Madame de Pompadour (11 page)

Until Cardinal Richelieu had put it on the map, the du Plessis family was noble, but of the very minor nobility. The Duke could hardly bear the fact that he should owe his position to the merits of his great-uncle rather than to his own birth; it irked him all his life. He was not quite sure enough of himself, in fact; and whereas d’Ayen and Gontaut, serene in the knowledge of their unassailable ancestry, could make friends with anybody they liked, Son Excellence could not. Also he was jealous of the Marquise. Hitherto he had been entertainer in chief to the King and, in his capacity of First Gentleman of the Bedchamber, had had all the palace amusements under his control; now he smelt a rival. So he ragged and bullied her unmercifully and no doubt had disloyal jokes about her with the King as soon as her back was turned. At last, enormously to her relief, he went off to conquer Parma for Madame Infante. This eldest and beloved daughter of Louis XV longed for an establishment of her own so that she could leave Madrid. For some time now, the swaggering form and unsmiling face of Son Excellence were no longer to be seen on Madame de Pompadour’s staircase.

‘IT ISN’T YOU
he loves,’ the Maréchale de Mirepoix used to say, ‘it’s your staircase.’ And very naturally indeed the King loved the staircase at the top of which he found this delicious creature, this lively clever companion, waiting to concentrate on him and his entertainment. The rooms to which the staircase leads are on the second floor of the north wing; the visitor to Versailles, coming into the garden through the usual entrance, should turn left and count the nine top windows from the north-west corner; they were Madame de Pompadour’s at this time. We still see what she saw from her little balcony between the statues on the colonnade – the Parterre du Nord, the fountains of mermaids and cupids, the avenue of trees, cut into solid walls of leaves, which leads to the Bassin de Neptune, and, over the tree tops, the forest of Marly stretching to far horizons. We still hear the great clock on the parish church, the organ in the palace chapel – so few yards away – the birds in the park, and the frogs in the fountains quacking like ducks. But we do not hear the King’s hunt in the forest, the hounds and the horns and the King’s curious high husky voice giving the view halloo. The rooms, so empty today, so cold with their northern light, were crammed to bursting point when she lived in them; crammed with people, animals and birds, pictures, bibelots, curiosities of all sorts, furniture, stuffs, patterns without number, plans, sketches, maps, books, her embroidery, her letters, her cosmetics: all buried in flowers, smelling like a hothouse; it is a mystery how they can have held so much. The walls, which were originally lacquered by Martin
in
the bright delicate colours she loved, have been painted white, but the panelling is still the same and the structure of the flat unchanged. The little room where her maid, Madame du Hausset, lived is still there, with the funnel through which she listened to the King’s conversation – greatly to our advantage, as she used to write it down word for word. We can still see the lift shaft which contained a flying chair; the Marquise was hauled up in this by her servants to save the long, steep drag upstairs. On a lower level, looking out on to a dismal little courtyard, was the flat of Madame de Pompadour’s doctor and great friend, Quesnay.

Madame de Pompadour was hardly settled at Versailles before she began to direct and inspire the artists of her day. She had all the gifts of a great amateur, erudition, tireless energy in searching for perfection, and an intuitive understanding of the creative temperament, which enabled her to make an artist do better than his best, and to impose her own ideas on him, without hurting his feelings. Until the outbreak of the Seven Years’ War she also had unlimited credit, since the King, who had hitherto been regarded as rather close-fisted, never seemed to care how much she spent. Probably this was because she knew how to approach him. ‘He doesn’t mind signing for a million,’ she told her maid, ‘but he hates to part with little sums out of his purse.’ She was often herself short of cash and used to say that she had been much richer when she lived in Paris. When she died a few
louis
were found in a drawer. She had long since sold her diamonds and Collin had to borrow money for current expenses. But she left enough works of art to fill several museums – the sale of them took eight months – and she had lived in the middle of an intense artistic activity which was meat and drink to her. Unlike her successors, Madame du Barry and Marie-Antoinette – and vastly superior to them – she always looked after her artists and never owed them a penny. Altogether, and it was the great complaint against her, she was supposed to have cost the King 36 million
livres
(the Seven Years’ War cost 1350 millions), but her various houses were built on his land and all but Ménars reverted to him at her death.

