The Chevalier de la Morliere dedicated his book on Fatalism to her.
The Duc de Tresmes, calling on her, sent in a note: "The monkey of
Madame la Comtesse begs an audience." The Dauphin--afterward Louis
XVI.--and Marie Antoinette, the Dauphiness, were forced to abase
themselves before this vulgarian woman whom they loathed. She reigned
supreme.
Extravagant as Pompadour had been, Marie was tenfold more so. She not
only made the king gratify her every crazy whim, but she spent much
time inventing crazy whims for him to gratify. If anything on sale was
costly enough, she wanted it, whether it was pretty or hideous. All
Marie demanded was that the article should be beyond the reach of any
one else. In consequence, people who wanted to please her used to
shower her with gifts more noteworthy for cost and for unusualness
than for beauty. And one of these gifts chanced to be a jet-black and
quaintly deformed ten-year-old slave boy, from Bengal. The slave's
native name was unpronounceable, and the Prince of Conti--who had
bought him from a sea captain and presented him to Marie--renamed him
Louis Zamore.
Marie was delighted with the boy--as soon as she heard the price paid
for him, and that he was the only one of his species in France. She
dressed him in outlandish Eastern garb, and she used to tease him into
screeching rages, as a mischievous child might tease a monkey. The
slave child grew to detest his lovely owner. Remember Louis Zamore,
please. He will come back into the story.
Here is a correct, but incomplete, list of Marie's personal
expenditures during the five years of her reign as brevet queen of
France:
To goldsmiths and jewelers, four Hundred and twenty-four thousand
dollars; to merchants of silks, laces, linens, millinery, one
hundred and forty-seven thousand five hundred dollars; for
furniture, pictures, vases, et cetera, twenty-three thousand five
hundred dollars; to gilders, sculptors, workers in marble,
seventy-five thousand dollars. On her estate at Luciennes--whose
chateau was built in three months by the architect Ledoux, whom
she thrust into the Academy for doing it--she spent sixty-five
thousand dollars.
ZThe heirs of one firm of creditors were, as late as 1836, still
claiming the sum of one hundred and thirty thousand dollars from her
estate. She had "state dresses, hooped dresses, dresses sur ~la
consideration, robes de toilette~;" dresses costing two hundred
dollars, four hundred dollars, six hundred dollars, and one thousand
dollars; dresses with a base of silver strewn with clusters of
feathers; dresses striped with big bars of gold; mosaic dresses shot
with gold and adorned with myrtle; and riding habits of white Indian
silk that cost twelve hundred dollars.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account