Madame de Pompadour (24 page)

The death of Alexandrine was a crushing blow from which Madame de Pompadour never fully recovered. She felt that she had nothing to look forward to any more, that the future could only offer her old age and death. She longed more than ever for Marigny to found a family which would be an interest and a comfort to her and to whom she could leave her collections. But he wanted a love match – years later he made one, with disastrous results. Like many childless women, Madame de Pompadour now turned more and more to the minor but not unrewarding love of dogs and various other pet animals.

MADAME DE POMPADOUR’S EXCURSION INTO
politics will not give much satisfaction to the feminist. Although she was prettier, better educated, and had a more natural motive for her activities, she was no more successful than those ladies who adorn today the
Chambre des Députés
, nor had she any more influence than they over the general trend of events. To her, as to most women, politics were a question of personalities; if she liked somebody he could do no wrong – a dear friend was sure to make a good general, a man who could write Latin verses, and amuse the King, a good minister. Political problems in themselves were of no interest to her; her talents did not lie in that direction. Marigny, who was in almost every way her male counterpart, never would touch the various ministries she was for ever pressing upon him; he knew his own limitations too well. She was not driven to this unsuitable career by a longing for power but by her love for the King. He was by now immersed in the intricate, delicate and dangerous politics of the day, and spent most of his thought on them. The Marquise could no longer distract him with frivolities. She could only continue at his side, a true companion and helpmeet, by turning herself into his private secretary; with her usual energy she proceeded to do so.

France was governed, at this time, by a
Conseil d’Etat
composed of a varying number of ministers and one or two Princes of the Blood; it worked at Versailles, under the presidency of the King. Hitherto the Prince de Conti, his favourite cousin, an able and ambitious man, had acted as the King’s private secretary. The
ministers
had no power of their own; they were advisers, counsellors to the King, and appointed by him. As there was no Prime Minister the man who had the strongest personality, or in whom the King had the most confidence, led this cabinet. In time of war the War Minister and the Foreign Minister were particularly important; in time of peace the
Garde des Sceaux
, whose functions were those of our Lord Chancellor, and the Controller General. They often doubled their charges; Machault, for instance, was Minister of the Marine as well as
Garde des Sceaux
, and they sometimes exchanged jobs. They stayed in the
Conseil
at the King’s pleasure, usually for many years. When Maurepas was disgraced, he had been minister for thirty-one years, Orry for fifteen. A certain M. Silhouette, whose ministry (of finance) lasted less than a year, gave his name to something shadowy and fleeting, a mere outline. (He was really sent away for boring the King. The first day of his office he came primed with facts and figures; the King only asked him if the panelling in his study at Versailles was gilded. The poor man, who had not noticed, was so taken aback that he was struck dumb. The King went off with a resigned shrug and Madame de Pompadour said: ‘You should have answered – said yes or no – he wouldn’t go and see for himself. Now it will take me a week to bring him round to you again.’)

The
Conseil
appointed thirty
intendants
who governed the provinces and collected the direct taxes; their powers were so great that they could make or mar the happiness of the thousands under their sway. They always belonged to the
noblesse de robe
, the
noblesse d’épée
would have despised such a job, though the titular head of each province was a
noble d’épée
. Besides the
Conseil d’Etat
there were the
Etats Généraux
and the
Parlements
. The
Etats
had not been summoned since 1614, but had never been suppressed and were therefore still a part of the Constitution. They represented the Clergy, Nobility and Commoners, but neither the number and qualifications of their electors, nor their procedure and their powers, had ever been precisely determined. The
Parlements
, whose organization had hardly changed since the fourteenth century, sat in fourteen important towns; the most powerful of them sat at Paris, in the
Palais de Justice
. These
Parlements
bore but little relation to
ours,
since their members were not elected, and their powers were judicial, not legislative, but they always had an eye on Westminster and as the English Parliament became more powerful, so they became more pretentious, until finally they persuaded themselves that they represented the nation. In fact, if they represented anything at all, it was the King rather than the people. The Paris
Parlement
was the supreme court of justice, its members, the
noblesse de robe
, were magistrates, and their office was hereditary; though it could also, in certain circumstances, be disposed of for money. Princes of the Blood, peers of the realm and bishops could also sit in the
Palais de Justice
, but it was not the custom for them to do so. Apart from their judicial functions, the Magistrates had certain political rights: they could refuse to register laws passed by the
Conseil d’Etat
, and they alone could register and legalize the taxes. The Magistrates were like one large family; indeed they were much intermarried, and they were nearly all Jansenists. They were proud and self-important and despised every other section of the community, though they had a certain respect for Louis XV.

