rst adopted the
society of a Madame de Mailly, a clever coquette, but with the
disqualification of being the utter reverse of handsome. Madame, to
obviate the known truantry of the King, introduced her sister, Madame de
Vintinsille, as clever, but as ordinary as herself. The latter died in
child-birth, supposed to have been poisoned! The same family, however,
supplied a third sultana, a very pretty personage, on whom the royal
favour was lavished in the shape of a title, and she was created Duchess
de Chateauroux.

But this course of rivalry was interrupted. The king was suddenly seized
with illness. Fitzjames, Bishop of Soissons, came to the royal bedside,
and remonstrated. The mistress was dismissed, with a kind of public
disgrace, and the queen went in a sort of public pomp, to thank the
saints for the royal repentance.

"But," says Walpole, "as soon as the king's health was re-established,
the queen was sent to her prayers, the bishop to his diocese, and the
Duchess was recalled--but died suddenly." He ends the narrative with a
reflection as pointed and as bitter as that of any French chamberlain in
existence:--"Though a jealous sister may be disposed to despatch a
rival, can we believe that _bishops_ and _confessors_ poison?"

Madame de Pompadour had reigned paramount for a longer period than any
of those Medeas or Circes. Walpole describes her as all that was
charming in person and manner. But nearer observers have denied her the
praise of more than common good looks, and more than vulgar animation.
She, however, evidently understood the art of managing her old fool, and
of keeping influence by the aid of his ministers. Madame mingled eagerly
in politics, purchased dependents, paid her instruments well, gave the
gayest of all possible entertainments--a resistless source of
superiority in France--had a purse for many, and a smile for more; by
her liveliness kept up the spirits of the old king, who was now
vibrating between vice and superstition; fed, feted, and flattered the
noblesse, by whom she was libelled, and _worshipped_; and with all the
remaining decencies of France exclaiming against her, but with all its
factions, its private licentiousness, and its political corruption,
rejoicing in her reign; she flourished before the eyes of Europe, the
acknowledged ruler of the throne.

Can we wonder that this throne fell--that this career of glaring guilt
was followed by terrible retribution--that this bacchanali