It is a law of Providence that no one can shine without suffering, and that jealous Fortune avenges herself for all the successes that she grants. Women are like conquerors: they always expiate their triumphs. For these queens à la mode, these dazzling magicians who appear like meteors and who live amid a cloud of incense, there is after all no alternative but death or dethronement. To die or to grow old, that is the terrible dilemma from which they are unable to extricate themselves. Women whose attractions have not been more than ordinary bend to this common law with sufficient resignation. But the celebrated beauty, the haughty beauty who delights in herself as if her youth were never to end, secretly revolts against cruel destiny and silently endures a real martyrdom. Her shrivelled hand tries to retain the sceptre that is slipping from it. She is unwilling to descend from the throne whence she has been used to survey a crowd of servile adorers. As the changes come on gradually, in a manner hardly perceptible, she has probably failed to notice the precursory symptoms of her decline. She is told on all sides that she is more seductive, more radiant, than ever. Then, in this last blossoming of her departing youth, she experiences that indefinable sentiment, that blending of unquiet joy and voluptuous melancholy, which takes possession of the soul under the light of the last bright days of autumn. When one looks at the azure sky, one cannot realize that winter is so near. But if one drops one’s eyes, the yellowing leaves that cover the ground or are swept away by the wind, remind one that the feast of nature is drawing to a close. The woman who longs most to preserve her illusions concerning the perpetuity of her youth, finds warning accusations which afflict and terrify her. The first wrinkles, the first gray hairs; the color which needs to be touched up, the lips and eyes which call imperiously for paint; the insolent mirror which nevertheless one cannot break because it is in opposition to the flatterers, because in its mute language it brutally declares the truth!

Madame de Pompadour was forty-two years old. Aged prematurely by the unwholesome emotions of intrigue, vanity, and ambition, she was suffering both in body and in mind. Incessant palpitation of the heart disturbed her. Fever was her constant guest. On nearing the end of her career she looked back sadly over the road she had traversed, and comprehended at last the inanity of the things in which she had vainly sought for happiness. But for a true repentance she lacked a religious faith like that of Mademoiselle de La Vallière. In default of faith, the Marquise had great courage. She strove energetically against disease, but she remained worldly and theatrical even in suffering and death. “She would no longer appear in Paris,” says M. Arsène Houssaye; “at court she never showed herself except by lamplight, in the apparel of a queen of Golconda, crowned with diamonds, wearing twenty bracelets, and dragging after her an Indian robe embroidered with gold and silver. It was always the divine Marquise of other days; but presently, when one looked closely, one discovered that it was but a pastel, still charming, but rubbed out here and there. It was at the mouth that her beauty began to fade. She had early contracted the habit of biting her lips, to conceal her emotions. By the time she was thirty, her mouth had lost all its vivid freshness. It was necessary to repaint it after every meal and every kiss!”[53] Her eyes had retained all their brilliancy. But the rest of her person was plainly aging. She tried in vain to conceal her excessive meagreness under the skilful devices of the toilette. She was a woman stricken by death. She fell ill at Choisy, and while there was still time she asked to be taken back to Versailles in order to die as she had lived, amidst the evidences of her power. Her friends had an instant of hope, for a slight amelioration was produced. The poet Favart instantly produced this stanza:—

Palissot sent the following verses to the Marquise:—

Madame de Pompadour did not allow herself to be deceived by these fallacious hyperboles. All this mythology did not mislead her. She understood very well that there was nothing in common between her and the sun, and felt herself already invaded by the chilly shadows of death.