Meanwhile the country was really run by its civil servants (in those days a royal bureaucracy), for whose excellence France has always been noted. They were busily transforming the ports, the harbours and all communications. In 1744 the mines were nationalized, that is to say everything under the ground was declared to be the property of the King. Their exploitation was left in private hands, but was regulated by a very enlightened
code de mines
, enforced by regular visits from inspectors. France in the nineteenth century was far ahead of all other countries as regards nationalization because of the enormous wealth of her kings; so much of the country’s land and industry had belonged to them and had then passed into the hands of the Republic. If today it is possible to be in a deep forest twenty minutes away from Paris it is because these were all royal forests in the first place, and have never been at the mercy of the private owner. The Sèvres, Gobelins, Aubusson and Savonnerie factories all belonged to the king and were subsequently nationalized.

The troubles between Church and State which are sure to be endemic in a non-Protestant but highly individualistic country
were
then, as now, the curse of French political life; then, as now, they occupied too much attention at a time when public energy should have been concentrated on more important matters. In 1749, Machault, who had succeeded Maurepas, saw that money was badly needed to build more ships. Backed up by the King, he decided to levy a tax, called
le vingtième
, a sort of income tax of five per cent, to be paid by all classes including the clergy. He also asked for a declaration of property.

The clergy, richer than any other section of the community, did not care for the prospect of paying the tax and still less for that of declaring their revenues. Their system of tax-paying was that they made presents to the State from time to time, the amount fixed by themselves; it was against their conscience to do more. They spoke a great deal about their divine immunity. Every year the Secretary of State and the Archbishop of Paris would meet to discuss this matter; the Secretary of State exposing in energetic terms the King’s financial needs and difficulties, to which the Archbishop would riposte with a heart-rending account of the desperate position in which the Church found itself. Machault, however, attacked with rather more vigour and determination than his predecessors; public opinion seemed to be on his side and the clergy saw the moment coming when it would be impossible to avoid paying taxes any longer. With a perfect indifference to any call of patriotism, they made a diversion by stirring up as much trouble as they could, against the ministers, against the
Parlement
, against the Protestants, and above all against the Jansenists.

Jansenism proper had practically died out under the persecutions of Louis XIV. The plough had been driven over the ruins of Port Royal, the inhabitants of its graveyard had been dug up, hacked into suitable joints and removed to some spot where there was no danger that they would attract pilgrims. In 1713 the Jesuits completed their victory by procuring a Papal Bull, Unigenitus, condemning 101 propositions in a popular book of devotion as Jansenist and therefore heretical. The result was that many people, who had never suspected the fact before, found themselves labelled Jansenist. At the beginning of the reign of Louis XV, a popular
kind
of Jansenism had evolved, anathema to the Court and the fashionable world – dowdy and ridiculous, with its nuns mewing like cats and barking like dogs, its convulsionists and flagellationists, eaters of earth and swallowers of live coals. The King regarded it with a great distaste, while the Queen felt so violently against it that she was nicknamed ‘Unigenita’.

