the Place Stanislas, at Nancy, in bed one night and by the next afternoon he already had twenty workmen engaged on it; he was very scornful of the slow progress of his son-in-law’s Place. Bouchardon had created an equestrian statue of the King for it which stood on a pedestal by Pigalle, with an allegorical figure at each corner – Force, Prudence, Justice and Peace. This was destroyed at the Revolution, but a small bronze of it exists at Versailles.

  In June 1763 this statue was dragged from the sculptor’s workshop and put up in the middle of the Place Louis XV – to a chorus of typically Parisian cheers and jeers; as usual they could not resist a joke and at the same time were pleased at the excuse for a party. The machine on which it was being transported stuck outside the Elysée: ‘They’ll never get him past the Hôtel de Pompadour.’ When the crowd saw the pedestal, with its four females, there were cries of: ‘Vintimille, Mailly, Châteauroux, Pompadour,’ ‘Il est ici comme à Versailles, sans cœur et sans entrailles’, and so on.

  However, the processions, the fireworks, the sham battle on the Seine and the dancing in the streets, with free wine and meat, were enthusiastically attended. A great concert in the Tuileries gardens was ruined by a thunderstorm and tropical downpour, but the fireworks and illuminations in the Place the following night were a success. Nineteen boxes, for the King and his friends, had been built on the river in front of the Palais-Bourbon, the Prince de Condé’s house; they were tents of red linen lined with scarlet damask and each was lit by a beautiful chandelier. Madame de Pompadour and her brother were in one of these boxes. When the fireworks were over she gave another, even finer, display at the Elysée. An appalling traffic jam was the result. This really might have been foreseen, as there was then no bridge between the Pont Royal and the Pont de Sèvres; many carriages were unable to move again until the following morning.

  This was Madame de Pompadour’s last public appearance.

  Bernis paid a short visit to Versailles in January 1764. He was well received by the royal family, and the King overcame his embarrassment enough to bestow the Archbishopric of Albi upon him. The Marquise was loving and friendly; she seemed to have forgotten that he had once been so much on her nerves that she could hardly bear him in the room. Bernis never saw any of them again until Mesdames Adélaïde and Victoire arrived in Rome, refugees from their own country, during the Revolution.

  Another friend of long ago called on the Marquise at this time, Madame de la Ferté d’Imbault. Madame de Pompadour had often begged her to come and live at Versailles, but she hated the Court, and never would do so. Her visit now was to thank her for the return of Cardinal de Bernis, a favour for which she had long been asking.

  ‘I found the Marquise beautiful and serious, looking well, though she complained of insomnia, bad digestion and difficulty in breathing if she had to walk upstairs. She began by saying that I must be pleased with her for arranging such a brilliant return for my friend. She added that he had honestly done what he could, but that the country’s misfortunes made him gloomy and depressing; she and the King had him too much on their nerves. She told me, in dramatic terms, how terribly she was affected by the deplorable state of the kingdom, the rebellious attitude of the Parlement and all that went on up there (pointing, with tears in her eyes, to the King’s room). [The King was once more beset by difficulties which had broken out between Church and Parlement, and which resulted in the expulsion of the Jesuits from France at the end of 1764. This has been laid at the door of the Marquise, but there is nothing to show that she was implicated.] She assured me that she only remained with the King because of her great devotion to him, that she would be a thousand times happier living quietly at Ménars but that he would be lost without her. Then she opened her heart to me, as she could do, she said, to nobody else, and told me all she had to put up with, speaking with more energy and eloquence than I had ever heard her. In short she seemed to me furious and demented; it was a real sermon on the miseries which ambition brings in its train. She seemed so wretched, so proud, so violently shaken and so suffocated by her own enormous power that I came away after an hour’s talk feeling that death was the only refuge left to her.’

  It was not far off. One evening, at Choisy, she was seized with such an appalling headache that she did not know where she was, and had to ask Champlost, the King’s servant, to help her back to her own room. She had congestion of the lungs and lay between life and death for several days. The King put off his return to Versailles and stayed with her. After a while she seemed a little better and some people felt happier about her. Cochin made an engraving, to celebrate her convalescence, as a frame to a poem by Favart:

  Le soleil est malade

  La Pompadour aussi

  Ce n’est qu’une passade

  L’un et l’autre est guéri, etc.

  (There had been an eclipse of the sun.) But the King was under no illusions. He wrote to his son-in-law, the Infante: ‘I am as much worried as ever; I must tell you that I am not very hopeful of a real cure, and even feel that the end may be near. A debt of nearly twenty years, and an unshakeable friendship! However, God is the master and we must bow to His will. M. de Rochechouart has learnt of the death of his wife after much suffering; if he loved her I am sorry for him.’

  In spite of the rule that none but royal persons might die at Versailles, the King brought her back there. The weather was terrible, there had not been such a cold, dark, wet, depressing spring for years; it was not a help to her and she got worse again. ‘The winter is cruel to me,’ she said. She sent for Collin and her will, and made various additions to it, leaving the King her house in Paris, respectfully suggesting that it would make a residence for t
he Comte de Provence, and her collection of engraved stones – they are now in the Bibliothèque Nationale.

  Other bequests were: incomes on capital sums, varying according to length of service, to all her servants, as well as her clothes, linen, and lace to her three lady’s maids: her new diamond watch to the Maréchale de Mirepoix; portrait of Alexandrine framed in diamonds to Madame du Roure; a silver box set in diamonds to the Duchesse de Choiseul; a ring of pink and white diamonds set in a green bow, and ‘a cornelian box he has often admired’, to the Duc de Gontaut; a diamond the colour of aquamarine to the Duc de Choiseul; an emerald necklace to Madame d’Amblimont; her dog, her parrot and her monkey to M. de Buffon. She left annuities of 4,000 livres to Quesnay, and of 6,000 to Colin. The executor was the Prince de Soubise, to whom she left two rings and her tender love. Everything else went to her brother, the Marquis de Marigny, and after him, should he die without children (as he did), to a cousin, M. Poisson de Malvoisin. M. Poisson had two daughters, who lived at Ménars into the nineteenth century and died without children.

  Collin cried so much while he wrote the codicil that the document is stained with his tears.