ancs and was sent to
the provinces to marry; a father and mother were easily bought for the
child. Thus was this clandestine trade carried on by those two--the
king satisfying his utter depravity, and Mme. de Pompadour making
herself all the more secure against a possible rival.

All this time her active brain was ever planning for higher honors
and greater power. She aspired to becoming _dame de palais_, but as an
excommunicated soul, a woman living in flagrant violation of the laws
of morality and separated from her husband, she could not receive
absolution from the Church, in spite of her intriguing to that effect.
She did succeed, however, in influencing the king to make her lady
of honor to the queen; therefore, in gorgeous robes, she was ever
afterward present at all court functions.

She began to patronize the great men of the day, to make of them her
debtors, pension them, lodge them in the Palais d'Etat, secure them
from prison, and to place them in the Academy. Voltaire became her
favorite, and she made of him an Academician, historiographer of
France, ordinary gentleman of the chamber, with permission to sell
his charge and to retain the title and privileges. For these favors he
thanked her in the following poem:

"Ainsi donc vous reunissez
Tous les arts, tous les gouts, tous les talents de plaire;
Pompadour vous embellissez
La Cour, le Parnasse et Cythere,
Charme de tous les coeurs, tresor d'un seul mortel,
Qu'un sort si beau soit eternel!"

[Thus you unite all the arts, all the tastes, all the talents, of
pleasing; Pompadour, you embellish the court, Parnassus, and Cythera.
Charm of all hearts, treasure of one mortal, may a lot so beautiful be
eternal!]

Voltaire dedicated his _Tancrede_ to her; in fact, his influence and
favor were so great that he was about to receive an invitation to
the _petits soupers_ of the king, when the nobility rose up in arms
against him, and, as Louis XV. disliked him, the coveted honor was
never attained. To Crebillon, who had given her elocution lessons
in her early days and who was now in want, she gave a pension of
a hundred louis and quarters at the Louvre. Buffon, Montesquieu,
Marmontel, and many other men of note were taken under her protection.

It was Mme. de Pompadour who founded, supported, and encouraged a
national china factory; the French owe Sevres to her, for its
artists were complimented and inspired by her in