These houses, and her objects of art, would have been a good
investment
for France had not nearly everything she created been destroyed or dispersed during the Revolution. Crécy, Bellevue, Brimborion, the Hermitage at Compiègne, utterly destroyed; the Hermitage and the Reservoirs at Versailles, the Elysée, her rooms at Versailles, Fontainebleau, Trianon and Compiègne, altered beyond recognition; her belongings scattered to the four winds, sometimes to be seen in a museum or a private collection – the little boudoir from Brimborion, the celadon fishes, a morocco binding with castles and griffins, a painted commode, an engraved jewel – ‘This was the Pompadour’s fan.’

The King was a born patron of the arts; not for nothing had he Medici blood several times over; he had perfect natural taste and a desire for knowledge; but his shyness had made it difficult for him to get in touch with artists and craftsmen. Madame de Pompadour made everything smooth and easy. Up to now his private life had been devoid of serious interests. He did not care for literature nor had he that passion for music shared by all his children. Politics occupied much of his attention, but he never talked about them outside the council chamber because he knew that everything he said would be repeated, and this applied also to gossip. His only pastime was hunting, not enough for an intelligent man. Madame de Pompadour, following her own inclinations, had found him a perfect hobby. Houses were bought, or built, altered, decorated and surrounded with beautiful gardens; at the big palaces the King’s private rooms were always being redecorated; furniture, pictures, statues, vases and bibelots were chosen and ordered; rare materials were brought from all over the world to be mounted in gold or bronze or silver; roof gardens and aviaries were filled with curious plants, birds and beasts. The King ran up her staircase knowing that, in her warm and scented rooms, he would find some fascinating new project on foot, plans and designs waiting for his approval, bibelots and stuffs for him to buy if he liked them.

Then there were the hours of chat, and here Madame de Pompadour had an enormous asset in his eyes; she was very funny. Hitherto the King’s mistresses had told few jokes and the Queen even fewer, he had never known that particularly delightful
relationship
of sex mixed up with laughter; all the laughter in his life had been provided by his men friends, especially by Richelieu and Maurepas. He was a great tease and used to read sermons on chastity aloud to the Maillys, who never thought it at all amusing; with Madame de Pompadour he could laugh away to his heart’s content. Chat was the pastime of the age, cheerful, gossipy, joking chat, running on hour after idle hour, all night sometimes; and at this the Marquise excelled. She knew a hundred stories to amuse him; she read the police reports from Paris, the equivalent of our yellow press, and told him all the tit-bits she found in them; she also read quantities of private letters abstracted from the post and no doubt their contents gave rise to many a joke (it must be said that everybody knew quite well that a censorship existed). If he felt inclined for a tune she played and sang better than anybody. She knew whole plays by heart and could recite speeches from them for hours on end. He had never cared much for the theatre but she began to interest him in it. She provided exactly the right company for his supper parties; a few congenial friends, no surprises, and no new faces, and added a gaiety and a lightness all her own.

The only thing that was not perfect in this relationship was its sexual side. Louis XV was a Bourbon, and had their temperament, while Madame de Pompadour was physically a cold woman. She was not strong enough for continual love-making and it exhausted her. She tried to work herself up to respond to the King’s ardours by every means known to quackery, so terrified was she that he would one day find out her secret; but she began to make herself ill. Madame du Hausset, her maid, spoke of this to the Duchesse de Brancas – the tall Duchess as she was always called, to distinguish her from her step-daughter-in-law.

‘It can’t be good for her, she is living on a diet of vanilla, truffles and celery.’ ‘Yes, I’ve noticed that,’ said the Duchess, ‘and now I’m going to scold her, you’ll see.’ They went together and attacked Madame de Pompadour, who burst into tears. The maid locked the door, and Madame de Pompadour said to Madame de Brancas: ‘The fact is, my dearest, that I’m terrified of not pleasing the King any more, and of losing him. You know, men attach a great deal
of
importance to certain things, and I, unfortunately for me, am very cold by nature. I thought I might warm myself up, if I went on a diet to heat the blood, and then I’m taking this elixir which does seem to be doing me some good.’ Madame de Brancas looked at the drug and threw it straight in the fire saying: ‘Fi!’ Madame de Pompadour said petulantly that she was not to be treated like a baby, and then began to cry again.

