The ladies, long frustrated by the "ferocity" of the youth, who cared only for hunting, succeeded at last, and succeeded with the applause of all the court. "Every one else has a mistress," remarks Barbier, advocate and magistrate; "why shouldn't the king?" It was a long reign of mistresses. Changes of ministry, questions of peace or war, promotions and appointments of generals and admirals, the arrest of authors and nobles--all were traceable to the will or caprice of a mistress. Frederick of Prussia styled Pompadour, Petticoat the Third, which some one was kind enough to report to her; and when Voltaire, whom she "protected," conveyed to the Prussian monarch a complimentary message, he replied, coldly, "I don't know her." Maria Theresa of Austria, a proud and high-principled lady, stooped to recognize her existence, and wrote her civil notes. If there is any truth in the printed gossip of the innermost court circles of that period, it was this difference in the treatment of the king's mistress which made France the ally of Austria in the Seven Years' War. Would the reader like to know how affairs go on in a court governed by a mistress, then let him ponder this one sample anecdote, related by the _femme de chambre_ of Madame de Pompadour, showing how she, _femme de chambre_ as she was, obtained a lieutenant's commission in the army for one of her relations. She first asked "madame" for the commission; but as madame was in full intrigue to remove the Minister of War, this application did not succeed. "Pressed by my family," the _femme de chambre_ relates, "who could not conceive that, _in the position in which I was_, it could be difficult for me to procure a trifling commission for a good soldier, I asked it directly from the minister himself. He received me coldly, and gave me little hope. On going out, the Marquis de V---- followed me, and said: 'You desire a commission. There is one vacant, which has been promised to a _protégé_ of mine; but if you are willing to exchange favors with me, I will yield it to you. What I desire is to play the part of Exempt de Police in "Tartuffe" the next time madame gives it in the palace before the king. It is a _rôle_ of a few lines only. Get madame to assign that part to me, and the lieutenancy is yours.' I told madame of this. The thing was done. I obtained my lieutenancy, and the marquis thanked madame for the _rôle_ as warmly as if she had made him a duke."