Royal Romances: Titillating Tales of Passion and Power in the Palaces of Europe (22 page)

For by then, Louis XV was bored yellow; everyone at court knew his pallor would grow jaundiced when he was beset with ennui. In 1725, at the age of fifteen, he had married Marie Leszczyńska, a dull Polish princess seven years his senior, and got right down to the business of begetting an heir. It was said he honored her with proofs of his love no fewer than seven times on their wedding night. To the shock of his courtiers, Louis actually fell in love with his bland and pious queen and didn’t even consider taking a mistress, convinced by his confessor that if he did so he would be forever consigned to the flames of hell—or at least, he would be if he took a lover before he sired a son.

He didn’t stray for a decade, and by the time he was twenty-seven he had ten children to show for it. But Queen Marie couldn’t keep pace with the Bourbon libido and was sick of always being pregnant.
Toujours coucher, toujours grosse, toujours accoucher
—always in bed, always pregnant, always giving birth, she would grumble. Finally, she began to invent excuses to keep her randy husband from her bed—Sundays and holy days, for example, were out. Finally, after ten children and too many excuses, in 1738 they ceased sleeping together entirely. Louis became exasperated and turned to the eldest
of the five aristocratic Mailly-Nesle sisters. Buxom, homely, and grasping, four of these women in turn became his
maîtresse en titre
, with the last of them, the youngest, prettiest, greediest, and nastiest of the quintet, Marie Anne de Mailly, Madame de Châteauroux, dying in 1744.

The post of
maîtresse declarée
thus became vacant. The field lay open for Jeanne-Antoinette, Madame d’Etioles, to fulfill her destiny. Wearing a petal-pink gown and driving through the forest of Sénart in a sky blue phaeton, or gowned in baby blue and holding the ribbons of a pastel pink chariot, the young woman with the waist-length ash blond hair, oval face, and doll-like mouth had already caught the king’s eye, making sure to accidentally-on-purpose cross paths with his hunting party. And more than the king took notice. As “
la dame en rose
” and “
la petite Etioles
,” she was hardly invisible to the snooty courtiers.

The king’s two greatest passions were hunting and women, and by the early weeks of 1745, only one of those itches was being adequately scratched.

By the time they met, Louis was already considered the handsomest man in France. Tall with sparkling black eyes, he had a husky timbre to his voice and a way of looking at people that was described as “caressing.” And no less a connoisseur than Casanova described Louis as having “a ravishingly handsome head…No painter, even very skillful, could sketch the movement of this monarch’s head when he turned to look at someone. One felt compelled to love him instantly…. I was certain that Madame de Pompadour had fallen in love with that face.”

No one has been able to pinpoint the exact date when the first overtures were made. But by February 25, 1745, at a masquerade to be forever immortalized as the Yew Tree Ball, one of the numerous celebrations in honor of the dauphin’s marriage to the Spanish Infanta Maria Theresa Rafaela, the king and the petite bourgeoise were seen dancing all night together—and it was commonly known that His Majesty didn’t even like to dance. To preserve his incognito, Louis and eleven of his companions had burst through the doors of the Hall of Mirrors midmasquerade, identically dressed as taffeta-leafed topiaries. But Madame d’Etioles, clad as the goddess Diana,
carrying a miniature bow and arrow, with a diamond crescent moon adorning her hair, had already been tipped off as to which tree was His Most Christian Majesty. The king purportedly greeted her with a jolly, “Fair huntress, happy are those who are pierced by your darts; their wounds are mortal.”

Before the ball ended, the lady dropped her handkerchief at Louis’ feet in a symbolic gesture—a tantalizing dare. The king picked it up and raised it to his lips, then pressed it to his bosom, in full view of his guests. And up rose the murmur, “
Le mouchoir est jeté
”—“The handkerchief is thrown!”

The following evening, after dancing the night away at a public ball in Paris, both incognito in black dominos, they disappeared into a private supper room. After dining, they hailed an unmarked hackney. “Where to?” the king inquired of his new conquest. “Home to mother!” came the reply.

The monarch finally arrived at Versailles, somewhat disheveled, at nine the following morning. Throughout the following week Madame d’Etioles’ carriage was seen numerous times on the road between Paris and Versailles as well as in the palace courtyard. With the exception of military campaigns that would take him abroad, Louis XV would not be separated from her for the next two decades.

