As he approached the farm, another peasant girl, more delicate still than the former, advanced to meet him, and, with a thousand reverences, presented him with a bowl of milk. At the sight of this pretty milkmaid, with her little straw hat coquettishly disposed on one side of her head, her white corset and blue petticoat, the king was charmed. Before taking the milk from her hands, he gazed at her a second time from head to foot. Her arms, which were uncovered, were white as lilies; she wore suspended from her neck a little gold cross, which seemed to lose itself in a magnificent bouquet of flowers which she wore in her bosom; but what above all astonished the king were two little stockingless feet incased in a pair of the most rustic _sabots_. With a motion of innocent coquetry, the pretty milkmaid drew one of her feet out of its wooden prison and placed it on the _sabot_. All at once the king recognized the marchioness, and avowed to her that for the first time in his life he had felt the desire of kissing a pretty foot. Madame de Pompadour returned with her royal lover to the hermitage, where he could not sufficiently admire the refined taste which had been displayed by the fair architect in the planning and arrangement of the building and grounds. This was the origin of what was afterward known as the notorious Parc-aux-cerfs. It would be a difficult matter to study the political system of Madame de Pompadour, if, indeed, she can be said to have acted on a system. It cannot be denied that she possessed ideas, but more frequently her mind was a perfect chaos of caprices. It is well known, however, that the Duc de Choiseul, who united in his own person the portfolios of three departments of the ministry, and who disposed of all power, followed to the letter the policy of Madame de Pompadour; namely, in reversing the system of Louis XIV., in allying himself to Austria, and in forming a league, or rather a family pact, between the Bourbons of France, Italy, and Spain. The policy of Madame de Pompadour it was which annexed Corsica to France, and, consequently, Bonaparte, who was born at the decease of the marchioness, owed to her his title of French citizen. Women look not to the future; their reign is from day to day; women of genius, who have at various epochs sought to govern the world, have never contemplated the clouds which might be gathering in the distance; they have been able to see clearly enough within a narrow circle traced around them, but have never succeeded in piercing the shadows of futurity. "_Après moi le déluge_," was Madame de Pompadour's motto.