Pompadour
In the long roll of left-hand queens there is no one whose career affords anything approaching the attraction for the student of history that is offered by that of Mme. de Pompadour. For nineteen years she was the virtual ruler of France,—in other words, the ruler of the greatest power in Europe. She conferred pensions and places, appointed Generals, selected Ambassadors, made and unmade Prime Ministers. Upon her rests the responsibility for the sudden but not unreasonable change in the traditional policy of France towards the House of Hapsburg, which enabled the vindictive Maria Theresa to fan the ashes of the War of the Austrian Succession into the devouring flame which ravaged Europe for seven years. To her influence, also, must be attributed in a great measure the suppression of the Jesuits in France.
If we turn from politics to other aspects of French civilization, we cannot but recognize the imprint of her hand. It is to her that France is indebted for the manufacture of Sèvres porcelain, while the establishment of the Ecole Militaire, which, in the twenty-seven years of its existence, gave to the country so many distinguished officers, Napoleon among the number, was mainly due to her efforts. In her also men of letters and artists found a generous and appreciative friend. She protected Voltaire and Montesquieu, rescued the elder Crébillon from poverty and neglect, encouraged Diderot and d’Alembert in their labors and made the fortune of Marmontel. It was she who introduced Boucher and his works to the court of Louis XV. and promoted in every way the interests of his fellow-painters. In a word, from the day on which she was installed at Versailles as maîtresse déclarée or maítresse en titre, till her death in 1764, a period of some nineteen years, the influence of Mme. de Pompadour was paramount in all matters, from politics to porcelain, and she was, in fact, the true sovereign in France.
How was it possible that a woman of middle-class origin, the daughter of a man who had been forced to fly his country to escape being broken on the wheel, should attain to a post which had hitherto been regarded as the peculiar appanage of the daughters of nobles, and, generally, of great nobles? It is certain that from the beginning her elevation was the signal for an outburst of hostility to which a less remarkable woman must have succumbed. She was called upon to face at once the enmity of the royal family, of powerful ministers, of ladies of the court, of the Jesuits, and of the rabble of Paris, for even the latter resented their sovereign’s departure from the custom observed by his predecessors of selecting mistresses from the noblesse. Not only did she never flinch for a moment from the unequal contest, but never till the hour of her death did she fail to sustain her position of predominance, except for a brief interval, when the attempt of Damiens to assassinate Louis XV. seemed to render her fall inevitable. When she died at the early age of 42, she did not succumb to the fear of any personal rivals or enemies, but to the mortification and grief produced by the disastrous outcome of the war into which she had dragged her country.
To the question how it was possible for a woman of middle-class origin to achieve what she did it scarcely suffices to say that, by the verdict even of unfriendly contemporaries, she was the most thoroughly accomplished and highly educated woman in France. She was also one of the most beautiful, and, by all odds, the most fascinating. Touching this point, the evidence of Diderot’s friend, Georges le Roy, may be cited. “She was,” he says “rather above the middle height, slender, supple and graceful. Her hair was luxurious, of a light, chestnut shade rather than fair, and the eyebrows which crowned her magnificent eyes were of the same hue. She had a perfectly formed nose, a charming mouth, lovely teeth, and a ravishing smile, while the most exquisite skin one could wish to behold put the finishing touch to all her beauty. Her eyes had a singular fascination, which they owed, perhaps, to the uncertainty of their color. They possessed neither the dazzling splendor of black eyes, the tender languor of blue, nor yet the peculiar keenness of gray. Their undecided color seemed to lend to them every kind of charm, and to express in turn all the feelings of an intensely mobile nature.” It is said her foot, her hand, her figure, were of a perfection acclaimed by painters and by sculptors, and that her temperament was intensely sympathetic and ardent.