When Jeanne-Antoinette had wed in 1741, she’d promised her husband, only half in jest, that the only man who could ever induce her to cheat on him would be the king. Ha-ha-ha, Monsieur d’Etioles chuckled, chucking his pretty wife under the chin. But in the winter of 1745, when the royal romance began to blossom, after Charles-Guillaume returned from another distant business trip, it fell to Le Normant de Tournehem to break the news to his nephew. He did so by explaining that “he could no longer count on his wife, that she had such a violent predilection for the King that she could not resist, and that there was no other part for him than to separate from her.”

Unfortunately for Jeanne-Antoinette, her spouse was no
mari complaisant
. He fell into a dead faint at the news and, upon his recovery, wrote a sad little letter begging Jeanne-Antoinette to return to him. When she refused, urging him to understand the situation, he took the high road and declined thenceforth either to take her back or to speak with her again. Jeanne-Antoinette committed the faux
pas of showing his letter to the king. Louis surprised and somewhat embarrassed her by responding, “Your husband seems to be a very decent sort of man, Madame.”

Monsieur d’Etioles’ emotional reaction to his wife’s royal liaison compelled the king to make a decision about the affair: Was it serious or merely a fling? The king chose to pursue the romance, and Monsieur d’Etioles was subsequently persuaded to accept a formal separation. He remained discreetly out of the way as a
fermier général
in Grenoble for the remainder of Jeanne-Antoinette’s life, and she saw to it that he always received any legal or financial aid that he might need.

According to Voltaire, Jeanne-Antoinette “always had a secret presentiment that she would be loved by the king, and…she had felt a violent inclination for him…. The king noticed her, and often sent her presents of roebucks. Her mother never stopped telling her that she was prettier than any of the king’s mistresses, and the
bonhomme
Tournehem often exclaimed: ‘One must admit that the daughter of Madame Poisson is a morsel fit for a King.’ In short, when she finally held the king in her arms, she told me that she had firmly believed in her destiny, and that she had been proved right.”

But the monarch’s intimates, his relatives, his ministers, and the courtiers who elevated backbiting, or
médisance
, into an art form would have handily wagered that the new girl in town was no more than the flavor of the month. Charles Philippe d’Albert, the duc de Luynes, observed that everyone had “been speaking of the King’s new love affair, and mostly about a Mme d’Etioles, who is young and pretty…. They say she has lately been spending much time in
ce pays-ci
[literally “this country,” the courtiers’ way of referring to the palace of Versailles] and that she is the King’s new choice; if that is true, she will probably be just a passing fancy and not a proper mistress.”

And that was one of the nicer comments.

Dashed off in both poetry and prose, the nastier diatribes, known as
poissardes
(a snarky reference to Jeanne-Antoinette’s maiden name, Poisson, which is also the French word for “fish”) began making the rounds. Passed off as the work of Parisian scribblers (and blatantly referring to Jeanne-Antoinette as a “slut” and a “cheap
whore” who had brought the court down to her level by turning it into a “slum”), they were more likely the handiwork of jealous ministers and other courtiers who had the advantage of observing firsthand how quickly she rose from obscurity to a position of the utmost influence.

Louis acted utterly unaffected by the derogatory poems and pamphlets. On April 27, the duc de Luynes was compelled to acknowledge, “That which seemed doubtful a little while ago is almost a constant truth; they say that she is madly in love with the King and that this passion is reciprocated.” Louis proceeded to install his new paramour in the apartments above his own at Versailles—the former residence of his previous
maîtresse en titre
, Madame de Châteauroux.

But Jeanne-Antoinette’s influence had been felt as immediately as late March. Although the king had previously supported painters, sculptors, composers, and architects, he had yet to become a literary patron. Now, thanks to her, Voltaire was awarded an annual pension of two thousand livres. Louis also bestowed upon the playwright, wit, and philosopher the office of Royal Historiographer as well as the much-coveted position of Gentleman of the Bedchamber in Ordinary, one that bore a patent of nobility.

