Madame de Pompadour (8 page)

Then cunning, or chivalrous – according to whether a French or English historian tells the tale – Lord Charles Hay cried, ‘Gentlemen of the French guards, fire!’ To which the chivalrous, or cunning, Comte d’Auteroches replied, ‘No, no, my lord, we never fire first.’ Everybody knew that whichever side opened fire would be left at a disadvantage, virtually unarmed, for several minutes, while the soldiers were recharging their muskets. After a
pause
the English opened the steady, accurate and murderous fire for which, since the days of bows and arrows, they have been renowned; the results for their enemy were fearful. Every single French guards officer was killed or wounded, and the ranks were decimated; with no officer to rally them they wavered and broke. The redcoats resumed their advance. Maréchal de Saxe’s whole plan of battle was thrown out by this defection of his infantry; the French guards, like the English, were supposed to stand and die, and it was many years before they lived down the disgrace of this day. The Duc de Biron, with the
Régiment du Roi
, slowed up the advance for a while – suffering heavy casualties, 460 of his men falling at a single volley – but it seemed that nothing could stop it. Useless to throw cavalry against that dogged mass; and on it came. Saxe now sent a message to the King that his position was becoming dangerous and that it would be better for him to retire. The King said he was perfectly certain that the Comte de Saxe (as he always called him) had the matter well in hand, and he would stay where he was.

Maurice de Saxe, too ill with dropsy either to stand or ride, had a little wicker carriage drawn by four horses; in this he galloped up and down the lines. The Maréchal de Noailles, though senior to him and very jealous of him, forgot these considerations and was acting as his A.D.C. More and more units engaged the Englishmen, but in vain; certain, now, of victory they came on shouting and cheering. The English general of German blood roared that he would get to Paris or eat his boots; the French general of German blood was told this and said, ‘He must let us cook them first.’ But he thought the day was lost, and sent another message to the King, imploring him to go. The battle was now so near the royal party that King and Dauphin were separated by riderless horses and had lost sight of each other in the general confusion.

Then up to the King galloped Richelieu, adorer of battles, who ‘despised death as a gambler despises ruin’; he had been all over the front and was so covered with dust as to be unrecognizable. ‘What news?’ The reply was most unexpected: ‘The day is won. We must use our cannon and then the King’s Household will charge.’ There were only four guns left, they opened fire on the
English
column with some effect, after which Richelieu, Biron and d’Estrées took the King’s bodyguard into action, leaving the King and the Dauphin with nobody to defend them. It was a bold stroke and it succeeded perfectly. The English, on the face of it still as unshakable as ever, had really had about enough; under the impact of Richelieu’s charge they positively melted away. ‘It was like fighting against magic regiments which could be visible or invisible at will.’ Cumberland and his officers were the last to leave the field.

No doubt the presence of the King had greatly contributed to this victory; his soldiers could hardly allow their monarch and his only heir to be taken prisoner before their very eyes, and the fresh troops of his bodyguard had formed an invaluable reserve. When he had warmly thanked Saxe, the other general officers, Biron and the
Régiment du Roi
which had played such a glorious part earlier in the engagement, with a special word to Richelieu, he took the Dauphin round the battlefield. The slaughter had been terrible, and the King, always a pacifist at heart, wanted his son to realize at what cost such victories are won. The wounded, French and English alike, were carted into Lille where the hospital arrangements were better than they had ever been after a battle; the rich merchants’ wives gave up all frivolity, turned themselves into nurses and looked after the soldiers.

There was no singing with his men that night; the King retired to bed early and slept very little. He was heard to sigh, often and deeply.

The battle of Fontenoy marked the apogee of Louis XV’s popularity; never again was the mystical link between him and his people, of all classes, to be so strong. Voltaire pounced upon the occasion to write a laudatory poem,
La Bataille de Fontenoy
, dedicated to
Notre Adorable Monarque
, for which he dug out a good many epithets and mythological allusions formerly applied by Boileau to Louis XIV. Richelieu, a great friend of Voltaire’s, got even more praise in it than he deserved; and the cunning old poet mentioned a lot of other people who might be useful to him. Soon he was besieged by women begging a line or two for sons and lovers. This poem
sold
ten thousand copies in ten days, mostly to the army; subsequent editions brought in so many sons and lovers that the thing became a farce.

