oo much a slave to her domination to
replace her, so she retained favor and confidence; the following
letter shows that she enjoyed little else:

"The more I advance in years, my dear brother, the more philosophical
are my reflections. I am quite sure that you will think the same.
Except the happiness of being with the king, who assuredly consoles me
in everything, the rest is only a tissue of wickedness, of platitudes,
of all the miseries to which poor human beings are liable. A fine
matter for reflection (especially for anyone born as meditative as
I)!..." Later on, she wrote: "Everywhere where there are human beings,
my dear brother, you will find falseness and all the vices of which
they are capable. To live alone would be too tiresome, thus we must
endure them with their defects and appear not to see them."

She realized that the king kept her only out of charity and for fear
of taking up any energetic resolution. Her greatest disappointment was
the utter failure of her political plans and aspirations, which came
to naught by the Treaty of Paris. There was absolutely no glory left
for her, and chagrin gradually consumed her. Her health had been
delicate from youth; consumption was fast making inroads and
undermining her constitution, and the numerous miscarriages of her
early years as mistress contributed to her physical ruin. For years
she had kept herself up by artificial means, and had hidden her loss
of flesh and fading beauty by all sorts of dress contrivances, rouges,
and powders. She died in 1764, at the age of forty-two.

Writers differ as to the true nature of Mme. de Pompadour, some saying
that she was bereft of all feeling, a callous, hard-hearted monster;
others maintain that she was tender-hearted and sympathetic. However,
the majority agree as to her possession of many of the essential
qualifications of an able minister of state, as well as great aptitude
for carrying on diplomatic negotiations.

She was the greatest patroness of art that France ever possessed,
giving to it the best hours of her leisure; it was her pastime, her
consolation, her extravagance, and her ruin. All eminent artists of
the eighteenth century were her clients. Artists were nourished, so
to speak, by her favors. It may truthfully be said that the
eighteenth-century art is a Pompadour product, if not a creation. The
whole century was a sort of great relic of the favorite. Fashions and
modes were slaves to her caprice, every