The Marquise de Pompadour, whose books (principally dedicated to the _menus plaisirs du Roi_, like their owner) were bound by Biziaux, Derome, or Padeloup, and decorated with her arms,--azure, three towers argent. Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson was born the daughter of a butcher in 1722, but was created the Marquise de Pompadour, and, what is more singular, a “dame du palais _de la Reine_” by Louis XV. But she was beautiful exceedingly, and clever, and even Voltaire himself could not resist flattering her: “Pompadour, ton crayon divin Devait dessiner ton visage, Jamais une plus belle main N’eût fait un plus bel ouvrage.” Was it her death from small-pox that suggested to Zola that awful closing chapter in “Nana”? A book-plate was engraved for her, anonymous, but having the above-named arms; it does not appear, however, to have been fixed in her books. La Pompadour died in 1764, and her books were sold in Paris in the following year. “But where is the Pompadour now? _This_ was the Pompadour’s fan!” Next comes the plate of Madame Jeanne-Gomart de Vaubernier, Comtesse Du Barry (born at Vaucouleurs in 1743), the last favourite of Louis XV., who, less fortunate than her rival, la Pompadour, survived her royal protector, nay, even royalty itself, and died on the scaffold in December, 1793. Ignorant as she was, she formed a small but valuable collection, her books being bound in red morocco, all richly gilt, and ornamented on the sides with her arms, and her motto, _Boutez en avant_. Redan was one of her binders. Louis XV. remarked, “La Pompadour had more books than the countess, but they were neither so well chosen nor so well bound, we therefore create her _Bibliothécaire de Versailles_.” [Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF DUCHÉ, 1779.] Poor Du Barry! She could scarcely read, and could not spell; her books were selected to dispel the _ennui_ and divert the mind of the debauched old king in the last few years of his shameful life. Yet is she worthy of mention here, if for one thing only, she possessed a book-plate engraved by Le Grand, of which, however, she made but little use. But Louis le Bien-aimé died of small-pox in 1774, and henceforward the Du Barry fades from sight for nearly twenty years, until we see her once again, on the way to the guillotine, where, unlike most of the aristocrats who preceded her, she lost courage, and vainly shrieked for mercy from those who knew not what it was. [Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF THE COMTESSE DU BARRY.] “Unclean, yet unmalignant, not unpitiable thing! What a course was thine: from that first truckle-bed where thy mother bore thee, with tears, to an unnamed father: forward, through lowest subterranean depths, and over highest sunlit heights, of Harlotdom and Rascaldom--to the guillotine-axe, which shears away thy vainly whimpering head!” Thus does Carlyle epitomize her career.