Madame de Pompadour by Nancy Mitford Read Free Book Online

guinea.’ An
écu
was half a crown. The
livre
varied in value according to the monetary policy of the government. During the reign of Louis XV it was about twenty-four to the
louis
.)
    The Duc de Chevreuse, who truly was all piety and goodness, was in love with the Queen and horribly jealous of Président Hénault; the King, the Dauphin and even the Queen herself used to make jokes about it. This little company sat sleepily round the fire, evening after evening; one or more of them would generally nod off, lulled by the snoring of Madame de Luynes’ old dog, Tintamarre. The Cardinal once woke up with a jump and called for an immediate meeting of the chapter.
    Evenings such as these were not likely to attract the presence of Louis XV.

3
The Ball of the Clipped Yew Trees
    IN FEBRUARY 1745 , the Dauphin was married to the Infanta Marie-Thérèse-Raphaèle, sister of the King’s little rejected fiancée. He was the second of Louis XV’s children to marry. The eldest daughter was now wife of the King of Spain’s second son, the Infante Philip; she was always known as Madame Infante.
    A great round of festivities celebrated the Dauphin’s wedding. Though he and his sisters disliked balls, their father did not; he declared that at their age it was good for them to dance, and during the whole month of February they were given the opportunity of doing so nearly every night. There were balls in the apartments of Mesdames (the Princesses), in the town of Versailles, and in the palace riding school; the King danced continually and always with the same person. She was masked, but rumour had it that she was the lovely Madame d’Etioles. These fêtes culminated in a great ball at Versailles, and another at the Hôtel de Ville in Paris.
    A few days before the palace ball was to take place, when nobody was talking of anything else, Président Hénault met Madame d’Etioles. He asked if she was going to it? Yes, she was. He said, with the fatherly solicitude of an old Lothario, that he hoped she had made suitable arrangements for accommodation; he had heard that every room in the whole town of Versailles was taken. She replied demurely that her cousin, the Sieur Binet, was kindly seeing to it for her.
    The ball for the Dauphin’s marriage was perhaps the most splendid ever known in all the history of Versailles. The palace was illuminated inside and out, it glowed like a great bonfire at the end of the Avenue de Paris, which in its turn was a river of light, from the double line of coaches, all laden with guests, coming from the capital. Candles, torches, brands and flares cast a warm and variable radiance, very much more beautiful than electric headlights and flood lighting. The guests drove across the great courtyard, and got out of their carriages at the foot of the marble staircase in the south wing. Never had there been such a crowd at any previous ball, every pretty woman in Paris was there to try her chances with the King. When balls were given in the state apartments they were entirely open to the public; it sufficed to be properly dressed to be admitted. The men were obliged to carry swords, but even this regulation was arbitrary; everybody knew that the palace
concierge
did a brisk trade hiring out swords to would-be guests. At the top of the staircase one member of each party was required to unmask and give his name; otherwise there were no rules and no invitations were issued. On this occasion, the man who was supposed to take the names very soon gave up the unequal struggle; the crowd surged past him, through the Queen’s rooms, including her bedroom, into the Galerie des Glaces and on into the seven reception rooms known as the Appartement. These rooms each had a buffet and a band; it was hoped that too great a crush in the gallery would thus be relieved. But the guests, who behaved in a very free and easy way the whole night, shocking the courtiers with their lack of manners, merely paused to help themselves to food