Madame de Pompadour was forty-two years old. Aged prematurely by the unwholesome emotions of intrigue, vanity, and ambition, she was suffering both in body and in mind. Incessant palpitation of the heart disturbed her. Fever was her constant guest. On nearing the end of her career she looked back sadly over the road she had traversed, and comprehended at last the inanity of the things in which she had vainly sought for happiness. But for a true repentance she lacked a religious faith like that of Mademoiselle de La Vallière. In default of faith, the Marquise had great courage. She strove energetically against disease, but she remained worldly and theatrical even in suffering and death. “She would no longer appear in Paris,” says M. Arsène Houssaye; “at court she never showed herself except by lamplight, in the apparel of a queen of Golconda, crowned with diamonds, wearing twenty bracelets, and dragging after her an Indian robe embroidered with gold and silver. It was always the divine Marquise of other days; but presently, when one looked closely, one discovered that it was but a pastel, still charming, but rubbed out here and there. It was at the mouth that her beauty began to fade. She had early contracted the habit of biting her lips, to conceal her emotions. By the time she was thirty, her mouth had lost all its vivid freshness. It was necessary to repaint it after every meal and every kiss!”[53] Her eyes had retained all their brilliancy. But the rest of her person was plainly aging. She tried in vain to conceal her excessive meagreness under the skilful devices of the toilette. She was a woman stricken by death. She fell ill at Choisy, and while there was still time she asked to be taken back to Versailles in order to die as she had lived, amidst the evidences of her power. Her friends had an instant of hope, for a slight amelioration was produced. The poet Favart instantly produced this stanza:-- “Le soleil est malade, Et Pompadour aussi; Ce n’est qu’une passade, L’un et l’autre est guéri; Le bon Dieu, qui seconde Nos vœux et notre amour, Pour le bonheur du monde, Nous a rendu le jour Avec Pompadour.”[54] Palissot sent the following verses to the Marquise:-- “Vous êtes trop chère à la France, Au dieu des arts et des amours, Pour redouter du sort la fatale puissance. Tous les dieux veillaient sur vos jours, Tous étaient animés du zèle qui m’inspire; En volant à votre secours Ils ont affermi leur empire.”[55] Madame de Pompadour did not allow herself to be deceived by these fallacious hyperboles. All this mythology did not mislead her. She understood very well that there was nothing in common between her and the sun, and felt herself already invaded by the chilly shadows of death.