Voltaire had good reason to exclaim: “What was the result of this innumerable multitude of combats the tale of which now wearies even those conspicuous in them? What remains from all these efforts? Nothing but blood shed vainly in waste and desolate lands, villages in ruins, families reduced to beggary, and rarely does even a dull rumor of these calamities reach as far as Paris, always profoundly occupied with pleasures or equally frivolous disputes.” Then, returning to the cause or rather to the pretext of the strife, the author of the _Siècle de Louis XV._ says again: “It has been thought that it would have been very easy to prevent such misfortunes by coming to terms with the English concerning a small contested ground near Canada. But certain ambitious persons, to maintain their dignity and render themselves necessary, precipitated France into this fatal war. The same thing had occurred in 1741. The self-love of two or three persons was enough to lay all Europe waste. France needed peace so greatly that she regarded those who concluded it as benefactors of the country.” The Duke de Choiseul remained popular because he had been able to palliate somewhat the impression caused by such reverses by concluding, in August, 1761, the family pact between the Bourbons of France, Spain, and Italy, and had also had tact enough to win the support of the fashionable literary men, the arbiters of renown. But his friend, Madame de Pompadour, was the object of public vindictiveness. Wounded in her ambition, her vanity, and her pride, she could not be consoled. XII MADAME DE POMPADOUR AND THE PHILOSOPHERS One day some one cited in presence of Louis XV. the example of Frederick the Great, who admitted the philosophers in vogue and famous men of letters to his intimate acquaintance. “That is not the way in France,” said the King, “and as there are a few more wits and great noblemen here than there are in Prussia, I should want a very big table to gather them all around it.” And then he counted on his fingers: “Maupertuis, Fontenelle, La Motte, Voltaire, Piron, Destouches, Montesquieu, Cardinal de Polignac.” His attention was called to the fact that he had forgotten D’Alembert and Clairant.--“And Crébillon,” said he, “and La Chaussée!”--“And Crébillon the younger,” cried some one; “he ought to be more amiable than his father; and then there are the Abbé Prevost, the Abbé d’Olivet.”--“Very well,” replied Louis XV., “for twenty-five years all of that crowd would have dined or supped with me.”