By the very loyal, consequences equally threatening were feared from a new amour of the King of France, who had taken a mistress of Irish extraction, the daughter of a shoemaker, formerly a life-guardsman: her name, Murphy, and of signal beauty. Madame Pompadour was a friend to peace and England. This deviation in the Monarch’s constancy was, however, of transitory duration. With scarce complaisance, with no affection, he had for many years confined himself to his homely, elderly, unattractive queen. All the intrigues of a gallant Court, or of interested factions, had not been able to undermine his conjugal regularity, for it was no more. Accident threw him into the arms of Madame de Mailly, a sensible woman, a fine figure, but very plain; he demanded not beauty, and became as regular as with the Queen. To engage him more, that is, to govern him, Madame de Mailly associated to their suppers her sister, Madame de Vintimille, a woman of great wit, but exceedingly ill-proportioned with beauty--a great oversight in an ugly woman, who had dispossessed an ugly one. The coadjutrix soon displaced her introductress; but died in labour; of poison, as the state of intrigues would of course suppose. The Monarch hankered about the same family, and took a third sister, who was gloriously beautiful, and whom he created Duchesse de Chateauroux. In the triumph of her concubinage, the King fell ill at Metz. Fitz-James, Bishop of Soissons, attacked a frightened piety, which was natural, and only subdued by constitution. The mistress was not only discarded, but publicly affronted, the Monarch permitting it; and the Queen, who was sent for, made a foolish triumphal entry to thank the Lord for the recovery of the King’s soul and body--but as soon as the latter was re-established, the Queen was sent to her prayers, the Bishop to his diocese, and the Duchess was recalled--but died suddenly. Though a jealous sister may be supposed to dispatch a rival, can one believe that Bishops and Confessors poison? Madame Pompadour, the wife of a Fermier General, succeeded: grace, beauty, address, art, ambition, all met in that charming woman. She governed him more than he had ever been governed but by Cardinal Fleury: she engaged in all politics, she gave life and agreeableness to all; she amassed vast treasures herself, she was the cause of squandering vast treasures, in varying scenes of pleasure to divert the gloom of a temper which was verging nearer to the age of devotion. The Clergy hated her, for she countenanced the Parliament; the people imputed oppressions to her; the Dauphin, who was a bigot, and who loved his mother, affected to shock her: yet the King, who was the best father in the world, bore with great mildness so unpleasant an attack on royal and parental authority.