The _petits soupers_ of Versailles would occasionally shed a ray of sunshine, or rather lamp light, over Louis the Fifteenth's habitual ennui. After supper, chansons, sallies, and repartee, would be the order of the night. Occasionally at these supper-parties some brilliant things would be said. One evening, when some one sang a complaint upon the misfortunes of our first father Adam, the king improvised the following couplet worthy of the best chansons of Collé:-- Il n'eut qu'une femme avec lui, Encor c'etait la sienne; Ici je vois celles d'autrui, Et ne vois pas la mienne. Louis XV. had, as we see, his moments of poetical inspiration. Anacreon could not have sung better than this. Madame de Pompadour, born in the ranks of the people, and seating herself unceremoniously on the throne of Blanche of Castille--Madame de Pompadour, protecting philosophers and suppressing Jesuits, treating the great powers of the earth with the same _sans façon_ as she did artists and men of letters,--was one of the thousand causes, petty and, trifling in themselves, which eventually accelerated the great French Revolution. Madame Dubarry but imitated her predecessor when she called a noble duke a _sapajou_ (ape). The _mot_ is pretty well known: "_Annoncez le sapajou de Madame la Comtesse Dubarry_," said a great lord of the court of Louis XV. one day. It would be a curious and most amusing task to enrich the French peerage with all the _sobriquets_ bestowed by the mistresses of Louis XV. as titles of nobility upon the courtiers of Versailles. More than one illustrious name, which has been cited by France with pride, has lost its luster in the tainted atmosphere of Versailles. "Not only," said Madame de Pompadour; one day to the Abbé de Bernis,--"not only have I all the nobility at my feet, but even my lap-dog is weary of their fawnings." In short, Madame de Pompadour reigned so imperiously, that once at Versailles, about the conclusion of dinner, an old man approached the king, and begged him to have the goodness to recommend him to Madame de Pompadour. All present laughed heartily at this conceit; except, however, the marchioness.