Louis XV., who is fond of mystery, amuses himself at first by being discreet. He conceals his new favorite. “It is not known where she is lodged,” writes the Duke de Luynes, April 23, 1745, “but, nevertheless, I think it is in a little apartment that Madame de Mailly had, and which adjoins the little cabinets; she does not live here all the time, but comes and goes to Paris.” A few days later, May 5, 1745, the King sets off for the army with the Dauphin. But Madame d’Étioles has the good sense not to rejoin him there. Nor does she remain at Versailles, but withdraws to her château of Étioles, near Corbeil, where Voltaire and the Abbé de Bernis keep her company. Louis XV., much more occupied with his new mistress than with the war, writes her letter upon letter. The Abbé de Bernis counsels the favorite who, with such a secretary, cannot fail to reply to her royal lover in the most charming and gallantly turned epistles. We read in the Memoirs of the Duke de Luynes (June 19, 1745): “Madame d’Étioles is still in the country, near Paris, and has never wanted to go to Flanders. The King is more in love than ever; he writes and sends couriers to her at every moment.” All France uttered a cry of enthusiasm on learning the victory of Fontenoy (May 11, 1745). But could one believe it? The person first felicitated by Voltaire on account of that glorious day was neither Louis XV. nor Marshal de Saxe, but Madame d’Étioles. Before writing his poem on Fontenoy, the obsequious poet addressed the favorite in these stanzas:-- “Quand César, ce héros charmant, Dont tout Rome fut idolâtre, Gagnait quelque combat brillant, On en faisait son compliment À la divine Cléopâtre. “Quant Louis, ce héros charmant, Dont tout Paris fait son idole, Gagne quelque combat brillant, On doit en faire compliment À la divine d’Étiole.”[27] France, always maddened by success, is in a real delirium. The Parliament of Paris sends a deputation to Lille to felicitate the King on his victory and entreat him “so far as may be, not to expose in future his sacred person, on which the welfare and safety of the State depend.” All the supreme courts of the kingdom imitate that of Paris, and the first president of the court of taxes exclaims in his address to the King: “Your Majesty’s conquests are so rapid that the point is how to safeguard the faith of our descendants and lessen the wonder of miracles, lest heroes should dispense themselves from following, and people from believing, in them.” But the conquest which chiefly preoccupies Louis XV. is that of his new mistress.