“It will come at the predestined day; it will come,” as Bossuet said, “this last illness when, amidst an infinite number of friends, doctors, and attendants, you will find yourself without assistance, more forsaken, more abandoned, than the pauper dying on the straw without a sheet for his burial! For of what avail are these friends in this fatal malady? Only to afflict you by their presence; these doctors? only to torment you; these attendants? only to run hither and thither about your house with useless zeal. You need other friends, other servants; these paupers whom you have despised are the only ones capable of assisting you. Why did you not think in time of providing yourself with such friends as would now hold out their arms to receive you into everlasting tabernacles?”[56]

Even on her death-bed Madame de Pompadour, always the slave of the man whose mistress she was called, feared the King more than God himself. They say she sent to Louis XV. to ask if he desired her to go to confession. The King replied affirmatively. A priest from Paris, the curé of the Madeleine, administered the last sacraments to the dying woman. When he was about to withdraw, it is pretended that she retained him with a last smile, and said: “One moment, Monsieur the Curé, we will go away together.” A few minutes before she had caused her will to be read to her, which commenced thus: “I, Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour, wife separated from the property of Charles Guillaume Lenormand d’Étioles, equerry, have made and written my present testament and ordinance of my last will, which I wish to be executed in its entirety. I recommend my soul to God, entreating Him to have pity on it, to pardon my sins, to grant me the grace to do penance and to die in dispositions worthy of His mercy, hoping to appease His justice by the merits of the precious blood of Jesus Christ my Saviour and by the powerful intercession of the Blessed Virgin and of all the Saints in Paradise. I desire that my body shall be taken to the Capuchins of the Place Vendôme, at Paris, and buried in the vault of the chapel conceded to me.” As one sees, the Marquise was not so faithless as the Encyclopedists claimed. The poor woman had learned for herself what earthly kings are. Perhaps, at the last hour, she turned her eyes toward the King of Heaven.

She breathed her last April 15, 1764. It was long since Louis XV. had ceased to love her. He merely tolerated her. If he had kept her at court, it was only lest her disgrace should make her die of chagrin.

This premature death was rather a release from embarrassment than an affliction to him. It is said that, seeing from one of the windows of Versailles the carriage starting which was to carry her coffin to Paris during a frightful storm, he said tranquilly: “The Marquise will not have good weather for her journey.” Then, calmly drawing out his watch, he calculated at what hour the funeral would reach its destination—and that was all.

Madame de Pompadour’s existence had been like a parody of real greatness. It was the same with her obsequies. A Capuchin had been appointed to make the funeral oration. He extricated himself from this heavy task like a man of wit. “I receive,” said he, “the body of the very high and powerful lady, the Marquise de Pompadour, lady of the Queen’s palace. She was at the school of all virtues, for Her Majesty is a model of goodness, of modesty, of indulgence.” And thus he went on for a quarter of an hour, making a well-deserved eulogy of the Queen. Marie Leczinska, always so charitable, was struck by the extreme promptness with which the too celebrated favorite was forgotten. “No one has anything more to say here of her who is no more,” she remarked to President Hénault, “than if she had never existed. Such is the world; truly it is worth while to love it!”

Once dead, Madame de Pompadour seemed unworthy even of hatred. Still, the men of letters and the artists who had formerly been protected by her, regretted her somewhat. Voltaire, while remembering with bitterness that she had sustained Crébillon, wrote to M. de Cideville: “I have been much afflicted by the death of Madame de Pompadour. It is ridiculous that an old scribbler on paper, who can scarcely walk, should be still living, and that a beautiful woman should die at forty in the midst of the finest career in the world. Perhaps if she had tasted the repose that I enjoy she would be living still.” Diderot was more severe. He had to give a description of the Salon of 1765, where a picture was exhibited which Vanloo had painted during Madame de Pompadour’s illness, and which represented the afflicted Arts addressing themselves to Destiny to obtain the preservation of her life. “Vanloo’s suppliants,” said the critic, “obtain nothing from Destiny which is more favorable to France than to the Arts. Madame de Pompadour died at a moment when she was thought to be out of danger. Well! what remains of this woman who exhausted us of men and money, deprived us of honor and energy, and upset the political system of Europe? The treaty of Versailles, which will last as long as it can; Bouchardon’s Amour, which will always be admired; several stones sculptured by Guay, which will astonish future antiquaries; a good little picture by Vanloo, which will be looked at sometimes; and a pinch of dust.”