So it came about that before a year was out the old king was become the doting creature of a light-o'-love of Paris, the transfigured milliner and street-pedlar, Jeanne, natural child of one Anne Béqus, a low woman of Vaucouleurs. This Jeanne, of no surname and unknown father, a pretty, kindly, vulgar child of the gutters, with fair hair and of madcap habits, was some twenty-six years of age, when--being reborn under a forged birth-certificate at the king's ordering, as Anne de Vaubernier, and being married by the same orders to the Count du Barry, an obliging nobleman of the court--she appeared at Versailles as the immortally frail Countess du Barry. The remonstrances of Choiseul with the king against this new degradation of the throne of France, and his unconcealed scorn and disgust of the upstart countess, made a dangerous enemy for France's great minister, and was to cost him and his France very dear. The king's infatuation brought royalty into utter contempt amongst the people. It was to cost France a terrible price--and Fragonard not least of all. One of the first gifts from the king to the Du Barry was the little castle of Louveciennes; and she proceeded with reckless extravagance to furnish her handsome home. Drouais, the artist, sold to her for 1200 livres (double florins), as overdoors for one of the rooms, four panels that he had bought from Fragonard. They have vanished; but they served Fragonard a good turn--he received an order to decorate Du Barry's luxurious pavilion of Luciennes, which she had had built to entertain the king at her "little suppers." Thus it chanced that for this wilful light-o'-love Fragonard painted the great master-work of his life--the five world-famous canvases of the series of "The Progress of Love in the Heart of Maidenhood," or, as they are better known, "The Romance of Love and Youth"--the old king masquerading therein as a young shepherd, and the Du Barry as a shepherdess. In "The Ladder" ("L'Escalade" or "Le Rendezvous") the Du Barry plays the part of a timid young girl who starts as she sees her shepherd-lover to be the king; the "Pursuit" follows; then the "Souvenirs" and "Love Crowned." The last of the five, the discarded mistress in "Deserted," was only begun; and was not completed by Fragonard until twenty years later at Grasse, to complete the set.