The Jesuits were determined to establish control of the Church in France; the great Magistrates of the
Parlements
, who considered themselves guardians of this Church’s liberties, were equally determined to prevent them from doing so. It was this struggle between the Jesuits and a neo-Jansenist section, supported by the
Parlements
, which the clergy now saw fit to exacerbate. They refused the sacraments, including extreme unction, to anybody unable to produce a certificate stating that he had confessed to a qualified priest. Confession to priests of the lower clergy suspected of Jansenism was not accepted as valid. Those dying without
billets de confession
were refused extreme unction. Their relations would then apply to the
Parlement de Paris
, which would issue an order for the arrest of the priest who had refused. The Archbishop of Paris would then appeal to the King who in his turn would issue an order quashing that of the
Parlement
.

A bitter quarrel now broke out between
Parlement
and the Church. The Magistrates alleged that it was part of their police duties to ensure that citizens duly received the sacraments. The Church itself was given over to the old arguments, which had been thrashed out times without number in the course of a hundred years, between Jesuit and Jansenist. ‘The country,’ says Mgr Knox, ‘that had once been so rich in saints and mystics was now condemned to dissipate its energies in controversy … which weakened [the Church’s] influence and left her ill-prepared to face the crisis of the Revolution.’ The importance attached to this affair may be judged by the fact that Maupeou, senior President of the
Parlement
, wrote to the King: ‘Your
Parlement
has never been brought to the steps of your throne by a matter of such gravity …’

The King was now obliged to make up his mind whether to support his Church or his Magistrates. So far he had always managed to avoid taking sides between them; but a grave situation was
developing.
In Paris there were riots, priests were beaten up or forced at pistol point to take the sacraments to dying Jansenists. A nun called Sœur Perpetuée was said to be paid by the
Parlement
to die slowly and ostentatiously, while an argument raged as to whether she should, or should not, receive extreme unction. At last the King had her shut up in a convent and no more was heard of her. People began to fear a civil war, the dreaded word Fronde was heard again, and it began to look as if the rivers of ink which had already flowed over Unigenitus were going to turn into rivers of blood. On the whole the King leant towards the Jesuits, though he was far from approving everything they did. His family was blindly on their side. Madame de Pompadour, with her philosophical upbringing, should have provided a counterweight, but the years at Court had not been without their effect on her; the word
Parlement
seemed to strike rather a dubious note, evoking Cromwell, and dreadful republicanism. Besides she knew quite well that the Magistrates disapproved of her extravagance, at a time when public funds were low and there was talk of a new tax. Let it not be thought that the
Parlements
were any more anxious to pay the
vingtième
than was the Church.

Finally the King came down on the side of the Church and exiled the
Grand’ Chambre
(the highest court) of the
Parlement
to Pontoise (May 1753). He said that in the future he himself would be the arbiter as regarded sacraments. The place of the
Grand’ Chambre
was taken by a
chambre de vacations
composed of
Conseillers d’Etat
and
Maîtres des Requêtes
; but this lacked the authority of the
Parlement
.

At Pontoise
Messieurs les Présidents
kept great state. They never went out except in coaches-and-six; they entertained each other and the whole neighbourhood lavishly. After some months, the inconvenience of the King’s action began to be felt. Nobody could go to law. Perhaps this did not matter very much, people often settled out of court, but there were other consequences. The Magistrates were putting out a very convincing propaganda in which they represented themselves as the defenders of public liberty. The winter was a hard one; all the humble but literate men who depended on the
Palais de Justice
for a livelihood were unemployed
and
consequently in great distress. They stirred up trouble among the masses. The police were afraid to interfere in the cafés and on the streets where insurrection was openly being planned. ‘Burn Versailles’ was heard and other revolutionary slogans. The Prince de Conti, who, as he lived in Paris, was more in touch with public opinion than the King, saw the necessity of recalling the
Grand’ Chambre
, and, if possible, of raising something in the way of taxes from the clargy. The King seemed to be on the point of recalling it, but then he changed his mind and issued further
lettres de cachet
sending some of its members to Soissons and some to other provincial towns. This was a very severe measure; the Magistrates were now debarred from holding any meetings. It was not until September 1754 that the King decided to reinstate his
Parlement
, which returned to Paris, amid scenes of wild rejoicing, the same week that Louis XVI was born.