‘You don’t know what happened last week, the King said it was too hot, an excuse to spend half the night on my sofa. He’ll get tired of me, and find somebody else.’ ‘But your diet won’t stop him,’ said the Duchess, ‘and it will kill you. No, you must make yourself indispensable to the King by always being nice to him. Don’t rebuff him, of course, at these other moments, but just let time do its work and in the end he’ll be tied to you for ever, by force of habit.’ The two women kissed each other, Madame de Pompadour swore her friend to secrecy, and the diet was abandoned.

Shortly afterwards she told Madame du Hausset that things were going better. ‘I consulted Dr Quesnay, though without telling him everything. He advised me to look after my general health, and take more exercise, and I believe he’s quite right, I feel a different woman already. I adore that man [the King] and I long to please him, but he thinks I’m fearfully cold, I know. I would give my life for him to love me.’

However, in those pre-Freudian days the act of love was not yet regarded with an almost mystical awe; it had but a limited importance. Like eating, drinking, fighting, hunting and praying it was part of a man’s life, but not the very most important part of all. If Madame de Pompadour were not physically in love with the King, being constitutionally incapable of passion, it would not be too much to say that she worshipped him; he was her God. She had other interests and affections, but she made them all revolve round him; rarely can a beautiful woman have loved so single-mindedly. Of course her enemies have declared that what she loved was power and the life at Court; but she never really liked the Court and was under no illusions as to the nature of many of its denizens. She constantly declared, and as she was a very truthful
person
she can be believed, that had it not been for the King and her happiness with him, which made up for everything, she never could have endured ‘the wickedness, the platitudes, all the miseries of human nature,’ with which she was surrounded. A Parisian born and bred, she could not regard a man with awed respect, simply because he was
Duc et Pair de France
, and she often turned longing eyes towards Paris and the intellectual feasts there from which she was now excluded. Her attitude to Versailles is curiously reminiscent of that of Madame de Maintenon who had also found herself cut off from the delights of Paris. But Madame de Pompadour loved her young King much more than Madame de Maintenon had loved her old one.

She was perfectly happy with him. Often puzzled by his strange nature which she never quite understood and which, she told the Duc de Choiseul, on her death bed, was
indéchiffrable
(undecipherable), but fascinated and happy. We have only to read the diaries of the day, in which we see her with the King walking, talking and alive, to recognize the unmistakable signs of true love. ‘Put not your trust in princes’ has never been less to the point than in her case, she put her trust in him and he did not fail her. This love affair took its course. After a few years of physical passion on his side it gradually turned into that ideal friendship which can only exist between a man and a woman when there has been a long physical intimacy. There was always love. As in every satisfactory union it was the man who kept the upper hand; Madame de Pompadour was far too strong a character herself, far too clever and downright, to have been happy for long with a man whom she could not respect. She could say exactly what she liked to him, in some ways he spoilt her, but she never ceased to be a little bit in awe of him. She was always terrified of losing him; she strained every nerve to keep up with him in all his activities, he so strong and she so delicate, and in the end it killed her. She had many miscarriages during the first years, which pulled her down and disappointed her, for she naturally longed to have a child with the King. Certainly she never rested enough after them – two days in bed, smelling delicious, is the most we hear of. The King would sup alone, or with one other friend, in her room on these
occasions.
Then the exhausting life began once more. Seldom in bed before two or three in the morning, she was obliged to be up at eight, dressed as for a ball, to go to Mass in the unheated chapel. For the rest of the day not one moment to herself. She must pay her court to the Queen, the Dauphine and Mesdames, receive a constant succession of visitors, write sometimes as many as sixty letters and arrange and preside over a supper party. At least once a week there would be a
voyage
of one or two nights, with a house party to entertain, often in a house full of workmen, where improvements or landscape gardening were in progress and needed supervision. It was too much for her.