The population of Paris arranged fêtes and ceremonies, lasting three days, to welcome the King on his return from the front, and received him with delirium. The Queen, the Princesses and all the Court came up from Versailles and stayed at the Tuileries with him. He had not one moment for himself, but sent various friends to call on Madame de Pompadour at her uncle’s house. During the great banquet at the Hôtel de Ville she and her family dined upstairs in a private room; the proud Dukes of Richelieu, Bouillon and Gesvres left the King’s table in turns with messages for the newly-made Marquise.

On 10 September the Court returned to Versailles; and that same evening one of the royal carriages drove up to a side door. Madame de Pompadour got out of it, accompanied by her cousin Madame d’Estrades, and went quickly upstairs to an apartment which had been prepared for her. Next day the King supped there with her alone; her reign of nearly twenty years had begun.

‘AND WHICH OF
our trollops is going to present this adventuress to the Queen?’ an
abbé de cour
threw the question at the tittering, twittering company in general. ‘Shut up, Abbé, for it’s me.’ It was indeed the disreputable old Princesse de Conti, who would at any time perform any service for her cousin the King so long as he would go on paying her gambling debts. She had covered herself by going to see the Queen and explaining that it was hardly her fault if she was obliged to be a party to something utterly repugnant, so much against both her wishes and her principles. Alas, she had received the royal command; no more to be said. Fontenoy, as a topic, had now entirely lost interest and nothing was spoken of but the presentation; everybody was busily making plans for the great event. The Duchesse de Luynes, who had been going to Dampierre for a little holiday, thought that the least she could do would be to stay and support the Queen while the Queen’s father, Stanislas, who was on his way to visit her, thought it would be more seemly for him to wait in Paris until all was over. In the end he compromised and went to Trianon. Everybody else flocked to Versailles to see the fun; there had seldom been such an enormous crowd in the state apartments.

At 6 p.m. the Princesse de Conti left her room accompanied by her own lady-in-waiting, as well as by the new Marquise, the Comtesse de Lachau-Montaubon and the Comtesse d’Estrades, whose presentation had taken place the day before. They all wore thickly embroidered satin skirts over enormous panniers; short muslin sleeves; small white feathers, held in place on their lightly powdered hair with diamonds; and narrow trains. Their little sliding
footsteps
took them through lanes of sight-seers in the state rooms, through the Œil-de-Bœuf, packed with courtiers, to the King’s council chamber. His Majesty stood by the chimney piece, deeply embarrassed, scarlet in the face, and looking very sulky indeed. When the Marquise de Pompadour was named he muttered something which nobody heard and dismissed her with a freezing nod. She, too, was seen to be very nervous; but her three curtseys were impeccable, and masterly was the kick with which she got her train out of the way so that she could walk backwards, the most difficult part of the whole proceeding.

The intimidating journey now continued, back across the Œilde-Bœuf, to the Queen’s room. This was even more packed with people than the King’s, as everybody was curious to know what the Queen would say to her new rival; no doubt she would compliment her on her dress in one sentence, or at the most two, before dismissing her. It was the usual way, at Versailles, of saying nothing at all. But the Queen was quite well aware that the interview had been settled for her, and preferred to take a line of her own. She spoke to Madame de Pompadour of Madame de Saissac, asking if she had seen her lately, and said that she herself had been so delighted to have a visit from her the other day in Paris. Now the Marquise de Saissac was one of the few aristocrats whom the Poisson family had always known; by speaking thus, in such a natural and friendly way, of a mutual acquaintance the Queen gave the onlookers to understand that, in her view, Madame de Pompadour was perfectly admissible at Court. She must have known that this would annoy the courtiers and was perhaps not averse from doing so; she had many a little score to pay back herself.

