s have unjustly contended that all the
defeats and reverses of France are to be traced to the influence
exercised by her over the mind of Louis XV. Beyond a doubt the ruling
passion of her heart was ambition, and yet even this passion, which
according to many writers of her day was boundless, she kept so
skillfully concealed from all her intimates, that not one of the many
courtiers, philosophers, and men of letters, who thronged her
antechambers--with the exception, perhaps, of the Abbe de Bernis, of whom
more anon--was ever enabled to discover the secrets of that heart, which,
in the words of a writer of the time, "she ever kept closely hidden
beneath an eternal smile."

Madame de Pompadour was born in Paris in the year 1720. She herself
always said, in 1722. We are told that Poisson, her father, at least her
mother's husband, was employed in the commissariat department of the
French army: some historians affirm that her father was a butcher of the
Invalides, who was condemned to be hung; according to Voltaire she was
the daughter of a farmer of the Ferte-sous-Jouarre. But this is of slight
consequence, as her true father was the Fermier-general, Lenorman de
Tourneheim. This individual having taken a fancy to Poisson's daughter
when she was quite an infant, took her to his house, and brought her up
as his own child. Having from her earliest years displayed quite passion
for music and drawing, the first masters of the day were engaged by
Lenorman de Tourneheim for his adopted child. Under a diligent course of
study the little Jeanne Antoinette made rapid strides toward perfection
in the arts she loved, and her intellectual acquirements were vaunted by
all who knew her. Fontenelle, Voltaire, Duclos, and Crebillon, who, in
their character of _beaux esprits_, had the _entree_ of the house, spread
everywhere abroad throughout the fashionable world the praises of her
beauty, her grace, and her talents.

Madame de Pompadour offered in her person the model of a woman, at the
same time beautiful in the strict acceptation of the word, and simply
pretty. The lines of her features possessed all the purity of one of
Raphael's creations, but there it must be said the resemblance ceased;
the spirit which animated these features was of the world, worldly: in
short, it was the true spirit of a Parisian woman. All that gives
brilliancy, charm, and play to the physiognomy she possessed in the
happiest degree. Not a single court lady co