BOOKS.
MADAME DE POMPADOUR.* THE reasons offered by Dr. Challice for writing this book are nearly as eccentric as the book itself, the object for which it was compiled,
and the means by which, in the author's judgment, that object has been attained. "It is," he says, in his preface, "as absurd for John Bull to look upon himself as infallible as for the Pope to resist pro- gress." "England's love of justice may be gratified by finding there are two sides to old feuds, which, though smouldering, are not ex- tinct." " The vindication of the ancient monarchy of France is honour- able to M. Capefigue." A collection of books " was made and examined in France at the time of their being printed or published by a con- temporary whose name was honoured in England and France," but whose name is not given, and the books descended to Dr. Challice. " The corroborative evidence in this work of certain statements made by French historians in favour of their own country, is due to English liberty of inquiry, of speech, and of thought, which show that England can afford to be generous." For all these and many more incoherent reasons, Dr. Challice thinks himself called upon to pub- lish two fat volumes, in order to rehabilitate the character of Louis XV. and Madame de Pompadour, both of whom, and especially the lady, he considers sadly maligned. Even "Time has not softened harsh judgment upon her, because it has not mitigated the elements which assailed her at home and abroad"—Dr. Challice does not mean rain and wind—" although they have assumed a different shape and name." "Obscured by a threefoldprejudice, political, ecclesiastical, and of birth, the woman whom the Queen-Empress of Austria called `Sister,' has been contemned; yet this contemporary tribute proves that the life of the Marquise de Pompadour was, or rather is, no un- important link in the chain of political events." Dr. Chalice, there- fore, advances to the rescue of a "woman most devoted to monarchy in the person of the king"—a description which would apply admirably to a king's waistcoat—and essays to prove—something, we presume, but what, we have not the faintest idea. It must be something very good, or Dr. Chalice would not have written two volumes to disprove all existing histories, but the extent, nature, or value of the goodness demonstrated in " the main figure of this work" is left very perplex- ingly vague, a fact due in part perhaps to the mode of illustration the author adopts. He does not attempt to write a new biography of the Pompadour, or a history of Louis XV., or even an essay upon either of them. A work of that kind might have been interesting from an author who either talks, or lets his printers talk, three times of the irreligious d'Argeus, calls Elizabeth Farnese six times Eliza- beth Farinese, and quotes the hackneyed exclamation of the Hun- garian magnate as " Moriamur pro rege nostro Maria Theresa," but he adopts an easier plan. It is simply to scrape up anecdotes out of books, some of them, as he says, "very trite," translate letters from the marquise herself, and whenever the anecdotes or letters happen to tell against the objects of his admiration, affirm that they mean exactly the opposite of the only meaning ordinary men acquainted with history are likely to attach to them. All historians and memoir writers, for example, agree to describe Louis XV. as a moody man,.in whom sen- suality had produced satiety, till he had lost even the power of being amused. Dr. Chalice declares that the cause of his gloom was the fate of the Duchess de Chateauroux, the favourite whom Louis XV., on his deathbed, suffered to be expelled from Metz, without an attendant or a carriage, whom he summoned without an apology as soon as he had recovered, and who died of joy on receiving the summons to new disgrace. Half France dishonoured itself in efforts to supply her place, but only, says Dr.Challice, "to drive the dark cloud from the soul of the Well-Beloved." When Madame d'Etioles, wife of a farmer-
general, by exhibiting herself as Diana in an ivory car, had won the coveted post, and followed the camp in man's clothes among the baggage of the Duc de Richelieu, " love," remarks Dr. Challice, induces more care for another than for oneself." He admits that she plotted to be the king's mistress, and told her husbandof her wish before she had seen Louis ; but throughout the book love is described as her ruling motive. She studied hard to maintain her dominion, trying to learn political knowledge, as she might learn crochet, in a few lessons, from a friend the Marechal de Belleisle, and Dr. Chalice makes it a re- proach to the king's wife, Marie Leezinska, that she did not pursue the same plan. The idea that it was the effort to rule France which was the greatest of the Pompadour's offences, and the only onb for which she is "maligned," or noticed by posterity, or the belief that it was the queen's business to urge the king to rule, and not to rule herself, never seem to have entered his head. Years after, when the Parliament tried, selfishly perhaps, but still rightfully, to limit the ex- cessive taxation, the evil vixen addressed President Meynieres at her toilette with sneering acrimony, as one who dared to resist the king,
and the scene is related by Dr. Challice with every mark of admira- tion. "De Meynieres," he says, " confessed himself troubled be-
neath the eyes, which even female envy declare to emit a light as though a new soul sprang into life." Emitting light as they spring to life is a new process for souls, with which doctors and theologians are alike unacquainted ; but we may let that pass. One would have fancied the first magistrate of a great country might have felt a little " troubled" at being slanged by the king's harlot, without that fact redounding to her credit. At the very time when the marquise was rating De Meynieres, for trying to resist the imposition of new taxes, she had before her, and concealed from the king, this frightful
.1 Secret History of the Court of France under Louis XV. By Dr. Challiee. Built and Blacken.
official report, which Dr. Challice, with almost ludicrous honesty, gives as we quote it :
" I cannot represent the wretchedness which reigns in this province. The earth yields nothing. Most of the farmers, unable to live by its products bare abandoned their land. Some have become beggars, and others soldiers. Many have gone away altogether to foreign countries. . . . A hamlet, which before the war supported 1500 inhabitants, can scarcely furnish necessaries for 600. . . . The cattle have diminished in proportion with men. The country is in absolute need of cattle ' - so that in most of the villages where labour is still car- ried on, men do the work of oxen.' . . . 'The subjects of the king,' writes another provincial superintendent, ' diminish every day in this province. Soon there will be no longer any inhabitants. I have desired the curds of different parishes to furnish me with the list of baptisms and burials, and the number of deaths exceeds that of the living. . . . Out of 50 of the king's subjects there are scarcely two who have bread to eat The others die from want. Mar- riage is almost unknown, and the children that are born are the offspring of debauchery. It is beyond me to prescribe a remedy in the present crisis of the monarchy. God alone can deliver it from the gulf of misery into which the troubles of the time have plunged it."
