Madame de Pompadour by Nancy Mitford Read Free Book Online Page B

see that the real King, who had taken off his headdress, was engaged in a laughing conversation with Madame d’Etioles, dressed as Diana and also unmasked. ‘The handkerchief is thrown,’ said the courtiers. It was now clear to them that a love affair was beginning. Before they parted the King had arranged to meet her the following Sunday at the ball in Paris.
    Next morning at eight o’clock the last carriage still had not left Versailles.
    The Paris municipality now put its best foot forward. The Spanish marriage was popular; it was supposed to have eliminated the Pyrenees and turned them into a
temple d’amour
– such rubbish, said the courtiers – thus lessening the chances of war with Spain. The Dauphin was known to be in love and this was considered romantic; and then the King, the adored, the idol, was in such an interesting situation. The mood of the capital was one of benevolent jollity. The festivities on this Sunday evening must have been very much like those of a modern fourteenth of July, only far more elaborate, with free food and wine galore. As it was winter and therefore impossible to dance in the streets, seven ballrooms were built – at the Hôtel de Ville, which had its courtyard roofed in, at the Place Dauphine, two in the Place Louis le Grand (Vendôme), at the Place du Carrousel, in the rue de Sèvres and the Place de la Bastille. These ballrooms were designed with an attention to detail which has hardly been bestowed, since the eighteenth century, on something only intended to last one evening. They were like large summer-houses, Chinese in feeling, their walls were of pink marble and trellis work filled with vine leaves, bunches of grapes and flowers. Real palm trees, whose stems were garlanded with roses, and draperies of pink velvet fringed with gold, outlined the buffets which groaned with turkeys, boar’s heads and other delicacies. The chandeliers hung from garlands of flowers, and, outside, the walls and roofs were covered with candles. Everywhere there were pictures and statues of the royal family; marble fountains flowed with wine. Except for the Hôtel de Ville, all these ballrooms were open to the public; the poorest of the poor came with their wives, their families and even their dogs to eat, and drink, and dance, and amuse themselves all night. There was also a subscription ball at the Opéra.
    The Dauphin was to attend the masked ball at the Hôtel de Ville without his father, and there to thank the Parisians for their good wishes. It was expected that the King would look in later, in disguise. This ball was by invitation, but there had been considerable mismanagement, twice too many cards had been sent out and the crowd was so immense as to be almost dangerous. In spite of a second ballroom in the courtyard the guests could hardly move, it took hours to get up or down the stairs, and the women’s dresses were torn to pieces by the crush. The whole thing was a scandal, said the Parisians, who grumbled about it for weeks afterwards; the food had given out by three in the morning, and it was alleged that several people had died, of heat, or cold, or fatigue or asphyxiation.
    The King and the Duc d’ Ayen, his boon companion, left Versailles immediately after the King’s
coucher
, at about midnight; they were in black dominoes. First they went to while away an hour or two at a public ball in the town; then they started off for Paris, a drive which, with the King’s special horses, known as
les enragés
, took about an hour and a quarter. At Sèvres they met the Dauphin going home to his darling new wife; he had thanked the Parisians very charmingly for their kind enthusiasm, after which it had been almost impossible for him to get through the crowd at the Hôtel de Ville, even with a guard clearing the way. The two carriages stopped, and the Dauphin crossed the road to tell his father what it had been like at the ball; he heartily advised him not to go on. Himself lazy, religious