As for the Marquise, she was quite thrown off her balance by the unexpected kindliness of this opening; she became almost hysterical, and burst out, not at all as a noblewoman would have done, with assurances of love and respect for the Queen, and her determination to do all that she could to please her. The Queen seems to have been gratified rather than annoyed by this vehemence and the two women then exchanged no fewer than twelve sentences (eagerly counted up, and reported that very night to Paris). The bystanders were, of course, longing for Madame de Pompadour to
make
some embarrassing slip but the only small incident that occurred was when she removed her glove to take the Queen’s skirt and kiss it; she tugged too nervously and pulled off a bracelet which fell on to the floor. The Princesse de Conti picked it up for her. She was then conducted downstairs to the Dauphin’s apartment where she was coldly received; he spoke of her dress in one sentence only, dismissed her, and – some say – put his tongue out at her as she went.

Her ordeal was over. She had come out of it pretty well, her grace, her beauty and her extreme elegance could not be denied, even by those who could hardly bear to think of a bourgeoise in the sacred purlieus. As for the Queen, she was much relieved that this new mistress was at least respectful, perhaps really rather kind; she had suffered from the Maillys who had subjected her to every sort of petty humiliation and had done all they could, only too successfully, to estrange her from the King. Any change from such hateful, if well-born women, was for the better as far as she was concerned.

Louis XV, after so many months away from his beloved, now very naturally wanted to be able to enjoy her company in peace and quiet for a while. He carried her off to Choisy with a small house party, Mesdames de Lauraguais, St Germain, Bellefonds, Messieurs de Richelieu, Duras and d’Ayen; people in whose company she was going to live from now on. The Marquise was allowed to invite a few of her own friends, Voltaire, Duclos and the Abbé Prévost; an experiment which seems not to have been a success, as we never hear of them coming in this way again. The writers dined by themselves, in a special room, not at all the same as dining in the dining-room. The King, so fond of artists, gardeners and architects, to whom he would allow every sort of familiarity, never felt at ease with writers, and Madame de Pompadour, who would have liked to live in their company, suffered from this. She once pointed out to him that Frederick the Great always asked the intellectuals to his own table; the King replied, with some truth, that it was all very well for the King of Prussia, a country devoid of intellectuals, but that if the King of France introduced this custom, he would have to begin by getting an enormous table. He then counted up
on
his fingers: Maupertuis, Fontenelle, La Mothe, Voltaire, Piron, Destouches, Montesquieu, the Cardinal de Polignac. ‘Your Majesty has forgotten d’Alembert and Clairaut.’ ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘and Crébillon and Lachaussée.’ ‘Then there’s Crébillon’s son and the Abbé Prévost and the Abbé d’Olivet.’ ‘There you are!’ said the King, ‘for twenty-five years I should have had all this dining and supping with me.’

At Choisy Madame de Pompadour commissioned Voltaire to write an opera, in celebration of Fontenoy:
Le Temple de la Gloire
, in which Louis XV is represented as Trajan.
Chez lui les autels de Vénus sont dans le Temple de la Gloire
. When this opera was finally given at Versailles, Voltaire, always at his insufferable worst with the King, went too far as usual. Bold as brass, he advanced to where the King was chatting with Richelieu, and said, loudly, ‘Is Trajan pleased?’ He then took the King by the sleeve to tell him something. He had already been invited to supper after the performance, but it was noticed that the King never once spoke to him. Such manners simply did not do at Versailles, and Madame de Pompadour must have suffered to see her friend behaving so stupidly. For let it not be thought that Voltaire was indifferent to royal personages. He was one of the great snobs of history and it was only when he saw that there was no place for him at the Court of his own King – entirely, it must be said, owing to his inconceivable tactlessness – that he went off, first to that of King Stanislas at Lunéville, and then to that of King Frederick at Potsdam. Meanwhile he had been given, and kept through all his vicissitudes, a post and pension at Versailles, as well as that most coveted of favours, a room in the palace. (This he did not keep; there was a chronic housing shortage there and empty rooms were snatched up at once.) As soon as he was in it he began to demand every kind of improvement and repairs to the room itself, adding that in his view the public privies at the bottom of his staircase ought to have a door to them. The King having personally intervened with the Jesuit members, Voltaire was at long last elected to the Académie française.