While Louis spent the summer of 1745 on the battlefield as the fifth year of the War of the Austrian Succession raged on, he sent his new inamorata back to her own estate of Etioles for a full Pygmalion-style education. Under the watchful eyes of the marquis de Gontaut-Biron and the jolly, moonfaced abbé Bernis, Jeanne-Antoinette was schooled in the minutiae of the court etiquette laid down by her lover’s predecessor Louis XIV, memorizing everything from genealogy to curtsies to forms of address. Having arrived with an aristocrat’s usual social prejudices, the cynical Bernis quickly became a fan. “Madame d’Etioles had all the graces, all the freshness and all the gaiety of youth: she danced, sang, played comedy; she lacked no agreeable talent. She liked literature and the arts. She had a lofty soul, sensitive and generous.”

Being a jealous lover, the king forbade Jeanne-Antoinette the society of any other men (except relatives) during her summer crash course. Louis missed her terribly, but he acknowledged that she needed the schooling if their love affair had a chance of surviving. As
a bourgeoise amid a sea of envious aristocrats who didn’t believe she belonged at Versailles in the first place, she couldn’t afford the slightest misstep.

Nor could Madame d’Etioles take precedence over the other ladies, or become a
maîtresse en titre
until she was presented at court. For this, she would need her own title.

Louis sent her more than eighty billets-doux from the front, written on drumskins. On the ninth of July she received an important-looking packet sealed with the motto
“Discret et Fidele”
(“Discreet and Faithful”). It was addressed to madame la marquise de Pompadour. He had revived the extinct title for her and purchased the estate of Pompadour in Limousin from the prince de Conti. The packet contained a patent for letters of nobility, circumventing the necessity of having four hundred years of noble blood running through her veins. Her coat of arms depicted a trio of silver towers on an azure ground.

The first hurdle had been surmounted. But now the newly minted marquise needed a sponsor. “Which one of our sluts is to present the woman?” the queen was overheard remarking with uncharacteristic bitchiness.

Finally, the princesse de Conti, whose husband had sold His Majesty the Pompadour estates, was persuaded to stand up for the marquise, but she struck a hard bargain. She demanded that the king discharge her massive gambling debts.

On September 10, Louis returned from the wars, having been victorious at the Battle of Fontenoy. Four days later, his new lover was presented at court to the sovereigns and their daughters, known as Mesdames. Over the grand panniers that made her appear about six feet wide, the marquise de Pompadour wore for this ritual the traditional gown of heavily embroidered black satin with a narrow train and short white muslin sleeves. It contrasted beautifully against her pearlescent complexion. Small white feathers, also customary, adorned her lightly powdered hair.

An eyewitness described her appearance as “[V]ery well-made…magnificent skin, superb hands and arms, her eyes more pretty than large but of a fire, a spirituality, a brilliancy I have never seen in any other woman.”

To the dismay of the marquise de Pompadour’s numerous detractors, her deportment during the presentation, including her three deep curtsies or reverences and her backward exit from the royals’ presence, was utterly flawless. And no doubt their chins were on their chests when Her Majesty, making the small talk requisite on such an occasion, evinced no malice, but spoke to the new marquise at some length about an aristocrat of their mutual acquaintance.

Madame de Pompadour was so touched—and surprised—by the queen’s solicitousness that she spontaneously, and effusively, promised to do everything in her power to make the queen happy from that moment on. Of course, what truly would have pleased Her Majesty would have been for Madame de Pompadour to quit sleeping with her husband—but that would hardly have delighted the king!

The arrogant courtiers carped that Madame de Pompadour’s instant elevation to the aristocracy could not erase the fishy stench of her origins. But they soon realized that they would need to ingratiate themselves with
her
if they wanted the
king’s
favor, and so they pasted on smiles as false as their patches.

As she busily set about establishing her own salon, Pompadour also made it her business to take note of all the factions against her and who comprised them. Chief among these were Louis’ children (and particularly the dauphin), who referred to her as “
Maman Putain
”—Mother Whore—despite her genuine desire to reunite the squabbling Bourbon spawn with their libidinous father. And not only did the marquise remain respectful of Marie Leszczyńska, but she even convinced
Louis
to be kinder to his wife. Suddenly the queen found herself invited to his hunting lodges and châteaux, where previously she had been persona non grata. Her debts (which were all from philanthropic bequests) were paid, and her apartments, which had become tatty, were lavishly redecorated—all because the woman who was her rival at court had instructed her husband to be nicer to her.