And this Dr. Chalice quotes himself, as if that single page were not a final answer to all that any picker up of memoirs could find to allege in favour of the woman who ruled France till she produced this result, or that of the selfish scoundrel she tempted on to the ruin of millions.
It is almost impossible in a review to show how completely Dr. Challice, in his anxiety to rewrite history and yet be honest as to facts, has overlooked all distinctions between right and wrong. The queen, it seems, tolerated the Pompadour, who, in return, with a cutting sneer, wrote of her that "it was not possible for a lady to exemplify Christianity in a higher degree of perfection," and Dr. Chalice asks, " was it not well for this Christian queen that the choice of the king had fallen on one who was noble enough at heart to appreciate thegoodness of which she had never until then seen so bright an example." As if Marie Leczinska, the cold and pure Queen of France ought to have liked the patronage of her husband's low-born paramour. The marquise sang at petits soupers, and even "danced with childlike abandon," and Dr. Challice says, "It was in all this site was so charming. Versatility is fascinating, but unusual. It was in that she was distinguished from most of her sex. Learned, but gay; ambitious, but unpretending; exalted, yet condescending; a great lady, but a merry girl; the counsellor of the king in periods of anxiety, his amusement in moments of relaxation, with plenty of head, but still more heart." Which is precisely what Herod said of Herodias, but is not exactly a reason why history should pronounce that Jewish Pompadour "maligned." Like most women of her class the marquise had a thorough dislike for her own sex and a thorough contempt for the other. " Five hundred apes" site calls the courtiers of France, who " rarely made the king laugh," that being the one object of humanity and end of politics, and with ill-concealed scorn of her lover adds, "How I pity them, these gods of the earth who are thought to be so happy,' whereupon Dr. Chalice remarks, "So even then, in only the third year of her connexion with royalty, the mar- quise craved for real sympathy among all the empty pomp and panoply by which she was surrounded." He even recounts among the bless- ings which ought to have consoled the new dauphiness for the want of her husband's love the welcome she received from "a resplendent bevy of court beauty, the Pompadour in the midst." The marquise turned out D'Argenson, the capable Minister of Foreign Affairs, be- cause she said " the art of a fine politician is to tell lies it propos of the good of the state," and he did not do it. But, says Dr. Chalice, there could have been no private pique, for she wrote him a letter hoping to see him again at the head of his department, as if she could not follow her own advice and tell lies for the good of the State, and her own too.
We are almost tired of the subject, but we must give one or two more instances of the astonishing indifference to all that is noble into which his quaint admiration for this wretched woman has led our author. The king, in the meanest style, broke his word to the English pretender, and even arrested him to compel him to quit France. The populace of Paris showed a generous indignation, which Dr. Challice calls "blind fury," and the good Marquise remarked characteristically, "The prince forgets that sovereigns alone can forfeit their word with- out forfeiting their honour," a phrase which exactly reveals the descent of France from the king who said, " Honour should find a refuge in the breast of princes," down to Louis XV. The king at one time lived almost exclusively with the marquise, and one day asked her brother to dinner. "The Marquis de Marigny was not unworthy of the king's favour. He shared his sister's heritage of a noble style of beauty, and something of her versatility of talent. He was able to amuse the king with anecdotes of his travels, and the result of artistic observa- tions in Italy and elsewhere ; added to which he was animated by zeal to serve a monarch who had so highly distinguished him, and who had the charm of kingly courtesy to prevent a sense of obli- gation." The high distinction consisted in debauching the honoured noble's sister, and buying off her husband. Maria Theresa, the proudest woman in Europe, and wholly unblemished in womanly character, once stooped, in a moment of political desperation, to call the Pompadour her sister. "It is natural," says Dr. Challice, "to sup- pose that she being none the less woman because empress, was touched by the sympathy which makes the whole world kin." Other people, not surprised at the conduct of the empress, who wanted to save a province, wonder only at the woman whose "sympathy" was, from her own wrongs, usually hostile to the king's "friends." At last the
demanded for the marquise the honours of the tabouret—a seat in t e presence of his queen, and her kiss on entrance; the ill-used lady who had borne so much resisted on the religious ground, earning from Dr. Chalice the comment that " the king was outraged by this duplicity." The queen persisted, and Madame de Pompadour wrote
an affectionate letter to her husband, promising to live with him. She at the same time had bim bribed to refuse, and, her position thus fortified, received the coveted queen's kiss. "Her letter," says Dr. Challice, " shows she was stung to repentance." We have only to add that I.)r. Challice has on one point cleared his heroine's character. He has almost proved that the Pare aux Cerfs did not stand where the world supposes it did.
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